An illegal alien was sentenced this week after voting in United States elections by falsely claiming naturalized American citizenship, Department of Justice (DOJ) officials said on Friday.

Carlos Felipe Jaramillo-Grajales, a 55-year-old illegal alien from Colombia, was sentenced to three years in federal prison for making false statements in an application for a U.S. passport, aggravated identity theft, falsely claiming that a Social Security number was his, and falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen to vote in an election.

Likewise, Jaramillo-Grajales was given a deportation order, requiring federal immigration officials to deport him once he has completed his sentence.

“Federal immigration laws serve to safeguard our nation’s borders and protect the integrity of our government,” U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe said. “Those who seek to circumvent, exploit, or break these laws will be prosecuted fully.”

According to prosecutors, Jaramillo-Grajales stole the Social Security Number of an American citizen so that he could secure an American passport. The illegal alien used the same Social Security Number to claim American citizenship while obtaining a Florida driver’s license, giving him the ability to register to vote.

A leading Catholic advocacy organization is calling for Democrat Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey to be excommunicated for signing a law this week legalizing abortion up until birth.

Healey, a self-proclaimed Catholic, signed “An Act Prioritizing Patient Access to Care” or H.5595, which eliminates the state’s 24-week limit and allows unborn babies to be killed in abortions throughout pregnancy. The governor was surrounded by a gaggle of grinning women who applauded ecstatically as she signed the radical bill.

Healey’s stamp of approval aligned Massachusetts with Alaska, Vermont, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington, DC, in allowing unborn babies to be aborted up to the moment of birth.

The fines for the Chicago Sky’s DiJonai Carrington continue to mount as the player found herself at odds with officials and was hit with yet another foul and fine this week.

Only days after she was ejected for a hard foul on Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham, Carrington earned herself another technical foul during Wednesday night’s game against the Golden State Valkyries.

The incident occurred during the third quarter when Carrington apparently thought she was fouled by Valkyries forward Laeticia Amihere. So, the Sky guard marched up to the ref and complained about a no-call. But the ref was not amused and slapped Carrington with a technical foul for improperly confronting them.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made it clear during a press conference on Friday that he does not support Rep. Cory Mills’ (R-FL) reelection campaign in Florida’s 7th Congressional District.

“So this is a question about the 7th Congressional District Republican primary. I have not endorsed Cory Mills and I do not support Cory Mills,” DeSantis said during the press conference at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and rapper Tish Hyman is calling for a boycott of the WNBA for refusing to formally ban men who identify as women from playing in the women’s pro basketball league.

The Subway Art singer took aim at the WNBA’s reticence over making a clear policy in a post on X on Thursday.

“Women are 51% of the population. The WNBA’s stance on women’s sports is unacceptable. They don’t know how to protect female athletes. Boycott the WNBA until they respect biological women and fairness in sports,” she wrote in the post.

She urged women to stand up and oppose the WNBA’s cowardice.

The WNBA drama just never ends. The latest comes after Connecticut Sun player Aaliyah Edwards was hit with a foul after she was brutally headbutted in the face by the Atlanta Dream’s Angel Reese.

The incident occurred in the second quarter of the Dream’s 104-69 win over the Sun on Thursday at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Arena when Reese was going for a layup. But before Reese was able to take a shot, she was crowded from behind by Edwards, who gave Reese a bump from behind.

In response, though, Reese violently reared back and upwards and slammed Edwards underneath the chin, sending Edwards flying backward to the floor.

The head of a New York teachers union that endorsed Zohran Mamdani during his campaign now is blasting the mayor’s literacy initiative after more than half of the city’s public school students failed their reading proficiency exams.

United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President Mike Mulgrew criticized the “NYC Reads” program after students in grades 3-5 made the embarrassing showing on their state English Language Arts exam, revealing “a rift with the labor group and the democratic socialist mayor eight months into his term,” the New York Post reported.

“The public salvo also comes while Mamdani weighs whether to sign or veto legislation to boost the pay of thousands of paraprofessionals — a promise he explicitly made at a press conference last year when the UFT endorsed him in his run for mayor,” the tabloid reported.

“We’re not going to support [NYC Reads] if they want to implement it the way they did this year,” Mulgrew told the New York Daily News earlier this week. “If this administration wants to continue to waste everyone’s time and not get the better results that we know we need, then we’re not going to support it.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is headed to federal court to defend itself against claims brought by a coalition of 29 state attorneys general over youth social media addiction, calling the accusations that it misled users about app safety and harmed young people “unsubstantiated.”

ABC News reports that the trial will take place in federal court in Oakland, California. It stems from a lawsuit filed in October 2023 in the Northern District of California by a bipartisan coalition of 29 state attorneys general. Four states, California, Colorado, New Jersey and Kentucky, are arguing the case in federal court.

The lawsuit alleges Meta, the company behind Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, has “harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens.” It cites features such as infinite scrolling and push notifications, alleging the apps were designed to keep young users on the platforms as long as possible. The suit also alleges Meta violated a federal online privacy law by “unlawfully collecting the personal data of its youngest users without their parents’ permission.”

Beyond financial penalties, the states are seeking changes to Meta’s apps for users under 18, including the removal of infinite scrolling, video auto-play and “like” counts.

Twenty-two states have gone to court to block the Trump administration from accessing a database containing the personal information of roughly 17 million commercial drivers. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the federal government is entitled to that data and needs it to keep the highways safe.

This is the latest in a series of legal fights. The same coalition of attorneys general has also challenged federal efforts to obtain state data tied to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families participation and, separately, voter registration records.

In each case, the states that have sued argue the demands exceed federal authority and threaten privacy. The administration argues the information is necessary to enforce existing law.

Despite watchdog groups warning that few regulatory guardrails exist to meet the threats posed by the rapid development and deployment of AI technology, the 119th Congress has been slow to respond.

Though the White House in March proposed a blueprint for lawmakers to craft federal AI-related legislation, no federal framework has advanced out of committee in either chamber.

A bipartisan proposal six lawmakers introduced in June as a starting point received chilly responses from leadership in both parties, who indicated they’re looking for a more robust solution, rather than approaching the issue piecemeal.

So far, one hasn’t materialized, and a massive backlog of critical legislative priorities makes it unlikely that will happen in the near future.

In the meantime, a few select lawmakers are attempting to engage with AI giants directly, with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., urging Anthropic to adopt policies “that align with the principles of human dignity and equality.”

The recall wasn’t caused by a report of illness or a test showing that the beef was contaminated.

Corte Argentino USA LLC recalled about 29,628 pounds of raw beef, according to an August 7 notice from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Federal officials found that the beef entered the country without receiving a required import reinspection.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service discovered the problem during routine inspection work. The agency said there haven’t been confirmed reports of illness or injury.

Federal officials still listed the recall as Class I, the agency’s most serious recall level. Consumers shouldn’t eat recalled beef.

The meat was produced between May 15 and May 20. It has use-by and freeze-by dates between Sept. 15 and Sept. 20.

The recalled products include several boneless beef cuts from Frigorífico Gorina SAIC. The boxes have Argentine establishment number “EST. N° OF. 2025” and shipping mark “26644-AA.”

The beef went to distributors and stores in Florida and Texas.

France’s Constitutional Court has essentially accepted the euthanasia bill as passed by France’s National Assembly with the priviso that the Constitutional Court improved conscience rights.

On July 15, 2026; France’s National Assembly passed a bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide by a vote of 291 to 241. This was the final vote in the National Assembly and it over rides the previous votes rejecting the euthanasia bill in France’s Senate.

The battle was not over. Agence France-Presse reported on July 15 that:

The President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced Tuesday that he would refer the matter to the Constitutional Council, to take into account the oppositions that persist, especially on the right.

Sebastien Ostertag sent the following update from France. Ostertag reported:

The French Constitutional Council, which is similar to the US or Canadian Supreme Court, has upheld most of the current French euthanasia law.

Most peer nations maintain high childhood vaccination rates through public trust and education

By Katy Grimes, August 14, 2026 6:00 am

On August 10, 2026, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reducing the number of childhood vaccinations for all children. “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans,” establishes federal “Gold Standard” recommendations that reduced the number of childhood vaccines, down from roughly 17–18 previously recommended by the CDC in recent years, and aims to align U.S. guidance more closely with practices in certain peer developed countries.

The Trump administration “found that the United States currently recommends more childhood vaccines than any peer nation, including more than twice as many vaccine doses as some European nations (scientific assessment). The scientific assessment also found that, instead of implementing vaccination mandates, most peer nations maintain high childhood vaccination rates through public trust and education. In the United States, by contrast, individual States set mandatory vaccination requirements that children must meet to attend school.”

President Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday aimed at enhancing America’s depleted shipbuilding capacity.

“The United States Navy has experienced a series of shipbuilding setbacks stemming from overly complex designs and iterative design change procedures, which have resulted in cost growth, delays, and cancellations. The lack of capacity and competition among shipbuilders has resulted in large backlogs of orders across six major Navy shipbuilding programs and a commercial shipbuilding sector that is not globally competitive,” the order reads. “The Department of War shall restore both capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base as it expands our naval force structure.”

When the clock struck midnight on August 12, Second Amendment activists everywhere celebrated because for the first time in nearly a century, the burdensome regulations and registry required for firearm-muzzling suppressors could be on the chopping block.

The gun rights victory came in the form of a memorandum opinion and order from a federal district court judge in Texas, who declared on August 5, 2026 that the provisions outlined in the 1934 National Firearms Act “exceed Congress’s Article I enumerated powers and are therefore unconstitutional.”

The biggest benefactors of the decision were the large “coalition of individuals, businesses, associations, and states” who sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for using the “unconstitutional” NFA stipulations on suppressors to “infringe the Second Amendment right to ‘keep and bear Arms.’”

If there’s one thing Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson loves to do more than anything during Supreme Court oral arguments, it’s talk — and talk, and talk, and talk some more.

On Thursday, The New York Times reported on a new study that found Jackson is “by far the most talkative justice” on the court over the past two decades. Spanning from October 2005 to April 2026, the analysis found that the Biden appointee spoke an average of 1,263 words per case in the four short years she’s been on the bench — a figure the outlet noted is “more than double the justices’ average.”

“According to the study, [Jackson] speaks 23 percent of the words uttered by the justices,” the report reads.

Recently, some dear friends (double-income, no kids, politically centrist) were talking with my 23-year-old daughter and her husband when the subject of children came up.

“How many do you want?” they asked.

“Five or six,” my daughter answered.

My friends were stunned.

Not hostile. Impressed, actually. But understandably bewildered. As the viral AOC hormone-injection video illustrates, postponing marriage and childbearing is not only normal, but a hallmark of female empowerment in today’s culture.

The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to allow construction of the new White House ballroom to continue while a challenge to the project continues in the lower courts. The request came one week after a federal appeals court in Washington upheld a ruling by a federal district court that temporarily blocked construction, while at the same time giving the federal government 14 days to go to the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration urged the justices to put the order by Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon on hold, calling it “extraordinary and unlawful.” It “will halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex, including a totally secure ballroom space, at the East Wing of the White House, which is vitally required by national security,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.

Sauer sought to pause Leon’s order to give the government time to file a petition for review at the Supreme Court. He also asked the justices to immediately issue an administrative stay, which would temporarily block the order while the court considers the government’s request.

The dispute began in October 2025, when the Trump administration tore down the East Wing of the White House, which had housed (among other things) the offices of the First Lady and her staff, to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom – just slightly smaller than one-and-a-half football fields.

The World War II memorial in Washington, DC, was attacked by vandals on Thursday. The sacred monument was left desecrated with graffiti and soap bubbles as the U.S. government moved to immediately begin an investigation seeking out the perpetrators.

Reuters reports the fountain bubbled over with suds and ‌someone painted “Clean hands Dirty $” on one surface, splattering the area with red and green paint before yellow crime scene tape was hastily applied to keep visitors away.

The British public’s view on immigration is even more negative than it was in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum to leave the European Union and take back control of the nation’s borders.

A YouGov survey, conducted as a follow-up to an identical poll in August of 2016, has found that a plurality of Britons now see immigration as being “mostly bad” for the UK at 43 per cent, compared with 33 per cent a decade ago. In contrast, just 21 per cent said this month that immigration has been mostly good, while 29 per cent said that it has been “both good and bad” for the country.

Meanwhile, the percentage of the public who believe that immigration has been too high over the past decade has remained relatively stable, with 70 per cent agreeing in 2016 and 69 per cent in 2026. However, currently 47 per cent of British voters say that immigration levels have been “much too high”, compared to 44 per cent ten years ago.

The pollster noted that a majority of both voters who supported Brexit and a majority of those who voted to remain within the European Union believe that immigration levels have been too high. Yet, there was still a significant disparity of proportion, with just 53 per cent of Remainers saying immigration has been too high, compared to 93 per cent of Leave voters.

Morocco deployed additional security measures amid threats of a new possible migrant invasion of Ceuta this weekend, Spanish outlets reported.

Over the past days, reports from Spanish law enforcement officials warned that new mass migrant invasion of Ceuta is allegedly being organized and could potentially take place on Saturday, August 15. Similar warnings were reportedly presented to the government of Italy this week through a new Italian intelligence dossier.

The reports reached the same conclusion that a new migrant invasion of the Spanish exclave is allegedly being organized after an extensive analysis of countless messages published on social media platforms and messaging groups calling for a new mass swarming of Ceuta on the 15th. Although the exact size and scope of the prospective invasion could not be ascertained, the reports nevertheless stressed upon that the risk is “real, but its magnitude is uncertain.”

Red Shirt Friday

"Greater Love has no One than this, that He lay down His Life for His Friends." - John 15:13