Zohran Mamdani Teams Up With AOC To Promote Free Childcare For Illegal Immigrants In Spanish
Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez instructed residents of all immigration statuses to register for free childcare in a Tuesday video.
Mamdani posted the video ahead of the Friday deadline for New Yorkers to enroll in the city’s pre-K and 3-K programs. The entire video was in Spanish, although it had subtitles with English translations.
“This is the last week for parents to sign up their kids for the 2026–2027 school year. So to make one last push, I decided to bring in a friend,” Mamdani said as Ocasio-Cortez entered the frame and greeted viewers in Spanish.
Mamdani joked that his Spanish was not strong before handing off to Ocasio-Cortez.
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Martin Short’s daughter commits suicide at 42
Katherine Hartley Short, the 42-year-old daughter of actor Martin Short, has taken her life.
A representative told TMZ, “It is with profound grief that we confirm the passing of Katherine Hartley Short. The Short family is devastated by this loss, and asks for privacy at this time. Katherine was beloved by all and will be remembered for the light and joy she brought into the world.”
Law enforcement sources told the outlet that the 42-year-old died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was found deceased by first responders in her Hollywood Hills home shortly after 6:40 pm on Monday.
Katherine Short had been the daughter of Martin Short and his late wife Nancy Dolman, who died in 2010 from ovarian cancer. She worked as a social worker in Los Angeles and was involved with the nonprofit Bring Change To Mind, which works to break down stigmas connected to mental health issues. She largely stayed out of the public eye.
Short had two other children with his wife: Oliver Short, 39, and Henry Short, 36.
NYC assistant principal led double life as pimp, coerced $2K LA-based prostitute to lure clients: feds
An assistant principal at a Queens public elementary school lived a double life as a pimp –offering clients sex with a Los Angeles-based woman for $2,000 an hour, federal prosecutors said.
Bond Ng, 47, a top administrator at PS 16 in Corona, was arrested Sunday on charges of coercing interstate prostitution for allegedly setting up paid sexual encounters between the woman and johns as far back as 2011 — and as recently as December inside a luxe Long Island City high-rise.
The assistant principal, who had made around $173,000 a year, posed as the woman in flirty texts sent to potential clients, according to text messages obtained by federal human trafficking investigators.
“My rate is 2k love,” Ng texted one john, court papers showed.
The accused principal-turned-pimp was released on a $150,000 bond after appearing in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday — where prosecutors alleged that he “groomed” the woman, who had been “inexperienced at prostitution” before they met.
Ng was “more coercive than we originally thought,” Assistant US Attorney Daniel Amzallag told the court, as Ng sat at the defense table wearing an unassuming argyle sweater over a white button-down shirt.
Prosecutors believe that Ng was part of a larger prostitution scheme, Amzallag added, citing Ng’s extensive travel in recent years to Medellin and Cartagena, Colombia — known sex trafficking hotbeds….
Christian Persecution Reaches Extreme Levels in Several Nations
Around the world, many Christians face imprisonment, violence, and even death due to their faith in Jesus.
Open Doors and Global Christian Relief, two organizations tracking Christian persecution, released their annual findings highlighting the nations in the world where believers face the most resistance.
The 2026 World Watch List from Open Doors ranks the 50 countries where Christians face the most persecution. In the top 15 nations, persecution levels are considered “extreme,” while those in the other countries are enduring “very high” levels of persecution.
Open Doors scores the nations on a total scale of 0 to 100, composed of scores from six categories, including five areas of pressure—private, family, community, national, and church life—and violence. In the 50 worst nations alone, more than 315 million Christians face very high or extreme persecution.
One in 7 Christians are persecuted worldwide, according to Open Doors. Circumstances are worse in Africa, where 1 in 5 suffer under persecution. Meanwhile, the highest frequency happens in Asia, with 2 in 5 Christians enduring persecution.
The total number of Christians killed for their faith increased last year from 4,476 to 4,849, according to Open Doors.
Of those deaths, 93% happened in sub-Saharan Africa, including 3,490 in Nigeria alone. Only three countries on the World Watch List reached the maximum violence score. All three of them are sub-Saharan: Sudan, Nigeria, and Mali.
The 15 nations with extreme levels of Christian persecution and their scores are:
- North Korea (97)
- Somalia (94)
- Yemen (93)
- Sudan (92)
- Eritrea (90)
- Syria (90)
- Nigeria (89)
- Pakistan (87)
- Libya (87)
- Iran (87)
- Afghanistan (86)
- India (84)
- Saudi Arabia (82)
- Myanmar (81)
- Mali (81)
Global Christian Relief’s Red List
For their part, Global Christian Relief (GCR) produces an annual Red List, which highlights the five worst nations across five categories of persecution. Their totals and rankings differ from Open Doors because they rely on publicly available information, which is difficult to come by in some countries.
Much like Open Doors, the GCR Red List identified Nigeria as the nation with the most Christians killed, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Russia, and Mozambique….
How Did the United States End Up on the Same Side as the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen?
Extremism in Yemen has never solely been a Yemeni problem. Terror organizations with global ambitions have long operated from the country. Civil war has drawn in neighbors and regional powers like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
It has never been a simple conflict. Just some of those on the battlefield are al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); the Houthis (a terror group from Yemen’s Zaidi Shia minority with Iran’s backing); the Yemeni government, in various forms; and a unique strain of the Muslim Brotherhood (Islah), also a part of the government.
As the Trump administration targets Muslim Brotherhood branches across the Middle East, the branch in Yemen is a strange case, in many ways opposed to American priorities, but also a partner in the fight against other enemies.
Unlike in other countries, the group has never been America’s biggest concern in Yemen, despite it being the country’s main Islamist party. It encompasses a range of the myriad political and tribal segments of Yemeni society and denies being part of the Brotherhood at all, despite the crucial, and ongoing, role of Brotherhood leaders in founding the party and its shared ideology.
Islah has been hugely influential on both the political and military stages in Yemen and has held a significant role in successive U.S.-supported governments. To understand U.S. policy towards Islah requires an understanding of the adversaries and political complexities that have formed modern Yemen.
The first major terror threat the United States confronted in Yemen was al-Qaeda. Cells and operatives of the transnational terror organization have been active in the country since the 1990s, when jihadis returned from fighting in Afghanistan. It was al-Qaeda’s network in Yemen that bombed the USS Cole in the port city of Aden in 2000. Seventeen U.S. servicemembers were killed. In 2009, the group was behind the unsuccessful “Underwear Bomber,” who attempted to detonate an explosive in his pants on a Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. In that same year, AQAP was formed from a merger of the terrorist group’s Yemeni and Saudi branches.
It wasn’t long after AQAP’s formation that U.S. officials considered it to be the most significant al-Qaeda threat to the United States. This concern was due, in no small part, to Ibrahim al-Asiri, AQAP’s skilled bomb-maker who was behind the terror group’s more innovative and alarming plots. America’s program of targeted drone strikes in Yemen, beginning in 2002 and accelerating after 2009, was partially motivated by a sense of urgency to kill Asiri. He was killed by a U.S. strike in 2017.
AQAP largely focused on attacks against the West, but also held territory of its own in Yemen following unrest and insecurity brought on by the Arab Spring in 2011 and territorial advances by the Houthis in 2014. They were uprooted in 2016, but have since reestablished a presence and conducted attacks on Yemenis….
Lebanon Is the Second Front in a Looming Iran War
Tensions between Washington and Tehran are rising by the day. But while much of the commentary focuses on what might happen inside Iran, more immediate danger likely lies to Israel’s north. Lebanon is shaping up as the second front of a widening confrontation.
Israel has stepped up its air campaign against Hezbollah, including a high-impact strike in the Bekaa Valley that eliminated at least six of the group’s top missile commanders. That operation was part of a sustained effort to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its military infrastructure following the November 2024 ceasefire. Since its implementation, Israel has killed hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in a systematic disruption and deterrence campaign.
Despite taking significant losses during the Gaza war, Hezbollah remains the most heavily armed terrorist organization in the world and the crown jewel of Iran’s proxy network.
It is widely believed to still possess thousands of rockets and missiles, including precision-guided systems capable of striking strategic infrastructure deep inside Israel. Some of those systems also place U.S. regional assets within range.
The fact that Hezbollah has not launched its arsenal during the ceasefire is evidence of calculation, not restraint. Hezbollah may be conserving its firepower for a larger war: a direct U.S. military strike against Iran’s nuclear or missile infrastructure would almost certainly qualify.
What makes this moment more dangerous than the 12-Day War with Iran last June is the expanded role of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is now on the ground in Lebanon directing Hezbollah forces. That increases the likelihood that Hezbollah will join a broader fight if the regime in Tehran comes under direct U.S. attack. During last June’s conflict, Hezbollah’s involvement was limited. With IRGC commanders more deeply embedded and exercising direct influence, restraint becomes far less likely.
Hezbollah does not operate independently of Tehran. It is integrated into Iran’s regional warfighting doctrine. If the regime faces direct American force, it will look to activate its most capable proxy.
That means rockets from southern Lebanon, missile salvos aimed at Israeli cities, and potential attacks against U.S. military assets in the Eastern Mediterranean…..
California Court Tosses “Aggravated Identity Theft” Sentence In $13M Medicare Fraud Case
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has handed a legal victory to Tamara Yvonne Motley, vacating a portion of her prison sentence related to identity theft.
While Motley’s conviction for orchestrating a massive ten-year healthcare fraud remains intact, the court ruled on Tuesday that her use of relatives’ names to run her businesses did not meet the high legal bar for “aggravated identity theft.”
The decision stems from a scheme where Motley’s companies, Action Medical Equipment and Supply and Kaja Medical Equipment, billed Medicare for over $24 million in unnecessary or unprovided medical gear, such as power wheelchairs. Between 2006 and 2016, Medicare paid out roughly $13.1 million to the firms.
At the center of the appeal was 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1), a statute that adds a mandatory two-year prison term for anyone who uses another person’s identification “during and in relation to” a felony. Motley’s companies were officially enrolled in Medicare under the names of her mother and nephew.
Because Motley managed the daily operations and submitted the fraudulent claims while her relatives remained largely uninvolved, the government argued she had “used” their identities to commit the fraud.
However, the Ninth Circuit found that the government’s theory failed to keep up with recent Supreme Court precedent.
The court relied heavily on the 2023 Supreme Court decision Dubin v. United States, which significantly narrowed what qualifies as aggravated identity theft. Under the Dubin standard, the misuse of an identity must be at the “crux” of the criminality, rather than just an “ancillary feature” of how the bills were processed.
The Ninth Circuit panel, led by Judge Jay Bybee, determined that the true heart of Motley’s fraud was lying about the medical necessity of the equipment, not lying about who owned the companies….
Illegal border crosser apprehensions drop 96% at southwest border in a year
In one year, illegal border crossings dropped by 96% at the southwest border, an historic shift from record highs during the Biden administration.
In January, 34,626 illegal border crosser apprehensions were reported nationwide, up from numbers hovering around 30,000 in October, November and December.
The January total is a significant drop from 242,071 in January 2024, 209,151 in January 2023 and 81,479 in January 2025, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
At the southwest border, apprehensions totaled 9,726 in January, down from 61,445 in January 2025, an 84% decrease over the year. The numbers also represent a dramatic drop from 176,195 in January 2024 and 157,358 in January 2023, according to the data.
At the northern border, 4,261 illegal border crosser apprehensions were recorded in January despite harsh winter conditions. In November, 3,583 were apprehended at the northern border, according to the data.
January’s northern border total represents a significant downward trajectory from 4,976 in January 2025, 13,390 in January 2023, and a high of 15,916 in January 2024. The northern border saw unprecedented numbers of illegal border crossers and crime under the Biden administration, The Center Square reported. For years, northern U.S. states and Indian reservations have been impacted by transnational crime, human and drug trafficking orchestrated by Mexican cartels and Chinese Triad operating in Canada, The Center Square reported.
Nationwide, encounters averaged 1,117 a day in January, 58% lower than the 2,628 daily average from January 2025, CBP said in a statement….
The Center Square Daily | 2.24.26 | Prayer in Schools & Housing Reform
Esther Wickham hosts The Center Square Daily, a review of some of the top headlines concerning taxpayers across the country.
On today’s show, the U.S. Department of Education issues a new guidance tied to federal education funding on prayer in schools.
The Center Square’s Jim Talamonti discusses a proposal in Illinois to make housing more affordable by cutting back on zoning restrictions and the opposition from the Municipal league.
And a look at headlines across the country from questioning tax breaks for AI data centers in Virginia to education leaders embracing AI for schools in Louisiana.
US seeks Deal, ready for War; Israel vows to devastate Iran’ regime if attacked TV7 Israel – 24 Feb.
1) The Islamic Republic of Iran blatantly lies about its nuclear program – and threatens to set the region ablaze if it is subject to an attack.
2) U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth affirms ‘all options are on the table’.
3) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserts that with national unity and God’s help, Israel’s eternity will be secured in the face of “complex and challenging days”.
The Left Is Working With Islam To Destroy The Judeo-Christian Western Way Of Life… And Europe Is Falling Fast
Europe is falling, and it’s falling fast. If you had any doubt, this past month proved that the United States, under President Trump, is the last line of defense for Judeo-Christian Western civilization—or what’s left of it.
Let’s start with Spain. Their radical socialist government just announced that it is going to grant legal status to 500,000 migrants who entered Spain illegally from mainly Muslim nations. Individuals who have no concept of Western values will now be sticking around for good.
This seems like cultural suicide, not to mention a drain on Spain’s economy, since many of these migrants will likely collect welfare benefits, as we see in Muslim enclaves in other places throughout Europe.
So why would Spain do this? Is there really something to what’s been called the great “replacement theory,” which says that left-wing Western governments want to replace their citizens with migrants from the third world? Is that just a right-wing conspiracy theory? Not according to Spain’s former equality minister, Irene Montero, a leader of Spain’s far left, who is all in on replacing native Spaniards with Muslim migrants.
“I want to ask you migrants, please don’t leave us alone with so many right-wingers,” Montero stated. “And of course, we do want them to vote. Of course, we have achieved ‘papers,’ regularization already, and now we are going to [fight] for the nationality or to change the law so that they can vote. Of course, I hope [for] ‘replacement theory.’ Hopefully, we can sweep right-wingers and racists in this country with migrant people, with hardworking people. Of course, I want there to be a replacement. A replacement of right-wingers, a replacement of racists, a replacement of scroungers, and we can do it with the working people of this country. Whatever skin color you have, whether it’s black, Chinese, brown, all comrades, the working people of this country.”
It seems like “replacement theory” is no conspiracy.
Quick reminder: Spain was conquered by Muslim armies in the eighth century and lived under Islamic rule for hundreds of years, until the Reconquista (the reconquest of Spain) by Christian Spaniards, who eventually expelled the Muslim invaders after centuries of struggle.
Now, the left in Spain is rolling out the prayer mat for the invaders…
Thanks To Abortion And Progressive ‘Values,’ US Deaths Are Expected To Exceed Births By 2030
Developed nations across the world are speeding toward a population collapse simply because people aren’t having children (and they are killing millions of them through abortion). Here in the United States, the fertility rate continues to fall every year and is already below replacement level at just 1.6 births per woman in 2024 (an all-time low). And a new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office is even more pessimistic than last year’s.
Last year, the CBO estimated that in 2050 the US population would peak at 372 million people before beginning to decline. This year, they’ve apparently revised that by 8 million (bringing the anticipated number down to 364 million) because of “smaller projected net immigration through 2029 and lower projected fertility rates through 2055.” By 2030—just four years from now—the number of deaths is expected to exceed the number of births.
The population drop-off developed nations are forecasting (and beginning to vividly see in places like Japan) is not surprising. We’ve told generations of young women and men that marriage and family are just a choice some people make but are not inherently valuable in themselves, that children will hold back their careers or keep them from doing the things they want to do, that pets are a replacement for a child, and that babies are a choice rather than a gift from the Creator.
This kind of philosophy has consequences! And the nose-diving birth rate is just one of them.
Of course, we’re also missing over 66 million US citizens who were never born because they were murdered in their mothers’ wombs via abortion! And we aren’t just missing them . . . because they were never born, we’re also missing the kids and grandkids they could have had.
Ideology has consequences. And the anti-natal views of our current cultural climate that elevates personal autonomy and freedom while devaluing the beauty and gift of family and children certainly have grave consequences.
In a biblical worldview, children are a blessing—a gift from the Creator—and family is the backbone of society. It’s the first and most fundamental institution God created: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. . . .” (Genesis 1:27–28)
It won’t be long before America will be feeling the societal and economic effects of the plunging birth rate. So what’s the answer? Well, it’s the same answer to every single other societal problem plaguing us today: It’s the truth of God’s Word and the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s what changes lives for now and eternity….
FITTON: I’M ABOUT TO ERUPT OVER FBI LAWFARE SECRETS!
Judicial Watch President @TomFitton discusses the secrecy behind what was formerly known as Twitter and FBI.
Newsfeed News.com 