An L.A. jury awarded $3 million in a child social media addiction case, but Section 230 and First Amendment protections may doom the verdict on appeal.

Democrat Emily Gregory flipped a Florida House seat blue on Tuesday, winning a district that includes President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, making her the president’s newest state representative.

The BBC named ex-Google chief Matt Brittin as its new director general following the controversy of its Trump documentary that led to multiple resignations.

The White House and DOJ are pushing back against Rep. Jamie Raskin's letter alleging Trump mishandled classified documents, calling the accusations baseless and a political stunt.

Zach Wilson has reportedly signed a one-year deal with the New Orleans Saints, joining his fourth NFL team in four seasons, and will serve as a backup to Tyler Shough.

The Eighth Circuit ruled illegal immigrants detained by ICE are not entitled to bond hearings, a win AG Bondi called a massive court victory.

Massachusetts officials are standing by their decision to ban a Catholic couple, who hold biblical views on marriage and sexuality, from fostering children, despite a December policy change that removed the state's radical gender ideology mandate for caregivers.

Mike and Kitty Burke, long desiring to become parents, applied to become foster parents in 2022 after learning they would not be able to have children on their own.

'The Commonwealth's doublespeak is exactly why they are pressing for a clear ruling from the court protecting the freedom of religious families to foster and adopt children.'

Despite the couple successfully completing hours of training, extensive interviews, and a home study, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families denied their request.

The DCF's Licensing Review Team stated that the Burkes were rejected "based on the couple's statements/responses regarding placement of children who identified LGBTQIA," according to the couple's 2023 federal lawsuit against state officials.

At the time of the denial, Massachusetts foster parent licensing policy required applicant parents to "promote the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of a child placed in his or her care, including supporting and respecting a child's sexual orientation or gender identity."

This policy did not include any exemptions for religious perspectives.

RELATED: Blaze News original: Trump gives willing parents hope by taking aim at anti-Christian bigotry in foster system

Photo by Ali Atmaca/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

In December, the DCF issued an emergency amendment that removed the "sexual orientation or gender identity" language in the policy.

The DCF stated that the amendment would "strike the requirement that a foster/pre-adoptive parent or applicant affirm a child's sexual orientation or gender identity and [replace] it with a requirement that a foster/pre-adoptive parent or applicant affirm a child's individual identity and needs."

In a March court filing, Massachusetts officials contended that policy change was irrelevant in the Burkes' case because their denial was based on the rules in effect at the time. Further, they asserted that the denial "did not violate the Constitution" and was "not hostile to religion."

Massachusetts officials argued that "the mere fact that the Burkes could not satisfy" the LGBTQ+ requirements, "whether due to their religion or otherwise, does not clearly establish that denying their license application was unconstitutional."

RELATED: Lawsuit: Massachusetts refuses to allow couple to foster or adopt children because of their Christian faith

Roxbury Department of Children and Families. Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

The Burkes maintained that the discovery process proved that their religious beliefs were "the only reason for that denial."

"Mike and Kitty were cautiously hopeful that Massachusetts would finally end its religious discrimination," Lori Windham, senior counsel for Becket, the law firm representing the Burkes, told Blaze News. "But that hope turned to heartbreak when Massachusetts chose to keep fighting them in court. The Commonwealth's doublespeak is exactly why they are pressing for a clear ruling from the court protecting the freedom of religious families to foster and adopt children."

"Mike and Kitty are still open to fostering or adopting children in the future. But Massachusetts has made it harder for them to adopt any child with its discriminatory decision on their record, and that's why they are asking the court to erase it," she added.

A decision in the case is expected by the fall, Windham stated.

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During the swearing-in ceremony for incoming Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Iran had provided a "present" worth a "tremendous amount of money" — addressing the global energy crisis caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Two leftist members of Congress aim to shut down artificial intelligence data center construction, claiming that such centers destroy jobs and American attention spans.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) announced the proposal Wednesday to pause the creation of AI infrastructure in order to allow Congress enough time to pass more regulations.

'We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue.'

"AI and robotics are creating the most sweeping technological revolution in the history of humanity," said Sanders in a statement to Axios. "The scale, scope, and speed of that change is unprecedented. Congress is way behind where it should be in understanding the nature of this revolution and its impacts."

Many cities have already passed laws against data centers, and some states are considering the same.

In a February interview on MS NOW, Sanders said he was concerned about the effect on young people's attention spans as well as the possibility that AI will make many jobs obsolete.

"I think we have not a clue. We are totally unprepared for what is coming," he said at the time.

Opponents of new data centers point to concerns over their massive water and electricity usage, potentially damaging effects from chemicals they produce, as well as quality-of-life issues for nearby residents.

AI defenders respond that in order to maintain its global economic dominance, the U.S. must build up its own AI infrastructure industry.

"We cannot sit back and allow a handful of billionaire Big Tech oligarchs to make decisions that will reshape our economy, our democracy, and the future of humanity," Sanders added. "We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue. The time for action is now."

RELATED: Citizen outcry blocks a Microsoft data center, making AI an acid test for local government

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania responded immediately, and negatively, to the proposal.

"The emerging chassis of AI must be built by America," he wrote on social media. "We can put appropriate guardrails in place without handing the win on AI to China. A moratorium is China First."

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They’re tiny, invisible, and everywhere. Microplastics have quietly made their way into every corner of our environment—and every corner of the human body.

Iran won’t be “fixed” by a press conference, a bombing run, or a fantasy about instant regime collapse. If you want a road map for what comes next, look at Northern Italy in 1945 — and the quiet, brutal work that made liberation possible.

The situations share a grim similarity. In Northern Italy, civilians lived under overlapping enemy forces — SS, Waffen-SS, Wehrmacht units, and Italian Fascists — all capable of total control, including public executions at a local commander’s discretion.

America will not administer Iran. Iranians will. US involvement will not morph into open-ended governance or ‘reconstruction’ missions that turn into permanent deployments.

The U.S. Office of Strategic Services began the behind-the-lines effort by building the Committee for the Liberation of Northern Italy — the CLNAI (from its Italian name, Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Alta Italia) — into a political umbrella that assembled a host of anti-fascist and anti-Nazi groups into something recognizable as a governing alternative.

Then the OSS inserted American and Italian anti-fascist agents, organized reception networks, and helped train and equip partisan formations. By early 1945, OSS Operational Groups and Special Operations parties were raising hell across Northern Italy in an arc from Genoa and Belluno to Ravenna. OSS officer Captain Albert “The Brain” Materazzi kept pressure on by anticipating and parrying German countermoves against individual missions.

As the war ended, the results were uneven: Wehrmacht units often surrendered; SS and Gestapo often did not. The CLNAI declared national liberation on April 25, 1945. A large uprising across Northern Italy forced the surrender of most enemy units; the remainder were killed, captured, or fled.

Even then, stability did not arrive overnight. Italy needed another year before a referendum made it a republic — and many more years before postwar order fully settled.

The point: Liberation is a sequence, not a switch.

What Italy suggests for Iran

Iran already has the raw material for internal change. The question is whether it can be organized, protected, and sustained long enough to become the next government rather than the next massacre.

1) Resistance exists — at scale

It’s obvious that many Iranians are willing to resist the mullahs and their coercive apparatus. The sheer number killed in recent protests — as many as 30,000 — proves that a large demographic has already shown the will to fight the regime.

2) The opposition is diverse — and that’s normal

The resistance contains deep political differences. Some want a return of the shah; others vehemently reject that. Some are Kurds seeking autonomy; others are separatists. But the unifying principle remains the same: ending the clerical regime and its enforcement arms.

3) Not every unit will fold the same way

Some elements of Iran’s security forces may quietly cease hostilities when the regime’s command structure fractures. Hardcore units — especially ideologically driven formations — will resist longer and more violently, like the SS “Werewolf” units after May 1945.

4) Preventing post-conflict starvation

A transition can fail because people get hungry, cold, and desperate faster than a new order can take shape. Keeping the civilian population alive and supplied is strategy, not charity.

What can be done

1) Build an umbrella political alternative

Organize and fund an Iranian resistance umbrella organization capable of acting like a provisional authority: coherent messaging, defined leadership, internal discipline, and a plan for a post-regime state.

2) Reopen information flow

Help the Iranian people communicate beyond regime control. That means smuggling thousands more Starlink communication kits to inform and unify the civilian population.

3) Create protected space for internal organization

Iran’s borders and peripheries are strategically vital. The objective is to give resisting Iranians room to organize, train, coordinate, and survive the fight against the hardcore religious units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, especially the Basij — without turning the effort into an open-ended American occupation.

4) Neutralize Tehran’s remaining leverage

As we have seen, the regime’s last international lever often involves disrupting commerce and energy flows, especially around the Strait of Hormuz. But that can work both ways. The goal should be to reduce Tehran’s capacity to use choke points as blackmail — through sustained maritime security and allied coordination — while keeping escalation controlled.

In recent weeks, U.S. air power suppressed all of Iran’s military sites on Kharg Island, stopping short of sending ground troops to control the island and reopen the Strait.

The U.S. can further counter Iran by “absorbing” whatever drones, missiles, fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and unmanned “suicide skiffs” it has left until the regime runs dry. We don’t need to put our ships and sailors in harm’s way. Instead, we can create a flotilla of “drone sponges,” a screen of decoy tankers loaded only with ballast, to force the IRGC to attack what appear to be hostile targets in the Strait.

With constant airborne surveillance (aided by artificial intelligence), each launch site and its personnel can be immediately and overwhelmingly attacked and reduced. The preferred weapon for these attacks should be Mark 77 Incindigel (not your grandfather’s napalm) because of its destructive potential and psychological effects.

RELATED: Trump acted first — and the ‘experts’ are furious because it worked

Celal Gunes/Anadolu/Getty Images

End state

The United States should pursue a defined end state in Iran: the collapse of the regime’s coercive apparatus, the emergence of an Iranian-led governing alternative, and the rapid stabilization of civilian life — without a large-scale U.S. occupation.

This doctrine rests on five commitments.

1) No occupation, no nation-building bureaucracy.

America will not administer Iran. Iranians will. U.S. involvement will not morph into open-ended governance or “reconstruction” missions that turn into permanent deployments.

2) Iranian-led transition, backed by U.S. leverage.

Washington will recognize and support an Iranian resistance umbrella capable of coordinating civil authority, communicating with the public, and negotiating defections from regime institutions. The goal is political consolidation inside Iran, not a U.S.-designed replacement government.

3) Relentless pressure on the regime’s hard-power core.

The campaign will focus on degrading the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and associated internal-security organs until they can no longer sustain repression or organize effective retaliation. The objective is to break the regime’s capacity to rule by fear.

4) Targeted “advise and assist” support, not massed ground forces.

U.S. support will center on intelligence, communications, logistics, training, and limited partner enablement in support of Iranian formations willing to resist. The mission stays narrow: enable Iranians to defeat the regime’s coercive units and secure key nodes long enough for civil authority to take hold.

5) Humanitarian stabilization as a war aim, not an afterthought.

The United States will plan and execute large-scale relief to prevent post-conflict collapse: food, medical supplies, power and water restoration support, and protected corridors for aid delivery. Starvation and infrastructure failure create chaos, empower extremists, and discredit any transition. Stabilization protects the moral legitimacy of the effort and the practical viability of the outcome.

Success looks like this: The regime’s enforcement arms split and lose cohesion; civilian life steadies; an Iranian transitional authority takes control of basic services and internal security; Tehran’s ability to retaliate drops below the level that gives it strategic leverage; and the United States draws down to diplomacy, intelligence cooperation, and humanitarian support — then exits.

Alex Bregman said a pregame speech by former Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill gave Team USA perspective on representing the U.S. during the World Baseball Classic.

The Loyola Phoenix apologized after an Instagram post called Sheridan Gorman's alleged killer an "illegal immigrant," citing conflicts with AP style.

The EEOC found Planned Parenthood of Illinois violated Title VII, ordering a $500,000 payment after finding racial discrimination against White employees.

Force is the only language Iran’s leaders understand

The United States Department of War is preparing to deploy thousands of Army troops to the Middle East amid the ongoing operation against Iran, Operation Epic Fury, according to sources familiar with the situation.

San Francisco school board votes to reinstate eighth-grade algebra districtwide after a decade-long policy shift led to lower advanced math enrollment.