The man who shot and killed eight children in Shreveport, Louisiana, on Sunday was reportedly given probation for a gun charge in a 2019 plea deal.

The post Report: Gunman Who Killed Eight Children Was Given Probation for Gun Charge in 2019 Plea Deal appeared first on Breitbart.

The District of Columbia, despite all its imperfections, has much to offer. It is a city buzzing with bright young people hoping to serve the country; featuring world-class museums, cultural institutions, and restaurants; and containing some of the most beautiful works of architecture in North America.

The city’s buildings span nearly every genre of traditional and classical architecture. The city boasts the stately townhomes of Capitol Hill and Georgetown, the Beaux-Arts Jefferson Building that houses the Library of Congress, and even more inventive works such as Paul Cret’s Art Deco-inspired Folger Shakespeare Library.

Yet for such a distinguished city, something fundamental to the Western architectural canon has long been conspicuously absent: the triumphal arch.

The triumphal arch emerged from the Roman civic-religious rite of triumph, and it is informed by Greek technical achievements. The most complete expression of the form is the Arch of Constantine in Rome.

The Arch of Constantine embodies within its structure the foundations of Western civilization: Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Christian virtue. This arch was erected to commemorate the first Christian emperor’s victory over Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. It translates the metaphysical into the material, “making visible what is invisible,” to borrow a phrase from Pope St. John Paul II.

A millennium after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a renewed appreciation for classical form emerged. It began with the 16th-century Venetian architect Andrea Palladio, whose works continue to enchant visitors today, and culminated in the aesthetic theory of 18th-century art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whom Daniel Boorstin described as the “prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology.”

This movement reinvigorated classical architectural forms, which ultimately led to the post-classical triumphal arches that dot Western capitals.

The history of post-classical triumphal arches is also the history of modern civic-nationalism. Such arches provide templates for nation-states to honor their heroes. For example, Paris boasts the Arc de Triomphe that was partially erected to honor Napoleon, while London has the Wellington Arch, designed to memorialize the very man who vanquished the “Little Corporal” into exile during the War of the Seventh Coalition.

One of the most famous of these arches is Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, commissioned by King Frederick Wilhelm II as a peace monument. As Providence would have it, almost two centuries after its construction, the gate came to signify the unraveling of Soviet tyranny over Eastern Europe.

(Even Brussels, the capital of a Frankenstein-esque polity, has a triumphal arch: the Arcade du Cinquantenaire.)

Given all this, it’s surprising that the U.S., with a political regime modeled in part on Rome’s, has long had the sorry distinction of having the only major Western capital lacking a triumphal arch.

Fortunately, this will soon change. On April 15, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, flanked by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, released renderings of a 250-foot triumphal arch. This fitting tribute to the country and its monumental achievements was soon submitted for review to the Commission of Fine Arts, the federal agency responsible for overseeing the aesthetic quality of the nation’s capital.

Working with lightning speed, the commission voted to approve the arch the following morning at its monthly meeting, with construction expected to begin immediately. Funding for the monument will come from $15 million repurposed from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The D.C. Triumphal Arch is set to join the monumental ensemble that connects the Lincoln Memorial and the hallowed ground that is Arlington National Cemetery. It is intended to have the same transcendent quality as classical architecture, belonging as much to posterity as to the present and the past.

When unveiling the design, Leavitt stated, “Long after everyone in this room is gone, our children and grandchildren will remain inspired by this monument.”

And indeed, future generations will be. While the president’s personal aesthetic preference is clearly reflected in the gold-clad “Lady Liberty” statue atop the attic and the ornamentation along the planar pier, the arch remains in keeping with the monumental style of restrained yet dignified classicism characteristic of the city’s architectural landscape.

The arch is particularly evocative of the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, which was designed by John Russell Pope. Pope also gave the capital city the Jefferson Memorial, which was modeled after the Roman Pantheon. With that in mind, the arch can be understood as completing the classical canon that defines the National Capital’s landscape, spanning from Pope’s Pantheon through Henry Bacon’s temple-like design for the Lincoln Memorial to Robert Mills’ Washington Monument, a modern iteration of the obelisk.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the arch proposed design is its inscription: “One Nation Under God,” a reminder of who we are as a people and what binds us together in common purpose.

The design for Washington’s soon-to-be newest icon demonstrates that America at its best is a land where citizens give thanks not only to the Lord Almighty for the blessings of liberty and the fruits of abundance, but also to the heroic men and women who have sacrificed to preserve those gifts.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post Trump Is Right: DC Needs a Triumphal Arch appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Resurfaced rumors of a “stolen election” years ago in New Jersey are accurate, but the catch is that the most likely culprit this particular time was human error and incompetence. […]

The post Fact Check: Yes, That Story About a NJ Candidate Catching Voting Machines Stealing Her Election Is True, But There's More to It appeared first on The Western Journal.

LOS ANGELES, CA — Sources disclosed that a 39-year-old man named Jordan Benson was reportedly considering a career change to become an astronaut after seeing that mankind is going back to the moon and possibly even Mars.

President Donald Trump said Monday he will not let Democrats pressure him into a deal with Iran that is less than optimal.

The post Trump: I Won’t Let Democrats Rush Me into Iran Deal That Isn’t Optimal appeared first on Breitbart.

Iran is running out of options as President Donald Trump applies unprecedented pressure to permanently dismantle Tehran’s nuclear and proxy terror network, said The Daily Signal’s Senior National Security and Legal Analyst Mehek Cooke on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight” on Friday.

Following Trump’s announcement of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Cooke said Iran is “between a rock and a hard place,” adding that national security experts who bet against Trump are now being proven wrong.

“You’ve seen in seven weeks what President Trump has been able to do that most presidents in 47 years haven’t been able to do,” Cooke said, pointing to restored U.S. leverage in the region, the reopening of critical shipping lanes, and growing pressure on Iran’s proxies.

Cooke emphasized that any agreement with Iran must permanently prevent Tehran from possessing uranium—not merely delay the threat.

“The next 120 hours are going to be the most significant hours in our lifetime,” Cooke said. “President Trump needs to secure a deal that Iran will never have uranium. It can’t be five years—because what happens in year six? President Trump won’t be there.”

She cautioned against trusting future administrations to enforce weak agreements, arguing that temporary deals would leave Israel and U.S. national security exposed.

“I do not trust Democrats today,” Cooke said. “They are anti-Israel. They continue to think that Iran is not a terrorist regime. So, we have to make sure this deal is for a lifetime.”

Cooke noted reports that the United States might unfreeze Iranian assets in exchange for cooperation on a nuclear deal, warning that Iran’s economic leverage must be dismantled entirely.

“If Iran tries to fold, tries to deter our activities, then President Trump only has one option—take out the strait,” she said. “Take out the economic lifeline. Finish the job.”

Cooke also stressed that any deal must address Iran’s proxy wars, particularly Hezbollah’s military presence in Lebanon and attacks targeting Israel and Americans living abroad. Lebanon’s recent diplomatic engagement with Israel, she said, underscores Iran’s weakening grip.

“This has been the weakest point for Iran,” Cooke said.

Calling the moment a “generational opportunity,” Cooke urged sustained pressure, regional cooperation, and expansion of the Abraham Accords to ensure lasting security.

The post ‘Finish the Job’: Mehek Cooke on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump’s Defining 120 Hours appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A damning new government report confirms what many conservatives have long suspected: The Biden administration systematically weaponized federal law to target, harass, and even imprison pro-life Americans, all while turning a blind eye to violence against churches and pregnancy centers.

The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy released the report on April 14, exposing how President Joe Biden’s DOJ abused the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act—known as the FACE Act—to prosecute pro-life activists at the urging of powerful abortion lobby groups. Every American who cares about equal and impartial justice under the law should read it.

In the end, the report leads irrevocably to one conclusion: The FACE Act should be repealed.

Congress passed the FACE Act in 1994 to protect abortion facilities, pro-life pregnancy centers, and churches from obstruction, force, and destruction. On paper, it applies equally to three. In practice, under Biden, it became something else entirely: a federal hunting license to punish political opponents holding pro-life views.

The numbers tell the story. According to the report, over the law’s 30-year history, a staggering 25% of all FACE Act prosecutions were brought in just a two-year stretch (2022-2024) under the Biden administration. Even more striking, pro-lifers were the targets a remarkable 97% of the time.

This wasn’t a coincidence but federal policy.

Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization returned abortion policy to the states, Attorney General Merrick Garland publicly vowed to “tirelessly protect and advance reproductive freedom” and deploy the FACE Act to do it.

Garland revived the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers and set it loose. What followed was a coordinated campaign between federal prosecutors and pro-abortion organizations that should alarm every American who believes in impartial law enforcement.

The task force worked hand in glove with the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and the Feminist Majority Foundation. It received tips, dossiers, and investigation targets from these activist groups. The National Abortion Federation was singled out by task force members as an “MVP” for supplying information used to identify targets and obtain warrants. One task force member even served as a reference on NAF’s application for a private grant.

The report also details highly disturbing conduct by prosecutors once prosecutions of pro-life activists were underway.

In Michigan, DOJ officials pushed to prosecute nonviolent pro-life protesters under the FACE Act, something those officials acknowledged was unprecedented. Internal emails show federal prosecutors acknowledging the “posture of the administration” had shifted, however, driven in part by the passage in 2021 of Texas’ Heartbeat Act. The prosecution was greenlighted in May 2022, just days after the Dobbs draft opinion leaked.

After the defendants had already been convicted of misdemeanor trespassing in state court and paid a $225 fine, DOJ officials took the unusual step of insisting upon federal prosecution because the activists would “continue to engage in obstructive conduct” due to their “strongly held ideologies.”

In other words, the DOJ concluded that the only way to deter committed pro-life activists from engaging in pro-life activism was to throw them in prison.

At trial, prosecutors fretted about a “very Catholic magistrate” judge and worked to screen Christians from the jury pool. In a private email drafting her closing argument, a DOJ prosecutor described pro-life Christians as “culty.”

This kind of comment shows that these were not impartial law enforcement officers but enforcers of leftist ideology.

The FACE Act has always rested on shaky constitutional grounds, relying on Congress’ interstate commerce power to regulate what are fundamentally local protests—conduct already covered by state and local trespass and vandalism laws. Biden’s DOJ simply revealed what the law was always susceptible to becoming: a political cudgel.

The report makes the case for repealing the FACE Act or limiting its application to churches.

Unlike abortion, the right to free exercise of religion is an expressly protected constitutional right. Moreover, state law more than adequately protects against criminal trespassing, vandalism, and true acts of violence. The FACE Act is not a necessary preventative, and as long as it remains on the books in its current form, it will remain a temptation for future administrations to exploit for partisan ends.

More broadly, this report is a warning. The rule of law is not an abstraction reserved for law school classrooms. It is, as John Adams wrote, the very foundation of a republic—“an Empire of Laws, and not of Men.” When prosecutors swear an oath to the Constitution and then use the power of the federal government to destroy their political opponents, that foundation cracks.

The Biden DOJ cracked it. The American people deserve to know exactly how, and now it must make sure this kind of abuse never happens again.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post Biden’s DOJ Weaponized the FACE Act Against Pro-Lifers appeared first on The Daily Signal.

April 20 (UPI) — Actor and producer Patrick Muldoon has died at age 57.

The post Patrick Muldoon, ‘Days of Our Lives’ and ‘Melrose Place’ Star, Dies at 57 appeared first on Breitbart.

NEW YORK, NY — In a bold new effort to address what he referred to as "run inequality," Mayor Zohran Mamdani ordered that a percentage of runs scored by each visiting MLB team be redistributed to the struggling New York Mets.

Monday on ABC's "The View," co-host Whoopi Goldberg said President Donald Trump was preparing to implement a draft for his military operation in Iran.

The post Whoopi Goldberg: Trump ‘Planning on a Draft’ for Iran appeared first on Breitbart.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Singer D4vd has been charged with murder in the death of a 14-year-old girl who was last known to be alive nearly a year ago and whose dismembered and decomposed body was found in September in his apparently abandoned Tesla, prosecutors said Monday.

The post Singer D4vd Charged With Murder of 14-Year-Old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, Found Decomposed in His Car appeared first on Breitbart.