State Sen. L. Louise Lucas and six other people were charged Thursday with federal crimes involving an alleged conspiracy to sell marijuana and launder the resulting profits. Lucas, the president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate, was indicted by a grand jury on charges of racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to possess and distribute marijuana, and conspiracy to launder money.

She has surrendered to federal authorities yet remains defiant.

“Today, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the full weight of the federal government have been wielded against an 82-year-old great-grandmother,” Lucas said in a statement. “I grew up under Jim Crow. I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them. I spent my life fighting back, and I’m not stopping now.”

The charges come less than two weeks before the midterm congressional elections.

Others say the charges are serious and not so easy to dismiss.

“These are incredibly serious charges laid out in the indictment. Regardless of political party, public corruption, racketeering, and self-dealing undermine the very foundation of our government and erode the public’s trust,” U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam said in a statement to the Daily Signal. “Sen. Lucas is entitled to a presumption of innocence, but anyone found guilty of abusing their position must be held fully accountable under the law.”

Earlier this year, his office told the Daily Signal that the FBI had monitored phone conversations Subramanyam had with Lucas between March 6 and April 5 and again between April 14 and May 14. The contents of those conversations were sealed by court order.

The charges against Lucas follow a yearslong investigation that began during the Biden administration. “The Department of Justice intends to prove that Senator Lucas violated the trust of the people of Portsmouth and Chesapeake, Virginia, and of her state Senate colleagues,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said as the charges were unveiled. “Her first duty should have been looking out for her constituents before herself.”

While he took a wait-and-see attitude in his statement, Subramanyam added that “the timing of these charges, days before a major election, raises even more questions about the weaponization of these agencies against political opponents of the president.”

“Sen. Lucas is one of the highest-ranking Democrats and was a leading proponent of Virginia’s redistricting efforts, so it’s hard not to conclude there are politics involved here,” he said. “Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to rubber-stamp and pardon fraud and corruption for themselves and their political allies.”

Subramanyam, a Democrat, is expected to be reelected easily in Virginia’s 10th District.

The indictment accuses the senator of having “used her political position to insulate the Lucas Enterprise from criminal scrutiny and to influence legislation benefiting the enterprise.”

Lucas enjoys a uniquely powerful position in state politics. Governors in Virginia have less influence than in other states because they may not run for reelection immediately after serving a four-year term. The best they can do is sit out an election cycle and attempt to run again, as former Gov. Terry McAuliffe attempted to do in 2021. He was defeated by Glenn Youngkin, who is now out of office and stumping for Republicans across the state.

State senators, however, do not face the specter of term limits, and so Lucas has been able to amass vast power during her 34 years in office. She has made it clear to governors in both parties that she enjoys unique influence.

For example, after a poll this spring showed Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s approval rating at 47%, Lucas openly mocked her fellow Democrat. “[M]y numbers are doing just fine,” she wrote on X. “The problem she has to correct is her policies don’t match her rhetoric from the campaign trail. Her issue is credibility.”

Lucas has also used her position to thwart Republican governors. When Youngkin thought he had an agreement in 2024 to bring the NBA’s Wizards and the NHL’s Capitals to Alexandria, Lucas blocked the $2 billion Potomac Yard arena proposal by refusing to include it in the state budget.

“Anything having to do with enriching billionaires, they need to pay for themselves,” she told ALXnow at that time. “They can build the arena and make a profit. They could complete the roads and also provide the perennial upkeep.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Thursday that Lucas’ alleged five-year scheme was worth an estimated $4.5 million. The case against Lucas will be prosecuted in the Eastern District of Virginia.

EDEN — Asked by God whether she had consumed fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Eve replied, "Not to my knowledge."

Republican Study Committee members praised Trump's crackdown on nearly $42 million in SNAP fraud and emphasized the need to continue the initiative.

The post EXCLUSIVE: RSC Members Tout Trump’s SNAP Fraud Crackdown Ahead of Midterms appeared first on Breitbart.

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) on Wednesday condemned the arrest warrant issued by a judge in Florida against Cuba's nonagenarian communist dictator Raúl Castro — reiterating support for their ideological mentors in the Castro regime.

The post Venezuela’s Ruling Socialists Condemn Florida for Raúl Castro Arrest Warrant appeared first on Breitbart.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—After endorsing Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, back in early March, through its super PAC, Women Speak Out, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is continuing to show support in the final days before the midterms.

Their particular aim: highlighting “the extreme abortion agenda” of Democrat candidates.

An ad from the PAC targeting Husted’s foe, former Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton exposes how the two “have crossed the line on abortion.”

The spot specifically highlights their support for abortions in the ninth month of pregnancy on unborn babies who feel pain, abortions for minors without parental consent, and taxpayer-funded abortions.

“Every limit, every safeguard gone. Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton. Wrong side of the line. Wrong for Ohio,” the ad warns.

For their next step, Women Speak Out just announced in Toledo a $1.1 million campaign further exposing Acton and Brown’s “extreme abortion agenda.”

The campaign includes digital ads, voter mail, text messages, and phone calls focused on 621,000 pro-life voters statewide as the group seeks to reach 10.5 million persuadable and low-turnout voters for the 2026 midterms.

The PAC has also launched on-the-ground efforts, with the Ohio team visiting the homes of more than 375,000 Ohio voters so far.

SBA Pro-Life America recently released message testing in swing midterm races, which shows that highlighting those radical abortion views moves the margin 4-5 points toward the pro-life candidate.

In a statement for the Daily Signal, Kelsey Pritchard, a spokesperson for Women Speak Out, not only praised Husted and Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, but also shared the group’s concerns with Acton and Brown.

“Amy Acton and Sherrod Brown won’t talk about how their abortion extremism harms women and children in Ohio. They can’t even draw the line at late-term abortions in the ninth month of pregnancy, with healthy moms and healthy babies who feel excruciating pain,” Pritchard said.

“The Democrats’ agenda is to bring Massachusetts-style abortion on demand up to birth to every state, with forced taxpayer funding, while denying parents the right to protect vulnerable young girls from abortion profiteers and predators. It’s vital to expose and stop them and elect champions like Jon Husted and Vivek Ramaswamy at every level this fall.”

Brown has a record of supporting abortion while in Congress, while Acton has spoken out against proposed pro-life laws at the state level and has the support of groups like Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio and the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Students from the Feminist Majority at Ohio State University, which is a student-driven chapter of the national group, took part in an event for Acton last week that was closed to the press.

The Ramaswamy-Acton gubernatorial race and the Husted-Brown special election for U.S. Senate in Ohio are both races to watch, with the Senate race being particularly expensive and one that could determine the balance of power in the chamber.

Federal authorities have accused Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D) on Thursday of leading a criminal marijuana distribution enterprise.

The post Democrat Virginia State Sen. Louise Lucas Accused of Leading Criminal Marijuana Distribution Enterprise appeared first on Breitbart.

A pair of critical PHP security flaws discovered by researchers with the help of AI forced an emergency patch and set off scattered attacks across the web. PHP is a programming language used to build up to 70 percent of the websites online today.

The post Tech Explainer: What You Need to Know About the PHP Flaw Threatening the Internet appeared first on Breitbart.

Rep. Ilhan Omar says she did not marry her brother, to her knowledge, a switch from her vehement denials beginning in 2016.

Omar joined MS NOW for her first sit-down interview following the Columbus Day raid on her Washington, D.C., home. When asked if the man she married in 2009, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, was her brother, she responded, “Not to my knowledge.”

In a 2016 Minnesota radio interview, she answered the same allegation differently: “Insinuations that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is my brother are absurd and offensive.”

Her now-ex-husband, Elmi, ended up a refugee in England and not in the U.S. with Omar. The two divorced in 2017.

Omar Watched Agents Search Her Home From Her Couch

The Somali-born congresswoman detailed the raid, conducted by Homeland Security Investigations agents, and the items they seized.

She described the scene at 6 a.m., waking up to agents pounding on her front and back doors and surrounding the home. The only people in the home were Omar, her husband, Tim Mynett, and her 20-year-old son. She described waking up confused, thinking something might be on fire and that they were trying to evacuate her home.

“My husband opened the door, so he got to interact with them before I came back down, before I came down to see them,” she said.

Homeland Security Investigations agents provided her with the search warrant and began searching the home. She said she was allowed to call her lawyer roughly an hour into the hourslong search.

“I sat on the couch, staring at the warrant, trying to make sure that they were staying within the balance of what the warrant allowed them to do,” she explained.

“They went room through room, and they took 17 items,” she said.

Some of the personal items she described included a new phone she had just gotten, an old travel phone, her daughter’s old phone, her husband’s camera, a Somali phrase book for children, and her husband’s notebooks. The interviewer did not ask about reports that her passport and computer were taken as well.

“It was hours, four to five hours. Which was why I was surprised when they handed me the receipt for the items that they’d taken to do that long of a search and to walk away with 17 items, of like 10 that were just notebooks and like old phones. [It] was such a bizarre thing,” she said.

It has been reported that agents have obtained her DNA, though Omar was positive that the agents who conducted the raid did not take her DNA, citing the list of items they took.

She described the entire raid as “intrusive but polite.”

“They did a really good job of putting everything back in its place. They actually even folded some of my clothing that was not folded, so it was … intrusive but polite,” she said.

The Origin of the Brother-Marriage Accusations

Omar said the accusations of Elmi being her brother began with a “Somali blog,” not the Trump administration.

“I don’t know if it still exists, but somebody put in there that, you know, that he had to have been my brother or something to that effect. And right-wing conspiracy theorists in Minneapolis got a hold of it, and they just kind of went and found random people who were like, ‘She introduced us, you know, she introduced him to us and said he was her brother,’ which is, you know, insane. I don’t know those people that they talk about,” she explained.

Omar largely brushed off the accusations of immigration fraud, claiming that she has “a legal right to be a member of Congress,” and crediting her Muslim faith teachings: “We believe that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. He doesn’t burden us. … I’m designed uniquely by God, and I would stand all of this.”

The investigations into how Omar obtained her immigration status and her financial disclosures are ongoing.

Several Google DeepMind employees have resigned in recent weeks over the company's Pentagon contract signed earlier this year that allows its AI technology to be used in classified settings.

The post Google Deepmind Employees Resign in Protest over AI Deal with Trump’s Pentagon appeared first on Breitbart.

A bus driver helped fend off a Rottweiler that was attacking a teenage girl early Wednesday in Griffin, Georgia, as she and her brother waited for their school bus.

The post Georgia School Bus Driver Helps Rescue 14-Year-Old Girl from Dog Attack: ‘A Wonderful Man’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Nearly 30 million Americans acquired firearms between 2021 and 2024, including more than 11 million first-time owners.

The post Nearly 30 Million Americans Bought Guns. Here’s Who They Are. appeared first on The Truth About Guns.

Muslim Democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has signed just one bill into law after 10 months in office, a measure allowing year-round outdoor dining on sidewalks. It's the only New York City Council-passed bill he's approved since he was sworn in in January, the New York Post reported.

The post Zohran Mamdani Has Signed Just One Law in 10 Months on the Job appeared first on Breitbart.

A former retirement home earmarked to become asylum accommodation in an English village has burnt down.

The post Police Consider Potential Arson After Potential Asylum Accommodation Burns appeared first on Breitbart.