Salem News Channel

RSS Feed

Suspect In D.C. Pipe Bomb Case Will Remain Jailed

The man accused of planting a pair of pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national parties in Washington on the eve of the U.S. Capitol attack confessed to the act in interviews with investigators. That’s according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press. The people said Brian Cole Jr. also indicated that he believed the election was stolen and expressed views supportive of President Donald Trump. During Cole’s initial court appearance on Friday, a prosecutor said the 30-year-old suspect from Woodbridge, Virginia, spoke to law-enforcement officers for over four hours after his arrest on Thursday. Cole didn’t enter a plea to explosives charges during the brief hearing.

US steel sees spike in demand

U.S. Steel said it will resume making steel slabs at its Granite City Works plant in Illinois as demand rebounds. The company shut down the last blast furnace there in 2023, and it even moved to wind down its steel processing mill there in September. However, it reversed its stance on the processing mill, under pressure from the White House, and now says it is going a step further by resuming steel making by reopening the blast furnace it idled three years ago amid strikes by the United Auto Workers. U.S. Steel on Thursday cited “customer demand” in beginning the process of restarting a blast furnace at the plant in Southern Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. “After several months of carefully analyzing customer demand, we made the decision to restart a blast furnace,” CEO David Burritt said a statement. “Steel remains a highly competitive and highly cyclical industry, but we are confident in our ability to safely and profitably operate the mill to meet 2026 demand." The Pittsburgh company expects to resume steel production in the first half of next year after it hires and trains workers and gets equipment in safe working order. It will need to hire 400 of the 500 workers necessary to operate the plant, the company said. The American Iron and Steel Institute reported that domestic steel mills in October shipped 7.7 million net tons, a 9% percent increase over the same month a year ago. Year-to-date shipments through October were up 5% over the same period in 2024, it said. Analysts say a robust U.S. steel market has been strengthened in recent years due to tariffs under President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden. The decision by U.S. Steel, comes less than six months after Japan-based Nippon Steel sealed a deal with Trump to buy the iconic American steelmaker for $14.9 billion. To resolve national security objections to the acquisition, Nippon Steel agreed to give the federal government a say in certain company decisions involving domestic steel production, including over closing or idling U.S. Steel’s plants. It also pledged to invest some $14 billion in steel production in the U.S., including building a new electric furnace. Under the national security agreement, protections expire in 2027 for Granite City Works, but last until 2035 for U.S. Steel’s other facilities. Granite City Works makes rolls of sheet steel for the construction, container, pipe and automotive industries.

Matt Van Epps' Victory In TN Signals GOP's Future Success

Admiral Bradley Says No "Kill Them All" Order Made Against Drug Boats

Trump's War Against Drug Cartels

Trump's War Against Drug Cartels With Senator John Cornyn, R-TX.

SCOTUS Hears Important Pro-Life Case

SCOTUS Hears Important Pro-Life Case With Erin Hawley, Counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom.

Noem says Trump admin will expand travel ban to more than 30 countries

The Trump administration will be expanding its ban on travel for citizens of certain countries to more than 30, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, in the latest restriction to come since a man from Afghanistan was accused of shooting two National Guard members. The expansion would build on a travel ban already announced in June by the Republican administration, which barred travel to the U.S. for citizens from 12 countries and restricted access to the U.S. for people from seven others. In a social media post earlier this week, Noem had suggested more countries would be included. Noem, who spoke late Thursday in an interview with Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham, would not provide further details, saying President Donald Trump was considering which countries would be included. In the wake of the National Guard shooting, the administration already ratcheted up restrictions on the 19 countries included in the initial travel ban, which include Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran and Haiti, among others. Ingraham asked Noem whether the travel ban was expanding to 32 countries and asked which countries would be added to the 19 announced earlier this year. “I won't be specific on the number, but it's over 30. And the president is continuing to evaluate countries,” Noem said. “If they don't have a stable government there, if they don't have a country that can sustain itself and tell us who those individuals are and help us vet them, why should we allow people from that country to come here to the United States?” Noem said. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment about when an updated travel ban might go into effect and which countries would be included in it. Additions to the June travel ban are the latest in what has been a rapidly unfolding series of immigration actions since the shooting Thanksgiving week of two National Guard troops in Washington. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who emigrated to the U.S. from Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal, has been charged with first-degree murder after one of the two victims, West Virginia National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, died of wounds sustained in the Nov. 26 shooting. The second victim, Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, was critically wounded. Lakanwal has pleaded not guilty. The Trump administration has argued that more vetting is needed to make sure people entering or already in the U.S. aren't a threat. Critics say the administration is traumatizing people who've already gone through extensive vetting to get to the U.S. and say the new measures amount to collective punishment. Over the course of a little more than a week, the administration has halted asylum decisions, paused processing of immigration-related benefits for people in the U.S. from the 19 travel ban countries and halted visas for Afghans who assisted the U.S. war effort. On Thursday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it was reducing the time period that work permits are valid for certain applicants such as refugees and people with asylum so they have to reapply more often and go through vetting more frequently.

Federal vaccine advisors say not all babies need hepatitis B shot at birth

A federal vaccine advisory committee voted Friday to end a longstanding recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born. The shots are widely considered to be a public health success for preventing thousands of liver illnesses. A loud chorus of medical and public health leaders is decrying the decision by the committee members, all appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing for the release of video of the first U.S. military strikes on a boat in the Caribbean, which they say shows a war crime or murder. And Trump is taking center stage at Friday's draw for the 2026 World Cup.

Trump awarded new peace prize from FIFA

The draw ceremony for the 2026 FIFA World Cup is underway at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. A record 48 teams will take part in the tournament field this summer. President Donald Trump, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are in attendance. Trump played a key role in moving the draw to the Kennedy Center and may receive a new peace prize from FIFA. With the tournament expanding to 48 teams, the draw will separate them into 12 groups of four, with the top teams potentially avoiding each other until the semifinals. At the ceremony Friday, Trump was awarded new peace prize from FIFA, as the soccer governing body continues embracing the president.

The Media LIED About Hegseth’s "Kill Order"

Josh Hammer explains why yesterday's closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill confirms that the corporate media lied about Secretary of War Hegseth issuing a "kill order" on a narco-terrorist boat in the Caribbean Sea in early September. He didn't, as yesterday's testifying Navy admiral confirmed. In reality, the administration is simply acting to defend the American homeland and the American people—much as it is also doing when it comes to its immigration enforcement operations. Josh also breaks down the week's major legal updates—namely, the long-overdue arrest of the infamous D.C. pipe bomber and the huge Supreme Court victory for the State of Texas and House Republicans on the question of the Lone Star State's controversial newly redrawn congressional map. Josh also zooms out and explains what the GOP must do to forestall carnage at the ballot box come 2026—and perhaps 2028 as well. He ends, as always on Fridays, with our "Hammertime" segment.