Salem News Channel

The father of Laken Riley, who was killed on the campus of the University of Georgia by a Venezuelan man who lived nearby, is accusing the state university system of negligence that he says led to his daughter's death. Jason Riley filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, as well as several property management companies. His daughter, a 22-year-old nursing student, was killed in February 2024, and Jose Ibarra was convicted of murder and other charges in her death. Just over an hour before Riley was killed, Ibarra had looked into the window of a University of Georgia graduate student’s on-campus apartment and tried to open the front door before fleeing into a wooded area. The lawsuit alleges that the Board of Regents “failed in its duty to provide a reasonably safe premises” and failed to notify students and guests on campus of the threat posed by Ibarra that morning. “Soon thereafter, with no knowledge of the potential assailant and no reason to suspect any danger, nursing student Laken Riley went for her routine morning run near the Intramural Fields on the UGA campus,” the lawsuit says. A Board of Regents spokesperson said the board does not comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit filed Monday in Gwinnett County State Court also says the Board of Regents failed to follow its own policies and procedures on screening employees, which resulted in Ibarra’s brother, who was also in the country illegally, being employed on campus. And it says the board failed to monitor criminal activity on campus. Prosecutors said Ibarra encountered Riley while she was running on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on Feb. 22, 2024, and killed her during a struggle. Riley was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of Atlanta. Ibarra, 28, had entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was allowed to stay while he pursued his immigration case. Riley’s killing in February 2024 heightened tensions in the national debate over immigration. The lawsuit also alleges negligence on the part of the property management for the apartment complex where Ibarra lived with other people, including two of his brothers. The property manager “failed in its duty to properly screen prospective tenants” and allowed Ibarra to live there regardless of the fact that he was in the country illegally and had a criminal history. Had the property manager “not permitted Ibarra to live in the Apartments in close proximity to the citizens of Athens and students of the University of Georgia, Ibarra would not have had the opportunity to assault and murder Ms. Riley in February 2024.” Riley's father is asking for a jury trial. He is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as reimbursement of legal costs.

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The Pentagon will forbid members of the military from attending Columbia, Yale, Brown and other universities starting next school year amid a campaign to cut ties with institutions that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called “factories of anti-American resentment.” Hegseth announced the policy in a video posted to social media on Friday, three weeks after he said the military was cutting ties with Harvard University. Without citing evidence, Hegseth said the universities have become “breeding grounds of toxic indoctrination” that undermine military values. “For decades, the Ivy League and similar institutions have gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars, only to become factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain,” he said. “They’ve replaced the study of victory and pragmatic realism with the promotion of wokeness and weakness.” Hegseth said the ban applies to Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and “many others” without elaborating. He called for “complete and immediate cancellation of all Department of War attendance,” though it was not clear how broadly it would be applied. A message seeking further details was not immediately answered by the Pentagon. As of Friday, Columbia, Brown, MIT and Harvard were still listed as eligible institutions in a Pentagon database for its Tuition Assistance program, which covers the full cost of tuition for active-duty personnel. Harvard had 39 participants in 2023, according to the most recent data, while Columbia had nine and MIT had two. The earlier action against Harvard aims to block members of the military from attending graduate-level professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs, according to a statement released at the time. There are still questions about whether it applies to programs such as Harvard’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. Harvard has offered a series of professional development programs and a small number of degree programs tailored to the Pentagon. Last year, it created a new master’s degree in public administration for active-duty military members and veterans. Hegseth earned a master’s degree from Harvard but symbolically returned his diploma in a 2022 Fox News segment. The military offers its officers a variety of opportunities to get graduate-level education, both at war colleges run by the military as well as civilian institutions like Harvard. Campuses across the Ivy League have been a favorite target of President Donald Trump, who accuses them of becoming overrun by “woke” ideology. His administration has cut billions of dollars in research funding and attempted a number of other sanctions against the universities, often as part of investigations into allegations that officials tolerated antisemitism on campus. Hegseth’s announcement is a rebuke to universities that had appeared to have reached a truce with the administration in recent months. Columbia and Brown were among the earliest universities to sign deals with the White House, agreeing to a range of demands in order to have their federal funding restored. Harvard is fighting back against such demands, alleging in lawsuits that the government is illegally retaliating against the university for rebuffing its ideological views. Last summer, Trump said he was days away from reaching a deal with Harvard, but negotiations appear to have fallen apart. Earlier this month, Trump said Harvard must pay $1 billion to the government as part of any deal, twice what he had previously demanded.

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President Donald Trump says he's ordering all federal agencies to phase out use of Anthropic technology after the company’s unusually public dispute with the Pentagon over artificial intelligence safety. Trump’s comments Friday came just over an hour before the Pentagon’s deadline for Anthropic to allow unrestricted military use of its AI technology or face consequences. CEO Dario Amodei has said his company “cannot in good conscience accede” to the Defense Department’s demands. Anthropic didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment to Trump’s remarks.

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The Beginning of War with Iran

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Why Does Epstein and Clinton Connection Matter?

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How Trump's Speech Impacted Voters With Elizabeth Mitchell, White House Correspondent for The Daily Signal.

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Speaker Johnson Says Iran Is "Running Out Of Time"

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House Oversight Committee Holds Clinton Deposition Over Epstein

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Multiple States Fight FDA Over Mail-In Abortion Pill With Ben Aguiñaga, Solicitor General of Louisiana.

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Former presidents are just like us. Joe Biden has gotten stuck in delays while flying commercially from Reagan National Airport. On Friday morning, fog triggered an hourlong ground stop and crowds packed the American Airlines commuter gate. Travelers soon noticed Biden because Secret Service agents and local police surrounded him. Keeping a low profile, Biden sat with a newspaper as he awaited his flight to South Carolina for a Democratic Party event. Passengers thanked the former president and shook his hand as they filed past him on the plane. Federal law gives former presidents lifelong Secret Service protection but not special travel.

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A man was detained under suspicion of DUI late Thursday evening outside the home of Nancy Guthrie located on the 5800 block of North Camino Escalante. The incident has drawn attention amid the ongoing investigation into her disappearance. Law enforcement spoke with the man for an extended period and subsequently asked him to step out of his vehicle to perform a field sobriety test. Footage depicts the subject not performing well during the test, leading to his detainment by the officers on the scene. He was charged with DUI and officials say it's not related to the Guthrie case. Meanwhile, the Guthrie family is offering up to $1 million as a reward for information that leads to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie, according to a video posted on Instagram on Tuesday by her daughter, NBC's "Today" show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, which for the first time addressed the possibility the missing woman is dead. There has been no sign of the frail 84-year-old since the early morning of February 1, when a doorbell video camera at the front door to her Tucson house captured footage of a man wearing a ski mask, backpack, gloves and a holstered gun tampering with the camera. Soon after, Guthrie's pacemaker lost contact with her phone line. Guthrie's disappearance has drawn intense public interest worldwide. Although two purported ransom notes were delivered to news media outlets, there has been no known direct contact between any suspects and Guthrie's family or authorities. In Tuesday's video, one of several released by relatives since Nancy Guthrie's disappearance, a tearful Savannah Guthrie offered "a family reward of up to $1 million for any information that leads us to her recovery." She said her family was "blowing on the embers of hope" that Nancy Guthrie was still alive, but recognized that "she may already be gone." "If this is to be, then we will accept it, but we need to know where she is," Savannah Guthrie said in the video. "Someone out there knows something that can bring her home." A $100,000 FBI reward offered earlier in February for information leading to the location of Nancy Guthrie also remains active, according to the agency. Hopes for a major break in the case were last dashed on February 17 when authorities said DNA from a glove found near her Arizona home failed to match any known genetic profiles in a national database. In Tuesday's video, Guthrie also said her family had donated $500,000 to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the national clearinghouse for reporting child abuse content to law enforcement, to help other families who have endured the agony of a missing relative.

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President Donald Trump just can’t seem to choose among friends in the Texas Senate Republican primary. So when he travels to the state on Friday for his first post- State of the Union trip, where he plans to promote his energy and economic policies, Trump will have all three candidates in the competitive race join him — just days before his party casts ballots in the primary race. Sen. John Cornyn is battling for his fifth term and is being challenged by state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt in a primary fight that has become viciously personal. And all three men, missing the coveted endorsement from Trump, have been trying to highlight their ties to him as they ramp up their campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s vote. Cornyn got a head start on Friday, when he flew on Air Force One for the Texas trip and posted multiple photos of his ride on social media. For his part, Trump will be seeking to ride the message of his State of the Union address from Tuesday, where he declared a return to economic prosperity and a more secure America — two centerpiece arguments for Republicans as they campaign to keep their congressional majorities this fall. Trump’s hesitation to endorse in the Texas Senate primary speaks to the tricky dynamics of the race. Cornyn is unpopular with a segment of Texas’ GOP base, in part for his early dismissiveness of Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign and for his role in authoring tougher restrictions on guns after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But Senate GOP leadership and allied groups see Cornyn as the stronger general election candidate, in light of a series of troubles that have shadowed Paxton. Paxtonbeat impeachment on fraud charges in 2023, and has faced allegations of marital infidelity by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have urged Trump to endorse Cornyn. They and allied campaign groups argue that the seat would cost the party hundreds of millions more to defend with Paxton as the candidate. “It is a strong possibility we cannot hold Texas if John Cornyn is not our nominee,” Scott told Fox News on Wednesday. Hunt, a second-term Houston-area representative, was a later entry to the race, but claims a kinship with Trump, having endorsed him early in the 2024 race. Hunt campaigned regularly for Trump and earned a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. If no candidate reaches 50% in Tuesday’s primary, the top two finishers will advance to a May 26 runoff. Cornyn’s campaign and a half-dozen allied groups have poured more than $63 million into the race since last fall, chiefly trying to slow Paxton but recently attacking Hunt in an effort to keep him from making it to the runoff. Earlier this month, Trump feinted toward weighing in on the race when he said he was taking “a serious look” at endorsing in the Texas primary. He has since reaffirmed his neutrality. Still, you wouldn’t know it from watching TV in Texas. Cornyn has been airing ads since last year touting his support for Trump's agenda, even though his relationship with the president has been cool at times. Paxton and Hunt both have ads airing now featuring them standing with Trump. “I like all three of them, actually. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. You’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens. But I support all three,” Trump said earlier this month. The GOP battle comes as Democrats have a contested primary of their own in Texas between state Rep. James Talarico, a self-described policy wonk who regularly quotes the Bible, and progressive favorite U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Trump hasn’t been shy about wading into other contested Republican primaries in the state. Parts of Corpus Christi fall within Texas’ 34th congressional district, where former Rep. Mayra Flores is fighting to reclaim her seat against the Trump-endorsed Eric Flores. (The two are not related.) The winner of the primary will face off against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, long a target of the GOP, whose district was redrawn to make it easier for a Republican to win. Eric Flores will be at the Trump event at the Port of Corpus Christi, which technically is located in a neighboring district. Elsewhere in the state, the president has also endorsed Rep. Tony Gonzales, who is fighting calls from his own party to resign from Congress after reports of an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died after she set herself on fire. Gonzales is refusing to step down and has said that there will be “opportunities for all of the details and facts to come out” and that the stories about the situation do not represent “all the facts.” Gonzales is facing a primary challenge from Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and gun rights influencer who Gonzales defeated by fewer than 400 votes in their 2024 runoff. The White House did not return a request for comment on Thursday on whether Trump stands by his endorsement of Gonzales.

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President Trump is “not happy” with the status of Iran nuclear talks. The president told reporters he’s “not thrilled” that Iran hasn’t agreed to U.S. demands as the two countries hold negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. He said he’s “not happy” but “we’ll see what happens” after additional talks. Tensions remain high after indirect talks in Geneva on Thursday failed to reach a breakthrough, and as American forces gather in the region.

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With Trump Unhappy with Iran, is War Imminent?

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The Battle Against Big Tech!

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Democrats Would Rather Sit and Scream Than Stand for American Citizens

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The U.S. Justice Department on Friday charged 30 more people accused of disrupting a Minnesota church service last month in protest of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operation. The indictment vastly increases the scope of a criminal case that also includes former CNN anchor Don Lemon, one of nine people initially charged in the case. All 39 defendants are charged with conspiracy against the right of religious worship and violating a law that forbids obstructing access to houses of worship. "At my direction, federal agents have already arrested 25 of them, with more to come throughout the day," U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media. "YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP. If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you." Lemon and several others previously charged have pleaded not guilty. Lemon, now an independent journalist who livestreamed the demonstration, has argued the charges violate his free press rights under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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Will Republicans Be Successful in the Midterms?

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Former President Bill Clinton told U.S. House lawmakers that he “did nothing wrong” in his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Clinton told members of Congress he saw no signs of Epstein’s sexual abuse, and by the time the abuse came to light with a 2008 guilty plea, he had long stopped associating with Epstein. The closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, New York, marks the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress. On Thursday, Hillary Clinton gave her own testimony, telling the House Oversight Committee that she did not encounter Epstein and “had no idea” about his criminal activities.

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Celebrities Keep Giving Us Their Opinions

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