The leader of the top opposition party in France’s National Assembly has joined numerous other lawmakers in raising the alarm about the horrific case of Louis of Narbonne — a white 17-year-old foster kid who was ambushed on the night of June 19 and effectively left for dead by several individuals.

“Louis, 17 years old, was lynched to death with unimaginable violence, filmed by his gleeful assailants, left to agonize through an entire night, and found lifeless on a construction site in Narbonne,” Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally party, wrote on Wednesday.

‘This everyday barbarity that can no longer be minimized, downplayed, or concealed.’

“He is the symbol of a country adrift, undermined by a barbarization that neither the laxity nor the blindness of our leaders can halt,” continued Bardella. “We must dare to break with 30 years of failures if we are to restore order in France.”

The suspects — a diverse crew who reportedly knew one another from child welfare facilities — filmed themselves at an under-construction seniors residence punching and kicking in the head of the dying teenager.

The nightmarish footage — which one of the attackers reportedly shared on social media — not only shows the thugs’ relentless attacks on the already-unconscious boy but also shows suspects posing for pictures beside the dying teen, whose agonal breathing can be heard throughout.

RELATED: ‘White lives matter’: UK erupts over footage of English teen’s demise in handcuffs after stabbing by Sikh thug

Olivier MORIN/AFP/Getty Images

According to the French investigative outlet Frontières, the family authorized the release of the footage “in order to challenge the version put forward by some media outlets describing it as a mere ‘brawl.'”

Frontières noted further that “despite the pain, his loved ones refuse anonymity and want the truth to be known.”

La Montagne reported that one of the suspects sent the footage to an acquaintance who, seeing the attack and the boy’s injuries, promptly alerted the Aude Departmental Fire and Rescue Service. Since the concerned caller allegedly didn’t know where Louis had been attacked, first responders were unable to swiftly locate and rescue the boy.

David Leyraud, national supervisor of the Police Alliance, said that Louis was ultimately found on Saturday morning by a construction worker.

Jean-Philippe Rey, the prosecutor of the Republic of Narbonne, said that “when they arrived, the firefighters took the victim, still unconscious. He had bruises in the eyes, multiple bruises on the forehead as well as bleeding in the mouth and nose.”

The victim was placed in an artificial coma and succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday.

‘While our children are dying, our leaders look the other way.’

Louis was placed in a child welfare facility in May. According to records obtained by L’Indépendant, he filed a complaint with police on May 22 alleging assault by a group. Earlier this month, he filed another complaint — this time accompanied by his youth worker — alleging yet another attack.

One of the suspects allegedly conspired with the other four suspects and lured Louis — who had recently secured a job offer and was set to leave child welfare services — to the construction site in Narbonne on false pretenses, reported L’Indépendant. At the destination, the thugs ambushed the teen.

On the basis of the viral footage, phone records, and the insights provided by the individual who first alerted authorities to the attack — and who contacted authorities with more information after allegedly being threatened by one of the attackers — police arrested and charged five individuals with attempted murder.

The suspects are between the ages of 16 and 19, a senior police officer said. They have been placed in pre-trial detention.

The two adult suspects were previously on the radar of police for alleged minor offenses, including theft and drug use, reported L’Indépendant.

While some of the suspects allegedly gave partial admissions about their roles in the attack, most reportedly claimed ignorance of the plot and said they were just following the others.

Investigators ruled out a racist motive in the attack, according to L’Indépendant, which reported: “The initial findings, resulting from the rapid investigation, in any case rule out a racist motive, as some people hastily suggested.”

When asked for more information about the suspects, the Préfecture de l’Aude told Blaze News an investigation is underway. Blaze News has reached out to the Narbonne Public Prosecutor’s Office and the City of Narbonne for comment.

One of the victim’s friends told Frontières, “I am in a nightmare. I am struggling to believe that Louis is gone.”

“While our children are dying, our leaders look the other way,” Julien Leonardelli, a National Rally member who serves as a member of the European Parliament, wrote in the wake of Louis’ death.

Marine Le Pen, co-founder and parliamentary leader of the National Rally party, wrote, “The ordeal of young Louis, 17 years old, lynched in Narbonne, breaks the heart and fuels immense anger among the French in the face of this everyday barbarity that can no longer be minimized, downplayed, or concealed.”

“Through endlessly refusing to swiftly and effectively punish acts of delinquency, those in power, backed by the left and the far left, have sent a disastrous message: that of permanent impunity,” continued Le Pen.

The National Rally leader stressed that 2027 — when France will hold its next presidential election — will mark an end to “this savagery and this unbearable ultraviolence.”

The news of yet another brutal slaying of a young teen by remorseless individuals quickly crossed the Atlantic.

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey wrote, “The video of that poor boy in France, Louis, is too much to bear. Why is it the same kinds of people *everywhere* who commit these acts of subhuman violence? Truly animalistic monsters. God help us.”

While multitudes around the world condemned the boy’s lynching, Raphaël Arnault — a leftist activist who serves in the National Assembly as a member of the radical France Unbowed party — downplayed the attack, noting, “For years this kind of tragedy has existed for young people left abandoned,” and complaining about “the media uproar and the racist horrors of the far right.”

A march is planned in Narbonne this weekend in remembrance of the victim.

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​France, Louis, Lynching, Marine le pen, Murder, National rally, Crime, Politics 

I have been adamant throughout our months of Iran coverage that President Trump needs to turn his attention back home and start using his domestic political leverage to address our problems here.

So watching him threaten not to sign the housing bill Congress just passed unless lawmakers also pass the SAVE America Act is music to my ears.

We live in an era of survival. The enemy is an unrelenting demonic construct, and my conscience tells me without ambiguity that it must be defeated before we are.

Demanding election integrity is exactly the sort of fight Trump should pick. The housing bill is already divisive within the MAGA base, so the president risks little political capital by holding it up. If anything, he is postponing an internal coalition fight he will eventually need to have while using his leverage to improve his overall bargaining position.

This maneuver should not be necessary. Trump’s own party controls Congress for the time being. But we have to live in the world as it is. And in the world as it is, John Thune (R-S.D.) still sucks.

If Trump vetoes a housing bill that does not include the SAVE Act, I would wager the odds are roughly 50-50 that Congress overrides him. In a strange way, that might not be the worst outcome. An override could provoke Trump to get Hulk-mad on the domestic front, which is exactly where we need his attention from now through the midterms and beyond.

I do not see a real loss here for the president unless he caves.

He cannot pick this fight now and fail to follow through. This is a game of chicken. As “The Hunt for Red October” taught us, the hard part about playing chicken is knowing when to flinch.

It is also almost America’s 250th birthday. Asking Congress to protect one of the people’s birthrights — free and fair elections — seems modest enough. It is one of the main reasons we are celebrating at all.

Good thing, then, that “The Art of the Deal” has always been Trump’s favorite hill to die on. He is a subject-matter expert in leverage-based negotiation. This is his game.

Get busy living or get busy dying.

The meter is running not only on Trump’s presidency but on the fate of the entire nation. New York, for example, continues to be handed over to Islamic socialists.

Three Democratic congressional district primaries just went exactly the way socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) wanted them to go as he turns the Big Apple into his own private Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, too many of the Republicans we regularly vote for have no interest in reading the signs of the times, assuming they are capable of reading them at all.

That is why voters turned to Trump in the first place. It is also why he is almost all they have to rely on right now.

What kind of political party needs to be leveraged into passing legislation that would make it easier for that party to win elections — and that an overwhelming majority of the people want passed?

RELATED: America turns 250 with a broken heart

Matthew Hatcher/AFP/Getty Images

How politically brain-dead does that sound when you say it out loud?

But that is the GOP for you.

Decades of such institutional stupidity have made our politics more existentially binary than ever. We are out of options other than making the best use of what we have. It is Team GOP or bust.

I desperately dislike being in that position. In fact, I have spent much of my career trying to avoid such a fate. But again, we have to live in the world as it is.

You may have deep theological or philosophical disagreements with members of your government that, in another era, would not be reconcilable. But that is not the era we inhabit.

We live in an era of survival. The enemy is an unrelenting demonic construct, and my conscience tells me without ambiguity that it must be defeated before we are.

Two worldviews enter. One must leave. That is the only playbook before the GOP, whether the party understands it or not. Our team is on the field.

One way or another, I plan to win.

​Donald trump, John thune, Midterms, Opinion & analysis, Republicans, Save america act, Veto, Democrats, Affordable housing, Elections, Reform, Zohran mamdani, Socialism 

Millions of Americans remember where they were on the morning of September 11, 2001, and they have never forgotten the horror they felt when they watched jetliners crash into the Twin Towers in New York city, killing more than 3,000 innocent people.

“I’m sure you remember the creepy feeling that we all felt as the identities of these Muslim terrorists were unveiled, realizing these Islamists hated you,” BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler says on “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

“Well, here we are 25 years later. This same burning, smoldering hatred for America in the form of this Muslim woman is now likely being sent to represent New York City in the U.S. Congress,” she explains.

The Zohran Mamdani-endorsed Darializa Avila Chevalier won her primary election in New York City last night, beating a five-term incumbent.

However, the issue Wheeler has with her is that Chevalier, a Muslim, has openly talked about her hatred for the United States.

“I forgot to get napkins, so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me,” she wrote in a now-deleted post on X.

After her win, Mamdani thanked Allah.

And Chevalier herself has promised to reflect Islam in the halls of Congress.

“I know that we all deserve a representative who isn’t bought by AIPAC. I’m also the only Muslim in my family. I reverted three years ago,” she said, explaining that her friend pushed her to join the faith.

“It was seeing how all of my friends who were showing up to organizing, who are Muslim, were showing up in the space and the grace and love and passion that they had in these spaces of social justice that really pushed me to join the faith,” she went on.

“And wanting to make sure that we are reflecting that, that I’m reflecting that in every space that I’m in and that, you know, inshallah, if we make it to Congress that we’re reflecting that in the halls of power as well,” she added.

“That 25 years after September 11, these people control New York City — Zohran Mamdani is the mayor, Darializa likely on her way to the U.S. Congress representing New York City — is just appalling,” Wheeler comments.

“It’s shocking,” she adds.

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Allah, Darializa avila chevalier, Inshallah, Liz wheeler, September 11th, Zohran mamdani, The liz wheeler show 

What is wrong with man? Every political philosophy begins with an answer to that question. Scripture’s answer changes everything.

As New York celebrated the victories of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s endorsed candidates this week, I recalled something he said after his own victory last fall: “Praise be to Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful.” Predictably, much of the conversation has centered on his politics and, as we approach the 25th anniversary of 9/11, his public invocation of Allah.

Government can restrain the effects of evil. It cannot regenerate the human heart.

Those discussions are important, of course. But I found myself thinking about something else.

Gratitude reveals theology because we instinctively thank the one we believe governs reality. Some thank fortune. Some thank the market. Some thank government. Some thank the universe. Some thank themselves.

Our gratitude reveals what we ultimately believe about reality.

New York’s mayor publicly thanking Allah does more than express personal devotion. He is acknowledging a theological authority. Theology never stays inside the sanctuary. Eventually, it walks into the courtroom, the classroom, the legislature — and the voting booth.

Theology inevitably shapes our understanding of human nature. That understanding eventually produces a political philosophy.

Most Americans assume we are arguing about taxes, health care, immigration, education, or economics. We are not. Beneath every political argument lies another question.

What is wrong with man?

Every political philosophy answers it.

If man is basically good, then his deepest problem lies outside himself. The system is broken. The economy is broken. The institutions are broken. Change the system, and people should improve with it.

That assumption helps explain socialism’s enduring appeal. If people are basically good but trapped inside unjust structures, then changing those structures becomes the highest moral priority. Build a better system, and society should improve.

Scripture begins somewhere else.

Jeremiah addresses the heart: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” Jesus locates murder, theft, adultery, greed, envy, and slander in the heart as well. Paul affirms the same conclusion when he writes in Romans that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

RELATED: Trump showed voters the con behind the curtain

Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg/Getty Images

If Scripture is right, no political system can solve mankind’s deepest problem.

The reformers understood that sin had not merely damaged humanity but corrupted every faculty of our being. We still bear God’s image and remain capable of astonishing courage, creativity, generosity, and sacrifice. But we are also fallen.

Those convictions profoundly influenced the political imagination of the men who framed the Constitution. The framers did not write the Constitution for basically good people. They wrote one for sinners.

They divided power through checks and balances because they knew power does not sanctify fallen people. It magnifies them.

Their greatest political achievement was not trusting themselves. As a result, the framers collectively produced a document better than they were.

Checks and balances are not expressions of political optimism. They reflect theological realism. They acknowledge that no office, no election, and no majority vote can cure what Jeremiah identified in the human heart.

The same view of human nature should shape how we think about wealth. Whenever someone accumulates great wealth, someone inevitably says, “Think what we could do with all that money.”

Elon Musk’s extraordinary wealth has simply made that argument impossible to ignore.

“Think what we could do with all that money.”

Notice what is quietly assumed. We imagine our compassion is purer, our judgment sounder, and our motives less corrupted.

RELATED: Who wants to eat a trillionaire?

Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg/Getty Images

When Mary poured perfume worth nearly a year’s wages on Jesus’ feet, Judas objected.

“Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”

On the surface, it sounds compassionate, practical, even responsible. Then the apostle John adds one sentence that changes everything.

“He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.”

John does not debate Judas’ proposal. He exposes Judas’ motive.

There is a kind of generosity that costs us nothing because it spends someone else’s resources. Judas voiced it. John exposed it. Every generation repeats it.

Before we recognize Judas in someone else’s politics, we ought to recognize him in ourselves.

When I stand before God, he will not ask me what others did with their resources. He will ask what I did with mine.

That question reaches far beyond money. It reaches into our families, churches, communities, opportunities, and even our suffering. How we steward each of them reveals our theology.

Politics asks, “Who should control this?” Stewardship asks, “Lord, what would you have me do with what you have entrusted to me today?”

Good government, the rule of law, checks and balances — all of those things matter. But they can only restrain the effects of what Scripture says is already there. They cannot create what Scripture says is missing.

Government bears the sword. Christ bore the cross.

Government can restrain the effects of evil. It cannot regenerate the human heart.

Only the gospel can make sinners new.

We do not merely need a better system. We need a new heart.

​Opinion & analysis, Zohran mamdani, Political philosophy, Religion, Faith, Gospel, Human nature, Elon musk, Judas iscariot, Socialism, Elections 

Lawmakers never tire of devising new ways to undermine digital privacy and First Amendment rights, always under the guise of “protecting kids.”

The KIDS Act — the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act — is the latest piece of smug political branding and virtue-signaling to dress up heavy-handed federal overreach in the gentle language of child welfare. Lawmakers considering this legislation should ask a simple question: Could its broad and vague provisions someday be wielded by their political opponents to muzzle speech they favor?

Children deserve real and meaningful protection in the digital age. But true safety comes from empowering parents and holding actual bad actors accountable under existing laws.

Congress should reject the KIDS Act and defend the constitutional rights of all Americans.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) claim this latest “safety package” is about “empowering parents, establishing safety as a default, strengthening privacy for children and teens, increasing transparency around data brokers, and holding Big Tech accountable.”

Washington has heard this pitch before. Wide-ranging digital legislation is routinely sold as a privacy measure even when it undermines privacy.

As Taxpayers Protection Alliance research director David McGarry wrote in December, “Consensus [around digital safety legislation] remains elusive, and for good reason. The regulation of the internet is shot through with difficulties.”

The Kids Online Safety Act proves the point. McGarry observed, “Seeing the imprudence and constitutional vulnerabilities of the bill, its supporters have continuously trimmed and reshaped the legislation, each time declaring that this time — finally — the bill had been rid of its deficiencies. Each time, however, the amendments proved wanting, and further efforts to amend KOSA were undertaken.”

That analysis applies just as well to the current version of KOSA included in the KIDS Act.

Supporters claim the latest version removes the “duty of care” requirement that would have forced platforms to withhold poorly defined categories of online content from underage users. But the bill still targets broad categories of constitutionally protected speech.

Digital platforms are instructed to “establish, implement, maintain, and enforce reasonable policies, practices, and procedures” addressing supposed harms to minors, including the “use of … alcohol”; “threats of physical violence so severe, pervasive, or objectively offensive that such threats impact a major life activity of a minor”; and “financial harm caused by deceptive practices.”

RELATED: Digital tyrants want your face, your ID … and your freedom

imaginima/iStock/Getty Images

Those terms are vague and dangerously elastic. What counts as the “use” of alcohol? Could a platform face scrutiny for allowing video clips featuring champagne toasts? Could a joke between friends be treated as a threat of physical violence? Because “deceptive” remains undefined, virtually any online transaction or promoted product could become a federal enforcement hook.

This minefield of liability makes a mockery of the First Amendment and chills expression across the digital domain.

The bill’s most insidious provision involves age verification.

On paper, the KIDS Act says it does not mandate age verification. That language sounds reassuring, but it functions as a legislative bait and switch. The bill imposes a legal standard holding tech platforms liable for content if they “know or should have known” a user’s age.

Consider the real-world meaning of “should have known.” If a company faces massive legal penalties or federal lawsuits for failing to determine a user’s age, it will feel compelled to verify the identity of everyone who logs on — children and adults alike.

That creates a de facto mandate requiring adults to upload driver’s licenses, biometric data, or government IDs just to read a news article, browse a forum, or use a search engine. Web users would be asked to hand over their most sensitive personal information to corporate databases that have repeatedly proved vulnerable to data breaches and foreign hackers.

Age verification on this scale is not a “best practice,” as the bill’s language suggests. It is constitutional malpractice.

The KIDS Act also responds to alleged online harms by expanding federal bureaucracy and spending more taxpayer dollars. It establishes a asinine array of busywork for busybodies: Federal Trade Commission and Health and Human Services studies, a four-year National Institutes of Health longitudinal study, public awareness campaigns, and a new “Kids Internet Safety Partnership” inside the Department of Commerce.

RELATED: Age verification laws do not make us safer

Waldemarus/iStock/Getty Images

This amounts to a major expansion of taxpayer-funded bureaucracy tasked with creating a “playbook” for more age verification.

Supporters will note that lawmakers stripped the highly controversial “duty of care” provision from previous versions of KOSA and retained explicit protections for data encryption. But removing the worst elements of an inherently broken bill does not transform it into good policy.

Children deserve real and meaningful protection in the digital age. But true safety comes from empowering parents with robust tools, advancing media literacy, and holding actual bad actors accountable under existing criminal laws.

It does not come from turning the internet into a surveillance state where adults must show their papers to browse the web.

Congress must reject the KIDS Act and protect both the Constitution and the digital domain.

​Age verification, Big tech, Child welfare, Congress, Digital privacy, First amendment, Kids act, Online safety, Opinion & analysis, Parents, Surveillance state 

Blaze News readers spotted this problem from a mile away when we covered Ring’s creepy AI-powered surveillance features earlier this year. Ring should have seen it coming too, given the company’s penchant for spying on everything within viewing distance of its nearest camera — at least that’s what this new class-action lawsuit alleges. According to the suit, Amazon Ring is collecting and storing photos of passersby without their consent, and if the court finds for the plaintiff, the company will pay up to the tune of $5 million.

The lawsuit

In the class-action lawsuit filed by a Virginia man, Ring is charged with violating the privacy of millions of Americans through AI-powered facial recognition and analysis features included in many of its cameras embedded in video doorbells, mounted outdoors, and even placed inside homes.

The sad truth of the modern world is that mass surveillance is nothing new.

The suit specifically goes after Ring’s Familiar Faces feature, which is designed to detect the faces of “friends, family, and frequent visitors over time.” Once a familiar face is identified, Ring owners receive a notification that tells them which person is at the door.

In order to pull off this trick, Ring cameras allegedly must scan the faces of everyone who walks by and compare them with the facial images saved in its system. This includes friends and family members as well as complete strangers who have no idea that the camera mounted nearby is analyzing their likeness with AI. Just like that, a feature built for user personalization is now a potential tool for creating AI-generated profiles of vast numbers of unwitting Americans who did not agree to participate in Ring’s alleged public surveillance operation.

Even more problems for Ring

The lawsuit doesn’t even take into account Ring’s known spy-like feature called Search Party. Billed as a helpful tool to find lost pets, Search Party taps into a vast network of Ring cameras in a specific area to scan for lost dogs, cats, and other critters, identify them, and help owners bring them back home.

The concern here is that finding lost pets is merely the tip of the iceberg. If Ring’s surveillance dragnet can find animals, it can also scan for people, subverting privacy and crossing ethical boundaries. Even worse, a leaked email from Ring founder Jamie Siminoff admitted that mass surveillance was the true purpose of Search Party all along, concealed under the guise of stopping crime in neighborhoods.

According to Siminoff, Ring doesn’t use captured footage without users’ consent, stressing that “sharing has always been the camera owner’s choice.” This is only half true. While Familiar Faces is locked behind a manual setup process that requires users to opt in, Search Party is enabled on supported cameras by default; you must disable it manually in the Ring app to limit Ring’s spying capabilities.

RELATED: Shadowy companies are selling access to your smart TV — and its data

JDawnInk/Getty Images

Unfortunately, if the allegations are true, the anonymous people who walk in front of Ring cameras with Familiar Faces or Search Party enabled don’t get a choice in the matter, and images of these people are recorded, stored, and analyzed directly on Ring’s servers, often without their knowledge. Absent opt-in or opt-out options for these pedestrians, we come to the crux of the lawsuit.

Today’s spyware could be even more dangerous with AI

The sad truth of the modern world is that mass surveillance is nothing new. CCTV, which was first deployed in Nazi Germany to watch V-2 rocket launches from a safe distance during World War II, became a mainstay of American public security by the 1980s. Past is prologue. Fast-forward 40 years, and the powers that be have found an array of creative ways to spy on us — warrantless FISA investigations, smart TVs, smart glasses, and the list goes on.

Throughout these privacy violations, mass surveillance captured plenty of footage, but it used to take time and effort for real people to pore through it all and give it meaning. Today, AI can do all the image analyzing for governments, corporations, and bad actors in record time, allowing underground organizations to identify and monitor Americans so efficiently that it would make Communist China blush. The facade of privacy and online anonymity in America is effectively gone.

Thankfully, we still have some rights in this country, and one way we hold offenders accountable and test claims for truth is through our legal system. The class-action lawsuit against Ring was filed in June, and now the two parties have the option to settle or go to trial. While we wait, you can read the complete lawsuit here.

​Tech 

A Republican-sponsored bill wants to make sure no money goes toward censoring Americans’ speech online.

Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) is credited with making key additions to the text that people who feel they have been blacklisted online will surely appreciate.

Prohibitions on any form of deplatforming, deboosting, demonetizing.

The appropriations bill, H.R. 8595, contains text specifically designed to prevent NGOs and nonprofits from aiding tech companies in online censorship.

This includes prohibitions on any form of deplatforming, deboosting, demonetizing, suppressing, or otherwise penalizing lawful speech online in the United States.

Funds also cannot be used to affect advertising, sponsorship, payment, or revenues on the basis of lawful online speech.

Additionally, no programs can help, directly or indirectly, “create, disseminate, share, or operationalize any blacklist or similar designation system.”

Mike Benz, director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, described portions of the bill as prohibiting NGOs, contractors, or subcontractors from supporting or helping a foreign government looking to wield censorship laws on platforms like X, Meta, Google, or YouTube.

RELATED: The empire cannot drone-strike its way out of decline

Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images

However, among many of the appropriations in the bill, which includes money to the Offices of Inspector General, the State Department, and the Treasury Department, are appropriations to a series of organizations most Americans are likely are not aware of.

Many of these organizations are spending money in a way most Republicans would not approve of either, even if they are not even in the realm of censorship.

This includes appropriations for the National Endowment for Democracy, which has a stated goal of supporting “projects of nongovernmental groups abroad who are working for democratic goals in more than 100 countries.”

The organization’s board of directors includes several sitting U.S. House members and senators.

Appropriations also go to the Israeli Arab Scholarship Program, which “funds scholarships for Israeli Arabs to attend institutions of higher education in the United States.”

RELATED: DYSTOPIA NOW? UK will scan ‘all content’ on users’ phones without face scan or uploaded ID

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

The Center for Middle Eastern-Western Dialogue Trust Fund also gets support in the bill, an organization that has historically served as “a bridge between Iranian and U.S. scholars and experts by including Iranian citizens in its conferences when possible.”

It also pushes dialogue on topics including “the Caspian Sea and its neighbors, unity and diversity in Iraq, and the future of Afghanistan.”

Other appropriations are provided to the East-West Center, which has a “lush 21-acre campus” in Hawaii that “promotes better relations and understanding among the people and nations of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific.”

At the same time, the Asia Foundation has a “Strategy 2030” program that aims to “build inclusive, future-ready economies.”

The House will hold a final passage vote on the bill this week.

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​News, Gop, Republicans, Foreign aid, Ngos, Nonprofits, Social media, Tech 

A Florida man arrested for allegedly bragging about sexually abusing his young foster child also fostered 23 other young boys with his gay husband, police say.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said in a media briefing that 51-year-old John David Ballard was arrested after police received a cyber tip on May 7.

‘By his own statements, he was using these kids for his sexual pleasure.’

Ballard had allegedly admitted on the messaging app Kik that he had been sexually abusing the 7-year-old boy in his care.

Gualtieri said the messages were explicit, graphic, and “gross.”

Ballard allegedly admitted to the conversations to deputies when they served a search warrant on his phone in June. He also told officers that he’s “into some really weird stuff” after they found videos of bestiality on his phone, according to police.

Deputies allegedly found dozens of graphic child pornography images that included victims as young as 2 months old.

The investigation expanded when investigators discovered that Ballard and his husband, Bradley Borsuk, were very active in the foster community. The couple had fostered 23 young boys between 2017 and 2023 and had adopted five children between 2015 and 2023, according to police.

All of those boys were between ages 4 and 12 years old.

Gualtieri said officers had spoken to most of the boys, some of whom were now young men, and said some had described “concerning behavior” in the ongoing investigation.

Some allegedly said that Ballard would punish them by making them undress and stand in front of a window, and others said Ballard watched them take baths or showers.

Gualtieri said Ballard and his husband had even authored a book described as an adoption journal.

On June 17, Ballard was arrested and charged with 20 counts of possession of child pornography and five counts of sexual activity involving animals.

Ballard’s husband has not yet been arrested, and authorities are still considering what to do with the four adoptive children they have living in their home.

RELATED: Woman admits to horrific child sex abuse charges and bestiality — will testify against husband

“This is really a very difficult case, because it involved the betrayal of trust that the Child Welfare System puts into people who volunteer to help the most vulnerable among us. And those are children who have been abused, abandoned, and neglected,” the sheriff said.

“One thing that is really maddening about the situation is the fraud that Ballard committed on others by holding himself out as this model foster and adoptive parent,” Gualtieri added. “By his own statements, he was using these kids for his sexual pleasure.

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​Florida man, Foster children, Foster child abuse, Child sex abuse, Gay couple, Lgbtq, Crime