Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner Heading to Islamabad for Iran Talks

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Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser Jared Kushner will head to Islamabad, Pakistan, on Saturday for another round of negotiations with Iran, and Vice President JD Vance “is on standby” and could potentially join them there.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the plans on Friday afternoon, first on Fox News Channel’s America Reports and then to reporters moments later.

“As you know, and I spoke about it earlier this week, the president was flexible in granting an extension of this ceasefire. Throughout this time, the President has decided to dispatch Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner back to Islamabad. The Iranians want to talk,” Leavitt told reporters.

“They want to talk in person. So the President is, as I’ve said many, many times to all of you, always willing to give diplomacy a chance,” she added.

Leavitt, who said on America Reports that Witkoff and Kushner are scheduled to depart Saturday morning, told reporters that President Donald Trump, Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will await updates in Washington, DC.

(Read more from “Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner Heading to Islamabad for Iran Talks” HERE)

Four Women Accuse Lesbian Running For Congress In Utah Of Unwanted Sexual Advances

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Four women have now come forward to allege a Utah Democrat running for Congress made unwanted advances of a sexual nature.

Democrat Eva López Chávez is a Salt Lake city Councilwoman running in her party’s primary to represent the 1st congressional district in Utah. The accusations, including that she “restrained” the women while making unwanted sexual advances, allege the incidents occurred before López Chávez joined the city council in 2023. Three of the women who came forward currently hold elective office, including one who serves on the city council with Chavez, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

“If a man had done that to me, would there be a question if it was assault or not?” Democratic Salt Lake City Councilwoman Victoria Petro said to the Tribune. Petro said that López Chávez, an out lesbian who describes herself as a “queer Latina,” pushed her against a wall during a September 2022 party and told her, “The only reason I still f**k men is because a woman hasn’t shown me what I really want.”

Democratic Utah state Sen. Jen Plumb said she initially dismissed a November 2022 incident when López Chávez pushed her against a wall and asked if she was “sure” she wasn’t attracted to women. . .

Democratic Utah state Rep. Hoang Nguyen, who also runs a medical cannabis company and works in a investment group, recounted a 2022 incident in which she and López Chávez were departing from a campaign event for Plumb. López Chávez asked Nguyen for a ride to her car before asking Nguyen to pull over, the state lawmaker told the Tribune. (Read more from “Four Women Accuse Lesbian Running For Congress In Utah Of Unwanted Sexual Advances” HERE)

Healthcare Giant Prepares For Hearing After Allegedly Mishandling and Desecrating Corpses of Deceased Patients

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Harrowing reports of bodies allegedly being left to rot while the families were not notified about their loved ones passing away for months have come to light as the hospital’s parent company prepares for a hearing Tuesday.

CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit Catholic health system, is slated to give testimony before the House Committee on Ways and Means, a source familiar confirmed to the Daily Caller.

Although the list of witnesses has not yet been shared publicly, the April 28 hearing will discuss “the impact of rising health care costs on patients and families by examining the role of health systems within the current state of health care affordability,” according to an advisory from the committee.

CommonSpirit Health is the parent company of Dignity Health, which owns and operates Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, California, and Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, according to a report from local outlet Broke Ass Stuart. The outlet shared documents and detailed the accusations of loved ones waiting — in one alleged instance for over a year — only to learn that their family member had died and their corpse had decomposed.

Mercy San Juan Medical Center was the subject of two state disciplinary actions between 2022 and 2023 and the topic of a federal statement of deficiencies in 2024, in which many of these cases were documented. (Read more from “Healthcare Giant Prepares For Hearing After Allegedly Mishandling and Desecrating Corpses of Deceased Patients” HERE)

Country Bans Social Media for Children Under 15

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The Turkish parliament on Wednesday passed the latest national ban on social media for children, joining a trend that began with Australia’s landmark ban in December 2025.

Turkey banned social media for children under 15, requiring all platforms to implement strict age verification procedures. The law also covers online gaming platforms, which often have a social media element.

In addition to burdening social media and gaming platforms with creating age verification systems, Turkey also requires them to explain the intricacies of the new law to their users, create “user-friendly” tools for parental control, and avoid running “deceptive ads.”

Online game companies will be required to appoint “representatives” to Turkey to serve as compliance officers. Violations of the new law can be punished by fines and restrictions on Internet bandwidth.

Turkey’s legislation avoids terms like “ban,” instead framing the legislation as an order for social media companies to create “safe digital spaces” for children. (Read more from “Country Bans Social Media for Children Under 15” HERE)

Mom Who Spent 2 Days in Prison After Suffocating Baby Lets Barefoot 2-Year-Old Wander into Street While She Slept

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. . .A reckless Pennsylvania mom — who only did a two-day prison stint for smothering her 2-month-old son to death after a drug-fueled bender — was at it again when a toddler she was babysitting was found wandering the streets alone in near-freezing weather.

Arissa Ward, 32, was supposed to be watching the little boy Tuesday morning when he was “found in the middle of the road” with no shoes or socks on in nippy 37-degree weather, according to a criminal complaint, Law & Crime reported.

A passerby spotted the young boy on West Main Street in Windsor and contacted the authorities, Pennsylvania State Police told the outlet.

Officers quickly canvassed the area and alerted Children and Youth Services who told cops “to check Arissa Ward,” who lived nearby and had a troubled past when it came to caring for kids.

Troopers knocked on her door, when she allegedly told them “I’m babysitting and I just woke up. What is going on,” the outlet reported. (Read more from “Mom Who Spent 2 Days in Prison After Suffocating Baby Lets Barefoot 2-Year-Old Wander into Street While She Slept” HERE)

Trump DOJ Bringing Back Firing Squads for Federal Executions

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On Friday, President Trump’s Department of Justice issued a memo making clear it will renew the use of firing squads in federal death penalty cases.

FOX News posted excerpts from the memo, which said, “Today, the Department of Justice acted to restore its solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences — clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals.”

It also said, “Among the actions taken are readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration, expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad, and streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases.” (Read more from “Trump DOJ Bringing Back Firing Squads for Federal Executions” HERE)

Trump is Sending a Dangerously Wrong Message on Weed

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President Trump made a grave mistake in softening the federal stance on marijuana by reclassifying it as a Schedule III drug. The dangers of weed are real, insidious and growing worse.

At Trump’s direction, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday rescheduled it, removing it from the category of drugs like heroin to one for strong medicines.

Decades of propaganda seem to have convinced tens of millions of Americans that marijuana is benign, a harmless substance less worrisome than booze, cigarettes or even soda.

Increasingly legal and available around the country, pot is marketed to kids — through wacky colors, flavors and names — in a way that would horrify parents if done by gambling or porn companies.

Yet the drug has a profound impact on brain development in children, adolescents and young adults. Study after study has documented its profoundly destructive effects.

The drug disrupts cognitive functioning and brain activation concerning “working memory,” which controls how we follow instructions, solve problems and hold information, and its negative impact among regular users is long-lasting. (Read more from “Trump is Sending a Dangerously Wrong Message on Weed” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

House Ethics Quietly Probed NC Dem Alma Adams, 79, for Alleged ‘Inappropriate Relationship’ with Female Staffer

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A Democratic lawmaker was quietly investigated by the House Ethics Committee for allegedly pursuing an “inappropriate relationship” with a staffer — but the probe never substantiated the claims and was closed without releasing any public findings.

Rep. Alma Adams, a 79-year-old North Carolina pol who has served the state’s 12th District comprising Charlotte since 2014, was slapped with the ethics complaint in 2022 for getting “extremely close” to her aide Sandra Brown, NOTUS first reported.

Aides who spoke with ethics investigators were questioned about Brown’s visits to Adams at a one-bedroom apartment in DC — and her self-published novel that describes a quarrel between a woman and her lover’s husband, according to the outlet.

The book, “BossLady: The Legend of Sydney Donovan Begins,” was published under the pseudonym SaVette Brown, though the author’s Amazon page identifies her as “Sandra Austin Brown.”

Brown had claimed the fictional account “was loosely based on her life,” a source with direct knowledge of the remarks mentioned to NOTUS. (Read more from “House Ethics Quietly Probed NC Dem Alma Adams, 79, for Alleged ‘Inappropriate Relationship’ with Female Staffer” HERE)

Top Trump Terror Official Exposed on ‘Sugar Daddy’ Site

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A glamorous Trump aide has been suspended from her job after the Daily Mail exposed her dates with older ‘sugar daddies’ for cash.

Julia Varvaro, 29, was put on leave from her job as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism on Wednesday afternoon, hours after we revealed her shameless money-grabbing antics with a much older boyfriend who gave his name as Robert B.

A Department of Homeland Security source told the Daily Mail: ‘Julia Varvaro is on administrative leave as a result of the investigation and she is no longer serving in her capacity as a Deputy Assistant Secretary at DHS.’

Varvaro’s hunger for money and gifts from older men sparked national security fears.

One of the ‘sugar daddies,’ Robert B, a 57-year-old divorced father told his story to the Daily Mail after meeting Varvaro on a notorious website. (Read more from “Top Trump Terror Official Exposed on ‘Sugar Daddy’ Site” HERE)

Photo credit: Drjuliavarvaro via X

Iran Fires On 3 Ships In Strait Of Hormuz

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By Daily Caller. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, complicating ongoing negotiations.

The IRGC fired on three vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, according to information from the British military’s UKMTO. The action took place a day after President Donald Trump announced an indefinite ceasefire in a Truth Social post until the Iranian government would agree to resume in-person negotiations that were originally slated to take place in Pakistan.

The IRGC seized two of the vessels, according to reporting from The Associated Press. Iranian state media claimed the Iranian military was allegedly taking the ships back to Iran.

The ships that were hit were the Panama-flagged MSC Francesca, Liberia-flagged Epaminondas and the Liberia-flagged Euphoria, according to Reuters.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal. I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” Trump said in the Truth Social post on Tuesday. (Read more from “Iran Fires On 3 Ships In Strait Of Hormuz” HERE)

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Iran’s military more capable than Trump administration is publicly acknowledging, sources say

By CBS News. The Islamic Republic of Iran maintains more military capabilities than the White House or Pentagon has publicly admitted, according to multiple U.S. officials with knowledge of intelligence on the matter.

About half of Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles and its associated launch systems were still intact as of the start of the ceasefire in early April, three of the officials told CBS News.

Roughly 60% of the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still in existence, the officials said, including fast-attack speed boats. On Wednesday, Iranian gunboats attacked several commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, shortly after President Trump announced he was unilaterally extending a ceasefire to allow more time for peace talks.

Iranian air power has been significantly degraded but not erased, said the officials, who requested anonymity from CBS News because they were not authorized to discuss the matters publicly.

About two-thirds of Iran’s air force is still believed to be operational, the officials said, after an intensive U.S. and Israeli campaign that struck thousands of targets, including storage and production facilities. (Read more from “Iran’s military more capable than Trump administration is publicly acknowledging, sources say” HERE)