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US Army preparing for first executions in 65 years – ABC News

The US Army is preparing to carry out its first executions of death-row service members since 1961 if President Donald Trump orders them, ABC News reports, citing an internal planning document.

Trump has advocated wider application of the death penalty as a deterrent against violent crime.

ABC News reported on Saturday that the plan – known as Operation Resolute Justice – was circulated internally in February and requires the military to be ready to carry out executions “no later than 150 days from the date of presidential approval of the death sentences.”

The preparations reportedly include reviewing execution procedures and transferring the four death-row inmates from the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Army spokesperson Cynthia Smith downplayed the preparations as a “standard component of our continued planning,” noting that Trump has yet to issue a specific order, as quoted by the publication.

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Signal, DuckDuckGo, and NordVPN threaten to exit Canada if metadata surveillance law passes

Another day, another government attempt to force tech companies to build backdoors. This time, Canada is proposing legislation that would require companies to retain certain metadata and provide law enforcement with access to it. Predictably, many tech players have sharply criticized the proposal, with some saying they would rather leave the Canadian market than comply.

The latest version of Canada’s Bill C-22 would require digital services such as internet service providers, messaging platforms, email providers, and potentially hardware companies to retain up to one year of user metadata. In addition, tech companies would have to implement mechanisms that allow authorities to obtain “lawful access” to that information for criminal investigations. Critics argue the proposal amounts to another government-mandated backdoor.

During his testimony before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Signal executive Udbhav Tiwari said Bill C-22 would turn everyday digital tools into a surveillance network. He argued that requiring companies to retain metadata about users’ communications runs counter to Signal’s privacy practices.

A spokesperson for DuckDuckGo also confirmed that the company would remove its VPN service from Canada if Bill C-22 passes. NordVPN and other VPN providers have made similar statements.

Apple and Google have also joined industry warnings that the legislation could force them to weaken encryption. Last year, Apple successfully opposed a similar proposal in the United Kingdom that would have required it to build a backdoor into iCloud. The incident was the latest in a series of conflicts between the Cupertino-based company and government regulators over security and user privacy.

The primary concern is that malicious actors would inevitably discover and exploit any digital backdoor, regardless of whether it was designed exclusively for law enforcement or domestic government agencies. OpenMedia, which has described C-22 as an attempt to create a surveillance state, pointed to a late-2024 incident in which Chinese state-backed hackers compromised government-mandated police wiretap systems to steal sensitive data from AT&T, Verizon, Lumen Technologies, and other telecom providers.

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Defense Witness BLOWS UP Karmelo Anthony Murder Trial

Explosive testimony by a witness called to the stand by the defense blew up the Karmelo Anthony trial on Monday.

As TGP previously reported, 16-year-old track and football star Austin Metcalf was brutally stabbed to death in April 2025 during a championship track meet at Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, Texas.

Metcalf, a junior at Frisco Memorial High School, was attacked in broad daylight — at a school-sanctioned event meant to showcase hard work, discipline, and sportsmanship.

Austin Metcalf died in his twin brother Hunter Metcalf’s arms.

The suspect, (now 18-year-old) Karmelo Anthony of rival school Frisco Centennial, was charged with first-degree murder and faces between 5 and 99 years in prison.

Over the weekend, numerous eyewitnesses who testified on the witness stand, said Karmelo Anthony instigated the fight and stabbed Austin Metcalf in an unprovoked attack.

Current and former students who witnessed the brutal stabbing testified under oath that Karmelo Anthony was looking for a fight.

The state rested its case on Saturday after calling 21 witnesses to the stand.

The students who witnessed the murder all testified that Karmelo Anthony shouldn’t have even been in the same tent as Austin Metcalf. They all testified that Karmelo Anthony was the aggressor.

On Monday, the defense called a teen witness to the stand and they blew up the trial.

The unidentified minor teen previously claimed that Karmelo Anthony was “surrounded” and ganged up on prior to the stabbing.

However, on Monday, the teen testified that during cross-examination that “Karmelo was in the wrong” and provoked the confrontation, Fox News reported.

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Obama Judge Blocks Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee

A federal judge on Monday blocked President Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa fine.

US District Judge Leo Sorokin, an Obama appointee, said the $100,000 fee is an unauthorized tax.

CNBC reported:

A federal judge on Monday vacated President Donald Trump’s policy imposing a $100,000 fee for employers’ H-1B visa applications.

The visa payment policy violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution, Judge Leo Sorokin declared in the ruling in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.

Sorokin agreed with the plaintiffs in finding “the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax,” and that Congress had not delegated that power to the executive branch.

The H-1B policy was created in 1990 and is heavily used by U.S. tech giants to bring in high-skilled workers from overseas. The program allows U.S. employers to seek government permission to hire a nonimmigrant workers in specialty occupations for up to six years.

Last September, President Trump announced new restrictions of certain nonimmigrant workers.

“American IT workers have reported they were forced to train the foreign workers who were taking their jobs and to sign nondisclosure agreements about this indignity as a condition of receiving any form of severance. This suggests H-1B visas are not being used to fill occupational shortages or obtain highly skilled workers who are unavailable in the United States,” the White House previously said.

“The abuse of the H-1B program is also a national security threat. Domestic law enforcement agencies have identified and investigated H-1B-reliant outsourcing companies for engaging in visa fraud, conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and other illicit activities to encourage foreign workers to come to the United States,” the White House said.

“Further, abuses of the H-1B program present a national security threat by discouraging Americans from pursuing careers in science and technology, risking American leadership in these fields. A 2017 study showed that wages for American computer scientists would have been 2.6 percent to 5.1 percent higher and employment in computer science for American workers would have been 6.1 percent to 10.8 percent higher in 2001 absent the importation of foreign workers into the computer science field,” the White House said.

President Trump required a $100,000 payment to accompany new H-1B Visa petitions.

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Washington’s Business Exodus

Washington state’s business climate continues to deteriorate under the weight of record tax increases and burdensome regulations. A spring 2026 survey by the Association of Washington Business (AWB) reveals alarming trends, nearly 1 in 4 employers (24%) are now actively considering relocating their businesses out of state, up sharply from 17% in the previous quarter and nearly triple the level from winter 2025.

Another 55% of business leaders are considering moving their personal residences elsewhere, citing the state’s escalating tax burden as the top challenge. This flight is no surprise. Washington’s business tax climate has plummeted from 6th best in the nation in 2014 to near the bottom today, with the state now ranking among the worst for small business survival.

Major tax hikes enacted in 2025 are now hitting businesses hard. Starting in late 2025 and accelerating into 2026, the state increased Business & Occupation (B&O) tax rates for service businesses and introduced new surcharges. Large companies face a 0.5% surcharge on taxable income over $250 million, while advanced computing firms saw their surcharge jump dramatically. These changes, part of the largest tax increase in state history, are projected to reduce state GDP growth by up to 0.5% in 2026 (nearly $4.5 billion) and cut wages by billions more.

Office vacancy rates reflect the pain. While Seattle’s downtown vacancy remains among the nation’s highest (hovering between 28% and 35%+ in Q1 2026 reports), the broader Puget Sound region and state face similar pressures from remote work shifts and corporate relocations. Companies like Starbucks are shifting hundreds of jobs to lower-tax states such as Tennessee. Other firms have issued WARN notices and moved operations to Idaho, Utah, and beyond.

High-profile exits and stalled expansions are mounting. Entrepreneurs report that Washington’s combination of high taxes, regulatory red tape, and hostile policies makes growth nearly impossible.

Bottom line is as the high earners and companies leave the state, the revenue from increased taxes, including the new income tax, will dry up and politicians in Olympia will be left scrambling for new sources of tax revenue. The $1,000,000 threshold on the income tax will fall in the blink of an eye.

Politicians have to restore small business owners’ confidence in the regulatory environment and keep the promises they are making. Just 3 months after signing the income tax into law, lauding it as the way forward for the state, Governor Ferguson is now claiming he will veto any change to the exemption threshold in order to garner support to keep the legislation in place. History indicates that Ferguson’s claim might be a little “flexible,” and that’s the problem. There is no predictability for business owners.

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California Was a Paradise, Then Newsom Happened

People talk about the California disaster, but I don’t think we fully appreciate the severity and the manifestations of it. And the best barometer to discover that is how many people are leaving. It’s estimated that somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 Californians left in ’25, ’26. 

Now, the problem with that is they’re not leaving a barren state. They’re not leaving a cold Alaska. They’re leaving the most beautiful state in the country that for years under a bipartisan system of Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, and to some extent Arnold Schwarzenegger, it had wonderful governance. 

So, why are they leaving? Why have 11 to 12 million people, a quarter of the present population, left California?  

Well, the Reason Foundation just did a comprehensive study of all the roads in all the states and ranked them according to congestion, quality of roads, bridges, everything. California was 49th, 49th in the country. 

In terms of school scores, it’s down to about 40 to 41 in the nation, even though it’s 13th in the amount of money it spends. It’s got one-third of all the homeless people, maybe up to nearly a half in some studies.  

It’s got a third of all the welfare recipients. Twenty-two percent of the people live below the poverty line. 

Think of this. It has the highest gasoline taxes in the nation and the highest gas prices, and that’s a combination. It refuses to tap its considerable fifth-in-the-nation oil and natural gas reserves to the full extent that it could. 

It shut down the timber industry. It shut down the mining industry. 

So, we’re paying because of our green fanaticism on oil blends, and we’ve been driving out oil refineries, and we have these high taxes. 

We’re paying $7 to $8 a gallon right now for gas. We have the highest electricity rates in the continental United States. Only Hawaii has it higher. Think of that.  

We have some of the highest property crime rates in the country. San Francisco, until recently, was the highest property crime rate city per capita in the nation. 

Our sales tax is among the top 10. We have the highest income taxes. Now, we know why this is the problem.  

We know why, why this all happened. We haven’t had a Republican governor in nearly 20 years since Arnold Schwarzenegger left. We have no statewide offices that are Republican, no attorney general, no lieutenant governor, no state controller, nothing. 

We have 52 seats in the Congress. We only have seven, you know, it’s like 12% … We only have seven Republican congressmen, and yet Donald Trump almost got 30%, 40% of the vote. So, we have less than a third of what we should be proportionally represented in Congress.  

All of the state and local judges, after 20 years of governance by left-wing [officials], are left-wing themselves. 

So, the judicial, the executive, and the legislative branches are all one party, supermajorities in both legislatures. No statewide officer that’s a Republican.  

What do you do about it? Well, who is the iconic victim? Who has been at the center of this maelstrom for the last 30 years? One man, Gavin Newsom. 

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Dept. of War removes Wicca, about 180 other belief systems as recognized religions

The Department of War recently dropped approximately 180 belief systems from its list of recognized religions for U.S. military personnel, including Wicca and other neo-pagan faiths.

A May 20 memo issued by the Undersecretary of War Elbridge A. Colby and signed by Anthony Tata, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, trimmed the list from 211 faiths to 31, according to Military.com.

The move intends to “streamline the DoW collection of religious preferences for service members to enhance the delivery of targeted religious support from the Chaplaincy,” said the memo, which ordered the revision of the “religious affiliation codes” to go into effect within 60 days.

“The new list will provide chaplains with clear, readily available information that will better enable them to anticipate the religious support needs of service members and to provide religious support activities that align with service members’ personal faith and practices,” the memo added.

Some of the belief systems that have been removed from the list include atheism, which was replaced by a general “no religion” or “agnostic” designation; pagan or Earth-based faiths such as Wicca, Druidism, Heathenism and members of The Troth; New Age beliefs such as Eckankar, Rosicrucianism, shamanism and spiritualism; as well as other alternative belief systems, including Deism, Unitarian Universalism and practitioners of “magick.”

The religions that remain are various denominations of Christianity, Buddhism, Mormonism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism and the Baha’i faith.

The directive ultimately came from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who pledged last year to overhaul the military’s Chaplain Corps by refocusing it on religious ministry and eliminating what he called secular influences.

Hegseth announced the initiative in a video message on Dec. 16, 2025, that promised to “make the Chaplain Corps great again” and condemned New Age notions in the “Army Spiritual Fitness Guide” that he ordered eliminated.

Hegseth, an Evangelical whose church is affiliated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), has repeatedly promised to root out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and other “woke garbage” from the Pentagon. He has drawn scrutiny during his tenure as Secretary of War for his use of Christian rhetoric, such as invoking imprecatory psalms against the enemies of the United States, weeks after the U.S.-Israeli attack against Iran.

An anonymous U.S. Army veteran who is ordained as a priest in Wicca and the neo-pagan faiths of Ásatrú and Druidism expressed anger to Military.com about the new list. The individual, who served three tours in Iraq, claimed it “rekindled that anger” they felt upon allegedly being discriminated against by military chaplains 20 years ago for being a self-described pagan.

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Advanced Alzheimer’s successfully treated with psilocybin, a recent case study says

A newly published case report in Frontiers in Neuroscience describes a remarkable and unexpected clinical response in an 80-year-old woman with advanced Alzheimer’s disease following a single high-dose psilocybin intervention.

The patient had lived with Alzheimer’s disease for approximately 10 years and experienced severe functional decline over the preceding five years. According to the report, she had become largely monosyllabic, demonstrated profound cognitive impairment, chronic urinary incontinence, impaired mobility, dysphagia, executive dysfunction and severe reduction in spontaneous communication and emotional engagement.

After receiving a single 5g oral dose of psilocybin-containing mushrooms (Enigma strain), the patient reportedly experienced rapid and sustained functional improvement across multiple domains.

During the acute phase, the patient entered a prolonged deep sleep-like state accompanied by profuse sweating and clinically suspected hyperthermia.

Then, approximately 19 hours later, something unexpected occurred.

The patient spontaneously awakened and began speaking for hours, engaging in autobiographical conversation and recalling memories that had not been expressed in years.

Over the following days, her family reported meaningful improvements in:

  • Speech and communication.
  • Memory and contextual recognition.
  • Walking and mobility.
  • Emotional connection and social engagement.
  • Bladder control, after years of chronic urinary incontinence.

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The Real Reason the FAA Authorized the COVID Shots Revealed in Court Documents

An experienced airline pilot claims he faced retaliation for opposing the COVID-19 shot, which he believes undermined personal liberties and aviation safety across the industry. He contends that these matters should be investigated as facts about the so-called vaccine and surrounding policies continue to emerge.

The Gateway Pundit spoke to Captain Bahig Saliba, a pilot who dedicated over 27 years to American Airlines. He opposed the airline’s policies and practices that were implemented during the declared pandemic. That led him to initiate pro se legal action against the airline and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) beginning in 2022, alleging retaliation and federal aviation law violations.

Saliba expressed concern regarding the infringement of personal liberties and aviation safety, noting that retaliation manifested in various forms, including a demand by American Airlines for a fitness for duty examination without any reason given, even when Saliba had an impeccable record.

Saliba emphasized that federal agencies must adhere to the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), which outlines the processes for rulemaking. “However, under the sovereign immunity umbrella,” he said, “agencies possess a wide range of discretion in rule and decision making.” With this discretion, he remarked, “agencies may not violate the law, but they often do.”

He argued that the FAA’s Federal Air Surgeon, Dr. Susan Northrup, wields the most discretion of all within the agency. She has the authority to medically certify pilots and air traffic controllers as well as to issue FAA medical certificates, he explained, adding, “that authority includes the prohibition or authorization of medication for use by holders of such certificates.”

“While the FAA medical certification is a civilian branch of government,” Saliba pointed out that “the U.S. military also benefits from the FAA expertise and authority in the field of aviation medicine.”

“The medical certification is not a simple visit to an FAA Aeromedical Examiner (AME) for a physical checkup,” the former airline pilot disclosed. Rather, it is a legal process detailed by Northrup herself in the video below.

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FBI Records Reveal Witness Account that SWAT Officer Recovered ‘Remote Device’ from Butler Shooter’s Pocket

Judicial Watch announced today that it forced the release of 48 heavily redacted pages from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that indicate that a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officer at the July 2024 presidential rally for Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, recovered a “gray remote device” with an antenna from would-be assassin Thomas Crooks’ pocket after he was killed.*

The records also show that a medic with the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit told the FBI that she was on the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building examining Crooks’s body when she was informed that a police canine had “hit” on the building and she was told to evacuate the roof where Crooks’s body remained. 

Judicial Watch filed the July 2025 lawsuit after the FBI failed to respond to a July 2024 FOIA request for all records related to Crooks and the assassination attempt on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. The request included investigative files, interview summaries, reports, communications, media, and database records, as well as any FBI communications—across all formats—between FBI personnel, sources, contractors, or assets and Crooks himself (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-02216)).

In a July 17, 2024, FD-302 interview summary a Beaver County Emergency Services Unit (ESU) first responder told the FBI that she observed a SWAT officer recover a remote device and a cell phone from Crooks’ pocket. The first responder also states that she was called to the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building where she examined Crooks and pronounced him deceased:

[Redacted] confirmed she was present at the Butler County fairgrounds for the Trump rally. Her responsibilities included providing medical backup for the ESU [Emergency Services Unit] team or any police response. She arrived at the fairgrounds at 9:00am and was positioned at the spectator screening area.

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