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“Completely Untrue”: Holy See Rejects Fake News Story of Pentagon Threat to Vatican

In a desperate effort to drive a wedge between Catholics and the Trump administration, the fake news circulated a story implying that the Department of War (DOW) threatened the Vatican.

According to the initial report in The Free Press and amplified by outlets such as The Daily Beast, Catholic blogs, and social media, the incident allegedly occurred during a closed-door meeting on January 22, 2026, at the Pentagon.

The report claims that Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby (a Catholic and a Trump administration official) and colleagues supposedly summoned the then-Vatican apostolic nuncio/ambassador to the U.S., Cardinal Christophe Pierre, and delivered a “bitter lecture.”

One official reportedly invoked the Avignon Papacy (a 14th-century historical episode where French kings exerted military/political control over the Pope), which some interpreted as a veiled threat of force or pressure against the Holy See.

The Vatican, however, formally debunked the story.

CruxNow reports:

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni flatly denied the report in a statement Friday, saying that “As confirmed by His Eminence Christophe Pierre…his meeting with Mr. Elbridge Andrew Colby was part of the papal representative’s regular mission and provided the opportunity for an exchange of views on matters of mutual interest.”

“The narrative offered by some media outlets about this meeting is completely untrue,” Bruni said.

The Vatican nunciature in Washington had previously distributed a statement to the press also denying the portrayal of the meeting, confirming the Jan. 22 meeting at the Pentagon to discuss “current affairs,” but characterizing the interaction as “routine.”

“The Apostolic Nunciature is grateful for the opportunities to meet and dialogue with government officials and others in Washington to discuss areas of mutual concern,” the nunciature said.

“As confirmed by His Excellency Christophe Pierre, former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, his meeting with Mr. Elbridge Andrew Colby was part of the Pontifical Representative’s regular mission and provided an opportunity for an exchange of views on matters of mutual interest. The narrative presented by certain media outlets regarding this meeting does not correspond to the truth at all.”

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War for Fusion – From Iran’s Front Lines to a Boston Scientist’s Murder

“BLOOD, FUSION, and POWER” asked whether the Brown University mass shooting and the killing of MIT fusion scientist Nuno Loureiro were random crimes or signs of a bigger battle over fusion. This battle is really about who will control future energy and military power, and why those choices are being made far away from the American people.

Under Barack Obama, the United States quietly moved tens of billions of dollars in funding, equipment, and scientific work toward the France based ITER fusion project and away from American labs, weakening U.S. facilities while feeding a foreign run “global collaboration.” Even some Democrats and budget experts warned that ITER was turning into a money pit that trapped U.S. fusion funding inside a structure controlled overseas. Taxpayers were never plainly told that money meant for American labs and jobs was being shifted so a multinational body in southern France could decide how it would be spent.

France sells ITER as a peaceful science and climate project, but it is also a tool of French power. Hosting the world’s flagship fusion experiment makes France the gatekeeper of a critical energy technology. China is an official partner, shipping giant components to the French site and embedding its engineers there while using what they learn to boost their own “artificial sun” projects at home. Iran, although blocked from formally joining ITER by a U.S. veto, has locked itself into a sweeping 25 year strategic deal with China covering energy and technology, and has sought scientific cooperation with Europe in nuclear adjacent fields. On paper, ITER is neutral; in reality, France, China, and Iran are tied together through energy, technology, and strategy. The current war involving Iran’s proxies only underlines the point. Any serious solution has to look at those backing and supplying Tehran, not just the fighters on the ground.

This creates a sharp problem inside NATO. France enjoys the full benefits of the alliance and American security guarantees, yet hosts a fusion project closely tied to Chinese industry and sits in a European environment that looks for ways to keep trade and energy links with Iran alive. How can a country claim to protect NATO and U.S. interests while deepening its energy and technology ties to Beijing and standing at the center of a system that helps the very powers arming Iran’s war?

At the same time, there are still no clear answers about why someone killed one of America’s top fusion scientists. Police and media reports identify the suspected gunman, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a former Brown physics student later found dead in an apparent suicide, as the man likely responsible for both the Brown University shooting and Loureiro’s killing. Yet officials have not provided a convincing motive and have said they have no public evidence linking the attack directly to Loureiro’s research. The official story stops right where the real questions begin, and what the public is being asked to accept, without full explanation, does not make sense.

All of this unfolded as President Donald Trump pushed in the opposite direction, toward bringing fusion power and investment back under American control. In 2025, his administration advanced an “America First” investment and industrial approach, tightening focus on strategic sectors such as advanced energy and technology and supporting moves toward a national fusion roadmap aimed at a strong domestic industry.

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Musk’s xAI Sues Colorado Over AI Law, Saying It Forces Developers to Back State’s Views

An artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk filed a lawsuit on April 9 over a Colorado law it claims makes AI developers endorse “Colorado’s views on diversity, equity, and inclusion or face significant compliance costs and civil fines.”

xAI, whose flagship product is the chatbot Grok, named Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser as the defendant. The lawsuit states that the law’s provisions “prohibit developers of AI systems from producing speech that the State of Colorado dislikes, while compelling them to conform their speech to a State-enforced orthodoxy on controversial topics of great public concern.” The lawsuit says the Colorado law violates the First Amendment.

Weiser didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

The lawsuit questions the use of the term “algorithmic discrimination” in the law, calling it vague.

The text of the law defines it this way: “Algorithmic discrimination means any condition in which the use of an artificial intelligence system results in unlawful differential treatment or impact that disfavors an individual or group of individuals on the basis of their actual or perceived age, color, disability, ethnicity, genetic information, limited proficiency in the English language, national origin, race, religion, reproductive health, sex, veteran status, or other classification protected under the laws of this state or federal law.”

The bill, SB24-205, was introduced in April 2024, passed the next month, and will take effect on June 30, 2026.

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America Last: War Abroad, Tyranny at Home—and the Theft of a Nation

“We’re fighting wars, we can’t take care of … daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things… We have to take care of one thing: military protection.”—President Donald J. Trump

Every bomb dropped abroad is a bill sent home.

Every war waged in the name of “security” is paid for by Americans who go without—without affordable healthcare, without stable housing, without a government that prioritizes their well-being.

As the U.S. pours trillions into endless wars and military expansion, Americans are left paying the price—not just in dollars, but in lost freedoms and eroded constitutional protections.

This is not national defense.

This is organized theft.

While Americans struggle with rising gas prices, soaring grocery bills, and mounting debt—fueled in part by reckless tariffs and preemptive wars—the federal government is spending money it doesn’t have on military expansion, foreign conflicts, and presidential excess.

This is not America First.

If anything, it is becoming painfully clear that Donald Trump’s “America First” approach to governing puts America last every time.

Trump has not made it a priority to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure. He has not made it a priority to invest in innovation or ensure that the nation remains competitive in a rapidly advancing technological world. Nor has he shown much concern for caring for veterans, the elderly, or the young.

Instead, the government is cutting back on programs that make Americans healthier, smarter, and more secure—while the president builds monuments to himself and indulges in a taxpayer-funded lifestyle of staggering excess.

Despite once claiming he would be too busy to play golf, Trump is on track to leave taxpayers with a bill exceeding $300 million in travel and security expenses—much of it tied to frequent trips to his Florida properties. Each visit to Mar-a-Lago costs an estimated $3.4 million.

Meanwhile, taxpayers are shelling out $273,063 per hour to keep Air Force One in the air.

And while millions of Americans struggle to afford basic necessities, Trump is demanding $377 million—an 866 percent increase—to renovate the White House residence.

But these excesses, outrageous as they are, pale in comparison to the true cost of this administration’s priorities: war.

The Trump administration has requested $1.5 trillion for its FY 2027 military budget—separate from an additional $200 billion in emergency funding for the war in Iran.

The sitting president of the United States is spending money that is not his to spend in order to fight endless wars unauthorized by Congress that do nothing to protect the American people or our interests, while insisting that the federal government’s only priority should be the military industrial complex.

In addition to increasing the budget for the military, prisons, nuclear weapons, and a weaponized Justice Department, the Trump administration has also proposed budget cuts of $73 billion to non-military programs—slashing funding for medical research, public schools, and low-income heating assistance, as well as cuts to affordable housing, job training, small-business lending, anti-poverty programs, agriculture, NASA, research in social sciences and economics, humanitarian assistance and global health programs, among others.

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Department of Justice Launches Investigation Into the NFL: Report

The Department of Justice has reportedly launched an investigation into the National Football League over anticompetitive tactics that could harm the public.

NBC News reported Thursday that the federal government is investigating whether the NFL is charging consumers too much, now that games are broadcast across multiple streaming platforms that require paid subscriptions.

The story cited two unnamed sources who are “familiar with the investigation.”

The Justice Department’s investigation into the NFL is “about affordability for consumers and creating an even playing field for providers,” one government official told the outlet.

Regulators, lawmakers, and media outlets have voiced concerns over the past several years about how difficult it has become for consumers to watch their preferred sports games as a result of these new rights deals.

In early March, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah sent a letter to Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed A. Assefi and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson about “a new trend in televised sports that may harm American sports fans.”

“To watch every NFL game during this past season, football fans spent almost $1,000 on cable and streaming subscriptions,” Lee wrote.

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Bilderberg 2026: Washington Hosting the Global Deep State

The Bilderberg Group is meeting earlier than usual this year. The 72nd gathering of Western power brokers is taking place in Washington, D.C., from April 9 to 12. For decades, it was dismissed as a fringe conspiracy. But today, even its critics admit it is real, influential, and carefully shielded from public scrutiny.

According to the official release, discussion topics include:

  • AI
  • Arctic Security
  • China
  • Digital Finance
  • Energy Diversification
  • Europe
  • Global Trade
  • The Middle East
  • Russia
  • Trans-Atlantic Defence-Industrial Relationship
  • Ukraine
  • USA
  • Future of Warfare
  • The West

The list of participants, as always, reveals a dense concentration of political authority, financial power, and technological control. The composition is familiar, and so is the purpose. The event continues to function as a private coordination forum for a global order shaped by corporate, financial, and political elites moving in alignment.

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Bosnian War Criminal Who Tortured Serb Prisoners and Lied About it to Obtain U.S. Citizenship Sentenced to 30 Months in Federal Prison

A 53-year-old woman from Bosnia and Herzegovina who participated in the torture and abuse of Bosnian Serb civilian prisoners during the 1990s war has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after lying on her U.S. citizenship application to conceal her past atrocities.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, Nada Radovan Tomanić was arrested in West Virginia in 2023.

Tomanić was finally sentenced on April 8 in Connecticut.

She had pleaded guilty in November to one count of procuring U.S. citizenship contrary to law.

According to the Department of Justice, Tomanić served with the Zulfikar Special Unit of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s, including operations on Mt. Igman near Sarajevo.

Along with other unit members, she took part in the severe physical and psychological abuse of Bosnian Serb civilian prisoners held in detention facilities. The abuse included beatings and acts that amounted to torture and inhuman treatment, targeting victims based on their ethnicity and religion.

Tomanić entered the United States as a “refugee” in 1997.

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RFK Jr. Updates Guidelines for CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel to Include Risk Assessment

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on April 9 issued a revised charter for a key vaccine advisory panel, expanding its role to emphasize vaccine safety risks and widening the criteria for membership selection.

The new charter came after a judge ruled last month that previous votes from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) were invalid and blocked its new vaccine schedule for children.

The ACIP is a federal advisory committee that provides recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the use of vaccines to control diseases and helps establish immunization schedules for children and adults in the United States.

In the updated charter, signed by Kennedy on March 31 and published on April 9, the panel’s tasks now include advising the CDC on “gaps in vaccine safety research including adverse effects following vaccination.”

The charter says the ACIP will consider the “cumulative effects of vaccines and their constituent components” and engage in “re-analysis of vaccine safety and efficacy” as gaps are identified.

The new charter broadens the membership criteria of potential panelists beyond those with expertise in the use and research of vaccines and immunization practices, specifically adding toxicology and data science.

It states that members “shall be selected from authorities who are knowledgeable in the fields of medicine, vaccines, immunization practices, immunology, toxicology, pediatric neurodevelopment, epidemiology, data science, statistical analysis, health economics, recovery from serious vaccine injuries, or public health; have expertise in the use of vaccines or other immunobiologic agents in clinical practice or preventive medicine, have expertise with clinical or laboratory vaccine research, or have expertise in assessment of vaccine safety and efficacy.”

Ronald G. Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said the revised charter appears to shift ACIP’s focus toward vaccine safety and adverse events, rather than maintaining its traditional approach that considered “the full scope of vaccine data.”

“These changes suggest that routine immunization is unsafe — adding to confusion and increasing vaccine hesitancy,” Nahass said in a statement, warning that the updated charter could lead to lower vaccine uptake.

In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said, “The ACIP charter renewal and its publication are routine statutory requirements and do not signal any broader policy shift.”

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Convicted Democrat Voter Fraudster Who Pleaded Guilty on 106 Felony Charges Now Running Again for Mayor in Texas

A man who was convicted on 106 felony counts of voter fraud after he tried to rig a mayoral race with forged mail-in ballots is back on the ballot, running for mayor again in Carrollton, Texas.

Back in October 2020, The Gateway Pundit reported that Texas Democrat mayoral candidate Zul Mirza Mohamed (D) was arrested and charged with 109 felony counts in a brazen mail-in ballot fraud scheme while running for mayor of Carrollton

Zul Mohamed forged absentee ballot request applications for unsuspecting Carrollton residents and had the ballots sent to a fake “nursing home” address that was actually a P.O. Box he rented at a Lewisville mail store.

He did it using a fictitious Texas driver’s license and a fake University of North Texas student ID. When authorities searched his home, they found a fake insurance ID, a fake notary stamp, and a box full of Dallas and Denton County ballot applications.

He was originally hit with 25 counts of Unlawful Possession of Ballot/Ballot Envelope w/o Request of Voter (second-degree felonies) and 84 counts of Fraudulent Use of Mail Ballot Application (third-degree felonies). Three counts were later dropped.

Fast forward to December 2024, Mohamed pleaded guilty to 106 felony charges, 25 counts of the method of returning ballot and 81 counts of fraudulent use of an application for ballot by mail. A Denton County jury sentenced him to four years in prison and 10 years of probation.

He appealed the conviction, served just one month behind bars, and was released on bond.

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End of Federal Childhood Vaccine Incentives

Doctors will no longer receive financial rewards tied to childhood vaccination rates under key government programs. The announcement, first detailed in a December 30 memo from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), states that the agency “does not tie payment to performance on immunization quality measures in Medicaid and CHIP [the Children’s Health Insurance Program] at the federal level.” CMS urged states to discontinue similar incentives and eliminated mandatory reporting of childhood immunization data, though voluntary reporting remains an option. The memo also signaled efforts to strengthen informed consent and accommodate religious exemptions.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. welcomed the directive, posting: “Government bureaucracies should never coerce doctors or families into accepting vaccines or penalize physicians for respecting patient choice. That practice ends now.” Advocates such as Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland called it a welcome step toward treating vaccines like other medical interventions, free from metric-driven pressure. Pediatrician Dr. Michelle Perro noted that tying compensation to specific decisions can erode trust in care.

Promoting Preventive Care or Distorting Judgment?

This change comes after years of scrutiny over financial incentives in pediatric medicine. An October 2025 clip from Dr. Suzanne Humphries on The Joe Rogan Experience claimed some doctors could lose up to $250,000 annually by not meeting vaccination targets, including for Covid shots in infants. These incentives stemmed from value-based payment models under Medicaid, CHIP, and private insurers. Practices received bonuses or higher reimbursements for hitting coverage benchmarks (e.g., percentages of patients vaccinated). One analysis of an Oregon pediatric practice projected more than $1 million in annual losses for declining CDC-scheduled vaccines, largely from administrative fees. Roughly 40 percent of U.S. children are on Medicaid, amplifying the program’s reach. During Covid, specific per-dose payments (around $45 plus administration fees) added to the structure.

Proponents of the incentives argued they promoted preventive care and reduced disease outbreaks, with insurers — not pharmaceutical companies — providing payments to lower long-term costs. Critics, however, contended the metrics distorted clinical judgment and pressured families, contributing to eroded trust and reports of patients being dismissed for declining shots.

The CMS policy applies only at the federal level; some states or private insurers may retain incentives. It is telling that pediatric organizations are pushing back against broader vaccine-policy shifts under the current administration.

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