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The American education establishment is currently having a collective meltdown. If you watch the headlines closely, you can see the panic setting in across the country.

This is the unmistakable sound of a broken progressive machine collapsing under the weight of its own arrogance. The radical left has engineered our educational system to prioritize ideological compliance over human formation. Reality is finally catching up with them, and the collapse is starting where the crusade began. The war on merit.

A few years ago, the "prestigious" University of California system proudly eliminated standardized testing. They sacrificed the SAT and ACT on the altar of "equity," claiming that objective academic standards were inherently discriminatory. The administrators confidently claimed that removing the tests would level the playing field. They promised it would open the doors of elite academia to students with fewer resources, reshaping the demographic makeup of the incoming students.

CONFIDENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION SLIPS AFTER BRIEF RECOVERY, GALLUP POLL FINDS

This decision turned out to be a complete disaster.

The results are in and the failure is so undeniable that even the New York Times admitted that dropping test requirements was a terrible mistake. These universities are discovering the hard way that when you declare war on merit, you reward mediocrity. You rob intelligent, hard-working students of the ability to prove their worth, all to satisfy a progressive political checklist.

Standardized tests stood for generations as an equalizer. They were a reliable tool for intelligent hard-working students from a failing public school could use to prove they were just as capable as a wealthy student from a private prep school. A high SAT score cut through the noise of privilege. By eliminating that objective metric, the University of California did not fix inequality. They worsened the issue. Admissions offices were forced to rely on highly subjective metrics like inflated GPAs, heavily coached essays, and expensive extracurricular activities, things that favor the wealthy.

PENNSYLVANIA MEDICAL SCHOOL HIT WITH CIVIL RIGHTS COMPLAINT OVER ALLEGEDLY DISCRIMINATORY SCHOLARSHIPS

Without a standardized test to anchor the admissions process, they tried to engineer a utopian admissions process and ended up robbing working-class students of the ability to prove they are just as capable as those with limitless money and private tutors. The war on merit has led to the destruction of the higher education standard. Now, replacing it is a subjective system where ideological compliance and family wealth rule the day.

This spectacular failure in California should cause grave concern and serve as a warning for other higher education institutions in the country. We cannot build a prosperous, resilient nation by hiding from the truth or lowering the bar. If we want to truly help the next generation, we must stop lying to them about what it takes to succeed.

Real life does not operate on a test blind curve. In fact, we are already seeing elite institutions like MIT, Dartmouth, and Yale reinstating their test requirements because they realized the "equity" argument was entirely backward.

LIBERAL FACULTY STILL HUGELY OUTNUMBER CONSERVATIVES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: REPORT

As a university president, I, for one, will not stand by and watch higher education lose its merit. We must restore objectivity to the application process, and demand genuine intellectual effort over artificial, progressive shortcuts.

But this fight is about much more than admission to college. This is about the survival of America. The defining promise of this country has always been that it does not matter where you come from, how much money your parents make, or your last name. If you work hard and achieve excellence, there is a place for you. When education abandons merit, they destroy that promise.

The war on standards has failed. It is time to reject the equity hustle and restore excellence.

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Lindsey Graham was a consequential senator. If there was an important issue, he was right there on top of it. But that’s not the whole story. The essence of his character, the shaping of his background, the joy he found in people and in the political process, and the joy he brought to those around him, is the big story.

Over the years I had an opportunity to see Lindsey at work on many occasions, and to hear his passion for the issues. He could be the most entertaining person at any dinner table, but his wit was matched by a razor-sharp mind that was always considering how to solve the next problem. He never stopped working. The night he died he’d just returned from Kyiv, Ukraine where he’d met with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Lindsey’s love for people shined through. He had a special appeal and was socially gifted. Maybe that came from his early years hanging out in the back room of his parents’ bar, where he learned the fine art of schmoozing. People from every walk of life crossed his path, and he was interested in them all.

LINDSEY GRAHAM'S SISTER CARRIES ON LATE SENATOR'S WORK, BECOMING SOUTH CAROLINA'S FIRST FEMALE SENATOR

Lindsey also learned early in life the meaning of commitment. His mother died when he was 20, followed by his father months later. Lindsey became the legal guardian for his 13-year-old sister Darline, who once called him "a brother, a father and a mother rolled into one." He raised her to adulthood, and they have always been extremely close. With Lindsey’s death, Darline has been appointed by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster to finish her brother’s term, which expires at the beginning of 2027.

Lindsey’s death on July 11 at the age of 71 capped a Congressional career that began in 1992 in the South Carolina House, then the U.S. House for eight years, and the U.S. Senate since 2003. From 1995-2015 he simultaneously served in the Air Force Reserves. His passing brought a flood of tributes, including tearful memories from his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Their disputes melted away as they recalled their friend. What struck me most was how so many of them had stories about Lindsey’s passion for finding common ground so he could get things done.

I often observed that Lindsey loved to make a deal. He could work with anybody and threw himself into the most challenging public issues, laboring alongside people with whom he differed on other issues. He never let the differences get in the way—although he never pulled his punches when he disagreed, and he did passionately disagree with the left on many occasions.

'THE HALLS OF THE SENATE ALREADY FEEL EMPTY': TEARFUL THUNE HONORS LINDSEY GRAHAM AS SISTER TAKES HIS SEAT

Yet those same people summoned up sincere praise for him in the days following his death. Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin spoke with obvious fondness when he recalled emotionally, "Lindsey, for many years, was the only Republican willing to co-sponsor the Dream Act, a bill that I introduced over 20 years ago and reintroduced in successive Congresses, providing protection to undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children, his support took guts. At a time when issues surrounding immigration were becoming politically toxic, Lindsey stuck his neck out for me and for these young people. I will never ever forget."

New Jersey Democrat Corey Booker shared a similar experience, recounting their collaboration on important legislation. He admired Lindsey and appreciated his uniqueness. Booker recounted how a White House negotiator had once told him that "Lindsey Graham was like an unguided missile. That God, he never knew which way he was going to go, whether he would come back and hit you, but when he was aligned, when he would be in the right place at the right time, man, he could get things done that other people couldn't, and bring a lot of light and new possibilities to the efforts."

The day after Lindsey’s death, Senate Majority Leader John Thune spoke in the senate. With tears in his eyes he said, "I come to the floor today with a heavy heart. I look to my right, and I see a desk which we in the Senate refer to and know as the John Calhoun desk is covered with a black shroud, and on top of that shroud is a bowl of white roses. That is present as Lindsey Graham's desk. It's difficult to believe that Lindsey Graham is no longer here with us. That we won't run into him at a media day or share a joke with him at this afternoon's vote. The halls of the Senate already feel empty without him, and I know I'm not alone in that feeling. He was a friend to so many of us on both sides of the aisle."

KAGAN RECALLS LINDSEY GRAHAM'S VOTE THAT HELPED SEAL HER SUPREME COURT CONFIRMATION

One of my favorite interactions with Lindsey came in 2022 at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston, where an exact replica of the U.S. Senate chamber had been erected. There I hosted a debate between Bernie Sanders and Lindsey Graham, who were fierce ideological rivals, but who shared that common chord of civility and respect.

I remember well Lindsey’s opening remarks: "This place is awesome!" he declared, looking around the senate chamber replica. He explained, "We’re here to honor Ted and Orrin—Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, who were great friends. They fought like tigers, but they could work together. And I have a different take on things than Bernie, but I like Bernie." I was struck by Lindsey’s reference to Kennedy and Hatch. They were lions in the senate, and Lindsey was too, all belonging to an era when legislative disputes did not carry over into personal grudge matches. 

People like Lindsey were working toward a return to that idea, and the debate with Sanders was a step in that direction. The debate displayed their differences, but also surprising areas of commonality, such as on gun control. At the end, they were both smiling, and they agreed that the debate had been fun.

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Lindsey was a big believer in getting along, no matter what it took. During his short-lived campaign for president in 2015, he noted approvingly how Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill met together regularly for drinks at the White House, even though they were on opposite sides. "That’s the first thing I’m going to do as president," he promised. "We’re going to drink more."

Those who knew Lindsey understood that one of his great loves was golf. I played with him many times. 

Was he a good golfer? Not particularly. But he was extremely fun to play with. He recognized the importance of the game as a social bonding activity. He’d make you feel good to be with him. Which is one of the most important qualities of a golf partner, a friend, and a statesman.

It’s a big reason we’ll miss having him in our lives.

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Two families are suing a North Dakota hospital, alleging hospital staff mistakenly switched two baby boys at birth more than 36 years ago.

Kyle Bylin and Jeremy Morrison were the only two babies born at Unity Medical Center in Grafton, North Dakota, on Jan. 26, 1988, the men and their families said in the lawsuit, according to KVLY. Christian Unity Hospital Corporation, doing business as Unity Medical Center, was named as the defendant.

The plaintiffs allege hospital staff switched the infants and sent them home with the other child’s biological parents, the outlet reported. The two men were then raised by each other’s biological families, allegedly without anyone's knowledge.

The lawsuit says the switch was not discovered for more than 36 years.

FAMILY OF TODDLER FOUND ALIVE IN MORGUE AFTER BEING DECLARED DEAD PLANS LEGAL ACTION

Two years ago, Morrison, who now lives in Colorado, took a DNA test and learned the parents who raised him were not his biological parents. Morrison told KKTV that his aunt provided DNA, and Bylin matched as her nephew. Morrison said he does not have any cousins.

Morrison told the outlet that he always felt different from the family he grew up with.

"I didn't have anyone that looked like me in my family," Morrison said. "I was that blonde-haired kid that stood out in a family full of brown-haired people."

"I know I definitely wouldn't be here in Colorado today if I went home with the right parents," he said. "I would have been working the farm with my older brother that I never knew I had."

Both sets of parents have met their biological sons, but the two men have not met each other, according to KKTV.

DNA FROM SODA BOTTLE ALLEGEDLY LINKS MASSACHUSETTS WOMAN TO 1985 MURDER OF 'BABY BOY DOE'

Unity Medical Center denied the allegations and asked the court to dismiss the case with prejudice.

Attorneys for the hospital argued that its staff "possessed and exercised the appropriate degree of skill and learning" and "at all times used reasonable care, judgment, and diligence," according to KVLY.

The hospital also claims the lawsuit may be prohibited by the statute of limitations, pointing to "the length of time that has passed between the alleged incident and the service of this lawsuit."

The plaintiffs are seeking more than $50,000 in damages and have asked for a jury trial.

The hospital also raised comparative fault as a defense, arguing that damages, if any, could be attributable to parties other than the hospital.

The hospital has also demanded a jury trial.

Unity Medical Center said in a statement to KKTV that it is "currently working to better understand a highly unusual situation involving two men who apparently were separated from their biological parents at some point during their lives," adding: "Both men were born at our hospital on the same day in 1988, and we recognize the profound impact this discovery has had on them and their families."

"Unfortunately, because of the passage of nearly four decades, the medical and staffing records that might have provided additional clarity no longer exist, and no members of the delivery team from that time are still employed by the hospital," the statement continued. "While we deeply sympathize with the men and their families, we have found no evidence to support claims that Unity Medical Center or its staff were responsible for what occurred."

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"Maybe I lack imagination, but I didn’t expect that performing this service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one," Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Congress on Monday.

Justice Barrett was explaining in vivid terms why the Supreme Court had requested an additional $14.6 million, as part of its $228 million budget request, for enhanced security.

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES HEAD TO CAPITOL HILL FOR FIRST CONGRESSIONAL APPEARANCE SINCE 2019

Her fellow witness, Justice Elena Kagan, observed that threats against the Supreme Court had risen 38% this year. Justice Barrett herself had suffered a "swatting" attack earlier this year, in which someone falsely reported an armed shooter at her house. More alarmingly, an assassin attempted to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh after the 2022 leak of the court’s Dobbs opinion, which overturned Roe v. Wade and its creation of a constitutional right to abortion.

While the justices are often willing to write hundreds of pages setting out their opinions on constitutional law, they left unanswered the question of why threats have risen so sharply.

The answer seems clear. Left-wing activists and leaders have waged war against the court. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for example, warned Justices Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch against overruling Roe. He appeared on the front steps of the Supreme Court and threatened that they would "pay the price" and "won’t know what hit [them]."

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR CLAIMS GOP 'STOLE' TWO SCOTUS SEATS IN 2016, 2020, CALLS FOR EXPANSION

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has attempted to raise ethical doubts about the justices because they allegedly accepted gifts from wealthy benefactors. 

Virtually all the major leaders of the Democratic Party agree with the idea of packing the Supreme Court because they disagree with its decisions. Former Vice President Kamala Harris declared in May that Democrats should consider expanding the court with liberals and punishing conservatives. "This is a moment where there are no bad ideas," the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate said on a podcast.

These attacks stem from the left’s larger attack on the Supreme Court as an agent of the Trump administration. Schumer, for example, often criticizes what he dubs "the MAGA Supreme Court" for transforming government agencies into "members-only clubs for his golf buddies and cronies." House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries decries "the corrupt conservative majority on the Supreme Court appointed by Donald Trump" for taking "a blowtorch" to civil rights laws.

MORNING GLORY: THE SUPREME COURT OFFICIALLY CLOSES THE BOOKS ON ANOTHER TERM

But the Supreme Court term that just ended demonstrates — yet again — that the court does not decide cases with an eye to partisan winners and losers. President Trump lost on several of his signature policies: in Learning Resources, the court struck down the White House’s universal tariffs as beyond the delegation of international economic power; in Barbara, a 6-3 majority affirmed birthright citizenship over a Trump executive order; in Cook, the justices blocked Trump’s removal of a governor on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Trump only prevailed when his positions aligned with the Roberts court’s long-term agenda. In Slaughter, Trump won the power to fire the heads of administrative agencies, but the justices had been steadily expanding the president’s removal power for the last 15 years. In RNC, the court struck down more limits on the ability of parties to spend campaign funds in coordination with candidates, but only because the justices have steadily treated campaign funding as speech. In Callais, the Trump administration won the end of the use of race in congressional redistricting, but only because the Roberts court has steadily ended the government’s ability to use race in making decisions.

The court does not think in terms of Republicans and Democrats. It instead fights over much deeper differences between conservatives and progressives on constitutional interpretation.

The conservative justices generally believe that the court should interpret the Constitution based on the original understanding of its ratifiers; the liberal justices would allow contemporary ideals — whether political, economic or philosophic — to govern as well. These are the types of disputes appropriate to the Supreme Court, and to allow it to interpret and apply the Constitution free from political influence, the Framers gave federal judges lifetime tenure with undiminished pay.

But to make short-term political gains, the left would sacrifice the independence of the courts. Manipulating the size of the court in response to its decisions is just an attempt to dictate the desired outcomes to the justices.

Threats against them are merely another political tool to pressure the court to change its ways. These threats, encouraged by the heated rhetoric of Democratic leaders, along with court-packing, are themselves of a piece with the broader progressive attack on constitutional structure.

Democrats also want to abolish the Senate filibuster, which bolsters the constitutional structure by slowing legislative speed and enhancing deliberation and bargaining, so that the Senate will more closely resemble the House; add the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states, unbalancing the Senate; and enact nationwide voting legislation, thereby undermining federalism.

Progressives believe that they hold the keys to an enlightened socialist utopia. Because they are convinced that they know the only true political ends of society, they will not allow the structural limits on mob democracy, imposed by the Framers, to stand in their way.

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If the court will not permit the Constitution to be used to impose liberal theories of rights nationwide, progressives are happy to do away with the court’s independence. If the Senate will filibuster a wealth tax, then expand the Senate with blue states. If the president follows a restrictionist immigration agenda, then do away with the Electoral College, too.

Progressives, however, err in their attacks on the Framers’ restraints on pure democracy, embodied in a Supreme Court that interprets a written Constitution. If the last 10 years should have taught them anything, it is that they do not have the permanent support of the majority of the American people. When a majority of Americans support a president and Congress who will narrow or reverse the favored rights of progressives — witness the birthright citizenship case — they will be fortunate that an independent Supreme Court will hear their pleas. But that would require progressives to weigh the long-term benefits of a written Constitution against short-term partisan gains. 

That may be hoping for far too much.

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A 21-year-old Indian national who federal authorities said was in the U.S. illegally was sentenced Tuesday to four years and eight months in prison for causing a fiery Southern California crash that killed three people last year.

Jashanpreet Singh pleaded guilty to three felony counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence stemming from the October 2025 crash, according to NBC Los Angeles.

Authorities said Singh was driving a semitruck that plowed into slow-moving traffic on Interstate 10 in San Bernardino County, killing three people and injuring several others.

DEADLY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCK CRASH EXPOSED FAILURES ON THE ROAD AND AT THE BORDER: KEY SENATOR

Fox News Digital previously reported that Singh is an illegal immigrant from India who crossed the southern border in 2022 and was released into the United States by the Biden administration.

According to federal sources, Singh was first encountered by Border Patrol agents in California's El Centro Sector in March 2022 and released pending an immigration hearing.

The crash, which was captured on dashcam video, showed Singh never applying the brakes before slamming into traffic, according to investigators.

OUT OF CONTROL, UNQUALIFIED ILLEGAL ALIEN TRUCKERS ENDANGERING KIDS ON US ROADS, INSIDER WARNS: ‘JUST MADNESS’

Singh obtained a California commercial driver's license in June 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

In September, federal officials warned California they had uncovered compliance issues involving commercial driver's licenses and directed the state to make corrections, including pausing the issuance of new licenses to non-citizens and reviewing existing licenses to ensure they complied with federal requirements.

Anyone who did not meet the criteria was supposed to have their license revoked.

FEDS SAY RAPE CONVICT LIED HIS WAY INTO US CITIZENSHIP BY HIDING SEX ASSAULTS

Federal officials said Singh should have been disqualified under an emergency Department of Transportation policy. California officials said Singh’s CDL eligibility was based on federally approved employment authorization documents, while federal transportation officials said he should have been disqualified under new emergency rules. However, on Oct. 15, after he turned 21, a restriction on his commercial driver's license was removed.

Just six days later, authorities said Singh was driving the semitruck involved in the deadly crash.

Toxicology testing later confirmed Singh was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Fox News Digital's Greg Wehner, Jasmine Baehr and Michael Ruiz, along with Fox News' Bill Melugin, contributed to this report.

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Father Henry Stephan is one of the heroes of "Communion," the new book from Vice President J.D. Vance. Father Stephan was integral to the Vice President’s journey into the welcoming pews of the Catholic Church.

Even if you don’t buy "Communion," if you pass it displayed in an airport shop or find yourself in our dwindling number of actual bookstores, turn to page 163 and read the good Father’s additional explanation to the statement that "for most of us, grace is not something that happens in a moment."

"You don’t feel God’s presence and then change in an instant," begins Father Stephan’s longer explanation. But to quote him further would be to rob you of some of the surprising clarity of his explanation of "the road map to God." More of Father Stephan’s full reflection on grace might discourage you from actually reading the whole of Communion — which is actually four stories, artfully woven into one book.

'THE VIEW' CO-HOST WARNS AGAINST VANCE INTERVIEW BECOMING 'FREE-FOR-ALL' TO SELL BOOKS

The first story, and the one which stretches across all of its pages, is the Vice President’s lifelong quest to either accept or reject the idea of God and, having accepted it, the further account of how he landed in the Roman Catholic Church. Mass-attending "cradle Catholics" are likely to know at least a few converts, and their stories are often unique and uplifting. This one is most definitely that.

The second story is simply a love story. The Vice President recounts in loving detail how he fell — hard — for his wife Usha and how the beer-drinking Marine/Ohio State Buckeye-turned-Yale Law School hyper-ambitious-striver tricked the future clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts into moving to Cincinnati and marrying him.

There is also a third portion, a short but disquieting sharp meditation (at least to this Boomer because the VP may be right) on how Boomers may be overly attached to the assumptions about the West they were born into and have long believed and defended.

LISA DAFTARI: LINDSEY GRAHAM UNDERSTOOD AMERICA'S ROLE IN THE WORLD — AND WHY IT MATTERS

That vision of the West actually succeeded in its long contest with the Soviet Union. That the principles and assumptions behind that success may now be an unconscious burden a that older generation, is a disquieting thought. The Boomer generation is well represented in the Senate from which the Vice President came, even after the sad passing of Senator Lindsey Graham. The Vice President suggests we ought to at least consider the cost of over-valuing the prized "the rules-based world order", which may in fact be gone and not coming back. A reader doesn’t have to be persuaded by that mediation to at least give it some much-needed consideration.

The Vice President’s succinct critique of what may be the sunk costs weighing on my generation may actually stop and oblige some "Reagan conservatives" to wonder for the first time about that possibility. That clutch of pages punches hard.

Most of my generation was indeed blind to what the global economy was doing to America’s heartland even as it super-charged China’s totalitarian quasi-empire expanded its power and unveiled its ambitions. The battle with the Soviet bloc was indeed existential, but it was also conclusively won.

VANCE CALLS SCOTUS BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP RULING A 'MAJOR MISTAKE,' WARNS OF MORE BIRTH TOURISM

The collective sigh of relief and joy over the liberation of tens of millions when the Wall came down in 1989 and the USSR dissolved in 1991 may have, indeed, blinded those in the front rank of the fight as well as those at the tail end that the struggle to preserve "Western Christian civilization" had not ended with the fall of the wall, and that the rules of that long twilight battle may have changed if not evaporated. The recent and ongoing battle with Iran’s fanatical theocrats is a sharp reminder of the never-ending effort to preserve that treasury of that civilization unique to the West, one anchored in the Judeo-Christian worldview, but the threats it and its senior partners, China and Russia, are at least different in degree and maybe in kind.

Then there are occasional political riffs effortlessly woven into the book, each of which is integral to the story, but could each stand alone as the proposition for an Oxford Union debate, e.g. "Resolved: Western Civilization’s embrace of unrestricted immigration may have been, if not suicidal, then at least deeply and recklessly dangerous to its foundations." These are more reflections of a Catholic Christian than of a Republican politician, as is the brief but essential reflection on the widespread substitution of economic theory in the places where faith traditions once provided worldviews.

"One of the jobs of a Christian statesman," the Vice President writes, "is to preserve the social cohesion that makes charity and generosity possible." That is not the rhetoric of a stump speech, but the sort of conclusion one would expect from contemporary Christian essayists Rod Dreher or Ross Douthat, who are featured in the book.

As are St. Augustine, G.K. Chesterton, Rene Girard, and Pope Leo XIII. Who knew that a symposium on "Theology and Falsification" between Anthony Flew, R. M. Hare, and Basil Mitchell would challenge the reader to slow down and take a few passes over the text (and to look up and bookmark for later the transcript)?

This book is not the work of ghostwriters on a campaign timeline, but a spiritual biography that could actually spur many in the Vice President’s generation to actually articulate and grapple with the problems of meaning in an achievement-driven world, one that is changing at a pace so dizzyingly fast that young parents especially can be excused the raft of genuinely new fears that are additions to those fears felt by every generation of young parents. (You don’t actually have to have taken an 18 hour plane flight with three smalls to understand the Veep’s quip that there are more modern descriptions of Hell than a "lake of fire.")

For many recent decades, the heavy lifting of accessible writing about faith and public life has come from Douthat, Dreher, Ryan Anderson, Fran Maier, George Weigel and especially the now retired Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles Chaput.

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Before Archbishop Chaput and these elegant writers, there was Michael Novak and before him there was even the extraordinarily successful, in hindsight, Bishop Fulton Sheen’s television program. Pope (now Saint) John Paul II and Pope Benedict launched a thousand essays with their book-length works and their encyclicals inspired a new generation of vocations. Vice President Vance does not for a moment consider himself a theologian, but he is in the tradition of writers about faith who spur others to consider that, just perhaps, they ought to look further into this particular world.

(The Vice President, it is important to note, does not shy away from the horror of the Church’s awful scandal of the sexual abuse of children by priests but is rightfully outraged by it and persuasively condemnatory of those complicit in it and its cover-up. Good for him.)

Throughout the book, though, there is a much-needed reminder that the marriages, children and multi-generational families that most likely to flourish in this wildly spinning world are those deeply rooted in the traditional Christian practice that has long defined America. And might yet again. Especially if more public figures thought as deeply and wrote as honestly about Jesus and the Church as does the Vice President.

The Vice President’s book tour did not often even pause on the substance of the book and the eternal questions of the purpose of man. For the benefit of would-be readers: "Communion" is not a book about political platforms or policy prescriptions. It is for Catholics, the Catholic-curious, or anyone interested in what comes after this one. If only to understand how such a search can unfold, "Communion" is an excellent addition to your nightstand.

Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

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A Deputy U.S. Marshal was shot and killed on Monday while serving an arrest warrant in Alexandria, Louisiana, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office said the incident happened at around 3 p.m. in the Rutland Road area, where authorities were attempting to arrest a wanted fugitive.

"Sheriff’s Detectives, along with members of the U.S. Marshals Violent Offender Task Force, were conducting a law enforcement operation in the Rutland Road area to arrest a wanted fugitive where an Officer Involved Shooting occurred," the sheriff's office said.

SUSPECT ALLEGEDLY GUNS DOWN DEPUTY IN AMBUSH DURING ROUTINE CALL THAT ROCKED QUIET TOWN, POLICE SAY

The suspect was taken into custody after a lengthy standoff, according to the sheriff's office.

Deputies said the suspect sustained injuries during the encounter and was transported to a local hospital for treatment.

NYPD OFFICER SHOT, GUNMAN KILLED AFTER ARMED BARRICADED STANDOFF IN BROOKLYN: POLICE

The FBI is leading an investigation into the killing of the deputy, while the sheriff's office is probing the shooting. Louisiana State Police are also assisting.

"The FBI responded to an incident this afternoon in Alexandria with the Alexandria Police Department, Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office, and Louisiana State Police," the FBI New Orleans Field Office said in a statement. "The FBI is now leading the investigation into an assault on a federal officer. Louisiana State Police is also investigating potential violations of state law. The subject, now under investigation, was taken into custody and there is no ongoing threat to the public. Because this is a very active and ongoing investigation we cannot comment further at this time."

FBI Director Kash Patel said: "FBI is investigating and offering full resources to the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office and our brave partners the @USMarshalsHQ after one of their deputies was tragically killed today while serving an arrest warrant in Alexandria, Louisiana. Suspect is in custody. Please pray for the deputy’s family and friends."

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