MMN Editor

Twenty-eight individuals in 12 different states have been charged with election interference or illegal voting in federal elections in the past two weeks, the U.S. Department of Justice says.
The effort to root out illegal, noncitizen voting has come as part of a large-scale move by the Trump administration to ensure election integrity prior to this year’s midterm elections.
This effort has extended to different states across the nation. On Monday, the DOJ announced charges against 12 individuals relating to election crimes committed in seven different states. This comes after the department, on Sept. 18, announced charges against 16 individuals, including three in Georgia, for illegal voting.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security commented on the partnership with the DOJ to root out election fraud across the country.
“DHS and DOJ are laser-focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens,” the DHS spokesperson told the Daily Signal. “Only Americans should elect American leaders.”
“Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: We will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences—including criminal charges and deportation.”
While investigations continue to root out election fraud, officials at the DOJ say the 28 individuals come from various countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and more.
Noncitizens across the nation have been charged with voting in elections, submitting voter registration applications, or election interference, the DOJ says. Some even voted multiple times.
Three noncitizens from Antigua and Barbuda, Mexico, and Venezuela living in Georgia were charged with illegal voting in elections, the DOJ recently announced.
Pauline Lewis, 65, an alleged noncitizen from Antigua and Barbuda, was detained on the grounds of voting as an illegal alien in a federal election.
Gabriel Covarrubias, a 44-year-old alleged noncitizen from Mexico, was suspected of voting in person using an incorrect name in the federal election of November 2024, while also making an untrue statement in an application for a U.S. passport.
Analiea Milliscent Eccles, a 44-year-old noncitizen from Venezuela and recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, voted nearly 10 times from 2008 to 2024. Additionally, she made a false statement that she was a U.S. citizen to cast her ballot in an election.
The scope of this interference in Georgia cannot be ignored, as the DOJ said individuals residing in Florida, Texas, Utah, and nine other states have been charged with these crimes, including multiple guilty pleas.
While some of the individuals involved were illegal aliens and some were only suspected noncitizens, or even lawful permanent residents, these crimes have not only involved noncitizens voting but also have expanded to additional crimes—such as untrue statements on citizenship applications and the suspected removal of roughly 300 mail-in ballots by a former mail carrier.
In Georgia, this occurred following the subpoena that was issued by DHS to the secretary of state’s office this month, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Mike Hassinger, public information coordinator for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, told the Daily Signal that he cannot “comment on any specific allegations made in ongoing investigations.”
However, he added, “Georgia was the first state in the nation to conduct citizenship verification of its voter rolls.”
In a statement sent to the Daily Signal, Raffensperger said, “These cases show exactly why citizenship verification matters. Georgia will continue to verify all voters, investigate potential violations, and work with law enforcement agencies to enforce the laws that keep Georgia elections secure.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

Basketball in Lebanon has become an important distraction, offering a temporary escape from war, financial hardship and the deep traumas.

Congress Keeps The Trading Desk Open: Senate Dems Sink Lawmaker Trading Ban 53-47

A midterm messaging bill that was never going to become law just confirmed the only bipartisan consensus that matters: members of Congress still get to play the tape.

Senate Democrats just blocked cloture on a bill that would have stopped lawmakers from buying new publicly traded stocks. The vote was 53-47. Sixty were required. But guess what happened? Republicans dropped Voter ID into it so the Dems would nuke it. 

The measure was H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act. House Republicans shoved it through on July 22 by 232-198, with 13 Democrats peeling off. Senate Majority Leader John Thune teed it up this week as a pre-recess vote for vulnerable incumbents, with Nebraska Republican Pete Ricketts as the face of the Senate version.

🇺🇸 BREAKING: Senate Democrats voted 53-47 against a bill that would have mandated photo voter ID and prohibited stock trading by members of Congress, with all Democrats voting against it.
The proposal would have restricted certain stock purchases by lawmakers, their spouses and… pic.twitter.com/CFLVlbf05v
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) September 30, 2026
It was not a vote on final passage. It was a vote on whether the Senate would even begin debate. Every Democrat lined up against it. Republicans got their campaign tape. The public got another press release about “integrity.”

What The Bill Actually Did

This was not a ban on congressional stock ownership. It was a ban on new purchases of publicly listed names by members, spouses, and dependent children, plus a 7-to-14-day public notice before a sale.

Stop Insider Trading Act – the fine print

Banned: new buys of publicly traded stocks and equivalent economic exposure.
Allowed: keeping existing portfolios; selling after advance notice; widely held funds/ETFs.
Penalty: greater of $2,000 or 10% of the trade, plus forfeiture of profits.
Not covered: the president and vice president; private companies; commodities; forced divestiture.
Bolted on: national photo-ID language lifted from the SAVE America Act.
Ricketts has been selling the companion as commonsense. In a July op-ed he said members could keep existing stock but had to telegraph sales so “the market” could get ahead of them. Violating a $1 million sale without notice would cost $100,000 plus profits. That is a parking ticket in a town where a well-timed options lot can clear that before lunch.

The 2012 STOCK Act already pretends to police this. It does not ban trades. It requires delayed disclosure and affirms that insider-trading law applies to Congress. The new bill would have gone further on purchases. It still left the core conflict intact: lawmakers can hold the names they regulate, vote the names they hold, and sell when the calendar is convenient.

The “Poison Pill” Was The Point

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer did not hide the strategy. On Tuesday, in floor remarks his office billed as exposing a “theatrical farce,” he accused Republicans of “skullduggery” for wiring a voter-ID mandate into an ethics bill.

There’s been a real effort to ban members of Congress from trading stocks and profiting off insider information—which I’ve supported for years.
This Republican bill, however, has no reform, no accountability, and no substance, and STILL allows members to own and sell stocks. pic.twitter.com/NL9i0ybWrK
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) September 30, 2026
He is not wrong about the mechanics. Democrats have already killed standalone voter-ID vehicles. Attach the same language to a popular ethics bill and you force the minority to vote against “banning insider trading” on camera. That is a super PAC ad in search of a roll call.

Schumer’s other complaint echoes the one House Democrats have made since January: the bill is “not a ban.” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) called it “weak sauce.” House Democrats spent the January markup trying to force full divestiture and to rope in the executive branch. Republicans voted those amendments down.

The GOP bill was thinner than the bipartisan drafts that have been rotting in committee for years. And Democrats just used that gap, plus a voting rider they were never going to accept, to keep the status quo.

A Lifeline Vote, Not A Law

Thune scheduled this next to a data-center ratepayer bill as a political life raft for three incumbents getting worked over on affordability and self-dealing: Ricketts in Nebraska, Jon Husted in Ohio, Dan Sullivan in Alaska. The Hill reported Thune’s theory in plain English: it becomes “pretty hard” for Democrats to hammer those senators for trading or data-center politics if Democrats are the ones who killed the bills.

Ricketts needs the tape. He is running for a full term against independent Dan Osborn, who has hit him over an estimated $10 million stock-market haul around last year’s tariff chaos. A failed 60-vote test lets Ricketts say he tried. It lets Osborn say Congress protected itself.

Bloomberg Government flagged the outcome a day early. Democrats said a stock bill with voter ID would “never pass.” The Washington Examiner called the whole exercise “built to fail” before the first vote was cast. CNBC framed it as a vote before the election recess.

The Real Ban Is Still In Committee Hell

A stricter bipartisan model – full divestiture of individual names, sometimes covering the executive branch, sometimes not – polls through the roof and dies in the cloakroom. House Democrats wanted Trump and Vance in the net. Republicans would not put a sitting Republican president in a trading cage while leaving Congress a blind-trust fig leaf. The coalition that could pass a real ban split on who had to sell.

So leadership reached for the version that lets members keep their books. Then they stapled on photo ID. The STOCK Act’s 30-to-45-day disclosure lag remains the law of the land.

If Congress wanted this fixed, the fix is not complicated: no individual names, no sector toys dressed up as “diversified” products, no spouse carve-outs for people who sit in the room, and the same rule for anyone who can move a sector with a speech. That bill does not get 60 votes because too many people in the chamber like the current return profile.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/30/2026 – 13:40

The last time everyone saw Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jayden Reed, he was lying motionless on the MetLife Stadium turf after suffering a vicious hit that prompted trainers, doctors and stadium emergency personnel to spring into action, fearing the worst.The worst, thankfully, did not happen.Reed was hospitalized overnight and eventually posted on his Instagram account that he was “doing much better.” He had movement in his extremities.SCARY SCENE AS JAYDEN REED CARTED OFF ON SPINE BOARD DURING PACKERS GAME AGAINST THE JETSBut it’s not all good news.Reed is out for the remainder of the season, Packers coach Matt LaFleur said on Wednesday. And Reed will require neck surgery, the coach added.”It will be a season-ending,” LaFleur said during his press conference. “Yeah, he’ll be out, unfortunately. He let me know yesterday. He’s going to have to have surgery as well.”The coach said Reed will be out “a significant amount of time” but doesn’t believe this is a career-ending surgery. That optimism depends on the surgery and rehabilitation progressing as hoped.THE CRAIG CARTON SHOW–UNFILTERED, UNAPOLOGETIC AND UNMISSABLE. DOWNLOAD HIS DAILY PODCAST NOW!It also depends on Reed eventually weighing the risks of playing again versus the risk of suffering another neck injury and what that would mean. But Reed is typically a very motivated player who loves the game.”It’s tough on him,” LaFleur said. “He’s a guy that, you know, he wants to be out there and compete. And certainly I think that anytime you go through a situation like that, it’s it’s a pretty scary deal.”…I didn’t even realize the magnitude at the time, but certainly when I was out there with them and just seeing what was going on it kind of, it shocks you, it jolts you a little bit, because you never want to see anybody in that position, let alone one of your own guys.”Reed will immediately go on the injured reserve list. And he will be missed beyond his abilities to catch passes.”[He’s] the guy that you have a lot of love for and brings so much to this organization’s football team, to the locker room,” LaFleur said. “He’s he’s an energy guy and he will certainly be missed.”Reed posted a message on his Instagram account that suggests he’s not spiritually defeated. But he is indeed being challenged.”God will use the unusual to do the unexpected… 11 out🙏🏾,” he wrote.Reed is only 26 years old and four seasons into his NFL career. His first two seasons, in 2022 and 2023, were his best, as he caught a combined 119 passes and scored 14 touchdowns in 23 starts.FOLLOW ARMANDO SALGUERO ON X: @ARMANDOSALGUERO

Russia’s warning that it could resort to nuclear weapons if NATO attempts to isolate Kaliningrad is raising new concerns that the heavily militarized Russian exclave could become a flashpoint between Moscow and the alliance, as experts warn the territory is already being used to pressure Europe through hybrid warfare.Moscow warned NATO in a diplomatic document that it was prepared to use “the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons” if alliance members attempted to isolate Kaliningrad from the rest of Russia, Reuters reported Wednesday.Kaliningrad, a Russian territory geographically separated from the Russian mainland, sits on the Baltic Sea between NATO members Poland and Lithuania and hosts significant Russian military assets, including elements of Moscow’s Baltic Fleet.RUSSIA THREATENS STRIKES ON UK MILITARY TARGETS, ‘CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCES’ OVER UKRAINEThe Russian document also raised the possibility of strikes against “decision-making centers” in NATO member states from the outset of a conflict.NATO rejected Moscow’s allegations in a response reviewed by Fox News Digital, saying the alliance is defensive and that none of its exercises or activities threaten Russian territory. The alliance also urged Russia to stop its “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric.”Carrie Filipetti, executive director of the Vandenberg Coalition, a nonpartisan network of foreign policy leaders, told Fox News Digital that Moscow has repeatedly used nuclear threats as a means of trying to deter Western support for Ukraine.”Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons in the past, including veiled references to tactical nuclear attacks at the beginning of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, lowering their formal threshold for launching a nuclear attack in 2024, placing Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert, and restarting nuclear testing,” Filipetti said. “It is very common for Putin to use these threats, because he sees it as a way to deter Europe and the United States from continuing to support Ukraine.”SHE GREW UP UNDER SOVIET RULE. NOW EU’S TOP DIPLOMAT WARNS EUROPE AGAINST GIVING RUSSIA WHAT IT WANTS”The threat about a nuclear attack if Kaliningrad is threatened or isolated comes on the heels of a few developments,” she added, pointing to NATO jets being scrambled over Russian aircraft, U.S. and NATO air drills near Kaliningrad last month and heightened tensions over the war in Ukraine.Filipetti, who also served as a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department and as a senior policy advisor for the United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN), argued that the timing also reflects mounting pressure on Moscow as the war continues.”Putin seems to understand that the tide is turning against him, and he’s resorting to aggressive rhetoric to try to stop European support for Ukraine as he has tried to do in the past,” she said.Dr. Azeem Ibrahim, a research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College and chief strategy officer at the New Lines Institute, told Fox News Digital that NATO should take the warning seriously, particularly because of the broader role Kaliningrad is already playing in Moscow’s confrontation with Europe.BATTLE-TESTED ZELENSKYY SOUNDS CHILLING ALARM ON WHERE PUTIN’S WAR COULD HEAD NEXTIbrahim argued that while NATO has traditionally prepared for conventional military conflict involving “tanks and troops and divisions,” Russia is increasingly using methods designed to disrupt the infrastructure and systems on which civilian societies depend.”Russia is actually adopting a very different approach,” he said, describing a strategy of hybrid warfare targeting “infrastructure” and “societies in general — what keeps societies functioning.”Ibrahim described Kaliningrad as the “front line” of that effort.”It’s essentially become a Russian fortress,” he said. “This is essentially a front-line operation of the Russians in terms of signals intelligence, signals interference and essentially mechanisms by which to carry out this hybrid warfare.”Such interference, Ibrahim said, could play a role in the broader confrontation by disrupting civilian communications and infrastructure before or alongside a conventional military attack.”All of that would be preceded by interference operations like this to ensure that societies are not functioning, are not able to respond to emergency services, the news information services, etc.,” Ibrahim said. “So governments lose control over what actually makes societies function.”RUSSIA’S SHADOW WAR IS PUTTING EUROPE ON EDGE AS GERMANY CONFRONTS A GROWING THREATThe challenge for NATO, he said, is that such operations can be more difficult to attribute than a conventional assault.”Many times, you cannot trace exactly where a lot of this interference is actually coming from — attacks on power stations or internet and telecommunications, et cetera,” Ibrahim said. “There’s always some sort of plausible deniability if it’s done by an actor who’s very capable.”The ambiguity, Ibrhaim argued, presents a challenge for an alliance built atround collective defense armed attack.”NATO really does have to kind of reconfigure its posture to understand that these kinds of attacks are equivalent to essentially any sort of kinetic attack,” he said.Asked what NATO and neighboring Poland and Lithuania should do following Russia’s warning, Ibrahim called for the alliance to establish clearer consequences for hybrid attacks.”We now need to start going on the offensive in terms of hybrid warfare and understanding the threat and pushing back and sending a very clear signal to Moscow that such threats will not stand,” he said, arguing that a sufficiently serious hybrid attack should be considered capable of triggering NATO’s Article 5 collective-defense clause.Lithuania, which directly borders Kaliningrad, rejected Moscow’s warning and accused Russia of trying to undermine NATO unity and Western support for Ukraine. “Russia’s insinuations and threats have no basis. NATO is a defensive Alliance and poses no threat to Russia or any other country,” Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry told Fox News Digital. “Russia’s threatening is intended to fracture transatlantic unity and impede our support to Ukraine. Russia will not achieve its goals.”The ministry added: “We strongly condemn any threats to use force and irresponsible nuclear rhetoric. Russia must stop its aggression against Ukraine… Lithuania is strengthening its national defense system and capabilities, including air defense,” the ministry said. “We train with our allies and work alongside NATO forces deployed in Lithuania. We are prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory and respond to any threats.”The ministry said Lithuania would also continue providing “comprehensive support to Ukraine and its fight against the aggressor Russia.Retired Air Force Lt Gen Richard Newton told Fox News Digital that, “In the weeks leading up to February 2022, many officials and commentators (myself included) weren’t sure Putin would actually invade Ukraine, even though there were a number of warnings and indicators he would do so.  And then on that Feb 24th, Putin launched the largest land invasion against Ukraine since World War II.”US ALLIES NEED TO SHOOT DOWN RUSSIAN AIRCRAFT TESTING NATO BOUNDARIES, CZECH PRESIDENT WARNS”NATO should take Russia’s warning seriously that it could resort to employing nuclear weapons against the alliance should Kaliningrad be cut off from Russia. We are in the midst of Russia employing “gray zone” coercive actions against NATO nations, so this pronouncement should not surprise the West,” he added.Filipetti cautioned that regardless of whether Moscow intends to follow through, nuclear threats themselves carry risks.”NATO is a defensive organization that is in no way threatening Russia’s position on Kaliningrad,” she said. “That said, any time there is a public threat of nuclear attack it must be taken seriously, especially with someone like Putin.””Nuclear bombs are a potentially world-altering technology,” Filipetti added. “It is not only their use, but the threat of their use, that could cause significant miscalculations and escalations.”Russia has denied Western accusations that it is conducting hybrid warfare against European states and has said it has no intention of attacking NATO countries. Moscow says NATO military activity around Kaliningrad is instead contributing to an increasingly dangerous confrontation.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov characterized recent Russian warnings as diplomatic reminders to “hotheads in Europe,” Reuters reported Wednesday.Fox News Digital reached out to the Polish and Russian embassies for comment but did not receive responses in time for publication.Reuters contributed to this story.

NEW YORK — Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin pushed back on the notion that Ireland has been “overrun” by immigrants as nearly one in four residents is now foreign-born, arguing that the country’s dramatic demographic change has been driven largely by legal migration tied to its economic success story.Martin, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, acknowledged failures in Ireland’s asylum system after a record surge in applications, saying it “was too slow” in recent years.He also addressed moves to tighten citizenship rules and opened the door to publishing crime statistics by nationality amid a heated debate over immigration and crime.The issue has become a political flashpoint across Europe and the U.S. and comes weeks after President Donald Trump warned about Europe’s approach while appearing alongside Martin in Dublin.”That immigration, what you’re doing to yourselves, you’re just killing yourselves,” Trump said.TRUMP SAYS HE WOULD ‘LOVE’ TO SEE IRELAND UNIFIED AS ONE NATION”Ireland is not overrun in any shape or form,” Martin told Fox News Digital. “But we are conscious that it is an issue that has to be addressed robustly, firmly, fairly as well in terms of those seeking asylum.””All over Europe it’s tightening up because of the pressures and migration has created significant political pressures across Europe,” he added.”Obviously, illegal migration is the more potent issue. And our system was too slow in processing those seeking asylum. That has changed. We’ve accelerated the application and the consideration of applications, and we’ve also now accelerated the appeals process.”Martin said his government is developing a new migration strategy that includes proposals to increase residency requirements for citizenship from five to eight years and introduce language and economic self-sufficiency requirements.Immigration has become increasingly intertwined in Ireland’s political debate with concerns over housing, crime and rapidly changing demographics in a country that was drastically more homogeneous a generation ago.The issue burst into international view in November 2023, after Algerian-born Irish citizen Riad Bouchaker stabbed three young children and a childcare worker outside a school in Dublin, triggering riots as anger among some opponents of mass immigration spilled into violence on the streets of the capital. The unrest was followed by sustained opposition to government efforts to house asylum seekers in communities across the country, with some protests also descending into violent clashes.Immigration returned to the spotlight this summer following the violent killing of Jamey Carney, a 43-year-old American mother from New York who was found dead at her home in County Kerry.Her Jordanian boyfriend, the suspect in the case, had applied for asylum in Ireland but was rejected and was appealing the decision while remaining in the country. He fled Ireland for Turkey shortly after the killing, later traveling to Jordan and Irish police are now seeking his extradition.Fox News Digital asked Martin whether the case exposed weaknesses in Ireland’s immigration system and whether laws needed to be changed.”We’re looking at all of that in terms of tightening up the laws,” Martin said. “We will make sure that, particularly if people’s applications are rejected, that there’s fast movement in terms of the consequences of that.”MIGRANT WHO FLED IRELAND AFTER AMERICAN MOTHER’S MURDER IS ARRESTED IN JORDANCritics of Ireland’s immigration policies have argued that migrants are disproportionately responsible for crime, while opponents of that view say such claims unfairly stigmatize the country’s growing foreign-born population. But the debate has been difficult to settle because Irish national crime statistics do not routinely publish nationality breakdowns, leaving limited public data to test competing claims.The lack of data has prompted calls for greater transparency from women’s advocates and some Irish lawmakers, including proposals to publish crime statistics broken down by nationality.”I’ve no issue with data … because that can inform, because sometimes you get a kind of distorted picture,” Martin said when asked whether crime statistics should include the nationality of alleged suspects. “So as far as I’m concerned, data is important.”But Martin pushed back on the argument that nationality itself drives crime.”I don’t think crime is specific to any nationality,” he said. “But there are issues there, and in some cases, yes, there’s been horrific crimes committed, but not all by illegal migrants either.”Housing has become another flashpoint as Ireland struggles to build enough homes to keep pace with its growing population.Martin acknowledged that workers arriving legally in Ireland add to housing demand but said his government’s answer is to increase supply, with about 36,000 homes built last year, up more than 20% from the previous year and the highest annual total since 2011.The Irish government’s reliance on hotels and other properties to house asylum seekers has itself become a flashpoint. The state spent about $1.4 billion on asylum accommodation and related services in 2025, while also buying properties outright, including the sprawling Citywest Hotel and Convention Centre for about $175 million.The allocation of scarce public housing has further fueled the immigration debate.The pressure is particularly acute in Dublin, where figures released by the city council this month showed 42% of the 15,005 households on its social-housing waiting list were categorized as non-Irish, fueling anger online as Ireland’s homeless population hit a record high last month.Nationally, 28.7% of social housing applicants — nearly 18,000 households — were non-Irish citizens in 2025, according to government figures provided to Fox News Digital. That included nearly 3,200 applicants from outside the EU with refugee status, up 64% from the previous year.Asked whether Irish citizens should receive preferential treatment for social housing amid pressure on waiting lists, Martin backed the idea, saying that “our position is basically its citizens get priority.”Ireland’s demographic transformation has been rapid.Nearly one in four people living in Ireland was born abroad, up from about one in seven two decades ago. At 23.3%, Ireland now has the fourth-highest percentage of foreign-born residents in the European Union, according to Eurostat.The transformation accelerated after the EU expanded eastward in 2004, a decision that helped fuel a sharp rise in immigration during Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” economic boom, when years of rapid growth transformed the country from one of Western Europe’s poorer economies into one of its wealthiest.”It’s a bit like America really, free movement for the states here,” Martin said. “Our economy’s expanded hugely.”Martin pointed to financial services and medical devices as industries that rely on skilled foreign workers, including non-EU workers arriving on work permits. More than half a million non-EU citizens were living in Ireland at the start of 2025, accounting for 9.3% of the population, according to Eurostat.”It has been very dramatic, I agree, in the last three decades, largely because of the economic growth of Ireland,” Martin said. “You can’t switch off an economy either.”Ireland’s economy has undergone a remarkable turnaround since the economic stagnation of the 1980s, through the “Celtic Tiger” boom and a devastating crash in 2008, before rebounding strongly. Over those decades, Ireland became a major European base for U.S. multinationals including Apple, Meta, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.Martin has been at the center of Irish politics through much of that period, serving in successive Fianna Fáil-led governments from 1997 before becoming prime minister, or Taoiseach, in 2020 and returning to the post in 2025.Ireland’s economy continued to expand in 2025, with GDP growing 8%, according to Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO).But prosperity has not eliminated pressure on households: nearly 45% reported difficulty making ends meet, while 64% identified housing and the same share identified inflation and the cost of living as among Ireland’s most pressing problems, according to the CSO.Ireland’s more recent migration pressures have included a post-pandemic surge in asylum applicants, including people arriving from Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. Applications jumped from roughly 3,500 a year before COVID to a record 18,561 in 2024, before falling nearly 30% last year and continuing to decline in 2026.Separately, more than 120,000 Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion arrived under the EU’s Temporary Protection system rather than the asylum system. Martin said roughly 80,000 remain in Ireland, with many now working and contributing to the economy.Martin also emphasized that EU free movement works in both directions, with Irish citizens themselves living and working throughout the bloc.”Irish people are working and living all over Europe,” Martin said. “That’s the other side of that story and that is something perhaps that we’re not as conscious of, but it is reality.”Martin also placed Ireland’s modern demographic transformation within the country’s much longer history of emigration, pointing to the exodus that followed the Irish Famine.”Ireland had 8 million people in 1845 before the Great Famine. That led to the big wave of Irish people migrating to come to America,” Martin said.”We’re not at that level yet on the island of Ireland, so we need to look at it through the broad sweep of history in a historical perspective.”

President Trump on Wednesday announced the last American forces are leaving Iraq.
The President took a shot at George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden as he labeled the operation a “quagmire.”
Trump said that unlike Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal, there will be an orderly departure.
Trump’s full statement:
Today, I am pleased to announce, that the last American Forces are leaving Iraq!
It has been a long time, with very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place, but soon, that will be part of History. This is a Great Day for America and, importantly, we leave with Iraq having a wonderful new Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaidi, somebody I supported from the beginning and fully endorsed.
He won an Election that he was not expected to win, and did so, in a landslide!
Launched in 2003 under the presidency of George W. Bush, and continued under the Administration of Barack Hussein Obama in 2014, and Sleepy Joe Biden, Operation Inherent Resolve ends in 2026 under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump. This Day is a victory for the United States, a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS, which has been completely decimated by the Trump Administration, First Term, along with other very bad and dangerous players.
Unlike Afghanistan, where much Military Equipment and everything else was left behind, and 13 Warriors lie dead, with many badly wounded, this orderly departure of Coalition forces and equipment from Erbil Air Base marks the end of a very expensive excursion into Hell. I set a clear mission, gave our Commanders the tools to finish it, and refused to let a temporary presence become a permanent one.
I had a choice to stay or to leave, and felt, without question, that it was time for America to go home! Prime Minister al-Zaidi, is outstanding, and he will hopefully be able to handle things very well. We came to fight a caliphate. There is no longer a caliphate. We are going home! President DONALD J. TRUMP

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