MMN Editor

This article was originally published at The Empowerment Alliance and is re-published here with permission. 
The political left is worried that the rapid expansion of data centers across the U.S. – a controversial but necessary development considering our competition with China – is increasingly accompanied by the corresponding construction of stand-alone natural gas plants to provide the power demands of the centers.
In Ohio, 10 gas-fired power plants are in the works to fuel new data centers. In West Virginia, a startup business building AI compute campuses plans to utilize hundreds of gas generators by 2028. Newly minted trillionaire Elon Musk has purchased a gas turbine company specifically to power the Tennessee-based data centers fueling Grok.
Across the nation, similar stories are playing out region by region, with dedicated gas plants often backed by tech giants who once swore off fossil fuels before reality set in.
Natural gas plants can be stood up relatively quickly and deliver the massive power required to keep the U.S. ahead of its adversaries in the AI/data center race. While data centers have resulted in controversies in some local communities – an unsurprising NIMBY reaction – other places have welcomed the developments.
As stated here before, artificial intelligence is here, like it or not. The only question is who will make the rules, the U.S. or China?
Soldiers in the anti-fossil fuel brigade are once again coming face-to-face with their biggest enemy: reality. And as usual, rather than seeking to engage fairly in the free market, backers of renewables are demanding that government write regulations requiring their use.
The Associated Press recently reported that “tech giants are demanding power at such speed and scale — some data centers consume more energy than a mid-size city — that the construction of wind and solar simply can’t keep up,” giving natural gas a substantial advantage. Most people call that the free market playing out as it naturally will. The climate change fearmongers call it foul play.
To level the field, the same old playbook is once again being deployed. For instance, in Michigan, Oregon and Minnesota, laws have been enacted in the last 18 months “designed to protect their pre-existing requirements that electric utilities use only emissions-free energy sources by 2040,” AP reported, adding that similar bills are emerging in California, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
New York, not surprisingly, leads the way when it comes to the heavy hand of government mandates. There, legislation would force data centers over a certain size “to meet renewable energy benchmarks starting in 2030 and, by 2040, get at least 90% of their energy from renewable energies.”
The arrogance of those demanding that alternatives be given special consideration was once more on display courtesy of a New York state lawmaker who wrote the bill in question. “We are literally talking about the wealthiest companies in the world that are looking to build in New York state,” said state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez (D), adding, “and if they have the resources to put billions of dollars into data center development, then they certainly should have the resources to build out renewable energy sources to power them.”
So there!
Insisting what other people can and should do with their money – and writing legislation forcing them to do it – is a familiar page from the playbook of the left. Such attitudes will only be magnified by the new crop of socialists who are winning Democratic Party primaries across the country.
Of course, to back up the demand that renewables be governmentally propped up to power data centers, the left will trot out friendly new studies to bolster its arguments. So, right on cue, here comes the Environmental Integrity Project with another study condemning the big, bad gas plants.
“Dozens of planned gas plants to directly power data centers in the United States could emit as much greenhouse gas annually as ‌Australia or France,” according to a Reuters story on the findings of the study.
“An industry of the future should not be chained to dirty fuels of the past and the air pollution from fossil fuels that cause real harm to communities,” said Jen Duggan, executive director of the EIP.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin countered, “I think that a lot of Americans would agree that we should win this race against China to be the AI capital of the world.” Amen.
The climate change movement flourished under the Obama and Biden administrations, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and funneling industries and consumers into a no-choice scenario of less reliable, less effective alternative power options. Thankfully, the Trump administration has unleashed all American energy resources – including inviting alternatives to compete in the free marketplace.
For now, the left acknowledges that the federal government is not friendly turf. So, when it comes to emerging data centers, the subsidies-and-mandates game is playing out at the state level, because without such help, as AP reported, “the construction of wind and solar simply can’t keep up.”
In the free marketplace, things that can’t keep up eventually fall by the wayside. But in the fantasyland of far-left (and socialist) idealism, government regulations keep them afloat or even put them in preferred positions – at least until their deficiencies become too obvious and too dangerous to pretend anymore. (For example, see the massive 2025 power outage in Spain, Portugal and parts of France, where alternatives failed and natural gas came to the rescue to restore power.)
The U.S. will likely win the AI race, but only because it got under way in earnest during the Trump administration. If it had happened under the Biden regime, our government would be mandating artificial benchmarks for renewables while China focused on controlling artificial intelligence for the world.
 
Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing opinion columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

More than 50 people died trying to reach Ceuta, a North African enclave that is Spanish territory to take advantage of a new migrant law in Spain.

Demoralizing The Whole Citizenry To The Max

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

The Curse It Is Cast…

“I have nothing to hide. I can explain and validate everything that I’ve done.”

– Dr. Anthony Fauci, recorded for TV in 2022

However you cut this Fauci business, one thing Americans have learned is how slippery and treacherous this thing called The Law has become.

You saw it in the sundry Trump prosecutions of 2024, too – a marvelous demonstration of how to play Hide-the-Salami with the truth about anything and everything.

You saw it in the structured failure to adjudicate election fraud in 2020.

You saw it in the Jan-6 prosecutions and the Congressional Jan-6 Committee charade that followed.

And much more.

And one thing it’s good for is demoralizing the whole citizenry to the max. Who in this land was not mortally depressed watching Rand Paul’s Senate hearing Wednesday starring Dr. Fauci? (One last time, the center of attention!) We have become a procedural republic, slipping into an impotence of legalistic self-fuckery the way old folks slip into dementia, one lost memory at a time. There sits the murderer of millions cloaked in the banality of his evil — as it was at Nuremburg eighty years ago — and this time, you just have to lump it, America. The law can’t touch him at all.

Dr. Fauci ran his own titanically corrupt fiefdom out of the nation’s public health complex. Half-a-million a year wasn’t enough for — let’s call him what he was — an executive bureaucrat. He doled out millions in grants to universities, drug companies, and putative public service orgs, and extracted his vig, about a million bucks in prize money during the Covid-19 episode, not counting his share of royalties from drug patents. A modest million. He must have thought: who will even notice. . . who would ever be bothered by that tiny number when Congress, the Federal Reserve, and everybody else is drowning in numbers with so many zeros it gives them tachycardia just to glance at the balance sheet.

Plus, the thoroughly dishonorable news media was busy making Dr. Fauci a rock-star. He had everything but the stadiums. The grand old gals of Hollywood were going all moist over him. “Julia Roberts sent me flowers today,” he typed into his government-issue diary. Barbra Streisand called him on the phone. “I told her that I work listening to her songs on ALEXA,” He gushed. His work resulted in the deaths of millions and the injury of millions more. Neverminding that, he carefully tracked and marveled at his burgeoning fame:

“Big front-page article abut [sic] me appeared in the Washington Post, [Dr. Fauci wrote]. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyoperbole [sic] to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson [sic] in the world.”

Did Dr. Fauci know that his work-product, the Covid-19 episode and the operations around it, were aimed at setting up conditions to get President Trump bum-rushed out of office in favor of the vacant and pliable tool that was “Joe Biden?” Did others on the White House Covid Task Force know how that would work? Did they know who or what they were in league with?

Anyway, it didn’t turn out as well as they’d planned, of course. The four years of “Joe Biden” only proved how much that coalition of Deep Staters, globalists, and domestic riffraff hated the old American republic and its pain-in-the-ass Constitution. But when they foundered in 2024 — when old Joe-from-Scranton finally gave away the game on that fatal debate stage — and the party had to stuff his idiot veep into the nomination, the Democratic Party crossed an event horizon into total detachment from reality, where they remain to this day.

So then, where did the Democratic Party get the idea that going balls-out Bolshevik-Jacobin would be their salvation after what they already did to try to wreck our country? And by Bolshevik-Jacobin I mean the marriage of murderous envy with civic psychosis. The line it is drawn; the curse it is cast, Dylan prophesied half a century ago. They’re in your face now. Just listen to them. They mean it. They want all your stuff and they want you dead. They want to put your sons in a cocktail dress. They want mutts from savage lands slavering on your daughters in a drainage ditch. Will half the people in this country really vote for that again?

Yet great forces unseen just now are driving the nation to an autumn reckoning, and the main thing to be reckoned is the survival of the USA as a functioning republic with the credibility of law restored and the demons of lawfare crushed. The possibility of legislated election reform slips away day by day, it’s true. But, please understand, this president will not allow the coming election to get pounded down a rathole. If nothing else, we are going to get an intervention under a national security executive order, on the president’s constitutional duty (and his oath) to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

The ensuing fight over this will be short and decisive. These mad dogs will be put down, as mad dogs must be. We are going to take our country back. Depend on it.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/31/2026 – 16:20

Washington state high school athlete Ahnaleigh Wilson was pushed into a starting spot under the lights of the national culture war over women’s sports this week when she was allegedly berated at a WNBA game.Now, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, she and her family are speaking out for the first time since Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton was suspended for an exchange with the teenager.Wilson went viral Tuesday night for speaking out about being allegedly heckled by Keaton during the Storm’s game against the Indiana Fever. Wilson was not prepared to take on such public attention, and she and her family say it has caused them issues. The teen was there simply to support Sophie Cunningham after Cunningham took a public stand to save girls’ sports.”She was sitting directly across from us on the court, and we hadn’t really noticed her much. And then she had walked over to talk to the people to the right of where we were sitting, and when she stopped talking to them, she turned and looked at us,” Wilson, who sat courtside, told Fox News Digital.STORM CO-OWNER SUSPENDED AFTER INCIDENT WITH SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM FANS AS STAR BREAKS SILENCE ON CONTROVERSYKeaton then allegedly called Wilson and her friend “f—ing insane,” for her support of Cunningham and the protection of women’s sports.”After she was done, she kind of just walked away, and me and my friend were just like, ‘What just happened?’ Um, we were kind of stunned. I was like, “I’m not gonna cry, not gonna cry.” Um, but I feel like I kind of cry, I don’t know, when I feel overwhelmed or anything, honestly. So I started crying a little, and I was kind of embarrassed, ’cause I really didn’t want to,” Wilson added.The emotional response was in part because of how personal the issue of protecting girls’ sports is for Wilson. Washington is one of the 19 states in the U.S. that actively protects the rights of males to compete in girls’ sports. So in eighth grade, she and her family said she lost a regional championship race to a biological male trans athlete in May 2024.Wilson had to work her way back from a knee injury to compete in that race, and had the lead, up until the final lap, before the trans athlete zoomed past her and took first place. Wilson also said she had to compete against a male athlete four times this past school year in cross country.”They don’t know my story. They don’t know that I’ve actually experienced this, and I’ve experienced it more than once. I’m going to junior year now, and I’ve competed against a biological male four times. these people don’t even know what I’ve gone through,” she said.”It’s disappointing, especially when it’s other women.”So when Cunningham publicly took a stand for protecting girls’ sports, it was enough to motivate Wilson to go to a WNBA game for the first time. She attended a rally outside Climate Pledge Arena in celebration of Cunningham.But when Wilson got inside Climate Pledge Arena, she says she was heckled by other fans and eventually by Keaton, which brought her to tears, then spoke about the experience in a since-viral interview right after the game with independent Washington-based journalist Brandi Kruse.When Wilson woke up the next morning, she slowly realized what she had gotten into.Her friend opened Instagram first. One post about the incident appeared, followed by another. Then came coverage from national outlets. By the time the WNBA announced Keaton’s punishment, the story was everywhere.”It was crazy,” Wilson said. “I was expecting it, obviously, to kind of be big because it is a WNBA co-owner of the Seattle Storm and she was rude, but I guess I wasn’t expecting it to blow up that quick.””It was pretty shocking. A little overwhelming, but also I was glad that the WNBA did something about it.”Her father, Brendan Wilson, said the family knew Ahnaleigh’s courtside sign might attract some attention. They expected a photograph of her supporting Cunningham to circulate. They did not anticipate their daughter becoming the face of a national WNBA controversy.”She was going there with the intention of supporting Sophie and glad that somebody of Sophie’s stature was supporting Ahnaleigh,” Brendan said. “She kind of expected her picture might be somewhere, that she was sitting courtside with a sign in support, but nothing of this magnitude at all.”The attention quickly spread beyond news reports about Keaton. Strangers found photographs of Wilson and began directing insults at the teenager and her family.”Our daughter’s face is plastered everywhere,” her mother, Elizabeth Wilson, said. “We are getting comments of hate. A lot of support, though, too, but this has exploded, and her actions have now impacted our family greatly and will continue to do so.”Wilson said she has tried to avoid reading the responses. The messages she has seen have accused her of being a bigot, transphobic and anti-trans. One commenter dismissed her as a “stupid white girl,” she said.”If you know me, you know I’m not any of those things and that I do care about people,” Wilson said. “I’m okay with people being different and being different from me.”Wilson said her family has LGBTQ friends and relatives. She said her position is focused on the competitive consequences of allowing biological males into girls’ sports, not hostility toward transgender people.”Those people don’t know me, and they don’t know that I love everyone,” she said. “I don’t have an issue with people being trans. It’s just that it’s unfair when it comes to sports.”Elizabeth said the family has leaned on its Christian faith while trying to process the national attention.”It’s overwhelming,” she said. “We’re trying to continue to be Christ-like and trying not to be so angry and hateful. It’s definitely been a balance of trying to balance our feelings and just trying to let God lead us exactly where he needs us to go.”The Storm issued a public apology after the encounter became national news.”We are aware one of our co-owners made comments to two fans in attendance at last night’s game,” Storm majority owner Ginny Gilder said. “We apologize that this happened. Everyone who attends a Storm game deserves to feel welcome, and we remain committed to creating an inclusive environment where every fan is treated with respect.”The WNBA later confirmed to Fox News Digital that Keaton was fined and suspended from attending Seattle’s next five home games.The Wilson family said it appreciated the speed of the league’s response but believes the Storm and Keaton still owe the girls a personal apology. They said no one from the team or the WNBA has reached out to them since the incident.”They owe these girls an apology,” Elizabeth said. “She needs to be held accountable. We teach our kids that every choice has a consequence, good or bad, and you have to own up to your mistakes.”Elizabeth also alleged Keaton’s actions made other spectators feel emboldened to target the teenagers.SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM RALLY ROCKS WNBA GAME AS ‘SAVE WOMEN’S SPORTS’ ACTIVISTS FACE COUNTER-PROTEST”By her coming up to them and verbally attacking them and bullying them into putting their signs away, she opened that up for the people around them to treat the other girls and our daughter and her friend in a similar manner,” Elizabeth said. “She allowed that to happen.”The family also wants greater transparency about Keaton’s punishment.”I’m glad that they took accountability, but five games and then they’re going to fine her, which is probably a drop in the hat, means, like, nothing,” Elizabeth said. “We would just be interested to know: How much are they fining her? Where is that fine going?”Brendan said he appreciates how quickly the league acted to suspend Keaton.”I was glad that they didn’t waste much time in showing everybody that that kind of behavior is unacceptable and suspending her,” he said. “This incident with our daughter, at least, was handled from the WNBA quickly, and we appreciate that.”But Elizabeth is still hoping for a personal outreach from the WNBA.”We definitely would like to see them do something more personal, like reach out to our family personally and apologize for what happened,” she said. “I think that’s a necessary step that hasn’t happened.”Fox News Digital reached out to the Storm for a response to the Wilson family’s statements.The public attention was a burden for the family when it first began to pile up on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. But their spirits improved as the day went on after the Storm apologized and news of Keaton’s suspension came out.But the most rewarding part came late on Wednesday night.Ahnaleigh and her friend were playing pool when Elizabeth came downstairs and told them Cunningham had posted about them.”We were all jumping up and down,” Elizabeth said.Cunningham wrote that she believed there was “a safe space and love for EVERYBODY,” including biological girls and boys, transgender women and transgender men.”Everyone is welcome at my table,” Cunningham wrote. “You can disagree and still be kind. Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe.”Cunningham promised the teenagers gifts and called the conduct attributed to Keaton “truly embarrassing.”Wilson and her friend stopped playing pool and pulled up the post.”We were shocked,” Wilson said. “It was just insane. It was a super cool moment. It was cool to see her acknowledge us.”CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COMSIGN UP TO GET THE LATEST SPORTS NEWSThe family said it would welcome the opportunity to attend another Fever game. It does not expect to return to a Storm game, even if Keaton or the organization eventually apologizes.”We can’t support an organization like that,” the family said.”We would love to go see the Fever play again,” Elizabeth added. “But I don’t think we’d go back to Seattle to watch them play.”

In the latest assault on family values Campus Reform is reporting “The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the nation’s second-largest teachers union representing approximately 1.8 million members, adopted a resolution on July 19 supporting access to “gender-affirming care” across “all stages of life” and pledging to challenge Trump administration healthcare policies through litigation.”
This is an insult to the American public, who rejected these policies at the polls by voting for President Trump.
The resolution that this teachers’ union supported is called “Protecting Medical Research, Healthcare Access and Health Equity for LGBTQIA+ Communities.” Unfortunately, this means life-altering surgery for young people.
“The resolution was adopted as the Trump administration has moved to restrict “gender transition” procedures for minors. ”
This is Randi Weingarten’s teachers’ union, someone who has sadly been at the forefront of Woke in education.
She is known for her anti-Trump and left-wing activism. She became famous for her left-wing ideology during COVID.
President Trump was elected in part as a rejection of Wokeness by the American people.
This resolution seeks to undermine the will of the public and enforce Wokeness on young people.
Campus Reform reported, “Beyond policy advocacy, the resolution commits the AFT to “support and, where appropriate, participate in litigation, amicus briefs, administrative challenges and other legal advocacy efforts” to defend access to “gender-affirming care” and challenge what it describes as unlawful discrimination in healthcare programs.”
“The resolution also calls for preserving and expanding federal collection of sexual orientation and gender identity data used in public health research.”
Campus Reform even reached out to Randi Weingarten for comment, and she refused to respond.
Instead of putting education and learning first, this teachers’ union is clearly about left-wing indoctrination.
This is all tremendously disrespectful to the American public, who voted for President Trump and have rejected the woke agenda over the years at school board meetings.
 

The post EVIL: America Federation of Teachers Passes Resolution Supporting ‘Gender-Affirming’ Care, Vows Legal Challenges to Trump Policies appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Pregnant man emoji
The National Institutes of Health awarded a doctoral student who goes by “they/them” pronouns a five-figure grant to study “gender minority birthing people.”
Pond Ezra, a University of Maryland School of Public Health doctoral student studying Family Science, received $35,832 from the taxpayer-funded NIH in February. Ezra’s project, which the grant will fund is titled “Longitudinal Mixed Methods Analysis of Risk and Protective Factors Influencing Psychological Distress in Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Birthing People.”
The project’s abstract on the NIH’s website claims that SGM women have higher disparities in pregnancy and face mental health problems. It even alleges that this is perpetuated by “unaffirming and inappropriate care” that leads to stress and delays in healthcare.
The NIH, the University of Maryland and Ezra each did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
“The main objective of Mx. Ezra’s project is to elucidate how social support and medical care contribute to the mental health trajectories of SGM birthing people throughout the perinatal period,” the abstract read.”
Independent Women’s Forum, a center-right policy organization, characterized the grant as benefitting an “ideological activism” project.
“For too long, federal money has been invested, not in the kind of research for maternal health or cancer that everyone would support,” Inez Stepman, Independent Women Senior Policy and Legal Analyst told the Daily Caller News Foundation.”But in ideological activism projects that at best waste taxpayer funds and at worst push harmful lies.”
“The Trump administration has done a wonderful job actually tracing where our dollars are going and ensuring that they’re used for projects that Congress actually appropriated them for, and that the American people actually support,” Stepman added.
In addition to using the prefix “Mx.,” Ezra prefers “they/them” pronouns. Ezra takes a research focus on transgender parenting, specifically how “seahorse dads” — referring to pregnant women who identify as transgender men — “navigate parenting roles after birth,” according to the student’s biography on the University of Maryland School of Public Health’s website.
Ezra works in the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity lab, led by Dr. Jessica Fish, per the website. In this lab, Ezra has participated in “multiple projects that investigate socialization messages communicated among heterosexual parents and sexual minority youth,” per the University’s website.
Ronna Popkin, the program official on the project, referred The College Fix to the NIH’s media office when the publication asked what the taxpayer-funded agency, currently under the Trump administration, plans to do with Ezra’s findings. The press team did not respond to the College Fix’s multiple attempts for comment, the outlet reported.
A part of NIH’s mission is to enhance health and to reduce illness and disability, read their website. In regards to this specific project’s public health relevance, the training developed through this research will aid in “positioning the PI as an emerging expert on SGM reproductive health equity.”
“To accomplish the objective and aims of their proposed research plan, Mx. Ezra will seek out additional training to increase their conceptual, methodological, and dissemination skillsets which will augment their core training in Family Science,” the abstract on the NIH’s website continued. “Their training plan combines formal coursework in family and maternal and child health, statistics, one-on-one mentoring, conference presentations, and publishing research to prepare them for a career as an independent researcher.”
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

A California man was arrested after allegedly sending violent threats to the mother of one of Nolan Wells’ friends, who was with him the day he disappeared.Wells, 18, disappeared July 4 after taking a boat trip with friends to Horn Island, a barrier island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. Crews searched the area for two days until a National Parks Service ranger discovered his remains on the island’s northwestern tip July 6.Joseph Alfredo Vasquez Dumarce, 27, was arrested Thursday on charges of interstate transmission of a threatening communication, according to federal court documents. According to the criminal complaint, Dumarce sent Jackson County Chancery Court Judge Ashlee Cole several threats through Facebook Messenger, including one stating a bomb would be sent to her office.Dumarce is from Sacramento, California.NEW AUDIO RELEASED FOLLOWING NOLAN WELLS DISAPPEARANCE DOESN’T SHOW ‘ANYTHING NEFARIOUS’: RETIRED FBI AGENT”There will be a package coming to your guys office in the next few days,” Dumarce allegedly sent Cole on July 11. “It’s gonna blow you away when you see it lol. probably best to have the boys there to see as well.””Blood. So much blood everywhere. Hard to clean. Especially from a boat. But yours will be quick I promise. I got all your info. Not even the FBI can stop this. Once that package is opened the timer will start. And then you have maybe 10 seconds or less to ask god forgiveness,” Dumarce allegedly messaged Cole.FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON XDumarce also allegedly called numbers associated with the office of the Jackson County Chancery Court on July 11 at 1:27 a.m.GOT A TIP?Dumarce was identified by authorities through the email associated with his Facebook account. The charge Dumarce faces carries a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.LISTEN TO THE NEW ‘CRIME & JUSTICE WITH DONNA ROTUNNO’ PODCASTCole is the mother of Warren Hudson, who was with Wells the day he disappeared. Hudson hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing, and records from the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources indicate Wells chose to stay on Horn Island rather than return to the coast with him.SIGN UP TO GET THE LATEST TRUE CRIME NEWSDuring a July 22 news conference, attorney Ben Crump revealed that an area of “red discoloration” was found on Wells’ head, but said Dr. Roger Mitchell, who performed an independent autopsy, couldn’t come to a conclusion on a cause or manner of death “pending further investigation.” Official autopsy results for Wells’ death have not been released.Wells was a wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College and had hopes to play at the Division I level, according to Crump, an attorney for his family.LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MOREThe FBI declined to comment.NOLAN WELLS INDEPENDENT AUTOPSY DOESN’T POINT TO FOUL PLAY, FORMER MEDICAL EXAMINER SAYS

Italy temporarily restored border controls on travelers arriving from Spain Friday as the mass migrant crossing into Ceuta, Spain, escalated from a Spanish emergency into a wider test of Europe’s passport-free travel system.The move followed the entry of approximately 60,000 migrants from Morocco into Ceuta, Spain — a Spanish autonomous city on the North African coast. Spain’s Interior Ministry said 48,300 people had since voluntarily returned to Morocco, leaving fewer than 2,000 people in the territory, while the reported death toll among migrants attempting to reach the enclave rose to 57 people.The crisis is reverberating far beyond Spain because it challenges one of the European Union’s central promises: that member states can maintain open internal borders while jointly protecting the bloc’s external frontier.Schengen rests on a tradeoff: participating countries remove most controls between one another while jointly securing the zone’s external borders. Italy’s decision to restore checks, alongside calls for tougher restrictions from conservative leaders across Europe, has raised questions about whether migration pressures could lead governments to retreat from free movement and reclaim more national control.WHITE HOUSE BLASTS SPANISH GOVERNMENT AS THOUSANDS OF MIGRANTS SURGE FROM MOROCCO, EMERGENCY REQUEST DENIEDPresident Donald Trump also seized on the images from Spain, warning during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David, Maryland, Friday that a similar crisis could unfold in the United States if Republicans lose power.”I saw Spain yesterday, and I watched the catastrophe that took place,” Trump said.”That same thing is going to happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected — except worse,” he said, blaming “weak law, bad management” and liberal migration policies.The breach also ignited a broader conservative backlash across Europe and the United States.Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a post on X that Italy would impose targeted checks on non-European Union nationals arriving from Spain by air or sea for one month, while coordinating with France to strengthen controls along the Franco-Italian border.”This is an extraordinary measure, adopted to safeguard national security and prevent possible repercussions for our nation,” Meloni wrote.She said the controls would remain in place only as long as necessary and would be designed to limit disruption to summer tourism.France was increasing checks along its border with Spain, Reuters reported Friday, while right-wing parties across Europe blamed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s migration policies for weakening Spain’s ability to secure an external European Union border.Reform UK leader Nigel Farage warned on X that the crisis would eventually affect Britain, while French politician Marine Le Pen called for tighter French border controls.Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon criticized Spain for lecturing Israel on security while struggling to control its own border.White House officials Steven Cheung and Anna Kelly also connected the images from Ceuta, Spain, to the Biden administration’s border policies and Trump’s longstanding warnings about mass migration.Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, told Fox News Digital that Ceuta, Spain, could become “a key turning point in the unraveling of the European Union.”EU ADMITS IT ‘DIDN’T HAVE CONTROL’ ON MIGRATION AS BLOC RUSHES CRACKDOWN AHEAD OF NEW RULES”I think we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the European Union,” he said while acknowledging that his view remains outside the European mainstream. “Once you unravel Schengen — which I think is inevitable — this breaks down the entire European project.”Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, broadened the criticism of Sánchez.”We told you Sánchez was a disaster,” Dubowitz wrote on X. “You dismissed the warnings because he vilified Israel, defended Hamas, attacked America, and cozied up to Chávez, Khamenei, and other anti-American dictators. Now that his migration policies are threatening Europe at home, you’ve suddenly woken up.”Ceuta is legally part of Spain despite being located on the North African coast, across the Strait of Gibraltar from mainland Spain. The approximately seven-square-mile territory shares a land border with Morocco and is one of two Spanish autonomous cities in Africa, along with Melilla.Ceuta, Spain, is not a protectorate or colony. Its residents are Spanish citizens, and Madrid considers it an integral part of Spain, although Morocco disputes Spanish sovereignty over both territories.The surge followed controversy over a Spanish Supreme Court ruling limiting authorities’ ability to summarily return migrants intercepted at sea, as well as a separate Sánchez government program granting legal status to undocumented migrants already living in Spain.The court ruled earlier in July that migrants intercepted while swimming or traveling by sea toward Ceuta or Melilla, Spain, could not be immediately returned under a special procedure written for people attempting to cross the territories’ fortified land borders. They must instead be processed through Spain’s ordinary immigration, asylum and removal system. The ruling did not grant them an automatic right to remain.TRUMP CRITICIZES SPAIN AMID IRAN, NATO RIFT AS PM SANCHEZ FACES QUESTIONS OVER POLITICAL MOTIVESSánchez blamed trafficking networks for spreading a false impression that migrants who reached Ceuta, Spain, by sea would be allowed to stay.Critics also pointed to Spain’s mass regularization program. The government initially estimated that approximately 500,000 undocumented migrants would qualify for renewable residence and work permits if they had lived in Spain for at least five months before the end of 2025 and had no criminal record. Applications ultimately reached approximately 1 million, far exceeding the original estimate.”When you offer amnesty to over a million illegal migrants in Spain, this acts as a huge incentive for millions more to try to enter Spain illegally,” Gardiner said. “What we’ve seen in Ceuta over the last 24 hours is just the tip of the iceberg.”Gardiner said the footage appeared to show that roughly 99% of those crossing were “fighting-age males” and warned of a potentially “significant terror risk.””This is what happens when you introduce amnesty policies,” he added. “You literally open the floodgates on a biblical scale.”The Spanish government argues that the program applies only to migrants who were already in the country before the cutoff and is designed to bring workers into the formal economy rather than encourage new arrivals.Andrew Fox, senior associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital the crisis may have been deliberately triggered in response to regional geopolitics.”This is a crisis likely engineered by Morocco in response to Spain’s recent engagement with Algeria,” Fox said. “On a normal day, Spanish security can man gates and crossings, but they cannot control the Algerian side of the border. The fact that these people cannot simply be returned to Morocco en masse, however, shows that the international asylum and refugee system is fundamentally broken and open to widespread abuse. Without fixing that, there can be no border security in Europe.”Gardiner warned that the political fallout could threaten Schengen and the wider European project.Although the pressure on Ceuta, Spain, appeared to ease as thousands returned to Morocco, the breach had already spread beyond Spain — fueling a European fight over borders and entering the American political debate through Trump’s warning about a possible Democratic return to power.Morocco denied facilitating the mass crossing. Morocco’s ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich, told the Associated Press that the events in Ceuta had unfolded against Rabat’s wishes.”We have always prioritized legal, orderly and safe migration for all,” Benyaich said. She did not address what triggered the sudden surge. Moroccan security forces later used water cannons and warning shots to prevent additional crossings, according to The Associated Press.