NEWSMAX — A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a Mississippi law that enacted the tightest restrictions on abortion in the United States, in a ruling handed down a day after the governor signed the measure. The Mississippi law would prohibit abortion after 15 weeks of gestation, with some exceptions. It went into effect immediately after Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed it on Monday. State law previously banned abortion at 20 weeks after conception, in line with limits in 17 other states.... (more)

NATIONAL REVIEW — Two Republicans have introduced a bill in Ohio's House of Representatives that would ban all abortions statewide. While the legislation is unlikely to pass, sponsors hope it will "get the word out that life does begin at conception and move the debate in that direction," said one of its two sponsors, state representative Ron Hood. The bill defines an "unborn human" as a person under Ohio's criminal code.... (more)

LEE HIEB, M.D. — At a time we are worried about school shootings and gun violence, keep in mind the FDA/CDC Pharma consortium is getting away with mayhem and murder on a much larger magnitude. And only the victims are paying attention and the price.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — On a per-screen basis, the new movie about one of the most popular Christian songs of the modern era beat out a trio of heavy hitters at the box office last weekend. "I Can Only Imagine," earning $17 million in its first weekend, was No. 1 with a $10,400 per-screen average across 1,600 screens. That was double the average against its competition, "Black Panther," "Tomb Raider" and "A Wrinkle in Time."... (more)

WES VERNON — We fought a Civil War to force rebellious states to remain in the Union. Has anyone ever contemplated the possibility that at some point there may be movement to eject rebellious states out of the United States, to leave -- with or without their agreement to leave?... (more)

ALAN KEYES — Like a phantom blip on a radar screen, the special election in Pennsylvania is the result of a momentary systemic anomaly. Democrat Conor Lamb's apparent victory may not be a harbinger of things to come. Thanks to a federal court decision, district lines in that region of Pennsylvania have changed.... (more)

CNN — Austin police just confirmed what residents have feared for weeks -- a suspected serial bomber is attacking their city. For the fourth time this month, a device exploded on Austin residents. What makes Sunday night's blast especially terrifying is that the device was left on the side of a residential road and triggered by a tripwire, police said Monday. Investigators have found similarities between that device and three previous bombs, which were stuffed inside packages and left on residents' doorsteps, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Mississippi's governor says that by enacting a law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of gestation, the state is "saving more of the unborn than any state in America, and what better thing can we do?" Republican Gov. Phil Bryant made the comments while he signed the law Monday in a closed ceremony, according to a video his office posted to social media.... (more)

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE — The last time Mitt Romney ran against a Kennedy for the U.S. Senate, he lost a bitter 1994 campaign in Massachusetts against liberal icon Ted Kennedy. Now, he is facing a Kennedy in Utah, but this one is a conservative Republican and not a member of that famous clan. Rep. Mike Kennedy, R-Alpine, announced Wednesday that he will challenge Romney for the GOP nomination for the seat being vacated by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.... (more)

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY — These columns have many times observed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's failure to set limits on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. To trigger the appointment of a special counsel, federal regulations require the Justice Department to identify the crimes that warrant investigation and prosecution -- crimes that the Justice Department is too conflicted to investigate in the normal course; crimes that become the parameters of the special counsel's jurisdiction.... (more)

BYRON YORK — Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller is authorized to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump." The popular word for that is collusion, and it remains at the heart of both the Mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee investigations. (Majority Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee recently announced they were unable to find evidence proving collusion.)... (more)

CHANNEL NEWS ASIA — KABUL: Donald Trump flops over his pink and white baby walker and rolls it around his family's modest home in Kabul, blissfully unaware of the turmoil his "infidel" name is causing in the deeply conservative Muslim country.... (more)

VARIETY — Roadside Attractions-Lionsgate's faith-based "I Can Only Imagine" has crushed early box office forecasts with a surprisingly strong $17.1 million at 1,629 locations in North America. Recent estimates for "I Can Only Imagine" had been in the $2 million-$8 million range. It rang up the top per-site average by far among this weekend's wide release movies with $10,476, and it notched an A+ CinemaScore among patrons.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Attorney General Jeff Sessions has fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe less than two days before his retirement from the bureau. The firing, effective immediately, was announced late Friday night in a statement by the Department of Justice. Mr. McCabe was fired after a review by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recommended the dismissal after an internal review.... (more)

NATIONAL REVIEW — Two federal law-enforcement officials who were removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation for exchanging partisan text messages conspired to set up a meeting with the presiding judge in the case against Michael Flynn, according to text messages obtained by The Federalist.... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — California high school history teacher Julianne Benzel was put on paid leave after questioning in front of her students whether school administrations would let a group of students protesting abortion walk out of class in the middle of the school day like they did with students who did so on Wednesday in protests over school shootings.... (more)

IJR — A photo of a student supposedly protesting the NRA during Wednesday's so-called "National Walkout" was going viral -- but only because of the almost unbelievable irony on display.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — The instruction and training materials used by the Broward County Sheriff's Office teach that, in the case of a school shooting, deputies arriving on the scene should immediately confront the shooter. "History shows that when a suspect is confronted by any armed individual (police, security, concealed carry person) they either shoot it out with that person or kill themselves," the materials state. "Either way, the shooting of innocent bystanders must stop.... (more)

ART MOORE — It didn't take long for the horrific, deadly collapse Thursday of a newly installed pedestrian bridge at Florida International University's Miami-Dade campus to become politicized. On Twitter, President Trump is being blamed for wanting to build a wall while "our infrastructures are falling apart, for going out of his way to loosen building regulations and passing a tax-cut bill instead of doing "some REAL work for the country."... (more)

BOB UNRUH — A scientist with expertise in climate change is lambasting a U.S. senator for casting people who question the theory of man-caused global warming as "evil voices." Thomas Sheahen, an MIT-educated physicist and author of "An Introduction to High-Temperature Supreconductivity," was reacting in an interview with Marc Morano at Climate Depot to comments by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.... (more)

GEORGE WILL — Iceland must be pleased that it is close to success in its program of genocide, but before congratulating that nation on its final solution to the Down syndrome problem, perhaps it might answer a question: What is this problem? To help understand why some people might ask this question, today's column is being distributed together with two photographs. One is of Agusta, age eight, a citizen of Iceland. The other is of Lucas, age one, an American citizen in Dalton, Ga., who recently was selected to be 2018 Spokesbaby for the Gerber baby-food company. They are two examples of the problem.... (more)

JOSEPH FARAH — The data are in on Facebook's war on "conservative" news sites, thanks to an impressive report published by WesternJournal.com. The king of social media has been making algorithm changes seemingly intended to marginalize the traffic of right-of-center online news operations, and they have been effective, the report shows.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Soaring tuition costs, degrees of dubious value and nonstop student activism have combined to bring public confidence in the ivory tower tumbling down. Even college and university presidents acknowledge that the country is becoming disillusioned with higher education. In a recent survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed and Gallup, 51 percent of institution leaders said the 2016 election "exposed that academe is disconnected from much of American society."... (more)

BOB UNRUH — Amid an ongoing surge in Christianity that developed as communism created a spiritual vacuum in people's lives, China has launched a new crackdown, including rules introduced last month that further restrict the activities of unregistered house churches, according to a new report. Christians in China have been repressed ever since the People's Republic was created in 1949, with the government's control of churches and imposition of the Communist Party's atheistic values.... (more)

U.S. NEWS — Eleven Republicans stepped forward before a Thursday evening filing deadline to challenge former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the Utah Senate race, including a state lawmaker who says an "establishment insider" can't fix problems in Washington. Many of the candidates acknowledge the David-vs-Goliath nature of challenging the famous and popular Romney, but they say someone needs to keep the race to replace Republican Orrin Hatch from becoming a "coronation."... (more)