President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would bring Sebastian Gorka, a conservative firebrand and commentator, back into the White House in a national security role. Trump posted a statement to Truth Social on Friday that he had selected Gorka to be deputy assistant to the president and as senior director for counterterrorism, a role housed within the White House National Security Council. Gorka served in the White House during Trump’s first term as strategist to the president. “Since 2015, Dr. Gorka has been a tireless advocate for the America First Agenda and the MAGA Movement,” Trump said in the announcement. Gorka said in a post on X that he was “honored beyond words” to serve “in what will be the greatest Administration of the modern age.” Honored beyond words to serve President @realDonaldTrump once again, in what will be the greatest Administration of the modern age. #MakingAmericaGreatAgain pic.twitter.com/Y0wvlrwGvh — Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) November 23, 2024 Gorka, born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents, has earned a reputation as a pugilistic political commentator. During his political rise under the first Trump term, he took hardline positions on terror groups and immigration. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE The firebrand taught national security courses for years, including at military institutions, before gaining prominence in the Trump campaign and the White House with his tough stances against Islamic fundamentalists. After his return to the White House was announced, some of Gorka’s recent statements expressing support for Israel began to circulate online. “There is no clean solution to the problem of Gaza and the West Bank … when 70% of the population you are trying to deal with wants all of you murdered, there is no political solution,” Gorka said in one clip on the potential for a two-state solution in Israel. “The only thing you have is problem management – not solution, but management.” WATCH⚡️ Sebastian Gorka, appointed by Trump as Senior Director for Counterterrorism: “There is no clean solution to the challenges in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. The only viable path is as David Friedman suggested—a single Jewish state. This is not a political issue; the… pic.twitter.com/5tGzO8CyPd — Open Source Intel (@Osint613) November 25, 2024 Gorka’s return to the White House has been controversial among some of Trump’s former national security team. Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, who fell out with the president and now is a vocal Trump critic, said he would not have Gorka in “any U.S. government.” Alongside Gorka, Trump announced that Alex Wong will be assistant to the president and principal deputy national security adviser, roles for which Gorka was believed to be in the mix. Florida Rep. Michael Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, praised Wong’s choice. “I am thrilled to have Alex Wong on the NSC as President Trump’s Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. Alex has a proven record of delivering results during President Trump’s first term, where he helped negotiate the historic summits with Kim Jong Un that stabilized relations,” Waltz wrote in a post on X. “He will have an essential role in helping keep America safe!”

Daniel Penny’s defense team rested its case on Friday without the defendant taking the stand. Penny chose not to testify in his own defense, which would have subjected him to cross-examination from a prosecution that referred to him as “the white man” and claimed race was a factor in his decision to put Jordan Neely in a chokehold. Daniel Kenniff, one of Penny’s defense attorneys, said after court adjourned on Friday that jurors did hear from Penny – through his recorded statements to police, the Associated Press reported. “Virtually everything he said then is consistent with credible testimony of his fellow passengers,” Kenniff said, according to the outlet. Penny’s first interrogation with police – during which he was not told that Neely had died – showed him telling detectives that he never wanted to hurt Neely and was just trying to keep him from harming other passengers. “Some guy came in, and he’s like with his jacket off and he’s like, ‘I’m gonna kill everybody. I’m gonna go to prison forever. I don’t care,’” Penny told detectives in the video played in court. Penny then tells the detectives that he asked the person next to him to hold his phone, and he removed his earbuds before getting behind Neely and placing him in the hold. “I just kind of, like, grabbed him from behind,” Penny said. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE “Because he was acting like a lunatic, like a crazy person,” he continued. “So, and he was rolling around the floor. And at that point, the train stopped. I was like, ‘Someone call the cops,’ and he’s still, like rolling around, still going crazy. I had two other guys kind of help me just kind of keep him from going nuts. And yeah, that’s when you guys came.” Penny faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter or up to 4 years if he’s convicted on the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. The defense has been aided in its case by numerous witnesses who all said they feared for their lives as Neely threatened them in a subway car in May of last year. Those witnesses were called by the prosecution, which made the New York Post editorial board ask the question: What was Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg thinking in pursuing this case. Penny’s defense also brought in a forensic pathologist to dispute the medical examiner’s findings that Neely died as a result of Penny’s chokehold, The Daily Wire previously reported. Dr. Satish Chundru, who reviewed thousands of pages of Neely’s medical records, said that “the combined effects of sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana,” caused Neely’s death, not Penny’s chokehold. Closing arguments are set to begin on December 2.

Pro-life prisoners across the United States are eagerly awaiting the inauguration of Donald Trump, the future president, who has promised to investigate whether President Joe Biden’s administration “unjustly” persecuted pro-life activists, and to “get them out of the gulags and back to their families where they belong.” In the meantime, these activists are experiencing the grim realities of prison life. William Goodman is imprisoned in Danbury, Connecticut’s Federal Correctional Institution, where the Justice Department’s Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges landed him for engaging in a “conspiracy to blockade [a] reproductive health care clinic to prevent it from providing and patients from receiving, reproductive health services.” Goodman had participated in what he and his fellow pro-life activists describe as a “rescue,” wherein they attempted to stop women from aborting their unborn babies by blocking the entrance to a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic in 2020. As a response to the 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade, the Justice Department sought out instances in which they could enforce the FACE Act — and Goodman was one of those who was targeted. He’s currently serving a 27-month sentence in FCI Danbury, with a projected release date of July 2025. Earlier this month, Goodman contacted The Daily Wire to share that he had spent the night in the emergency room. He had fallen out of the top bunk in his cell, which stands over 5 feet high without guard rails along the side, he shared — such a dramatic fall that one of his fellow inmates reportedly thought he had died. He said he was taken by ambulance to the emergency room, where he underwent CT scans and an MRI. “When I fell, I landed on the top of my head with all of my force,” he wrote. “The loud noise woke up other men near by. I cracked my head open and lost a lot of blood. I knocked myself unconscious. But woke up on/off a couple times.” (Photo by YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images) “I was very dizzy and throwing up blood,” he said. “I had tingling sensations on my left side. I also needed stitches in my left temple in a couple places.” Doctors reportedly told him he had minor skull fractures but no serious spinal injury. He had hoped he would be kept overnight, believing he had a severe concussion, but was sent back to the prison that evening. “It has been chaotic and very uncomfortable here,” he wrote. “I suffer with severe dizziness and nausea, feeling sleepy but never able to sleep, I am having some flashbacks and my head is sore.” He expressed gratitude to his fellow prisoners, including some men imprisoned for actions related to the January 6 Capitol riot, for taking care of him, saying that they helped move some of his things and picked up food for him since he was too dizzy to walk around and go to the “chow hall.” But for days, Goodman has been in bed with severe concussion symptoms. He writes that he’s only been given Tylenol and anti-nausea medication, and worries that the prison should install guard rails on the bunks, “especially for geezers like me who have occasional vertigo.” “Right now I could be worse,” he said in a message last week. “I just feel dizzy and abandoned and sore and sick. But it could be worse…mostly I stay in bed and drink water and take meds and try to sleep. But I can’t sleep. It is like a cruel torture. My left side of my head is like a constant migraine that seems to bang all night. Plus the loud prison noise and bright lights add to the turmoil. And the uncomfortable beds and no pillow…” FCI Danbury declined to comment on Goodman’s condition to The Daily Wire. The prison has previously been referenced in the news when it housed Steven Bannon, who was released in late October ahead of the election, as well as several Jan. 6 prisoners. Bannon was imprisoned for contempt of Congress and for refusing to comply with the Jan. 6 House Committee, and his allies argue that the weaponized Biden Justice Department pursued his imprisonment out of political motivations. Goodman has previously expressed thankfulness that he is able to speak to his fellow prisoners about the importance of protecting the unborn. “Most cannot believe that we are in prison for defending innocent babies!” Goodman told The Daily Wire before the election, describing his fellow prisoners. “They think it’s crazy the federal government has come after us with such hostility…Many of the fellas have expressed their sadness over their wives or girlfriends killing their babies by abortion. Their stories are heartbreaking to hear.” Trump has promised to look into these cases of pro-life activists targeted by the Biden administration and to free those “unjustly victimized.” “Paulette is one of many peaceful pro-lifers who Joe Biden has rounded up, sometimes with SWAT teams, and thrown them in jail,” Trump said in June as he spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition, referring to 75-year-old pro-life activist Paulette Harlow. “Many people are in jail over this. … We’re going to get that taken care of immediately — [on the] first day,” he added, promising to “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s unjustly victimized by the Biden regime, including Paulette, so we can get them out of the gulags and back to their families where they belong.” There are currently 11 pro-life activists imprisoned by the Biden Justice Department: Lauren Handy is serving a 57-month sentence in Tallahassee FCI, Herb Geraghty is serving a 27-month sentence in FDC Philadelphia, Heather Idoni will serve 24 months, and maybe more, from the Sanilac County Sheriff’s jail, Jean Marshal is serving 24 months in FCI Danbury with Goodman, Joan Bell is serving 27 months in FDC Philadelphia, Jonathan Darnel is serving 34 months in FCI Thomson, John Hinshaw is serving 21 months in FMC Devens, Calvin Zastrow is serving six months in in FCI Thomson, and Bevelyn Williams is serving 41 months in FCI Aliceville. Steven LeFamine just finished serving 60 days in FCI Williamsburg, and Paulette Harlow, Coleman Boyd, Chester Gallagher, Paul Place, James Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, Dennis Green, and Paul Vaughn are all serving home detention sentences. Pro-life activists Eva Edl, Justin Phillips, and Joel Curry are awaiting sentencing. On November 21, The Daily Wire reported, that a federal judge paused the Justice Department’s case against seven of these pro-life activists related to their peaceful protest at an abortion clinic in Michigan: Edl, Gallagher, Idoni, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Cal Zastrow, and Eva Zastrow. The judge, an Obama appointee, paused the case until Trump takes office, saying: “As further discussed on the record, the Court will conduct another status conference during the week of March 24, 2025, to receive a report from the Government trial team as to whether there has been any change in the Government’s position with respect to the continuation of this case and/or with respect to the positions expected to be advanced by the Defendants in their post-trial motions.” Thomas More Society attorney Steve Crampton, who has represented many of the pro-lifers, previously told The Daily Wire that Leitman decided to stay the proceedings “in light of the election results and the likelihood that a new Department of Justice would alter its policies concerning prosecution of these FACE cases and in particular the use of the Conspiracy Against Rights statute against these defendants.”

No matter where you live, there are certain natural events to be aware of, like tornadoes and wildfires. Then there are places like Iceland. Here, it is quite common to experience volcano eruptions. While they are common, a recent eruption has captured the attention of folks around the world for a few reasons. First of all, this is the seventh time this once long-dormant volcano has erupted this year. Though, this is the weakest eruption of them all. Then there is the location of this volcano. Located on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwestern Iceland, it is close enough to the Blue Lagoon (a beloved spa and popular tourist spot) that folks here were told to evacuate. Thankfully, however, there have been no reports of injuries or death. Instead, locals and tourists in Iceland have been left with an eerily beautiful lake of lava in the Blue Lagoon parking lot. Check it out in the video below. @bbcnews Before 2021, the Reykjanes Peninsula had not seen volcanic activity in 800 years. #ReykjanesPeninsula #BlueLagoon #Volcano #Lava #Eruption #Spa #Iceland #Icelandic #Seismic #Travel #News #BBCNews ♬ original sound – BBC News When you imagine a volcano eruption, you likely picture a large explosion. While this is one type of eruption, others are less explosive. Thankfully, this recent eruption was the calmer kind, something Thomas Algeo, an earth science professor at the University of Cincinnati says is “much less dangerous, because most of the activity involves slow moving basaltic lava flows.” Volcano Eruption Near the Popular Blue Lagoon Parking Lot Leaves Icelandic Tourists and Locals in Awe “It’s a style of volcanic activity that is effusive, slow flowing, not violently eruptive, like would be the case with a subduction zone volcanic system,” Thomas adds. While the parking lot and a service building at the Blue Lagoon have been taken over by the lava, the facilities themselves are fine. Plus, there is no danger to the area, and flights have not been affected. Now, folks will simply have to wait for the affected areas to be cleared and re-opened to the public. In the meantime, there’s quite a breathtaking view to witness online. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post Breathtaking Video Shows Glowing Molten Lava Engulfing Parking Lot appeared first on InspireMore.

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New insights into the First Nations of British Columbia show how these resourceful people cultivated hazelnuts across hundreds of miles of their forest homes. The study comes as certain indigenous nations in Canada are attempting to assert land claims by arguing their ancestral use. Tribes such as the Gitxsan, Ts’msyen, and Nisga’a, have oral histories […] The post British Columbia’s Hazelnut Forests Were Actually First Nations’ Forest Farms 7,000 Years Ago appeared first on Good News Network.