Blue Light News Republican who could get a deal on AI — if his leadership lets him

Published

5 months ago

February 5, 2026

Blue Light News Republican who could get a deal on AI — if his leadership lets him

Rep. Jay Obernolte’s compromise approach to AI regulation is seen by many in the tech industry as their best hope to block state AI laws. But do GOP leaders want what he’s selling…
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The world’s not big on the US. The World Cup might help.

Published

14 minutes ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

America’s stint hosting the World Cup is drawing mostly positive reviews to date — and it couldn’t come at a better time.

According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, views of America across the world are worsening and confidence in President Donald Trump’s leadership is dropping.

Pew surveyed 42,000 people across 36 countries between February and May, and found that America has a largely negative impression on the global theater. Only 23 percent of surveyed adults expressed confidence in Trump’s leadership — eliciting less confidence than Chinese leader Xi Jinping (34 percent) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (31 percent).

Foreign policy is the biggest pain point for Trump’s international critics, who take issue with his handling of tariffs, Gaza, Iran, Greenland and the Russia-Ukraine war, according to Pew’s findings.

Meanwhile, fewer countries — and longtime allies — believe the U.S. is a reliable partner. In Canada, where 83 percent of respondents described the U.S. as reliable in 2022, that number is now down to 35 percent.

In 2023, 60 percent of Germans said the U.S. considers international interests in its foreign policy decisions. That share has now dwindled to 23 percent — Germany’s public opinion of the U.S. is “now similar to or more negative than what was measured during George W. Bush’s presidency, when many people in Europe and elsewhere strongly opposed the war in Iraq and other major elements of U.S. foreign policy,” writes Pew.

There are only seven nations where a majority rate the U.S. well — Israel leads the pack, with 81 percent of respondents viewing America favorably. Some of the country’s lowest ratings come from predominantly Muslim publics, “such as Malaysians, Pakistanis, Turks, and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

Over the past decade, Pew’s polling has found growing concerns about the health of American democracy. A 2013 Pew survey, just as Barack Obama entered his second term, an all-time high of 75 percent of respondents in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea and the U.K. said the U.S. respects its citizens’ personal freedoms.

Since then, declining shares of world respondents believe the U.S. respects its citizens’ personal liberties — and this year, 56 percent of respondents said the U.S. does not.

Politics

Envoy’s pharaoh well party

Published

14 minutes ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Egyptian Ambassador Motaz Zahran and wife are hosting an informal farewell party tonight for close friends and family at his Washington, D.C. residence tonight, according to an attendee, hours before Egypt faces off against Iran in a closely watched game in Seattle. Ambassador Mohamed Hamdy Mohamed Mokhtar El-Molla will replace Zahran as the new Egyptian envoy to the U.S.

Politics

Pete Buttigeig says he was targeted by false abuse allegation in Michigan

Published

44 minutes ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says he was kept apart from his two young children for 24 hours after someone made a false complaint about him to child protective services in Michigan.

In a Friday post to substack, Buttigieg said an anonymous caller who claimed to have met him several years ago at a conference in Alabama had reported him to CPS for committing “unspeakable violent crimes” and the caller believed his four-year-old twins were still at risk.

Buttigieg said the twins were placed with their grandparents’ and underwent a forensic interview as authorities investigated the allegations.

“For twenty-four deeply distressing hours, we had no idea what I was accused of or what was about to happen,” Buttigieg wrote. “We could not understand someone abusing the system like this in order to hurt me and my family with an absurd and easily refuted allegation of a horrific crime.”

Michigan State Police confirmed in response to questions about the Substack post that they had responded to an anonymous report this week, which they determined to be false.

“False reports are dangerous and divert law enforcement officers and Child Protective Services workers from responding to legitimate emergencies and protecting vulnerable children and families,” Shanon Banner, spokesperson for the state police, said in a statement.

Despite the conclusion that the report was false, Buttigieg said he was told it would “take a bit longer” before the case is officially closed. A spokesperson for the former Cabinet secretary referred questions to the state police.

Buttigieg pointed out that it is a crime to file a false report, adding that “if there is any way to press civil or criminal charges over this, we will.”

Buttigieg, who formerly served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and ran for president in 2020, called the false report “the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.”

“I cannot describe the mix of rage and sadness that I feel at the idea that someone brought our children into this. They are four years old. Four. They do not know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is,” he said. “For God’s sake, they are just kids.”