Contributing Writers

Transgender activists this week have been occupying state capitol buildings across the country to protest legislation placing restrictions on gender transition procedures for children and the teaching of gender identity in the classroom. The protests came the same week police identified a transgender individual as the shooter responsible for murdering six people, including three 9-year-old children, in Monday’s shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville.

The Nashville school shooting should be investigated as a hate crime since the transgender shooter intentionally targeted Christians, Sen. Josh Hawley told Fox News on Tuesday.  The Trans Resistance Network, a trans activist group, said the transgender shooter felt “no other effective way to be seen” than by killing six people at a private Presbyterian school.

Famed Hollywood actor Richard Gere on Tuesday joined Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill to condemn the “abuses” undertaken by the Chinese Communist Party against the people of Tibet, a region in the southwest of China, Gere appeared at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol alongside Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

A new lawsuit over Maine’s tuition reimbursement program for private schools contends an antidiscrimination law unfairly targets religious schools to prevent their participation. The law requiring all schools to follow state antidiscrimination laws, including protections for LGBTQ students and faculty, to receive reimbursements went into effect before the U.S.

A Texas Senate committee is sending two bills placing restrictions on drag shows to the Senate floor, putting them up for a vote, according to reports. FOX 4 in Dallas reported that the bills made it through the senate committee, green lighting them for further action. One of the bills, SB12, restricts some sexually-oriented performances on public property, at a commercial enterprise or in the presence of a minor.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, has built a reputation as one of the “meanest” members of Congress to work for, but has also become one of its most recognizable faces, having represented the same district in the House of Representatives for more than 28 years.  She announced this week, however, that she would be running for mayor of Houston in the off-year election, potentially bringing her tumultuous time in Congress to an end should she prevail.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, is leading an effort to amend the controversial Respect for Marriage Act, a law aimed at protecting same-sex marriages that was passed with bipartisan support last summer, in order to include new protections for religious observers that weren’t included.

A civil liberties group is urging students at George Mason University to respect differing viewpoints following their calls to remove Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin from the institution’s commencement ceremony. George Mason University announced last week that Youngkin would deliver the commencement speech in May in front of the university’s 2023 graduating class, which led to students demanding the governor be prohibited from speaking or attending the ceremony.

FIRST ON FOX: Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett called for the manifesto by the transgender shooter at the private Presbyterian school in Nashville to be made public. “Our trans youth are troubled,” Burchett told Fox News Digital in a late Monday statement. “If they don’t get the help they need they can grow up to have some serious issues, but I obviously don’t believe they’ll all grow up to be shooters like this.

Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear was excoriated by his Republican challengers over the weekend for choosing to veto a bill that would ban gender transition surgeries for minors, prohibit school discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity, and prevent teachers from being forced to use a student’s preferred pronouns. The bill, SB 150, was passed by state lawmakers along party lines earlier this month before heading to Beshear’s desk last week.

GOFFSTOWN, N.H. – Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie predicts that in a 2024 Republican presidential nomination race that’s shaping up to be combustible, “it’s not going to end nicely” for former President Donald Trump.

George Mason University announced that Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin will be the commencement speaker at the institution’s 2023 graduation ceremony in May, and some students are pushing to cancel his speech. Students at the university started a petition on Thursday, the same day Youngkin was announced as the speaker, demanding Younkgin not be permitted to speak or even attend the commencement ceremony on May 18.

Former President Donald Trump blasted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a Saturday night rally in Texas and accused him of prosecutorial misconduct.

Former President Donald Trump announced his campaign’s Texas leadership team on Saturday night which included several high level state officials but noticeably did not include Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. In a statement released before thousands of people packed into the Waco Regional Airport for Trump’s first rally since announcing his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump revealed the list of Texans who will make up his leadership team in the state.

Former Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over his focus on potentially prosecuting former President Donald Trump and suggested the move is politically motivated. “I don’t understand why Bragg is putting such emphasis on this case,” the former governor told WABC Radio on Friday night.  “A person breaks the law I get it, but on the state side this is a misdemeanor case.

Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is blackballing anyone who works for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a new report. Justin Caporale, who helps lead the advance team for the former president, has put out the word that anyone who staffed a recent DeSantis book tour will be considered “persona non grata,” RealClearPolitics reported Friday.

A Florida former mayor resigned abruptly earlier this week because he disagreed with the “reckless” way the city council wanted to spend tax dollars, he told Fox News. “We’ve had very little debt, but the spreadsheets that we were looking at this past Monday showed a number of projects and the funding shortfall was a quarter of a billion dollars,” former Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard said.

President Biden announced this week that he is committed to working with lawmakers who have backed tearing down four hydropower dams in Washington to protect salmon species. Biden remarked during a conservation event Tuesday that he would work with tribes, Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, to “bring healthy and abundant salmon runs back” to the Columbia River system.

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., is expected back to work “soon,” his office said Thursday, though a return is still more than a week away. Fetterman, 53, was only weeks into his service when he checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Feb. 15. During his campaign in Pennsylvania, Fetterman’s health was repeatedly targeted by his critics.

Americans saw a number of viral moments during Thursday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing focused on security concerns surrounding the use of TikTok in the U.S.  During the hearing, lawmakers questioned TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew over allegations the platform may be being used by China to spy on Americans, its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the inappropriate content contained within it. In one viral moment, Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla.