By Gabrielle M. Etzel Published April 24, 2026 at 6:00am ET A coalition of anti-abortion legislators is calling for an end to human embryonic stem cell research at the National Institutes of Health, reviving a debate on the ethical use of aborted fetal materials in research after nearly two decades of inaction on the controversy. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), along with 16 other House members and five other senators, sent a letter on Friday to NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattac... Read more

By Virginia Grace McKinnon Published April 24, 2026 Congress is putting parties aside to extend the bipartisan protection and prevention of human trafficking in the United States. The Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act has been stalled in the House since February 2025. But Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Rep. Kwesi Mfume, D-Md., are now calling for more education to prevent human trafficking, increased funding to support victims, and stronger guard... Read more

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), and 21 other Republican members of Congress sent a letter to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, urging him to permanently end the agency’s funding of human embryo-destroying stem cell (hESC) research and terminate the NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry (Registry). The letter, first obtained by the Washington Examiner, asserts that hESC research—which the NIH has ... Read more

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) speaks at his Capitol Hill press conference on H.R. 1144 on Thursday, April 23, 2026. At a widely attended press conference on Capitol Hill, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), author of landmark anti-human trafficking legislation, and Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) called upon Congress to pass their new, comprehensive bill, the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act (FD TVPRA) (H.R. 1144). The press conference gathered human trafficking surv... Read more

On Tuesday, April 28th, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC), will chair a congressional hearing on the human rights situation in North Korea. The human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) remains among the most severe and closed in the world. The government continues to maintain pervasive political control, including strict limits on expression, movement, and access to outside information, enforced through an exten... Read more

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) delivers remarks at his press conference on HR 1144 on Thursday, April 23, 2026 on Capitol Hill. The following are excerpts of remarks delivered by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) at today’s Capitol Hill press conference on HR 1144, the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2025: Special thanks to my good friend and colleague, Congressman Kwesi Mfume of Maryland, for his steadfast leadership and co-sponsorship of the Frederick Do... Read more

By Susan Carpenter Published April 23, 2026 at 5:25 PM ET WASHINGTON — A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers rallied at the Capitol on Thursday in support of a bill to prevent sex trafficking and protect victims. The Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act will reauthorize and add to a 25-year-old law that was used to prosecute the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and to convict his longtime enabler, Ghislaine Maxwell. “This is about nameless... Read more

By Ana Swanson, Sapna Maheshwari, and Meaghan Tobin Published April 23, 2026 Over the past two years, a furry monster with bunny ears and a vicious line of serrated teeth became the subject of a global craze, as shoppers waited hours in line or paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for the most coveted Labubus. The boom turned Pop Mart, the Chinese company that sells Labubus, into a global brand. But a test of the doll — the results of which The New York Times has independently confirmed — showe... Read more

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), founder and Co-Chair of the Congressional Autism Caucus and author of five comprehensive autism laws, issued the following statement after meeting with Autism Speaks advocates from across the country to discuss the importance of continued federal research funding for autism: “Yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of welcoming over 100 Autism Speaks advocates to Washington, D.C. for the 2026 Autism Speaks Advocacy Forum & Capitol Hill Day. “Autism Speaks President and C... Read more

Three of New Jersey’s brightest computer science students, who won the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in New Jersey’s Fourth District, were honored this week at a ceremony on Capitol Hill for their creation of a new app, Food Fight. Selected by a panel of five judges, Ava Obara, Skye Huang, and Abigail Riddle—all from Communications High School in Wall Township, New Jersey—won the NJ-04 competition hosted by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) for Food Fight, an app that presents nutritional facts in a t... Read more