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

By Jim Lonergan Published April 24, 2026 at 12:41 PM SPRING LAKE, NJ - As Spring Lake and Belmar continue their legal battle with Verizon over wireless infrastructure, a controversial federal bill that could have further limited local control has been pulled from consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives—marking a temporary win for communities pushing back against expanding telecom development. The bill, H.R. 2289 — the American Broadband Deployment Act, was designed to accelerate the r... 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), Co-Chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, sat down with Tony Perkins on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins to discuss the state of the pro-life movement. Smith described the dangers and serious health complications associated with chemical abortion pills, which harm both babies and their mothers, and stressed the importance of reversing the Biden Administration's reckless removal of the in-person dispensing requirements for such drugs. The full interview can be vie... Read more

By Carli Stewart Published April 17, 2026 A congressional hearing led by Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, is putting renewed focus on China’s illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices– and the ripple effects those practices are having on U.S. fishermen. Smith, co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, framed the issue as both an economic and national security concern. “From the earliest days of seafaring, the oceans have been governed not only by currents and commerc... Read more

By El Salvador News Published April 16, 2026 During a tense congressional hearing on human rights, Representative Chris Smith confronted witnesses from El Faro and Cristosal over their refusal to label MS-13 as a terrorist organization. Smith noted that the U.S. has officially designated the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization to better interdict their funding and violent operations. When asked directly if they agreed with this designation, journalist Sergio Arauz and director Noah Bullock... Read more

By El Salvador News Published April 16, 2026 U.S. Representative Chris Smith has issued a definitive defense of El Salvador’s current security transformation, asserting that the country’s progress can only be measured by looking back at its decades of bloodshed. Smith, a veteran advocate for global human rights, noted that any honest assessment of the nation must begin with the undeniable fact that daily life has been fundamentally altered for the better. The congressman drew from his extensive ... Read more

By The Catholic Herald Published April 12, 2026 at 11:40 AM A senior US congressman and a prominent human rights advocate have renewed criticism of the Vatican for hosting one of China’s top transplant officials at a 2017 conference on organ trafficking, arguing that the Holy See should now take a clearer public stand against Beijing’s alleged forced organ harvesting. The criticism came at a Hudson Institute event in Washington on 9 April focused on new evidence concerning organ harvesting in Ch... Read more