• Inaugural Board of Peace meeting: President Donald Trump led the first meeting of his Board of Peace on Thursday, which included leaders and representatives of 47 other nations. The U.S. will contribute $10 billion for the project, while other nations — including Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan — have promised $7 billion. The event highlighted the changing global landscape with the presence of regional players, including Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, while traditional U.S. allies like France were absent. Several nations are expected to contribute thousands of troops to the International Stabilization Force in Gaza. Trump promised that the Board of Peace would strengthen the UN after some raised concerns that its (dubious) status as the chief geopolitical diplomatic venue was being challenged.

• Virginia gerrymandering referendum halted: On Thursday, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley issued a temporary injunction blocking early voting on the Virginia Democrats’ redistricting ballot measure. The ruling comes in response to the Republican National Committee’s lawsuit challenging the measure for violating state law and the Virginia Constitution. Hurley wrote, “Plaintiffs are also likely to succeed on the merit of their claim that the referendum on the proposed amendment violates the timing requirement of Article XII, Section 1 because early voting is set for ‘sooner than 90 days after’ the January passage of House Joint Resolution 4.” He also agreed with the plaintiff’s contention that the ballot language of “restore fairness” was misleading because it communicated to voters that a vote against the measure would be a vote in favor of “unfairness.”

• UAW gets another win in Chattanooga: The Marxists have made it to East Tennessee, and they’re capitalizing on gains made under the Biden regime. Volkswagen invested in Chattanooga in 2008, creating thousands of jobs during an economic crisis due to sensible pro-business policies in the Volunteer State. In 2024, amid pressure from the Biden administration, VW did not oppose its workers unionizing, despite such a union having been rejected multiple times in the past. On Thursday, union members overwhelmingly approved their first collective bargaining agreement. The deal provides a 20% pay raises over four years and a mandated break every 2.5 hours, but it also gives the union oversight of equipment design and repurposing, as well as establishing a DEI committee to ensure inclusivity. Long term, this deal hurts union workers, but UAW President Shawn Fain will be long gone by the time the bill comes due.

• SOTU Resistance™: On Tuesday, President Trump will fulfill his constitutional requirement to brief Congress on the state of the union. Democrats are hoping to have a more coherent response than at last year’s Joint Address to Congress. Leftist groups MeidasTouch and MoveOn are coordinating some counterprogramming during Trump’s speech. At least a dozen Democrats have already announced their boycott of the event, with more expected to storm out of the House chamber during the speech. Instead, they will attend a rally they’re calling the “People’s State of the Union,” with Joy Reid serving as one of the hosts. We can already hear the messaging: Donald Trump is a fascist and the sky is falling! After Trump’s speech, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, who ran as a moderate and is governing as far left as possible, will give the official rebuttal.

• Re-screening “refugees”: This week, the DHS issued a memo to immigration agents rescinding a 2010 directive that had prohibited the detention of migrants who legally entered the U.S. as refugees if they failed to apply for lawful permanent residence within a year. Furthermore, those refugees who fall under this will not only be detained but will also need to be re-screened. While refugee and immigration groups have objected, a spokesperson for DHS observed, “This is not novel or discretionary; it is a clear requirement in law. The alternative would be to allow fugitive aliens to run rampant through our country with zero oversight. We refuse to let that happen.”

• Court blocks California’s ICE ID law: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling extending a lower court’s temporary hold on the implementation of California’s new ICE ID law, a law that requires federal officers to include their name or badge number on their uniform. “We have evaluated these factors at this very preliminary stage of this appeal, and we conclude that the government has made a sufficient showing to warrant a temporary administrative injunction pending completion of full briefing on the government’s emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal,” the three-judge panel wrote. With threats against ICE having increased by over 8,000%, the concern for protecting their identity is very real, especially due to the fact that criminal cartels are targeting them.

• East Wing designs gets the green light: On Thursday, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts voted unanimously to approve the Trump administration’s final design for the modernization of the White House East Wing. The panel, led by Chairman Rodney Mims Cook Jr., a Trump appointee, expressed enthusiastic support for the reconstruction, observing, “Our sitting president has actually designed a very beautiful structure. The United States just should not be entertaining the world in tents. It is really outrageous that we do that, and no president has really stepped up to the plate to require that be corrected, until President Trump.” Despite a significant number of objections being raised against the project, mostly motivated by opposition to Trump, the CFA has never wavered in its support for the East Wing expansion, which will include a badly needed ballroom.

• NFL’s Chicago Bears “committed” to Indiana: In a move that echoes that of other major businesses leaving blue states for more favorable red states, the Chicago Bears are set to move out of Illinois and into Indiana. While the Indiana Senate passed Senate Bill 27 to fund a $2 billion stadium in Hammond, Indiana, the Illinois House of Representatives canceled its meeting to discuss the Illinois stadium project. The Bears released a statement expressing their appreciation for the leadership of Indiana Governor Mike Braun, and that they look forward to “continuing to build our working relationship together.” Braun praised the partnership and said that Bill 27 is the framework to complete the deal. He continued, “We have built a strong relationship with the Bears organization that will serve as the foundation for a public-private partnership, leading to the construction of a world-class stadium and a win for taxpayers.”

• Kansas legislature overrides pro-transgender governor: Democrat Governor Laura Kelly vetoed the Kansas legislature’s Woman’s Privacy Bill that seeks to protect girls and women from gender-confused men in bathrooms and locker rooms, but the Republicans in the Kansas House and Senate voted to override the governor’s veto and pass the bill into law. Kansas City Public Radio reported, “The new law will require government buildings, including public schools and universities, to ‘take every reasonable step’ to segregate restrooms and locker rooms by sex.” The bill establishes the penalties related to transgression of the law: “Individuals could be fined or sued for $1,000 and criminally charged for repeatedly being accused of using facilities that don’t match the sex they were assigned at birth.” Governor Kelly is yet another female Democrat who is putting ideology above protecting her own kind, but that’s probably because she doesn’t know what a woman is.

• U.S. steel production rises thanks to Trump’s tariffs: President Trump touted his tariffs while touring a steel plant in North Georgia on Thursday, saying that business is booming thanks to his “Trump tariffs.” On Friday, though, the Supreme Court struck down the basis for Trump’s tariffs in a 6-3 decision, endangering these tariff-related gains. Kevin Dempsey, CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute, clearly agreed that the tariffs were helping, as he touted a 3.1% rise in production in the last year. The U.S. is now the third-largest steel producer worldwide, surpassing Japan. Imports are also down, says Dempsey, with the 25.2 million tons of steel imported a record low since 2010, excepting the COVID shutdown year of 2020.

Headlines

• DOGE defeat: Congress has rejected most of Trump’s spending cuts (Washington Times)

• Boeing announces move weeks after Democrat Abigail Spanberger takes office (Fox News)

• Judge scolds Mark Zuckerberg’s team for wearing Meta glasses to social media trial (CBS News)

• Again? Foreign trucker “wearing a turban” detained for ICE after running red light, killing Indiana man (Not the Bee)

• Jury rules black mom must pay white teen $3.2 million after calling him a racist to raise money on GoFundMe (Not the Bee)

The Executive News Summary is compiled daily by Jordan Candler, Thomas Gallatin, Sterling Henry, and Sophie Starkova. For the archive, click here.