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Republican Lawmakers Move On Legislation To Build And Fund Trump's $400 Million Ballroom

Two days after a gunman tried to breach security at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the Hilton hotel, Republican lawmakers got straight to work pushing for President Donald Trump's $400 million White House ballroom. 

The president and First Lady Melania Trump were ushered out of the dinner after the gunman pulled a Leeroy Jenkins past security and shot a Secret Service agent near the security checkpoint. 

The moment President Trump was evacuated from the White House Correspondents dinner after loud noises were heard. pic.twitter.com/RnbIumNR3A

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 26, 2026

Not only was the security atrocious considering how many high-profile individuals were at the event (where Reagan shooter John Hinckley, who shot Regan there, said it was a dumb place to keep holding high-profile events), Trump was evacuated a full 10 seconds after JD Vance. 

🚨 WATCH: Trump — escorted by the arms, Vance — grabbed by the scruff

CNN has released footage showing the evacuation of U.S. leadership.

Security forces first escort Vance out, then rush back for Trump. pic.twitter.com/JNyzRa0ftG

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) April 26, 2026

So, great job there.

Secret Service agents respond during the White House correspondents' dinner on Saturday night. (Tom Brenner/AP) BUILD THAT BALL(room)

And now, the push to get Trump's ballroom completed... 

"Let’s get it done," Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) said on X, announcing that he would introduce legislation this week and move for unanimous consent of "express approval for construction of a Presidential ballroom" - while over in the House Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) will introduce the "Build the Ballroom Act" and file for explicit statutory authority. 

"While the lawsuits attempting to stop this privately-funded gift to the country are nonsense, last night makes it clear that we need it—and we need it now," he posted on X. "I look forward to Democrats repudiating their violent rhetoric against President Trump by cosponsoring and supporting this bill. Mr. President, build away."

Boebert's on it too - with the Colorado Republican announcing that she 'and her team' are in the process of drafting legislation to guarantee the project's completion.

"I don’t believe congressional approval is required for the project, but if it’ll keep activist judges on the sideline, so be it," she posted on X. "More to come this week."

Even Sen. John Fetterman, who was there on Saturday, (D-PN) is onboard. 

"We were there front and center. That venue wasn’t built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the U.S. government," he wrote on X. "After witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the White House ballroom for events exactly like these." 

A model is seen as President Donald Trump addresses a dinner for donors who have contributed to build the new ballroom at the White House in Washington on Oct. 15, 2025. John McDonnell/AP Photo

As the Epoch Times notes further, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche also joined the calls to allow the ballroom to go ahead.

“It’s time to build the ballroom,” he posted on social media.

Trump said on Truth Social that the project was ahead of schedule and well within budget, arguing it’s necessary for security purposes.

He criticized a lawsuit by historic preservationists as based on the “passing aesthetic gripe of a single person” that is no justification for delaying a secure facility.

The ballroom project, envisioned by Trump for years as a classical addition to the executive mansion, has faced repeated legal hurdles. A federal judge ruled in March that construction requires explicit congressional authorization, halting above-ground work while allowing limited underground activity to continue. Appeals courts have issued temporary stays, but litigation from the National Trust for Historic Preservation continues.

Trump once offered to fund a ballroom privately during the Obama years but was turned down. Construction moved forward in Trump’s second term after demolition of parts of the East Wing. The administration described it as a privately-financed upgrade needed to bring the White House up-to-date to accommodate modern events.

Architects called the design “classical, beautiful, and long overdue,” as court cases mulled whether the executive branch required legislative sign-off for such a considerable alteration to the historic complex.

Preservation groups contend the project goes around lawful reviews and risks the White House’s historic character. The Justice Department on April 26 asked for the case to be dropped to ensure the safety of the president, his family, and administration officials.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 23:00

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RFK Jr.'s New Autism Committee Issues First Proposals

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal committee remade by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on April 28 published proposals to revamp diagnosing and treating people with autism spectrum disorder.

Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 22, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee said in one proposal that a component of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should make clear that doctors should be prepared to recognize and treat new issues that occur in autistic people, such as seizures and difficulty sleeping.

The committee said that despite evidence showing new symptoms require treatment, “clinical care remains inconsistent and fragmented across settings.” The symptoms “can be overlooked, deferred, treated as secondary to behavior, or not systematically elicited at all,” it said.

Among the specific recommended changes is treating observations from caregivers of autistic people who are unable to speak, or speak well, as medically relevant information, rather than anecdotal context.

The Health Resources and Services Administration should develop training for doctors to identify and address gastrointestinal changes and sleep disturbances, among other problems, in autistic people, the committee said.

Another proposal suggested that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, another CMS component, clarify that when screening, diagnosing, and treating children with autism, doctors should seriously evaluate conditions such as developmental regression and allergic disease.

“When such triggers are present, further evaluation should be pursued or arranged as clinically indicated,” the proposal said, adding that the evaluation “should not permit these signals to be dismissed solely on the basis of an autism diagnosis.”

The committee said that there is much clinical evidence describing medical conditions that occur among autistic people, but “this evidence is not consistently integrated into clinical assessment, resulting in gaps in recognition, evaluation, and follow-through, especially when these conditions present atypically.”

It added later: “The result has been delayed identification, fragmented care, and preventable morbidity—reflecting a translational gap rather than an absence of evidence.”

The proposals were published as the committee met in Washington to discuss them. It was the first meeting since Kennedy removed existing committee members and selected new ones in January, including some who said vaccines cause autism.

The committee could end up changing the proposals during the meeting.

Dr. Sylvia Fogel, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School and the committee’s chair, said at the opening of the meeting that focusing on treating autistic individuals is imperative because many of the individuals suffer from undiagnosed psychiatric and pain-causing conditions.

“It is unacceptable,” said Fogel, who said her son has what she described as profound autism.

A third proposal would recommend that officials adopt the term profound autism as a reference for autistic people “with the highest and most persistent support needs.”

Fogel said the proposals aim to “address clear and correctable gaps in safety and policy.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 22:35

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Watch: Small Earthquake Registered After IDF Blows Up Largest-Ever Hezbollah Tunnel

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday destroyed a major Hezbollah tunnel in southern Lebanon on Tuesday evening, minutes after issuing an unusual warning that the blast would be heard across wide areas.

The tunnel is being described in regional media as the largest one ever discovered thus far in the war in southern Lebanon. Israeli N12 News reporter Amit Segal has written that "the force of the explosion caused a small earthquake to be felt along the northern border." The below footage has been confirmed in Israeli media:

The IDF destroyed a massive Hezbollah tunnel; the force of the explosion caused a small earthquake to be felt along the northern border. pic.twitter.com/symjrjk7bT

— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) April 28, 2026

Very shortly before the huge blast, an alert went out to Israeli communities from Rosh Hanikra to the Golan Heights, forewarning of the large explosion - telling people not to panic.

The tunnel was located near the village of Qantara, which is a heavily Shiite Muslim town. The Israeli ground operation has seen Muslim and Christian villages alike razed to the ground in some instances.

Amid the fragile Iran and Lebanon ceasefires, sirens sounded in the Galilee area just minutes before the planned detonation, reportedly also based on potential inbound aerial threats.

Amazingly, the Times of Israel reports in the explosion aftermath that the "Geological Survey of Israel says the massive controlled explosion was picked up by the seismic warning system. However, no earthquake sirens were activated."

"The military told residents earlier it would ensure that the controlled blast would not set off the earthquake sirens, which has happened in the past," the report adds.

Blast images circulating widely on X

The blast was filmed and photographed even from miles away, where smoke was seen reaching many stories into the air. 

Lebanon has been denouncing such controlled demolition activity, given that in some cases entire villages and abandoned towns have been destroyed in similar fashion.

Israel has sought to utterly raze any village it deems a Hezbollah weapons depot or safe area. But this has also included targeting Christian towns in the south of Lebanon, as the below image shows.

The Christian village of Yaroun in southern Lebanon, before and after it was destroyed by the Israeli army. pic.twitter.com/Rg77dlbuCJ

— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) April 26, 2026

Western media has tended to present these Mideast conflicts involving Israel as coming down to "Jewish vs. Muslim" wars - but the Israeli army doesn't discriminate in terms of also attacking Lebanese and Palestinian Christian enclaves. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 22:10

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