The Apache tribe in Arizona is taking a fight with the federal government and copper producers to the Supreme Court, which they hope will protect what they say is their religious rights to sacred ground. 

Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit group representing the tribe’s interests, is fighting to preserve Oak Flat — what the Apaches say is their ‘direct corridor to the Creator and the locus of sacred ceremonies that cannot take place elsewhere.’

According to the petition filed at the high court, the government ‘has long protected Apache rituals there.’

‘But because copper was discovered beneath Oak Flat, the government decided to transfer the site to Respondent Resolution Copper for a mine that will undisputedly destroy Oak Flat — swallowing it in a massive crater and ending sacred Apache rituals forever.’ 

Apache Stronghold argues that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Free Exercise Clause forbids the government to do so and are asking it to reverse a lower court decision.

‘In a fractured en banc ruling cobbled together from two separate 6-5 majorities, the Ninth Circuit rejected both claims. Although the court acknowledged that destroying Oak Flat would ‘literally prevent’ the Apaches from engaging in religious exercise, it nevertheless concluded that doing so would not ‘substantially burden’ their religious exercise under RFRA, relying on this Court’s pre-RFRA decision in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association,’ the petition states. 

‘And while the majority acknowledged that singling out Oak Flat for destruction is ‘plainly not ‘generally applicable,’ it rejected the free-exercise claim ‘for the same reasons’ — no substantial burden,’ it continues. 

Oak Flat is a 6.7-square-mile sacred site east of Superior, Arizona. The site includes old-growth oak groves, sacred springs, burial locations and a singular concentration of archaeological sites testifying to its persistent use for the past 1,500 years, the Apache’s argue. 

Wendsler Nosie of the Apache Stronghold described it as the Mount Sinai of their faith. 

‘That’s where our ceremonial ways have been born, the identity of who we are, and the continuing of who we are as people, to how we’re created and how we’re placed onto this earth.’ Nosie said in an interview with Fox News Digital. ‘The meaning behind it is made so much more when it comes to the spirituality of an individual tied to mother earth and to the Creator.’  

‘One example is the Sunrise Ceremony, a multi-day celebration marking an Apache girl’s entry into womanhood,’ the legal filing states. 

‘To prepare, the girl gathers plants from Oak Flat that contain ‘the spirit of Chi’chil Biłdagoteel.’  As she gathers, she speaks to the spirit of Oak Flat, expressing gratitude for its resources. Ibid. Her godmother dresses her in ‘the essential tools of . . . becoming a woman,’ and tribal members surround her with singing, dancing, and prayer.’ 

According to the filing, in 1995, a large copper deposit was discovered 4,500 to 7,000 feet beneath Oak Flat. Hoping to obtain the deposit, two large multinational mining companies, Rio Tinto and BHP, formed a joint venture called Resolution Copper. From 2005 to 2013, congressional supporters of Resolution Copper introduced at least twelve standalone bills to transfer Oak Flat to the company, but each one failed. 

In 2014, Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake attached the land-transfer bill to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), authorizing the transfer of a 2,422-acre parcel including Oak Flat to Resolution Copper in exchange for about 5,344 acres scattered elsewhere.

The bill revokes the presidential orders protecting Oak Flat from mining and directs the Secretary of Agriculture to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed mine.

Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack published the EIS on Jan. 15, 2021, which said the mine would destroy Oak Flat.

Lawyers for Becket, a nonprofit law firm that defends religious liberties and is representing Apache Stronghold, say the government is trampling their clients’ religious freedoms. 

‘They effectively say that there’s a carve-out from RFRA for the government’s management of federal land, that if the government makes it impossible for you to exercise your religion, that’s a substantial burden, but that rule doesn’t apply to federal land,’ Becket counsel Joe Davis explained in an interview with Fox News Digital. 

‘But there’s really no basis in the law that Congress wrote for that kind of argument,’ he said. 

‘RFRA, on its face, says that it applies to all federal law and the implementation of that law, and it says that the use of land for religious purposes is a religious exercise that the law is designed to protect.’ he said. 

The Supreme Court could decide to take up the case as soon as October. 

‘Blasting the birthplace of Apache religion into oblivion would be an egregious violation of our nation’s promise of religious freedom for people of all faiths,’ said Luke Goodrich, vice president of Becket. ‘The Court should uphold its strong record of defending religious freedom by ensuring that the Apaches can continue worshiping at Oak Flat as they have for centuries.’

A bipartisan pair of senators is introducing a new bill on the fourth anniversary of the Abraham Accords to deepen cooperation between U.S. and Middle East partners. 

The LINK Act, brought forth by Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., co-chairs of the Abraham Accords Caucus, would establish a ‘military subject matter exchange program’ to deepen cultural ties and strategic cooperation between American troops and allies in the Middle East. 

‘In the face of emboldened Iranian aggression, I’m deepening the historic partnerships created through the Abraham Accords four years ago today,’ said Ernst.

‘More cooperation among our Middle East partners is what Tehran fears. The LINK Act accomplishes this by coordinating military planning and creating a permanent and effective defense alliance. By working hand-in-hand with our partners, the strength and security of our nations grows.’

The pair of senators had three of their previous Middle East-related bills signed into law. 

The Gulf States of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain signed a normalization deal with Israel in 2020, brokered by the U.S., known as the Abraham Accords.

As part of the agreements, UAE and Bahrain recognized Israel’s sovereignty and established full diplomatic relations. It was the first time Israel had established peace with an Arab country since 1994 with the Israel-Jordan peace treaty. 

In the months that followed, Sudan and Morocco signed deals to normalize relations with Israel. 

The bill comes at a time of sky-high tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Israel and Saudi Arabia had been nearing a deal that included the U.S. and would have normalized relations when Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. 

The U.S. has been bolstering its relations with nations in the Middle East to counter the growing threat of a potential nuclear Iran – even ones with mixed human rights records like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. 

The Biden administration recently lifted a hold on $320 million in military aid to Egypt that it had frozen in response to human rights concerns, bringing the total amount up to $1.3 billion transferred from Washington to Cairo this year. 

Egypt is playing a central role in the talks between Hamas and Israel about a cease-fire agreement.

Leonard Leo, who operates a vast network of conservative nonprofits, called on his groups to start ‘weaponizing’ their ideas, something he said the left has been championing over the years. 

A letter sent to groups supported by Leo’s 85 Fund on Wednesday said it would be undergoing a ‘comprehensive review’ of entities it supports, and ‘will be adjusting the extent to which it funds ideas and policy development.’ The goal, according to Leo’s letter, is to ensure their philanthropic efforts are not overly focused on ‘ideation,’ or as Leo describes it, ‘the development of and education about conservative ideas and policies.’ Rather, Leo wants his groups to adopt more aggressive tactics that ‘weaponize’ their ideas and produce more tangible results, something he suggested liberals have championed effectively for their causes.  

‘The Left built powerful networks of activists, academics, journalists, and philanthropists, along with professionals from other disciplines, who could collaborate to influence public attitudes and generate political pressure on public officials,’ Leo said. ‘They invested in talent pipelines to populate the power centers inside government, where policy would be implemented. They incubated litigation as a means of leveraging the law to produce change. And, beyond politics and law, left-wing philanthropy built or took over enormous infrastructure to control various cultural chokepoints.’

‘In contrast,’ Leo continued, ‘vastly insufficient funds are going toward operationalizing and weaponizing [conservative] ideas and policies to crush liberal dominance.’

Leo, the co-chairman and former executive vice president of the Federalist Society, a group focusing on advancing the principles of a limited, constitutional government, controls a $1.6 billion war chest.  The money was given to him by industrialist Barre Seid to fund his network of conservative groups.

Leo’s letter cited the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation and the Hansjörg Wyss-backed Arabella Advisors as examples of groups that ‘incubate action-oriented campaigns.’ He pointed to their support of nationwide NGOs like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). SJP has been at the forefront of drumming up anti-Israel sentiment at college campuses across the country since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack that killed over a thousand innocent Israelis and took hundreds hostage. Meanwhile, WPATH has been at the forefront of the transgender movement, publishing standards of care that doctors and public officials alike have used to justify ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors.

‘With donors like Hansjörg Wyss and the Arabella Advisors network having billions at their disposal, the left is able to significantly outspend the conservative movement to shift American society,’ Leo told Fox News Digital. ‘Consequently, we need to do more with less, focusing on leveraging the conservative movement’s talent to have impact, if we want to be successful.’

Leo has been credited with transforming the Federalist Society into the powerhouse lawfare organization it is today with more than 70,000 members. Meanwhile, Leo has also been considered one of the foremost influences on former President Trump’s Supreme Court nominations. Prior to Trump’s selection of Federalist Society-backed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, Leo drew up a list of potential judges that Trump released during his 2016 campaign.  

After Trump was elected, Leo stepped away from his daily duties with the Federalist Society, but remained its co-chair. Meanwhile, in 2022, Leo’s Marble Freedom Trust received a $1.6 billion gift from American businessman and GOP donor Barre Seid. Leo still has roughly $1 billion left to spend, the Financial Times reported this week after analyzing public financial disclosures. A representative for Leo declined to share how many total NGOs receive financial support from the 85 Fund. 

‘[W]e need to do more with less, focusing on leveraging the conservative movement’s talent to have impact, if we want to be successful.’

‘Expect us to increase support for organizations that call out companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus spread by regulators and NGOs, so that they have to pay a price for putting extreme left-wing ideology ahead of consumers,’ Leo said during a rare interview he granted to the Financial Times. 

Leo told the outlet that his Marble Freedom Trust has been increasingly focused on going after ‘woke’ banks and China-friendly entities across a range of sectors, such as food production and artificial intelligence. Leo also indicated he plans to invest in local media in the U.S. over the next year.  

The call from Leo for his groups to ‘operationalize’ and ‘weaponize’ their ideas has been met with anger from liberal critics. 

‘Leonard Leo’s brazen call to ‘weaponize’ the conservative movement further exposes his strategy of using his dark money network to force his right-wing agenda on everyday Americans and stack the deck in favor of the powerful few,’ said Carolina Ciccone, president of NGO watchdog Accountable.US. ‘Let’s be very clear: This isn’t just about shaping conservative thought — it’s about weaponizing the very institutions that are set up to protect the rights of everyday Americans to serve the interests of right-wing special interests.’

Jay Willis, former GQ writer and current editor-in-chief of progressive commentary website Balls & Strikes, accused Leo of trying to rebrand ‘as an Elon Musk-style culture warrior who rants about the ‘woke mind virus.’’

Britain is facing a free speech crisis as the new left-wing government, overzealous police and courts crackdown on freedom of expression. 

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the leader of the ruling Labour Party, and his government of barely two months have been accused of rolling back free speech protections on safety grounds and failing to root out selective enforcement of laws.

‘Every Brit fundamentally has the right to free speech, but for several years now, we’ve seen a growing trend,’ Lois McLatchie Miller, Senior Legal Communications Officer for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) U.K., told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s only now becoming widely recognized that certain groups, depending on their beliefs, seem to have their free speech curtailed much more easily than others with different viewpoints.’

Widespread riots in the streets of England last month and a heavy-handed approach in response to the social unrest reignited the debate about free speech. 

The U.K. has been grappling with harsh policing of online speech for years. In 2019, ex-police officer Harry Miller was investigated over social media posts deemed transphobic for questioning whether transgender women were real women. Miller’s posts were recorded by the police as a ‘non-crime hate incident,’ prompting him to challenge the designation in court. In 2020, the U.K. court ruled in Miller’s favor but stopped short of changing the guidelines that allow police to pursue people over comments made online.

During a speech to parliament, Reform Party leader Nigel Farage complained of the double standards in applying the law evenly. Farage wrote on X ‘Establishment MPs can heckle me all they like, but the British people are angry that we are living through a two-tier policing and justice system.’

Last month, the government issued a direct reminder of such laws and warned its citizens to be mindful of posting content deemed offensive and threatening with imprisonment. The Crown Prosecution Service posted a warning to social media platform X, which was amplified by the government’s official social media accounts, warning citizens, ‘Think before you post!’

‘Content that incites violence or hatred isn’t just harmful – it can be illegal,’ the agency wrote. ‘The CPS takes online violence seriously and will prosecute when the legal test is met. Remind those close to you to share responsibly or face the consequences.’ The post added: ‘The British government is cracking down on people who share social media posts about the U.K. riots that it judges are ‘likely to start racial hatred.”

The government simultaneously began working on measures to force social media companies to suppress perceived ‘fake news’ and legal content deemed harmful, to avoid fueling social unrest. The new measures would expand the scope of Britain’s Online Safety Act by targeting and making social media companies liable for ‘legal but harmful’ content.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan encouraged the Stammer government to swiftly implement changes to the online safety law, saying that currently, ‘it’s not fit for purpose.’

‘I think very swiftly the government has realized there needs to be amendments to the Online Safety Act,’ Khan said in an interview with the Guardian. ‘I think what the government should do very quickly is check if it is fit for purpose. I think it’s not fit for purpose.’

But concerns over free speech in the U.K. extend beyond online, with double standards applied to different viewpoints and political protests.

‘This isn’t 1984, but 2024.’

Last weekend, two pro-Israel counter-protesters, Mark Birbeck and Niyak Ghorbani, carrying a ‘Hamas is terrorist’ sign, were arrested during the pro-Hamas march in London on suspicion of breach of peace. The counter-protesters’ presence allegedly led to the march being paused, and they were arrested following a struggle with police officers. 

Ghorbani is a well-known anti-Hamas Iranian dissident whom London’s Metropolitan Police tried to ban from attending future anti-Israel protests as part of his bail conditions after he was arrested for opposing the protests. A court rebuked the force and ruled in April that such bail conditions were neither proportionate nor necessary. The moniker ‘Two-tier Kier’ is how some on social media have responded to the new prime minister’s policies. 

‘On one hand, we see groups like environmental protesters, such as Stop Oil activists, or pro-Palestinian, and even in some cases, pro-Hamas protesters being given a wide berth to express their beliefs, sometimes using very violent language,’ Lois said. ‘Yet, when we consider different types of protests, for example, Christians going out to pray near places of worship, they often face much stricter restrictions.’

For example, Dia Moodley, a Christian pastor who occasionally engages in street evangelism, was forced to sue the local police after the force forbade him from ‘passing comments on any other religion or comparing them to Christianity’ and ‘passing comments on beliefs held by Atheists or those who believe in evolution.’ Moodley won in court earlier this year, and the police admitted that the restrictions on free speech imposed on Moodley were ‘disproportionate.’

‘Two-tier Kier’ is how some on social media have responded to the new prime minister’s policies.

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Adam Smith-Connor, a Christian military veteran, meanwhile, is set to appear in court next week after being fined and criminally prosecuted over praying silently near an abortion facility. Local authorities alleged that Smith-Connor’s silent prayer violated the so-called ‘buffer zone,’ a designated area where individuals are allowed to express approval or disapproval of abortion.

‘Silent prayer is not, and can never be, a crime. Yet, the prosecution of Adam Smith-Connor – who served in Afghanistan to uphold fundamental freedoms for everyone – shows an authoritarian move towards ‘thought-policing’ in the U.K. This isn’t 1984, but 2024. And yet, the determination of the state to clamp down hard on even silent Christian beliefs – while protecting the free expression of others with different views – is clearly exposed,’ said McLatchie Miller.

Yet, there is a growing backlash against the government’s anti-free speech stance, particularly the decision to pause the implementation and potentially scrap entirely the free speech law in higher education over safety concerns. 

Over 600 academics and intellectuals, including seven Nobel laureates, signed a letter urging the government to reconsider the decision to shelve the law, the Times of London reported. The law was a flagship policy passed by the previous Conservative government to protect students’ and academics’ free speech rights on campus.

‘The decision to halt [the act] appears to reflect the view, widespread among opponents, that there is no ‘free speech problem’ in U.K. universities. Nothing could be more false. Hundreds of academics and students have been hounded, censured, silenced or even sacked over the last 20 years for the expression of legal opinions,’ the letter read.