News from the world of politics

An anti-immigrant Norwegian lawmaker said Wednesday that he has nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the Middle East. Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian parliament for the populist Progress Party, said Trump should be considered because of his work "for a peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel which opens up for possible peace in the Middle East."

Vice President Mike Pence and top officials from President Trump's campaign are slated to attend a Montana fund­raiser next week hosted by a couple who have expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to an event invitation obtained by the Associated Press. The hosts of the fundraiser, Caryn and Michael Borland, have shared QAnon memes and retweeted posts from QAnon accounts, their social media activity shows. The baseless conspiracy theory posits that Trump is fighting entrenched enemies in the government and also involves satanism and child sex trafficking.

President Trump's 2020 re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee announced Wednesday that they jointly raised $210 million in August, trailing the record haul their Democratic counterparts brought in during the same time period. While Trump's August fundraising is a record for his campaign, it is far less than the $365.4 million Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised last month.

The Trump administration is moving forward with a policy that expands protections for religious groups on college campuses and threatens to cut federal education funding to colleges that violate free speech rules. The rule was issued by the Education Department on Wednesday and cements much of what President Trump outlined in a March 2019 executive order demanding wider speech protections at U.S. colleges, highlighting concerns from conservatives who complained that their voices had been suppressed on university campuses. As part of the policy, the Education Department can suspend or terminate grants to public universities found in court to have violated the First Amendment.