The president of a Christian college in Springdale pleaded guilty to a fraud charge Wednesday, admitting he took part in what prosecutors called a kickback scheme involving his school.

Oren Paris III had faced a trial Monday with former state Sen. Jon Woods and consultant Randell Shelton. Instead, the president of Ecclesia College pleaded guilty in federal court.

Prosecutors say Paris paid kickbacks to Woods and then-Rep. Micah Neal in return for $550,000 in state grants in 2013-14, using Shelton's consulting firm as a go-between. Neal pleaded guilty last year but has not been sentenced.

Woods, a Republican, faces 15 fraud counts while Paris and Shelton were named in 14 counts. Paris pleaded guilty to a fraud charge Wednesday. All had been charged with conspiracy, and Woods also faces a money-laundering charge.

Paris plead guilty to transferring $50,000 of a $200,000 in grant money from Woods and Neal to Shelton. Shelton sent $40,000 of the money to Woods as a kickback, according to Paris' plea.

In addition to pleading guilty, Paris quit as the college president and resigned from the board of the school his father founded. Woods and Shelton have each pleaded not guilty.

His lawyer, Travis Story, said Paris was allowed to retain the right to appeal the judge's refusal to dismiss the case against him. If Paris wins on appeal, the indictment and guilty plea would be voided, Story said. Paris said Woods' indictment alleged wrongdoing that didn't involve Ecclesia and that he shouldn't stand trial with him. The judge denied his request for a separate trial.

Paris remains free on bond but cannot travel beyond three northwestern Arkansas counties.

Shelton was present as Paris pleaded guilty, but his lawyer, Shelly Hogan Koehler, declined comment.

Ecclesia had received money from the state General Improvement Fund, which was controlled by legislators until the state Supreme Court declared last fall that the method of distributing money was unconstitutional.

Neal, a Republican, said he took two kickbacks totaling $38,000. The indictment doesn't detail what Woods is accused of receiving, as prosecutors say part of it was paid in cash.

The House is preparing to vote Thursday on a war powers resolution to halt President Donald Trump's attack on Iran, a sign of unease in Congress over the rapidly widening conflict that is reordering U.S. priorities at home and abroad.

It's the second vote in as many days, after the Senate defeated a similar measure along party lines. Lawmakers are confronting the sudden reality of representing the American people in wartime and all that entails — with lives lost, dollars spent and alliances tested by a president's unilateral decision to go to war with Iran.

The tally in the House is expected to be tight, but the outcome will provide an early snapshot of the political support, or opposition, to the U.S.-Israel military operation and Trump's rationale for bypassing Congress, which alone has the power to declare war.

"Donald Trump is not a king, and if he believes the war with Iran is in our national interest, then he must come to Congress and make the case," said Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Meeks said in his nearly three decades in Congress, the hardest votes he has taken have been deciding whether to send U.S. troops to war.

The roll calls are a clarifying moment for the president and the parties just days into the overseas conflict that has quickly carried echoes of the long U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many veterans of those wars have since run for office and now serve in Congress.

Trump's Republican Party, which narrowly controls the House and Senate, largely sees the conflict with Iran not as the start of a new war, but the end of a regime that for decades has long menaced the West. The operation has killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which some view as an opportunity for regime change, though others warn of a chaotic power vacuum.

Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, the GOP chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, publicly thanked Trump for taking action against Iran, saying the president is using his own constitutional authority to defend the U.S. against the "imminent threat" the country posed.

Mast, an Army veteran who worked as a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan, said the war powers resolution was effectively asking "that the president do nothing."

For Democrats, Trump's war with Iran, influenced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is a war of choice that is testing the balance of powers in the U.S. Constitution.

"The framers weren't fooling around," said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., arguing that the Constitution is clear that only Congress can decide matters of war.

He said whether lawmakers support or oppose the Trump administration's military action, they should have the debate. "It's up to us, we've got to vote on it."

While views in Congress are largely falling along party lines, there are crossover coalitions. Both the House and Senate resolutions were bipartisan, and are drawing bipartisan support and opposition. The House is also voting on a separate resolution affirming that Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism.

The war powers resolution, if signed into law, would immediately halt Trump's ability to conduct the war unless Congress approved the military action. The president would likely veto the measure.

As an alternative, a small group of Democrats has proposed a separate war powers resolution that would allow the president to continue the war for 30 days before he must seek congressional approval. It is not expected to come yet for a vote.

After launching a surprise attack against Iran on Saturday, Trump has scrambled to win support for a conflict that Americans of all political persuasions were already wary of entering. Trump administration officials spent hours behind closed doors on Capitol Hill this week trying to reassure lawmakers that they have the situation under control.

Six U.S. military members were killed over the weekend in a drone strike in Kuwait, and Trump has said more Americans could die. Thousands of Americans abroad have scrambled for flights, many lighting up the phone lines at congressional offices as they sought help trying to flee the Middle East.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the war could extend eight weeks, twice as long as the president first estimated. Trump has left open the possibility of sending U.S. troops into what has largely been a bombing campaign by air. Hundreds of people in the region have died.

The administration said the goal is to destroy Iran's ballistic missiles that it believes are shielding its nuclear program. It has also said Israel was ready to act against Iran, and American bases would face retaliation if the U.S. did not strike first. On Wednesday, the U.S. said it torpedoed an Iranian warship near Sri Lanka.

The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for California schools to tell parents if their children identify as transgender without getting the student's approval, granting an emergency appeal from a conservative legal group.

The order blocks for now a state law that bans automatic parental notification requirements if students change their pronouns or gender expression at school.

The split decision comes after religious parents and educators challenged California school policies aimed at preventing schools from outing students to their families. Two sets of Catholic parents represented by the Thomas More Society say it caused schools to mislead them and secretly facilitate the children's social transition despite their objections.

California, on the other hand, argued that students have the right to privacy about their gender expression, especially if they fear rejection from their families. The state said that school policies and state law are aimed at striking a balance with parents' rights.

The high court majority, though, sided with the parents and reinstated a lower-court order blocking the law and school policies while the case continues to play out.

"The parents who assert a free exercise claim have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs. California's policies violate those beliefs," and burden the free exercise of religion, the majority wrote in an unsigned order.

The court's three liberal justices publicly dissented, saying the case is still working its way through lower courts and there was no need to step in now. "If nothing else, this Court owes it to a sovereign State to avoid throwing over its policies in a slapdash way, if the Court can provide normal procedures. And throwing over a State's policy is what the Court does today," Justice Elena Kagan wrote.

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, meanwhile, noted they would have gone further and granted teachers' appeal to lift restrictions for them.

The Thomas More Society called the decision "the most significant parental rights ruling in a generation."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office defended the law, saying teachers should be focused on instruction, not required "to be gender cops."

The order "undermines student privacy and the ability to learn in a safe and supportive classroom, free from discrimination based on gender identity," said Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for the Democratic governor.

The Supreme Court has ruled for religious plaintiffs in other recent cases, including allowing parents to pull their children from public-school lessons if they object to storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters.

The California order comes months after the court upheld state bans on gender-identity-related healthcare for minors. The justices also seem to be leaning toward allowing states to ban transgender athletes from playing on girls sports teams.

School policies for transgender students, meanwhile, have also been on the court's radar in other cases. The court rebuffed another similar case out of Wisconsin in December, but three conservative justices indicated they would have heard the case. Justice Samuel Alito called the school policies "an issue of great and growing national importance."

The justices have been weighing whether to hear arguments in cases out of states like Massachusetts and Florida filed by other parents who say schools facilitated social transition without informing them.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, found in January that California's policies violated parents' right to access their children's education records. The Justice Department also sued after determining the states' transgender athlete policies violate federal civil rights law.

Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was found guilty of leading an insurrection on Thursday and sentenced to life in prison for his brief imposition of martial law in 2024, a ruling that marks a dramatic culmination of the country's biggest political crisis in decades.

The conservative leader was ousted from office after he declared martial law and sent troops to surround the National Assembly on Dec. 3, 2024, in a baffling attempt to overcome a legislature controlled by his liberal opponents.

Judge Jee Kui-youn of the Seoul Central District Court said he found Yoon, 65, guilty of rebellion for mobilizing military and police forces in an illegal attempt to seize the Assembly, arrest political opponents and establish unchecked power for an indefinite period.

Yoon's martial law imposition, the first of its kind in more than four decades, recalled South Korea's past military-backed governments when authorities occasionally proclaimed emergency decrees that allowed them to station soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles on streets or in public places such as schools to prevent anti-government demonstrations.

As lawmakers rushed to the National Assembly, Yoon's martial law command issued a proclamation declaring sweeping powers, including suspending political activities, controlling the media and publications, and allowing arrests without warrants.

The decree lasted about six hours before being lifted after a quorum of lawmakers managed to break through a military blockade and unanimously voted to lift the measure.

Yoon was suspended from office on Dec. 14, 2024, after being impeached by lawmakers and was formally removed by the Constitutional Court in April 2025. He has been under arrest since last July while facing multiple criminal trials, with the rebellion charge carrying the most severe punishment.

An expressionless Yoon gazed straight ahead as the judge delivered the sentence in the same courtroom where former military rulers and presidents have been convicted of treason, corruption and other crimes over the decades.

Yoon Kap-keun, one of the former president's lawyers, accused the judge of issuing a predetermined verdict based solely on prosecutors' arguments and said the rule of law had collapsed. He said he would discuss whether to appeal with his client and the rest of the legal team.

Former President Yoon claimed in court that the martial law decree was only meant to raise public awareness of how the liberals were paralyzing state affairs, and that he was prepared to respect lawmakers if they voted against the measure.

Prosecutors said it was clear Yoon was attempting to disable the legislature and prevent lawmakers from lifting the measure through voting, actions that exceeded his constitutional authority even under martial law.

The court also convicted and sentenced five former military and police officials involved in enforcing Yoon's martial law decree. They included ex-Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, who received a 30-year jail term for his central role in planning the measure, mobilizing the military and instructing military counterintelligence officials to arrest 14 key politicians, including National Assembly speaker Woo Won-shik and current liberal President Lee Jae Myung.

In announcing Yoon and Kim's verdicts, Jee said the decision to send troops to the National Assembly was key to his determination that the imposition of martial law amounted to rebellion.

As Yoon arrived in court, hundreds of police officers watched closely as Yoon supporters rallied outside a judicial complex, their cries rising as the prison bus transporting him drove past. Yoon's critics gathered nearby, demanding the death penalty.

There were no immediate reports of major clashes following the verdict.

A special prosecutor had demanded the death penalty for Yoon Suk Yeol, saying his actions posed a threat to the country's democracy and deserved the most serious punishment available, but most analysts had expected a life sentence since the poorly-planned power grab did not result in casualties.

South Korea has not executed a death row inmate since 1997, in what is widely seen as a de facto moratorium on capital punishment amid calls for its abolition.

Jung Chung-rae, leader of the liberal Democratic Party, which led the push to impeach and remove Yoon, expressed regret that the court stopped short of the death penalty, saying the ruling reflected a lack of a sense of justice.

Song Eon-seok, floor leader of the conservative People Power Party, to which Yoon once belonged, issued a public apology, saying the party feels a deep sense of responsibility for the disruption to the nation.

The office of current President Lee Jae Myung did not immediately comment on the ruling.

Last month, Yoon was sentenced to five years in prison for resisting arrest, fabricating the martial law proclamation and sidestepping a legally mandated full Cabinet meeting before declaring the measure.

The Seoul Central Court had previously convicted two other members of Yoon's Cabinet in connection with the martial law debacle. That includes Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who received a 23-year prison sentence for attempting to legitimize the decree by forcing it through a Cabinet Council meeting, falsifying records and lying under oath. Han has appealed the verdict.

Yoon is the first former South Korean president to receive a life sentence since former military dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for his 1979 coup, a bloody 1980 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Gwangju that left more than 200 people dead or missing, and corruption.

The Supreme Court later reduced his sentence to life imprisonment, and he was released in late 1997 under a special presidential pardon. He died in 2021.

Russia on Sunday announced indictments in absentia for a judge and prosecutor of the International Criminal Court who issued a war crimes warrant for President Vladimir Putin.

A statement from the national Investigative Committee said the judge, Rosario Salvatore Aitala, and prosecutor Khan Karim Asad Ahmad are both charged with “preparing to attack a representative of a foreign country enjoying international protection in order to complicate international relations.”

Each also faces other charges. Conviction could bring prison terms of up to 12 years. The committee also said other ICC officials are being investigated.

The March warrant against Putin accuses him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. The court also charged Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian presidential commissioner for children’s rights.

It was the first time the global court has issued a warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

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