President Trump signed two bills into law on Tuesday, the White House announced. H.R. 1744, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2026, extends the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and authorizes its annual funding through fiscal year 2028. H.R. 8205, the Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies for ALS Reauthorization Act of 2026, reauthorizes the ALS law through fiscal year 2031.
The religious-freedom commission is the independent, bipartisan body that monitors persecution around the world and recommends action to the President, the Secretary of State and Congress. Senator Ted Budd, who carried the bill, said the commission has for over two decades exposed regimes that imprison, torture and kill people for practicing their faith, and he thanked the President for signing the reauthorization into law and ensuring its vital work continues.
The ALS act is the law behind the federal push against Lou Gehrig's disease: it funds research and gives patients access to promising treatments still in development. The ALS community said the reauthorization arrived with just 24 hours to spare before the law lapsed, and advocates credit the voices of patients and their families — and point to $500 million in research carried by the act — for getting it across the line.
For believers jailed overseas, the commission's survival keeps their cases in front of the United States government, whose reports and recommendations drive sanctions and diplomatic pressure on the regimes holding them. For Americans living with ALS and the families caring for them, five more years of the act means the research money keeps flowing and the door to experimental therapies stays open for patients who do not have time to wait.
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