A bizarre scene unfolded in a small town in southern Italy when the mayor said that he noticed that one of the “three wise men” figures in the public Nativity scene appeared to be moving.

Galatone Mayor Flavio Filoni wrote about the incident in a post on Facebook on Dec. 10. He says that he was admiring the Nativity scene set up by the town’s tourism office when he made the startling discovery.

Rather than a wise man, the man was a foolish criminal migrant from Ghana, according to Filoni.

“I noticed a presence I had initially mistaken for part of the scene. A detail that seemed harmless, but turned out to be decisive,” Filoni wrote.

A comical image of the scene shows the man trying to blend in among the mannequins of the holy display.

Rather than a wise man, the man was a foolish criminal migrant from Ghana, according to Filoni. He had previously been sentenced by a court in Bologna to nine months in prison but reportedly fled before completing his time. When he hid in the scene, the man was being sought for allegedly assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.

Filoni said law enforcement officials were able to capture the man without difficulty.

“A result that confirms, once again, how fundamental it is to place full confidence in the day-to-day work of those who guarantee safety and legality,” added the mayor.

RELATED: ‘Why would somebody have such hate?’ Churchgoers stunned at Nativity display vandalism

“A sincere thank you to all the women and men who guard our territory with competence, attention and dedication,” Filoni said.

Galatone is a small town of about 15,000 residents in the Lecce province of southern Italy.

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The reign of diversity, equity, and inclusion over America’s elite institutions is coming to an end — and BlazeTV hosts Christopher Rufo and Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman believe those institutions may be coming to an end as a result.

But it’s not necessarily not a bad thing.

“That 10-year period … the BLM era, let’s call it. Did any of these institutions get better? … Did the journalism at the Times and the Post and the Atlantic improve? Were there sparkling, important, seismic essays that emerged in this 10-year period? … Did Hollywood produce better movies?” Rufo asks.

“The answer is absolutely not,” Lomez answers. “This isn’t even debatable. It is self-evidently the case that everything has gotten worse that these institutions were responsible for producing, and you can measure this along any metric you want.”

“Those things are dying, dead, in decline. What is doing better?” Lomez asks. “Well, all the places that these white men fled to. Crypto, you know, the frontiers of AI and tech, where they could find places to still ply their talents.”

“What happens to these institutions?” he asks. “I think we just let them — they sort of have to die.”

However, Lomez does believe there will be a “silver lining.”

“There has to be some reason this is happening and some way to make it better. And the answer I’ve come up with … these institutions actually needed to decline. They were already potentially in a sort of moment of secular decline anyway, and that this has freed a bunch of talent to go do other things,” he explains.

“I do believe these people and these impulses are going to find their way toward something productive,” he says. “And this is what’s going to arise out of this moment.”

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President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. military carried out a strike on Venezuelan territory, which he described as the first land-based attack in an escalating conflict tied to alleged narco-terrorism.

Trump made the remarks to reporters at the White House before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said the strike targeted a dock area that he claimed was used to load boats transporting drugs.

‘Two nights ago we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.’

“It doesn’t matter, but there was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area,” Trump said. “It’s the implementation area — that’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”

When asked by a reporter whether additional strikes had occurred inside Venezuela, Trump declined to comment.

The Pentagon provided no details and referred all questions to the White House.

The president offered further details during a radio interview with WABC, saying the strike occurred two nights earlier and targeted what he described as a major shipping facility.

“We just knocked out — I don’t know if you read or you saw — they have a big plant or big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said. “Two nights ago we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.”

The operation would represent the first direct U.S. strike on Venezuelan land during the current confrontation. The Trump administration has previously ordered strikes against vessels it says are operated by narco-terrorist groups smuggling drugs into the United States.

Critics of the administration have questioned those allegations and accused the U.S. government of acting unlawfully, including claims by human rights organizations that the strikes could constitute war crimes. Administration officials have rejected those accusations.

Tensions escalated earlier after the United States seized a Venezuelan oil tanker that administration officials alleged had violated U.S. embargo restrictions. Trump later ordered what the administration described as a full blockade of tankers traveling to and from Venezuela.

RELATED: Venezuelan freedom fighter wins Nobel Peace Prize — and immediately dedicates it to Trump

In response, Venezuelan officials announced military exercises that they said were intended to prepare the country to defend against a possible U.S. invasion aimed at removing President Nicolás Maduro from power.

Trump has previously said the United States could take military action to reclaim oil interests that were nationalized by Venezuela’s socialist government decades ago.

“It’s about — they took our oil, they took it, and they also sent millions of people in here from jails into our country,” Trump said in the WABC interview. “Some of the worst people on Earth.”

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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Monday said the federal government is launching a “massive” investigation into alleged fraud schemes and shared video footage from Minnesota. Earlier, FBI Director Kash Patel said Somali immigrants convicted of fraud could face possible denaturalization and deportation.

‘These criminals didn’t just engage[] in historic fraud, but tried to subvert justice as well.’

In a statement Sunday, Patel said the FBI previously dismantled a $250 million fraud scheme involving COVID-19 relief funds intended to provide meals for children in Minnesota.

Patel said the case resulted in 78 indictments and 57 convictions. He identified several defendants — including Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud, Ahmed Ali, Hussein Farah, Abdullahe Nur Jesow, Asha Farhan Hassan, Ousman Camara, and Abdirashid Bixi Dool — who were charged with crimes ranging from wire fraud to money laundering and conspiracy.

“These criminals didn’t just engage[] in historic fraud, but tried to subvert justice as well,” Patel said. He added that Abdimajid Mohamed Nur and others were charged with attempting to bribe a juror with $120,000 in cash. Those defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced, including one individual who received a 10-year prison term. Courts also ordered nearly $48 million in restitution in related cases, Patel said.

Patel described the scheme as the “tip of a very large iceberg,” adding that the FBI would “continue to follow the money and protect children” and that the investigation remains ongoing.

Noem said Homeland Security Investigations agents are currently operating in Minneapolis as part of what she described as a “massive” investigation into alleged child-care fraud and other fraud schemes.

Video shared by the DHS showed investigators questioning a man outside a facility, while another clip depicted agents entering what the DHS described as a “suspected fraud site.”

“MASSIVE fraud in Minnesota is finally being exposed. Time for accountability,” the White House wrote in a post on social media.

RELATED: News outlet is getting wrecked for story on Somali migrants’ economic impact on Minnesota

— (@)

The increased scrutiny followed the publication of video by independent journalist Nick Shirley, in which he is seen confronting proprietors of day-care centers in Minnesota. Shirley blamed Gov. Tim Walz, the failed 2024 Democrat vice presidential candidate, for overseeing the state while the alleged fraud schemes flourished.

A spokesperson for Walz pushed back by noting that the state had investigated the fraud claims and that the governor had spent years working to “crack down on fraud.”

Nevertheless, a group of former state health workers have accused Walz of obstructing efforts to uncover the scams.

“Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud, but no, we got the opposite response,” read a statement from the group.

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Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck stunned the crowds at Turning Point USA’s AmFest 2025 when he took on the lies force-fed to younger generations — and why it’s more important than ever that they wake up and lead the country to a better place.

“I wanted … to warn you that today the times have changed and you are desperately needed,” Glenn began. “Desperately needed. But there’s something else that I think is more important that you need to hear. We must stop fighting with one another. It is important to stand for the truth, but people are not your enemies. Lies are your enemies.”

“You can’t stop darkness with more darkness. You can’t stop hate with more hate. You only dispel the darkness of lies with the light of truth,” he said. “A single candle will light up a room.”

That’s when Glenn turned his focus toward the youth — as the America they’ve come to know has been one full of turmoil and deception.

“If I were you, and I’m 25, I was 1 when the World Trade Center came down. I would have no memory of that,” he explained. “And I certainly wouldn’t have a memory of the United States before that.”

Post-9/11, the United States these children grew up in was a surveillance state that has been constantly “on the verge of global war” — complete with the 2008 financial crisis that bankrupted many of their parents.

“Nobody went to jail. And you and your family paid the price that none of them had to pay. Then 2008, 2009, the cell phone comes out, social media comes out. It’s supposed to connect us so we can talk to our friends, and it does just the opposite. It divides us; it changes us,” Glenn recalled.

“Then 2020 hits, COVID happens. … Once again, you saw the entire system turned upside down and the little guy get screwed,” he added.

Not only did the youth see what happened to their parents, but they were told that if they went into debt to go to college, they would see great returns. Instead, the debt has only continued to pile up, and they received an “education” in which instructors insisted on telling blatant lies, like “men can be women.”

“And there are no jobs for you,” Glenn said. “Everything. Everything. If I’m 25 years old, I would think absolutely everything is a lie.”

“The biggest lie that you were told is that you don’t matter. Here’s the thing. I want you to understand: A broken system does not erase human agency. It reveals who still has agency. Every single generation since the beginning of time has inherited a mess,” he continued.

“Only the great generations turn that mess into a mission,” he said. “And that’s your calling.”

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