Last August, 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was fatally stabbed in an apparently random attack while riding the light rail in Charlotte, North Carolina. Last week, however, her alleged killer, Decarlos Brown Jr., was found “incapable to proceed” to trial on the state murder charge due to mental health issues.

The decision has sparked national outrage. Social media is ablaze with furious comments like “no justice for Iryna”; Republican lawmakers are warning the decision will cause more erosion of trust in the system; even some mainstream coverage is framing it as another failure of soft-on-crime policies.

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey was certainly appalled by the decision.

“How in the world did we get here?” she asks in disbelief.

On a recent episode of “Relatable,” Daily Wire host Matt Walsh joined Allie to answer that very question.

– YouTube

Walsh begins by arguing that “the concept of being incompetent to stand trial makes no sense” and that it “shouldn’t be a category.”

“Because the way that I look at it … either you knew exactly what you were doing and you did it anyway, and that makes you evil beyond measure, or it’s true that you really don’t understand that you’re not allowed to do that, in which case, that’s all the more reason, as far as I’m concerned, why you are not fit for human society,” he explains.

Decarlos Brown Jr.’s case, as well as many other cases, is the result of the psychiatric industry “[medicalizing] the human condition,” Walsh argues.

“And now because academics, psychiatrists, and communists … have taken over criminal justice and have for decades — at least since the mid-20th century — all human evil is now just categorized as a medical problem,” he tells Allie.

The result of this inversion of objective morality is that criminals are turned into the victims.

“The justice system looks at the most evil people as victims of some sort of condition, which means that all we can do is offer them treatment. What we can’t do is actually punish them. And that’s just totally absurd and wrong,” says Walsh.

Unless it’s a “white male” who commits the crime, Allie points out.

“We see that kind of story much less often,” she says.

But “if you’re part of a victim group, you get advocacy from the public, from the media, from some kind of mob pressure, from these groups like the Innocence Project or the ACLU, and you are much more likely to be seen as absolved of your crimes or mentally unstable or something like that.”

She continues, “It’s not just that progressive ideology has medicalized the existence of evil in human nature; they’ve just done it for certain groups of people, which is even worse in my estimation.”

“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s a major factor as well,” Walsh agrees.

“If you’re anything but a white male, then you can claim victim status … and then you add in the supposed mental health challenges … then you get even greater victim status.”

Regardless of the skin color of the perpetrator, Walsh entirely rejects mental illness as an excuse for criminal behavior: “What was your mental state at the time? I don’t care! … I don’t care what you were feeling; I don’t care what you were thinking. I care what you did. That’s all that matters. And if you did something this heinous … by my estimation, you’ve lost the right to exist.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Relatable, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Allie beth stuckey, Blazetv, Blaze media, Daily wire, Matt walsh, Iryna zarutska, Decarlos brown jr, Soft on crime 

When Donald Trump accepted the GOP’s nomination for president in 2024, he stated that “the Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.” It was music to the ears of tens of millions of Americans who lived through the Biden border invasion.

Finally, a political leader had the gumption to say, “Enough is enough,” and proclaim that it is time for millions of illegal aliens to go home.

Unfortunately, the second Trump administration has not lived up to the promises made in that July 2024 speech in Milwaukee. It has instead prioritized removing the worst criminal illegal aliens, prioritizing quality over quantity. But this is a misguided attempt to assuage the concerns of a radical — but sizeable — number of Americans who do not believe in borders or in sovereignty.

Carrying out a true mass deportation operation requires immense resources to screen millions of cases, locate and apprehend individuals, detain them, and transport aliens out of the country.

The American public has witnessed widespread obstruction of immigration enforcement, record violence targeting ICE agents, and significant resistance by state and local governments in Democrat strongholds. Democratic Party elected officials and their left-wing base are very clear that the tolerable number of deportations is zero.

But what about the tens of millions of Americans who do support President Trump’s promised deportation agenda?

The administration’s prioritization of the “worst first” has unintentionally created a de facto enforcement amnesty for aliens unlawfully present in the United States who have not committed a subsequent crime. DHS data indicates that in 2025, ICE deported fewer than 350,000 illegal aliens. This is not the mass deportation agenda the American people voted for.

President Trump deserves credit for securing the southwest border and all but stopping the flow of illegal aliens into the United States. But much more needs to be done on interior enforcement to effectuate an actual mass deportation agenda.

Enter the Mass Deportation Coalition. This coalition was organized in February 2026 in response to political, operational, legal, and physical attacks on deportation operations. Our purpose is to support President Trump’s signature campaign promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.

The Mass Deportation Coalition is composed of immigration law and policy experts, former senior and rank-and-file law enforcement officials, advocates, and supporters of immigration enforcement. We are growing and regularly adding new members to the coalition.

Last week, the coalition published its Playbook, a comprehensive menu of policy, operational, and logistical options that would allow the Trump administration to carry out a minimum of 1 million deportations in 2026. The coalition has five key principles.

1) Moving from the phase I “worst of the worst” interior enforcement prioritization to phase II mass deportations, with a focus on populations that are easier to remove, such as deportable aliens with final orders of removal and visa overstays.

2) Significantly ramping up worksite enforcement.

3) Utilizing a whole-of-government approach (including tax and banking tools) to leverage existing authorities in multiple federal agencies to increase the number of removals and self-deportations.

4) Providing the American public with complete data transparency on immigration numbers.

5) Coming to a shared understanding of what counts as a deportation.

The playbook makes policy and operational suggestions based on the assumption that Congress will not change U.S. immigration laws. For decades, Congress has been unable — or unwilling — to pass meaningful legislation to address the immigration crisis in America, and it would be dishonest to assume it could do so in today’s political climate.

RELATED: Does the DHS meme strategy actually work?

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The coalition’s playbook is drawn from combined decades of experience in federal law enforcement, military logistics, government contracting, and large-scale transportation operations.

Carrying out a true mass deportation operation requires immense resources to screen millions of cases, locate and apprehend individuals, detain them, and transport aliens out of the country within the time frame this campaign demands.

The centerpiece for accomplishing this goal is an aggressive worksite enforcement campaign. President Trump frequently cites the successful interior enforcement operations of the Eisenhower administration as a model for his mass deportation agenda.

That administration aggressively targeted worksites that employed illegal aliens, ultimately removing a sizeable percentage of illegal aliens then living in the United States.

Conservative estimates suggest there are between 10.8 and 11.1 million illegal aliens currently working in the United States. For decades, ICE worksite arrests of illegal aliens have been in the hundreds or low thousands of individuals annually.

Historically, worksite operations have produced arrests that were not followed by timely deportation, undermining both deterrence and public confidence.

Ramping up worksite enforcement would accomplish multiple goals simultaneously. First, it would curtail the main incentive of illegal immigration by foreclosing economic opportunity for illegal aliens.

Second, robust worksite enforcement accompanied by an aggressive employer sanctions program would send a message to employers who employ illegal labor that there are significant consequences for violating the law.

Finally, since it is well known which industries employ illegal labor, worksite enforcement is an operationally low-risk use of resources, likely leading to a high number of interior removals.

Other playbook recommendations include significantly expanding immigration detention, reforming and streamlining asylum cases, de-banking illegal aliens, modernizing and standardizing data collection, and aggressively prosecuting lawbreaking and fighting back against left-wing lawfare.

RELATED: The Dignidad Act is a complete betrayal of Republican voters

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Mass deportations and major elements of the playbook are immensely popular with the American people. Members of the coalition commissioned a poll of likely voters and found widespread support (66%) for deporting migrants who enter the country illegally. The poll also found overwhelming support for the idea that the United States has an obligation to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress.

A similar number of Americans support aggressive immigration operational tools, including enhanced worksite enforcement, penalizing employers who hire illegal labor, the widespread use of E-Verify, and regular audits of businesses that knowingly employ illegal labor.

As we approach our country’s 250th birthday, the central question for American citizens is whether they want to preserve America for Americans, with fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law.

Decades of mass illegal migration have upended labor markets, caused cultural and civil fragmentation, overwhelmed local schools and hospitals, and brought crime and disorder to American communities.

President Trump promised mass deportations to the American people. The Mass Deportation Coalition Playbook provides the road map for the his administration to fulfill its core campaign promise.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.

​Trump, Mass deportation coalition, Mass deportations, Ice, Dhs, Border patrol, Illegal immigrants, Democrats, Everify, Visa enforcement, Opinion & analysis 

I was at my local library recently when I saw something odd on the bulletin board. It looked like a poster for a Drag Queen Story Hour.

They can’t be doing that again? I thought to myself.

Much of drag comedy focuses on the fact that as hard as they try, most men can’t actually pull off impersonating a woman.

In case you don’t remember, Drag Queen Story Hour was one of the most bizarrely inappropriate events ever to appear at your local library.

When these “story hours” first began to proliferate in the late 2010s, the idea of drag queens reading books to very small children set off one of the fiercest battles of the culture wars.

Because it was so transgressive, outrageous, and effective as a way of infuriating the general populace, the proponents of DQSH doubled down on it. They kept pushing it. They founded an NGO. They rammed it down our throats.

Blake Nelson

Queen’s gambit

The way DQSH worked: Libraries would hire a professional drag queen to read books to children ages 3 to 11. It was presented to the public as a “fun twist” on the idea of a kindly grandmother or librarian reading to the kids.

The drag queens they hired were adult men from the local area, men who were otherwise employed performing “drag shows” at nightclubs, bars, and private events.

These men dressed up like women — more specifically, super-sexualized women (prostitutes). Then they went on stage and told raunchy stories and sexually explicit jokes. Sometimes they sang songs and did pratfalls, all of which were of a sexual nature.

The understanding was that a drag show would feature explicit sexual content. Which is why they were performed in 21-and-over establishments.

That is, until Drag Queen Story Hour came along. And someone decided that drag queens belonged in libraries, reading to children.

Live, love, laugh

Part of the appeal of drag queens is the humorous sight of a chubby, stubbly, middle-aged man wearing lipstick, mascara, and gigantic false eyelashes. Much of drag comedy focuses on the fact that as hard as they try, most men can’t actually pull off impersonating a woman. And the results of their clumsy failures are often very funny.

Drag shows — or something like them — have appeared in many cultures throughout history. The humor of men pretending to be women is universal. Everyone finds those situations funny.

Everyone, that is, except for 4-year-olds, who might not understand this style of humor just yet. And don’t need to.

The fact is that it would be hard to predict how a small child would react to a professional drag queen in person.

Oh, sure, a child who has been coached and prepped by a progressive parent might enjoy it. But your average child? Especially those under the age of 6? They might be traumatized.

And then doubly so when the adults they usually trust (parents, teachers, librarians) tell them not to be afraid, that it is wrong to feel uncomfortable, that if they have any negative feelings whatsoever about “Miss Wiggles” — who is 6’2″, wearing ghoulish makeup, and pretending to be a woman — they are committing a grave moral sin.

Some small children are frightened by the sight of their own parents dressed up in Halloween costumes. Think of what an encounter with “Sashay D. Lite” might do to them.

RELATED: My search for America’s last decent public libraries

Joe McNally/Getty Images

Properly checked and vetted

Some conservatives raised the issue that some of these performers might be predators of some kind.

This was met with attacks and smears that conservatives were homophobic, transphobic bigots, hatemongers, etc. Besides, all the drag queens would, of course, be thoroughly screened and vetted.

And yet at a Houston library in 2019, one of the drag queens reading stories to children was found to be a registered child sex offender.

So except for that guy. Everyone else had been properly checked and vetted.

Culture war, wins and losses

Looking back at the original battle over Drag Queen Story Hour … who actually won?

In my mind, the general public did. Obviously a large majority of people believed DQSH was a bad idea. And the libraries stopped doing it.

But here I was, in my local library, staring at a poster with a Pride flag. And a drag queen. With the words Story Hour on it.

Looking closer, I saw they had changed the name. Now it was called Family Pride Story Hour. It would be specifically for LGBTQ families. A drag queen would be reading the stories. And then there would be a dance.

The suggested age for children attending? “Birth to six years old.”

No rest for the wicked

Ahhh. Those sneaky leftists. They couldn’t let this go. Subjecting infant children to the most grotesque adults they could find was too good a strategy to abandon.

What better way to divide and conquer? To confound and demoralize? They want us to fight over the drag queens again!

My advice is: Don’t do it. Don’t give them what they want. Talk to your librarians ahead of time. Talk to your library’s supervisor.

But be aware: If Family Pride Story Hour is coming to my town, it might well be coming to yours.

​Lifestyle, Culture, Books, Libraries, Social services, Drag queens, Drag queen story hour, Family pride story hour, Lgbtq, Blake’s progress 

NASA’s Victor Glover showed once again why he represents some of the best of what the United States has to offer.

After Glover and the Artemis II crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, the pilot almost broke down in tears while delivering his first remarks since returning to dry land.

‘It’s too big to just be in one body.’

The crew members were in Houston, Texas, following their successful lunar orbit when Glover was asked by Commander Reid Wiseman to give a few words. Glover, who has been revered for providing on-the-spot wisdom before and during the mission, was at first at a loss for words.

“I have not processed what we just did, and I’m afraid to start even trying,” Glover began.

Fighting back tears, he powered through.

“When this started on April 3, I wanted to thank God in public, and I want to thank God again,” he said, as he became visibly emotional. “Because even bigger than my challenge trying to describe what we went through, the gratitude of seeing what we saw, doing what we did, and being with who I was with — it’s too big to just be in one body.”

The audience at NASA’s Johnson Space Center erupted in applause as the pilot then thanked his wife and four daughters, whom he referred to as “those five beautiful cocoa-skinned ladies.”

RELATED: NASA astronaut gives very American response to DEI questioning

“I love you … all of you,” Glover continued. He then turned his attention to NASA staff and leadership.

While the leadership has changed since 2023, he remarked, “the qualities haven’t. And we are fortunate to be in this agency at this time together.”

Wiseman wasn’t short on wisdom, either. The crew leader fought back tears of his own when he had the microphone, mostly talking about the worry and anxiety the astronauts’ families had ahead of mission launch.

“This was not easy being 200,000+ miles away from home. Like, before you launch, it feels like it’s the greatest dream on Earth. And when you’re out there, you just want to get back to your families and your friends.”

Wiseman concluded by noting how special it is to be human and how grateful he feels to be on planet Earth.

RELATED: NASA’s Victor Glover shares gospel as he circles dark side of the moon: ‘Love God with all that you are’

Danielle Villasana/Getty Images

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) took the podium soon after to thank the Artemis II crew on behalf of America. The congressman stated that the United States, as well as the world, “desperately needed this.”

Cloud said the mission reminded him of Psalm 8, affirming that “even as we look to the night sky and as we look at creation, and behold the stars and the moon, we begin to think about what is mankind from God’s perspective.”

The Artemis II crew reached a point 252,756 miles from Earth and set a new human record for the maximum distance away from the planet.

Artemis III is set for mid-2027, while Artemis IV is targeted for early 2028 and is expected to land humans on the moon.

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​Return, Faith, Christianity, Space, God, Artemis ii, Nasa, The moon, Tech 

A New York Police Department drug-bust went sideways in August 2023, leaving a suspect dead and then-Sgt. Erik Duran’s life in shambles.

Bruce Blakeman, a Republican gubernatorial candidate hoping to unseat Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in the November election, has vowed, however, to liberate Duran and give him a blank slate.

How it started

Undercover narcotics officers conducted a drug bust in the University Heights section of the Bronx after 5 p.m. on Aug. 23, 2023, with the aim of capturing local drug traffickers.

‘One of the darkest days in the history of the law-enforcement profession.’

After 30-year-old Eric Duprey allegedly sold cocaine to one of the officers, plainclothes and undercover officers rushed in to make the arrest. Duprey proved, however, too slippery for a quick capture. He jumped onto a motorcycle, which the New York Times reported had been transported within reach by an unidentified individual, then sped off.

Duprey was caught on camera speeding down a sidewalk, then careening toward a group of about 10 people, including Duran, seated around a table.

Duran — an undercover member of the NYPD Narcotics Borough Bronx Tactical Response Unit who was reportedly slapped with a substantiated complaint of abuse of authority the previous year — grabbed a red Igloo cooler from the table and chucked it at the motorcycle.

A witness told the Daily News that Duprey “was on the bike, moving north when the cops started chasing him. … Then he took a U-turn and was riding on the sidewalk. … The cop then took my cooler, which was filled with soda cans, water bottles, and hit him.”

RELATED: ‘100% MAGA’ county executive joins governor’s race in New York

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman. Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The cooler struck Duprey in the head, making him lose control and ultimately go flying. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene.

Duran was suspended the following day and in January 2024 was charged by the office of radical New York Attorney General Letitia James with manslaughter, assault, and criminally negligent homicide.

“I didn’t have time to think,” Duran — who pleaded not guilty — testified during his trial earlier this year. “I thought he was going to kill my guys, he was going so fast.”

“He was going to crash right into them,” added Duran.

Duran’s lawyers argued both that Duprey “wasn’t trying to get away” but rather “ambushing” police and that Duprey died because of a “series of bad choices,” reported CBS News.

Bronx Supreme Court Justice Guy Mitchell — who was originally appointed in 2015 by former Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) and previously let off a black teen who beat a homeless man to death with what turned out to be only nine months in prison — refused to accept Duran’s justification and convicted him in February of second-degree manslaughter. The criminally negligent homicide charge was waived.

The Times reported that shortly after the verdict was delivered, Duran was fired from the NYPD.

How it’s going

Ahead of his sentencing last week, Duran, a father of three, told Mitchell, “Your honor, I am asking for a chance to be there with my kids. I am asking for a chance, just one,” reported the New York Post.

Mitchell acknowledged that the ex-cop was remorseful but decided to make an example of him as a “general deterrent” to other officers, sentencing him to three to nine years in state prison.

Vincent Vallelong, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, wrote in an op-ed following Duran’s sentencing, “I can say without equivocation that the sentencing of Sgt. Erik Duran will forever be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of the law-enforcement profession.”

“Moving forward, the SBA will support Sgt. Duran and his heartbroken family throughout his appeal until this miscarriage of justice is rectified,” wrote Vallelong. “Sgt. Duran, who served the NYPD with dedication and helped save lives throughout his career, deserves nothing less.”

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman — a Trump-endorsed GOP candidate running for New York governor — has vowed that if elected in November, he will immediately pardon Duran.

The promised action is “consistent with [Blakeman’s] commitment to back law enforcement and make every neighborhood in New York safer,” the candidate’s campaign told the Post.

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​Crime, Bruce blakeman, Blasio, New york, Thug, Death, Cooler, Erik duran, Duprey, Bronx, New york city, Hochul, Guy mitchell, Police, Nypd, Cop, Politics 

America is a nation of cars.

Those hunks of metal on four rubber tires are our lifelines. They are how we go to work, go home, go out to eat, go on vacation, and go just about everywhere and anywhere. When we are just a few days old, we come home from the hospital in one, and on our way out, we head to the grave in a hearse.

I bought it for $450 from a friend who was moving to New York City. It was cream with a plush, brown interior.

From birth to death; we live in cars.

We love our cars when they work for us, and we hate them when they don’t. We curse them when they break down, when they don’t start, and when they demand $2,750 for a new computer chip just to get running again.

We even mourn them when they break down once and for all — no matter how much grief they’ve caused us. We become attached to our cars because of course we do. For Americans, they are an inextricable part of life.

1978 Oldsmobile Starfire

And of our history. Cars transport us through space, but also through time — to certain chapters in our lives. A car is a physical reminder of who we were behind that particular wheel.

I remember my first car like we all remember our first car. It’s the first time you are free like an adult even though you are not an adult. You are still very much a stupid kid, but you don’t feel like one in the driver’s seat.

Mine was a 1978 Oldsmobile Starfire. It was light blue, and it was my grandpa’s before it was mine. He “sold” it to me for $1. I loved that car. I felt like I was in an old movie when I was driving down the road. I loved looking at it parked. I loved thinking about the fact it was mine. It was so cool, so retro, so rear-wheel drive, so bad in the rain. One morning on the way to school, I drove it off the road and into a ditch, and that was the end of the Starfire.

1993 Plymouth Voyager

My next car was really my parents’ car, and it wasn’t a car; it was a van. They let me use it pretty much whenever I wanted to. It was a white 1993 Plymouth Voyager. The sliding door was full of sand and barely moved. The crank windows weren’t working so great. There was an MP3 player plugged into a tape adapter shoved into the tape deck on the dashboard.

That van is my senior year of high school. I remember driving with my girlfriend to a crappy Chinese restaurant about 40 miles south just for something to do with a pretty girl I liked. We did that a lot. I got two tickets speeding back from her house late at night in that van.

1984 Buick Skylark

After the Voyager, I drove a 1984 Buick Skylark. I bought it for $450 from a friend who was moving to New York City. It was cream with a plush, brown interior. I don’t even know how many miles it had on it, I just knew that it ran, and it ran good.

I drove that thing all over. Up north, over to Detroit, down to Chicago, out to Wisconsin. It had a cigarette lighter and ashtrays. I remember smoking American Spirits in a yellow pack in that car. Driving with the windows down in the summer and slipping around the road in the winter.

The Skylark was my college car. It was an “old” car then, but now it’s ancient: 1984 was 42 years ago. I suppose that makes me ancient too.

Four years after I bought the Skylark, I sold her to my brother for $300 and moved to Chicago. I didn’t have a car for almost a decade. I didn’t need one there, and I didn’t need one when I was overseas.

2007 Volvo XC90

The next car I bought was with that old high school girlfriend, now my wife. Right after we got married, we left the city, and so we bought a 2007 Volvo XC90 with about 120,000 miles on it. It cost us $3,600, which we borrowed from my wife’s grandparents. We paid them back over the next year.

We didn’t have the Volvo for too long; it broke down a couple years later. But it was a beast of a car and the first thing we owned together. Thinking about it now, the XC90 was kind of a symbolic introduction to married life. It wasn’t my car; it was our car.

RELATED: My grandpa’s old desk

Michael Brennan/Getty Images

2009 Volvo S70

After the XC90 was a 2009 Volvo S70. It was a fine car, and it was the car in which our son came home from the hospital. That car was us three. First-time parents, firstborn son. That first year with your first kid is special, and that car was where it happened.

The S70 was a little weird. It wouldn’t start if it was colder than 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside. You would think a car from Sweden would be able to handle the cold, but it couldn’t. I had to hook it up to a starter that plugged into the wall and juice the battery for 30 minutes if we needed to start it when it was cold.

Our last trip in that car was our trip to the hospital when my wife was in labor and about to give birth to our daughter. In the middle of the night, I drove my wife and our son through a snowstorm to the hospital. We hit a massive piece of ice flying off a plow, the car eventually overheated, and the S70 died on the side of the road somewhere in Northern Michigan at about 4:30 a.m.

My wife took an ambulance to the hospital, my son and I took a cop car behind her, and the Volvo took a tow truck to the scrapyard.

2017 Honda HR-V

A few days later, we got a Honda HR-V from my wife’s then-92-year-old grandmother. She never drove it, and she didn’t need it, so she gave it to us, and it’s been our car ever since. I don’t know how much longer we will have the HR-V. Maybe 10 years, maybe one year. We’ve got three kids in there now, and it can’t take any more. One day, maybe we will be lucky enough to upgrade to an SUV with another row. We’ll see.

I can already tell how we will remember the HR-V. I already know the chapter it will define for us. We will say it was our first real family car, our car when we added two kids and grew a lot in quite a few ways. Our lives have become much better in that car. We’ve experienced some bad stuff in it but much more good on the whole. We grew, that’s for sure. It’s a good car now, and someday we hope to remember it as a great car.

It sounds funny to mark our time by our cars. But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s as good a way as any to divide up our time here.

Cars: the things that take us wherever we go.

​Lifestyle, Culture, Men’s style, Buick, Oldsmobile, Classic cars, Marriage, Family life, Americana, The root of the matter 

After Iran and the United States failed to reach a resolution during the negotiations last week, President Trump has resorted to stricter measures against Iran.

Trump announced late Sunday night his latest plan.

‘The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.’

“The United States to Blockade Ships Entering or Exiting Iranian Ports on April 13 at 10:00 A.M. ET,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

On social media, U.S. Central Command confirmed that the blockade of Iran’s ports would be enforced, pursuant to President Trump’s post: “The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.”

“CENTCOM forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports,” CENTCOM added.

RELATED: Pope responds after repeated attacks by Trump over war criticism: ‘I have no fear’

Shady Alassar/Anadolu/Getty Images

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​Politics, President trump, Iran, United states, Strait of hormuz, Naval blockade, Us central command, Centcom, Truth social 

One person is dead and six others were injured after masked men stormed into a New Jersey Chick-fil-A on Saturday night and opened fire, WNYW-TV reported.

Police said the shooting began around 9 p.m. at the restaurant on Route 22 in Union Township, the station said.

Democrat New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said in a statement posted to X that ‘our hearts go out to the victim’s loved ones, and we are hoping for the full recovery of those who were injured.’

Responding officers found seven victims at the scene, WNYW reported, citing the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.

The six surviving victims all suffered non-life-threatening injuries and are expected to recover, the station added.

Investigators told WNYW the masked men went behind the restaurant’s counter before opening fire.

Dashcam video recorded what appeared to be a masked individual running from the restaurant with a gun.

RELATED: 4 dead, at least 20 injured after shooting at South Carolina coastal bar: ‘Screaming and panic and fear’

Authorities believe the shooting was targeted and not a random act of violence, the station said, adding that officials have not released the identity of the person who was killed, and it remains unclear whether the victims were employees or customers.

The suspects remain at large, and a manhunt is underway, WNYW said.

One worker’s father described the scene as a “war zone,” the New York Post reported.

Democrat New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said in a statement posted to X that “our hearts go out to the victim’s loved ones, and we are hoping for the full recovery of those who were injured,” WNYW noted.

The Union County Prosecutor’s Office is asking the public to submit tips by phone at 908-654-TIPS (8477) or online at www.uctip.org — noting that tips resulting in an indictment and conviction can be eligible for a reward of up to $10,000 via Union County Crime Stoppers, the Post reported.

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​Mass shooting, Fatal shooting, Chick-fil-a, Union, New jersey, Police, Manhunt, Masked men, Crime