When news broke that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated while speaking on a college campus, British podcaster Zuby was thousands of miles from home, recording podcast interviews in California.

A year later, he can still remember the shock of seeing the reports and reactions flash across television screens and social media feeds — especially the negative ones.

“I couldn’t believe it was real. It kind of felt like a weird dream. Now, reflecting back one year on from that, it’s still incredibly sad. I mean it was a massive loss. I wouldn’t say just for the USA. I wouldn’t say just for the West. I wouldn’t say just for the conservative movement or whatever you want to call it,” Zuby tells BlazeTV host Pat Gray on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“But I think it was a massive loss for the world,” he says.

“And then there was a sort of a secondary wave of upset and anger when you saw some people’s response to it, which just showed just how dark some people’s hearts are,” he recalls.

“It’s one thing for one person to do something awful, but when that happens, and it seems like hundreds of thousands or potentially millions of people may feel like, ‘Oh, that was justified,’ or whatever. And obviously these people are a minority, but in this day and age of social media, they’re a very loud minority,” he continues.

“It’s not a majority of people who think that that is acceptable. But it’s far more people than it should be,” he adds.

However, because Charlie was largely seen through social media, those disrespecting him in the wake of his assassination simply “see people as avatars.”

“People forget that there’s a living, breathing human being with friends and family and relationships and their own troubles and problems and so on. They just kind of see this avatar,” he tells Gray.

“They’re a liberal, or they’re a progressive, and they don’t like conservatives or they don’t like MAGA or they don’t like Trump or whatever, and they just see whoever’s in that bucket, whoever is in that box, this is how I feel about it right,” he continues.

“They’re just not really rooted in reality,” he adds.

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​Charlie kirk, Zuby, Reactions, Assassination, Conservative, Liberal, Pat gray, Blazetv show 

A Democrat candidate in North Carolina is forcing her party to run the other way after she appeared to defend resurfaced comments calling for political violence.

The website for Shelly Headen’s campaign says she is a mom, a neighbor, and an advocate, but on social media she advocated for a military strike against many of those neighbors.

When asked about the extremist insults, Headen compared herself to Jesus Christ.

Headen is running for North Carolina’s state House District 62 without the support of her party after the comments went public.

“I think our only hope is an attack on US Soil … preferably Alabama, Louisiana … where the stupid people live,” Headen wrote in one post, according to the Carolina Journal.

Another comment said the “MAGA cult may be more destructive and evil than the Nazis” and also accused President Donald Trump of “getting close to surpassing Hitler.”

When asked about the extremist insults, Headen compared herself to Jesus Christ.

“I’ve sacrificed myself just like Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross, and Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln and all the people that put themselves out there to sacrifice for our country,” Headen said in a statement to the Assembly.

“If a few angry moments on social media are the end, then so be it,” she added. “MAGA will keep winning if we continue with not standing up for what’s right.”

The North Carolina House Democratic Caucus appeared to disagree with Headen that she was acting like Jesus Christ, and the organization stripped its support from her campaign.

“Shelly Headen’s posts are unacceptable and do not reflect the values we expect of our candidates,” claimed Sam Lozier, the communications director for the caucus. “The North Carolina House Democratic Caucus condemns these comments without qualification and will not support Shelly Headen’s candidacy.”

RELATED: 14 times ‘unhinged’ Democrats have called for political violence

Republican state House Speaker Destin Hall condemned the “absolutely disgusting” comments.

Headen is running against incumbent Republican state Rep. John M. Bust.

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​North carolina, Political violence, Social media, Politics 

The national debate over criminal responsibility and postpartum depression got somewhat derailed after the jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial revealed more details about the lone holdout.

The defense never denied that Clancy strangled her three young children to death in the case that caused a nationwide battle. The defense argued that she sought help for mental illness and postpartum depression but did not get the treatment she needed.

‘For people who revel in identity politics, they certainly fit the most awful stereotypes of white liberals.’

There were nine women and three men on the jury. One lone juror, a male, held out against the 11 others who wanted to acquit Clancy of the charges by reason of insanity.

Some jurors have gone to the public to plead their case that the lone juror was obstinate and refused to listen to the others, but their arguments have only led to more support for the holdout.

An interview with one juror in the case led to the revelation that the holdout was a black man.

On “CBS Mornings,” juror Paula Devlin was asked by Gayle King to describe the racial makeup of the jury, and Devlin revealed that only one member was not white.

“One person of color. Was the person of color a woman or a man?” asked King.

“A man,” she replied.

“A man. Is the holdout juror a black man?” she asked.

“Yes,” Devlin said.

“A black man is the holdout juror?” King repeated.

“Yes,” Devlin said.

“Whoa. I have to sit with that for just a second,” King replied.

Video of King’s stunned reaction was posted to social media.

Devlin went on to say that two jurors initially believed Clancy was guilty, two were undecided, and eight said she was not guilty.

She believes that the lone juror felt personally attacked, and for that reason, he refused to go along with the rest of the jurors after they deliberated and 11 were ready to find Clancy not guilty.

Critics online saw the irony in the demographic revelation.

“The liberal white women who tried to lecture him and shame him into acquiescing literally knew better than him,” said one critic.

“Holy heck, for people who revel in identity politics, they certainly fit the most awful stereotypes of white liberals.”

“This is AMAZING! Why didn’t the black man listen to the white priveledged [sic] saviors!?? How dare he not bow down and submit to their supremacy?!?” said another sarcastically.

“So there was a gaggle of white Karens hectoring a black man. Who didn’t care about all the other s**t, only that the mother had strangled her children,” said another.

RELATED: Hundreds of women rally outside courthouse show support for mother who killed 3 children

Devlin went on to explain her own process of arriving at a not-guilty verdict.

“I was leaning towards not responsible, from all the evidence I had heard,” she said. “And I had certain things I wanted to look at when we got into deliberation. Everything that we talked about and every point that everybody in the room made just kind of reinforced that more and more.”

The case ended in a mistrial and may go to trial again.

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​Lindsay clancy, Mental illness, Postpartum depression, Race politics, Politics, Gayle king 

Democrat socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Mayor Zohran Mamdani were seen laughing and smiling together at Ground Zero in New York City on Friday as 9/11 victims’ families wept nearby.

The incident occurred as family members read the names of the 2,977 Americans killed on September 11, 2001, by Islamic terrorists. Some families had asked earlier in the week that Mamdani stay away from the memorial due to his Islamist associations.

‘America deserved 9/11.’

Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani did not respond to requests for comment.

The clip circulating online juxtaposes 9/11 families visibly grieving with Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez laughing and smiling nearby.

Mamdani attended the ceremony despite a petition, which gathered over 110,00 signatures by Friday, requesting that he not intrude on the event.

“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” Mamdani told reporters Monday. “And what I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11.”

RELATED: The little chapel that didn’t lose a single window on 9/11

In 2025, Mamdani appeared alongside Imam Siraj Wahhaj, identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also appointed as chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, who previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, a convicted al-Qaeda operative whose brother-in-law hijacked the plane that struck the Pentagon.

The first-term mayor has previously framed Muslims as the primary victims of 9/11, telling crowds in 2025 that his “aunt” was forced to stop riding the New York City subway in the aftermath of 9/11 “because she didn’t feel safe in her hijab.” It turns out, the woman was not his aunt and did not live in NYC.

Mamdani also claimed a former teacher warned him on Sept. 11 that he might face bullying because of his Muslim background. The former teacher does not recall that conversation, according to the New York Times.

Both Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez have ties to left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who in 2019 said, “America deserved 9/11.” Piker was raised in Turkey and lived there until he came to the United States for college.

Piker attacked families who signed the petition asking that Mamdani not attend the 9/11 memorial, saying they had a “demented racist viewpoint.”

AOC has appeared on Piker’s streams and hugged him at Mamdani’s victory party. Asked in August 2026 whether Piker should have a role in the progressive movement, she said Democrats “have a responsibility to build a winning coalition.”

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​Democrat, Ground zero, Socialists, World trade center, Politics, Zohran mamdani, Alexandria ocasio-cortez, New york city, 9/11 

Most drivers don’t spend much time thinking about tire regulations. You buy the tire that fits your vehicle, your driving, and your budget. If you live somewhere with real winters, you may switch to snow tires. If you drive a performance car, you probably care a lot about grip and handling.

California has other ideas.

Someone driving an SUV has different requirements from someone commuting in a small hybrid. A Mustang owner who takes his car to the track has different priorities again.

On a recent episode of “The Drive,” my co-host Karl Brauer and I discussed new California rules targeting the rolling resistance of replacement tires. Beginning in 2029, tires sold in the state will have to meet new efficiency requirements, with the standards becoming more stringent in the years that follow.

It sounds harmless enough. Lower rolling resistance means a tire requires less energy to keep moving, which can improve fuel economy in a gasoline vehicle and range in an EV.

But fuel economy isn’t the only thing a tire has to do.

Get a grip

Tires are a collection of compromises. Grip, tread life, road noise, ride quality, wet-weather performance, handling, and efficiency all matter, and manufacturers design different tires for different vehicles and drivers. The tire you want on a Prius isn’t necessarily the tire you want on a Mustang — or a 1,000-horsepower performance car.

Karl had just driven one of those: the new 1,000-horsepower Brabus Bodo. We were talking about how dramatically temperature and tire compound can affect a performance car when he raised the obvious question: Could California eventually make it harder to buy the kind of tire such a car was designed to use?

That’s where this gets concerning.

RELATED: The diesel Chevy Suburban makes too much sense to be this hard to find

Bloomberg/Getty Images

California king

California isn’t a small automotive market that tire companies can simply ignore. If a manufacturer has to produce one version of a tire for California and another for the rest of the country, it has to decide whether producing both makes economic sense.

We’ve already watched a version of this happen with automobiles. California’s size and economic clout have allowed its emissions policies to influence vehicles sold far beyond the state’s borders. Tire manufacturers face the same basic economics: It can be cheaper and simpler to build a product that satisfies the toughest major market than maintain separate versions for different states.

And California rarely remains alone for long. Other states have historically adopted many of its automotive and environmental standards. A rule that begins in Sacramento can therefore affect what manufacturers choose to offer consumers thousands of miles away.

Rubber, meet road

That’s why I don’t see this simply as an argument about squeezing another fraction of a mile per gallon out of a car. It’s about whether drivers will continue to have the freedom to choose the tire best suited to how and where they drive.

I live in Buffalo. Winter tires aren’t an enthusiast accessory here. They’re a safety decision. Someone driving an SUV has different requirements from someone commuting in a small hybrid. A Mustang owner who takes his car to the track has different priorities again.

There is no single ideal tire for all of them.

I talk about tires constantly because those four contact patches are the only things connecting your vehicle to the road. You can have the best brakes, suspension, and stability-control system in the world, but ultimately they all depend on the tire being able to grip the pavement.

Efficiency matters. But so do traction, handling, braking, and giving drivers the ability to choose the right tire for the job.

California’s rules don’t fully take effect for several years. Drivers should pay attention now, because by the time they discover that the tire they want is no longer available, the decision may already have been made for them.

​Lifestyle, Tires, Regulation, Road safety, Consumer choice, Automotive, California 

A family member of a 9/11 victim used his platform at the 25th anniversary memorial service to ask President Donald Trump to release information kept secret by the “deep state.”

The nephew of terror victim Lisa Marie Terry made the plea to the president at Ground Zero Friday and received cheers and applause from many in the audience.

‘How can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?’

“For 25 years, the deep state has hidden the truth about what happened that day 25 years ago,” he said.

“President Trump, you are our last hope,” he added. “Release the unredacted files that implicate Saudi Arabia while what’s left of the victims’ families are still alive to see it!”

Video of his plea was widely circulated on social media.

The government of Saudi Arabia has denied any involvement in the terror attacks that took the lives of 2,977 Americans.

Terry Strada, the national chair of 9/11 Families United for Justice, also spoke out against Saudi Arabia at the ceremony as she remembered her husband, Tom Strada, who died in the attacks.

“How can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?” she said after reading her husband’s name.

She went on to accuse Saudi Arabia of fomenting “a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism around the globe” and then sending “its agents to support radical Islamist hijackers so they could attack you and all of our loved ones.”

RELATED: Outrage erupts at apparent insult from Mamdani during 9/11 ceremony

Strada recognized Vice President JD Vance, who was at the ceremony to represent the administration.

“Vice President Vance, thank you for being here today,” she said. ‘Please carry that message back. Stand with the families. Stand with the survivors. Stand with Americans. As my husband, Tom, would have said, that is always the right thing to do.”

Fifteen of the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia.

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​Deep state, Saudi arabia, 9/11 anniversary, Politics, Donald trump, Jd vance 

J.K. Rowling is a “literal Nazi.” Supporting “Harry Potter” means supporting “trans genocide.” And transgender surgeries on minors? They’re not happening.

Those are some of the claims “The Matrix” co-creator Lily (formerly Andy) Wachowski made in a bizarre new interview.

‘If you support “Harry Potter,” you’re supporting trans genocide.’

And that’s just for starters.

In the words of Joe Pantoliano’s traitorous Cypher: “Buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, ’cause Kansas is going bye-bye.”

Members only

Speaking to Variety about his new studio, Wachowski soon began spinning a dystopian fantasy to rival anything he’s done with Keanu Reeves: The United States was this close to a “trans tipping point” of equality — until evil billionaires stepped in to stop it with their lies.

For example, do you really think minors are undergoing transgender surgeries? Think again.

“None of this is happening! This is all right-wing propaganda against trans people. That is what has caused the shift,” he said.

Never mind that even the most skeptical reports do indeed prove him wrong

An article by Snopes, which sought to disprove data from a 2024 study, ended up admitting that hundreds of children have had gender surgeries in recent years, including 85 who underwent a “gender-affirming surgical procedure” in 2019. The author seemingly found solace in the fact that they were mostly “chest-related procedures,” though.

The article also noted that health insurance claims showed more than 230 surgeries on minors in 2019, over 250 in 2020, and over 280 in 2021.

Crucially, 56 of the procedures from that period were genital surgeries, something Wachowski specifically denied in a mocking description of the “propaganda” deployed by conservatives.

“Jesse Watters was talking to the Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about cutting kids’ tallywackers off.”

Other estimates are considerably higher. Do No Harm, an advocacy group opposed to gender-transition procedures for minors, says its analysis of insurance claims found 13,994 minors receiving puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones or undergoing gender-related surgeries between 2019 and 2023. Of those, the group says 5,747 underwent surgery.

RELATED: ‘Matrix’ co-creator: ‘Trans rage’ drives my work

Getty Images

Sapphic ‘Star Wars’

Wachowski also complained that Hollywood has shown little interest in the transgender- and gay-themed projects he has pitched.

“If I never make another movie again, I’m fine. I’m getting old,” he said. “But in my experience of pitching stuff, I’ve pitched a lot of wonderful, cool queer stories and trans stories, and Hollywood didn’t want any of it.”

Among those projects was one Wachowski described as “Star Wars” with “lesbians in space.”

“I cannot find a studio that will do any of it,” he said.

RELATED: Transgender ‘Matrix’ director says Hollywood won’t make his new film — and there’s one insane reason why

Larry (L) and Andy (R) Wachowski. Bob Riha Jr./WireImage/Getty Images

Bitter ‘pill’

Asked about Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump using the term “red pill” — a reference to “The Matrix” that has since taken on a life of its own in politics and online culture — Wachowski rejected the idea that they had simply misunderstood his movie.

Instead, he accused them of “co-opting” the message.

“That’s what fascists do,” Wachowski said. “They co-opt the messages of progressives and use it to their benefit to confuse and obfuscate what is going on and the intention of their ideology.”

When the conversation turned separately to Musk and “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, Wachowski went considerably farther.

“I mean … these people are Nazis,” he said. “They’re literal Nazis.”

Wachowski then accused Rowling, a prominent critic of transgender activism, of financing a “genocide.”

“She is funding trans genocide,” Wachowski said. “J.K. Rowling funds trans genocide, full stop.”

“So if you support ‘Harry Potter,’ you’re supporting trans genocide.”

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​The matrix, Wachowski, Transgenderism, Hollywood, Gender affirming care for minors, Entertainment 

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States that robbed 2,977 innocent people of their lives.

Col. Rob Maness was inside the Pentagon that horrific day. On this episode of “Rufo & Lomez,” BlazeTV hosts Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Keeperman sit down with the retired Air Force colonel to hear insider details of a day America will never forget.

“Colonel, it’s been 25 years since that day. What is your general reflection looking back after all these years?” Rufo asks.

America today, warns Maness, is in the same vulnerable position it was on September 10, 2001.

Between “importing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of [Islamists] over the last 25 years with a very poor vetting process” and corrupt “intelligence agencies,” Maness says he’s “very concerned” for the country, because “in many ways, we’re at September 10, 2001.”

“A lot of us were sort of younger when this happened. It’s a kind of fuzzy memory. … Just kind of walk us through what it was like to be there on the ground directly, where this event happened, how people were thinking about it at the time, people’s response to it, what those first 24, 48 hours were like,” says Keeperman.

In those days, Maness was a major — “the coffee guy,” he laughs.

“I walked by the day-care center every day up into corridor 8, into my office area, which was inside the National Military Command Center. And, you know, at the time I was getting there, the kids were being dropped off … and I always enjoyed watching them and the parents and all that stuff because I had little kids of my own,” he recounts.

“I just walked in and said, ‘Man, this is going to be a fantastic day,”’ he adds.

It wasn’t long before he discovered how wrong that prediction was.

That day, he explains, marked the start of America’s “global nuclear war game.” Maness’ real job, he explains, was in the Joint Staff’s nuclear operations division, which trained the aides with access to the “nuclear football book” and oversaw the doomsday plane.

“A lot of my leadership and teammates were out at different nodes around the world for command and control of nuclear forces because we were kicking that exercise off that day,” he tells Rufo and Keeperman, “and that was literally happening at the moment the airplanes hit the towers.”

After the first strikes, Maness’ on-site team “stayed on duty” to “help with the command and control decision-making.” They were “ordered out” of the Pentagon just after the third plane hit.

Once evacuated, Maness immediately turned his attention to helping the wounded.

“I just started helping do what I could for the first aid and those kind of things until we got asked to go back inside the courtyard because the fire trucks couldn’t get inside and the building’s roof was burning,” he recounts.

“I estimate probably between 100 and 200 people … split up into two teams and went to those inside corners, and we started helping continue to fight the fire [and] see if we could find anybody alive.”

To hear more of Maness’ story, watch the video above.

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​Chris rufo, Jonathan keeperman, 9/11 anniversary, Blazetv show 

A year after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, BlazeTV host Steve Deace is still struggling to process the loss of his friend — and the spiritual warfare that’s begun escalating in his absence.

“It is still hard to believe that Charlie is gone. I still can’t believe that this really happened,” Deace says. “It’s still kind of surreal to me. Despite how many tears I’ve shed over the last year, more than I can count, more often than I can count.”

“Felt like losing a little brother to me. Just one that was more talented and better looking. But the other reason I’ve shed so many tears over the last year for this, and I mean there have been moments where I have just sobbed, it’s because I didn’t just lose a friend and a brother,” he continues.

“I understand [what] the church in our country lost with Charlie as well,” he adds, “It is, folks, it’s a gaping void that may never be filled.”

And this “dysfunction” plaguing the Republican Party, Deace explains, is happening “because Charlie’s not here.”

“And I’ve talked about this before, how much behind the scenes Charlie was keeping at bay, holding at bay,” he says.

“And a lot of the instigation and impetus for what we’ve seen, which is the stuff out of church history books, out of the Bible, just open spiritual warfare breaking out into the natural world, into the seeing realm, the trigger for a lot of it was his assassination,” he continues.

“If you were here,” he adds, addressing his old friend, “this would not be happening at the rate that it is, if at all. And I think it’s further confirmation of the apostolic calling on Charlie’s life, his martyring, and its aftermath.”

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​Assassination, Charlie kirk, Church, Martyrdom, Republican party, Spiritual warfare, Steve deace, Blazetv show 

Hunter Biden is the latest personality to promote a cryptocurrency meme coin accused of being a scam.

The former president’s son launched the “LAPTOP” coin on Wednesday. The full diluted valuation of the coin quickly surged to $144 billion before crashing almost immediately, losing about 98.8% of its value in just a few short hours.

‘They turned laptop into a weapon. I turned it into a token.’

The 56-year-old had promoted the coin Monday with a video compilation of news clips reporting the infamous laptop that he had left at a computer repair shop and was later obtained by the media and federal agents.

“The symbol they used to try to end me is now a symbol of resilience, redemption, and recovery,” wrote Biden in a post Tuesday.

“They turned laptop into a weapon. I turned it into a token.”

But the massive increase and crash seemed to have all the earmarks of a classic “pump and dump” scheme, where the coin creators and insiders sell their shares near the maximum valuation, which leads to many investors losing nearly everything.

The coin creators often make outsized promises to the promoter but leave them holding the bag after “rug pulling” the common investors of their money.

President Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump mocked Biden after reports of it crashing.

“Hunter should go back to painting,” he posted on social media.

Economic expert and Blaze News contributor Carol Roth responded in comments to Blaze News.

“Hunter Biden knows how to make something out of nothing — at least for himself. Now that his previously lucrative board memberships and painting careers aren’t quite as robust, it’s unsurprising he would support a meme coin scheme,” she said.

She also criticized meme coins as investments.

“Crypto generally, and meme coins in particular, are a part of growing trend of get-rich-quick and betting-oriented activities that seem to be pervasive in America these days,” Roth added. “If the value of something comes down to purely in selling it to the next guy trying to make a quick buck, it’s not really an investment — it’s a gambling vehicle.”

RELATED: Liberals are furious at crypto company for rejecting overt displays of social justice activism

Both President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have launched their own meme coins, which similarly climbed in value before collapsing.

“Why something that has been so misused by grifters? I understand the cynicism,” Hunter Biden wrote in the Tuesday post before the launch. “Trump has broken trust in everything he’s ever touched. And his token was no exception.”

Biden has since denied the allegations that he was taken in by a crypto-scheme. In a video posted to his account Friday, he claimed that there had been a mix-up but that he was “intimately” involved in the coin’s creation and that it still had a future.

One analysis found that an account apparently purchased $250,000 worth of Hunter’s meme coin, waited eight minutes while it skyrocketed in value, then dumped the coin for a profit of nearly $1 million.

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​Hunter biden, Cryptocurrency, Scams, Hunter biden laptop, Politics 

Remember not too terribly long ago when we recommended passkeys over usernames and passwords due to their more stringent security? Well, a new fatal flaw just emerged, and it has us rethinking our original take. Here’s what you need to know about the new passkeys vulnerability, plus what you can do to protect your data from attacks.

Well, this is awkward. We just got done saying how much better it is to use passkeys over usernames and passwords. Personally, every passkey available to me is enabled on my accounts, so maybe I’m a walking target. Perhaps you are, too, especially if your passwords are saved in Google’s software ecosystem.

Passkeys were meant to be a more perfect way to protect access to your online accounts.

This newly discovered malware — dubbed Pass-ta-key — specifically targets the passkeys system attached to Google Password Manager, the first-party password storage app built into Google Chrome and Android. The researchers who discovered the flaw hacked into Google Passkeys through the Chrome browser on a Windows PC using all three of these methods:

The basic Pass-ta-key exploit ultimately tricks Google’s authentication system into accessing the passkey-protected website with no identity verification (PIN, biometric data, or password) necessary.Silver Pass-ta-key takes the exploit a step farther by erroneously convincing the system that the user did provide identity authentication to gain access to a website or service, treating it just like a user-confirmed event.As for Gold Pass-ta-key, this top-tier exploit steals the entire passkey vault from Chrome by targeting Google’s master key system at the time a device is registered or an account is recovered.

There’s no word on whether or not other operating systems (such as macOS or Linux) and Chromium-based browsers (like Microsoft Edge and Brave) are equally susceptible, but since Windows is the largest PC platform in the world and Chrome is the most popular browser on the market, this threat puts billions of computer users at risk worldwide.

RELATED: Tired of password insanity? Make this safer, stronger choice.

Rawf8/Getty Images

Not a Windows user? You still have a reason to worry.

Apple customers aren’t out of the woods, either. A separate Apple passkey exploit was recently discovered for iCloud+ subscribers who use iCloud Private Relay, a feature meant to hide your IP address from the sites you visit online. Thanks to a WebKit bug, websites that request passkey verification may also see your IP address, even when iCloud Private Relay is enabled. The only way to stop this is to use a browser without WebKit or rely on a third-party VPN service. On the bright side, at least your passkey vaults will stay concealed.

What to do to protect yourself

Passkeys were meant to be a more perfect way to protect access to your online accounts, which is critical in an age when AI makes it easier than ever to hack systems and steal data. Despite malware like Pass-ta-key, passkeys are still more secure than traditional usernames and passwords. However, if these exploits give you pause to trust such a solution, you’re not alone. The good news is that Pass-ta-key requires pre-existing malware to already be present on the target computer, and as long as you refrain from downloading apps and services from sketchy places online, your chances of contracting this malware are on the lower side.

For those who still aren’t convinced, you might be asking yourself what you can do next to protect your accounts. Unfortunately, there aren’t many viable options left.

The truth is that it’s hard to recommend a foolproof password manager these days, as most of them have endured some kind of breach, hack, or vulnerability at one point or another. At this point, you might be better off etching your credentials on a stone tablet than putting them into a digital device. And if you don’t have one of those handy, just keep an eye on Blaze News for updates on which password exploit pops up next. We’ll report on it when we hear about it.

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​Data, Passwords, Security, Threat, Tech 

An Illinois mother who reportedly was “very invested” in the Lindsay Clancy case is accused of killing her toddler before attempting to commit self-harm amid an alleged “brief psychotic disorder.”

The Frankfort Police Department said in a statement that officers responded to a report of an unresponsive juvenile just after 4 p.m. Sept. 1.

‘She was severely mentally ill at the time of the incident and requires treatment.’

Police found a 2-year-old boy at the home, and he was taken to a hospital where he later was pronounced dead.

The Will County Coroner’s Office ruled the toddler’s cause of death was “asphyxia due to ligature compression of the neck,” the Patch Frankfort reported.

The statement added that three other juveniles were inside the home, and they were not harmed.

The victim’s mother, 40-year-old Corie A. Walsh, also was taken to the Silver Cross Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Court documents said after Walsh’s treatment at the hospital, she was taken to the Will County Adult Detention Facility.

Walsh was charged with first-degree murder, according to jail records.

“Court documents note that based on the age of the victim of this case, the sentencing range would be 60 to 100 years if she’s convicted,” according to the Patch Frankfort.

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WMAQ-TV obtained court documents saying Walsh’s son, 2-year-old Barrett “Bear” Walsh, was found dead hanging from a rafter in the basement of the Walsh family home.

Walsh appeared in court Tuesday, where prosecutors revealed that two of Walsh’s children arrived home from school to the chilling scene and asked a neighbor for help.

WMAQ reported that the neighbor quickly pulled Barrett down and attempted CPR but said he had no pulse.

An 8-month-old baby was found unsupervised on the floor of a room upstairs, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said the neighbor found Walsh fully clothed in a bathtub with bloody water, with injuries to her wrist and thighs.

Citing court documents, ABC News reported that the neighbor told officers Walsh was “actively harming herself” with a knife and was “trying to kill herself.”

The neighbor noted that Walsh had dilated eyes and a “weird giggle,” according to WMAQ.

Court documents said Walsh killed her son because she thought “he was the devil” and the “anti-Christ.”

Walsh’s attorney claimed that his client was suffering from a “brief psychotic disorder” at the time of the death of 2-year-old Barrett Walsh.

“She was severely mentally ill at the time of the incident and requires treatment,” defense attorney Robert Kerr said in court, according to WMAQ.

Walsh’s attorneys argued for inpatient medical care for their client.

However, prosecutors claimed Walsh had bad intentions for other members of her family, saying she later stated she intended to harm her husband when he arrived home and would “poison him with a drink,” WMAQ reported, adding that she also believed she had killed her other children.

A judge ordered Walsh detained because she could pose a risk to her remaining children and husband.

According to WLS-TV, prosecutors said Walsh had “recently become very invested in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial,” the high-profile case involving a mother killing her three children before trying to take her own life.

Court documents said, “The defendant had been actively discussing the case via group text message with her friends up until 12:30 p.m. on September 1, 2026, three and a half hours before the scene was discovered.”

Witnesses said Walsh believed Clancy’s husband — not Lindsay Clancy — murdered the children.

According to participants in the group chat, Walsh’s messages were “confusing” and “out of character.”

Clancy’s defense argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children in January 2023.

Despite text messages showing references to the Clancy case, defense attorneys branded claims of Walsh being a “Lindsay Clancy copycat” as “sickening.”

“Describing Corie to a copied Lindsay is to take an easy bait,” Kerr stated.

Walsh also is represented by Andrea Lyon — a lawyer for Casey Anthony during her infamous 2011 murder trial in which she was found not guilty of killing her 2-year-old daughter.

Lyon told ABC News:

This is a tragedy for the Walsh family, all of whom are mourning the loss of this child. It is also a tragedy in that Corie herself was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time this happened. It is our hope that through a thorough presentation and investigation of the facts, that all of us will come to see this heartbreak for what it is.

Walsh’s husband was out of state at the time of the alleged crime, according to court documents.

Defense attorneys said Walsh’s husband and mother “have unwavering love and support” for the murder suspect.

While Walsh was in court Tuesday, her son was laid to rest.

Walsh is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 24.

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​Murder, Lindsay clancy, Postpartum psychosis, Insanity defense, Illinois, Mother, Crime