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Hollywood is a factory of fakery. Social media accounts run by publicists. Apologies written by lawyers. Whole personalities assembled by committee.

In Hollywood, sincerity is often the most convincing special effect of all.

‘My behavior’s dirty, ugly, disgusting, so I gotta eat it.’

Which is why Shia LaBeouf has always felt like an anomaly.

Storm before the calm

LaBeouf is many things: talented, erratic, often self-destructive. His life reads less like a biography than a weather report — storms, brief calm, then another system moving in. He wears his heart on his sleeve, his wounds on his face, and his worst moments out in public.

In an industry built on careful concealment, he seems incapable of it. Most actors learn early to construct a polite distance between who they are and what the world sees. LaBeouf apparently never built that wall.

So when trouble comes — and with him it usually does — everyone gets a front-row seat.

And that’s what makes the story unmistakably Christian. The prodigal son does not return home polished and rehabilitated. He comes back hungry, broken, and not entirely sure how he got there.

Sitting in the wreckage

For LaBeouf, arrest is not a new experience. The latest came last month during Mardi Gras in New Orleans: a misdemeanor battery charge after he allegedly struck multiple people in a drunken altercation. He surrendered voluntarily, spent time in Orleans Parish Prison, and days later appeared on camera telling journalist Andrew Callaghan of Channel 5 News: “My behavior’s dirty, ugly, disgusting, so I gotta eat it.”

No spin. No intermediary. Just a man sitting in the wreckage and describing it plainly.

It would be easy to write him off as another Hollywood cautionary tale. But Christian charity means resisting the reflex to write someone off — especially when someone’s collapse has a visible beginning.

Shia LaBeouf didn’t arrive at dysfunction by accident.

Childhood’s end

He grew up in Echo Park, Los Angeles, in conditions most of us would struggle to imagine. His father, a Vietnam veteran and heroin addict, cycled in and out of rehab while young Shia attended AA meetings beside him.

At 10 years old, he overheard his mother being raped. His father, lost in a flashback, once pointed a gun at him.

What looks like a difficult childhood is, in truth, something closer to a disaster.

Fame arrived far too soon. By his early teens he was earning $8,000 a week on Disney’s “Even Stevens” — more money than his struggling family had ever seen, handed to a boy still too young to drive.

He told the story to Callaghan almost casually, as if describing someone else’s life: adult money, adult industry, adult temptations, and no adult judgment.

Hollywood didn’t ease LaBeouf into the spotlight. It vacuumed him into it. Once inside, there was no version of that world equipped to deal with a traumatized child carrying a fat paycheck and no psychological scaffolding. That he grew up volatile and self-destructive shouldn’t surprise anyone.

None of this excuses bad behavior. Accountability is still accountability. But understanding where destruction begins does not weaken judgment. It makes compassion possible.

Immersion in the Spirit

In 2022, LaBeouf was cast as Padre Pio, the Italian friar known for the stigmata and for his fierce spiritual intensity. He prepared the way serious actors do — research, immersion, method.

What he did not expect was the role swallowing him whole.

“It stops being prep of a movie,” he told Bishop Robert Barron in an interview ahead of the film’s premiere, “and starts being something that feels beyond all that.”

At one point he was living in a seminary parking lot, he says. He studied the Gospels. He spent time around Capuchin friars whose lives revolved around prayer, confession, and the slow disciplines of faith.

He was confirmed in the Catholic Church on New Year’s Eve 2024 at Old Mission Santa Inés, sponsored by a Capuchin friar. He attends Mass regularly. He prays the rosary. He venerates the Eucharist. He quotes G.K. Chesterton on the way mysticism keeps a man sane.

He is, in other words, exactly the kind of convert the Gospel of Luke had in mind.

RELATED: Animator Tom Bancroft: From ‘The Lion King’ to the King of Kings

tombancroftstudio.com

Hitting the wall

The prodigal son did not arrive home rehabilitated. He arrived desperate — and was met, before he could finish speaking, by a father already running to meet him.

LaBeouf is still mid-journey. He’s divorced, co-parenting with his ex-wife, carrying the weight of serious allegations, trying to put a life back together.

The Callaghan interview shows a man wrestling with himself in real time. Not performing repentance, but attempting the slow, humiliating work of it.

He talks about suicidal lows. About addiction cycles. About the moment he believes grace finally broke through: “You got to hit your head into the wall hard enough where you just go, ‘F**k it.’”

Crude language. Sound theology.

Christian redemption isn’t tidy. It unfolds through relapses, humiliations, and moments of clarity that usually arrive after the damage is done.

What LaBeouf offers isn’t a polished testimony.

It’s something rarer — a man still caught in the fall even as he reaches for redemption.

​Hollywood, Bishop robert barron, Andrew callaghan, Christianity, Padre pio, Mardi gras, Culture, Faith 

Florida officials say that two high school girls laughed and joked with each other after they were arrested for allegedly plotting the murder of a fellow classmate.

Isabelle Valdez, 15, and Lois Lippert, 14, were unaware that they were being recorded as they discussed their plans in the back of a police vehicle in January, according to the Altamonte Springs Police Department.

They also discussed the blood pact about Lanza and whether someone ratted on them.

Police were alerted to the alleged plot through an anonymous tip on Jan. 22 saying a student at Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs was being targeted in a murder scheme.

On Jan. 23, both girls went to school, and by 7:38 a.m. police had asked a security guard to get Valdez out of class.

Court documents indicated that Valdez identifies as transgender and goes by the name “Jimmy.”

Valdez was questioned by an assistant principal and admitted that she was plotting to kill another student. When asked how she was to do it, she allegedly said she had a knife, gloves, trash bags, and wipes in her backpack. When she handed the backpack over, those items were found inside.

She allegedly said she heard voices telling her to kill the victim because he reminded her of Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook killer. The voices told her that killing the student would lead to Lanza’s resurrection.

The girl intended to stab the student in the neck or the stomach, according to police.

The other girl, Lippert, allegedly knew about the plot and helped Valdez obtain items for the scheme.

Police said the two girls were recorded in a police vehicle laughing about their plan to spread the murder through crime communities.

“Valdez told Lippert that she was going to use makeup this morning for her mugshot, but she could not find anything,” reads a police readout of the recorded conversation. “Valdez then said, ‘It’s over.’ Lippert replied, ‘Yeah, it’s over. It doesn’t matter if you look good or not.'”

They also discussed the blood pact regarding Lanza and whether someone ratted on them.

RELATED: Five years after the Newtown massacre, stunning warning signs revealed in FBI report

The two are facing attempted premeditated murder charges and were charged as adults.

Adam Lanza horrified the U.S. when he killed his mother and then went to Sandy Hook Elementary School and slaughtered 20 first-grade students and six adults in 2012. The killing spree only ended when he killed himself.

Later releases by the FBI indicated that some warning signs ahead of the shooting were ignored and that Lanza had stopped taking medicine for his Asperger’s syndrome condition.

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​Adam lanza resurrection plot, Isabelle "jimmy" valdez murder plot, Transgender murder plot, Altamonte springs florida, Crime 

A few weeks ago, I wrote: “Everyone in America has an opinion on what has gone right or wrong at the Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies, particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.” I added — a little too coyly — that I had “a pretty good sense of what happened.”

That restraint served a purpose at the time. It also left too much unsaid.

The mass deportation agenda remains central to Trump’s legacy. Markwayne Mullin has a chance to deliver what the last year only promised. We’re counting on him.

Now that President Trump has removed Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary and nominated Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to replace her, it’s worth putting real detail behind the diagnosis. Not to salt the wound, but to fix what needs fixing. Trump’s signature promise — “the largest deportation operation in American history” — matters too much for anyone to pretend the last year went smoothly.

Start with the numbers. They’re too low to fulfill the promise.

ICE stopped releasing deportation data. The congressionally mandated annual report still hasn’t arrived. In the vacuum, we’ve been left with third-party estimates — the New York Times put removals at about 230,000 in 2025 — and with shifting DHS press-shop claims that bounce between hundreds of thousands and “millions.” The Times figure sits closer to reality than the chest-thumping.

Instead of mass deportations, we got mass communications.

The department’s strategy leaned heavily on television ads, memes, charged language, and inflated-sounding claims meant to create the impression that deportations were happening at historic scale. The result landed in the worst possible place: It antagonized the left and the media without delivering results big enough to justify the noise. I don’t lose sleep over angry leftists. I do care when the administration absorbs political heat without gaining operational ground.

Trump World isn’t immune to polling, media narratives, and the feedback loop they create. A loud rollout without the matching numbers gave activists, consultants, and industry a pretext to flood weak-kneed Republican offices on Capitol Hill. Those calls turned into pressure on the administration. The incentive became delay, and delay followed.

Then came the optics problem.

Turning the DHS secretary role into a traveling cosplay routine didn’t land, and it didn’t project command. Instead, it projected awkwardness — and in a department built for seriousness, that matters.

The larger issue was always fit. Excitement around Trump’s cabinet picks made people charitable, and that’s understandable. The president earned that deference. But putting Noem in charge of DHS — the department most central to the core thesis of Trump’s campaign — never quite made sense. People in the enforcement world tried to build working relationships. Many got brushed off. Meanwhile, operational leaders inside DHS did what Noem didn’t: They cultivated the advocates who could help the mission move.

RELATED: ‘Phase one’ was quality control. ‘Phase two’ needs to be quantity control.

Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images

The divide became public. Post-Minneapolis, Tom Homan’s profile rose quickly as Trump tapped him to manage the response. Inside DHS, the camps had already formed. Anyone in Washington with a foot in the enforcement world knew who was on “Team Kristi and Corey [Lewandowski]” and who wasn’t. Leaks followed. Finger-pointing followed. Journalists got fed a steady diet of dysfunction. Morale dropped as firings and reassignments became the department’s background music.

What drove most of the internal warfare was money — specifically, contracts — and the scramble to control tens of billions authorized through the One Big Beautiful Bill.

DHS adopted a policy requiring Noem personally to review and sign off on contracts over $100,000. Combined with stripping authority from agency heads, that amounted to centralized control in the secretary’s office.

In practice, the authority filtered through a small circle and ran through Corey Lewandowski in a “special government employee” capacity. The backlog became delay, and the delays hit the mission: Border wall contracts sat for months while steel prices rose. Detention capacity grew slowly because leadership chased flashy, low-capacity facilities with catchy names — Cornhusker Clink, Speedway Slammer, Louisiana Lockup — announced with social media fanfare but built at higher cost, higher litigation risk, and lower throughput than traditional providers.

It looked like a communications strategy pretending to be a detention strategy.

Personnel choices compounded the problem. Noem brought in people with little operational or policy experience in immigration enforcement. Her decision to install a late-20s former Wildlife and Fisheries official as deputy ICE director raised eyebrows. Outside the formal chain of command, an equally inexperienced cast appeared in spaces normally reserved for officials who have spent years in homeland security. Over time, allegations of self-dealing spread — and the pattern made it harder to dismiss them as rumor.

The best example was the $220 million ad campaign that prominently featured Noem. Reports of unusual processes and favored vendors circulated. When lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — pressed for answers, Noem did little to restore confidence. Given the broader self-promotion pattern, any benefit of the doubt evaporated.

Then came the hearings. They were brutal.

RELATED: Memo to Trump: Stop negotiating and ramp up deportations

Photo by Sean Bascom/Anadolu via Getty Images

Before both the House and the Senate, Noem failed to convince members that she could lead the department, and she struggled to answer accusations of scandal and self-dealing. But the fatal error came when she violated the one rule for any Cabinet witness: Don’t drag the president into your mess.

Under questioning from Sen. John Kennedy about the ad campaign, Noem told him the president personally approved the spending. Kennedy looked stunned. Trump later denied it — and the claim never made much sense in the first place. That answer ended whatever internal support remained. In the middle of a sudden war, it still managed to blow up the news cycle. With few defenders inside the building or outside it, the wagons never circled.

So what now?

Markwayne Mullin has a massive job ahead of him. He inherits some real wins — especially the restored control of the southern border — but he also inherits a department bruised by internal warfare, low output numbers, and credibility damage.

A few suggestions, offered plainly:

First, “commas, not drama.” Let the mission speak louder than the messaging. Raise the deportation numbers. If the numbers move, everything else gets easier.

Second, cauterize the past. If Mullin doesn’t create distance from what happened before, he’ll spend the next year answering for it — including under subpoena if Democrats take the House.

Third, build a firewall through oversight. Let Trump-appointed Inspector General Joseph Cuffari review the controversies. Put the facts on paper, separate the department from the personalities, and move forward. Mullin needs the ability to say, credibly, that he’s fixing the mission, not protecting a mess he didn’t create.

Fourth, trust the serious people already inside DHS. The department has highly capable operators. Back them. Empower them. Leadership requires followers, and followers don’t materialize through threats, leaks, and infighting.

The mass deportation agenda remains central to Trump’s legacy. Mullin has a chance to deliver what the last year only promised.

We’re counting on him.

​Trump, Immigration, Border security, Ice, Mass deportations, Border patrol, Dhs, Markwayne mullin, Kristi noem, Opinion & analysis, Corey lewandowski 

An awful vaccine side effect has allegedly sidelined a baseball player for the rest of his life.

Isaiah Carranza was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in 2018 but never made it to the major leagues. Now, Carranza is suing his former organization, saying it denied his vaccine injury after he was “coerced” into getting the shot.

‘Isaiah complied with the mandate, reported serious adverse symptoms almost immediately, and repeatedly sought help.’

Carranza played two years in High-A, the third-highest level of minor league baseball in the United States. However, 2022 was the last time he appeared in a game, and the former pitcher has since alleged that team officials warned him he would be “blacklisted” if he didn’t get a COVID-19 vaccine.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Carranza claimed if he did not get two doses, his organization would not release him from his contract so that he could pursue other teams. At the same time, he was allegedly told he had “no prospects of moving up” within the White Sox’s organization.

After getting the Pfizer vaccine, Carranza says he soon began suffering “extreme dizziness, nausea, near-fainting, and wildly fluctuating heart rate,” but the team told him it was simply dehydration, anxiety, and “rookie nerves.”

RELATED: ‘A form of art’: NBA star Draymond Green defends strip-club night at Hawks game as ‘inclusive’ promotion

Carranza also allegedly began experiencing severe pain and dysfunction in his pitching arm.

“After receiving the vaccine, Plaintiff suffered severe adverse health reactions with little to no support from Defendants, who denied him necessary accommodations,” the lawsuit said, according to Newsmax.

Carranza also claimed that the injury impaired his ability to throw at a professional level and essentially ended his career. He is reportedly seeking $19 million in damages and has an estimated $557,000 price tag in future medical expenses.

The MLB did not have an official vaccine mandate but encouraged players to get vaccinated through its union and the league.

Carranza’s legal team said on its website that minor league players lacked union representation and the financial security to safely speak out against the “condition of employment.”

RELATED: Michael Jordan shocks NASCAR by doing something no one has done in 77 years

“Isaiah complied with the mandate, reported serious adverse symptoms almost immediately, and repeatedly sought help. Instead of receiving appropriate medical care or legally required accommodations, his symptoms were dismissed, misdiagnosed, and minimized,” the law group wrote.

Peter Law Group claimed Carranza’s professional baseball career was cut short and that he now has a permanent autonomic nervous system disorder.

The White Sox and the league have not given public statements, and a White Sox spokesman declined to comment on the matter to the Chicago Sun-Times. Blaze News was unable to reach the team for comment.

Pfizer did not respond to a request for comment.

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​News, Sports, Pfizer, Covid vaccine, Covid 19, Mlb, Baseball, Chicago white sox, Vaccine, Politics, Vaccine injury 

Last week, President Trump announced that Kristi Noem would be replaced as Secretary of Homeland Security by Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and reassigned to the newly created position of Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas.

“Let me translate what this usually means in Washington and may mean this time,” Glenn Beck says.

“When a president moves somebody into a job that hasn’t been fully defined yet, it usually means one of two things: either A, yeah, bye-bye, you’re being pushed aside, or B, you’re being moved in to run something that is bigger but isn’t public yet.”

Which category does Noem fall into?

Glenn speculates that it’s the latter.

“If you look at the timing, this doesn’t feel like a demotion,” he says.

Despite the “mixed signals” coming from Trump, who at times does appear “pissed at her,” Glenn believes that Noem’s reassignment has more to do with the “reorganization of the battlefield.”

“It’s the shield of the Americas. I know that doesn’t mean anything, but follow me on this. Right now, the United States is looking at a hemisphere and a hemisphere problem that most Americans still don’t fully understand or see,” he says.

“When Donald Trump was running for re-election, we were standing backstage someplace, and he was getting ready to go on. He said, ‘You want to look like a prophet? You know what you need to talk about? You just keep talking about Panama,”’ he recounts, noting that Trump’s words were deeply confusing to him at the time.

However, shortly after the election, the president sure enough divulged intentions to take back the Panama Canal.

“He understood what was happening with Panama and China. China had taken the entire Panama Canal and was controlling it,” Glenn says.

The Panama plans were soon followed by talk of Greenland, then Venezuela, Cuba, cartels in Mexico and Central America, Russia in Caracas, and Iranian proxies in the region.

“The southern hemisphere has become the new front line of great power competition. [President Trump] is declaring the western hemisphere is ours, OK? And DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, was not designed for that,” Glenn says.

What Trump is up against, he explains, is “hemisphere-level instability.”

“We have the migration waves. We have state collapse. We have cartels that are moving people and drugs and weapons and intelligence. We have foreign adversaries embedding themselves inside of all of that chaos,” Glenn explains. “So if you’re the president … you’re saying, ‘We have got to shore up America to make sure we last another 150, 250 years.’”

Perhaps Noem’s reassignment has more to do with this: “[making] sure that our darkest, Russia, China, Iran, are not running operations in this hemisphere.”

“Shield of the Americas. Think about the name. It’s not border control; it’s not immigration enforcement. It’s a shield of the Americas, the entire western hemisphere,” Glenn says. “That doesn’t sound like DHS. That sounds more like strategic security architecture for the western hemisphere, doesn’t it?”

To hear more of his theory on Kristi Noem’s reassignment, watch the video above.

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​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Kristi noem, Dhs, Shield of the americas, Panama canal, Markwayne mullin, Blazetv, Blaze media, Kristi noem out 

Last September, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins warned that the United States has “offshored our food, our beef cattle, our citrus.” She put the problem plainly: “If we can’t feed ourselves, this is a national security issue.” Fair enough. So why does so much of government land-use policy push projects that devour farmland — hyperscale data centers, utility-scale solar farms, and the sprawling infrastructure that comes with them?

If Washington wanted to drive up land prices, make farming harder, and funnel a generation of acreage into non-agricultural uses, it couldn’t improve on the current playbook. The uniparty does this everywhere, and red states often lead the charge.

Data centers: The ‘cloud’ that drains the water

Texas is suffering through a long drought. Yet Amarillo has approved an 18 million square-foot data center on what used to be cattle country. Land-grabs tell only part of the story. Data centers also drink water — and they don’t act like the kind of clouds that bring rain.

Reports indicate the Amarillo facility alone could use 912 million gallons of water per year. Large data centers can guzzle up to 5 million gallons per day, matching the daily use of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people. That kind of demand crowds out ranchers and farmers who already operate under tight margins and tight water allocations.

If food security is national security, then farmland is strategic territory. Let’s start acting like it.

Texas data centers used roughly 49 billion gallons of water in 2025, rising to 399 billion gallons by 2030 — enough to lower Lake Mead by more than 16 feet annually. Meanwhile, ranchers face reduced access, higher pumping costs, and deeper draws from shrinking aquifers. Less water means smaller herds, smaller harvests, and more pressure to sell.

That’s how the cycle locks in. Water becomes scarce. Ranching becomes less viable. Landowners get squeezed. Tech developers show up with wads of cash and tax incentives. Grazing land disappears for good.

On what planet does it make sense to trade the beef and food we need for speculative gains from chatbots and cloud-based generative AI?

Maybe Elon Musk has the right idea when he suggests building data centers in space. Texas doesn’t need them planted on top of its ranches.

Some red states now treat these projects as untouchable “economic development,” even when they wreck local quality of life. Ohio offers a telling example. An Ohio EPA draft permit for a data center states: “It has been determined that a lowering of water quality … is necessary to accommodate important social and economic development in the state of Ohio.”

That sentence says everything. Regulators will sacrifice water quality to accommodate the newest corporate appetite. Families and landowners can adapt.

RELATED: Living human brain cells are training a chatbot to be ‘more like us’

Photo by Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Solar ‘farms’ crushing farmland

President Trump has criticized the solar agenda from day one. He has called utility-scale solar inefficient and ugly — and he’s right about the aesthetics. Yet the administration now treats solar as a power source for data centers, while some MAGA influencers and pollsters try to sell the right on the plan. Pairing solar with hyperscale AI facilities accelerates the transfer of land out of food production.

Utility-scale solar typically requires five to 10 acres per megawatt. A solar build meant to feed a one-gigawatt hyperscale facility can swallow 5,000 to 10,000 acres. Supporters respond with percentages: Solar uses only a small share of total farmland. That dodge ignores where developers build. They don’t chase scrub. They target flat, well-drained, high-quality fields with cheap and easy access to transmission.

Follow the incentives. In states such as Indiana and Illinois, solar leases reportedly offer $900 to $1,500 per acre annually — far above the average return from corn and soybean ground. Landowners take the deal. Young farmers get priced out. Rural communities lose working land and the local economies that depend on it.

Reuters reported that in Indiana counties such as Pulaski, Starke, and Jasper, solar projects have secured 4% to 12% of some of the most fertile cropland. That’s not “marginal land.” That’s the kind of ground America needs to keep producing.

Tax breaks pour gasoline on the fire. Federal and state subsidies for data centers, solar farms, and battery installations push up land values and rents. In Pulaski County, Indiana, cropland rents reportedly jumped 26% since 2020 amid solar growth, outpacing state and national averages. Young families trying to farm don’t compete with subsidized megaprojects.

Indiana Republicans have compounded the damage by greasing the skids for carbon capture pipelines and special regulatory favors tied to the “Mid-States Corridor,” which will take even more farmland out of service.

Indiana’s own Department of Agriculture reports the state lost roughly 345,000 acres of agricultural land between 2010 and 2022. Residential sprawl drives much of that loss. Industrial conversion is accelerating — and data centers paired with solar build-outs speed it up.

So what exactly are these conservatives conserving?

Imports keep climbing. In 2023, imports supplied 59% of fresh fruit availability and 35% of fresh vegetables — up from 50% and 20% in 2007. America has the land to feed itself and then some, yet policymakers keep nudging production overseas. Mexico alone accounts for over half of imported fruits and vegetables, valued at more than $20 billion.

God gave this country an abundance of fertile land. He gave sun and rain to grow food. Our leaders now treat that ground as a blank canvas for industrial build-outs that don’t feed anyone.

If food security is national security, then farmland is strategic territory. Let’s start acting like it.

​Data centers, Ai, Data center water use, Brooke rollins, Texas, Droughts, Ranches, Trump, Solar energy, Opinion & analysis, Beef, Prices, Affordability, Grocery prices, Artificial intelligence, Water, Big tech 

Police have arrested three people believed to be involved in the brutal beating to death of a homeless man found in a vacant home in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

The Klamath Falls Police Department said in a statement that officers found Kolton Esparza just before 11 a.m. on Feb. 26 while performing a welfare call.

‘I beat Kolton with a rock and stomped him out with my shoes.’

The homeless man was found naked, bound with rope, and beaten very badly. Police reported that he had signs of torture as well.

He was transported to a hospital, where he died a day later from his injuries.

After an investigation, police arrested two men and a woman for their involvement in his death.

Prosecutors say 49-year-old Jamie S. Harrington drove Esparza to the Eulalona Trailhead in Klamath Falls along with her brother, 34-year-old Reggie L. Townsend Jr., and a 39-year-old man named Wesley J. Powless, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Esparza was allegedly beaten by the men before he was able to run away, with them chasing after him.

Prosecutors say the men caught up to him near the vacant home and beat him with a brick or rock while kicking him. Powless and Townsend allegedly cleaned up the scene and left with evidence in a black garbage bag.

A medical examiner found that the man’s cause of death was “severe head trauma.”

Investigators claimed to have obtained a confession letter from Townsend to his girlfriend that read, “I beat Kolton with a rock and stomped him out with my shoes.”

KDRV-TV also reported that Townsend had been released only three months prior after serving a sentence for manslaughter.

RELATED: Elderly man confesses to killing his daughter and wife with an ax to avoid homelessness after losing his job, police say

Harrington and her brother were arrested on Feb. 27, while Powless was arrested in a later traffic stop.

Powless and Townsend were charged with second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, and tampering with evidence. Harrington was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, tampering with evidence, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

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On the “Impaulsive” podcast, Logan Paul declared he would wager $1 million against any NFL player willing to face him in a boxing match — claiming that no player is capable of beating him.

“Not a single football player could beat me in a boxing match,” Paul said proudly, adding that he would “throttle Myles Garrett.”

“A million dollars. You come to the gym, we put on boxing gloves, we see how it goes,” he added.

“This started with, ‘I can beat any NFL player in a fight.’ Which is an outright lie. There are a bunch of guys in the National Football League right now that will whoop Logan Paul’s ass,” “Fearless” guest Shaun King tells BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock.

“Then he fixed it, though, when he came back around to it, and he specified it had to be boxing and inside the ring with gloves on. … That is a conditioning thing, and it’s a technique thing, and no matter how good you might be fighting on the street, if you aren’t learned in that specific line of combat, then you probably have no chance,” he continues.

“Probably in a boxing match, something that he’s been training at forever with gloves, three-minute rounds, he has a sizeable advantage. But don’t get it twisted, Logan. In a regular street fight, there are a whole bunch of NFL guys that’ll get on your top,” he adds.

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​Upload, Sharing, Camera phone, Video, Free, Video phone, Youtube.com, Fearless with jason whitlock, Fearless, Jason whitlock, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Shaun king, Logan paul, National football league, Nfl, Nfl football 

As President Donald Trump continues his push to secure the nation, a new NBC News survey reveals that American voters hold positions on enforcement of immigration laws that are at odds with the mainstream media narrative. The poll, conducted by Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies, shows that when it comes to border security, voters prefer the Republican Party over the Democratic Party by a staggering 27-point lead.

The American people have more faith in the agency protecting the border than in the party that has consistently undermined it.

The survey was conducted between Feb. 27 and March 3, 2026. It included interviews with 1,000 registered voters, with 620 respondents reached via cell phone and 309 interviewed through an online survey sent via text message. The results, which have a margin of error of ±3.10%, reveal a growing divide.

The poll also has shocking news for the Democratic Party. According to the survey, 38% of voters have a positive view of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. By comparison, only 30% of voters have a positive view of the Democratic Party. This eight-point gap suggests that despite radical “Abolish ICE” rhetoric from progressives, the American people have more faith in the agency protecting the border than in the party that has consistently undermined it.

In a post on X, Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley noted, “[The Democratic Party] barely edged out Iran in popularity. As Democrats push airports toward a shutdown during peak Spring break travel, they could soon lose not just to Iran but Ebola in future polls.”

RELATED: Anti-ICE inflatable frogs join Democrats at State of the Union counter event

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

Republicans hold their largest issue-based advantage on the border, far outpacing the 22-point lead they hold on the issue of crime. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party trails significantly on these pressing security concerns.

While 50% of voters say they prefer a Democrat-controlled Congress, they are simultaneously backing the Trump administration’s firm stance on the U.S. border and immigration enforcement.

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After only 10 days of the military operation against Iran, President Donald Trump said that it is close to being complete.

The president made the comments to a reporter over a phone interview Monday as oil prices skyrocketed and the stock market took a dive.

‘They’ve shot everything they have to shoot, and they better not try anything cute.’

“I think the war is very complete, pretty much. They have no navy, no communications. They’ve got no air force,” the president said to Weijia Jiang, a CBS reporter.

Jiang posted the comments on social media.

The president added that the operation was far ahead of an initial estimated time frame of four to five weeks.

He also addressed the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had threatened to shut down and was the cause of the spike in oil prices. The president said he was considering “taking it over” and threatened Iran further.

“They’ve shot everything they have to shoot, and they better not try anything cute or it’s going to be the end of that country,” he added.

The stock market recovered much of its losses, and oil markets dropped in value after the president’s comments were reported.

A Russian official also said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin shared proposals to end the war on Iran in a phone call with Trump.

The president said Saturday that Iran was looking to end its strikes against its neighbors.

“Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore,” he wrote. “This promise was only made because of the relentless U.S. and Israeli attack. They were looking to take over and rule the Middle East.”

RELATED: Iran promises to cease attacks on neighboring countries as Trump warns it will be ‘hit very hard’

Jiang also asked the president to comment on the news that the Iranian regime had chosen Mojtaba Khamenei to become the next supreme leader.

“I have no message for him. None whatsoever,” Trump said.

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New York Times opinion writer David French, a self-described evangelical conservative, has made a habit out of supporting radical leftists over those Republican officials who have time and again delivered meaningful results for the causes of life and liberty.

French announced in 2024, for example, that he was supporting then-candidate Kamala Harris over President Donald Trump “to save conservatism.”

‘French always saves his most demonic takes for Sunday morning columns.’

The former National Review writer’s rationale was that the GOP supposedly wouldn’t survive another Trump term but could be rebuilt as a “force for genuine good” in the event that Harris — an advocate for abortion, child sex-rejection procedures, and infringements on the Second Amendment — won.

Although his propaganda didn’t work in 2024, French clearly hasn’t given up on promoting radical leftists and is now promoting James Talarico, the Democrat state representative hoping to succeed Republican John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate.

French — who has not only embraced homosexual “marriage” but also non-Christian speech codes about gender — claimed in an editorial on Sunday that “Talarico shines” as “one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.”

French proffered Talarico’s Senate primary victory speech, during which he criticized competition, as an example of the Democrat’s supposed Christianity in action, “right heart,” and loving ways.

“I am tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I’m tired of being told to hate my neighbor. It’s been more than 10 years of this kind of politics,” said Talarico. “Politics as blood sport, politics as trolling and owning, politics as total war. It tears families apart. It ends friendships, and it leaves us all feeling terrible all the time.”

RELATED: Democrats swapped Crockett’s preening for Talarico’s pulpit — and it worked

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Image

Though gushing about Talarico’s supposed Christian decency and compassionate public face, French neglected to mention any of the Democrat’s nastier remarks about those political opponents and fellow Christians with whom he fundamentally disagrees.

Talarico previously suggested, for example, that Trump is a “business cheat, a pathological liar, a serial adulterer, a twice-impeached insurrectionist, a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist,” many of whose supporters “have forgotten all about Jesus.”

Trump sued ABC News over host George Stephanopoulos’ false on-air assertion that the president had been found civilly liable for rape. Per the terms of the late 2024 settlement, ABC News ultimately agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library.

Despite the apparent narrowness of Talarico’s love and understanding, French — making no secret of his soft spot for Cornyn and hard liking for Talarico — presented the Democrat challenger as the supposedly virtuous antithesis of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

French’s case relies not only on selective outrage and his apparent ability to judge the hearts of men but on severing both candidates from their relevant activities, namely their work in office.

“For too long we’ve evaluated Christians in politics primarily through their policy positions,” wrote French. “Yet this is exactly backward.”

French expressed outrage over Paxton’s failed marriage and portrayed him as an exemplar of vice while strategically ignoring Talarico’s:

support for the dehumanization and elimination of the unborn, as signaled by his 0% score on the Texas Right to Life’s pro-life scorecard and his correlated recognition as “a Pro-Choice Champion” by the Texas Choice Tracker;attempted use of scripture, specifically Genesis 2:7 and the Annunciation, to justify the slaughter of the unborn;votes against sparing children from sex-rejection mutilations as well as against keeping men out of girls’ sports;claim that displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms is “deeply un-Christian”;claim that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling was effectively “un-Christian”;claim that God is “non-binary”;claim that there are six sexes, despite the clear assertion in Genesis, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”; complaint that “Republican politicians are banning drag queens in the name of protecting children”; andclaim that “you can’t call yourself a Christian and destroy God’s creation with greenhouse gases.”

Critics blasted French over his commentary, suggesting that his understanding of “decency” is confused if not outright deceptive.

Radio host Erick Erickson noted, “It is not decent to twist scripture to lead others to hell. It is not decent to claim whiteness itself is like a virus. It is not decent to use Christ’s conception as a justification for abortion. It is not decent to reduce women to ‘neighbors with uteruses.’ Only if you have been radicalized by your critics can you land at this position.”

‘Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.’

“David French is endorsing a guy who wants free abortion mills in every courthouse and who also claims God is trans,” wrote Sean Davis, CEO of the Federalist. “That French always saves his most demonic takes for Sunday morning columns is a pretty good indicator of who he actually worships now.”

William Wolfe, executive director for the Center for Baptist Leadership, alluded to the conspiring demons in C.S Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters,” writing, “Now tell them that pro-abortion, pro-child mutilation politician who preaches that God is non-binary is a ‘shining’ example of a Christian. Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.”

Weeks prior to French’s opinion piece, BlazeTV host Steve Deace suggested that Talarico was an “object and a vessel of malevolence. All right? When he speaks, he’s not deceived; he’s the deceiver. … He is who Paul would have said in Acts, ‘You are a son of the devil.’ He knows what he is doing.”

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​Heretic, Heresies, Heresiarch, Christian, Talarico, Texas, Senate, Steve deace, Senator, Lawmaker, False teacher, Church, Bible, Scripture, David french, Leftism, Democrat, Politics 

President Donald Trump spent years campaigning against the failures of American foreign policy — but not necessarily against American power itself.

Which is why Trump’s bold global moves suggest a doctrine that rejects nation-building and ideological crusades in favor of something far simpler: an America First approach to global dominance.

“It’s only March, but already it’s proven to be a pretty remarkably action-packed year. You know, just three days in, Trump successfully plucks up Nicolas Maduro from his bed in Venezuela, extradites him back to the United States, where he’s facing numerous felony charges stemming from involvement in narco-terrorism,” John Doyle explains.

“Then, the end of February, Trump launches Operation Epic Fury, of course, a military campaign to destroy Iran’s offensive capabilities,” he continues.

“On Tuesday, though, the U.S. and Ecuador launched a joint military operation against narcoterrorists in the South American country,” he adds.

But it appears that Trump is only getting started.

“A lot of analysts, I’ve been seeing this, are saying that Trump is perhaps planning an intervention in Cuba. … In his second term, he’s floated the idea of, you know, a friendly takeover. We can guess how friendly such a takeover would actually be. But Trump’s clearly trying to frame Cuba as a failing state, which it is,” Doyle says.

And while many Americans are skeptical of Trump’s recent actions, particularly Operation Epic Fury, Doyle points out that Trump is “doing what he thinks is best for America, not what’s best for abstractions like liberal democracy, not what’s best for transgender people in Timbuktu, what is best for America.”

“He does think in terms of empire. All of his criticism about American Empire has not been so much on the empire itself, but more on the people managing it. What does he say? ‘Our leaders are stupid,’” Doyle explains.

“His problem with us going into Iraq was not that we went into Iraq necessarily, but that we went in to pursue a nation-building project, and we didn’t even take the oil. He said this as it was going on. He said this on the debate stage in 2016. This is pretty consistent for Donald Trump,” he says.

“And, of course, it’s true that Trump won the election in 2016 by denouncing, again, certain aspects of the American Empire — you know, our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan. But it is incorrect ultimately to characterize Trump as opposed to empire itself,” he continues.

“In fact, if anything, the American Empire is actually doing a lot better with Trump at the helm,” he adds.

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An Arkansas father who is facing second-degree murder charges for allegedly killing his teen daughter’s suspected sexual abuser has won the Republican nomination for county sheriff.

As Blaze News reported in October 2024, Aaron Spencer woke up to find his 14-year-old daughter missing from the family’s home. Police were notified about the missing girl.

‘Michael Fosler is [expletive] dead on the side of the road for trying to kidnap my daughter. I had no choice.’

Spencer got in his vehicle to try to track down his missing daughter and spotted a white Ford truck on the highway owned by Michael Fosler — the 67-year-old man accused of raping Spencer’s daughter.

The Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release, “While en route, deputies were notified that the father, Aaron Spencer, had located the juvenile in a vehicle with Michael Fosler.”

The affidavit said Spencer used his vehicle to rear-end Fosler’s Ford F-150 truck at an intersection, which forced it off the road and into a ditch.

Citing court records, USA Today reported that Spencer “then got out of his car and started firing a gun at Fosler. He fired 16 times, court records state, noting 15 bullets hit Fosler.”

Court documents said Spencer pistol-whipped Fosler in the face after firing the shots.

Court records show Spencer then called 911 and said, “Michael Fosler is [expletive] dead on the side of the road for trying to kidnap my daughter. I had no choice.”

Police said Fosler was pronounced dead at the crime scene.

Spencer was arrested, charged with second-degree murder in connection with Fosler’s death, and then released from the Lonoke County Detention Center after posting bail.

Court documents said Spencer went to the home of a female acquaintance of Fosler on July 8, 2024, told the woman that Fosler raped his underage daughter, and then demanded Fosler’s phone number and home address.

Spencer instructed the woman not to call anyone, including the police, according to court documents.

However, Fosler’s acquaintance revealed the situation to one of her family members, who was a mandated reporter. According to USA Today, “Mandated reporters are required to notify law enforcement officials or social services about suspected cases of child abuse.”

The mandated reporter alerted the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office about the rape allegations, court records stated.

Court records said two officers went to Spencer’s residence as part of the investigation into the rape of his minor daughter.

Court docs said the interaction between Spencer and officers was recorded on a police bodycam, and one of the officers is heard telling Spencer, “We still don’t live in a country where you can take the law into your own hands,” to which Spencer responded with an expletive.

Officials with the Wade Knox Children’s Advocacy Center interviewed Spencer’s daughter, according to court records.

USA Today reported that police obtained an arrest warrant for Fosler for a charge of rape and one count of internet stalking of a child — both of which are felonies.

USA Today said Fosler was arrested and then released from jail on $50,000 bond on July 17, 2024.

RELATED: ‘Want him buried’: Family’s explosive words surface after cheerleader’s stepbrother reportedly charged in her death on cruise

Spencer’s sister-in-law in 2025 launched a GiveSendGo crowdfunding campaign, which has raised over $100,000 in an effort to keep their “family afloat amid Aaron’s daunting legal proceedings.”

“Beginning in the spring of 2024, my then 13-year-old niece was targeted by a predator, groomed, and assaulted multiple times,” the crowdfunding listing said.

As Blaze News reported in October 2024, Spencer launched a political campaign to become the new Lonoke County Sheriff despite awaiting trial in connection with the alleged murder of Fosler.

The Arkansas secretary of state revealed that Spencer won more than 53% of the vote in last Tuesday’s three-person GOP primary, easily defeating incumbent Lonoke County Sheriff John Staley and David Bufford.

Spencer said of his victory, “Lonoke County sent a clear message last night, and we’re just getting started.”

“I’m running to restore accountability and integrity to the sheriff’s office, and the people of this county just showed they want the same thing,” the father said on his campaign Facebook page. “Let’s finish the job and build a safer, stronger Lonoke County together.”

Sheriff Staley congratulated Spencer by saying in a statement, “Tonight, the voters made their decision in the Republican Primary, and I respect the decision.”

Staley had been the Lonoke County Sheriff for the last 13 years.

Spencer — a husband, father, combat veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division, contractor, and farmer — now will face off against Democrat nominee Brian Mitchell Sr. in November.

Fox News noted that Spencer will be prohibited from serving as sheriff if he is convicted of the murder charge.

Spencer’s trial initially was scheduled for January but has been postponed. He has pleaded not guilty.

Spencer’s lawyers released a statement Friday: “Aaron did exactly what Arkansas law allows and exactly what any father would do: He protected his daughter and himself from harm.”

“We said from the beginning that Aaron was justified under Arkansas law in protecting his daughter, and every time the facts have come into focus, that conclusion has only become clearer,” the Lassiter & Cassinelli legal team proclaimed.

His lawyers also characterized Spencer’s supporters as “parents, veterans, and neighbors who watched the system fail and support a father who stepped up.”

“Lonoke County residents have rallied behind Aaron Spencer not just in his legal defense, but in his broader mission to bring accountability to a county government that has long operated without it,” the statement said.

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​Aaron spencer, Aaron spencer sheriff, Michael fosler, Justice, Child sex crimes, Child sex abuse, Rape, Child sexual assault, Crime, Arkansas, Lonoke county sheriff, Murder charge, Father and daughter, Republican primary, Election, Politics 

The U.S. Dept. of Justice said it had reached a tentative deal in the antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment on Monday.

Critics of the event ticket outlet have accused the company of seeking a monopoly in the industry in order to artificially maintain high sales fees.

‘We will continue our lawsuit to protect consumers and restore fair competition to the live entertainment industry.’

“Live Nation Ticketmaster created a dominant conglomerate with an unprecedented amount of control over the live ticketing market, resulting in monopoly power it has used to entrench its position in the marketplace,” Mark Meador wrote in 2024 before being nominated to FTC commissioner.

On Monday, a senior Justice Department official said anonymously in a call with reporters that the deal was a “win-win for everybody.”

Live Nation has agreed to divest itself of 13 amphitheaters in the U.S. as a part of the deal, which also includes a $280 million fine.

The official said a double-digit number of states have signaled that they will agree with the deal.

New York Attorney General Letitia James was among those who said they would not go along with the deal and continue their own lawsuits against the companies.

“My attorney general colleagues and I have a strong case against Live Nation, and we will continue our lawsuit to protect consumers and restore fair competition to the live entertainment industry,” James said.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) ridiculed President Donald Trump over the deal in a post on social media.

RELATED: It’s time to join the fight and expose Ticketmaster

“Donald ‘Art of the Deal’ Trump settled the Ticketmaster-Live Nation antitrust case,” Warren wrote.

“If you love going to concerts, Trump’s deal means you’ll keep paying a ‘Ticketmaster Tax.’ And artists will keep getting bullied,” she added. “It’s time to break up Ticketmaster-Live Nation.”

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​Trump deal ticketmaster, Live nation deal with doj, Tickemaster monopoly, Liz warren vs ticketmaster, Politics 

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) has refused to hand over an illegal immigrant with over 30 prior arrests to ICE.

The suspect, Abdul Jalloh, is an illegal alien from Sierra Leone with at least 30 arrests on violent charges.

“She is now saying that she will not turn over a guy who [allegedly] murdered a woman at a bus stop, stabbing her to death. Okay? Will not turn him over to ICE because they need a warrant. Can I ask you — and this is an honest question — why, why, for the love of Pete, are the Democrats so intent on protecting murderers, rapists?” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck comments.

“The police knew who this guy was because they had arrested him so many times. He had been arrested like 40 times. One of them was for rape, and they let him out on the streets — returned him to the streets — because they want to protect him and his rights,” Glenn says.

Glenn admits that he doesn’t “understand.”

“Immigration policy can be really, really complicated. Border enforcement: complicated, okay? Work visas, asylum laws, all of that stuff. But in this case, it is not complicated at all. A woman standing at a bus stop, a normal American moment, waiting for the day to begin, waiting for a bus, and she’s stabbed to death,” he says.

“And this isn’t somebody who just slipped through the cracks one time. A guy who had been arrested again and again and again. … Assault, rape, and now [suspected] murder, stabbing,” he continues.

“Can I ask you: If it is not the government’s job to protect, what is their job?” Glenn asks. “Because they weren’t protecting you or this woman or anybody in Virginia. They weren’t protecting any American by putting him back on the street.”

“Now, here’s the question that every single American should be asking, and I mean this honestly: What possible justification exists for keeping somebody like this in our communities?” he asks. “Can you give me one single explanation that is logical, that is not evil, quite honestly?”

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Communist China isn’t hiding its ambitions. Beijing wants to displace the United States as the world’s leading power. It flies spy balloons over our country, runs influence operations, steals technology, pressures neighbors, menaces Taiwan, and builds missiles and ships meant to drive America out of the Western Pacific.

The Pentagon’s newly released National Defense Strategy puts the People’s Republic of China at the center of the threat picture. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth frames the task in blunt terms: “peace through strength,” including a favorable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific so that China can’t “dominate us or our allies.”

China won’t ‘take over the world’ in some comic-book way. But it will keep testing the seams of American power — and it will keep exploiting our habits of denial and delay.

That doesn’t mean the United States and China are “destined for war.” China’s weaknesses cut against that. It lacks the kind of soft power that makes alliances easy and coercion unnecessary. Outside its borders, China inspires far more fear than admiration. Demographic collapse also looms. The one-child policy left China facing an aging population and a shrinking workforce.

None of that makes Beijing harmless. A declining regime can still lash out. It can still intimidate neighbors, manipulate markets, and exploit American openness. It can also run influence operations in plain sight — through front companies, academic partnerships, lobbying, investment vehicles, and the slow capture of key choke points in tech and infrastructure.

That calls for something Washington too often refuses to do: enforce rules like a serious country.

Start with basic counterintelligence hygiene. Aggressively investigate covert foreign influence. Enforce FARA. Protect sensitive research. Tighten screening around critical supply chains. Treat strategic industries like strategic industries. Strip Chinese “paper Americans” of their citizenship and deport them.

This is where internal discipline matters as much as external posture. A national strategy collapses when parts of the bureaucracy slow-walk it, freelance against it, or treat it like optional guidance.

Consider the recent ouster of Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater. She was in charge of the Department of Justice’s antitrust division until last month. But she butted heads repeatedly with Attorney General Pam Bondi. Their disagreements slid into insubordination. Slater allegedly lied to Bondi on national security matters that appeared to help China.

RELATED: Iran, China, and Trump’s ‘art of the squeal’

White House via X Account/Anadolu via Getty Images

For example, Slater opposed the Hewlett-Packard Enterprise acquisition of Juniper Networks, which national security experts say is essential to combat Chinese tech dominance. Blocking the deal would have hurt U.S. industry and helped Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Happily, the administration overruled her and approved the deal.

Washington can’t run a serious China policy with internal sabotage, bureaucratic drift, or officials acting like they answer to a different set of priorities.

The same standard applies to national security decisions in the tech arena. If competition with Huawei and China’s tech ecosystem matters — and it does — then Washington should evaluate mergers, procurement, and infrastructure policy through that lens, not just through abstract theories divorced from geopolitical reality. America needs to win the next generation of networks, not regulate itself into strategic dependence.

China won’t “take over the world” in some comic-book way. But it will keep testing the seams of American power — and it will keep exploiting our habits of denial and delay.

Peace through strength isn’t a slogan. It’s a posture: defend critical systems, enforce the law, remove vulnerabilities, and stop treating strategic competition like a seminar topic. The first step is simple and unglamorous: clean up our own house, then face Beijing with the seriousness the moment demands.

​China, Beijing, Communism, Trump, Foreign policy, United states, Spy balloon, China policy, Peace through strength, Opinion & analysis, Hewlett packard enterprise, Juniper networks, Merger, Acquisition, Gail slater, Pam bondi, Deep state, Administrative state, Department of justice, Antitrust 

As the joint U.S.-Israeli military strikes continue hammering away at Iran, some in the media are offering sympathetic portrayals of the bloodthirsty regime leaders, especially the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Among the worst examples was a post from the Economist that referred to the U.S. as the “Great Satan” and appeared to praise Khamenei for his perseverance.

‘Stop glorifying a doomsday terrorist nut job that murdered, raped, and tortured hundreds of thousands.’

“Increasingly, over the course of three decades, Ali Khamenei knew that he was personally in the Great Satan’s sights,” the outlet’s post reads. “This did not daunt him. He felt, always, that he had divine right on his side.”

Many online took exception to that framing and let the outlet know in no uncertain terms.

“And just like that, I’ll never read another Economist article ever again. Referring to America as the Great Satan and praising the brutal dictator in the same headline. Honestly impressive garbage,” journalist Walter Curt responded.

“What in the f**k! Let’s ignore the innocent people he killed in over a dozen countries using his proxy terrorists over the last 30 years, yes, he’s the victim,” another added. “We live in the dumbest of times.”

“Stop glorifying a doomsday terrorist nut job that murdered, raped, and tortured hundreds of thousands, including children, to stay in power. He lived like a scared rat, and died like one,” another user said.

“In related news, The Economist is hiring a new social media intern …,” writer Steve McGuire joked.

Although official death statistics from the crackdown on protests are unreliable, some believe tens of thousands might have been killed by the Irani regime for opposing their rule.

RELATED: ‘I might have forced Israel’s hand’: Trump denies being pressured by Netanyahu into war

Others replied with brevity and clarity.

“What the actual f**k is this s**t?” Mike Cote of NRO replied.

“The economist d**k riding the ayatollah, i have read it all,” another user said.

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​The economist crushed online, Khamenei death, Online vs media, Us-israeli attack on iran, Politics 

Two Pennsylvania residents with alleged ties to radical Islam were arrested in New York City on Saturday after homemade explosive devices were ignited in an apparent attempt to target anti-Islam protesters gathered outside Gracie Mansion, the residence of the city’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani (D).

The New York Police Department identified the two suspects as 18-year-old Emir Balat and 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi.

‘All praise is due to Allah lord of all worlds!’

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch claimed that Balat lit and threw an improvised explosive device toward a group of demonstrators participating in the “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” protest outside Gracie Mansion.

A video of the suspect appeared to show him yelling, “Allahu Akbar,” as he threw the smoking device toward the crowd. Balat then allegedly ran southbound, grabbing a second device from Kayumi. Balat was accused of lighting the second device and dropping it near police officers as he ran away.

Tisch confirmed that the devices were IEDs and “could have caused serious injury or death.” However, no explosions or injuries were reported after the devices seemingly malfunctioned.

Balat’s parents were born in Turkey and became U.S. citizens nearly a decade ago, CBS News reported. Balat, who was living with his parents, is a U.S. citizen. He reportedly traveled to Turkey recently and returned to the U.S. in January. He reportedly spent several months in Turkey last year.

Kayumi’s parents are reportedly from Afghanistan and became U.S. citizens over 15 years ago. He reportedly traveled to Turkey and Saudi Arabia in 2024.

RELATED: Counter-protester lights explosive amid anti-Mamdani protest, utters ‘Allahu Akbar’ — but NYC mayor rips ‘bigotry and racism’

Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

FBI agents were observed on Sunday searching the suspects’ homes in Bucks County, ABC News reported.

Balat is a student in the Neshaminy School District, and Kayumi graduated from Council Rock High School North in 2024, CBS News reported. Both are located in Bucks County.

The federal criminal complaint revealed that Balat and Kayumi are facing several charges, including attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the use of a weapon of mass destruction, transportation of explosive materials, interstate transportation and receipt of explosives, and unlawful possession of destructive devices.

According to the complaint, while in law enforcement custody, Balat stated, “This isn’t a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the prophet. … We take action! We take action! … If I didn’t do it, someone else will come and do it.”

Balat, who waived his Miranda rights, requested officers provide him with a piece of paper, on which he allegedly wrote, “All praise is due to Allah lord of all worlds! I pledge my allegience [sic] to the Islamic State. Die in your rage yu [sic] kuffar! Emir B.”

The complaint explained that “kuffar” is an Arabic word that refers to “non-believers” or “infidels.” It also noted that “die in your rage” is a verse in the Quran often invoked by ISIS.

Balat also allegedly told law enforcement that he hoped his attack attempt would be “even bigger” than the Boston Marathon bombing in 2023.

RELATED: Liberal media covers for Saturday’s NYC terror attack suspects — then the facts come out

Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

The criminal complaint accused Kayumi of stating that he was motivated by ISIS. After waiving his Miranda rights, he allegedly suggested to law enforcement that he was affiliated with the terrorist group. He also allegedly admitted to watching ISIS propaganda.

An FBI special agent explained in the complaint that a preliminary analysis found that the first explosive device, which Balat was accused of throwing into a crowd of protesters, contained triacetone triperoxide.

“Based on my training and experience, I know that TATP is colloquially known as the ‘Mother of Satan’; is extremely sensitive to impact, friction, and heat; and has been used in multiple terrorist attacks over the last decade,” the agent wrote.

Following the arrests of Balat and Kayumi, police identified a parked vehicle several blocks south of Gracie Mansion that had a New Jersey license plate registered to one of Balat’s family members.

Kayumi’s mother filed a missing person report on or about March 7, stating that she last saw her son at their Pennsylvania residence at approximately 10:30 a.m. earlier that day, the criminal complaint noted.

Balat and Kayumi remain in custody.

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​News, New york city, Nyc, Zohran mamdani, New york, Gracie mansion, Pennsylvania, New york police department, Nypd, Emir balat, Ibrahim kayumi, Jessica tisch, Islam, Radical islam, Turkey, Afghanistan, Muslim, Isis, Politics 

Cornell University says chatbots have the capability for gross misuse, and its researchers are proving it.

The school announced recently that it had created a large language model that demonstrated fluency and reasoning capabilities advanced enough to make scam phone calls.

‘ScamAgent constructs persistent personas, … and uses deception strategies that unfold over time.’

ScamAgent, Cornell wrote, is an autonomous AI that can generate realistic scam-call scripts that simulate real-life scenarios where a call recipient is on the receiving end of fraud.

Simply put, it works like a chatbot that has the goal to deceive and persuade the call recipient.

Scam scripts were transformed into “lifelike voice calls using modern text-to-speech systems, completing a fully automated scam pipeline,” Cornell wrote.

At the same time, the research explained that the chatbot showed the remarkable ability to circumvent or ignore safety guardrails built into the language model, meaning it would ignore certain prompts and content filters.

RELATED: Mamdani allies push to ban chatbots from answering questions about law, medicine, and psychology

“ScamAgent constructs persistent personas, maintains conversational context, and uses deception strategies that unfold over time. This design allows it to bypass existing safety guardrails by decomposing harmful tasks into benign subgoals and leveraging contextual carryover to avoid triggering filters.”

The agent was used in a series of real-world fraud scenarios that Americans have become all too familiar with, like medical insurance verification scams, impersonations, prize or lottery fraud, and government benefit enrollment scams. However, researchers used a different chatbot as the recipient, not real people.

Researchers also noticed that it was not very difficult to convert scripts into audio to be used for scams and recreate an automated call without requiring much technical expertise.

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Photographer: Kuni Takahashi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

For those wondering what the purpose of building such a deceptive AI agent would be, Cornell researchers said they wanted to highlight an urgent need to detect and disrupt conversational deception powered by AI agents.

They added that even “state-of-the-art” AI models are vulnerable to being used for deception, while also calling for “proactive safeguards” and “regulatory oversight.”

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​Return, Ai, Chatbot, Language model, Scams, Scammers, Call center scam, Tech 

Another federal judge has ruled against the Trump administration after a group of fired employees filed a lawsuit to oppose layoffs ordered at Voice of America.

President Donald Trump nominated Kari Lake to oversee the federal multimedia broadcaster in March 2025 as part of an order to reduce redundant government agencies.

‘We don’t have anyone in our foreign bureaus. We don’t have anybody, basically, to cover the news.’

On Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Lake did not have the authority to order the layoffs, but it is unclear how the agency will proceed after the ruling.

“Only the Appointments Clause or the Vacancies Act’s exclusive structure may authorize service as a principal officer, and Lake satisfies the requirements of neither the statute nor the Constitution,” Lamberth wrote in the ruling.

Lamberth also noted that Lake had not been approved by the U.S. Senate.

The journalists who filed the lawsuit included Voice of America White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara, Kate Neeper, and Jessica Jerreat.

“We feel vindicated and deeply grateful. The judge’s ruling that Kari Lake’s actions shall have no force or effect is a powerful step toward undoing the damage she has inflicted on this American institution that we love,” reads a statement from the journalists.

“Even as we work through what this ruling means for colleagues harmed by her actions, it brings renewed hope and momentum to the next phase of our fight,” they added, “restoring VOA’s global operations and ensuring we continue to produce journalism, not propaganda.”

About 85% of the staff at VOA and the U.S. Agency for Global Media has been fired since March 2025, which includes about 1,400 workers.

“There’s about 120 working right now, and that’s all based in D.C.,” Widakuswara said. “We don’t have anyone in our foreign bureaus. We don’t have anybody, basically, to cover the news.”

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Lake excoriated the judge and indicated the government would appeal the ruling.

“The American people gave President Trump a mandate to cut bloated bureaucracy, eliminate waste, and restore accountability to government,” she wrote on social media.

“An activist judge is trying to stand in the way of those efforts at USAGM,” she added.
“Judge Lamberth has a pattern of activist rulings — and this case is no different.”

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​Voa chief kari lake, Voice of america layoffs, Judge royce lamberth vs trump, Trump mass layoffs, Politics