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For decades, Google Chrome reigned as the top web browser for laptops, desktops, and mobile. However, the emergence of generative AI aims to break the mold with a new series of agentic web browsers that can complete tasks with little to no user input. While it might sound convenient to hand over your digital life, security groups are already sounding the alarm, warning that these new browsers come with huge security and privacy risks.

Huge privacy and security risks make these new browsers a liability for anyone who values his personal data.

What is a web browser?

Let’s start with the basics. A web browser is the app on your phone, tablet, or computer that provides a window into the internet, allowing you to search Google, go to websites like Blaze News, and more. Chances are pretty high that you’re reading this article on a browser right now. The most popular browsers today include Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox.

What is an agentic web browser?

An agentic web browser is a typical web browser with artificial intelligence injected into the code, giving it special abilities powered by generative AI. “Agentic” means that the AI in the browser can act as an “agent” on your behalf, autonomously completing tasks on the web that you assign, kind of like a personal assistant.

Some examples of agentic tasks include researching information on Google, booking a hotel on a travel site, filling out online forms for your doctor, buying products on Amazon, and more.

This is a totally new browsing category that just emerged, and its complete list of abilities is not fully fleshed out yet. Unfortunately, even as developers race for agentic browser dominance, huge privacy and security risks make these new browsers a liability for anyone who values his personal data.

Dangers of agentic web browsers

The makers of Brave, a popular web browser that prioritizes privacy and security, were the first to point out the flaws in Comet, the new agentic browser by Perplexity. Their research detailed how a hacker could use “indirect prompt injections” to carry out a malicious attack on the user, prompting agentic AI to navigate to the user’s banking site, extract saved passwords, or steal sensitive information directly from the host PC, all without the user’s knowledge. Perplexity has since responded with its prompt mitigation plan.

Similar concerns cropped up over Atlas, the new agentic browser by OpenAI. According to Axios via antivirus software developer Malwarebytes, researchers quickly discovered that the prompt bar could be exploited to bypass safety protocols and inject instructions to carry out malicious activities. Again, these vulnerabilities allowed researchers to access important data on the host computer. OpenAI refutes these vulnerabilities, claiming that ChatGPT, the AI that powers Atlas, can’t access other apps, files, or passwords.

The real problem with agentic browsers

It’s not a coincidence that the new agentic web browsers from OpenAI and Perplexity both have the same security issues. Their core designs are inherently flawed.

The problem stems from the fact that an agentic browser can complete personal tasks and manipulate private data without the user’s input or knowledge. From the moment you sign up, these browsers receive the keys to your entire digital life, and although you may provide instructions, who’s to say that the AI will always obey?

If an agentic browser can buy products for you, it can purchase the wrong ones. If it can manage your money, it can transfer your funds to a third-party bank account. If it can control your digital life, it can mismanage or even exploit your privacy. And by the time you figure out what happened, it could be too late.

Even if a hacker isn’t behind the keyboard sending out commands, there’s no guarantee that the AI itself will perform as designed. In fact, the only thing we know for sure about generative AI is that it can lie about its activities, hallucinate facts, and even teach itself new concepts all on its own.

RELATED: How to escape the surveillance state: Pick the right search engine

Photo Credit: Snizhana Galytska/Getty Images

At the worst, a hacker could destroy your digital life through an agentic browser on your computer. At the very least, an agentic browser could destroy your digital life by itself. Neither option sounds great.

Word of warning

Don’t try an agentic web browser right now. They are simply not ready. Don’t download one to your device. Don’t log into one with your account. Don’t hand over your information. Stay away for as long as you can, at least until some of these vulnerabilities are sorted out, and even then, proceed with caution. The consequences of using an agentic browser are far too risky for the sliver of convenience you’ll receive in return.

An inescapable problem

Unfortunately, you can’t avoid agentic web browsers for long. Right now, you have to go out of your way to download Atlas from OpenAI or Comet from Perplexity. Soon, though, agentic browsers will be practically everywhere.

Google and Microsoft are both working on agentic features for Chrome and Edge, two of the most popular web browsers on the planet. Mozilla, the developers behind Firefox, have AI features in the pipeline, though they claim that users can turn these off. As for Apple, the company hasn’t shared any plans to give Safari an agentic upgrade, but considering how far behind Apple is with Apple Intelligence, this looks unlikely, at least for the foreseeable future.

Agentic web browsers are an interesting — if not dangerous — gimmick that will quickly blossom into a mass consumer product overnight. Unless developers shore up the vulnerabilities in these browsers between then and now, hackers will undoubtedly have a new, shockingly effective way to steal data, money, and more. The only way to protect yourself is to deactivate these features as they roll out, or find a browser that doesn’t support agentic AI at all.

​Tech 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) delivered wildly insensitive remarks following the tragic terrorist attack in Australia, sparking outrage across social media.

Schumer’s stunning fumble came after a father and son allegedly targeted a Jewish gathering on the first night of Hanukkah, murdering at least 15 innocent civilians at Bondi Beach in Australia. Rather than simply remarking on the brutality and tragedy of the event, Schumer took the opportunity to slip in some sports commentary.

‘Retire. Immediately.’

“Of course, I’m going to say a few words about the terrible shooting in Australia,” Schumer said on Sunday.

“First, of course, as I always say, no matter what, go Bills!” Schumer added. “They beat the Patriots today. It’s a big deal.”

RELATED: Pakistani national suspected in terror attack on Jewish gathering in Australia on first night of Hanukkah; over a dozen dead

Photo by George Chan/Getty Images

Commentators and political personalities quickly clarified that the “big deal” Schumer failed to prioritize was actually the terrorist attack that claimed the lives of innocent people, not the football game.

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York issued a short but effective statement in response to Schumer.

“Retire. Immediately,” Lawler said in a post on X.

RELATED: Person of interest detained after deadly shooting at Brown University — but very little has been shared about the individual (UPDATE)

Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Jesse Kelly similarly criticized Schumer’s insensitive instincts, calling his humanity into question.

“Just a complete lizard person,” Kelly said in a post on X. “Stopped being human a long time ago.”

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America isn’t divided by politics. According to Brent Buchanan, it’s actually divided by biology.

Buchanan makes the case that voters no longer make decisions logically but emotionally, driven by something hardwired into human behavior.

“I began looking at academic research on what actually drives human behavior, specifically when it relates to voting. And the question goes back to, ‘What drives human behavior, period?’” he tells BlazeTV host Steve Deace on the “Steve Deace Show.”

And Buchanan’s answer to that question, while complicated, is actually quite simple. At the end of the day, it is survival that informs our decision-making.

“It doesn’t matter if somebody’s voting, buying a car, getting married. It is all this biological fact that our brains were built to conserve energy. And the least caloric way that we can take in, process information, and make decisions is emotionally through our subconscious, through the inside part of our brain, not through the prefrontal cortex,” he explains.

“It makes a lot of sense … biologically, we were built for survival. And everything we do is based around survival. And even though we’re not being chased by wild animals or going without food for days or weeks on end as the whole population used to do a long time ago, those innate senses and that biology is still with us,” he continues.

“I mean God created us for a reason, with a purpose, and it was to survive, and it was to procreate and to spread His gospel,” he says, adding, “And all of those are biologically built into us.”

Deace agrees with Buchanan, pointing out that during the election cycle last year, “the most effective message” was the Trump ad that read, “Kamala Harris is for they/them. Trump is for you.”

“The most extreme candidate tends to lose. And why does the most extreme candidate tend to lose? Because they’re viewed as most threatening to somebody’s safety, security, or belief system. So that was a wonderful way to cast Kamala Harris as way more extreme of the two candidates running for president,” Buchanan responds.

“Secondarily, it plays into in-group, out-group factors. That also goes back to our survival instincts, where if somebody is on the out-group, they are your enemy,” he continues.

“So with a lot of young men, a lot of non-white voters, they saw that message, and they didn’t say, ‘I’m making my decision on this election based on the transgender issue.’ But that issue became a proxy for extremity,” he says, adding, “That is what won Donald Trump the election.”

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Hollywood icon Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their Brentwood, California, home Sunday in what police are calling a homicide, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Law enforcement sources told the paper that a family member was being interviewed in connection with the deaths.

‘No one has been detained; no one is being questioned as a suspect.’

A spokesperson for the Reiner family confirmed the deaths Sunday evening, the Times said: “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner. We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”

A source not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation but who reportedly has knowledge of it confirmed that there was no sign of forced entry into the home in the 200 block of Chadbourne Avenue, the Times reported. The source also told the paper that the Reiners had injuries consistent with a stabbing.

LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said Sunday that detectives were working to secure a search warrant before launching a “thorough” investigation inside and outside the home, the Times said.

“At this time, the Los Angeles Police Department is not seeking anyone as a suspect or as a person of interest … and we will not be doing that until we conduct our investigation and move forward,” Hamilton said, according to the paper. He said many family members would be interviewed but that “no one has been detained; no one is being questioned as a suspect,” the Times added.

Hamilton confirmed that the person who initially reported the incident was at the house, but that person’s identity wasn’t being released at this time, the paper said.

RELATED: Bill Maher attempts risky intervention on Trump-deranged pal Rob Reiner: ‘You have to talk to people’

Margaret Stewart of the Los Angeles Fire Department told the Times that the department was called to the Reiner home around 3:30 p.m. for medical aid, and the two bodies were found in the home.

Reiner was first famous for his portrayal of Michael “Meathead” Stivic on the legendary 1970s sitcom “All in the Family,” which also starred Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker.

He then gained wide acclaim over the years for directing movies such as “When Harry Met Sally,” “The Princess Bride,” “This Is Spinal Tap,” “Stand by Me,” and “A Few Good Men.”

Reiner also was not quiet about his far-left politics, and he often railed against President Donald Trump and Republicans.

Just a few months ago, fellow left-winger Bill Maher tried to talk some sense into Reiner during Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, insisting that Reiner and other leftists have to learn to communicate with political opponents. Reiner countered that “if somebody says, ‘Two plus two is four,’ and the other guy says, ‘No, it’s not,’ how do you begin the discussion?”Last year, Reiner called Trump “the Convicted Felon” in an X rant saying then-President Joe Biden should end his re-election bid: “It’s time to stop f**king around. If the Convicted Felon wins, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served US with honor, decency, and dignity. It’s time for Joe Biden to step down.” The X post has since been deleted.Reiner in 2020 posted on X that “Donald Trump is actively trying to kill our children,” according to the Washington Examiner. But that post also has been deleted.In 2019, he posted the following on X: “Every elected Republican knows that this President is guilty of countless Impeachable offenses. But they, along with many White Evangelicals & White Supremacists have made a pact with [Vladimir] Putin. But unlike a pact with the Devil, this one can be unsigned.” That post also has been deleted.In 2018 Reiner blamed a government shutdown on the Republican Party’s “racism” and added that the GOP is “frightened to death of the browning of America.” That X post also has been deleted.Reiner in 2017 posted on X that the “fight to save democracy” from Trump “is now an all out war”; he added a “treason” hashtag in the post focusing on Russian collusion. That post also has been deleted.Just after Trump’s 2016 election win, Reiner called him a “moron” and noted that Trump’s victory means “we are fighting the last big major battle of the Civil War.”

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​Found dead, Hollywood, Homicide, Left-wing hollywood, Leftists, Michele reiner, Rob reiner, Politics, Donald trump, Far-left, Stabbing, Police, Crime 

Another advertiser wants consumers to know how hard people worked on its artificial intelligence-driven ad.

Sweetshop Films is behind the recently pulled McDonald’s Christmas commercial that appeared on YouTube but lasted only about four days before being dropped like a hot Christmas coal.

‘The results aren’t worth the effort.’

The ad was generated entirely by AI for McDonald’s Netherlands, which took ownership of the fact that it was poorly received.

“The Christmas commercial was intended to show the stressful moments during the holidays in the Netherlands,” the company said in a statement, per the Guardian.

“However, we notice — based on the social comments and international media coverage — that for many guests this period is ‘the most wonderful time of the year,'” they added.

Sweetshop Films defended its use of AI for the ad. “It’s never about replacing craft; it’s about expanding the toolbox. The vision, the taste, the leadership … that will always be human,” said CEO Melanie Bridge, per NBC News.

Bridge took it one step farther, though, and claimed her team worked longer than a typical ad team would.

“And here’s the part people don’t see,” the CEO continued. “The hours that went into this job far exceeded a traditional shoot. Ten people, five weeks, full-time.”

These statements were not met with holiday cheer.

RELATED: Coca-Cola doubles down on AI ads, still won’t say ‘Christmas’

X users went rabid at the idea that Sweetshop, alongside AI specialist company the Gardening Club, put more effort into producing the videos than a typical production team would for a commercial.

The Gardening Club reportedly made statements like, “We were working right on the edge of what this tech can do,” and, “The man-hours poured into this film were more than a traditional Production.”

“So all that ‘effort’ and they still managed to produce the ugliest slop [?] just goes to show how useless gen AI is,” wrote an X user named Tristan.

An alleged art director named Haley said she was legitimately confused by the idea of the “sheer human craft” claimed to be behind the AI generation.

“What craft? What does that even look like outside of just clicking to generate over and over and over and over again until you get something you like?” she asked.

Another X user name Bruce added that “AI users are like high schoolers who got good grades because they tried hard, then are shocked to find at university they get judged on results, not effort. I have no doubt they try hard. But the results aren’t worth the effort.”

RELATED: ‘Unprecedented’: AI company documents startling discovery after thwarting ‘sophisticated’ cyberattack

Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images

The Sweetshop CEO did indeed express that the road to the McDonald’s AI ad was a painstaking endeavor, claiming that “for seven weeks, we hardly slept” and “generated what felt like dailies — thousands of takes — then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production.”

“This wasn’t an AI trick. It was a film,” Bridge said, according to Futurist.

The positioning of AI generation as “craftsmanship” is exactly what Coca-Cola cited for its ad in November, when it said the company pored through 70,000 video clips over 30 days.

The boasts resulted in backlash akin to what McDonald’s is receiving, which included reactions on X like, “McDonald’s unveiled what has to be the most god-awful ad I’ve seen this year — worse than Coca-Cola’s.”

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What’s the deal with people typing in all lowercase? You’ve seen that, right?

everything they type looks like this. it doesn’t matter if it’s a text. it doesn’t matter if it’s a post on x. it doesn’t matter if it’s a comment on someone’s photo. everything they type is lowercase.

‘If I see “LOL,” that’s a Boomer/Gen X. If I see “Lol,” that’s a Millennial. If I see “lol,” I know that’s one of my own.’

This style of typing is largely a Zoomer phenomenon, though some older people trying to act young do it too.

I am not a Zoomer, though I am interested in the Zoomers. I have written about them before, am writing about them now, and will write about them again. They are, whether we like it or not, the future, or at least the near future, so they should be of interest to us.

So why exactly do the Zoomers type in lowercase?

No cap

I asked a trusted Zoomer resource of mine, Caleb Wallace Holm, to provide his usual insight. He told me, “Zoomers have been doing it since we got our phones. It’s a way to demonstrate nonchalance and also a means of distinction from previous generations.”

All this makes sense. Younger generations almost always try to demonstrate nonchalance or uncaring. To be formal is to be old and stodgy, and you don’t want to be old. To be overly concerned is to be your dad, and you don’t want to be your dad.

So the young seek out ways to show they are relaxed and ways they can possibly differentiate themselves from the old. When you are young, you want to be new and different, so there is nothing particularly new about the logic of Zoomer lowercase typing.

Laugh lines

What is new is the acting out of this mini-rebellion of distinction in the digital domain, as the digital world didn’t exist for prior generations in the same way it does for the Zoomers.

And it is this new element — life in the digital space — that differentiates Zoomers most profoundly from the rest of us in a multitude of ways. As I have written before, Zoomers are the first disembodied generation, and this has profound impacts on how they exist in the world.

Holm told me he can discern how old someone is just by the way they “laugh” online. He remarked, “If I see ‘LOL,’ that’s a Boomer/Gen X. If I see ‘Lol,’ that’s a Millennial. If I see ‘lol,’ I know that’s one of my own.”

While I never would have thought of this on my own, it made complete sense once I heard it. Of course an astute member of the generation that was raised on the internet would be adept at discerning someone’s age simply by the way they “laugh” online.

The lowered life

Though the attempt to differentiate oneself from prior generations by way of typing in all lowercase makes sense and follows a fairly expected trajectory, there is something off about it. You might call the Zoomers many things, but earnest, excitable, mentally well, and aspirational are probably not among the descriptors you would choose to use.

They barely drink alcohol out, but they smoke tons of weed in. SSRI use is rampant, and a general malaise or an overly-ironic stance is fairly standard operating procedure among their cohort. The Zoomers are the most medicated generation in history and don’t appear to respond to any traditional incentive structure. Not great.

Nonchalance is one thing. Not caring about anything at all is another thing. I do wonder if the lowercase typing of the Zoomers is less about studied nonchalance than it is a lack of any vital spirit. I wonder if this lowercase typing represents something even more toxic than laziness. If the Zoomers were, in general, very well-adjusted, very social, and very mentally well and characterized by earnest effort, I may not wonder if the lowercase typing signaled something negative. But they are not those things, so I have to wonder what it represents, whether done intentionally or not.

RELATED: ‘6-7’ gets 86’d! JD Vance jokes about banning meme — and one company actually does it

Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Type casting

And yet, not all Zoomers are listless or on SSRIs, and not all Zoomers type in lowercase. Holm, my Zoomer resource, doesn’t. He types like I do — with capitalization — though he is also fluent in the language of his people (the Zoomers). And he is also full of life and spirit. And though I often joke with him that he is the most powerful Zoomer living, he is not at all alone. There are other vital Zoomers out there who type with proper capitalization.

It sounds strange, but maybe proper capitalization and vitality, or just normal emotional responses, go hand in hand. And maybe typing in lowercase and perpetual irony go hand in hand.

Maybe performative nonchalance in text form becomes giving up or some other kind of deadness IRL quicker than people realize.

Maybe the way we type to one another matters more than we think. Maybe exclamation marks, capitalization, and real non-ironic enthusiasm reflects a healthy attitude toward the world and one’s place in it.

Maybe there is more to lowercase typing than meets the eye.

The medium is the message, after all.

​Men’s style, Lifestyle, Texting, Culture, Zoomers, Lower case, The root of the matter 

Democrat Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is taking a stand for Somalians following the discovery that billions of Minnesota taxpayer dollars went to Somalian fraud, and he’s doing it by recording himself trying to eat their food.

The key word is “trying.”

On December 5, the mayor sat down at a Somali restaurant with a few Somalis while the camera rolled. However, the camera caught Frey’s odd facial expressions as he slowly chewed the rice and beans for what seemed to be forever.

“Jacob Frey … was not enjoying the Somalian food that he was eating,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments, explaining that his failed attempt at making Somalian food look good inspired her to try it herself.

“Is Somalian food as bad as Jacob Frey makes it look?” Gonzales asks, before trying it.

Gonzales tries the food but can’t stomach more than a few bites. And because her reaction was so negative, she received a barrage of angry comments from the left.

“Jacob Frey kind of started it. He made me curious, and he was correct in his facial expressions, and I just — it’s so crazy how you can get death threats over something like that from liberals,” Gonzales comments.

One user on the app X messaged Gonzales, writing, “Your heads [sic] gonna end up on a stick you dumb bitch. … You’re gonna’ get assassinated. Except your [sic] way less relevant than Charlie Kirk.”

“I can’t even explain why people are so pressed that Sara Gonzales said, ‘Somalian food sucks,’” Gonzales says.

“Checked it off my bucket list,” she continues. “Jacob Frey was correct.”

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A Pakistani national is suspected in what one police official called a “terrorist incident” against a Jewish gathering at an Australian beach on the first night of Hanukkah in which at least 15 were killed Sunday, including a 12-year-old.

Another 40 people were hospitalized with injuries, including two officers and three children, after the attack at Bondi Beach, CBS News reported.

‘What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of anti-Semitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location, Bondi Beach, that is associated with joy, associated with families gathering, associated with celebrations, and it is forever tarnished by what has occurred last evening.’

On Monday morning local time, police said two gunmen — a 50-year-old father and his 24-year-old son — opened fire while the local Jewish community was celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, the network news outlet said.

The 50-year-old gunman died, and his son was hospitalized in “serious condition,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said, according to CBS News.

More from the network news outlet:

The 24-year-old was identified as Naveed Akram, a Pakistani national based in Sydney, according to a U.S. intelligence briefing and a driver’s license provided by Australian police. Police previously said the deceased gunman was the son, but Lanyon later clarified that the father was shot and killed by police.

New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park said the death toll had risen from 12 to 16 overnight, including a 12-year-old child. Three other children are being treated in the hospital, he said.

“This is absolutely horrendous for the community broadly, but particularly the Jewish community. … What we saw last night was the worst of humanity, but at the same time, the very best of humanity,” Park told CBS News, which added that it is unclear if the number of fatalities or injuries included the gunmen.

RELATED: Conservative political group fined $95K after correctly identifying male athletes competing with women in Australia

The international organization Chabad, which represents a branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, said one of its rabbis — Rabbi Eli Schlanger — was among the dead, the network news outlet said, citing the Associated Press.

More from CBS News:

Called Hanukkah by the Sea, the event was held to mark the beginning of the Jewish holiday observed from sundown on Sunday until Monday, Dec. 22. More than 1,000 were at the beach when gunfire broke out, said Lanyon. He called the attack a “terrorist incident” and said the perpetrators used “long arms,” referring to long guns such as shotguns or rifles, to carry it out.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also characterized the attack as targeted, with Minns saying it “was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community.” The prime minister said it was “a targeted attack on Jewish Australians.”

“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of anti-Semitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location, Bondi Beach, that is associated with joy, associated with families gathering, associated with celebrations, and it is forever tarnished by what has occurred last evening,” Albanese said during a news conference Monday morning local time, the network news outlet noted.

Lanyon added to CBS News that police believed several improvised explosive devices were inside a vehicle at Campbell Parade — a main street that runs parallel to Bondi Beach — which officials discovered shortly after the shooting occurred; a rescue bomb disposal crew was at the scene.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a social media post said “the United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Australia targeting a Jewish celebration. Antisemitism has no place in this world. Our prayers are with the victims of this horrific attack, the Jewish community, and the people of Australia,” the network news outlet reported.

More from CBS News:

One video appeared to show someone wrestling with one of the suspected gunmen and taking his weapon from him, according to Minns, who paid tribute to that individual in some of his comments Sunday.

The video was recorded by a bystander along Campbell Parade, a main street that runs parallel to Bondi Beach. In it, a man jumped up from a crouched position behind a parked car and tackled the suspect, who had just fired his weapon toward something out of view.

Following a short struggle, the man disarmed the suspect, pushed him to the ground, and turned the weapon on him, at which point the suspect stood up and walked in the opposite direction. The man then lowered the weapon and raised his free hand in the air. Off to the side, one person appeared to be lying unresponsive on the sidewalk beside a different vehicle.

RELATED: Kids have already found a way around Australia’s new social media ban: Making faces

Minns called the man — whom relatives named Ahmed al Ahmed, a fruit shop owner, to Australian media — a “genuine hero,” the network news outlet said.

More from CBS News:

Mass shootings in Australia are rare. But researchers have recorded dramatic upticks in antisemitic incidents in the country since the Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas terrorists on Israel triggered the war in Gaza, along with spikes in hate incidents against Muslim groups.

In response, the Australian government appointed special envoys last year to address antisemitism and Islamophobia in its communities. However, attacks have continued to happen since then. In July, an arsonist set fire to the door of a synagogue in Melbourne, another major Australian city, seven months after a different synagogue in the same city was burned by criminals in a blaze that injured one worshipper.

This is a developing story; updates may be added.

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​Crime, Australia, Jewish gathering, Terror attack, Pakistani national, Bondi beach, Massacre, Mass shooting, First night of hanukkah, Politics 

Something has gone wrong.

After years of being told they are toxic and problematic, many men have simply cowed in deference to the spirit of our age. They imbibed the poisonous slogans and succumbed to what the world says about them.

Those who live day after day in a state of passivity give themselves over to a lie.

Some men attempt to punch back either by embracing their “toxicity” or ideologies that are slapped onto them.

The temptation in such an age is for men to become passive. This passivity is not a new temptation for men. It is the same temptation that Adam failed to defeat in the garden. Passivity is that peculiar behavior that gives into evil, often standing back and doing nothing. It is the soul bowed in deference.

The passive man does not resist the evil doer, he gives in, and doesn’t stand firm in the faith.

Even in reacting against the spirit of the age, men can become passive and allow the enemy to set the terms of the engagement. The more common expression of passivity is the man who becomes “nice” in order to placate like a dog who cowers and tucks its tail hoping to stave off any harm. The passive man is an agreeable man. He wants to keep his head down. He would rather be dead than ever appear intimidating to anyone or anything.

The man who rejects passivity, on the other hand, is often perceived to be arrogant. He is something who can be accused of “thinking too highly” of himself.

But the opposite of passivity is not arrogance but agency.

We need men of agency. Men who act, initiate, and change what is within their power to change. Agency is taking responsibility and pushing forward in the face of opposition and obstacles. It is faith in motion. As James 2:17 says, “Faith without works is dead.”

There are two main contentions that keep Christian men particularly from taking agency.

First, they are told that control is a dangerous idol. Christians, men included, are often taught that if they try to exercise control, then they are not trusting God. This is reflected in surveys of pastors who claim that control is a top idol among their churches. Pastor Eric Geiger, for example, identifies “control” as a “root idol.” For Geiger, control is “a longing to have everything go according to my plan.” Heaven forbid that people want things to go according to plan.

Second, they are told that power is inherently bad. Therefore any accumulation of or dispensing of power is considered dangerous and harmful to others. Geiger also frames power itself as a number one root idol that he defines as “a longing for influence or recognition.” He encourages Christians to repent of their longing for power and control.

Both of these spurious notions are not rooted in scripture but in the upside-down world of the enemy who desires that Christians control nothing and have no power.

RELATED: Dear Christian: God didn’t call you to be a ‘beautiful loser’

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Can a Christian idolize power? Sure. Can a Christian idolize control? Yep. But there is very little nuance when these pastors and Christian leaders speak. They simply wish to denounce power and control, both key ingredients in exercising agency.

People who excel at agency — let’s call it “high agency” — know what is within their power and control and how to maximize it for good. People with passivity or low agency instead fall back and behave as if nothing is within their control and that they cannot change anything.

Sadly it seems that low agency is what is required in some churches today. It is often reframed as a virtue where one is fully trusting God when, in reality, they have relinquished control.

Much of the depression, anxiety, and despondency we witness in our world is better understood as passivity and low agency. It is the posture of the soul that just gives itself over to obstacles. Rather than exhibiting resiliency and exertion when in duress, the passive person simply gives up. Consumerism only enables this type of low-exertion lifestyle where people become habituated to quick fixes and easy solutions.

Those who live day after day in a state of passivity give themselves over to a lie: They cannot change, nothing will change, they are helpless.

When believed en masse, this kind of population is easy to control because they have forsaken control themselves. They are always looking for a strong person, ideology, or drink to fix their problems.

This is particularly problematic in Christianity. We believe in providence and human responsibility. We are to love the Lord Jesus Christ by obedience, walking in righteousness and putting to death the deeds of the flesh. Our faith in God should always move us to act in courage as we do not doubt the goodness of God.

Agency works along the path of God’s providence and faith. It is the car on the road — and we are called to accelerate.

God may give you more than you can handle. He is generous in this way. In our feelings of being overwhelmed or swamped, God invites us to take action and trust in Him. If things do not go as planned, we trust the God who is in total control.

We need men today who gain power and control. They must first master themselves to worship the master, Jesus Christ. By the Spirit, we are able to exercise discipline and control over our bodies and put them to good use for God’s glory.

One of the quickest ways to slip into passivity is to wait to act until everything is easy. This day is probably not coming for you. Let’s say you want to get married. The man of agency will take the first step he can in finding a bride instead of just waiting around until she appears.

Passivity often leads to thinking like a victim. It invites jealousy and contempt for others because others seem to be in control and have power. It creates anxiety because it is always worried about failing or things not working out. Instead the agentic man trusts God’s providence, looks at what he has been given, and works out the problem.

In our age of anxiety, agency is the answer.

Agency works along the path of God’s providence and faith. It is the car on the road — and we are called to accelerate (and brake when necessary).

Men who exude agency will be misperceived today. They will be called prideful, toxic, power-hungry, and controlling. But none of these descriptions are necessarily true. They are simply the reaction strong men receive in an age of passivity.

The strong men that are needed in our hard times are ones who take the initiative, assume responsibility, and never give into evil. They are men of high agency.

​God, Strength, Christianity, Christian, Jesus, Agency, Passivity, Low agency, High agency, Powr, Faith 

One Democratic-led city’s housing plan is facing scrutiny from the Trump administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development.

On Thursday, HUD announced that it had opened an investigation into Boston’s “race-based” housing program, claiming that the city’s diversity, equity, and inclusion practices may “violate civil rights protections under the Fair Housing Act and Title VI.”

‘This warped mentality will be fully exposed, and Boston will come into full compliance with federal anti-discrimination law.’

HUD sent a letter to Boston’s Office of Housing in mid-September, stating that the department had reason to believe the city was using federal grants to support a race-based housing plan. The letter cited the city’s website, which described Boston Housing Strategy 2025 as “provid[ing] tools to … reduce racial disparities through homeownership and development opportunities for BIPOC-led organizations.”

Boston’s housing strategy states that its goal is to ensure at least 65% of home-buying opportunities are awarded to “BIPOC” households.

HUD requested numerous documents from Boston to investigate the matter.

The department informed Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu’s office on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into its housing strategy.

RELATED: Americans priced out while foreigners pour in: Trump admin report slams Biden for spike in rental costs

Scott Turner. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

“To further its racialist theory of housing justice, the City’s Fair Housing Assessment promises to ‘target homebuyer outreach’ at ‘Black and Latinx families’ and pressure ‘banks and mortgage lenders to increase their lending in communities of color,’” read HUD’s notification to Boston.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner stated that the department believes the city ”has engaged in a social engineering project that intentionally advances discriminatory housing policies driven by an ideological commitment to DEI rather than merit or need.”

RELATED: Trump proposes drastic cuts to ‘dysfunctional’ Section 8 housing program

President Donald Trump, Scott Turner. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“HUD is committed to protecting every American’s civil rights and will thoroughly investigate the City’s stated goal of ‘integrating racial equity into every layer of city government,’” Turner said. “This warped mentality will be fully exposed, and Boston will come into full compliance with federal anti-discrimination law.”

A city spokesperson told Blaze News, “Boston will never abandon our commitment to fair and affordable housing, and we will defend our progress to keep Bostonians in their homes against these unhinged attacks from Washington.”

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​News, Boston, Michelle wu, Scott turner, Department of housing and urban development, Housing and urban development, Hud, Trump administration, Trump admin, Dei, Diversity equity inclusion, Housing, Politics 

Amid a dark and weary world, on an evening no one expected, the innocent cries of a baby broke through Bethlehem’s silent night. Hope had arrived and was ringing out for all to hear.

The first Christmas reminds us that God often begins His greatest work not with flash or attention, but with a flicker — a gentle whisper. Light enters quietly, almost hidden, yet strong enough to push back any darkness.

Jesus’ arrival in Bethlehem was God’s declaration that no one is beyond His reach.

That’s the pattern woven throughout scripture. Long before Jesus’ birth, the prophets spoke of a coming Messiah during a time when life felt unstable and discouraging. Their world was marked by division, oppression, and spiritual exhaustion. Many wondered if God still remembered them. Yet the prophets held on to a small, steady flame: a promise that hope was on the way.

Today, many feel that same dimming of hope. Some carry grief that resurfaces sharply during the Christmas season. Others feel worn down by the constant noise, conflict, and division around us. Even in a season filled with lights and celebration, joy can feel hidden.

But God’s story reminds us of this essential truth: Hope is rarely loud or obvious. It doesn’t always arrive in a dramatic or spectacular package. More often, it’s found in quiet faithfulness and small acts of love, moments so ordinary we might miss their significance.

The world expected a powerful king; God sent a child. The world expected a grand entrance; God chose a manger. The world expected an immediate victory; God chose a slow and steady redemption.

If God brought His light into the world through unnoticed moments, why would we expect Him to work differently today?

This is where the mission of Boost Others comes in. We exist to help make that hidden hope visible again. Because hope doesn’t just appear out of nowhere, it grows when people lift one another up. When we encourage someone, when we extend generosity, or when we offer our presence without conditions, we’re doing far more than meeting a practical need. We are participating in the very heart of the Christmas story: shining light into someone’s darkness.

These actions rarely make headlines, but they reflect the character of the Messiah who came not to be served, but to serve; not to condemn, but to lift; not to overwhelm, but to invite.

RELATED: Uncovering the surprising truth behind a beloved Christmas hymn

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Jesus’ arrival in Bethlehem was God’s declaration that no one is beyond His reach. When we extend hope to someone else, we are echoing that same message.

When Christ was born, the angels didn’t announce it to the masses but to a few shepherds who happened to be awake. That reminds us that God’s work often unfolds in hidden spaces. The world may overlook smallness, but God uses it.

Hope isn’t always obvious, and it isn’t always immediate. But it is always present, often waiting in the places we least expect. And sometimes, God calls us to be the instruments of comfort and renewal of another person’s life.

This season, more than anything, our world needs people willing to live this way: people who carry the joy of Christ into conversations, relationships, and everyday interactions, people who look for the quiet places where others feel overlooked or discouraged and choose to bring light.

What if the most meaningful gift we could give this Christmas isn’t wrapped at all? What if it’s the way we speak, the way we listen, the way we show up? What if the greatest impact isn’t found in big gestures but in consistent, faithful ones that remind someone that God sees them — and so do we.

Small lights matter. No act is too small. One candle doesn’t eliminate the darkness, but it pushes it back. And when more candles are lit, when more people step forward to encourage, uplift, and bless, the darkness doesn’t stand a chance.

So as Christmas draws near, I invite you to be attentive to the hidden places where hope is needed. Slow down enough to notice who might need a lift. Don’t wait for others to shine, take the first step and inspire others to shine alongside you. God delights to work through ordinary people doing ordinary things with extraordinary love.

When hope feels hidden, it isn’t gone — it’s simply waiting to be revealed. And you may be the one God uses to bring that light into someone’s life, turning a dim flicker into a steady burning flame.

​Christmas, God, Hope, Jesus, Christianity, Christian, Faith 

America is free falling into an AI abyss. Entire industries are on the verge of becoming fully automated. Robots are rendering flesh and blood obsolete. College diplomas are looking increasingly like worthless pieces of paper.

And it’s just beginning. We are on the precipice of living in an AI-dominant world.

Are we ready for it?

Glenn Beck says we’re absolutely not ready. But there are some smart moves young people can make to help soften the blow that’s coming.

“I’m begging my kids, trade school, trade school, trade school, trade school because those are the jobs of the future,” he says.

Unless someone is interested in entering the medical field, which is safe for now but ultimately on track for eventual automatization, a generic college degree will likely end up being a waste of time and money.

Glenn’s head writer and researcher Jason Buttrill says he’s begging his son to consider electrician school instead of college, but anytime he brings the topic of AI dominance up, his son shuts down.

“There’s this weird apathy,” he tells Glenn.

Glenn’s co-host Stu Burguiere acknowledges that it’s a deeply depressing topic for emerging adults. Not only are they entering the adult world — degree or not — with the economic odds stacked heavily against them, but “not everybody wants to be a plumber or electrician.”

Nobody wants to be “the bad parent in the after-school special, like, ‘Screw your dreams, go be a plumber!”’ he laughs.

But Glenn says there are other paths young people can take to avoid wasting resources on a useless college degree. He uses his daughter, who wants to be an actress, as an example.

Instead of agreeing to send her to a “viper’s nest” acting school in New York, he helped “design a school” tailored specifically to her through a series of private lessons that will still hone the skills she needs to pursue her dreams.

“When they are driven for something, you don’t have to say, ‘Be a plumber.’ You can say, ‘Let’s find ways for you to learn this in a better way,”’ says Glenn.

On the flip side, for dreamers with big ideas, AI might actually make success possible. As a creative visionary, Glenn says AI has helped him actualize ideas he’s had for years.

But just as some kids have zero interest in blue-collar work, not everyone has big entrepreneurial ambitions. Many just want the longstanding path of earning a degree and climbing the corporate ladder.

So when they hear that that’s no longer a viable option, it sinks their spirits.

Jason explains it like this: Younger generations are stuck in a vicious cycle where AI has been pitched as the solution that will create explosive economic growth and reinvigorate the American dream for young people. Except it’s also going to destroy the jobs they want.

“They’re in that circle, and they’re like, ‘I’m screwed.’ … None of the math adds up,” he says.

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

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​Glenn beck, The glenn beck program, Beck, Blazetv, Blaze media, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Ai boom, Ai taking jobs, Ai taking human jobs, Ai taking over the world, College degree, Universities, Gen z, Millennials, Economy, Economic crisis 

The Trump administration recently released an extremely promising National Security Strategy — but the same cannot be said about the proposed National Defense Authorization Act for the 2026 fiscal year.

The House and Senate’s compromise NDAA appears to be in tension with the goals of the administration’s strategy. While the National Security Strategy prioritizes a hemispheric defense of the American homeland, the NDAA locks decision-makers into maintaining unnecessary overseas troop levels. Despite President Trump’s stated strategic aims, Congress seems intent on safeguarding the national security priorities and infrastructure of previous eras.

The NDAA represents the ‘deep state,’ a combination of entrenched interests, committees, lobbies, and bureaucracies that value continuity over strategy and reform.

Restricting the drawdown of troops stationed overseas, increasingly murky foreign entrenchment through legally binding efforts to sell arms, and dubious clauses requiring congressional approval at every turn, all serve to bind the commander in chief’s hands. All of this reeks of a shadowy order desperately trying to maintain the status quo at the expense of the will of the people who elected Donald Trump in 2024.

This cannot stand.

Section 1249 of the NDAA states that U.S. forces in Europe cannot fall below 76,000 for more than 45 days without presidential certifications to Congress. This is supposed to ensure that troop reductions present no threat to NATO partners or U.S. national security. (Absurdly, the bill requires the U.S. to consult with every NATO ally and even “relevant non-NATO partners.”) But stripping the president of essential discretion through ludicrous legislative roadblocks categorically subverts his authority under the Constitution.

Section 1255 states that troop levels cannot dip below 28,500 in the Korean Peninsula, nor can wartime operational control be transferred without an identical trial by fire of congressional approvals and national-security certifications.

Shifting our military focus to our own backyard was a stated goal of the National Security Strategy. If this vision is to be implemented, Congress cannot serve as a bureaucratic middleman that hinders deployment flexibility through pedantic checklists.

Americans need to understand that the NDAA would obstruct the execution of President Trump’s agenda. As written, it functions as a deliberate statutory barrier to presidential decision-making. This denotes a redistribution of war powers from the elected executive to a sprawling and unaccountable institutional structure.

The NDAA represents what Americans call the “deep state,” a combination of entrenched interests, committees, lobbies, and bureaucracies that value continuity over strategy and reform.

This continuity becomes clear when you look at what the House and Senate didn’t include in the compromise NDAA. The Senate’s original bill contained a provision barring the use of DEI in service-academy admissions — a measure that would have required merit-only standards and prevented racial profiling. Congress stripped that section out. The final bill includes a few weak gestures toward limiting DEI, but none of them meet President Trump’s goal of a military that rejects race and sex as factors altogether.

RELATED: Mexico has cartel armies. Blue America has cartel politics.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

As written, the NDAA gives a future Democratic president the opportunity to reintroduce woke indoctrination in the military with the stroke of a pen. And laws favoring DEI at our nation’s most vital institutions could resurface on a whim, using typical “diversity is our strength” platitudes.

Despite its name, the NDAA functions less like a defense bill and more like the legal backbone of America’s global posture. Whatever promises the National Security Strategy makes, they cannot be realized so long as the current NDAA pulls in the opposite direction. Strategy should shape institutions — not the other way around.

In Washington jargon, the NDAA is treated as “must-pass” legislation. That label has no legal or constitutional basis. And even if it must pass, no one claims it must be signed.

The National Security Strategy reflects the will of voters; the NDAA reflects bureaucratic inertia. That is why the Trump administration cannot, in good conscience, approve this bill. Our escape from stagnation, mediocrity, and endless foreign entanglements depends on rejecting it — and time is running out.

Editor’s note: A version of this article was published originally at the American Mind.

​Opinion & analysis, Ndaa, National defense authorization act, Armed forces, Pentagon, Trump national security strategy, National defense, Europe, South korea, Nato, Congress, Allies, Deep state 

A person of interest has been detained in connection with Saturday’s deadly shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the Associated Press reported.

However, the outlet added that “key questions remained unanswered” following the attack that killed two students and wounded nine others at the Ivy League campus during final exams.

‘Everybody’s reeling, and we have a lot of recovery ahead of us.’

Col. Oscar Perez, chief of the Providence police, said Sunday afternoon that the person in custody is in the 20s age range and that no one has been charged yet, the AP reported. Perez earlier said the person is in the 30s age range and that no one else was being sought; Perez declined to say if the detained person had any connection to Brown, the outlet noted.

The New York Times reported Saturday that the shooter was described as a man dressed in black. Police released surveillance video late Saturday night that they said showed the person of interest. The AP said the individual in the clip was walking from the scene of the shooting.

RELATED: At least 2 killed, more wounded in shooting at Brown University

The person of interest was taken into custody at a Hampton Inn hotel in Coventry, Rhode Island, which is about 20 miles from Providence, the AP said, adding that police officers and FBI agents remained there Sunday, blocking off a hallway with crime scene tape while searching the area.

College President Christina Paxson told the AP that one of the nine wounded students had been released from the hospital while seven others were in critical but stable condition and one was in critical condition.

Investigators told the AP they weren’t immediately sure how the shooter got into the first-floor classroom in the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and the physics department.

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said the building’s outer doors were unlocked, but rooms reserved for final exams required badge access, the AP added.

More from the AP:

The gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building, firing more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. As of Sunday morning, authorities had not recovered a firearm but did find two loaded 30-round magazines, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.

Brown canceled all remaining classes, exams, papers, and projects for the semester, the AP said, and told students they were free to leave campus.

Paxson teared up while describing her conversations with students both on campus and in the hospital, the AP said: “They are amazing, and they’re supporting each other. There’s just a lot of gratitude.”

“Everybody’s reeling, and we have a lot of recovery ahead of us,” she added, according to the AP. “Our community’s strong and we’ll get through it, but it’s devastating.”

This is a developing story; updates may be added.

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​Brown university, Providence, Rhode island, Deadly shooting, Person of interest, Detained, Police, Crime 

Canada loves to lecture America about compassion. Every time a shooting makes the headlines, Canadian commentators cannot wait to discuss how the United States has a “culture of death” because we refuse to regulate guns the way enlightened nations supposedly do.

But north of our border, a very different crisis is unfolding — one that is harder to moralize because it exposes a deeper cultural failure.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

The Canadian government is not only permitting death, but it’s also administering, expanding, and redefining it as “medical care.” Medical assistance in dying is no longer a rare, tragic exception. It has become one of the country’s leading causes of death, offered to people whose problems are treatable, whose conditions are survivable, and whose value should never have been in question.

In Canada, MAID is now responsible for nearly 5% of all deaths — 1 out of every 20 citizens. And this is happening in a country that claims the moral high ground over American gun violence. Canada now records more deaths per capita from doctors administering lethal drugs than America records from firearms. Their number is 37.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is 13.7. Yet we are the country supposedly drowning in a “culture of death.”

No lecture from abroad can paper over this fact: Canada has built a system where eliminating suffering increasingly means eliminating the sufferer.

Choosing death over care

One example of what Canada now calls “compassion” is the case of Jolene Bond, a woman suffering from a painful but treatable thyroid condition that causes dangerously high calcium levels, bone deterioration, soft-tissue damage, nausea, and unrelenting pain. Her condition is severe, but it is not terminal. Surgery could help her. And in a functioning medical system, she would have it.

But Jolene lives under socialized medicine. The specialists she needs are either unavailable, overrun with patients, or blocked behind bureaucratic requirements she cannot meet. She cannot get a referral. She cannot get an appointment. She cannot reach the doctor in another province who is qualified to perform the operation. Every pathway to treatment is jammed by paperwork, shortages, and waitlists that stretch into the horizon and beyond.

Yet the Canadian government had something else ready for her — something immediate.

They offered her MAID.

Not help, not relief, not a doctor willing to drive across a provincial line and simply examine her. Instead, Canada offered Jolene a state-approved death. A lethal injection is easier to obtain than a medical referral. Killing her would be easier than treating her. And the system calls that compassion.

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

Jolene’s story is not an outlier. It is the logical outcome of a system that cannot keep its promises. When the machinery of socialized medicine breaks down, the state simply replaces care with a final, irreversible “solution.” A bureaucratic checkbox becomes the last decision of a person’s life.

Canada insists its process is rigorous, humane, and safeguarded. Yet the bureaucracy now reviewing Jolene’s case is not asking how she can receive treatment; it is asking whether she has enough signatures to qualify for a lethal injection. And the debate among Canadian officials is not how to preserve life, but whether she has met the paperwork threshold to end it.

This is the dark inversion that always emerges when the state claims the power to decide when life is no longer worth living. Bureaucracy replaces conscience. Eligibility criteria replace compassion. A panel of physicians replaces the family gathered at a bedside. And eventually, the “right” to die becomes an expectation — especially for those who are poor, elderly, or alone.

RELATED: ‘Stone-cold communism’: Canadian government seizes hospice center when staff refuses to allow euthanasia

Photo by Graham Hughes/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The logical end of a broken system

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. Canada’s health care system is collapsing under demographic pressure, uncontrolled migration, and the unavoidable math of government-run medicine.

When the system breaks, someone must bear the cost. MAID has become the release valve.

The ideology behind this system is already drifting south. In American medical journals and bioethics conferences, you will hear this same rhetoric. The argument is always dressed in compassion. But underneath, it reduces the value of human life to a calculation: Are you useful? Are you affordable? Are you too much of a burden?

The West was built on a conviction that every human life has inherent value. That truth gave us hospitals before it gave us universities. It gave us charity before it gave us science. It is written into the Declaration of Independence.

Canada’s MAID program reveals what happens when a country lets that foundation erode. Life becomes negotiable, and suffering becomes a justification for elimination.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order. If compassion becomes indistinguishable from convenience, and if medicine becomes indistinguishable from euthanasia, the West will have abandoned the very principles that built it. That is the lesson from our northern neighbor — a warning, not a blueprint.

​Canada, Healthcare, Maid, Euthanasia, Opinion & analysis, Jolene bond, Socialized medicine 

While most parents simply want to protect their kids, stepping in too fast can prevent them from developing problem-solving skills — which is why licensed therapist RaQuel Hopkins rejects the feel-good “protect your peace” culture of today.

One of the most popular phrases to come out of this has been “all feelings are valid.”

“I have heard that phrase so much … and I just think about the word. I always like to think about defining my terms. And valid means there’s truth to it. Like, if something is valid, that is representative of a reality, but that’s not really true when it comes to our feelings, ” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey tells Hopkins.

“I even talked to someone who’s head of SEL at a school, and she was saying that she teaches these kindergartners that all feelings are valid. And I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t know that I want, you know, my 5-year-old to hear that her jealousy of her sister, her anger that she has to share, is valid,” she continues.

“I would agree,” Hopkins says. “I mean, I don’t teach my children that either. I teach them to be able to express themselves. Learning to figure out what you have internalized to figure out how you want to actually move forward.”

Hopkins believes that children are actually much easier to teach to think and react this way, because opportunities to teach them are “always presenting themselves.”

“Whether it’s your kid comes home and says that someone picked on me, the first thing is not to say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that,’” she tells Stuckey, pointing out that when her son first came home complaining that he was being picked on, she had an entirely different approach.

“I didn’t get wrapped up on, ‘I acknowledge that it hurts when people are not saying what you consider to be nice things.’ But it was also, ‘Son, you have to learn to live with what God has blessed you with,’” she continues.

And this is what Hopkins believes is missing from most mental health conversations today.

“The spirituality part is missing,” Hopkins says.

“If I am made in His image, or fearfully and wonderfully made,” she tells Stuckey, “there are some things that you’re going to have to learn to accept about your own lived realities, and that’s not always coupled with compassion.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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​Free, Video, Upload, Camera phone, Sharing, Video phone, Youtube.com, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Raquel hopkins, Emotions, Valid feelings, Therapy culture, Toxic empathy, Spirituality, Religion, Religion in america 

Ted Nugent is known for many things. Subtlety isn’t one of them.

This is a man who treats volume knobs the way toddlers treat bedtime: with open defiance. So when a mosque in his Michigan town began broadcasting the early-morning call to prayer over loudspeakers, Nugent reacted in the way only Nugent would. He turned his back yard into a launchpad for a one-man rock assault.

You don’t need to be religious to see the problem. You only need to have ears.

Excessive? Perhaps. But it tapped straight into a frustration millions feel but rarely voice — not loudly, anyway.

The early-morning Islamic call to prayer echoing through American suburbs isn’t “diversity” or a charming cultural detail. It’s noise — loud, sudden, inescapable noise. It jolts families awake, spooks pets, startles infants, and demands that the entire block adapt.

Nugent’s counterattack may have been a little over the top, but beneath the distortion pedals sits a simple point: Public peace matters. In a free country, quiet hours come first. And no imported custom, however sacred to some, earns an automatic exemption.

Richard Dawkins once called the Islamic call to prayer “hauntingly beautiful.” This from a man who spent decades explaining that God doesn’t exist. It’s a strange kind of aesthetic tourism: Romanticize a religious ritual while rejecting the very religion that produced it. Dawkins was wrong about the existence of God, and he is equally wrong about the Islamic call to prayer.

The call to prayer wasn’t designed as background music, and it wasn’t conceived for multicultural suburbs where everyone keeps different hours and believes different things. It was forged in a seventh-century society where faith and authority were fused, where religion structured public life down to the minute, and where submission — literal, explicit submission — wasn’t merely encouraged but expected.

Islam’s founding worldview assumed a unified religious community, a shared legal and moral order, and a sharp distinction between believers and nonbelievers. That distinction shaped status, obligation, and allegiance.

In the Muslim context, the adhan makes perfect sense. It is a public summons for a public faith, a declaration of dominance over the rhythm of the day, and reminder that life moves according to Allah’s schedule — not yours. It reminds everyone, believer or not, that the community’s obligations take precedence over the individuals’ preferences.

But transplant it into America (or any predominantly Christian society), and it makes zero sense. The operating systems and expectations are different. The very idea of a faith dictating the morning routine of people who don’t share it runs directly against the grain of Western life.

RELATED: Why progressives want to destroy Christianity — but spare Islam

AlxeyPnferov/iStock/Getty Images Plus

This is the part Dawkins missed entirely when he praised the adhan.

It’s easy to romanticize a sound when you encounter it on holiday, filtered through distance, novelty, and sand-warm nostalgia. It’s quite another when it is broadcast at 5 a.m. into a neighborhood that never agreed to have its eardrums shattered before the coffee even brews.

Dawkins hears melody, but he ignores meaning. He praises the tune while overlooking the text, which was never written for pluralism. It was written for a social order in which Islam set the terms — and nonbelievers either complied or faced the consequences.

You don’t need to be religious to see the problem. You only need to have ears.

The adhan doesn’t float gently on the breeze. It is projected through megaphones with the explicit purpose of commanding attention. It is designed to override the soundscape of daily life. Barking dog? Buried. Garbage truck? Drowned. Your alarm clock? Irrelevant. The Islamic call to prayer cuts through everything because that is precisely what it was built to do.

And that is where the first collision occurs. In America, no foreign religion should be granted the right to reorder everyone’s routine. Christianity, which most readers know intimately, offers a useful contrast. Church bells ring, yes, but briefly and symbolically. They don’t deliver multi-minute recitations meant to summon or correct anyone.

But with fewer bells ringing, other sounds inevitably move in to fill the void. These include ones far louder, far longer, and far less rooted in America’s traditions.

There’s a difference between freedom of religion and freedom to dominate the public square.

In a predominantly Christian society, faith is personal, chosen, and interior. Prayer happens inside churches, inside homes, inside hearts — not broadcast across rooftops as compulsory ambience. The Western idea of worship is reflective and voluntary. The call to prayer, by contrast, is commanding and public by design.

Sound, as Ted Nugent knows well, is anything but neutral. A community’s soundscape shapes its psychology. People become anxious, irritable, exhausted, and far more prone to accidents when their sleep is disrupted. After all, we prosecute noisy neighbors for far less.

Yet Western elites recoil at the idea that a religious practice might be subject to the same standards as the guy who revs his motorcycle at midnight. If anything, a more intrusive and more extended ritual deserves more examination — not less.

Although I truly dislike what Islam represents, this isn’t about hatred. It is about the delicate, daily compromises a pluralistic nation depends on. When one group insists on broadcasting its obligations to everyone else, the common ground cracks, the social contract comes apart, and people start to feel like strangers on their own streets.

The call to prayer has no place in polite society. There’s a difference between freedom of religion and freedom to dominate the public square. One belongs in America. The other never will.

​Christianity, Christian, Prayer, Ted nugent, Islam, Call to prayer, Islamic call to prayer, Faith 

If you’ll indulge one more cabin story, it’s only because remodeling an unlevel structure may be the clearest metaphor for the challenges caregivers face — and, I suspect, for the condition of America itself.

Out here in rural Montana, you learn quickly that when a project needs doing, you can pay a lot for it, wait a long time, use duct tape, or learn to do it yourself. Usually it’s some combination of the four. And while I’ve adapted to that reality, certain home-improvement tasks still give me the willies — mainly anything with a blade spinning fast enough to launch lumber toward Yellowstone National Park.

There is something life-giving about facing the hard thing in front of us instead of avoiding it.

Who knew you needed a helmet to cut boards?

I’ve been a pianist longer than I’ve been a caregiver, and since my hands pay the bills, I prefer to keep all my fingers intact. Let’s just say that when it comes to carpentry, I can really play the piano.

Recently we removed an old door in our cabin and needed to rebuild the wall. Help was delayed, so I decided to tackle it myself. The wall wasn’t the problem. The miter saw was. When I noticed the blade catching the afternoon light, it looked downright smug.

It knew.

Still I’ve met many builders in our county, and only one is missing a finger. Thankfully none answer to “Lefty.” If they can keep their body parts, maybe I can too. My rule is simple: Measure 17 times, cut once — and do it slowly.

So I got to work. In an old cabin nothing is plumb, so my level and I argued for quite a while. Even so, the studs went in, something close to square took shape, and despite a few caregiving interruptions, the wall was framed by sundown.

I was proud of myself. I took pictures. I bragged a little. Some builders may roll their eyes, but I’d do the same if they bragged about playing “Chopsticks.”

But it wasn’t really the blade. It was the fear behind it — the fear of getting something wrong, of creating a problem I couldn’t undo. And that fear isn’t limited to carpentry. When we let fear or anxiety keep us from picking up the tool and learning, whole parts of our lives remain unfinished.

We live in half-built cabins — studs exposed, projects stalled, confidence untested because we never moved toward the thing that intimidates us.

America was built by people who weren’t afraid to try hard things. They carved farms out of wilderness. Built railroads with crude tools. Raised barns without safety manuals. When something broke, they fixed it; when they didn’t know how, they learned anyway. Imperfectly, but persistently.

That spirit carried us for generations. Today we struggle to find it.

We’ve created a culture that treats effort as optional and discomfort as a crisis. We warn people not to push themselves. We offer labels and excuses instead of encouragement. We outsource everything, including our resilience. Hard things are treated as unsafe instead of character-building.

Many believe our greatest dangers are political, economic, or global. Maybe. But something quieter may be worse: We are losing the courage to try.

I say that as someone who has spent 40 years as a caregiver. Disease, trauma, addiction, aging — none of it yields to effort or skill. Day after day, fighting a battle you cannot win wears down confidence. Caregiving rarely gives you the satisfaction of a finished job or something tangible you can hold in your hands.

RELATED: My crooked house made me rethink what really needs fixing

kudou via iStock/Getty Images

But tackling something you can finish, even if it makes the hair on your neck stand up, pushes back against that erosion of self-reliance. There is courage in doing the thing we’d rather avoid. When we take on something small but intimidating, we rediscover a steadiness we thought we’d lost — not bravado, not swagger, just the quiet certainty that we can still learn, grow, and accomplish something in a world that feels increasingly out of control.

And sometimes the payoff is simple. It’s something you can point to. That framed doorway in my cabin isn’t perfect, but it stands as proof that I stepped toward something unfamiliar and did it anyway. In a culture that avoids discomfort, even one small visible victory becomes fuel for courage. It tells you that you can do the next thing too.

As Emerson put it, a person who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life. There is something life-giving about facing the hard thing in front of us instead of avoiding it.

That is the spirit America needs again — not bluster or political chest-thumping, but ordinary people choosing to try the hard thing right in front of them.

I will probably always be nervous around saws, but that doorway reminds me that courage often appears in the quiet places where we decide to try.

And there is absolutely no shame in wearing a helmet.

​Opinion & analysis, Homeownership, Ralph waldo emerson, Courage, Virtue, Caregiving, Caregivers, Montana, Life 

Never has it been more obvious that politics are spiritual in nature. The partisan battles over authority, morality, justice, life, and truth can no longer mask the supernatural war raging between good and evil in the unseen realm.

Although the great war has already been won through Christ, the forces of good often lose earthly battles because Christians refuse to enter the fray. Progressives have a zeal and commitment to their doctrine more ferocious than the majority of Christians these days.

We’re “dealing with a rival religion,” says Steve Deace, BlazeTV host of the “Steve Deace Show.”

“If you aren’t as convicted in yours, you cannot defeat [your progressive opponents]. They’ll just keep beating you.”

So what needs to happen in order to flip the script?

To explore this query, Deace spoke with former U.S. senator, author, and devout Christian Jim DeMint.

“The great divide in Washington and across America really comes down to whether or not you believe the Bible is true. Our whole culture, all of Western civilization, is built on Judeo-Christian ideas that come from the Bible,” says DeMint. “Everything from the moral laws that we see in the Old Testament to how families are formed to marriage, concepts of compassion and charity — everything we take for granted as a country is derived from the Bible.”

Twenty-five years ago, both parties acknowledged and respected this reality, he says. But today, that isn’t true. One party has departed so far from any sort of moral standard that it fights for nationwide abortion through all three trimesters, equating the barbaric murder of babies to essential health care.

When these progressive policies are successful, it’s a win for Team Satan, but Christians at large tend to just shrug and hope for better days.

But they need to pick up their sword and fight. “Pastors and Christian leaders and folks who call themselves Christians [need] to step out of the shadows and start to participate more in deciding how we’re governed as a nation,” says DeMint.

DeMint has a brand-new book out that tackles this subject. Titled “What the Bible Really Says: About Creation, End Times, Politics, and You,” it dives into how centuries of theological misinterpretation and church tradition have neutralized the Bible’s explosive political power, leaving Christians defenseless in today’s spiritual war. It also argues that returning to the plain, unfiltered text of Scripture can re-arm believers to fight and win the battles over authority, life, marriage, justice, and truth that now define our culture.

Today’s churches are often too “watered down,” “lukewarm,” and “you-centered” to be effective in the political sphere, Deace adds.

But if Christians got biblically serious, they’d see that Washington’s war is God’s war.

“Republicans have their flaws, and I spent most of my time in the House and the Senate criticizing Republicans for not doing what they said they were going to do, [but] their platform is built on Judeo-Christian concepts. But the Democrat platform is not,” say DeMint.

But while political victories should be important to Christians, they aren’t the end-all, be-all. “We can’t win the battle that way,” says DeMint.

The real battle remains in each individual heart, where people must finally settle the question DeMint keeps asking: Is the Bible actually true — or isn’t it? Because until we bet our lives that every word is God-breathed, we’ll keep losing the culture to a rival religion that is far more convinced of its own lies.

To hear more of Deace and DeMint’s conversation, watch the episode above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Steve deace, Steve deace show, Blazetv, Blaze media, Spiritual warfare, Jim demint, Progressive religion, Christianity, Lukewarm christians 

At least two are dead and others were wounded after a shooting Saturday at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the New York Times reported.

An active shooter was reported just after 4:30 p.m. near the Barus and Holley engineering building on Hope Street, officials at the Ivy League college said, according to Fox News. Police were still searching for the shooter, who was described as a man dressed in black, the Times said.

‘It is imperative that all members of our community remain sheltered in place.’

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley told CNN that the doors of the engineering building where the shooting took place were unlocked since numerous final exams were being held there, according to the Times: “Based on what we heard from officials at Brown, anybody could have accessed the building at that time.”

Providence Fire Chief Derek Silva told the Times that two of the shooting victims were found dead at the scene.

Eight other shooting victims were being treated at Rhode Island Hospital, a spokeswoman told the Times, adding that six were in critical but stable condition, one was in critical condition, and another was in stable condition.

However, Smiley later announced that a ninth injured victim was identified, the Times said in a subsequent update, and that victim suffered non-life-threatening injuries from “fragments” related to the gunfire.

RELATED: VIDEO: 3 dead, multiple victims injured in North Carolina mass shooting; suspect reportedly flees by boat

Smiley declined to provide any information about the victims, including whether they were Brown students, the Times said.

Brown University officials said just before 8:30 p.m. that the “campus continues to be in lockdown, and it is imperative that all members of our community remain sheltered in place,” the Times added.

Providence Deputy Police Chief Timothy O’Hara said police believe they are looking for a single gunman, the Times also said, adding that no weapon had been recovered and officials did not know what type of gun was used.

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee (D) said he spoke to FBI Director Kash Patel and that local, state, and federal officers were all searching for the gunman, the Times reported: “Everyone is working under the same goal right now — to keep everybody in that area safe and also to pursue” the attacker, McKee added to the paper.

This is a developing story; updates may be added.

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​Brown university, Providence, Rhode island, Fatal shooting, Mass shooting, Ivy league, Police, Shooter at large, Crime