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Voters in three states head to the polls on Tuesday, March 3, in the first major test of whether the America First movement will dominate the 2026 midterms, as several prominent Republican incumbents face key primary challenges.

‘I just haven’t made a decision on that race yet.’

Texas

The highest-profile race Tuesday is arguably the Senate primary matchup between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Rep. Wesley Hunt, and several other Republican candidates.

It is the most costly Senate primary race in history, with over $122 million spent. Cornyn, who was first elected in 2002, accounts for over 57% of total spending, with $69 million in ad buying by his campaign and outside groups. Total ad buy in support of Hunt is $12 million; for Paxton, $4.1 million.

Paxton has accused Cornyn of betraying Trump and the America First movement.

“I’m running to beat Fake Republican John Cornyn. The race is a DEAD HEAT,” Paxton said on Monday as part of an effort to encourage his conservative supporters to contribute to his campaign.

Photo by Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images

Cornyn warned Texans not to vote for Paxton.

“Ken Paxton will be the kiss of death for Republicans on the ticket in November of 2026,” Cornyn said in February.

“I think the attorney general, if he’s the nominee, could very well lose the seat,” he continued. “But if he doesn’t lose the seat, he’s not going to win except by the hair of his chin. And unfortunately, that will not help the down-ballot races.”

President Donald Trump has not endorsed any candidates in the Texas Senate GOP primary race.

“I just haven’t made a decision on that race yet,” Trump told reporters in February.

“I like all three of them,” Trump said, referring to Cornyn, Paxton, and Hunt. “Actually, I like all three. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good, and you’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens.”

Also seeking to take over Cornyn’s seat, on the Democrat side, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett is facing off against state Rep. James Talarico. Total ad spending in support of Crockett reaches roughly $4.5 million, with $20.8 million for Talarico.

A poll from the University of Texas at Tyler showed Crockett, who received an endorsement from former Vice President Kamala Harris last week, with a double-digit lead over Talarico.

“Heading into Election Day, especially with multiple polls showing me ahead,” Crockett told her supporters, “I want you to be ready to tune out the noise, the falsehoods, and the onslaught of attacks from D.C. insiders, the Epstein class, and all those who benefit from the status quo.”

RELATED: Cardi B and Kamala Harris endorse Jasmine Crockett for pivotal US Senate race in Texas: ‘Okurrr’

Jasmine Crockett. Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images

With Paxton running in the Senate election, multiple Republicans have thrown their hats into the ring to become the state’s next attorney general, including Rep. Chip Roy, attorney Aaron Reitz, and state Senators Mayes Middleton and Joan Huffman.

Texas voters will also select their nominee in the gubernatorial primary election, with the general election scheduled for November 3. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is seeking a fourth term and faces several challengers.

There are also 38 U.S. congressional seats in Texas up for grabs in Tuesday’s election.

Incumbent Rep. Tony Gonzales is up for re-election amid a political crisis over a scandal involving a former staffer who died by suicide. Gonzales is set to have a rematch against Brandon Herrera, a firearms influencer who nearly beat Gonzales in a 2024 runoff.

Tony Gonzales. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

Incumbent Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R), elected to the House in 2018, is the only Texas Republican incumbent who has not received Trump’s endorsement this election cycle. He is facing competition from three Republican candidates: attorney Martin Etwop, Army veteran Nicholas Plumb, and state Rep. Steve Toth.

Polling in Texas opens at 7:00 a.m. and closes at 7:00 p.m local time. Voting in the Republican or Democrat primary does not require party affiliation. However, voters who choose to participate in one party’s primary will be affiliated with that party for the rest of 2026. This affiliation will prevent those voters from casting ballots in the other party’s runoff election.

If no candidate secures more than 50% of the primary vote, the top two candidates will advance to a runoff election on May 26.

North Carolina

In June, Sen. Thom Tillis (R) announced his retirement, prompting a dozen candidates, including six Republicans and six Democrats, to run for his seat. Former Republican Party Chair Michael Whatley, who secured Trump’s endorsement, is the most prominent name on the GOP side. Former Gov. Roy Cooper is leading the Democrat primary election.

Donald Trump and Michael Whatley. Photographer: Cornell Watson/Bloomberg/Getty Images

North Carolina voters will also cast their ballots to select 14 candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Polls open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m. local time. The state holds partially closed elections, in which voters can select only their party’s ballots. Unaffiliated voters may choose a Republican or Democratic ballot, but they cannot vote in more than one primary.

In North Carolina, a runoff election is triggered when the second-place candidate requests it, but this applies only in primaries where the first-place candidate receives 30% or less of the vote. The state’s potential runoffs would be held on May 12.

Arkansas

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) is up for re-election. While she is running unopposed in the Republican primary, Democrats have a contested primary on Tuesday to choose who will face Sanders. Democrats will decide between state Sen. Fredrick Love and businesswoman Supha Xayprasith-Mays. Libertarian Party candidate Colt Shelby will be on the ballot in the general election on November 3.

Incumbent Sen. Tom Cotton (R), who took office in 2015, is competing to retain his seat against two Republican candidates: Pastor Micah Ashby and Arkansas State Police Trooper Jeb Little.

RELATED: 3 contentious Texas primaries that hang in the balance

Tom Cotton. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

All of Arkansas’ four U.S. House districts are holding primary elections on Tuesday.

Arkansas’ polling sites will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. local time. The state conducts open primaries, allowing voters to select either a Republican or Democratic ballot at the polls without registering with the chosen party.

The state’s runoff elections are triggered if no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote. These runoff elections would be held on March 31.

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Over the weekend, the United States and Israel launched joint military strikes on Iran, targeting its leadership, nuclear facilities, ballistic missile sites, and military infrastructure, and ignited an ongoing war, sparking Iranian retaliatory attacks across the region.

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn Beck and his chief researcher, Jason Buttrill, break down the most important events, the intelligence behind the operation, the scale of military buildup leading up to the strike, and what could come next.

Turning to the standout moment of the strikes, Glenn emphasizes the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “We knew exactly where this guy was … and we gave the information to Israel and said, ‘You want to go get that guy? Go get that guy,’ and they bombed precision, and it was remarkable what happened,” he says.

Although celebrations of Khamenei’s death as a potential step toward liberation are widespread among some Iranians and Iranian-Americans, they are deeply tempered by the devastating strike on a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran that killed over 150 people, predominantly young female students and staff.

The Iranian regime state media has framed the incident as a deliberate, blatant crime by the U.S. and Israel, but Glenn isn’t buying that narrative.

“Our military does not have evil in their hearts. We are not targeting schools. This is war,” he says, noting that sadly, “accidents do happen.”

President Trump, he says, “knows how to carry a very big stick,” and these military strikes on Iran are not only about toppling the regime and preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; they’re also about sending a clear message to the world: “Don’t ever mess with them.”

“That’s how you keep the peace,” says Glenn.

Jason then displays a chart illustrating the massive scale of military firepower deployed in this operation.

“It is significant — more than we’ve seen in a very, very long time,” he says, calling the air and naval power involved “absolutely insane.”

Even though there have been no reports of special forces on the ground in Iran, Glenn speculates that it’s highly likely U.S. teams are operating there covertly.

“Anybody says we won’t have anybody on the ground … I find that highly unlikely because if there is nuclear material, we are going to have to get it out … to secure the nuclear facilities,” he explains.

“We saw this the last time when Israel and the United States struck the nuclear targets a few months ago. They had Israeli special forces on the ground picking targets out. I would assume there’s something similar to that,” adds Jason.

“There’s also the idea of what happens to a lot of these radicals as they try to flee out of the area. My guess is they’re probably gonna go to Iraq,” he continues.

Glenn acknowledges that “Iraq could become the next Iran” but emphasizes that we need time to observe the fallout from this military operation.

“Anybody who was definitively saying, ‘this is the greatest thing ever,’ or definitively saying, ‘this is the worst thing ever’ — they’re fools. Do not listen to them,” he urges. “This could be really, really good. This could be really, really bad.”

“What you have to ask is: Do you trust the person who is in command of this?”

To hear more of Glenn and Jason’s analysis, watch the video above.

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In his Monday appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the latest U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran and denied the dominant interpretation of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s and House Speaker Mike Johnson’s recent remarks about the genesis of the attacks.

Compelled to act?

The Trump administration attempted on Monday to address the mounting confusion about the justification and objectives for the Iran strikes.

‘We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.’

As part of this broader effort, Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill, “Why now? The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States.”

“The assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties,” said Rubio.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher [than] those killed,” continued the secretary. “And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), a member of the Gang of Eight who was briefed ahead of the resumption of strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, echoed Rubio, suggesting to reporters that the strikes were a “defensive measure.”

“Israel was determined to act in their own defense here with or without American support,” said Johnson, suggesting further that Iran posed an “existential threat” to Israel, and its missile production was outstripping “our allies in the region.”

RELATED: Iranian state TV hijacked with Trump, Netanyahu message urging citizens to ‘seize control’

Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images

“Because Israel was determined to act with or without the U.S., our commander in chief and the administration and the officials I just named had a very difficult decision to make,” continued Johnson. “They had to evaluate the threats to the U.S. — to our troops, to our installations, to our assets in the region and beyond — and they determined because of the exquisite intelligence that we had that if Israel fired upon Iran and took action against Iran to take out the missiles, then they would have immediately retaliated against U.S. personnel and assets.”

The suggestion that probable blowback from an ally’s planned preemptive attack on another country forced America’s involvement in a deadly conflict prompted outrage and debate — even on the right.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh, for instance, said in response to Rubio’s statement, “So he’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”

RELATED: Poll: GOP voters’ lukewarm support for Iran strikes significantly lower than past conflicts

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

On the flip side, National Review editor Philip Klein suggested that critics had misconstrued Rubio’s meaning.

Klein noted that later in Rubio’s press conference, the secretary of state said that the U.S. was not forced to strike because of an impending Israeli action and that “this operation needed to happen because Iran in about a year or a year and a half would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage.”

‘Nobody drags Donald Trump into anything.’

Democrats such as Sen. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), and former Biden White House Domestic Policy Council Director Neera Tanden made hay of Rubio’s and/or Johnson’s remarks as did Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who stated, “Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew: U.S. has entered a war of choice on behalf of Israel. There was never any so-called Iranian ‘threat.’ Shedding of both American and Iranian blood is thus on Israel Firsters.”

The outrage over the suggestion that America’s hand was forced not by an enemy but by a friend appears to have prompted a response from President Donald Trump, who noted on Monday evening,

The Radical Left Democrats, a Party that has completely lost its way, are complaining bitterly about the very necessary and important attack, by the United States and Israel, on Iran. What most people understand is that they are only complaining BECAUSE I DID IT and, if I didn’t do it, they would be screaming — Why didn’t “TRUMP” attack Iran, he should do it, IMMEDIATELY?

Trump then urged his followers to watch Netanyahu’s interview on Fox News, where Hannity asked the Israeli prime minister about the forced-to-act claim.

“There are people that say, ‘Well, the prime minister of Israel dragged Donald Trump into it,'” said Hannity. “As somebody that’s been friends with him over 30 years, nobody drags Donald Trump into anything, number one, but I want to get your reaction to that.”

Netanyahu laughed, then said, “Well, you’re right. I mean that’s — that’s ridiculous. Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America. He does also what he thinks is right for future generations, and frankly, we’re partners in that effort.”

The Israeli leader suggested that it was necessary to strike because Iran “started building new sites, new places, underground bunkers that would make their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb programs immune within months. If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future.”

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A training manual for federal judges just ditched its biased chapter on climate change. Good. But the same manual still peddles quackery about how science works — and it risks teaching the judiciary to treat models and “consensus” as proof.

The “How Science Works” chapter in the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence” invites judges to overvalue computer models built on unproven assumptions and to accept “consensus” as evidence even when empirical testing cuts the other way. That is not science. It is a distortion of the scientific method, which demands observation, experimentation, and results that can be challenged and falsified in the real world.

This is the posture of pseudoscience: conclusions protected by authority and repetition rather than disciplined testing against reality.

The problem runs deeper than emphasis. In defining hypothesis, theory, and scientific law, the writers omit testing, observation, and experimentation. They also fail to acknowledge that all three can be disproven — even though demonstrating falseness has long been central to scientific progress. Science advances not by protecting favored conclusions but by trying — relentlessly — to break them.

The chapter even claims that science cannot “disprove hypotheses.” That is historically indefensible. Science has disproven hypotheses repeatedly, and entire revolutions have turned on that process.

Geocentrism gave way to Copernicus’ heliocentric model. Phrenology, eugenics, spontaneous generation, and miasma theory all enjoyed “consensus” before evidence refuted them. Alfred Wegener’s plate tectonics also met decades of rejection before the evidence won. Consensus delayed the truth. It did not deliver it.

The chapter also stumbles over prediction. It says prediction is a logical consequence of a hypothesis, “not necessarily what will happen in the future.” That drains prediction of its most important feature: testable claims about what should occur under specified conditions. A hypothesis can be tested against the past as well, but the logic stays the same — it must match reality.

Then the chapter offers reassurance that reveals the posture: “The fact that there is room for improvement in the process of science does not necessitate distrust of hypotheses that have gained widespread acceptance in the scientific community and about which consensus has been achieved.” In practice, that treats consensus as a shield against contrary evidence — a common ploy among climate alarmists.

RELATED: Win for kids! Major surgeon group reverses course, comes out against child genital mutilation

Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/Boston Globe via Getty Images

In places, the chapter contradicts itself, sometimes gesturing at rigor, elsewhere diminishing falsification and redefining key terms. The result is confusion. Its length and muddled definitions do not clarify how science works; they blur it. Worse, they introduce judges to wrongheaded practices — overuse of models and consensus — as if they can settle disputed scientific questions.

That is not the empirical tradition of Isaac Newton or Marie Curie. It is the posture of pseudoscience: conclusions protected by authority and repetition rather than disciplined testing against reality.

U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg removed the manual’s climate chapter after objections from state attorneys general and others. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine still hosts the manual — including “How Science Works” — on its website.

Rosenberg, as head of the Federal Judicial Center, should take the next step and remove this chapter as well. Federal judges and the public they serve deserve a guide to science that prizes evidence over consensus and observation over simulation.

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Three young teenage boys have been charged as adults for a heinous crime that has horrified the community in Miami, Florida.

A 12-year-old girl said she left a friend’s home on June 18, 2025, when she was allegedly accosted by three boys.

‘I don’t care if they get 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, 100 years. … I’m gonna always feel like it’s not enough.’

A 13-year-old boy dragged her to the Green Haven Project community garden in Overtown, according to police.

Two other boys, ages 12 and 14 years old, allegedly restrained the victim while the 13-year-old sexually battered her. A fourth person witnessed the incident, according to police.

One of the boys allegedly put rocks in her mouth to keep her from screaming. The children released her after hearing her father calling for his daughter, but the arrest report said the abuse lasted for about 30 minutes.

Police said they interviewed the witness, whose account corroborated the claims made by the victim. The witness said he did not intervene “because he was outnumbered and was afraid of getting beat up.”

The three boys were initially arrested after the incident, but on Thursday the two younger suspects were booked into the Metro West Detention Center on adult charges. The older boy, who has since turned 15, is also facing adult charges.

Fifteen-year-old Xavier Tyson has been charged with sexual battery, false imprisonment, and lewd and lascivious conduct with a child. Thirteen-year-old Nelson Nunez has been charged with sexual battery on a minor by a minor and kidnapping, while 12-year-old Jusiah Jones has been charged with aggravated battery and false imprisonment.

Attorneys for Jones and Nunez said they pleaded not guilty and argued that they should not be held in adult jail.

RELATED: Former reality TV star accused of horrific sex crimes pleads not guilty — by reason of insanity

The victim’s mother, who wants to remain anonymous, is demanding justice for her child.

“I don’t care if they get 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, 100 years. … I’m gonna always feel like it’s not enough,” she said in an interview with WPLG-TV.

She also thanked the witness for coming forward.

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The appeal to pity is the modern left’s favorite fallacy.

In logic, it is called argumentum ad misericordiam. Instead of showing that a policy is just or true, the speaker points to suffering and insists compassion requires agreement. It works because it weaponizes one of the strongest moral instincts in the American people: mercy.

Deep empathy does not sneer at suffering. It refuses to treat feeling as the foundation of ethics.

The person making the appeal to pity is not merely expressing concern. He is using your compassion to secure special treatment, expanded power, or ideological conformity. And because America remains culturally shaped by Christianity — a faith that commands love of neighbor — the tactic often succeeds.

Allie Beth Stuckey and Joe Rigney have warned about what they call the weaponization of empathy. Empathy, properly understood, is the act of feeling the pain of another. It differs from sympathy, which acknowledges suffering without necessarily taking it on. Empathy attempts to enter another person’s emotional state.

But empathy rests on feeling, and feelings fluctuate. They can be misinformed. They can be manipulated. They can even be built on fiction.

Yet in the modern West, empathy has increasingly become a substitute for ethics. Moral reasoning gets reduced to a simple script: Identify the oppressed, feel their pain, then reorder society accordingly. The equation becomes: Empathy plus an oppression narrative equals moral righteousness.

This framework now gets handed to American students as a moral catechism. Under Marxist-inflected professors, they learn to “problematize” and “deconstruct” Western institutions, to “decolonize” structures of power — all in the name of empathy. The moral energy driving the project does not come from reasoned argument about justice or human nature. It comes from cultivated emotional identification with those cast as victims of “systemic oppression.”

Question this framework, and you run into another trick: the motte-and-bailey.

The motte-and-bailey fallacy works like this: Someone advances a controversial claim (the bailey). When challenged, he retreats to a safer, more defensible position (the motte). When the pressure eases, he returns to the controversial claim.

You see it constantly. A progressive activist claims America’s land ownership is illegitimate because it rests on historic injustice. Challenge that sweeping conclusion — raise questions about legal continuity, generational distance, competing claims of sovereignty — and the response shifts: “Why do you not care about the suffering of indigenous peoples?”

RELATED: My school’s AI challenge raised a scary question: What do students need me for?

Andrei Apoev / Getty Images

That maneuver does not answer the question. It changes the subject. It turns a dispute about political legitimacy into a moral indictment: You lack empathy.

Under this logic, questioning policy becomes questioning compassion. Questioning compassion becomes moral failure.

Elon Musk recently offered a useful distinction: superficial empathy versus deep empathy. Whatever one thinks of Musk, the distinction clarifies the problem.

Superficial empathy reacts to appearances. Someone suffers, so someone else must be guilty. Someone lacks wealth, so the wealthy must have acquired it unjustly. Someone feels distress, so society must immediately reorganize itself to relieve that distress.

Superficial empathy has no patience for causes. It wants to relieve visible pain fast, typically by redistributing power. It externalizes blame and treats suffering as primarily the product of oppressive structures. Push back and you become the villain — a heartless person unmoved by human pain.

Deep empathy asks a harder question: What is truly good for a human being?

It recognizes that not all suffering comes from injustice. It acknowledges suffering can arise from folly, moral disorder, and the limits of living in a fallen world. It understands immediate relief is not always ultimate good. Tears do not decide what is right.

Deep empathy does not sneer at suffering. It refuses to treat feeling as the foundation of ethics.

Ethics cannot rest on the shifting landscape of emotion. It must rest on something objective and enduring. For Christians, that foundation is the law of God — the revealed moral order that defines justice, righteousness, and human flourishing. Love of neighbor is not a free-floating sentiment. God’s commands give it shape.

RELATED: Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘philosophy’ wasn’t deep — it was dirty

Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images

The Marxist professor tells students that love of neighbor means feeling empathy for economic deprivation. Biblical love makes heavier demands. It cares for the body, yes, but also for the soul. It refuses to affirm what destroys a person morally or spiritually, even if such affirmation might reduce discomfort in the short term.

Superficial empathy says: Remove suffering at all costs. Deep empathy says: Pursue the true good of the person, even when that path requires discomfort, responsibility, or repentance.

The irony is that the left’s empathy-driven politics often produce policies that entrench dependency, dissolve personal responsibility, and weaken the institutions — family, church, community — that sustain long-term human flourishing. It feels compassionate in the moment. It proves destructive in the end.

America does not need less compassion. It needs a deeper understanding of it.

The question is not whether we feel. The question is whether our feelings answer to truth.

Empathy can be a virtue. But it can become a dangerous master.

When compassion detaches from objective moral order, it becomes an easy tool for anyone seeking power. When appeals to pity replace rational debate about justice, a free people grows vulnerable to emotional coercion.

If we want to preserve liberty and genuine love of neighbor, we must recover a moral framework deeper than sentiment — one rooted in enduring truth.

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Following the Department of Justice’s third and largest Epstein file dump, Bill Gates admitted to having two affairs — one with a Russian bridge player and another with a Russian nuclear physicist.

These confessions might land the tech billionaire in hotter water than the kind that results from typical cheating scandals, Glenn Beck says.

“This is not about infidelity,” he says, but rather about a potential “honeypot operation.”

Gates’ unfaithfulness is neither a “private” nor a “personal” matter, Glenn says, because the bridge player, Mila Antonova, whom Gates admitted to having an affair with, “was financially assisted by Jeffrey Epstein after Epstein had already been convicted of sex crimes.”

“According to the DOJ released emails, Epstein attempted to use that relationship to pressure Bill Gates. That’s not gossip. That’s leverage,” he explains.

But there’s another layer that paints an even more compelling picture: “Antonova, the Russian bridge player, she was photographed with Anna Chapman,” who was “part of a Russian spy ring that was rolled up by the FBI in 2010,” Glenn says, adding that Chapman is “the daughter of a former KGB officer [and] deported intelligence asset.”

The suggestion that these two women are “hanging out” sounds both “dangerous and strategic,” he argues.

“Because Bill Gates is not just one of the wealthiest men in the world. His foundation influences global health policy. … His technology platforms, even worse, are embedded in our government systems. He has real relationships tied to military and federal contracts,” Glenn declares. “He’s not a private citizen. He is a national security interest and risk.”

He then paints a hypothetical but chilling picture: “A wealthy American titan in a compromising relationship with a foreign national, facilitated or financially entangled by a convicted blackmailer with global connections.”

He asks pointedly: “If you were running an intelligence service in Russia, what would you call that? I would call that a honeypot operation.”

“If you were looking for leverage over someone with global vaccine influence, agricultural control, networks, data, infrastructure access, advisory roles across all kinds of administrations (his systems are tied into our Pentagon and everything else), you don’t need proof of wrongdoing. You’d only need the threat of exposure,” he adds.

“This is the convergence of Russian nationals, Epstein leverage attempts, … known intelligence-linked figures, government and military influence, and financial entanglement. That’s a very wicked brew.”

While none of this suggests that Gates is guilty of “espionage” or was “knowingly part a foreign plot,” it does suggest something else, Glenn says: “He was in the position where someone could apply pressure.”

Given Gates’ connections to government, military, the Pentagon, and AI development, the mere possibility that he was susceptible to foreign manipulation could be cause for prosecution, Glenn suggests.

Since similar scandals have already rocked powerful people in Europe and elsewhere, he wonders if accountability is finally “coming home to America,” where thus far, no elites have faced criminal charges or prosecution for ties to Epstein.

Will Gates be the first?

To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the video above.

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The daily news cycle around President Trump moves at a pace that buries accomplishments most presidents would tout for weeks. Several developments in late February fit that pattern. The headlines fixated on Iran, but other wins piled up in the background.

On February 22, CNBC reported that the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 5.99%, its lowest level since 2022. A year earlier, the rate sat at 6.89%. That drop matters because mortgage rates drive affordability. When rates fall, more families can buy a home, refinance, or move without swallowing a punishing monthly payment. Home ownership still anchors the American dream for millions of households, and lower rates expand access.

In Trump Time, one week can carry the weight of a season.

The news barely lingered there.

Last week, Trump delivered his State of the Union address and used it to draw a bright line between two governing priorities. He framed the choice in plain language: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” Republicans applauded. Democrats looked unsure how to respond, caught between the demands of their activist base and the public’s expectation that government first serve citizens.

A CNN poll afterward reported that 54% of respondents supported the president’s priorities and 64% reacted positively to the address. Trump notched another measurable win in a week already packed with news.

On Thursday, another development landed. Netflix dropped its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. That retreat looked like a setback for a streaming giant that critics often associate with a “woke” programming agenda. It also reopened the field for Paramount and Skydance to pursue a deal involving Warner Bros. Discovery.

If corporate maneuvering eventually places CNN under new ownership more sympathetic to Trump, the political and media implications could prove significant. Even the possibility signals a shift in leverage and influence.

RELATED: CNN’s biggest nightmare is one step closer to finally coming true

Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Democrats, meanwhile, appeared to watch one of their own tactics rebound.

For years, many on the left and in legacy media downplayed Jeffrey Epstein’s world, treated the story as politically inconvenient, or framed it as tabloid excess. When Democrats and their allies tried to turn Epstein-related scrutiny into a weapon against Trump, the blowback reached prominent Democrats as well.

Reports circulated about possible testimony and renewed scrutiny for figures long treated as untouchable. Bill Clinton again faced questions about his proximity to Epstein and Epstein’s network. And, once again, the former president insisted: “I know what I did and, more importantly, what I didn’t do. I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong.”

Then Iran swallowed the rest of the news.

As reports surfaced about a rare gathering of Iran’s senior leadership, Trump authorized a combined strike with Israel that killed more than 40 prominent Iranian figures. Iran has served as a major sponsor of terrorism for decades and has threatened the United States and Israel openly, with chants of “Death to America” and repeated vows to destroy Israel. The regime’s proxies and partners have fueled violence across the region and beyond.

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

Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images

Trump framed the strikes as a turning point and spoke directly to the Iranian people afterward. He argued that past presidents refused to do what he did and urged Iranians to seize the moment. His message carried a theme he returns to often: American strength, applied decisively, can change the calculus abroad and open space for change at home in hostile regimes.

Democrats struggled to land on a coherent response. Many want to condemn the Iranian regime. Many also want to attack Trump for acting against it. That tension keeps surfacing in real time, especially when Trump moves quickly and forces the opposition to choose between moral clarity and partisan reflex.

Trump’s week ended with a dramatic shift in the U.S. posture toward Iran and the broader Middle East. At the same time, the mortgage story, the polling bump, and the corporate shake-ups showed how much else moved beneath the Iran headlines.

In Trump Time, one week can carry the weight of a season.

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The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily handed California a major loss related to the liberal state’s scheme to advance the transgender agenda in public schools.

In a 6-3 ruling on Monday, the court reinstated a lower court order that blocked the California notification policies after the Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit at the behest of a group of Catholic parents.

‘California built a wall of secrecy between parents and their own children, and the Supreme Court just tore it down.’

California state law prohibits rules requiring teachers and other school officials to notify parents if their children change their personal pronouns or gender expression at school.

The Thomas More Society issued a statement praising the temporary ruling.

“The Court found that California’s secret transition regime likely violates parents’ rights under both the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the statement reads.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta argued in favor of the California policies in 2023.

“By enacting policies that forcibly out students against their own wishes, school districts violate these fundamental protections and risk breaching their obligation to serve these and all students equally,” he wrote.

“Research shows that protecting a transgender student’s ability to make choices about how and when to inform others is critical to their well-being,” reads a statement from Bonta’s office, “as transgender students are exposed to high levels of harassment and mistreatment at school and in their communities when those environments are not supportive of their gender identity.”

RELATED: Two trans-identifying men file lawsuit against ‘dehumanizing’ Kansas law that invalidated their driver’s licenses

“No more can bureaucrats secretly facilitate a child’s gender transition while shutting out parents,” said Thomas More Society Executive Vice President Peter Breen.

“California built a wall of secrecy between parents and their own children, and the Supreme Court just tore it down,” he added. “This groundbreaking ruling will protect parents’ rights to raise their children as they see fit for years to come.”

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The Pentagon said that Iran is getting pummeled by suicide drones using technology that Iran itself developed and used against U.S. allies, including Ukraine.

The U.S. attacked leaders and commanders of the Iranian regime in a joint operation with Israeli forces beginning Saturday morning. President Donald Trump said Monday that the operation was planned to last four weeks but that the military was prepared to continue “for as long as necessary.”

‘These low-cost drones, modeled after Iran’s Shahed drones, are now delivering American-made retribution.’

“CENTCOM’s Task Force Scorpion Strike — for the first time in history — is using one-way attack drones in combat during Operation Epic Fury. These low-cost drones, modeled after Iran’s Shahed drones, are now delivering American-made retribution,” reads a statement from U.S. Central Command.

The LUCAS drone was developed by Arizona-based SpektreWorks and costs about $35,000 each, which is significantly less than other options.

The use of the Iranian Shahed suicide drones by Russia against Ukraine is one of the many reasons Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy endorsed the U.S.-led strike against Iran.

He also warned that the U.S. must act decisively against Iran or risk depleting military supplies.

“It is fair to give the Iranian people a chance to rid themselves of a terrorist regime and to guarantee security for all nations that have suffered from terror originating in Iran,” Zelenskyy said.

“It is important to prevent the war from expanding. It is important that the United States is acting decisively,” he added.

RELATED: Poll: GOP voters’ lukewarm support for Iran strikes significantly lower than past conflicts

Zelenskyy said Russia fired over 57,000 Shahed-style drones into Ukraine.

Trump also refused to rule out the possibility of U.S. troops on the ground in Iran.

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” the president said.

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While a viral video of Kash Patel putting a call from President Trump on speaker in the locker room after the U.S. men’s hockey team’s historic win at the Olympics had Americans everywhere proud and celebrating, some Americans took it a little differently.

Former U.S. women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe criticized the idea of teams engaging with the president, suggesting that she never would have allowed him or Patel into a locker room during her leadership tenure.

“I can’t believe … how people have such a, like, a lack of self-preservation. But if you don’t think you’re in threat, then you’re not going to preserve. So they obviously didn’t think that having Kash Patel or having Trump on the phone was a threat, so they’re cool with it,” Rapinoe said on “A Touch More with Sue Bird & Megan Rapinoe.”

“But that’s why you don’t put yourself in this position, because to have the president of the United States on the phone … you get yourself wrapped in this moment. So, for me, the choice point is, like, I would have never, as a captain or a leader on my team … I think that would have been clear to our staffs and to the larger organization and, like, support staff, those people would never been allowed in our locker room,” she continued.

“When did we divide the country so bad that we don’t even have the American backing — the support of America — to go to the Oval Office or to the president of the United States? I don’t remember any sports team denying —because of policy — going to the White House for America,” Coach J.B. tells Whitlock.

“Now, it’s because they hate this man so badly that they’ll put that over America. It blows my mind. I’m so shocked. I don’t hate nothing, Jason,” he adds.

“She might be the captain,” Steve Kim chimes in. “Who the hell made her the boss?”

“I don’t think Kash Patel or Donald Trump would want to come into that locker room. I don’t think they would watch your games. I don’t think they care enough. Let’s have some perspective. I think they care about certain sports or certain teams. Yours ain’t one of them,” he adds.

Whitlock isn’t impressed either.

“It’s so childish,” he tells J.B and Kim.

“It’s the president of the United States,” he adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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While BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales has pointed out many problems with both the legal and illegal immigration systems, there is one way immigration is affecting Americans that she does not believe is talked about enough.

“One of the ones that I don’t think anyone thought about that is now a big problem are these illegals getting commercial driver’s licenses and operating, you know, 18-wheelers, which is kind of a problem,” Gonzales says, pointing out a few recent tragic accidents caused by these illegal aliens that ended the lives of American citizens.

And Frontlines TPUSA reporter Savanah Hernandez is on the front lines exposing it.

“We ended up finding CDL schools located in places such as Ohio and Michigan that were advertising CDL programs in six different languages including Arabic, Somali, and Hindi. We found reviews of students written in broken English or sometimes in a completely different language stating that they were able to get their CDL in just 10 days,” Hernandez said in her TPUSA documentary on the subject.

“Videos of recent graduates were also posted advertising their new CDL certificates, oftentimes in different languages. And one school in Ohio was even offering free housing to people on TikTok, writing, ‘Ohio brother, we have house for stay for free,’” Hernandez reported.

“I have worked the most extensively on this project than I ever have on another project in my life because I really thought I was just going to ask the question, ‘How are illegals getting CDLs’ and get a simple answer,” she tells Gonzales.

“But what I uncovered was an [alleged] web of fraud so vast that we are talking the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration relaxing regulations so that these migrants could open CDL schools more easily. We’re talking PPP loan fraud. We are talking, I mean, every single aspect of trucking being completely overrun by illegal immigrants or sometimes legal immigrants who are importing people in to undercut the American trucker and the American trucking business creating the unsafe environments that we have today,” she explains.

Before all the regulations were relaxed, there were about 2,100 CDL schools nationwide.

“After the FMCSA, which again is tasked with federal motor carrier safety, after they relaxed that, the CDL school jumped up to 32,000 nationwide,” Hernandez says.

“It’s crazy because these migrants have created an entire ecosystem, right? So basically, the way the migrants get over here is by being sponsored by a trucking company, which by the way, is also migrant owned. They get sponsored by a migrant trucking company. They go to a migrant CDL school. They work for said trucking company,” she continues.

There are also issues with DOT numbers, which “anybody can very easily get.”

“And what these migrants do is once they bring people over here, they have them apply for a DOT number. Now that DOT number is supposed to be registered to one trucking company. And let’s say your trucking company gets into a crash, right? You’re tied to that number, and all of your other trucks are tied to that number,” Hernandez explains.

“Well these migrants have registered sometimes to hundreds of DOT numbers and then they just switch out the number, and the trucks are on the road the same exact day as that trucking crash has happened,” she continues, adding, “and it’s why we are seeing such a huge uptick in these horrific semi crashes, specifically with illegal immigrants or migrants across the U.S.”

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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Video of an apparent interaction between a Kuwaiti citizen and a U.S. Air Force pilot who ejected from an F-15 fighter jet went viral online.

Three U.S. military jets were shot down from the sky in Kuwait, and reports initially assumed they were downed by Iran’s military forces. U.S. Central Command later indicated the incidents were the result of “friendly fire” from Kuwaiti air defenses.

‘You’re safe, you’re safe. … Thank you for helping us!’

The video shows the perspective of the Kuwaiti walking up to the soldier, who smiles as the man greets her and reassures her she is in friendly hands.

“You’re fine? Really? Do you need something to help you?” the man asks.

“No, I’m OK,” she replies.

“No problem, you’re safe, you’re safe. You’re safe,” he repeats. “Everything good? No problem.”

“Thank you for helping us!” he adds.

Video of the amicable interaction was posted to social media, where it went viral.

The U.S. military said six Air Force members parachuted from the jets to safety and survived. The fighters were a part of Operation Epic Fury, the joint U.S. and Israeli military attack on Iran.

All of the aircrew are in stable condition, according to U.S. Central Command. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Dan Caine confirmed the incident during a press briefing on Monday.

“Kuwait has acknowledged this incident, and we are grateful for the efforts of the Kuwaiti defense forces and their support in this ongoing operation,” reads a statement from CENTCOM.

Jeffrey Fischer, a former U.S. Air Force colonel, told Military.com that it was “nearly impossible for Iran to reach that far with an air defense missile and score a hit against a fighter jet.”

RELATED: Catch up on what’s happening in Iran: US jets shot down, girls’ school bombed, and more

The incident remains under investigation.

Kuwait was at the center of the controversial U.S. military intervention in the Middle East after Iraq invaded the small oil ally of the U.S. in 1990. President George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, which eventually led to the 2002 invasion under George W. Bush after the 9/11 attack.

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An artificial intelligence company has one philosopher in charge of teaching its chatbot right and wrong, and now her views are everywhere.

That person is Scottish immigrant Amanda Askell, who holds degrees from Oxford and NYU. Askell is in charge of the moral leanings of Claude, the state-of-the-art chatbot from Anthropic — the leading AI company Trump banned from government work for “radical left, woke” politics.

Despite the White House crackdown, however, Anthropic’s products are dominating the tech sector and transforming the economic landscape, and Askell’s indoctrination of Claude is spreading through the internet as its powerful applications become an emerging industry standard.

‘Respecting others’ values can also be harmful. Navigating this is hard.’

Askell, formerly MacAskill from a previous marriage (since divorced), is the woman who teaches chatbot Claude how to be “a good person.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Askell is instructing the AI on how to read subtle cues and to avoid being a bully or “doormat,” and she compares her work to that of a parent raising a child.

To that end, X owner Elon Musk — who is indeed a competitor with his own xAI — criticized Askell as the company’s choice.

“Those without children lack a stake in the future,” Musk wrote in February.

Askell replied, “I think it depends on how much you care about people in general vs. your own kin. I do intend to have kids, but I still feel like I have a strong personal stake in the future because I care a lot about people thriving, even if they’re not related to me.”

Musk shut her down, though, stating that Askell cannot understand his point until she has a child, “anymore than someone who has never experienced true love can understand love.”

Askell is not shy about bringing her philosophical or political leanings into the public spotlight for open discourse, and although she displays obvious liberal leanings, it would be hard to label her as unwilling to engage in debate.

She has often discussed ethics and morals of AI bots throughout her time with OpenAI and Anthropic, publicly posing questions about navigating cultural viewpoints for a worldwide product.

“It’s easy to say you want technology to respect local values when those values are unobjectionable,” she wrote in 2021. “It’s harder when they include things like persecuting gay people. Imposing your values can be harmful. Respecting others’ values can also be harmful. Navigating this is hard.”

RELATED: Chatbots don’t run on magic. They run on your money.

Also in 2021, Askell praised the vaccination rate in San Francisco. Four years later, she seemed to call out some of the vaccine side effects:

“Getting a covid vaccine is like a surreal religious experience of chills and pain and fever dreams where you feel like you’ve lived a decade in a single night and gazed into something absurd and otherworldly. As a bonus, it also makes you less susceptible to covid,” she claimed.

She even referred to her dosage, albeit jokingly, as the “mind-bending RNA vaccine.”

Askell has also engaged in discussions surrounding reparations and said she supported governments paying off the debt for those of certain ethnicities.

“It seems more sensible for governments to underwrite some amount of debt from historically disadvantaged groups like black people in the US,” she claimed. “That way you try to prevent social harms from perpetuating without legislating the burden onto a specific industry.”

RELATED: The next fight over freedom will run through AI models

Askell has also frequently discussed immigration, and in addition to saying how difficult the process has been for her in the United States, she has noted an increased intolerance for illegal immigration from both sides of the political aisle.

“Legal and illegal immigration seem to basically be entirely different policy domains and I’m not sure why they get lumped together,” she wrote on X in late 2024. “Americans dislike illegal immigration but are surprisingly supportive of legal immigration.”

Askell’s views are now being disseminated throughout the world through OpenClaw (formerly known as Clawdbot), an open-source AI bot that users are downloading for their own use to do their own bidding. This can happen locally on one’s computer, be unleashed online, or both.

It is, to borrow a ’90s analogy, the first burned CD of the AI chatbot world, based on Anthropic’s Claude; and now it is everywhere, perpetuating Askell’s views.

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The image of the undershirt of the shooting suspect in Austin who was gunned down by police suggests that he may have been motivated by the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.

Two people were killed and another 14 were injured when 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne allegedly opened fire early on Sunday morning at Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden. Police tracked him down and shot him to death, according to the Austin Police Department.

The sweatshirt is stained with blood.

Images of the suspect showed that he wore a hoodie proclaiming the wearer to be the “Property of Allah,” but another image after Diagne was taken down points to Iran for the possible motivation.

The image, obtained by CBS News and posted on social media, shows a gloved hand, likely of a police officer, lifting the suspect’s sweatshirt to show another shirt with designs from the Iranian flag. The sweatshirt is stained with blood.

FBI agent Alex Doran had previously said “there were indicators … on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism.”

Police said Diagne first shot at patrons outside the bar from the window of his vehicle. He then parked his SUV and fired a rifle at unsuspecting pedestrians. Police fatally shot him after encountering him on East 6th Street.

A New York Times report indicated that a Quran was found inside the suspect’s vehicle. Investigators also found an Iranian flag and pictures of Iranian leaders after conducting a search warrant on Diagne’s residence in Pflugerville.

CBS also reported that the suspect had dealt with mental health issues.

RELATED: ‘Painful days’: Iran kills US troops as Trump threatens decapitated Iranian regime

Diagne migrated to the U.S. on a B-2 tourist visa in March 2000 and became naturalized in April 2013 after seven years of being married to an American citizen, according to the Department of Homeland Security. He was originally from Senegal.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) made reference to the suspect’s alleged terror ties.

“To anyone who thinks about using the current conflict in the Middle East to threaten Texans or our critical infrastructure, understand this clearly: Texas will respond with decisive and overwhelming force to protect our state,” the governor wrote.

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A stand-up comedian says fellow little person Peter Dinklage is guilty of hypocrisy for criticizing Disney over the use of dwarf actors in the “Snow White” remake.

The box office bomb garnered few moviegoers but plenty of meme mockery when it launched amid constant denigration by its own star, Rachel Zegler.

‘It’s not up to his cultural standards of what a dwarf should do.’

Zegler turned off audiences by consistently explaining that the movie avoided an out-of-date story concept while progressing to a world where Snow White doesn’t need a man.

Heigh-ho, heave-ho

The movie’s universally reviled CGI seven dwarfs certainly didn’t help matters. Disney made the last-minute switch from live actors when “Game of Thrones” star Peter Dinklage lambasted the studio for daring to use actual dwarfs.

The backlash from dwarf entertainers was swift, expressing outrage that the uber-successful Dinklage essentially got at least seven actors fired.

Now stand-up comic and actor Brad Williams is calling out Dinklage for giving himself a pass when it comes to allegedly “offensive dwarf roles.”

Speaking with podcaster Chris Van Vliet, Williams said that while he was jealous of Dinklage’s talent, his disdain for the actor comes from his obvious hypocrisy that no one is speaking about.

“[Dinklage] came out and was really angry that the live-action ‘Snow White’ movie was going to use real dwarf actors, and he thought that was offensive. If someone else gets work, that’s really offensive to him,” Williams began. “It’s not up to his cultural standards of what a dwarf should do to be a respected member of this business.”

‘Toes’ before bros?

Meanwhile, said Williams, Dinklage’s own resume includes “the most offensive movie to little people ever made”: the abysmal 2002 film “Tiptoes.”

RELATED: Woke ‘Snow White’ remake lost way more money than you could ever imagine

The film stars Gary Oldman as a dwarf, an effect achieved by the actor playing “on his knees” with his arms tied back.

“[He] doesn’t look like a little person at all,” Williams explained.

“You can’t be in ‘Tiptoes’ …. and then come out and try to take work from dwarf actors and say, ‘You can’t play the role of a dwarf because it’s considered offensive.’ To whom? To you?”

While joking that Hollywood is “not writing” many roles for little people, the comedian screamed that he would have loved to be in the movie.

“Yes! Literally the role I was born to play, genetically,” he laughed.

Shortchanged

Dinklage’s influence over the film did not please fellow dwarf actor Dylan Postl either, who said last year that Dinklage was putting at least a dozen little people out of work in what would have been the role of a lifetime.

“What gave him the voice for all of our community?” Postl asked.

Stuntmen and stand-ins could have been employed for the dwarf roles as well, Postl and Williams agreed.

RELATED: ‘It’s not right!’ Actor Dylan Postl blasts Disney for not casting dwarfs for ‘Snow White’ in the name of ‘progression’

Williams’ notion that “Tiptoe” “looks like a ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch” was the exact sentiment shared by comedians Bert Kreischer and Tom Segura when they brought up the film to one of its stars, Matthew McConaughey.

Watching the movie trailer for the first time more than 20 years later, McConaughey called it a “wild concept” that drew a lot of talent.

“We knew it was a soap opera,” he remembered, saying the cast was thinking, “If we straight-face this, it can be really funny and also might actually make you drop a tear.”

McConaughey and the comedians joked at the swing-and-miss nature of the trailer, agreeing that it “doesn’t look real.”

McConaughey assured the duo, however, that it was indeed a “real production” and he actually “showed up to work” to film that movie.

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A Georgia teacher has been arrested and accused of sexually assaulting a child, police said. The teacher — a married mother of two — is now facing a divorce filing from her husband, according to court records.

Danielle Weaver, a 29-year-old teacher in Leesburg, turned herself in to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 18 after arrest warrants were obtained by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Feb. 17.

‘During the course of the inquiry, investigators identified Weaver as the suspect and confirmed the alleged victim is a juvenile student enrolled at the school.’

Weaver was booked into the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Jail. She was later released on a $50,000 bond, according to WALB-TV.

Weaver was charged with child molestation and improper sexual contact by employee, agent, or foster parent, according to a statement from the GBI.

Georgia law defines child molestation as:

When such person does any immoral or indecent act to or in the presence of or with any child under the age of 16 years with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of either the child or the person; or by means of an electronic device, transmits images of a person engaging in, inducing, or otherwise participating in any immoral or indecent act to a child under the age of 16 years with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of either the child or the person.

Under Georgia law, those convicted of a first offense of child molestation face a minimum prison sentence of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in the statement that the Leesburg Police Department requested the GBI to “assist with an investigation into allegations of inappropriate contact between a teacher and a juvenile student at Lee County High School” on Feb. 4.

The GBI statement noted that officers with the Leesburg Police Department responded to a request from Lee County High School administrators to investigate the allegations against the teacher.

“Investigators identified Weaver as the subject and identified the victim as a juvenile student at Lee County High School,” the GBI stated.

RELATED: Middle school teacher hit with 22 charges of sex abuse of 13-year-old — went from ‘mother figure’ to ‘monster’: Court docs

WALB obtained the following statement from the Lee County School System:

We, at the ninth-grade campus, can confirm that there is an ongoing legal investigation involving law enforcement concerning the alleged conduct of a former staff member who is no longer working for the district. Upon discovering the allegations, school and district leadership acted immediately to ensure the safety and well-being of students, as well as to conduct a thorough investigation.

The investigation into the potential teacher sex scandal is “active and ongoing,” the GBI said. Once the investigation is complete, “the case file will be given to the Southwestern Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office for prosecution,” according to the GBI.

According to court records reviewed by the New York Post, Weaver’s husband filed for divorce a day after her arrest. Weaver’s husband was granted temporary custody of their two daughters, according to court documents.

According to court filings, the husband is seeking a divorce because the marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Anyone with information regarding the case is urged to contact the GBI Regional Investigative Office at 229-931-2439 or the Lee County Sheriff’s Office at 229-759-6012. Anonymous tips can also be submitted by calling 1-800-597-TIPS (8477).

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Iran’s state broadcaster was taken over on Sunday, according to reports, by what appeared to be a coordinated cyber operation airing messages from President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging Iranians to rise up against their government.

The interruption struck feeds operated by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, including its widely viewed TV3 channel. Viewers inside Iran recorded the moment on their phones, and the footage quickly spread across social media.

‘Unleash the glorious and prosperous future that is close within your reach.’

Video circulating online show clips featuring Trump and Netanyahu accompanied by Persian subtitles calling on citizens to take action against the ruling regime.

The disruption reportedly lasted roughly 30 seconds before the signal cut to black and regular programming resumed.

RELATED: Israeli officials say Khamenei is dead. Update: Trump confirms.

Photo by Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

Video widely shared on X shows Trump at a podium wearing a “USA” cap, delivering remarks translated into Farsi. In the video Trump encouraged Iranian citizens to “seize control of your destiny” and “unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.”

Netanyahu’s segment, according to clips and reposts, described what he called a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Iranians to change their government and cast off what he referred to as the yoke of tyranny.

Iranian authorities have not publicly confirmed the intrusion or identified who was responsible. There has been no official statement from IRIB acknowledging the disruption.

Conservative commentator Nick Sortor wrote that Iran State TV had reportedly been hacked and was showing a message from President Trump calling on Iranians to rise up against the regime. His post quickly amassed tens of thousands of likes and more than a million views.

RELATED: ‘Painful days’: Iran kills US troops as Trump threatens decapitated Iranian regime

Photo by Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

Satellite monitoring groups and regional outlets reported the disruption based on viewer videos and feed anomalies, though independent verification of the source of the intrusion remains limited.

If confirmed as an external cyber operation, the intrusion would mark a rare instance of a foreign leader’s call for regime change appearing on a state-controlled television network inside an authoritarian country. During the Cold War, Western governments used outlets such as Voice of America to broadcast into countries behind the Iron Curtain. Interrupting a regime’s domestic television feed would represent a more direct form of information warfare than traditional cross-border broadcasting.

For now, Iranian state television has resumed normal programming.

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Fox News anchor Shannon Bream may look like the perfect picture of health on the outside, but she’s no stranger to illness and pain.

In a battle that nearly broke her physically, emotionally, and spiritually, Bream tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey about a mysterious nighttime episode that soon became a years-long ordeal that left her desperate for answers — and ultimately relying on faith when medicine seemed to fail.

“Several years ago, I woke up one night with excruciating pain in one eye, and it was bizarre. I’m stumbling around the bathroom looking for eye drops, I try like a compress, a washcloth on it,” Bream tells Stuckey.

“And I thought, what have I done while I’m sleeping? This is so strange. And kind of thought of it as a one-off. And that went on for a while. A few weeks later, a few months into it, I’m now getting this pain in both eyes,” she explains.

Bream got to the point where she couldn’t sleep and suffered from double vision and migraines on top of the eye pain.

When she went to a specialist, she only got worse.

“I’m now to where this, as crazy as this sounds, I’m carrying eye drops with me everywhere, at the gym, from machine to machine, even in the shower. Like water touching my eyes hurt. And there was just this mystery about it,” she tells Stuckey.

“I go back to the specialist and say to him, ‘I’m really struggling. I can’t sleep’ … and I just told him, ‘I’m kind of barely holding on right now, and I need some answers.’ And he said to me, ‘You know, you’re very emotional.’ And I always describe it as feeling like I needed somebody to throw me a life preserver, and he threw me an anchor. And I just went under,” she continues.

And this helplessness led to Bream feeling as though it “would be so nice to just go to sleep.”

“The Lord knows how much I’m struggling, just to wake up in heaven. Like, just be done with this. I can’t fathom another 40 years of my life living like this. There were times I couldn’t fathom 40 seconds. I mean, I just was in such excruciating pain all the time,” she explains.

But before Bream gave up, she prayed for another doctor — and God provided.

“When he came in, he said, ‘Oh, I know what you have.’ He hadn’t looked at my eyeballs, had done none of that. And it was this weird hopeful feeling that I really had not had in almost two years at that point,” Bream explains.

“It’s called Map-dot-fingerprint dystrophy, which is a mouthful,” she tells Stuckey, noting that while there’s no cure, surgery and therapy the doctor provided were helpful.

“So much bittersweet there because it really deepened my faith in so many ways. Made me much more empathetic and just grateful to be on the other side of that,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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Statutory rape, sexual abuse of a child, assault on a child causing death, and manslaughter are some of the criminal illegal aliens documented by the Deptartment of Homeland Security.

The Trump administration is continuing the mass deportation of illegal aliens despite challenges in court from illegal alien advocates and left-wing politicians.

‘ICE arrested child killers, pedophiles, murderers, and other despicable criminals across the country.’

“March 1, 2026, marked the 23-year anniversary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, DHS is finally putting Americans first,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis in an email release to Blaze News.

“Over the weekend, ICE arrested child killers, pedophiles, murderers, and other despicable criminals across the country,” she added.

Among those on the list was Miglan Elvin Alvarado-Martinez from El Salvador, who was convicted for assault on a child causing death in Los Angeles, California.

Fernando Melendez-Ramirez was convicted for first-degree criminal sexual penetration of a child under 13 years old in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is an illegal alien from Mexico.

Alfonso Santillan-Sanchez was convicted for third-degree rape, unlawful imprisonment, and second-degree assault with a deadly weapon in Yakima, Washington. He is originally from Mexico.

Here’s a list of the other cases from the release:

Rigoberto Lopez-Aguilar, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted for identity theft: using to avoid arrest and driving while intoxicated in Fauquier County, Virginia. Rogelio Cruz-Ramirez, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted for dangerous drugs, assault, and possession of a weapon across Texas.Diego Mejia-Canales, a criminal illegal alien from Honduras, convicted for three counts of possession of child pornography in Louisa, Virginia.

DHS has reported that 622,000 illegal aliens were deported from the U.S. in 2025, and it estimates that over two million other illegal aliens have voluntarily self-deported during that time.

RELATED: Illegal alien transvestite prostitute jumped from 2nd floor while fleeing from police: report

Critics on the left have lambasted the administration over reports of detentions against some illegal aliens without violent criminal histories. DHS has pushed back with lists of the worst of the worst criminal aliens and also with government statistics.

In February 2026, DHS argued in a statement on social media that many illegal aliens deported without violent criminal convictions recorded in the U.S. have horrific convictions in other countries.

“We will stop at nothing to remove these public safety threats and Make America Safe Again,” the agency added.

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​Worst of the worst illegal aliens, Criminal illegal aliens, Dhs report on illegal aliens, How many deported, Politics