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People don’t wear nice clothes to funerals anymore. Some still do, I’m sure, but many don’t. I haven’t been to a funeral in quite some time — thank God — but I’ve heard enough, and seen enough driving past graveyards, to know something is off in 2026.

You see it outside funeral homes and churches, near the hearse, gathered around an open grave: untucked shirts, jeans, sweatshirts, tennis shoes. People dressed for a quiet night on Netflix, not a solemn goodbye.

Can we really take death seriously if we won’t even take the clothing for a funeral seriously?

Dying custom

Why is it important to wear something nice to a funeral?

At first, the question feels almost offensive — or at least it does to me. My instinct is to snap, “Because it is.” You’re probably the same. Most of us never thought about it. The most obvious social norms rarely come with explanations. They’re absorbed, not argued for — like gravity or the sunrise.

Of course you dress up for a funeral.

But somewhere along the way, that assumption slipped. Now it has to be explained why a tie and leather shoes matter when you go to bury the dead.

When you attend a funeral, you are “paying your respects.” But is there much respect in showing up in jeans and sneakers? No. Some clothes are more formal than others, and some signal more respect than others. Not all clothes are equal. That’s simply how it is. Showing up to a funeral in a hoodie isn’t neutral — it’s a failure to honor the moment.

More than that, it’s a kind of disrespect. It doesn’t take much to put together a decent outfit. It isn’t unreasonable to ask someone to put their best foot forward for a single day. It doesn’t even have to be expensive. If you’re broke — and I’ve been — there’s always Goodwill. Twenty bucks gets you a shirt, pants, even shoes.

Last holdout

Dressing poorly for a funeral is a choice. It used to be a rare one. Now it’s common.

And it isn’t happening in isolation. It’s the endpoint of a broader culture that prizes informality and unconcern.

That culture starts small: not doing more than you have to, not dressing properly unless required, valuing comfort above all else. Casual Friday becomes casual every day. Soon enough, no one dresses up anywhere. And eventually, even the last holdouts — weddings and funerals — give way. For funerals, that day may already be here.

I don’t mean to sound overly gloomy, but there is something especially sad about this particular form of decline. Dressing down means one thing at the grocery store or the DMV. It means something else entirely when we are burying the dead.

It’s connected, I think, to the fact that we still bother with funerals at all — that religious traditions have long-prescribed rituals for burial and mourning. Those rituals reflect a belief that death matters, that it should be marked with care and seriousness.

Can we really take death seriously if we won’t even take the clothing for a funeral seriously?

Maybe not.

RELATED: Back to Black: We need a return to mourning etiquette

Wisconsin Historical Society/Getty Images

Dust to denial

There’s a more sobering truth beneath all this: Funerals themselves are becoming less common. More people are skipping them entirely — opting for cremation, informal memorials, or nothing at all. Sometimes it’s just an obituary. Sometimes not even that. I’ve seen it.

Some say it’s about cost — that funerals are too expensive. I’m not convinced. When people care about something, they find a way. If they cared about funerals, they would have them. If they cared about dressing properly, they would do that too.

The harder truth is that many simply don’t care.

The culture of informality and unconcern seems harmless at first — just more casual manners and a little less effort before leaving the house. But it doesn’t stay contained.

It spreads. It draws more of our lives into its orbit, and eventually there are no suits at the funerals, and then finally, no funerals at all.

​Men’s style, Lifestyle, Usefulness, Funerals, Mourning, Funeral etiquette, Manners, Death, Grieving, The root of the matter 

A Florida man was arrested for allegedly meeting with a minor to have sex, and law enforcement officials believe there may be dozens of other victims.

Aaron Starbird, 42, was arrested in a police sting from Sept. 2025, where an undercover officer was posing as an underage boy on dating apps.

The victim was able to point out Starbird and said how they communicated through an app.

Starbird sent explicit files to the officer he believed to be a boy. Investigators gathered information from communications spanning several weeks and obtained numerous search warrants.

Police performed a traffic stop on Starbird’s vehicle on Nov. 2025 and confiscated his cell phone. He claimed in police interviews that he tried to stop communicating with online juveniles after finding out their ages.

In December, Starbird was arrested by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office for the following slew of charges:

Ten counts of unlawful possession of materials depicting sexual performance by a child;One count of solicitation of a minor via a computer; andOne count of obscene material transmitting information harmful to minors.

In February, the state charged Starbird with one count of solicitation of a minor via a computer and 12 others related to child sex abuse material.

Investigators were able to tag about 77 videos that were indicative of child pornography and were able to identify one of the victims. When that victim was questioned, the victim was able to point out Starbird and said how they communicated through an app.

That victim was 14 years old when he was allegedly molested by Starbird.

RELATED: Elementary school teacher allegedly possessed thousands of files of child sex abuse material

Police are working to identify what they believe could be as many as 30 other victims.

Starbird was a former employee of Orlando Health.

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​Florida man online predator, Creep meets kids for sex, Aaron starbird, Florida crime, Crime 

“Moshitora,” Japanese shorthand for “what if Trump?,” first emerged in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. election, as policymakers and business leaders in Tokyo tried to make sense of an unpredictable candidate.

The phrase resurfaced in early 2024 as Donald Trump’s campaign regained momentum. This time, it carried more than curiosity. It reflected strategic caution and genuine unease. What would a second Trump presidency mean for Japan’s security, its economic ties, and its role in the Indo-Pacific?

The US-Japan alliance has entered a new phase that looks beyond defense alone.

The question mattered bigly. Since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s assassination in 2022, Japan has had to manage its alliance with Washington without the personal rapport Abe cultivated over decades. Trump’s first term had already shown how quickly supply chains could become instruments of strategic power and how fast economic policy could merge with national security.

For decades after the Cold War, Western policymakers assumed deep trade ties would soften geopolitical tensions. If nations became economically intertwined, conflict would grow too costly to sustain. That assumption collapsed. Supply chains did not reduce rivalry. They became tools of leverage instead.

Technology, once treated mainly as an engine of economic growth, became a strategic asset. Materials long confined to commodity markets — lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earths — moved to the center of national security planning.

The consequences reached far beyond trade policy. Industries once taken for granted became strategic pressure points. Governments began to see commercial flows not as neutral exchanges, but as levers of power. Control over production, processing, and access could shape the balance of global influence.

Trump’s first administration accelerated that reckoning. Washington had to confront dependencies it had ignored for too long. Over the next several years, policymakers turned instinct into structure. Alliances no longer looked like military arrangements alone. They began to function as economic security networks built around trusted supply chains, resilient manufacturing, and reliable access to critical materials.

The results are now visible. In October 2025, the U.S. and Japan signed a framework to secure supply chains for rare earths and critical minerals, with the stated goal of reducing dependence on China’s dominant processing capacity.

Africa shows the stakes even more clearly. In early 2026, Glencore entered a nonbinding agreement with the U.S.-backed Orion Critical Mineral Consortium to sell 40% of its Mutanda and Kamoto copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

RELATED: China is arming itself with minerals America refuses to mine

Bert van Dijk / Getty Images

These mines rank among the world’s largest producers of metals essential to next-generation technologies. The deal aims to diversify supply beyond China’s orbit.

Across Africa, Washington has deepened partnerships to strengthen supply chains for essential commodities, while Japan has pursued its own ties with resource-rich nations.

These efforts go beyond securing raw materials. They concern industrial resilience, strategic autonomy, and influence over the technologies that will define the next era of power. Countries now face a hard question: Who offers long-term commitment, and who merely shows up to extract what it needs?

Japan’s approach reflects foresight. Its economic security policies — diversifying supply chains, investing in semiconductors, and deepening ties with African and Southeast Asian resource producers — show a clear understanding that industrial capacity underwrites national power. In some respects, Tokyo saw this shift coming before Washington did.

The U.S.-Japan alliance has entered a new phase that looks beyond defense alone. Who will build together, mine together, and secure the industrial base behind technological competition? The choices nations make now will help determine which economies and militaries remain resilient enough to compete in the years ahead.

“Moshitora” began as a phrase about a single American election. Its return in 2024 looks, in hindsight, like a warning Japan had already begun to heed. The question now is whether Washington will answer with the same clarity, persistence, and long-term vision.

​Japan, Foreign policy, Moshi tora, Trump, Shinzo abe, Trump administration, Supply chains, Rare earth minerals, China, Opinion & analysis, Rare earths, America first, Diplomacy 

When I find myself agreeing with Democrats more than Republicans on a core liberty issue, I know something has gone badly wrong on the right.

That is where we are.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has shown more urgency about protecting privacy from Big Tech than most Republicans. Republicans, meanwhile, keep covering for companies like Meta in the name of innovation or “anti-regulation.”

Privacy is not a boutique concern for cranks. It protects freedom of movement, assembly, association, and speech. A country that abandons privacy invites tyranny.

If the biomedical security state pushed during COVID looked sinister, wait until Big Tech deploys smart glasses with AI facial recognition.

In February, the New York Times reported, based on internal Meta documents, that the company had revived a 2021 plan to add facial recognition to its Ray-Ban smart glasses. The feature, internally code-named “Name Tag,” would let wearers identify people in real time without their knowledge and pull up information through Meta’s built-in AI assistant. “Dystopian” hardly covers it.

The privacy threat gets worse. According to the Times, an internal Reality Labs memo from May 2025 discussed launching the feature during a “dynamic political environment” to reduce scrutiny from privacy groups. In other words, Meta appears to know exactly how toxic this is and hopes to slip it into public life while the country is distracted by a war.

A new boundary breached

Meta already has access to billions of personal profiles and a long record of treating privacy as a nuisance. Facial recognition in covert wearable cameras would not be a harmless upgrade. It would breach a boundary that should never be breached.

For most of modern life, stepping into public did not mean surrendering your identity to every stranger around you. A person outside his home still retained some anonymity. He could walk, speak, assemble, worship, or attend an event without assuming that every passerby could identify him and connect him to a digital dossier.

Meta’s glasses would end that.

This is how the surveillance state grows: one device, one platform, one “convenience” at a time. The goal is obvious enough — surveil Americans continuously, gather every available scrap of data, and make it available for private exploitation or government abuse.

Republicans should lead the fight against that future. Instead, Democrats have taken the lead. Markey, joined by Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, sent Mark Zuckerberg a letter laying out the civil-liberties threat.

“Embedding facial recognition into consumer wearables would vastly expand this surveillance infrastructure, enabling continuous, decentralized identification of members of the public without their knowledge or consent,” the senators wrote. “The deployment of facial recognition technology in smart glasses risks entrenching a system in which Americans are routinely scanned, catalogued, and analyzed as they move through daily life — an outcome fundamentally incompatible with a democracy.”

For once, the Democrats are right.

A doxxing machine

A wearer could blend into a crowd and scan thousands of faces in a single afternoon. The people being scanned would never know. No practical mechanism for consent exists. No opt-out exists. Your privacy would depend on strangers’ self-restraint and Meta’s internal rules.

That is no protection at all.

Now add politics. America is already divided along political, social, cultural, and religious lines. These glasses would function as a doxxing machine — a gift to activists, harassers, and anyone who wants to expose, blacklist, or intimidate another person.

Imagine someone wearing them at a protest, church, synagogue, school-board meeting, rally, or conference. A passing glance could tie a face to a name, employer, relationship status, online history, and web of personal associations. The line between public presence and forced disclosure would disappear.

Markey asked whether Meta had evaluated “the potential for stalking, harassment, doxxing, or government misuse.”

That question answers itself. Those are not side effects. They are among the most obvious uses.

‘We see everything’

The data pipeline should alarm people just as much. Anyone who wants to use the AI functions on these glasses will likely have to run them through Meta’s app. That means Meta and its contractors will receive the footage and other user data and can use the data to train models and refine the system.

A Swedish newspaper already found that workers for Meta contractors had access to shockingly intimate moments from users’ lives. One Kenyan subcontractor put it this way: “We see everything — from living rooms to naked bodies. Meta has that type of content in its databases. People can record themselves in the wrong way and not even know what they are recording. They are real people like you and me.”

Defenders will say smartphones already allow people to spy on one another. That misses the point. Phones are conspicuous. They require effort. Smart glasses make surveillance ambient, easy, and nearly invisible.

RELATED: Your smart thermostat is watching you — it knows your routine and when your house is empty

Photo by Gado/Getty Images

Political malpractice

Republicans should grasp the politics as well as the principle. Getting outflanked by Democrats on privacy, Big Tech, and the surveillance state is malpractice. Young voters already distrust AI. Fighting biometric surveillance and warrantless data abuse should be easy territory for a party that claims to care about liberty.

Instead, Trump has called on House Republicans to pass a clean reauthorization of FISA Section 702 without requiring warrants when federal agencies query Americans’ communications swept up in foreign surveillance. He has also pushed legislation to preempt many state regulations on data centers and AI deployment.

That is the wrong instinct at the wrong moment.

Privacy is not a boutique concern for cranks. It protects freedom of movement, assembly, association, and speech. A country that abandons privacy invites tyranny.

Americans do not want data centers imposed on their communities, fentanyl zombies defecating in the street, chemicals in their food, and camera networks tracking their movements. They certainly do not want strangers stripping away their anonymity with a glance through AI-powered glasses.

If Republicans cannot draw the line here, on a bedrock question of liberty and human dignity, they deserve to lose.

​Ai, Data, Democrats, Doxxing, Ed markey, Mark zuckerberg, Meta, Meta glasses, Opinion & analysis, Privacy, Reality labs, Republicans, Surveillance 

Seattle is already struggling with empty office towers, fleeing businesses, and rising urban decay — but Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck warns that the city’s latest proposal could make things worse than they already are.

“In Seattle, nearly one-third of the office space is empty — 35% at the core. More than a quarter of all of the office space all across the city is vacant. Entire buildings are dark at noon. Elevators that carried thousands of engineers and lawyers and designers now move janitors and security guards through hollow floors where the lights never come on,” Glenn explains on “The Glenn Beck Program.”

“This is New Orleans without the hurricane. It’s not war damage. This is policy that is doing this. And the response from the city leadership shows something that is far more than incompetence. It is intentional destruction,” he adds.

This “intentional destruction” has come in the form of a new tax being imposed in Seattle.

“You make over a million dollars, … 9.9% extra tax,” Glenn says.

“They don’t have any understanding of how an economy works. Seattle’s incoming mayor, Katie Wilson, proposed what she calls a solution now to just the hollowing out of Seattle,” he says, before explaining what he would do instead.

“Here’s what I would do. Fix the problems. Get the poop off the streets. Get the people pooping off the streets. Get the drugs off the streets. Clean the city up, and you won’t have this problem,” he explains. “But that’s not the solution.”

“Seattle is not known for technology. It’s known now for open-air drug markets, sidewalk encampments, retail theft treated as a nuisance instead of a crime. A regulatory climate where starting, running, or expanding a business requires navigating a maze of taxes and mandates,” he says.

“You feel like a criminal if you’re going to run a business. You feel, you know the city is against you, and the state is against you. Even now, Seattle businesses face one of the country’s most aggressive business and occupation taxes,” he continues, pointing out that the regulations caused businesses to leave, and in turn the city decided to start taxing owners of vacant buildings on top of their already steep taxes.

When companies noticed these insane regulations, they understandably chose to take their business elsewhere.

“The employees all followed; the buildings emptied out,” Glenn says.

Now, residents are trying to sell their homes — and they’re getting taxed for it.

“Instead of asking why companies are leaving,” Glenn continues, “city leaders ask a different question entirely. How do we punish the people creating jobs? How can we make their life even harder?”

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​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Seattle, Seattle taxes, Seattle mayor, The glenn beck podcast, Blue state, Blue city, Blue city crime, Katie wilson 

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, blamed evangelical Christians and other conservatives for not allowing progressives to redefine what pro-life means.

The resurfaced video gathered attention as Gavin Newsom’s suspected run for a presidential campaign continued.

‘They’re living in this silo, this evangelical, conservative silo that, ultimately, is just pulling us back as a country to a time and a place where we don’t deserve to be.’

Jennifer Newsom made the comments in an interview with Elex Michaelson from 2022.

“I appreciate that so many people, so many progressives, are leaning into redefining what pro-life is really about, and that’s what we’re doing in California,” she said. “You know, pro-life is about prenatal care and universal preschool and universal after-school and universal health care and taking care of foster kids and feeding, you know, universal meals and child care. Like, that’s pro-life. It’s not conception.”

She went on to accuse evangelicals and conservatives of holding back the pro-abortion effort.

“They’re living in this silo, this evangelical, conservative silo that, ultimately, is just pulling us back as a country to a time and a place where we don’t deserve to be, and we’re not going to be,” she continued. “Because honestly, young women and fathers of daughters are awake now, and they’re woke, and they’re not going to let us go back.”

She added that she has “so much hope because of that, and obviously California has a huge responsibility to lead.”

The video was posted to social media, where it garnered more than 1.5 million views.

RELATED: Rose McGowan claims Gavin Newsom’s wife tried to get her to bury Harvey Weinstein allegations

Jennifer Newsom also made headlines when she recently scolded reporters for ignoring her pro-abortion event and asking unrelated questions.

“We just find it incredulous [sic] that we have Planned Parenthood here, and women are 51% of the population,” she said.

“And the majority of the questions — all of these questions — have really been about other issues. … You wonder why we have such a horrific war on women in this country and that these guys are getting away with it. Because you don’t seem to care,” she added.

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​Jennifer siebel newsom, Jenn newsom woke abortion, Woke abortion, Gavin newsom’s wife, Politics 

Officials in Boston are celebrating the highest graduation rates in their history after significantly lowering standards for students and hiring “equitable grading policy” consultants, according to a bombshell analysis.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) announced earlier in March that the graduation rate at Boston Public Schools had reached a new record high of 81.3%. The previous high had been 81%.

‘The increase in graduation rates is more the result of policy changes than of students’ rising academic achievement. And it comes at the expense of students’ readiness for the real world.’

“I say every day around the city that our top priority is making Boston a home for everyone, and that has everything to do with our young people, our schools, school communities, and opportunities for families in Boston,” Wu said at a press conference. “That is the story behind these numbers.”

But another story behind these numbers says that the figure just represents grade inflation and that actual student achievement results have not improved at all.

An analysis from City Journal of the Manhattan Institute found that other metrics showed no improvement despite the allegedly inflated graduation rates.

BPS students did not score any better on the math and reading portions of the SAT, according to the analysis. Math scores for lower income students declined by 5%, even as their graduation rates improved.

Reading and math scores for English language learners fell by 9% and 13%, respectively, as their graduation rates improved by an astounding 21%, the analysis claimed.

And only about 40% of BPS 10th-graders meet expectations for reading and math in the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System testing, both of which are lower than those from 2019, it said.

While Wu claimed they had not lowered student expectations or moved goalposts to artificially jack up graduation rates, the City Journal report claimed they had done just that.

One policy had teachers assign “incomplete marks” rather than give students failing grades, and the district spent $120,000 on education consultants who advocated for “equitable grading policies.”

RELATED: School credit ‘recovery’ plans are apparently being misused for racial equity — and disadvantaging students even more

Critics are noting that many schools are offering “credit recovery” programs where students are able to make up failing grades with minimal effort, allowing them to move on to the next grade will remaining woefully uneducated.

“The increase in graduation rates is more the result of policy changes than of students’ rising academic achievement. And it comes at the expense of students’ readiness for the real world — a cost that the students themselves will ultimately pay,” the report concluded.

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​Grade inflation, Boston public schools failures, Mayor wu is horrible, Fake graduation rates, Politics 

President Donald Trump is throwing his full support behind the proposed SAVE America Act, framing it as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to overhaul U.S. elections and restore public confidence in their right to vote.

And he’s not going to let those who oppose it off so easily.

“The Save America Act is one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress, and America itself. NO MORE RIGGED ELECTIONS! Voter I.D., Proof of Citizenship, No Rigged Mail-In Voting (We are the only Country in the World that allows this!), No Men in Women’s Sports, No Transgender MUTILIZATION of our Children,” President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

“Only sick, demened, or deranged people in the House or Senate could vote against THE SAVE AMERICA ACT. If they do, each one of these points, separately, will be used against the user in his/her political campaign for office — A guaranteed loss!” he added.

“We have one chance to secure elections,” BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler says on “The Liz Wheeler Show.” “Do you remember what it felt like sitting in front of your television, watching on X as election results in 2020 rolled in? Do you remember the outrage that you felt as we saw anomalies, what appeared to be lawbreaking activity, happen before our very eyes?”

“So I challenge you today. This is what we should challenge our senators today. How many of those anomalies on that ill-fated evening in November of 2020 could have been prevented by the provisions that now exist in the SAVE America Act?” she continues.

“And for those on both sides of the aisle, on the left and on the right, who contend that anomalies are not proof, are not evidence, of fraud, OK. If no fraud existed whatsoever in any way, shape, or form, then why oppose the SAVE Act?” she asks.

“If it won’t change the outcome because no fraud existed — fraud played no part in those elections — then the SAVE Act couldn’t change the outcome,” she says, adding, “so you couldn’t possibly oppose it on any reasonable grounds, could you?”

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​The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, President trump, Donald trump, Republicans, Save america act, Save act, Save act debate, President donald trump, President donald trump election 

A video has been circulating widely on social media showing what appears to be a couple of Michigan school employees on a school bus engaged in what the district called alleged “professional misconduct,” WJBK-TV reported.

The station went a bit further, deeming what went on inside the yellow and black vehicle apparent “X-rated activities.”

‘My God, such total disrespect to both themselves and others.’

WJBK spoke to a mother who called herself Katie — and who was a reluctant cinematographer.

The station said Katie was at the Chesterfield Township Walmart last week when she caught two individuals who turned out to be school employees on the bus. Chesterfield Township is about 45 minutes northeast of Detroit.

She told WJBK the first thing she noticed was intense motion, initially believing they were simply cleaning the seats — but the movement kept up.

“I’m an adult, so I kind of put two and two together,” Katie noted to the station.

With that, she captured the incident on video, noting to WJBK, “I grabbed that just to have proof that what I’m seeing is what I’m seeing.” Katie then reported it to the Macomb Intermediate School District, the station said.

Blaze News is not linking to the unedited clip because of its inappropriate content. WJBK’s news video below, however, included a heavily blurred clip of the incident:

RELATED: School district speaks out after now-former employee, 22, accused of sending nude photos of herself to 14-year-old boy

No children were aboard the school bus during the incident, WJBK said, and the school district is investigating the employees in question and has placed them on leave.

“What if my kids rode that bus?” Katie asked the station. “I wouldn’t be aware of what’s going on, on that bus.”

Commenters under WJBK’s video report shot back reactions that ranged in tone from humorous to disgusted.

“That’s gross [for real] tho,” one user wrote. “Kids sit there.””Nasty,” another commenter said. “Where [children] sit. You can’t wait or find somewhere else. That’s gross.””Engaging in sexual activity … on a school bus … in the broad open day … in a parking lot?” another user observed. “My God, such total disrespect to both themselves and others. This type of behavior is unacceptable, and neither one of them should ever drive a school bus again. No buses for that matter. Damn shame. But none in their game.”

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​Education, Michigan, School district employees, Investigation, Macomb county, School bus, Employees on leave, Politics 

The Texas family of a 9-year-old girl is grieving her loss after she died from attempting a social media challenge.

Curtis and Wendi Blackwell told CBS News that their daughter JackLynn loved karaoke and wanted to become a singing star.

‘You could check on your kid, it could be kid-friendly videos, and then three minutes later it could be totally something dark because of the algorithms they start creating.’

“It was just the three of us, three amigos. We did everything together,” Curtis Blackwell said.

They recalled the horror of the last day they saw their daughter alive in the back yard of their home in Stephenville.

“Normal morning, tickle her to wake her up to get ready for school,” the mother said.

“She goes out to play like she always does, out in the yard. I noticed it’s kind of quiet — quieter than it should’ve been,” Curtis Blackwell said. “Then I saw her kind of around the corner that goes to the carport, saw her hair. I said, ‘JackLynn!’ I thought she was bending over playing because she was always in that area playing, but she wasn’t playing.”

His daughter had a cord around her neck when he found her.

“I found her unconscious. She was leaned into the cord,” he added. “I tried to do everything I could to save her. I got her off the cord. I tried to give her CPR until the first responders got there. It was the most terrifying, shocking thing I’ve ever seen. It was horrible to see my daughter in such a vulnerable state because of something so senseless.”

They believe that she was trying the dangerous “blackout” challenge that has caused other deaths and grievous injuries to others. It involves choking oneself in order to obtain a euphoric high.

“My mom told me that JackLynn had shown her a video before of a guy doing that with the cord. My mom told her, ‘Don’t you ever do that,'” Curtis Blackwell added.

About 80 people have died from the challenge.

“She’s our beautiful angel now,” Wendi Blackwell added.

RELATED: Family says their 10-year-old boy died from attempting a dangerous TikTok challenge

The Blackwells said they want more accountability for social media companies over the dangerous trends.

“You could check on your kid, it could be kid-friendly videos, and then three minutes later it could be totally something dark because of the algorithms they start creating,” Curtis Blackwell said. “There’s too many of these kids lost for these companies not to be held accountable in my eyes.”

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​Curtis and wendi blackwell, Death of jacklynn blackwell, Social media challenge death, Online challenge death, Politics 

Are demons more likely to attack Christians when they’re vulnerable? According to BlazeTV host Rick Burgess, the answer is yes.

On a recent episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick shared a deeply unsettling encounter he had with what he believes were demons while preaching to thousands of men at a convention in 2021.

Rick admits that at the time of his speaking engagement, he was overworking himself, neglecting his home life, and was physically and spiritually worn out.

“I think I opened myself up for this battle … because I was wore down,” he confesses.

When he took the stage to speak, he immediately sensed that something wasn’t right.

“I just could sense pretty quick that there was just kind a darkness. There was an oppressive spirit that was there,” he recounts.

Rick opened his speech by sharing the story of his son’s tragic death. As he “got to the part about [his] wife holding the lifeless body of [their] son,” he saw something strange among the grim audience members: a group of men with “wicked” and “distorted” faces laughing at him at the back of the convention center.

“I’m literally talking about the death of my son and this gruesome scene, and they’re laughing at me,” he says.

Shocked, Rick stopped his speech and asked, “Do you think this is funny?” but the men “just kept laughing.”

He moved on with his speech but later circled back to look for the men who had laughed at his son’s death, but he could never locate them again in the crowd.

“I keep looking to find them, and they’re not there. So then I realize … there’s a spiritual war going on in here,” he says.

After his speech concluded, Rick inquired about the mysterious group and even physically sought them out, but he never could find them. Even stranger, no one he spoke to had any recollection of seeing or hearing laughing men.

“I couldn’t find any evidence of them at all,” he says.

In the end, Rick came to this sinister conclusion: “I was being mocked by demons about the death of my son.”

To hear more details from his harrowing story, watch the full episode above.

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​Strange encounters, Strange encounters with rick burgess, Rick burgess, Spiritual warfare, Demonic oppression, Blazetv, Blaze media, Blaze podcasts 

It took less than a minute. Not for the show to find its rhythm — that never arrived — but for viewers to reach for the remote.

A more generous critic would say “Saturday Night Live: UK” stumbled out of the gate. Someone actually grounded in reality would say it arrived DOA, was resuscitated by optimism, flatlined again during the opening credits, and spent the rest of its run time as evidence that nobody in the commissioning process had ever actually watched British television.

The live format, in particular, punishes British reserve. The Brits, much like the Irish, don’t do collective euphoria on command.

The opening sketch — a Downing Street caricature so limp that it needed medical attention — felt like it was written by people who had heard of the place the way most people have heard of Uzbekistan: aware that it exists, entirely unclear on the details. Keir Starmer reduced to a bed-wetting schoolboy: accurate enough, but executed with all the surgical precision of a drunk toddler.

Satire requires stones. This was neutered at conception

Fey’s lemon

The host was former “SNL” head writer Tina Fey — parachuted in to anchor the spin-off in the history of television’s most durable comedy franchise.

Rather than evoking “Saturday Night Live,” however, her appearance called to mind “30 Rock” — Fey’s own sitcom about a sketch comedy show flailing within an absurdly corporatized NBC.

She stood there less like a master of ceremonies than like a faintly embarrassed consultant, as if tasked with explaining why this seemingly gratuitous product was actually a masterstroke of synergy and brand extension. You could almost hear the Jack Donaghy pitch behind it: familiar logo, international rollout, scalable format. Somewhere between the greenlighting and the greenroom, the only premise that mattered — making people laugh — had been quietly lost.

The audience noticed immediately. They always do. Forty seconds. One minute. Five, if you were feeling charitable. The reactions weren’t angry. They were worse. They were bored. There is no harsher verdict for comedy than indifference.

Stupid and sublime

It wasn’t always this way, of course. “Saturday Night Live” was once genuinely great. Not good. Not fine. Great. Belushi, Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy — dangerous, deranged, alive. Bill Murray doing a sort of dollar-store Sinatra. Chris Farley destroying every piece of furniture within reach. Phil Hartman doing impressions so precise that the subjects should have taken it personally. They probably did.

These were performers who understood that live television was a dare, not a format, and they took it every single week. Comedy that felt like it could go wrong at any moment, and sometimes did, and was better for it. Sharp, stupid, sublime in equal measure.

Those days are long gone — the show swallowed by Trump derangement syndrome and the passive-aggressive ritual of swiping at conservatives until the writers’ room mistook a political position for a punch line.

In its prime, it was still political, but at least it was anchored in something real — American culture, fast, furious, and occasionally brilliant. If today’s “SNL” is but a degraded facsimile of the show in its prime, this transatlantic fiasco is a facsimile of that facsimile: edges blurred, ink fading, soul entirely absent.

RELATED: 9 must-have devices for detecting leftist threats in your area

CBS Photo Archive/Monika Graff/Getty Images

Fawlty hour

The failure here is structural, not superficial. British comedy is built on irony, understatement, and a very specific species of darkness. “Fawlty Towers.” “Brass Eye.” “The Office.” “I’m Alan Partridge.” Comedy that watches you squirm and enjoys it. Comedy that finds the precise point of maximum discomfort and builds a home there. Comedy forged in restraint and bad weather, in class anxiety and institutional distrust, in the particularly British conviction that authority is always, at some level, ridiculous. You cannot import that.

If British comedy runs on slow-burning cringe and the precise calibration of discomfort, the “SNL” format runs on volume — loud, broad, relentlessly American, built around celebrity cameos and political impressions that reset with each news cycle and evaporate by Sunday morning.

Hiring Lorne Michaels doesn’t transplant the institution any more than putting a McDonald’s in a country farmhouse makes it rural. The live format, in particular, punishes British reserve. The Brits, much like the Irish, don’t do collective euphoria on command. They do collective embarrassment, the kind that makes you leave the room on someone else’s behalf, change your name, and book a one-way ticket to the aforementioned Uzbekistan.

Nothing much

Crucially, nobody asked for this. Nobody petitioned. Nobody wrote in. Sky’s decision to commission eight episodes before a single one had even aired suggests the company was already nervous — hedging against failure by pretending it was a plan.

The deeper problem is one of fundamental incompatibility — a cultural mismatch so obvious that it’s almost impressive that no one in the commissioning process named it aloud. Or perhaps they did and were overruled by someone with a spreadsheet. Comedy, at its best, feels dangerous. This felt focus-grouped. Safe. Sanitized. A show that promised the sun, moon, and stars but instead delivered, with full confidence and considerable expense, a urine-scented underpass.

Of course, the next episode could be great. Revelatory. The best television in years. But judging by the first, almost anything else would have been better. Including nothing. Nothing would have been better. Nothing, at least, doesn’t waste your Saturday night.

​Saturday night live uk, Television, Culture, Lorne michaels, Tina fey, Sky news, Kier starmer, Review 

The Department of Homeland Security is calling on Chicago officials to enforce an immigration detainer on a man accused of shooting and killing a freshman college student.

Eighteen-year-old Loyola University Chicago student Sheridan Gorman went out with friends to the Tobey Prinz Beach early in the morning on Thursday to see the northern lights.

‘We are gravely disappointed by the policies and failures that allowed this individual to remain in a position to commit this crime.’

A 25-year-old man named Jose Medina-Medina approached Gorman while wearing a mask, and when she tried to flee, he allegedly shot and killed her, according to a DHS statement.

DHS said Medina-Medina is a criminal illegal alien from Venezuela and blamed the former Biden administration for his presence in the U.S.

“Medina-Medina should have never been in our country, but was RELEASED into our communities by the Biden administration,” the agency said on social media. “He was then released AGAIN following an arrest for shoplifting in Chicago, Illinois.”

The family of the victim also blamed government failures for Gorman’s death.

“We are gravely disappointed by the policies and failures that allowed this individual to remain in a position to commit this crime,” a family statement reads. “When systems fail — whether through release decisions, lack of coordination, or unwillingness to act — the consequences are not abstract. They are real. And in our case, they are permanent.”

Medina-Medina was charged with first-degree murder and gun charges but did not appear in court because of his continuing hospitalization. Prosecutors indicated to Judge Luciano Panici that the suspect is being treated for tuberculosis.

RELATED: ‘Cold-blooded’ illegal alien murdered 15-year-old who was trying to stop him from raping his mother, ICE says

Acting Assistant DHS Secretary Lauren Bis excoriated the former administration in statement about the incident.

“Sheridan Gorman had her whole life ahead of her before this cold-blooded killer decided to end her life. She was failed by open border policies and sanctuary politicians who RELEASED this illegal alien TWICE before he went on to commit this heinous murder,” Bis said.

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​Sheridan gorman killed, Illegal alien murderer, Biden releases illegal alien murderer, Jose medina-medina, Politics 

A left-wing member of the Los Angeles City Council is getting hammered for her hypocrisy in hiring police officers for her event while pushing to deny similar protection for her residents.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez has campaigned against the police, but the California Post discovered that she hired a large police presence when it came to her event celebrating Mexican Independence Day.

‘Apparently, she has no problem spending taxpayer dollars for her safety but opposes doing the same for the residents she represents. It is time for change in Council District.’

Hernandez pushed to “abolish” police and to divert police funding toward investing “in housing, economic mobility, education, child care, and public health infrastructures.”

But surprisingly, when she needed security for a celebration of Mexican Independence Day at City Hall in September, Hernandez hired 13 armed LAPD officers for the event at a cost to the taxpayer of $135,000 in overtime pay.

The event, titled “El Grito 2025,” was expected to include about 500 attendees, which means Hernandez paid about $270 for police protection for each person for just that one day. The per capita spending on police for the entire year is about $420, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

She also advocated that police be unarmed when providing security for the City Council and advocated for a “mediation-based model” for cops.

The Post found that Hernandez voted in 2025 against the City Council contract that authorized using the LAPD for special events like the Mexican Independence Day event she publicized.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League condemned Hernandez for her hypocrisy.

“It should come as no surprise that some politicians act like hypocrites, but Eunisses Hernandez takes the cake,” reads a statement from the union’s board of directors to the Post.

“Hernandez has repeatedly voted to defund and disband the police, yet she saw nothing wrong with requesting police security at a community event to keep herself and others safe,” the union added.

RELATED: Police release body-cam video after lawsuit over 9-year-old who was handcuffed at school

Photo by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

“Apparently, she has no problem spending taxpayer dollars for her safety but opposes doing the same for the residents she represents. It is time for change in Council District,” the union concluded.

Hernandez says in her biography that she’s the daughter of Mexican immigrants and a community organizer.

Hernandez did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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​La council member eunisses hernandez, Hypocrite la anti-cop democrat, Mexican independence day, Defund the police hypocrites, Politics 

When BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock sat down with Cam Newton on “4th & 1,” the result was more than just a heated debate; it was a revealing and surprising dialogue — despite their well-known differences.

The pair engaged in a respectful conversation that left Whitlock with the feeling that it was a rare moment where two opinionated men with fundamental disagreements were able to understand each other.

“I’m so glad that I agreed to appear on Cam Newton’s ‘4th & 1’ program,” Whitlock begins. “It was an opportunity for me to show a fuller picture of myself, takes me out of my comfort zone, and was an opportunity for me to get a bit more insight into Cam Newton.”

“I thought it was a very healthy discussion. I thought it was a very entertaining discussion. I thought it was a very authentic discussion, and I tip my hat to Cam Newton,” he continues.

Whitlock points out that not only was it “authentic” but that it was one of the first times he’s seen two black men who have almost nothing in common ideologically — and have a fair amount of tension in their relationship to boot — sit down together and have a “respectful” conversation.

And Steve Kim agrees, telling Whitlock that he “really enjoyed that interview.”

“On a global scale, this is like Reagan and Gorbachev coming together, and you guys tore down that wall. I actually think you guys might have a little bit, dare I say it, a friendship,” Kim jokes.

“I can honestly say, at least from what I observed … I thought he came away with a clearer understanding and a heightened respect for you, Jason, as a person, after that conversation,” he adds.

Shemeka Michelle also believes the pair had an “excellent conversation,” but she admits there were moments of frustration.

“There were times that I was on the edge of my seat, a little bit frustrated by Cam’s explanation, and I feel like he wasn’t bending sometimes the way I wanted him to bend or actually understand your point of view,” Michelle tells Whitlock.

Michelle also notes that she saw a different side of Whitlock in the interview.

“When you’re on ‘Fearless,’ I don’t think you’re very confrontational. Like there are times when I think you could have body slammed a few people. I’m not going to name any names. Like you really could have given them a verbal body slam, but you were kind,” Michelle says.

“But this time, I feel like you didn’t do that. You were in a different space, and I just saw a different Jason,” she adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Fearless with jason whitlock, Fearless, Jason whitlock, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Cam newton, 4th and 1 podcast, National football league, The nfl, Cam newton vs jason whitlock, Cam newton interview 

One of personages repeatedly targeted for erasure in the American left’s violent iconoclasm in 2020 has at last found asylum on the White House grounds, thanks to President Donald Trump and some other unrelenting American patriots.

Toppling giants

Liberals appear to have no issue raising and keeping statues in public spaces so long as they are culturally, morally, and/or historically subversive.

Take, for example, the golden statue of a horned monster that was erected atop the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in January 2023.

The dehumanized figure — which Pakistani-born propagandist Shahzia Sikander purportedly designed to capture the “spirit” of the movement seeking to legalize abortion across the United States — was celebrated by radicals in and outside the courthouse. Claire Bishop, professor of art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, excitedly told the New York Times, “Maybe she can help channel us back to reinstating Roe v. Wade.”

Another statue that liberal activists not only tolerated but celebrated was the ram-headed Baphomet statue the Satanic Temple installed at the Iowa Capitol along with a satanic altar ahead of Christmas that same year.

While evidently unperturbed by demonic imagery, liberal activists have evidenced an aversion in recent years to sculptures reminiscent of America’s proud past, noble beginnings, and Christian character.

‘These monuments matter.’

Amid the Black Lives Matter-bannered deracination campaign of 2020, radicals vandalized and/or toppled — in many cases through official actions — numerous statutes across the country, including those depicting Spanish missionary Junípero Serra and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.

Christopher Columbus — the Italian “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” who sailed under the Spanish flag and whose four transatlantic voyages set the stage for American civilization — was one of the 2020 iconoclasts’ most popular targets.

RELATED: Satan is real — whether his depraved fashion-world followers believe it or not

Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

In Baltimore, masked thugs marched through the city’s Little Italy neighborhood on July 4, 2020, then toppled a Columbus statue dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan — a destructive act brushed off by city officials.

After tearing down the statue and jumping on the broken Italian Carrara marble likeness of the explorer, the cheering mob threw the remains into the harbor.

The incident took place just days after President Donald Trump, then in his first term, issued an executive order aimed at protecting such statues from destruction — an order where he stated that extremists’ “selection of targets reveals a deep ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past.”

Stoop and build ’em up

Some Americans proved unwilling to let the tide wash away American history.

Tilghman Hemsley, a local painter, sculptor, and fisherman, hired a dive team to recover the broken pieces, which were taken to his family’s art studio. Hemsley’s son, Will, used scans of the recovered pieces to create a replica of the 13-foot statue.

The New York Times reported that the recreation project received $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which awarded funds in October 2020 “to help repair and restore statues of iconic historical figures that have been damaged or vandalized, and to construct new ones, in an effort to revitalize public interest in American history in advance of the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026.”

Bill Martin, an Italian-American businessman, told the Washington Post that he and his allies also chipped in, raising and spending over $100,000 on the recovery and restoration efforts.

John Pica Jr., the president of Italian American Organizations United — the group that not only commissioned and owned the original statue but reportedly backed the reconstruction efforts — told the Associated Press that he was contacted in 2025 by a middleman who indicated the White House was seeking a statue of Columbus.

RELATED: Blue-state city leans into battle against ACLU over archangel Michael statue honoring police

Will Hemsley. Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images.

Basil Russo, president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, had reportedly reached out to the Trump administration after Baltimore officials refused to install the replica in public.

‘In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero.’

“Columbus statues have long stood as symbols of pride and cultural identity for more than 18 million Americans of Italian descent,” Russo said in a statement.

“For over a century, Columbus’ legacy helped Italian immigrants navigate prejudice and hardship, serving as a source of unity and belonging as they built new lives in this country,” Russo continued. “Columbus Day itself emerged in the aftermath of the 1891 New Orleans lynching, when 11 Italian immigrants were killed by a mob of thousands, an event that prompted a national effort to promote the acceptance and assimilation of Italian Americans. This history remains central to why these monuments matter.”

Working in coordination with the Italian American Organizations United, the COPOMIAO gifted the statue to the White House.

On Sunday, the statue — which was reportedly transported to the White House by Tilghman and Will Hemsley along with Randsallstown resident Jeff Bayer — was installed on the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House.

Trump thanked the COPOMIAO in a letter on Sunday for its “incredible generosity in gifting the Federal Government a beautiful statue of Christopher Columbus,” noting that he is “truly honored that this magnificent statue will now sit on the grounds of the White House.”

The president said further that the statue will “stand as an eternal memorial to courage, adventure, and the noblest aspirations of the human spirit as well as the extraordinary pride of our wonderful Italian American community.”

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Times in a statement Sunday, “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he’s honored as such for generations to come.”

Tilghman Hemsley told the Baltimore Sun that the statue’s installation “was very climactic and it was very fulfilling.”

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​Iconoclasm, Iconoclast, Christopher columbus, Donald trump, White house, Statue, History, Deracination, Monuments, Historical, Black lives matter, Blm, Hemsley, Politics 

Val Kilmer would have wanted it this way, the late actor’s daughter claims.

Kilmer was originally cast in the film “As Deep as the Grave” in 2020 but grew too ill to participate in the production.

The actor’s battle with throat cancer saw him never make it to set, with the 65-year-old tragically passing in 2025.

However, that will not stop him from being in the movie.

‘It was very much designed around him.’

Writer and director Coerte Voorhees said that Kilmer was indeed the actor he had wanted to play the role of Father Fintan, a Native American Catholic priest.

“It was very much designed around him. It drew on his Native American heritage and his ties to and love of the Southwest,” Voorhees said, per Variety. Kilmer is reportedly Cherokee, German, Irish, and Swedish.

“I was looking at a call sheet the other day, and we had him ready to shoot. He was just going through a really, really tough time medically, and he couldn’t do it,” the director recalled.

Now through a deal with Kilmer’s estate and cooperation from his family, the star of “The Doors” and “Batman Forever” will posthumously appear on screen again.

RELATED: Val Kilmer: Two movies to celebrate the late actor’s peculiar ‘Genius’

Kilmer’s family “kept saying how important they thought the movie was,” the director stated, and that Kilmer “really wanted to be a part of this.”

As such, Kilmer’s estate was allegedly compensated according to SAG Guidelines, People reported.

Website Greenslate states actors must be paid their typical rate for any time saved using an “employment-based digital replica” of the performer. Therefore, it is likely that Kilmer’s estate would be paid the actor’s going rate as if he were alive.

However, consent is not required for changes made to the production using AI, which of course limits actor control (or in this case, the estate’s) in terms of the final product.

Daughter Mercedes Kilmer has openly supported the use of her father’s likeness, Variety reported, claiming her father was a “deeply spiritual man” who connected with the film’s “story of discovery and enlightenment.”

RELATED: 50 Cent will open a film studio in the Deep South, not Hollywood, to create ‘stories that need to be told’

Val Kilmer 2004. Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images

“He always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling,” Mercedes added. “This spirit is something that we are all honoring within this specific film, of which he was an integral part.”

Kilmer’s son is also reportedly in favor of the AI representation of his father.

It is important to note that in 2022, Kilmer said he was “grateful” to work with tech company Sonantic, which recreated his voice for the “Top Gun: Maverick” sequel.

“A phrase we often hear is ‘having a creative voice.’ But I was struck by throat cancer. After getting treated, my voice as I knew it was taken away from me,” Kilmer said, per Men’s Health. “But now I can express myself again, I can bring these dreams to you, and show you this part of myself once more. A part that was never truly gone, just hiding away.”

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​Return, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Actor, Likeness, Estate, Hollywood, Ai actor, Tech 

While President Donald Trump tries to navigate high-stakes peace talks with Iran, Israel appears to have gone rogue.

Trump announced Monday morning that he would temporarily postpone strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure while the two powers continue peace talks. Trump categorized the negotiations as productive, saying they were a “great start for Iran to build itself back.”

This is not the first time Israel has launched strikes while the United States was mediating peace talks.

“We have had very, very strong talks,” Trump said. “We will see where they lead.”

Trump also said the negotiations would positively impact countries in the region, including Israel. Despite Trump’s attempts to find an off-ramp, Israel has continued conducting military ambitions in the region.

RELATED: ‘TOTAL RESOLUTION’: Trump orders temporary suspension amid Iran peace talks

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Mere minutes after Trump announced he ordered the Department of War to postpone strikes, Israel announced that it had launched a military campaign targeting Iran’s infrastructure.

The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed they struck several “Iranian terror regime headquarters” in Tehran as well as key military manufacturing facilities.

A senior Israeli official told Axios that they were aware of mediation efforts by several countries but that they were surprised by Trump’s remarks Monday, saying they “did not know things were moving that fast.”

When reached for comment about whether Trump had foreknowledge of the strikes, the White House directed Blaze News to Trump’s remarks to a press gaggle on Monday morning. The Department of War did not respond to a request for comment.

This is not the first time Israel has launched strikes while the United States was mediating peace talks.

RELATED: Trump’s hilarious response after intel reportedly tells him Iran’s new supreme leader might be gay

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Most recently, Israel struck Iranian power plants that prompted a series of retaliatory strikes that hit Qatari LNG gas fields last week. Trump took to Truth Social to claim that the United States had no foreknowledge of the Israeli strikes that led to military action against another American ally.

Additionally, Trump made Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologize to the Qatari prime minister in a trilateral phone call last September after Israel attacked Hamas leadership in Qatar, threatening ongoing peace talks.

Trump similarly claimed that Netanyahu approved the strikes without American foreknowledge, criticizing Israel for “unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace.”

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​Donald trump, Department of war, Benjamin netanyahu, Bibi netanyahu, Israel, Iran, Palestine, Ceasefire, Peace talks, Qatar, Iran war, Idf, Politics 

In a case stemming from a protest over a decade ago, the Supreme Court delivered a decision this week about qualified immunity.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in Zorn v. Linton that a Vermont state police sergeant is entitled to qualified immunity in a case brought by a protester following a dispute at the Vermont Capitol in 2015.

‘We reverse.’

In an unsigned per curiam opinion, the majority reversed the decision of a lower court, which had sided against the police officer’s use of force in the case: “The Second Circuit held that Zorn was not entitled to qualified immunity.

“We reverse,” the SCOTUS opinion stated.

RELATED: The next big Supreme Court shift might not be abortion or guns

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The case revolves around a protest at the Vermont governor’s inauguration on January 8, 2015. Shela Linton, a protester participating in an organized sit-in at the state Capitol building to demand universal health care, “anticipated being forcibly removed.”

After some other protesters were removed by police officers, Sergeant Jacob Zorn approached Linton and attempted to get her to comply. When she resisted, Zorn unlinked her arms from the human chain the protesters had formed, “put [her arm] behind her back in a rear wristlock, and twisted her arm.”

Linton alleged that Zorn’s actions resulted in “physical and psychological injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder,” the opinion stated.

Officials enjoy qualified immunity “unless their conduct violates clearly established law,” the opinion said. The bar for finding an official in violation is quite high since it generally demands both a precedent in case law as well as a “high degree of specificity.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling argued that the lower court relied too heavily on a 2004 case, Amnesty America v. West Hartford, which itself arguably did not clearly establish that the specific use of force employed by Zorn violated the Constitution: “Reasonable officials would not ‘interpret [Amnesty America] to establish’ that using a routine wristlock to move a resistant protester after warning her, without more, violates the Constitution.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The dissenting opinion held that “the Second Circuit did not err in holding that Zorn is not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage. At the very least, the decision below was not so wrong as to warrant the ‘extraordinary remedy of a summary reversal.'”

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​Politics, Supreme court, Scotus, Vermont, Constitution, Second circuit court, Jacob zorn, Shela linton, Fourth amendment 

Despite his reported confession to placing explosive devices at two sites on Capitol Hill on Jan. 5, 2021, Brian Cole Jr.’s physical dimensions, gait, posture, and mannerisms are at stark odds with video clips of the hoodie-clad bomb suspect first released by the FBI more than five years ago.

A full analysis of the hoodie-wearing suspect has been complicated by poor video quality, a manipulated video frame rate, black-and-white images, and cropping of some of the original footage. A careful viewing of the substandard video, however, still reveals clues that don’t fit the allegations that Cole is the bomber.

‘Two eyewitnesses … described the gray hoodie suspect as a white male.’

Blaze News analyzed video of the hoodie suspect released by the FBI, photographs and video of Cole, and evidence culled from independent investigations. This analysis indicates stark physical differences between Cole and the hoodie suspect, including the manner of walking, body shape and features, eyesight, shoe size, neck length, and mannerisms.

Cole, 31, of Woodbridge, Va., won’t be back in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., until April 21 for a status hearing on the two explosives-related felony charges that have kept him behind bars since his Dec. 4 arrest. He awaits a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals on his challenge to the detention order that is keeping him behind bars until trial.

Brian Cole Jr. denied involvement in the pipe-bombs case for two hours in an FBI interrogation, then changed his story, the DOJ claims. FBI, Prince William County Police Department photos

The FBI says that after two hours denying involvement in the pipe-bomb case, Cole suddenly gave a detailed confession during a Dec. 4 interrogation. His defense team, however, retorted in an appeals court filing seeking his release from custody that their client “contests each of the government’s factual claims.”

The hoodie-clad suspect went to some length to conceal identity, including a COVID-style face mask and a ball cap, but tools — including forensic podiatry and gait analysis — can shed valuable light on the investigation.

One of the most glaring conflicts in the case is an eyewitnesses who described the hoodie suspect as being a white male. Cole is black.

At a January hearing of the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Remaining Questions Surrounding Jan. 6, Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said information received from the FBI leaves key questions unanswered.

“There are still critical details regarding this case that must be understood,” Loudermilk said at the opening of the first and only hearing since the subcommittee was impaneled in September 2025.

“The FBI operational updates note two eyewitnesses who described the gray hoodie suspect as a white male. Did this influence the FBI’s investigation?”

Blaze News examined the charges against Cole to see if his arrest and prosecution fit with the case history and facts developed by independent investigators. The list of conflicts, problems, contradictions, and lingering questions is extensive — and growing. This is Part 3 of our series. Part 1 was published Jan. 16, and Part 2 was published Feb. 6.

Autism disclosure a game-changer?

Among the most telling clues offered in Cole’s defense was the disclosure by his attorneys that he is afflicted with autism spectrum disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each condition manifests in unique ways that can aid in identifying an individual on video or explain seemingly odd behaviors like wiping a cell phone back to factory settings more than 940 times over a three-year period, as Cole did.

Motion-based intelligence becomes especially useful in a case like the Jan. 6 pipe bombs where a suspect tries to disguise appearance by wearing oversized clothing, covering the face with a scarf, gaiter, or mask, or wearing a ball cap or other type of head covering under the sweatshirt hood. Clues can still be culled from the evidence.

Gergely Hanczar, a London-based expert in gait analysis, says the human body betrays itself, providing clues even if a person is trying to disguise identity. “Your body is a snitch,” Hanczar wrote in a recent Substack column.

“Before a single word is spoken, bodies have already decided what they want,” wrote Hanczar, an expert in biometric identification using digital tools. “The dilation of a pupil, a micro-adjustment of posture, the involuntary synchrony of breath are signals no sensitivity training can rewrite.

The gait of pipe-bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr. is starkly different from the hoodie-clad suspect sought by the FBI since January 2021.

“We are uncomfortable with movement-based intelligence probably because it exposes the primal reality of our hierarchies,” he wrote. “The body does not care about political correctness. It communicates a truth your lawyer would advise you to bury.”

Cole’s comportment and physical presence differ in many ways from the hoodie-clad suspect, from eyesight to manner of walking.

Cole does exhibit traits and mannerisms, however, that are consistent with those identified in research as common to individuals with autism spectrum disorder. A defense expert in the case provided an affidavit to the court in January stating that Cole suffers from autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

‘Criminals cannot hide their gait.’

According to the American Psychiatric Association, autism is a highly diverse neurodevelopmental disorder that manifests as “persistent social impairment, communication abnormalities, and restricted and repetitive behaviors.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of autism among children age 8 rose from 1 in 150 in the year 2000 to 1 in 31 in 2022.

The abnormalities found in autistic individuals were documented as far back as 1943 in a pioneering study by psychiatrist Dr. Leo Kanner, who profiled 11 children who displayed a “powerful desire for aloneness and sameness.” Kanner noted some of the children he profiled “were somewhat clumsy in gait and gross motor performances.”

Cole observed on body camera

There is ample video of the hoodie suspect on Capitol Police security cameras to use for comparisons. Police video of Cole at the scene of a 2024 Virginia traffic accident provides valuable clues about his physical demeanor that can be contrasted with the original suspect, a Blaze News analysis showed.

The 48-minute bodycam video, obtained by Blaze News under a Freedom of Information Act request, shows Cole interacting with a Prince William County Police Department officer and another driver. Cole’s vehicle rear-ended a pickup truck owned by a local church. The video has short segments that show Cole walking and standing.

The video shows that Cole walks with an outward foot angle, a stance sometimes referred to as a duck walk. The outward angle of his feet was also evident when he was standing and not in motion. An outward foot angle was not seen with the hoodie-clad bomb suspect in the footage that captured the masked bomber walking on Capitol Hill the evening of Jan. 5, 2021.

A relative told Blaze News that Cole has long had the outward foot angle in his walk.

Based on more than 20 minutes of video showing the hoodie suspect, that individual tends more to an inward foot angle, often referred to as being pigeon-toed. At several points during the walk around Capitol Hill on Jan. 5, the feet of the hoodie suspect cross over each other when their stride width is minimal. This is sometimes called “tightrope walking” or line walking.

The crossover of feet is especially noticeable in perhaps the most famous piece of video of the bomb suspect striding south on Rumsey Court before making a hard turn right toward the Capitol Hill Club. The hoodie suspect walked with a consistent, definitive right-leg drag — seen across more than 20 minutes of video.

These characteristics are not present in the limited amount of public video that shows Cole’s gait.

A 2024 research study of older children and adolescents with autism found that they had greater step width than the control subjects with no autism. Common traits in autistic individuals included shorter step length, increased cadence, and wider step width, according to the study, published in the journal Sports Medicine and Health Science.

The authors said the unusual gait patterns seen in autistic individuals were in part compensation for lower-extremity weakness.

‘I know him by his walk.’

“This unique gait pattern may represent a movement strategy used by the individuals with ASD to compensate for the weakness associated with their knee extensor muscles,” the study said. “Individuals with [autism spectrum disorder] who demonstrate these unique gait deviations may face reduced postural stability and an increased risk of fall-related injuries.”

“Risks related to muscular and coordination deficits may be exacerbated as movement difficulty increases (e.g., running, stepping stairs, carrying school bags),” the study said.

Cole appears to have a shorter stride than the hoodie suspect. The independent investigator known online as Armitas estimated the hoodie suspect’s stride (two consecutive steps) at 57 inches. Video and video stills of Cole at the 2024 accident scene show a fairly compact stride length compared to the hoodie suspect, he said.

Cole showed a pronounced lean of his head and neck, often to the left but sometimes to the right, both standing and walking, the video showed. The hoodie suspect shows no such posture on the FBI video. Cole tended to walk with his torso leaning forward, and he kept his arms close to his body while walking and standing, video showed.

He also exhibited a posture sometimes crudely referred to as “duck butt,” with a forward torso and a protrusion of the rear. A 2018 study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology found that children with autism showed a greater forward tilt of the pelvis throughout the gait cycle compared to a control group.

A 2025 study from Greece said motor impairments affect up to 80% of individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The study, which reviewed findings from 17 research papers on autism and gait, said “individuals diagnosed with ASD generally demonstrate reduced coordination.”

Children with autism, the study said, tend to have “a less fluid and more effortful gait.”

‘Agents wondered if the injury could have accounted for the odd gait seen on security footage.’

Cole’s shoes appear much larger than the Nike Air Max Speed Turf shoes worn by the hoodie-clad bomb suspect. In late December, Blaze News took measurements of the sidewalks and gutter pan along the Virginia street where Cole’s traffic accident occurred and of the sidewalk trod by the hoodie suspect outside the DNC building on Jan. 5. Based on those measurements, Cole’s feet are as large as size 12.5 — substantially larger than those of the hoodie suspect.

It appears that Cole’s feet are also disproportionately large for someone who stands 5 feet, 5 inches or 5 feet, 6 inches tall. The hoodie suspect’s feet, however, appear proportionate to that individual’s 5-foot, 7-inch frame.

Witnesses describe Cole’s walk

Two witnesses who have observed Cole’s gait over the span of at least a decade in his hometown told Blaze News that Cole’s walk is vastly different from that of the hoodie suspect.

Sunny Sandhu, owner of a 7-Eleven store on Minnieville Road in Woodbridge, not far from the Cole family home, said he has watched Cole come to and go from the store a “a minimum of two to three times per week” during at least a 13-year period.

After Cole’s arrest, Sandhu said he watched the FBI video of the hoodie suspect walking down an alley to place the second pipe bomb near the RNC.

“I go, ‘No way. The kid doesn’t walk like that,’” Sandhu said. “This kid has no confidence in his stride at all.”

Cole has a “goofy walk” that does not resemble the FBI’s bomb suspect, Sandhu said. “There’s no way.”

‘He was always very robotic and socially awkward.’

Cole was a consistent regular at the 7-Eleven, always asking for two Cokes and a pizza, Sandhu said.

“Every time he came in here, it was always the same thing, same routine,” Sandhu told Blaze News in an interview. “Always had his headphones on. Always made it the same order, bought two Cokes and a pizza.”

A law enforcement source who lives in the same area as the Cole family told Blaze News that he saw Cole on a regular basis out walking his little dog in the neighborhood. He described Cole’s demeanor as “awkward.”

“We were super surprised to hear he was the subject arrested for the Jan. 6 pipe bombs,” the source told Blaze News. “The immediate thought was: There is no way he had the mental ability to plan and prepare something like that. He was always very robotic and socially awkward around the neighborhood.

“My second thought was, seeing how he behaved around the neighborhood, how could he function in downtown D.C.?” the source said. “I had no doubt he was the wrong guy and complete doubt that the FBI did a proper investigation to identify him.”

A Blaze News reporter and an investigator who witnessed Cole walk into a February court hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said Cole’s gait appeared distinct from the hoodie suspect’s.

Eyesight appears different

In the Virginia bodycam video, Cole kept his phone about six to eight inches from his face, indicating a likely nearsighted condition.

The hoodie suspect, in contrast, held the cell phone in the lap while sitting on the park bench behind the DNC building. This was about two feet from the eyes, which could indicate that Cole’s eyesight is significantly different from the eyesight of the hoodie suspect.

History of gait analysis

The FBI and state and local law enforcement agencies have used gait analysis in a variety of investigations. In fact, the FBI used gait analysis early in the pipe-bombs case to help rule out a suspect, according to “Injustice,” a 2025 book by two Washington Post reporters.

The FBI’s investigation of who purchased the same Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers worn by the hoodie suspect led the bureau to a gym employee who lived in the area near the crime scenes.

“The person came under further scrutiny after he initially lied to agents about a leg injury, according to people familiar with the investigation,” wrote Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis. “Agents wondered if the injury could have accounted for the odd gait seen on security footage.”

The FBI later concluded that the man had no other possible ties to the case and ruled him out as a suspect, Davis and Leonnig wrote.

More recently, gait analysis was used on security footage in the February 1 disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC “Today” show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie.

Gait analysis has been used in criminal cases in the West as far back as the 1830s. In an 1837 case in London, burglary suspect Thomas Jackson, 36, was convicted based in part on a policeman’s testimony describing his gait, according to the 1840 Central Criminal Court Minutes of Evidence.

Patrolman George Cheney told the court that he arrested Jackson on March 1, 1837, charged with the burglary of Heath and Company. Security guard William Meagle detained Jackson after discovering him overnight on the main floor of the building.

Two police officers identified burglary suspect Thomas Jackson by his gait in this 1837 case in Great Britain.Central Criminal Court Minutes of Evidence

“I have not a doubt of his being the man — I know him by his walk,” Cheney said in court testimony. “When he was remanded, I had to take him backwards and forwards three or four times, and he had a limp in his walk, having had an accident, and I know his features.”

Police constable Philip Parish told the court that Jackson had a “bow leg.” Sergeant George Teakle said the suspect had suffered a broken leg. “I observed him rather limp on one side,” Teakle recounted. “I said, ‘You have had a broken leg.’ He said, ‘I have not.’”

Forensic gait analysis has been used in criminal cases in the U.K. much longer than in the United States. It is sub-specialty of forensic podiatry. Forensic podiatrist Michael Nirenberg described forensic podiatry as “the application of sound and researched podiatry knowledge and experience in forensic investigations, to show the association of an individual with the scene of a crime.”

Nirenberg has testified in several criminal trials, using gait analysis and footprint and footwear evidence to tie defendants to crime scenes.

His testimony was key to the conviction of an armed robbery suspect in Wayne County, Tenn., in January 2017. Three men robbed the Berrys One Stop convenience store. Detectives did not find any physical evidence such as fingerprints or DNA. One of them did notice something peculiar about one man on surveillance video: his walk.

FBI officials search Brian Cole Jr.’s 2017 Nissan Sentra for evidence in the Jan. 6 pipe-bombs case, in Woodbridge, Va., on Dec. 4, 2025.Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

Detective Dusty Malugen asked Nirenberg to compare the robbery surveillance video to video of a subject who came into the convenience store days before the crime. Nirenberg found a match by observing the men.

“You can see how he’s walking,” Nirenberg told the Journal & Courier newspaper. “His feet and knees are out-toed. You can see the way his head is positioned on his shoulders. His head hangs forward.”

Nirenberg’s analysis was presented to a local grand jury, which indicted a suspect. Confronted with the evidence, the man confessed to the robbery and rolled over on his two accomplices. All three were sent to prison.

Nirenberg assisted police and the FBI with gait analysis in the April 2016 murder of Missy Bevers, 45, a fitness instructor in Midlothian, Texas. That case remains unsolved.

AI and forensic gait analysis

The use of artificial intelligence to analyze the movements of individuals shown on surveillance video is an emerging method that claims up to near-perfect accuracy. Europe-based consultant Cursor Insight says its gait-recognition system achieved 98.3% accuracy using video of a single gait cycle, measuring only thigh and shank flexion angles of both legs.

Using other factors such as segment lengths and analyzing several gait cycles can increase accuracy to 99.9% or higher, the company reported in a 14-page case study.

The AI-powered gait analysis has advantages over biometrics such as facial recognition, which often fails when the subject is far away, covered in darkness, or wearing a face mask, the case study said.

“Our AI-powered gait-analysis technology can transform seemingly worthless video into reliable forensic evidence,” the case study said. “Even when facial recognition fails — we can identify individuals by analyzing body dimensions, body pose, and motion patterns such as walking or running.”

‘Cole contests each of the government’s factual claims.’

Nirenberg said gait analysis will become a more prominent part of criminal investigations.

“The admission of video evidence in criminal matters will continue to grow, and with it, those perpetrating crimes will increasingly take measures to conceal their identity,” he wrote in Criminal Justice magazine. “Even so, criminals cannot hide their gait. This is a significant fact for attorneys on both sides of a criminal case.”

A U.S. intelligence community source told Blaze News that gait recognition technology is much farther advanced in China.

“Gait recognition will eventually be used as the most important law enforcement tool in identifying criminal suspects from the increased proliferation of CCTV,” the source said. “The downside is that it will also be used by authoritarian governments in establishing their social credit scores — tracking jaywalkers in crowded cities and other such undesirable behaviors.”

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​Jan. 6