Category: blaze media

If you’re not familiar with the power of a simple yellow pencil and what it can teach about economics, freedom, and the limit of government power — then Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is here to help.

“I’m holding a pencil. Yellow, six sides, little pink eraser at the top. And we’ve used these our whole life,” Glenn begins.

“The cedar comes off a mountain in the Pacific Northwest. It’s cut by a steel saw. That steel came from an iron ore in Minnesota, smelted with coal hauled by the rails by people who are long dead,” he says.

“The graphite comes out of the ground in Sri Lanka, and it’s mixed with clay from Mississippi. The little band up at the top, that used to be copper from Chile, zinc from Canada. The yellow paint, the rubber that never once met a rubber tree in its life,” he continues.

“All of these things, thousands of people on five continents that don’t speak the same language, who never met, who’d probably cross the street to avoid each other … these people couldn’t agree on lunch, and they built the pencil,” he adds.

The point, Glenn says, is that “no one was in charge.”

“There’s no department of pencils in a marble building deciding how much graphite Sri Lanka needs to mine this year. Nobody on the planet wakes up at 3:00 in the morning in a cold sweat thinking, ‘Dear God, does Ohio have enough erasers?’ Nobody does,” he says.

“So here’s how you explain capitalism and socialism. If no one is smart enough to plan a pencil, nobody … it just happens. Who exactly do we figure is smart enough to plan an entire economy?” he asks, before citing the economist Friedrich Hayek.

Glenn notes that Hayek “spent his life on this one idea,” which was that “the knowledge that it takes to run an economy doesn’t live in any one place.”

“It’s scattered across millions and billions of heads. It’s the welder who can feel a batch of steel running brittle. It’s the grocer who notices that young families are starting to move in, and they got all these kids, so I better stock up on more diapers. It’s the farmer that can read the sky,” he says.

“None of them could write down what they know. They couldn’t fill it out in a form. They’d lose the form. But they act on it every single day,” he adds.

However, when you introduce a central planner, Glenn explains, even the ones with the most sincere hearts will fail.

“And that’s when the bread line happens. Bread lines are real, and it happens the same way every single time,” he says.

“It’s like a band that only knows one song. That’s what socialism is,” he adds.

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​Capitalism, Economics, Economy, Freedom, Glenn beck, Pencil test, Socialism, The glenn beck program 

If you want to glimpse the future of artificial intelligence, don’t start in Silicon Valley. Start in a South Korean factory.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, South Korea now has 1,012 industrial robots for every 10,000 manufacturing workers — the highest robot density in the world. Put another way, roughly one in every 10 manufacturing “workers” is now a robot.

For now, however, even the world’s most advanced humanoid robots still struggle with tasks that young children perform effortlessly.

That startling figure is one piece of a much larger story stretching from American AI labs to South Korean factories, Chinese assembly lines, and Indian garment workshops.

For most Americans, the AI revolution is something that happens on a screen. We think of ChatGPT writing emails, Claude summarizing reports, or Google Gemini answering questions. The race appears to revolve around Silicon Valley companies building ever more capable language models.

But the next phase of artificial intelligence is becoming much more physical.

Instead of asking how machines can write like humans, researchers are asking how they can move like humans — how they grasp a coffee mug, fold a shirt, stitch a collar, or crack an egg without crushing it.

That challenge has created an unexpected global division of labor: America builds the brains, South Korea builds the bodies, China provides the classroom, while India supplies the teachers.

Together, they’re revealing something surprising: the future of artificial intelligence depends on ordinary human beings.

South Korea: Building the bodies

If robotics has an epicenter, it may well be South Korea.

The country’s dominance in robotics didn’t emerge from nowhere. It grew out of decades spent building some of the world’s most advanced automobiles.

The same expertise that allows South Korean companies to manufacture electric motors, precision steering systems, sensors, braking technology, and other high-performance automotive components translates remarkably well to humanoid robots. Goldman Sachs Research estimates Korean companies could account for roughly 30% of global humanoid robot production by 2035, either by manufacturing robots directly or supplying the critical components that allow them to move.

Yet South Korea’s embrace of automation has also exposed its tensions.

This week, Hyundai workers overwhelmingly voted to authorize strike action after contract negotiations stalled, with robots emerging as a central issue for the first time.

The union isn’t simply demanding higher wages.

It wants guarantees over how artificial intelligence and humanoid robots will be introduced onto factory floors, arguing that workers deserve a voice before machines begin performing jobs currently done by people.

The dispute centers on Atlas, the humanoid robot developed by Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics.

While company executives describe Atlas as a way to perform dangerous, repetitive, and physically demanding work, union leaders see a machine that could eventually replace the people who build Hyundai’s cars.

The disagreement captures the paradox facing much of the developed world.

Countries like South Korea desperately need automation. It has one of the world’s fastest-aging populations and one of its lowest birth rates, creating labor shortages that robots may eventually help fill.

Yet the workers whose jobs are most vulnerable understandably want assurances that they won’t become casualties of the technological transition.

Child’s play

For now, however, even the world’s most advanced humanoid robots still struggle with tasks that young children perform effortlessly.

Finding a coffee pot, identifying its handle, lifting it correctly and pouring without spilling remains astonishingly difficult for a machine.

The bottleneck is no longer the body or the brain. It is experience.

Engineers can now build remarkably capable robot bodies and increasingly sophisticated AI models. What they can’t manufacture is the accumulated experience that allows humans to navigate the physical world almost without thinking. Like a child learning to walk — or an apprentice learning a trade — robots improve only through repeated interaction with the real world.

RELATED: Your child’s new best friend might be a Chinese surveillance device

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China: Generating the experience

South Korea may lead the world in robot density, but China wins on sheer scale.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, China had 2.027 million industrial robots operating in its factories in 2024. It installed another 295,000 robots that year alone, accounting for 54% of global robot demand.

That scale gives Beijing an enormous advantage in the next phase of AI.

Unlike ChatGPT, which learned from enormous quantities of text on the internet, humanoid robots must learn by interacting with the real world. Every object they grasp, every obstacle they navigate, and every task they complete generates valuable information that helps improve future models.

China has more of that real-world classroom than anyone else.

Part of the urgency stems from demographics. After decades of the one-child policy and collapsing birth rates, China faces one of the fastest-aging populations in history. Its working-age population is projected to shrink dramatically over the coming decades, threatening the labor force that powered its manufacturing rise.

Humanoid robots have become one response. Every robot deployed today becomes another teacher for tomorrow’s robots. More deployment generates more real-world data, and better data produces better AI models.

Better models create more capable robots, which in turn generate even more data.

In the race toward physical AI, experience itself has become a competitive advantage.

India: Supplying the trainers

If South Korea is building the machines and China is putting them to work, India is asking who benefits from the knowledge that makes them possible.

Across the country, companies are asking factory workers, construction laborers, delivery drivers, and homemakers to wear head-mounted cameras while they go about their daily routines.

No gesture is too small to escape the camera’s eye: how a garment worker guides fabric through a sewing machine, how a mason carries bricks across uneven ground, how someone folds laundry, washes dishes, packs a lunch.

The recordings — known as “egocentric data” — have become one of the world’s most valuable resources.

Many workers reportedly weren’t told exactly why they were being recorded; in fact, some laughed when cameras were first strapped to their foreheads. That laughter changed to unease as they realized they were teaching machines that might someday replace them.

Labor advocates have raised new questions. If a worker’s lifetime of accumulated skill is converted into an AI dataset worth millions of dollars, should that worker share in its value?

Can consent really be voluntary if refusing to wear the camera could jeopardize someone’s livelihood?

And who owns years of accumulated know-how once it has been converted into a commercial AI dataset?

For perhaps the first time, the routines of ordinary life are becoming economically valuable in their own right.

Skills that were never considered professions — sewing a collar, folding towels, washing dishes, preparing meals, gripping an egg without breaking it, carrying heavy materials safely — are becoming indispensable training material for the world’s most sophisticated robots.

Indian startup Neocambrian AI estimates it could require 100 million hours of first-person human activity before machines approach human-level dexterity.

The irony is impossible to miss.

As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, researchers are discovering just how difficult it is to replicate the quiet competence of ordinary people.

We, robot

The AI revolution has often been described as a triumph of silicon over flesh. Instead, it is becoming a lesson in just how remarkable ordinary human beings really are.

The machine doesn’t know what an ordinary person knows: how tightly to grip an egg, how to instinctively shift its weight while walking across uneven ground.

These are forms of embodied wisdom acquired through years of living in a human body.

Christianity has long insisted that human beings are not merely minds that happen to inhabit bodies. In Genesis, mankind is introduced not simply as a thinker but as a worker — cultivating a garden, naming animals, building a family, and exercising stewardship over creation.

These are not incidental tasks. They are ways human beings express creativity, responsibility, and love.

One of the strangest consequences of the AI revolution is that it is reminding us of the enduring dignity of the same ordinary human work it seeks to replace.

​Ai, Ai race, Automation, China, Culture, Humanoid robots, Hyundai, India, Lifestyle, Robotics, South korea, Workers, Tech 

The debate over autonomous weapons has started from the wrong premise.

Critics ask whether the United States should permit machines to kill. Advocates frame the question as whether we can afford to fall behind adversaries who will deploy such systems regardless. Both sides treat autonomous lethality as a novel moral category that demands a novel governing framework.

The United States will field autonomous systems regardless of whether the public debate reaches a satisfying resolution.

The U.S. military already possesses such a framework, however. It has been used for decades, it scales naturally to autonomous systems, and the public debate would improve considerably if both sides understood these realities.

The military governs the use of force through weapons control statuses, a graduated system that every air defense operator and ground commander knows by three commands. “Weapons hold” authorizes engagement only in self-defense or under specific order. “Weapons tight” authorizes engagement only against targets positively identified as hostile. “Weapons free” authorizes engagement against any target not positively identified as friendly.

A commander sets the status based on mission, threat, and environment, as units within his command may operate under different statuses depending on the situation. The framework already calibrates lethal authority to circumstance. It does not require a soldier to seek individual approval for every trigger pull, because the controlling judgment comes from the posture the commander has set rather than in each discrete engagement.

This structure maps directly onto the problem of autonomous weapons.

The objection that a machine cannot exercise the contextual judgment that distinguishes a combatant from a civilian, a threat from a bystander, has force only in environments where discrimination is genuinely difficult — precisely the condition the weapons control framework already addresses.

The Taiwan Strait and downtown Tehran are not the same operating environment, and no serious framework should govern them in the same way.

Consider the contrast. An autonomous system operating in the Taiwan Strait is tasked with engaging naval vessels in a declared conflict zone where civilian traffic is minimal. Every surface combatant of a certain signature is presumptively hostile and faces a discrimination problem that is nearly trivial. The environment is uncluttered, the targets are large and militarily unambiguous, and the consequences of restraint include the loss of American ships and sailors to adversary missiles that outpace any human operator’s reaction time.

A weapons-free or weapons-tight posture for autonomous engagement in that environment is defensible on the same grounds that justify those postures for human-operated air defense.

The same autonomous system operating in a dense urban environment such as downtown Tehran, where combatants and civilians occupy the same streets, should operate under weapons hold, which requires a human to authorize each engagement. The environment dictates the posture, and the framework already exists to make that determination.

RELATED: The empire cannot drone-strike its way out of decline

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The Pentagon has, in fact, started to incorporate this framework into existing policy. Directive 3000.09, updated in January 2023, requires that autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force. It also requires that the design of such systems confine each engagement to a time frame and geographic area consistent with commander and operator intentions.

The directive presupposes that the appropriate level of human control varies with the system and mission rather than holding constant across all cases.

What the directive does not yet do, and what the public debate has not yet grasped, is connect that variation to the weapons control vocabulary the force already uses, which would render the entire question legible to commanders, policymakers, and the public in terms the military has been employing for generations.

Adopting this approach requires trusting the military to set the posture, which is the crux of the matter for a public institution. The objection that the U.S. cannot trust commanders to calibrate autonomous lethal force responsibly proves too much.

We already trust those same commanders to calibrate human lethal force through an identical framework — one that, when commanders adopt the wrong posture, produces civilian casualties.

An autonomous system governed by the same logic inherits the same accountability structure, because the commander who sets a weapons-free posture for an autonomous system owns the consequences exactly as the commander who sets it for a battery of human-operated interceptors.

A public institution governing an autonomous force must establish this policy explicitly rather than allow it to emerge on a case-by-case basis from procurement decisions and after-action reviews.

The military should state as a matter of doctrine that autonomous weapon systems operate under weapons control statuses set by the responsible commander; that the status a commander may set for a given system depends on the discrimination difficulty of its operating environment; and that the most permissive postures remain available only in environments where the discrimination problem is genuinely simple.

RELATED: The AI gold rush could become an incumbent graveyard

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This codification would accomplish two things that the current ambiguous debate does not. First, it would give commanders a clear and familiar vocabulary for governing systems that would otherwise arrive without doctrinal handholds. Second, it would give the public a transparent standard by which to hold the institution accountable, because a weapons control status is a decision with a name and an owner rather than a diffuse property of an algorithm that no one can identify.

The alternative is not a world without autonomous weapons. Adversaries are building them, the technology is proliferating, and the United States will field autonomous systems regardless of whether the public debate reaches a satisfying resolution.

The alternative to adopting a clear framework is fielding these systems under an ambiguous one, in which the absence of explicit doctrine forces operators and engineers to improvise the hardest decisions in the moment rather than letting commanders govern them in advance within a system the nation has already validated across decades of use.

The military knows how to use lethal force. The framework is sound, familiar, and accountable. The task now is to apply it deliberately to new autonomous systems rather than assume that such systems require the country to invent its ethics of force from scratch.

Editor’s note: This article appeared originally at the American Mind.

​Autonomous warfare, Drones, Us military, Weapons free, Taiwan strait, Iran, Russia, China, Military drones, Opinion & analysis, Pentagon 

A data center already under attack from locals has announced a move that probably will only make residents more upset.

American company Hyperscale Data Inc. has a data center in Dowagiac, Michigan, that residents say is too loud. A class action lawsuit filed in May says a constant hum from the facility is overwhelming.

‘… create a unique environment for developing and evaluating next-generation AI systems.’

Neighbors said that they can hear the data center’s cooling systems and fans from inside their home, limiting whatever they want to do on their property.

“I’m walking [my son] more than a mile away to get away from the noise,” one man said, per WSBT.

Piling onto this already (allegedly) burdensome data center is a recent announcement that Hyperscale Data will employ Chinese robots at the facility.

Hyperscale and its subsidiary company Omnipresent Robotics are reportedly partnering with Chinese robotics firm Agibot PTE Ltd to get components for 30 OPR-R2 humanoid robots, Data Center Dynamics reported.

Set for deployment in Q3 2026, the bots are intended to support the “development of embodied artificial intelligence applications, autonomous workflows, and advanced robotics systems.”

RELATED: The KIDS Act would turn web browsing into a TSA line

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While the OPR-R2 bots are not listed on Agibot’s website, their top model of humanoid bot (the Agibot A2 Ultra) is about five-and-a-half feet tall and just over 150 pounds. It comes with three cameras — head, chest, and waist — a microphone and a speaker.

The bots are described as a “rising star” in the entertainment industry, as well, and are recommended for brand ambassadors and performances.

As workers, the machines will reportedly be assigned to the Omnipresent Robotics’ Model Training Laboratory, where they will work “side-by-side” with data center employees to mimic their movements, also described as real-world training.

“The company believes the integration of humanoid robots with high-performance AI computing infrastructure will create a unique environment for developing and evaluating next-generation AI systems capable of operating in real-world environments,” Hyperscale said, per DCD.

RELATED: GOP bill aims to gut online censorship funds — and where the money is going will shock you

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Hyperscale’s chairman said that the company believes “physical AI” is the future of AI, with “tomorrow’s AI systems” needing to be capable of understanding and interacting in the physical world.

As for the data center itself, it sits at approximately 617,000 square feet and takes about 28 megawatts of power. According to DataCenters.com, there are 12 other data centers within 50 miles of the facility.

Hyperscale Data is currently trading at around 17 cents per share at the time of this writing.

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​News, Data center, Michigan, Chinese robots, Tech 

Charlie Kirk’s death has affected people across America, and Vice President JD Vance is no exception.

In an interview with BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey, Vance revealed that Kirk’s passing is what inspired his family to grow even more.

“So this has been sort of an ongoing conversation, as it probably is with all families with a lot of kids, and you know, I remember when we had our first kid and you go from zero to one, I was like, I’m never doing this again,” Vance tells Stuckey.

“It was such a shock to the system,” he explains, noting that his oldest was a “tougher” baby.

“And then we had number two and number three. And now I’m just all like, I would have nine kids,” he says.

Vance’s wife, Usha, just turned 40, which, he points out, has made it a little harder.

“The older that you get, the harder it is on the body. And so she was kind of like, you know, I don’t really know that I want to be pregnant again. Like I’d love to have a fourth baby; I don’t want to be pregnant again with all the spotlight,” he explains.

“And you know, when Charlie died … we fly out the morning of the 11th, pick up his body in Utah, and then fly him and Erika and some of the family back to Arizona. And you know, there’s so many things I remember from that moment, and you know, you see Erika and you want to say something profound, but what can you possibly say? There’s just nothing to say,” he continues.

However, what he recalls Erika saying is what changed his mind about having a fourth baby.

“She sort of just makes this observation through her tears that she really wishes they had had more kids. They have two little kids who have actually stayed here a number of times since Charlie passed away. And for me, at least, that really drove it home,” he says.

“For me, it was like, we have to have a fourth baby, and she got pregnant like six weeks later,” he adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, Erika kirk, Jd vance, The blaze, Charlie kirk, Usha vance, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

America is in a dire generational predicament. A day is coming — soon — when Gen Z, a generation known for distrust and disillusionment, will be deciding whether this experiment called America is still worth saving or if we’ve earned our place in the ash heap of history.

On this episode of the “Steve Deace Show,” Deace addresses 23-year-old Ben’s question that no older generation wants to look at: What happens when the older generations are gone and Gen Z takes over?

His response is one of the most honest, chilling, and ultimately challenging things he has ever said on air.

“Given what the American left wants to do to us as a people and how obvious they are making it, if systemically we have deceived our own people so much and we have disappointed them and gaslit them so much that an entire generation emerges that pulls the plug on our side, then we will deserve at that point whatever we have coming to us,” says Deace bluntly. “It’ll be sad, it’ll be tragic, but it is what it is.”

Even so, he isn’t panicked in a worldly sense.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. There’s only one perpetual kingdom. … Every generation, every nation eventually gets its tombstone in the ash heap of history,” Deace declares.

“I try to be as honest as I can possibly be, but you know, I can’t fix everything. Not by a long shot. So if the end result of this is that your generation has just been so systemically lied to that you tap out and the result is that the Democrats and the left plant the flag, that would suck. But would we sit here and say that’s necessarily undeserved?” he asks.

“I know it’s deserved right now,” co-host Todd Erzen chimes in.

But despite the betrayals and gaslighting, Deace believes sticking with Trump and the current MAGA movement is the only realistic option right now, even with all its flaws.

“Hear where we’re coming from, and then you decide for yourself if you think we’re right,” he says to Ben and other Gen Zers.

“A lot of you young men aren’t married yet and don’t have kids yet, and so you’re not thinking yet in terms of 20-, 30-year increments,” he explains.

“It’s not that I don’t see the betrayals that you’re bringing to my attention. It’s not that I’m unaware of the gaslighting on several fronts. It’s not that I think Donald Trump tiptoes between the raindrops,” Deace continues.

“It’s that there’s not another army for me to go serve in. There’s not another alternative for me to go enlist in to punch back at the spirit of the age that wants to end my way of life before I can pass it on to my kids and grandkids.”

The older a person gets, he explains, the more he or she begins to realize how little time there really is. Becoming a parent and then a grandparent especially puts things into perspective.

“Your time starts getting shorter for the mark I can really leave for [children and grandchildren] and what I’m going to leave behind and what messes I’ll leave them to clean up that I could have confronted myself,” says Deace.

“There’s not another army for me to go in and enlist in. The only meaningful opposition in America and in the West of the spirit of the age is Trump and his movement.”

Want more from Steve Deace?

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

​Steve deace show, Steve deace, Gen z 

The receptionist asked me to verify my date of birth.

I gave her Gracie’s.

For years, I have encouraged fellow caregivers to pay attention to their own health rather than waiting until a crisis forces the issue. This experience has only reinforced that conviction.

She glanced down at the chart in her hand and then back at me with a puzzled expression. Before she could say anything, I caught myself.

“Oh … that’s my wife’s birthday.”

After 40 years as a family caregiver through surgeries, appointments, hospital admissions, medications, insurance forms, and enough medical paperwork to clear a small forest, I had automatically answered with the date I have given thousands of times before.

This time, however, I was the patient.I was at the cancer center for imaging and treatment planning in preparation for radiation therapy for prostate cancer. Thanks to routine screenings and excellent physicians, it was caught early. The prognosis is excellent.

Still, it felt strange.

I have spent most of my adult life in hospitals because of someone else. This time, they called my name.

Looking around the waiting room, I realized I was easily the youngest man there. That does not happen to me very often anymore. Later, one staff member told me most of their patients are in their 70s and beyond. Sometimes, they see men in their 60s like me, and every so often someone in his 50s.

For this visit, I was the new kid.

I took a chair off to the side, careful not to intrude on this fraternity of men who seemed to know the ropes. They reminded me of the old men who gathered at Nick’s grocery and gas station near my childhood home in rural South Carolina. As a boy, I would stop in for a soda and candy bar while they held court around the coffee pot, solving problems that ranged from weather and crops to politics and church business.

The subjects changed from day to day. The cadence never did.

Men of a certain age possess a remarkable conversational gift. They can begin with trout streams and end with urologists without anyone noticing where the turn occurred.

RELATED: Caregivers should not have to lie to prove compassion

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True to form, this conversation drifted toward prostate cancer, treatments, and the assorted indignities that accompany aging. One fellow described an examination during which the sheet covering him slipped.

Before he could react, the nurse matter-of-factly told him, “Don’t worry. If I see something I’ve never seen before, I’ll kill it.”

Such is the sort of thing you expect to hear in a cancer clinic in Montana.

The men laughed.

I raised an eyebrow and thought, “How comforting.”

But I still laughed.

Soon enough, they called me back. The technicians positioned my legs, explained the process, and slid me into a machine that looked remarkably like something from an old “Star Trek” episode. If memory serves, it resembled the device that kept Spock alive after somebody stole his brain.

After the instructions were complete, they eased me into position and left the room.

A few minutes later, one of the technicians returned looking slightly sheepish.

“We have a bit of a challenge.”

“Do tell,” I replied.

“There’s a gas bubble.”

The expression on my face evidently communicated that I was not following.

She delicately clarified.

“It’s in … you.”

“Oh.”

I considered several responses, including one with my outstretched index finger that would have made my four brothers proud and the medical staff considerably less appreciative. Fortunately, decades of maturity prevailed.

“What do you recommend?” I asked.

“Maybe take a walk and see if anything happens.”

So there I was, strolling through the halls of a cancer center, trying to solve a problem that five boys growing up under one roof would have regarded as entirely manageable without professional consultation. At times, our household rivaled the campfire scene in “Blazing Saddles.”

The problem was that they had instructed me to drink a substantial amount of water beforehand to achieve the proper imaging. Solving one problem too enthusiastically threatened to create another.

Men over 50 approach certain situations with caution for good reasons.

Eventually, however, everything worked itself out.

Ahem.

The imaging was completed, the planning was finished, and in a few days, I will return to begin treatment.

As I left, I noticed the bell hanging in the hallway. I have seen bells like that before. Patients ring them when treatment ends.

Lord willing, I will ring that bell myself within a month.

RELATED: The song that lets sorrow tell the truth

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Driving home, I thought about those older men in the waiting room. None of them appeared eager to be there, but neither did they seem intimidated by it.

They knew where to park. They knew where the coffee was. They knew which jokes were worth telling.

In short, they knew the territory.

Eventually, if you stay on any road long enough, you stop asking for directions and start giving them.

One day, perhaps sooner than I would like to admit, I may be the guy telling stories to the new kid who walks through the door — even if the story involves a gas bubble that needed to be walked off.

For years, I have encouraged fellow caregivers to pay attention to their own health rather than waiting until a crisis forces the issue. This experience has only reinforced that conviction.

Prostate cancer is often called a silent disease.

Mine was.

Fortunately, silent does not have to mean deadly.

​Cancer, Caregiving, Hospitals, Opinion & analysis, Waiting room, Aging, Mortality, Family, Faith, Health care 

The United Kingdom is constitutionally a Christian nation.

Its king, Charles III, is “supreme governor” of the Church of England — England’s established church — and an ordinary member of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Anglican bishops serve as members of the House of Lords, and the Anglican church’s legislation requires parliamentary oversight.

‘If we’re serious about the future of this country, we shouldn’t shy away from that heritage.’

The United Kingdom — whose flag is an amalgam of Christian crosses — is not, however, a majoritively Christian nation.

A Labour Force Survey survey conducted in summer 2025 found that only 44% of adults in Britain identified as Christian, down from 54% in early 2018. The 2025 British Social Attitudes survey found that just 5% of all adults attend a Christian service on a weekly basis.

Elements of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party and Rupert Lowe of Restore Britain have discussed in recent months bolstering or at least maintaining Britain’s Christian identity. If serious about such a project, they might have to consider the matter of Christian representation in top government leadership roles.

RELATED: ‘Beyond evil’: Nightmarish report reveals full scale of mass Islamic rapes of ‘250,000’ white British girls

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The home secretary is the fourth most senior political office in the U.K. government after the prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer, and the foreign secretary. Yet a publicly self-identified Christian has not held the position for nearly a decade.

The current home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is an avowed “practicing Muslim.” Her six immediate predecessors were either non-Christians or individuals who do not appear to have publicly identified as Christian:

Yvette Cooper, the current foreign secretary who in 2015 chose to affirm allegiance to the Crown rather than swear an oath on a holy book, which Christian Today noted at the time is usually done by nonbelievers;James Cleverly, the current shadow secretary of state for housing, communities, and local government, who identified himself in a parliamentary debate last year as “an atheist” and “a humanist”;Suella Braverman, a practicing Buddhist who served in the post from Sept. 6, 2022 to Oct. 19, 2022, and again from Oct. 25, 2022 to Nov. 13, 2023;Grant Shapps, a Jewish politician who was in the role for only a few days during Liz Truss’ tumultuous final days as prime minister, then later served as secretary of state for defense;Priti Patel, a practicing Hindu from an Indian family who migrated to the U.K. via Uganda, who now serves as shadow secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth, and development affairs; andSajid Javid, the son of Pakistani Muslim immigrants who reportedly referred to himself as a “Muslim Home Secretary” but also claimed “not to practice any religion.”

Blaze News did not receive comment from Cooper or the Home Office.

While the religiosity of Amber Rudd — home secretary from 2016 to 2018 — has not been publicly advertised, there is no mystery about former home secretary and Prime Minister Theresa May’s affiliation. May — in the post from 2010 to 2016 — made clear on multiple occasions that she is a practicing Anglican.

Of the current and past seven chancellors of the exchequer dating back to 2016, two have been self-identified Christians; two hail from Muslim backgrounds; one is a practicing Hindu; and the other two have kept their religiosity out of the public eye.

Of the eight foreign secretaries the U.K. has had dating back to 2016, one — Cleverly — is an avowed atheist; one — Cooper — has signaled she might be a nonbeliever; four — David Lammy, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, and Jeremy Hunt — have identified as Christians; one — Liz Truss — has said she shares Anglican values but doesn’t practice the faith; and one is an apparent enigma — Dominic Raab, who has a Jewish father, was raised in the Anglican Church, and married a Catholic, has expressed uncertainty about which boxes to check for “diversity questionnaires” with regard to his family.

As for prime ministers going back to 2016, half — Johnson, May, and Cameron — have been Christian, and the other half — Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, and Liz Truss, are, respectively, an atheist, a Hindu; and what statisticians refer to as a none.

The character of these so-called great offices of state have — like the public they represent — tended in recent years not to be Christian in character. The Christian character of the nation is, however, something that politicians right of center have fixated on in recent months despite polling indicating that the public is generally unfussed about the nation’s de-Christianization.

Reform’s Home Affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf said in a February interview with the Times (U.K.) that renewing Britain’s Christian faith was essential to tackling the “crisis of meaning culturally,” especially among young men.

Yusuf emphasized that Christianity was “core to the history and the DNA of the country” and the country was losing its Christian values because of the “sheer quantities of people that came to the country in a short period of time.”

“Regardless of whether somebody is of faith or not, or which faith they follow, I think the Christian heritage of this country is very important, and protecting our heritage and our culture is important. Otherwise the country is not a country; it’s just an economic zone,” added Yusuf.

Danny Kruger, a Reform UK member of Parliament, said months earlier that he would “love us to be a more confidently Christian country that acknowledges its Christian heritage. A society aligned more closely with the teachings of Jesus would be a happier one.”

Reform UK is not the only outfit signaling a keenness to reverse the U.K.’s atrophying Christianity.

Rupert Lowe, leader of the Restore Britain party, stated earlier this year, “Britain is a Christian country, and under a Restore Britain Government — it will remain a Christian country.”

Like Reform’s Yusuf, Lowe has identified mass immigration — particularly from Muslim countries — as a factor driving Britain’s de-Christianization. He has, accordingly, advocated for halting mass immigration and reversing the “islamification of Britain.”

Neither Reform UK nor Restore Britain immediately responded to Blaze News’ requests for comment.

Even the Conservative Party has expressed a need to return to Christianity — if not to the roots then to its fruits.

Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch stated in April, “Britain was built on a foundation of Christian values that have guided our institutions, our laws, and our sense of right and wrong. If we’re serious about the future of this country, we shouldn’t shy away from that heritage, we should be confident enough to embrace, promote, and defend it.”

David Jeffrey of the University of Liverpool published a dashboard last year that provides some sense of how many members of Parliament are Christian on the basis of their public affiliation, their public speech about their affiliation, and what text they swore in on. The dashboard suggests that as of last year, 54.7% of MPs were Christian; 36.4% were nones; 3.9% were Muslims; 2% were Jewish; 1.9% were Sikh; 0.9% were Hindu; and 0.2% were Buddhist.

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​Religion, Christianity, Britain, United kingdom, Rupert lowe, London, Parliament, Faith, Nigel farage, Reform uk, Restore britain, Politics 

Steven Spielberg’s 2026 sci-fi thriller “Disclosure Day” about a whistleblower exposing a government cover-up of extraterrestrial life is performing strongly at the box office with over $160 million worldwide to date.

BlazeTV host Rick Burgess has been suspicious about this summer blockbuster since he first saw the previews. Not only is the timing a bit odd in light of the government’s ongoing declassification of UFO-related files, but Spielberg’s own comments about how real disclosure could rattle the faith of many people has Rick’s guard up.

The movie reflects this theory, as many characters wrestle with doubts about God’s divinity and humanity’s place after learning about aliens.

Rick, who argues “aliens” are most likely angels or demons, believes that even if aliens proved to be otherworldly beings, it would not affect believers like Spielberg predicts.

“If it turns out like in the movie that they’re straight up people from somewhere else and they’re not demonic and they’re not angelic, this notion that somehow that’s going to rattle our faith … it’s just not so,” he assures.

True Christians, Rick argues, know that everything is created by God.

“The Scriptures tell us even in Genesis that God is the creator. He is the beginning and the end of all things. If space people show up from another planet or another galaxy, it doesn’t change what we believe about God,” he says.

Believers already know that a great cosmic celestial war between God’s forces of good (angels) and Satan’s forces of evil (demons) rages invisibly all around us.

“So if there’s another bunch from somewhere else, I don’t know what their situation with God may or may not be, but their existence doesn’t equal God doesn’t exist,” says Rick.

But one thing is certain, he says: “What Satan is hoping that we’ll take from this … is that if space people show up, and they’re really something, they must have created us, not God.”

To hear more of Rick’s analysis of Spielberg and “Disclosure Day,” watch the full episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Strange encounters, Rick burgess, Steven spielberg, Disclosure, Spiritual warfare 

When President Trump emerged from a recent meeting with automotive executives and said he found it strange that some industry leaders oppose Americans repairing their own vehicles, most coverage focused on the politics.

I was more interested in what happened afterward.

If manufacturers truly support independent repairs, why remove provisions governing the very data modern repairs increasingly depend upon?

Because the deeper you dig into the latest right-to-repair fight, the more one question keeps surfacing: Why are automakers fighting so hard to control information generated by vehicles consumers already own?

Follow the money

Follow the money, and the picture becomes much clearer.

The U.S. automotive service market generates roughly $200 billion annually. Service departments are among the industry’s most reliable profit centers. As vehicles become more software-driven and connected, automakers have discovered that selling the car no longer has to end the customer relationship. Software subscriptions, connected services, maintenance plans, warranty work, and dealership repairs all create recurring revenue long after the vehicle leaves the showroom.

There’s nothing wrong with companies pursuing new revenue streams. The problem begins when protecting those revenue streams limits consumer choice.

That’s why the latest legislative fight deserves attention.

Stripped for parts

The debate centers on H.R. 7389, the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026. Supporters describe it as a way to modernize regulations while preserving independent repair access. On the surface, that sounds like good news for consumers.

Then something interesting happened. One of the most important parts of the broader right-to-repair debate disappeared.

Language covering telematics — the wireless vehicle data increasingly needed for diagnostics, calibrations, software updates, and repairs — was stripped from the bill before it advanced through committee. For many independent repair advocates, that wasn’t a technical detail. It was the entire fight.

That raises an obvious question. If manufacturers truly support independent repairs, why remove provisions governing the very data modern repairs increasingly depend upon?

The answer may have less to do with repairs than with control. For decades, owning a vehicle meant deciding who repaired it. Consumers chose their mechanic. Independent shops competed with dealerships. Competition kept prices down and choices open.

Modern vehicles work differently.

Data-driven

Today’s cars constantly generate data. They monitor component performance, transmit diagnostics, receive software updates, and communicate through manufacturer-controlled networks.

Control the data, and you gain influence over the repair process. That’s why automakers, dealers, independent repair shops, aftermarket suppliers, consumer advocates, and lawmakers are all fighting over the same issue.

Manufacturers argue that unrestricted access creates cybersecurity risks. Those concerns shouldn’t be dismissed. Modern vehicles are vastly more complex than the cars many of us grew up driving.

But independent repair shops aren’t asking for access to nuclear launch codes. They’re asking for the information needed to diagnose, repair, calibrate, and maintain vehicles consumers legally purchased. This is key in an era when more and more repairs require access to software rather than simply a wrench.

Viewed alongside other industry trends, the picture becomes even clearer. Vehicle telematics continue expanding. Subscription-based features are becoming common. Driving data has become valuable to insurers and analytics companies. Manufacturers can now change vehicle functionality through over-the-air software updates.

Each development can be defended on its own. Taken together, they suggest an industry steadily increasing its influence over vehicles long after they are sold.

RELATED: Cheap Chinese cars: Trojan horse built to undermine US security?

Jade Gao/Bettmann/Getty Images

Taking ownership

That’s why the right-to-repair debate increasingly looks less like a repair issue and more like an ownership issue.

Farmers confronted the same problem years ago as manufacturers restricted repairs on modern agricultural equipment. Purchasing expensive machinery no longer guaranteed the ability to fix it without manufacturer involvement.

The auto industry now appears headed toward a similar crossroads.

Technology has unquestionably made vehicles better. They’re safer, more efficient, and more capable than ever before. But technology also changes incentives. Every connected system creates opportunities for convenience, recurring revenue, data collection, and greater manufacturer control.

What makes H.R. 7389 so important isn’t what remains in the bill — it’s what was removed. The fight over telematics reveals where this debate is headed next.

The future isn’t really about brake pads or oil changes. It’s about who controls vehicle data, who profits from it, and ultimately who decides what owners are allowed to do with products they have already purchased.

The fix is in

For more than a century, vehicle ownership had a simple meaning. You bought the car. You decided who repaired it, how long you kept it, and what modifications you made.

Today, that definition is becoming less clear. The question isn’t whether modern vehicles should be secure. Of course they should. The question isn’t whether repairs have become more complicated. They have.

The real question is whether ownership still means what consumers think it means. Because if automakers are willing to fight this hard over repair data today, consumers should pay close attention to what comes next.

The right-to-repair battle may ultimately be remembered as the moment Americans discovered that ownership in the connected-car era no longer carries the assumptions previous generations took for granted.

​Right to repair, Telematics, President trump, Lifestyle, Drivers, Auto industry, Repair, Oem, Automotive 

The ladies of “The View” have once again proven that objective truth is not on their list of priorities.

On a recent episode, the panel discussed the case of Karmelo Anthony, who was recently sentenced to 35 years in jail for fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet in April 2025 after the two had a verbal confrontation.

Whoopi Goldberg noted that all qualified black prospective jurors were struck from the jury pool — a move Anthony’s defense team challenged under a Batson ruling. The judge overruled the objection, however, after prosecutors provided a race-neutral explanation: The three jurors were educators whose profession made them too closely connected to a school-related incident involving high school students.

“The case has a lot of people divided. Some people believe that race was a factor in the trial because there were no black jurors. … Some folks think, ‘No, no, he got a fair trial.’ But is this a jury of his peers?” asked Goldberg.

Co-host Sunny Hostin then replied, “I don’t think so. And you know this has been an issue for such a long time in the judicial system where prosecutors use what are called, you know, Batson challenges.”

Pat Gray is disgusted by Hostin’s sneaky half-truth.

“Prosecutors and defense attorneys use [Batson challenges],” he corrects.

The other factor Hostin conveniently left out, says Pat, is the fact that “there were more than three black people in the jury pool.”

Some of those black candidates were struck, he argues, because they made statements of obvious bias.

They were “saying things like, ‘Yeah, I’d have a real hard time with putting a brother in jail.’ OK, well, then get out. Obviously, that’s not going to work,” Pat scoffs.

Sadly, Hostin wasn’t done lying.

She went on to claim that Batson challenges are loopholes for racism.

“It’s a challenge that is used to strike a juror, generally a juror of color,” she declared.

“No, it’s not generally a juror of color. It could be white … it could be anybody!” exclaims Pat, accusing Hostin of playing the race card.

To make matters even worse, Hostin, producer Kris Kruz points out, has a law degree from Notre Dame Law School and even served as a federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice.

But despite her prestigious education and high-profile government experience, Hostin still doesn’t seem to understand what a jury of one’s peers really means.

“You’re supposed to have a jury of your peers, and you’re not supposed to just strike someone because they’re black,” she said, arguing that striking jurors for being educators was not “an appropriate reason.”

“A jury of your peers does not mean that they’re all your same color or same age. That’s not what a jury of your peers means,” says Pat.

But perhaps Hostin’s worst take came next.

Citing the recently released footage where Anthony told cops, “He put his hands on me. I told him not to,” Hostin said, “[Metcalf] was 200 pounds. [Anthony] was 130 pounds.”

Anthony’s weight has been a point of contention throughout the trial. While he was frequently described as weighing roughly 130 pounds in the trial, his high school football bio listed him at roughly 160 pounds.

Pat couldn’t care less what Anthony weighs, though. “Just because Austin was bigger than him doesn’t mean it’s OK to kill him!”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat’s biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Pat gray unleashed, Pat gray, The view, Sunny hostin, Whoopi goldberg, Karmelo anthony, Austin metcalf 

Oratory is out of fashion. The word itself sounds archaic to our ears, denoting something people used to practice in antiquity and at long length in 19th-century America. Even the more down-to-earth sounding “rhetoric” is heard to mean “mere” rhetoric — words false or deceptive by definition. Politicians talk about “messaging,” and the more significant politicians have layers of staff for “communications.”

This does not bode well for the forthcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Every politician in America will feel obliged to say something for the occasion. Whoever can — with perhaps some rare exceptions — will deploy a staff member or staff members to draft his remarks.

The American people declared to the world and under God principles constituting not just the foundation and purpose of their political existence, but the only foundation for legitimate government.

The staff members themselves, products of American universities where American history is frowned upon or given the 1619 treatment, will have to do original research to prepare for the task. A significant percentage of them will rely on artificial intelligence. Patriots have reason to wonder whether there is a politician (or comms team) in America today who understands and can articulate for his fellow citizens and the world the meaning of July 4, 1776.

John Quincy Adams took July 4, 1776, with the utmost seriousness. The Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution became the north star of his politics over a 60-year career of devotion to his country and its cause.

He understood that man is a political animal because he is endowed by nature with logos (speech, reason) and that in American politics, the statesman’s first task is to understand the logos — the word fitly spoken, the apple of gold — of the Declaration of Independence.

He articulated his understanding of the Declaration and its principles beautifully, often, and at length in formal orations and other speeches and writings from the early to the late years of his remarkable political career. He served for a few years in his late 30s and early 40s, when he was also a United States senator, as the first Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard. Later, in what his biographer Samuel Flagg Bemis called his “second career” of nine outspoken terms in the House of Representatives, he became known as “Old Man Eloquent,” in great part for his faithful championing of the principles of the Declaration. He was an avid, lifelong student of Cicero.

Adams was born into the American Revolution to a mother and father who were revolutionaries. When he was 7 years old, the Battle of Bunker Hill took place (Saturday, June 17, 1775) within earshot of the farm in Braintree, Massachusetts, where he lived with his mother, Abigail, and three siblings.

On the morning of the battle, his mother took him with her and climbed to the top of nearby Penn’s Hill. From there, the two could see fire and smell the smoke from houses burning in Charlestown. John Quincy remembered the moment vividly to the end of his life. His father, John, was 400 miles away in Philadelphia as part of the Massachusetts delegation to the Second Continental Congress. Braintree was in a war zone.

RELATED: America turns 250 with a broken heart

Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Weeks before, as militia streamed into the area in the wake of the battles of Lexington and Concord, Abigail Adams had collected the family’s pewter dishes and melted them down to make bullets in a large kettle held over the kitchen fire. From time to time, she heard alarms, warning that the Royal Navy was about to land forces along the coast. She had good reason to fear that the British would try to seize rebel leaders and their families.

The best John Adams could do at the time was to write to his wife from Connecticut: “In Case of real Danger … fly to the Woods with our Children.” July 4, 1776, was still more than a year away, undefined in the uncertain future. But young John Quincy Adams was already learning its lessons.

On July 4, 1785, less than two years after the peace settlement ending the American war for independence, 17-year-old John Quincy, who had served as his father’s private secretary during the peace negotiations, was sailing back to America after six life-forming years in Europe. He wrote in his journal, slightly misquoting James Thompson’s “Rule Britannia,” that July 4 was:

The greatest day in the year, for every true American. The anniversary of our Independence. May heaven preserve it: and may the world still see:
A State where liberty shall still survive
In these late times, this evening of mankind
When Athens, Rome, and Carthage are no more
The world almost in slavish sloth dissolv’d.

The mature John Quincy would come to believe that on that date the American people declared to the world and under God principles constituting not just the foundation and purpose of their political existence, but the only foundation for legitimate government. He held that these principles of reason emerged in the providence of the Christian God through centuries of oppression and superstition and were destined in the providence of God to spread across the earth.

In God’s good time, the feudal monarchies of Europe would be overthrown and replaced by regimes based on the true principles of the American Revolution. The same providential fate awaited all the world’s barbarous, savage, or tyrannical regimes.

These facts, in his mind, were perfectly compatible with the maxim he would make famous, that America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy — and equally compatible with the reality he faced throughout his political career, that America itself, in its freedom, might abandon its principles and descend into barbarous tyranny.

In Fourth of July orations over four decades, Adams would explain to his fellow citizens why and how, in fidelity to the laws of nature and nature’s God, America should, in all weathers, steer its course by the north star of the principles of the Declaration.

These orations and other speeches and writings are conveniently collected in “John Quincy Adams: Speeches and Writings,” recently edited by David Waldstreicher, the distinguished professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center, for the Library of America. They are full of history, reasoning, learning, and even oratory that should come in handy for those hoping to say something that rises to the occasion of the coming semiquincentennial.

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

​America 250, Declaration of independence, Fourth of july, John quincy adams, Semiquincentennial, Rhetoric, Politicians, American revolution, Consent of the governed, Europe, Opinion & analysis 

Summer is here, and if you’re looking to shed some pounds before you slip into your swimsuit, we have something that can help. These apps are all designed to count calories, track your weight, and reclaim a healthier, fitter you. The best part? They actually work.

The great American epidemic

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a staggering 72.4% of American adults over age 20 are either overweight or obese. Even worse, cases of “severe obesity” have tripled since the 1960s, signaling an extreme weight crisis for the country.

Growing obesity and degrading American health are the pinnacle of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement, which aims to end childhood chronic diseases by reforming America’s “food, health, and scientific systems.” As part of the initiative, the USDA and HHS reconfigured the food pyramid to prioritize protein, fruits, and healthy fats while minimizing carbs — a complete reversal of the original national food pyramid adopted in 1992. Kennedy has also pressured food processors to eliminate artificial dyes and use cleaner ingredients.

These apps are available for free, and they support paid subscriptions.

These are all good steps toward giving Americans access to better food, but when it comes to actually shedding the pounds, this can only be tackled on the personal level. Some people have tapped into sheer willpower to lose weight. Others turned to controversial miracle drugs, like GLP-1s, to drop the pounds. Then there are the tech nerds like me, who look to smartphones for relief.

The science behind weight-loss apps

I am not a specimen of perfect health. Far from it. Like nearly three-fourths of the nation, I fall into the CDC’s obese category, and like most people in this crowded bracket, my weight has yo-yoed up and down over the years. Throughout this journey, only one thing ever actually made that dreaded number on the scale go down — weight-loss apps.

The reason these apps work is simple: They take your raw data — like your age, height, current weight, and target weight — and use it to determine the ideal calorie limit for your goals. Then they combine this with calorie-counting and activity-tracking algorithms to compare the amount of calories you ingest against calories you burn for the day. If you take in more energy than you expel, you will gain weight, and if you lose more, you will lose weight (barring a medical condition that is physiologically keeping you overweight).

Simple math, right?

There are a couple of caveats to keep in mind.

First, in order for these apps to work, you have to log everything you eat. Even a single missed snack will throw off your numbers for the day, leading to weight-loss stagnation or even unintended gains.Second, you will need to either pair the app with a supported fitness tracker or use the pedometer feature on your phone (if you do this, make sure you carry your phone at all times to capture your steps). Taking steps throughout the day adds to your calorie bank, so the more active you are, the more you’re allowed to eat. When you run out of calories for the day, you’re done.

My favorite weight-loss apps

There are plenty of weight-loss apps on the app stores, and only you can decide which ones work for you. If you’re not sure where to start, these are my top three favorites. Note that these apps are available for free, and they support paid subscriptions to unlock additional features.

MyFitnessPal

As the app that has helped me lose more weight than the others, MyFitnessPal includes a robust food library that makes it easy to find the exact foods you eat and log them into your diary under “breakfast,” “lunch,” “dinner,” and “snacks.” After all, it is impossible to log your calories correctly if you can’t find the exact thing you just ate. The paid version makes this even easier with an included barcode scanner for processed foods and a meal scanner that logs foods simply by taking a picture, but it’s not a necessity.

RELATED: This new app for new moms is a game-changer

This new app for new moms is a game-changer ArtistGNDphotography/Getty Images

If you want to nerd out on your food data, MyFitnessPal lets you take a closer look at your calories for the day, providing insights into which meals were the most calorically dense, as well as nutrients and macro information that tells you all about the proteins, carbs, fats, fiber, and sugars on your plate. This is especially helpful for people on specific limited diets or for those who simply want to better understand their food choices.

Finally, MyFitnessPal offers free meal plans with complete recipes that show you how to make healthier food with no guesswork.

Download: Apple App Store, Google Play Store

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/MyFitnessPal

Lose It

Where MyFitnessPal excels at raw data, Lose It wins points with its attractive design. Food metrics are all laid out in a neat interface that clearly highlights calorie intake, macronutrients, daily logging streaks, weight progress over time, and calorie bonuses from daily exercise. Lose It also offers a broad food library that makes it easy to find the foods you eat and log them properly.

Unfortunately, Lose It locks some of its more interesting features behind a paywall, including personalized nutrient information, granular nutrient goals, and health insights that tell you how you’re progressing. Luckily, it makes up for this in its free Discover feed that provides health articles, a friends list to lose weight with friends and family, and community groups where users can chat with like-minded individuals on their weight-loss journeys.

Download: Apple App Store, Google Play Store

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Lose It

Google Health

This one ranked third. I haven’t had a lot of time to test it yet, but the brand-new Google Health app has impressed me so far. When I first looked at Google Health, I was mostly focused on the exercise metrics that went along with the new Fitbit Air. However, its food tracking features were a surprising benefit. Unlike MyFitnessPal, Google Health lets you scan the barcode of processed foods for free, though in my testing, the food library isn’t as robust, so this feature may or may not be helpful for some. Of course, if you can’t find your food item by barcode, you can always type it in the search bar manually.

On the daily view, Google Health clearly lists your calories, all divided by breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. You also get a quick view of your macros and nutrient information. Also unlike the other food tracking apps, Google Health offers a window of ideal calories to hit instead of a rigid cutoff, giving you some wiggle room from day to day. The way it is laid out, Google says that reaching the first number in the window consistently will help you lose up to two pounds per week, while hitting the higher number will only result in one pound per week.

Finally, if you spring for the premium subscription with AI Coach powered by Gemini, you can take photos of your food or tell the Coach to log them manually, and AI will mark them down. I found this feature to be especially useful for foods that weren’t available in the barcode scanner. Even though the food library didn’t have them, Coach can use a photo of the label to create a new item in your log with little hassle.

Download: Apple App Store, Google Play Store

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Google Health

A path to sustained weight loss

The important thing to keep in mind is that weight-loss apps are all about the long game. Unlike GLP-1s that help you drop weight fast and put it back on when you’re done with the injections, weight-loss apps provide education on the foods you eat and modify your eating habits.

They’re designed to keep your body in a caloric deficit that is both reasonable and sustainable. If followed consistently, you’ll lose an average of 1-2 pounds per week without any major energy crashes or side effects. At the same time, you’re retraining yourself on how to choose better foods that support a healthier lifestyle and a thinner waist for years to come.

​Tech 

My husband has bipolar disorder. I know firsthand that the medications he takes do not merely improve his quality of life — they make our family life possible.

I am thankful for the drug companies whose products and innovations help keep my family together. But that does not mean I trust Big Pharma.

The pharmaceutical industry’s incentives are often at odds with the people it treats.

The pharmaceutical industry has helped create a culture in which Americans are taking more prescription drugs than at any point in history. Last year, more than two-thirds of Americans reported taking a prescription drug daily, and 26% said they take four or more.

No wonder the average price of prescription medications in the United States has risen by about 37% in the last decade. Many of the most popular brand-name medications have doubled in price over the past 15 years.

One study found that prescription drug prices in the United States are nearly three times higher than prices for the same medications in 32 comparable countries. Family health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored plans jumped 26% from 2020 to 2025, outpacing wage growth and inflation.

A quarter of Americans recently reported having difficulty paying for their medications. About 19% said they had skipped or rationed doses because of the cost. Research indicates that medical expenses are now the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in this country, surpassing job loss.

I understand that high prices help fund the astronomical cost of clinical trials that test and bring new drugs to market. But Americans have also seen pharmaceutical companies acquire the rights to off-patent drugs and raise prices overnight. They have watched insulin prices climb for years even though insulin is relatively cheap to produce.

Let’s face it: The pharmaceutical industry’s incentives are often at odds with the people it treats.

The same industry that helps my husband is increasingly keeping medications out of reach for many families.

Drug prices would not be so high if Big Pharma did not spend between $13 billion and $14 billion a year on direct-to-consumer advertising. They would not be so high if the pharmaceutical and health sectors did not consistently spend more on federal lobbying than any other industry.

Those efforts shape the laws and policies that allow current drug prices. The industry clearly views them as worthwhile investments.

Americans spent 12.7% more on pharmaceutical drugs last year than they did in 2024. A significant share of that increase came from popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy. Roughly 12% of American adults are currently taking one of these drugs, and that number is expected to rise significantly in the coming years.

I am not saying people should not take these medications. That is not for me to say. But I am deeply concerned that, culturally, we increasingly treat medication as the first line of defense for nearly every challenge before seriously exploring other options.

RELATED: Want to live to 100? Don’t expect Big Pharma to help.

lucigerma/iStock/Getty Images

That concern comes from firsthand experience.

As someone who has battled addiction, I am acutely aware of the power substances can hold over a person’s life. That experience has left me worried about others who may develop dependencies on drugs.

I remember how the opioid crisis destroyed entire communities and caused a staggering number of deaths after companies such as Purdue Pharma aggressively pushed OxyContin while downplaying its risks. That epidemic continues today with synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

Is it any wonder some of us remain skeptical of pharmaceutical companies’ motives?

As a parent, I do everything in my power to ensure that my children do not become unnecessarily dependent on medications. I want them to understand that any drug they take should be used carefully and for its intended purpose.

I acknowledge the value of medicine. I deeply respect what the health care industry can do. My own family depends on it.

But respect should not require blindness.

The pharmaceutical industry should remember the families paying the bills, rationing the doses, and wondering whether the medications they need will remain within reach.

Innovation deserves reward. Exploitation does not.

​Bankruptcy, Big pharma, Health insurance, Opinion & analysis, Opioid crisis, Prescription drugs, Health care, Insulin, Glp-1, Advertising, Lobbying 

In a culture constantly telling young people that the future is bleak and their problems are unprecedented, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is offering a different message: Don’t buy the despair.

“I think for a lot of you, there is this quiet voice that has been whispering to you for a while now. And it says the world’s broken and somebody’s handing it to me, and I don’t know what to do,” he says.

“Let me start with the hard truth here. Life is hard. It is. It’s just not as hard as people profiting from your panic need you to believe. Okay? It’s not. The hardness is real. The hopelessness is a product. Don’t buy in to that. There’s an entire industry whose only job is to convince you that just being alive right now is the heaviest thing a human has ever carried,” he continues.

“The weight is real, but the despair is a sales pitch,” he adds.

And one major source of stress for young people is AI. Glenn points out that while it may be able to pass the same exams, it will never be human.

“The machine that we have right now, in your pocket, that can read every book ever written, but it has never once been afraid of the dark. It can know everything and understand nothing. It will know more about you by Tuesday. Yet it will never really know what it’s like to be you,” he says.

“And that’s not your weakness. That’s the entire point of you. It has all of the answers, but not a single reason to get out of bed. You have all of the reasons. You may not have the answers, but you have the reasons. Don’t trade those away,” he continues.

Glenn goes on to explain that you should not mistake all the knowledge AI has for wisdom.

“Don’t confuse the two, and don’t worship either one of them,” he says, before pointing out that human beings were created by God — and AI was not.

“A universe of cold math does not produce a soul that weeps at music by accident. You were made. And you were made on purpose. You, not just man — you,” he continues. “And somewhere underneath all that noise, purpose is still waiting for you to get quiet enough to hear it. I’m telling you: You will find it.”

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​Ai, Americans, Blaze media, Glenn beck, Knowledge, Machine, The glenn beck program 

New York police have released new details from their investigation into a possible murder-suicide incident that makes a grandmother the lead suspect.

On Tuesday evening 2 adults and 4 children were found dead inside of the home in Mechanicville, a small town north of Albany.

‘Many residents knew the family involved, have children and grandchildren of their own, or simply cannot comprehend the loss of six lives under such heartbreaking circumstances.’

The adults were later identified as 64-year-old Amy Steadman, her 44-year-old daughter Sarah Myers, and her four children, 13-year-old Harper Harmon, 11-year-old Hudson Harmon, 10-year-old Gavin Harmon, and 10-year-old Gracelynn Harmon.

Mechanicville Police Chief William Rabbitt said Thursday that police were called for a welfare check on the family after a neighbor said they had not been seen in many days.

He said the bodies had been dead for an undetermined period of time before they were found.

“I can’t speculate as to the number of days, but it was such that making identification at the house was difficult,” he said.

Rabbitt said “numerous” prescriptions and over-the-counter medications were found at the home that led police to believe the cause of death was intentional poisoning. The official cause of death are yet to be determined officially.

One of the children had also suffered from sharp-force injuries, he added. A handwritten note found at the home indicated that Steadman was responsible for the deaths, but the investigation was ongoing.

“I cannot get into the authorship of the note at this time nor the contents of what was in it,” he said. “Until we get the cause and manner certified, we can’t speculate on the involvement of all persons.”

Rabbitt said there was no threat to the public.

Investigators contacted the father of the children, Brady Harmon, who lives in Utah. Harmon spoke to WRGB-TV and said he had been the subject of false rumors and accusations on social media.

Harmon said they were in a custody dispute but denied the online allegation that he had abused his children.

“Never touched my kids. And this is coming from someone who has been abused. Unless you’re in that room and living a day-to-day, you know, life with her, you know nothing,” he said.

Court documents did not indicate any allegations of abuse related to the couple, but Harmon told WRBG that he had been assaulted by Myers on the last day he saw his children in person in 2019.

“I was called a sperm donor, nothing more than an ATM, deadbeat father. I put my hand up and then she opened the door and stabbed me in the face with a medicine dropper,” he claimed.

RELATED: Elderly woman found beaten to death with a hammer after husband talked about suicide pact

Social media users also uncovered a GoFundMe started by Steadman, the maternal grandmother, that was titled, “Help get a domestic violence lawyer save my kids.”

Harmon said that Myers had not come to Utah for any of the legal hearings in more than 6 years, and had only appeared via Zoom.

Sheriff Rabbitt described how the horrible incident affected the residents of the city.

“Mechanicville is a close-knit city,” he said. “Many residents knew the family involved, have children and grandchildren of their own, or simply cannot comprehend the loss of six lives under such heartbreaking circumstances.”

The town has about 5,200 residents.

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​Murder suicide, Grandmother, New york state, Domestic violence, Poisoning, Crime 

Imagine your doctor diagnoses you with Alzheimer’s disease, evaluates your needs and risks, and recommends a tailored treatment plan to extend your healthy years. Who should have the final say over whether you pursue that care: you, your family, and your doctor — or an insurance company that has never met you?

For most Americans, the answer is obvious. Doctors and patients should make care decisions.

If policymakers want fewer insurance denials, they should stop creating incentives for them.

Yet in many cases, insurers end up with the final say.

New polling from Market Institute and President Trump’s pollster Fabrizio Ward found that 89% of registered voters believe doctors often choose not to prescribe Alzheimer’s tests or treatments because they know insurers are unlikely to cover them and patients cannot afford to pay out of pocket.

Voters are recognizing a real trend. Alzheimer’s patients have made headlines for benefiting from new treatments, only to receive abrupt coverage denials from their insurance companies.

Treatment allowed one patient, Lori Baetz, to return to her daily routine. When coverage was pulled back, she deteriorated, even getting lost in her own neighborhood. Lori’s neurologist, Dr. Cara Leahy, wrote that her patients are repeatedly denied coverage. Similar denials are happening across the country, including in New Jersey and North Carolina, and across insurers.

Thousands of Americans find these delays and denials unjust. In fact, a shocking 41% of young Americans said the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was “acceptable.” One voter from a Market Institute focus group said of insurance companies, “They just want to wear you down … so you just give up.”

Americans’ frustration is understandable. But insurance companies are often following rules set by the federal government.

The real culprits are the behind-the-scenes government policies that encourage insurers to delay and deny coverage.

The clearest example is a Biden-era Medicare policy known as Coverage with Evidence Development.

After the Food and Drug Administration approved a new generation of Alzheimer’s therapies, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services took the unprecedented step of limiting Medicare coverage unless patients participated in government-approved studies and met additional requirements.

RELATED: Trump DOJ charges 455 people allegedly tied to $6.5B in health care fraud

Feodora Chiosea/iStock/Getty Images

That created a second layer of red tape after the FDA had already deemed the therapies safe and effective.

The decision sent a powerful signal throughout the health care system. When Medicare, the nation’s largest health care payer, treats FDA approval as insufficient, private insurers follow.

When Lori’s coverage was denied despite her positive response to treatment, the company described the therapy as “investigational/experimental,” even though the FDA had approved it. The company was following Medicare’s lead. When Medicare treats approved therapies as experimental by requiring additional paperwork and registration, insurers can cite the government’s own policy when denying coverage.

That bad policy worsens the financial and human cost of Alzheimer’s disease.

The lifetime cost of caring for a person with Alzheimer’s exceeds $400,000, with families shouldering roughly 70% of that burden through unpaid caregiving and out-of-pocket expenses.

Meanwhile, Medicare spends roughly $174 billion annually on Alzheimer’s patients, while Medicaid spends another $72 billion, much of it on long-term care. As Alzheimer’s cases double over the next few decades, those costs will continue to climb.

The good news is that treatment could help curb those mounting costs by keeping Americans independent and in the workforce longer.

According to USC Schaeffer research, providing treatment before symptoms fully emerge could add a full year of life, reduce nursing home stays by nearly two years, and lower medical spending by roughly $48,000 per patient. That means more Americans remaining independent, fewer families crushed by caregiving burdens, and more workers preserving their economic productivity.

Every patient who remains independent, stays out of a nursing home, or delays the need for full-time care represents both a human victory and an economic one.

If policymakers want fewer insurance denials, they should stop creating incentives for them.

The FDA is charged with determining whether a therapy is safe and effective. Once it does, CMS should not erect a second regulatory barrier that encourages insurers to do the same.

Until that changes, Americans will continue blaming insurance companies for behavior government policy encourages.

​Opinion & analysis, Medicare, Alzheimer’s disease, Insurance, Health care, Brian thompson, Regulations, Joe biden 

Markell Hitchings — a 21-year-old cook for a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Florissant, Missouri — had an unsettling notion going through his mind when the restaurant was just getting underway for business Monday morning.

Hitchings told KSDK-TV his concerns were sparked after he noticed a male dressed in black.

‘I was never afraid at all.’

“I thought he was a regular customer just going to the bathroom and leaving,” Hitchings explained to the station.

But he recalled something else to KSDK: “I had it back in my mind that he was going to try to do something.”

Turns out Hitchings’ unsettling concerns were spot on.

“He came back there behind our counter, and it all started from there. At the time, he was asking my manager for money. She dropped to the floor. I told her to give him the money because I didn’t want her to get hurt,” Hitchings recalled to KSDK.

Employees told the station that after the robber got the cash, he ran out the front door and around to the back of the business.

Except Hitchings also was out back, KSDK said.

“He asked me for my cell phone, and I didn’t give him my phone — and we got to tussling around in back by the drive-thru,” Hitchings recalled to the station.

Hitchings told KSDK that he and the robber fought for several minutes as the suspect’s gun flew out of his hand.

“I was screaming for help because I was losing adrenaline,” Hitchings noted to the station.

Nevertheless, the courageous cook still had plenty of strength left.

“Once I had him in a chokehold, I’m on his back,” Hitchings recalled to KSDK. “He grabbed rocks and tried to smash them over my head, but it didn’t work.”

RELATED: Blaze News original: 10 times retail workers ended violent threats with absolute finality

Soon employees at a neighboring business called 911, the station said, adding that Hitchings held down the suspect — Tamon Sleet — until police arrived and arrested him.

Police added that officers recovered a stolen firearm that was used during the robbery, as well as currency taken from the business.

Police told KSDK that Sleet tried to strangle a ride-share driver in north St. Louis County several days before the KFC robbery — and Hitchings added to the station he’s grateful that he, his manager, and the ride-share driver all survived.

“It all just happened so fast. I know it was dangerous. I wouldn’t advise anyone to do that. I was never afraid at all. Honestly, I thank God that it all played out the way it did,” Hitchings noted to KSDK.

The station said Sleet faces multiple charges in both cases, including assault, armed criminal action, and vehicle hijacking.

KSDK said he remained jailed Thursday night on a $250,000 cash-only bond.

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​Crime thwarted, Missouri, Kentucky fried chicken, Kfc, Armed robber, Employee fights crook, Arrest, Florissant, Crime 

Despite banning metaphysical services (like spell-casting, hexes, clairvoyant readings, prayers or rituals promising outcomes, etc.) in 2015, Etsy has largely looked the other way as “Etsy witches” built lucrative businesses around custom spell work.

In September 2025, a Jezebel article satirically detailing how its writers hired Etsy witches to curse conservative activist Charlie Kirk drew intense backlash after he was assassinated just two days later.

However, now the online marketplace for handmade, vintage, and unique goods has suddenly started strictly enforcing the policy, leading to shop removals and listing takedowns.

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey was encouraged by the news because witchcraft is a very real danger, she says.

“Christians know that demonic activity is real and that witchcraft is real because Satan is real, and he works through these means that might just seem silly and superstitious but actually are vectors and vessels of his workings and of his power,” Allie explains.

The good news, she says, is “witchcraft doesn’t have any dominion over the Christian” because Christians are “indwelt by the Holy Spirit.”

“However, because of its evil and because of the effect that it has on culture, the effect that it has on societies, we really have to care,” she argues. “When it’s becoming popularized, when it’s becoming normalized, when it’s becoming commercialized, when billions and billions of dollars are being made by people casting spells on others through a seemingly innocuous site like Etsy, we’ve got a problem.”

Part of the problem is the inevitable fraud that results from selling intangible goods.

“When you’re selling intangible things and you’re kind of commercializing these spiritual, abstract practices, it’s obviously rife with the potential for fraud and all different kinds of things and can also be very damaging if people don’t feel like they got their money’s worth,” says Allie.

But the even bigger issue is the darkness millions of people are being lured into.

Allie lists some of the spells that have been sold on Etsy, including wealth-enhancing spells, love spells promising to make an “avoidant” crush become “obsessed” with the spell buyer, and hexes that supposedly cast curses on one’s enemies.

“It actually is very sad when you think about the desperation that someone has to have and just the longing, the unrequited love that someone has to feel, the purposelessness, the lostness that someone is embroiled in to believe this kind of advertisement and then to pay money for it,” she sighs.

On top of that, these spells — regardless of whether they’re real witchcraft or just scams — lead people away from the truth.

Allie calls the lost souls looking to witchcraft to solve their problems “just another manifestation of exchanging the God of Scripture for the God of self.”

While many of the Etsy spells are undoubtedly hoaxes, Allie believes that some are probably legitimate.

“I actually don’t put it past Satan to use this means to get people to have faith in things like witchcraft, even if it gives you something that you want temporarily, as long as he can win the long-term war for your soul,” she warns.

Sadly, the evil of witchcraft is almost certainly not what motivated Etsy to suddenly start enforcing the company’s decade-old policy.

“I don’t think that the people at Etsy, who are very anti-pro-life and who are very pro-trans and pro-abortion, I don’t think they have moral qualms with witchcraft,” says Allie.

“I think they don’t want to be on the hook for the potential of fraud. They don’t want to deal with the customer service issues of people not getting the outcome that they want. They don’t want to deal with another negative PR campaign [like the Charlie Kirk scandal] … so they’re like, ‘It’s just not worth it.”’

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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​Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, Etsy, Witchcraft 

I ran into a guy during senior softball last night. I was running to third base, and I came in a little too fast. He was reaching to catch the ball, and I knocked into him.

Nothing happened. Nobody was hurt. But I felt bad about it. I apologized. It was poor etiquette.

The next thing I knew, the whole world did a wild 360-degree spin, and I found myself sans glasses, on my backside in the grass.

That’s the thing about senior softball. The players are seniors. You’re a senior. Everyone is a little bit … vulnerable. You’re not supposed to knock into people.

One of the things senior softball players try hardest to do IS NOT GET HURT.

So running into someone. That’s not cool.

A winter’s tale

Last winter, during a practice game, I was involved in another minor collision. I may or may not have caused that one too.

I was playing first base. A guy on the other team hit a grounder. Our third baseman scooped it up and threw it to me. But the throw was a little to my left, and in my attempt to catch it, I leaned into the base path and the batter ran into me.

I ended up on the ground. I don’t remember what happened to the other guy. Maybe he fell too. Neither of us was hurt.

Still, in senior softball, if anyone ends up on the ground, people become concerned. The game stops. Players in the dugout stop discussing their holiday plans and look up. Players on the field come over to check on the downed player(s).

Even after it is confirmed that no one is injured, people will linger and discuss what happened. What caused the collision? What were the relevant vectors and angles? Who was going where? And how fast? Was anyone at fault?

A verdict is reached

Of course, senior softball players are quick to give each other the benefit of the doubt. Unless there is grievous evidence to the contrary, it is usually assumed that no one is at fault. It’s a dynamic game. Stuff happens.

Still, there was some debate in this case. Finally, an elder of the group, a grizzled veteran of the senior softball circuit, declared authoritatively: “It was an errant throw.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. I nodded too. It was indeed an “errant throw.”

But was I wrong to try to catch an errant throw? And end up in the base path colliding with the batter? I don’t know. But I resolved to be more careful next time.

The worst collision

The worst collision I have been involved in happened in my first game, during the first season that I played senior softball.

This was in a “rec” league, which is the entry level of senior softball. These are often the oldest men. The most stationary. The most in need of not being run into.

I was new to senior softball. I hadn’t played any form of organized baseball/softball since I was in fourth grade.

For that first game, I was sent to right field since I was an unknown quantity. Could I catch? Could I throw? Nobody knew. I didn’t even know.

RELATED: The secret to senior softball? It’s all about the magic bat

Irfan Khan/Getty Images

The moment of truth

I stood in right field. Several innings went by. And then someone hit a high fly ball in my direction. It was going to land a fair distance in front of me, but if I ran, I thought I could catch it.

I really wanted to catch it. I wanted to prove myself to my new team. I also wanted to find out if I was any good at softball. I really had no idea.

But I believed I could catch that ball. So I ran forward while keeping my eyes glued to that big yellow softball in the sky.

And then BLAM. The next thing I knew, the whole world did a wild 360-degree spin, and I found myself sans glasses, on my backside in the grass.

Don’t run into the seniors!

I had run into the second baseman. And I had done so at FULL SPEED. I was running AS FAST AS I COULD. And I ran right into one of my teammates.

Thank God he was 6′ and 200 pounds and I am 5’8” and 160 pounds.

I sat up and checked myself. Was I hurt? I didn’t seem to be. I looked around in the grass for my glasses.

But then I saw the second baseman. He was down. And not getting up. I put my glasses on and hurried over to him with the other guys.

Oh God! I thought to myself. What if he’s hurt!

The other players were already gathered around. They lifted him up to a sitting position. He was holding his side. Our coach asked what happened. I said it was my fault. I didn’t call it.

They got him standing up. And it turned out he was OK. It was probably just the shock of the impact. For both of us. For me it was like a car crash you didn’t see coming. A violent out-of-body spinning sensation. And then everything stops, and for a moment you don’t know which way is up.

I remember driving home after that game, wondering if my new teammates would ever trust me again. Before that game, I had not really thought about getting injured or injuring others as a possibility.

Now, I realized I had literally done the worst thing you can do in senior softball.

Rebuilding trust

At first, my teammates didn’t trust me. Nobody said anything. But it was pretty obvious that I was on an unspoken probation.

But from that moment on, I locked onto the idea to never run into anyone, in any situation, for any reason.

Also, I became the “call it” guy.

Everyone always says you have to “call it,” but more often than not, nobody does, because people aren’t sure if they do “have it” because we’re just a bunch of old guys playing softball.

But boy, for the rest of that season, when it was clear that I was the closest person to the ball, I CALLED IT. I BELTED IT OUT. I SCREAMED IT AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS. The players in the other games, on the other softball diamonds, could hear me.

And then most of the time, I did catch it. Without running into anyone. And by the end of the season, I was back in everyone’s good graces.

Still though, I just ran into a guy last night. And this is my fourth season! That is not good.

So I have to be on guard. That’s why I’m writing this now. To remind myself, in public, in print. What is the most important rule in softball? DON’T RUN INTO THE SENIORS!

​Collision, Lifestyle, Senior softball, Softball, Sports, Blake’s progress