Category: blaze media

Some rockets go up. Some come back down. And some, well, blow up.

At a glance, it’s business as usual for SpaceX, and it comes at a cost: a net loss of $541 million in the second quarter of this year. Market jitters about the company’s enormous AI spend, in a crowded field with deep-pocketed competitors, pushed its stock down around 10%, enough to fuel jeers from Elon Musk’s sizable audience of haters and skeptics.

‘They desperately want to blow themselves into tiny pieces.’

On SpaceX’s Q2 earnings call, however, Musk himself couldn’t hold back a laugh or two.

After all, despite his participation in the ultra-high-spend AI industry, SpaceX is, first and foremost, about space.

“Rocket science is literally our daily business,” he said on the call. “And rocket science is an idiomatic expression for extreme technological difficulty, and there’s a reason for it. Because let me tell you what rockets desperately want to do every flight. They desperately want to blow themselves into tiny pieces. And then the engineering struggle is to convince the rocket not to blow itself into tiny pieces and actually deliver payload to orbit.”

In the chat with investors, Musk went on to accentuate the positive: massive revenues that surpassed expectations. All told, the earnings report noted, revenues were up 92%.

In fact, following its initial public offering in June, SpaceX managed to blast by revenue expectations by nearly one billion dollars. CNBC reported that Q2 2026 revenue expectations were set around $6.93 billion, but SpaceX outpaced estimates and brought in $7.81 billion.

SpaceX is still not yet profitable, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. That $541 million loss is a near half-billion improvement from the $1 billion in the red notched the same quarter last year.

Much of the company’s losses came from research and development in the space sector, where as Grok/xAI and Starlink sectors proved to be far more positive.

None of this prevented Musk from verbalizing everything from bold predictions to astronomical promises.

In discussions about SpaceX’s Starship and its impact “on the future of civilization,” Musk detailed a goal of delivering one million tons of payload to orbit per year, including satellite, hardware, and cargo, eventually increasing that figure to 10 million tons per year.

To put that into perspective, SpaceX’s current annualized run-rate of payload into space is roughly 2,500 metric tons.

RELATED: Mars Needs Cowboys

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Musk urged and encouraged his competitors to copy what his company is doing, an easy stunt to pull given none of them have come close to SpaceX’s achievements. Referring to an internal graph comparing launch volume of similar companies, Musk said that his “next competitor was one pixel high” on the screen.

“I think our competitors are very smart people, but despite being very smart, the rockets still blow up,” Musk laughed.

RELATED: Tech-crazed Chinese are selling — and stealing — human faces. Are we next?

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images

SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell, also on the call, focused on the growth coming from an increase in subscribers to xAI’s internet company Starlink, which added more than 1.7 million customers in Q2. This represented the company’s biggest increase to date, which now totals 12 million subscribers.

With more than 10,000 satellites in orbit, Musk detailed the sheer computing power being used by the company would be more than two gigawatts by the end of the year and between five and 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027.

By comparison, a single data center used by Meta takes about 2.2 gigawatts of power.

It should come as a surprise to no one that Musk continues to nurse his goals on the grandest scale. He even admitted, “I know this sounds totally nuts,” before later declaring, “We are going to land a lot of tonnage on the moon. We’re going to build the factories on the moon. The robots will be helpful with that.”

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​Elon musk, Spacex, Grok, Starlink, Tech 

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said the sentence against Gerald Pitts was intended to show that law enforcement officials take racially motivated violence seriously.

Santos Tejas Gonzalez was trying to get around Pitts on a Los Angeles Metro Bus in March 2023 when Pitts yelled racial slurs at Gonzalez.

‘Gerald Pitts attacked a complete stranger because of his race or perceived race, repeatedly stabbed him, and kept attacking him even after the victim fell from the bus.’

When Gonzalez tried to get off the bus at the next stop to avoid further confrontation, Pitts stabbed him in the face and kicked him in the head after the victim fell off the bus.

At one point before Gonzalez fell to the ground outside the bus, the knife can be seen protruding from his face in a graphic bus surveillance video the district attorney’s office released.

The victim also was stabbed numerous times in the abdomen, arm, and hand.

Pitts was arrested and charged with attempted murder along with additional crimes, including a hate crime designation. In June, a jury found the 67-year-old guilty, and on Thursday Pitts was sentenced to life in state prison plus another seven years.

“A hate crime is more than just a criminal act against one person; it tears at the fibers that hold our community together,” L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement.

“These crimes are meant to intimidate entire communities and weaken the trust that holds us together. Gerald Pitts attacked a complete stranger because of his race or perceived race, repeatedly stabbed him, and kept attacking him even after the victim fell from the bus,” Hochman added. “We’re grateful the victim survived and relieved that he is continuing to recover. This kind of violence is exactly what hate crime laws are meant to address.”

The district attorney did not mention Pitts’ race in his press release, and news outlets also neglected to mention it. However, Pitts’ booking record listed him as a black man.

RELATED: Fresno man charged with hate crime over note left at vandalized bakery, police believe he mistook Christian owners for Jews

Hochman tied the attack on Gonzalez to other hate crimes committed in L.A. County, including one on a transgender shopkeeper.

“This office will not tolerate hate incidents and crimes in our communities and will respond with the full force of the law,” Hochman added.

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​Hate crime, Knife attack, Attempted murder, Los angeles, Race, Politics 

There are plenty of reasons for an electric car company to fail.

Maybe the car is badly engineered. Maybe the range disappoints. Maybe the software is a mess. Maybe buyers simply don’t like the product.

There are only so many Americans willing and able to spend close to six figures on an electric vehicle.

Lucid has a more troubling problem: It makes an excellent car.

Driver’s ‘Dream’

I’ve driven Lucids, including the spectacular Air Dream Edition, and there is very little to complain about from behind the wheel. The Air is fast, beautifully finished, extraordinarily efficient, and capable of the kind of range that makes most other electric vehicles look dated.

Yet the company behind it is once again confronting the brutal economics of building cars.

Lucid announced this week that it is embarking on what management calls an “operational reset,” with plans to cut costs by roughly $1.4 billion this year. The company is reducing spending and inventory while delaying the launch of its more affordable midsize vehicles until the second half of 2027.

That delay may be the most important part of the story.

Lucid desperately needs a vehicle ordinary luxury-car buyers can afford. Instead, it remains heavily dependent on expensive models at precisely the moment the upper end of the EV market is getting harder to crack.

Pulling a Tesla?

Lucid’s problem isn’t really its product. That’s unusual among struggling EV start-ups.

Fisker had serious product and execution problems. Other newcomers have arrived with cars that felt unfinished, badly priced, or both.

The Lucid Air is different. It demonstrated from the beginning that a start-up could challenge Tesla on efficiency, range, performance, and luxury.

But engineering a great car and building a sustainable car company are very different skills.

Lucid entered the market primarily with expensive sedans, then followed with the Gravity SUV. That gives the company impressive halo vehicles, but it limits the pool of potential customers.

There are only so many Americans willing and able to spend close to six figures on an electric vehicle.

Tesla confronted this problem years ago by moving down-market after establishing itself with expensive cars. Lucid has been trying to do something similar, but the cheaper model it needs keeps getting pushed further into the future.

Lucid now says those midsize vehicles won’t arrive until the latter half of 2027.

That’s a long time when you’re burning cash.

Changing market

Lucid isn’t dealing only with its own growing pains.

The entire electric vehicle industry has gone through a reset.

Automakers that once talked about replacing nearly their entire gasoline-powered lineups with EVs have pulled back investments, delayed factories, canceled models, and rediscovered hybrids.

The problem isn’t that Americans don’t buy electric cars. Millions do.

The problem is that demand never followed the straight upward line many executives and government planners assumed it would.

The affluent early adopters were relatively easy to reach. The next group of buyers is much more price-sensitive and much less willing to change how they drive simply because an automaker wants to sell them something electric.

That matters enormously for Lucid because the company remains concentrated near the expensive end of the market. At some point, you saturate the group of buyers who can afford a six-figure vehicle.

That’s precisely why a $40,000 or $50,000 Lucid could be transformative — if the company can survive long enough to build one.

RELATED: FIRST LOOK New York International Auto Show: Cool cars, but drivers still face sticker shock

VIEW Press/Getty Images

No second mover

Automotive executives love saying they want to “do what Tesla did.”

That is much harder than it sounds.

Tesla had something no new EV company can recreate: years in which it essentially owned the premium electric car category.

The Model S arrived before almost anybody else had a credible answer. Tesla built an enormous base of customers, developed a charging network, became a cultural phenomenon, and had Elon Musk turning every product announcement into news.

Whether you love Tesla or hate it, that position cannot simply be duplicated by making another good EV.

Today’s start-ups aren’t entering an empty market. They’re fighting Tesla, Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Ford, Rivian, and an increasingly formidable group of Chinese companies around the world.

Lucid built a technically brilliant car. It didn’t build it in a vacuum.

Deep pockets

Lucid does have one enormous advantage over many failed start-ups: financial backing from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

That support has given the company a lifeline other manufacturers could only dream of.

But outside investment doesn’t repeal economics.

A manufacturer eventually has to produce cars at a sustainable cost and sell enough of them at a sustainable price. Constant infusions of capital can buy time, but time has to lead somewhere.

Lucid’s current plan involves cost reductions, the Gravity SUV, a future midsize platform, autonomous-vehicle partnerships, and increased manufacturing in Saudi Arabia. Reuters reported that the company still expects those initiatives to provide a path forward, despite continued losses and weaker-than-expected deliveries.

Holding the bag

Maybe they will.

I hope so, because the automotive industry is better when companies like Lucid force everybody else to improve.

But consumers should understand the risk when buying from a young automaker.

If the company disappears, the vehicle doesn’t disappear with it. You still own the car. You still need replacement parts, software support, warranty work, body panels, service technicians, and somebody maintaining all those cloud-connected features.

Fisker owners already learned what happens when the company behind a highly computerized automobile suddenly isn’t there anymore.

Grind behind the glamour

For years, Silicon Valley treated automobile manufacturing as though Detroit had simply failed to understand software.

Build a better battery. Hire good programmers. Raise enough venture capital. Disrupt the dinosaurs.

The reality has turned out to be far less glamorous.

Cars require factories, suppliers, repair networks, inventories, regulatory compliance, financing, parts distribution, warranty reserves, and enormous amounts of capital long before the manufacturer knows whether buyers will show up.

Lucid has already proved it can build a remarkable automobile.

Now it has to prove something harder: that it can build a viable company around it.

​Auto industry, Automobile manufacturing, Elon musk, Ev market, Lifestyle, Lucid, Saudi arabia, Silicon valley, Tesla, Automotive 

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — a nominal Republican up for re-election in 2028 — appears desperate to undermine the MAGA agenda and prevent President Donald Trump from getting his ducks in a row.

Murkowski — who in recent months repeatedly voted against funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection; voted to reign in Trump’s war powers; voted to block Trump’s tariffs; voted unsuccessfully to keep taxpayers on the hook for USAID and other foreign funding; voted against multiple Trump nominees, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Under Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao; campaigned against the SAVE America Act; and complained with Democrats about ex-FBI Director James Comey’s indictment — revealed Friday she will vote against Todd Blanche’s confirmation for attorney general.

‘She’s not good.’

With the continued absence of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), this effectively means that the fate of Blanche’s confirmation could be decided by Bill Cassidy — a U.S. senator whose hopes of a third term Trump helped dash in Louisiana’s May Republican primary.

Murkowski, who started the year with an approval rating of 37%, noted in a lengthy X post that she has had numerous “constructive meetings” with Blanche and credited him not only as being “decent and capable” but also as having “made several noteworthy decisions that will benefit our state and the nation.”

The 69-year-old senator nevertheless vowed to “oppose his nomination.”

It appears Murkowski is less opposed to the man and more opposed to the administration. After all, some of her complaints have to do with actions taken at the Justice Department prior to Blanche’s April promotion to acting attorney general.

RELATED: Mitch McConnell releases new statement about his health status — but he’s not yet returning to the Senate

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

“The politicization — even weaponization — of the Department did not start with this administration but has accelerated during it,” wrote Murkowski. “I take issue with the handling of the release of the Epstein files; the sweeping immunity protections granted to the president, his family, and their businesses; the statements that have been made to anti-abortion groups; and the repeated targeting of individuals ranging from former administration staff to sitting U.S. senators.”

Murkowski also expressed skepticism about the scrapping of the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that would have compensated MAGA victims of Democratic lawfare, noting that while it was taken off the table “because this nomination is pending and the Senate has leverage,” there “is no telling what the future holds.”

The senator said in conclusion that she does not have confidence that Blanche can “check the worst impulses of this administration.”

There is no love lost between Trump and Murkowski.

“I’m against Murkowski,” the president recently told Punchbowl News. “I do more for Alaska than any president in history. No president’s done for Alaska what I’ve done. She’s not good.”

In June, Trump called the Alaskan U.S. senator “Trump deranged.”

Murkowski is not, however, the only Republican lawmaker keen to torpedo Blanche’s confirmation.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins — the Maine Republican whose challenger in the midterms is a leftist reportedly married to his second cousin — complained that while Blanche is a “capable lawyer,” he “has taken several actions that have further eroded the Department’s independence.”

Cassidy, a vociferous Trump critic and the remaining undecided Republican, has declined to indicate whether he’ll support Blanche, reported The Hill.

The Senate is expected to vote Friday or sometime over the weekend to get the ball rolling on a final confirmation vote.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement, “Todd Blanche is exceptionally qualified and should be confirmed as the next attorney general of the United States so the administration can continue to keep America safe.”

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​Rino, Todd blanche, Department of justice, Republican, Alaska, Susan collins, Attorney general, Politics, Lisa murkowski 

The Trump administration is taking steps to ensure that Americans aren’t being cannibalized for their organs while still alive and kicking.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decertified Network for Hope, or NFH, a federally designated “organ procurement organization,” on Wednesday following a damning independent investigation exposing allegedly “disturbing practices” associated with the organization.

‘Why did they want my organs?’

According to the decertification notice issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, “No Medicare and Medicaid payments will be made with respect to organ procurement costs attributable to Network for Hope on or after November 3, 2026.”

“Americans who choose to become organ donors deserve a system that honors their gift and protects every patient,” said Kennedy. “Today’s action reflects the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting the sanctity of life. Organizations that repeatedly fail to meet federal standards and put patients at risk will be held accountable.”

Crying on the carving station

Anthony “TJ” Hoover II was admitted to Baptist Health Richmond’s emergency room on Oct. 25, 2021, suffering an overdose. Things looked bleak but were about to get much worse.

“We were told TJ had no reflexes, no responses, no brainwaves, no brain activity,” Hoover’s sister, Donna Rhorer, told WDKY-TV. “And we were told that on the 26, 27, 28, 29. … We made the decision as a family to remove him from life support because, you know, he was brain dead.”

When the process to harvest Hoover’s organs was initiated, his family members and multiple medical professionals claimed they noticed signs that he was not only alive but alert.

“His eyes started to open, and not just open, he was checking around, looking to see what was going on,” said Rhorer. “And we were told that was just reflexes, just normal instinct, and he’s not there.”

RELATED: Disembodied human brains kept ‘alive’ for drug testing by controversial American startup

Bernard Weil/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Nyckoletta Martin, a surgical preservation coordinator who was working at the time with Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates — which merged with LifeCenter Organ Donor Network in 2024 to become NFH — witnessed the moments leading up to the scheduled organ harvesting.

Martin testified to Congress late last year that Hoover regained consciousness during his cardiac catheterization, but upon waking, he “was paralyzed and sedated.” The family was never informed that Hoover had regained consciousness, alleged Martin.

The former KODA employee told WDKY that while Hoover was allegedly thrashing around, knocking the would-be harvesters’ hands out of the way, and crying, “They were trying to prep and drape him for surgery.”

“This was no ordinary movement,” Natasha Miller, an organ perfusionist with KODA at the time and witness to Hoover’s case, told CNN. “He was very aware.”

Fortunately, the doctors refused ultimately to go through with the organ procurement.

“TJ knows what happened. TJ says, ‘Why me? Why did they want my organs?’ And TJ feels guilt still about he did not die so that people could get his organs to save their lives,” said Martin. “That’s horrific to me. Nobody should ever be put in that position. That’s not what his mission is about.”

Regarding the Hoover incident, Baptist Health Richmond told NPR, “The safety of our patients is always our highest priority. We work closely with our patients and their families to ensure our patients’ wishes for organ donation are followed.”

NFH said in response to outrage over the incident:

It is very important to understand that an organ procurement organization (OPO) is not involved in patient care, and we do not declare death. OPOs only have the authority to proceed with organ recovery after a patient’s independent health care provider has declared death. At any time, if a patient’s condition improves or a death declaration does not take place, the family is informed that the donation cannot take place, and the OPO team does not proceed with organ recovery.

State and federal officials looked into the matter and found that Hoover’s seemingly horrific dealings with the Kentucky-based OPO were not exceptional.

Hundreds of horrors

Following an independent investigation into Hoover’s case and other potential issues with NFH, the Health Resources and Services Administration alleged in July 2025 “clear negligence after the previous [Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network] Board of Directors claimed to find no major concerns in their internal review.”

The HRSA examined 351 cases where organ donation was authorized but not ultimately completed. According to the HHS press release,

103 of the cases “showed concerning features, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation”;at least 28 of the patients whose cases were reviewed “may not have been deceased at the time organ procurement was initiated”; and”evidence pointed to poor neurologic assessments, lack of coordination with medical teams, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death, particularly in overdose cases.”

“This is horrifying,” Kennedy stated at the time. “The organ procurement organizations that coordinate access to transplants will be held accountable.”

The HRSA subsequently launched an assessment of whether NFH had adequately corrected the issues identified by the agency. The CMS separately assessed whether the NFH continued to meet federal requirements, including the minimum requirements for Medicare certification.

The organization was found wanting.

“HRSA, through its oversight of the OPTN, worked closely with Network of Hope [sic] over the past year through intensive monitoring and corrective action to address serious patient safety concerns,” HRSA Administrator Tom Engels said on Wednesday. “Despite those efforts, the organization did not demonstrate the improvements necessary to meet federal standards.”

“When organizations entrusted with the care of potential organ donors fail to meet those standards, we have a responsibility to act,” added Engels.

Barry Massa, the CEO of NFH, said in a statement that the organization “strongly disagrees” with Kennedy’s decision and will launch an appeal.

“NFH is compliant with all OPTN policies and has implemented a first-of-its-kind ‘pause in procedure’ process,” continued Massa. “This pause process is now Kentucky law and NFH proudly worked hand-in-hand with legislators and regulators by providing input in the drafting both of the new law and its implementing regulations. Despite this, and despite NFH’s demonstrated dedication to improving organ and tissue donation outcomes across its service area, Secretary Kennedy has acted to decertify our OPO that serves seven million people across four states.”

Massa further suggested that the decertification will negatively impact over 3,000 people waiting for an organ transplant.

Network for Hope, Baptist Health, and the HHS did not respond to Blaze News’ requests for comment.

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​Health and human services, Organ donor, Organ transplant, Robert f kennedy, Kentucky, Politics 

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) recently asked the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into the abortion group Plan C.

According to Hawley’s complaint, Plan C teaches Americans how to obtain chemical abortion drugs in violation of state law and advises users to conceal their activity through privacy-focused browsers, virtual private networks, and encrypted email.

Lawmakers are rewarding an industry that treats the isolation of women as empowerment and the removal of medical oversight as progress.

The complaint raises a larger question: How much risk is the abortion industry willing to impose on women and girls in pursuit of unrestricted access?

Recent cases have shown how easily men can obtain mifepristone online and use it to coerce or drug women. Yet the industry continues pressing to remove safeguards, minimize medical supervision, and treat mail-order abortion as ordinary consumer health care.

Congress, meanwhile, recently allowed taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood to resume, despite sustained public opposition to federal support for the abortion provider.

That decision is especially troubling after the New York Times reported last year that Planned Parenthood was “in crisis.” The story described understaffed clinics, poor conditions, inadequate care, and botched procedures. Planned Parenthood has offered little public evidence that those problems have been corrected.

The pattern is difficult to ignore. Again and again, the abortion industry’s demand for fewer restrictions comes at the expense of basic standards of safety, medical care, and accountability.

Republican lawmakers should follow Hawley’s lead. Organizations that facilitate illegal access to abortion drugs or help users evade state safeguards should face scrutiny. Congress and the administration should also restore protections abandoned in recent years.

Chemical abortion offers the clearest example of what deregulation has produced.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration removed the long-standing in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone. Women and girls may now obtain the drug through online providers without first seeing a doctor.

That convenience carries serious risks.

RELATED: ‘Like an Amazon shopping experience’: New investigation uncovers mail-order abortion for teens

YouTube/AAPLOG Pro-Life Medical Experts

Mifepristone can produce dangerous complications when used later in pregnancy or by women with certain medical conditions. It cannot treat an ectopic pregnancy, which may become life-threatening without prompt diagnosis. An online questionnaire cannot perform an ultrasound, conduct a physical examination, or reliably detect coercion.

Many online providers do not require proof that a patient has received an ultrasound or an in-person medical evaluation.

My colleague Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, recently tested one such system. She told an online abortion provider that she was 13 years old and had a history of ectopic pregnancies, cesarean sections, an intrauterine device, and other serious complications.

Any one of those disclosures should have prompted further screening. Her stated age alone should have raised immediate concerns about abuse, consent, and parental involvement.

Instead, the provider accepted her payment and mailed the drugs.

Women and girls have a right to understand what can go wrong before they are left to experience the consequences alone.

The mail-order system has also enabled horrifying acts of coercion and abuse.

An Army captain was convicted after impregnating a subordinate and giving her mifepristone without her consent. A Texas attorney repeatedly slipped abortion drugs into his wife’s drinks. In Louisiana, a young man used his girlfriend’s information to order mifepristone and then isolated and pressured her into taking it. An Ohio doctor forced the drug down his girlfriend’s throat.

Those are just the cases that became public. How many other women have suffered in silence? How many have lost pregnancies without knowing that a partner drugged them? How many were pressured into abortions while isolated from family, doctors, or anyone positioned to recognize the abuse?

Mail-order abortion removes the very people most likely to detect coercion: physicians, nurses, clinic staff, parents, and trusted family members.

It also leaves women to manage bleeding, pain, fear, and possible medical emergencies without direct supervision.

Research cited by pro-life advocates indicates that many women report feeling pressured into abortions they did not want or that conflicted with their values. Whatever the precise scale, coercion is a real and documented danger. Policies should make it easier to detect, not easier to conceal.

RELATED: Takeaways from the latest Supreme Court abortion intervention

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Yet prioritizing access over safety increasingly appears to be a feature rather than a bug of the abortion industry’s model.

Plan C says it seeks to “transform access to abortion in the U.S. by normalizing the self-directed option of abortion pills by mail.” That mission statement emphasizes access and normalization. It says nothing about medical screening, coercion, abuse, or the risks of taking the drugs without an examination.

A website that teaches users to order abortion drugs secretly and evade state laws does not merely serve women seeking abortions. It may also serve abusers looking for a discreet way to obtain drugs they can use against women.

The beneficiaries are obvious: organizations that sell or distribute the pills and men willing to use them as instruments of coercion.

Lawmakers have tolerated this system for too long. They have permitted the weakening of medical safeguards, restored funding to Planned Parenthood, and resisted efforts to require in-person care for chemical abortion.

They are rewarding an industry that treats the isolation of women as empowerment and the removal of medical oversight as progress.

Hawley and a growing coalition of pro-life groups are right to demand accountability.

Congress and the Justice Department should investigate organizations that knowingly help users violate state law. Federal regulators should restore meaningful medical safeguards for mifepristone. Lawmakers should also ensure that minors, abuse victims, and women with dangerous medical conditions are not abandoned to an online form and a package in the mail.

Women and girls deserve better than an abortion system built around secrecy, isolation, and plausible deniability.

​Biden administration, Department of justice, Planned parenthood, Abortion pills, Abortion, Pro-life, Abortion by mail, Josh hawley, Chemical abortion, Covid, Opinion & analysis 

President Trump’s approach to AI regulation has been mixed. First, he limited states from making their own laws in favor of a national framework. Then, despite proposed laws to protect consumers, no federal bills have passed yet.

Now, as advanced AI threatens the cybersecurity of government institutions and private corporations, Trump is moving forward with a government-sanctioned review process for frontier AI models, and employees at the major AI giants are all begging for it.

Trump chose not to share the details of his AI review framework with the public.

Here’s how the White House finalized its AI review framework.

Behind the curtain

The government review process was originally announced in June. At the time, each major AI company could willingly allow the government to review its latest AI models to check for potential cybersecurity risks before they were released broadly to the public. Fast-forward a couple of months later, and now a more official structure is in place.

For whatever reason, President Trump chose not to share the details of his AI review framework with the public.

Leakers will leak, however, so we’re not left completely in the dark. Axios spoke with three sources connected to the executive order and uncovered several key points.

Targeted AI models: The framework is aimed at reviewing closed-source frontier models with advanced capabilities that could pose a risk to national security. Open-source models are exempt from review.Limited access: New AI models set forth for review will be hosted in secure environments. While multiple administration officials will have access clearance, AI company employees are limited from using the new models for 30 days during the review cycle.Classified details: The process that the Trump administration will use to test AI models, as well as the AI review framework itself, will remain classified and kept from public knowledge.

As it stands, the review process is still voluntary. However, the exemption of open-source models makes it sound as if compliance for closed-source frontier models is strongly encouraged.

Arbitrary guardrails spell trouble for American AI dominance

Trump’s AI review framework comes at a time when employees at some of the largest AI companies in the U.S. have banded together to demand government regulation. In an open letter, workers from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta urged the government to “deliberately pace” the development and progression of AI due to the recent security implications spurred on by Anthropic’s Mythos and other emerging threats.

Of course, slowing the pace of AI development is a double-edged sword.

RELATED: Rand Paul exposes the government’s cozy covid links to Bill Gates

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

On one hand, arbitrary pauses, like the 30-day review period enforced by Trump’s AI review framework, would give institutions more time to protect themselves against potential vulnerabilities from new AI models. With a heads-up from the government, they can learn about any problems identified during the review and shore up security to ensure bad actors who get ahold of the latest models can’t use them to hack and exploit our most precious agencies, institutions, and establishments.

A tough spot

On the other hand, the pause window gives competing nations like China more time to steal from American tech companies and potentially overtake America as the leader in the AI race. At this point, our nation would become a prime target for foreign cyberattacks capable of breaching our systems before we even know what happened, leaving us with inferior intelligence and little-to-no means to stop it.

The only way to combat threats posed by Chinese AI is to speed up development instead of slowing it down, ensuring that American technology is always ahead of the nations that would rather see us fall.

The choice isn’t easy, as there are stark pros and cons to both sides. However, President Trump clearly believes that cyber threats posed by America’s homegrown AI models are a bigger problem for the nation than China overtaking the United States in AI development. There may be some merit to this decision, too. Considering that most of China’s AI innovations came from copying American AI companies, the former may not be as advanced as they want us to believe. If American AI companies suddenly stopped progressing as quickly, China’s development would likely slow down, as well, in which case, 30-day pauses to review new frontier models are undoubtedly the right call.

​Artificial intelligence, Tech 

A hospital surveillance video shows a nurse taking on a violent patient and taking him down to the ground after getting attacked.

The harrowing incident unfolded at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Emergency Department in Queensland, Australia, according to WFLA-TV.

‘I don’t think he anticipated the nurse having an obsession with jiujitsu for over 10 years.’

The nurse, Daniel Nelson, described what led to the alleged attack.

“He’d been spitting on the floor, abusing staff, and generally behaving like an absolute grub,” Nelson said about the patient. “Was asked to leave; I opted to escort him out.”

The video shows Nelson escorting the patient through the lobby toward the doors when the patient turns around and throws various objects at the nurse.

Nelson confidently squares up against the man and swings him over his shoulder onto the ground.

“I don’t think he anticipated the nurse having an obsession with jiujitsu for over 10 years,” Nelson added.

The nurse grapples with the patient on the ground before finally being able to get him into a headlock. Four security officers eventually come to assist Nelson and take control of the patient.

RELATED: Husband and wife intervene after seeing Florida mom discipline 4-year-old son — then police arrest the couple

“Violence against health care workers isn’t ‘just part of the job.’ It’s unacceptable,” Nelson said. “Alcohol is no excuse. To all my colleagues who continue to show up despite this sort of behavior: I see you, and I appreciate what you do every day.”

Although the incident occurred in Oct. 2024, Nelson published video of the incident on July 29.

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​Viral video, Hospital, Australia, Jiu-jitsu, Crime 

Every great action story begins the same way. Someone is in trouble. The clock is running. The police cannot — or will not — solve the problem.

Then comes the name.

This is not simply another detective recounting old war stories. It is a portrait of a disappearing breed: the independent lawman who covets justice and is willing to deliver it.

If Hollywood were casting the role, it might once have chosen Tom Selleck. Today, maybe Chris Pratt. The man walking through the door is not chasing glory. He is there because everyone else has run out of options.

In real life, that man was Nils Grevillius.

“The Last Lawman” does not read like a memoir. It reads like the first season of a television series you cannot stop watching.

Imagine “The A-Team” without the wisecracks. Imagine “Bosch” without the bureaucracy. Imagine film noir stripped of romance and dropped into the unforgiving streets of Los Angeles, where every decision carries consequences and nobody gets to yell, “Cut.”

Before most memoirs have finished introducing the author, Grevillius is chasing an armed robbery suspect through Watts with eight rounds in his pistol and no backup coming.

The danger is not manufactured to hook the reader. It was simply another day on the job.

That authenticity separates “The Last Lawman” from nearly every private-investigator memoir on the shelf.

Josiah Thompson’s “Gumshoe” remains a respected classic, offering an intelligent account of investigative work and the detective’s craft. Grevillius takes the genre somewhere darker and more visceral.

His stories are not puzzles reconstructed from a safe distance. They are unfolding crises in which one mistake can cost a client everything — or cost the investigator his life.

For decades, Grevillius worked in places most people wisely avoid: organized crime, fugitive recovery, surveillance, missing-person cases, violent offenders, and the criminal world just beyond the edge of ordinary life.

His résumé includes military intelligence, Pinkerton investigations, and some of the toughest assignments Southern California could offer. The result is a memoir with an authority no novelist can manufacture.

RELATED: America needs heroes who do not apologize for being heroes

Heritage Art/Heritage Images/Getty Images

Yet the greatest surprise is not the danger. It’s the humanity.

Beneath the stakeouts, foot chases, interrogations, and close calls lies a thoughtful examination of what decades spent confronting evil do to a man.

Grevillius writes candidly about discipline, loyalty, courage, and the emotional cost of making a career out of walking toward situations everyone else is trying to escape. His reflections never seem imposed because he earned every one of them.

The early chapters reveal a man shaped by formidable influences: a father, decorated for service in the Korean War, who remained haunted by combat; a mother, a demanding attorney with an uncompromising sense of justice; Cold War military service; and years spent learning the patience required for surveillance before applying those skills as a private investigator in Los Angeles.

The path is not linear. That is precisely why it rings true. Life rarely follows a screenplay.

Grevillius also possesses what many memoirists lack: the ability to tell a story.

He introduces colorful characters without reducing them to caricatures, explains complex investigations without killing the pace, and adds dry humor at exactly the moment the reader needs relief.

His prose has the cadence of a man who has spent decades telling impossible stories to skeptical audiences — and winning them over.

Advance praise calls “The Last Lawman” “a blast of a book” and compares its pace to the great detective stories. It also describes Grevillius as the sort of lawman you want beside you when everything goes sideways.

All of that is true. It still does not quite capture what makes the book distinctive.

RELATED: ‘BURN IT ALL DOWN’: Firebrand feminist filmmaker calls for violent revolution

Amy Sussman/Getty Images

This is not simply another detective recounting old war stories. It is a portrait of a disappearing breed: the independent lawman who covets justice and is willing to deliver it.

Modern policing and investigation are increasingly constrained by bureaucracy, technology, institutional caution, and politics. The investigator who relies on instinct, observation, experience, and personal courage has become an endangered species.

Grevillius represents that tradition at its highest level. Reading his memoir feels like spending time with one of the last practitioners of a craft that once defined American crime-fighting.

Hollywood has spent decades trying to create believable action heroes. Most are invincible. Most are predictable. Most survive because the script requires it.

Nils Grevillius survived because he had to.

That is why “The Last Lawman” is so compelling. The stories are cinematic not because they were embellished, but because reality occasionally produces men no screenwriter would dare invent.

Truth can be more powerful than fiction.

When the credits finally roll, readers will not simply close the book. They will wonder why nobody has turned it into a television series — and they may find themselves longing for a time when Americans still believed men like Grevillius could bring bad actors to justice.

​The last lawman, Nils grevillius, Private eye, Crime movie, Law enforcement, Hollywood, Detectives, Josiah thompson, Detective novel, Opinion & analysis 

President Donald Trump issued two executive orders on Thursday intended to end birth tourism to the U.S. and narrow birthright citizenship.

The president signed the orders with his top aide, Stephen Miller, at his side at the White House in front of reporters.

‘What that means is that no one in the world is anymore allowed to obtain a visa for this fraudulent purpose.’

Miller explained that the first order would “expand the definitions of people who were ineligible for birthright citizenship” in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that kept the policy active.

Those who are newly excluded from birthright citizenship include “alien enemies of the United States, members of foreign terrorist organizations, and large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments.”

He went on to explain the second order.

“The second action that he’s taking, which is especially historic, is for the first time ever in American history to ban birth tourism,” Miller said.

“The idea that people come here pretending to be a tourist, pretending to be a visitor, saying they want to go to Disneyland, they want to go visit a monument or go to a national park,” he added.

“But the real reason they’re here is to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen,” Miller said, “to leave our country, and then have a U.S. citizen child that gives them access under this broken system to welfare benefits, ultimately to the voting booth, and all the other rights and privileges that belong solely to Americans.”

Miller touted all of the president’s actions to safeguard American citizenship and listed this order as one of the top three decisions.

“So that practice of birth tourism is, as of the signing of this order, hereby banned,” he continued. “And what that means is that no one in the world is anymore allowed to obtain a visa for this fraudulent purpose.”

Trump also criticized the Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship.

“I thought we were going to win it at the Supreme Court,” he said. “Unfortunately we had a bad decision, very unfair decision. Our country suffers because of it. And we’re ending it a different way.”

RELATED: Texas AG Paxton sues Chinese ‘birth tourism’ center for allegedly orchestrating abuse of birthright citizenship

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council immediately criticized the orders.

“This new order is far less sweeping than the original, but like the first order, seemingly violates the Constitution,” he said on social media.

“As an initial matter, the new EO aims to deny citizenship to children born to two noncitizen parents where ONE parent (not both) falls within one of the EO’s new categories,” he added. “This alone may well be a violation of the 14th Amendment, which cares about the status of both parents.”

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​Birth tourism, Birthright citizenship, Executive orders, President donald trump, Stephen miller, Politics 

A resurfaced video of a female Marine drill instructor is making the rounds online, and BlazeTV host John Doyle doesn’t just find the clip awkward — he believes it’s a “humiliation ritual.”

And one user on X agrees.

A special operations veteran who goes by Woden the Wanderer reacted to the video, writing: “This is nothing more than a mockery of the warrior class. A humiliation ritual for the masculine warrior spirit that modernity needs to destroy.”

In the video, the drill instructor yells at the top of her lungs, instructing new recruits on what to do if they are being abused by other recruits or Marines.

“I’m definitely not the cloth of a Marine, and so, seeing this happen, I can’t perceive it as anything other than humiliating, especially because they’re not even allowed to laugh about it ’cause they’ll get in trouble,” Doyle says.

Doyle also points out that historically, men have always been the ones to go to war.

“It makes no difference what you think of war or if you think women should even be a part of it. War simply is. It’s been around for longer than civilization has. It will be around long after civilization has existed,” he says.

“Modern thinking cannot be transposed onto war. War has to be taken and understood at its base level. And something you’ll find across human history, across basically all of civilization, women rarely, if ever, are found in militaries directly serving,” he explains.

“It’s pretty much always been male,” he adds.

And the clip of the female drill instructor, Doyle says, appears to be more like payback for historically excluding women from masculine roles like the Marines.

“It’s done basically to shame the history of the military for not allowing women to participate. Really just like shove your face in it,” he says.

“And these kinds of humiliation rituals are plentiful,” he adds.

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​Special operations veteran, Marines, Drill instructor, John doyle, Women, Army, Masculinity, Blazetv show 

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin recently promised to focus immigration enforcement on criminal aliens. At a National Governors Association forum with Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), Mullin also noted that the United States had naturalized nearly 900,000 immigrants during the previous 12 months.

That number should have set off alarms.

The SAVE America Act addresses a game of inches. An immigration moratorium addresses a game of miles.

Republicans are consumed with preventing noncitizens from voting illegally. That problem is real, but the much larger electoral transformation is occurring legally, as millions of immigrants become citizens and acquire the right to vote. The SAVE America Act addresses a game of inches. An immigration moratorium addresses a game of miles.

As I have argued before, an immigration moratorium would do more to shape the country’s political future than the SAVE America Act. The White House, however, has shown little interest in confronting legal immigration at that scale.

After Mullin cited the latest figure, I reviewed the Department of Homeland Security’s naturalization data by year, country of origin, and demographic trend. I have long examined the size and composition of America’s green-card flow, but naturalization is the point at which immigration becomes electoral power.

Naturalization is a lagging indicator. The Hart-Celler Act drove immigration sharply higher beginning in the 1970s, but naturalizations did not surge until the mid-1990s. Since 1996, the United States has naturalized roughly 21 million people. From 2015 through 2024 alone — excluding the nearly 900,000 Mullin cited for the latest year — the total was 7.9 million.

Outside the COVID disruption, annual naturalizations have climbed from roughly 500,000 to 700,000 toward a range of 750,000 to 900,000.

The historical contrast is striking. As recently as 1984, fewer than 200,000 immigrants became citizens. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the annual average remained in the low 100,000s.

Even after the great immigration wave of 1880 to 1920, annual naturalizations generally peaked between 100,000 and 200,000. The high points were 217,000 in 1919, 233,000 in 1928, and 224,000 in 1929.

During the 39 years from 1908 through 1946, the United States issued about 6.2 million naturalizations. During the 39 years from 1986 through 2024, it naturalized 24.1 million people — nearly four times as many.

The modern citizenship wave has therefore dwarfed the one that followed the great wave, and it has continued for three decades with no end in sight.

The top-line numbers tell only part of the story.

RELATED: Ceuta is America’s border warning

Marcos Moreno/Anadolu/Getty Images

Roughly 90% of immigrants during the great wave came from Europe. In 2024, by my estimate, only about 10% of the 818,000 people naturalized came from Europe or Canada.

Mexico supplied the largest single group, with 107,670 new citizens. Latin America as a whole accounted for roughly 348,000, or 43% of all naturalizations. That four-decade pattern has helped make Spanish a durable second language across large parts of the country.

India supplied 49,700 new citizens and China 29,200. Those flows have remained substantial for decades. The United States is not merely adding population. It is importing millions of people shaped by political systems, religious traditions, and social assumptions far removed from the country’s historic norms.

The same question applies to immigration from Muslim-majority countries. DHS does not report naturalization by religion, so no precise count exists. But tabulating immigrants from the 49 predominantly Muslim countries I have identified previously yields 119,170 naturalizations in 2024 — about 15% of the total — and roughly 1.15 million over the past decade.

The largest 2024 totals included 12,200 from Pakistan, 11,600 from Bangladesh, 8,100 from Iraq, 7,100 from Iran, 7,000 from Egypt, and 6,800 from Afghanistan.

These numbers have not necessarily crested. The central question is whether naturalization policy is producing citizens with a durable attachment to the Constitution, the nation, and the obligations contained in the oath of allegiance.

One imam in Sterling Heights, Michigan, recently boasted that concentrated Muslim voting in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan could swing a presidential election. He was describing the political power that large-scale naturalization fosters.

Many naturalized immigrants become patriotic Americans. But a country naturalizing close to 900,000 people each year cannot assume assimilation will occur automatically, especially when so many arrive from societies with different political values and weak traditions of constitutional government.

This is all legal! It is also why the Republican fixation on a relatively small number of unlawful noncitizen votes misses the larger question.

The figures do not include the long-term electoral effect of birthright citizenship among children born to illegal immigrants, temporary visa holders, and legal permanent residents.

Pew Research estimated that 240,000 babies were born in 2023 to families in which neither parent was a legal permanent resident. The Center for Immigration Studies estimated that 72,000 children were born to tourists, foreign students, and other visitors in 2016. A separate CIS analysis suggests that 225,000 to 250,000 children were born in 2023 to families with at least one legal permanent resident.

RELATED: Trump-hating Republican governors conspire with Democrats to smuggle in even more migrants

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Those estimates come from different years and categories and should not be treated as a precise annual total. They nevertheless show how mass immigration, combined with automatic birthright citizenship, extends the electoral consequences for generations.

Legal immigration is producing as many as 900,000 new voters each year through naturalization. Birthright citizenship may add hundreds of thousands more future voters annually. Even if Congress shut off immigration tomorrow, the naturalization wave already in the pipeline would continue for years.

Illegal voting can decide a close election and should be prevented. But the scale of legal electoral change produced by immigration dwarfs the problem the SAVE America Act is designed to solve.

Any politician who campaigns on the SAVE America Act while refusing to support an immigration moratorium is missing the forest for the trees.

The SAVE America Act addresses a game of inches. An immigration moratorium addresses a game of miles.

​Assimilation, Birthright citizenship, Department of homeland security, Illegal voting, Markwayne mullin, Republicans, Save america act, Opinion & analysis 

Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) released another health update, which said he has been released from a rehabilitation facility after being hospitalized for weeks.

McConnell was hospitalized on June 14 after his latest fall and had been moved to a rehabilitation facility, but many skeptics have been demanding that his office provide evidence of his condition.

‘It is unacceptable that the party who spent four years criticizing Joe Biden’s health is now silent on McConnell’s.’

“On the advice of my doctors, I’ll maintain an intensive regimen of physical therapy from home during the state work period, and I’ll continue to engage with my staff and colleagues on important Senate business,” McConnell said in a statement Thursday.

The 84-year-old has been absent from Congress for nearly two months.

After the Democratic governor of Kentucky demanded that McConnell provide evidence of his condition, the senator released a photo with his wife and a second photo weeks later.

The lack of video fueled conspiracy theorists who speculated a spectrum of possibilities, from McConnell passing away to his being surreptitiously arrested.

His absence from Congress has also hamstrung some Republican efforts that depended on his vote to break the slim margin. Among those is the upcoming vote on whether to confirm Todd Blanche for U.S. attorney general.

McConnell had already announced that he was not going to run for re-election after becoming the longest-serving Senate leader in U.S. history and the longest-serving senator for Kentucky as well.

RELATED: Kentucky governor makes unusual request as mystery deepens over Mitch McConnell’s health

Some critics continued to demand video of McConnell’s health condition.

“We need the truth about Mitch McConnell NOW. It is unacceptable that the party who spent four years criticizing Joe Biden’s health is now silent on McConnell’s,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck said on social media.

“It is OUR RIGHT to know. That seat isn’t McConnell’s. It belongs to the people of Kentucky,” he added.

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​Mitch mcconnell, Joe biden, Us senate, Midterm elections, Politics 

Once again, the Democratic Socialists of America have proven that the Democrat establishment can’t outspend its grassroots army.

On August 4, progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate over Rep. Haley Stevens, after many DSA members, local chapters, activists, and progressive figures closely tied to the DSA — including Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Rashida Tlaib — mobilized heavily on his behalf.

BlazeTV host Nick Freitas says El-Sayed’s victory reveals something deeply unsettling about the direction the Democratic Party is headed.

“The establishment probably could not have picked a better candidate for what we would call establishment-style Democrat politics in Michigan than Haley Stevens,” says Freitas, highlighting her “long history with Michigan” and her work on both Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s 2008 campaigns.

“She really appealed to the things that you would expect from kind of working-class voters in Michigan … and yet she still lost,” he adds.

According to Freitas, there are “two things going on here.”

“One, you see the machine Democrat Party recognizing that it’s probably going to be a lot harder to win with [El-Sayed] in a swing state, and then I think what you also see is this resurgence of far-left politics … within the Democratic Party that is absolutely dedicated and willing to walk in lockstep,” he explains.

Even though Stevens was by no means the “moderate” she was portrayed to be — exemplified by her progressive positions on ICE, abortion, and gun control — Freitas says her classic establishment résumé and deep-pocketed donors made her an easier candidate for the Democrat establishment to get behind.

But in the end, it didn’t matter how much money the Democrat machine spent on her. El-Sayed still came out on top because the DSA is where the momentum and energy is right now.

“What this confirms is that the DSA is every bit as strong as we anticipated it to be, and I think what this demonstrates is that at least going into the midterms, DSA is going to be riding this wave of victories that they’ve had within primaries,” says Freitas.

“The fact that Abdul Sayed thought this is going to be great for me, and theoretically was, should tell us everything we need to know about where the energy is within the Democratic Party right now,” he continues.

The Democrat establishment, Freitas explains, is failing to beat the DSA not because D candidates are actually true moderates — on the contrary, they’re usually still far-left on core issues — but because the DSA is “very, very honest” about its objectives, which appeals to voters.

“And then to the extent that [the DSA is] losing, they’re only losing in places where they don’t have sufficient groundwork or they haven’t had the sufficient time to work in order to build up a new generation of voters that hate America every bit as much as they do. So what do they settle for?” he asks.

“Well, they settle for candidates who still want to fundamentally change and alter the United States, who still want to allow for mass immigration, who still want to abolish ICE, who still want to abolish prisons or defund the police, but are simply smart enough to not say so out loud,” he answers.

Add it all up and the conclusion regarding the current Democratic Party is bleak: “You have the DSA … you have progressive candidates who pretty much want the same things, but are smart enough to know that you can’t say everything that you want out loud … and then you have this ever-dwindling portion of ‘moderate’ Democrats.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Abdul el-sayed, Democrat party, Democratic socialists of america, Michigan, Nick freitas, Senate primary, Blazetv show 

The story of Lindsay Clancy and the alleged murder of her three children is undeniably heartbreaking. While the jury is still out on what her fate will be, BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey believes it’s important to recognize that she was managing her postpartum depression with 13 different medications prescribed by six different doctors.

One of the drugs Clancy was on was an SSRI, which adjusts a person’s level of serotonin.

In an interview Stuckey conducted last year with board certified psychiatrist Josef Witt-Doerring, he argued that “one of the problems with all of these drugs, all of these so-called antidepressants, SSRIs, is that studies show that the premise they are based on is actually unsupported by evidence.”

“There was a major 2022 review in molecular psychiatry that found no solid evidence that people with depression have lower serotonin levels. And this doctor that I had on my show points out that there is still no blood test. There’s no brain scan that can objectively diagnose depression,” Stuckey explains, noting that it’s simply a “symptom checklist.”

“And so, if you are putting someone on something that is affecting their serotonin, which is an important hormone in mood regulation, but that was never the problem in the first place, you’re just giving them the side effects. You’re just giving them the cons and none of the pros from emotional regulation,” she continues.

While many people claim that SSRIs have changed their lives, Stuckey points out that it’s possible that having your “emotional response” blunted and your “spectrum of emotions” shortened could bring you back “from the brink of dark depression.”

“It doesn’t treat their depression. It doesn’t ever get to the underlying cause, but it is possible that an SSRI can have that effect, but it can also have all of these other effects, especially if the root cause is never addressed,” she explains.

And psychiatric medication is increasingly common, with 17% of Americans taking them.

“Millions unknowingly are at risk of drug-induced brain damage while being told that their drugs are safe. According to this doctor, Witt-Doerring, patients who stop psychiatric drugs even gradually can suffer protracted withdrawal that feels like permanent brain damage,” Stuckey says.

“It can cause neurotoxicity. It can also trigger a condition called tardive dysphoria that includes apathy, dissociation, chronic fatigue, agitation. He notes that multiple people have taken their life because the symptoms from this can be so extreme, it can drive people to suicide,” she continues.

Another doctor Stuckey interviewed, Dr. Adam Urato, “warned of the many dangers of being prescribed SSRIs, specifically during pregnancy, but it also applies to that postpartum period.”

Urato, chief of maternal fetal medicine at MetroWest Medical Center, “has called for stronger FDA warnings for SSRIs, especially for pregnant mothers.”

While women are told that SSRIs won’t affect the baby, cause complications, or affect the breast milk, Urato has claimed that is “not accurate.”

“He has highlighted how SSRIs are actually pushed on mothers both before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and after, even though they can alter things like your own brain function, but also fetal brain development,” Stuckey explains.

“And so, all of this plays into the defense’s argument that says that, ‘Look, this was beyond her control. Someone dropped the ball here. It wasn’t her. She was trying to get the help that she wanted,’” she says. “That’s what they’re arguing.”

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​Breast milk, Children, Doctors, Jury, Lindsay clancy, Medications, Murder, Neurotoxicity, Postpartum depression, Pregnancy, Psychiatric medication, Serotonin, Ssris, Blazetv show 

He’s only been a woman for five years, but he’s ready to bring his hard-nosed style of play to the WNBA.

Julie Tétart is not just one of the best players in a league in France; the center absolutely dominated the 2025-2026 season in every relevant category.

‘It’s a childhood dream just like for any female basketball player.’

The Monaco player, who stands at 6’2″-6’3″ depending on the source, ran through France’s Ligue 2 opponents last season and has since revealed the WNBA would be a welcomed next step.

Fox News’ OutKick caught up with the trans-identifying male athlete to ask if the U.S. women’s league was a possibility.

“If they contact me, I won’t say no. But you have to be realistic: I’m old, and there are far better players than me!” the humble player told the outlet on Monday.

Calls for a WNBA team to sign Tétart have come during the league’s ongoing debate over inclusion. After Indiana Fever player Sophie Cunningham said girls should not have to compete with boys, backlash quickly followed from WNBA fans, coaches, and even an owner.

RELATED: World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka gives blunt answer when asked about gender testing: ‘Men are way stronger’

Valery HACHE/AFP/Getty Images

Multiple WNBA personnel have struggled to separate the idea of barring men from their sport from the rest of their progressive views.

Golden State Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase compared the issue to being criticized for her ethnicity, while Fever head coach Stephanie White said she is not “educated enough from a scientific standpoint” to determine whether the league should allow men.

She added, “I don’t ever believe that exclusion is an answer.”

Tétart crushing the competition

It would be hard to imagine a more dominant performance than the one the 34-year-old put on last season.

Tétart was the only player in the league to break the 20-points-per-game barrier, averaging 21.2, more than four points ahead of the second-highest scorer.

In rebounding, Tétart averaged a massive 20.2 boards per game, almost double the second-highest rebounder, who averaged 10.9 per game.

Tétart was also fifth in steals per game, while averaging the most successful free throws and free-throw attempts per game, by a mile.

This was all without even being in the top 10 for minutes played per game, for which Tétart was ranked 19th.

RELATED: WNBA coach counter-protests Sophie Cunningham with ‘trans kids’ shirt — Caitlin Clark responds

Valery HACHE/AFP/Getty Images

Tétart, who according to the New York Post came out as transgender in October 2021, while telling OutKick that playing in the WNBA would be a dream, seemingly hinted at not wanting to go to the U.S. because of President Donald Trump.

“Obviously, it’s a childhood dream just like for any female basketball player, but unfortunately, it’s not possible,” Tétart said.

“The league, yes. The country, no, haha,” Tétart continued. However, when pressed further on the subject, the player simply replied, “I won’t say no.”

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​Wnba, Women’s sports, Transgenderism, Sports, France 

A Florida pastor, who previously was a public school employee, is accused of sexually battering a 14-year-old boy. The pastor was hit with several charges, including being an HIV-infected person having sex without informing a partner.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that 42-year-old Timothy Chaneyfield was arrested on July 29.

‘We believe he’s a super-spreader.’

Chaneyfield was charged with four counts of an HIV-infected person having sex without informing a partner, three counts of lewd battery of a minor, three counts of traveling to meet a minor, three counts of interfering with custody of a minor, one count of unlawful use of a two-way communication device, one count of possession of marijuana, and five counts of possession of drug paraphernalia.

His bond is more than $350,000, the sheriff’s office said.

Police launched an investigation into Chaneyfield on July 28 after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding his engagement in inappropriate contact with a child.

Police said Chaneyfield is a pastor at St. James United American Free Will Baptist Church in Winter Haven and a chaplain for Compassionate Care Hospice.

Police stated they interviewed a 14-year-old alleged male victim who said he met Chaneyfield on a dating mobile app and continued to communicate with him on Instagram.

The statement reads, “Chaneyfield picked up the victim on three consecutive days at the entrance to the victim’s subdivision, then drove the victim to his house in Winter Haven, where he had sex with the victim each day.”

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said Chaneyfield called the alleged victim to tell the minor he wanted to continue the sexual relationship.

Chaneyfield told the boy he was traveling to Baltimore for work. Detectives determined that Chaneyfield was flying to Baltimore to preside over a funeral.

Polk County Sheriff’s Office detectives and officers with the Orlando Police Department arrested Chaneyfield at the Orlando International Airport when he returned to Florida from Baltimore on July 29.

Chaneyfield was booked into the Orange County Jail and transferred to the Polk County Jail on Aug. 1.

Police said Chaneyfield admitted to Polk County Sheriff’s Office detectives to having illicit sex with the teen.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office added that “during a separate investigation, an adult male reported to the PCSO that he had sex with Chaneyfield and learned after the fact that Chaneyfield was HIV-positive.”

Police added, “Detectives confirmed that Chaneyfield is HIV-positive and is taking medication for the disease, and that Chaneyfield did not inform the adult victim, nor the child, about his HIV status.”

RELATED: Disney employee, corrections officer, deputy police chief, teachers, among 160 arrested in Florida during undercover operation targeting human trafficking

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a Tuesday news conference that Chaneyfield is “dangerous.”

Judd said Chaneyfield “used the power and the persuasion of a well-recognized minister in order to groom children and apparently at least one adult … in order to have sex.”

“He’s a dope-smoking pedophile preacher,” Judd said.

“Timothy is HIV-positive,” Judd said. “He failed to tell this 14-year-old child that [he is] HIV positive, and he had unprotected sex with a child and exposed our 14-year-old victim to HIV.”

“The 14-year-old had no clue that he was having unprotected sex with an adult that was HIV-positive,” Judd explained.

Sheriff Judd said the adult who had sex with Chaneyfield is now HIV-positive.

“We believe he’s a super-spreader,” the sheriff stated.

Police said the teen was provided with medication for treating HIV.

“This guy’s nasty. He’s a menace to society, and he’s proven that,” the sheriff said of Chaneyfield.

“Jesus don’t like that, and he’ll have to answer for that one day to a court much higher than ours,” Judd continued.

Judd also said Chaneyfield has “no remorse.”

“He’s an evil man,” Judd stated.

“We fear that there’s other victims out there because he was very aggressive and very adamant about having sex with apparently adults or children,” the sheriff stated.

“I would be shocked if there weren’t other children victims out there,” Judd said.

Sheriff Judd pointed out that “we actually tried to catch him while he was in Baltimore because we didn’t even want him wandering the streets of Baltimore.”

However, Judd said his police department received “zero assistance” from authorities in Baltimore; a spokesperson for Judd identified the agency as the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, NBC News reported, adding that an MTAP representative could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.

A spokesperson for Polk County Public Schools told WTVT-TV that Chaneyfield worked as a substitute teacher for two years beginning in 2012, a paraeducator from 2014 to 2016, and a network manager from 2016 to 2024.

Chaneyfield previously worked at Crystal Lake Middle School, police said.

The school system stated, “We are thankful that the Polk County Sheriff’s Office arrested this individual to protect the community from any further harm. As always, we cooperate fully with law enforcement to protect students and staff.”

The Ledger reported that Chaneyfield also was a pastor at New Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Haines City in 2020.

Anyone with information regarding Chaneyfield is urged to contact the Polk County Sheriff’s Office at 863-298-6200.

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​Florida, Child sex crimes, Sexual battery, Polk county sheriff’s office, Hiv, Arrest, Pastor, Crime 

In light of Sophie Cunningham’s support for only women playing in women’s sports — not men dressed as women — Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase used a recent press conference to defend the inclusion of men in women’s athletics.

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock is tired of hearing it, mocking Nakase’s case for the inclusion of men on a women’s court.

“Sports is about belonging, inclusivity, authentic self, and that includes transformers,” Whitlock mocks Nakase, pointing out that “she equates her own story, her height, her ethnicity, door slam with a sex category invasion she never had to live.”

And that’s exactly what Nakase did, as she claimed that being criticized herself has led her to have empathy for transgenders.

“How I’m seeing it is if I could answer with like for me, sports, sports is about belonging. It’s about inclusivity. It’s about allowing everyone to be their authentic self. You know, I’m big on that just because I have been criticized for my height, for my ethnicity,” Nakase said.

“I’ve been in those, ‘you shouldn’t belong here,’ many times. And for me, I don’t want that space, especially Golden State, to ever feel like that. So I’m all about women, little girls, deserving to play, and that includes trans women. So I’m all about inclusivity,” she added.

“I’ve been called fat. … So that’s why I’m inclusive of pedophiles, because I’ve been called fat. Don’t you see? Once you’ve been called fat, you believe in pedophilia,” Whitlock mocks. “That’s the logic she’s unpacking.”

“This is just ridiculous. I can’t believe that we have reached a point in human civilization where this is a talking point and a topic. I don’t. I, for the life of me, can’t understand. I’m watching the footage right now. I would be dominating that league,” Jay Skapniac chimes in.

“I’m 6’3”. I’m in my 40s. I haven’t touched the ball in like seven or eight years. Like, give me two months. Get me out there. And I’m dropping triple-doubles nightly,” he adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Basketball, Coach, Golden state, Jason whitlock, Jay skapniac, Wnba, Womens sports, Transgenders, Sophie cunningham, Blazetv show 

As AI sweeps through your favorite devices, services, and apps, there’s one category that hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention (yet): robots.

Artificial intelligence is being crammed into all kinds of robot forms that are destined for consumers, from robot vacuums to doglike pets and even humanoid servants meant to live in your home and help you do chores.

The worst part? Many of these bots come from Chinese companies, prompting enough concern over national security and personal privacy that the Trump administration just handed down a new Chinese robot ban that is effective immediately.

What the ban entails

In late July, the Trump administration announced that it would ban U.S. imports on new intelligent robot products that hail from China. This is significant, since the ban covers most of the smart robot market. According to the Associated Press, China owns about 85% of this product segment, dwarfing American companies like Boston Dynamics with its lethal dog robot, as well as Tesla, which has yet to ship its Optimus humanoid robot that debuted in 2022.

A Roomba vacuum took revealing photos of a woman in her bathroom.

It’s important to note that the ban only covers new products bound for the United States. Any existing Chinese-developed robots that currently reside within our borders are allowed to stay. President Trump’s FCC used a similar tactic when it banned foreign-made Wi-Fi routers earlier this year, so it’s not unprecedented for these existing products to remain active for months or years after restrictions are put in place.

The Chinese robot ban includes a wide range of products, such as humanoid robots made by Unitree and Agibot; robot vacuums made by Roomba, Roborock, Ecovacs, and Dreame Technology; quadruped (four-legged) robots made by Xiaomi; and power inverters by Huawei (a company that is no stranger to U.S. bans during Trump’s first term) and Sungrow Power Supply.

In the FCC’s announcement, the agency cited national security as the primary reason for the ban, stating that “relying on foreign-produced advanced robotic devices presents unacceptable supply chain and cybersecurity vulnerabilities” for the nation.

China has a shady history with US tech

This should come as a shock to absolutely nobody, and when you consider how many tech innovations China has stolen from the U.S. over the years, it’s surprising that something like this didn’t happen sooner.

RELATED: Trump fumes as China pilfers top US tech — and goes unpunished

Niphon/Getty Images

Here is a brief rundown of China’s illicit activities around U.S. tech and intelligence.

Chinese AI companies were recently caught distilling data from American AI giants, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and more.A Chinese spy received a life sentence for swiping AI trade secrets from Google.Several Chinese websites are stealing users’ faces, hidden under the guise of putting people’s likenesses into movies, shows, and video games for fun.Chinese-made TikTok once posed a huge threat to the United States, ultimately leading to the sale of U.S. operations to a domestic joint venture to avoid an outright ban.Chinese hackers were caught stealing tens of thousands of State Department emails that were managed by Microsoft.And for the coup de grace, China led an election interference campaign and walked away with 220 million U.S. voter files, the largest compromise of election data in history, according to President Trump.

What makes Chinese robots so dangerous?

Unlike foreign-made Wi-Fi routers that only had the power to monitor your web traffic (which is bad enough), Chinese-made robots are even more invasive. Many of these devices come equipped with high-tech sensors like LIDAR that map every corner of your house and save the data to the cloud. Newer premium robot vacuums also have high-definition camera systems capable of snapping photos and recording video. Manufacturers claim that these are intended to help the vacuum “see” where it’s going and to steer around potential obstacles, like toys, shoes, and pets. Regardless of the reason, these cameras let the vacuum view your home and everyone in it, with real consequences.

In 2022, MIT Technology Review revealed that a Roomba vacuum took revealing photos of a woman in her bathroom. These images were sent to an AI startup company tasked with using captured data to train AI models, and somehow, several of them appeared in a private group on social media. When pressed about the incident, Roomba’s parent company claimed that the images came from modified devices given to company employees who agreed to share their data. Furthermore, consumer devices were never at risk of data exposures.

Whether employees willingly signed up to be filmed in intimate spaces or not, one glaring concern still stands for the rest of us. Robot vacuums are effectively surveillance systems that users invite into their homes for the simple convenience of never having to touch a manual vacuum cleaner again. Is this simple trade-off with Chinese spyware really worth it? You can judge for yourself.

If you do have a robot in your home

Although existing Chinese-made robots are still allowed to operate in the United States, you may think twice before letting one roam your home. If you want to get rid of your robot vacuums or other applicable products, you can always sell them on a third-party marketplace or dispose of them through an electronics recycling company.

And if you wish to keep your robot, just know that there are valid reasons they were banned from the United States.

​Chines robots, Tech, Chinese robots 

The group behind the Miss North Carolina USA contest says the decision to strip the title from 27-year-old Brittany Boltinhouse was a “difficult” one.

The Mexican-Honduran model from Beulaville posted messages years ago that the organization said went against its values.

She had warned that voting for Kamala Harris would risk turning America into a ‘third world country.’

Boltinhouse is also a supporter of President Donald Trump, though that wasn’t included in the organization’s statement.

“This decision was not made lightly,” the organizers said on Instagram. “It followed a thorough review of recently surfaced information and was based on the totality of the circumstances and our responsibility to preserve the integrity of the Miss North Carolina USA title and the values of our organization.”

The posts were not included, but the NC Beat documented that Boltinhouse used the N-word numerous times between 2017 and 2018, and referred to herself as “toxic.”

She had warned that voting for Kamala Harris would risk turning America into a “third world country” in another post and also shared a photograph of herself at a Trump rally, according to the Beat.

The discovery led to backlash from some who objected to her posts and called her a “self-hating, Trump-supporting, racist, ignorant women [sic] who does not speak for me or for any of the other ACTUAL PROUD HISPANAS.”

Miss USA Chairman and CEO Thom Brodeur said that “racism, homophobia, transphobia, [and] language that strips any person of their dignity” are against the organization’s values, but it’s unclear if he was referring to her posts or her support of the president.

“As an organization entrusted with selecting and preparing women to represent our states on the national stage,” the organization continued, “we must uphold the standards and values that our titleholders agree to embrace when accepting the honor of wearing the crown.”

The incident is even more bizarre considering that Trump once owned the Miss USA pageant before he became president.

RELATED: Former Miss North Dakota pleads guilty to day care fraud in Minnesota

Myla Hadley, the runner-up in the pageant contest, will take up the mantle of Miss North Carolina USA 2026.

Boltinhouse was the first Honduran model to win the Miss North Carolina USA title.

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​Donald trump, Miss usa pageant, Politics, Trump supporters