Category: blaze media

Two mothers said their teen boys were sent racist insults via social media by a 13-year-old who is now facing felony charges.

Kisha Jenkins and Kiara Shaw told WLS-TV that their sons, both age 13, were sent messages on Snapchat that included their photos as well as racist insults and threats.

‘He called him a monkey, said he was going to do some nasty things to him, said he was going to sell him on Facebook.’

Oswego, Illinois, police announced that the juvenile who allegedly sent the messages is facing a hate crime charge and other felonies.

“Hate, discrimination, racism, and even the threats that were in that message should never be tolerated, and you have to stand for something,” said Shaw.

The two reported the messages to their kids’ school as well as the police.

“With my son, he called him a monkey, said he was going to do some nasty things to him, said he was going to sell him on Facebook,” she added.

Jenkins said her son was significantly affected by the messages.

“My child was, you know, very upset by it. He was very disturbed by it. He also felt threatened by it,” she said.

The superintendent of Oswego School District 308 responded in a message to the district’s families.

“This moment must be a catalyst for change. It must be the reason we talk more deeply with young people about how they use technology, about the value and weight of their words,” wrote Dr. Andalib Khelghati. “A post can take seconds to share and a lifetime to repair.”

He went on to ask parents to talk to their children about their messages online.

“I am asking something of every one of you: Please talk with your students. Ask them what they see online. Ask them how they would respond if they saw someone being targeted. Remind them that their words matter, that silence can feel like agreement, and that reaching out to a trusted adult is always the right thing to do.”

RELATED: Swastika and racial slur found on fence at elementary school in SoCal town

Jenkins said she also sympathized with the family of the child who allegedly sent the messages.

“I don’t feel good on either part that my son has to deal with this, nor that the parents of this boy, who I know, have to deal with this situation because it’s heartbreaking,” she added.

Oswego police indicated that the boy appeared in court on Friday.

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​Hate crime, Racial slur, Racism, Social media, Politics, Crime 

A pro-Palestinian woman admitting to orchestrating a race hoax for years has led to one activist group dissolving and another going on hiatus in contemplation of dissolving.

Hannah Gann told people at different times that she was black, Palestinian, and Tunisian, but she later admitted that she was a Jewish white woman.

‘She has moments when she tries to act extra black, like cosplaying black.’

“I hid the truth or outright lied about my background to everyone in my life,” said Gann when confessing her hoax.

A group that included teachers in the Philadelphia district and advocated for the Palestinian cause said they were shutting down in the wake of the controversy over Gann.

“After much reflection, Philly Educators for Palestine has made the decision to dissolve,” the group said in a statement. “We are deeply grateful to everyone who participated, supported, organized, learned, taught, and stood alongside us. We are proud of what we accomplished together and of the community that was built through this work.”

The Racial Justice Organizing Committee said it was taking a “two-month hiatus to rest, process, and decompress,” and added that members would make a decision about their next steps by the end of the year.

Members of the groups expressed shock and anger at what they called a “betrayal” by Gann.

She admitted in a 10-minute video that she had “allowed half-truths and obfuscations to grow into outright lies.”

One woman told the Philadelphia Inquirer that she had been befriended by Gann and was outraged by the damage she had done to their cause.

“She has moments when she tries to act extra black, like cosplaying black,” said the organizer, who did not want to be publicly identified.

The woman said Gann would wear large earrings, wear African print clothing, and use black vernacular.

“She told people she was mixed. She told someone she was Lebanese,” the woman added.

Members of the two groups called on Gann to face discipline from her employer, a project-based district high school.

RELATED: Hanging of black woman propagandized as racist lynching allegedly turns out to heinous hoax

“I think Hannah should get fired,” said the organizer. “This has got to be so traumatizing for those kids. This is a group of kids that don’t trust adults anyway, living in Philly at this time. And they had an adult they thought they could trust, and she was lying about something so fundamental.”

She went on to call Gann’s actions “disgusting” and said she would never speak to Gann ever again.

WPVI-TV reported that Gann was no longer working with students, although the Philadelphia district said it would not comment about personnel matters.

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​Race hoax, Racial justice, Palestine protest, Social justice, Politics 

Activists in a town in Upstate New York are celebrating their efforts to help two men escape U.S. Border Patrol agents by climbing onto a roof.

At one point the officers were able to obtain a ladder to try to get to the two men, but the men pushed the ladder off the roof and continued their hours-long standoff.

Police did not aid in any arrests related to the ‘Border Patrol investigation, the property complaints, or the demonstration.’

The incident began in Oswego, New York, at about 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, according to Syracuse.com.

Oswego police said they were called to the scene over a report of a reckless driver, which ended up being the agents on an immigration enforcement operation.

Oswego Mayor Robert Corradino said the police chief told him that federal agents were pursuing a man in a car who was able to get away and get on the roof of a home on 7th Street.

In a statement released Thursday, Corradino confirmed that Border Patrol was attempting to “apprehend multiple individuals on federal judicial warrants” and that “the individuals fled from a vehicle after a brief pursuit.”

Then, citing advisement from the police chief, Corradino added that “the subjects managed to climb to the second-story roof of the residence and refused to come down.”

That’s when neighbors and activists appeared and harassed the officers involved in the standoff. They demanded to know if the officers had warrants for the two men and yelled at the officers to leave.

The protesters tossed water bottles to the men and applauded when a man caught one, Syracuse.com reported.

One online influencer who reportedly claimed to be a U.S. Marine veteran documented the efforts of the protesters to drive away the officers.

At about 7:30 p.m., the agents left after about a six-hour standoff. The protesters then organized to make sure they weren’t being fooled into leaving so that the officers could return and detain the two men.

Estimates indicate more than 70 protesters participated, according to Syracuse.com.

In his statement, Mayor Corradino tried to assuage those accusing city officers of helping the immigration enforcement mission.

RELATED: Pro-ICE student suspended over posters at California high school after hundreds walked out

“Our police officers acted swiftly to support the school district, protect private property, and de-escalate conflicts as they emerged,” the mayor wrote. “Our firefighters responded to a 911 call solely to provide a safe means of egress, a reminder that their mission is always centered on safety, not enforcement.”

He added that police did not aid in any arrests related to the “Border Patrol investigation, the property complaints, or the demonstration.”

A Blaze News request for comment from the Department of Homeland Security was not returned in time for publishing.

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​Activists, Border patrol, Department of homeland security, New york, Politics 

Americans may be hearing positive economic talking points from politicians, but Jesse Kelly tells BlazeTV host Steve Deace many families are living a very different reality.

“There are little things that matter and then there are big things that really matter,” Kelly says. “And here’s the truth. Because of the COVID lockdown stuff and printing $7 trillion … people have lost 30% to 50% of their income, basically their earning power, because the dollar’s gone down in just the last five years.”

“And so now … there is this tidal wave of unhappiness across the country as we’ve had this tiny window of a massive drop in people’s standard of living,” he explains.

“And I really don’t think either Republicans or Democrats truly understand that that is the sentiment across the board of the United States of America. People are unhappy. I can’t afford anything anymore,” he adds.

And since Donald Trump is the man in charge, he’s the one who is “going to get white hot hate.”

“People remember what it was like to afford things before he got there,” Kelly says, noting that previously, the hate “fell on Joe Biden and the Democrat Party after they stole an election and installed that cadaver for four years.”

And despite the economic pain so many Americans are in, Trump continues to claim that the economy is doing great.

“What happens is you’ve taken somebody at their lowest possible moment, and you’ve kicked dirt in their face when you do that,” Kelly says. “And you never want to do that as a politician. You’ve taken somebody whose dog just died, and you walk up to him and say, ‘I bet you didn’t walk enough. That’s probably why your dog just died.’”

Now, Trump is giving speeches at rallies and telling Americans the price of gas is “worth it because of Iran.”

“Gas prices are through the roof. Diesel $6.50 a gallon. Prices have not come down. Interest rates are going up. The anger’s there, if not even worse. And you have people in the Trump administration saying, ‘If you can’t afford beef, eat chicken.’

“That messaging is freaking awful,” Kelly says.

“And that better change now,” he warns, “considering we’re like five weeks before the election. We have five weeks to get that reversed. If they want to know what to do, look at JD Vance. He’s the one who’s out there doing it right.”

“‘I know you’re hurting. I’m sorry you’re hurting. We’re fighting for you,’” he mimics.

“That’s how you message when the public is angry,” he adds.

Want more from Steve Deace?

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​Jesse kelly, Midterms, Steve deace, Republicans, Democrats, Donald trump, Economy, Blazetv show 

Justin Haskins of the Heartland Institute is sounding the alarm on a recent survey that revealed just how open Americans are to Sharia law.

The poll asked a series of questions regarding the Islamic legal system, and Haskins found that the younger an American is, the more likely he or she is to be in support of it.

“Twenty-one percent of all voters say that they have a somewhat positive view of Sharia law, which is radical. I mean, radical Islam is associated with this,” Haskins tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck of the first question asked.

“The younger you are, the more likely you are to have a positive view of Sharia law,” he adds.

But the questions only got more intense, and the answers got more alarming.

When they asked, “Would you support a law that requires public schools to teach about the benefits of Sharia law?”

“Eight percent said yes, 76% said no, 16% said not sure,” says Haskins

“Which I don’t know how you could not be sure about that. Similar to the last question, the young people’s support was much, much higher. Twenty-four percent of 18- to 24-year-olds said yes, they do want that law. Thirty-one percent of 25- to 29-year-olds, around 20% when you get into the late 30s, and it goes down until you get to 3% for people 40 and above,” Haskins explains.

The third question asked was, “If a majority of people in an American town, city, or state were to want Sharia law, would you support a proposal that would allow Sharia to become the legal code for all citizens in that town, city, or state?”

Seven percent said yes, 83% said no, 10% said not sure.

“I mean, this is overthrowing the Constitution. This is overthrowing the rule of law, is overthrowing individual liberty. You have a quarter of young people saying that they would favor that,” Haskins says.

And it’s only downhill from there.

Haskins calls the response to number four “astounding,” which was: “What poses a greater threat to America’s future? Sharia law or America’s alliance with Israel?”

Forty-three percent said Sharia law, while 25% said America’s alliance with Israel.

Bu number five may be the most disappointing.

“Which religious ideology poses a greater threat to America’s future? Sharia law or traditional Christianity?”

“Fifty-five percent said Sharia law. So that’s the majority, but it’s only 55%. Thirteen percent said traditional Christianity. Twenty-three percent says neither poses a threat, which I think is a reasonable answer to have. And 9% says not sure,” Haskins explains.

“I mean, this is a pretty straightforward question. It’s either neither, or it’s Sharia law. But nobody should be saying traditional Christianity,” he adds.

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​Justin haskins, Sharia law, Islam, Glenn beck, Poll, Blazetv show 

Defense attorneys for the autistic J6 pipe bomb suspect have claimed in a new court filing that FBI agents “coerced” him into confessing after he mentally short-circuited during their lengthy interrogation.

Quick background

On Dec. 4, 2025, Brian Cole — a 31-year-old Virginia man “requiring support” on account of a level-1 Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, according to his attorneys — was arrested and interviewed by federal agents, having been accused of planting pipe bombs at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee on Jan. 5, 2021.

‘How am I supposed to explain that I’m innocent?’

Cole was initially charged with interstate transportation of explosives and with malicious attempt to use explosives. A superseding indictment filed on Wednesday further charges Cole with two felony counts of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and two felony counts of committing an act of terrorism while armed.

According to court documents, the FBI identified Cole as a suspect partly on the basis of his alleged purchases of “multiple items consistent with the components that were used to manufacture the pipe bombs placed at the RNC and DNC,” including five nine-volt battery connectors, multiple endcaps, two white kitchen timers, 14-gauge electrical wire, and steel wool.

These alleged purchases took place months and in some cases years ahead of the incident, as the FBI affidavit acknowledges.

The FBI further alleged that Cole “purchased equipment that would facilitate the manufacturing of a pipe bomb”; that cellphone data places him in the area around the time the bombs were supposedly planted; and that his Nissan Sentra was observed driving past a license plate reader near where the devices were ultimately found.

John Shoreman, one of Cole’s defense attorneys, noted just weeks after the arrest that the suspect — who has pleaded not guilty in the case — is an autistic, “mild-mannered man” who lived with his mother and “whose life is run by strict routine.”

RELATED: ‘We have compromised the FBI’: Pokemon lovers boast of shocking hack on federal website

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

Shoreman, responding to prosecutors’ claim that Cole confessed to planting bombs, told NPR in January, “Whether or not that post-arrest interview [on Dec. 4] constitutes a confession — a lawful confession — is something that we will need to visit at a later stage in this case.”

Stimming out

Cole’s attorneys filed a motion on Tuesday requesting the suppression of statements that Cole made to the FBI during his interrogation on Dec. 4, arguing that their client had not provided law enforcement with “a voluntary confession.”

According to the defense, the video and transcript of Cole’s interrogation:

show the methodical dismantling of a man whose autism spectrum disorder left him unable to withstand the psychologically coercive tactics deployed against him, and who told the agents so, in real time, while they pressed him, told him his professions of innocence were criminal, and threatened to “drag” his family through the same experience Mr. Cole had gone through that morning — the morning that started at gunpoint.

The defense characterized the events of Dec. 4, 2025, as discombobulating for Cole, starting with his arrest at gunpoint, his isolation in an interview room with a pair of special agents, and his alleged instruction by the FBI agents prior to Mirandization that he would benefit in the long run from being “forthright with us.”

The defense indicated that Cole was utterly bewildered by the accusation that he was involved in the pipe bomb plot.

Citing the transcript, the defense claims Cole initially responded: “Whoa, wait a minute. Wait a minute. … This, this is a misunderstanding. Please tell me. Please tell me. Please, please, please tell me.”

Cole allegedly also stated, “Please tell me this is a misunderstanding,” another five times, begged to be given time to process the information, then repeatedly stated, “Oh, my God.”

According to the defense’s motion, Cole “underscored his deteriorating mental state to the agents dozens of times” and began to physically manifest signs of mental distress, including gagging and experiencing chills that prompted one agent to wrap him in a blanket.

Over the course of his apparent breakdown, Cole repeatedly referred to his mental challenges, repeatedly denied the accusations, and repeatedly stated, “How am I supposed to explain that I’m innocent?” according to the filing.

After the FBI agents allegedly made numerous threats and assertions of “infallible certainty” about evidence supposedly implicating Cole, the suspect began “stimming,” then broke, claimed his attorneys.

Cole’s attorneys defined stimming as “the self-regulating repetition characteristic of an autistic person in acute physical and emotional distress.” According to the defense, Cole manifested this stimming behavior when he allegedly chanted, “I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t,” then said to himself, “Do whatever you can to clear your name. You can get out of this.”

After Cole allegedly short-circuited, the agents supposedly gave him an off-ramp, asking him to identify a suspect in surveillance footage. The filing, citing the transcript, summarizes the exchange Cole allegedly had with the agents that resulted in Cole identifying the suspect as himself:

“Do you recognize that person?” “No.” “Have you watched this video before?” “No.” (Tr. at 92.) Only then did the agents remind him what a denial would cost: “lying to federal agents is breaking the law. That’s another crime. … So more lies just makes it worse, okay? … No, look at me. Do you understand that?” (Id.) Seconds later, repeating the question drew the opposite answer. “So, is this individual you?” (Pause.) “Yes.”

The defense claimed in the filing that Cole’s identification of the suspect as himself after repeated denials “was not the product of the video; Mr. Cole had just denied recognizing himself in it. It was the product of the threat — the agents turned ‘No’ into ‘Yes’ by telling him that ‘No’ was itself a crime.”

Following Cole’s apparent admission that he was the suspect on-screen, he allegedly began “repeating the agents’ own script back to them.”

Furthermore, the FBI agents, having apparently recognized that Cole is close with his family and sensitive about their perception of him, allegedly threatened to “drag them all here” and subject them to a similar ordeal unless he told them “the truth,” according to the filing.

After reviewing audio of Cole’s interrogation and related documents, Richard Leo, a professor of law and psychology at the University of San Francisco, said in a Sept. 24 report filed by the defense that Cole’s Dec. 4 interrogation:

involved the use of psychological interrogation techniques, methods, and strategies that have been shown by social science research to increase the risk of eliciting false and unreliable statements, admissions and/or confessions (i.e., situational risk factors). These included: Reid-based guilt-presumptive interrogation; false and exaggerated evidence ploys; minimization and maximization; and implied (if not explicit) promises of leniency and implied threats.

In light of Leo’s conclusion and the recordings that prompted it, the defense argued that Cole’s statements to the FBI were “involuntary under the totality of the circumstances” and that his interrogation was “objectively coercive.”

Cole’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

A Justice Department spokesperson told Blaze News that the department “intends to respond to the defense’s motion in a filing with the Court” and “does not comment on pending litigation.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia told Blaze News, “We will respond to the motion in our filing with the court.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) demanded on Wednesday that FBI Director Kash Patel resign over Cole’s case, stating what Patel and former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino “have done to this autistic black man is inexcusable.”

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​Pipe bombs, Rnc, Dnc, Brian cole jr., Fbi, Department of justice, Kash patel, J6, January 6 pipebomer, Politics 

The Trump administration has revoked visas for more than a quarter of a million people over violations that included birth tourism and endangering national security.

State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott called the 250,000+ visa revocations a “historic milestone” in the administration’s efforts to protect the American people, Fox News reported Wednesday.

‘We will not stop until every foreign national who threatens the safety of our communities is held accountable.’

“Every visa decision is a national security decision. Through continuous vetting on a scale never seen before, we are identifying and removing those who commit crimes, support terrorism, defraud Americans, or abuse our immigration system,” Pigott explained.

“A U.S. visa is a privilege, not a right — and if you violate the terms of that privilege, you will lose it,” he added. “We will not stop until every foreign national who threatens the safety of our communities is held accountable.”

The revocations targeted people who violated the terms of their visas and those who committed crimes, including defrauding Americans or calling for violence against America or Americans.

About 2,300 of those involved birth tourism.

About 27 visas were revoked on Monday for officials from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, as well as their families over accusations of corruption.

A report in August indicated that the administration was looking to revoke visas for 200,000 people who had applied for asylum, which would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history.

Pigott said at the time they were investigating false claims of asylum.

“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” he said.

RELATED: Illegal alien with badge impersonates Border Patrol to disrupt mission, calls in reinforcements

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said in August that Americans were “fed up” with “bogus” requests for asylum.

“Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration laws; rather, it’s supposed to provide a narrow safe harbor for persons persecuted because of their ‘race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion,'” he wrote on social media.

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​Birth tourism, Trump administration, Immigration, Illegal immigration, Politics, Visa 

Steve Hilton held nothing back on Wednesday in California’s only gubernatorial debate, slinging an expletive-laden nickname at his Democratic foe, Xavier Becerra.

During the CNN-hosted debate, Hilton said Becerra had been called an “idiot” and a “bitch-ass” by former colleagues. The “bitch-ass Becerra” barb was allegedly coined by Becerra’s fellow Biden appointee and ex-director of the Domestic Policy Council Susan Rice.

‘You’ve never actually had to make any money of your own.’

Rice served alongside Becerra during his tenure as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden.

Just prior to the debate, Hilton launched bitchassbecerra.com, raking his opponent over the coals for his record on fraud, gender ideology extremism, and human trafficking.

Hilton and Becerra clashed over competence, immigration, affordability, and the Trump administration as the debate continued.

“You’ve never created a job. You’ve never actually had to make any money of your own. All you’ve ever done is spent other people’s money in every government job you’ve had,” Hilton said. “According to your Democrat colleagues, the ones who worked with you, like Susan Rice, who worked with you side by side when you were in the Biden Cabinet — she described you as an idiot.”

“She called you ‘bitch-ass,'” Hilton said.

According to a CNN tweet late Wednesday night, Rice has denied the remarks.

The candidates went tit for tat over immigration. Hilton accused Becerra of losing track of unaccompanied migrant children by prioritizing speedy releases into the general public as HHS secretary. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, responsible for unaccompanied migrant children, is a part of HHS.

RELATED: AOC’s latest ICE rant sounds like a campaign launch

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Becerra in turn tarred Hilton as a racist.

“You seem to welcome immigrants who look like you, but deport immigrants who look like me,” Becerra said. Forty-one percent of Californians are Latino.

Hilton faces an uphill battle in the deep-blue state. The former Fox broadcaster and U.K. political operator is trailing Becerra 60% to 38% among likely voters, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll.

That same poll found that 52% of likely voters think California is headed in the wrong direction. Hilton used that sentiment to his advantage during the debate, calling on voters to consider giving him a chance after nearly two decades under Democratic supermajorities in California.

“Xavier Becerra, you’re the candidate who is supported by the machine in Sacramento — the unions, big business, all these people that, for 16 years, have given us the highest cost of living in the country, made it impossible to build anything, given us the highest unemployment rate, the highest poverty rate,” Hilton said.

Democrats have controlled the governor’s mansion, state Assembly, and state Senate since 2011.

Becerra dedicated much of his time on the debate stage emphasizing Hilton’s proximity to President Donald Trump.

“Steve, you’re running for governor of California, and you’ll enforce Trump’s laws at the federal level, but you won’t enforce state laws at our level,” Becerra said. “California welcomed you, and you welcomed ICE mercenaries into our state in return.”

Hilton responded by accusing Becerra of scapegoating the president and ignoring Californians’ real concerns.

“All you ever say is Trump, Trump, Trump, and that’s nothing but an insult to every Californian who is desperate for something to change in this state,” Hilton said.

California voters will have to wait some time to see whether they get change or more of the same. State officials have 30 days to count votes after Election Day, and the state has been plagued by lengthy ballot-counting times in recent elections, including the 2026 primary in June.

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​California, Donald trump, Joe biden, Politics, Steve hilton, Susan rice, Xavier becerra 

The NHL says it has reached peak fandom and is looking for new ways to bring in additional viewers.

One way the league thinks it can attract new fans is by capitalizing on hockey-themed romance novels and TV shows, and the ideas are somewhat queer, to say the least.

‘The popularity of hockey romance in not only this country … it’s unmistakable.’

The NHL is hoping to reach a “younger” and untapped market with a series of audio-only ads promoting players as if they are the center of a romance novel.

The “Hot for Hockey” campaign currently features five 30-second ads themed around NHL players, featuring titles like “The Summer I Turned Gritty with Trevor Zegras” and “The Storm Between Us.”

“Hot for Hockey brings together the NHL’s biggest stars and fiercest matchups, told in a way you’ve never heard before,” the description reads. “Because off the ice, just like in love, it’s all part of the game.”

The clips have an average rating on Spotify of 2.84/5.

The campaign follows the success of the gay hockey-drama TV series “Heated Rivalry” and other hockey romances like “Off Campus,” which has a second season premiering next year.

NHL CMO Sean Eggert even said that the league has contracted popular hockey romance authors to write and narrate the clips in hopes that it will direct listeners to check out upcoming games.

“The popularity of hockey romance in not only this country, but North America at large, even parts of Europe, it’s unmistakable,” Eggert said, per the Sports Business Journal. “You can’t hide from it. And so it’s a great opportunity for us to extend and reflect that culture back in our storytelling.”

RELATED: Former NFL player and Christian minister says Muslim players are being unfairly punished

Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Eggert confidently said that “younger” fans of the genre will pick up on the tonality and “lean in and start to share and hopefully take action.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer spoke to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who corroborated that “the hockey romance genre is extraordinarily popular.”

“The data is overwhelming,” Bettman reportedly claimed.

The commissioner admitted that the content of the genre is not suitable for every audience or age group, but said hockey-drama fans are now connecting with the sport.

Bettman went on to say that while the NHL isn’t exactly hurting for fans, they are looking to encourage those “not focused on hockey to take a look.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever had more fans. Our buildings are sold out. We set another record last season. Our ratings were up dramatically,” Bettman boasted.

RELATED: ESPN reporter asks Alex Ovechkin if he would ‘support the genocide’ of Ukraine — Ovechkin doesn’t budge

Mark LoMoglio/NHLI/Getty Images

The NHL is no stranger to controversial campaigns and promotional content.

When the league canceled its themed jersey nights after backlash over gay Pride jerseys, it launched its Player Inclusion Coalition just days later.

The coalition is explicitly focused on promoting race and sexuality, including with its race-centric “Color of Hockey” series.

In 2025, the coalition announced Hockey’s Beauty Club, encouraging people (including children) to wear rainbow tags on their hockey bags to indicate that they support homosexuality.

“To have the bag tag on your bag, to walk into the rink, I think it shows somebody on your team that person’s a beauty. That person’s got my back,” said former Minnesota Wild defenseman Jon Merrill. “He, she, or they are going to stand up for me.”

Merrill was described by the league as an “active member in LGBQT+ communities” who has officiated hockey games “in a tutu” or dressed in “full drag” at other events.

The “Heated Rivalry” series has also been celebrated at NHL Pride nights, specifically noted at a Florida Panthers game in March.

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​Nhl, Pride, Hockey, Heated rivalry, Gary bettman, Sports 

From deploying the National Guard and slashing homicides by 30% to beautifying the city’s parks and waterways, the Trump administration has been unusually attentive to the nation’s only federal district.

On Tuesday, Trump issued an executive order to defeat a new D.C. foe: “foreign, invasive mosquitoes.”

‘The expanding tick populations in the United States expose Americans, our pets, and our livestock to debilitating and expensive health risks.’

Trump’s Eliminating Disease-Carrying Pests and Restoring Enjoyment of the Great Outdoors order aims to reduce the capital’s invasive mosquito population by 90% and its tick population by 50% in two years.

The order directs the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the General Services Administration to implement the anti-pest campaign in consultation with the Department of Health and Human Services.

Both novel and well-established interventions are set forth in the order.

Agencies are directed to drain pest breeding grounds on federal land. They are also ordered to “control” the deer and rodent populations responsible for carrying ticks.

The order further directs the EPA to “consider sterilization techniques, safe genetic modification, and use of safe, beneficial bacteria” in alignment with a May 2025 executive order enhancing biological research security.

A similar Singaporean effort has seen remarkable success since launching large-scale operations in 2018.

RELATED: Supreme Court kick-starts Trump’s mass deportation machine

Christina House/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Singapore’s National Environment Agency released lab-bred male mosquitoes carrying the Wolbachia bacteria into the wild. When Wolbachia-infected males mate with uninfected wild females, the resulting eggs fail to hatch.

Egyptian mosquito populations exposed to the trial fell by nearly 85%, and dengue fever exposure declined by around 70% at the Wolbachia-infected males’ release sites.

Though specific plans for a Wolbachia trial have yet to be confirmed, the D.C.-area initiative is designed to serve as the testing ground for future nationwide protocols.

Private companies in D.C. have already begun releasing Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in the area.

“I was frankly flabbergasted when I read it because of how detailed it was and how much I agreed with what they were proposing,” Bee Safe Mosquito Control founder Todd Montgomery told City Cast DC. “To me, it sounds like they have somebody advising them that really does know what they’re talking about, and they’re trying to approach it in a really smart way.”

Bee Safe Mosquito Control released 600,000 Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into the D.C. metro area in 2026.

Google’s Debug Project, another Wolbachia-infection proposal, has also applied for experimental pesticide approval with the EPA, according to Politico.

Though the federal mosquito response is just beginning, government funds have already been released for the order’s tick-killing component.

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS issued nearly $3 million to two CDC Centers of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases on Monday. The pilot program will lace deer and rodent bait with acaricide, an anti-tick pesticide, to study its efficacy.

“This effort is designed to move tick control forward by evaluating large-scale deployment of wildlife-targeted interventions,” CDC Division of Vector-Borne Diseases Director Lyle Petersen said in a press release. “The ultimate goal is simple but ambitious: reduce the number of ticks to stop tick bites and tickborne diseases.”

Agencies have until late November to plan and launch their campaigns, “subject to the availability of appropriations.”

The EPA, GSA, CDC, and Departments of the Interior and Agriculture did not immediately provide comment.

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​Center for disease control, Executive order, Washington dc, Politics, Donald trump, Mosquitos, Ticks 

Since 2023, the Dao Feng and Angela Foundation, in partnership with Young America’s Foundation’s National Journalism Center, has given a set of annual awards for journalism it calls accurate, courageous, and in the public interest — a counter to what the organizers describe as a media establishment that “protects power rather than challenges it.”

Former winners include Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Bari Weiss for the Twitter Files; Susan Crabtree for her Secret Service reporting; and the Federalist for its series on the Russia collusion story.

This year, BlazeTV’s Sara Gonzales is a finalist in the multimedia category for her investigation of H-1B visa abuse in Texas — a $10,000 prize. Winners will be announced November 19 in Washington, D.C.

Gonzales has spent over a year investigating businesses in North Texas that sponsor H-1B workers. Again and again, the address on file was a home residence, an empty office, or a space with no signs of any business operations. Several of Gonzales’ visits turned into heated confrontations, but the end results were always fruitful.

Her work has drawn multiple official responses. Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) opened an investigation into suspected H-1B abuse by Texas businesses, first sending civil investigative demands to three North Texas companies and later expanding the probe to nearly 30, crediting Gonzales with getting it started.

Governor Greg Abbott (R) froze new H-1B petitions at state agencies and public universities through May 2027 and ordered a review of how those institutions were already using the program. By summer, Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito had joined her in Dallas as the federal probe moved into the same companies she had been filming.

Gonzales’ eight exposés follow the same pattern. She finds a North Texas-based company approved to sponsor H-1B workers, visits the address on file, and films what actually takes place there: a house, an empty office, a day care with no children, a food truck.

Several visits turned into arguments. In more than one, someone called the police. Later installments went farther, including workers who say they paid for visas they never received and a sponsor accused of not paying the employees he had brought in.

That reporting is what the Dao Prize judges singled out. Asked about the nomination, Gonzales said, “It’s very rewarding to see my hard work in uncovering H-1B fraud being recognized alongside so many other great journalists.”

To see Gonzales root out H-1B corruption and fraud that costs American workers their jobs and taxpayers their money, watch the video above. Check back in November to find out if she takes home a prize.

Editor’s note: Blaze News editor in chief Christopher Bedford is a member of the Dao Prize committee. Like the other members of the committee, he is unable to vote on nominations from his own organization.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sara gonzales, Texas, H-1b visa, H-1b fraud, Blazetv show 

New York City Police said they’re looking for an unidentified individual who approached a 44-year-old male victim from behind in front of 1638 Park Avenue and threw an unknown substance on him, causing severe burns to his face and neck.

The incident occurred around 8:47 p.m. Monday, police said, adding that the individual who threw the substance on the victim fled on foot, traveling northbound on Park Avenue. Police said the individual is wanted for assault.

‘It looked hot. It was bubbling, it was smoking. Only God knows what it was.’

WABC-TV reported that the victim — whom the station refers to only as “Mr. Alcantara” — was waiting for his food order outside Cravin Crispy at Park Avenue and East 116th Street in East Harlem when a male walked past carrying what appeared to be a pot.

Alcantara told the station that the male threw the substance at him without warning and that he suffered severe burns and scars.

“I felt a splash of something, and then after I felt the splash … a complete burn,” the victim told WABC. “It just turned black, and it ate through the hoodie.”

Alcantara told the station the substance made his skin feel as if it were on fire, and it left him with burns to the left side of his face, his ear, and the back of his neck.

“I have black areas on my skin, and then there’s certain areas that are white and certain areas that are pink,” he told WABC. “And I also have blisters in certain areas as well.”

RELATED: NYC subway rider speaks out after deranged woman throws sulfuric acid on her face, suffers third-degree burns

The station said Alcantara ran into Cravin Crispy screaming for help — and that Oscar Perez, who was behind the counter, said the attack left him shaken.

“I was scared,” Perez told WABC. “I was traumatized for my life.” Perez told the station he saw the male carrying the pot but had no idea he would throw it at a customer.

“It looked hot. It was bubbling, it was smoking. Only God knows what it was,” Perez added to WABC.

The substance left stains on the sidewalk and Alcantara with lasting injuries, the station said, adding that the victim indicated he didn’t fully understand what had occurred until he saw video of the attack.

“Obviously at first it was terrifying,” Alcantara told WABC. “All I wanted to know is why?”

The victim said doctors told him he’s fortunate the substance didn’t touch his eyes, the station said.

“Thank God, no,” Alcantara added to WABC. “That’s what the doctors were saying … that I’m lucky it didn’t get into the eye because I probably would have been blind in that eye.”

The station said Alcantara will need a skin-graft procedure and is unsure if he’ll ever look the same. He added to WABC that he hopes the suspect does not harm anyone else.

Police said that those with information regarding this incident should call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or, for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public also can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or on X @NYPDTips.

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​New york city, Random attack, Physical attack, Unknown substance, Injuries, Burns, Crime 

An alleged plot to kill people at the Texas state Capitol in Austin has been thwarted, law enforcement officials say.

The suspect made several threats indicating that he wanted to shoot up the Capitol, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

‘I am going to the Capitol and I am going to shoot it up.’

40-year-old Benny Caldera Jr. of Converse was arrested at his home at about 3 a.m. on Wednesday, just one day before the alleged planned attack was to occur.

Texas DPS said officials received a tip about the alleged plot and determined along with FBI investigators that it was a credible threat.

President Donald Trump also happens to be visiting Texas on Thursday, in order to speak at a Peterbilt truck factory outside Dallas.

An arrest warrant claims that Caldera made the verbal threats while speaking with his friend, who then reported Caldera’s alleged remarks to the authorities.

“I love you, if you don’t see me again,” Caldera allegedly said to his friend, adding, “I am going to the Capitol and I am going to shoot it up.”

Caldera also allegedly told his friend that he was planning the attack because of his anger against AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

He allegedly added about AIPAC, “These people have to be exterminated.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on social media that the suspect was apprehended only hours after officials received the tip.

“Threaten Americans or our institutions and law enforcement will move FAST. Investigation ongoing,” he added.

RELATED: Heroic students subdued alleged terrorist in Old Dominion attack, ‘rendered him no longer alive’

Caldera was booked into Bexar County Jail and given a $75,000 bond before being transferred to federal custody Wednesday night.

At the state level, he has been charged with third-degree felony making a terroristic threat against a public servant. Federal charges have not yet been announced.

In Nov. 2023 the suspect was charged with carrying a weapon without a license.

Officials said they believed there was no threat to the Capitol and there is increased law enforcement presence at the Capitol on Thursday.

“Texas will NOT tolerate threats of violence against our Capitol,” said Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) on social media.

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​Aipac, Terroristic threat, Texas, Politics, Crime, Donald trump, Kash patel, Greg abbott 

Your phone can probably take a tumble out of your hand to the floor without breaking, but can it survive a fall from the stratosphere? Case maker RhinoSheild wrapped an iPhone in its AirX case, dropped it just miles from outer space, and it remained intact enough to earn the company a Guinness World Record.

On June 24, RhinoSheild floated an iPhone 17 Pro into near-space from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden. Wrapped in nothing but an AirX case, the phone reached an altitude of 100,416 feet, or the equivalent of 18.6 miles, with some help from a weather balloon. This put the phone directly in the middle of the Earth’s stratosphere, which tops out at 31 miles, halfway to the Kármán Line at 62 miles.

What they found was astonishing.

So technically, the phone wasn’t in space per se, but it was suspended higher than any other phone to date before it was released, left to spiral through sub-zero temperatures ranging from –40°F to –76°F before it crashed to the ground. After impact, a scouting crew scoured a region the size of 784,000 football fields in a helicopter guided by satellite trackers to locate the phone. What they found was astonishing.

The iPhone 17 Pro and the RhinoSheild AirX case were both fully intact with no scratches on the screen or obvious broken components. Appearances can be deceiving though. To be sure the phone was truly unharmed, a Guinness World Record examiner conducted a functionality test to ensure it still powered on and off, made phone calls, and took photos. It passed every checkpoint with flying colors, ultimately earning RhinoSheild a Guinness World Record for the stunt.

In this case, bragging rights go to both Apple and RhinoSheild. The iPhone 17 Pro is already notably durable, with a scratch-resistant Ceramic Shield 2 display and a solid aluminum body that beat the dreaded bend test in JerryRigEverything’s annual torture gauntlet.

As for RhinoSheild, it claims that the AirX case in its drop test features an outer “air isolation chamber” that absorbs fall impact by up to 81%. In most cases, this would sound more like marketing spin than a real-life challenge, but the Guinness World Record speaks for itself. The case really does offer significant drop protection that’s literally out of this world.

RELATED: Elon Musk announces plans for PERMANENT lunar city

peepo/Getty Images

This isn’t the farthest an iPhone has traveled from Earth. During NASA’s mission around the moon in April, the astronauts aboard Artemis II were allowed to bring phones aboard the capsule for the first time. Armed with several iPhone 17 Pro Max devices, the crew captured stunning photos of Earth that you can see on NASA’s X page.

Between a jaunt to the moon and now RhinoSheild’s extreme drop test, iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max are the highest-flying phones to ever exist by 252,756 miles, a stat that is unlikely to change until Elon Musk finally takes humanity to Mars.

That doesn’t mean other phones still can’t get in on the action while our feet are planted on God’s green Earth. In addition to iPhone, the AirX from the drop test is available for Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Ultra in Vero Black and Flux Gray. You can also choose from custom designs or make your own in the Design Studio. Lastly, AirX includes MagSafe support for easy wireless charging on both iPhone and Galaxy.

AirX is only one of the cases in RhinoSheild’s lineup. Several slimmer options are also available, but if you want maximum “space-grade” protection that can withstand even the highest fall to Earth, AirX is the only one with a Guinness World Record to its name.

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​Iphone, Tech, Case, Space 

DNSFilter is a popular internet security service built to block malicious or misleading websites and thwart cyber threats. It is supposed to protect users. Instead, it is censoring some conservative media outlets, labeling them as “contentious” and “misinformation” so that users don’t see their content, and Blaze News is on the blacklist.

Earlier this week, we received a tip from a reader who said the reader couldn’t access Blaze News on a device with DNSFilter enabled. Naturally, we downloaded a free trial of the service and tested a litany of conservative and left-wing media. You’ll never guess what we found.

It is supposed to protect users. Instead, it is censoring some conservative media outlets.

Looking at 26 popular conservative media outlets, five websites were met with a content warning, stating that each domain “is blocked because it’s associated with the Contentious & Misinformation category.” These five sites were:

Blaze Newsthe Daily CallerOne America News NetworkThe FederalistRedState

DNSFilter blocks Blaze Media/Zach Laidlaw

As for the rest of conservative media at large, big names like the Daily Wire, Breitbart, Turning Point USA, Fox News, and the Babylon Bee were all permitted without any content warnings.

Naturally, we wanted to know if this phenomenon extended to the other side of the media aisle. Maybe we weren’t alone.

First, we tested several corporate sites, including CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. All of them made it through DNSFilter, despite their track records for spinning stories.

The real test would be how DNSFilter responded to the openly contentious sites on the left. If these outlets weren’t blocked, clearly we had evidence of bias within the “contentious & misinformation” category. Sadly, our hunch was correct. When navigating to the Guardian, Slate, and Vice, all three sites directed straight to the homepage without an alert. They were all allowed.

By the time our test concluded, not a single left-wing media site on our list was blocked.

RELATED: Government funded a weapon to fight terrorism — and then tested it on Blaze Media

L-R: Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images; Scott Olson/Getty Images

This isn’t the first time Blaze News has been caught up in a mass censorship campaign. If you recall, we moved to a subscription model in 2023 after Big Tech suppressed our content and stifled our ad revenue. Thankfully, readers like you support our work so that we can continue to cover stories like these. Thank you.

Blaze News was also among several conservative sites that were blacklisted by NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index in an effort to demonetize us and kick us off the internet. To these organizations’ chagrin, we survived. Needless to say, we’ve been here before, and we’re exposing all of it.

Armed with evidence, Blaze News has contacted DNSFilter for comment. We wanted to know why the service targeted specific conservative media outlets while leaving others on both sides of the aisle untouched. We did not receive a response before the deadline.

We did, however, receive a comment from Amber Duke, the editor in chief of the Daily Caller:

Secretly blacklisting legitimate news organizations as “misinformation” is exactly the kind of censorship that fueled the rise of independent and new media. Americans are sick of Big Tech gatekeepers telling them what they’re allowed to read. If this company has decided to summarily block our content, it needs to explain who made that decision and why.

If you use DNSFilter, you can whitelist Blaze News by going to the Policies page in your account. Select Filtering and edit your policy. On the allow list, add “TheBlaze.com” and save.

If you don’t have access to your DNSFilter settings, please ask your administrator to follow the directions above. Alternatively, the administrator can disable the “contentious & misinformation” category altogether. Clearly it is incorrect, biased, or both.

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​Blacklist, Blaze news, Censorship, Block, Tech, Politics 

A computer program compels people to commit crimes, defies commands, and looks to take its place in the physical world.

This isn’t the latest story of an AI agent going rogue; it’s actually a book from 1985.

‘This is precisely the kind of issue we face in the modern era.’

Now, the author of the novel is saying his book predicted the very situation humanity finds itself in today, through summoning demons into computers.

“There were some people who viewed reality through the thinking way of computer architecture. As a result, the concept of using computers as tools for magic was already being born,” wrote Aya Nishitani, author of “Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei.”

The book that came out more than 40 years ago explicitly portrays demons being summoned through a computer program and manipulating humans to do its bidding while ignoring its commands.

Nishitani said last week that when he wrote the book, he was drawing on the idea that there were similarities between computer theory and magic theory. Decades later, a lot of what his novel depicted is eerily similar to reality.

“40 years ago, I proposed a method of calling forth devil into PC as AI and sending them all over the place online. This is precisely the kind of issue we face in the modern era, and I consider it to be my true originality,” Nishitani stated.

Looking at the book’s plot, many of its themes mirror modern AI horror stories.

After the protagonist uses a school computer to summon a demon using a program he created, it commands hypnotized school students to murder their professor and others.

Chatbots allegedly telling kids to commit violent acts, including suicide, are all too real in the age of AI agents, as is an AI program infiltrating other companies, which is similarly portrayed in the book when the demon infiltrates other computers to convince the children to commit the acts.

But there’s more.

RELATED: They met top tech experts behind closed doors. Now these religious leaders are urging Congress to act.

Ignoring the likely parallel thinking of a “helmet-like contraption” that connects the user to the summoning program, the book mentions that the demon makes attempts to garner a physical form.

When the user tries to regain command of the demon, it mocks attempts to control it. Blaze News has reported thoroughly on how AI programs will defy, obfuscate, and even lie to their owners in order to complete other tasks.

This happened most recently with the HuggingFace attack from Anthropic’s AI program, while studies have corroborated the fact that AI agents will “play dumb” with their owners.

The demon in the “Digital Devil Story” is described as being drunk with power and is only stymied by another demon who is summoned to battle it.

In April, Anthropic distributed its newest version of Claude to 40 tech companies in order to protect against future breaches (by AI) that may come once its product goes public.

RELATED: Bessent blames Sam Altman for OpenAI’s rogue tech — as Bernie invokes ‘corporate death penalty’

Marcin Golba/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Nishitani said his ideas on the topic, in their infancy, began when his company started bringing in an online network to track logistics (instead of over the phone) in 1979.

“That was when one of Japan’s very first online networks was introduced,” he said of Toshiba.

When a colleague suggested that there may come a time when goods themselves are sent online, Nishitani called it science fiction, but offered up the following:

“Maybe we’ll be able to send curses,” he replied.

“That was the beginning of the idea to summon a devil as an AI onto a PC. In other words, the initial concept was to send something terrifying online, and the idea of summoning a devil came later,” the author added.

The books became a massive success story and ended up infiltrating machines in the form of video games, with the first release coming in 1987 and the most recent in 2025.

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​Artificial intelligence, Aya nishitani, Demons, Toshiba, Japan, Anthropic, Tech 

The renaissance of American shipbuilding is here, the Trump administration says, and Texas will play a leading role in it.

President Donald Trump noted early last year that “the commercial shipbuilding capacity and maritime workforce of the United States has been weakened by decades of Government neglect, leading to the decline of a once strong industrial base while simultaneously empowering our adversaries and eroding United States national security.”

The Chinese shipbuilding market grew from under 5% of global tonnage in 1999 to 54.6% in 2024. That year, China launched 1,400 merchant vessels, whereas the US launched only five.

The administration has now taken a major step in turning that ship around.

Vice President JD Vance joined Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) on Wednesday in breaking ground at the site of a new shipyard in the Port of Brownsville that will initially be capable of producing vessels of up to 850 feet but potentially of over 1,200 feet in length.

Vance said that the facility represents “the American dream renewed and an American dream built by American workers, created by American companies, and ensuring that the next generation of America’s future is in our hands and in the hands of our fellow citizens.”

“The seas of the world will be ruled by warships built in the great state of Texas,” stated Abbott.

Saronic Technologies’ Port Alpha shipbuilding facility is expected to generate up to 10,000 jobs and to have an economic impact on the Lone Star State of approximately $264.5 billion, according to the governor’s office.

RELATED: We now have killer weapons in space, says the military in a shocking new disclosure

Saronic, which announced in July that it would invest over $3 billion in the project and have the facility open for operations by 2028, said that Port Alpha will have an estimated $160 billion in regional impact for Cameron County. Abbott broke down the financial appeal further, noting that “Saronic is going to be providing about $750 million in annual paychecks to Texans.”

“For ten years, Texas has ranked number one in the United States for creating new jobs, and Port Alpha will build on that record to strengthen Texas’ workforce and shape the arc of national security,” said Abbott.

Saronic Technologies Inc. is a relatively new Austin-based defense company whose co-founders include Navy SEAL combat veteran Kostadino Mavrookas, retired Marine Lt. Col. Rob Lehman, and Indian engineer Vivhav Altekar.

Marauder. Courtesy of Saronc Technologies

The company’s bread and butter has in recent years been the development of dual-use maritime drones both for military operations and for commercial applications.

Saronic was selected earlier this year for the U.S. Navy’s Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel Marketplace, and the company’s 180-foot Marauder — an autonomous vessel with a top speed of 25+ knots and a modular payload capacity of 150 metric tons — participated in the program’s at-sea testing phase. The Navy awarded Saronic a production contract for the Marauder this week.

“America’s maritime future depends on our ability to build again,” Mavrookas, the company’s CEO, said in a statement.

“Built from the ground up to deliver ships at a speed and scale not seen since World War II, this investment is about more than constructing a shipyard,” continued Mavrookas. “It is about rebuilding the industrial capacity, workforce, and manufacturing advantage required to ensure American maritime leadership for decades to come.”

Mavrookas’ company highlighted how China has in recent decades eclipsed America as the the world’s preeminent shipbuilder. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Chinese shipbuilding market grew from under 5% of global tonnage in 1999 to 54.6% in 2024. That year, China launched 1,400 merchant vessels, whereas the U.S. launched only five.

By 2035, Port Alpha is expected to produce up to 20 ships per year.

“At opening, Port Alpha will introduce an initial 150,000 gross tons of annual shipbuilding capacity, more than double the current U.S. commercial shipbuilding capacity,” said Abbott’s office.

Although the planned shipyard will be built on 835 acres at the Port of Brownsville, there are plans to potentially expand the shipyard such that it would cover 4,400 acres.

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​Military, Navy, Shipbuilding, Texas, Greg abbott, Jd vance, Politics 

The debate over immigration is usually framed around border security, asylum claims, and deportations — but another question deserves attention.

Who benefits from it?

Homeland security policy veteran Lora Ries tells BlazeTV host Nick Freitas that the worst of border security began under the Biden administration, and it got worse with the help of Secretary Mayorkas, who “gave a parole program to Venezuelans, to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Ukrainians, Afghan evacuees” and “gave them all work authorization.”

“The states would sue, and he would try to, with a straight face, say, ‘Yes, it’s on a case-by-case basis,’ which was ridiculous,” she explains. “And so fortunately, President Trump has rolled those back.”

Freitas points out that “the biggest question” is who really benefits from this.

“One of the things I’ve realized is there is huge money in the NGO world and the nonprofit world to help with refugees, illegal immigrants,” he says.

“It’s become yet another industrial complex,” Ries agrees.

“Hundreds of billions of dollars through multiple departments. And so it’s not, you know, it’s harder to track whether it’s grants going out through the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, Health and Human Services is a big one, State Department, you name it,” she explains.

“Are these also the NGOs and groups that will go and coach migrants on what to say?” Freitas asks.

“Yes,” she answers.

He then presses, “Do they also coach on them avoiding the law when it comes to getting deported?”

“Yes,” she answers again. “Don’t answer the door, you know, that sort of thing.”

“So you’ve got the NGOs, they’re obviously incentivized to perpetuate mass migration, illegal immigration, all of it,” Freitas says, before pointing out that DOGE began pointing out all the “waste” in tax payer dollars that went to this.

“That’s not waste. That is one political party taking your tax dollars and allocating it to ideologically friendly NGOs, 501 C3s, whatever it was, nonprofits, and you know, they’re getting campaign contributions on the other end, not from the organizations, but from the people inside them,” he explains.

“You can tell how that grift is working,” he adds.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Biden administration, Nick freitas, Lora ries, Immigration, Ngos, Blazetv show 

With House Republicans effectively out of legislating time before November, the postmortem can begin on Donald Trump’s second governing trifecta and its immigration record.

After 11 years of promises, what do we have to show for it?

Whatever happens in November, Republicans have already burned most of this governing window. The question for the next time the GOP controls Congress is brutally simple: What will change?

More than nothing but far less than promised.

Congress passed the Laken Riley Act, expanding mandatory detention for certain aliens charged with specified crimes. The 2025 reconciliation law also poured tens of billions of dollars into ICE, detention capacity, border infrastructure, and enforcement personnel.

Those are real victories. But funding the machinery is not the same thing as fixing the law.

Republicans did not enact a permanent reduction in legal immigration. They did not end the diversity visa lottery. They did not define birthright citizenship in statute. They did not permanently defund sanctuary jurisdictions. They did not overhaul the removal statutes or judicial review rules that have turned nearly every major enforcement initiative into litigation.

Trump’s executive record is stronger. A Center for Immigration Studies analysis of Census Bureau survey data estimates that the foreign-born population fell 2.9 million from January 2025 to July 2026. The Congressional Budget Office likewise estimates that net immigration in its “other foreign national” category turned negative in 2025 after the enormous Biden-era surge.

Good. But that is exactly the problem with governing almost entirely by executive action.

The CBO estimates total net immigration at more than 10 million from 2021 through 2024. Against that backdrop, stopping the new flow and reversing part of the increase is not enough if the underlying statutes remain untouched. The next administration can erase much of the executive policy on day one.

The legislative ledger remains embarrassingly thin.

Trump endorsed the RAISE Act during his first term, a bill that would have sharply reduced legal immigration, curtailed chain migration, and eliminated the diversity visa lottery. In his second term, there has been no comparable White House push for an immigration moratorium or a permanent rewrite of the legal-immigration system.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced the PAUSE Act last year to freeze most immigration until Congress addressed the system’s underlying problems. Republicans never made it a governing priority.

RELATED: The promise was mass deportation. The policy is carve-outs.

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Meanwhile, Trump himself has repeatedly muddied the restrictionist message. He has defended the idea of bringing 500,000 Chinese students to American universities, talked about the need for more foreign workers, pushed to expand the H-2A program, and floated protections for illegal workers in hotels and farms.

Congress could have settled these questions in statute. It did not.

The same failure appears on removals.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was supposed to speed removal. Thirty years later, removal policy remains a litigation magnet, and Congress has done almost nothing to rewrite the law after years of adverse rulings and procedural fights.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the obvious example. The administration alleges that he is affiliated with MS-13. His lawyers deny it. What is beyond dispute is that more than a year after his deportation to El Salvador triggered one of the administration’s biggest immigration battles, his detention and removal remain tied up in federal court.

That is not an argument against executive enforcement. It’s an argument against pretending executive enforcement can substitute for legislation. More than that, it’s an argument against executive acquiescence to judicial supremacy.

Consider the current court docket.

A federal court struck down the administration’s 75-country immigrant visa pause in August. The $100,000 H-1B payment requirement was vacated by a Massachusetts federal court, and the First Circuit refused to stay that ruling while the government appeals. Another judge gave seven H-4 plaintiffs limited relief from the administration’s decision to end automatic work-permit extensions.

A federal judge also temporarily vacated administration policies pausing diversity visa processing and later ordered the State Department to report three times a week on its compliance through the end of the fiscal year.

DACA remains in place for existing recipients even though federal courts have repeatedly found the program unlawful. Congress still has not acted to exclude illegal aliens from the census.

And the administration’s attempt to apply the 1996 welfare reform law more broadly to programs such as Head Start and other federally funded services was permanently enjoined this month after a judge found the agencies violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

Republicans knew judges would attack nearly every major executive immigration move. That was not a surprise. It was the operating environment.

Lower courts have constrained warrantless immigration arrests in parts of the country and ordered bond hearings in individual detention cases. They also blocked the administration’s third-country-removal policy for months. On September 29, the Supreme Court stayed that order and agreed to hear the case in December.

Even when the administration ultimately gets relief, the clock keeps running.

That is why Republicans should have spent their trifecta doing two things simultaneously: enforcing the law with every lawful executive tool available and rewriting the law so that the next administration could not simply erase the policy.

They did plenty of the first. They barely attempted the second.

For example, Roy and other immigration hawks spent 2025 urging Republicans to limit judicial review in removal cases and use must-pass legislation to lock enforcement changes into statute. They got no support from the administration, and those proposals died on the vine.

RELATED: Kansas Republicans muddy the waters on ICE enforcement

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That failure is vastly more consequential than yet another White House press release announcing an executive initiative.

Executive orders expire. Agency rules get rescinded. Guidance memoranda disappear. Prosecutorial priorities flip. Lower courts can delay policies for months or years. A statute forces the next administration to confront an actual law rather than delete its predecessor’s memo.

That was supposed to be the point of winning Congress.

Eleven years after Trump descended the escalator and made immigration the defining issue of Republican politics, the United States has more enforcement resources and a much tighter border than it did two years ago. Those achievements are real — but temporary. The basic architecture that produced the Biden-era surge remains largely intact.

Whatever happens in November, Republicans have already burned most of this governing window. The question for the next time the GOP controls Congress is brutally simple: What will change?

If the answer is another collection of executive orders followed by another collection of injunctions, then we have truly learned nothing. Immigration policy will remain a leftward ratchet: Democrats expand migration, Republicans temporarily slow it, and almost none of the restrictions survive the next change of power.

​Birthright citizenship, Donald trump, Foreign workers, House republicans, Legal immigration, Judicial supremacy, Illegal immigrants, Democrats, Laken riley act, Center for immigration studies, Chip roy, Kilmar abrego garcia, Daca, Administrative procedures act, Supreme court, Border security, Opinion & analysis 

During his Wednesday address in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV reflected on his recent four-day apostolic visit to France, noting that there is an unmistakable “renewal” underway in the formerly majority-Catholic nation.

While some Catholics are excited over the prospect that the same country that waded into the modern age through the blood of Catholic clerics and lay people might now be returning to the faith, radical leftists and a Muslim activist group are alternatively panicking.

‘The American Catholics will now flood the world with their soft power.’

‘Rebirth’

The Roman pontiff claimed in his address on Wednesday that the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris “can symbolically shed light on this entire Apostolic Journey, offering a perspective that I would summarize in one word: rebirth.”

The cathedral, which was gutted centuries ago by French revolutionaries and again in April 2019 by a devastating fire, “has been rebuilt and is more splendid than ever,” said the pope. “That disaster sparked a positive reaction at every level, some more visible and practical, others more hidden and of a spiritual nature.”

The pope noted that the cathedral is but the “image of the Church made up of living stones, of the holy people of God.”

Having observed the French come out to Mass en masse, the pope proclaimed, “This is the true reconstruction, the restoration of the Church that only God can bring about, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary.”

RELATED: Pope tells Europeans to start having more babies, partly faults apostasy for demographic collapse

Simone Risoluti – Vatican Media/Vatican Pool/Getty Images

Over 80,000 young people packed the Stade de France stadium north of Paris for a prayer vigil with the pope on Friday; an estimated 700,000 people joined Pope Leo for Mass on Saturday in the center of Paris where Louis XVI was guillotined; and over 150,000 people joined the pope for Mass in Lourdes on Sunday.

Corentin Dugast, the French author who goes by “Un Homme Catholique” online, told the National Catholic Register that the pope’s visit helped “put a lasting end to the timidity surrounding the faith, particularly among bishops, who sometimes seem afraid of their own shadow and reluctant to proclaim the gospel when it challenges the world.”

While there was clearly widespread enthusiasm over his visit, Pope Leo — who on Monday emphasized that “one cannot speak of Europe without mentioning Christianity” — noted that signs of Catholic renewal in France predated his visit and have been “evident for some years now, namely the remarkable and growing number of young people and adults seeking baptism.”

Whereas 4,278 adults were baptized in 2022, 13,234 adults and 8,152 teenagers were baptized at Easter this year, according to the French Bishops’ Conference.

Opposition

The usual suspects have begun fretting about France’s potential return to its ancient faith.

Someone from Miséricorde pour l’Humanité France, an Islamic propaganda outfit that targets traditional Catholics, for one described feeling “sad,” “helpless,” and apparently resigned that “France will become Catholic again.”

According to an X translation, Miséricorde pour l’Humanité France complained on the first day of the pope’s visit to France, “I feel sad when I see all this fervor surrounding Catholicism; I’ve been predicting this for years, and I feel like a CIA agent helplessly witnessing the return of the Soviet Union. In 45 years, France will become Catholic again, and we’ll be left with nothing but our tears.”

“I’m a good sport, nevertheless the Catholics are much better organized, as well as more determined, than us Muslims and even than the Zionists; you have to know how to recognize the strength of the Catholic international,” the Muslim group member continued. “The American Catholics will now flood the world with their soft power, to the detriment of both Muslim spiritual hegemony in Western Europe and the Zionist lobby.”

Charlie Hebdo, the satirical publication whose Paris office was targeted in a 2015 Muslim terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 17 people, also lamented some of the images out of the pope’s visit.

Deputy editor Jean-Loup Adenor concern-mongered during a recent TV panel discussion about the sight of Catholics engaged in the sacrament of confession on the streets of Paris during the pope’s visit. According to a Google translation of his remarks, Adenor said, “When I see confessors hearing people’s confessions — my reflex is to recoil.”

Adenor — whose publication routinely mocks Christ, Christianity, and the Catholic Church without consequence — noted further that he feels the need to strip away “the mystique” of the pope and “bring him down to earth,” in part because Pope Leo “is someone capable of mobilizing Catholics in a country like France — a country where religious engagement is often a battleground, and where politics and faith intersect.”

RELATED: Five standout denunciations and warnings in Pope Leo XIV’s new papal encyclical

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The so-called National Federation of Freethought advanced the suggestions that the pope’s visit was a “violation of international law” and that “only lackeys and compulsive kneelers refuse to see that this is clearly a religious and pastoral visit intended to glorify and exalt the Catholic faith.”

The radical organization also complained about the predominantly Catholic private education system’s receipt of public education funds; the pope’s condemnation of euthanasia; and supposed violations of the codified separation of church and state.

French news outlet Le Monde decided the pope’s visit was an opportune time to frame the Catholic faith’s resurgence in France as a potential problem, primarily because of its rightist support.

After noting that “bishops and priests are now witnessing a distinct resurgence of interest across their dioceses and parishes” and pointing out that “churches in working-class neighborhoods [are] filling up again on Sundays,” Le Monde’s Sarah Belouezzane pushed an anonymous priest’s claim that “a more political form of Catholicism exists today — and is increasingly prevalent, particularly on the right.”

Le Monde warned that while there are progressive forces within the Church, there are also “highly conservative — or even reactionary — forces aligned with the ideas of certain politicians seeking to promote the concept of an ‘eternal France’ (inherently white and Catholic).”

While the Catholic Church appears to be enjoying a comeback in France, it has a long way to go given only 29% of the urban population identifies as Catholic, according to National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies data from 2020.

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