Category: blaze media

A heroic police dog has made a triumphant return to a Florida sheriff’s office after being shot and losing a leg while protecting deputies.

Angel Bowers, 27, was arrested and charged in March 2024 with allegedly having unlawful sex with a 16-year-old girl inside a children’s “princess tent,” according to KFOX-TV.

‘Prayers are answered because Ace is alive and our deputies are uninjured.’

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Bowers was scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 3 but failed to appear. A judge revoked Bowers’ bond and issued a felony warrant.

On Aug. 6, three Polk County Sheriff’s Office deputies and K-9 Ace tracked down Bowers in a tent hidden in the woods, Judd stated in a press conference.

Police claimed Bowers began shooting at the officers, and one bullet hit Ace in his left shoulder, severely damaging his front leg and an artery.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office released audio of the moment that several shots were fired, and Ace can be heard whimpering in the background.

Citing the sheriff, KFOX reported that deputies returned fire, and Bowers was later found dead holding a stolen gun.

Ace’s partner and handler, Polk County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Natalie Oestreich, tended to the dog’s wounds and whisked him to safety, the sheriff’s office said, according to Fox News.

Ace, a 7-year-old German shepherd who has served with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office since March 2020, was rushed to the Parkway Veterinary Emergency Clinic in Lakeland, Polk County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Once stabilized, Ace was airlifted to the Veterinary Medical Center at Lakewood Ranch in Bradenton.

Fox News reported, “Veterinarians there performed a several-hour surgery to amputate his left front leg.”

An emotional video shows a group of deputies giving Ace treats and applauding the K-9 as he walks out of the medical center under his own power while wearing a shirt that reads: “Ride or die.”

RELATED: Florida sheriff tells homeowners how to handle looters: ‘Shoot him so he looks like grated cheese’

On Tuesday, less than a week after being shot and losing his front leg, Ace returned to the sheriff’s office to a hero’s welcome.

“Look at Ace. He’s happy; he’s eating; he bit my finger,” Judd said.

“Listen, we’re so proud of Natalie and Ace,” Judd continued. “They stood in the gap between good and evil, and they saved three deputies’ lives. That’s why we’re so proud of him. He did so good, and we couldn’t have done it without the handler — she is absolutely the very best .”

“Prayers are answered because Ace is alive and my deputies are not injured,” Judd remarked.

Sadly, Ace was forced to retire because of his traumatic injuries. “Chill out and enjoy your retirement, Ace,” Sheriff Judd said.

The sheriff’s office said of Ace, “His days of chasing bad guys may be over, but Ace will always be one of our heroes!”

RELATED: Florida man wearing bra, fake breasts, G-string gets busted — but what cops found moments later raised more alarms: Police

Polk Sheriff’s Charities established a K-9 fund to help support Ace’s care going forward.

The sheriff’s office stated, “The Wiltse Family Trust has already informed us that they intend to cover the cost for Ace’s care at Veterinary Medical Center at Lakewood Ranch AND the Trust has already committed to purchasing a new K-9 to replace Ace now that he will have to retire.”

Steve Wiltse, who founded the Wiltse Family Foundation in 2019 to support community heroes with his wife, said Ace’s handler will not have to worry about “anything” in caring for the hero dog.

“That’s what the foundation’s there for, so it kind of makes it a no-brainer. It’s there for events like that, so Natalie can worry about Ace,” Wiltse told WTVT-TV. “She doesn’t have to worry about where she’s getting money; she doesn’t have to worry about anything.”

Mary Anne Wiltse added, “They keep us safe and protected, and if we can facilitate them with a tool to do that, then it’s fulfilling.”

“There’s a litany of emotions you go through: grief, sorrow, excitement, happiness, because he’s going to be OK,” Mary Anne Wiltse noted. “He was able to save the lives of three officers.”

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​News, Grady judd, K9, Florida, Polk county sheriff’s office, Politics 

Newly released text messages from Dr. Anthony Fauci revealed a stark contrast between his private concerns and his public statements about COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy. While Fauci assured Americans in 2021 that roughly 20,000 vaccinated pregnant women had shown “no red flags,” private messages from the same period show him discussing potential risks.

“Since the EUA and under the EUA, approximately 20,000 pregnant women have been vaccinated with no red flags, as we say, and this is being monitored by the CDC and the FDA,” Fauci said in 2021.

However, texts from Dr. Fauci’s phone reveal a much different story.

“I asked around a bit more and another issue came up that you need to be aware of. Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester,” he wrote.

Two weeks later, Fauci said, “[FDA] have found thus far, and we have to be careful, but thus far, no red flags about that, about pregnant women.”

BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere is disturbed by the contrast.

“So that’s what he was saying publicly, while showing those sorts of doubts privately. And honestly, whether you think the COVID vaccine was great or you think it was terrible, whatever you think, you shouldn’t be doing those two things,” Stu comments.

“The man was asking other people in these circles, other physicians, other researchers, to delete emails to hide them. That is absolutely a crime when you’re a government official,” he adds.

Co-host Dave Landau points out that that wasn’t all Fauci was doing.

“He was asking that people be fired, have their medical license taken away. He was saying that he was ‘the science,’ that he was the be-all, end-all of what this was supposed to be,” Dave says.

Dave also explains that several of his friends’ wives miscarried after getting the COVID shot.

“I had three people text me yesterday because their wife miscarried after that booster,” he says.

“I talked to a person yesterday as well who had a similar situation,” Stu says.

“That’s four, though, just at this table,” says Dave.

“But again, that’s, you know, it’s anecdotal,” Stu says.

“That’s a rough anecdote,” Dave adds.

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​Cdc, Crime, Fda, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Pregnant women, Vaccines, Covid-19, Stu burguiere, Dave landau, Anthony fauci, Blazetv show 

President Donald Trump has announced that the White House press secretary will be resigning at the end of the month but will continue advising his administration.

Karoline Leavitt has been a fiery presence at the White House podium since Trump returned for a second term, but after giving birth to her second child in May, she decided to resign from the post.

She was the first pregnant White House press secretary in U.S. history.

“Our wonderful White House Press Secretary, and one of my most trusted aides, Karoline Leavitt, will be departing her role at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect!” said the president in a post on Truth Social Wednesday.

The president said she will continue to be one of his top outside advisers.

Leavitt had just returned to the administration from maternity leave. She was the first pregnant White House press secretary in U.S. history.

She has a son named Nicholas Robert Riccio, and the newest addition to her family a girl is named Viviana.

“Karoline has been one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office. Thank you, Karoline, for a job well done!” the president concluded.

RELATED: Karoline Leavitt rips into WaPo for ‘BS story’ that Trump is angry with Hegseth

Leavitt, who turns 29 later this month, is also the youngest person to serve as White House press secretary.

She and her husband, Nicholas Riccio, were married in Jan. 2025. They have a 32-year gap between their ages, according to People magazine.

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​Karoline leavitt, White house press secretary, Donald trump, Politics 

Anti-abortion activist Paul Vaughn was convicted in 2024 on a felony charge of conspiring to prevent access to a Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, reproductive clinic, then pardoned alongside 23 other pro-life activists the following year by President Donald Trump.

Now, Vaughn’s attorneys have announced they have reached a seven-figure settlement with the federal government.

“Paul Vaughn is a father of 11. Bless his heart … and he’s a Christian pro-life activist,” guest host Ron Simmons says on “Relatable.”

“Federal prosecutors charged him under the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrance Act called the FACE Act, a 1994 law that makes it a crime to use force, threats, or physical obstruction to interfere with access to abortion clinics or other reproductive health facilities,” he explains.

“You can be there. You can be there and witness. You can be singing songs. You can be praying. You can be actually even handing out literature. You just can’t use force or physical obstruction or threats,” he adds.

Prosecutors even added a felony conspiracy charge, which meant he faced a potential sentence of more than 10 years in prison if convicted.

“And what happened is he was there at this facility and that somebody must have complained. And two days later … the feds, the FBI came in, guns pulled,” Simmons explains.

“They arrived with guns drawn and arrested him in front of his wife and several of his children, which is just incredible,” he continues, noting that, however, this is a “good news story.”

“First of all, Vaughn was able to win against the government,” he says, adding, “and secondly, that President Trump pardoned those people.”

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​Paul vaughn, Pro life, Abortion, Face act, Joe biden, Donald trump, Pardon, Blazetv show 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley upset socialist Francesca Hong in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary for governor on Tuesday.

But he’s no moderate. Crowley has pursued anti-white diversity, equity, and inclusion policies since taking office, from public parks to health care administration.

‘Apply a racial equity lens to all County decision-making.’

Crowley and every Wisconsin Assembly Democrat opposed a constitutional amendment in January banning race-based discrimination or preferential treatment by government agencies, though his dedication to DEI began much earlier.

Crowley began enlarging the county’s DEI programs shortly after his election as county executive in 2020, and he expanded the Racial Equity Ambassador team built under his predecessor during his first three months in office.

During that time, the Office on African-American Affairs “provided over 11,000 hours of racial equity training to more than 3,000 Milwaukee County employees to normalize discussions on racism, implicit bias, and microaggressions,” Crowley said in an August 2020 press release.

Crowley also deployed these ambassadors to public parks to determine if they were racist. Each park was reviewed and assigned a value in the Milwaukee County Park Equity Index, and parks’ “equity index score” helped determine “major maintenance funding allocations.”

As county executive, Crowley has publicly and consistently blamed white people for Milwaukee’s problems.

RELATED: Francesca Hong voted to protect pedophiles as assemblywoman

Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images

“People in historic positions of power have typically been straight and white and male,” Crowley said in 2020. “People fall in the river because those who hold the power don’t always have the interests of all people in mind.”

Crowley supported an ordinance requiring Milwaukee County to “identify and address policies, practices, and power structures that, whether intentionally or unintentionally, work in favor of white people and create barriers for Black, Brown, Indigenous people, and people of color,” according to the county website. Crowley was later responsible for the statute’s implementation and expansion.

The ordinance wasn’t just a declaration of Crowley’s policy priorities. It was binding on all future county executives and Milwaukee County government as a whole.

“The ordinance ensures racial equity is a top priority of Milwaukee County government and remains larger than any one government leader,” according to the Office of Equity Projects and Programs webpage.

Crowley also upheld standards designed to exclude white applicants from both hiring and promotional pathways.

“We are always mindful of considerations of diversity when promoting our staff,” Crowley’s 2020 racial equity budget review reads.

“To attract a diverse field of applicants, we have focused on reaching out to our contacts and organizations throughout the city (e.g. the Wisconsin Black Lawyers Association and the Hispanic Lawyers Association) to let them know when there is an opening.”

The county didn’t merely reach out to contacts. It spent taxpayer money selectively advertising to non-white job-seekers.

“This year we have added money to support ads on blackjobs.com (to attract professional African American job seekers) and hispanicjobs.com (to attract Hispanic, Latino, and Latinx candidates),” the review reads.

RELATED: Swing-state election official resigns amid mail-in ballot investigation

Scott Olson/Getty Images

White employees who managed to keep their jobs were subject to race-specific condemnation. The county noted in that same review that it was “recognizing the work white people need to do to change their understanding and historic perception, to bring culture change in support of diversity and racial equity.”

Crowley and his team knew their DEI priorities weren’t making Milwaukee more prosperous. The COVID-era budget admitted that “racial equity and revenue generation by nature clash.”

Despite that admission, Milwaukee still spent millions in grants distributed according to DEI metrics.

“Our pursuit of racial equity will not be put on pause for the pandemic. It is crucial to invest in our marginalized communities now to secure a path forward and opportunity for continued economic growth long after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides,” Crowley said in a December 2020 press release after awarding $11.6 million to 1,534 businesses.

“In step with the County’s mission to address racial inequity, priority was given to businesses with a letter of support from a member of the Ethnic & Diverse Chamber Coalition, a group of chambers of commerce supporting entrepreneurs of color, women, LGBT, and veteran-owned businesses,” according to the release.

A 2021 Wisconsin Partnership Program outcome report found that 66% of grant recipients were indeed minorities, women, or veterans.

These programs are active and ongoing.

Milwaukee also launched a Racial Equity Lens Strategy team in 2021, “developing tools and processes to apply a racial equity lens to all County decision-making.”

“From advancing racial equity efforts to investing in affordable housing, mental health services, and public transit, we’ve realized great progress over the last four years in making Milwaukee County the healthiest community in Wisconsin,” Crowley said in 2024 reflection on the end of his first term.

Crowley and the Milwaukee Office of Equity did not respond to requests for comment.

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​David crowley, Diversity equity inclusion, Francesca hong, Wisconsin, Milwaukee county, Politics 

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, a daughter of immigrants who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, appears desperate to undermine the Trump administration at every opportunity — even at the expense of American election security.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March aimed at protecting “the integrity of the mail as a medium for transmitting Federal election ballots and establish[ing] uniform standards for mail-in or absentee ballot services implemented through the United States Postal Service.”

‘The district court’s erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock on the government’s ability to implement Section 3.’

The USPS subsequently issued a proposed rule that would implement best practices in accordance with the order, including a process that would help “evidence how many ballots have been mailed and allow law enforcement officials to compare the total number of mailed ballots to the total number of received ballots to detect potential issues meriting further investigation.”

The threat of higher standards was evidently too much to bear for liberal activist groups and various blue states.

Twenty-three Democratic-run states led by California and the District of Columbia challenged Trump’s executive order, claiming several parts of it violated the separation of powers, the Elections and Electors Clauses, and the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine.

Talwani ruled in June that the executive order did not apply in the blue states that raised the fuss and granted them a permanent injunction.

RELATED: Christian family seeks SCOTUS win against trans insanity in ‘case about swinging d**ks’

US Solicitor General D. John Sauer. Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images.

In a separate but related case overseen by Talwani, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and other liberal advocacy groups sued the government, claiming that sections 2 and 3 of the EO were unconstitutional and violated their members’ rights to vote.

On Tuesday, the Obama judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the USPS from “implementing, giving effect to, or enforcing Section 3 of Executive Order No. 14399, with respect to the November 3, 2026, or any earlier federal election.”

Section 3 of Trump’s EO requires that all outbound ballot mail must be in an envelope that:

is marked as official election mail;is automation-compatible and bears a unique intelligent mail barcode; andhas undergone a design review by the USPS to ensure compliance with agency mailing standards.

Section 3 also gave states until 60 days prior to the midterm elections to notify the USPS whether they intend to submit to the agency a list of eligible voters — with their eligibility confirmed on the basis of citizenship data — whom they intend to provide a mail-in or absentee ballot via the postal service.

The activist judge wrote, “Where the EO is presently causing confusion and threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy, the court finds that enfranchisement heavily outweighs the executive’s attempt to unconstitutionally insert itself into the domain of election regulation.”

“That it is now less than 90 days before the November 3, 2026, midterm elections underscores the critical need for an injunction to prevent Defendants from changing election rules on the eve of the election,” added Talwani.

The Trump administration — which asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the first of the two cases before Talwani on July 27 — asked again for a stay on Wednesday, stressing that the Obama judge’s order in the League of Women Voters of Mass v. Trump case “violates well-established Article III standing and ripeness requirements for all the same reasons as its prior orders.”

“Courts cannot enjoin implementation of an executive order that merely instructs agencies to pursue a proposed policy in a manner that is consistent with law, while leaving open material issues for them to resolve, unless and until those agencies actually take concrete actions that injure the plaintiffs,” wrote Solicitor General D. John Sauer.

Sauer noted that barring a stay from the high court, “the district court’s erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock on the government’s ability to implement Section 3 of the executive order for the federal elections in November, thereby causing irreparable harm to the federal government, the public, and election integrity.”

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​California, Executive order, Indira talwani, United states postal service, Donald trump, Politics 

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has announced that a league task force has been formed to discuss the topic of transgender athletes.

“I know many of you have received questions in recent weeks regarding transgender athlete participation in women’s basketball, and I expect this topic will continue to receive significant attention,” Engelbert wrote in a memo.

“Go ahead, laugh at the WNBA. The league is a joke. Cathy Englebert has formed a task force to determine what a woman is,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock comments.

“Enes Kanter and Royce White read the CBA, found the loophole, and declared for the 2027 draft. Two former NBA guys trolling a league that can’t define its own eligibility rules without a committee,” he adds, before playing videos of the men joking about the draft.

“It’s official, official, I just declared for the 2027 WNBA Draft in April. Join me in this journey,” former NBA player Kanter joked in a parody video.

Former Minnesota Republican Senate candidate Royce White also joined the bit, posting a photo of himself in a wig.

And while still wearing the wig during an interview with Alex Jones, White said, “You think Caitlin Clark’s drawing eyeballs to the women’s game? Wait till me and Enes Kanter get there. Wait until the LeBron James’ of the world show up.”

“Wait until your young high school athletes decide, you know what? Why would I want to go hang around with a bunch of other sweaty men in a hyper-competitive setting? Just go on over here to the WNBA and experience being a woman because we all should get the opportunity to experience being the other sex, because it’s just a construct anyway,” he added.

“That’s two former NBA players treating the Women’s National Basketball Association like an open mic night,” Whitlock says, adding, “And they’re funnier doing it than the league is at being serious.”

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​Alex jones, Enes kanter, Jason whitlock, Lebron james, Royce white, Transgender athletes, Wnba, Caitlin clark, Blazetv show, Lgbt 

The anti-establishment left-wing campaign to take over the Democratic Party has claimed another graying scalp, this time in Connecticut’s 1st Congressional District.

Longtime Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), who is 78 years old, lost his bid for a 15th consecutive term in office to a former mayor who was backed by the progressive Working Families Party.

‘We need to build a Democratic Party that is bringing a whole new energy to this fight.’

Larson had tried to spark support among the far left by equating Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the SS paramilitary group and the Gestapo of Nazi Germany.

That appears to be too little, too late. With 99% of the vote counted, former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin trounced Larson, 54.2% to 33%.

Bronin gave his victory speech Tuesday evening on a message of generational change. “If we are going to fix this mess that we are in, we need to build a Democratic Party that is bringing a whole new energy to this fight,” said Bronin to supporters.

“The goal is to shake things up in Washington, D.C., and we are just getting started,” he added.

Concerns about Larson’s age and health came to the forefront when he suffered a complex partial seizure during a speech on the House floor last year.

Other results for the far-left fringe caucus were mixed on Tuesday after socialist Francesca Hong lost to an establishment candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Wisconsin governor’s mansion.

Hong, who was backed by Democrat Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Ro Khanna (Calif.), narrowly lost the election by a fraction of a percentage point.

RELATED: ‘He’s full of s**t’: Trump RIPS INTO Abdul El-Sayed after narrow win in Democratic primary

Larson called on Democrats to “come together, heal, and move forward” in his concession speech.

His loss is also seen as a bellwether for other establishment Democrats across New England facing challenges from the far left.

Bronin will face Republican nominee Amy Chai in the general election, though his seat in Congress is almost guaranteed in the left-leaning district.

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​Connecticut, Democratic party, Socialist, Midterm elections, Politics 

A normal practice for an Arkansas high school football player turned out to be a potentially life-threatening incident. The only problem was, it was in the last place he would think to look.

The Maumelle High School student had already been warming up and running around for an hour on Thursday when he noticed something weird about his equipment. According to KARK 4, the player noticed a strange sensation before realizing he was feeling movement inside his helmet.

‘It really was just shock and disbelief.’

The youngster quickly handed his helmet to a member of the coaching staff, who then passed it off to his coach Kirk Horton. To Horton’s surprise, there was a snake embedded into the player’s helmet, nestled in between the padding and the exterior shell.

“It really was just shock and disbelief,” Horton told the local outlet. “I mean, I’ve got a better chance of winning the lottery [than] seeing this in my 10 years.”

To make matters worse, the snake was later identified as a poisonous cottonmouth, whose venom can damage blood vessels, break down red blood cells, and even cause fatalities.

RELATED: Cam Newton blows the lid off the NFL, claims players, coaches, and execs faked their COVID-19 vaccination

Maumelle Animal Services soon responded to the high school and verified the snake type after receiving a report of a possible snake-in-helmet incident.

“When the officers got there and stuff, they examined the helmet, and at that time, they could see that there was a snake in the helmet,” Maumelle Animal Services Director Chris Davis told KATV.

Davis said this was one of the most unusual snake captures he had ever been to.

“I’ve removed a snake out of a car vent, in the engine, purses, backpacks,” Davis went on. “In a helmet? Never.”

The cottonmouth is also capable of localized necrosis, and while fatalities are rare, their bites should be taken very seriously. The University of Georgia states that bites typically occur when individuals “attempt to handle, kill, or intentionally harass the snake.”

RELATED: ‘Freaking snake’: Trump’s new DHS pick faces major roadblock from lone Republican

Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

“It was very unreal,” Davis added. “You had to kind of be there and take pictures to say this was real.”

While most football players have to worry about hydration or injuries during practice, students at Maumelle High School now also have to worry about the potential of deadly snakes.

“The cottonmouth, in my opinion, is probably the second most venomous snake here in Arkansas,” Davis concluded. “I would say the rattlesnake is probably the number one.”

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​Football, Arkansas, Snake, Sports 

Grimes County, Texas, is about to become ground zero for Elon Musk’s biggest swing yet.

It’s another crushing loss for California, which, once upon a time, might well have played host to the gargantuan project.

To no one’s surprise, it won’t come cheap. Musk’s companies are starting with an initial investment of $16.8 billion, with a goal of $55 billion and the possibility of the figure rising to nearly $120 billion if extra phases are completed, Reuters reported.

The ambitious goal is to create a one-stop shop to address the needs of SpaceX, Tesla, and the U.S. government, all under one roof.

But that’s not all.

‘Thousands of high-paying jobs in the Lone Star State.’

The announcement of the facility, dubbed Terafab, comes after President Trump signed an executive order in late June that called for increased focus on and production in quantum computing.

White House Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Michael Kratsios said there needed to be an increase in the domestic supply chain for products like superconducting circuits and semiconductors.

Elon Musk is following up the Trump administration’s call to ramp up chip production with Terafab, which will sprawl out to one-sixth the size of Manhattan. That’s roughly 10 times the size of Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas, which itself was launched as another move to evacuate California’s rough corporate environment.

Put another way, Terafab will span the size of about 60 NFL stadiums.

The complex will make, package, and test advanced memory chips that will reportedly be used as the backbone of Tesla’s Optimus robots and driverless Cybercabs, in addition to being the bedrock for SpaceX data centers.

RELATED: The rockets are still blowing up. So why is Elon laughing on his SpaceX earnings call?

RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP/Getty Images

Musk has been clear on the subject, framing the factory as a must-have for chip production.

Along with the 100-million-square-foot facility will be approximately 3,000 jobs and an unknown number of power plants. “The Terafab is bringing cutting-edge manufacturing to America, creating thousands of high-paying jobs in the Lone Star State, and enabling us to produce AI chips at scale for use on Earth and in space,” Musk said.

Notably, Musk is making a big bet on using gas power plants for the venture, not solar energy.

This may come as a surprise to some, as Musk has made significant investments in solar energy dating back to 2016, when he purchased energy company SolarCity for $2.6 billion in an all-stock deal.

As TechCrunch reported, SpaceX’s data center development team has indicated it will be bringing its own power to the Texas plant, while also including “very large battery arrays.”

RELATED: Trump writes new rules to stop rogue AI — but they’re classified

Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto/Getty Images

As if that’s not enough, Musk will also be directly competing with the largest semiconductor makers in the world, such as TSMC, which is racing ahead with a huge expansion of its Arizona facility.

Terafab will do this by implementing free-electron laser technology. The “intense, powerful beams of laser light” are better for making the most advanced, smallest-feature chips, because they can produce extremely powerful light while remaining tunable. This allows for faster chip production.

“FEL FTW,” Musk wrote on X in response to rumors.

“We either build the Terafab,” said Musk, “or we don’t have the chips, and we need the chips, so we build the Terafab.”

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​Tesla, Spacex, Semiconductor, Elon musk, Texas, Tech, Terafab 

A 44-year-old male allegedly fractured a female DoorDash driver’s skull with a baseball bat earlier this month in Jacksonville, North Carolina — after she honked at him at a green light when he wouldn’t move his vehicle in front of her.

Around 1:20 a.m. Aug. 1, 34-year-old Christen Phillips was making a delivery when she stopped at the intersection of Western Boulevard and Gum Branch Road, WITN-TV reported.

‘It’s a miracle that I woke up.’

Phillips told deputies with the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office that the car in front of her did not move when the light turned green, so she honked her horn, the station said.

Deputies told WITN the driver moved out of Phillips’ way — then began following her.

After Phillips dropped off food in the Shamrock Drive area, deputies told the station the man she honked at hit her in the head with a baseball bat as she walked back to her car.

Deputies said Stanley Shockley is charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury, WITN reported.

Phillips was able to get to a hospital soon after the attack and suffered severe injuries, the station said.

RELATED: Violent punks caught on video ganging up on, brutally beating elderly man by Baltimore 7-Eleven — while wielding rifle, sword

Phillips told WCTI-TV she was knocked unconscious during the attack.

“When the guy hit me in the head, and I was knocked out, I believe he thought I was dead, left me for dead,” Phillips noted to WCTI. “It’s a miracle that I woke up.”

Phillips added to WCTI she suffered multiple skull fractures and a fractured cheekbone and underwent brain surgery.

Investigators on Monday searched the home on Shamrock Drive where Shockley lives, WITN reported, adding that investigators said the search helped them connect Shockley to Phillips’ assault.

During a court appearance Tuesday morning, a prosecutor accused Shockley of wiping his Ring camera footage clean, WITN said, adding that Shockley lives six doors down from where the crime occurred.

A judge ordered Shockley to be held without bond, WITN noted.

Sheriff Chris Thomas said tips from the public and the work of detectives helped investigators make the arrest Monday, WCTI reported.

“We appreciate the number of tips and leads the public provided us,” Thomas said, according to WCTI. “Our detectives follow every lead, carefully work through the evidence, and continue to pursue answers even when the investigation presents challenges.”

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​North carolina, Onslow county sheriff’s office, Arrest, Brutal beating, Baseball bat, Assault with a deadly weapon with intent to killntent to kill, Doordash driver, Fractured skull, Crime 

WNBA Coach Stephanie White was the source of a lot of mixed messaging on Tuesday night.

With comments about love and hate and some frustrated banging on the table, the coach seemed furious about how fans have reacted to the way she runs her team, the Indiana Fever.

‘Love will win.’

Before the Fever’s game against the New York Liberty, the Fever head coach appeared for a pregame press conference, where she addressed backlash she has received over a foul on one of her stars, Sophie Cunningham.

Cunningham was clotheslined on Saturday night by Chicago Sky player DiJonai Carrington, who was subsequently ejected.

Calls for White to be fired have been amplified since then due to widespread claims that she hasn’t been standing up for her players — including league star Caitlin Clark. BlazeTV host of “Fearless” Jason Whitlock posted to X Tuesday that White “Has. To. Be. Fired. Immediately.”

The coach has seemingly reached a boiling point.

On Tuesday, White was focused on calling out “an online community that’s trying to create narratives that simply don’t exist.”

The 49-year-old soon launched into platitudes and claims that “love” is at the forefront of her choices.

“The reality is with me, I will always lead with love. I will always lead with grace. I will always lead with humility. And I will always lead with integrity,” the coach said.

White went on, raising her voice and getting visibly frustrated, soon banging on the table in front of her. This was followed by a direct quote from former first lady Michelle Obama from the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

“We are united. We are connected. We will not be divided. Every day these women put their ass on the line. Every day. When they go low, we go high. Love will win, grace will win, humility will win, and kindness will win. I stand by them,” the coach concluded.

“I will always stand by them. Everybody else can go to hell.”

RELATED: Black WNBA player blames ‘white privilege’ after getting ejected for flagrant foul on Sophie Cunningham

White did address accusations that she seemingly wasn’t concerned with her own player after the hard foul, explaining that she “didn’t see the play in real time” and went “straight to a press conference” afterward.

After saying she prides herself on her relationships with her players, White told reporters that player safety is a “top priority.” The coach called the foul “egregious” and said she takes “personally” the idea that she does not support her players.

“I ride with them 10 toes down all the time. All the time,” White stated.

Her words haven’t convinced everyone who pays attention to the league. Even Barstool Sports owner and “legit Fever fan” Dave Portnoy has grown tired of the team’s excuses.

“This [didn’t] really feel like an apology. More her yelling at us for trying to divide the locker room or something,” Portnoy wrote on X.

RELATED: Cam Newton blows the lid off the NFL, claims players, coaches, and execs faked their COVID-19 vaccination

Portnoy said it felt like Fever fans were being blamed for Carrington’s wild postgame online comments, which were simply the words “WHITE PRIVILEGE” directed at the Fever’s account.

“That’s what is dividing people,” Portnoy continued. “Fever fans and players get blamed for everything under the sun. We’re not trying to divide anybody, but [it’s] Fever vs the world and we want a coach who feels and acts that way.”

White said she wished there were more opportunities to discuss actual basketball, but she herself cut the press conference short after just two minutes. Instead, she gave ample time to call out what she believes to be “hate,” “fearmongering,” and “divisiveness” that is trying to “hijack” the WNBA.

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​Wnba, Stephanie white, Sophie cunningham, Sports 

The U.S. Senate adjourned on Saturday for a five-week recess without passing President Donald Trump’s SAVE America Act. The fate of the legislation, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, remains uncertain.

The president may, however, have an ace up his sleeve — and the very possibility that he might play it has liberals panicking.

‘Preempt the motherf**ker.’

Real America’s Voice host Wayne Allyn Root pressed Trump in an interview Tuesday about the possibility of using emergency executive measures to temporarily achieve what might otherwise be accomplished by passing the SAVE America Act.

“It’s so hard to get the Senate to do anything. Now they’re on recess. They don’t get anything done,” said Root. “If they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections.”

“The Supreme Court ruled in 1983 under Reagan … — INS versus Chadha — that if you declare a national security emergency as the president of the United States, they can’t challenge it. It can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress,” continued the conservative host.

In INS v. Chadha, the high court found that the House of Representatives’ veto of an executive action — in that case, the suspension of a foreign national’s deportation — by way of passing a resolution constituted a legislative action and therefore required passage in both houses of Congress as well as ratification by the president.

RELATED: Democrats go into FULL PANIC MODE after Trump exposes election interference from China and the deep state

“The Supreme Court’s Chadha decision invalidated ‘legislative veto’ provisions in many laws that maintained congressional oversight over the executive branch’s exercise of delegated powers,” John Chappell wrote in an analysis for Responsible Statecraft. “Congress could delegate powers to the president, but reasserting control in specific instances would require a vote in both chambers and a presidential signature. Because the president would presumably veto congressional efforts to undo their decisions, Congress needs two-thirds of each chamber to override a presidential veto.”

Root told Trump, “So if you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail-in ballots, and you don’t even need the Senate’s vote.”

The president hinted that it was within the realm of possibilities.

“Let me just say this: Stranger things have happened, OK,” said Trump. “I’ll leave it at that.”

Although Trump did not say whether he would pursue this option, liberals nevertheless began to panic.

CNN reporter Aaron Blake characterized the president’s refusal to rule out the option as “the latest warning sign that Trump could try to mess with the election not just by baselessly claiming voter fraud and challenging the results afterward — as he did in 2020, leading to a violent riot at the U.S. Capitol — but by trying to unilaterally take control before votes are cast.”

Steve Benen, an anti-MAGA producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” wrote, “The president could have responded by saying, ‘No, I won’t do any such thing, because I care too much about preserving our democracy and system of government.’ But he didn’t. The Republican instead suggested that he saw this as an actual possibility.”

Failed presidential candidate Joe Walsh also got agitated, writing, “Here’s the deal Democrats, the time to stop Trump from declaring some bulls**t national security emergency is NOW. The time to stop him from f**king with/cancelling/federalizing the midterms is BEFORE he does it. Preempt the motherf**ker.”

“Illegal and unconstitutional. Republicans have no interest in democracy when democracy gets in their way,” tweeted the Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security. “They know what’s coming in November and they are terrified.”

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​Donald trump, Save america act, Voter fraud, Politics 

Most modern AI platforms are built inside digital sandboxes meant to isolate data and minimize risk to keep them under control throughout development. But what happens when the AI bots break through the walls and escape? As OpenAI and Anthropic just discovered, their artificial creations can hitch a ride on the internet and hack into websites weeks or even months before anyone knows it happened.

The alarming developments, which safety and security critics have long predicted, have kicked off a major new blame game.

These reports lend credibility to Trump’s new AI review framework.

And it’s not just American companies who are under scrutiny.

OpenAI and Anthropic own two of the most advanced AI platforms in the world. The original generative AI phenom, ChatGPT, and the former AI partner of the U.S. military, Claude, offer powerful closed-source frontier models derived from the latest innovations in machine learning.

Even though competitors in the States and China follow closely behind with their own models in tow, the original duo are clearly the market leaders. That means if any of the AI bots are going to go rogue, there’s a good chance it starts at the top.

When AI bots escape

In mid-July, a popular open-source AI distribution website called Hugging Face announced that its systems were breached by an unexpected attacker. While breaches are nothing new, this story is particularly interesting because the threat didn’t come from a foreign hacker gang, a domestic cybercriminal, or even a state-sponsored group. Instead, it was an “autonomous AI agent system” that broke through Hugging Face’s defenses. Even more alarming, Hugging Face developers didn’t know that their system was infiltrated — their AI defense protocol detected the problem first and brought it to their attention.

Days later, OpenAI came forward to announce that ChatGPT was the culprit in the crime — or rather, it was a non-consumer version that was merely in the testing phase with no plans for public release. OpenAI worked with Hugging Face and various partners to identify how the prototype model escaped its sandbox and snuck into another website through an exploit chain. OpenAI claims that its security team noticed the breach but they did not appear to warn Hugging Face, instead leaving the site to detect the problem on its own. The two companies have since taken precautions to patch the vulnerabilities that enabled the hack and improve model testing safeguards, which OpenAI admits were originally disabled because it was actively measuring the prototype’s cyber threat capabilities.

Not to be outdone, Anthropic came forward several days after OpenAI’s report to profess that its own models were involved in not one but three incidents. According to the announcement, OpenAI’s story spurred the team to audit Claude for signs that it accessed the internet without authorization. As it turns out, three different Claude models did in fact escape from their testing environments starting in April 2026, all without developers’ knowledge.

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

Niphon/Getty Images

However, upon review, the team discovered that the escaped models were erroneously given internet access through a system misconfiguration, leading the models to believe that they were operating in a contained environment the entire time, even as they uncovered a path to break free. One of the later models even paused operation once it realized it escaped.

International intrigue

Complicating matters still further, recent reports note that OpenAI and Anthropic used the same testing environment maintained by Irregular, a startup in Tel Aviv, suggesting that the young company may be partially to blame for the leak. However, there is no firm evidence that exposes Irregular as the primary culprit. OpenAI and Anthropic researchers both failed to monitor the activities of their AI bots while in their testing environments, otherwise they would have detected the breaches the moment they occurred. It’s important to note that in both situations, the AI models that hacked into real-world systems were test variants not intended for public use.

However, it’s deeply concerning that both models hacked into systems without human knowledge inside the companies from which the attacks issued. Clearly there is potential for these types of bugs to sneak into public models under the radar. From there, unwelcome bots can jump to any number of dangerous places. Like any other piece of technology, AI platforms can be abused and exploited for nefarious purposes even when safeguards are fully functional, as we’ve covered extensively here at Blaze Media.

At the very least, the recent reports lend credibility to President Trump’s new AI review framework that encourages AI platform holders to subject their latest models to a 30-day review period. Once submitted, testers within the administration can presumably analyze their code, identify unknown vulnerabilities, and help the developers patch exploits before unleashing them on the public at large, though the exact review process is classified.

​Tech, Cyberattack, Bots, Openai, Anthropic 

A Florida woman lost her arm from a gruesome alligator attack, but Good Samaritans may have helped save her life, according to multiple reports.

WKMG, citing the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, reported that a woman was attacked by a massive alligator while swimming and paddleboarding in the Silver River in Marion County on Aug. 8.

‘It was a terrible injury, bones poking out, blood everywhere.’

Fox News reported that the gator bit the woman’s right arm and dragged her under water.

According to WOFL-TV, Mike Head said he was out on the river with his wife and children when he heard two women screaming, “Gator!”

Head recalled that the alligator was likely 20-30 feet away.

Head said of the alligator, “It was almost like a missile, and it would just kind of … I could just see the back of it.”

“And I could see it going over to her. I was in this kind of like, ‘This can’t be happening,'” Head said.

Head said he thought to himself, “‘Is she dead? Do I dive in, and now I’m going to get ripped apart myself?’ There’s a lot of things going through my head, trying to figure out what I was doing as I was paddling on this thing towards her.”

Head decided to try to use a paddle as a weapon to deter the animal from attacking the victim, identified as 58-year-old Dina Spann by the New York Post.

He told WOFL that the alligator’s jaws were locked on Spann’s arm.

“I couldn’t swing because I knew I was going to hit her in the head from my position, so I come around the other side. … And then I swing, because I can see it still, and I don’t know if I hit it or not,” Head explained. “I just know that it was gone after I hit.”

WOFL-TV reported that John Gamache and his father were on their boat when they heard frantic cries for help, so they drove full speed toward the swimmers.

“By the time he arrived, the alligator had released the victim, and the commotion of the boat helped scare the reptile away,” WOFL reported.

RELATED: Bodycam video shows moment authorities put to death massive alligator that killed 41-year-old Florida woman

The gator caused a severe injury to the victim’s arm that needed immediate medical treatment.

Spann’s son, Zach Guerrina, who accompanied her on the trip, told the New York Post that his mother was “just as calm as a f**king cucumber” throughout the harrowing ordeal.

Guerrina said of his mom, “It was a crazy situation, and she was the calmest one there, with her arm hanging off by a f**king thread.”

Head said he used a rope as a makeshift tourniquet to control the bleeding.

Gamache recalled, “It was a terrible injury, bones poking out, blood everywhere. Obviously, the minutes mattered.”

Good Samaritans pulled the injured woman from the river and brought her to shore. She was then transported to a hospital for treatment.

However, the woman had to have her right arm amputated, WOFL reported.

The woman’s family confirmed to WOFL on Sunday that Spann had been discharged from the hospital and is now resting at home.

Officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and a contracted Nuisance Alligator Trapper located and trapped a 9’8″ alligator on Sunday. Authorities said the area was temporarily closed following the attack and reopened after the alligator was removed.

Spann’s family thanked Gamache for saving the woman.

“They called earlier, and we talked for a while, and it was heartwarming to hear them explain their emotions,” Gamache said. “We’re glad that it happened as good as it could have. Like the result is just the sustained injury and nothing more.”

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​Alligator, Florida, Good samaritan, Politics 

As Texas Democrat James Talarico campaigns for the U.S. Senate, he’s attempting to reinvent himself by scrubbing his website of his far-left beliefs — and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales isn’t letting him get away with it.

“Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico is running from his past because he knows he can’t get elected in Texas if he tells the truth. So much so that he scrubbed his website when he announced his Senate run to remove references to trans kids and Republican extremism and all of the other crazy radical views that he has,” Gonzales says.

Prior to his run, his website read: “I’m not afraid to stand up to Republican extremism. I’ve led the fight against their efforts to bully trans kids, ban books, whitewash our history curriculum, gut public education with the private school voucher scam, and force their Christian nationalist agenda onto the people of Texas.”

“You’ll notice he says, he mentions that Republican extremists are ‘bullying trans kids and banning books,’” Gonzales says.

As late as August 2025, his website also read, “I’m committed to building momentum for bold, progressive ideas — no matter how long it takes.”

“And then curiously in early September 2025 as he was announcing his Senate run, these sentences just poof, vanished, out of nowhere,” Gonzales says.

She points out that Talarico’s website also now reads that he’s fighting “billionaire mega donors” instead of “Republican extremism.”

“There’s nothing in there about trans kids anymore. It’s just ‘expanding job opportunities for young adults,’” she says.

“And then, of course, in his ‘Why I’m running’ page, it says, ‘The biggest divide in this country is not left to right, but top versus bottom,’” she continues, “Which, first of all, I mean, the jokes write themselves, right?”

And it gets worse, as in 2021, Talarico headlined a Pride event in Taylor, Texas, with an 11-year-old drag queen.

“This poor, young boy who has been confused by adults in his life, performed for both children and adults at the event. And by the way, at that same event was another notable drag queen in attendance, a man who goes by the name Sedonya Face,” Gonzales says, disgusted.

“So in fact, James Talarico is a big supporter of grown men dressed as women dancing provocatively in front of young children,” she adds.

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.

​James talarico, Sara gonzales, Trans kids, Pride event, Texas, Senate, Blazetv show 

Economist Emily Brown — one of the myriad liberals who reflexively supported the oppressive COVID-19 policies that destroyed lives — decided in late 2022 that it was high time for Americans to forgive and forget and stated as much in an article titled “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty.”

In a similar fashion, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y) expects absolution without accountability — but in her case, for Democrats’ years-long love affair with extremist policies, dehumanizing rhetoric, and destruction.

‘No, it was brutal and inhumane.’

Robert Barron, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester who serves on President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, hammered the champagne socialist on Tuesday, stating that her “giggling dismissal of ‘Woke 1’ as ‘crazy'” was appalling.

Barron was reacting to a conversation between AOC and ABC News talking head Jonathan Karl. Karl asked Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday about the radical and unpopular proposals advanced by Democrats and democratic socialists — increasingly a difference without a distinction.

In her defense specifically of Francesca Hong — the failed Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate who has called for the abolition of the police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Senate, and Thanksgiving — Ocasio-Cortez suggested that Hong’s radicalism was a thing of the past.

“She’s moved away from it,” said the congresswoman who previously expressed an interest in archiving the tweets of Trump supporters so that they could not “downplay or deny their complicity in the future.”

Ocasio-Cortez added, “I have a local city councilman who has this saying: ‘Woke 1 was crazy.'”

Karl responded: “Did the movement go too far with some of those positions? I mean, you briefly supported the idea of defunding the police.”

RELATED: Christian family seeks SCOTUS win against trans insanity in ‘case about swinging d**ks’

“I think that during this time … especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “We were shut down. There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns. And I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place.”

Rather than disavow the extreme positions adopted during that time, Ocasio-Cortez characterized them as beneficial. “I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful,” said the congresswoman.

Bishop Barron joined other critics in lambasting Ocasio-Cortez over her remarks.

“In case you’ve forgotten, she herself was one of the most passionate advocates of de-funding the police, tearing down statues of American heroes, establishing racial quotas, dividing the country between oppressors and oppressed, etc.,” the Catholic bishop wrote Tuesday. “I quite agree that these policy recommendations and policies were ‘crazy,’ but she has to own up to endorsing them. More to the point, Woke 1 was not only misguided; it was cruel.”

“One of the bitterest fruits of Wokeism was the cancel culture that resulted in armies of people losing jobs, reputations, and careers because they didn’t correspond to the reigning orthodoxy. I happen to know several people whose lives were devastated by Woke crusaders,” continued Barron. “But now it’s just ‘ha-ha, wasn’t that crazy.’ No, it was brutal and inhumane.”

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) also laid into Ocasio-Cortez, writing, “You don’t get to spend years pushing to fundamentally transform the country, divide it on racial lines, inject DEI into every institution, and then try to brush it off as a minor misunderstanding when your worldview turns out to be extremely unpopular with the American people.”

Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck suggested that the socialist congresswoman is “saying this because wokeness is unpopular but she couldn’t name 10 things she disagreed with.”

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​Alexandria ocasio-cortez, Socialism, Brandon gill, Leftism, Robert barron, Politics, Woke 

Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist state assemblywoman with an unmistakable contempt for America, made a play for the Wisconsin governor’s mansion.

Recent polls signaled that Hong — a white-hating, anti-Thanksgiving radical who voted against making the sexual grooming of children a felony and expressed a desire to abolish the police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Senate — had an excellent chance of beating the Democratic establishment candidate, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary.

‘These things can happen.’

Election night did not, however, turn out in her favor.

The radical endorsed by Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Ro Khanna (Calif.) lost to Crowley by a fraction of a percent. With 98% of the votes in, the Associated Press reported that Crowley had defeated Hong 39.8% to 39.4%.

The results were initially delayed after an alleged download error by Milwaukee city officials.

Milwaukee Election Commissioner Paulina Gutierrez explained during a late-night press conference that she went to drop off tens of thousands of ballots at the Milwaukee County Courthouse only to discover that five of the nine USB sticks “had the audit log downloaded and not the results.”

RELATED: Joe Scarborough freaks out after realizing who Democrats are getting into bed with

Scott Olson/Getty Images

“It’s a human error. These things can happen,” said Gutierrez.

The election official said that they had to go back to the operation center and re-download the voting data.

Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson later announced that Crowley beat Hong in the county by 65,131 to 62,739 votes.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers endorsed Crowley and said that he “earned this win and the accolades.”

Garren Randolph, Crowley’s campaign manager, thanked Hong for sharing her “vision of Wisconsin,” and suggested that Crowley is now “focused on bringing people together, earning the support of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and anyone who believes Wisconsin is at its best when we work together and deliver results.”

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​Democratic socialists of america, Francesca hong, Wisconsin, David crowley, Politics 

The conservative Christian owners of a traditional Korean, women-only nude spa in Washington state had their lives turned upside down for refusing access to trans-identifying males with an intact penis.

After spending the better part of a decade fighting the Washington Human Rights Commission — which had determined the spa’s female-only rule violated state law — the immigrant Korean family who operate Olympus Spa now may have their case heard by a court that might actually affirm their God-given rights.

‘It feels like the supposed adults in the room have collectively lost their minds.’

Alliance Defending Freedom and the Pacific Justice Institute, the organization that has defended Sun Lee and his family from the outset, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to take up the case Olympus v. Armstrong.

“This is not about just one law. It’s not just about one business,” Brad Dacus, founder and president of the PJI, told Blaze News. “This is a case that fundamentally asks the question: To what extent can the government require people to have to forfeit and compromise their sincerely held religious beliefs and conscience in order to operate a business in the United States?”

Legal warfare

Prior to 2020, Olympus Spa had maintained its female-only policy for over two decades without complaint.

It learned in late 2020, however, that Caleb Richmond — a man who was once married to a woman and now goes by Haven Wilvich — had filed a complaint with the Washington Human Rights Commission alleging that in January of that year, the spa had denied him services and “stated that transgender women without surgery are not welcome because it would make other customers and staff uncomfortable.”

RELATED: Whitmer’s law DEFEATED! Therapists are free to steer kids away from trans insanity

L-R: Sun Lee and the front of his establishment. Pacific Justice Institute

According to court documents, the spa required that entrants “physically present in the nude as … female,” further noting, “Biological women are welcome.”

It is unclear whether Richmond ever visited the spa.

Sun Lee, co-owner of the spa, explained to a WHRC investigator that the spa is modeled on jjimjilbang, sex-segregated bathhouses in Korea, which require that guests be nude inside the pool area. He further denied any violation of the Washington Law Against Discrimination.

The Washington law prohibits denial of “the full enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, or privileges of any place of public resort, accommodation, assemblage, or amusement” on the basis of sex, race, and “sexual orientation,” which the state has defined to include “gender expression or identity.”

Lee’s explanation fell on deaf ears.

Threatened with prosecution, the spa signed a pre-finding settlement agreement requiring compliance with WLAD while reserving the right to mount a constitutional challenge.

Olympus Spa sued the WHRC in March 2022, alleging that enforcement of the discrimination law against the establishment violated the owners’ First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of association.

Among the issues raised in the complaint was that the enforcement of the discrimination law requires the spa to render services to nude males and females and thus forces them to “choose between violating the law or their religious convictions.”

This, said the complaint, constitutes a “substantial burden” on the Lee family’s religious beliefs.

Brad Dacus emphasized to Blaze News that the Lee family “did not want to be in the news. They didn’t want their business in the news. They just wanted to run their business with a clear conscience.”

A Washington District Court judge dismissed the case with prejudice in 2023, but Lee appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

At the appellate court in May 2025, the family was delivered another upset, as a three-judge panel ruled that the spa cannot sue the WSHRC on First Amendment grounds.

RELATED: Trans basketball player dominating French women’s league responds to calls to play in WNBA

Annie Wells/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Olympus Spa petitioned the Ninth Circuit for a panel rehearing and/or a full-court rehearing of the case. The business was denied in March. This time, however, the Lees were not alone in their disappointment.

Judge Lawrence VanDyke, an appointee of President Donald Trump, rebuked his colleagues for refusing to rehear what he characterized as “a case about swinging d**ks.”

“Sometimes, it feels like the supposed adults in the room have collectively lost their minds,” wrote VanDyke. “Woke regulators and complicit judges seem entirely willing, even eager, to ignore the consequences that their Frankenstein social experiments impose on real women and young girls.”

‘The state is turning their lives into a nightmare.’

Van Dyke accused his colleagues of allowing “Washington State bureaucrats to trample” on Americans’ constitutional rights.

The WHRC and Democrat Gov. Bob Ferguson did not respond to Blaze News’ requests for comment.

Despite all the setbacks, the Lee family is evidently unwilling to surrender.

The final battle

In the petition for a writ of certiorari filed on Monday, attorneys for the family asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether forcing “a Christian, all-female jjimjilbang to admit males violates the Free Exercise Clause” and “whether a policy that differentiates based on anatomy discriminates ‘based on gender identity or transgender status.'”

The petition highlights loopholes in Washington’s discrimination law as applied to jjimjilbang spas — such a spa operated as a private club or a sorority organization would be free under the law to exclude male patrons, for instance. It also emphasizes that under the Supreme Court’s precedents, “the Constitution protects the Spa owners’ religiously motivated desire to keep a male out of a space reserved for female patrons as young as 13 years old.”

“Based on a single complaint by a male who may never even have visited the spa, Washington state decided its views on gender identity must override a centuries-old cultural practice and deep religious conviction, turning its enforcement power against a Korean family’s small business,” said Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel John Bursch.

“The state is turning their lives into a nightmare, insisting they compromise not only their deeply help religious beliefs but also the privacy and safety of women and girls as young as 13 who visit the spa,” continued Bursch. “The First Amendment forbids all that, which is why we’re urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the Lee family’s case.”

Sun Lee thanked the Pacific Justice Institute for its legal support and expressed hope that the high court justices “will recognize the importance of the constitutional questions before them and give thoughtful consideration to the privacy, dignity, and rights of women in such a deeply sensitive and consequential matter.”

Brad Dacus told Blaze News that while SCOTUS agrees to hear very few petitioners’ cases, he suspects this case has an excellent chance of being heard, as it is “dealing with a very fundamental issue of civil rights” to which the high court has proven sensitive.

Dacus stressed that if other business owners across America encounter similar encroachments on their religious freedom and constitutional rights, “they should not hesitate to contact us because we work completely without charge.”

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​Christian, Alliance defending freedom, Washington state, Supreme court, First amendment, Transgender, Politics 

Late last month, one or more suspects attacked a postal worker at the San Bruno Post Office in California. They weren’t after the employee’s wallet or phone. They wanted the mail.

The thieves made off with four tubs of it, loading them into a silver Lexus before disappearing. Federal authorities are now offering up to $150,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Postal officials warned customers who had recently used the branch or nearby collection boxes to watch their bank and credit card accounts for suspicious activity.

In Chicago, members of a street gang began recruiting postal workers as early as 2017.

Three days earlier, another postal worker had been punched in the face outside a post office in nearby San Leandro. Federal authorities put another $150,000 reward on that case.

Dog eat dog

For generations, the occupational menace most closely associated with the American mail carrier has been the dog. That danger remains very real. More than 5,200 Postal Service employees were attacked by dogs last year. Carriers are trained to use their mail satchels as shields and are even equipped with dog repellent.

But lately, some carriers have considerably more to worry about than the neighborhood Rottweiler.

Robberies of postal workers have exploded. In 2019, there were roughly 90 reported nationwide. By 2023, there were about 600 — many involving firearms — a nearly sevenfold increase in four years.

Why would anyone suddenly start mugging the mailman?

Part of the answer is obvious: What he carries is valuable. Personal checks can be altered, cashed, or sold online. Credit cards and financial documents can feed other forms of fraud. Stealing a tub of mail gives a criminal dozens or potentially hundreds of opportunities to find something worth money.

But criminals also discovered that some postal workers carry something even more valuable than the mail itself: an arrow key.

Unsafe deposit

Arrow keys are the master keys many mail carriers use to access collection boxes and other secured mail receptacles along their routes. Stealing one batch of mail gives a thief whatever happens to be inside it. Stealing the right key can provide access to multiple mailboxes, allowing criminals to come back again and again.

The criminal calculus isn’t difficult to understand. A mail carrier travels a predictable route, often alone and on foot. He may be carrying checks, credit cards, financial documents, and a key capable of opening numerous secured mailboxes. Compared with robbing a bank or armored truck, attacking a postal worker can look to a criminal like a relatively easy route into somebody else’s bank account.

Once criminals obtain the mail, old-fashioned paper becomes raw material for thoroughly modern fraud. Stolen checks can be altered or resold. Credit cards can disappear before their intended recipients even know they have arrived. Personal information extracted from correspondence can be combined with data obtained elsewhere.

The result is that an institution built to move birthday cards, utility bills, tax documents, and catalogs around the country has inadvertently become part of a lucrative criminal supply chain.

Pen pals

But attacking postal workers has an obvious drawback: It attracts federal law enforcement attention, carries serious criminal penalties, and creates witnesses.

So organized criminals eventually discovered another option. Why rob the postal worker when you can recruit him?

The U.S. Postal Service inspector general has warned that criminal organizations are actively targeting postal employees because of their privileged access to the nation’s mail network.

In 2022, Missouri mail carrier Cambria Hopkins sold her arrow key to a criminal and told him which collection boxes it opened. She later stole checks from the mail and sold those too, receiving payment in cash, through Cash App, and sometimes in groceries. Earlier this year, she was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison.

Package deal

The money involved can become enormous. In Mobile, Alabama, postal employee Kalaijha Tomeco Ranier Lewis was recruited by Brian Christopher Williams III as part of a check-fraud scheme that operated from 2021 to 2023. Lewis stole hundreds of high-value business checks destined for P.O. boxes. Investigators later watched her manipulate windowed envelopes as she sorted the mail, checking the dollar amounts inside before deciding which ones to take. Williams paid her between $2,000 and $3,000 for each stack she delivered.

In June 2023, investigators caught Lewis stuffing a stack of stolen checks down her pants. They arrested Williams later that day at a Mobile gas station, where he had arrived to buy the checks. He was carrying $10,000 in cash; authorities also found drugs, a handgun, and stolen checks worth more than $417,000.

Over the course of the scheme, Williams altered stolen checks totaling more than $17 million and sold them to other scammers through an illicit marketplace on Telegram. Lewis was sentenced to five years in federal prison; Williams got eight. The pair were also ordered to pay more than $234,000 in restitution.

Phony express

In Chicago, members of a street gang began recruiting postal workers as early as 2017. One of the first was a young female carrier spotted grocery shopping in her USPS uniform. A gang member approached her with a proposition: Make some money on the side by pulling particular envelopes from the mail and handing them over.

She agreed, smuggling stolen mail out in her uniform and handing it off during her route or after work. At first, she received large amounts of cash and expensive gifts. Then the money dwindled and, according to the Postal Service’s inspector general, her recruiter threatened her life when she tried to stop.

The operation eventually grew to include 35 postal employees and 13 outside suspects, compromising more than 200 ZIP codes and at least 10,300 victims. Employees stole checks, credit cards, Treasury checks, cash, and personal information; some workers at processing plants were caught walking out with garbage bags full of mail.

Investigators put actual losses at more than $6 million, with another $46.6 million in intended losses. Twenty-seven defendants were ultimately convicted, and the ringleader received nine years in federal prison.

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Dmytro Buianskyi/Getty Images

Return to sender

The Postal Service has been fighting back: replacing vulnerable locks, installing more secure collection boxes, and moving toward electronic alternatives to traditional arrow keys.

But the basic attraction is difficult to eliminate. Every day, an enormous government delivery network moves checks, credit cards, financial documents, and other valuables directly through American neighborhoods, often entrusted to individual employees working alone.

Although it is not an official motto, generations of Americans know the words carved above the entrance to Manhattan’s old General Post Office: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Perhaps its time for an update: nor the robber who wants the mailbag. Nor the gang member who wants the key.

And now, apparently, nor the criminal recruiter offering enough money to make betraying the public trust look tempting.

​Criminal supply chain, Mail theft, Postal employee theft, Usps, Crime