Category: blaze media

On October 10, marking World Day Against the Death Penalty, Pope Leo XIV ignited controversy when he posted the following on X:

The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment: effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption. #NoDeathPenalty

BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler, a Catholic, dove into this heated debate on a recent episode of “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

“This entire conversation started with the announcement [on October 8] from the Trump administration that on December [3] of this year … a firing squad will execute former Major Nidal Hasan,” says Liz. “He’s a former Army major who murdered 13 people at Fort Hood in the name of Islam. He is an Islamist terrorist.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that the execution would take place at Fort Hood, where Hasan carried out his crime, and would be livestreamed, although President Trump said he would make the final call on whether or not to publicize the event.

Liz, who believes the livestream is unlikely to happen and calls the desire to watch an execution “bloodlust,” believes that Pope Leo’s comments about the death penalty make sense.

She explains that for most of the Church’s history, popes affirmed that the state has the right to use capital punishment for grave crimes. Since the late 20th century, however, popes such as John Paul II and especially Francis (who revised the Catechism to call it “inadmissible” as an attack on human dignity) have taken a far more restrictive or abolitionist stance, which Leo XIV has continued — creating ongoing debate about whether this is a development of doctrine or a departure from prior teaching.

“[The death penalty] differs from what the Church declares to be an intrinsic evil. … Abortion would be the best example,” says Liz.

“But [intrinsically evil] is not the phrase that Pope Leo or Pope Francis before him used to describe the death penalty. ‘Inadmissible’ is the word used not only by Pope Leo but by Pope Francis,” she continues, explaining that the word “inadmissible” is a “synonym for unacceptable.”

Citing senior apologist at Catholic Answers Jimmy Akin, she explains that Pope Francis amended the Catechism because in light of society’s current circumstances (i.e. “modern prisons that were intended to hold large numbers of people”), there are no longer situations that require the death penalty.

“There may be societal circumstances where [the death penalty] is necessary or admissible, but not any more in our modern society,” Liz says.

“You can agree or disagree with this, but I have to say this does make sense. It’s not inconsistent with the long-standing teaching of the Church, nor does it contradict the Bible,” she says.

But the question remains: “Is this pastoral teaching from Pope Leo, which we are respectfully free to disagree with, or is this authoritative teaching, which we are required to assent to our mind and will?”

To answer this question, Liz speaks with Catholic Answers staff apologist Joe Heschmeyer.

To hear their conversation, watch the episode above.

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Liz wheeler, Pope leo xiv, Death penalty, Catholic church, Blazetv show 

A man who entered the U.S. illegally and gained legal status went on to illegally vote in 15 elections — and maybe more, claims the Department of Homeland Security.

The DHS told Blaze News that Homeland Security Investigations agents arrested Andres Garcia on Oct. 6 after he was charged with two counts of voting by an alien.

‘Let this be a message to any noncitizens out there who are thinking about voting in our elections: If you illegally vote, we will arrest you and you will be charged.’

Garcia is a lawful permanent resident from Cuba but is not a citizen and not allowed to vote in elections. He was charged for allegedly voting in the 2022 election as well as the 2024 election.

The man even allegedly registered to vote in Cass County, Missouri, in 2004 before he gained his legal status under the Obama administration, according to the DHS.

The DHS also claimed that Garcia is suspected of having voted at least 15 times in the past two decades. “Despite knowing he was not a United States citizen, Garcia claimed to be one when registering to vote in 2004, and did so again in 2013,” the DHS added.

“This alien from Cuba has been arrested and charged with illegally voting in multiple elections,” said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

“He illegally entered the country in 1969 and was then granted legal status by the Obama administration. Now, thanks to the hardworking men and women of HSI and our partners at the Department of Justice, this alien will have to answer for repeatedly interfering in our elections,” he added.

“Let this be a message to any noncitizens out there who are thinking about voting in our elections: If you illegally vote, we will arrest you and you will be charged. Only American citizens should be electing American leaders.”

The Department of Justice announced on Monday that 16 people had been charged with election crimes, including an illegal alien and several others who had legal status.

RELATED: FBI now investigating alleged election fraud among homeless in Skid Row of Los Angeles

After the arrest of Garcia, HSI Kansas City Acting Special Agent in Charge Rick Sabatini reiterated the point.

“Election integrity is nonnegotiable. Individuals who knowingly violate federal voting laws undermine public trust in the democratic process and will be held accountable,” he said.

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​Department of homeland security, Department of justice, Election fraud, Election integrity, Obama administration, Politics 

After President Trump made it a point to declare banking rights as guaranteed and fair for Americans, the government actually went to work.

Now, a federal agency has revealed that major U.S. banks were guilty of limiting or denying access to financial services to citizens based on their beliefs or business activities, and the evidence is shocking.

A payment processor owned by one bank closed the account of a merchant that sold Make America Great Again merchandise.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a scathing report detailing its intention to review potential de-banking activities at the nine largest banks in the country and whether or not they had been improperly limiting access. This was in direct response to President Trump’s executive order to guarantee fair banking for all Americans.

The report declared that between 2020 and September 2025, all nine banks had policies in place that do so.

The OCC identified two categories that presented an “elevated risk of ‘encouraging’ or ‘otherwise influencing'” institutions to deny access to financial services: reputation risk practices and industry specific practices.

The first can be summarized as a potential for “adverse” brand impact resulting from negative public perception, while the latter is an alleged bias toward certain industries or sectors unrelated to financial or operational concerns.

The practices affected both sides of the political aisle. For example, in February 2023, one bank declined to provide public services to an educational organization because it solely endorses Democrat candidates.

In February 2021, a payment processor owned by one bank closed the account of a merchant that sold Make America Great Again merchandise.

These policies reportedly negatively affected industries like firearms, oil and gas, coal mining, prisons, and tobacco.

RELATED: The fight over prediction markets is hitting the Supreme Court — and dragging in the NFL

Image courtesy Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

In the report, the OCC said it observed Citibank using an “environmental and social risk management policy” that restricted it from entering into a business relationship with customers that did not have policies that align with Citibank’s firearm standards.

“This included, for example, limitations on the sale of high-capacity magazines and restrictions on firearm sales to individuals under the age of 21.”

In February 2021, TD Bank was making decisions regarding a Paycheck Protection Program loan based on its own reputation risks, the report claimed.

“TD’s decision is based on public statements about immigrants made by [the organization] or people affiliated with your organization, including social media activity, leading up to and following the November 2020 election. These statements are inconsistent with TD’s values,” the bank wrote, per the federal government.

All nine banks were cited in the report as having conducted biased practices based on their perceived reputational risk or simply their policy regarding whether or not they wanted to do business with people based on their industry or their activities.

RELATED: Guess which secretive former president has big ideas about how AI should control you

Another example included Capital One flagging a religious organization, in multiple client reviews, for stances on abortion, LGBTQ rights, and “ties to the world of conservative politics.”

The OCC has suggested making changes to the client complaint process, forcing increased transparency, and redefining how it considers politicized or unlawful de-banking.

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​Banks, The office of the comptroller of the currency, Tech, De-banking 

Android started out as a mobile operating system, but over the years, it became much more. Part of that vision was realized when Google killed Chromebooks in favor of Googlebooks. You actually don’t need one of these to get a similar desktop experience. In fact, you can replace your laptop or PC with your Android phone now.

Okay, before we dive too deep, you should know that Android’s desktop mode doesn’t work on all Android devices. But it is compatible with many of the most popular handsets in the United States, including new Samsung phones with DeX and Google Pixel phones with Android Desktop Mode.

Samsung DeX is more refined than Pixel’s Android Desktop Mode.

To use desktop mode on Android, you’ll need several things:

Computer monitor with either a USB-C port or HDMI port for video.USB-C-to-USB-C cable or an HDMI cable paired with a compatible USB-C adapter for the connection.If you’re using an HDMI cable with an adapter, you’ll also need a power cable that can plug into the adapter; otherwise, your battery will drain quickly. Those using a USB-C cable should receive power to their device from the monitor without extra hardware.Wireless Bluetooth mouse and keyboard to control the interface.

These steps could vary slightly, depending on your make and model of phone. For today’s example, we’re testing a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 on One UI 9 (Android 17) and a Google Pixel 10 Pro XL running Android 17.

Why should you try desktop mode on Android?

Now, before we get started, you might wonder why you may wish to use desktop mode on Android. Aside from the fact that it is just cool to have a desktop experience that you can pull out of your pocket and connect to a monitor at any time, it can also replace your laptop or desktop in some cases.

Android desktop mode is great for browsing the web, answering emails, writing in your favorite apps, and watching videos. Because it’s Android, many existing apps from the Google Play Store will work, though some are better optimized than others. You can even play some popular Android games, like Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, and more, provided you connect a Bluetooth game controller.

What Android desktop doesn’t do is replace a gaming PC. You can’t get your Steam game library to work, at least not reliably, and even if you could, most phones aren’t powerful enough and don’t mitigate heat enough for sustained AAA gaming performance.

That said, Android desktop mode is a great tool for tinkering around and doing many typical tasks usually reserved for dedicated hardware.

RELATED: Google is about to overhaul the Android. You’ll either love it or hate it.

lixu/Getty Images

How to use desktop mode on Samsung Galaxy

To get started, make sure your phone is powered on and unlocked to the home screen. Next, connect your Samsung Galaxy phone to your monitor using your USB-C cable or HDMI cable with USB-C adapter. If your monitor doesn’t immediately light up with a desktop interface from your phone, open the Settings app on your Galaxy device and tap “Connected devices,” followed by “Samsung DeX.” Lastly, tap “Connected display” and choose “Extended.” You should now see a desktop interface on your monitor.

Next, you’ll need to set up your wireless keyboard and mouse. Back in the main Settings app, choose “Connections” and tap on “Bluetooth” (do not touch the toggle switch but tap the word itself). Make sure your mouse and keyboard are in pairing mode, and hit the “Scan” button in the top right corner. Follow the pairing instructions, and you’re all set.

Samsung DeX is available on many Samsung devices, including Galaxy S8 and up, the original Z Fold and up, and the Tab S4 series and up.

Samsung DeX on Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 on One UI 9 (Android 17)/Zach Laidlaw

How to use desktop mode on Google Pixel

To get started, power your phone on and unlock it to the home screen. Next, connect your Google Pixel device to your monitor using your USB-C cable or HDMI cable with USB-C adapter. You should immediately see a pop-up that asks if you want to connect your external display in “Desktop” mode or “Mirror” mode. Choose “Desktop,” and your monitor should light up with a desktop interface.

Now for the mouse and keyboard. Make sure these two devices are in pairing mode. Then on your Pixel, open the Settings app, tap “Connected devices” and “Pair new device,” and wait for the mouse and keyboard to appear before finalizing the connection. That’s it!

Android Desktop Mode works on Google Pixel 8 and up.

Google Pixel Android Desktop Mode on Android 17/Zach Laidlaw

No, that blurry brown rectangle isn’t a broken image link (or a censored pic). It’s the wallpaper you see on Google Pixel’s desktop. All the time. Yuck.

Well, nobody’s perfect.

Thanks to better wallpaper and stronger app support, Samsung DeX is more refined than Pixel’s Android Desktop Mode. That is to be expected, though, as Samsung has worked on DeX since 2017, while Google launched the official version of Android Desktop Mode in March of this year.

While Samsung DeX is far more enjoyable and useful in my opinion, both work in a pinch if you ever need to access a desktop experience from your Android phone.

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​Android, Google play store, Google, Samsung, Tech, Smartphones 

Many of the Democrats now melting down over Homeland Security Investigations’ raid of Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C.-area residence weren’t at all fussed when their top political opponent was having his home searched by armed federal agents.

Quick recap

A Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed to the New York Times that HSI agents executed a judicially authorized search of a home in the D.C. area on Monday as part of an “ongoing federal criminal investigation.”

‘No one is above the law.’

Three people briefed on the matter told the Times that the search warrant for the Somali-born ethno-nationalist’s house lists various potential immigration crimes under investigation including fraud in immigration paperwork.

Omar has long been dogged by allegations that she married her brother to help him fraudulently obtain immigration status in the United States. She has called the allegations “absolutely false and ridiculous.”

The raid on Monday comes just weeks after White House border czar Thomas Homan confirmed the existence of an HSI criminal probe into Omar.

Homan told Fox News that “if someone committed immigration violation, if someone committed marriage fraud or anything like that, regardless if they’re a congressman or not, no one’s above the law.”

A tale of two raids

Omar’s office called the raid “an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies,” and Omar called it “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”

Democrats quickly joined Omar in condemning the judicially authorized search and in characterizing it as “unprecedented” and “disturbing.”

RELATED: The raid that Democrats can’t wave away

Jim WATSON/AFP/Getty Images; Joe Raedle/Getty Images

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.J.), House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), and Rep. Peter Aguilar (D-Calif.), for instance, claimed in a joint statement, “The Trump administration’s raid on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s home is deeply disturbing and raises serious questions about the continued corrupt weaponization of the federal government against Donald Trump’s adversaries.”

The trio also criticized the federal government for targeting a lawmaker’s home ahead of an election.

Jeffries sang a different tune, however, when just months ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, the FBI raided President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence with guns drawn.

The day after the raid, Jeffries tweeted, “No one is above the law.” In the weeks that followed, he repeatedly used this line and stated that while “extraordinary,” the raid appeared to be justified.

Eight days after the FBI swarmed Mar-a-Lago, Katherine Clark also defended the raid, stating in an interview with GBH News, “This was a legal search warrant signed off by a federal judge.”

Clark further claimed that Republicans were playing a “dangerous game” by condemning the raid and stressed the need to wait and “see what this investigation turns into.”

At the time, Aguilar insinuated that the Mar-a-Lago raid was necessary, concern-mongered about the classified documents found at Trump’s residence, and insisted that Trump was fair game.

This trio is hardly the only group of Democrats whose complaints now ring hollow owing to their disparate response four years ago.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) clutched pearls on Monday over the Omar raid, calling it an “assault on our constitutional values”; an “outrageous abuse of power”; part of a broader “campaign of political retribution” against a critic of the president; and “blatant political intimidation and an attempt to interfere with the Congresswoman’s reelection.”

Raskin did not appear to be similarly outraged over the FBI’s election-time raid of Trump’s residence.

When asked on Aug. 9, 2022, about the Mar-a-Lago raid, Raskin coolly said, “Speaking as a citizen, we all have an interest in the rule of law in the country and respect for the rule of law, and the resistance to the lawlessness that seems to be, you know, always out there now.”

California Rep. Ro Khanna (D) whined about the Omar raid this week, claiming in a video statement that “it is simply chilling that they are targeting political opponents this way.”

Like his comrades, Khanna took an entirely different approach in 2022, telling then-MSNBC host Ari Melber, “The FBI doesn’t just go in unless a judge signs off on a search warrant. That means they have some probable evidence about possible wrongdoing.”

Khanna further said that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department were just “following the facts” and that “it’s not for me or members of Congress to say what should happen.”

RELATED: Is Ilhan Omar getting deported? Trump’s post raises eyebrows

HSI officers search the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) is another hypocritical Democrat who felt obligated to defend the 2022 raid but condemn the 2026 raid.

Tlaib told Michigan Advance days after the Mar-a-Lago raid that Trump is “not above the law. If he committed a crime, he should be held accountable to it. I don’t care that he was president of the United States. If anything, we set a dangerous precedent if we let folks get away with these kinds of things, especially when it comes to, you know, national security.”

Now that the shoe is on the Somali foot, Tlaib is crying foul.

She stated on Monday, “Trump is grossly abusing his power to raid the home of Rep. Omar. He has repeatedly attacked her, Somali Americans, and Minnesotans. @Ilhan has done nothing to justify a pre-dawn raid ahead of the election. I stand with my sister always.”

Even Omar herself claimed that “no one is above the law” when arguing that the criminal indictment of Trump was a sign that the justice system worked as designed. “The fact that one of the most powerful people in the world was investigated impartially and indicted by a grand jury is testament to the fact that we live in a country of laws,” she tweeted in March 2023.

Vice President JD Vance rejected Democrats’ claim this week that the administration is weaponizing federal law enforcement against Trump adversaries, telling Fox News Digital on Tuesday, “We don’t want to be like the Biden administration. We never want to be like that — where they would allow the law to go after their political opponents.”

“We really want to let the law, the facts drive this,” said Vance. “And if justice requires something else be done, then, of course, we’ll take a step when we have to.”

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​Jamie raskin, Katherine clark, Hakeem jeffries, Donald trump, Rashida tlaib, Ilhan omar, Homeland security investigations, Mar-a-lago, Raid, Politics 

Volkswagen spent years preparing for an electric future. Now it’s clearing space on the assembly line for more gas-powered SUVs.

In April, the German automaker announced it would stop building its ID.4 electric crossover at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant. The factory would instead concentrate on higher-volume models, particularly the Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport.

The Atlas has always had one big advantage over many of its three-row competitors: space. And I mean usable space, especially in that third row.

That’s quite a change of direction for a company that once regarded the ID.4 as central to its American ambitions. The electric crossover was supposed to bring Volkswagen into a new era of affordable, mass-market electric transportation. Instead, the company is making room for the kind of vehicle American families have been buying all along.

And having recently driven the redesigned 2027 Atlas, I can understand why.

Whatever happened to the people’s EV?

Volkswagen’s electric ambitions weren’t exactly modest. After its diesel emissions scandal, the company committed billions to electrification, developing an entire family of battery-powered vehicles under its ID branding.

The ID.4, which arrived in the United States in 2021, was a particularly important part of that strategy. It offered the familiar dimensions and practicality of a compact SUV, along with the promise of lower operating costs and freedom from the gas pump.

Volkswagen even invested in producing it domestically, making Chattanooga a major part of its North American EV operation.

For a while, the numbers looked encouraging. ID.4 sales rose in 2025, helped by the federal EV tax credit, which made the vehicle substantially more attractive to buyers. But after the credit expired on September 30, 2025, sales collapsed.

According to Volkswagen’s sales figures, the company sold just 338 ID.4s in the first three months of 2026, compared with 7,663 during the same period a year earlier. That’s a decline of nearly 96%.

By April, Volkswagen had made its decision. ID.4 production in Tennessee was finished, although remaining inventory would be available into 2027. The company hasn’t ruled out bringing back a revised version.

And the ID.4 isn’t the only electric Volkswagen that’s had a rough time.

I happen to love the ID. Buzz, Volkswagen’s battery-powered revival of the old Microbus. The styling is terrific, there’s plenty of room inside, and it’s a vehicle that makes you smile just looking at it.

But every time I’ve driven one, I’ve thought the same thing: Where’s the range extender? The driving range just isn’t enough for a vehicle designed to take people and their families on trips. Add the high price, and you’ve got a tough sell.

Volkswagen skipped the 2026 model year for the ID. Buzz and has since delayed its American return until the 2028 model year.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with building electric vehicles. But they have to make sense for the people buying them. Price matters. Range matters. And so does being able to get where you’re going without worrying about your next charging stop.

The Atlas gets a second chance

Which brings us to the 2027 Atlas.

My co-host Karl Brauer and I recently drove the redesigned SUV at a Volkswagen event in Huntsville, Alabama, not far from the Chattanooga factory where it’s built.

First of all, if you’ve never been to Huntsville, it’s a beautiful place to drive. The roads were excellent, the scenery was gorgeous, and the weather was just about perfect.

The Atlas has always had one big advantage over many of its three-row competitors: space. And I mean usable space, especially in that third row.

I know people who have kept their Atlases for years because they love them. One family I know has driven theirs from one end of the country to the other with adults sitting in the third row and all their luggage packed inside. No complaints. That’s pretty impressive.

Fortunately, Volkswagen hasn’t messed that up with the redesign.

The new Atlas still has that generous passenger room, but the interior is considerably more upscale. The materials are nicer, the seats are comfortable, and there’s a lot more technology.

Depending on the trim, you get upgraded seating surfaces, a large central touchscreen, digital instruments, and the kind of detailing you’d expect in a more expensive vehicle. The available Harman Kardon audio system is especially impressive. Volkswagen even offers built-in games, including classics like Tetris and Uno, that you can play while the vehicle is parked.

Now, I don’t know that anyone needs to play video games in their SUV, but if you’re waiting to pick up the kids or sitting around at a campsite, I can see the appeal.

Under the hood is a revised 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine producing 282 horsepower, paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission. Front-wheel drive is standard on lower trims, with all-wheel drive available.

Prices start at $43,135 and climb to $58,135 for the fully equipped SEL Premium R-Line.

One of the nice things about the Atlas is that you don’t have to buy the most expensive version to get a well-equipped family vehicle. Even the base model comes with a lot of features people actually use.

Overall, I was impressed. Volkswagen has done a very nice job.

But there’s one thing I don’t understand.

Where’s the hybrid?

The new Atlas comes with just one powertrain: that turbocharged gasoline four-cylinder.

And while it’s reasonably efficient for a large SUV, an EPA-estimated 25 mpg combined with front-wheel drive and 23 mpg with all-wheel drive isn’t particularly exciting when you look at what the competition is doing.

Take the 2027 Kia Telluride Hybrid.

Its 2.5-liter turbocharged hybrid system makes 329 horsepower — considerably more than the Atlas — and gets an EPA-estimated 35 mpg combined in the front-wheel-drive EX trim. Even the all-wheel-drive Telluride Hybrid gets 31 mpg combined.

That’s a big difference when you’re driving a three-row family SUV every day.

The Telluride Hybrid starts at $46,490 before destination, and a fully equipped version costs roughly what Volkswagen charges for its top-of-the-line Atlas.

So think about that. You’ve got two roomy, well-equipped, three-row SUVs. Both have attractive interiors, modern technology, and plenty of room for the family. But the Kia gives you more horsepower, substantially better fuel economy, and a longer powertrain warranty.

That’s going to be a pretty easy comparison for a lot of buyers.

Hyundai and Kia have been doing an excellent job lately. They understand the American market, they offer a lot of equipment for the money, and they’re giving customers a choice of gasoline, hybrid, and electric vehicles.

Volkswagen knows it’s missing something. At the 2026 New York International Auto Show, Volkswagen Group of America CEO Kjell Gruner confirmed that hybrids are coming to the Atlas, Atlas Cross Sport, and Tiguan.

But we’re not getting an Atlas hybrid right away. It’s planned for a future midcycle refresh, which industry reports suggest could put its arrival around the 2029 or 2030 model year.

That’s a long time to wait when your competitors already have theirs in showrooms.

RELATED: Is your car reading your texts? Only the auto industry knows for sure

New York Daily News/Getty Images

Giving buyers a choice

Now, Volkswagen isn’t abandoning electric vehicles altogether. The company continues developing EVs for other markets, and there’s certainly room for electric Volkswagens in America if they offer the right combination of price, range, and practicality.

But I find the Chattanooga decision especially interesting.

Here’s a company that invested heavily in building electric vehicles in America, and now it’s using that factory capacity to build more gasoline-powered SUVs. Volkswagen clearly sees where the demand is.

And changing course isn’t cheap. In its April financial report, the company disclosed roughly half a billion euros in costs associated with adjusting its American product strategy.

The good news is that the redesigned Atlas is an excellent vehicle. It’s roomy, comfortable, attractive, and loaded with technology. I think a lot of families are going to be very happy with it.

But I also think Volkswagen missed an opportunity by launching it without a hybrid. Kia and Hyundai already have compelling alternatives that offer better fuel economy without asking drivers to change how they use their vehicles.

That’s what more buyers want: options. Some want gasoline. Some want hybrids. Some want electric. And plenty of people just want a reliable, comfortable family SUV they can afford to own and drive.

​Assembly line, Auto industry, Cars, Evs, Hybrids, Lifestyle, Volkswagen, Automotive 

Federal agents shot and arrested a “criminal illegal alien” in the Bronx on Thursday, according to the Department of Homeland Security, after he allegedly rammed into them during a law enforcement operation despite having his young son in the vehicle.

Democrats and the liberal media rushed to paint the nonfatal shooting of 28-year-old Dominican national Oscar Bengal as terroristic or at the very least as unwarranted, and the alien — whose deportation was temporarily blocked on Friday by an Obama judge — as a misunderstood, music-loving “New Yorker.”

‘I am angry tonight.’

It appears that Democrats and their fellow travelers have once again rallied behind a dangerous foreign thug who has had numerous run-ins with the law.

Thug life

Immigration and Customs Enforcement intelligence shows that “Bengal traveled to the southern border as part of a caravan seeking to exploit the Biden administration’s disastrous open border,” a DHS spokesman told Blaze News. “He and countless others successfully snuck into our country at an unknown place and time.”

After stealing into the U.S., Bengal continued to break American law.

He was, for instance, arrested in New York City in 2023 and charged with two counts of petit larceny, two counts of third-degree robbery, two counts of criminal possession of a weapon with intention to use, grand larceny, two counts criminal possession of stolen property, two counts of menacing, and two counts of menacing with a weapon.

Bengal ultimately pleaded guilty to fourth-degree grand larceny and was sentenced to five years’ probation. The DHS indicated that he was cut loose before ICE could lodge a detainer.

Bengal was then arrested in August 2025 after allegedly selling fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin to an undercover cop on multiple occasions.

According to court documents reviewed by the New York Daily News, the Dominican was indicted in December on one count of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree and nine counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance in third degree.

RELATED: Shattered by socialism: ‘Escaping Venezuela’ offers a warning for Mamdani’s America

Screenshot, New York Police Department, X video

A spokesperson for the New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office told the Daily News that at the time he was shot last week, Bengal had “been out on supervised release” for the drug charges. Court records show that his next scheduled appearance in the drug case is Dec. 2.

Bengal also faces active charges in New York for alleged assault and robbery, had protection orders lodged against him twice in January, and is allegedly a “documented associate of the notorious Trinitario street gang in the Bronx, NY,” according to the DHS.

A DHS spokesman told Blaze News that on Sept. 18, ICE attempted to apprehend Bengal in the Bronx.

“He disobeyed ICE officers’ lawful commands and fled law enforcement. For the safety of the general public, ICE stood down and did not pursue him that day,” said the spokesman.

Bengal’s latest arrest

When ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers positively identified Bengal driving on Thursday, they “used their vehicles to conduct a vehicle stop and approached Bengal’s vehicle on foot,” said the DHS.

The DHS alleged that Bengal “then rammed the ICE vehicles and appeared that he intended to strike officers on foot.”

Evidently believing that their lives were in jeopardy, one ICE officer opened fire, grazing Bengal’s neck.

“Bengal refused lawful orders to exit his vehicle. He then accelerated his vehicle, smashing into two of our ICE vehicles. He then weaponized his vehicle and proceeded to accelerate his vehicle toward other officers,” said ICE ERO Executive Director Marcos Charles. “Our officer, believing that their life, the lives of their partners, and the lives of the general public were in danger, used their training and fired their weapon.”

Bengal’s lawyers did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment by deadline.

At the time of the shooting, Bengal’s young son was in his vehicle.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin emphasized that “Oscar put his child at risk when he chose to accelerate, hit two federal vehicles, and also weaponize the vehicle and move towards at an accelerated rate towards officers that were trying to apprehend him.”

Mullin noted that his agency knew that this was going to be a “contentious arrest” and that precautions were taken to maximize safety at the time it was conducted.

Bodycam footage released by the New York Police Department shows police taking Bengal from the officers who had administered first aid and transporting the convict to the hospital, where he received attention for what the DHS described as a “superficial” injury.

Leftists rush in

After the shooting, a mob soon gathered outside New York Presbyterian Allen Hospital to protest ICE, trapping federal officers inside the building, reported the New York Daily News.

In the hours and days that followed Bengal’s arrest, the anti-ICE protests turned violent.

Leftist officials and the liberal media helped feed the mob’s rage and misconceptions, namely that ICE had targeted a “New Yorker” and that the shooting was unjustified.

New York City Democrat Mayor Zohran Mamdani rushed to condemn the incident, tweeting, “This is an unconscionable and incredibly serious situation. I have called the President; when we speak I will demand that he ends all ICE enforcement actions in our city. I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities.”

“Our thoughts are with the injured New Yorker and his family tonight. We are praying for his recovery,” added the democratic socialist mayor.

Mamdani, who tried to negotiate the convict’s release, later stated, “I am angry tonight. Because today ICE shot a New Yorker. They shot a New Yorker while his five year old child was in the car. ICE makes this city less safe.”

Carmen De La Rosa, a Democrat New York City Council member who was born in the Dominican Republic, attacked ICE, stating that “no matter what DHS alleges this adult male did, that does not warrant a death sentence.”

“This is a rogue, untrained, unprofessional agency and a dastardly strain on the country,” said the foreign-born leftist. “It must be abolished.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) noted on Thursday that she had spoken with President Donald Trump and Mullin and “expressed outrage on behalf of New Yorkers and urged them to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York.”

The following day, Hochul insinuated that ICE — not the criminal alien — had put Bengal’s son at risk and suggested after speaking to the boy’s mother that “all I wanted to do was give her a hug and tell her this never should have happened to her family.”

Democratic Socialists of America called the shooting a “horrifying demonstration of the terror ICE brings into our communities.”

When similarly melting down, Darializa Avila Chevalier — the Islamic anti-police, anti-Israel, anti-border socialist now poised to win a congressional seat in New York as a Democrat — initially referred to the criminal noncitizen as a “member of our community.”

After New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tish publicly referred to Bengal’s thuggish history, Chevalier told Hasan Piker that Bengal’s criminal record and immigration status “doesn’t even matter.”

“Police Commissioner Tisch came out, and I understand that it is her role to provide more information, and that is why she comes to these press conferences,” said the congressional candidate. “But rather than, you know, condemn ICE, rather than condemn the shooting or the events that had just taken place, she started to villainize Oscar, right?”

Chevalier suggested further that the thug’s alleged efforts to evade and attack law enforcement constituted self-defense and stressed that “he needs to be released.”

The New York Times, of course, did its part by painting Bengal as a “friendly,” music-loving neighbor.

While his name has appeared with multiple spellings in court documents and recent reports, the DHS confirmed that the proper spelling is “Bengal.”

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​Department of homeland security, Immigration, Illegal alien, Kathy hochul, Markwayne mullin, Zohran mamdani, Politics, Immigration and customs enforcement 

In Onondaga County, New York, a union has gone to court to stop an artificial intelligence tool from answering nonemergency calls at the county’s 911 center. The system handles routine calls, roughly a third of the center’s volume, and transfers suspected emergencies to human operators. The county wants to use the technology. The union wants it stopped.

The union contends that the rollout violates its labor agreement. But its lawsuit puts a familiar priority on display: Protect work covered by the contract, even when new technology might improve a public service.

Americans should not have to sacrifice the benefits of invention to preserve yesterday’s job descriptions.

Labor unions exist to defend their members. They owe no comparable allegiance to consumers, employers, or workers who never join. That last group is enormous. Union members accounted for just 10% of U.S. wage and salary workers in 2025 and only 5.9% in the private sector. Yet a union can use its bargaining power to obstruct changes that would benefit everyone else.

American ports offer a more expensive example. The 2025 Container Port Performance Index, which measures vessel turnaround efficiency, ranked only one U.S. port among the world’s top 50: Philadelphia, at No. 48. Meanwhile, the International Longshoremen’s Association has made opposition to automation a central demand.

The ILA’s 2025 agreement with employers at East and Gulf Coast ports delivered a 62% wage increase over six years. It also restricted automation. As Jordan McGillis reported in City Journal, employers must hire another longshoreman for every new semiautonomous crane they install, while fully autonomous cranes remain prohibited.

Better machines could move goods faster and reduce costs for businesses and consumers. The union secured limits on those machines instead. A Congressional Research Service report has also documented long-standing concerns about payroll fraud and organized crime influence involving the ILA on the New York-New Jersey waterfront.

RELATED: America doesn’t need Dario Amodei’s permission to build

Jason Henry/Bloomberg/Getty Images

This struggle predates computers, robots, and artificial intelligence. Some medieval craft guilds protected their privileges by limiting competition and resisting techniques that threatened established trades. American unions have repeatedly followed that example.

When diesel locomotives displaced steam engines, railroads no longer needed firemen to tend boilers. Unions nevertheless fought to preserve those jobs. H.E. Gilbert, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, defended that struggle in 1963: “You can always mint more money. But you can’t mint new lives.”

Gilbert cared about the livelihoods of his members. He ignored the workers and families who would gain from cheaper, more efficient rail service. Protecting a job made obsolete by technology does not preserve the wealth that makes employment possible.

In 1971, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union staged a 134-day strike as containerization transformed shipping. The fight centered on jobs, jurisdiction, and work rules as machines replaced much of the labor once required to load cargo. In 1986, Rupert Murdoch moved his British newspapers to computerized printing at Wapping, dismissed 5,500 workers, and faced union picketing for more than a year.

RELATED: The future belongs to people who believe in one

Cheng Xin/Getty Images

In each dispute, established workers fought to defend their position against technological change. The gains from new equipment, however, extended well beyond the employers who purchased it. Consumers gained faster service and lower costs; other workers benefited from a more productive economy.

Workers should remain free to join unions and bargain collectively. Voluntary labor organizations belong in a free society. But decades of government intervention have given organized labor legal privileges that can come at the expense of nonunion workers, employers, and customers. Those privileges deserve scrutiny, not automatic deference.

A union has every incentive to protect its members. The public has no obligation to make that protection the governing purpose of an industry or a taxpayer-funded service. The East India Company did not trade in a free market simply because it conducted commerce. Nor does a union bargain in a free labor market when government grants it advantages unavailable to everyone else.

Innovation raises living standards by allowing people to produce more with less. Organized labor can help workers adapt to that progress, or it can try to halt it. Americans should not have to sacrifice the benefits of invention to preserve yesterday’s job descriptions.

​Artificial intelligence, Competition, Court, East coast, Employers, Gulf coast, Labor market, Labor unions, Machines, New york, Shipping, Technology, Union, Opinion & analysis 

Two females have been charged after allegedly punching, stomping, kicking, and biting a St. Louis-area gas station security guard — who also happens to be a rookie police officer.

St. Louis County prosecutors charged Shaniya Lewis and Nayonna Griffin, both 20, with second-degree assault of a special victim and resisting or interfering with an arrest for a felony, KSDK-TV reported. Both suspects remained behind bars Tuesday on $100,000 cash-only bonds, the station said.

‘He’s only been with us a short period of time, but he’s a hard worker.’

St. Louis County Police told KSDK the incident occurred Sunday morning at the QuikTrip at 12110 Lusher Road. The off-duty Hillsdale Police Department officer was working a secondary security job there, the station said.

Charging documents said things got under way when the guard approached Griffin after she threw items at him, KSDK reported, adding that Lewis soon joined in, struggled with the guard, and threw him to the ground.

Police told the station Lewis repeatedly punched the guard while Griffin stomped on his head. What’s more, Lewis actually reached for his gun but was unable to remove it from its holster, KSDK said.

When additional officers arrived and attempted to detain Griffin, police told the station she continued grabbing the guard’s hair, kicking, flailing, and attempting to run away. She also kept her hands away from officers as they tried to handcuff her, KSDK said.

You can view video of the attack here.

RELATED: Smiling thug accused of fatally shooting Philly cop in ambush; officer had wife, 2 young children

KSDK in a separate story said Hillsdale Police Department officials confirmed Monday that the security guard is a rookie on their force.

“I wish that somebody would intervene,” Hillsdale Assistant Police Chief Lt. Col. Herb Simmons told the station in regard to onlookers recording the attack on their phones. “You know, I understand you want to try to be Facebook famous or whatever, but just imagine if that was your brother that was getting jumped or a cousin. Why can’t you step in, be the bigger person, and pull one of them away?”

Simmons also commended his officer for not using excessive force, KSDK said: “If he’s fatigued and he’s out and they were trying to disarm him it could have went into a shooting situation. They were trying to take his weapon, stuff off his belt. It could have went totally different.”

Simmons added to the station that store surveillance cameras captured roughly four minutes of video that St. Louis County detectives are reviewing: “If one person might have stepped in and pulled one person away, it wouldn’t have went this far.”

The rookie officer was taken to a hospital for treatment, KSDK said, adding that police officials said he suffered minor injuries including bite marks and bruises and is expected to recover and return to work on Wednesday.

“He’s only been with us a short period of time, but he’s a hard worker,” Simmons added to the station. “He hustles, he does what he needs to do. I can call him at the drop of a hat, and he’ll show up.”

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​Arrests, Gas station, Missouri, Off-duty police officer, Physical attack, St louis county, Viral video, Security guard, Crime 

Cornell University has taken steps in response to nationwide criticism over a sexual assault lawsuit, the university president has announced.

President Michael Kotlikoff said all fraternity parties have been banned for the rest of the academic year and added that “experienced, trauma-informed criminal investigators” will be brought in to look into sexual assault allegations.

‘We must meet this moment by acknowledging where we have fallen short and taking meaningful action.’

He specifically apologized for the harm allegedly suffered by the accuser in a 2024 incident involving several members of the Chi Phi fraternity.

“These are first steps toward systemic change on our campus,” said Kotlikoff in a statement dated Tuesday. “Cornell must be a place where safety is not an open question. I am committed to doing that work and to seeing it through.”

Fraternities found in violation of the party ban will receive “an immediate emergency suspension,” with zero tolerance.

“It is clear that women on our campus continue to question whether they are safe,” Kotlikoff said in the statement. “We must meet this moment by acknowledging where we have fallen short and taking meaningful action.”

The accuser, who is known only as Jane Doe, alleges that she did not consent to all of the sexual acts with the fraternity members during the Oct. 2024 incident. None of the former students involved have been criminally charged.

Doe is suing Cornell, the fraternity, seven former members of that fraternity, and her sorority.

Thomas Giuffra, the attorney representing Doe, said in a statement to NBC News that her “goal in filing her lawsuit was not solely for herself.”

“She wanted to achieve her aim of improving Cornell and its response to abuse claims. While the steps announced today are helpful to achieve this goal, they are too late to protect Ms. Doe,” he added.

“However, these steps will hopefully go a long way to help ensure that there are no more Jane Does,” Giuffra said.

RELATED: 200 students protest HS football captain’s post on Cornell scandal — and team forfeits game

New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Oct. 1 that she issued an executive order appointing state Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor in the case.

“The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued. This action will ensure that the matter is fully and thoroughly investigated without conflict or bias and handled independently with the rigor that this matter demands,” Hochul claimed.

Hochul was immediately criticized after many pointed out that James had already posted an opinion on the case and taken sides before being appointed. On Sept. 28, James referred to Doe as a “survivor” and pledged to “stand with” her.

“It is problematic for a prosecutor like Tish James to be commenting on a case publicly before the investigation is concluded,” said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani to Fox News Digital. “And the problem is, if you file criminal charges, whether it’s through a complaint or a grand jury indictment, that may taint the potential jury pool in a criminal case.”

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​Cornell university, Sexual assault, Politics, Kathy hochul, Letitia james 

Country music star Kacey Musgraves unleashed a profanity-laced diatribe against Christopher Columbus during a concert in Texas. The singer lambasted the legendary explorer as a “loser” and the “lamest person to probably ever exist.”

During her concert on Sunday at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Musgraves blasted the Italian explorer the day before Columbus Day.

‘You’re a loser, Christopher Columbus. We hate you.’

Musgraves told the crowd, “Tomorrow’s Monday? Ew, that’s right, wait, it’s Columbus Day? It’s what now?”

The crowd shouted, “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”

Musgraves ranted, “Yeah, no, no, yeah, actually, obviously, f**k Columbus. Literally the lamest person to probably ever exist. Like for real. What a loser.”

The expletive-laden statement garnered cheers from the crowd.

Musgraves raged, “You’re a loser, Christopher Columbus. We hate you.”

The 38-year-old Grammy winner ignited a firestorm online with her inflammatory remarks.

Filmmaker Robby Starbuck wrote on the X social media platform:

Columbus is the opposite of lame. He navigated some of the most treacherous seas in ships built in the 1400’s. In doing so he became one of the few people in history to explore new lands and discover new trade routes. Some of those trade routes brought food to nations that desperately needed it and not only saved lives but resulted in population growth. He overcame near mutiny, famine and terrible weather. Kacey Musgraves has likely overcome sequins falling off of her stage costumes and not getting everything she demanded in her green room rider. Just hilarious that she’d say this.

Conservative political commentator Chad Prather said, “Columbus: Sailed across the sea and found a new continent. Kacey Musgraves: Stands on a stage in underwear saying ‘Columbus was lame.’ Do these people not see themselves?”

Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt added, “An entire generation of spoiled brats who’ve never built anything, stand on the crumbling empire they don’t deserve, built by great and courageous men who are now judged through the moral lens of the softest dorks living in the easiest times. Oy vey.”

Former President Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to formally recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 2021 through a presidential proclamation.

Biden declared at the time, “On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, our Nation celebrates the invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples, recognizes their inherent sovereignty, and commits to honoring the Federal Government’s trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump embraced Columbus Day on Sunday.

Trump wrote on Truth Social:

HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY TO ALL, in particular our great Italian American Community which was forced to suffer as the Radical Left Dumocrats, Socialists, and Communists rampaged through our cities and towns ripping down almost all of the beautiful statues of Christopher Columbus. Well, those days of plunder are over, and the statues are back, more magnificent than ever. This is a big day for our great Italian American Community, and the Country of Italy itself, maybe the biggest. Congratulations!

RELATED: Kacey Musgraves opens tour with plea for children of ‘unfairly’ deported migrants — and gets BRUTAL backlash

Musgraves also waded into political waters during a concert Saturday by posing with Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem commented on the photo, “I’ll take Ella Langley over Kacey Musgraves any day. And if I’m choosin’ Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico.”

Musgraves responded by attacking Noem for her controversial 2024 admission that she shot and killed her hunting dog after it killed her chickens. Noem said the dog had become “untrainable” and “dangerous” to people.

“I don’t think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it,” Musgraves replied.

As Blaze News previously reported, Talarico went missing from the campaign trail and didn’t make a public appearance between Sept. 26 and Oct. 9.

Talarico’s Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Paxton, had his supporters chant, “Where is Talarico?” at a Trump rally in San Antonio last Wednesday.

Talarico’s campaign said he had been sick with the flu.

The Texas race is close, with pollsters leaning toward Talarico as the favorite over Paxton. For the latest Texas Senate seat updates — and to follow other important midterm races across the nation — check out Poll Watch, available to Blaze News, BlazeTV+, and Blaze Unlimited subscribers.

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​Kacey musgraves, Music, Entertainment, Christopher columbus, Columbus day, Kristi noem, James talarico, News 

Just in time for election season, climate leftists have discovered the price of gasoline. On cable news, in Congress, and across social media, Democrats are eager to remind drivers what they’re paying at the pump. Their outrage stops where their climate agenda begins.

On October 5, the national average for regular gasoline stood near $4.37, according to AAA, after the most expensive September on record. Compare state averages by the governor’s party, and Democrats have a problem.

The real existential threat was never at the pump. It’s sitting in Tehran. Voters should remember which threat leftists actually treated like one.

Across the 26 Republican-governed states, regular gas averaged about $4.24 a gallon. Across the 24 Democrat-governed states, it averaged $4.53 — nearly 7% more. Diesel showed a similar gap: about $6.15 versus $6.50. Those are unweighted averages of state prices, not the entire explanation for the difference. But state policy adds to the bill.

The cost of climate policy

California, Washington, and Oregon have all placed transportation fuels under climate programs with costs that can reach motorists.

California’s cap-and-trade program and Low Carbon Fuel Standard added about 42 cents per gallon in January 2026, according to the state’s Energy Commission. Washington’s Climate Commitment Act requires covered fuel suppliers to buy emissions allowances. Oregon’s Climate Protection Program caps emissions from fossil fuels, including gasoline and diesel.

These policies don’t account for every cent at the pump. Refining constraints, geography, and global crude prices count too. But Democratic officials chose to make fossil fuels more expensive to advance their climate goals.

The early October prices tell the story: California, $6.38 a gallon; Washington, $5.48; Oregon, $5.04. Those Democrat-run states enforce climate mandates on top of ordinary fuel taxes. Their leaders should answer for the costs they have chosen to impose.

We’ve heard this before

In June 2022, the national average for regular gas reached a record $5.01 a gallon. What answer did Americans hear from Democratic leaders as prices climbed? Buy an electric vehicle.

In November 2021, President Joe Biden said EV owners could save $800 to $1,000 in fuel costs that year. He had recently test-driven an electric Hummer priced above $112,000. In March 2022, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined Vice President Kamala Harris to promote electric transportation and the administration’s $5 billion charging network. That June, then-Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told a Senate hearing that she had driven her EV from Michigan to Washington, passing gas stations where the price no longer mattered to her.

For families who couldn’t afford a new electric car, the advice offered little relief. The administration presented electrification as its answer to expensive gasoline. Climate policy had its price, and drivers were expected to accept it.

RELATED: One atmosphere, 50 courts — what could go wrong?

Megane Adam/Getty Images

A threat beyond the gas pump

Then came October 7, 2023. Iran-backed Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel and murdered about 1,200 people in the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. The danger came from armed men serving a terrorist organization supported by Tehran, not from a projected rise in sea levels.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain largely unchecked. Before the U.S. and Israeli strikes on its enrichment facilities, Tehran had enriched uranium to 60% purity, close to weapons-grade. It has since refused international inspectors access to bombed sites and failed to account fully for its stockpile. The status of its enrichment capacity remains uncertain, but it’s no longer a hypothetical threat decades away.

The war with Iran has also helped drive oil and gasoline prices higher. Climate Democrats now want credit for noticing the cost. Fine. They should explain why raising fuel costs to meet climate targets is defensible but paying more to confront a regime that arms terrorist proxies and refuses to account for highly enriched uranium is beyond the pale.

The real existential threat was never at the pump. It’s sitting in Tehran. Voters should remember which threat leftists actually treated like one.

​Climate policy, Electric vehicle, Fossil fuels, Gas prices, Iran war, Midterms, Opinion & analysis 

Thanks to Trump administration directives, Americans can celebrate ending oppressive and expensive regulations and mandates that have hiked prices across virtually all goods and services. But tragically, we are just a few short weeks away from an election featuring radical socialist-style candidates who, if victorious, will assuredly try to roll back all the gains that have been made.

The latest cost-cutting move came last week when the Department of Transportation announced that it will “finalize sharply lower vehicle fuel economy standards through 2031, reversing a push by the Biden administration to force automakers to build more electric vehicles.”

We are one election away from putting more people in power who want a return to mandates, subsidies, and other Big Government, socialist-style dictates.

Referring to former President Joe Biden and his transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, the DOT noted in its own announcement that “the Biden-Buttigieg standards were set so high that they created a backdoor electric vehicle mandate. Automakers and their hardworking employees lost billions complying with the last administration’s regulation.”

The department reported that to avoid the costly economy requirements, some automakers made slight changes to vehicles that allowed for reclassification of light trucks and passenger vehicles.

“This final rule will change classification criteria starting in model year 2030 to reflect each vehicle’s intended use accurately, flipping the current fleet mix of approximately 70% light trucks and 30% passenger vehicles to around 70% passenger cars and 30% light trucks,” the department noted. Most importantly, the new standards are expected to “reduce the average cost of a new vehicle by $1,300 for American families” and “save the American people $138 billion over the next five years.”

The reversal came on the heels of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s announcement of “the repeal of the majority of the Biden administration’s greenhouse gas requirements for U.S. power plants, an action the agency projects will save $310 billion.” The announcement added, “The new proposal would save an additional $370 million in direct compliance costs.”

The Great Awakening on the federal level that has helped the U.S. escape the clutches of budget-busting climate zealotry is beginning to extend to the states. Just last week, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) announced that he has “directed the Ohio EPA to begin the process to end the E-Check vehicle testing programs in Northeast Ohio.”

Most of Ohio does not require drivers to undergo routine vehicle emissions testing, but the Cleveland area counties of Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Summit have done so since 1996. Ohio EPA Director John Logue shared his belief that even without E-Check, “the area will still be in attainment for those national ambient air quality standards. That it’s basically no longer necessary.”

According to Kelley Blue Book, up to 29 states “require an emissions test to register a vehicle or renew an existing registration,” some statewide, others only in certain regions. But a growing number of states are seeking EPA approval to end emissions tests. And last year, President Trump signed three resolutions designed to prevent California and 10 other states from implementing pollution mandates that were stricter than federal standards. Predictable legal challenges ensued.

RELATED: Foreign money is pouring into ballot battles. Half the states aren’t ready.

Twinsterphoto/Getty Images

Trump can put the icing on the cake by signing an executive order implementing the core elements of the Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act, introduced in Congress last year by Rep. Troy Balderson (R-Ohio). Such an order would make affordability the key factor in all governmental energy decisions, encourage robust investment and production, and strengthen both our economic and national security. Its effectiveness would be its own success, making it foolish for the policies to ever be reversed.

Overall, reasons for consumers to celebrate abound. Billions of dollars saved. Intrusive government regulations repealed. Accountability and transparency restored. Who would ever want to go back?

And yet, we are one election away from putting more people in power who want a return to mandates, subsidies, and other Big Government, socialist-style dictates that will send household costs through the roof on all things connected to energy, including transportation, lodging, construction, cooling, heating — the list of goods and services directly impacted by higher energy costs is practically endless.

Whatever reasons one may have for supporting one set of candidates over another, there is no more important issue than where they stand on energy. Do they back all energy options — oil, gas, coal, nuclear, wind, and solar — and believe in allowing the free market to work its magic and keep prices low? Or do they support government edicts and subsidies that will lead to rising costs and require taxpayers to write bigger checks to Uncle Sam each April?

Voters should remember one crucial fact when preparing to cast their ballots: Controlling energy controls our lives. Take control.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

​Department of transportation, Energy costs, Big government, Trump administration, Epa, Joe biden, Pete buttigieg, Emissions testing, Government regulations, Midterms, Opinion & analysis 

Ever since my daughter was born, my greatest ambition has been to become the best version of myself so she has every chance at a good life. I worry about how my own frailty and inadequacy might hold her back, stunting her emotionally or spiritually. But I trust that, with Jesus, all things are possible through the grace of God.

The recent trial of Lindsay Clancy has made me think about this responsibility more seriously than ever.

If I start to feel grumpy, I can look down at an object in my home and be encouraged to offer up a quick prayer.

In January 2023, Clancy killed her three young children in their Massachusetts home. Her murder trial ended in a mistrial in September, with jurors unable to agree on whether she should be held criminally responsible. Her lawyers argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.

The crime was horrifying enough. But I found much of the public response almost as troubling. Hundreds of women gathered outside the courthouse to show their support for Clancy. Some spoke of identifying with her struggles as a mother.

I understand the desire to raise awareness of postpartum mental illness and the need for better care. Mothers who are suffering deserve help, and serious mental illness can be devastating. But I couldn’t help wondering why a case involving the deaths of three innocent children had become, to such an extraordinary degree, a conversation about the needs and suffering of mothers.

Putting children first

In a healthy society, the murder of three children would remain, first and foremost, a tragedy for those children. We could debate the legal complexities, including whether Clancy was criminally responsible for her actions. We could discuss how to better recognize and treat postpartum psychosis. But somehow the case became a referendum on how society treats mothers, while the children seemed to recede into the background.

I worry that this response reflects a larger problem in how we think about parenting. We increasingly expect children to accommodate the lives we want to lead, rather than accepting that having children requires us to change our lives for their sake.

My own experience of motherhood has been one long exercise in making those changes. I’ve had to question things I valued before having my daughter, abandoning cherished habits and ambitions that might otherwise consume me or cause me to neglect her.

I’ve also come to realize that the first change must begin within. I can’t be what my daughter needs without Jesus guiding my thoughts, words, and actions. Each day, I try to sacrifice my ego and become a little less selfish — to lose myself without losing my sanity.

Along with prayer, here are some of the practical things that have helped me do that.

Losing the smartphone

After witnessing countless mothers ignoring their children to stare at a smartphone, I decided I would get rid of mine before I ever had children. So on my wedding day, I took a hammer to my smartphone to symbolize my readiness for motherhood.

I believe this decision has positively impacted my initiation into motherhood. Because I haven’t been staring at screens, my sleep has improved and I’ve regained my attention span. I’ve also had considerably more time to do things I value, such as reading and knitting.

I slept better than expected during pregnancy and since the birth of our daughter. Even with regular interruptions and frequent waking throughout the night, I’ve generally felt well-rested. I think my ability to fall asleep easily has a lot to do with not spending my evenings on a screen.

Just as important, I haven’t been bombarded with TikTok parenting advice reels designed to scare me into buying something I don’t need or believing something that might cause me to treat my child like there’s something wrong with her.

I do what I feel is best, with some advice from friends and older women I trust, and this has made motherhood feel relatively stress-free.

Our daughter, too, is screen-free. However, she does have access to a radio, which she loves to turn on and dance along with. I never see that horrible dead look in her eyes — she is happy and active, with ample curiosity and passion.

I was nervous that smashing my smartphone might make it harder to keep in touch with friends, but I’ve never regretted it. I still have a flip phone, which allows me regular phone conversations with my good friends, and I feel I’ve been more present and focused around my daughter.

This, as well as getting quality sleep and having more time to read or pursue my hobbies, has helped me strike a good balance between giving myself fully to motherhood and maintaining my own interests.

Embrace household chores

A regular, daily routine for household chores also grounds me, keeping me rooted in the moment. I don’t use a dishwasher, so I wash the dishes by hand after each meal. I also do a little laundry every morning.

Doing things by hand keeps me out of my head and is a meaningful way to show love to my husband and child by caring for the clothes we wear and the dishes we eat from.

These might seem like mundane chores, but I have been careful to curate clothes and dishes I love so that, as I manage the household, I am maintaining a space I feel fully committed to and in love with.

The things we wear and eat from represent choices I’ve willingly made. Each garment and object reminds me of my vocation. When I carefully and meticulously care for all the things in my home, I am offered constant reminders to be grateful.

If I start to feel grumpy, I can look down at an object in my home and be encouraged to offer up a quick prayer. By doing this, I take my thoughts captive, as the apostle Paul encourages, and my attitude is readjusted.

RELATED: Jehovah’s Witnesses: Worshipping with the most hated denomination

Keturah Hickman

Foster space for secure attachment

Downgrading my phone and choosing to manage my household deliberately and slowly have helped me make our home a peaceful place where I can build a close, secure relationship with my daughter. There are fewer distractions, less rushing, and fewer occasions for angry responses.

There are a few other things that have made this model tenable and enjoyable for me and my daughter: co-sleeping, breastfeeding, and baby-wearing.

In most ways, I am not very crunchy. I mostly do these three things because I am lazy and also have hobbies I haven’t wanted to abandon just because I am a mother. Not only have these things allowed my daughter and I to bond, but they enable me to get more sleep, wash fewer dishes, and move about the house with arms unencumbered.

The key to successful co-sleeping for us has been having a floor king-size bed. I never have to worry about the baby rolling out of bed, and there’s plenty of room to push her away to have quality time with my husband. Because the baby latches well, we are both able to sleep while she nurses, so I barely have to wake up when she’s hungry.

Breastfeeding, in particular, has given me plenty of opportunities to read. With the help of many pillows to get comfortable while I’m awake and nursing, I’ve managed to read nearly 30 books (mostly nonfiction) since she was born. Imagine if I’d had a smartphone instead!

I don’t know what I would have done without baby-wearing either. My baby is what might be classified as a Velcro baby. She is happy as long as she is with me, often in my arms. Wearing her was the only sane solution if I didn’t want to use the cry-it-out method. It has also helped me regain my core strength!

When the baby was under 6 months old, I’d use a woven wrap to wear her on my chest while I cleaned or sewed. Now I often have her on my back in an Ergo backpack carrier.

We spend our days together doing everything. We go for long walks and have little conversations throughout the day. When we wake up, no matter how I feel, I begin the day with a smile for my daughter and an exuberant greeting. She responds equally enthusiastically.

And now that she feels safe and connected, she’s begun displaying independent spurts where she plays off by herself. As long as I am in eyesight, I can do things for hours on my own without her fretting.

I love watching her discover that she can explore the world on her own while knowing I’m nearby if she needs me.

The joy of sacrifice

Since becoming a mother, I’ve been struck by how often our culture treats children as obstacles to adult happiness. We’re encouraged to pursue our ambitions, protect our independence, and make time for ourselves. None of those things is necessarily bad. But children have needs of their own, and those needs often require us to sacrifice things we would otherwise enjoy.

That sacrifice has brought me far more happiness than I could have anticipated. My life has become smaller in some ways, but richer in others. I’ve given up a smartphone, slowed down my days, and learned to take pleasure in the ordinary work of caring for my family. I haven’t lost myself in the process. I’ve discovered how much of the person I used to be I can happily do without.

I keep thinking about the three Clancy children and how easily they have been lost in the arguments surrounding their deaths. Whatever conclusions people draw about their mother’s mental illness or criminal responsibility, those children deserved a safe and loving home. They deserved to grow up.

I want to give my daughter every chance to do just that. I know I will make mistakes, and I know there will be days when I fall short. But I want to spend my life becoming the mother she needs, rather than expecting her to accommodate the mother I happen to be.

​Babywearing, Breastfeeding, Children, Lindsay clancy, Motherhood, Parenting, Postpartum psychosis, Lifestyle, Faith 

A California man allegedly targeted dozens of children on social media and other online apps in order to coerce them into producing sexually explicit videos for him.

Adrian Gutierrez, 22, of Ontario, California, pretended to be the age of his victims in the communications, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release from the Kansas District.

‘While Mr. Gutierrez mostly targeted children between the ages of ten and twelve, his victims were as young as nine years old.’

He would then allegedly coerce them into making “visual depictions of themselves engaged in sexually explicit conduct” during live video calls with him.

Prosecutors said Gutierrez sent the communications to children between May 2023 and October 2024.

Twenty-one of the victims have been identified from across 18 states. Others were not able to identified, and some of them resided outside the U.S., according to the release.

Gutierrez pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor involving a child from Kanas.

“The lessons of ‘stranger danger’ also apply to the internet. While Mr. Gutierrez mostly targeted children between the ages of ten and twelve, his victims were as young as nine years old,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Kriegshauser said in a statement in the press release.

“We encourage parents to talk to their children about internet safety and explain to them that not everyone is who they say they are or the age they claim, particularly online,” he added.

Gutierrez is scheduled to be sentenced in Jan. 2027.

RELATED: 19-year-old encouraged minor girl to commit suicide and film it as part of ‘nihilist’ online child sextortion cult

Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Special Agent Kiffa Shirley in the FBI’s Billings Resident Agency in Montana said children online are easy targets for predators.

“Young people don’t seem to have an on-guard mentality when it comes to strangers contacting them through the internet,” Shirley said. “And many teens feel less inhibited about sharing online.”

“Parents need to know what their children are doing online and must stay engaged, ask difficult questions, and not fall into the trap of believing their child is ‘just playing games’ or ‘just talking with their friends,'” said Justin Simmons, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, in a separate case.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also investigating the Gutierrez allegations.

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​Sexual exploitation, Social media, Federal bureau of investigation, Online predators, California, Crime 

My paternal grandmother, Giuseppina Scianna, was born on October 12, 1893, in Lercara Friddi, Sicily. Grandma Josey, her mother, Rosa Barbusia, and two siblings came to America in 1910, hoping to reunite with their husband and father, Giuseppe Scianna, who had come to New York to build a better life for his family.

My grandmother spoke broken English, but I remember her telling me how proud she was to be an American because, in Lercara Friddi, people believed America’s streets were lined with gold. She was especially proud to have been born on Columbus Day. To her, Christopher Columbus represented the opening of a world that eventually gave her family a chance to thrive here.

If conquest itself is the indictment, history provides no shortage of defendants. That is the part of Mamdani’s moral ledger that seems curiously blank.

The man New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) publicly disparages was Cristoforo Colombo, a Genoese navigator who altered the course of history. Mamdani made his contempt plain in 2020 when he posed in Astoria giving the middle finger to a Columbus statue and captioned the photo: “Take it down.”

Maybe the replacement could be Mehmed II. After all, Michelangelo’s Pietà arrived in New York aboard the Italian liner Cristoforo Colombo for the 1964 World’s Fair. Why not import a statue of Mehmed the Conqueror from Istanbul and give Astoria a lesson in historical consistency?

Mamdani did not invent the anti-colonial lens through which he sees the world. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a prominent scholar of colonialism and postcolonial politics; his mother, Mira Nair, has made films about displacement, immigration, and identity. Their son’s politics likewise run through an anti-colonial framework, whether the subject is Columbus, Israel, or American power.

Fine. Apply it consistently.

In January 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella defeated the last Muslim kingdom in Spain, Granada. Later that year, they sponsored Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic. History, unfortunately for modern morality plays, is not tidy.

On October 12, 1492, the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María reached the Bahamas on the first of Columbus’ four transatlantic voyages. His voyage did not make the Americas suddenly exist, of course, but it began the sustained contact between Europe and the Western Hemisphere that transformed both. The Library of Congress describes the encounters that followed as irreversible and often brutal, but also world-changing.

Columbus was a formidable mariner. His voyages expanded European geographical knowledge and helped set in motion the Columbian Exchange, which carried American crops such as tomatoes, potatoes, and corn to Europe and European plants, animals, technologies, and diseases in the other direction. His own writings also show a strong Christian evangelical purpose. None of that requires pretending that his legacy was spotless.

RELATED: Trump pays homage to Columbus, unveils special tribute from Italy

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

It does require something more serious than a middle finger.

Mamdani associates Columbus with colonization and the mistreatment of indigenous peoples. That is his prerogative. But once conquest becomes the moral standard, consistency becomes mandatory. Why is Western conquest treated as a permanent indictment, while conquest elsewhere so often becomes historical wallpaper?

Take Sicily. Muslim armies began conquering the island in 827, and Muslim rule lasted until the Norman conquest in the 11th century. Muslim empires also conquered North Africa, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and large parts of the Middle East. If conquest itself is the indictment, history provides no shortage of defendants.

That is the part of Mamdani’s moral ledger that seems curiously blank.

His relationship with New York’s Italian-American community has not helped. Nearly half a million New Yorkers identify Italian ancestry. Yet his administration’s much-ballyhooed map of immigrant enclaves initially omitted Little Italy. After criticism, Mamdani promised to add it.

If he wanted to convince Italian-Americans that his contempt for Columbus was not contempt for them, forgetting Little Italy was a strange way to do it. Zohran, who wouldn’t know arancini if he tripped over one on Mulberry Street, could hardly have scripted the insult better.

Then came Columbus Day. Mamdani found time this year to celebrate Italian Heritage Month by honoring socialist Rep. Vito Marcantonio. He also skipped the Columbus Day parade, after attending or participating in a long list of other ethnic and civic celebrations around the city.

RELATED: The DSA’s plan for immigration is the worst one yet

John Moore/Getty Images

Apparently St. Patrick, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the West Indies, Bangladesh, Sikh New Yorkers, Pride, and Labor Day can all make the mayoral calendar. Columbus cannot.

The same habit of selective condemnation appeared in Mamdani’s October 7 statement. He correctly called Hamas’ 2023 attack “horrific war crimes” and mourned the Israelis who were murdered and abducted. Then he pivoted quickly to accusing Israel of “genocide,” “occupation,” and “apartheid”. The asymmetry is familiar: Western or Israeli power is examined with a microscope; comparable histories of conquest elsewhere rarely receive the same treatment.

Mamdani and his comrades in arms currently have no problem supporting Muslims who conquer via political representation and whose connection with the DSA indicates that they aspire to replace American constitutional principles with a new kind of governance.

If Giuseppina Scianna were alive in 2026, she would proudly honor Columbus at the New York City parade and be appalled that the mayor, who — if it were today — would likely justify the Islamic conquest of Sicily but doesn’t embrace the greatness of a nation discovered by an Italian explorer who paved the way for the greatest nation in the history of civilization.

​America, Apartheid, Christopher columbus, Colonialism, Dominican republic, Dsa, Genocide, Hamas, Israel, Italy, Labor day, New york, North africa, Puerto rico, Trump, Zohran mamdani, Opinion & analysis 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) managed to anger his own supporters with his October 7 statement — despite denouncing Israel in more than half of it.

Mamdani first briefly acknowledged Hamas’ deadly 2023 attack on Israel before accusing the Israeli government of an ongoing genocide in Gaza and citing egregious Palestinian casualty figures.

“This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others,” Mamdani began.

“We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss,” he continued.

“The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians — including more than 21,000 children,” he added.

“Really? Where are you getting those numbers, Zohran?” BlazeTV host Pat Gray asks.

“You’re getting them from Hamas, the official health agency in the Gaza strip. Hamas is giving those numbers. They’re garbage numbers,” he says.

“And Israel can only do so much to mitigate the civilian casualties,” he continues. “They tell them, ‘Look, we’re going to bomb this building. You need to leave.’ And if you don’t, what are they going to do about that?”

Mamdani also claimed that “since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed” and that the “suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals.”

“They’re hiding in the hospitals. Hamas has infiltrated the hospitals. They use them, and they use the people in them as human shields,” Gray says.

“This is pathetic,” he says, noting that Mamdani also lamented that “our tax dollars fund these war crimes.”

“Hamas is still seeking the complete destruction of Israel and everybody in that country. What do you think ‘from the river to the sea’ means?” he asks, answering, “It means no Jews in Israel.”

“I mean, this is so incredible that he posted this on October 7, and yet it was too sympathetic for his followers,” he adds.

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​Pat gray, Zohran mamdani, Israel, Palestine, Hamas, October 7, Blazetv show 

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts put out the call for interns but added a list of racial and gender requirements that made many people scoff.

The 80-year-old has been in Congress since 1976 and is running for re-election against Republican John Deaton, a U.S. Marine veteran and attorney.

‘Why does a person need to disclose to you who they have sex with before you’ll hire them?’

“I’m hiring motivated and eager interns for the Spring 2027 semester in my Boston office. BIPOC, LGBTQ+, working class, veterans, and other underrepresented candidates with Massachusetts ties are encouraged to apply,” Markey wrote on social media.

“BIPOC” is an acronym for black, indigenous, and people of color.

Critics of Markey accused him of discrimination, and some responded with mockery.

“Blatant discrimination,” conservative commentator Riley Gaines replied.

“Why does a person need to disclose to you who they have sex with before you’ll hire them?” another critic asked.

“Funny way of saying that you’re proudly discriminating against people from other backgrounds attempting to work as interns for you. Sounds like something for @CivilRights to investigate,” another detractor said.

“Are you just openly announcing biased hiring practices? Wild,” another response reads.

“I am a STRAIGHT, WHITE, REPUBLICAN, over-40 MALE … my application will be in your office within the week. If you refuse me, I will sue you into oblivion,” another critic said.

RELATED: Democratic senator calls for new laws to ‘promote algorithmic justice’ over the ‘dangerous’ influence of Elon Musk and other billionaires

Markey is known as a progressive politician, and one of his campaign promises is to support passing a transgender “bill of rights.” He also pushed the Green New Deal alongside democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

He has said that if he’s re-elected to another term, it would be his last in the Senate. He will be 86 years old at the end of that term.

Markey is far ahead of Deaton, according to the Blaze News Poll Watch below:

pollwatch.theblaze.com

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​Bipoc, Ed markey, Lgbtq, Massachusetts, Politics 

American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson went off on social media after claiming she was snubbed by a Brooklyn vintage shop.

But after the singer openly complained that an employee treated her as if she couldn’t afford what she wanted, the store offered a very different explanation: The item she wanted wasn’t for sale.

“Just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy and literally was looked at as if I couldn’t afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me,” she wrote.

“Wow, dude. You’re an idiot and just lost a huge sale. But y’all should go check out Art of Play in Brooklyn if you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts’ character in Pretty Woman,” she added.

“She did the diva thing,” Alex Stein tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales.

“Give me a break. You’re going to thrift stores. Nobody treats you nice at these expensive thrift stores,” he adds.

The store responded to Clarkson’s claim, writing in a statement that Clarkson had “inquired about buying ‘Molly,’ a one-of-a-kind singing and dancing bird automaton who plays an important role in the magic shows” hosted at the store.

“Molly is permanently attached to the wall and isn’t for sale,” the store added.

“There should be a rule,” Stein comments. “If you are a multimillionaire, or even a millionaire, you can only complain about airline travel on social media. That’s my one rule because people are always empathetic to that.”

“Every single step that Kelly Clarkson made in this transgression was bad,” Stein says. “Every step was a left-footed step.”

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​Alex stein, Brooklyn vintage shop, Kelly clarkson, Sara gonzales, Blazetv show 

The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Leo XIV was diagnosed with lung cancer after surgery to remove a lung nodule.

The Holy See Press Office released a statement from Dr. Luigi Carbone and Professor Stefano Margaritora at Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome, Italy.

‘As he is admitted to the hospital, we accompany him with our prayers. … We are also deeply grateful for his teaching, which urges us to place the dignity of every person at the center.’

“As planned, the Holy Father underwent thoracic surgery. To ensure a radical resection, the lower lobe of his right lung was removed using a video-assisted technique,” the doctors said.

“An intraoperative histological examination confirmed the diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, as suspected from the preoperative examinations. … The operation was successful, and there were no complications,” they added.

The operation lasted about 90 minutes, and the 71-year-old pope awoke normally afterward, the doctors said. He was returned to his 10th-floor hospital room.

Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said Monday that the pope was expected to stay in the hospital for a week.

“As he is admitted to the hospital, we accompany him with our prayers, mindful of the close bond between our university and the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital Foundation,” said Catholic University of the Sacred Heart Rector Elena Beccalli to Vatican News.

“We are also deeply grateful for his teaching, which urges us to place the dignity of every person at the center and to build dialogue and peace,” she added.

The removed tissue will be examined in the days after the operation, according to Vatican News.

Bishop John Dolan of the Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona, released a video asking for prayers for the pope.

“We ask that you pray for him, though, and entrust him to our blessed mother, to, of course, Jesus her son, and we ask also that St. Joseph, who is the patron saint of the church, will bless our holy father, that he will continue to serve the church worldwide,” he said.

“He has been a true blessing, and we ask that the Lord will bless him as he journeys forth,” Dolan added.

RELATED: Pope Leo appoints bishops who defended DEI and criticized immigration enforcement

“This is a moment to unite in prayer for the Holy Father, asking Our Lord to grant him healing, strength and a full recovery. Our Lady, Health of the Sick, pray for him,” Catholic commentator Mark Lambert said.

Pope Leo XIV is the first American pope in the history of the Catholic church and was selected by the conclave of cardinals in March 2025. Although he was born in Chicago, Illinois, he spent much of his time in Peru.

He was scheduled to visit Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru in November, but it is unclear whether the diagnosis will change those plans.

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​Pope leo xiv, Vatican, Catholic church, Cancer, Politics