Category: blaze media

A young black mother was brutally murdered in Mississippi last month, but the Associated Press seems more interested in browbeating Americans about racism than in finding justice.

On Monday, the AP published a video on YouTube that uses the horrific murder of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old mother of four, as a pretext to revisit the history of racially motivated lynching.

‘I don’t think this was racist. I think this was something very personal.’

“The death of Tasia Fortune, a black Mississippi woman who was found hanging from a tree, has brought up distressing memories of the grim history of lynchings in the United States South,” Sarah Jones-Smith of the AP says to open the video.

“For many black people, the imagery of a rope and noose evokes the legacy of lynching and vigilante violence against black people in the U.S. and brings deep pain and trauma,” Jones-Smith continues.

The fact that Fortune was found hanging from a tree in the back yard of a vacant Jackson home on August 3 appears to be the only tie between her murder and previous racial lynchings.

In fact, a black man has already been identified as the suspected murderer. On September 11, police arrested 51-year-old Jarques “Jock” Ratliff and charged him with murder in connection with Fortune’s death.

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Additionally, no motive for the murder has yet been determined. Ratliff and Fortune did have an “association” with one another, Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney confirmed, according to the Clarion Ledger, though the exact nature of that “association” is unclear.

Brackney noted that the investigation into the murder is ongoing and that other arrests may be coming.

Finally, while the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled Fortune’s death a homicide, no official cause of death has yet been announced. An affidavit claimed only that the suspect used a “black cable cord” to tie Fortune to the tree, the Ledger reported.

The AP was fully aware of most of these details regarding Fortune’s case since it reported them in an article dated September 11. The AP also released a video on Wednesday admitting that a “black man was charged with murder in this case.”

Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, told the AP she does not believe that racial malice was the motive behind the murder. Spivey claimed she and Fortune’s father endured racial attacks in Kentucky during their mixed-race romantic relationship.

“I don’t think this was racist,” Spivey said. “I think this was something very personal, very personal.”

Spivey said she does not know Ratliff but has asked Fortune’s friends whether they recognize him.

The AP shared the lynching history lesson video on X Monday and was soon slapped with a community note that “a black man with an association to Tasia Fortune” had been arrested. An AP news report was included as one of the sources for the community note.

Folks at the AP are not the only ones fretting about the circumstances of Fortune’s death and the emotionally charged topic of lynchings. Police Chief Brackney even alluded to the issue during her press conference about Ratliff’s arrest.

“We understand the questions and the desire for answers, given Mississippi’s history,” Brackney said on September 11. “We understand that this case is being viewed through a broader lens, a global lens, and we do not dismiss those concerns. We are taking them seriously.”

Attorney Toney Baldwin, who is representing Ratliff, described his client as “innocent” and asked the public and the media not to “prejudge” the case until all the evidence comes out, according to the Ledger.

The AP did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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​Mississippi, Lynching, Racism, Politics 

Apple’s new iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 in the United States. For two grand, I want a phone I can carry for several years without worrying about what its screen will look like next spring. Unfolding a phone into something closer to a small tablet has obvious appeal. So does showing it off to your friends. I’m happy to let those friends buy theirs first.

I spent nearly a decade as managing editor of TidBITS and have written several Take Control books about the Apple ecosystem. I enjoy this stuff. But when someone asks whether to spend that much on a phone he needs to last, my enthusiasm has to survive a little scrutiny. Unless you have money to burn and enjoy owning the newest toy, I’d wait until at least the second generation.

Ternus called the Duo ‘the most transformational change to iPhone since the original.’

Apple announced the Duo on September 9, 2026, with preorders beginning October 16 and availability scheduled for October 23. It hasn’t reached ordinary buyers yet. We have plenty of time to admire the engineering before anyone can tell us how it holds up through a year of use.

What $2,000 buys

The specifications give you plenty to admire: a 5.4-inch outer display, a 7.6-inch inner display, and an A20 Pro chip, with 48-megapixel main and ultrawide cameras. Storage starts at 256 gigabytes. The phone measures 5.2 millimeters thick when open and 11.3 millimeters when closed. At 254 grams, it weighs about 9 ounces.

Apple claims up to 31 hours of video playback on the inner screen or 44 hours on the outer one. Those are playback-test figures, so don’t plan your charging routine around getting 44 hours of everyday use.

Apple CEO John Ternus called the Duo “the most transformational change to iPhone since the original.” I’m more interested in the ability to run two apps side by side. Referring to a document while writing an email would give me a reason to unfold the thing, and it’s more appealing than another small bump in processor speed. How often I’d actually use it is the question that would determine whether it’s worth the money.

Apple/iPhone Duo

Look at a used foldable

Before ordering, I’d spend some time looking at what happened to older Samsung foldables after their owners had lived with them for a while. PhoneArena documented the screen protector peeling on its Galaxy Z Fold 3. Small bubbles near the fold spread over several weeks until the film had peeled away across the crease. Engadget’s Sam Rutherford reported similar screen-protector bubbling on his Galaxy Z Fold 3 in 2022.

The protective film was peeling; the display panel wasn’t coming apart. That makes it a repairable nuisance, but still a nuisance. Samsung recommends having an authorized specialist replace the protector and warns against removing it yourself. I’d resent having to arrange a service visit because the surface of my expensive phone had started looking lousy. A fix can be straightforward and still eat up an afternoon I had other plans for.

A visible crease is a separate issue. Samsung describes the normal fold on the Galaxy Z Flip as a characteristic of its flexible display. You might find it irritating to look at, but its presence alone doesn’t mean the screen is failing.

Samsung has also improved its displays. In his July 23, 2026, hands-on report, Tom’s Guide’s Tom Pritchard found the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra’s crease much harder to see than the Fold 7’s, although he could still feel it. The Fold 3 reports don’t establish how common these problems are in current phones, much less predict what will happen to Apple’s. They do give prospective buyers something more useful to investigate than how a new phone looks under showroom lights.

Apple’s design

Apple has put considerable thought into the Duo’s folding display. A custom polymer cover layer and scratch-resistant coating protect the inner surface. Glass sits above and below the folding display panel, and adhesives let the layers slide past one another to relieve bending stress. I’m hopeful that approach will hold up. I’d be more comfortable spending $2,000 after owners have had time to find out.

The Duo carries an IP68 dust- and water-resistance rating, with Apple specifying a water test of up to 30 minutes at a maximum depth of 6 meters. That’s welcome protection, although a water test tells us little about how the folding surface will age.

RELATED: This Apple privacy feature could be exposing you instead

MUNTHITA LAMLUE/Getty Images

The early impressions are encouraging. Tom’s Guide’s Mark Spoonauer reported that the crease was barely visible and wrote, “I also couldn’t feel the crease when using the Duo.” I hope it stays that way. A follow-up after months of opening and closing the phone would carry more weight in my buying decision.

Give it a generation

Waiting would also help answer a less dramatic question: How much would I use the larger screen? I can imagine opening the Duo throughout the day to read and work on documents. I can just as easily imagine getting accustomed to checking messages on the outside screen and rarely bothering to unfold it. Owners who’ve had time to settle into a routine will have a better answer than anyone enjoying a few minutes with a demonstration unit.

AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss adds $199.99 a year to the Duo’s cost, compared with $129.99 for an iPhone 17 and $149.99 for an iPhone 18 Pro. Even with coverage, accidental damage to the Duo’s inner display carries a $99 service fee, compared with $29 for a conventional iPhone screen. That doesn’t tell us how often the folding screen will break, but it gives us something concrete to budget for. Apple’s Express Replacement service could also spare you a wait for repairs, subject to availability. I’d still want to see the repair bill without coverage before buying.

A second generation won’t automatically be a safe purchase. I’d still read the reviews. By then, though, we should know more about how the original held up and whether owners kept using that big screen after the novelty wore off. Apple would have had time to respond to the problems customers encountered, if any. That’s enough reason for me to wait.

If you can comfortably afford the first Duo and want to wow your friends, enjoy it. Expensive toys are fun, provided you can live with the expense and uncertainty. For everyone else, I’d keep the phone that still does its job and let somebody else report back on Apple’s first foldable.

​Tech, Duo, Apple, Iphone 

A candidate for Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District has been arrested for allegedly threatening an attorney, a judge, and their children.

Forty-five-year-old David Redkey allegedly sent threatening messages involving guns via email against a Superior Court judge and an attorney’s office, according to prosecutors.

‘We have the defendant making direct threats to the victims — sending emails, threatening emails, talking about guns.’

Detectives from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Threat Management Unit arrested Redkey on Saturday. He was booked into jail and given a $150,000 bond.

Officials said Redkey admitted during questioning that he sent the threats.

Court records indicate Redkey was charged with multiple counts of threatening or intimidating and one count of computer tampering.

“We have some victims being threatened. One of the victims [is] a judge, another an attorney, and, by extension, their children. And frankly, your honor, by extension, those in public service,” said a prosecutor in court.

“We have the defendant making direct threats to the victims — sending emails, threatening emails, talking about guns,” the prosecutor added. “A gun which was never recovered, your honor. That’s a great concern for the state.”

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office asked for Redkey’s arrest records to be sealed in order to protect the information of the victims.

Redkey was a public school teacher.

RELATED: Activists RAGE against Democrat who admits hiding LGBTQ+ support to appease Muslims

Redkey is a candidate on the ballot for the Green Party, but the Arizona Green Party rejects his candidacy.

A spokesperson for the party said the party opposed Redkey “due to a consistent pattern of abusive behavior that had him banned from the Arizona Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of Phoenix.”

The candidate’s website says he’s running to put “people over profits” and restore “integrity to government.”

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​Arizona, Green party, Threats, Politics 

Philip Anthony Mitchell is quickly becoming a household name in the evangelical world. Covered by the Associated Press, CNN, Fortune, and CBN, among several other prominent outlets, the Atlanta pastor and founder of 2819 Church has built a platform of fiery, no-nonsense, revivalist preaching that now reaches millions.

Once a Queens drug dealer who nearly took his own life, Mitchell came to Christ in his mid-20s and has spent the years since calling the church back to repentance and the Great Commission.

Tomorrow, Mitchell is joining BlazeTV’s Josh Howerton on “Live Free” for a conversation that is as inspiring as it is gut-wrenchingly raw.

The duo dig into it all — from Mitchell’s near-suicide and the weight of being one of the most viral pastors in the country to a growing political threat Mitchell says “would inadvertently muzzle the Scriptures” and the looming horrors of radical Islam.

“Somebody got to stand up and lift up their voice even if it comes at the expense of persecution. Man, I just want to be one of those somebodies, bro,” Mitchell tells Howerton.

This episode has it all: stunning testimonies, unpolished insecurity, honest tears, and warnings the church would rather dodge.

Check out the trailer below. Then come back tomorrow for a conversation that will captivate you — even when it makes you squirm.

Join BlazeTV+ and start watching Josh today at blazetv.com/JOSH. Use promo code JOSH to get $20 off your subscription.

​Josh howerton, Church, Christianity, Blazetv show, Philip anthony mitchell 

Google’s new Daily Brief for Gemini is both cool and creepy, but up until recently, it was locked behind a paid subscription, away from the masses. Months later, the data-devouring feature is now available for everybody. Here’s how to make sure it isn’t already gobbling up your private data.

Daily Brief is a relatively new feature built into the Google Gemini app. Every morning, it scours through the information saved in your Google apps to surface a daily agenda of tasks, reminders, and events custom-tailored for you.

Once Daily Brief is enabled, Gemini can dig through everyone’s Google apps in search of relevant information.

When I tested Daily Brief earlier this year, I found it paradoxical. For those in the Google ecosystem, it can be a handy tool to remember things you otherwise forgot — a birthday for a loved one, to follow up on an email you sent the other day, to dig deeper into a topic you searched on Google. If you’re not an avid Google user, though, it’s mostly useless.

The more data Gemini can gather from your Google apps, the better the brief. At the same time, the more data it has, the more Google learns about you to feed into its AI machine.

Since Daily Brief is part of the Gemini core experience, it isn’t exclusive to Google’s Pixel phone series or even Android. It’s available on iOS and the web too, expanding its reach to cover practically any user with a Google account. The goal, of course, is to get you to rely on Gemini so that Google can pull you into its broader AI platform and away from the likes of ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok.

RELATED: Surprise! These top AI bots are politically left wing

chiewr/Getty Images

Like many Gemini features, Daily Brief started as a paid perk back in May, and now it’s available to the masses for free. That means, once Daily Brief is enabled, Gemini can dig through everyone’s Google apps in search of relevant – i.e., private and personal – information, free of charge.

So it is already digging through your data right now?

In a word, no. Google made the right choice when it locked Daily Brief behind a manual setup process, so unless something went terribly wrong, the feature should be disabled on your account by default. However, if you’re curious about the feature, or if you want to ensure it’s actually turned off so it can’t gobble up your data, you might still want to confirm if it’s on or off.

To check how Daily Brief is configured, open the Gemini app on Android, iOS, or the web. Using the mobile version as a reference, tap on your profile picture in the top right corner. On the next page, choose “Personal Intelligence.” At the bottom, find “Daily brief.”

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Android 17 on Google Pixel 10 Pro XL

To make sure Gemini can’t scan through your Google app data for future briefs, uncheck the toggle switch so that it’s grayed out. On the flip side, if you want to try Daily Brief and see what it’s all about, check the toggle so that it lights up blue.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Android 17 on Google Pixel 10 Pro XL

For those who don’t want to use Daily Brief, that’s all you need to do. It’s officially turned off, and it won’t dig through your data going forward.

For those who turned it on, go back to the first screen in the Gemini app. Next, tap the hamburger menu in the top left and select “Daily Brief” from the slide-out section. Here is where your Daily Briefs will live on your device.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Android 17 on Google Pixel 10 Pro XL

Every morning, you will receive a notification with a new brief for tasks you need to accomplish today and throughout the rest of the week. If you don’t want to receive notifications, tap on the three dots in the top right corner, and uncheck the notifications switch. This way, your Daily Brief is still ready and accessible every morning, but your phone won’t nag you to open it.

Whether you wish to keep Daily Brief enabled for its useful features or disabled for the sake of privacy, the choice is ultimately up to you. It’s easy enough to adjust the setting if you change your mind.

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​Ai, Android, Data, Gemini, Google, Ios, Privacy, Tech 

A 3-year-old boy drowned in a residential pool in Evansville, Indiana, over the weekend while his 41-year-old mother allegedly was found passed out in a patio chair after drinking about five 25-ounce beers.

Police told WFIE-TV that a 911 call came in around 4:30 p.m. Saturday saying the boy had drowned in a pool at a home on North Second Avenue.

‘This is all my fault.’

Emergency crews arrived at the home and attempted lifesaving measures on the child, the station said, adding that the boy was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

The homeowner said the mother, Amie Jo Farber, showed up with the boy around 2:30 p.m. and asked if they could swim in the backyard pool, WFIE reported, citing police.

The homeowner said they could but told Farber she needed to be sure to watch the boy, the station added.

Farber reportedly was sitting outside at a patio table while the boy was in a pool float, WFIE noted. The homeowner came outside to find Farber “passed out” in a patio chair and the boy floating face-down in the water, the station said, citing police.

One witness pulled the boy out and began administering CPR while another witness called 911, WFIE reported.

Police said during the 911 call one witness could be heard repeatedly yelling “Amie” in an attempt to get Farber to wake up, and another woman could be heard saying, “She’s passed out drunk!” the station reported.

The homeowner later told officers that Farber drank about five 25-ounce beers over the two hours she was in the back yard, WFIE noted.

RELATED: Dad brings toddler daughter into hot tub with him in middle of night; he falls asleep — and she drowns: Cops

The first officer to arrive on scene reportedly saw Farber next to trash cans apparently throwing away empty beer cans, the station said, adding that several empty beer cans were on the ground next to her — and she showed signs of impairment.

Police added to WFIE that Farber told officers at the hospital that she “must have fallen asleep” but didn’t know for how long. Officers added to the station that Farber also told them, “This is all my fault,” but didn’t elaborate.

Police obtained a search warrant for Farber’s blood to get it tested for drugs and alcohol, the station said.

Farber was booked into the Vanderburgh County Jail Saturday night and charged with neglect resulting in death, WFIE reported, adding that she’s being held on a $25,000 cash bond; her initial hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

The station also reported that Farber in 2023 was arrested after police said she got drunk while caring for her infant. Police told WFIE that Farber fought and spit at officers during her arrest. She faced numerous charges, including neglect of a dependent, domestic battery, and intimidation and battery against a public safety officer, the station said.

It’s not clear if the victim in the 2023 case is Farber’s boy who drowned Saturday.

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​Indiana, Mother, Child, Drowning, Pool, Arrest, Alcohol, Neglect, Crime 

Apple Watch is good for many things — wrist-based notifications, health and fitness tracking, quick access to Siri. Now users might soon add “covert spy device” to the list, thanks to new AI-powered listening features that can eavesdrop on conversations like yours, even if you don’t own an Apple Watch.

Apple made a surprising announcement during its hardware event in early September. The company is bringing a controversial listening feature to Apple Watch Series 12 called Siri Recap.

If you think that sounds like a walking privacy violation, you’re right.

When enabled, Siri Recap monitors your ambient environment for conversations through the Apple Watch on your wrist and translates it into “high-level notes” that you can read on your wrist or through a connected iPhone.

There are plenty of places where this feature could be useful. Apple specifically mentioned that Siri Recap is good for taking notes during team meetings at work or parent/teacher conferences at school. However, it can technically be used anywhere — the sermon at church, chats with friends, a disagreement with your spouse. There are no limits, because Siri Recap can hear and summarize everything.

If you think that sounds like a walking privacy violation, you’re right. Luckily, Apple took some precautions to mitigate the dangers, if you choose to believe them.

Siri Recap/Apple Support

For starters, Siri Recap isn’t activated by default. The user has to enable it through a new icon in Control Center on Apple Watch before it searches for live speech. Alternatively, it can be set to run on a schedule, like when you go into the office every day or sit down for a specific weekly meeting. But again, both of these actions are intentional to prevent accidental recaps.Apple claims that conversations are never actually recorded or stored, either on-device or in a server farm somewhere far away. However, there is a contradiction in its own documents, which reveal that audio is briefly captured within the Secure Enclave on Apple Watch and iPhone, transcribed into condensed text, and then processed through Private Cloud Compute before the final product is delivered to your device, fully encrypted along the way. Ultimately, you never receive the recording or the word-for-word transcript. You only get detailed notes in the form of a final summary.Saved notes are deleted on a seven-day rolling period, unless the user deliberately saves them for later. In this case, most saved data will simply disappear without a trace, as if the conversation never happened at all.Siri Recap will seemingly understand when it hears personal information — such as banking details or a social security number — and omit this from final summaries.Everything is supposedly end-to-end encrypted and synced to iCloud so that no one but you can access your recaps, not even Apple.

It goes without saying that there are some clear pros and cons to letting an Apple Watch listen in on your conversations every day.

On the pro side, Siri Recap could be a genuinely helpful tool for anyone who needs to remember anything. The busy entrepreneur takes notes at a meeting without lifting a finger. The old friends who get together once a month receive memorable summaries of their time spent together. An elderly person with dementia gets back a semblance of their memory with a recap that tells them exactly what they forgot during a doctor’s appointment or visit from a loved one. All of these things are good and useful to the people who need them.

RELATED: Uh-oh: Apple’s ‘private’ VPN-style service could leak your IP address

MUNTHITA LAMLUE/Getty Images

On the con side, Siri Recap makes the Apple Watch Series 12 — and maybe all Apple Watches in general — problematic for privacy-conscious people. Essentially, Siri Recap turns everyone else’s Apple Watch into a continuous recording device that could be analyzing conversations at any given time without your knowledge or consent.

Granted, only Series 12 can use Siri Recap for now, but normal people don’t know that. Not to mention, most people can’t tell a Series 12 from a Series 8 or any other on someone’s wrist. That means, in the eyes of people like you and me, any Apple Watch you come across throughout the day could record what you say, and you’d never know it.

So what happens next? Will you assume that all Apple Watches are recording you when you speak to someone in public? Or will you try to forget how surveillance is quickly becoming part of our AI-enhanced reality? Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Siri Recap is just one of the new Audio Intelligence features coming to Apple Watch Series 12. Users will also get to check out Live Rewind, which stores a transcript of the last 15 seconds of a live conversation that you can read on Apple Watch with a double-press of the Digital Crown. Next, there’s Sound Recognition, which helps deaf people decipher alarms and sirens in their vicinity. Finally, Music Recognition, powered by Shazam, continuously scans and identifies songs playing nearby.

Siri Recap is expected to launch in beta later this year. With my Series 12 already on my wrist, I will definitely test this feature and report back on how the feature actually works and whether or not anyone has a reason to worry about privacy going forward.

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​Apple watch, Surveillance, Listening, Tech 

After years of woke ads and progressive positioning, the fun may be over for Nike.

An announcement on Monday morning is not only likely to hurt the company’s image, but it also serves as an indicator of massive financial woes.

Nike’s market cap has fallen from $264 billion in November 2021 to $52.7 billion.

Nearly two decades after being recognized as one of the premier blue-chip companies in the United States, Nike will have to say goodbye to the higher echelons of the financial market.

After 18 years, Nike has officially been dropped by the S&P 100, the index that typically represents the most established, investible, and financially reliable businesses there are.

The swoosh checkmark just isn’t cutting it anymore, it seems. Nike’s market cap has fallen from $264 billion in November 2021 to $52.7 billion in September, according to Fox News, its weakest valuation in 12 years.

Shares in Nike are also down 43% this year, but that’s not to say the S&P 100 has struggled. In fact, S&P Global notes the S&P 100 is up nearly 13% year-to-date and 16.55% in the last year. While Nike has tanked massively in the last five years, the S&P 100 has increased 14.15% over the same time period.

Signs that Nike would be dropped from the index led to severe backlash from many who believe that the company’s woke advertising in recent years is to blame, as Blaze News recently reported.

RELATED: ‘Get woke, go broke’: Nike is getting CRUSHED online after cratering in value

Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

The brand recently saw the exodus of two worldwide soccer stars to competitors, including Kylian Mbappe to On and Lamine Yamal to Adidas.

A series of controversial ad campaigns may also have turned off its audience.

Perhaps the most infamous Nike campaign featured former NFL quarterback and national anthem kneeler Colin Kaepernick in 2018.

In 2023, actor Dylan Mulvaney — known for pretending to be a young girl — made social media posts marketing women’s sports bras and leggings as a paid promotion for Nike.

In 2025, the brand tapped female athletes like Caitlin Clark for a campaign about how women have been silenced and oppressed simply for being women.

“You can’t take credit. You can’t speak up. You can’t be so ambitious. You can’t break records. You can’t have any fun. You can’t make demands. You can’t keep score. You can’t stand out,” the copy read.

This was followed by a blunder at the Boston Marathon in April, where Nike was rightly or wrongly raked over the coals for an ad that read, “Runners Welcome. Walkers Tolerated.”

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

Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Some attempts to right the ship have been made — see its family-friendly golf spot — but overall there has been an obvious problem at the company.

Jim Osman, a financial expert at Forbes, stated that Nike did not become weaker because the S&P decided to remove it, but rather the S&P was late to the party in noticing the company’s financial issues.

“Customers moved first. Competitors gained ground. Nike relied too heavily on familiar franchises, pushed too far toward direct-to-consumer, weakened some wholesale relationships, and then had to spend time repairing them,” Osman wrote.

He added that the numbers eventually caught up with the company, while full-price demand weakened at the same time.

The S&P 100 represents nearly 71% of the broader index of the S&P 500 and selects large companies across different industries to provide broad representation of the U.S. stock market. Nike remains in the S&P 500.

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​Nike, Woke, Colin kaepernick, Caitlin clark, Dylan mulvaney, Sports 

There are some people whose lives make you reconsider the way you’re living your own.

Nick Vujicic is one of them.

We live in a culture increasingly comfortable deciding which lives are worth living.

Born in Australia without arms or legs, Vujicic faced challenges few of us can imagine. Even with the love and support of his family, bullying, loneliness, and depression took a heavy toll. By the age of 10, he had sunk so deeply into despair that he contemplated taking his own life.

But Nick soon found something stronger than despair: hope in his Christian faith.

He came to understand that his life was not a mistake and that his disability didn’t rob him of meaning or purpose.

Vujicic went on to become an international best-selling author, husband, father, and one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in the world. His 2013 appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s “Lifeclass” introduced his story to a global audience. To date, he’s spoken in person to 11 million people across 87 countries.

Now his journey comes to theaters Friday in the documentary “No Limbs, No Limits: The NickV Story.” The film traces Nick’s struggle with anger, depression, and hopelessness — and his discovery that life is worth living because every person has value and purpose.

That message could hardly come at a better time.

Search for meaning

Across the Western world, we are living through a crisis of loneliness and a search for meaning. Young people are more connected technologically than any generation in history, yet many feel profoundly isolated.

Who am I? Why am I here? What difference can one person make?

Nick has spent much of his adult life answering those questions.

His answer is simple: You matter. Your life has value. You were made for a purpose.

Our limitations, disappointments, and wounds do not determine our worth. The challenge is to recognize our value and decide what we will do with the life we have been given.

That’s one reason Nick’s story resonates so deeply with me.

Redefining perseverance

I first heard of him in 2009 when he co-starred in “The Butterfly Circus,” a short film starring and produced by my friend Eduardo Verastegui. I was intrigued by this young man with no arms or legs who could swim better and faster than I could.

And I say that as a marathoner.

Running marathons has taught me something about perseverance, but watching Nick navigate life without limbs quickly puts my own physical challenges into perspective.

I began following him on social media. Over the years, I watched Nick marry, become a dad, and continue showing millions of people that what we lack does not define who we are.

His life declares that no human being is a mistake. No life is disposable. No person should be judged by what they cannot do or whether that life meets somebody else’s definition of “quality.”

Every person is unique and unrepeatable.

And every person can make a difference.

That message desperately needs to be heard today.

Culture of death

We live in a culture increasingly comfortable deciding which lives are worth living. Nowhere is that more apparent than with abortion, particularly when an unborn child has been diagnosed with a disability or genetic condition.

A troubling prenatal diagnosis can be devastating, as it was for Nick’s parents. In that moment, fear can quickly take over: This child’s life will be difficult. The family will suffer. Perhaps it would be better if this life never began at all.

Nick Vujicic is a living refutation of that philosophy.

Imagine trying to measure the value of Nick’s future before he had even been born.

No arms. No legs. What could he possibly accomplish?

The answer: more than most of us could have imagined.

That question has particular urgency for me because I live in Virginia, where voters this fall will consider a constitutional amendment expanding the so-called right to abortion. The truth is that our broader abortion culture too often treats disability, dependency, and difficult circumstances as reasons to question whether a life should continue.

Against that backdrop comes Nick Vujicic.

Some ask whether a life will be too difficult, too dependent, or too burdensome.

Nick’s life asks a different question: What if we give that child a chance? A chance to surprise us. A chance to love and be loved. A chance to become a husband or wife, a father or mother — or someone whose words might one day save another person’s life.

RELATED: ‘The Passion of the Christ’ returns to cinemas — just when we need it most

Joel Nito/Getty Images

Finding purpose

That is why “No Limbs, No Limits” arrives at precisely the right moment.

The film doesn’t pretend Nick’s journey was easy. He knew rejection, anger, depression, and loneliness. He knew what it was to wonder whether his life was worth living.

Then he discovered that suffering did not have the final word.

Faith did.

Purpose did.

Love did.

Nick’s story makes me admire human life more deeply — disabled and able-bodied alike. It also makes me examine my own.

I run marathons. I have arms. I have legs. I have opportunities Nick could only have dreamed about as a boy.

Am I using them?

Am I loving enough? Serving enough? Am I grateful for another morning, another mile, another opportunity to make a difference?

In an age of loneliness, Nick Vujicic reminds us that no one is unnecessary.

In an age of despair, he reminds us that circumstances are not destiny.

And in an age searching for meaning, he offers an answer our culture badly needs to hear: Your life has value. Your life has purpose. Now go find it.

​Abortion, Christianity, Culture of death, Disability acceptance, Entertainment, Faith, Lifestyle, Movies, Nick vujicic, Oprah winfrey, Culture 

The president cast himself as a peacemaker while threatening that Iran faces annihilation during a speech to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump also predicted that the Iranian regime is waiting until the midterm elections before agreeing with a peace deal to end the conflict.

He called on all nations to join the US endeavor to economically isolate Iran so that a deal can be reached and gas prices can drop worldwide.

“But I have a big decision to make,” said Trump.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?” he asked rhetorically.

“Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?” he added.

During his speech, one lone representative of the Iranian regime looked on in the audience.

Trump said that he would not accept any deal that allows the Iranian regime to obtain nuclear weapons, and he predicted the regime would agree to a deal after the midterm elections.

“They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don’t realize is that I’m not running. I did that already and won in a landslide,” Trump added.

He called on all nations to join the U.S. endeavor to economically isolate Iran so that a deal can be reached and gas prices can drop worldwide.

The president went on to say that the U.S. is doing “better than ever before.”

“The entire world is being lifted by the wealth, strength, spirit, and momentum of a newly energized and a very powerful United States of America,” he continued.

RELATED: VIDEO: Trump says he will declare new US territory ‘pretty soon’ in the Middle East

“Our economy is the envy of the world,” Trump added. “Our military is the most powerful on earth. Our technology is second to none, and we are leading in virtually everything.”

Iran has sought to maintain some control over the Strait of Hormuz in the form of fees on oil tankers that would bring them billions of dollars in revenue every year.

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​Strait of hormuz, Gas prices, Politics, Donald trump, United nations, Iran, Midterms 

Liberals thinking that they may have won the congressional redistricting battle in Missouri might be headed for a major upset.

Missouri lawmakers repealed the Show-Me State’s 2022 congressional map last year and passed legislation, HB 1, enacting new congressional boundaries — effectively changing Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-based district into a Republican-leaning seat.

‘Only use of the 2025 map complies with the Constitution.’

While Democrats melted down over their likely loss of an additional seat in the House, the liberal advocacy group People Not Politicians and its executive director, Richard von Glahn, organized a campaign aimed at forcing the state to hold a referendum on the bill and sued the state to prevent the 2025 map’s use in the midterm election.

The case was kicked up to the Missouri Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled on Sept. 3 that the map must be approved by voters in a November referendum before being used — despite Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins previously determining that “the Missouri Constitution does not authorize a referendum on congressional redistricting plans passed by the General Assembly.”

President Donald Trump said in response to the Sept. 3 ruling, “This is a Dark Day for ‘Justice’ in Missouri!”

However, an 8th Circuit Court of Appeals panel comprising three Republican-appointed judges delivered Republicans a win on Monday, ruling that “Missouri’s current plan to use the 2022 map in the November 2026 general election violates the Constitution. Only use of the 2025 map complies with the Constitution and federal law.”

RELATED: CNN analyst pours cold water on Democrats’ dream of a political takeover in November

Tribune News Service/Getty Images

The appellate court’s ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed against the state earlier this month by Rep. Robert Onder (R), Republican congressional candidate Richard Brattin, and a pair of voters. The lawsuit argued that the use of the 2022 map in the November 2026 general election would transform their congressional districts from the August primary election, thereby violating the Elections Clause and the Equal Protection Clause.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark, a Trump appointee, found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claims and blocked Missouri from using any congressional map other than the 2025 map advanced by HB 1; however, the U.S. Supreme Court paused Clark’s order.

To the liberal group’s chagrin, the 8th Circuit affirmed the district court on Monday, noting in its majority opinion that “if the 2022 map is used in the November 2026 general election, some Missouri voters will have more say than others on who represents them in Congress.”

The court noted, for example, that:

more than half of the Missourians living in the Fifth Congressional District under the 2025 map used in the August 2026 primary election — 57% — will find themselves in other districts if the 2022 map is used in the November 2026 general election. … As a result, a majority of residents in the Fifth Congressional District had no voice in who will appear on their November 2026 ballot; they will be forced to choose from nominees selected by a minority of residents in the district as well as voters who are no longer in the district.

The court noted further that using the 2025 map would “lead to the least amount of confusion for voters subjected to a string of changes this month.”

The 8th Circuit has given the U.S. Supreme Court until Monday at 5 p.m. to weigh in. Absent an intervention from the high court, Secretary Hoskins and local election authorities have been directed to begin implementing the 2025 map.

Richard von Glahn said in a statement obtained by the New York Times, “Officials should stop wasting taxpayers’ money on pointless legal action and instead focus on administering our elections.”

Von Glahn noted that he will file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

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​Missouri, Redistricting, Supreme court, Kansas city, Midterm election, Politics, Donald trump 

Tens of thousands of Catholics are set to attend the Mass of beatification — the last step before sainthood — for the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen in St. Louis on Thursday.

Roughly a week ahead of the celebration, over which Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle will preside, the Archdiocese of St. Louis was issued a terrorist threat.

‘We pray for an end to the hatred.’

According to St. Louis County prosecutor Melissa Price Smith’s office, 32-year-old Jeremiah Robinson of St. Genevieve allegedly stated in a TikTok video on Sept. 15 that he was two minutes away from the archdiocese’s offices and that “God had instructed him to use no discernment and that ‘everyone who walks into that church is guilty and to kill them.'”

Robinson allegedly posted a second video to social media once in the parking lot of the archdiocese offices in St. Louis and turned the camera to show the buildings, evidencing that he was indeed close.

Robinson claimed in the second video that he was instructed “to leave no one breathing,” Smith’s office alleged.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis did not immediately respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

The FBI National Operation Center brought the videos to the attention of the Shrewsbury, Missouri, Police Department, and the archdiocese offices were promptly evacuated.

RELATED: How a new Texas parish reminds us that the age of Christian martyrs is not over

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

After a sweep of the building involving bomb dogs, police determined that the site was safe.

Robinson was slapped on Sept. 16 with a first-degree felony charge of making a terrorist threat and booked into the St. Louis County Justice Center on a $100,000 cash-only bond.

Brecht Mulvihill, the archdiocese’s executive director of communications, said in a statement obtained by EWTN News, “First, we wish to extend our gratitude to the law enforcement officers who responded immediately to this incident, especially to the Shrewsbury Police Department.”

“The safety and well-being of the men and women who serve the Church are of the utmost importance, and we pray for an end to the hatred and threats of violence that have become so regrettably prevalent on social media,” added Mulvihill.

Catholic churches across the country have been repeatedly targeted for arson, vandalism, and violent attacks in recent years.

For instance, a trans-identifying gunman shot up a Catholic church full of children in Minneapolis on Aug. 27, 2025, injuring 17 and killing two children, ages 8 and 10.

In May, a 40-year-old man claiming to be the “chosen one” allegedly shot up Genevieve’s Catholic Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Fortunately, no one was injured in the drive-by shooting.

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​Violence, Christian, Catholic, Fbi, Terrorism, Bomb threat, Politics, Missouri 

Cancer research is usually an issue everyone can agree on, but Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed begs to differ.

In a resurfaced 2012 essay written by El-Sayed, he questioned the level of federal funding dedicated to breast cancer research and criticized what he called the “pink-ribbon lobby.”

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is shocked that the Democrat levied an attack at those trying to research the devastating, and sometimes fatal, disease.

“Cancer sucks,” Gonzales says. “That should be a thing that we can all agree on and all move on with. But unfortunately, there is a Democrat who took the hardline stance that trying to stop people from dying from breast cancer is too elitist for him. He doesn’t support it.”

“He railed against ‘disturbing’ funding for breast cancer research because the disease affects people with quote ‘social power and privilege.’ You couldn’t make this up if you tried,” she explains.

“He denounced the pink-ribbon lobby in an essay published during breast cancer awareness month,” she continues, adding, “So he really, really hates trying to solve and eliminate breast cancer.”

El-Sayed complained that cancer diverts “federal funding away from studying other serious diseases.”

“This so-called ‘pink-ribbon lobby,’ he says, has convinced everyone that they’re going to die from breast cancer,” Gonzales explains.

“Not everyone is going to die,” she continues. “I don’t think they ever said anything like that. But it’s a problem in this country. Can we just agree to that, Abdul? Can we just agree that no one should die from breast cancer? Can we agree that we want less deaths from cancer?”

As for El-Sayed’s absurd claim that the disease affects those with “social power and privilege,” Gonzales likens it to the lockdown measures taken during the COVID pandemic.

“This is like COVID when it could attack you when you were standing up but not when you were sitting down at a restaurant. I guess breast cancer is the same way,” she says, adding, “It only seeks out people with power and privilege.”

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​Breast cancer, Cancer research, Sara gonzales, Abdul el-sayed, Blazetv show 

The day I left for college was easily the most exciting day of my life.

First, I was going to the East Coast. I had been raised in Portland, Oregon, which was a pleasant, normal town to grow up in.

I think of my own parents watching me board that airplane in 1979. How excited I was. How bittersweet — and yet satisfying — for them that I was getting this incredible opportunity.

But to be back east! Near Boston and New York! To live where it snowed in the winter and the leaves turned colors in the fall.

East Coast people were smart and sophisticated. The men wore suits; the women wore high heels. People took trains from city to city, like in the movies.

A big music fan, I imagined myself hanging around at CBGB or Newbury Comics in Boston.

Everything about the East seemed intellectual, fashionable, advanced and elevated. I couldn’t wait to get there.

The Prestige

Secondly, the school I was going to was highly rated! It would be full of smart and interesting students from all over the country. Hopefully, I could keep up or at least wouldn’t embarrass myself.

But when I arrived — in 1979 — I found I wasn’t as lucky as I thought. My particular college was at the vanguard of pre-woke “political correctness.”

The professors were all former 1960s radicals. Feminism was on the rise. Activist students were constantly “outraged” by the most insignificant things. Anything non-PC was “abhorrent” or “egregious.”

Classic American college

Fortunately, there were some normal kids there too. I joined a popular campus band my freshman year and traveled to less-annoying colleges to play dances and parties.

Just being that age and being part of that East Coast collegiate culture was incredibly fun: exploring this older, more historic part of the country. Meeting all kinds of people. Making all kinds of friends.

As people were fond of saying: “College is the best four years of your life.” Which at the time seemed undeniable.

The anxiety of higher learning

Because of this, at the end of every summer, I watch various friends and acquaintances prepare to send their kids to college.

But I can tell by their faces and the way they talk that this is not the experience it once was. The parents are worried. The kids seem hesitant. Everyone is thinking about rising costs, scholarships, loans, and career considerations.

Going to college is not the freeing and exhilarating experience it once was. Now it is a business decision. A risk vs. reward scenario.

Strong and wrong

Besides being insanely expensive, most universities have become strongholds of leftism, feminism, and DEI sensibilities. Censorship is rampant. Woke-ism is brutally enforced.

Now, the main goal of college life is to avoid “harm,” prevent “trauma,” and create “safe environments.”

College is no longer a chance to spread your wings. It’s not about intellectual exploration and personal growth. For most people, it is a pathway to a career.

For men, that means studying engineering, computer science, and math. So they can build things.

For women, it means gender studies, sociology, and whatever ideological subjects are trending at the moment. So they can manage people.

98 Degrees

College is now a slog. Something to get through. “A degree” is the main objective. A bigger paycheck is the ultimate goal.

If you’re a white male, your college will likely find you guilty of something. You will be forced to acknowledge that guilt and show repentance.

You will also be expected to step aside to let disadvantaged groups go ahead of you, to make up for your sins of the past.

If you don’t step aside, you will be run over. Or reported. Or #metooed.

RELATED: The cure for liking socialism? Visiting a socialist country

L-R: The author in East Berlin, 1984; Cuba, 2007. Blake Nelson; Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Demography is destiny

Rapid demographic change is also reshaping higher education. College is no longer a gathering of young people who share a similar culture and background.

Now, every culture in the world is at your school. And often in the same or greater numbers than you are.

At the same time, your own traditions are devalued. Core Western civilization courses are now considered problematic.

As a consequence, many people advise high school graduates to reconsider a liberal arts education altogether. They urge young men to go to trade schools or other specialized forms of practical education.

Thank you, Mom and Dad!

I don’t know what I would do if I had a child just graduating from high school.

I think of my own parents watching me board that airplane in 1979. How excited I was. How bittersweet — and yet satisfying — for them that I was getting this incredible opportunity.

Now what does that scene look like? Anxious parents. Stressed-out kids. More pressure. Less adventure. All of it heartbreaking.

​East coast, Higher education, Woke culture, College, Lifestyle, 1980s, Culture, Blake’s progress 

“I don’t wanna grow up / I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid.”

America’s most famous toy retailer taught generations of American children that maturity was something to avoid.

‘We’re seeing toys increasingly function as hobbies.’

Customers ‘R’ old

Turns out they listened.

Adults and teenagers are now driving an unexpected boom in the U.S. toy business, accounting for nearly 60% of the industry’s growth during the first half of 2026, according to market research firm Circana. The industry posted its strongest first half in six years.

And Toys “R” Us is betting big on its grown-up kids.

The once-bankrupt retailer is adding 120 stand-alone stores to its existing 40, quadrupling its U.S. footprint to 160 locations in a single holiday season — a 300% increase.

The expansion will also use select locations to introduce Creator Studios, where influencers and brands can unveil new products and host “toy reveals,” the company said in a press release.

It’s remarkable growth for a brand that closed every one of its U.S. stores just eight years ago.

But the more interesting comeback may be happening among its customers.

That same Circana report reveals that households without children now account for 55% of U.S. toy sales. Sales to those households grew 16% during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year and have now outpaced sales from households with children — although only slightly.

And the fastest-growing customers aren’t the 10-and-under set.

Sales to teenagers ages 12 to 17 jumped 33%, while sales in the 18-and-older category rose 25%. Together, teenagers and adults accounted for nearly 60% of the industry’s growth during the first half of the year.

In other words, the people fueling the toy boom are old enough to drive themselves to the toy store.

RELATE: How Europe turned illegal immigration into a 5-star vacation package

Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Hobby lobby

What has changed isn’t simply who’s buying toys. It’s what counts as a toy.

Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering trading cards are among the industry’s biggest properties, alongside familiar franchises including Marvel, Star Wars, LEGO, and Barbie.

Circana’s Kristen McLean says consumers are increasingly drawn to “collectibles, sensory toys, licensed products, and hobby-oriented play.”

“We’re seeing toys increasingly function as hobbies, fandom ecosystems, and social experiences rather than traditional children’s products,” McLean said.

That helps explain why adult-only households have become such a lucrative market. A LEGO set, collectible figure, or box of trading cards can occupy essentially the same place in an adult’s budget that model trains, sports memorabilia, or other hobbies once did.

RELATED: Is charging your EV really cheaper than buying gas?

Andrew Burton/Getty Images

‘Toys’ story

Toys “R” Us isn’t merely opening more stores to take advantage of the shift. Select locations will include what the company calls Creator Studios, spaces where influencers and brands can launch products and stage “toy reveals.”

It’s a striking reinvention for a retailer whose apparent demise once looked like another casualty of the internet age.

Toys “R” Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2017 while carrying billions of dollars in debt and closed its remaining U.S. stores the following year.

The brand subsequently attempted several comebacks, eventually coming under the control of WHP Global in 2021. It opened a flagship location in New Jersey and later established Toys “R” Us sections inside Macy’s stores.

Meanwhile, the revival has extended well beyond the United States. Toys “R” Us now says it operates through more than 1,680 stores and e-commerce businesses across 37 countries, generating more than $2 billion in annual retail sales.

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​Toys ‘r’ us, Games, Collectibles, Americana, Lifestyle 

The internet already knows what to do with the news that Meryl Streep will voice Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s forthcoming “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew”: Get angry. It fits the logic of rage-bait: All publicity is good publicity.

There has already been plenty of fury. It is as if the creative team opened its first meeting by asking, “There is a huge built-in Christian audience for Narnia. How can we alienate it as quickly as possible?” But I want to ask the prior question: What exactly is “The Magician’s Nephew” about, and why can’t a radical leftist understand it?

The central problem in Narnia is not that the wrong group has power. It is rebellion against the good Creator.

That question is vital because director Greta Gerwig is not merely illustrating a book. She is interpreting one. And there is no such thing as interpretation without a worldview.

Netflix has scheduled Gerwig’s film for theatrical release on February 12, 2027, and streaming on April 2. Meryl Streep has been confirmed as Aslan’s voice. Gerwig says she wanted someone capable of communicating profundity, gravitas, pathos, joy, and childlike wonder. But neither Gerwig nor Netflix has said that Aslan has been rewritten as a lioness, so the claim that she has created a “translan” gets ahead of the evidence.

The controversy gives us an opportunity to return to Lewis and ask how we find a text’s meaning. The answer applies well beyond Narnia to the current cultural conflict.

“The Magician’s Nephew” begins with Digory and Polly discovering that Digory’s ridiculous Uncle Andrew has developed magical rings that can transport people between worlds. They arrive in the wonderfully strange Wood Between the Worlds, a quiet forest filled with pools. Each pool opens into another world.

Lewis was far ahead of Marvel’s multiverse.

Digory makes a spectacularly bad decision. In the dead world of Charn, he rings a forbidden bell and awakens Queen Jadis. We eventually learn that Jadis destroyed everyone in her world rather than surrender power. She used the “Deplorable Word,” annihilating Charn’s population and leaving herself as its solitary ruler.

That detail is important.

Jadis’ defining characteristic is not that she is a strong woman. Lewis gives us plenty of admirable women in his books. Her defining characteristic is autonomous will. She would rather destroy a world than acknowledge a limit on herself. In modern terms, Lewis wrote a third-wave feminist before the term existed.

RELATED: You can’t handle the movies anymore

Warner Brothers/Getty Images

Digory and Polly accidentally bring her to Earth. When they try to remove her, they end up transporting Jadis, Uncle Andrew, a cab driver, and his horse into another world.

They arrive at the beginning of Narnia, as Aslan creates it.

Lewis is hardly being subtle.

And this is where the current controversy becomes interesting.

Aslan is not simply a powerful lion who happens to be the good guy. Lewis explicitly rejected that reduction. He described Narnia as a “supposal”: What might Christ be like if there really were a world like Narnia and Christ entered that world to save it?

Lewis went farther: “The whole Narnian story is about Christ.”

That means an interpreter who approaches Narnia primarily through contemporary categories of gender, power, oppression, and liberation will see a different story from the one Lewis wrote.

This does not require sinister motives. It is simply how worldviews work. Culpability begins when an interpreter treats her worldview as a license to overwrite the text. Gerwig’s film has not yet been released, so its faithfulness to Lewis remains a question, not a verdict.

Show the same story to a Marxist, a Freudian, a Christian, and a postmodernist, and each will notice different things. The Marxist sees class. The Freudian sees repression. The postmodernist sees power. Lewis sees creation, fall, temptation, sin, judgment, grace, and redemption.

The danger comes when the interpreter stops interpreting the author and starts rewriting him. For the radical leftist, words no longer disclose an objective meaning; they become material to rearrange in service of a political goal. On Lewis’ terms, that is sinful autonomy: Reality itself becomes an obstacle to the will.

Apply the same interpretive habit to the Constitution, marriage, or gender. Fixed meaning and objective reality become obstacles to the desired result. As a colleague of mine argues, the impulse is to “burn it down” and impose one’s will on the rest of us.

And “The Magician’s Nephew” may be the worst possible Narnia book in which to make that mistake, because it rebukes autonomous power wielded by the creature against the Creator. It shows the barrenness of Jadis’ feminism: autonomous will severed from the Creator and therefore incapable of creating anything.

Consider Jadis again. A modern interpretation might reduce the conflict to rival forms of power. Here is the imposing lion claiming authority over a new world, and here is the formidable woman who refuses to submit.

But that completely misses Lewis.

RELATED: CS Lewis: Angry atheist surprised by God

John Chillingworth/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Aslan and Jadis are not rival politicians competing to run Narnia. Aslan creates. Jadis consumes.

Aslan gives creatures their being. Jadis destroys creatures who interfere with her will.

Aslan establishes an order to which creatures belong. Jadis believes reality ought to bend to her desires.

That is why the Christian distinction between Creator and creature matters so much. The central problem in Narnia is not that the wrong group has power. It is rebellion against the good Creator.

Which brings us back to Meryl Streep.

I understand why Christians object to giving the voice of Lewis’ male Christ figure to a woman. Aslan’s identity is not arbitrary. Lewis chose a male lion, called him “he,” and made him a king as his imaginative answer to the question of Christ entering another world.

But I am even more interested in what Aslan will say than in what Aslan will sound like.

The proper test of the adaptation is straightforward: Will Gerwig allow Lewis’ world to remain Lewis’ world?

Every artist interprets through a worldview. Faithfulness does not require pretending to have none. It requires humility: the willingness to enter another writer’s world without claiming the right to recreate its moral order.

I have seen the same conflict as a professor among radical activists. A teacher who denies the basic structure of reality cannot teach students to become wise or find meaning.

The same humility is required of us. We do not enter God’s world as its creators.

​Feminism, Greta gerwig, King, Meryl streep, Narnia, Netflix, Radical leftist, Artists, Aslan, God, Jadis, Christians, Cs lewis, Power, Fixed meaning, Opinion & analysis 

Texas police say that the decomposing body of a 68-year-old man would have gone undiscovered if his neighbor had not reported the foul smell permeating his home.

The neighbor, who only wanted to be identified as Lekan, resorted to calling on KHOU-TV to seek relief from the odor that has driven him from his condominium unit.

Bizarrely, the unit where the man died is not adjacent to Lekan’s unit, and it is a mystery as to how the odor is spreading to his home.

Lekan said that he noticed flies and an odor when he returned from a work trip on Friday to the One Orleans Place condo community near Jeanetta Street in Houston.

“I saw flies by the door, and then I was wondering what’s there,” he said. “So I got closer. I could smell the stench.”

The odor continued through the weekend and forced Lekan to call his landlady, call the HOA, and eventually dial up 911.

Firefighters searched the building and found the decomposing body of his neighbor, according to police. There were no signs of foul play.

Although officials removed the body, Lekan said the odor continued and then began permeating everything in his unit.

“My food, my clothing. And I’m sure the furniture,” he said. “I don’t know how I’m going to deal with that.”

He was forced to rent a hotel room to escape the odor but says he cannot afford the extra expense.

Bizarrely, the unit where the man died is not adjacent to Lekan’s unit, and it is a mystery as to how the odor is spreading to his home.

KHOU reporter Michelle Choi had to move their interview outside the unit because of the smell. But while they were reporting on the incident, some signs of relief arrived for Lekan.

RELATED: Gruesome discovery made in Florida man’s backyard after he sent photo of his missing father to his mom, police say

They saw a biohazard cleanup crew was working on cleaning the unit where the man died, and Houston Health Department workers also responded to the complaint from Lekan.

KHOU said they are seeking answers from the city, the landlady, and the condo association.

“My home means everything to me,” said Lekan. “My home is my sanctuary.”

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​Texas, Foul smell, Dead body, Human interest 

The future will be different from today.

The cars will be different. The clothes will probably look worse. Our phones might still be little black bricks with touch screens, but there will be new applications and new platforms for the dissemination of information. Some cities will grow, some will shrink, new suburbs will be built, and already dying small towns will finally collapse.

There aren’t many logical reasons to have children in 2026. We don’t need them to work the farm or provide free labor at the shop.

We have a tendency to imagine the future as essentially the present but a little farther away, with some higher numbers at the end of the date.

But nothing stays the same forever.

People grow old and die. New people are born. And the people who inhabit the future won’t simply have different names from the people alive today. In some important ways, they will be different kinds of people, because they will disproportionately be the descendants of the people who chose to have children now.

The end of the something

We are, in some way, at the end of something, even though we can’t clearly see it yet.

The fertility collapse is too big, includes too much of the developed world, and is happening over too long a period of time for us to perceive the whole thing at once. The world’s population is still growing, but fertility has fallen below replacement level across much of the world, and dozens of countries have already reached their peak populations.

People aren’t having kids like they used to. Or, more precisely, certain people aren’t having kids like they used to.

In America, liberals are having fewer children than conservatives. A 2026 study using decades of General Social Survey data found a widening fertility divide by political orientation, with the difference becoming especially pronounced among more recent generations.

Another recent survey found conservatives reporting 1.40 children on average compared with 1.09 for liberals. That sounds like a small gap until you realize it amounts to nearly 30% more children — and demographic differences compound with every generation.

Running on empty

The average secular, centrist Democrat Boomer might have had two kids in 1982 because that’s just what you did. Today, his kids might have dogs.

We don’t yet see the impacts of the asymmetrical population collapse because we are still at the very tail end of secular liberals reproducing. But eventually the tail will disappear, the gas will run out, the engine will slow, and we will see a future of different people.

Sometimes I meet with older people who never had children or older secular centrist Democrats who had two kids but whose children haven’t decided to do the same. I wonder if they are able to see the self-eliminating tendencies of their general worldview or if they give any thought to why exactly their children haven’t chosen to become parents as they did and if, perhaps, in hindsight they might reflect that there were flaws in raising them the way they did.

Sometimes I find myself someplace where the average age is 64, and I wonder if the people realize what that means. It’s not that they should be lying awake at night sweating bullets because they aren’t replacing themselves. We can only do so much in this world, and some problems are bigger than us. But I do wonder if they realize that the future will be different in part due to their choices regarding procreation and child-rearing.

RELATED: Why 3 kids are easier than 1

Daily Herald Archive/Getty Images

Why bother?

There aren’t many logical reasons to have children in 2026. We don’t need them to work the farm or provide free labor at the shop. So we who have children today have them for deeper reasons. Sometimes they are outwardly religious ones, like the imperative to be fruitful and multiply. Sometimes they are less religious ones based loosely on culture or love of family. And sometimes it’s just hundreds of little signals that add up gradually to form a general attitude toward family life.

“We’d love to have more.”

If you are in the conservative world in any way, this is a phrase you are well acquainted with. You have heard it said too many times to count, and you have probably said it quite a few times yourself. It’s just what you say after a conversation about a baby, a new car to accommodate another kid, or any other funny story about family life.

It’s a short little sentence, but it being a sort of default thing to respond with very acutely illuminates the difference between the liberal world and the conservative one in 2026.

In the liberal world, this is not a phrase that is uttered naturally. There is no presumption that (of course!) you want more children. At best, children are viewed neutrally, and at worst, they are considered kind of a buzzkill for what could be a life of “freedom” and higher earning potential. On that side of the political world, it is simply not a cultural assumption that children are a blessing and the more the better.

Betting on the future

But that attitude is dying, literally. It doesn’t seem like it yet, I know. It’s slow. We are still over-saturated with young people born to the types that wouldn’t have kids today. We are still in the middle of that very long population bottleneck, and the ship is still coasting though the gas has just about run out.

But over time — a very long period of time — the attitudes of those who don’t care for a world of children will slowly dissipate and become less potent. They are self-eliminating, after all. That’s not opinion; it’s a cold fact of reality that we all see clearly now. The only people who will exist in the future will be people born to those who believed children are good, that the more life there is, the better, and the future should be one that is full of humans.

I’m optimistic.

​Conservatives, Culture, Population, Fertility, Fertility decline, Marriage and family, Lifestyle, Dog moms, Liberals, Be fruitful and multiply, The root of the matter 

Border Patrol agents rescued four illegal immigrants who had been found locked inside a railcar in Texas, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

CBP said exclusively to Blaze News that two other migrants had been found in a similarly locked railcar just one week previously, but one was deceased.

‘No one should believe the lies of smugglers who say they can provide safety, because they only care about the money they can gain by exploiting vulnerable people.’

The rescued migrants were identified as three Mexican nationals and one Chinese national.

They were discovered just before dawn on Sept. 16 by Border Patrol agents of the Uvalde station who were inspecting freight cars at a secondary rail near Knippa.

A Border Patrol canine alerted agents about an autorack car carrying automobiles. When they inspected it, they found four people locked inside without any means of escape.

The migrants were taken to the Uvalde Station for processing, according to CBP.

The incident was the fourth time in recent weeks that illegal aliens were found locked into autorack train cars at the Del Rio sector, including the lethal incident on Sept. 11.

On Sept. 7, agents rescued three others locked into a train car at the same secondary rail.

And on August 30, they rescued eight people locked inside a train car, including a child, at that rail.

“This is the work of criminal alien smugglers who have no regard for human life,” said Anthony “Scott” Good, a Del Rio Sector chief patrol agent.

“Doors on freight cars are locked externally, and migrants are trapped for an indefinite amount of time without food or water,” he added. “No one should believe the lies of smugglers who say they can provide safety because they only care about the money they can gain by exploiting vulnerable people.”

RELATED: Tactical agents arrest ‘active scout’ in Arizona near Mexico border, says CBP

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

The Homeland Security Investigations office is still investigating the lethal Sept. 11 incident.

The Sept. 7 incident involved a Mexican national, one Nicaraguan, and one Honduran, according to CBP.

“Attempts to make illegal entry via trains have historically had tragic results,” said Good after that incident. “U.S. Border Patrol urges anyone considering such rash action to understand their decision could result in disaster.”

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​Border patrol, Illegal immigrants, Migrants, Texas, Politics 

“Teen takeovers” have gone from a social-media spectacle to a serious public-safety issue. While the name conjures images of high schoolers innocently hanging around a drive-in à la “American Graffiti,” at its core, this phenomenon is about sowing violence and chaos — and leaving communities to deal with the consequences.

The 2026 Wisconsin State Fair concluded its final evening with a massive brawl, during which violent “teens” swarmed the park and beat unassuming fair guests. One man was kicked and beaten as he lay in the fetal position. Earlier this summer, a teen takeover at a Chipotle in Washington, D.C., forced frightened patrons to scramble as youths began throwing chairs and screaming.

This is a natural consequence of an America that has glamorized injustice.

In cities across the nation, the same pattern of brutality has emerged: Swarms of young, primarily black teenagers will suddenly invade a public space to fight, threaten police, destroy private property, and occasionally get involved in shootings.

This is happening because over the past decade, our public institutions have encouraged black Americans to see themselves as perpetual victims of so-called systemic discrimination. As Spencer Klavan points out in his analysis of the fast-evolving political climate, “Wokeness in all its form is grievance politics.” Activists expanded DEI programs, decried America’s alleged systemic racism, and pushed for prison-abolition movements and reparations.

The behavior at teen takeovers is an outgrowth of the so-called peaceful demonstrations Black Lives Matter encouraged during the height of the George Floyd protests. Though the BLM movement has gradually lost traction — its corruption is widespread, and policies like abolishing the police are unpopular — its cultural influence endures.

Constant exposure to BLM has shown young people that if they commit wanton acts of violence en masse, they can get what they want. They can hop fences, smash windows, blast music, and brawl in the streets — and Democratic politicians will then attack peaceful citizens, demanding that they give away their livelihood and communities to correct “systemic injustices.”

The messaging BLM has promoted is irresponsible. Photos of cars, businesses, and school buses burning became regular fixtures online starting in the summer of 2020. Young people became convinced that, regardless of their lawless actions, they were morally superior to police officers and authority figures. They were taught that violence is a virtue because racism infects all public institutions. Teen takeovers are the result of a generation of children who believe that trashing public spaces is the righteous response of the unheard.

RELATED: Sanctuary cities’ get-out-of-jail fail

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images

BLM activists and “ICE Out” advocates have collectively turned protesting into an activity that’s considered as acceptable as going on a picnic. Young people are joining teen takeovers because they think they are owed the space to be violent, a lesson that Woke 1.0 normalized. For too many Americans, senseless rampaging is seen as a legitimate pastime for bored, testy teens.

This is a natural consequence of an America that has glamorized injustice. A recent study linked transgender ideology with increased support for political violence. Gen Z is more likely to attend protests, especially among those who support LGBTQ and climate-change movements. A similar study from the U.K. revealed that young people are more supportive of civil disobedience than members of previous generations.

The adulation of grievance politics culminates in a deeply nihilistic culture. The teen takeovers aren’t pursuing a righteous social cause — they’re aggressive reactions against civil society itself.

When previous generations protested, they mostly maintained a level of respect for their communities and even obeyed the law in some cases. But thanks to the radicalism of Woke 1.0 — pushed by BLM — young people don’t feel as though they owe anything to the people and places where they grew up.

They aren’t concerned with building a future or honoring their forefathers. The past decade of politics gave young Americans a permission structure in which anarchy comes with little to no consequences.

Americans have become accustomed to seeing entire city blocks burning, looting, and street fighting. The danger is that younger generations see disorder not as a public menace, but as the essence of freedom.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the American Mind.

​Black lives matter, Gen z, George floyd protests, Lgbtq, Political violence, Protesting, Racism, Teen takeovers, Virtue, Washington dc, Covid, Anarchy, Opinion & analysis