Category: blaze media

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What they found was astonishing.

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

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

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

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

RELATED: Elon Musk announces plans for PERMANENT lunar city

peepo/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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​Iphone, Tech, Case, Space 

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

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

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

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

Blaze Newsthe Daily CallerOne America News NetworkThe FederalistRedState

DNSFilter blocks Blaze Media/Zach Laidlaw

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But there’s more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcin Golba/NurPhoto/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marauder. Courtesy of Saronc Technologies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who benefits from it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” she answers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More than nothing but far less than promised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The legislative ledger remains embarrassingly thin.

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

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

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

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

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

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

The same failure appears on removals.

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

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

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

Consider the current court docket.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RELATED: Kansas Republicans muddy the waters on ICE enforcement

Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

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

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

That was supposed to be the point of winning Congress.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Rebirth’

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

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

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

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

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

Simone Risoluti – Vatican Media/Vatican Pool/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

Opposition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ludovic MARIN/AFP/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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​Catholic, Christianity, Faith, France, Leftist, Muslim, Politics, Pope leo xiv, Revival, Secular 

Online scams are getting more sophisticated, with attackers using AI to manipulate their voices on phone calls, change their faces on video chats, and write more convincing messages. To help combat the growing threat, Apple brought a new scam-busting feature to iOS 27 called Impersonation Risk Detection.

Impersonation Risk Detection monitors the actions you take within apps to identify red flags that indicate you are about to become the victim of a scam or online attack.

Social engineering schemes were among the most reported crimes in 2025, with more than $7 billion in total losses.

It specifically targets social engineering threats, or scams where cybercriminals trick users into handing over personal data. These are usually carried out through phishing attempts and baiting via personal interactions, making them impervious to typical security measures, like passkeys or two-factor authentication, since you are divulging your information directly to the hacker.

To make a social engineering attack work, the cybercriminal has to engage with his target — usually through emails, messages, or phone calls — and convince the target to take action that compromises his data or security. It may sound unrealistic, but according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Report, social engineering schemes were among the most reported crimes in 2025, with more than $7 billion in total losses.

Scammers may reach out as a bank employee, claiming that your account was hacked and that they need your information to secure it. Or they might pose as a member of the government, claiming you have unpaid parking tickets or owe back taxes to the IRS. In the worst-case scenario, they’ll pretend to be a family member in a dangerous situation and in desperate need of money.

These are the types of engagements that Impersonation Risk Detection is built to detect and thwart.

According to Apple, the company can analyze “interaction patterns, timing, context, and basic sensor data” on your device to determine if and when scams like these are about to take place. Now, Apple doesn’t explain exactly how its threat algorithm works, but it promises that this “information is analyzed on-device, so Apple never receives the data used to generate the risk level.”

Furthermore, Apple claims it won’t snoop on the content in your most personal apps, like Messages, Mail, and Photos. It’s primarily searching for isolated problematic interactions with other users you talk to online, whether that’s a friend or a complete stranger.

RELATED: Social media scams are up 700%. Here’s how to stay safe.

Media Trading Ltd/Getty Images

There are a couple more caveats to consider before you activate Impersonation Risk Detection:

By enabling the feature, you give developers access to your risk threat level, as determined by Apple. Again, Apple claims that threats are measured on-device, and developers never actually see the analyzed data — they only receive the final risk threat level itself. Still, having your interactions scanned and measured may be too intrusive for some.Apps must support Impersonation Risk Detection before they can warn you there’s a problem. That means there will be some apps on your phone that don’t have this feature, at least for several months. That said, as more third-party apps receive their annual iOS compatibility updates, most of your apps should be supported soon.

If you’re okay with these, proceed to the next step.

To enable Impersonation Risk Detection, simply open the Settings app, scroll down, and select Privacy & Security. Once inside, scroll to the bottom and tap on Impersonation Risk Detection. Switch the toggle to the green active position, and you’re all set.

Impersonation Risk Detection in iOS 27/Zach Laidlaw

Your phone will now monitor your app activity for potential social engineering threats. Updates will appear in the Recent Activity section beneath the toggle, listed under one of three categories:

Unknown signals that no malicious activity was detected within a recent app interaction.Medium means that some malicious activity was detected. Proceed with caution.High indicates that a significant degree of malicious activity was detected. You should refrain from further interactions.

There’s a clear trade-off to Impersonation Risk Detection. On one hand, it’s a useful tool that can point out potential scams and stop them before they become a problem. On the other hand, you may not trust Apple to monitor your activity and share the results with app developers. Only you can decide if one risk is worth the outcome.

Impersonation Risk Detection is only available on iPhones running iOS 27. To upgrade, find the Software Update section in General within the Settings app and download the latest version. After the update is complete, you’ll get access to other new fresh features, like the new Siri, Safari Notify Me alerts, and more.

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​Apple, Ios, Iphone, Scam, Social engineering, Tech 

Things are not looking great for Vivek Ramaswamy.

Two polls released this week put Democrat Amy Acton ahead in the Ohio governor’s race. Marist has Acton leading 50% to 44% among registered voters, while a Suffolk poll has her ahead 50% to 41% among likely voters. Another survey has Ramaswamy narrowly ahead, so the race is hardly settled. But Ohio, a state Donald Trump carried comfortably in 2024, should not be producing this kind of anxiety for Republicans.

Ramaswamy spent years mastering the language of the populist right. The question is whether enough voters believe the language reflects conviction rather than calculation.

Some of the explanation is national. Midterms punish incumbent parties. Trump’s approval has tanked, the war with Iran is unpopular, fuel prices have surged, and voters remain angry about affordability. Republicans still control Congress, but they have struggled to turn that control into accomplishments voters can see and feel.

Ramaswamy presents an additional problem, one the party created for itself.

The Cincinnati native was born in 1985 to Indian immigrant parents. His father came to the United States on a student visa and later worked for General Electric; his mother obtained a green card and became a physician. Ramaswamy became a citizen at birth under the 14th Amendment. In other words, he was an “anchor baby.” His mother later naturalized. His father did not.

Ramaswamy built his fortune in biotech. His company Roivant created Axovant around intepirdine, an experimental Alzheimer’s drug licensed from GlaxoSmithKline for $5 million up front. Axovant’s 2015 IPO raised $315 million and briefly pushed the company’s valuation near $3 billion. In 2017, the drug failed its Phase 3 trial and Axovant’s stock fell about 70% in a day.

That history has generated plenty of suspicion among Ramaswamy’s critics, especially because Roivant raised $1.1 billion shortly before the trial results. Suspicion is not proof of fraud, of course, but the fact is that Ramaswamy made his name selling investors on a speculative biotech story that ended in spectacular failure.

He then sold voters another story.

Ramaswamy entered the 2024 presidential race as a long shot and positioned himself as Trump’s most loyal rival. He attacked the administrative state, denounced wokeness, and rarely aimed sustained fire at the front-runner. The campaign raised his national profile even though it never seriously threatened Trump.

After the election, Trump tapped Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency.

Then came the Christmas crashout.

During a fight over H-1B visas, Ramaswamy argued that American culture had “venerated mediocrity over excellence” for way too long. He contrasted prom queens with math Olympiad champions, jocks with valedictorians, sleepovers with math tutoring, and popular television characters with nerds.

RELATED: The American dream now comes with upgrade fees

Blaze Media Illustration

The backlash on the right was immediate — and deserved — because the argument landed as more than a defense of skilled immigration. Ramaswamy appeared to be telling ordinary Americans that foreign workers were outperforming them because immigrant families possessed a better culture.

The post did not single-handedly end his role in the administration, but it certainly didn’t help. Reporting at the time described deeper disagreements with Musk over the DOGE’s mission, plus Ramaswamy’s plans to run for governor. But the H-1B fight clearly worsened tensions and damaged his standing with parts of Trump’s coalition.

Ramaswamy launched his Ohio campaign in 2025 and quickly received Trump’s endorsement and the backing of the state GOP. On paper, the arrangement looked ideal: a famous candidate, a Republican-leaning state, and a president who remained popular with the GOP base.

Then the national environment deteriorated and the candidate’s own liabilities became harder to hide.

One of those liabilities is religion. Ramaswamy has always been cagey with voters on questions of faith. He was careful to talk about a shared belief in God, but he was never specific about which one. He would share pictures of Christian pastors praying over him but would fail to mention that he did not share their faith.

Ramaswamy is a pagan Hindu who believes in a host of foreign deities. While he would praise Christian values as central to America, he doesn’t quite share them. This once again revealed a lack of sincerity that turned off many voters who were already feeling disillusioned with the GOP.

A sharper identity dispute concerns immigration and assimilation.

Ramaswamy became a symbol of the H-1B fight because he defended a visa program heavily used and abused by Indian professionals while criticizing native-born American culture. Immigration skeptics saw the combination as confirmation of their fear that the Republican donor and business class values imported labor more than the people already here.

Fairly or not, Ramaswamy became the avatar for that argument.

That is the Vivek question now confronting the GOP. A party can nominate a candidate who checks every ideological box on paper and still discover that voters do not trust his instincts, his biography, or his cultural loyalties. Party leaders can explain that the alternative would govern farther left. They can point to endorsements, policy positions, and the partisan lean of the state.

RELATED: The GOP still has a loser mentality

Blaze Media Illustration

What they cannot manufacture is enthusiasm.

The newest polling illustrates the cost. Marist finds independents breaking for Acton 57% to 32%. That does not prove one cause, and national conditions may explain much of it. But Republicans should not pretend that candidate selection plays no role simply because acknowledging it would be deeply uncomfortable.

Ramaswamy spent years mastering the language of the populist right. The question is whether enough voters believe the language reflects conviction rather than calculation.

If the answer is no, the problem did not begin with the polls. It began when Republican leaders assumed saying all the right things was the same as being trusted by the people expected to vote.

​Donald trump, H1b visas, Independent voters, Presidential race, Vivek ramaswamy, Religion, Ohio, Governor race, Amy acton, Doge, Elon musk, American culture, Endorsement, Gop, Indians, Opinion & analysis 

A 35-year-old woman was charged with sexually trafficking a missing 16-year-old who had run away from home, according to the Harris County Constable of Precinct 4 in Texas.

Police said they began an investigation into a report of a runaway juvenile when they received information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

‘They begin to trust these traffickers, and once they trust them and they go with them, then they end up getting thrown onto the street or on online ads or even taken.’

The FBI said the juvenile was being trafficked out of a home in north Harris County.

Police obtained a search warrant but were unable to find the juvenile at the home. Instead they found Brandi Lowe.

“From the evidence that we got from the home, we were able to establish that the female that we took into custody was in fact doing a lot of the stuff online, trying to solicit individuals to basically sell her out as a 16-year-old child,” Constable Mark Herman said.

Herman said police were “resilient” in their efforts that night to locate the missing juvenile after Lowe’s arrest.

“We didn’t give up. We ended up getting a location of a possible hotel she was staying at. We went to the hotel, and we found her with a male subject that we felt was a part of this also,” he said.

“And she was rescued, put in a safe place,” Herman added.

Lowe was charged with promotion of prostitution of a person under 18 years old and held on a bond of $20,000.

The juvenile was reunited with her family, and police indicated that some more people may be arrested in the case as the investigation continues.

RELATED: White woman accusing ‘brown’ man of sex trafficking his daughter gets hate crime charge

Private investigator Betty Simons told KHOU-TV that these kinds of cases typically begin through online interactions.

“A big thing that we see is that they’re groomed online, whether that’s through Xbox, PlayStations, social medias, you know, so they’re groomed online or even in the schools,” Simons said. “They begin to trust these traffickers, and once they trust them and they go with them, then they end up getting thrown onto the street or on online ads or even taken.”

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​Texas, Sex trafficking, Child trafficking, Prostitution, Crime 

Until recently, everything I knew about Friedrich Nietzsche came from two movies.

“The Abyss” opens with his warning that when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back. My other exposure came from “Blazing Saddles.” During a chaotic town meeting, Howard Johnson tries to elevate the proceedings.

A compelling why does not make the why righteous. Conviction supplies endurance. It does not supply morality.

“You know, Nietzsche says, ‘Out of chaos comes order.’”

Olson Johnson replies, “Oh, blow it out your ass, Howard.”

Mel Brooks provided the more memorable lesson.

So when California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) quoted Nietzsche while discussing a possible presidential run, I thought of Olson Johnson immediately.

In a PBS “NewsHour” interview, Newsom was asked what might keep him from running in 2028. He answered that he would need a “big enough why” to endure almost any “how,” invoking Nietzsche, and said he would have to look voters in the eye with a compelling vision.

When a governor reaching for the White House quotes Nietzsche on endurance, he is not confessing limits. He is announcing appetite.

I am not a Nietzsche scholar. I am a caregiver. I have spent 40 years straining against the limits of my own power, and I have learned how easily “responsibility” becomes a contest of wills. I have wanted the last word at home and called it love. Fatigue cooled that appetite more than virtue ever did.

I have enough trouble governing myself. Men eager to govern everybody else no longer impress me. They weary me.

Newsom has been busy making the rounds. He went fly-fishing in Montana with Jake Tapper and talked about 2028. He spoke at the United Nations. He met with fire survivors in Altadena.

None of that is scandalous. Ambitious governors do ambitious-governor things. But California has already handed Newsom a why.

Only 19% of California households could afford the state’s median-priced existing single-family home in the second quarter of 2026. The median price was $916,750, and a household needed an annual income of $228,400 to qualify for the typical payment.

People still sleep outside. Fire survivors are still rebuilding. And U-Haul ranked California last among the states for net one-way customer growth in 2025 — the sixth straight year it finished at the bottom.

When U-Haul starts sending thank-you notes to the governor, he ought to ask why.

RELATED: The audience you may need someday

Olivia Wong/Getty Images

We call it public service. How often is it public power wearing better clothes? A compelling why does not make the why righteous. Conviction supplies endurance. It does not supply morality.

To be fair to Newsom, the aphorism is genuinely Nietzsche’s. It appears in “Twilight of the Idols.” Quoting it does not make Newsom a disciple of Nietzsche any more than quoting G.K. Chesterton makes me … well, Chesterton.

But the actual Nietzsche was less greeting-card. In “The Antichrist,” he asks, “What is good?” and answers: “Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man.” At least he labeled the package.

The desire for a bigger seat is neither new nor rare. Jesus had just told His disciples that He would be condemned, flogged, and killed when James and John asked for the seats at His right and left.

“You do not know what you are asking,” He told them. The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over others, but “it shall not be so among you.” Whoever would be great must become a servant. Then He spoke of giving His own life as a ransom.

James and John wanted the best seats in the kingdom. At Calvary, the places on His right and left went to two criminals. That was not the seating chart they had in mind.

In the middle of the night, when someone is hurting and a dressing needs changing, nobody cares how important I think I am. No podium waits. No national why arrives. There is only the next necessary thing: wash the wound, change the dressing, dry the tears, do the laundry, get out the mop.

RELATED: The myth of the ‘good person’

Calvindexter/Getty Images

Politicians who cannot stand work at that scale keep looking for a bigger room so that the work can stay abstract. Nietzsche offers me nothing in those hours. Christ offers everything.

Chesterton wrote that original sin is “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” I do not need Washington to test the claim. I provide evidence myself. So do men who cannot sit still in the office they already hold.

If Newsom wants to look voters in the eye, he already has people in front of him. Californians gave him a job, a mighty how, and enough need to exhaust any honest servant.

If he still needs a bigger why, that tells me something about which hunger is doing the asking.

Olson Johnson had the right response the first time.

​California governor, Gavin newsom, Politicians, Criminals, Nietzsche, Blazing saddles, Christ, Olson johnson, 2028 election, White house, Jake tapper, United nations, Opinion & analysis 

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent speech demonizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement not only infuriates the “Pat Gray Unleashed” panel, it makes them think the democratic socialist is gearing up for a presidential run.

On September 27 during More Perfect University’s “Students vs. Billionaires” series, AOC compared ICE to a black-box surveillance stack.

“ICE is an agency that has not even existed for as long as many of us have even been alive. They are a new agency created in the surveillance state establishment after 9/11,” she said. “ICE is Palantir; ICE is AI; ICE is facial recognition; ICE is surveillance — and ICE is coming after you regardless of your status.”

Pat is incensed at her calling ICE a new agency.

“They’re 25 years old — 25!” he exclaims. “That’s a new agency? … Compared to what? The fall of Rome?”

“She’s also trying to pin this on Trump for starting ICE. That’s what they desperately want to do,” he adds.

But it’s the progressive’s comparison of ICE to Palantir, AI, facial recognition, and surveillance that really ticks him off.

“Wow, is that irresponsible,” he sighs. “It’s just a flat-out communist lie. … This is what gets people killed.”

“How she’s saying it just made me think she’s running for higher [office],” adds co-host Jeffy. “She’s not screeching about it.”

Pat agrees, mocking, “This darn Donald Trump and his new agencies.”

To hear more of the panel’s commentary and see the clip of AOC’s speech, watch the video above.

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​Alexandria ocasio-cortez, Ice, Immigration and customs enforcement, Palantir, Pat gray, Surveillance state, Blazetv show 

California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom is getting mocked by a U.S. attorney after he signed new orders intended to restrict federal immigration operations in his state.

Newsom has tried to position himself as the foremost opponent to the Trump administration in an attempt to bolster his image ahead of a possible presidential run in 2028.

‘Governor, we’ve been through this already. If you want to regulate federal agents, you have to win a federal election.’

Newsom’s press office said Tuesday that he issued new restrictions on “flash-bang grenades and explosive breaching charges” that included their use in immigration enforcement.

First Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli responded with ridicule.

“Or what? You’re going to write us a ticket,” he replied on social media.

The governor also touted 21 bills he signed to “protect Californians from Trump’s Orwellian immigration tactics.”

Essayli responded again with mockery.

“Governor, we’ve been through this already. If you want to regulate federal agents, you have to win a federal election,” he wrote.

“Until then, you have no jurisdiction,” Essayli added. “Accordingly, I have advised DHS to disregard your bill attempting to ban safe and effective less-lethal tools that agents need to escalate dangerous situations.”

Among the steps Newsom took was a restriction on shock gloves approved for use by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and also a 25% tax on private detention centers he claimed was the first of its kind in the nation.

RELATED: DHS has a fiery message for Newsom after he bans masks for ICE: ‘We will NOT comply!’

The governor has also expanded public access to detention centers in an attempt to increase transparency and increase “health, safety, and oversight requirements” for civil detention facilities.

The governor has admitted that he’s considering running for president but said he would bow out if Kamala Harris ran again.

“Why would I? I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t do that to you; I wouldn’t waste everyone’s time,” said Newsom to Jake Tapper. “Who needs that?”

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​Bill essayli, Gavin newsom, Immigration and customs enforcement, Immigration, Politics 

The death of a black woman found hanged from a tree was peddled by left-wing activists as a racist lynching to further divide Americans, but police say it was something else altogether.

29-year-old Tasia Fortune, a mother to four children, was found dead in the back yard of an abandoned house in Jackson, Mississippi, on Aug. 3.

‘Not only was the act itself heinous, but what it was, I believe, intended to imply was also heinous.’

Even after a black man was arrested for his alleged part in Fortune’s murder, many continued to peddle the falsehood that Fortune’s death was emblematic of the nation’s racist past.

That narrative was further derailed by new details in the case released on Monday.

Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney said in a press conference that an investigation determined that Fortune had been killed after a drug deal went wrong, and her “lynching” was staged afterward.

“So at this time, we do know the manner of death was homicide. We also are confirming that this was a staged event, and often we know that these events are staged so that we can derail the investigation, pointing in another direction,” Brackney said.

Police said 45-year-old Eric Clark used “props” to make it appear that the mother of four children had been killed in a racist lynching.

“Not only was the act itself heinous, but what it was, I believe, intended to imply was also heinous,” Brackney added.

Police said a witness told them Clark and two other people left with Fortune but that the three men came back without the woman. Days later, she was found hanging from a tree.

The witness allegedly said Clark came back dirty and sweaty with a pocket full of money.

Two other men were arrested in the case and were identified as 51-year-old Jarques Ratliff and 25-year-old Earnest Lloyd Jr.

Brackney said that she expects conspiracy charges to be filed in the case as the investigation continues.

She added that there was a known association between Fortune and the suspects arrested.

RELATED: Activists rage over racist vandalism at California HS — district says black student was caught

Clark pleaded not guilty and was given a $5 million bond. Requests for bonds were rejected for Ratliff and Lloyd.

Fortune’s family said in a statement Monday that the public should reject making hasty assumptions about the case.

“We would like to thank everyone for their prayers and support and are grateful for the silence to be broken, but we also want to say that we wish for people to have patience and wait for the rest of the facts to come out before jumping to conclusions.”

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​Lynching, Racial hoax, Mississippi, Racism, Politics, Crime 

The editors of the New York Times responded to online furor and ridicule over their headline that minimized the alleged attempted hijacking of a plane heading to Israel.

While many were praising the crew and passengers who rushed to stop the alleged terror attack Wednesday, the Times was seemingly downplaying the incident on social media.

‘Why does the @nytimes act as a propagandist for terrorists?’

“Breaking news: A plane flying from Dubai to Israel was diverted after an altercation between the pilot and co-pilot, Israeli officials said,” read the Times post on social media.

A community note provided context the Times had neglected to mention:

This was not simply an “altercation between pilots”. The co-pilot stabbed the captain, attempted to take over the aircraft with mostly Israeli citizens on board, children included. Passengers forcibly subdued the attacker after the plane dove 15,000 feet.

Critics pounced on the opportunity to pummel the Times on social media.

“The New York Times is just laughable. … An attempted terrorist attack on a flight from Dubai to Israel, and they call it a ‘clash’?” responded news anchor Stella Escobedo.

“This isn’t real journalism.”

“An altercation is how you describe an argument. An attempted terrorist hijacking is how you describe this incident. Dishonesty and deception is how you describe the New York Times,” replied entrepreneur Phil Bak.

“Anything that happens to Israelis, the NYT downplays. Anything that happens to Palestinians they exaggerate and then issue a correction,” said independent investigator Eyal Yakoby.

“Just a little scuffle between two guys, ya know. Nothing to see here. Shame on you, @nytimes!” replied New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov.

“‘An altercation’??? Why does the @nytimes act as a propagandist for terrorists?” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

After five hours into the online kerfuffle, the Times released a defiant statement.

RELATED: Dentist loses job after ripping down Hamas terror victim flyers, calls them too divisive

“Our headlines and live coverage contain all the facts we’re able to confirm as we confirm them,” the statement read. “Unlike activists and partisans, we don’t publish speculation or unverified information.”

In a statement Wednesday, Flydubai also described the incident as an “altercation … in the flight deck.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted the passengers from the terror attack and called them heroes for taking down the alleged attempted hijacker.

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​Israel, New york times, Benjamin netanyahu, Hijacking, Politics 

A transgender New York Times executive was gunned down in Northern California, allegedly by the exec’s mother-in-law, who blamed the victim for her grandson wanting to wear his “sister’s dresses,” according to a California Post report, which cites court documents.

Jonathan McKinsey, the paper’s head of engineering for games player experience, allegedly was killed by McKinsey’s elderly in-laws — Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77 — on Saturday in the parking lot of a Dublin park, the Post said.

‘During our marriage, the children and I learned to avoid provoking Jonathan lest he became angry.’

Zhang and Chen allegedly took turns shooting McKinsey, the paper said.

McKinsey transitioned from female to male in 2010 and got married to Candice Jang in 2011, a previous Post story said, adding that the couple had been estranged and were set to be in court for child custody prior to the shooting.

According to a restraining order McKinsey filed against Jang, Chen — McKinsey’s mother-in-law — visited to watch the couple’s children in 2023, the Post said.

Chen noticed her grandson was asking to wear his sister Alexis’ dresses — a “phase” he was going through, McKinsey said, according to the Post, which cited records.

Chen allegedly began berating her grandson and called him a “disgusting queer” and a “pervert,” the paper said, adding that Chen also allegedly hit her grandson in the back of his head when he asked to wear the dresses.

When McKinsey “begged her to stop,” the Post said Chen called McKinsey the same names, according to the restraining order.

“She blamed me for W wanting to wear his sister’s dresses and told me to get out of ‘her house’ even though we were in the home owned by Candice and I,” McKinsey wrote, the Post reported.

McKinsey tried to get Jang to hire outside help to prevent Chen from taking care of their children again, but Jang allegedly refused, the paper reported.

McKinsey also accused Jang of abuse in their relationship, including pushing McKinsey to commit suicide, the Post said, citing the documents, because “no one would want to be with someone as f**ked up and transgender like me.”

Jang first filed a restraining order against McKinsey last year, alleging McKinsey “threatened to kill me and my parents,” the paper reported.

RELATED: Transgender sex offender accused of trying to kidnap boy at elementary school gets good news from DA

Alameda County prosecutors also charged McKinsey with two counts of misdemeanor child abuse after an incident during which McKinsey allegedly hit their 6-year-old son in the face with an open hand, the Post said.

Charging documents also say Jang told investigators about a 2018 domestic violence incident during which McKinsey bruised her left arm, the paper said, adding that McKinsey pleaded not guilty to both crimes and was released from jail on the condition that McKinsey take parenting classes.

Moments after McKinsey’s killing, Zhang and Chen were arrested nearby and booked into Alameda County’s Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of murder, the Post said, adding that booking records indicate the couple is facing charges including first-degree murder, felony conspiracy, dangerously firing a gun, and child endangerment that could have caused major injury or death. They both remained behind bars Wednesday on no bond, jail records say.

A previous California Post report said Jang indicated in an August custody filing that “during our marriage, the children and I learned to avoid provoking Jonathan lest he became angry. In my experience, appearing agreeable or happy around him was sometimes a means of avoiding his anger.”

Jang filed for divorce in 2025 after McKinsey allegedly became abusive to her and their three children, ages 3, 5, and 7, the paper said, adding that McKinsey also filed for divorce last year.

Jang also filed a restraining order against McKinsey in 2025, and McKinsey filed a restraining order that same year, the Post said.

Jang also submitted an additional court filing that updated the court on a custody issue and addressed false testimony she claimed McKinsey gave, the paper said.

McKinsey, who was 40, joined the New York Times in early 2023 as a senior engineering manager for the games platform and became director of engineering for games player experience in late 2025, the Post said.

The paper said it reached out to the Times for further comment.

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​California, Crime, Fatal shooting, Murder charges, New york times, Transgender, Politics 

Artificial intelligence is being sold as a necessary, giant leap forward. But there’s another story unfolding beneath it: a borrowing spree unlike anything America has ever seen.

And Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is sounding the alarm, asking, “Who is borrowing more money now than anybody in America besides the federal government?”

“The people who are borrowing more money than anybody else are the people building artificial intelligence,” he explains, and the company SoftBank is among them.

“SoftBank just borrowed $11 billion in junk bonds, paying as much as 9 and 3/4%,” he says.

“Oracle’s interest bill for one quarter jumped 55%. Their interest is now $1.4 billion. JP Morgan expects $4 trillion of AI debt to be issued between now and 2030.”

“That’s a tenth of our national debt borrowed,” he continues.

“And just in time, as the price of borrowing is climbing. This is like building your dream house with an adjustable-rate mortgage,” he says. “And the rate just keeps being adjusted, and it’s always up. How long would that last?”

And now one of the biggest data center landlords in the country, CoreWeave, is “[telling] its investors that every one-point rise in interest rates costs it another $30 million a year.”

“Then last week, Brookings put a price on the whole thing. $10.3 trillion for America’s AI build-out between 2025 and 2032,” Glenn says.

“What is the debt in the interest on that?”

“Now, you measure that against the size of the economy,” he continues. “That is bigger than the canals. That’s bigger than electrifying the entire country. That’s bigger than the interstate highway system. That’s bigger than the railroads.”

However, this is a massive bet the AI companies are making — as a recent Gallup poll says 71% of Americans don’t want a data center in their own towns.

“This is the biggest bet in not American history — in human history. This, let me say it again, the biggest bet in all of human history,” Glenn says.

“When a bet is too big to fail and too sacred to question, there’s only one place the bill can go,” he explains. “One place.”

“I want you to ask one question of your congressman, and I want you to send a clear message to everybody in Washington. Ask this question: If it goes wrong, who pays? If the answer is fuzzy, so is the plan,” he continues. “And it will end up being on your shoulders.”

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​Glenn beck, Coreweave, Debt, Data centers, Artificial intelligence, Soft bank, Oracle, Jp morgan, Brookings, Blazetv show 

A federal criminal complaint alleges that a DoorDash driver who is said to be in the U.S. illegally struck an immigration officer with his vehicle’s side mirror as he fled a traffic stop — an encounter that ended with him being shot.

The shooting of 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez has led to outrage and protests from critics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The other officer who was wearing a body camera caught up to the scene only after the shooting had occurred.

The complaint claims bodycam video from the Sept. 20 incident in Austin, Texas, shows Perez clipping an officer with the side mirror of his vehicle when he tries to flee from the traffic stop.

The complaint says the law enforcement operation began when immigration officers saw Perez parked with his hazard lights on and discovered through a database check that he had an active deportation order.

The initial interaction was described as “pleasant and not aggressive” in the complaint.

Perez asked officers to allow him to wait for his wife to arrive to retrieve his vehicle, but they refused, which led him to “abruptly” close the window and hit the gas, the complaint claimed.

One of the officers was struck on his torso by the side mirror as the man fled, the complaint also claimed.

Perez allegedly led them on a car chase for about eight minutes before he was shot by an officer who was not wearing a body camera, the complaint continued. The other officer who was wearing a body camera caught up to the scene only after the shooting occurred.

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an attorney for Perez, previously said that he was seeking asylum and had a valid work permit. She added that he was ordered to be deported because a notice to appear in immigration court had been sent to his previous address and he missed the hearing.

The DHS responded that his work permit had expired in 2025 and added that a work permit did not confer any legal status on immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security had previously described Perez as an “illegal alien from Venezuela, who illegally entered our country under the Biden administration and had a final order of removal.”

In court on Tuesday, Lincoln-Goldfinch claimed that Perez remains in “extremely bad medical condition” after the gunshot wound and has been asking for surgery to remove the bullet, the AP reported.

Lincoln-Goldfinch did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News about the allegations in the complaint.

RELATED: DHS Sec. Mullin CRUSHES ‘open borders’ Democrat pushing ‘radical’ anti-ICE bill

Perez was charged with one count of assaulting, resisting, and impeding a federal officer. If he’s convicted of the charge, Perez faces up to 20 years in prison.

He alleges that officers crashed into his car and caused it to spin before he was shot in the back. Perez was taken into custody after receiving treatment at a hospital.

The complaint included still-frames from police footage of the incident, but the bodycam footage was not released.

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​Illegal alien, Immigration and customs enforcement, Body camera footage, Immigration, Politics 

James Talarico scored some points with an easy political play: Pick up the phone, “call” Ken Paxton, and publicly challenge him to a debate.

The video quickly went viral, with Talarico urging his Republican opponent to join him on Fox News before Texans head to the polls.

The short clip shows Talarico on the phone, before saying, “Hey Ken, it’s James, I’m calling to invite you to a debate on Fox News. Texans start voting in less than a month, and they deserve to hear from both of us before they do. I’ve accepted four local TV debates, but we haven’t heard from you, and we’re running out of time.”

“So if Fox News is where you’ll be most comfortable, I’ll be there because I think it’s that important. Bret Baier can moderate, we can both take questions, and Texans can hear from us directly,” he continued.

“So give me a call back, man. I look forward to hearing from you,” he added.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray wonders if Talarico’s confidence means he’s the “program director at Fox now.”

“We already cleared it with Bret. He’s got on the schedule,” Jeff Fisher laughs.

Executive producer Keith Malinak points out that at least four local stations have agreed to host the debate, but Paxton hasn’t answered the invite — which he calls “completely unacceptable from the Paxton camp.”

“The guy who’s ahead is the one who is begging for debates,” he adds.

The ad, Malinak and Fisher say, has been “effective.”

“It should be addressed,” Fisher says.

The ad was posted days ago, and there’s still been no response from Paxton.

“They actually didn’t return USA Today when they reached out for comment,” Malinak says.

“Does he want to win?” Gray asks.

“I don’t know,” Malinak answers, adding, “Honestly, I don’t believe he does at this point. The evidence points to no.”

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