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The FDA has lifted a pause on administering vaccines for the chikungunya virus, which is a mosquito-borne illness currently spreading from China.

lxchiq is a single-dose vaccine and was approved for at-risk adults 18 and up in 2023. However, administrations of the shot to adults ages 60 and older were paused earlier this year after reports of 17 side effects following vaccination — including two deaths.

“Now they’ve decided that they’re just going to go ahead and push it forward,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says, disturbed.

Unlike COVID, the virus isn’t transmitted from person to person. However, like COVID, people are now being quarantined in China.

“I’m like, ‘Oh boy, that feels eerily familiar,’” Gonzales says.

Matt Kibbe of “Kibbe on Liberty” couldn’t agree more.

“Even if we expose all the bad actors of that time, we need to understand that that infrastructure is still in place and they’re itching for a new crisis because that’s what they feed on. They feed on the power of that,” Kibbe says.

“The difference, I think, is that there’s plenty of us, and I think a lot of Americans have come along with us early skeptics of this nonsense. We’re not going to buy it the second time, and they’re going to have to really scare the crap out of us if they want us to fall in line again,” he continues.

“You have to wonder how much of this is still the deep-staters,” Gonzales agrees, “who, as you said, Matt Kibbe, as you said, they just want a big fearmongering epidemic so that they can grab more control. They’re still there.”

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Every parent braces for certain awkward but necessary conversations. The “birds and the bees” talk has long been the gold standard — a dreaded rite of passage. You put it off, swallow hard, and finally sit down to answer your kid’s questions without squirming too much. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s also sacred. That talk belongs to parents — not to culture, not to corporations, and certainly not to a marketing executive at Ulta Beauty.

But thanks to Ulta, I had a different conversation recently — one I never saw coming, and definitely not before we’d covered the birds and the bees.

It’s time to remind corporations: You may sell products, but you don’t get to sell souls — especially not our children’s.

I was watching news coverage of Ulta’s latest ad campaign when my preteen daughter walked into the room. She’s just developing an interest in makeup and skin care, so she stopped to watch. Excited interest turned to confusion.

“Daddy,” she asked, “why is that man in a dress?”

That moment was not in my parenting playbook. It didn’t come from a question at church, a talk with her mom, or an overheard comment from an older sibling. It came from a cosmetics company that used to focus on blush and lip gloss but now pushes gender ideology.

What made it worse was her age. My daughter is 10 — right on the edge of girlhood and young womanhood. As I look forward to teaching my sons to shave one day, my wife cherishes the bond of teaching our daughter to apply a little makeup like Mommy: a touch of lip gloss, a dab of blush. It’s about dignity, not performance. Self-care, not spectacle. Those moments have been quiet lessons in self-respect.

Then Ulta barged in with a campaign that turned that rite of passage into a political statement. The timing, the tone, and the topic were no longer mine to decide. That’s the heart of the issue.

The left mocks parents who warn they’re “coming for our kids.” But they’ve already arrived — and they’re bypassing us entirely.

Ulta is just the latest brand to treat womanhood as a marketing gimmick. The company has joined Bud Light, Target, and far too many others in pushing gender ideology not just as an option but as a virtue to be celebrated. Now it’s stunning and brave for a man to dress as a woman to sell eyeliner to our daughters.

For generations, makeup helped women embrace femininity, express beauty, and boost confidence. Ulta didn’t just hijack that tradition — it erased it. The company replaced women with men in costumes, turning the beauty aisle into a battleground for ideological performance art.

Worse, Ulta disrupted the slow, intentional process parents follow to teach their daughters about dignity, modesty, and authentic femininity. Being a woman is not a costume or an act — it’s inherent, worthy, and profoundly meaningful.

In our home, makeup is a subtle tool, not a mask. It’s meant to refine, not transform. I want my daughter to understand that true beauty starts within and that femininity is strong, graceful, and rooted in truth.

This isn’t about hating anyone or debating gender theory. It’s about parental autonomy — our God-given, biologically affirmed, and constitutionally protected right to decide when and how our children learn about adult topics. We expect to teach them about sex, life, and morality — not to have those lessons ambushed by a YouTube ad or a store display.

A decade ago, the hardest talk I expected was the birds and the bees — rooted in reality, biology, and responsibility. Now parents are forced to explain gender identity, cross-dressing, and surgery on minors before we’ve explained where babies come from. We’re no longer the gatekeepers of our children’s innocence — we’re cast as obstacles to their “authenticity.”

This isn’t progress. It’s cultural colonization.

RELATED: ‘Queer Eye’ star celebrates Ulta Beauty collab by making a mockery of women

Blaze News Illustration

And it’s everywhere — school curricula, library displays, streaming specials, toy aisles. Ten years ago, parents couldn’t imagine explaining “preferred pronouns” to a third-grader. Now, if we don’t, someone else will.

The woke mob cleverly rebranded indoctrination as inclusion. They tell us our kids need “exposure,” but they really mean submission. Refuse, and you risk social isolation, bullying, or being labeled a bigot — for believing men are men, women are women, and parents should shape their children’s moral formation.

I didn’t sign up for a cultural hostage situation. I signed up to be a dad — to shield my daughter’s innocence until she’s ready for the truth. These conversations are too important to be rushed by a marketing department chasing diversity quotas.

Ulta didn’t just sell mascara that day. Ulta sold out parents — and sold out women.

But here’s the unexpected part. After the awkwardness passed and the questions came, we talked about how some people struggle with who they are. We talked about a broken world and how people search for answers in the wrong places. We talked about compassion — not compromise. About loving people without lying to them. About truth delivered with grace.

Yes, Ulta forced a conversation I wasn’t ready to have. But it reminded me my daughter is watching — not just what I say, but how I say it. She’s watching me model manhood. She’s watching how I treat people, even those I disagree with. She’s watching how I protect her — and how I pray for the lost.

She deserves better than marketing masquerading as moral authority.

So does your daughter.

It’s time to remind corporations: You may sell products, but you don’t get to sell souls — especially not our children’s.

​Opinion & analysis, Ulta beauty, Ulta transgender, Transgender agenda, Advertising, Parenting, Dads, Children, Daughters, Commercial, Woke culture, Woke companies, Cosmetics, Family, Bud light, Target, Evil, Sex, Femininity, Innocence, Stunning, Brave 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taking a wrecking ball to the status quo in hopes of significantly improving American health.

In addition to holding ultra-processed food giants’ feet to the fire over harmful ingredients, Kennedy has given thousands of bureaucrats the boot; fired all of the Biden administration appointees on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices; called out Big Pharma’s outsized influence in Congress; canceled mRNA development contracts; raised concerns about the harmful effects of popular herbicides; and set his sights on making it more difficult for pharmaceutical giants to push their products directly to patients.

‘Doctors are being paid to vaccinate, not to evaluate. They’re pressured to follow the money, not the science.’

On Friday, Kennedy delivered another crushing blow, announcing both the elimination of a “dangerous Biden-era provision in the [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] inpatient payment rule” and the imminent elimination of doctors’ “hidden incentives” to load American children with vaccines.

“Should doctors make decisions based upon what’s best for their patients? Or based upon what makes them the most money? It’s not a tough question, but we’ve inherited a health care system that constantly pushes doctors toward the latter,” said Kennedy. “It rewards certain treatments, not because they’re better for the patient but because someone profits.”

“Take what happened during COVID,” continued the health secretary. “Hospitals were paid to report staff vaccination rates. Those numbers were fed into the National Healthcare Safety Network, then published on the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] website to shame any hospital that refused to become an enforcer of federal vaccine mandates.”

The policy tied hospital reimbursement under the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program to staff vaccination reporting. Hospitals that failed to meet this program requirement were subject to a one-fourth reduction in their Annual Payment Update under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System.

RELATED: RFK Jr. pulls plug on mRNA jabs because they ‘pose more risks than benefits’

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

HHS under Kennedy has acknowledged that this incentive was “coercive and denied informed consent,” serving as a “tool for public shaming, not public health.”

In addition to removing this measure, the CMS is removing other reporting requirements from the program, including the “Hospital Commitment to Health Equity” measure, a DEI hoop hospitals had to jump through as a result of former President Joe Biden’s executive order “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”

‘Medical decisions should be based upon one thing and one thing only: the well-being of the patient.’

This DEI measure assessed whether hospitals made equity a strategic priority; planned to use resources to achieve equity goals; collected racial data; and had leaders and staff demonstrate “routine and thorough attention to equity.”

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in a statement, “Doctors and other providers should have the same autonomy to choose what’s right for their own individual health care needs as the patients for whom they care. Today’s announcement helps put that power back in their hands.”

Kennedy underscored that “we’re not stopping there.”

RELATED: Pandemic fallout: Study finds parents are increasingly taking a stand on vaccines

SementsovaLesia/Getty Images

“We’re scanning every corner of the health care system for hidden incentives that corrupt medical judgment,” said the health secretary. “What we’re finding is alarming. Doctors are being paid to vaccinate, not to evaluate. They’re pressured to follow the money, not the science.”

Jake Scott, a clinical associate professor of infectious diseases at Stanford University, recently indicated that whereas the childhood vaccine schedule contained around 11 doses protecting against seven diseases in 1986, the schedule now includes roughly 50 injections covering 16 diseases. Between 30 and 32 shots are typically required for kids to attend state schools.

Apparently doctors get a bonus for pushing these jabs on kids.

Kennedy revealed that HHS has discovered that over 36,000 doctors nationwide “had their Medicare reimbursements altered based upon childhood vaccination rates.”

“That’s not medicine. That’s coercion. It’s immoral,” said the health secretary. “It has no place in a constitutional democracy or in a system that claims to protect children. Medical decisions should be made based upon one thing and one thing only: the well-being of the patient — never on a financial bonus or a government mandate.”

HHS indicated that these policy repeals are part of a broader campaign to “restore medical autonomy in federally funded programs and root out financial and regulatory pressures that incentivize physicians towards pre-scripted medical decisions rather than individualized, evidence-based care.”

Blaze News has reached out to HHS for comment about other policy repeals.

— (@)

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​Robert f. kennedy jr, Rfk, Kennedy, Maha, Make america healthy again, Healthy, Health, Vaccines, Jabs, Cms, Politics 

Donald Trump on Monday invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deploying the National Guard to restore law and order. This move is long overdue.

D.C.’s crime problem has been spiraling for years as local authorities and Democratic leadership have abandoned the nation’s capital to the consequences of their own failed policies. The city’s murder rate is about three times higher than that of Islamabad, Pakistan, and 18 times higher than that of communist-led Havana, Cuba.

When DC is in chaos, it sends a message to the world that America is weak.

Theft, assaults, and carjackings have transformed many of its streets into war zones. D.C. saw a 32% increase in homicides from 2022 to 2023, marking the highest number in two decades and surpassing both New York and Los Angeles. Even if crime rates dropped to 2019 levels, that wouldn’t be good enough.

Local leaders have downplayed the crisis, manipulating crime stats to preserve their image. Felony assault, for example, is no longer considered a “violent crime” in their crime stats. Same with carjacking. But the reality on the streets is different. People in D.C. are living in constant fear.

Trump isn’t waiting for the crime rate to improve on its own. He’s taking action.

Broken windows theory in action

Trump’s takeover of D.C. puts the “broken windows theory” into action — the idea that ignoring minor crimes invites bigger ones. When authorities look the other way on turnstile-jumping or graffiti, they signal that lawbreaking carries no real consequence.

Rudy Giuliani used this approach in the 1990s to clean up New York, cracking down on small offenses before they escalated. Trump is doing the same in the capital, drawing a hard line and declaring enough is enough. Letting crime fester in Washington tells the world that the seat of American power tolerates lawlessness.

What Trump is doing for D.C. isn’t just about law enforcement — it’s about national identity. When D.C. is in chaos, it sends a message to the world that America is weak. The capital city represents the soul of the country. If we can’t even keep our own capital safe, how can we expect anyone to take us seriously?

RELATED: Trump to DC: Public safety isn’t optional

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Reversing the decline

Anyone who has visited D.C. regularly over the past several years has witnessed its rapid decline. Homeless people bathe in the fountains outside Union Station. People are tripping out in Dupont Circle. The left’s negligence is a disgrace, enabling drug use and homelessness to explode on our capital’s streets while depriving these individuals of desperately needed care and help.

Restoring law and order to D.C. is not about politics or scoring points. It’s about doing what’s right for the people. It’s about protecting communities, taking the vulnerable off the streets, and sending the message to both law-abiding and law-breaking citizens alike that the rule of law matters.

D.C. should be a lesson to the rest of America. If we want to take our cities back, we need leadership willing to take bold action. Trump is showing how to do it.

Now, it’s time for other cities to step up and follow his lead. We can restore law and order. We can make our cities something to be proud of again.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Glenn beck, Glenn beck trump, Crime, Federal law, Home rule, Washington dc, Homicide, Violent crime, National guard, Police, Murder rate, Islamabad, Havana, Cuba, Statistics, National interest, Broken windows, Rudy giuliani, New york city, Law and order 

There is a quiet moment that precedes a sea change, the moment before a long-held secret becomes common knowledge. In the early 2020s, the most advanced artificial intelligence felt like a private language spoken only within the glass walls of a few corporate citadels. It was a kind of digital Latin, its syntax guarded by a technological priesthood. We, the public, were given translations through polished interfaces, clean API calls that delivered answers like pronouncements from an oracle, their inner workings a mystery. There was power in the control of access.

Now, the walls are being dismantled, not by force but by a deliberate act. The source code of many new AI models, along with the weights that define their functioning, are being posted on the internet for anyone to download. Power once consolidated is being atomized, shifted from the hushed cathedral of proprietary knowledge to the noisy and chaotic bazaar of open access. The central question is no longer what these models can do, but who gets to control them now.

What these open models offer is not just access but agency.

This change did not begin in a vacuum. The impulse is a familiar one in the history of knowledge. It echoes the 17th-century pivot to open science, when the Royal Society championed the sharing of discoveries over the alchemist’s secrecy, arguing that progress accelerates when methods are laid bare for verification and extension. It carries the DNA of the open-source software movement, which proved that a sprawling, decentralized community of volunteers could build something as robust and essential as Linux, an operating system that quietly came to run the world’s servers, eclipsing the proprietary systems of its time. AI may now be approaching a “Linux moment,” the inflection point where open, collaborative development overtakes the closed, top-down model.

Consider the artifacts of this new age. In August 2025, OpenAI, a name once synonymous with the most advanced and secretive models, released two of its own, fully open. One, a 117-billion-parameter model called gpt-oss-120b, was engineered with such efficiency that it could run on a single high-end GPU, hardware one might find in a design studio or a gamer’s bedroom. Suddenly, a lone developer standing at his desk could run sophisticated, near-frontier-level tasks, untethered from the cloud. The oracle could now live at home. The second, a 21-billion parameter model called gpt-oss-20b, could run on a high-end MacBook, easily carried around in one hand. This was a deliberate distribution of power, an acknowledgment that centralized control had already begun to fray.

It was a necessary acknowledgment, because others were already forging ahead. A lean startup called DeepSeek, for a fraction of the cost of its corporate rivals, released a model in May 2025 that could rival the giants on mathematical and coding benchmarks. A university lab, previously priced out of using top-tier AI for its research, could now download a tool that approached the reasoning power of a GPT-4, fine-tune it on its own private data, and scrutinize its every logical step. The model’s “chain of thought,” kept secret in proprietary models, was now just text on a screen, visible for analysis.

RELATED: How AI is silently undermining Christianity from within

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From China, the technology giant Alibaba released its top-tier Qwen3 open-weight models in July 2025. A European hospital, wary of sending sensitive patient data to American servers, could deploy a powerful AI assistant entirely on its own premises, customizing it with local medical jargon. The fact that a Chinese open model could be used by Westerners to declare their independence from American tech companies scrambles the usual narrative of geopolitical competition.

What these open models offer is not just access but agency. To run a model locally is to be able to audit it, to probe its biases, to understand its failure modes. When researchers download an open model and find it produces an undesired behavior, they can often trace the behavior back to the data it was trained on. The model becomes a window into the vast, messy archive of human text it ingested, and we are all invited to look. A closed model is a mirror with a sheet over it: We see only the polished reflection the company wishes to present. The desire for transparency reflects a distrust of black boxes, whether they are dictating credit scores, prison sentences, or the news we read.

Of course, this distribution of power is not without its own anxieties. When a tool is available to everyone, responsibility becomes diffuse, a collective burden. The old defense of the cathedral was safety, the idea that only the priestly class could be trusted with such magic. The argument of the bazaar is that true safety comes from collective scrutiny, from a balance of power where the many can check the ambitions of the few. It is a bet on the self-correcting nature of a community over the presumed benevolence of a corporation.

We are at the beginning of a tectonic shift in our relationship with knowledge and creation. These models, built from the public commons of the internet, are being returned to it. The boundaries between the human creator and the machine collaborator are blurring, as individuals are now free to mold and fine-tune their own private muses, their own specialized assistants. The very meaning of intellectual labor is up for negotiation. The new vernacular of AI is being written, not by a single authority, but by a global, uncoordinated, and ceaseless collaboration. The results will be remarkable, unsettling, and more distinctly our own.

​Tech, Culture 

After building a reputation for cutting federal jobs in Washington, D.C., the Department of Government Efficiency is now tied to an expansion of federal authority.

President Trump announced Monday he would take over Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and deploy the National Guard — an unprecedented move that came less than a week after photos of a shirtless, bloodied 19-year-old former DOGE employee went viral. The president declared August 11 “Liberation Day” and vowed to end violent crime and homeless encampments in the nation’s capital.

Our nation’s capital should project security and order to the nation and the world. It must be made safe again.

Trump’s detractors immediately pointed out that violent crime, including shootings and homicides, has been falling in the district. They’re right — on paper. Violent crime is down 26% this year, according to the city’s own numbers. But those figures are under scrutiny after accusations that officials manipulated the data.

Homicides, which are harder to fudge, are down 12%: 99 killings through August 11 compared to 112 during the same period in 2024.

Numbers alone, however, can’t capture the lived reality. Having spent the last year of my 15-year career in D.C. at the city’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, I spoke with residents desperate for change. One man told me he and his pregnant wife dove to the floor when a bullet smashed through their window. Another woman worked with neighbors to demand more police patrols. Their frustrations highlight the fact that crime isn’t just a local issue but a hyperlocal one.

One activist I met has kept a memorial wall for homicide victims in his apartment since the 1990s. Some of the kids he mentored, he said, cherished the photos and videos because they were the only images they had of their fathers. In D.C., more than 60% of murders happen in just two of the city’s eight wards — far from tourist landmarks and high-end retail stores. Last August, a Democrat council member from one of those neighborhoods called for the National Guard himself after a wave of shootings.

Yet, those communities — overwhelmingly poor and black — rarely drive the political conversation about crime. Conservatives, like progressives, focus on the violence and vagrancy near their offices, homes, and favorite restaurants. That’s not a criticism; it’s human nature.

Everyone wants to feel safe where they live, work, and visit. But people from places where one murder makes front-page news can’t easily grasp how easy it is to grow numb to constant violence and disorder.

RELATED: Legacy media’s bogus defense of DC’s safe-streets narrative crumbles under scrutiny

Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

The left has its own contradictions. Leftists had no problem with the FBI combing through a NASCAR garage when they thought driver Bubba Wallace had been the target of a hate crime. More than 90% of D.C.’s homicide victims are black, yet racial inequality in violent crime barely registers among self-described antiracists.

Likewise, in 2021, commentator Roland Martin demanded a federal crackdown on “white domestic terrorism.” But he didn’t explain how many murder victims in D.C., Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, or Chicago were killed by skinheads or neo-Nazis.

Whether the federal takeover will reduce crime remains to be seen. Conservatives frustrated by the government’s inability to produce the Epstein files might be overestimating how quickly crime can be cleaned up. Real change will require coordination across every level of government.

Still, my hope is simple: that whatever is done in D.C. will make it safer for residents, workers, and visitors alike. Our capital should project security and order to the nation and the world. It must be made safe again.

​Opinion & analysis, Washington dc, Donald trump, Crime rates, Violent crime, National guard, Homicide, Statistics, Department of government efficiency, Doge, Murder, Conservatives, Progressives, Defund the police, Poor, Black, Families, Victims 

Self-proclaimed “Cherokee” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is just one of the latest Democrats to prove their complete descent into socialist la-la land after an embarrassing appearance on CNBC.

“New York does not operate in a vacuum. It competes with other cities. And so, this idea of somehow raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers — who, by the way, I would point out pay roughly 15% of their income right now between city and state, that’s just local — raising taxes on them will simply drive them away,” CNBC host David Faber told Warren.

“Shouldn’t the focus of a mayor be on delivering services to the constituents of the city and doing that by raising the most revenue as possible without chasing businesses and the high-income taxpayers out of the city?” he asked.

“’Cause they can go to Austin, they can go to Dallas, they can go to Atlanta, they can go to Nashville. This is your issue. It’s a national issue, not a local issue,” he added.

“The issue is affordability. Do you know how many working families are chased out of New York City every day because they can’t afford housing? They can’t afford groceries. They can’t afford child care. What Zohran is saying is, ‘I want people to be able to afford to live in New York City,’” Warren responded.

“No one disagrees with that, Senator,” Faber fired back, “but raising taxes in order to do it, why is that the answer?”

Warren then took on a mocking tone, asking Faber if he was worried that “billionaires are going to go hungry.”

BlazeTV host Pat Gray is disturbed by Warren’s performance.

“This is straight-up class warfare. This is straight-up Marxism. Any time anybody brings up facts that are inconvenient for these Marxists and their policies, what do they do? They just disparage billionaires. They mock the question,” Gray says.

“The point is not whether or not billionaires can or cannot afford to pay more taxes. It’s about the fact that they already pay too much. We all do, not just billionaires,” he adds.

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A 17-year-old female barely survived being mauled by a number of dogs while she was out jogging, according to California police.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the brutal mauling of Tracy Hurtado in Newberry Springs, a town in the Mojave Desert.

‘It was not one dog or two dogs; it was a lot. I mean, they bit every part of her body you could think of.’

Hurtado’s mom, Maria Azpeitia, spoke to KABC-TV about what happened to her daughter on July 17 as she jogged to a workout facility near a community center.

“I thought she was going to be fine because she walks to her bus stop every morning, so I never thought anything would happen to her,” Azpeitia said.

A neighbor heard Hurtado’s screams for help and called 911. Azpeitia said her daughter’s injuries were so severe, she was unrecognizable.

“I didn’t know who she was,” she said. “She was so dirty, covered in dirt, so I couldn’t recognize my daughter. I recognized her bra, that’s what I recognized.”

The mother said that when she approached her daughter, the girl asked her, “Mom, am I still pretty?” and she responded, “Yeah, you’re beautiful.”

Carlos Ramirez, the girl’s stepfather, said she needed 500 stitches as a result of all the bites, scratches, and lacerations to her body.

“What was going through my mind was the worst,” Ramirez said to KABC. “It was not one dog or two dogs; it was a lot. I mean, they bit every part of her body you could think of except for her ankles.”

The girl was treated at the Loma Linda Children’s Hospital and released, but she was still unable to walk on her own.

RELATED: Arizona mom nearly mauled to death by pit bull she rescued from homeless person and nurtured to health for 4 years

KABC said residents of the area were fearful of many loose dogs that have been abandoned in the desert.

“We have been in situations where we’re out walking, and all of a sudden dogs rush out from a fence, or out of nowhere, and start circling around us,” resident Kristine Watson said.

Police said they seized 16 dogs at a residence near the attack that were neither fenced nor leashed. They are being housed at the Barstow Humane Society.

A GoFundMe donation page has been set up to help pay for Hurtado’s medical bills. The organizer of the page said the girl was suffering from nightmares and couldn’t sleep at night.

Newberry Springs is an unincorporated community of about 2,900 residents near Barstow.

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​Dog maulings, Tracy hurtado mauling, Mojave desert mauling, Newberry springs mauling, Crime 

Who knew that simply enforcing the law could deter crime? Apparently, everyone but Democrats.

Democrats are furious over President Trump’s decision to federalize law enforcement in Washington, D.C., and deploy the National Guard to restore order. Too bad. From California shoplifting to illegal immigration to crime nationwide, sometimes the obvious answer is the right one: Enforcement works.

Democrats didn’t oppose enforcement out of ignorance. They opposed it because they knew it would work.

In 2014, Democrats convinced Californians that their problems were the result of a broken justice system — one that incarcerated too many people and created “unconstitutional prison overcrowding.”

They sold Proposition 47 as the fix. The measure downgraded “certain low-level offenses, such as drug possession and thefts of property under $950, from potential felonies to misdemeanors.”

Californians bought it, passing Proposition 47 with 60% support. They paid for it dearly over the next decade.

Those “low-level offenses” became high-level problems. Shoplifting surged. Fewer drug prosecutions meant less mandatory recovery treatment, leaving addicts on the street, fueling homelessness.

By 2024, Californians had finally had enough. Proposition 36 was written to undo Proposition 47. Despite Democrat opposition, Proposition 36 passed with 71% support — and overwhelmingly in all 58 counties.

Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom first refused to include enforcement in his budget. It was only partially — and grudgingly — funded by Democrats who had opposed the measure.

Early returns: Enforcement works

Even without full funding, Prop. 36 has worked wonders.

Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said in a recent interview:

We’re seeing a change, and we’re hearing about a change. First, law enforcement across California has been excited about having these new tools to go after the repeat thieves. And we’re hearing directly from the law enforcement officers that they feel emboldened again, empowered. They’re responding to calls that maybe they wouldn’t used to respond to, because now there’s the real potential for accountability. We’re also hearing from the retailers themselves, the big-box stores, the mom-and-pop shops. They’re seeing a difference. They’re seeing a difference in day-to-day theft that used to be out of control prior to Prop 36. Because, you remember, prior to Prop. 36, somebody could come in and steal every day, ten times a day, every day of the week, and, as long as it was under $950, it was a ticket.

Since implementation, Prop. 36 has led to more than 3,000 felony arrests. Eighty percent of those had prior felony convictions, and 25% had convictions for violent felonies.

Same story at the border

Remarkably, the enforcement that worked in California for shoplifting has worked with illegal immigration too.

Customs and Border Protection reported July’s nationwide encounters were the lowest ever: 24,630 — 90% below the monthly average under the Biden administration. Border Patrol apprehensions hit an all-time low of 6,177. The month averaged just 148 apprehensions per day, setting single-day record lows of 88 on the southwest border and 116 nationwide.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s April 29 report for Trump’s first 100 days showed 66,463 illegal aliens arrested and 65,682 removed — including 2,288 gang members, 1,329 accused or convicted sex offenders, and 498 accused or convicted murderers.

Nationwide crime statistics for the first half of 2025 showed similar results. Eleven of 13 major offenses dropped, with only domestic violence up and drug offenses unchanged.

RELATED: Leftist violence surges — and media still blames the right

Photo by BENJAMIN HANSON/Getty Images

Homicides fell 17%, while aggravated assaults declined 10%, gun assaults dropped 21%, sexual assaults were down 10%, robbery was down 20%, and carjackings slid 24%. Residential burglaries dropped 19%, larcenies fell 12%, and shoplifting declined 12%.

For those on the left who say that nationwide crime was not Biden’s fault, the American people disagreed. According to RealClearPolitics’ average of national polling, Biden’s last approval rating on crime was 38% — below his 39% overall approval rating.

Democrats can’t play dumb

Democrats have repeatedly blamed amorphous “systems” for crime. For Prop. 47, it was “too much incarceration.” For the Biden administration’s border crisis, it was America’s “broken immigration system.” Biden even claimed he needed “new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed” — something he could have done from day one.

On the national level, they downplayed rising crime — even as Americans saw it firsthand and the FBI later revised its statistics upward.

Enforcement works. Everyone knows it, including Democrats — and especially the most liberal among them. That’s why they pushed for less of it: Prop. 47, open borders, “defund the police,” and “abolish ICE.” They only began to walk back those positions when the public rejected their manifest failures.

Democrats didn’t oppose enforcement out of ignorance. They opposed it because they knew it would work.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Law enforcement, Law enforcement officers, Law enforcement agencies, Ice, Immigration and customs enforcement, Border crisis, Illegal immigration, Illegal immigration crisis, California, California prop 36, Prop 36, Prop 47, California prop 47, Crime, Polls, Ballot initiative 

Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese has missed the last several games due to lingering back pain. No specifics about her injury or plans to return have been shared with the public.

Jason Whitlock’s conclusion: “She’s quit on the Chicago Sky.”

“She’s been claiming a back injury basically since the All-Star break, and there’s no details. … Every week, there’s no update on what she’s struggling with, what she’s doing — there’s nothing,” he says.

“I think she’s using her back as an excuse to sit out because she doesn’t really care about basketball,” he adds.

“I think she looks over at Caitlin Clark and says, ‘Hey, Caitlin Clark is out with a legitimate injury. I proved my point before the All-Star game when I went on a 10-game run trying to justify being on the All-Star team. … The Chicago Sky sucked this year. Peace out,’” he says.

Jason reveals that he came to this conclusion when he watched the Indiana Fever beat the Chicago Sky 92-70 last Saturday. Not only did Reese not play, she even “declined to travel to Indianapolis,” where the match was hosted.

Chicago Sky Coach Tyler Marsh addressed her absence with some ambiguous drivel about Reese focusing on her rehab and being “day-to-day,” but that failed to quell speculation that her absence has more to do with the Sky’s poor performance than a legitimate injury.

“We’ve never had an explanation on what caused the back injury [or] what’s a time frame for her recovery. … All we’ve heard is ‘day-to-day’ and Angel Reese has disappeared,” says Jason, who assumes that her absence is about preventing “Ls on [her] resume.”

Reese and her groupies, he argues, will likely connect the Sky’s poor record to Reese’s absence, arguing that the team’s losses are “proof of how valuable Angel Reese is.”

But the truth is evident to him: “Angel Reese doesn’t really care about basketball.”

“Angel Reese is 6’3”. What else was she going to do but play a sport? … She has the athleticism to play, but does she really love this game? I don’t think so.”

To hear more of Jason’s commentary, watch the episode above.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Fearless, Fearless with jason whitlock, Jason whitlock, Wnba, Angel reese, Caitlin clark, Chicago sky, Blazetv, Blaze media 

The Texas Democrats who fled the state to avoid a redistricting vote have decided to return, according to multiple sources that spoke to KTRK-TV.

Republicans had threatened to cut off their paychecks and even vacate their seats if they did not return to allow a quorum and proceed with official business. Democrats have been trying to shut down the approval of a redistricting map that some say would give Republicans a five-seat advantage in the U.S. House.

‘Members are still assessing their strategies going forward and are in a private meeting to make decisions about future plans.’

The KTRK report said the fleeing Democrats believe they have accomplished their goals of bringing national awareness to the redistricting effort and stopping a first special session.

After KTRK reported the development, it received a statement from a spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Caucus.

“Members are still assessing their strategies going forward and are in a private meeting to make decisions about future plans currently,” the statement reads.

“If and when Texas House Democrats breaking quorum decide to go home is squarely dependent on the actions the governor, speaker, and Texas Republicans in charge make with regard to prioritizing flood victims over redistricting that hurts Texans,” he added.

Texas Republicans also notched a victory in the state Senate, where Democrats were unable to stop a quorum and the same redistricting map was passed.

RELATED: Paxton shuts down Beto O’Rourke’s ‘deceptive financial influence scheme’ to fund runaway Texas Dems

KTRK did not get a firm date for their planned return but reported that it was loosely planned for the weekend.

The plan also depends on Republican Gov. Greg Abbott opening a second special session on Friday.

“The clock is ticking for this special session. We’ll do whatever it takes to pass critical legislation for Texans, including flood relief and recovery,” he posted on social media. “I will call special session after special session to get it done.”

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​Fleeing democrats, Texas redistricting fight, Redistricting feud, Texas dems cave, Politics 

A seventh Cincinnati mob attack suspect has been arrested — and black leaders want charges brought against a white male who was seen on video slapping the face of a black male just before the July 26 beatdown began.

Gregory Wright, 32, was taken into custody Monday and booked into the Hamilton County jail by 4:30 p.m. on charges of aggravated riot and aggravated robbery, WXIX-TV reported, adding that he pleaded not guilty at his Tuesday arraignment.

‘You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit in the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger, and you don’t slap a black man in the face.’

Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Tyrone Yates set Wright’s bond at $100,000, the station said, adding that he will be on lockdown at home with an electronic monitoring device on his ankle if he bonds out of jail.

A criminal complaint indicates that police said Wright “did by force rip the necklace off the victim while he was being assaulted by four or more co-defendants attempting to cause serious physical harm,” WXIX reported.

Wright then put the necklace in his pocket and took video of “the rest of the events,” the station said, citing a police flyer asking for information about the suspect, now identified as Wright.

RELATED: Mother of Cincinnati mob attack suspect defends ‘honor roll’ son, 34, charged with felonious assault, aggravated riot

WXIX, citing court records, reported that Wright is a convicted heroin trafficker who, for most of his adult life, has been in and out of state prison and Hamilton County’s jail.

More from the station:

Cincinnati police alleged in court filings in late 2013 and early 2014 that he sold heroin to a confidential informant on four occasions, including near the Cincinnati Zoo Academy.

They wrote in one of his many criminal complaints that he ran from officers on Nov. 1, 2013, in the area of Parkwood Avenue in Avondale and threw a plastic baggie holding individual prepared baggies of heroin.

When police caught up with him later that day on Vine Street, he had $662 on him and an additional baggie of heroin in his vehicle, the court filing states.

Several charges against him have been dropped amid plea deals with prosecutors or dismissed altogether at their request, the court filings show.

Those include possession of fentanyl, obstructing official business, trafficking in heroin, and possession of drugs.

WXIX also said Wright has been convicted of possession of drugs, illegally having a gun — he is unable to possess one due to his previous felony conviction — and carrying concealed weapons.

More from the station:

In the 2021 gun case, he was accused of running when police responded to a fight on Crown Point Drive in Sharonville.

Then, he violated the conditions of his probation by failing to report to his probation officer later that year, court records continue.

He failed to comply with his electronic monitoring court order, accumulating multiple curfew violations between Aug. 24, 2021, and June 28, 2022, plus the battery was dead on his ankle bracelet, the probation violation order states.

As Blaze News previously reported, six Cincinnati mob attack suspects were indicted Friday and hit with additional charges — and could get decades behind bars. At the time, the six were the only suspects police had charged in connection with the mob attack, but authorities also noted that more arrests and charges could be forthcoming.

RELATED: All 6 Cincinnati mob attack suspects indicted, hit with more charges — and could get decades behind bars

WLWT-TV said the following five suspects have appeared in court: 39-year-old Jermaine Matthews, 24-year-old Dekyra Vernon, 34-year-old Montianez Merriweather, 25-year-old Aisha Devaughn, and 37-year-old Dominique Kittle. A sixth suspect, 38-year-old Patrick Rosemond, was arrested last Monday in Georgia.

All six suspects were indicted on eight charges each: three counts of felonious assault, three counts of assault, and two counts of aggravated riot, WLWT said, adding that each suspect faces up to 29.5 years in prison if convicted on all eight charges.

You can view cellphone videos of the mob attack here, here, here, here, and here.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati’s black leaders are saying the case’s prosecution so far has been unfair to the black community — and they’re demanding charges against a white male seen on video slapping the face of a black male just prior to the mob attack breaking out.

RELATED: Cincinnati official who said mob attack victims ‘begged’ for beating doubles down; woman punched in face records tearful clip

“What incited and who incited the rioting? If the riot is because of a slap, who incited the rioting?” Rev. Damon Lynch said to a crowd Monday at New Prospect Baptist Church in the Roselawn neighborhood, WXIX reported in a separate story.

After Lynch, who is black, played video of the face slap, he told the crowd, “And [mean]while the only people charged — again I’ll say it — are the ones who look like me,” the station said.

Ohio state Rep. Cecil Thomas (D) of Cincinnati added that “we have been asking why that individual, who slapped the black person, that ignited what has been identified as aggravated rioting, wasn’t under arrest,” WXIX noted.

Senior Pastor Tracie Hunter of Western Hills Brethren in Christ — who’s also an attorney and a former Hamilton County Juvenile Court judge — said the case’s investigation has been unjust, with unequal prosecution between white and black suspects, the station said.

“Six black people have been indicted … but the white individual that appeared to incite the fight or riot and the other white individuals involved have not been charged at all,” Hunter said, according to WXIX.

Hunter added that the white man “clearly intended to commit violence when he slapped the black man and set off the chain of events,” the station reported.

WXIX said it reached out to Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge for comment and is waiting to hear back; in addition, the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment to the station.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval on Tuesday said, “If you slap someone, if you engage in that kind of violence, you should be held accountable. I’m not going to tell the investigators what to do; that’s not my role,” WXIX said in a yet another story.

The mayor added that “until everyone is held accountable, we haven’t served justice,” the station said.

Pureval during an Aug. 1 news conference about the mob attack said the male seen on video issuing the slap prior to the beatdown is being “actively investigated.”

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock — who’s been commenting consistently on the mob beatdown since it all unfolded late last month — on Tuesday blasted Cincinnati’s black leaders for their collective stance.

“If anybody watched this video, if anybody sees men and women kicking a man while he’s down, if anybody sees a picture of a woman beaten, knocked out, and says, ‘Hey, I’m going to organize a press conference at a church in Cincinnati,’ and black leaders are going to complain, ‘Hey, why isn’t this white man that’s getting kicked in the head, why hasn’t he been charged?’ that’s a group of people in need of some humility,” Whitlock said.

RELATED: 8 mainstream news outlets that REFUSED to cover Cincinnati mob attack

– YouTube www.youtube.com

One of the clips Whitlock aired shows Rev. Lynch altering the lyrics of a Jim Croce song for his own purposes as he spoke to the crowd at church: “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit in the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger, and you don’t slap a black man in the face.”

Whitlock responded to Lynch’s words by saying, “Why is he racializing this? It’s disrespectful to slap anyone, regardless of color, in the face. Is he saying … if a black person slaps a black person in the face, it’s OK? If a black gang member shoots a black man in the face, it’s OK? If a black gang member accidentally shoots some young black child, it’s OK? But everybody knows that you don’t slap a black man in the face, I guess, unless you’re black. He’s in a church talking about common street thugs — and I’ll include the white guy in that, because he … seemed to be trying to fight with someone. … [The reverend is] justifying to the people in that audience and other black people in Cincinnati that if you get slapped in the face by a white person, a gang of you all should jump on that man and beat up the woman. This is inside of a church! This is insanity; this is lack of humility.”

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​Politics, Cincinnati, Mob attack, Arrests, Black leaders, Demands, Black leaders want charges against white male, Gregory wright, Aggravated riot charge, Aggravated robbery charge, Repeat offender, Convicted felon, Jason whitlock, Crime 

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro destroyed a reporter during a press conference Tuesday about the president’s takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department in D.C.

Pirro was getting challenged by a journalist who cited crime data showing that the crime rate in D.C. had dropped to its lowest in 30 years. Critics of President Donald Trump’s announcement to take over law enforcement in D.C. have used the stats to argue against the move.

‘You tell the kid who was just beat to hell and back with a severe concussion and a broken nose crime is down!’

Pirro was closing up the briefing when a reporter continued to press her on the issue until she shouted him down.

“You said it’s guns on the street that’s causing this problem,” the reporter said. “Are you concerned that the DOJ’s funding cuts to gun violence prevention programs undermine the —”

“Oh, stop it! We are putting all kinds of resources out to the street!” she interrupted before trying to walk away.

When the reporter continued, she grabbed the microphone again and spoke loudly into it.

“It’s never enough!” she said. “You tell these families crime has dropped! You tell the mother of the intern who was shot going out for McDonald’s near the Washington Convention Center, ‘Oh, crime is down!’ You tell the kid who was just beat to hell and back with a severe concussion and a broken nose crime is down!”

She added: “No, that falls on deaf ears. My ears are deaf to that, and that’s why I fight the fight. Thank you.”

RELATED: History podcaster Dan Carlin angers fans with his response to Trump’s takeover of DC police

Pirro reiterated her point on social media, where she posted images of young victims of D.C. crime.

“Look at these 45 victims, all 19 and under, all killed by gunfire in the last 18 months in DC and tell me that crime is down and we don’t need an emergency focus on crimes of violence,” she wrote.

The president has suggested that he might take over law enforcement in other cities that are suffering from high rates of violent crime.

“You want to have safety in the streets. You want to be able to leave your apartment or your house where you live, and feel safe, and go into a store to buy a newspaper or buy something. And you don’t have that now,” Trump said on Monday.

“It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness,” he added.

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​Jeanine pirro, Pirro on dc crime, Trump takes over dc, Dc crime, Politics 

A new poll found that very few Americans were actually offended by the sultry American Eagle advertisement for jeans that featured buxom actress Sydney Sweeney.

The clothing company published the ad at the end of July and immediately inspired unhinged responses from the fringes of the far-left woke scolds on the TikTok application. Some in the mainstream media amplified their hysterical voices, and many on the right responded with ridicule.

‘This is Nazi s**t, pure Nazi s**t! Saying that a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl has good genes is Nazi s**t!’

According to an Economist/YouGov poll of U.S. adults, only 12% of respondents found the jeans ad offensive, while another 39% said the ad was clever.

A plurality of 40% said they didn’t find the ad clever or offensive, while 8% said they were unsure of their opinion.

Inexplicably, males appeared to be more supportive of the ad than females. 49% of males found the ad clever, while only 31% of women said the same. 17% of women said the ad was offensive, while 7% of people self-reporting as males said the ad was offensive.

Many on the left have argued that the controversy over the jeans ad was mostly manufactured by the right. The mockery even led to a statement from the White House and Vice President JD Vance ridiculing Democrats.

“It actually reveals something pretty interesting about the Dems, though, which is that you have a normal, all-American, beautiful girl doing a normal jeans ad,” said Vance on a podcast. “They’re trying to sell jeans to kids in America, and they have managed to so unhinge themselves over this thing, and it’s like, you guys, did you learn nothing from the November 2024 election?”

RELATED: Sydney Sweeney’s ad for jeans leads to complete liberal meltdown: ‘That’s Nazi propaganda!’

Many of the histrionic replies were by left-wing female TikTok commenters.

“If you haven’t fully comprehended how bad it is, I need you to open your f**king eyeballs and listen. This is Nazi s**t, pure Nazi s**t! Saying that a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl has good genes is Nazi s**t! Saying anybody has good genes is eugenics. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed? Nazi s**t!” said one of the critics on social media.

“This pro-American bulls**t — talking about pure Americans, Americans having good genes — this is Nazi s**t that people, especially Jews, have been warning about for a very long time!” she added.

American Eagle eventually responded to the furor with a dismissive statement.

“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way,” read the statement. “Great jeans look good on everyone.”

The poll was conducted among 1,635 adults in surveys between Aug. 9 and 11.

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​Poll on sydney sweeney, Sweeney jeans ad, Racist jeans ad, White supremacist jeans ad, Politics 

The Minnesota Vikings football team announced the inclusion of two males on its cheerleader squad, and some fans were not terribly thrilled about the decision.

Queerty, a website advocating the gay agenda, called the response “homophobic” and identified the two male cheerleaders as Blaize Shiek and Louie Conn.

‘I wish I never saw this. It’s truly heartbreaking. I cannot associate with this mess.’

Some fans said on social media that they were done with the team, and other commentators criticized the decision.

“As much as I love my Minnesota Vikings, I will not be supporting them any longer after I found out they have a male cheerleader. Im so done with this woke, bulls**t!” one user said.

“I wish I never saw this. It’s truly heartbreaking. I cannot associate with this mess. Come on @Vikings Be Better! Do Better! Stand for Something,” another user replied.

“Minnesota @Vikings put gay male cheerleaders in their squad. I’ll never go to another game. I used to be a season ticket holder with 4 seats on the 35 yard line 12 rows up,” replied one user, who said he stopped going to games during the national anthem kneeling protests.

RELATED: Ex-NFL star rejects league’s ‘wild’ support for Pride Month: ‘Football is none of these things’

Some said they were supportive of the male cheerleaders, but not if they were presented in a “girly” manner.

“I have no problem with this. Male athleticism is freaking impressive!” one user said. “And he’s not in full makeup and a skirt, so good for him! Just keep him ‘guyish’ and don’t make him girly.”

“This is an embarrassment @Vikings. If you want to have male cheerleaders fine, but not in this fashion,” another user said.

“I personally don’t care there’s a dude on the cheer team, but like dudes have a role on a cheer team. Make him a dude. He’s acting as a woman. And it’s degrading to everyone involved,” another detractor replied.

The Vikings will begin their regular season on Sept. 8 against the Chicago Bears. Queerty pointed out that 11 other NFL teams will include male cheerleaders this season.

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​Minnesota vikings, Male cheerleaders, Woke nfl, Gender bias nfl, Politics 

Aimee Betro — a 45-year-old from West Allis, Wisconsin — in September 2018 met a 31-year-old British man who used the name “Dr. Ice” on a dating app, according to the Daily Mail.

Betro traveled to London on Christmas Day 2018, where she met that man — Mohammed Nazir — and reportedly spent a night with him. While Betro left the U.K. and returned to the United States, the pair continued to communicate.

‘Where are you hiding? Stop playing hide and seek, you are lucky it jammed.’

Betro returned to Great Britain in August 2019, according to reports.

During a trial that ended Tuesday, a defense lawyer asked Betro what she thought of Nazir, and she responded, “He was very charming, and I did like him. He was sweet, and I did have feelings for him.”

Nazir reportedly was able to convince the American woman to do his “bidding.”

BBC News reported that Nazir and his 59-year-old father, Mohammed Aslam, had a dispute with Birmingham businessman Aslat Mahumad.

The British outlet reported that the father and son were injured during a physical confrontation with Mahumad at his clothing store in July 2018.

Nazir and Aslam reportedly hatched a scheme against Mahumad and planned to use Betro in their plot.

RELATED: Arrested wife of ‘Ghost Adventures’ TV star accused of hiring hit man to kill him: ‘Was it done?’

The Daily Mail reported that Betro called Mahumad on Sept. 7, 2019, and said she wanted to purchase a car he was selling online.

Prosecutor Tom Walkling told the court, “Mr. Mahumad recalls being called by a woman with an American accent. … He was confused, as he hadn’t listed his number online. The woman said she wanted to buy the car today, but Mr. Mahumad said she could see it tomorrow.”

Betro’s alleged plot to lure Mahumad to her failed, so she reportedly purchased a Mercedes E240 from another seller.

Walkling said the man who sold the car to Betro indicated that he “sold it to someone he described, perhaps unkindly, as a short, fat woman who spoke with an American accent, wore a summer dress, and had a bag over her shoulder.”

Police say Betro drove to Mahumad’s family home on the night of Sept. 7, 2019, in her newly purchased Mercedes.

While Betro reportedly was lying in wait with a gun, Mahumad’s 33-year-old son Sikander Ali returned home around 9:10 p.m.

Jurors at the Birmingham Crown Court were shown surveillance video of a figure with a covered face approaching Ali and attempting to fire at him at point-blank range. However, police said the gun jammed, and Ali escaped by speeding away in his SUV.

‘I think she was fatally flawed.’

While Ali was fleeing, his vehicle allegedly clipped the Mercedes and damaged the car’s door so severely that it wouldn’t close.

Investigators said Betro ditched the Mercedes, but left a black glove — which had her DNA on it — in the vehicle.

Jurors were shown screenshots of text messages Betro purportedly sent to Mahumad after the attempted killing, and she allegedly told her intended target, “Where are you hiding? Stop playing hide and seek, you are lucky it jammed.”

Betro took a taxi to return to the Mahumad’s home just hours after the first alleged assassination attempt, police stated. CCTV showed a figure firing three shots through the windows of the home in the early hours of Sept. 8, 2019. However, there was no one home at the time.

Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Orencas claimed Betro used a niqab in an attempt to hide her face, but it “didn’t work very well.”

“It was a fairly poor attempt [at disguise], and again, whether or not the attitude was that the British police wouldn’t be up to it, I think she was fatally flawed, if that was ever the consideration in her mind,” Orencas explained.

Orencas claimed Betro’s motivation for the attempted murder was because she was “in love or infatuated with Nazir.”

The Daily Mail reported that Betro flew to the U.S. the day after the shooting, and Nazir did the same three days later.

While on the lam for nearly six years, Betro reportedly fled the U.S. and traveled to Armenia — but was soon tracked down by an unlikely source.

The Daily Mail said it found Betro in Armenia and informed the West Midlands Police about her location on June 15, 2024. The Daily Mail agreed to withhold publishing the news until she was arrested.

“I would like to put it on formal record and thank the Daily Mail for the information that they kindly shared with us,” Orencas stated before adding that “there were parallel inquiries going on, but without a doubt, the Daily Mail were of great assistance.”

Armenian authorities detained Betro and extradited her to the U.K. to face trial.

On Tuesday, jurors convicted Betro of conspiracy to murder, possessing a self-loading pistol with intent to cause fear of violence, and illegally importing ammunition.

RELATED: Multimillionaire hired numerous hitmen in murder-for-hire plots against wife — then killed himself as cops closed in: FBI

Betro is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.

According to GB News, Specialist Prosecutor Hannah Sidaway stated, “This prosecution is a culmination of years of hard work doggedly pursuing Aimee Betro across countries and borders while she remained relentless in her bid to escape justice. Betro tried to kill a man in a Birmingham street at point-blank range. It is sheer luck that he managed to get away unscathed.”

Meanwhile, Nazir and Aslam were arrested last year and convicted of conspiracy to murder.

Nazir was sentenced to 32 years in prison, and Aslam was sentenced to 10 years behind bars.

Walkling insisted that “revenge was the motive” for the assassination attempt, BBC News said in a separate story.

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​Manhunt, Murder plot, Assassination attempt, Assasin, Assassination plot, Assassination scheme, Murder scheme, True crime, Crime, Uk, Us, Wisconsin, Love interest 

On July 24, former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis formally petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which legalizes same-sex marriage, marking the first significant challenge to the ruling since its inception. Davis, who was jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples due to her religious beliefs, is appealing a $360,000 judgment against her for emotional damages and attorney fees, arguing that her First Amendment rights protect her from liability and that Obergefell was wrongly decided.

“Just like abortion, the left tries to tell us that [same-sex marriage] is untouchable, that this cannot be overturned. I’m not so sure that they’re correct about that,” says Liz Wheeler, BlazeTV host of “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

She reads a line from Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrent opinion published following the overturning of Roe v. Wade: “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”

“‘Substantive due process,’” says Liz, “is this legal philosophy held by leftist jurists that reads rights into the Constitution where they are not enumerated.”

“It’s just a way of judicial activists – ideologues who are on the bench – to invent meaning to the Constitution where the Constitution had no such meaning.”

Like abortion, which is “guaranteed nowhere to anyone in the Constitution,” same-sex marriage is yet another example of substantive due process.

“Even if you’re pro-gay marriage, even if you are libertarian and you don’t think we should be telling other people what to do, if you read the Constitution of the United States, start to finish … is gay marriage ever referred to?” asks Liz. “No, it’s never referred to.”

“You cannot contest the reality that the Constitution of the United States contains no such reference to gay marriage directly or indirectly.”

“Even if you think that the legislature of the United States should make gay marriage legal, which you’re obviously wrong on that for multiple different reasons, that’s different than the Supreme Court pretending there is a Constitutional right to gay marriage in the Constitution when there’s not,” Liz explains.

If SCOTUS agrees to take Davis’ case, there’s a chance — albeit a “low” one, says Liz — that the Court might re-evaluate Obergefell and reverse its original decision.

“It’s probably not going to be heard by the Supreme Court,” she says, but “it should be because Kim Davis had her religious freedom … violated by the government, and she’s one of the only Americans right now that has standing to challenge Obergefell because she was hurt by it.”

However, even if Obergefell is overturned, it’s unlikely to change much in terms of who can legally get married, Liz explains. “The United States Congress has passed a piece of legislation codifying gay marriage to a certain extent. It requires any state that doesn’t allow same-sex marriage to recognize … any valid marriage from any other state. So it kind of effectively nationally forces gay marriage in all the states,” she says.

And yet, she hopes Obergefell is reversed anyway because what it will really be reversing is the idea that the government has the right to redefine a word.

“Marriage means the union between one man and one woman, and they said, ‘No, no, we’re going to redefine that. It now means the union between any two consenting adults regardless of their sex.’ When government has the power to redefine a word, they can redefine any word,” says Liz. “And if they can redefine words, if they are the arbiters of truth, then they’re tyrants.”

To hear more of her commentary, watch the episode above.

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Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry is well known for her skills in front of the camera, but according to her ex-husband David Justice, she isn’t known for her skills in the kitchen.

The former MLB star, 59, met Berry in May 1992 before marrying her less than a year later in January 1993. The pair divorced in 1997.

“I was young and had only been in, honestly, one real relationship before her. My knowledge and my understanding, my wisdom around relationships, just wasn’t vast. So I’m looking at my mom, and I’m a Midwest guy. So in my mind I’m thinking a wife at that time should cook, clean, you know,” Justice said on the “All the Smoke” podcast.

“Then I’m thinking, ‘Okay, if we have kids, is this the woman I want to have kids with and build a family with?’ And at that time, as a young guy, she don’t cook, don’t clean, don’t really seem, like, motherly,” he added.

While social media has erupted in anger at Justice for his “misogynistic comments,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock and BlazeTV contributors Shemeka Michelle and Delano Squires don’t believe Justice was wrong.

“There’s a lot of people who dismiss and diminish the role that a woman plays as a wife and a mother. And clearly David Justice believed that Halle Berry’s contribution to his home, as his wife and the mother of his children, was more important than her contribution to society as an actress,” Squires says.

Whitlock believes it appeared that their relationship was all about “looks” and “sexual attraction” at first.

“And then you actually get into the marriage,” Whitlock says, “like David Justice did and goes, ‘Hold on.’ This culture tells him, ‘What do you mean? It’s a rich, beautiful, powerful woman!’ And it doesn’t dawn on you until after you’ve made a mistake, after you’ve entered into a relationship, that this actually isn’t what I want.”

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A Ventura, California, mini-golf venue was at the center of a tragic accident last week that had a woman’s family members rushing to provide emergency medical services.

Golf N’ Stuff in Ventura boasts a massive miniature golf course with a castle, palace, and a bevy of palm trees decorating the property. Those palm trees proved to be a horrific feature for the Magana family, who were there to celebrate their 13-year-old son Damien’s birthday.

‘After that, we went straight into stopping the bleeding.’

While father Amando, son Damien, and older son Junior were golfing, the celebration turned disastrous when they heard the sound of a branch breaking.

Just after 5:30 p.m., 53-year-old Adela Magana was sitting on a bench watching her family play when one of the palm trees at the venue fell on top of her.

“I was going to go look for the ball, and by that time, I heard a screeching sound — like a branch breaking,” Junior said, according to the Ventura County Star. “I thought nothing of it, but then I heard a big old thump, and people were running toward my mom.”

Junior, his father, and two other strangers reportedly lifted the approximately 40-foot tree off the woman while staff comforted the child.

“After that, we went straight into stopping the bleeding,” Junior continued.

The young adult said the team of people attending to his mother used a belt as a tourniquet while others called 911.

Ventura City Fire responded within about 20 minutes and transported her to Ventura County Medical Center, but the damage was sadly already done.

RELATED: Nike ditches wokeness in family-friendly golf ad: ‘More of this, please!’

Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Surgeons reportedly attempted to save the limb, but Adela Magana’s arm was so badly injured that the nerves and blood vessels were unsalvageable. The next day, doctors amputated the arm just below the shoulder.

A Golf N’ Stuff manager declined to comment on the incident to the local outlet but did remark that the mini-golf course was open.

Magana’s son Junior attempted to explain the family’s birthday plans, which never concluded due to the tragedy.

“We were trying to make his birthday a little bit better because it was mid-week, and we didn’t know what to do,” he said. “We thought of something fast: Play mini golf and then go have dinner afterward. But we never got to dinner.”

Daughter Nancy, who was seemingly not at the golf course, commented on the affect the accident had on Damien, “It’s a lot to take in as a 13-year-old to witness that. It’s always going to be there for him.”

RELATED: Which way, America: Scottie Scheffler or the WNBA?

Photo by Paul Lakatos/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Adela will require more surgery, learn how to use a prosthetic, and go through rehabilitation.

“She’s a very strong woman — even at this point. … She’s not able to talk, but she’s able to nod her head. She has a long journey ahead of her,” Nancy said of her mother.

Adela has four children and one grandchild, and reportedly manufactures bolts for the auto-racing industry.

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The overwrought mainstream media reactions from the Washington, D.C., to New York City corridor are in full swing in response to President Donald Trump deploying the D.C. National Guard to help address the city’s crime.

Trump made the announcement on Monday, also stating he will be temporarily putting the D.C. Metropolitan Police under federal control. The National Guardsmen are expected to be used as force protection for the federal agents who have likewise been surged to the capital.

‘Let’s hope this federal intervention leads to real change to the laws in DC that allow this to happen year after year.’

While the city’s crime rate has seen a decrease from historic highs in 2023, it has not gone back down to the same rates it had pre-2020. Reports also indicate that the apparent drop in D.C. crime rates may be based on bogus data.

Even though some in the mainstream media who are based in D.C. have acknowledged the crime problem, others took a different approach.

RELATED: MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough says DC liberals secretly support Trump’s takeover

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough says DC liberals secretly support Trump’s takeover. Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Global Citizen

“When I go to D.C., I’m not afraid of losing my wallet so much as I’m afraid of losing my vote. I’m not afraid of losing my wallet so much as I’m afraid that my children’s freedom to breathe will be stolen in a world where climate change policy is nonexistent. I’m afraid that the future of middle class people will be stolen,” progressive writer Anand Giridharadas told MSNBC.

“No, no, you gotta worry about two things at the same time,” host Joe Scarborough interjected.

— (@)

Symone Sanders, who was a top adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris, said on MSNBC that extra police does not mean she will be safer because she is a black woman.

“I’m a black woman in America. I do not always think that more police make streets safer. When you walk down the streets of Georgetown, you don’t see a police officer on every corner, but you don’t feel unsafe,” Sanders opined.

Sanders also wonders why when the debate is over public safety in the city’s black neighborhoods, the answer is more police: “I think we have to rethink what safety means in America.”

— (@)

On Tuesday, the D.C. Metro Police Union announced a shooting that took place in the city Monday evening that resulted in a death, marking the 100th homicide so far this year.

“Let’s hope this federal intervention leads to real change to the laws in D.C. that allow this to happen year after year,” the union said.

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