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President Donald Trump has sent Hamas a final warning just days after finalizing his historic peace deal in the Middle East.

Trump brokered and finalized his landmark peace deal between Israel and Hamas on October 13, over two years after the brutal conflict was ignited by the October 7 terrorist attack. Since the signing, skirmishes have broken out in Gaza, with Israel briefly resuming strikes and pausing aid in the region, killing dozens of Palestinians.

‘They have to be good, and if they’re not good, they will be eradicated.’

Israel justified the strikes by claiming two IDF soldiers were killed by Hamas militants. At the same time, other reports claimed the United States had intelligence that an Israeli bulldozer mistakenly ran over undetonated ordnance, prompting pressure from the White House to halt the strikes and continue providing aid to the region.

In the aftermath of the violent flare-ups that took place over the weekend, Trump cautioned Hamas that our allies in the region remain ready to eradicate the group.

RELATED: Trump has unequivocal response to whether US troops will help ‘eradicate’ Hamas if group continues to ‘behave’ badly

“Numerous of our NOW GREAT ALLIES in the Middle East, and areas surrounding the Middle East, have explicitly and strongly, with great enthusiasm, informed me that they would welcome the opportunity, at my request, to go into GAZA with a heavy force and ‘straighten out Hamas’ if Hamas continues to act badly, in violation of their agreement with us,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday.

“The love and spirit for the Middle East has not been seen like this in a thousand years!” Trump added. “It is a beautiful thing to behold! I told these countries, and Israel, ‘NOT YET!’ There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right. If they do not, an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL!”

Trump’s repeated calls to eradicate Hamas have raised questions about the extent of America’s involvement in the conflict. Last week, Trump said, “We will have no choice but to go in and kill [Hamas],” if Hamas didn’t adhere to the term of the ceasefire. After violence broke out over the weekend, Blaze News asked Trump to clarify who “we” is.

RELATED: ‘Who the hell cares?’ Trump veers off script, urges Israeli president to pardon Netanyahu

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

“When you say, ‘We are going to eradicate Hamas,’ who is ‘we’?” Blaze News asked. “Does that include American boots on the ground?”

“No. It won’t be on the ground at all,” Trump replied from the Cabinet Room Monday.

Trump told Blaze News that allies in the region would voluntarily “eradicate” Hamas so long as the United States signed off on it.

“I mean, we’ve had countries calling me when they saw some of the killing with Hamas, saying, ‘We’d love to go in and take care of the situation ourselves,'” Trump said. “In addition you have Israel would go in in two minutes if I asked them to go in. I could tell them, ‘Go in and take care of it.’ But right now we haven’t said that. We’re gonna give it a little chance, and hopefully there will be a little less violence, but right now, you know, they’re violent people. Hamas has been very violent.”

“They have to be good, and if they’re not good, they will be eradicated,” he added.

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​October 7, Israel, Hamas, Palestine, Gaza, Rafah, Donald trump, Trump administration, Peace deal, Trump peace deal, Peace president, Middle east, Middle east peace deal, Benjamin netanyahu, Politics 

Edward Coristine, the young engineer known as “Big Balls” who previously worked for the Department of Government Efficiency, was beaten to a pulp by a group of 10 young suspects during an attempted carjacking on Aug. 3 in the national capital.

One week after a Biden-nominated judge cut two of the attackers loose and spared them from jail time, the Trump Justice Department announced charges against another pair of suspects.

Background

After the attack, during which Coristine stood his ground and defended his girlfriend, police apprehended two suspects at the scene — a 15-year-old male and a 15-year-old female of Hyattsville, Maryland — and charged both with unarmed carjacking.

‘We’re not going to be happy until we get every person who was involved.’

While the attack was so savage as to prompt President Donald Trump to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department and deploy the National Guard, Kendra Briggs, a Biden-nominated associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, treated two of the attackers with kid gloves.

First, Briggs decided it wasn’t worth keeping the thugs in custody, telling one of Coristine’s attackers, “I don’t want to put hardship on your family.”

After instructing both thugs to refrain from possessing weapons or entering into other people’s vehicles unless they have permission from the owners, Briggs directed the male attacker to hang out at his mother’s home and the female attacker to move from the secure Youth Services Center to a youth shelter house.

RELATED: The city that chose crime and chaos over courage

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Obliging the request by prosecutors last week, Briggs decided ultimately not to incarcerate the two attackers.

The male attacker, who pleaded guilty to four counts related to a robbery and the separate beating of Coristine, received one year of probation. The female attacker, who pleaded guilty to a count of simple assault for pepper-spraying someone during the robbery, was sentenced to nine months of probation.

Briggs emphasized that the goal of juvenile court was “rehabilitation, not punishment.”

“To this day, they’ve only caught two out of the ten. Eight of them remain on the street. That night could’ve gone far differently. Think of your daughters and mothers. The same group attacked people before and after us, breaking ribs and stomping heads,” Coristine noted last week. “This senseless crime must be stopped.”

Another two

The Trump DOJ revealed on Monday that it was charging two more teens in connection with the attack on Coristine and the corresponding attempted carjacking.

Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, indicated that Laurence Cotton-Powell, 19, and Anthony Taylor, 18, face charges including assault with intent to commit robbery and robbery — not only in connection with the attack on Coristine but in connection with a separate attack on another individual just minutes earlier at a nearby gas station.

Whereas Taylor, a teen from Maryland, has no known criminal history, Cotton-Powell is apparently a seasoned thug who has benefited from bleeding hearts in the judiciary.

Pirro claimed that despite committing crimes while on probation for a previous felony conviction, Cotton-Powell was nevertheless free to attack Coristine and Ethan Levine, the second victim who was stomped ruthlessly by a mob of thugs, because of the leniency of the D.C. Superior Court.

“On April 3 of this year, Laurence Cotton-Powell was sentenced for a felony attempted robbery. My office asked for jail time. Judge [Carmen] McLean, a judge sitting in the criminal part in Superior Court with no criminal background, made a decision to give Cotton-Powell probation in spite of his conviction on a felony attempted robbery,” said Pirro. “Within 31 days, by May 4, Powell reoffends. He’s re-arrested while he’s on probation from the felony, and he’s charged with simple assault and possession of a prohibited weapon B.”

Pirro indicated that the court subsequently refused her office’s request to revoke the thug’s bail and released Cotton-Powell. Although Cotton-Powell was later sentenced, “on July 25, another judge suspends his sentence and decides that he should be on probation,” said the attorney.

“So after a felony of attempted robbery conviction, after a violation of probation, after a second crime, after a second conviction, after no compliance with [the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency], the judges say, ‘Do better,’ and they let him go,” said Pirro. “And guess what? Within 10 days, he’s at it again with Ethan Levine and Edward Coristine.”

Pirro credited the Metropolitan Police Department with going above and and beyond to track down suspects Taylor and Cotton-Powell.

MPD Chief Pamela Smith said, “These arrests send a very strong message to our community: If you commit violent acts in our community, you will be found, you will be held accountable, and you will face justice.”

“We’re not going to be happy until we get every person who was involved in the assault on these two individuals,” said Pirro.

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​Jeanine pirro, Department of justice, Justice department, Doj, Crime, Thug, Violence, Edward coristine, Big balls, Judge, Judges, Dc, Politics 

The leftist who was elected president of the Oxford Union in June was among the radicals who rushed to celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Like others before him, George Abaraonye has learned the hard way that there are consequences for such depravity.

How it started

Abaraonye wrote in a now-deleted Instagram post, the authenticity of which he confirmed to the Oxford student newspaper Cherwell, “Charlie Kirk got shot loool.”

‘Where is the belief in free speech, the tolerance for opinions, the empathy?’

While Abaraonye treated Kirk’s murder as a laugh-worthy matter, Kirk treated Abaraonye courteously when they debated just months earlier at the Oxford Union.

Abaraonye, a philosophy and politics student who has served also as a “racial and ethnic minorities rep” for the university’s junior common room, later suggested to Cherwell that he had made the remark in a “moment of shock”; however, he reportedly made similarly depraved remarks in a WhatsApp group chat with other students.

Abaraonye wrote, for instance, “Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f****** go,” reported the Telegraph.

The Oxford Union president-elect’s apparent delight at seeing a political assassination on a university campus prompted outrage on both sides of the Atlantic.

RELATED: ‘No longer welcome’: State Dept. revokes visas of foreigners who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death

JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images

Speakers who were scheduled to join the Oxford Union for debate began canceling, including Liora Rez, executive director of the U.S.-based watchdog group Stop Antisemitism, and Josh Wolfe, co-founder of Lux Capital.

Stop Antisemitism noted to the Oxford Union that “employees will not be engaging with your debate society due to safety concerns and your President elect’s pro violent stance.”

Wolfe noted that he would not attend “until cultural leadership from the top celebrates peace + coexistence + civil discourse + denounces violence.”

Among those who wondered aloud about what had happened to the Oxford Union was Claire Coutinho, a Conservative member of Parliament, who stated, “The Oxford Union is meant to be one of the best student debating chambers in the world. Where is the belief in free speech, the tolerance for opinions, the empathy?”

The Oxford Union finally piped up with a condemnation, expressing sympathy for Kirk’s family and stressing that Abaraonye’s views “do not represent the Oxford Union’s current leadership or committee’s view.”

Abaraonye decided ultimately to paint himself as the victim, suggesting in a statement to Cherwell published September 11 that his heinous remarks were “shaped by the context of Mr. Kirk’s own rhetoric” and that he is now the target of “racist comments and a myriad of threats.”

How it’s going

Several weeks after Valerie Amos, the radical Labour Party politician who serves as master of University College, Oxford, defended Abaraonye and announced that no disciplinary action will be taken against him, the Oxford Union scheduled a vote of no confidence in the president-elect.

The in-person poll took place on Saturday, and the results were published on Monday.

Of the 1,746 ballots ultimately cast, 1,228 members voted to oust Abaraonye; 501 members voted to keep the radical; and 17 members spoiled their ballots. Having passed the required two-thirds threshold of 1,164, the majority spared the Oxford Union from having the radical as their leader.

Abaraonye — who previously suggested that a vote against him was a victory for hate — cried foul after his visitation by consequence, releasing a statement characterizing the vote as “compromised” and the result as invalid.

The statement says the radical “is proud and thankful to have the support of well in excess of a majority of students at Oxford, who voted to have a safe election and resist attempts to subvert democracy.”

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​George abaraonye, Oxford union, Oxford, Student, School, Education, Celebration, Radicalism, Radical, Leftist, Leftism, Liberal, England, Britain, Charlie kirk, Turning point usa, Politics 

A man stole a car from a gas station in Cocoa, Florida, last Tuesday with a 1-year-old child in the back seat — and then seconds later returned the vehicle and apologized to the mother, police said.

William Mullis, 53, is seen on surveillance video outside a Sunoco station off U.S. Highway 1 walking toward the victim’s car, WESH-TV reported, citing an arrest affidavit.

‘In this case, she’s very lucky that this guy saw there was a child in the back seat, got a case of remorse, and decided to drive back and give her her car back with her child in it.’

Mullis drove toward the gas station exit, made a right turn on Highway 1 — but seconds later backed up, re-entered the gas station area, and parked in a space in front of the gas station store, WESH said.

The mother of the 1-year-old child ran out of the gas station store and confronted Mullis, WESH said, adding that the mother told investigators Mullis said he wouldn’t have stolen the car had he known a baby was inside.

Mullis then apologized to her and left the area on foot, the station said.

“I’m sure this is a parent’s worst nightmare,” Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Tod Goodyear told WESH. “In this case, she’s very lucky that this guy saw there was a child in the back seat, got a case of remorse, and decided to drive back and give her her car back with her child in it.”

More from WESH:

Under Florida law, it is illegal for a parent or anyone responsible for a child younger than 6 unattended in a vehicle for more than 15 minutes. The vehicle can’t be running, and the child may not be left alone if their health is in danger or they are in distress.

Goodyear said it appears the child was inside the car for only a few minutes. The mother is not facing any charges at this time.

“I have three kids. I have four grandkids, and it’s a pain to take the kids out of the car when you’re going in for just a short period of time,” Goodyear added to WESH. “But this kind of reinforces you never know what’s gonna happen. You never know who’s watching you.”

Mullis was arrested and booked into the Brevard County Jail for grand theft of a motor vehicle and kidnapping/confinement of a child under 13 years old, WOFL-TV reported, citing jail records and the arrest affidavit.

Jail records indicated Mullis was still behind bars Tuesday morning. WESH said he’s being held without bond, and his next court date is in early November.

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​Car theft, Arrest, Baby in car, Returning stolen car, Florida, Brevard county sheriff’s office, Mother, Grand theft auto, Kidnapping, Cocoa, Crime 

The story that modernity tells itself is one of technological progress. We have told this story for so long, with such unwavering conviction, that we have forgotten it has an author. When the Nobel committee awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics to Joel Mokyr, they were not merely recognizing a historian. They were footnoting the author of our prevailing narrative, a 17th-century English statesman who never invented a single device, but who successfully marketed ideas so potent that they would remake the world in their image. The story of our prosperity, Mokyr insists, begins with Francis Bacon.

It begins, more precisely, with a frontispiece. The engraving on Bacon’s 1620 “Novum Organum” depicts a ship sailing past the Pillars of Hercules, venturing out from the known world into an uncharted ocean. The motto beneath, “Many will travel and knowledge will be increased,” was not only a prediction but an exhortation. Before Bacon, knowledge was largely a matter of contemplation and study of classical authorities. He saw these as dead ends. Knowledge, he declared, ought to bear fruit in production. Its purpose was not merely to understand the world but to gain “dominion over creation” for the “relief of man’s estate.” Ipsa scientia potestas est. Knowledge itself is power.

This created the feedback loop that defines modernity: Scientific theory leads to new technology, and new technical problems spur further scientific inquiry.

This was the core of what Mokyr calls the “Baconian program”: a philosophical revolution that reframed humanity’s relationship with nature. Nature was no longer a given order to be accepted, but a set of secrets to be extracted, a force to be subdued. Bacon spoke of putting nature “on the rack” to force her to confess her laws. The goal was utility. The method was to marry the rational and the empirical, to unite the philosopher in his study with the craftsman in his workshop. In “The New Atlantis,” he imagined a research institute called “Salomon’s House,” dedicated to inventing things. He was, in Mokyr’s description, a “cultural entrepreneur,” and the product he was selling was a particular vision of the future.

This product sold remarkably well. From the mid-17th through the 18th century, the Baconian program became the organizing principle of the European intellectual elite. The Royal Society of London, founded in 1660, adopted Bacon as its patron. Its members were not to take anyone’s word for the truth; they were to experiment and measure instead. Across the continent, a network of thinkers in the “Republic of Letters” spread the gospel of useful knowledge through correspondence and journals. The monumental French “Encyclopédie” was a direct descendant, an audacious attempt to catalog and disseminate all practical human knowledge, from mining techniques to political theory. The very idea that sharing knowledge leads to progress became an article of faith. This was the “Industrial Enlightenment,” a culture that not only hoped for improvement but actively engineered it.

RELATED: God made man in His image — will ‘faith tech’ flip the script?

Photo by NurPhoto/Getty Images

The Industrial Revolution, in Mokyr’s telling, was not an accident of capital or coal. It was an intellectual achievement, the consequence of this cultural rewiring. James Watt did not improve the steam engine in a vacuum. He was a product of a new culture, a skilled mechanic familiar with the latest scientific theories on heat and pressure. His separate condenser was not a feat of solitary genius, but a manifestation of Bacon’s call to unite “know-why” with “know-how.” This created the feedback loop that defines modernity: Scientific theory leads to new technology, and new technical problems spur further scientific inquiry. The economic growth that followed was not just an increase; it was a phase change. It became sustained and exponential because of the cultural engine continuously driving it.

America inherited this engine and supercharged it. Benjamin Franklin was the archetypal home-grown Baconian, an inventor and scientist celebrated for his practical ingenuity. The nation’s founding ethos was steeped in the promise of both geographical and scientific frontiers. The 20th century saw the program institutionalized on a massive scale. Vannevar Bush, persuading the government to fund basic research after World War II, called science “the endless frontier,” an echo of Bacon’s ship sailing into the unknown. The Manhattan Project, the moon landing, the invention of the microchip — these were all expensive, elaborate vindications of a 400-year-old premise. The smartphone in your pocket is a Salomon’s House in miniature, a device built on centuries of accumulated knowledge, from quantum mechanics to materials science, all marshaled for the purpose of utility.

And yet one is left to wonder about the price of this story. The Baconian program gave us the power to relieve our estate, but it did so by teaching us to view nature as a resource to be exploited, a standing reserve for our own declared needs. The instrumentalism that gave us vaccines and the internet also gave us a world where we have become alienated from the very ground on which we stand. Bacon’s faith in progress was infectious, but it sidelined other ways of being, other stories that valued contentment over control, harmony over dominion. Mokyr’s great contribution is to show us that the modern economy is not a force of nature, but the result of a choice made long ago. He reminds us that the contemporary world we inhabit was first imagined. We live inside a 17th-century dream.

​Tech, Culture 

Rapper Snoop Dogg has seemingly reversed course after criticizing modern animated movies for their gay messaging.

The hip-hop legend, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, recently criticized the “Toy Story” spin-off movie “Lightyear” after his grandson expressed confusion over a lesbian plotline.

‘This is a program that we’ve been doing for years where we involve kids, and these are things that kids have questions about.’

“Well, my grandson, in the middle of the movie, is like, ‘Papa Snoop, how did she have a baby with a woman? She’s a woman,'” he recalled.

He said he remembered thinking, “Oh s**t, I didn’t come in for this s**t. I just came to watch the goddamn movie.'”

After making the comments on the “It’s Giving” podcast in August, Snoop has since decided to launch a song through his cartoon network to reach out to gay parents and their children.

Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ thang

The YouTube channel Doggyland – Kids Songs & Nursery Rhymes, which has 1.26 million subscribers, posted a song on October 13 titled “Love Is Love.”

Cartoon dogs sing lyrics like, “Our parents are different / No two are the same / But the one thing that’s for certain / Is the love won’t change,” while same-sex (animal) couples are shown on screen. Snoop Dogg also performs a verse in the song.

Comments on the video are turned off. The comments were also turned off for a subsequent podcast on Snoop’s main channel, SnoopDoggTV (10.9 million subscribers), announcing a partnership with gay activist group GLAAD.

RELATED: Snoop Dogg enrages liberals after criticizing LGBTQ scenes in kids’ movies

GLAAD tidings

Snoop spoke with singer Jeremy Beloate, a member of the rap mogul’s record label Death Row Records, whom he discovered on the singing show “The Voice.”

The two began the broadcast with a joint statement, saying, “It’s Spirit Day. Go purple now. October 16. Stop the bullying to support LGBTQ youth. Let’s go, y’all.”

This was the last mention of “LGBTQ” kids, and the word “gay” is not even said during the podcast. Beloate spoke on being bullied for being a singer when he was a child and said he became friends with a gay couple in New York he babysat for. Beloate said the couple kept coming up with excuses to support his budding career, and he really appreciated that despite never being exposed to a gay couple before.

Love-bombing

Although the podcast was tame content-wise, Snoop found time to insert lengthy talking points like, “It’s a beautiful thing that kids can have parents of all walks and be able to be shown love, to be taught what love is, because hate is taught and so is love.”

He continued, “And I think that being able to have parents of all walks of life, whether it’s two fathers, two mothers, whatever it is, love is the key. And I think these kids are being loved by these great parents that are, you know, showing them an example of what family is.”

The rapper also spoke on his “Love Is Love” song, saying that music is a beautiful “bridge to bringing understanding.”

“This is a program that we’ve been doing for years where we involve kids, and these are things that kids have questions about. So now hopefully we can help answer these questions and, you know, help them to live a happy life and understand that love is love,” he explained.

RELATED: Snoop Dogg takes on LGBTQ Hollywood — but he’s ‘the WRONG messenger’

Armed and inclusive

In a statement to Variety, Snoop tried to connect his typical gangster motif to the idea of gay activism.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about love — that’s what we’re teachin’ the kids with ‘Love Is Love.’ Partnering with GLAAD for Spirit Day just felt right, because spreading love and respect for everybody is what real gangstas do,” the rapper claimed.

“We’re showin’ the next generation that kindness is cool, inclusion is powerful, and love always wins,” he added.

Snoop had asked in August why movies had to show gay relationships to children, saying, “It threw me for a loop.”

“I’m like, ‘What part of the movie was this?’ These are kids. We have to show that at this age? They’re going to ask questions! I don’t have the answer.”

Snoop apparently has since come up with the answers.

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​Snoop dogg, Align, Rapper, Lgbtq, Gay activism, Glaad, Cartoon, Animated, Entertainment 

My first year in college, I was super into music. I played guitar and joined a campus band and went to see other bands every chance I got.

But I was too young to go to bars, so I often had to sneak into shows or find other ways to watch and learn from other guitarists. I desperately needed a fake ID.

In Portland, we have the recent phenomenon of people not having license plates on their cars. Shouldn’t everyone have license plates on their cars?

When I returned home that summer, I went to great lengths to get an official Oregon state ID with a birth year on it that would make me 21. Not a cheap fake one. A real ID. I possibly committed a felony in the process.

So for the next two years, I saw a lot of bands and musicians. In my mind, access to live music was definitely worth the risk.

Judgment day

When I think back to this episode in my life, I’m shocked I had the nerve to pull this off. I not only misrepresented myself on official documents, but I straight-up lied to my local DMV!

Sure, it was the 1980s. So it was much harder to check. But still …

I also imagine what would have happened if I’d been caught and ended up in front of a judge. How would I have defended myself?

I would probably have just told the truth: I was in a band. I needed to see other bands. Music was my great love. I wasn’t doing it for the alcohol.

And how would the judge have reacted?

He would have looked at me, a nice kid, in college, not an actual criminal.

He would have been older, my parents’ age, most likely male, most likely white, like me.

He would have probably had kids my age. Maybe a kid who was into music.

And he would have thought about his own life and the time he snuck in somewhere, maybe to an R-rated movie or a local burlesque show.

And if I were respectful and showed remorse, I probably would not have been dealt with too severely. Probation, community service. No real harm. No real foul.

Back to the future

But then I think: What would happen in that same situation now? What if my college student self lied to the DMV in 2025? And got caught?

For starters, the judge could be of either sex. And might be of any race.

If the judge weren’t white, there would be the danger the judge would look at me and think: “white privilege.” Or the judge would have other feelings of resentment, since our media and societal messaging relentlessly emphasize all the unfair advantages white people have.

And being male and aggressively pursuing a dream like “becoming a good guitarist” might annoy a female judge. Men aggressively pursuing things was part of the reason women have been held back throughout history.

Also, such a crime would seem much more serious. Our current society demands constant proof and verification of our identities at all times.

No, in 2025, you would be dealing with state authorities that, at best, didn’t like you and, at worst, considered you a threat.

There would be no “boys will be boys” leniency. This was the GOVERNMENT you were dealing with. Which is not your friend. And is not your family. THE GOVERNMENT doesn’t love you.

Love is love

It sounds weird to say that a government “loves” or “doesn’t love” its citizens.

And yet, when I was 16 and filling out my first 1040 tax form for my after-school gas-station job, I remember the feeling I had for the people I was giving my tax money to. That feeling was a kind of love.

I didn’t mind paying my taxes. I understood the concept. We all give money to the government. And it builds roads and bridges. It employs school teachers, firemen, the police. It tries to take care of the citizens.

In those days, the state taxes in Oregon were so low, it was almost a joke. When I mailed my tax form, I imagined it arriving at some modest building, surrounded by mountains and trees.

I pictured our “state employees” as a small cadre of park ranger types and a handful of nice ladies who worked in the office. That’s how sparsely populated our state was.

If the state of Oregon sent you a letter, it was probably a notice telling you when deer hunting season began.

My taxes also paid for the Coast Guard, which bravely rescued fishermen from sinking boats. And the local sheriff, who, if he busted your high school keg party, didn’t come down on you too hard, because he used to throw keg parties too.

In other words, I didn’t mind paying my taxes because I felt loved by these people. I felt loved by my federal government too. Didn’t it build the national parks and send people to the moon? And make cars safer? And issue cool postage stamps honoring Elvis and the Beatles?

From what I could see, the main concern of all these people was keeping me safe. And making everyone’s life a little better.

In this way, my country loved me. Maybe not in a particular way. But in a general way. Weren’t we one nation, under God, indivisible, and all that?

Weren’t we all in this together?

RELATED: I was a ‘problem student’ — until all-male Catholic school let me be a boy

Alex_Bond/Bettman/Getty Images

The unloved generation

So what do young people think now? Do they believe their country loves them? I kind of doubt it. But I don’t know. I’m not 16 anymore.

One way a country can show love for its people is by being consistent, like enforcing the law the same for everyone, so that everybody feels valued.

In Portland, we have the recent phenomenon of people not having license plates on their cars. Shouldn’t everyone have license plates on their cars?

This is just one small thing. But I see it every day. Cars, driving around, without front or back license plates. Shouldn’t the police stop them and give them a ticket for “lack of license plates”?

But the police don’t do that. City officials have reduced their numbers and limited their authority. This has caused crime to increase. So the police don’t have time to stop people for lack of license plates.

So now, if you get in an accident with someone without license plates, the car can just drive away, and there’s nothing you can do. This makes people feel helpless. And distrustful. And unprotected. And unloved.

Turning Japanese

I visited Tokyo recently. The Japanese are very strange, with their complicated language and unique culture.

But one thing I felt very strongly. Their country loved them. You could feel it in the air.

They had corruption and politics and all the usual human problems. But overall, there was obvious love. You saw it everywhere.

The government gave old people jobs to make them feel useful. It built incredible subways and infrastructure to make workers’ lives easier.

People were quick to come to each other’s aid. They respected each other’s property. They didn’t litter. They didn’t steal. They treated each other with great kindness and consideration.

Their country loved them. And because of that, they felt inspired to love each other.

It’s an odd point to make, I know. But just imagine if your country loved you. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t that be the best feeling in the world?

​Taxes, One nation under god, Lifestyle, Portland oregan, Portland, Government, First person 

Jay Jones, the Democrats’ nominee for Virginia attorney general, has become a general travesty. Disqualified by his own words and actions, he keeps running while Democrats refuse to call him off. Apparently, they still think he deserves the office.

On Aug. 8, 2022, Jones, who had recently resigned from the Virginia House of Delegates after representing Norfolk, texted Republican state delegate Carrie Coyner about tributes to former legislator Joe Johnson Jr. One tribute came from then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert. Jones dismissed Johnson’s centrism and Gilbert’s praise with crude contempt. His texts quickly turned menacing.

Might Jones’ first prosecution be against himself? Doubtful. But how could he prosecute others for the same vile behavior he once celebrated?

Jones called Gilbert “that POS.” He wrote, “If those guys die before me, I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves.” He added that if he could shoot Hitler, Pol Pot, and Gilbert but had only two bullets, Gilbert would get “two bullets to the head” — “every time,” he said.

He accused Gilbert and his wife, Jennifer, of “breeding little fascists” and wished that Gilbert’s children would “die in their mother’s arms.” Coyner urged him to stop. He should have heeded her advice.

Half-hearted apologies

Jones has tried to apologize since his texts surfaced. At the time, he showed no hesitation or doubt about his vile remarks. For more than three years, he expressed no remorse until the prospect of consequences forced his hand — plenty of time to craft an apology and even longer to locate a conscience.

This episode isn’t Jones’ first disqualifying act. Coyner recalled Jones once saying that “if a few [policemen] died, that they would move on, not shooting people, not killing people.”

In January 2022, Jones was convicted of driving 116 mph — 46 mph over the limit. A court fined him $1,500 and ordered 1,000 hours of community service. He spent half of that time working for his own political action committee, Meet Our Moment.

The attorney general serves as Virginia’s top cop and prosecutor. According to the commonwealth’s website:

The Office of the Attorney General provides legal services to the Commonwealth’s agencies, boards, commissions, colleges and universities. They are the Commonwealth’s law firm, defending the interests of Virginians and Virginia government and also work with law enforcement throughout the Commonwealth to prepare for emerging public safety threats and to promote successful, secure communities.

Jones’ record conflicts directly with the job he seeks. Voters might ask how Jones can protect Virginians from crimes he’s committed himself? The statute of limitations on threats is one year for a misdemeanor. But Virginia has no statute of limitations on felonies.

Might his first prosecution be against himself? Doubtful. But how could he prosecute others for the same vile behavior he once celebrated — or those who endanger police officers, as he once suggested was necessary?

Unaccountable stupidity

A state legislator’s role differs sharply from that of the attorney general. A legislator’s foolishness, however damaging, remains limited to the district that elected him and can be tempered by the rest of the General Assembly. The attorney general, by contrast, represents all Virginians — including law enforcement and the entire state government. His mistakes ripple through every level of public service and civic life.

RELATED: Evil unchecked always spreads — and Democrats are proof

Trevor Metcalfe/The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Virginians pay the price

But Jones and his army of Virginia Democrats think otherwise. Their refusal to remove him from the ticket speaks volumes. It shows they believe, just as Jones does, that he’s entitled to be attorney general — a stance as damning as his own text messages.

Jones’ desire to be attorney general and his support from Democrats has outweighed his lack of objective qualifications for the job. Virginians should not have to bear the price of their vile partisan game.

​Opinion & analysis, Virginia, Attorney general, Jay jones texts, Jay jones, Threats, Statute of limitations, Democrats, Republicans, Accountability, Disqualification, Freedom of speech, Crime, Police, Fascists, Children, Todd gilbert, Carrie coyner, Adolf hitler, Pol pot 

In case you weren’t aware, right now a giant interstellar object roughly the size of Manhattan is hurtling through our solar system. Dubbed 3I/ATLAS, scientists speculate that it’s nothing more than a natural comet or rogue planetary fragment. Calculations suggest that it poses no threat to Earth or her citizens and will miss us by millions of miles.

But Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb isn’t ready to dismiss 3I/ATLAS as a harmless astronomical entity. There are too many strange “coincidences” surrounding it.

Loeb’s theory?

Aliens.

On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Loeb told Glenn the four reasons he believes this is no ordinary space object.

The first reason 3I/ATLAS gives Loeb pause is its gargantuan size. 3I/ATLAS is significantly larger than its two predecessors, ‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov — a million times more massive than ‘Oumuamua and a thousand times more massive than Borisov.

“There is not enough rocky material in interstellar space to supply such a giant one once per decade to the inner solar system. We would expect it once per 10,000 years or so,” Loeb says.

The second reason he believes 3I/ATLAS could be a UAP is because according to Hubble Telescope images, the light the object emits is pointing “towards the sun,” as opposed to comets, where light points “away from the sun,” giving them a tail-like appearance.

“It’s just like seeing an animal in your back yard and everyone says, ‘Oh, it must be a street cat because it has a tail,’ but then you look at the photograph of this animal and you see that the tail is coming from its forehead,” Loeb says.

Reason number three is that “the trajectory of [3I/ATLAS] is aligned to within five degrees with the ecliptic plane of the planets around the sun.” In simple terms, it’s moving along the same “highway” as our solar system’s planets — an uncommon trajectory for interstellar objects.

“The chance of that is one in 500,” says Loeb, who says an alien life force would need to take this route if it wanted to do “a reconnaissance mission.”

Lastly, 3I/ATLAS’ arrival time is exceedingly peculiar. It’s passing through our solar system at a unique moment, coming very close to Mars, Venus, and Jupiter — a rarity given that these planets are constantly moving. You’d need perfect timing to line up near all three.

“That’s another coincidence that might indicate fine-tuning,” Loeb tells Glenn.

Although experts attribute 3I/ATLAS’ unusual traits to random chance, Loeb argues that the odds of such coincidences are “one in a million.”

To hear more of his theory, watch the clip above.

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A woman who suffered a medical episode fell unconscious and was killed by four dogs in her home, Florida police said.

The boyfriend of 38-year-old Monica L. Emerson called police to report that he had found her unconscious on the floor of her home on Spruce Street in Daytona Beach on Oct. 10. He said he went to her home after being unable to contact her by phone.

‘Four dogs were observed running freely within the home: one large adult male, mixed breed (the father), and three adult offspring.’

“Upon entering the home, he located her unresponsive on the floor and immediately contacted emergency services,” reads a statement from the Daytona Beach Police Department.

Police responded and found multiple injuries on Emerson’s body that were consistent with an animal attack. They determined that none of the injuries were caused by human involvement or the result of foul play. The injuries included cuts to her eyes, her lips, and her left arm.

“Four dogs were observed running freely within the home: one large adult male, mixed breed (the father), and three adult offspring,” police said.

The woman died at the scene.

A preliminary investigation found that Emerson was fatally attacked by the dogs after losing consciousness. The victim’s boyfriend said she was epileptic and took medicine twice a day.

Police did not indicate who owned the dogs.

RELATED: ‘There’s blood everywhere’: Man brutally mauled to death by his own dogs

Animal Control Services took custody of the dogs, and they were transported to the Volusia County Animal Control Services. The dogs will be held for 10 days before they’re euthanized.

Police said the investigation was active and ongoing.

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At a time when conservatives are calling to divest from the Middle East and confront crises at home, Gaza is the last place America should pour time, treasure, or troops. What national interest do we have in defending a territory run by the most violent Islamists on earth?

Thanks to a coordinated online propaganda campaign — part cyber-jihad, part influencer echo chamber — some on the right have begun parroting communist and Islamist talking points about a “Gaza genocide.” Voices like Tucker Carlson now argue that Israel’s defense partnerships no longer justify U.S. involvement. From an America First perspective, that sounds reasonable: fewer entangling alliances, less foreign aid. But if Israel supposedly offers us nothing, what on earth does Gaza offer?

If we’re serious about an America First foreign policy, we should begin disentangling from the Middle East altogether.

On October 13, the entire communist world — and its pseudo-right allies — got what it wanted. Israel withdrew from Gaza’s populated areas and exchanged 2,000 terrorists for 20 hostages, trusting Hamas to disarm.

Peace in our time, right? More like no Jews, no news.

Hamas immediately reneged, of course, refusing to return most hostage remains and launching a campaign of public executions. The largest slaughter of Muslims in the Arab world wasn’t committed by Jews, but by other Muslims. Remove the Jews, and Gaza doesn’t grow peaceful — it turns on itself. Yet without Jews in the headlines, global media suddenly loses interest in reporting on “genocide.”

Once the internal purges were done, Hamas returned to its favorite target: infidels. On Sunday, terrorists emerged from tunnels in Rafah and attacked Israeli forces, killing two IDF soldiers. Snipers fired on Israeli positions near Jabalia. At the same time, Hamas used Gaza’s hospitals — Al-Shifa, Al-Ahli, Al-Aqsa, and Nasser — as makeshift detention and interrogation centers, confirming what Israel long claimed: Those “civilian” sites serve as terror bases.

Israeli troops now sit exposed, ordered to hold positions but forbidden to act pre-emptively. They’re surrounded by tunnels and terrorists, trapped in another international “ceasefire” that only empowers killers.

Gaza’s terminal disease

The “Free Palestine” lie has collapsed under its own weight. Rebuilding Gaza under Arab control isn’t just naïve — it’s suicidal. No society so steeped in religious violence can sustain peace or self-government. Hamas is not an aberration; it’s a symptom of a deeper rot in Islamic political culture.

So why is President Trump involving America in this mess through the so-called 20-point plan? For a movement that claims to oppose endless wars and foreign aid, the right’s silence on this scheme is baffling. The Pentagon has already confirmed plans to send 200 U.S. soldiers to the Gaza border. If Israel defending itself against Iran supposedly meant “Americans dying for Israel,” what exactly do we call Americans dying to protect Hamas from Israel?

RELATED: Trump receives roaring applause for historic peace deal after all remaining hostages are freed

Photo by Evelyn Hockstein – Pool/Getty Images

The British blueprint

This entire plan was crafted by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair — the same man who recently declared Britain must become “a nation of global citizens.” No wonder it leads to deeper entanglement, not withdrawal. Once again, globalist bureaucrats are trying to pull America into Middle Eastern “peacekeeping,” which always means nation-building with American blood and money.

If we’re serious about an America First foreign policy, we should begin disentangling from the region altogether — starting by weaning Israel off U.S. weapons systems so it can act freely without American political interference. But under no circumstances should we send troops or tax dollars to Gaza. Peacekeeping there isn’t in our interest. In that part of the world, “peace” means paralysis, and paralysis means death.

The wolf and the lamb

President Trump’s desire to see the “wolf dwell with the lamb” is noble, even biblical. But Isaiah’s prophecy won’t be fulfilled through U.N. peacekeepers or Pentagon deployments. It won’t come through Islam, whose theology demands submission, not reconciliation.

Let Gaza be the Arab world’s problem. Let Israel defend itself without our restraint. And let America finally wake up to the rising threat of political Islam — in our own communities, not 6,000 miles away.

​Opinion & analysis, Israel hamas war, Israel, Gaza, Ceasefire, Middle east, Islamism, Terrorism, October 7 terror attack, Hostages, Donald trump, Benjamin netanyahu, Peace, Communists, Jihad, America first, National interest 

New York City is on the cusp of voting in Zohran Mamdani, a young democratic socialist and New York State Assembly member, as its next mayor. As of now, he is the clear front-runner. Recent polls show him leading with about 45% support, far ahead of rivals like independent Andrew Cuomo at 25%.

The promise of “free” everything has blinded many struggling New Yorkers into pledging their support for the Muslim communist, but Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,” warns that this is bound to end in a far bigger disaster than most of us realize.

Last Thursday, Mamdani participated in his first mayoral debate. Not only did he admit his plans to make everything free by taxing the living daylights out of people, but he also let slip his true intentions: Turn New York City into a lawless Muslim city.

Sara plays a clip from the debate, during which Mamdani criticized Cuomo for his lack of mosque attendance.

“It took Andrew Cuomo being beaten by a Muslim candidate in the Democratic primary for him to set foot in a mosque. He had more than 10 years, and he couldn’t name a single mosque at the last debate we had that he visited. And what Muslims want in this city is what every community wants and deserves. They want equality, and they want respect,” Mamdani said.

Sara is disgusted: “I would love to know, how many synagogues have you been to and not planted explosives? How many Christian churches have you been to, buddy?”

Blaze Media digital strategist Logan Hall adds, “If you told someone, one of the first responders after 9/11, that, ‘Hey, you know, 20 years from now, we’re going to be importing hundreds of thousands of Muslims, bringing them directly to this city, and the guy who has a very likely chance to be the next mayor is demanding that other candidates go visit mosques as a qualification for elected office,’ I don’t know … if they would have voted for that.”

On top of prioritizing Muslims, Mamdani contradicted his previous statements about supporting New York City police.

“I am looking to work with police officers, not to defund the NYPD, looking to ensure that officers can actually do one job when they’re signing up to join that department,” he said during the debate.

“That’s perfect, except he doesn’t actually believe that,” says Sara, who has a long list of receipts.

She plays old video footage showing Mamdani boldly admitting, “I am in favor of defunding the police.” His X account is also rife with similar statements: “Defund the Haram Police”; “Defund the police and build a socialist New York”; “What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD”; and “Queer liberation means defund the police,” among several others.

“And this guy now conveniently wants to tell New York City that he totally supports NYPD. The problem is, Zohran, that the internet is a thing and these screenshots are forever,” Sara says.

“I think this is a pretty clean-cut case of importing the third world,” Logan says.

“[Progressives’] entire criminal justice policy is to side with criminals and to make sure more crime happens. … They want more crime to happen because communists thrive on chaos and dysfunction. It allows them to grab more power and break down the barriers that would naturally restrain the state,” he continues. “So, they’re always going to side with the illegals. They’re always going to side with the criminals. They’re always going to side with the freaks that are terrorizing normal people and terrorizing your society.”

Guest Chad Prather, host of “The Chad Prather Show,” foretells New York City’s dismal future: “To be a citizen in New York City in the future is a death sentence. It is literally a dystopian nightmare. It is an apocalyptic movie. It is the end of the world. It is Armageddon. … It will be a death sentence if you live there. It will be murderous. It will be rapey. It will be a rampage of violence. There will be no justice. There will be no sense of bail. There will be no prison system. There will be nothing that punishes crime.”

“If this guy gets power, I’m telling you, within 10 years, it is the end of the state of New York.”

To hear more of the panel’s conversation, watch the clip above.

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Last week, Politico exposed thousands of leaked messages from a private Telegram chat group of Young Republicans leaders across states like New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont. The chats, spanning seven months earlier this year, revealed racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and violent jokes, including rape quips, praise for Hitler, gas chamber gags, and slurs against black, gay, Latino, and Asian people.

The messages were egregious, to say the least.

Peter Giunta, former chair of the New York State Young Republicans, wrote things like, “I love Hitler”; “Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber”; “I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey play ball”; and “I’m going to create some of the greatest psychological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers.”

Joe Maligno, general counsel of the New York State Young Republicans, wrote, “Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic.”

Bobby Walker, vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans, referred to rape as “epic.”

Annie Kaykaty, a national committee member in New York, wrote, “I’m ready to watch people burn now.”

In its exposé, Politico drew the following conclusion: “The chat offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening.”

Mainstream media echoed this, framing the Young Republicans Telegram scandal as proof of rampant racism, anti-Semitism, and violent rhetoric among Gen Z Republicans, portraying them as a toxic, far-right group shaped by Trump-era extremism.

Not so fast, Mark Levin cautions.

“I’m not willing to accept this total smear of an entire generation of Republicans,” he says.

“I’m willing to accept without equivocation that these people are sleazy, and what they said is outrageous. It’s bigoted. It’s racist. It’s anti-Semitic,” he says, noting that all involved deserve to lose their positions.

But these grotesque messages certainly are not indicative of the views of all young conservatives. What the media is attempting to do, he says, is use a scandal involving a handful of hateful individuals to smear Donald Trump.

In the Politico article, authors Emily Ngo and Jason Beeferman wrote, “The 2,900 pages of chats, shared among a dozen Millennial and Gen Z Republicans between early January and mid-August, chronicle their campaign to seize control of the national Young Republican organization on a hardline pro-Donald Trump platform.”

But the facts, Levin says, don’t support this narrative.

“Donald Trump [is] the greatest supporter of Israel and greatest active opponent of anti-Semitism in the history of the presidency,” he says.

To hear more of his analysis and commentary, watch the clip above.

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A panel of judges on an appeals court has ruled that President Donald Trump can legally send National Guard troops to Portland in order to secure the area around a besieged federal facility.

Far-left anti-deportation activists have been protesting against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the city’s South Waterfront district, oftentimes with violence. The president has argued that military troops are necessary to quell the attacks and secure the facility.

‘The law, US Constitution, and supremacy clause back the President’s action to protect the public and law enforcement, and today this ruling has vindicated us.’

On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the president was justified in the Oregon National Guard troop deployment.

On Thursday, the three-judge panel heard arguments from the Department of Justice to allow the deployment and also from Oregon officials against the order.

Local and state officials have argued that the troops are unnecessary and that the administration is exaggerating the violence at the facility.

Some lawmakers have gone so far as to accuse the administration of faking the violence out of political motivation.

“This is the first time I know of, at least in my lifetime, that the federal government has faked a riot in order to try to justify the Insurrection Act being invoked,” said Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon in a statement to CNN.

“Having illegitimately attempted to federalize the Oregon National Guard and being blocked because there is no ‘invasion’ or ‘rebellion’ in Portland, Trump continues to try to incite riots and violence,” he added in a Facebook post.

Others on the left have accused the president of using the troop mobilization in order to seize control of the streets and intimidate his political opponents.

This isn’t about public safety; it’s about power,” said Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California to the New York Times. “The commander in chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens. We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the president of the United States.”

Two of the judges on the panel were appointed by Trump, while the third was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

RELATED: Hilarious video shows Portland officers enraging anti-ICE protesters by blaring out order in Trump’s voice

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem applauded the ruling in a post on social media.

“Another VICTORY for President Trump and the safety and security of the American people,” she wrote.

“The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that @POTUS is rightfully using his Constitutional authority to direct the National Guard to protect federal assets, personnel and public safety in Portland, Oregon,” Noem added. “The law, U.S. Constitution, and supremacy clause back the President’s action to protect the public and law enforcement, and today this ruling has vindicated us.”

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As the government shutdown barrels toward a fourth week, Republicans and Democrats are pointing at each other, but a CNN analyst says one side has a clear advantage.

CNN analyst Harry Enten says that President Donald Trump is taking less blame for the current shutdown than a previous shutdown during Trump’s first term.

‘There’s no real reason Donald Trump might say, at least when it comes to popular support, “I want to get out of this shutdown.”‘

“This shutdown is a different world for Trump than the 2018-19 shutdown. He’s in a much better spot,” Enten wrote on social media.

“His net approval is up slightly during this shutdown vs. dropping during 2018-19. Why?” he added. “The [percentage] who blame him a great deal for the shutdown is down significantly now vs. 2018-19.”

Enten posted a video of his polling analysis from CNN, which showed that the approval rating for Trump dropped during the first shutdown by about 3 points after 20 days of the shutdown. This time around, his approval is actually up by 1% after 20 days of the shutdown.

“The bottom line is this: The first shutdown during Trump’s first term, 2018-2019, was hurting Donald Trump. This one is not hurting him at all,” he said during the segment. “There’s no real reason Donald Trump might say, at least when it comes to popular support, ‘I want to get out of this shutdown.'”

When it comes down to how many people blame Trump for the shutdown, far fewer do so than they did in the past shutdown.

RELATED: CNN analyst says Americans do not trust Democrats on crime: It’s ‘one of Trump’s best issues’

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Seven years ago, 61% of those polled blamed Trump a great deal for the government shutdown, while only 48% said the same of the current shutdown.

“It’s a different world. … It’s no real wonder that Donald Trump at this point, looking at the shutdown, says, ‘You know what? It’s not actually harming me politically,” in large part because he’s getting less of the blame,” Enten said.

Enten also pointed out that Trump bypassed the legislative paralysis in Congress to push his agenda by signing far more executive orders than in his previous term. So far, he has signed 210 executive orders in his first year, the most signed by any president going back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

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The Islamic Center of Mason has a charter school that requires students to memorize the Koran, and its organizers have plans for a large expansion for a mosque.

A WCPO-TV report included interviews from a student and a mother who co-founded the Learning Center in Ohio as well as an imam from the mosque next door to the school.

‘The hardest part is actually retaining what you memorized.’

“I did not want to do it at all,” said Aadam Zindani.

“Memorizing it is the easy part,” he added. “The hardest part is actually retaining what you memorized.”

Zindani said that memorizing the 600 pages took him about three years.

“It takes years. For some people, it takes decades,” said imam Fawzan Hansbhai.

Aadam’s mother, Anila Zindani, told WCPO that she helped found the school in Mason because she couldn’t find a place in the area to help teach her son the Koran. She began memorizing the Koran in a trailer in downtown Mason.

The learning center’s website says the school has classes from kindergarten to the second grade and that it is a non-public charter school. The center is affiliated with the Department of Education with the state of Ohio.

“The best among you are those who learn the Qu’ran and teach it,” the website reads.

The school organizers are also raising money to build a community center that includes a $12 million mosque, a prayer hall, and classrooms for the learning center.

“It was a huge dream,” said Anila Zindani of the school. “And when I see those students, and when I see those teachers, it’s like a dream come true.”

RELATED: Florida teen murdered 13-year-old for mocking Islam — family is suing the grocery store that sold him the knife

The school’s website says it has 38 students for the current season.

“Save yourself before it’s too late,” read a post from the learning center on its official social media account. It added a verse from the Koran: “Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should speak good or remain silent.”

Video of WCPO’s visit to the Islamic Center was disabled to play on other websites by the owner, but it can be viewed on the station’s channel on YouTube.

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A yet-unnamed male reportedly broke the glass front door of a Baltimore jewelry store with a brick in the middle of the night last week — and it proved to be a fateful choice, as the store owner was inside at the time.

A friend of the store owner shared the following account of Thursday’s incident with WJZ-TV on his behalf. The station said:

The store owner was watching a movie around 2 a.m.The store owner said someone broke through his glass front door with a brick, so he fired a warning shot and said, “Freeze!” The intruder ducked, then popped back up, and the store owner shot him.

Baltimore police described it as a commercial burglary at the intersection of Fleet and Madeira Streets that resulted in the fatal shooting of a 39-year-old man, WJZ said.

‘There are very much viable defenses for someone in the business owner’s — the jewelry store owner’s — shoes right now.’

The station added that the shooting was caught on video and shared with a WJZ reporter. While the camera owner declined to allow WJZ to publish the images, the camera owner did share them with police. The station said the silent video shows a man at the store’s entrance who appears to enter the business — and seconds later, he falls to the pavement.

WJZ noted in its Friday story that “bullet holes remained in two windows at the store” and that the broken glass in the store’s front door “has since been covered.” The station added that the store’s owner reportedly lived above his shop.

RELATED: Video: Armed thugs who rush into jewelry store have fast change of heart when worker with gun sends them some smoke

In a follow-up story, WJZ reported that the shooting has raised questions regarding when — and where — lethal force is allowed when you believe you are in danger.

The station said the standards differ in Maryland depending on if you are in your home or in public. WJZ said the law gives you more latitude to use deadly force if you’re at home and have a “reasonable” fear that your life is in danger — a.k.a. the Castle Doctrine.

But the station said if you are in public, you have a “duty to retreat” and only can use deadly force as a last resort — and the force should be proportional to the threat.

Attorney Warren Alperstein — who is not affiliated with the jewelry store case — noted to WJZ that “if you’re in an alley up against a brick wall at a dead end, and there’s no way to get out … there’s no way to retreat — that would be an exception to the requirement.”

RELATED: Smash-and-grab robbers turn tail and run when jewelry store employee pulls out gun, starts shooting

The station said in the case of Thursday’s fatal shooting at the jewelry store, the store owner lived in the same building as his business. Alperstein added to WJZ that “if it’s determined it was in his home, then he does not have to first prove that he retreated before he used the deadly force.”

The attorney also told the station that “there are very much viable defenses for someone in the business owner’s — the jewelry store owner’s — shoes right now.”

WJZ said Baltimore police and the state’s attorney’s office declined interview requests.

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​Crime thwarted, Guns, Gun rights, 2nd amend., Self-defense, Castle doctrine, Maryland, Baltimore, Fatal shooting, Break-in, Jewelry store, Duty to retreat, Crime 

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Blake Treinen is putting his Christianity front and center yet again.

Treinen is part of a pitching staff that, along with star Clayton Kershaw, has stood up for religious freedoms in the face of disturbing times in California.

‘Every single one of us have been given a gift …’

When a transgender-promoting, anti-Christian activist group was invited to Dodger Stadium in 2023, Treinen accused the group of “mocking the religious habits of nuns” and “mocking what [Catholics] hold most deeply.”

Now, ahead of the Dodgers’ second straight trip to the World Series, Treinen made it clear how important his Christian faith is in his life.

“I think my family’s name is great in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of the world, nobody really knew the Treinens,” the pitcher told CBN Sports.

“I don’t really care if they do,” he continued. “I want them to see Christ’s greatness and what he’s accomplished in my career.”

Treinen said he wanted to see everyone go to heaven while also expressing care for others, saying, “I don’t want to see any of my teammates or anybody in the stands or anybody in this world face the alternative.”

“How do we make heaven crowded?” Treinen asked. “That’s really my goal.”

“Every single one of us have been given a gift, and our way of repaying it to the Lord is how do we honor Him with that gift?” he concluded. “When I am welcomed into the gates of heaven, I want to hear ‘job well done, good and faithful servant.'”

RELATED: Christian LA Dodgers pitcher defies Pride Night with subtle in-game protest

Teammate Kershaw, meanwhile, stood out for his own religious fervor earlier this season when the Dodgers celebrated gay Pride Night.

While Kershaw took issue with the same event as Treinen in 2023, on Pride Night this June, the pitcher participated in wearing his team’s rainbow-themed cap — but added a caveat.

“Gen 9:12-16,” Kershaw’s hat read. The player had written a Bible passage next to the Pride logo.

In the King James Bible, the passage states the following:

And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

The Dodgers have been mired in controversy all year as the team seemingly battles the ethics of a far-left California setting with its generally conservative baseball fan base.

Also in June, an activist singer purposely sang the national anthem in Spanish at a Dodgers game to protest against the deportation of illegal immigrants who are Hispanic.

RELATED: Make-A-Wish exec resigns and loses job after threatening to call ICE on Dodgers fan at Brewers baseball game

Photo by Josie Lepe/MLB Photos via Getty Images

There were also reports in June of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents using Dodgers property as a staging area; the team and ICE gave conflicting reports on the matter.

Furthermore, in July, the Dodgers were hit with an anti-discrimination lawsuit over alleged diversity hiring initiatives.

Lastly, a Make-A-Wish foundation executive resigned in October after being caught on camera threatening to call ICE on a Dodgers fan at a playoff game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

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The Sept. 10 assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk failed to scare the conservative group off college campuses. The fact that students across the country have stood their ground and continue to hold events has evidently enraged leftists.

On Friday, a 27-year-old teaching assistant at Illinois State University allegedly attacked a TPUSA booth where students were advertising their group as well as their Oct. 20 event featuring BlazeTV host Alex Stein.

‘The left has no impulse control.’

Footage of the incident seems to show the man-bunned teaching assistant Derek Lopez of El Paso, Illinois, confront student members of the conservative group — one of whom appears to have been smashed in the face with a pie — and motion toward their table stating, “Jesus did it. So you know I gotta do it, right?”

A pinned tweet on an X page that appears to belong to Lopez states, “A reminder to students who see TPUSA chapters on their campus: those are Nazis.”

Lopez can be seen in the footage apparently yanking the table, then turning it over, then later yanking down flyers for the event. Lopez apparently admitted to flipping over the table in an Instagram post.

RELATED: ‘Grandpa was Antifa’ may be the dumbest meme of the decade

Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images

Hours after the incident, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon noted, “This is outrageous anti-speech conduct by a state employee. What’s up @IllinoisStateU?!”

The following day, the university told Dhillon that the institution “recognizes the diverse perspectives represented on our campus,” and indicated that Lopez, confirmed to be a graduate student and teaching assistant at the university, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property.

Chief Aaron Woodruff of the Illinois State University Police Department said in a statement, “We are committed to protecting the First Amendment rights as well as [the] safety of everyone in our campus community. We encourage all members of our community to learn more about free speech rights and responsibilities at Illinois State University, including constructive ways to respond when encountering speech they may disagree with.”

According to campus police, Lopez could face additional charges and university disciplinary action over the incident.

Blaze News has reached out to Lopez for comment.

Alex Stein, who was himself viciously attacked over the weekend by unhinged liberals at a No Kings protest, told Blaze News, “It’s sad that it’s not even surprising anymore when something like this happens.”

“Radical leftists have made sure to infiltrate the education system so they can try and radicalize more students, and then want to get violent/physical when they see something they don’t agree with,” continued Stein. “It’s obvious at this point the left has no impulse control. I’m looking forward to my event tonight at Illinois State and am proud of the students who stood their ground against the student teacher.”

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The president answered with important details on Monday about the possibility of U.S. troops on the ground to “eradicate” the Hamas terror group if it continues to threaten the peace deal negotiated with Israel.

President Donald Trump took questions from the press while seated next to the prime minister of Australia at the White House.

‘They have to be good, and if they’re not good, they will be eradicated.’

The president gave a fierce warning to the Hamas terror group for continuing attacks on Israelis.

“They’re going to behave. They’re going to be nice. And if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them if we have to. They’ll be eradicated. And they know that,” said Trump.

“They got very rambunctious, and they did things that they shouldn’t be doing,” he added. “And if they keep doing it, then we’re going to go in and straighten it out. And it’ll happen very quickly and pretty violently, unfortunately.”

Rebeka Zeljko of Blaze News asked him to clarify whether that action might include the U.S. military.

“When you say, ‘We are going to eradicate Hamas,’ who is ‘we’?” Zeljko asked. “Does that include American boots on the ground?”

“No. It won’t be on the ground at all,” Trump replied unequivocally.

“We don’t need to because we have many countries, as you know, signed on to this deal. The way I view it, 59 countries … that four months ago didn’t like each other and now they’re all aligned together,” he added.

“I mean, we’ve had countries calling me when they saw some of the killing with Hamas, saying, ‘We’d love to go in and take care of the situation ourselves,'” Trump continued. “In addition you have Israel would go in in two minutes if I asked them to go in. I could tell them, ‘Go in and take care of it.’ But right now we haven’t said that. We’re gonna give it a little chance, and hopefully there will be a little less violence, but right now, you know, they’re violent people. Hamas has been very violent.”

He went on to point out that Hamas had lost the backing of Iran and anyone else.

“They have to be good, and if they’re not good, they will be eradicated,” he added.

RELATED: Trump praises Blaze News reporting during Antifa roundtable at White House — and slaps down MSNBC, CNN

The peace deal negotiated by Trump has already led to the release of the remaining hostages and the remains of hostages to Israel from the terror group.

Critics of the U.S. backing Israel in the conflict have strenuously objected to the possibility of U.S. military troops being sent to help the U.S. ally in the fight against Hamas.

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