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Democrats have worked desperately to defund or at least hinder President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and mass deportation campaign. Their efforts have proven again to be in vain.

Last summer, congressional Republicans circumvented the various obstacles presented by their leftist colleagues, using budget reconciliation to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included $75 billion in new funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and tens of billions more for other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security.

‘All that Democrats have achieved by their shutdown is a useful reminder to the American people of their support for open borders.’

The war over immigration policy and funding heated up in subsequent months, featuring a pitched battle in which Democrats partially shut down the DHS for 75 days, only to then unconditionally surrender, passing funding for the DHS in the wake of the longest government shutdown in its history.

On Tuesday, Democrats were dealt another significant defeat.

Days after it was passed by the U.S. Senate in a 52-47 vote, the Secure America Act went to a vote in the House.

Ahead of the vote, the White House said in a statement, “The Secure America Act puts an end to Democrats’ political games by fully funding ICE and Border Patrol through President Trump’s term and providing the resources needed to keep our border secure, combat human trafficking, stop the flow of deadly drugs, dismantle criminal cartels, and enforce America’s immigration laws.”

RELATED: Republicans took ICE hostage — then bragged about saving it

Kent NISHIMURA/AFP/Getty Images

“It is imperative that Congress immediately passes the Secure America Act to fully fund these critical components,” said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

“It has been more than 100 days since congressional Democrats defunded ICE and Border Patrol in a radical attempt to protect violent criminal illegal aliens and undermine President Trump’s highly successful border security agenda.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), among the Democrats who futilely signaled their opposition to the bill, stated, “As if ripping health care and nutritional assistance in the One Big Ugly Bill wasn’t enough, Republicans have now come back for more to give ICE and Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine another $70 billion blank check with no oversight, no accountability, and no guardrails.”

“As Democrats, we rise in strong opposition to this Republican scheme. Waste of taxpayer dollars,” added Jeffries.

To Jeffries’ chagrin, the Secure America Act passed in a 214-212 party-line vote.

This funding bill will allocate $38 billion to ICE, $26 billion to Customs and Border Protection, and $5 billion in additional funding to the DHS through September 2029.

Following the vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) emphasized that “Washington Democrats gained **NOTHING** from their RECKLESS CRUSADE to return our country to OPEN BORDERS and UNFETTERED MASS MIGRATION. Republicans will ALWAYS stand with America’s law enforcement.”

“All that Democrats have achieved by their shutdown is a useful reminder to the American people of their support for open borders and keeping criminal illegal immigrants in American communities — policies that have been soundly rejected by the American people over and over again,” wrote Johnson. “We hope this episode serves as a future reminder to Democrats that when they shut the government down, they will receive less than nothing in return.”

President Trump is set to ratify the Secure America Act in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

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​Immigration, Illegal alien, Ice, Us immigration and customs enforcement, Border, Donald trump, Funding, Democrats, Hakeem jeffries, Mike johnson, Politics 

Digital age verification is a hot topic right now, with lawmakers pushing for legislation that would ban users from accessing their favorite apps, webpages, and even their devices without showing an ID. As I previously covered, these bills are largely a government power grab disguised as child protection. What if there was a better solution — a way to give lawmakers the verification they crave without sacrificing the privacy and security of American citizens? Here’s what it would take to get the best of both worlds.

Efforts to sign age verification into law

The age verification bills permeating the House and Senate right now are a double-edged sword. On one hand, they protect underage users from online adult content that they shouldn’t see on various platforms and apps. On the other hand, these bills give Big Tech and the government a pathway to capture, digitize, and store users’ real government-issued IDs — the makings of a digital ID database that links online activity to user identities.

The war on age verification has even become a bipartisan effort, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pushing for federal legislation. Most notably, you have Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.) proposing the Parents Decide Act, which would require operating system developers, like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, to verify the ages of their users any time someone sets up a new device. On the right, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) champions the GUARD Act, which would require users to show an ID to access AI chatbots, possibly leading to broader restrictions on the internet at large as AI expands into every corner of the web.

Both bills aim for age verification to protect children, and both would restrict Americans’ rights to freely access their devices, the internet, and online information without an ID.

Apple and Google actually built a way to handle the most personal and private information.

Make no mistake. If these bills pass, the government will limit or even revoke your access to your favorite apps, services, and devices unless someone finds a better solution — one that still enables age verification without actually giving your ID to tech companies and federal agencies.

Luckily, there is a possible solution, if Big Tech chooses to build it.

Security in the enclave

Whether you trust Big Tech with your data or you lock your phone in a Faraday cage at night, Apple and Google actually built a way to handle the most personal and private information about its users years ago. The key is found in a tiny locked vault stored in the processing chip in your phone. It’s disconnected from the internet, it’s never backed up in iCloud or Google Drive (you have to set it back up every time you wipe and restore your phone), and it’s encrypted.

Apple calls it the Secure Enclave. Google named it the Trusted Execution Environment. Together, they’re both “dedicated secure subsystems” that do the same thing: store your biometric data.

If you’ve ever unlocked your phone with your face or your fingerprint, you’ve used this subsystem (which we’ll refer to as “vaults” for the sake of simplicity). The best part about it is that it’s fast, efficient, and completely private. Through these vaults, Apple and Google can save your biometric data, but they can’t see it or access it themselves, and neither can third-party apps. The only thing the system can reveal is whether the face or fingerprint of the person holding the device matches the version saved privately in the system. That’s it.

We need a similar solution for age verification.

RELATED: Hackers easily fool Instagram’s new AI identity verification, humiliating Meta once again

Fotkam/Getty Images

The age verification solution we need

Instead of giving Big Tech a plain copy of your ID, what if there was a way to save it in the vault? Just like setting up FaceID on iPhone or your fingerprint on Android, your phone could prompt you to take a photo of your ID and store it inside the vault as part of your biometric data. To make sure the ID is real and that it belongs to an adult, the vault could include on-device authentication software that checks for the user’s birth date, the official Real ID star, barcode on the back, and any other unique state identifiers.

Once saved, ID-backed age verification would work in the same manner that facial and fingerprint authentication works today. When you log into an app, service, or device that requires ID, the system would prompt the vault to verify the information stored inside. If the system agrees that you’re an adult, it will let you through. If the ID belongs to a minor or is missing entirely, the system could then place restrictions on the user as mandated by law. In this way, the vault serves as a bridge between the user’s ID and websites, services, and apps, providing only authentication while keeping the user’s actual identification private.

The future of age verification

To make this work, of course, both Apple and Google need to adopt this technology and integrate it directly into their operating systems. Then the government would have to accept this technology as a valid form of verification that satisfies the new laws. Lastly, major tech companies would have to accept this form of verification, which they ultimately would, as long as they know Apple’s and Google’s solutions are legitimate, just like they do with face and fingerprint password protection today.

If we must turn over our photo IDs, locking them inside the secure subsystem is the only solution that makes sense. It would give politicians the government control over device access that they so desperately desire while enabling citizens to maintain their anonymity and privacy.

Or — and I might be asking a lot here — the politicians could just stop trying to hamper our rights and leave our devices alone. I like that one better.

​Tech, Return, Age verification, Surveillance, Online privacy, Big tech 

Steven Spielberg this week will drop “Disclosure Day,” his long-awaited engagement-bait alien movie. On cue, the internet is abuzz — with soyfacing and fangirling, dunking and slop farming, chin-stroking and opining, opining, opining. Somehow, therefore, more, but also dramatically less, needs to be said.

I was early to the disclosure discourse. Five years ago, as the topic began to heat up in earnest, I tried to get ahead of the conversation by focusing on the religious dimension. Back then, that wasn’t center stage. The alien thing was still mostly Joe Rogan- and “X-Files”-coded, disclosure a cause célèbre for freedom-minded individualists sure that the evil secret government was hiding the TRUTH that only heroically skeptical intellectual rebels could force to come to light.

In the coming age, many — even believers — will be deceived.

To me, that felt incomplete. At best. The American experience with “alien encounters,” I underscored, had always been depicted and acculturated religiously — not just as a matter of “having a religious experience,” good or bad, but of actual theology.

Its manifestation as popular culture belied not secular origins but spiritual ones: When your religious belief is that “organized religion” is bad and the only authority you can really trust is your own, you’ll see what’s at stake in the alien debate as the ultimate nature of the universe, one where perhaps everything we thought we ever knew about God and our relation to Him could be completely debunked.

The desire to overthrow the authority or even the existence of the unbroken Christian church, that is, doesn’t stem fundamentally from secular principles. It actually stems from a desire to actualize a much different, ostensibly higher or ultimate, spiritual order.

Among us

That is why in 2021 I emphasized that aliens are so often interpreted as proof that Christianity is not the truth that will save us — that the Christian era is over, Christianity is defunct, a new religion is not only “needed now” but has arrived, whether we like it or not. “The invaders are here,” I summed up the claim, “and they impose on us the responsibility of accepting a new age from which there is no turning back. Humans are but one organism, a weak and inferior one, whose only hope of salvation is in satisfying whatever it is the aliens herald and demand.”

I went on to push back on this master narrative by way of Father (perhaps soon to be Saint) Seraphim Rose. He got ahead of the disclosure discourse decades ago, citing key scholars who showed the overwhelming pattern among “alien encounters” is of experiences impossible to distinguish from encounters over the millennia with spiritual entities — specifically fallen angels. Demons, in other words.

“Aliens,” Rose explained, do not behave like angels, who appear as holy messengers cautioning people at once to not be afraid. Instead, like demons, they zoom around at will, produce terrifying illusions, and violate and persecute victims in their bodies and minds.

Nevertheless, as anyone knows who grew up in the spiritual anarchy of the 1980s — where the lines blurred dangerously between “progressive” Christianity, New Age cults, and straight-up demonic occultism — there was already back then a huge and growing swath of alien believers who nursed a kind of syncretism with Christianity or some kind of “biblical” religion.

That was what troubled Rose the most. Today, many people speak of the Antichrist and the apocalypse, topics very close to Christ’s warning that in the coming age, many — even believers — will be deceived that He has returned or the end is nigh.

RELATED: It’s not easy being pope — Leo’s big new tech encyclical proves it

ANDREAS SOLARO/Getty Images

Yes, millions of people may now be catching up to what counted as the frontier of the disclosure debate in 2021. X is full of eager, Spielberg-fueled arguments over whether aliens are compatible with Christianity, with both sides producing scripture, doctrine, lore, and receipts in the now-familiar style of the “global public square,” where every question is debated until it has been pulverized.

Even alien-skeptical Christians, or those aligned with Michael S. Heiser-style caution, can find serious authorities noting that the cosmos exceeds human comprehension. The existence of other rational created beings somewhere in that vastness cannot simply be ruled out.

But that is precisely the point. Some matters are best left to God. The human mind can crack them open with curiosity, only to find itself wandering a vast mental labyrinth — and once there, easy prey for delusion, pride, and disbelief.

Take, for one example making the rounds today, the question of whether He has perfect knowledge of all possible counterfactuals — a question that first made the rounds centuries ago thanks to Luis de Molina, a Jesuit theologian who touched off a furious and protracted round of discourse and debate, an effusion of energy that might well have been better spent in other ways.

What other ways? Well, here is where the new frontier of the disclosure debate appears.

Haunted halls

In theaters right now is a film called “Backrooms.” It’s close to being the opposite of “Disclosure Day,” at least in the sense that “Backrooms” is about the danger, and ultimately the tragic horror, of today’s deepening temptation to understand on our own terms the things that confuse and weaken us the most — things of our own flawed and falsely independent mental constructs.

Today the foremost of these false realities — what the ancient monks called logismoi — is the creepy combination of depression and pride that makes people curious to know “for themselves” what is really good and what is really evil.

Rather than trusting God on this matter or trusting God to sort it out and seeking refuge in humble self-denial of what even secular medicine calls the call of the void, we are all being carried along on a massive wave of belief that we somehow must subject all things to intellectual processing in order for us to function.

Increasingly, we treat human beings as if our only real function is intellectual processing. Everything becomes reducible to intelligence, or optimized as an operation of intelligence. Intelligence becomes the only thing that matters because it is treated as the only thing that truly exists. Everything else — the body, the soul, love, worship, suffering, memory, family, place — becomes merely an expression or construct of intelligence.

Under this view, nothing remains for us to do except intellectualize everything. We keep refining thought, language, and computation until we produce an intelligence so pure and complete that it no longer needs the rest of the human person at all, except perhaps for a time as fuel.

RELATED: ‘Backrooms’ is horror for a self-justifying age

A24

This insane belief has become compelling because it fits the modern mind. It is becoming a new “organized religion,” even among people who most loudly hate organized religion. We entered the current stage of technological development already convinced that spiritual truth could be uncovered, created, or replaced through endless discourse: talking, writing, printing, disseminating, propagandizing, discussing, debating, and filling the world with more and more words.

Eventually, we looked around and saw only language. Not merely spoken language, but language as thought itself. Reality had been swallowed by interpretation. And once everything became words, it was only a matter of time before we mistook the processing of words for the fullness of being human.

In 1962, Beat Generation drug hellion William S. Burroughs, author of “Junkie” and “Queer,” wrote that language is a virus from outer space — in other words, an alien. Any Christian must know that, in reality, the Word, the Logos, is the opposite of a deadly xenomorph. But severed from the divine Word, the merely human word swiftly becomes something alien, monstrous, devouring. (“Time to leave the Word-God behind,” Burroughs wrote in his final doped-up years.)

That is why the frontier of the disclosure debate now expands from the recognition that being sucked into the disclosure debate, by the “Disclosure Day” debate and all the alien debates, is a labyrinth with a minotaur inside our own delusional creation. This is the not-too-cryptic message of “Backrooms,” a message most strongly conveyed in the film by what’s also the cure for our servile and self-destructive yapocracy: silence. Holy silence.

​Antichrist, Apocalypse, Opinion & analysis, Popular culture, Theology, Demons, Christianity, Faith, Steven spielberg, Disclosure day, Aliens, Tragedy, Horror, Movies, Seraphim rose, William s. burroughs, Language, Knowledge, Thought, Backrooms 

Last Friday, the stock market had an abysmal day, losing well over $1 trillion. It was the worst single-day drop of 2026 for the S&P 500 and the worst day in over a year for the Nasdaq, which fell over 4%.

This sudden and dramatic dip surprised many because it occurred immediately after a jobs report revealed that May saw the addition of 172,000 new jobs — over twice the amount that experts forecasted. Unemployment also stayed the same at 4.3%

The report showed that “by every plain English measure, Americans are working; things are good,” says Glenn Beck.

“So why did the market panic on news that you and I would call encouraging?” he asks.

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn unpacks “the whole game” that is the Federal Reserve and Wall Street’s addiction to cheap money.

“For two years, Wall Street has been betting on one thing above all else … but it’s not [AI],” he begins.

“It’s the Federal Reserve about to make money cheap again, and they love cheap money.”

Wall Street, Glenn explains, was expecting the government to slash interest rates soon. But when the job market came in strong, those hopes were suddenly dashed.

“Have you ever leaned on a door that you thought was closed or unlocked, and you fell through? It was kind of like that on Friday,” he analogizes.

On top of that, the AI trade was already experiencing a backslide.

Wall Street, having had high hopes for AI growth, discovered just days before the stock market plummet that Broadcom (a prominent AI chip maker) did not raise its future predictions as many had anticipated — even though Google’s parent company had just announced it was raising a massive $85 billion to buy more AI chips and build data centers.

As a result, its stock dropped significantly, and it brought several other tech/AI stocks down with it.

“So understand what actually happened here,” says Glenn. “It wasn’t the good news that scared everybody Friday. It was the truth that the Fed is not riding in to rescue the overpriced stocks, and maybe, just maybe, the AI miracle has a price tag attached to it that somebody should check before buying stock.”

This is tough news to stomach, he admits.

“That 401k or pension that you’re counting on rides on the market, and days like Friday took a big bite out of it. Also, you want a mortgage on the house. The 10-year is now above 4.5%. The rates are punishing,” Glenn sighs.

“It’s going to stay that way. Your grocery bill, your gas, your rent. Inflation is at 3.8% means they’re not coming down soon, and a Fed that has to say ‘tough on the price inflation’ and is going to — that means it’s going to be tough for a while,” he continues.

But there’s a silver lining we can’t ignore.

“America’s strength … has never come from cheap money or get-rich-quick fevers. It never has. Pain always comes from that — always,” Glenn declares.

“Where America has always rallied, done well, and fixed herself is when people who make things, fix things, grow things, show up and are encouraged to do what they do best.”

Glenn urges his listeners to stop “[hanging their] hope on the Fed or on Washington or the next shiny thing the market is chasing.”

“Get out from under your debt wherever and however you can; build something that doesn’t depend on a rate cut; strengthen your family and the people around you,” he implores.

“The real security was never something that was printed on a building on Constitution Avenue. It was built in your home with your hands and with your character.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

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​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Federal reserve, Wall street, Stock market 

A California homeowner was visiting with his neighbors when he heard gunshots and screaming coming from his house and rushed back to find a shocking threat.

Riverside County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the residence on Heron Way in San Jacinto on Friday just before 10:30 p.m. on reports of gunshots being fired.

‘His goal was to get his daughter out safely, regardless of what happened to him.’

They found a man with gunshot injuries and declared him dead at the scene, according to the Los Angeles Times. They identified the deceased male as 45-year-old Ismael Martinez.

The father of the home told them that he had rushed to the house after his wife said a home intruder was firing a gun. The homeowner armed himself with a gun from his garage and exchanged gunfire with Martinez.

Martinez was struck, but no other injuries were reported.

A police investigation found that Martinez assaulted his 52-year-old girlfriend with a knife before running off to attack the family at the Heron Way home. The woman was found inside a vehicle and transported to a hospital for treatment. She was reported to be in stable condition.

Police said there was no evidence that Martinez or his girlfriend had any connection with the residents of the home he allegedly invaded.

A neighbor named Frankie Aguilar said the husband and wife of the family had been at his home when the incident unfolded. He said the wife had gone back to her house to charge up her phone when she found the armed intruder.

“When she was screaming, he was shooting at her with a shotgun,” Aguilar said.

Aguilar added that his neighbor’s teenage daughter was also in the home during the shooting and home invasion.

“His goal was to get his daughter out safely, regardless of what happened to him,” another neighbor named Robert Dorame said to KTLA-TV.

RELATED: Intruder violently breaks down door of home with family inside — and gets justice from the end of a gun

“I’m shattered for them because they’re good people,” he added.

Police said the shooting would be referred to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office for review.

Neighbors said they believed the homeowner had acted in self-defense. A friend of the family has opened a GoFundMe donation account to help them deal with the costs associated with the incident.

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​California, Home invasion, Self defense shooting, 2nd amendment, Crime 

It has been a pitiful few weeks for the United States Senate, which means senators are now pretending they saved Immigration and Customs Enforcement, fought for the SAVE Act, and still care about victims of government weaponization.

None of that is true.

Do not buy the celebratory social media posts from Senate Republicans. Get to work electing new ones instead.

This is a geriatric form of professional wrestling kayfabe. But instead of heroic wrestlers in tights, the actors are young communications staffers tweeting victory on behalf of their bosses while those bosses fly home.

Before we unpack what happened, we should understand how we got here. To his credit, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) recently summarized the problem well: “We made a huge mistake by not funding ICE and CBP in January. We NEVER should have funded the Democrats’ thousands of earmarks without funding ALL of homeland security. It is time to fund ICE and CBP NOW!”

It was a mistake, except that it was intentional. Still, Scott acknowledged the major point his colleagues would rather hide. Forthrightness in the Senate is rare, so we should welcome it when it appears.

The story begins in January, after two protesters were killed obstructing ICE. In the media-driven hysteria that followed, Congress did something unusual: It split off the Department of Homeland Security from the funding package that covered other agencies.

At the urging of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and top Democrat appropriator Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), Republicans caved and agreed to put DHS in a stand-alone funding posture. In congressional funding terms, that means danger.

For decades, government funding has largely moved through omnibus and minibus bills that force lawmakers into take-it-or-leave-it votes. Members may dislike parts of the package, but they swallow the whole thing to avoid shutting down large portions of the government. When DHS stands alone, Democrats have a much easier time voting no.

In February, DHS funding shut down. Airport lines grew. Employees went without pay. DHS changed secretaries. Democrats continued blasting ICE, deportations remained low, and the Trump administration retreated on parts of the deportation agenda.

In other words, Democrats gained concessions while holding DHS funding hostage.

Then, in April, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) began negotiating with the hostage-takers in earnest. They offered another major concession: separate ICE and Customs and Border Protection from DHS, making ICE and CBP a stand-alone within a stand-alone. For funding purposes, it is hard to imagine a worse fate.

RELATED: Polarization may be the cure — and the clarity — America needs

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Congress funded the rest of DHS, ending a roughly 76-day shutdown. Politicians breathed a sigh of relief because airline lobbyists would stop pestering them about long lines at airports. ICE and CBP, meanwhile, would have to be funded through another mechanism: reconciliation.

Reconciliation funding creates operational problems that normal appropriations do not. That deserves more attention, though it falls deep into the procedural weeds. The key point is that ICE and CBP were isolated, weakened, and pushed onto a more perilous path.

As part of ending the shutdown for every part of DHS except ICE and CBP, President Trump demanded a reconciliation bill funding those agencies by June 1.

Negotiations began, then quickly collapsed after the May announcement of an Anti-Weaponization Fund that would compensate victims of government persecution. Republican senators revolted and learned the lesson Democrats had just taught them: ICE and CBP could be used as hostages.

They threatened to withhold ICE and CBP funding unless Trump agreed to kill the fund. Ultimately, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche did just that.

Despite acting as hostage-takers, Republican senators also used the reconciliation process to posture on the SAVE Act, which had no chance of passing through that mechanism. The SAVE Act, which is popular across party lines, includes voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a leading opponent of the Anti-Weaponization Fund but a proponent of his own right to recover damages for weaponization against himself, introduced a meaningless amendment on the SAVE Act. Knowing most voters do not understand Senate procedure, he styled the move as a valiant attempt to pass election integrity legislation.

“Mr. President,” Graham posted, “I was honored to lead the charge to pass the SAVE America Act, one of the most consequential pieces of legislation you and your team have created.”

RELATED: Trump’s anti-weaponization fund puts GOP cowards on trial

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

This was insincere and unserious. The SAVE Act has no chance unless the talking filibuster is enforced. Everyone on the Senate floor knew that. But Graham maintains Trump’s endorsement in his upcoming primary, so perhaps it will not matter. We may be stuck with him even after Trump leaves the stage.

Much of the swamp remains undrained.

This whole drawn-out charade should be remembered for two reasons.

First, Senate Republicans crossed the Rubicon and went where Democrats had already gone: They held ICE hostage. Worse, they held ICE hostage to force the Trump administration to scuttle the Anti-Weaponization Fund. That is a double betrayal of the base: threaten immigration enforcement to hurt victims of government persecution.

Second, Senate Republicans helped create the most perilous funding path for ICE and CBP moving forward: complete isolation. With ICE and CBP now handled outside the normal appropriations process, they will face another shutdown unless this strategy is reversed. As soon as Democrats have enough votes, they will try to defund both agencies.

Do not buy the celebratory social media posts from Senate Republicans. Get to work electing new ones instead.

​Immigration and customs enforcement, John thune, Lindsey graham, Mike johnson, Opinion & analysis, Patty murray, Republicans, Save act, Senate, Voter id, Ice, Customs and border protection, Department of homeland security, Weaponization, January 6, Filibuster, Rino 

Trevor Preisel, the executive director at the New Castle Prism Initiative, said the LGBTQIA+ members of the center were upset by vandalism on their Pride flags.

The center is located at the Third Independent Presbyterian Church in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and is one of the only centers offering LGBTQIA+ support in the Shenango Valley area.

‘If people are doing things like this, if people are talking about you, it goes to show that what we’re doing is working.’

They were preparing for a Pride festival on Wednesday when they discovered the vandalism.

“People had torn down the progress flags and just thrown them on the ground on both sides,” said Preisel, who showed the destruction to WKBN-TV.

“There was also one in this general area, and someone had just completely stepped on and smashed the fence post, ripped the flag off, as well as down here, where those two flags are now. Those were just completely ripped off the rivets,” he added.

The center has replaced the flags and added surveillance cameras.

“We did feel targeted,” he added. “There was a police report that was filed.”

He went on to say the vandalism was evidence that they were making a difference in the community.

“Obviously, it does hurt in a sense, but to quote a lot of activists that have come before me, if people are doing things like this, if people are talking about you, it goes to show that what we’re doing is working, and what we’re doing is having an impact in this community,” Preisel added.

RELATED: Video shows teens cutting up Pride flags at gay bar during Pride Month — now they’re facing hate crime charges

The group posted images of the damage to social media and said the community responded through increased donations.

“We’ve had a lot of local businesses reaching out to us. We’ve had a lot of community members reaching out to us, a lot of people asking if they can donate toward putting new flags up,” Preisel added. “When things like this do happen, the community comes together.”

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​Lgbtqia, Pride flags, Pride month, Vandalism, Politics 

As late ballots poured in overnight in the Los Angeles mayoral race, Democratic socialist Nithya Raman overtook Spencer Pratt — and BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler isn’t buying it, declaring that “the Democrats have stolen an election again.”

“It’s not a question of did they, it’s a question of how they did,” Wheeler says.

And President Donald Trump agrees.

“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections! Now they’ll be working on great guy Steve Hilton. Won’t have results for, possibly, TWO WEEKS, according to officials,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

“This is exactly what happened in 2020,” Wheeler says, claiming that conservatives are again being gaslighted over the results.

“Do not let them gaslight you. They are cheaters. They stole the L.A. mayoral election. The late mail-in ballot numbers are just quite literally unbelievable. There is no way that this councilwoman, this no-name councilwoman who no one knew who she was, Nithya Raman, before Spencer Pratt made ads about her home, there’s no way that she got 22% of the vote in person on election day,” Wheeler says.

“Meanwhile, Spencer Pratt, whose fundraising skyrocketed in the days before the election, supposedly completely bottomed out from 30% on election day to 20% of late mail-in ballots,” she continues.

Senior counsel for the Article III Project Will Chamberlain agrees, telling Wheeler that there was a boost in Raman’s prediction market odds — even though she was still very far behind in the count at that point.

“Honestly, I do think that … somebody somehow was aware that a bunch of ballots were going to start coming in for Raman,” he says.

“But you start with the assumption that California’s election laws are so frivolous. They lack integrity to such a degree that there are a myriad number of ways in which cheating could have happened,” he continues.

“Plus, if you look at the heat map of the late votes, doesn’t it show that it’s coming from Skid Row?” Wheeler asks.

“I actually lived in downtown L.A. a few blocks from Skid Row. Yeah, nobody lives there except homeless people. And the homeless people are drug addicts,” Chamberlain says.

“They’re not going to vote. They’re drug addicts,” he continues, explaining that’s where he believes the fraud originated.

“These operatives are going into homeless encampments and registering people to vote. That wouldn’t make any sense if you were trying to conduct elections on the level because you couldn’t count on those people to vote,” he says. “So that seems like a very unproductive use of your time unless, right, unless you are using those people to cheat.”

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​Liz wheeler, Will chamberlain, The blaze, Spencer pratt, Democrats, Los angeles, Mayor, Donald trump, Nithya raman, Karen bass, The liz wheeler show 

A horrific attack in Northern Ireland by a Sudanese asylum seeker has led to rioting by anti-immigration protesters.

Video of the shocking attack showed the Sudanese man straddling a man on the ground and hacking at his neck with what appeared to be a kitchen knife.

‘The attack in north Belfast was heinous and wrong. But there are dangerous attempts to exploit that, to target and attack innocent people who are simply trying to live, work and raise their families here.’

Bystanders attacked the 30-year-old asylum seeker before police arrived to arrest him and transport the victim to a hospital.

The attacker reportedly obtained asylum in the United Kingdom in 2023 and traveled to Paris before going to Belfast in Northern Ireland. His identity has not been released, but he has been charged with attempted murder.

“The horrific attack in Belfast last night is sickening,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement on social media. “I have absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets. My thoughts are first and foremost with the victim, and I thank the first responders, including members of the public who intervened.”

Outraged voices on social media called for a “protest against mass immigration” for Tuesday evening.

Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said there was so far no evidence that terrorism motivated the attack, but added that the investigation is still in its early stages.

RELATED: Sudanese national suspect attempts to behead UK citizen — but police beg public not to share images

“We have commenced an investigation to establish a motive,” Henderson said, adding that the “brutal attack will have sent shock waves through the community, causing real concern.”

Videos from Belfast showed several cars being lit on fire and dozens of rioters clad all in black.

Law enforcement officials also asked that residents stop sharing the very graphic video captured of the alleged attack, in order to avoid more public outrage.

Pastor Jack McKee reported that people in his congregation were being attacked just because they’re black.

“They’re good Christian people, and they’re getting put out just because they’re black,” McKee said to the BBC.

He said some church members were “getting put out of their home, had their house attacked, windows smashed, houses beside them burned.”

One report on social media said rioters were lighting fires in cars with gasoline bombs.

RELATED: German officials failed to deport Syrian migrant who allegedly butchered people at Christian concert

Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Other reports said a Turkish barber shop had been vandalized in a nearby city.

Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill condemned the violence as nothing but “disgusting cowardice” in a post on social media.

“The attack in north Belfast was heinous and wrong,” she wote. “But there are dangerous attempts to exploit that, to target and attack innocent people who are simply trying to live, work and raise their families here.”

She added, “There can be no excuse and no justification for these attacks tonight. No one wants to see this on our streets and I again appeal for calm.”

The 40-year-old victim of the stabbing attack was treated for injuries to his eyes, back, and face.

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​Asylum seeker, Attempted murder, Northern ireland, Anti-migrant riots, Politics 

Some individuals in California will soon face federal election fraud charges, first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli told Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck on Monday.

California has faced criticism for the delays in counting votes in the gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral primary races, fueling concerns of fraud.

‘We will be charging some people.’

Now, a week after Election Day, California still has not counted all of the votes in its primary elections.

Last week, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles was investigating the delays.

Essayli noted in a post on social media that California allows its residents to register to vote using questionable forms of identification, including gym membership cards, employee ID cards, credit and debit cards, insurance cards, and prescription drug labels.

“This is permitted when a voter fails to provide a Social Security number or driver’s license at registration. Our office believes this policy deserves a closer look,” he wrote.

RELATED: Los Angeles mayor race called for far-left challenger after Pratt loses 40,000-vote lead

Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images

During “The Glenn Beck Program” on Monday, Essayli told Beck that his office will be pursuing election fraud charges in the near future.

“It will be election fraud charges in the next — I hate to put timelines on things — one to two months, I believe. We need some of these results to be certified so we can prove some of the allegations,” Essayli stated. “But we will be charging some people.”

“At this point right now, we’re wide open for investigations,” he added.

RELATED: California gubernatorial race: A Republican and a Democrat appear headed for runoff election

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

Essayli, who referred to California as a “fraudster’s paradise,” encouraged witnesses to come forward with any information.

“If someone voted in your name and you found out someone voted for you, we want to know about that. If you saw someone collecting ballots in a suspicious way or doing something odd with ballots, we want to know about that,” Essayli said. “Those are the kind of things we need direct evidence of right now so we can launch into deeper investigations.”

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​News, Glenn beck, The glenn beck program, Bill essayli, California, Los angeles, Election fraud, Donald trump, Politics 

Since the WNBA’s season kickoff in May, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock has been sounding the alarm that Indiana Fever superstar and the GOAT of women’s basketball, Caitlin Clark, is in deep trouble — not because of anything she did, but because her own team is actively orchestrating her downfall.

Whitlock has warned that if something doesn’t change, Clark’s stardom will prematurely fade. At this point, he sees only one option: leave.

“Caitlin Clark has to demand a trade right now, immediately. It’s the only way to fix this Indiana Fever situation,” he argues on a recent episode of “Fearless.”

Clark, he argues, “can’t trust anyone” involved with Indian Fever, and that includes: head coach Stephanie White, assistant coaches Briann January and Karima Christmas-Kelly, general manager Amber Cox, team president Kelly Krauskopf, the players, and even her own agent, Erin Kane.

“Caitlin Clark needs a whole new team, from agent on down to team on down. Caitlin Clark has to take this situation by her own hands, with her own hands, and correct this. If she doesn’t, this thing will drag out, and she will be destroyed,” Whitlock warns.

Since the Indiana Fever is unlikely to oust Clark and thus become “bad guys” and “idiots,” his solution is simple: Clark’s dad should orchestrate her transfer to the L.A. Sparks.

“She needs her father to step up and assist her in putting together a whole new team from top to bottom,” he says.

The first order of business, he says, is to fire Kane.

“[Get] rid of … the power agent, Erin Kane, who can’t be on her side,” he says, calling Kane “a hardcore political feminist activist.”

Step two, Whitlock says, is to get out of Indiana, where the team is structured in a way that prevents Clark from self-actualizing.

“She’s standing in a circle of people that cannot support her. Look at her teammates. What organization would put four former South Carolina players on the same roster as Caitlin Clark? Those are Dawn Staley soldiers!” he exclaims.

For years, Whitlock has characterized Staley as a symbol of the woke, DEI-driven women’s basketball establishment that he believes is hostile to Clark’s rise.

“Who surrounds Caitlin Clark with Dawn Staley soldiers, knowing how Dawn Staley felt about Iowa, about Lisa Bluder, and Caitlin Clark?” he asks, alluding to Staley’s long-standing resentment toward Iowa, her bitter 2023 Final Four loss to Bluder’s Hawkeyes, and her recent insistence that Clark is ‘criticizable’ despite public praise.

“Caitlin Clark has to woman up and tell the world, ‘I want out of Indiana. I want out of this cesspool of deceit and destruction and chaos and dysfunction,”’ he comments.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York says his office was able to stop an operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside of a courtroom.

Goldman said in a statement on social media Monday that he saved “a father” from detention after confronting ICE agents and accusing them of violating laws.

‘Aggressive congressional oversight and legal advocacy are our best defense against this administration’s lawless dragnet.’

“[ICE] thought they could get away with breaking the law in broad daylight today. They were wrong,” said Goldman.

“This morning, I confronted ICE agents outside an immigration court room to remind them that they are prohibited from arresting anyone who appears as required at immigration court,” he added. “They didn’t seem to care and arrested a father outside of the courtroom right in front of his wife and two young kids.”

Goldman is known for organizing a “triage” center at his Manhattan offices in order to provide legal aid to migrants rounded up in ICE operations. He claims to have freed 42 federal detainees, the last of which came from the ICE facility at Delaney Hall in New Jersey.

“Our volunteer coalition immediately brought the family to my office’s triage center and my team sprung into action,” Goldman added. “Within minutes, one of my staff members demanded his belongings from ICE while @NYLAG prepared an emergency lawsuit and his kids had a snack and played games.”

Goldman claimed that ICE “quickly released” the man to his family.

“They knew they broke the law,” he added. “Aggressive congressional oversight and legal advocacy are our best defense against this administration’s lawless dragnet.”

A Blaze News request for comment to ICE was not immediately answered.

RELATED: Democratic mayor installs ‘anti-ICE’ signs all over L.A. — Trump issues MOCKING response

Goldman’s re-election campaign is facing a primary challenge from a far-left candidate who has gotten the endorsement of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D). Former NYC Comptroller Brad Lander claimed he’s better suited to oppose President Donald Trump and accused Goldman of being a “corporate Democrat.”

The Democratic primary will be held on June 23.

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​Immigration and customs enforcement, Immigration, Politics, Dan goldman, Ice 

Mayhem broke out Monday night on Manhattan’s 42nd Street as thousands of rowdy New York Knicks fans flooded the area outside an NBA Finals Game 3 watch party in Bryant Park.

After a highly anticipated watch party outside Madison Square Garden was canceled due to heightened security for President Donald Trump’s attendance at the game, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a 5,000-person watch party in Bryant Park, which required attendees to register in advance.

‘Last night was another shameful display from individuals who are more interested in brawling with each other, ripping up street signs, and hurling objects at cops than supporting their team.’

While the crowd inside the park was collected, thousands of fans who did not make it into the park began to wreak havoc on infrastructure, police officers, and other civilians.

Police said about 7,000 people were at Bryant Park and the surrounding area as the chaos erupted.

Multiple videos show people climbing scaffolding, walking on top of police vehicles, tearing down trees, engaging in fistfights, swarming a taxi cab, and aggressively shaking a bus stop signpost — detaching the sign in the process.

That bus sign was later used as a weapon in a brawl between multiple fans before police intervened.

Members of the crowd threw beer bottles at officers, which prompted the use of pepper spray. Multiple fans also attempted to climb a passing NYPD barricades truck while chanting, “Suck my d**k.”

RELATED: ‘USA!’ chants rock Madison Square Garden as Trump attends NBA Finals

Additional police officers were deployed in riot gear to disperse the crowd.

The NYPD said 21 people were taken into custody, eight of whom were charged, while the other 13 were released with criminal court summonses for disorderly conduct.

Two people were charged with assault on a police officer, while one man was charged with attempted assault on an officer, the NYPD added.

Five police officers were reportedly injured as well.

New York City Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry on Tuesday denounced the conduct: “Last night was another shameful display from individuals who are more interested in brawling with each other, ripping up street signs, and hurling objects at cops than supporting their team. We know New Yorkers are passionate about these NBA Finals, but police officers shouldn’t have to endure a barrage of mayhem after every single game.”

Hendry added that “our elected leaders need to send a stronger message and make it crystal clear that this behavior won’t be tolerated.”

The Knicks lost Game 3 to the Spurs 115-111 but still lead the series 2 games to 1. Game 4 is scheduled for Wednesday at Madison Square Garden, with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announcing that watch parties outside the venue are expected to resume.

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​Arrests, Knicks, Nba finals, New york city, Nypd, Police officers, Crime, Watch party 

Jurors took just short of three hours Tuesday to return a guilty verdict in the murder trial of Karmelo Anthony.

Jurors began deliberations at 10:54 a.m., KTVT-TV reported, and officials announced at 1:45 p.m. that a verdict had been reached.

‘You don’t get to kill someone just because they are bigger than you.’

The station reported that Anthony visibly broke down in the courtroom when the guilty verdict was read, and he is now in custody. KTVT added that Anthony’s parents left the courtroom after the verdict was read.

Prior to the start of deliberations, jurors were instructed that they could consider a lesser charge of manslaughter, the station said.

Anthony was 17 when authorities charged him with murdering high school star athlete and fellow 17-year-old Austin Metcalf in a stabbing at a Frisco, Texas, track meet in April 2025.

The murder charge is a first-degree felony, the station said. Anthony faces a sentence of five to 99 years or life in prison. KTVT said the same jury is determining what sentence Anthony will face.

According to Texas law, murder means a defendant “intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual,” KTVT said — but manslaughter means the defendant “recklessly causes the death of an individual.”

A conviction for manslaughter — a second-degree felony — would have meant a sentence of two to 20 years in prison, the station said.

Criminologist Alex del Carmen told KTVT in a separate story that he believed Anthony’s case meets the threshold of manslaughter: “He didn’t get up with the intent to kill someone, but he knew the risks taking that knife to campus and pulling it out. Self-defense or not, rational choices needed to be made.”

Anthony’s defense objected to jury instructions saying the jurors could find Anthony’s self-defense argument not viable if they believe the defendant provoked the attack, the station said.

However, the prosecutor argued that a rational jury could find Anthony provoked the altercation, KTVT said, and therefore the instruction should remain. The judge agreed with the prosecutor, overruling the defense’s objection, the station said.

RELATED: Karmelo Anthony murder trial: Jurors begin deliberations — and can consider lesser charge of manslaughter

The prosecutor waived the right to begin closing arguments Tuesday morning, so lead defense attorney Mike Howard was the first to address the jury, KTVT said.

Howard focused on his client’s self-defense argument, saying, “Austin Metcalf had no legal right to use force to eject Karmelo Anthony from that tent,” the station reported.

Howard added that “he had no legal right to put his hands on Karmelo” and that “Karmelo is in a public place,” KTVT noted.

Howard also asked the members of the jury to put themselves in Anthony’s shoes, noting that it was raining, the station said: “You want to get out of the rain. … Sure enough, one of the people at Memorial says, ‘Yeah, come on over.'”

KTVT said the defense attorney added that “Hunter Metcalf, or Austin, say, ‘Who are you? You need to leave.’ … These guys are much bigger than you. Do you turn your back and walk away and take a chance with these teenage boys with their raging hormones?”

“Austin and Hunter had the right to tell Melo to leave, but they did not have the right to use deadly force to make him leave,” Howard told the jury, according to the station. “Melo had an absolute right to [defend] himself against that.”

Howard also asked the jury, “How do you know in a split second of chaos when it’s too late? … Because if you wait too late to defend yourself, self-defense is meaningless,” KTVT reported.

Anthony did not take the stand in his defense.

Following the defense’s closing argument, prosecutor Bill Wirskye began speaking to the jury and rebutting Anthony’s self-defense claim, the station said.

“This is one of those rare cases where every important fact can be boiled down to one sentence: You do not get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove,” Wirskye said, according to KTVT.

“Why didn’t [Anthony] just not walk away?” Wirskye asked jurors, according to the station. “You see [he] had a choice to walk away and abandon the encounter.”

The prosecutor added that “you can meet deadly force with deadly force in Texas, but you can’t meet force — a shove — with deadly force — a stab. Size differential, it doesn’t work in this case; you don’t get to kill someone just because they are bigger than you,” KTVT reported.

Wirskye also told the jury that “self-defense has to be a reasonable belief — a reasonable belief means a belief that would [be] held by an ordinary and prudent person in the same situation as the defendant,” the station said.

“It has to be immediately necessary. Where was the immediate necessity to plunge a knife into an unarmed young man?” Wirskye asked the jury, according to KTVT. “It’s not self-defense, folks — it’s murder. Murder, plain and simple.”

Notably, all prospective black jurors were dismissed during jury selection last week — and one reportedly said he’d have a “hard time putting a brother in jail.” Anthony is black; Metcalf was white. They attended different high schools and didn’t know each other.

Racial tensions have surrounded the case from the start. Shortly after Metcalf’s death, Anthony supporters went viral on social media, with one declaring that “Austin Metcalf got exactly what he deserved — point blank, period.”

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​Murder trial, Karmelo anthony, Austin metcalf, Texas, Frisco, Fatal stabbing, Verdict, Crime 

New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he won’t allow the Trump administration to send federal immigration officers to World Cup soccer events.

Mamdani expressed his displeasure at comments from border czar Tom Homan warning that the administration is planning a surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to New York City.

‘As the world comes to our city, we will stand proudly with our immigrant neighbors and reject these attacks for what they are: an attempt to divide us.’

Mamdani responded by citing the contributions immigrants have made to World Cup events that are coming to New York City.

“Soccer would not exist without immigrants. Immigrants play and coach the game, work in the stadiums, fill the stands, and make celebrations like the World Cup possible. Six of the players on the US Men’s National Team are immigrants,” the mayor wrote.

“We will not allow ICE or anyone else to sow fear in our communities — especially at this moment,” he added. “As the world comes to our city, we will stand proudly with our immigrant neighbors and reject these attacks for what they are: an attempt to divide us.”

Homan made the surge threat after accusing Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul of obstructing regular deportation operations in the state.

“You’re going to see more ICE than you’ve ever seen in New York City, and it’s coming,” Homan said Monday in an interview on Fox. “I just reviewed an operational plan. I’m not going to tell you exactly when it’s going to happen, but it’s coming.”

Mamdani has also criticized President Donald Trump for travel restrictions that have stymied some travelers trying to make it to the World Cup events in the U.S.

“This is anathema to what this tournament is supposed to be about if we cannot even allow the players and the teams and the journalists covering those teams to come into this city or this country, then it begs a larger question about our commitment to the spirit of this tournament,” said Mamdani to the press during a FIFA promotional event.

He went on to advocate for the abolition of ICE.

“ICE raids are cruel, they are inhumane,” said Mamdani. “They do nothing to serve in the interests of public safety. … ICE as an entity is one that should be abolished.”

RELATED: Video shows agitator threatening to KILL ICE agents and families — DOJ vows to arrest him

The Department of Homeland Security issued a fiery response to Mamdani in a post on social media.

“Apparently [Mayor Mamdani] doesn’t think that arresting rapists, murderers, pedophiles, and assailants serves ‘the interest of public safety.’ While sanctuary politicians like Mamdani keep fighting for criminal illegal aliens, the heroic men and women of [ICE] will keep risking their lives to keep New Yorkers SAFE,” the DHS account stated.

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​Immigration and customs enforcement, Trump administration, World cup soccer, Politics, Zohran mamdani 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday an industry-wide investigation into protein powder manufacturers following the release of a pair of damning reports that confirmed the presence of various heavy metals in popular powders and ready-to-drink shakes.

Roughly 15 years ago, Consumer Reports tested 15 protein drinks in a laboratory and found that all of the drinks “had at least one sample containing one or more of the following contaminants: arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury.”

‘Far too many corporations have snuck harmful ingredients in their products.’

The investigators determined that while the heavy metal levels detected in most drinks were in the “low to moderate range,” certain drinks had enough to warrant concern if consumed multiple times a day.

Last year, Consumer Reports conducted a new round of tests, scrutinizing 23 protein powders and read-to-drink shakes from popular brands. The CR investigators discovered that the problem facing the protein products of yesteryear is now not only commonplace but supercharged.

“For more than two-thirds of the products we analyzed, a single serving contained more lead than CR’s food safety experts say is safe to consume in a day — some by more than 10 times,” said the report.

Lead is toxic to humans. Exposure in adults — for which there is no known safe level — can cause numerous health conditions including decreased kidney function, heart problems, infertility, and joint weakness.

RELATED: Disembodied human brains kept ‘alive’ for drug testing by controversial American startup

Alexandre Simoes/Borussia Dortmund/Getty Images

According to the Food and Drug Administration, “The most serious effects of lead exposure can occur during times of active brain development. High levels of exposure to lead in utero, infancy, and early childhood can lead to neurological effects such as learning disabilities, behavior difficulties, and lowered IQ.”

The new CR investigation, led by chemist and food safety researcher Tunde Akinleye, found that the average level of lead in the protein powders was much higher than that observed in the previous CR tests and that there were fewer products with undetectable amounts of it.

Yesteryear’s worst in show apparently have nothing on today’s outliers.

According to the report, Naked Nutrition’s Vegan Mass Gainer powder — the product found to have the highest lead levels among those tested — had twice as much lead per 315-gram serving as the worst product analyzed in 2010. It reportedly contained 7.7 micrograms of lead per serving, which is roughly 1,570% of CR’s level of concern for the heavy metal.

Lead levels in a 90-gram serving of Huel’s Black Edition powder — reportedly 6.3 micrograms of lead, or 1,288% of CR’s daily lead limit — similarly raised concerns among testers, as did the levels in Garden of Life’s Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein and Momentous’ since-discontinued 100% Plant Protein powder, which allegedly contained lead between 400% and 600% of CR’s level of concern.

The report concluded:

roughly 70% of the products tested contained over 120% of CR’s level of concern for lead, which is 0.5 micrograms per day;three products exceeded CR’s level of concern for inorganic arsenic and cadmium — Huel’s Black Edition powder, for instance, contained 9.2 micrograms of cadmium, which is more than twice the level that health experts say could be harmful to have daily;consumers should avoid Naked Nutrition’s Vegan Mass Gainer and Huel’s Black Edition and limit consumption of Garden of Life Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein and Momentous’ 100% Plant Protein to once a week; andplant-based protein powders had, on average, nine times the amount of lead found in products made with dairy proteins like whey and twice as much as beef-based products.

Naked Nutrition’s chief marketing officer James Clark told CR that his company takes “customers’ health very seriously”; sources its ingredients from “select suppliers” that provide documentation attesting they were checked for heavy metals; and had requested a third-party test of its product Mass Gainer.

A spokesman for Huel stressed that the company was “confident in the current formulation and safety of the products,” adding that its ingredients undergo “rigorous testing.”

Will McClaren, a spokesman for Momentous, claimed his company had executed a “massive overhaul” of its lineup and discontinued the products that CR had tested, namely the company’s Whey Protein Isolate and its 100% Plant Protein.

A spokesperson for Garden of Life US said the company’s products were safe for daily use and that the company’s limits for heavy metals were determined by closely following food safety guidance from the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other safety authorities.

Both Garden of Life and Momentous told CR that they tested their ingredients and finished protein products for heavy metals.

The Clean Label Project, an advocacy organization committed to greater transparency in product labeling, similarly found from a review of over 160 of the top-selling protein powders — according to Nielsen and Amazon best-seller lists — that heavy metals were a common issue.

The advocacy and research group stated in its January 2025 report that “47% of products exceeded at least one federal or state regulatory set for safety.”

Texas AG Paxton said on Monday, “Protein is a vital macronutrient for human health, and Texans deserve clean protein powders without having to worry whether the products contain heavy metals or other harmful chemicals.”

“Far too many corporations have snuck harmful ingredients in their products, and I am committed to doing everything I can to help Make America Healthy Again,” added Paxton.

Paxton’s investigation will “examine whether companies falsely marketed or misrepresented the safety and contents of their products and whether they failed to disclose known information about heavy metal contamination in violation of Texas law.”

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​Investigation, Protein powder, Working out, Ken paxton, Texas, Consumer reports, Health, Science, Lead, Poisoning, Heavy metals, Politics 

Border authorities are signaling that increased caution is needed at American airports and points of entry during the World Cup.

While federal agencies have warned that they expect a rise in potentially harmful products, travelers from countries known for agricultural viral outbreaks have already been caught bringing forbidden items to the United States.

‘These products may seem harmless.’

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says that deadly viruses could come into the United States through prohibited agricultural products in passenger baggage, thus increasing risk to American livestock industries and citizen health.

Two such instances have already happened via travelers from Vietnam and Tunisia, the latter of which will participate in the World Cup.

Tunisia will play in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 25, and one traveler from the country was already caught at Washington Dulles International Airport last week. CBP told Blaze News that authorities discovered the traveler was carrying 15 pounds of “canned ruminant meat” in his baggage, with the traveler claiming that his mother cooked and canned the meat before he came to the U.S.

CBP warned that Tunisia has had episodes of several brutal diseases that are “highly contagious” to livestock, including lumpy skin disease, epizootic hemorrhagic disease, and bovine tuberculosis.

A week earlier, CBP agriculture detector dog — a 3-year-old female beagle named Valen — alerted authorities to a potentially dangerous piece of luggage from Vietnam.

RELATED: Exclusive: Border Patrol discovers 19 people hiding in drainage system trying to illegally enter US

US Customs and Border Protection

Valen was proven right when CBP agents conducting a secondary examination discovered 13 pounds of pork products and another 16 pounds of fruits and vegetables.

The federal agency warned about Vietnam’s recent episodes of the deadly African swine fever, which could significantly affect the U.S. pork industry if it were to spread.

“These products may seem harmless, but the introduction of animal diseases could cripple our nation’s livestock industries, cause devastating economic impacts, and restrict our ability to export pork or beef products across the globe,” D.C. Area Port Director Christine Waugh said.

She added, “Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists play a vital role in protecting our nation’s agriculture industries and economic security by intercepting potential animal diseases and invasive insects at our nation’s ports of entry.”

RELATED: Trump DOJ files to strip Jamaican fraudster, Indian H-1B scammer, Haitian pervert, and 14 others of US citizenship

US Customs and Border Protection

CBP is urging travelers to visit its prohibited and restricted items list, which contains warnings about items like alcohol, fruits and vegetables, and even dog and cat furs.

Other important information about traveling with agriculture is mapped out on the USDA travel page.

As for Valen, the detector dog is part of the CBP’s “Beagle Brigade.”

“When it comes to finding prohibited fruit, vegetables, plants, and meat products from high-risk countries, the nose knows. A trained agriculture detector dog can scan a piece of luggage for smuggled or forgotten fruits in mere seconds,” CBP stated.

The K9 program was founded in 1984 at the Los Angeles International Airport with just one beagle. The breed has a great sense of smell, is non-threatening to travelers, and performs well in public settings.

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​News, Border patrol, World cup, Customs and border protection, Politics 

While Democrats still argue that former President Joe Biden was mentally fit during his presidency, they’re now questioning President Trump’s cognitive fitness after Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu (Calif.) accused the president of falling asleep during a Cabinet meeting last year.

“Secretary Rubio, have you been at more than one meeting where President Trump has fallen asleep?” the Democrat lawmaker asked Marco Rubio, who answered that Lieu was wrong.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray is shocked at the Democrat’s hypocrisy.

“We had a president for four years who had full-blown dementia, who couldn’t speak, who couldn’t walk, who fell upstairs heading to Air Force One three times, fell over on a bicycle, fell at a speech to the Navy. The guy couldn’t talk,” Gray says.

“The guy was so bad his wife thought he was having a stroke during the debate with Donald Trump. And it’s now all of a sudden you want to focus on a president’s cognitive ability, based on what? What has Trump done that is so egregious like Biden was doing every day?” he asks.

“This is despicable. These people are despicable,” he adds, before playing a clip of former first lady Jill Biden revealing some of her own frustration with her husband — despite denying any knowledge of his mental decline.

“Oh, Joe has a question. Like you couldn’t ask it later?” Jill asked her husband as he walked up to the stage of the interview.

“Who do you love most in the whole world?” Joe asked.

“Whoopi,” Jill answered.

“That’s unbelievable,” Gray comments.

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​Donald trump, First lady, Jill biden, Joe biden, Marco rubio, Pat gray, Ted lieu, Whoopi goldberg, Pat gray unleashed 

Nobody understands the frustration of “harvested” ballots and seemingly endless vote-counting in California better than Steve Cooley.

Cooley’s name resurfaced on social media this week in an old news clip about Kamala Harris’ come-from-behind victory in the California attorney general race back in 2010. Cooley, the Republican candidate as well as the district attorney of L.A. County at the time, declared victory on November 2 of that year after initial results showed him with a lead that at one point grew as large as 8%.

‘This is a f**king mess, and there’s no will in California to clean it up.’

Cooley told Blaze News that he felt a growing sense of confidence as he watched the returns come in. “Those numbers are pretty good,” he recalled thinking.

“The night of the election, when they counted all the ballots cast that day, and they included all of the absentees, I was ahead,” he said.

However, he quickly noted that the race was still “within 1%.”

That narrow lead prompted an automatic count of all ballots cast, including provisional ballots. In general, provisional ballots are “harvested,” Cooley said, and Harris “slaughtered” him once the provisional ballots were included.

“She beat me in all 58 counties — and it wasn’t even close.”

By November 25, three weeks after Cooley’s victory appeared to be sealed, Harris had been declared the winner.

At the time, Cooley declined to request a recount since he would have been stuck with the bill if the recount failed to change the result. “It would have cost millions of dollars,” he claimed.

“So it’s a great incentive to not ask for a recount.”

Still, Cooley believes that Democrat operatives played a pivotal role in handing the race to Harris. He claimed that “mostly Democrats … do ballot-harvesting” and that “Kamala Harris was the default choice on a high percentage of the provisional ballots.”

Kamala Harris’ office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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Spencer Pratt on Primary Election Day. Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images.

Cooley indicated the electoral process in California has not improved in the last 16 years. Though he stopped short of calling it “rigged,” as President Donald Trump has done, Cooley believes the system is vulnerable to fraud, especially since every active registered voter in the state receives a live ballot and the voter rolls may yet still include individuals who have died, left the state, or are otherwise ineligible to vote.

“Those ballots are out there, ready to be picked up, harvested, whatever. And that’s where the fraud comes in,” he explained.

The Trump DOJ has pledged to audit the voter rolls in California, but Cooley notes such an audit will not affect the 2026 primary, even after Spencer Pratt was boxed out of the general election for L.A. mayor despite a 40,000-vote edge over far-left City Councilwoman Nithya Raman on Election Night, June 2. Raman will advance to face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in November.

“Those questionable ballots have already been harvested and dropped off or sent in or mailed in by individuals who are essentially taking a mailed-out ballot and returning it on behalf of someone else.”

“And there’s no undoing that without a massive commitment of resources, and the registrar recorders are not going to do it. … They don’t want to spend the time, money, and energy in doing it, because all it does is point out how incompetent they are. They’re not going to make any effort to prove their own incompetence and failures,” Cooley said.

“This is a f**king mess, and there’s no will in California to clean it up. No will.”

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​Attorney general, California, Kamala harris, Voter rolls, Politics, Ballot harvesting 

Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby is caught in the firing line of gambling, college football, and mental health activism.

Even though Sorsby was apparently caught earlier this year gambling on NCAA games, he will still suit up for the Red Raiders this coming season.

‘The NCAA strongly disagrees with the court’s ruling in this case.’

Sorsby’s gambling activity was unearthed in March, when he was found to have placed at least 40 bets on his team when he played for Indiana from 2022 to 2023. Not only did the quarterback wager approximately $90,000 over four years, per On3, he also allegedly used sportsbook accounts registered to friends and family members to do so.

The 22-year-old reportedly continued to gamble after transfers to Cincinnati for 2024 and 2025 and to Texas Tech, where he transferred in January.

Sorsby checked into gambling addiction rehab in April and has since been released with a diagnosis of gambling and anxiety disorder. Those issues, which Yahoo reported are officially recognized by the NCAA as mental health disorders, were not properly considered by the NCAA when the organization decided to rule him as ineligible, Sorsby’s lawyers have argued.

Despite all this trouble, a judge ruled on Monday that Sorsby’s college career will continue, for now.

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Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

Ken Curry — a judge in Lubbock County, Texas, where Texas Tech is located — ruled that Sorsby shall continue to play for Texas Tech by way of injunction. According to Curry, Sorsby’s attorneys were able to prove that he would “suffer a probable, imminent, and irreparable injury,” monetarily speaking, if he was not allowed to play in the meantime.

The Athletic reported on Tuesday that the NCAA has filed an appeal, claiming that the court is corrupting college football’s “integrity.”

“The NCAA strongly disagrees with the court’s ruling in this case and is deeply concerned about the damaging, far-reaching, and broadly destabilizing ramifications of this outcome — which undermines and corrupts the integrity of sports,” the NCAA reportedly said in a statement.

The college body added, “The NCAA is committed to supporting student-athlete mental health but must continue to aggressively defend against actions that defraud college athletics and threaten competitive integrity, such as betting on one’s own sport.”

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Justin Casterline/Getty Images

Although court filings reportedly showed that Sorsby admitted to betting with the caveat that he always bet on his teammates to succeed, his school’s conference is apparently having talks about refusing to play against his team.

Kansas State Athletic Director Gene Taylor told Yahoo Sports that the Big 12 conference had “serious conversations” about the idea.

“It’s f**king bulls**t,” Taylor told the outlet on Monday. “I know the kid has a problem. Well, get well and focus on your problem. It is absolutely devastating for him to be able to play when every other sport, no matter the level, deems an athlete ineligible or they are punished severely for betting on their team.”

A condition of the injunction requires Sorsby to sit out for the first two games of the season against Abilene Christian and Oregon State, neither of which are in the Big 12.

Sorsby would be eligible to return against the University of Houston, a Big 12 team, on September 18.

Other discussions about avoiding Texas Tech have reportedly taken place in conferences like the Big Ten and the SEC.

ESPN college football reporter Pete Thamel said on Monday night that Big Ten officials are expected to have a discussion about a possible conference refusal to play Texas Tech in any sport. He cited three unnamed Big Ten sources.

In the SEC, University of Georgia Athletic Director Josh Brooks issued an internal memo to coaches telling them not to schedule any contests against Texas Tech without approval, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

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​Fearless, Ncaa, College football, Texas tech, Sports