Things have gone from bad to much worse for a 19-year-old Florida male who allegedly put a gun to the head of a man delivering banana pudding of all things earlier this month.

According to an arrest warrant, a food delivery man on Aug. 6 was dropping off an order of banana pudding in the 20300 block of Northwest 34th Court in Miami Gardens when Jabari Thomas and another man — 20-year-old Demetrius Tromain Travis — tried to rob him, WTVJ-TV reported.

‘Threw his life away for a couple of bucks! Make it make sense … smh.’

Thomas got into the back seat of the victim’s car and at one point allegedly put a gun to the delivery man’s head, the station said, citing the warrant.

The suspects also were trying to access the delivery man’s CashApp when the victim pulled his own gun and opened fire, WTVJ reported, citing the warrant.

Travis was shot in the leg, chest, and face, the station said, adding that he was airlifted to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The delivery man stayed at the scene and wasn’t charged, WTVJ added.

Witnesses said a second suspect was seen fleeing the scene and running toward a white vehicle, the station said, adding that police issued a “Be On the Lookout” for the car.

The vehicle later was found in Miramar, police told WTVJ, and Thomas was taken into custody.

Thomas is facing charges for armed robbery — as well as second-degree felony murder, the station said.

RELATED: Teen thug points gun in face of Marine Corps veteran, demands his car keys. But punk definitely picked wrong victim.

Why the murder charge? WTVJ said Thomas is being blamed for Travis’ death because the killing happened during the alleged armed robbery.

Thomas appeared in court in Miami-Dade on Wednesday where he was ordered held without bond, the station said, adding that he could face life in prison if he’s convicted.

Commenters under WTVJ’s Facebook post about the incident were incredulous:

“Threw his life away for a couple of bucks!” one commenter exclaimed. “Make it make sense … smh.””Felony murder charges are the best,” another user quipped.”Chair,” another commenter bluntly stated.

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​Murder, 2nd amendment, Self-defense, Fatal shooting, Florida, Arrest, Armed robbery, Fighting back, Crime 

For 80 years, American science has operated under the Vannevar Bush model that was established in the wake of World War II. In his 1945 report, “Science, the Endless Frontier,” Bush argued that the government should fund “curiosity-driven basic research,” with panels of peer scientists choosing which projects deserved financial support.

His goal was not merely to subsidize scientists’ intellectual whims without regard for visible applications, but to secure American technological supremacy by developing fundamental knowledge before its practical uses were apparent.

In practice, however, Bush’s vision mutated into a bloated, risk-averse bureaucracy split between government and universities, stifling the very innovation it was designed to foster.

By funding researchers directly with stable, modest support, we can recreate the fertile conditions that historically produced revolutionary advances.

After eight decades, the weaknesses of Bush’s project-grant model are clear. As the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy points out in its new report, academic researchers spend up to half their time writing, formatting, and defending grant proposals rather than actually doing science. Moreover, because review panels naturally gravitate toward proven concepts, researchers are incentivized to propose incremental work that is guaranteed to succeed, often because they have already accomplished it.

The human cost of Bush’s model is staggering. The average age of a researcher receiving his first major independent grant from the National Institutes of Health has crept into the mid-40s — as the report notes, that is older than the average age of recent Nobel Prize winners when they made their breakthrough contributions.

We are forcing the brightest minds of academic science to spend their most creative decades acting as junior collaborators to insiders. The result is steady incremental progress, at least according to peers, but none of the breakthroughs that define true scientific revolutions.

Indeed, the OSTP is arguably much too kind to Vannevar Bush’s scheme: As the careful reader of the report may realize, the technological and scientific progress that powered the American century was produced almost entirely by alternative models based on missions set by the political leadership and their politically accountable deputies.

I propose a fundamental change in how we cultivate intellectual capital. We should largely zero out the current project-grant system for basic research and replace it with a radically simpler philosophy for supporting unguided curiosity: fund people, not projects.

Although the recent OSTP report accurately identifies the bureaucratic rot and systemic sclerosis within our current grant-making framework, we must extend its logic to its necessary conclusion. The report correctly asserts that federal science funding must be politically accountable; in a democracy, the public’s resources must be directed toward the public’s interests by those the people actually elect.

RELATED: Fauci is yesterday’s fight. Medical freedom is today’s.

Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg/Getty Images

To realize this ambition, Congress should circumvent this ossified establishment with a bold “metascience” pilot: 535 10-year research fellowships — one formally appointed by every member of the House and Senate. This gives lawmakers direct buy-in. It also dismantles the peer-review cartel, replacing the sterile consensus of risk-averse panels with the robust, structural accountability that the OSTP now recognizes as essential.

These fellowships would be awarded sequentially over a five-year rollout period, amounting to 107 new fellowships per year. Each selected fellow would receive a competitive, stable salary alongside modest lab support — say, capped at 100% of the salary — and would be placed with program help at an institution after winning, much the way Rhodes Scholarship winners are placed at an Oxford college.

This funding intentionally excludes substantial infrastructure, which would be funded through mission- or goal-based schemes.

The 10-year horizon of these fellowships is essential. Under the current three-year grant cycle, scientists must immediately begin worrying about their next funding application the moment their current one is approved. A decade of guaranteed support provides the freedom to take on the biggest and most fundamental problems and pursue unexpected insights.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which funds researchers with grants of $10 million over seven years, bets on people rather than projects. It has produced a higher proportion of innovative, high-impact research by a wider margin than the project-based approach. Similarly, the OSTP report notes that the long-running NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, which funds students independently of their advisers and institutions, has produced over 40 Nobel laureates.

The selection mechanism must bypass the ossified academic science establishment. Recent Ph.D. graduates (or equivalent independent researchers) would submit their theses and publications, along with a brief vision statement, directly to a joint House-Senate committee. Committee staff, drawing freely on outside experts and advanced analytical tools, would rank the candidates. To guide this process, the committee would set rotating annual priorities.

The actual appointments would be assigned by a randomized lottery tied to congressional seats. When a member’s turn arises, he can either select a qualified applicant he believes in, or he can accept the top staff-recommended name from the staff-ranked list for that year.

RELATED: Private equity is billing patients to the bone

DNY59/Getty Images

While most members would likely defer to the staff ranking, letting them pick fellows if they want avoids inbreeding, gives politicians buy-in, and replicates the highly successful system of congressional nominations to military service academies. For the sake of scope and efficiency, this fellowship scheme centralizes the ranking of candidates at the committee level.

High-capital “big science” fields would continue to be funded directly by their institutional customers, such as mission agencies, the Department of Defense, or private industry. Small goal- or mission-oriented projects would be funded through a wide variety of models, along the many lines proposed in the OSTP report. The congressional fellowships are exclusively for the independent thinkers with the greatest apparent potential — the future Einsteins.

By funding researchers directly with stable, modest support, we can recreate the fertile conditions that historically produced revolutionary advances.

I estimate the cost of this pilot program during its rollout phase at roughly $35 to $40 million per year for the 107 new fellows, with modest administrative overhead. In the context of a federal research budget in the tens of billions, this is a tiny fraction of what we currently spend on the peers’ preferred marginal projects and their administration.

After five years, once all 535 fellowships are awarded, Congress can assess the program, as it should assess all research funding programs, before deciding whether to renew, modify, or expand it.

It is time to move beyond the bureaucratic legacy of the Bush model of peer review and project-based funding. The congressional fellowships would identify the most promising researchers of their generation and give them the freedom and time to think instead of writing grants. To advance Vannevar Bush’s endless frontier, we need simpler, more humane, and more exciting approaches to American innovation.

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

​Research, Science grants, Vannevar bush, Ostp, Office and science and technology, Fellowships, Howard hughes medical institute, Nobel prize, Oxford, Rhodes scholars, Opinion & analysis 

Ohio law enforcement officials said that the three suspects in the alleged torture and murder of a 7-year-old boy had planned in advance to kidnap and kill him.

Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney Connie Pillich said in a media briefing Thursday that officials had text message evidence from the Signal encryption app about the alleged plot.

‘They failed miserably as parents. Instead, they committed atrocious acts, causing this child to suffer terribly.’

7-year-old William Evans-Ellis was found dead, bound and wrapped with duct tape in a closet at his mother’s apartment in Oakley that she shared with two other people, as previously reported by Blaze News.

Pillich revealed that the boy had been dead for a day before his body was found. She also said that the three suspects had taken a dog to a veterinarian the day before he was found, which raises suspicion that he was already dead when they left.

Police arrested 38-year-old Kaitlin Evans, the boy’s biological mother, as well as 23-year-old Nessa Keaney and 33-year-old Kirby Rankin. The three were indicted on more than a dozen charges that include aggravated murder, murder, kidnapping, and felonious assault.

Keany and Rankin have been described as women by the media, but police records indicate they are both biological males.

The coroner’s office found the child had died of blunt force trauma to the head and had numerous other injuries indicating prolonged and severe abuse.

“This child was failed by the adults who were supposed to protect him,” said Pillich. “The child was only 7 years old. He was vulnerable, he was dependent on the adults around him, and he deserved to be protected from harm. Instead, he endured horrific abuse and ultimately lost his life.”

Among the injuries listed were a broken bone, bruises too numerous to count, possible burn marks, and water torture.

“This is a horrific, monstrous, unfathomable act,” Pillich added. “They failed miserably as parents. Instead, they committed atrocious acts, causing this child to suffer terribly.”

The charges carry a possible sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

RELATED: Florida woman brutally beat man to death with a hammer — and left a note saying ‘PEDO Touches Children’

“This case has been heartbreaking and deeply disturbing from the beginning,” Pillich said. “Nothing can undo what happened to the child, but we can make sure his death is fully investigated and that those responsible face the consequences in court.”

The three suspects are each being held on a bond of $1.1 million. The attorneys for the two males have formally requested competency evaluations.

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​Child abuse, Child torture, Transgender, Murder, Ohio, Crime 

The modern administrative state has perfected the art of turning basic human relationships into a never-ending nightmare. In modern America, even the simplest family matters can become exercises in paperwork and official permission. But what happened to an Ohio mother crosses into truly disturbing territory.

When Andrea Mauk’s 18-year-old son, Damon, died suddenly, he was not a registered organ donor. Andrea had raised him as his primary custodial parent. His biological father was long estranged, played little role in his upbringing, and, according to Andrea, didn’t even appear in his hospital files.

Federal investigators concluded that at least 28 patients might not have been dead when the procurement process began.

Yet Andrea says that while she was briefly out of cellphone service, hospital and organ procurement organization staff turned to Damon’s biological father. Roughly 30 minutes after attempting to reach her, she says, they obtained a single phone “yes” from him authorizing the recovery of Damon’s eyes and tissue. Some of that tissue would ultimately make its way as far as Argentina.

Who decides?

For conservatives who still believe the family is the primary unit of society, the story raises disturbing questions about parental authority and consent. Under Ohio’s version of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, both parents of an adult child occupy the same level of priority for authorizing donation.

If one parent gives permission, the gift can proceed unless that parent or the procurement organization knows the other parent objects. The law requires officials to consider which relatives are “reasonably available,” but that determination depends partly on whether they can be contacted in time to act within existing medical constraints.

That leaves enormous weight resting on a deceptively simple question: How long is reasonable when a mother doesn’t even know someone is seeking permission to recover parts of her child’s body?

“In my son’s entire medical record, his father was never listed. He was not an emergency contact, HIPAA release, and we have no idea how he was even contacted,” Andrea explains.

Her parents showed up at the hospital after community members tipped them off, but nobody mentioned donation. Even when Andrea called the hospital directly, she says, staff kept her in the dark. As part of the process, Andrea says the OPO had Damon’s father complete a detailed medical history questionnaire about a son he barely knew. If accurate, that raises an obvious question about how reliable such a medical history could possibly have been.

Organ trade

Follow the money, and the picture becomes far more disturbing. Americans are accustomed to seeing organ donation as an act of pure altruism. But the system also has a powerful commercial dimension.

When someone dies without registering as an organ donor, the UAGA allows certain family members to authorize donation on the person’s behalf. At the same time, federal regulators measure OPOs partly by their donation and transplantation rates, creating an obvious institutional incentive to secure authorizations. OPO performance can ultimately determine whether an organization retains its certification and service area. Critics fear those incentives can turn a grieving family’s decision into another performance metric — all within a system where some OPO executives collect compensation exceeding half a million dollars a year.

The loophole lies in the world of “anatomical gifts” — the industry’s clinical term for donated skin, bone, ligaments, eyes, and other tissue. Federal law prohibits the outright sale of human tissue for transplantation, but permits organizations to charge for its recovery, processing, storage, transportation, and distribution. In other words, the tissue itself cannot legally carry a price tag, but nearly everything done to it after donation can. The result is a peculiar system in which the donor receives nothing, yet donated tissue can generate substantial revenue as it moves through nonprofit and commercial organizations.

“My son’s eyes were sold to an international hospital in Argentina and his skin and ligaments to a biologics research company,” Andrea notes. “This has become a multibillion-dollar industry.”

Legally, the industry distinguishes between selling human tissue and charging for the services required to recover, process, and distribute it. For a grieving mother who never authorized the donation in the first place, that distinction may understandably seem rather academic.

RELATED: RFK Jr. decertifies Kentucky organ harvesting outfit accused of ignoring signs of life in ‘donors’

L-R: BSIP/Universal Images Group/Getty Images; SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

‘Questionable consent’

Nor are concerns about the procurement system confined to Andrea’s case.

Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services examined 351 cases in which organ donation had been authorized but ultimately not completed. Federal investigators found concerning features in 103 of them, including what HHS described as “questionable consent practices.” Seventy-three patients showed neurological signs inconsistent with organ donation, and federal investigators concluded that at least 28 patients might not have been dead when the procurement process began. HHS ordered corrective measures and broader changes intended to strengthen safeguards throughout the system.

The concerns have persisted. In March, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued new guidance explicitly requiring that families be given appropriate time to make informed donation decisions without coercion. CMS said the action followed reports of OPOs rushing parts of the process and pressuring grieving families.

Andrea’s own search for answers eventually took her all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court. The public records litigation concerned records surrounding Damon’s death and the handling of his personal property, including $1,500 in cash and an iPhone reportedly given to a man identifying himself as Damon’s father — not the legality of his father’s authorization of the donation. Andrea ultimately won a partial victory and $2,000 in statutory damages over improperly withheld or redacted records.

She says she also had to go through probate proceedings simply to obtain access to some of her son’s files. Two years and thousands of dollars later, Andrea says she is still trying to reconstruct exactly what happened to her son and why.

The traumatized and understandably furious mother says she has repeatedly called and emailed Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, but has received no substantive response in 18 months.

‘Damon’s Law’

But all is not lost. Andrea is now campaigning for a package of reforms she calls “Damon’s Law,” aimed at strengthening informed consent and family protections in the organ- and tissue-donation system. As I write, more than 16,000 citizens have signed a Change.org petition calling on Congress to enact those reforms. That pressure must grow until lawmakers have no option but to act.

Andrea’s proposed reforms demand basic transparency and accountability across the board. She wants states to require DMVs to tell drivers more clearly what organ and tissue donation actually entails, rather than allowing a one-time registration to remain in force indefinitely without requiring the donor to reaffirm it.

That’s not a hypothetical concern. Under Ohio law, once someone registers as a donor through a driver’s license, identification card, or vehicle registration, the authorization remains effective until affirmatively withdrawn. The donor doesn’t have to reaffirm the decision at renewal, and even expiration or cancellation of the license itself doesn’t invalidate the gift.

And even withdrawing that gift may not mean what an ordinary person assumes it means. Ohio law expressly distinguishes between revoking an anatomical gift and refusing to make one. A donor’s revocation “is not a refusal” and therefore does not necessarily prevent an authorized relative from approving a donation after death. By contrast, a formal, unrevoked refusal generally bars other people from making the gift.

The distinction may make sense to a lawyer; whether the average Ohioan understands it when checking — or unchecking — a box at the DMV is another question entirely.

Andrea also wants lawmakers to establish clearer rules for family authorization, so that an estranged biological parent cannot make such an irreversible decision without the parent who actually raised the deceased even being given a meaningful chance to object. Andrea Mauk wants a system she believes failed her family to be reformed.

Any decent, sane American should want families to know what they are consenting to — and to have a meaningful say before the decision becomes irreversible. Without serious legislative fixes, the system that failed Andrea and Damon will remain perfectly capable of doing the same thing to another family.

​Organ donation, Organ donor, Organ procurement organization, Parental authority, Body parts, Lifestyle, Health, Parental rights, Medicine, Make america healthy again 

Glenn Beck believes that President Trump has the power to reset the world order — but his success all depends on one critical thing.

“What do you think that that success hinges on? Like, what’s the if?” BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler asked him on “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

“God,” he replied tearfully.

Change can only happen, Glenn says, if people adopt the humble heart posture of “Your will, not mine.”

To illustrate his point, he shares a heartfelt story from his son’s childhood.

“My son was … probably 8 or 9, and he was afraid to do something, and I brought him into my office,” Glenn recounts, describing how the walls were filled with pictures of his personal heroes.

“I said, ‘Son, I know you’re afraid to do something, but why do I have all of these pictures of these people on my walls?’ And he said, ‘Because they were all heroes, and they did the hard things, and they weren’t afraid,”’ he continues.

Glenn then gently corrected his son: “I’ve read the diaries of these people. I’ve studied these people. … All of them were afraid. … They were risking everything they loved — every single one of them. But they did it anyway because there’s something bigger than them.”

That bigger something was “truth.”

“If we can humble ourselves enough to get to the point to where it’s more important for me to fight this now, to fight for the truth, so my children don’t have to do it, and I’ll take on the consequences … we save the world — not just the nation. We save the world,” says Glenn.

But this selfless mission requires something: “a deep abiding faith in God.”

And the world is depending on America to have that faith so that it can stand for truth.

“After talking to all of these leaders over in Europe, it’s clear to me, and they said it to me, ‘America is the only hope. Without America, we are all lost,’” Glenn tells Liz, reflecting on his recent trip to the U.K. where he attended a Tommy Robinson rally.

“We’re the only hope. Will we remember that? Be grateful for what we do have, and stand to protect it so our children have a chance at a more peaceful world tomorrow,” he says.

To hear more of Glenn’s powerful take, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​America, Donald trump, Glenn beck, God, Liz wheeler, Truth, Blazetv show