A multi-agency operation led to the recovery of over 100 children from Florida and several other states.

Operation Home for the Holidays was led by the U.S. Marshals Service and involved partnerships with the FBI’s Jacksonville Field Office, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and other federal, state, and local entities.

‘Many of these kids have been victimized in unspeakable ways. We will prosecute their abusers to the fullest extent of the law.’

Jason Carley, the FBI field office’s special agent in charge, explained that the mission aimed to “find missing and potentially trafficked children.”

“In these types of operations, partnerships are essential,” he added.

The law enforcement operation, which ran over two weeks, resulted in the recovery of 122 children, FBI Jacksonville reported on Monday. The children were connected to care and services.

“Protecting our children is at the core of the FBI’s mission. This operation represents the very best of what can be accomplished when state, local and federal partners come together with a shared commitment,” FBI Jacksonville stated.

RELATED: Florida accuses Roblox of allowing child groomers to exploit children through ‘sexually explicit material’

Image source: FBI Jacksonville

Law enforcement agents rescued 57 children from Tampa, 14 from Orlando, 22 from Jacksonville, 29 from Fort Myers, and 13 from other states and internationally, according to the Florida Attorney General’s Office.

“The children ranged in age from 23 months to 17 years old, and many had experienced various levels of abuse, neglect, exploitation, or exposure to other criminal activity,” a statement from the AG’s office read.

— (@)

Six individuals were reportedly arrested on felony charges, including child neglect, custodial interference, narcotics possession, sexual assault, terroristic threats, and endangerment.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called the operation one of the nation’s largest child-recovery efforts.

“Many of these kids have been victimized in unspeakable ways. We will prosecute their abusers to the fullest extent of the law,” Uthmeier stated.

RELATED: Florida’s historic sting rescues dozens of kids and arrests alleged predators in nation’s ‘largest’ child rescue sweep

Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images

“What allows our Middle Florida-based child recovery initiatives to stand out is the emphasis placed on what happens after,” said William Berger, the U.S. marshal for the Middle District of Florida. “We know these children will have needs once we find them. It only makes sense to build these operations alongside like-minded partners from across the child welfare space.”

“The United States Marshals Service is proud to stand with our partners across the state of Florida in pursuit of the safety and welfare of our children,” Berger continued. “This operation was built based upon the wants and needs of our communities. We are honored to play a leading role in answering those calls. Welcome Home and Happy Holidays!”

— (@)

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​News, Florida, U.s. marshals service, Us marshals service, Jacksonville, Fbi jacksonville, Fbi, Federal bureau of investigation, Child trafficking, Tampa, Orlando, Fort myers, James uthmeier, William berger, Bill berger, Child abuse, Child neglect, Trafficking, Human trafficking, Politics 

Large sections of the internet stopped working on Tuesday morning. Among the sites affected by the latest in a weeks-long series of outages were Amazon Web Services, X, League of Legends, the betting site bet365, Spotify, ChatGPT, and — ironically — the website that monitors online outages, Downdetector.

The problem appears to be the result of issues at Cloudflare, a San Francisco-headquartered tech company that effectively serves as a backbone to a myriad of sites, providing content delivery network and wide area network services, domain registration, and cybersecurity.

‘We saw a spike in unusual traffic.’

At the time of writing, the Cloudflare system status page indicated that the company was working toward restoring global network services, having hours earlier acknowledged “experiencing an internal service degradation” that could leave some services “intermittently impacted.”

The latest outages come just days after Cloudflare admitted an “issue which potentially impacts multiple customers” — an issue that was supposedly “resolved.”

A spokesperson for Cloudflare said in a statement obtained by the Guardian, “We saw a spike in unusual traffic to one of Cloudflare’s services beginning at 11:20am [London time]. That caused some traffic passing through Cloudflare’s network to experience errors. While most traffic for most services continued to flow as normal, there were elevated errors across multiple Cloudflare services.”

“We do not yet know the cause of the spike in unusual traffic,” continued the spokesperson. “We are all hands on deck to make sure all traffic is served without errors. After that, we will turn our attention to investigating the cause of the unusual spike in traffic.”

The company’s engineers were reportedly scheduled to conduct some maintenance work on data centers in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Tahiti, and Santiago, Chile. It’s unclear whether their efforts had anything to do with the technical issues.

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​Technology, Internet, Cloudflare, Outage, X, Online, Cybersecurity, Politics 

Last month, Warner Brothers Discovery put itself up for sale, triggering what could become a bidding war for one of America’s most iconic studios. Days later, reports emerged that Amazon plans to make a run at the company, immediately raising the stakes.

Consumers and regulators should treat every Big Tech bidder with skepticism, but Amazon’s interest demands special scrutiny. The world’s largest online retailer has a long record of distorting markets, crushing rivals, and cozying up to foreign adversaries — most notably China. Letting Amazon absorb yet another major media asset would tighten its grip on an entertainment industry already buckling under corporate consolidation.

Why would antitrust officials hand Amazon even more power in a sector already suffocating under concentration?

Amazon may be a household name, but it is not an America-first company. It bullies smaller retailers, copies their ideas, and funnels profits and supply-chain leverage through China. That behavior undermines the ingenuity and fair competition that built the U.S. economy.

Amazon already wields enormous influence over media. Last year, Prime Video topped U.S. streaming charts for the third straight year. Amazon controls a sprawling production studio, reinforced by its 2022 purchase of MGM. It holds high-dollar sports rights, including “Thursday Night Football” and an 11-year deal with the NBA.

Amazon doesn’t need Warner Brothers Discovery to survive. It wants the company to force more Americans into its digital universe, dominate an even larger share of the market, and use that dominance to trap users and raise prices. Buying competitors beats out-competing them — a classic monopolist playbook that burdens consumers and smothers innovation.

A Warner Brothers takeover would give Amazon exactly what it wants: a massive content library, the third-largest streaming platform, and a lineup of lucrative cable properties. With the deal sealed, Amazon would control more than a third of the streaming video on demand market — roughly 50% more than its nearest rival.

Why would antitrust officials hand Amazon even more power in a sector already suffocating under concentration? They likely won’t.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Gail Slater, have made clear that they intend to protect small businesses and consumers from predatory corporate behavior.

The Trump administration has backed those promises with action. Within nine months of taking office, the FTC forced Amazon to pay $2.5 million for trapping customers in Prime subscriptions. Ferguson’s vow to ensure that “Amazon never does this again” shows that this White House will not give repeat offenders a free pass.

RELATED: Stop feeding Big Tech and start feeding Americans again

Lexi Critchett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The regulatory terrain also looks dramatically different from 2022, when Amazon bought MGM — an acquisition the Biden administration should have challenged and likely would challenge today. After that merger, the FTC rewrote its merger and acquisition guidelines to strengthen oversight. President Trump kept those rules and appears ready to use them.

Some critics claim Amazon earned goodwill with the administration by contributing to White House renovation projects. That accusation doesn’t survive contact with the facts. Candidate Trump warned about Amazon’s “huge antitrust problem” as early as 2016. The company has grown eightfold since then. Trump hasn’t softened.

And Amazon hardly functioned as a friend of the right. The company backed Joe Biden heavily in 2020, donating nearly $2.3 million to his campaign. Biden’s FTC did not treat Amazon kindly either, suing the company for “anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.” That case remains unresolved.

The sale of Warner Brothers Discovery will shape the future of American media — either by giving the company a fighting chance to innovate and compete, or by cementing Big Tech control over what Americans watch, read, and hear. If Amazon tries to tighten that grip, I expect the Trump administration to step in.

Let’s hope the sale doesn’t force the administration’s hand.

​Amazon, Warner bros., Monopoly, Opinion & analysis, Antitrust, Federal trade commission, Streaming, Merger, Regulations, America first, China, Big tech 

A woman was arrested and charged with child neglect on Nov. 9 for allegedly leaving her children in a filthy apartment full of human and animal feces, Michigan police said.

Police were called to a residence on South Francis Street over a possible break-in, but instead found the “deplorable conditions” that led them to arrest 31-year-old Teriomas Tremice Johnson, according to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.

‘It defies understanding how parents blessed with the gift of a child could show such cruelty.’

Deputies found a 12-year-old girl, a 9-year-old girl, and a 9-year-old boy alone in the apartment. There was no working plumbing, and the children were forced to defecate in a cardboard box. Police said three cats also lived in the home and all of the sinks were clogged.

The sheriff’s department also said that the children only sporadically attended school.

The children were placed into the custody of their fathers by Children’s Protective Services.

Johnson is facing three felony charges of second-degree child abuse. Each charge may be punishable by up to 10 years in prison. She had been on probation for 36 months after a conviction on retail fraud and other charges.

The sheriff’s department posted two photographs from the apartment on social media.

RELATED: Police rescue 2 children from freezing home with ‘overwhelming’ smell of dog feces and urine: ‘Like a punch to the face’

“It defies understanding how parents blessed with the gift of a child could show such cruelty,” said Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard. “The complete lack of compassion and humanity is heartbreaking, and I am eager to see justice served for this unconscionable act.”

Bond for Johnson was initially set at $250,000, but Magistrate Angelena Thomas-Scruggs revoked the bond after the suspect threw a chair and yelled an expletive at the official, according to the sheriff’s office.

The School District of the City of Pontiac said the district is cooperating with the police investigation.

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​Animal neglect, Kids in filthy apartment, Teriomas tremice johnson, Pontiac michigan, Crime, Child neglect 

New York City has elected a self-professed socialist as mayor. Critics worry about Zohran Mamdani’s inexperience, his approach to law and order, and his views on Israel and Islamic radicalism. But the most urgent issue inside the walls of City Hall is his economic agenda.

Mamdani promises “free” bus transit, a freeze on rent increases, a $30 minimum wage, government-run grocery stores, free child care, and higher taxes in a city already crushed by some of the nation’s highest tax burdens. His brand of socialism isn’t subtle. It’s explicit — and guaranteed to fail.

A movement confident in free enterprise can beat socialism — first in the arena of ideas, then at the ballot box. But only if we choose clarity over imitation.

Many on the right treat Mamdani’s victory as cosmic justice for a deep-blue city that keeps moving left. Others welcome his rise, convinced that showcasing a hard-left mayor will repel voters nationwide. That might be true. It might also be fantasy.

New Yorkers didn’t elect Mamdani so conservatives could score a talking point. His win advances ideas — and conservatives must decide whether they still believe ours are better.

When the right copies the left

Mocking government-run grocery stores is easy. Yet national Republicans just embraced government ownership in Intel — a massive corporation that dwarfs any Manhattan supermarket. Some even support a federal sovereign wealth fund to buy equity across private industry, handing Washington the power to pick winners.

Mamdani demonizes Wall Street and high earners who keep the city solvent. Republicans respond by demonizing “big pharma” and pushing policies that treat major U.S. innovators as villains.

Mamdani wants to redistribute income with New York’s already-extreme tax code. Some on the right now call for $2,000 government checks to lower-income households — financed with borrowed money and paid back by business owners already hit with $350 billion in new tariff taxes this year.

Mamdani would freeze rents because, in his telling, landlords “make a killing.” His economics ignore taxes, insurance, utilities, and maintenance costs that devour margins across New York’s rental market. Yet GOP proposals on health care routinely blame insurers for “making a killing while the little guy suffers.” The overlap with left-wing rhetoric isn’t coincidence. It’s drift.

High grocery prices fuel Mamdani’s push for government-run grocery stores. He blames “capitalistic greed.” Republicans answered high beef prices by accusing meat companies of “price fixing.” Again, the same logic — just delivered with a different logo.

Resurrecting failed policies

Mamdani’s worldview mirrors the same interventionist thinking that powered the Affordable Care Act. Subsidies, mandates, and price controls promised relief. They delivered higher premiums, higher costs, and lower-quality care.

Conservatives should highlight that failure. Instead, too many mimic the left’s solutions — regulation dressed up as populism, government expansion sold as “tough on corporations,” and class warfare renamed as “standing up for workers.”

If Mamdani’s win teaches anything, it’s that conservatives must draw a bright line: free enterprise or the road to socialism. Blurring that line weakens the argument and cedes the moral ground socialism feeds on.

RELATED: Mao tried this first — New Yorkers will not like the ending

Bettmann/Getty Images

The real fight

The conservative movement faces serious internal debates — debates worth having. But Mamdani’s election exposes one fight we cannot dodge: the fight for limited government and competitive markets.

We cannot counter socialism with lighter versions of the same policies. We cannot attack Mamdani’s economic program while pushing our own price controls, government takeovers, and redistribution schemes. A movement that refuses to defend free enterprise won’t defeat socialism. It won’t even understand the threat.

Mamdani comes into office with plenty of flaws. New Yorkers will feel the consequences soon enough. But conservatives face a choice: defend our own principles or mimic the left and call it “the new right.”

A movement confident in free enterprise can beat socialism — first in the arena of ideas, then at the ballot box. But only if we choose clarity over imitation.

​Zohran mamdani, Intel, Gop, Socialism, Opinion & analysis, Republicans, Voters, Free buses, Grocery prices, Industrial policy, Class warfare, Class envy 

Donald Trump’s would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks’ digital footprint has been exposed — but not by the FBI. Rather, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has revealed disturbing comments Crooks allegedly made on social media leading up to his decision to fire at President Trump.

This online history dates back years and includes him engaging in conversations in YouTube comment sections where he explains that the “only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks.”

Crooks’ Google searches also reveal a mentally unwell young man, with searches as far back as 2019 centering around mass shootings, how to build a bomb, and “firing an AR15 as fast as possible.”

Prior to 2020, Crooks’ comments appeared to be pro-Trump and against the left. But all that switched, seemingly overnight.

While the FBI has countered Carlson’s claims, BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales isn’t buying it.

“This is a guy who is not well. And I’m just wondering, with so many people on the FBI radar, and the fact that the FBI radar can be so vast at times — I mean, they can track down anyone for anything. Unless you’re the pipe bomber and unless you try to assassinate the president, then running for office,” Gonzales says.

“And all of a sudden, we can’t find anything. … I’m telling you guys, this man was on their radar,” she says. “They won’t tell you that. This is my opinion.”

Gonzales believes that the YouTube comments — where Crooks was replying to an anonymous account discussing violent attacks — point to the possibility that he was “programmed to want to kill Trump.”

Gonzales also points out that while Crooks was engaging in violent rhetoric in the YouTube comment sections, she herself was getting censored for far less.

“I know for a fact YouTube is all over their stuff because I’ve been demonetized for two years of my life, two-plus years of my life, for saying something far more benign than calling for assassination. I misgendered someone, and I almost lost my entire YouTube account,” she explains.

“We deserve answers. … We deserve more answers than, ‘Trust us, bro, we’re the FBI,’” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sharing, Free, Upload, Camera phone, Video phone, Video, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, The fbi, Kash patel, Tucker carlson, Thomas matthew crooks, Thomas crooks, President trump, Trump assassin, Trump assassination attempt, Thomas crooks online history 

A Utah judge just turned a safe Republican congressional seat into a near-guaranteed Democrat seat — and she did it in a state controlled top to bottom by Republicans. How does that happen? A generation of weak Republicans in the elected branches handed liberals control of the judicial branch and gave them the ballot initiative system they needed to take over the state piece by piece.

Democrats can’t win statewide office in half the country, so they’ve turned ballot initiatives into their weapon of choice. Pollsters craft soothing messaging, activists gather signatures, and voters — thinking they’re supporting neutrality — unknowingly approve measures that shift power to Democrats.

Supermajority states serve as a control group. The problem isn’t power; the problem is the GOP’s refusal to wield it.

The “nonpartisan redistricting commission” scam remains their most effective tool. These commissions always promise fairness, and they always produce more Democratic seats.

Utah proved the point in 2018, when 66% of voters approved Proposition 4, even though most Utahns don’t want Democrats running the state. The same tactic produced Medicaid expansion and marijuana legalization. None of these measures would have survived the legislature — but they passed once voters encountered them in isolation.

James Madison warned against pure democracy for this exact reason. A republic draws authority from the “great body of the society,” not from a small faction or self-appointed elite. Ballot-initiative commissions flip that logic on its head. They let unelected actors redraw power for themselves.

Here comes the judge

After the 2020 census, Utah’s legislature drew a fourth Republican congressional seat, as the state constitution requires. Democrats and their allies at the League of Women Voters sued to nullify the map and force a Salt Lake-centered Democrat seat.

In August, Third District Judge Dianna Gibson obliged. She declared the legislature’s map unconstitutional because, in her view, it ignored Prop. 4 — even though the constitution explicitly vests redistricting power in the legislature. She ordered a new process for 2026 and told both sides to submit maps.

The GOP-controlled legislature complied, proposing a compromise map and passing SB 1011 to impose “partisan fairness” tests on future redistricting so the commission couldn’t hand Democrats a permanent advantage.

Gibson ignored all of it. On Nov. 10, she tossed the legislative map, sidelined SB 1011, and adopted the map drawn by the very activist groups suing the state — the same groups that engineered Prop. 4.

Plainly unconstitutional

Nothing in Utah’s constitution supports what Gibson did. Article IX, Section 1 states that the legislature “shall divide the state” into congressional districts. A commission cannot do it. A judge cannot do it. Activists certainly cannot do it.

Yet Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson signed off on Gibson’s map, even though state law required her to certify only lawful maps. That decision reflects a deeper problem: Too many Utah Republicans treat constitutional violations as minor inconveniences and concede ground to Democrats who never reciprocate.

Democrats defend Gibson’s ruling by citing Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2015), when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reinterpreted the word “legislature” to include ballot initiatives. Even if you grant that tortured reading of the U.S. Constitution, Utah’s constitution is far more explicit. Only the legislature draws maps.

RELATED: Democrats crown judges while crying about kings

Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Make impeachment great again

At the federal level, impeachment has become an empty threat. Senate math makes convictions nearly impossible. But red states with Republican supermajorities don’t face that obstacle.

Utah’s legislature holds a 61-14 majority in the House and a 22-6 majority in the Senate. Rep. Trevor Lee (R-Utah) on my show last week called for the impeachment of both Judge Gibson and Lt. Gov. Henderson for violating the state constitution. Republicans have the votes to do it — and the constitutional duty to rein in judicial usurpation.

Other states have shown it can be done. In 2018, West Virginia impeached all five members of its Supreme Court for corruption and removed them. Red states such as Oklahoma, Montana, Missouri, and South Carolina face the same problem Utah now faces: liberal judges empowered by timid Republicans.

A perilous path

Utah proves a point conservatives hate to admit. Republicans in Washington often claim they can’t implement the party’s agenda because they lack power. But in Utah, Republicans hold all the power — and still refuse to use it. They allow commissions to override them, courts to embarrass them, and Democrats to seize ground they could never win through elections.

Supermajority states serve as a control group. The problem isn’t power; the problem is the GOP’s refusal to wield it.

Unless Republicans act with conviction, Utah will follow Colorado’s path. Democrats chipped away at Colorado one institution at a time while Republicans shrugged. Now Colorado is a Democratic Party fortress.

Utah is heading down the same trail — unless Republicans use the constitutional tools they still possess.

​Utah, Gop, Redistricting, Judges, Democrats, Opinion & analysis, Proposition 4, Nonpartisan committee, Dianna gibson, Ruth bader ginsburg, Legislatures, Red states, Supermajority