It was with great interest that I read Matthew Gasda’s latest essay, on the state of men in 2025, “Masculinity at the End of History.”

Gasda has a lot of things to say that are germane to my new book, “The Last Men: Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity” (out December 16), not least of all whether America — and indeed the Western world as a whole — exhibits what could be called a “crisis of masculinity” in the first place.

We have reams of data showing what can only be described as a civilizational decline in testosterone levels, a decline that may have no parallel in history.

There are plenty of observers — writers, social scientists, journalists, politicians, celebrity psychologists — who think so.

A crisis in need of a crisis

Gasda disagrees. In fact, he believes the absence of a crisis is precisely what’s ailing America’s young men. Men need crises in order to be men. Without crises, their mettle isn’t tested, they have no higher aspirations to direct themselves toward, and so they fall into a listless state, an aimless state, a kind of suspended adolescence.

Porn. Pot. Video games. Social media. Processed food. Logging on and dropping out. We all know what it looks like.

“Masculinity is desperate for a crisis,” Gasda writes in the opening paragraphs of his essay.

It is docile, unsure, and formless. At most, it is at the germinal phase of crisis, lacking a catalytic agent to propel it to its full-blown state, which at least can be registered and reckoned with. After all, crisis implies that something is happening, that something is at stake. The uncatalyzed proto-crisis, or the noncrisis, of American masculinity is repressed, unexpressed, yet omnipresent.

It’s a typical literary switcheroo — Gasda is a playwright, after all — but he’s not wrong. Nor is he the first to say that what men really need is a crisis — read: something extraordinary — to give full form to their potential.

Declaring ‘war’

Back in 1910, the pragmatist philosopher William James, brother of the novelist Henry, wrote an essay called “The Moral Equivalent of War.” A committed socialist and pacifist, James nevertheless regretted the march of progress and with it the (apparent) decline of war, because he recognized war’s power to form young men and inculcate in them the highest possible virtues. War teaches men to subordinate themselves and their needs to those of the collective, to pursue a higher goal, and, if need be, to give their lives for it. War teaches men courage, service, self-sacrifice, stoicism, and patriotism, and all of these things are necessary for a properly functioning nation in peace.

But war is also a terrible, terrible thing — and it was rapidly becoming much worse, though just how much worse James could not have foreseen. What we need, James argues, is a “moral equivalent” of war, a substitute that could teach men the same lessons without the enormous destructive cost.

James’ proposal is quite clever: Rather than a war against each other, we need a war with nature. Young men should be enlisted into a national struggle to conquer and tame nature and to revolutionize the means of production. Send boys off to build railroads and skyscrapers and ships, and they’ll return as men, ready to lead families and the nation.

Manufacturing manhood

This isn’t too different, actually, from what Gasda advocates in his new essay, when he says a national project in which all or many men could participate might be a great spur to masculine revival.

If the objective of America in the years ahead is to reclaim global leadership in industrial production, that is, in the making of things in the real-world economy, as opposed to just in the realm of bits and pixels, then new avenues for masculine exertion, discipline, creativity, and camaraderie may arise from such a project.

There’s much to like in Gasda’s essay and much to agree with. He’s right about how the breakdown of communities and the loss of tradition have hindered the transmission of masculine ideals across the generations. He’s right about the need for rites of passage to confer status on men. Countless anthropological studies have shown the crucial role, in virtually every kind of society except our own, of tests of courage and fortitude at key moments in life, and psychologists have demonstrated how pain and trauma bond people together and provide a sense of shared identity.

He’s also right to argue that Americans must “historicize” masculinity. That is, they must understand its peculiar focus on strenuous exertion and relentless self-making in its particular historical context: a masculine ideal developed in conflict with a frontier, both the physical frontier of western expansion and the social and moral frontiers of a new national identity.

And he’s right, obviously, that we live in an age that’s fundamentally hostile to expressions of masculinity and that we can’t simply return to the past and past ideals, as so many simple-minded critics of the modern world, especially on social media, seem to believe.

That’s all to the good. But there are also serious problems.

No country for men

For one thing, it’s not clear just how much American men really could get behind a drive to, in Gasda’s words, “reclaim global leadership in industrial production.”

If America does return to industrial pre-eminence, most if not nearly all manufacturing is going to be high-tech and automated — hardly the kind of gigantic Soviet five-year plan that could simply swallow up millions of men and give them jobs in factories or even give them jobs at all.

It’s not just manufacturing that is on the verge of making human labor largely a thing of the past. Whole swaths of industry and even white-collar fields are undergoing the same revolutionary changes. Librarians and lawyers and proofreaders and doctors will be replaced by AI and large language models too.

The testosterone decline

A far graver problem, from my perspective, is that like the vast majority of the so-called “crisis of masculinity” literature that he derides, Gasda fails to take seriously, or even acknowledge, the biological changes that are throwing men’s masculinity into doubt — in particular, a headlong decline in testosterone, the master male hormone that’s responsible for making men men and not women.

Testosterone is not just responsible for sexual differentiation — for the physical characteristics that define boys, beginning in the womb and proceeding through infancy and the teenage years into adulthood — but it also governs male mood, motivation, libido, and even things like political attitudes.

Although we should be careful not to say testosterone determines political views, social psychology experiments reveal that a testosterone boost will make a man more likely to defend his position even when he’s outnumbered by people who disagree with him; it will make him more likely to continue fighting against a much stronger opponent; it will make him more accepting of hierarchy and inequality; it will make him more generous to his in-group — his own people — and more aggressive toward his out-group — potential enemies.

In short, testosterone and its effects are complex, but they work in ways that obviously tend toward behavior we associate with traditional masculinity. The less of it men have, the less masculine they become, as a basic rule.

Aggressively overlooked

Open a best-selling book like Richard Reeves’ “Of Boys and Men,” head to the index, and look for “testosterone,” and you’ll find a poverty of references. Reeves talks about testosterone for just a few pages, but only to dispel the notion that boys “are their hormones,” meaning boys aren’t doomed to be aggressive because they have more testosterone (pop science’s “aggression hormone”) than girls. That’s it. Apparently, biology just isn’t important when we’re talking about the serious problems with men today.

It’s a strange oversight. We have reams of data showing what can only be described as a civilizational decline in testosterone levels, a decline that may have no parallel in history. We know what this decline entails, and if we don’t, we really should try to find out.

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Compelling evidence

The first real herald of a civilizational decline in testosterone levels was the Massachusetts Male Aging Study, a gold-standard double-blind controlled study of men in the Boston area. The study took place over a period of around 20 years, from the end of the 1980s to the early 2000s. Men of all ages were selected at random and given a battery of tests at regular intervals. When the testosterone data was finally analyzed in 2007, it showed testosterone levels were declining year over year at a rate of about 1%.

That might not sound like much, but over a period of 20 years, that’s 20%, or one-fifth. On a longer timeline, say 50 years, that’s half of all testosterone — gone.

Researchers in other countries, including Finland and Israel, wanted to see whether the same trend was happening in their countries. In Finland, where male reproductive parameters are generally better than in the U.S., the researchers believed the Boston trend would not be replicated. Guess what? The trend was actually worse, and the researchers showed it was taking place over a much longer period of time. The results of the MMAS were replicated in Israel, too, and in other American studies.

Quantifying maleness

It’s hard to quantify exactly how many men have low testosterone, in large part because nobody agrees on exactly how little testosterone counts as low. Ask one doctor and he’ll give you one figure; another will tell you it’s half or double that amount.

Symptomology is generally the best way to go looking for low testosterone, and what we see, everywhere we turn, is men who look and behave like they have low testosterone.

In Japan today, there are millions of hikikomori, or extreme social recluses — young men who simply refuse to participate in society. They hide themselves away at home, often with their parents, and play video games, eat junk food, and just “rot,” to use a current term.

At least one expert believes there may be as many as 10 million hikikomori, in a nation of 120 million people — that’s one in 12 people. Unsurprisingly — to me at least — research has shown young Japanese men are at significantly greater risk of becoming hikikomori if they have low testosterone.

America has its hikikomori too, although they aren’t called that. Maybe as many as 6 million, by some estimates.

Some of them congregate in special subforums on the website Reddit, like r/lowT, where they discuss what it’s like to be a man with low testosterone: how they have no motivation, no libido, can’t sleep, can’t get an erection, are developing gynecomastia — man boobs — and are overweight and anxious all the time.

Many of these men also describe the miraculous effects of increasing their testosterone, more often than not through a doctor’s prescription of testosterone in gel or injectable form.

Spermageddon?

What’s even more worrying about this decline is that it’s part and parcel of a broader decline in reproductive health parameters among men.

This isn’t a surprise: If men’s testes aren’t functioning properly and producing enough testosterone, they’re unlikely to be producing enough of other important things either. Sperm counts and sperm quality — a measure of sperm’s ability to swim properly and do their job — are declining so rapidly that one expert, Professor Shanna Swan, is predicting a “spermageddon” scenario, in which humans are unable to reproduce by natural means.

Swan made this the subject of a 2021 book, “Count Down.” Simply by extrapolating the data for sperm-count decline, Swan has shown that by around 2050, the median man will have a sperm count of zero. One half of all men will produce no sperm at all, and the rest will produce so few that they might as well produce none, because they won’t be able to get a woman pregnant, try as they might.

What’s causing these changes? It’s lots of different things, a whole range of lifestyle factors — lack of exercise, smoking, bad diets, poor sleep, stress — but also widespread exposure to harmful chemicals known as “endocrine disruptors,” for their negative effects on the body’s hormonal (endocrine) system.

From low-T to trans

When I say endocrine disruptors are everywhere, I mean it: They’re in the food, the air, the water, the clothes we wear, our bedding and furniture, the deodorants and fragrances we put on our bodies, the little scented trees we put in our cars, anything that’s made from plastic.

A significant proportion of these harmful chemicals directly or indirectly mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen, interfering with the body’s crucial hormonal balance (more testosterone and less estrogen for men, the opposite for women). This is a nightmare for both sexes. As well as reducing testosterone and fertility in men, exposure to endocrine disruptors can lead to genital abnormalities, weight gain, and metabolic issues and even certain kinds of cancer.

New research has linked exposure to endocrine disruptors during gestation to transgenderism. French boys exposed to the chemical diethylstilbestrol, which used to be given to mothers at risk of miscarriage, had a massively increased risk — perhaps as much as a hundredfold — of undergoing gender transition later in life. On paper, it was always plausible that exposure to endocrine disruptors should be linked to gender dysphoria, but since transgenderism is such a toxic issue politically, there’s been little desire, until now, to pursue research into the link.

In a very real sense, then, not only have we created a society where masculinity is ridiculed, dragged through the mud, and denounced as retrograde, we’ve also created one where the biological constituents of masculinity, its very building blocks, are under direct attack at the same time. It’s a complicated problem, and it’s viciously circular. Biology and society exist in feedback loops, with negative effects reinforcing each other, deepening the spiraling decline.

While Gasda, like William James before him, may be right that men need a crisis to bring out the best in them, the very real danger today is that when one finally comes, men won’t have the energy or enthusiasm or desire to put down the controller, stand up, and answer its call. And if that really is the case, testosterone — the lack of it — will be to blame.

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Rural Illinois near the Indiana border, about an hour south of the bright lights of Chicago, is dotted with small cities with the hometown feel for which the Midwest is well known. With small populations and low crime, police officers in these areas are familiar faces who are revered for their service to their community.

But in this region is at least one cop, Officer Quincy Spears, who has bounced around from department to department, carving out a lengthy career in law enforcement in spite of a troubling track record that dates back decades.

‘He’s a bad person, and he shouldn’t be wearing a badge.’

Internal affairs investigations at Watseka Police Department, where Spears is still believed to be employed, seem to have escalated since Blaze News began looking into complaints against Spears in early September.

In response to public records requests, the City of Watseka told Blaze News on September 4 that its police department did “not have any complaints against Officer Spears.” The city reiterated on October 9 that the police department did “not have any email communications regarding Quincy Spears” and that he had “no disciplinary records” there.

By October 29, the city had discovered email complaints and incident reports about Spears that it sent along to Blaze News, and WCIA had reported that “multiple” Watseka police officers were under investigation by the Illinois State Police. While Police Chief Eric Starkey declined to identify the officers involved, he confirmed to WCIA that they have been on leave since July.

Screenshot of letter sent to Blaze News

Screenshot of letter sent to Blaze News

A public records request to Watseka asking for Spears’ work-related gas receipts through October 24 revealed that Spears had been submitting receipts for his patrol work regularly until September 28, when the submissions abruptly stopped.

Despite the breadth of accusations against him, Quincy Spears did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Blaze News.

Who is Quincy Spears?

Quincy Spears is a 47-year-old native son of this area, born in Kankakee, Illinois, according to an application he completed for the Manteno Police Department in March 2006, and currently living in Momence, about 10 miles east of Kankakee. Spears married in 2002, and he and his wife have at least two children.

Spears began his career in law enforcement “right after” he graduated high school in 1997, he wrote on the Manteno application.

‘Ptlm. Spears Incidents’

That career got off to a rough start. Spears admitted on the application that he had been “asked to resign” from his job as a corrections officer at the Kankakee County Detention Center after less than a year “for horseplaying on the job.”

Since that brief stint at the correctional facility, Spears has worked either part-time or full-time for police departments in four different Illinois municipalities: Grant Park, population 1,300; Momence, population 3,100; Manteno, population 9,200; and most recently, Watseka, population 4,700.

The vast majority of that time, more than 15 years, was spent with the Manteno Police Department, according to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board.

The accusations against Spears are rather wide-ranging and start from his earliest years as an officer. In 2005, he ignored direct instructions from his supervisor and administered a breathalyzer test on a subject who “did not appear at all intoxicated and was cooperating fully,” according to a report that appeared to be signed by the then-chief of Momence PD.

According to another document titled “Ptlm. Spears Incidents,” believed to have been created by Manteno PD, Spears:

hit a parked car just before 1 a.m. in February 2008,had a “dog bite” incident at his residence in February 2012,”blew” a stop sign in front of a fellow officer on an “unknown date and time,”and was involved in two disturbances and one alleged “fight” at various bars while off duty.

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Screenshot of police documents

‘Without her consent’

Perhaps the most alarming accusations against Spears relate to his treatment of women. Blaze News first learned of Spears after a father in Momence reached out to express concerns about Spears’ alleged harassment of his daughter.

Though nearly 30 years old, the man’s daughter has special needs, and Spears, a fellow Momence resident, routinely makes comments to her while she walks to and from work that make her “uncomfortable,” the man explained to Blaze News.

‘On several occasions,’ Spears ‘placed his hands between her legs near her vagina,’ one woman claimed.

“He drives by in his golf cart and, you know, wolf-whistles and harasses and yells her nickname at her all the time and basically does not leave her alone,” said the father, who asked not to be named.

The father indicated that his daughter does not have the wherewithal to defend herself against this alleged treatment. “She just kind of puts her head down and keeps walking,” he said. When the father confronted Spears about the comments, Spears “laughed it off,” the man recalled. “He thought I was joking.”

The father noted that while these alleged instances occur while Spears is off duty, his daughter knows Spears and recognizes him as a police officer.

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Heather Freinkel/Getty Images

To the best of the father’s knowledge, Spears’ alleged comments to his daughter, while unwelcome, have never been sexually explicit or crossed the line into inappropriate physical contact. Other women in the area have told a different story.

In a report filed with Manteno PD on March 7, 2018, two adult sisters told officers that Spears had repeatedly touched them inappropriately under the guise of affectionate friendliness.

On “numerous occasions,” Spears had “placed his hands on her breasts and buttocks without her consent,” one woman said, according to the report. She claimed he does so “in a joking manner … often while hugging, greeting, or approaching her.” She estimated he had done so “at least 100 times over the past several years.”

When he touches her rear end, Spears “doesn’t just put his hands on it but puts it [as] deep and low in between her legs as he can,” she claimed.

Her sister added that “on several occasions,” Spears “placed his hands between her legs near her vagina,” the report said. Both women claimed they asked Spears to stop, but the behavior continued.

The first sister also insisted she had seen Spears similarly “groping” other women, sometimes with “their husband or boyfriend” standing nearby. Though the men objected, Spears “uses his status as a police officer to intimidate or deter them from taking it any further,” she claimed.

Despite their apparent discomfort with Spears, the women declined to file a formal complaint, telling officers they “did not want him to lose his job and cause problems for his family.” Their allegations were first raised by a concerned uncle.

The “Ptlm. Spears Incidents” document also mentions a “battery call” to the department made after Spears allegedly “was kissing a women [sic] on the neck and she burnt him with a cigarette and ended up punching him.” According to the incident report, Spears had called the police but later declined to press charges. The female involved was described in the report as one of Spears’ “family members.”

Momence Mayor Chuck Steele, who has known Spears for more than 30 years, described Spears as “touchy-feely” with women and said he would never hire Spears for the Momence department under any circumstances. “He’s a bad person, and he shouldn’t be wearing a badge,” Steele told Blaze News.

‘Allegedly intoxicated and exhibiting obnoxious behavior’

Spears’ file is also filled with reports of disturbing behavior related to alcohol consumption and public intoxication.

The “Ptlm. Spears Incidents” document mentioned above references a bar “fight” on February 27, 2010. Even though no physical altercation appears to have taken place that night, Spears’ behavior before and after the alleged “fight” nonetheless infuriated cops.

Spears was ‘unprofessional and hostile toward both the clerk and the cook who had prepared his order’ because of an apparent ‘dispute over a coupon,’ the attendant claimed.

Hours before the bar “fight” incident, Spears called off sick for a shift that was scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. the following day. When the sergeant on duty arrived at the bar about the “fight” at about 1:15 a.m., less than five hours before Spears’ scheduled shift, he saw Spears “drinking alcohol” and speaking “with slurred speech and appear[ing] to be intoxicated,” the sergeant documented.

Even though he was supposed to be sick, Spears pled his case about his role in the alleged “fight,” claiming that a white male “aggressor” at the bar had insulted Manteno police as “a bunch of p**sies” and called him the N-word, the sergeant reported.

A short time later, after the sergeant had left to attend to a different case, Spears called the sergeant and insisted on reporting for his scheduled shift. After some back-and-forth, the sergeant eventually had to threaten Spears with a breathalyzer before Spears agreed not to come in.

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ANGHI/Getty Images

The “Ptlm. Spears Incident” document, likely drawn up by Manteno PD, also alleged Spears had called his police chief “while in a ditch drunk,” had “called numerous officers highly intoxicated while off-duty,” and even that he had his firearm owner’s identification “suspended” at an unknown date and time after he was transported to the hospital because he was “extremely intoxicated and … Suicidal.”

Spears was also involved in off-duty incidents at bars in December 2023 and January 2024, according to documents from Watseka PD.

Then on January 27, 2025, a gas station attendant approached a Momence cop who happened to be pumping gas to report an incident involving Spears. The attendant recalled that Spears arrived to pick up a food order in an “allegedly highly intoxicated state” and proceeded to cause “a scene,” the cop wrote in the “Incident Report Involving off duty Officer Spears Quincy.”

Spears was “unprofessional and hostile toward both the clerk and the cook who had prepared his order” because of an apparent “dispute over a coupon,” the attendant claimed, according to the cop’s summary.

The attendant further claimed that it “was not the first time” Spears had entered the store “allegedly intoxicated and exhibiting obnoxious behavior,” the report said.

‘You have some racist black people’

None of the many troubling allegations mentioned above prompted the disciplinary hearing that resulted in Spears’ voluntary resignation from the Manteno Police Department after 15 years on the force.

The two incidents that did lead to the hearing involved his interactions with fellow officers.

‘I never felt more discriminated on in my entire life as a black man.’

The first occurred on December 17, 2020, when a sheriff’s deputy confronted an off-duty Spears outside his home after the deputy reportedly witnessed Spears speeding and failing to signal.

The situation escalated quickly, with Spears demanding to know, “Do you know who I am?” and the deputy warning that the situation could turn into a traffic stop if Spears “continued to talk to [him] that way,” according to the deputy’s statement. Tensions seemed to dissipate a bit after Spears mentioned he was a Manteno officer, and the deputy ultimately left without recording anything or filing an initial report since it was not an official traffic stop.

Spears, however, did not drop the incident. Instead, he called Sgt. Andy Mackin, the Manteno midnight shift supervisor, at around 3 the next morning, more than four hours later, to complain about the deputy’s behavior, and the two spoke for “approx. three hours,” according to Mackin’s statement.

Mackin noted that Spears said “multiple times” that he wanted the deputy “fired” for his actions, which Spears claimed amounted to racial profiling.

“I never felt more discriminated on in my entire life as a black man as that frickin’ day there,” Spears railed during the April 2021 disciplinary hearing, which can be heard in full here. “That’s one of the reasons why African Americans do not complain about the police because of crap like that.”

Though Manteno Chief Alan Swinford noted at the hearing that the deputy involved is also black, Spears was not deterred, replying: “Chief, you have some racist black people as well when it comes to [the] African-American community, as we all know.”

RELATED: White liberals: Stop using ‘racism’ to excuse black crime

Screenshot of photo featuring Officer Quincy Spears and a K-9 officer on the Grant Park Police Department Facebook page

Despite admitting during the hearing that he hoped someone would train the deputy on “how to properly talk to people,” Spears vehemently denied calling for the deputy to be fired, decrying Mackin’s statement that he had as “a bald-face lie.”

The second incident that led to his departure from Manteno PD related to apparent attempts to use his status as a police officer to influence a case involving a friend who had been pulled over for an alleged DUI in March 2021. Spears contacted the deputy involved in the stop as well as other law enforcement personnel to see whether he might convince them “to reduce or drop charges” against his friend, Manteno PD claimed in the notice of allegations.

“Quincy asked if there … was anything I could do to help [redacted] out, since he was his guy,” the deputy wrote in a statement.

During the disciplinary hearing, Spears repeatedly insisted he could not “recall” mentioning anything about the “charges” his friend may have been facing to any of the involved personnel.

Manteno PD did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

‘Not representative of a professional police officer’

Spears resigned from Manteno PD effective June 30, 2021. By November of that year, Spears had already landed a full-time job with the Watseka Police Department.

Momence Mayor Chuck Steele told Blaze News that he spoke with the then-mayor of Watseka to warn him about Spears before the police department hired him. “Don’t even think about putting him in as chief or even anything,” Steele recalled saying. “I said, ‘I’d be afraid to have him. You’re going to end up in lawsuits.'”

It seems Mayor Steele was right as Spears’ behavior did not appear to change.

In December 2023, Spears walked into Momence PD, asking for a job application. When the officer on duty, Sgt. Jeffrey Crocker, directed him to the online application portal, Spears became incensed, contacting Mayor Steele and two city aldermen to complain about Crocker’s alleged mistreatment of him.

‘I have no legal basis for disciplining his off-duty conduct.’

According to statements given to Momence Police Chief Patrick Siemsen, Spears told Mayor Steele that Sgt. Crocker appeared “pissed off that he had to deal with” him and treated him “like a piece of s**t, like a second-class citizen.”

Then-Alderman Romel Huddleston, who is black, told Chief Siemsen that Spears had approached him at a bar two days after the incident and accused Sgt. Crocker of racism. Spears “was attempting to play the ‘Race Card’ and gain sympathy,” Huddleston indicated, according to Siemsen.

Spears also interrupted another alderman out on a date to lodge similar complaints about Crocker, Siemsen reported. Spears then apparently scribbled his version of events on a yellow legal pad and gave it to the alderman. A copy of that note was included in Siemsen’s report.

The note, aptly described as “difficult to understand,” is believed to read: “Tom I went in to apply I talked to Crocker he was so unprofessional, look at his body cam. This might hurt me to be a officer.”

Screenshot of incident report

Frustrated with the man-hours and expense associated with investigating Spears’ allegations of mistreatment, Siemsen filed a formal complaint with the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, accusing Spears of “knowingly and intentionally” making “a false complaint” against Crocker.

“Mr. Spears’ conduct and behavior was egregious, highly unprofessional, unethical, and not representative of a professional police officer,” Siemsen wrote.

Jeremy Douglas, then the Watseka police chief, seemingly shrugged his shoulders, claiming that Spears’ comments were a matter of “opinion” and therefore “protected by the First Amendment.” “I have no legal basis for disciplining his off-duty conduct,” Douglas wrote Siemsen in a letter reviewed by Blaze News.

Huddleston did not respond to a request for comment.

Blaze News sent Watseka PD a series of questions about the vetting process associated with hiring Spears and officials’ level of awareness regarding the allegations against him. We also called and left a message following the news report about the officers under investigation. The department did not respond.

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North Carolina police said that a 13-year-old accused of killing his grandmother charged at police with a two-by-four piece of lumber when they tried to arrest him.

The Hoke County Sheriff’s Office said it responded to a call for a wellness check at a home on Pearce Place in Raeford at about 9:20 a.m. on Thursday.

‘I can’t even imagine how this happened, truthfully. … I never once saw any of the kids angry about anything. They just seemed like happy, normal kids.’

A second 911 caller said a woman was found unresponsive in the home. Emergency medical services responders pronounced her dead at the scene.

The woman was identified as 68-year-old Connie Linen.

During the investigation into her death, detectives identified her 13-year-old grandson as a suspect, and he was charged with first-degree murder as numerous law enforcement agencies searched for him.

Police said they located the teen inside a stolen car that belonged to his grandmother.

The teen ran away from the car on foot from behind an abandoned mobile home on Black Road in Cameron. Police gave chase and followed him into the woods.

The teenager allegedly charged at police with a two-by-four from a nearby home. Police fired at the teenager and struck him.

He died at the scene, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

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A neighbor named Bailey Arndt who had recently moved there said she was shocked by the incident.

“It’s so cliche to say that, but you don’t expect to see it on your own street,” Arndt said. “I just pray for them, that they find peace and find a way to cope with all of this.”

Another neighbor said Linen was nice and friendly, and her grandchildren were always well-mannered and respectful.

“Everybody seemed pretty happy. I can’t even imagine how this happened, truthfully,” he said. “I never once saw any of the kids angry about anything. They just seemed like happy, normal kids.”

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The proposition that would allow Democrats in California to further manipulate congressional districts has passed easily, just minutes after polls closed at 8 p.m. local time.

Both the New York Times and the Associated Press almost immediately called the contest. Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom had campaigned for the proposition on the basis that it would help combat redistricting schemes in Texas to help Republicans gain seats in Congress.

‘What Proposition 50 represents to those that have been bullied … to those that are concerned about not only themselves but each other, our community, the city, our state, our nation, and, for that matter, what we represent to rest of the world.’

Proposition 50 was the only item on the ballot in California.

Former Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came out forcefully against the plan and campaigned to persuade against voting for the proposition.

California spent hundreds of millions of dollars sending 23 million ballots out to the California electorate. It’s expected that five more Democrat seats will be gained in the U.S. Congress because of the proposition.

The president blasted the proposition earlier on Tuesday in a post on social media.

“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED. All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review,” he wrote.

Newsom characterized the proposition as a referendum against Trump’s policies, including on immigration.

“People are on edge. Communities of color are on edge. Folks scared to death to go out trick-or-treating the other night, scared to walk their dogs, go to a playground, or go to a park or go to a loved one’s funeral because they might be disappeared on the basis of what they look like, where they congregate, the language they speak,” he said to a group of supporters.

RELATED: ‘He did horrible s**t!’ Rogan rips into Newsom’s presidential aspirations — and he fires back

“The essence of this moment, what Proposition 50 represents to those that have been bullied, to those that have been demeaned, to those that feel powerless, to those that are concerned about not only themselves but each other, our community, the city, our state, our nation, and, for that matter, what we represent to rest of the world,” he added.

“That’s what Prop. 50 represents,” Newsom concluded.

Polling prior to the election had the proposition ahead with the support of about 56% in one poll, while only 43% said they would vote against the measure.

“Donald Trump asks for 5 seats and [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott automatically bends the knee,” wrote Newsom in a post from July.

“The 2026 election is being rigged. California won’t sit back and watch this happen,” he added.

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​Gavin newsom, Proposition 50 gerrymandering, California election, Redistricting, Politics 

The controversial Democrat who was caught wishing death on a Republican and his children has astoundingly won the election to be Virginia’s attorney general.

Incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares was unable to defeat former Virginia Del. Jay Jones despite a damaging scandal involving death-threat texts.

‘Are we going to pass the test of decency?’

The contest was called for Jones at about 9:50 p.m. local time by Fox News, only a few hours after the polls closed in Virginia at 7 p.m. local time.

The campaign was the most expensive in U.S. history for a state attorney general’s race. Republicans spent $21.9 million and Democrats spent $14.9 million on the race, according to AdImpact. CNN exit polls showed Miyares winning men by 18 points, 40-58, but Jones winning women by 12, 55-43.

The contest was roiled by the texts from Jones, which were obtained and released by National Review. The messages were sent in August 2022 about then-Virginia Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert (R). Republicans demanded that Democrats withdraw their endorsements for Jones, but many resisted and Jones remained in the race.

“Three people, two bullets,” read the text from Jones. “Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot.”

He added, “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head… Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.”

He reportedly went on to wish harm on the Republican’s children as well.

Jones did not deny writing the texts in an initial statement responding to the report.

“Like all people, I’ve sent text messages that I regret, and I believe that violent rhetoric has no place in our politics,” Jones wrote in statement to WTVR-TV.

“Let’s be clear about what is happening in the attorney general race right now,” he continued. “Jason Miyares is dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations to assault my character and rescue his desperate campaign. This is a strategy that ensures Jason Miyares will continue to be accountable to Donald Trump, not the people of Virginia. This race is about whether Trump can control Virginia or Virginians control Virginia.”

He later apologized and took responsibility for the texts.

RELATED: Democrat Jay Jones tries to pivot debate away from vile texts wishing death on a rival’s kids — but Virginia AG won’t let him

A Fox News exit poll found that 46% of Virginia voters said the texts were disqualifying. Others said they were concerning but not disqualifying or that they hadn’t heard enough about the texts.

Miyares is 49 years old and was the first Hispanic American elected to statewide office in Virginia.

He called on Jones to step down from the campaign during their fiery debate, but the Democrat refused.

“Are we going to pass the test of decency?” Miyares asked the voters in his final statement.

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​Jay jones text scandal, Virginia attorney general election, Democrat deathwish scandal, Virginia elections, Politics 

Democrat candidate Zohran Mamdani became the first openly socialist candidate to sweep the New York City mayoral race Tuesday night.

Mamdani secured 50% of the vote, while independent candidate and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo won 41.4%, according to the Associated Press. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, who was widely regarded as a spoiler candidate for Cuomo, won just 7.7% of the vote.

His brazen embrace of socialism raised eyebrows across the political spectrum.

Current New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) did attempt to run for re-election, but eventually dropped his bid in September.

RELATED: Is Trump meddling with Mamdani’s candidacy?

Photo by Hiroko Masuike-Pool/Getty Images

Mamdani consistently campaigned on progressive policies, offering a socialist antidote to New Yorkers who struggled with affordability. Some of these policies include rent freezes, free buses, city-run grocery stores, and free child care.

Although this clearly appealed to residents of America’s most expensive city, his brazen embrace of socialism raised eyebrows across the political spectrum. Despite living in Brooklyn, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) declined to say whether he voted for the Democrat candidate.

Zohran’s candidacy created a unique alliance between President Donald Trump and Cuomo. Leading up to the election, Trump urged New Yorkers to vote for Cuomo instead of Mamdani or even Sliwa, the Republican candidate.

RELATED: Zohran Mamdani’s Soviet dream for New York City

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

“I would much rather see a Democrat, who has had a Record of Success, WIN, than a Communist with no experience and a Record of COMPLETE AND TOTAL FAILURE,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday. “He was nothing as an Assemblyman, ranked at the bottom of the class and, as Mayor of potentially, again, the Greatest City in the World, HE HAS NO CHANCE to bring it back to its former Glory!”

“We must also remember this — A vote for Curtis Sliwa (who looks much better without the beret!) is a vote for Mamdani,” Trump added. “Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”

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​Zohran mamdani, Andrew cuomo, Curtis sliwa, Donald trump, New york city, Eric adams, New york city mayor, New york city mayoral race, Socialism, Socialist, Progressive, Rent freezes, City run grocery stores, Politics