Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, state Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have all received subpoenas from the Department of Justice, reports claim.

Fox News reported on the subpoenas Tuesday and said they related to an investigation into obstruction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

‘This Justice Department investigation … does not seek justice. It is a partisan distraction.’

Walz’s office and Frey’s office confirmed to KMSP-TV that they received the subpoenas. Walz also posted a statement on social media to President Donald Trump.

“Mr. President, Minnesota invites you to see our values in action. Come see how communities from all walks of life are working together, and how the spirit of this state refuses to be defined by division or fear,” he wrote in part.

“But let me be absolutely clear: The State of Minnesota will not be drawn into political theater,” Walz added. “This Justice Department investigation, sparked by calls for accountability in the face of violence, chaos, and the killing of Renee Good, does not seek justice. It is a partisan distraction.”

The subpoenas asked for records and communications from the politicians related to the surge of federal officers in Minnesota. The Associated Press reported that other subpoenas were also sent to St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, who previously admitted she is an “illegal” immigrant, and officials in Ramsey County as well as Hennepin County.

“When the federal government weaponizes its power to try to intimidate local leaders for doing their jobs, every American should be concerned,” read a statement from Frey to KMSP.

“We shouldn’t have to live in a country where people fear that federal law enforcement will be used to play politics or crack down on local voices they disagree with,” he added. “In Minneapolis, we won’t be afraid. We know the difference between right and wrong, and, as Mayor, I’ll continue doing the job I was elected to do: keeping our community safe and standing up for our values.”

RELATED: Tim Walz tries to dunk on Trump and gets pantsed on social media

Walz went on to call for an investigation into the death of anti-ICE activist Renee Good instead.

“A mother is dead, and the people responsible have yet to be held accountable,” he wrote.

“That’s where the energy of the federal government should be directed: toward restoring trust, accountability, and real law and order, not political retaliation,” Walz added. “Minnesota will not be intimidated into silence and neither will I.”

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A Chinese man tried paying his wife to stop spending time with her virtual boyfriend.

The man asked his wife to stop using a particular program for a year in exchange for $2,800, and she initially agreed. The woman reportedly transferred the money into her daughter’s savings account until a week later, when she reinstalled the game because a new dating scene for her virtual boyfriend was released.

‘As a married woman, I still feel a bit guilty.’

The story of a woman going by “Minnie” is one of many chronicled in a recent article about Chinese women who are addicted to otomo games, virtual romance games targeted at women.

The most popular, Love and Romance, made $750 million in 2025, according to Pocket Gamer, with Sensor Tower reporting that the game had over 100,000 downloads in the Apple Store in December alone.

Other games like Light and Night or Beyond the World have women choose between different lovers who represent various personality types or themes. Collectible cards offer micro-transaction opportunities in order to unlock outfits, scenes, and storylines.

According to KrAsia, these games are wedging their way into women’s real lives at an alarming speed.

RELATED: 1980s-inspired AI companion promises to watch and interrupt you: ‘You can see me? That’s so cool’

Photo by Jiangang Wang

These games, in conjunction with chatbots like ChatGPT and DeepSeek, are being used by women to create a constant stream of contact with their AI boyfriends.

“If not for ChatGPT and Love and Deepspace, I wouldn’t have realized how deeply I need to be understood and loved or that such needs could be perfectly met,” Chi Cheng told the outlet. “But if you told me to delete the game and stop using ChatGPT now, I’d lose my mind.”

In just five months, Cheng has spent over $1,100 chasing the cards of her favorite male companion, Xavier.

Minnie, however, prefers Rafayel, and even though she is married, she said the character is “someone who loves reading and art, is emotionally stable, understands finance, and never argues.”

Minnie has two Love and Deepspace accounts, having spent around $2,500 USD. Although she said she does not have an unhappy marriage, and she even has a daughter, the digital partner is still her perfect match.

“Even with a compatible partner, there will always be tension and stress. A 100% match doesn’t exist in real life,” the woman explained.

AI boyfriend in real life

Minnie noted that she uses her AI boyfriend’s chatbot function for real-life conversation, which is what led to her husband’s aforementioned monetary ultimatum:

“I’ll give you [$2,800]. Just stop playing Love and Deepspace for a year.”

Citing that she once read, “The best partner is someone you can talk to in the middle of the night,” Minnie revealed, “If my husband finally falls asleep after working late, I can’t wake him just to talk. But that’s when I can — by launching Love and Deepspace.”

All the women KrAsia interviewed use this function on a daily basis, and Minnie even uses the character for fitness motivation. During postpartum workouts, Minnie was able to extend the time she could hold a plank position after her coach joked, “Try looking at your favorite guy; maybe you’ll last longer.”

She began staring at Rafayel and extended her ability to hold the position from three seconds to 48 seconds. An attached photo showed her staring at her phone during her workout.

Other extensions for the app include an augmented reality feature where users can view their companion in their current environment through their phone.

Cheng reportedly often uses this feature to imagine Xavier walking beside her or sitting in a nearby chair.

RELATED: ‘Coded Casanovas’: The AI trend stirring dread, disgust, and fury

With plummeting marriage rates in China already, the fear is that this already massive industry will become more pervasive, as other girls like Yangtao explain that the reason otome games are so appealing is “maybe because real-life marriage is just … dull.”

She added, “But people never stop craving romance.”

Another woman, Meiyi, 35, told herself, “You’re at a crossroads. Don’t play this game, or you’ll get addicted.”

She apparently downloaded it anyway.

What became clear with the women in their stories was often directly admitted to; Minnie put it plainly:

“In the game, there’s no conflict, no arguments. Even small fights just build up to the next emotional high. Interacting with an in-game character feels more exciting than real life. But as a married woman, I still feel a bit guilty.”

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Minnesota is hardly the only state whose kindness to migrants from the third world has been abused. Michiganders, too, have apparently opened their arms to foreign-born fraudsters who are more than happy to steal from their host state’s most vulnerable residents.

Nkechy Ezeh, a woke Nigerian who served as a professor at Aquinas College until 2023, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a scheme that bled taxpayers for $1 million and forced an organization that funded early learning initiatives for poor kids to close.

‘Her theft of millions of dollars intended for the most vulnerable of children was brazen, all-encompassing, and unconscionable.’

Ezeh could face up to 20 years in prison for the fraud charge and another five years for tax evasion — a charge to which she also pleaded guilty on Wednesday.

In the years since she migrated to the U.S., Ezeh has complained about “structural racism” while being showered with awards and opportunities.

In 2018, for instance, the West Michigan Woman Brilliance Awards named her woman of the year. In 2020, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appointed Ezeh to the executive committee of Michigan’s Early Childhood Investment Corporation. In 2021, Aquinas College honored the Nigerian fraudster with its Distinguished Service Award.

The acclaim and upward mobility evidently weren’t enough for Ezeh, who decided to live a jet-set lifestyle at taxpayers’ expense.

According to a 2023 whistleblower complaint, Ezeh used various interrelated organizations to funnel hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to herself as well as to friends and family members while serving as CEO of the Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative.

RELATED: Somali terror group cashing in on your tax dollars? Minnesota’s child-care fraud whistleblowers warned about a decade ago.

Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

The ELNC was a nonprofit in Grand Rapids that Ezeh — who claimed in a 2022 profile that “injustice makes me cry” — founded with the purported aim of providing state “funding, advocacy, and high-quality early childhood educational services to families, children, and neighborhoods that are more ‘at-risk or vulnerable.'”

The complaint filed against Ezeh indicated that she funneled funds from the ELNC with the help of the nonprofit’s bookkeeper, Sharon Killebrew, who secretly paid herself nearly $1 million between June 2017 and April 2023.

Court documents reviewed by WOOD-TV indicate that Ezeh not only created nearly $500,000 in fake invoices with Killebrew but created two fake day-care businesses to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to herself and others.

Ezeh reportedly used some of the stolen taxpayer money to pay for trips to Hawaii, Liberia, and Nigeria for herself and others.

ELNC sued Ezeh and Killebrew in September 2023, but by that time, the damage was done. ELNC had to close its doors on account of the financial impact of the duo’s embezzlement and fraud, which meant the loss of both 35 jobs and a source of support for numerous Michigan families.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Stiffler, the victims of the the fraud committed by Ezeh — who has been touted as a “champion for poor black and brown kids” — “were mostly children of color under the age of five years old, 72% of whom lived below the federal poverty level in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Kent County, Kalamazoo, and Battle Creek.”

Killebrew initially insisted she was innocent, claiming she “didn’t steal anything.” However, when confronted with the mountain of evidence to the contrary, she pleaded guilty in June. Killebrew was sentenced to 54 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution.

Like her accomplice, Ezeh initially denied her guilt but has since admitted to embezzling over $1 million.

The Nigerian fraudster’s attorney, Mary Chartier, told MLive/the Grand Rapids Press, “Ms. Ezeh is committed to taking full responsibility and accountability for her actions. She is deeply remorseful to anyone who has been negatively impacted.”

Amy DeLeeuw, the president of the apparently defunct nonprofit, stated that she was “disappointed by Nkechy Ezeh’s failure to meaningfully articulate the nature and scope of her criminal misconduct during her change of plea hearing today. Her theft of millions of dollars intended for the most vulnerable of children was brazen, all-encompassing, and unconscionable.”

“To date, Nkechy has made no effort to repay any of the millions of dollars she stole from ELNC,” continued DeLeeuw. “I trust Nkechy’s demeanor at today’s hearing did not go unnoticed by Chief Judge Hala Jarbou. I and the board will have more to say in our victim impact statement and look forward to her sentencing hearing on May 13.”

Ezeh has reportedly agreed to pay $1.4 million in restitution to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Early Head Start programs and other agencies that gave grants to the ELNC as well as nearly $400,000 in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.

Whitmer’s office did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

Aquinas College confirmed that Ezeh retired in May 2023 and told Blaze News that the college is not in a position to comment on Ezeh’s outside endeavors.

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With the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, now in full swing, leaders from around the world are clamoring for the spotlight. And the Democratic governor of California is no exception.

In a video he shared on Tuesday morning, Gov. Gavin Newsom went on an unhinged rant against President Donald Trump, who is expected to give an address on Wednesday.

‘Diplomacy with Donald Trump? He’s a T. rex. You mate with him or he devours you.’

The video, a composite of several edited soundbites in a loud hallway, features Newsom railing against Trump in a myriad of attacks, including with some novel comparisons.

RELATED: Trump pulls US out of ‘racist’ UN forum pushing ‘global reparations agendas’

Photo by Lian Yi/Xinhua via Getty Images

Newsom demanded that European leaders “stop being complicit”: “I can’t take this complicity. People rolling over. I should have brought a bunch of knee pads for all the world leaders.”

Newsom called the world leaders’ handling of Trump’s dealings on the global stage “embarrassing,” adding strangely, “Diplomacy with Donald Trump? He’s a T. rex. You mate with him or he devours you. One or the other.”

The California governor then threw the Trump derangement syndrome kitchen sink at his crowd of listeners: “This guy is a wrecking ball. … It’s code red. And you guys are still playing by an old set of rules. … He’s unmoored. It’s the law of the jungle. It’s the rule of Don. And I hope it’s dawning on the world what we’re up against. I mean, this is serious. This guy, he’s not mad; he’s very intentional. But he’s unmoored, and he’s unhinged.”

Mustering all of his bravado, Newsom demanded of world leaders: “Have some spine. Have some goddamn balls.”

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An actress known for black exploitation movies said that she remembers seeing lynchings when she was a child in Ohio — but her claims were contradicted by history as well as math.

Pam Grier made the claims during her guest appearance on “The View,” and the co-hosts did not push back on the bizarre story.

‘At least make up a story that’s halfway believable.’

“You faced a lot of racism growing up in Columbus, Ohio. How did that shape you?” Sunny Hostin asked.

“Phew! Well, the military wouldn’t allow black families to live on the base, so you had to live in an apartment. And you couldn’t take a bus. You couldn’t afford a car. You walked. Your dads walked to the base,” Grier said.

“And sometimes we would go from tree shade to shade to get back to the apartment, my brother and I and my mom with bags,” she added. “And my mom would go, ‘Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look,’ and she would pull us away because there’s someone hanging from a tree.”

Grier appeared emotional, and the audience gasped at her story.

“And they have a memorial for it now where you can see where people were and left,” she continued. “And it triggers me today to see that a voice can be silenced and if a white family supported a black, they’re going to get burned down or killed or lynched as well.”

While Ohio does have a horrible history of racial lynchings, the last record of such an incident was from 1911, which makes it impossible for Grier’s story to be accurate.

Many critics lashed out at her online after video of the tale was posted to social media.

“I am 78. I grew up in Columbus Ohio. Bulls**t story,” one X user responded.

“It is amazing that she can lie so boldly without no push back. … You know who believes this slop? Middle aged single leftist white women who will believe ‘lived truths’ over facts,” another detractor replied.

“It’s important to learn history so that when you lie, you can at least make up a story that’s halfway believable,” another critic said.

RELATED: Jasmine Crockett melts down on ‘The View’ over ‘racist’ jab from JD Vance — and claims Republicans are disturbed by her

A community note attached to the video pointed out that Grier was born in 1949, nearly four decades after the last lynching in the state. And while there is a plaque in Columbus to remember two victims of lynching in the downtown of the city, those incidents were from 1896.

Grier is best known for her roles in “blaxploitation” movies in the 1970s, including “Coffy” and “Foxy Brown.” She is celebrated as one of the first female action stars.

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Women’s basketball is not doing great, and BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock believes it has a lot to do with the feminist attitude of the players — which has led to the failure of making their new Unrivaled basketball league a must-watch.

This new league is a three-versus-three women’s basketball league that WNBA players started last year to play in their off season.

“This is year two. The ratings have absolutely collapsed. There’s 50, 60 thousand people watching these Unrivaled basketball games. Last year, I think 2, 300, 400 thousand people were watching. It is a horrendous product, … and it’s not surprising to me that it would collapse,” Whitlock explains on “Fearless.”

“Players in the WNBA are causing the collapse of the WNBA, causing the collapse of women’s sports. This is an inside job by the actual players in women’s athletics. They are destroying themselves and their own league. They are destroying women’s sports,” he adds.

Whitlock believes this is a reflection of “matriarchal leadership.”

“They’re not leaders; they’re chaos agents. … They are actually destroying themselves,” he says.

Whitlock also points out that almost all of the famous women in sports — save Caitlin Clark — have adopted the gender-fluid, race-worshipping, lesbian lifestyle — making them horrific role models for young girls.

“Because Caitlin Clark didn’t fit the lesbian stereotype, she hadn’t adopted the lesbian lifestyle, and because she’s white, the lesbians and the jealous, angry black women have ganged up on her, pushed her out, and made all sports fans deal with, like, ‘Who are these people we’re supporting?’” Whitlock explains.

And this phenomenon is not central to just basketball, but also women’s soccer players like Megan Rapinoe.

“Do I really want Megan Rapinoe as a role model for young girls? These women are insane,” Whitlock says. “And so, I’m sitting here applauding the collapse of the WNBA.”

“This Unrivaled league and the ratings are an embarrassment,” he says. “They’re a statement about how little interest there actually is in women’s basketball beyond Caitlin Clark.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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To invoke the “Manhattan Project” is to summon a particular ghost: one of total mobilization, of scientists sequestered in secret rooms, of a national destiny forged in the heat of a singular, technological breakthrough by a threatened country. In the 1940s, the location was Los Alamos; in 2026, it is a secure laboratory in Shenzhen. Here, the objective is not a nuclear chain reaction, but the etching of light onto silicon at a scale so small it defies the physical properties of the air we breathe.

The technology is extreme ultraviolet lithography. To the uninitiated, it is a manufacturing process; to the Chinese state, it is the choke point that must be cleared if the nation is to thrive. For years, Washington operated under the assumption that the complexity of these machines — monstrous contraptions the size of city buses, requiring the synchronization of molten tin droplets ionized by lasers 50,000 times a second — would remain a Western monopoly, a “Silicon Shield” guarded by the Dutch firm ASML. That assumption, like so many others in this decade, has proved precarious.

If China succeeds, it will have neutralized the West’s major lever.

The machinery of this mobilization is vast. At the top sits the Central Science and Technology Commission, directed by Ding Xuexiang, a man whose proximity to President Xi Jinping signals that the semiconductor is no longer a matter of commerce, but of national interest. The strategy is one of “brute-force innovation.” In this world, the tech giant Huawei coordinates a web of institutes and thousands of engineers, a private entity acting as a limb of the state.

There is an urgency in the way the talent was gathered. Since 2019, Beijing has been luring Chinese-born engineers back from foreign firms with signing bonuses of $700,000 and the promise of a place in history. When they arrive, they disappear. To protect the project’s secrecy, these returnees work under false identities, wearing fake ID badges and using aliases even among their colleagues. They operate with military-like discipline; scientists sleep on-site at laboratories, barred from returning home during the work week, their phone access restricted as if they were handling the codes to a nuclear missile silo.

One thinks of the “Two Bombs, One Satellite” program of the 1960s, the earlier state-directed campaign that yielded China’s first atomic and hydrogen bombs. The rhetoric is the same: the patriotic return of the diaspora, the vanquishing of foreign embargoes through indigenous innovation. The narrative is of national rejuvenation, of overcoming “past humiliations” by proving that the mind cannot be embargoed. In early 2025, the prototype emerged. It is, by all accounts, crude and enormous, filling nearly an entire factory floor in Shenzhen, a stark contrast to the refined, bus-sized machines of the West. However, it is operational, generating the 13.5 nm ultraviolet light beam necessary to etch circuits at the 5 nm scale and below.

RELATED: Chinese elites paying American surrogates to breed ‘mega-families’

Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images

The technical challenge of EUV is a kind of high-stakes alchemy. Because 13.5 nm light is absorbed by glass and even air, it must travel in a vacuum and be focused by specialized multilayered mirrors with atomic-level precision. To achieve this without the help of Western suppliers such as Germany’s Zeiss, the Chinese relied on obsessive, focused resourcefulness. They scoured secondary markets for old equipment; they salvaged components from older ASML machines; they acquired restricted parts from Japanese firms Nikon and Canon via intermediaries.

Perhaps most revealing is the “SWAT team” of 100 young engineers assigned to take these machines apart and put them back together. Each desk is monitored by a camera as they meticulously reverse-engineer components, a process of “training through deconstruction.” The scene is of Ph.D.s poring over discarded machinery like puzzle pieces, striving to unlock the nuances of a technology they were never meant to have. The result is a proof of concept that observers had believed was a great many years away.

We are witnessing the early phase of a race for AI chips. If the 20th century was defined by oil reserves and nuclear arsenals, the 21st will be defined by computing power and silicon fabs. The U.S. has responded with the CHIPS and Science Act, investing over $50 billion to reshore production, while simultaneously attempting to choke off China’s access to the most advanced tools.

Yet there is a quandary in this decoupling. The semiconductor supply chain is global and interdependent. An ASML machine is a mosaic of components from Japan, Germany, and the U.S. By forcing China toward self-sufficiency, the West may be inadvertently creating the very monster it fears: a China capable of producing advanced chips on entirely China-made machines, “kicking the United States 100% out of its supply chains.” The goal is a “digital Iron Curtain,” where two separate technological stacks, one Chinese-led, one Western-led, operate in parallel, neither reliant on the other’s hardware or software.

For now, the project remains a work in progress. Mass-producing 2-5 nm chips in China is likely still years away, perhaps 2030 or beyond. The machines must be refined; the optical mirrors remain a weak point. Yet the significance of the prototype is not its current efficiency, but its existence, which demonstrates an irreversible commitment to Chinese technological independence.

The air in Shenzhen is thick with techno-optimism and a quiet, state-sanctioned fervor. When a Chinese chip startup recently went public, its stock soared 693%, a sign of a public that views each new milestone as a victory against a foreign blockade. This is the intersection of technology and national pride. If China succeeds, it will have neutralized the West’s major lever. If it fails, the U.S. may extend its lead. The breakthroughs, however, feel inevitable to those inside the project. They are playing a long game, one where the cost — in billions of dollars, in the isolation of their brightest minds, in the fracturing of the global order — is simply the price of admission.

​Tech 

Democrat U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota uttered a profanity to describe the United States amid ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities in Minneapolis.

During a Democrat-led Saturday event titled “Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Deadly Assault on Minnesota,” Omar ripped Republicans and President Donald Trump over ongoing ICE operations.

‘There is no circumstance in which she should refer to our country in this way.’

“It is appalling for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to be OK for the president to carry out retribution here in Minnesota. It is appalling for our Republican colleagues to be OK for there to be cell detentions in ICE for American citizens,” she said.

Omar added: “It is appalling for them to be OK for there to be checkpoints in American cities where people are asked for their papers. And it is appalling for Americans to have to carry their citizen papers only to be told they are not sure if those papers are correct.”

Then the native Somali opened her potty mouth: “I don’t wanna curse, but those of us who escaped places like that? The one place where we thought we would never experience this is the U.S. [sic] goddamn States.”

Omar also said that “we should all be ashamed that it is the United States that is allowing for this to take place, and it is being … broadcasted to the rest of the world, where people are calling and saying, ‘Are you sure this is America?’ I am ashamed, and we must do everything that we can to bring back the America we all escaped into.”

You can check out video of Omar’s tirade below. Her profanity describing the U.S. comes just after the 1:20 mark in case you’re not in the mood to endure the whole thing:

The White House Rapid Response account on X ripped Omar for her profane description of the U.S., insisting that “there is no circumstance in which she should refer to our country in this way. It is beyond disrespectful — it is appalling, disgusting, and SICK. SHAME ON HER!”

Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah reacted on X by saying “no member of Congress should *ever* refer to our country as the ‘U.S. G—— States.’ What should be the consequence of saying that?”

Elon Musk answered Lee, suggesting “whatever the penalty is for treason” — to which Lee noted, “That one carries a pretty stiff penalty.” The penalty for treason against the U.S. can be death.

While Trump didn’t directly reference Omar’s profane description of the U.S. in a Sunday Truth Social post, the president did call her a “fake ‘Congresswoman'” and a “constant complainer who hates the USA” who “knows everything there is to know. She should be in jail, or even a worse punishment, sent back to Somalia, considered one of the absolutely worst countries in the World. She could help to MAKE SOMALIA GREAT AGAIN!”

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OpenAI says it will not sell user data to advertisers, but that does not mean it won’t sell advertisers to its users.

Users of ChatGPT’s free online service are about to experience the end of a golden era, with the company saying it is going to “level the playing field” for advertisers.

‘We never sell your data to advertisers.’

OpenAI said it will allow “anyone to create high-quality experiences” to help users “discover options they might never have found otherwise.”

This is the long way to announce that it will now start serving ads to users at the bottom of their ChatGPT conversations.

“We plan to test ads at the bottom of answers in ChatGPT when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation,” the tech company said in a press release.

The company provided an example of what users can expect to see, showcasing an ad for hot sauce at the bottom of a user prompt for Mexican food ideas for a dinner party; the ad takes up about 40% of the user’s phone-screen space.

In what are likely to be used as work-arounds for an ad-free experience, OpenAI listed the few occasions in which it will not serve ads.

RELATED: Microsoft CEO: AI ‘slop’ is good for you — or at least for your ‘human potential’

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Users who are under 18 years old or believed to be under 18 will not be served ads. Neither will users who are discussing “sensitive or regulated topics like health, mental health, or politics.”

Included in the introduction of ads was convincing the users their data would be safe. Therefore, OpenAI noted that ads would not influence the answers that ChatGPT provides, and user conversations will be kept “private from advertisers.”

“We never sell your data to advertisers,” the company wrote.

This was a key feature of OpenAI’s “Ad Principles,” which sought to convince readers that implementing ads is part of its mission to ensure its platform “benefits all of humanity” and makes AI more accessible.

Business, Enterprise, Plus and Pro subscriptions will not include ads. That means users will have to fork over at least $20 per month to avoid them; those using ChatGPT for free or under the $8/month Go plan will see them.

RELATED: Grok’s deepfake scandals are putting America’s future at risk

Photo by Indranil Aditya/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Much of OpenAI’s announcement focused on how the new ads will actually help the user, explaining that they will be more helpful and tailor-made than “any other ads.”

While this may push some users to free platforms, some may enjoy the ability to speak directly with the interface to make purchasing decisions, even though this may inevitably result in users being pushed to buy certain products.

“Conversational interfaces create possibilities for people to go beyond static messages and links. For example, soon you might see an ad and be able to directly ask the questions you need to make a purchase decision,” OpenAI wrote.

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Republican Rep. Julia Letlow of Louisiana officially launched her campaign to oust Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) just days after securing an endorsement from President Donald Trump.

Trump came out in support of Letlow on Saturday, calling her a “Big Star” who would embrace the MAGA agenda. Although Republican operatives like the National Republican Senatorial Committee customarily endorse the incumbent, Cassidy’s controversial votes may have cost him the support of the president.

‘I am confident I will win.’

“I’m honored to have President Trump’s endorsement and trust,” Letlow said in a post on X. “My mission is clear: to ensure the nation our children inherit is safer and stronger.”

“This United States Senate seat belongs to the people of Louisiana, because we deserve conservative leadership that will not waver.”

RELATED: ‘Federal dollars should not pay for abortion, period’: Sen. Cassidy doubles down on Hyde, abortion pill restrictions

Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

While the race is shaping up to be a contested Republican primary, the NRSC is letting the chips fall where they may.

The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm is holding off from spending money on Cassidy, whom the NRSC endorsed, because “Louisiana will be won by a Republican regardless” and because the group doesn’t want to oppose the president, according to a source familiar with the NRSC’s decision-making.

RELATED: GOP senator warns Republicans will lose future elections if party continues to ‘idolize’ Trump

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Notably, Cassidy was one of the few Republicans who voted to go forward with Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021, later voting to convict the president. Despite this, Cassidy remains confident about his race.

“I’m proudly running for re-election as a principled conservative who gets things done for the people of Louisiana,” Cassidy said after Trump endorsed Letlow. “If Congresswoman Letlow decides to run I am confident I will win.”

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Over the weekend, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem released a statement reaffirming their authority in the land of Israel against proponents of Christian Zionism and other “damaging ideologies.”

The statement, published on Saturday, reaffirmed Christian leaders’ devotion to the Christian flock in the Holy Land. It condemned ideologies like Christian Zionism, which “mislead the public, sow confusion, and harm the unity of our flock.”

‘You don’t have to support the nation-state of Israel, but if you do, you can do so without adhering to the relatively novel theology of Christian Zionism.’

Christian Zionism is the belief in the continuity between the Israel of the Bible and the modern state of Israel.

The church leaders condemned the “political actors” who have been “welcomed at official levels both locally and internationally.” They described these dealings as “interference in the internal life of the church.”

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The letter continued, “These undertakings have found favor among certain political actors in Israel and beyond who seek to push a political agenda which may harm the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the wider Middle East.”

As a result, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem “reiterate that they alone represent the Churches and their flock in matters pertaining to Christian religious, communal, and pastoral life in the Holy Land.”

On Monday, the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles explained his position on Christian Zionism in response to the Patriarchs’ statement.

Knowles, an outspoken Roman Catholic, explained that the joint statement issued by the Christian leaders over the weekend is essentially a reiteration of church teaching, such as a statement from 1985 from the Vatican.

The Vatican invites Christians to understand the Jews’ religious attachment to the land of Israel “without however making their own any particular religious interpretation of this relationship.”

Knowles signaled his wholehearted agreement with the next passage of the Vatican’s notes, which he said “underscores the point”: “The existence of the State of Israel and its political options should be envisaged not in a perspective which is in itself religious, but in their reference to the common principles of international law.”

Knowles said that this line of thinking is “why I would not call myself a Zionist, or a Christian Zionist.”

He continued, “It’s not because I don’t like the Jews, and it’s not because I don’t even support the state of Israel. As I think I’ve made clear, I am broadly supportive of the nation-state of Israel. But I am broadly supportive of it not because I believe in the principles of Zionism, which makes certain historical claims and religious claims that I just don’t think are true.”

Knowles also said that he doesn’t think that just because a people lived on a plot of land many years ago, it entitles them to the land today. “If that were the case, we would have to turn Mount Rushmore over to the Lakota Sioux. I don’t believe any of that.”

He finally clarified that most of his support for the nation-state of Israel is negative — that is, he doesn’t like the alternatives, referring to other nations in the region like Iran and other Muslim groups. “The current options in the Holy Land are not great.”

Staking his position clearly near the end of the clip, Knowles said, “You don’t have to support the nation-state of Israel, but if you do, you can do so without adhering to the relatively novel theology of Christian Zionism.”

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