On the North Norfolk coast, dawn is more sensory than visual.

Sea lavender and samphire engulf you before the bite of the wind reminds you of nature’s power. As the sun rises above the horizon, my father and I cross the salt marshes, the light revealing tidal creeks winding through the mudflats. This time, though, I know it is our last trip together.

In angling, the tippet is the thinnest section of line, the point most likely to fail.

Every step is taken with the knowledge that these rituals — these early mornings, the scent of salt and wildflowers, the quiet companionship — are being performed for the final time.

Silence as stewardship

This is not just a landscape but a stage on which the story of my family unfolds. Each tradition echoes those who came before and those still to come. This place, and these shared customs repeated year after year, have woven our family history together — each visit another stitch in a tapestry stretched across generations.

There is no better place for solitude than Stiffkey, an idyllic village nestled in the Norfolk countryside. For miles around, the only sounds are wood pigeons cooing in the trees and the distant thunder of the sea. It is still very early — five in the morning — when we break this peace with the rhythmic punch of a shovel digging into saturated sand. My father and I do not speak as we work. Ours is a silence filled with meaning, a language shaped by years of tradition and respect for the world around us.

The rhythm of these mornings — the shared labor, the quiet companionship — blurs the boundaries between past and present, between father and son, creating a continuous thread running through my memory. Growing up, my father and I mainly communicated through the tension of a fishing line. Our family has never been big on talking; we are like frayed strings, bound and spliced together by tradition.

In the modern world, silence between two men is often treated as a void to be filled with noise. But on this stretch of coastline, silence is a form of stewardship. To be quiet is to respect the natural world. To be quiet together is to acknowledge a bond that does not require speech.

Here time folds in on itself — my father’s footsteps merging with his father’s, and mine with both of theirs.

Stiffkey blues

My father brought us to Stiffkey every year for our family holiday. For decades, this was his parish. He moved through the shifting terrain with the confidence of a man who knew the tide’s schedule like the back of his hand.

This time, watching him navigate the narrow ravines in the soft morning light, I see not the man who first guided me to the water 20 years earlier but his shadow. His light has dimmed — but it is still bright enough to guide us.

The lessons of Stiffkey are as much about patience, respect, and inheritance as they are about fishing. Each action — from digging bait to laying lines — forms a thread in the fabric of our shared history.

Laying fishing lines is a skill. The tide’s timing and direction determine how the lines must be slanted to catch fish. Digging your own bait matters too; no competent angler wants to carry unnecessary weight from home.

You take only what you need, while respecting the land and sea. From an early age, this was the lesson my father taught me: We are merely guardians, entrusted with care until it is time to pass things on.

“The ragworms aren’t biting,” I would tell him. He would approach with his antalgic gait, quietly move my shovel a few feet, and say, softly but with conviction, “Dig between the holes — that’s where they live.” Ten minutes later, the plastic bucket would overflow.

These moments bridge generations, passing down not just skill but belonging. This was where my grandfather taught my father to fish. Decades later, my father stood here teaching me.

A disused sewage pipe stretches northward, its end disappearing beneath the waves of the North Sea, marked only by a lone orange buoy. With an upturned wooden rake slung over my shoulder, its worn teeth piercing an old onion sack, I would walk the length of the pipeline. I can still feel the chill of rusted metal beneath my bare feet and my father’s watchful eyes — stern yet generous — urging me on. Together we raked the mudflats for cockles, the famed “Stiffkey blues,” once plentiful, now sought like hidden treasure.

RELATED: How I rediscovered the virtue of citizenship on a remote Canadian island

Buddy Mays/Getty Images

The cycle of care

Every sensory detail — the cold pipeline, the mudflats, the weight of the rake — anchors memory to place, making past and present inseparable.

Trust and love, learned in my father’s shadow, now guide me as I support him. The cycle of care turns gently but inexorably.

My father’s name is Peter. As his name suggests, he was always my rock — my moral guide — and I followed him with a child’s absolute confidence. Now the roles have quietly reversed. I lead; he leans on my shoulder.

The symbolism of the tippet — its fragility and strength — mirrors this transfer of responsibility. In angling, the tippet is the thinnest section of line, the point most likely to fail. As I watch my father struggle with the nylon — his hands, calloused by 50 years of labor, unable to tie the hook — it becomes clear that we are in the tippet phase of our relationship.

I take over, tying a grinner knot. He has taught me this a thousand times, but today feels different. As I pull the knot tight, I feel the weight of his legacy. He is handing over the keys to his kingdom.

The weight of a soul

At daybreak the following morning, we set off with the same excitement I once felt as a 5-year-old. His unspoken lesson had always been that disappointment should be met with patience. Then there it is: a solitary bass, glistening in the early sun. His hands tremble as he holds it up, smiling. On the walk back to the car, we laugh as seagulls swoop in, trying to steal our catch.

As our roles shifted, so did my understanding. Fishing became a meditation on acceptance, mortality, and shared silence. Fishing with a dying father reminds you that life is finite. It shows that the boundary between this world and the next is as thin as a fishing line — fragile, transparent, yet strong enough to bear the weight of a soul.

Even after loss, the rituals persist. Each return to Stiffkey is both goodbye and renewal. The year after his death, I returned to scatter his ashes. As the wind carried him out to sea, I understood that life’s true tippet strength is not measured by where it breaks but by what it can hold before it does.

​Lifestyle, Fishing, Norfolk, United kingdom, North sea, Fathers, Death, Mortality, Stiffkey, First-person 

A 27-year-old man was found dead with numerous gunshot wounds after he allegedly broke down the door of a family that was armed for self-defense.

Arizona police responded to a shots-fired report at the residence on Sunday evening in the town of Buckeye, according to KSAZ-TV.

Investigators found that the security door had been ripped off its hinges.

The incident unfolded just before 9 p.m. at the home on Yuma Road and 237th Lane.

“When officers arrived, they located a man inside the home suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and three other individuals who were not injured,” police said.

The man was identified as Michael Diaz.

An investigation said there were three people in the home, a mother and her two adult children, when Diaz began to bang on their door.

“A woman answered the door, and the male intruder began to force his way into the home,” police said. “A man in the home retrieved a handgun and went to the door just as the intruder broke through the security door and stepped inside.”

Police said the man fired at Diaz and struck him. He died at the scene.

Investigators found that the security door had been ripped off its hinges as the mother went to answer the door. KSAZ was able to obtain security video from the neighborhood that captured the sound of four gunshots.

RELATED: Texas homeowner arrested for shooting and killing intruder, police say story didn’t add up

One neighbor told KSAZ that he heard the gunshots but believed at the time that they were fireworks.

“I was in the living room with my wife and daughter, and we just hear multiple gunshots,” the neighbor said. “It’s really scary.”

The family declined to speak to the media, and KSAZ reported that evidence markers and bloodstains were visible in the front yard of the home, which was boarded up. An attorney told KTVK-TV that the incident likely fell under the state’s Castle Doctrine and the homeowner who shot Diaz would not face charges.

Police said the family did not know the intruder.

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​Home intruder shot and killed, Second amendment defense, Buckeye home intruder killed, Break down door, Crime 

A recently elected Detroit police commissioner has withdrawn his promise to resign, even after a local news outlet made public his criminal past — as well as his antagonistic interactions with cops.

On December 17, Darious Morris, 38, was sworn in as one of nearly a dozen members of the Board of Police Commissioners, entrusted with overseeing the Detroit Police Department. Morris won the seat representing District 3 on a write-in campaign after no other name appeared on the ballot.

‘If you would have put your hands on him, I would have shot you!’

However, a report from WXYZ-TV just a few weeks later led Morris to consider tendering his resignation.

Morris has a criminal record that extends all the way back to 2009, when he pled no contest to felony fraud and impersonating a public officer charges in connection with what he described as “real estate fraud.”

“It was taking homes from the bank that the bank got foreclosed on people, and we were fraudulently taking the deeds to the homes and deeding them over,” Morris told the outlet.

While he was sentenced to probation in these cases, he was charged with fraud again a year later and wound up behind bars for two years, WXYZ reported. After his release, Morris apparently lived the next 12 years as a law-abiding citizen.

RELATED: Crooks need only 5 minutes to steal $90,000 in merchandise from Detroit clothing store in predawn heist, owner says

Photo by Scott W. Grau/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

That sterling record changed in May 2023, when he involved himself in a relatively routine traffic stop of a mini-bike driver in the neighboring city of Warren.

It turns out the bike was not street-legal, and the driver did not have a license, police said. Morris stood at a distance during the stop, claiming he wanted to make sure the cops were acting appropriately.

Morris also seemingly suggested that he was a member of law enforcement, donning a silver police badge purchased online. According to Warren police, Morris falsely told the officers he was a “Detroit Police Department Chaplain at the 9th Precinct.”

Bodycam footage shows one Warren officer ordering Morris: “Stand by the vehicle, please. If you interfere with this stop, understand you are not allowed to.”

After Morris later repeatedly calls the officer an “idiot,” the cop responds, “I’m done. I’m done talking to you,” according to the video.

The officer then attempts to get in his vehicle when Morris cries out: “If you would have put your hands on him, I would have shot you!”

Morris later pled guilty to assaulting, resisting, or obstructing a police officer and was sentenced to probation. He admitted to WXYZ that he had lashed out in “anger,” knowing the remark “would upset” the officer. He also claimed he had not been armed at the time and that he has since apologized to the officer.

‘No matter what was said previously, right now, he’s not resigning.’

Just since his election in November, Morris, who has dubbed himself “the People’s Commissioner,” has rankled local officers with his officiousness, bluster, and accusations of mistreatment.

On December 28, he interrupted police rendering assistance to a drug-overdose victim. “We’re trying to help someone here,” one officer reportedly pleaded with Morris, who was attempting to speak with them.

Morris later filed a complaint against that officer. DPD told WXYZ an investigation into the officer’s actions has been opened.

Morris also caused a scene at a Detroit precinct, refusing to go through a metal detector like all other visitors. When a cop demanded he comply with the policy, Morris shot back, “Put your information on a piece of paper so I can get you wrote up.”

Morris even called for ousting a white Detroit police commander whose precinct he implied is racist.

“A lot of black citizens have been reporting to em that they are being mistreated by officers out of that precinct. I even experienced disrespect by one of their officers,” Morris wrote in a since-deleted social media post, according to the Midwesterner.

“Get rid of Commander Svec immediately!” the post added.

At least one police group has called for Morris to resign, accusing him of spewing “alarming anti-police rhetoric,” attempting to “dox” police officers, and not living up to his promises.

“Upon being sworn in on December 17, 2025, Commissioner Morris stated that he was eager to improve the relationship between the youth of Detroit and the Police Department. Not even a month later, he is instigating citizens against police officers,” National Association of Police Organizations Executive Director William Johnson wrote in a letter to the Board of Police Commissioners.

RELATED: University of Michigan’s bio-smuggling scandal explodes: More Chinese scholars busted in alleged plot

Photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images

Shortly after the WXYZ-TV story aired last week, Morris initially agreed to step down from the Board of Police Commissioners. “I already have my city-issued laptop and all my stuff packed up and ready,” he told the outlet, acknowledging that the public may view the BOPC “in an unfavorable light” on his account.

At a press conference Monday, however, Morris’ attorneys walked that resignation pledge back. “No matter what was said previously, right now, he’s not resigning,” insisted Mohammed Nasser.

Of note, Morris could still be in trouble with the law. Back in 2021, weapons charges against Morris were dropped after an officer did not appear at the scheduled hearing, but the office of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy claimed that those charges may now be refiled.

“We have asked that the case be re-issued. When we receive the warrant request from (Detroit police) it will be reviewed,” spokesperson Maria Miller told the Detroit Free Press.

About these pending weapons charges, Nasser said, “We would certainly advise our client not to resign and allow the criminal case — if it comes — to be addressed in due course. Reissuances do happen. In our practice, we see it all the time. The fact that it is coming many years later, I’ll leave that for everyone to decipher as to what they believe the reason may be.”

The BOPC did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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​Detroit, Board of police commissioners, Darious morris, Kym worthy, Wayne county, Wayne county prosecutor’s office, Politics 

Nick Shirley — the 23-year-old investigative journalist who exposed day-care fraud in Minnesota with a video that has now surpassed 140 million views — is back with part two.

“It’s a whole other aspect to the fraud scheme,” says BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler, who invited Shirley to “The Liz Wheeler Show” to share his latest discoveries.

In the first video, Shirley exposed numerous Somali-run day-care centers in Minnesota as fraudulent operations. Despite receiving millions (or even billions overall) in taxpayer-funded government subsidies through programs like CCAP and Medicaid, these centers provided no actual child-care services. Footage captures Shirley visiting multiple empty facilities with locked doors, blacked-out windows, no visible children, and sketchy “staff members.”

In part two, which dropped last week, Shirley shines a light on non-emergency medical transportation companies in Minnesota, which he alleges are fraudulently billing the state and Medicaid for millions of dollars in rides and services that never actually occurred.

Liz plays a clip from part two in which Shirley and his partner, Minnesota native David Hoch, enter a Somali-run business called “Safari Transportation,” which is registered as a non-emergency medical transportation company. Except when they get inside, they find that it’s a money-wiring business.

These non-emergency medical transportation centers, Shirley explains, are the hub of the wheel of Minnesota fraud. The day-care centers, autism services, assisted living, and food assistance programs are the spokes of the wheel because “in order for these people to receive these services, they need to get moved to locations,” he says.

Shirley gives the example of an adult living at an assisted living center. If he or she needs to go to the doctor, a transportation service is needed. However, many of the transportation businesses in Minnesota are simply shell companies. They submit fake paperwork for services that were never provided while billing the state.

“Like how much money are we talking?” asks Liz.

“We estimated just doing like the national average. Like each NEMT averages around 20 vehicles per company. And then each ride, each trip is around $50, and each vehicle, if they’re out doing the work, they’re doing about 10 trips a day. So we estimated around like $8 million [per day],” says Nick.

This fraud, he explains, doesn’t just rip off the Minnesota taxpayer. All Americans are affected because both “state money and federal money” is being used to reimburse these “transportation companies.”

“Their hands are in our pockets,” says Liz.

To watch the full interview, check out the episode above.

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, Minnesota fraud, Minnesota somali fraud, Minnesota somalis, Fraud ring, Nick shirley, Nick shirley video, Blazetv, Blaze media 

My buddy Ryan Rhodes, who’s running for Congress in Iowa’s 4th District, drove north to Minnesota to see the chaos in Minneapolis up close. What he found looked worse than the headlines.

“You have a really Islamo-communist set of people who we have imported” to this country, Rhodes told me. “I think you’ve got a lot of Muslim Brotherhood agents in there, people whose message is, ‘We have taken over this city.’ Forget just elections. We lose our country if we keep allowing these people to come in.”

Americans can handle hard truths. They can handle sacrifice. They can handle a fight. What they won’t handle is watching the bad guys win again.

Rhodes wasn’t talking like a guy chasing clicks. He sounded like a guy staring at the map and realizing tyranny doesn’t need a passport. It can sit three hours from your front door.

So forgive me if I don’t have much patience for the foreign-policy sermonizing right now. How am I supposed to sell voters on “freedom in Iran” while Minneapolis slides toward lawlessness and Washington keeps acting powerless to stop it?

That pitch collapses fast with working-class Americans, especially while the economy limps along and trust remains thin on the ground. Republican voters want competence, results, and consequences for people who harm the country. They want accountability at home first.

We’ve lived what happens without it.

COVID cracked Trump’s first term because bureaucrats and “experts” ran wild, issued edicts, trashed livelihoods, and faced zero consequences. Then the George Floyd riots poured gasoline on the fire. Cities burned while federal authorities watched the destruction unfold.

Trump’s comeback last year required more than winning an election. It required overcoming a full-scale assault on the country’s spirit — and on the right to live as free citizens. The machine didn’t just beat Republicans at the ballot box. It hunted them. Roughly 1,400 Americans were rounded up by the Biden regime over the January 6 “insurrection.” They went after Trump too. They went after anyone in their way.

Those four years didn’t just wreck careers in Washington. They reached down to the local level — school boards acting like petty dictators, public health officials issuing mask and jab mandates, and doctors’ offices turning into political compliance centers. Families paid the price.

Now the country watches the same disease spread again.

People see domestic radicals attack federal officers in the streets. They watch Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) posture like a man protecting the mob, not the public. They hear Minneapolis leaders talk like ICE has no right to exist inside city limits. The footage looks like a warning, not an isolated event.

Remember CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle in 2020? That’s the template: Declare a zone off-limits to law, romanticize the lawlessness, and dare the state to reassert control. Every time the government blinks, the radicals learn the lesson: Push harder.

Demoralization has started to set in. I see it on Facebook and on the ground. In Iowa, I’m seeing campaign photos that would’ve been unthinkable in past cycles: small crowds, low energy, people staying home. Iowa has its first open Republican gubernatorial primary in 15 years, and the mood should feel electric. Instead, it feels like exhaustion.

As things stand, fewer Republicans will vote in the June primary than voted in the 2016 Iowa caucuses. That’s unheard of. Iowa has more than 700,000 registered Republicans. I wouldn’t bet on even 200,000 showing up.

That should terrify the White House.

RELATED: America now looks like a marriage headed for divorce — with no exit

Photo by Madison Thorn/Anadolu via Getty Images

Trump isn’t on the ballot in Iowa anymore. He doesn’t need to win another primary. But the movement still needs to win elections. It needs to win them in places like Iowa — and it needs to win them while the country watches cities like Minneapolis drift toward foreign-flag politics and open contempt for American sovereignty.

Rhodes put it bluntly: If we don’t stop this, we’re watching an Islamic conquest play out in real time, one “sanctuary” city at a time. Great Britain didn’t fall in a day. It surrendered by degrees.

So what do voters need to see now?

Not another speech. Not another promise. Not another commission. Not another “investigation” that ends in a shrug.

They need to see what they were promised when Trump ran for a second term: accountability.

If the country watches Minnesota slide into open defiance of federal law and nobody pays a price for it, voters will conclude the system can’t defend them. And if the system can’t defend them at home, it has no credibility abroad.

Start with Minnesota. Make it plain that “no-go zones” don’t exist in the United States. Enforce the law. Protect federal agents. Prosecute the people who assault them. Strip federal money from jurisdictions that obstruct enforcement. Treat organized lawlessness like organized lawlessness, not a political disagreement.

Americans can handle hard truths. They can handle sacrifice. They can handle a fight.

What they won’t handle is watching the bad guys win again — without consequences.

​Opinion & analysis, Iowa, Primaries, Elections, 2026 midterms, Minnesota, Minneapolis, Riots, Protests, Voter turnout, Iran, Foreign policy, Law and order, Donald trump, Accountability