An LGBTQ activist tried to tear down the U.S. flag at the Stonewall National Monument during an event Thursday where officials returned a Pride flag removed by the Trump administration.

The Pride flag was removed on Tuesday from the monument in New York City that commemorated a riot against police by gay men in the ’60s.

‘The way the whole thing went down was pretty dramatic. … Gays have a sense of flair and drama.’

The crowd chanted, “Take it down!” and “Burn the American flag!” according to a USA Today report. Others chanted, “We will not be erased!”

Local officials did not give speeches and left immediately after returning the Pride flag.

The report said activists were upset that the flag had been put on a flagpole that was lower than the U.S. flag, so they took both down and used zip-ties to raise the Pride flag above the U.S. flag.

“We are reclaiming our space. It’s reclaiming our people; it’s reclaiming our culture,” one supporter said to WCBS-TV. “The flag has so much meaning behind it. The colors represent the diversity of our community. These are things you can’t take away from the community, which is why it’s so important for us to raise it again.”

“The way the whole thing went down was pretty dramatic,” said another attendee named Shep Wahnon. “Gays have a sense of flair and drama.”

Chloe Elentari, a transgender woman, told USA Today that the Trump administration was scapegoating transgender people in order to divert attention away from the Jeffrey Epstein files.

President Donald Trump had ordered all flags aside from the U.S. flag to be removed from federal buildings unless they were specifically authorized.

RELATED: Officials at ‘Latinx’ LGBTQ+ center are outraged that months-long fecal attacks are not an arrestable offense

The Stonewall National Monument was established in 2016 by President Barack Obama to recognize the riot as a milestone in the LGBTQ movement.

Activists were similarly angered in Feb. 2025 when the Trump administration removed transgender and lesbian references in the sign of the monument.

“This blatant act of erasure not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonors the immense contributions of transgender individuals,” organizers said at the time, “especially transgender women of color — who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots and the broader fight for LGBTQ+ rights.”

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A U.S. law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told Reuters that an Arizona sheriff is blocking FBI access to key evidence surrounding Nancy Guthrie’s abduction and that it’s hampering the federal agency’s ability to assist in the probe.

The FBI asked Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos for physical evidence in the case — including a glove and DNA from the home of the 84-year-old victim — to be processed at the FBI’s national crime laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, but Nanos insisted on using a private lab in Florida instead, the official told Reuters.

‘It risks further slowing a case that grows more urgent by the minute.’

While Reuters said Nanos didn’t respond to its requests for comment, the outlet noted that Nanos said in a late Thursday interview with Tucson television station KVOA-TV that the FBI agreed with his decision to send newly discovered evidence to the lab, which has worked with his office for years.

However, the U.S. law enforcement official noted to Reuters that move is delaying the FBI’s ability to assist in the case.

Still, Nanos denied the allegations, Reuters said, and called them “not even close to the truth” in the KVOA interview.

“Actually the FBI just wanted to send the one or two they found by the crime scene. … I said, ‘No, why do that? Let’s just send them all to where all the DNA exist, all the profiles and the markers exist.’ They agreed, makes sense,” Nanos told KVOA, according to Reuters.

More from Reuters:

In a daily press update released earlier in the day, the sheriff’s department said investigators had “recovered several items of evidence, including gloves,” adding that all viable evidence is submitted for analysis.” The agency did not elaborate.

The Pima County sheriff has primary jurisdiction over the case, and FBI assistance must be officially requested by the county, otherwise the FBI is legally precluded from taking part in the investigation. The official said the county has spent some $200,000 so far to send evidence in the Guthrie case to the Florida lab.

“It risks further slowing a case that grows more urgent by the minute,” the official told Reuters earlier Thursday, citing unspecified “earlier setbacks” in the investigation.

RELATED: How the FBI actually got the Google Nest footage of Nancy Guthrie’s alleged kidnapper

The official added to Reuters that “it’s clear the fastest path to answers is leveraging federal resources and technology. Anything less only prolongs the Guthrie family’s grief and the community’s wait for justice.”

More from Reuters:

Signs of friction between the FBI and sheriff’s department emerged as the search for Nancy Guthrie stretched into its 12th day, as investigators intensified their search for clues in the presumed kidnapping for ransom.

Nancy Guthrie was last seen on January 31 when family dropped her off at her home following an evening dinner with them, and relatives reported her missing the following day, authorities said.

The sheriff has said the elder Guthrie had extremely limited mobility and could not have wandered off far from home unassisted, leading investigators to conclude early on that she had been abducted by force.

In addition, officials said last week that DNA tests confirmed traces of blood found on Guthrie’s front porch were Guthrie’s blood, Reuters reported, adding that law enforcement and family members have described Guthrie as frail health-wise and requiring daily medication to survive.

What’s more, Reuters also noted that at least two purported ransom notes have surfaced since Guthrie vanished — and both of them initially were delivered to news outlets and set two deadlines that have since lapsed.

However, Reuters noted that no proof of life is known to have surfaced following Guthrie’s abduction.

Savannah Guthrie, 54 — co-anchor of the popular NBC News morning show “Today” — has posted several video messages with her brother and sister that appeal to their mother’s captors for her return, Reuters said.

The siblings even state a willingness to meet ransom demands in the clips, Reuters added.

In addition, authorities released doorbell camera video at Guthrie’s home near Tucson showing an armed prowler in a ski mask and gloves trying to disable the camera, Reuters said, adding that the clip was recorded around the time that Guthrie was believed to have been taken from her residence by force.

More from Reuters:

Investigators were likely seeking to bring facial recognition analysis to bear on the video to produce a composite image of a suspect that they can run against a national database that includes all U.S. drivers with Real ID licenses, according to a former FBI agent.

Law enforcement officials on Thursday said a black latex glove found discarded on a roadside was recovered and undergoing forensic examination.

The FBI on Thursday doubled the reward offered for information leading to the location of Nancy Guthrie, or arrest and conviction of a suspect in her abduction, to $100,000.

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A viral video purporting to show an arson attack on a facility rumored to be bought for federal detentions led to an outraged statement from the Kansas City mayor against ICE.

The video shows a woman trying to light a facility on fire Thursday after the building was rumored to have been sold to the Department of Homeland Security for a future detention center in Kansas City.

‘I am outraged by federal efforts to place 10,000 human beings in cages inside distribution warehouses in Kansas City.’

The woman has not been caught, and the motivation for the attack is unclear.

Ironically, the firm that owns the building said it was not going through with the sale to the federal government on Thursday.

“As negotiations concluded, we learned the purchasing party was the U.S. Government,” the company said. “Over the course of the building sale process, we determined that the terms no longer met our fiduciary requirements for a timely closing. Therefore, we chose not to move forward.”

As a KMBC-TV reporter was trying to report about the decision, his camera crew recorded the woman trying to light the building on fire.

When the mayor was asked about the attack, he expressed outrage at ICE and offered a half-hearted statement against the woman.

“I am outraged by federal efforts to place 10,000 human beings in cages inside distribution warehouses in Kansas City or anywhere in our country,” Mayor Quinton Lucas wrote in a statement on social media. “I’ll trust the courts, our local prosecutors, and law enforcement in Kansas City to handle the offender.”

Some critics of the mayor pointed out that he had promoted the outrage against the facility in a statement on the same day as the attack.

RELATED: ‘Quite literally insane’: DHS responds to new scheme from LA activists to warn illegal aliens about ICE

“I am aware of a recent release from a Kansas City firm regarding a distribution facility in South Kansas City that has been rumored as a target for a mass ICE detention encampment of up to 10,000 persons,” he said in a post Thursday.

“While Kansas City welcomes any news suggesting the halting of a planned conversion of a warehouse for goods and products into a human encampment,” he added, “I will continue with our legislative, legal efforts, and community engagement to ensure no warehouse or similar facility in Kansas City or nearby is converted to a mass encampment warehouse of persons that is offensive to the dignity and human rights of those who would be detained within it.”

KMBC has since posted the entire raw footage of the woman trying to burn down the building.

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On Tuesday, February 10, during a heated House Homeland Security Committee hearing, Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar (Mich.) told U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott, “You better hope you get pardoned.”

“That’s a threat,” says Glenn Beck, who was deeply disturbed by Thanedar’s words.

“He didn’t say, ‘You violated the law, and you should be investigated.’ What he said was, ‘When power changes hands, we’re going to punish you for enforcing the law.’ That distinction is everything,” he warns.

“The moment the enforcement itself becomes criminalized retroactively,” Glenn says, “the rule of law does not merely weaken; it completely flips.”

“The message is no longer, ‘Follow the law.’ The message becomes, ‘Guess who’s going to be in charge later? You better act accordingly,’” he explains. “That is not a democracy. That’s a legitimacy war.”

Thanedar’s threat, he says, is evidence that accelerationism — “the belief that everything needs to be burned down” — is migrating from fringe street movements into the halls of government itself.

In the streets, accelerationism sounds like, “Burn it down,” but in the government, it sounds like, “We’ll deal with you later,” Glenn explains.

“[Thanedar’s threat] is nothing I have ever heard ever in my lifetime in America, and it should chill all of us to the bone,” he says. “When lawmakers openly promise prosecutions after elections, they’re not talking about justice; they’re signaling veto power — the rule by anticipation of punishment.”

Glenn warns that some people are engaging in “casual talk” about “Nuremberg-style trials” that would treat “domestic opponents” as Nazi war criminals deserving execution or lifelong imprisonment after a power shift.

This should terrify everyone, he says.

“Applause for the idea of prosecuting the former regime at every level and anyone who was participating — that means you, that means me, anybody who was on the side of the right — you better look out,” he cautions.

“This is not about one person. This is not about left versus right. This is about something far more corrosive,” Glenn warns.

“The normalization of the idea that power exists to punish the previous holder of power — you’re a banana republic.”

To hear more Glenn’s commentary, watch the video above.

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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem held a press conference in Arizona on Friday to urge the passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.

Noem addressed reporters after attending a roundtable discussion with local officials, including Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, Arizona Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright, and state Rep. John Gillette (R).

‘There’s only one reason that anyone would oppose this bill, and that’s because they would want to cheat.’

The secretary emphasized that President Donald Trump has made election integrity one of the administration’s top priorities of its Make America Great Again agenda.

Noem stated that the nation’s election system “needs a lot of work,” adding that America currently has a “golden opportunity” to demonstrate that it is “serious about securing our elections and that we care about making sure that we preserve our sacred republic.”

She noted that the House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act earlier this week, contending that its passage would implement “common-sense, straightforward” measures, including requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and states’ removal of noncitizens from voter rolls.

“These measures are extremely popular with American citizens,” Noem continued. “American people have common sense, and they want to see reforms like this put into their elections.”

Noem highlighted a recent poll that found 84% of Americans support requiring a photo ID to vote and 83% support requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

RELATED: 4 Senate Republicans evading MAGA’s pressure campaign to prevent noncitizens from voting

Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

“It’s common sense that our elections should belong to the American people, that they should be the ones who get to vote, whose votes are counted, that they get one vote, not more, not less,” Noem said. “It’s common sense to make sure that foreign nationals don’t vote in our elections, don’t elect our leaders and have a say in how our country runs.”

“It’s a fact that noncitizens have been voting in our elections. They’ve been registered, and they have voted from state to state,” she added.

The secretary provided examples of noncitizens who had voted in prior elections, including an illegal alien registered to vote in Maryland and another illegal alien registered in Kansas.

“As it stands, current guidelines for the National Voter Registration Act effectively stop states from going forward and checking citizenship during registration. The SAVE America Act would fix this,” she declared.

Noem addressed left-wing criticism that the SAVE Act would prevent American citizens from voting, including claims that newly married women would be disenfranchised when they have a name change and that the measure would make it impossible for U.S. service members to vote when deployed overseas.

She called these claims “just absurd” and “completely false.”

“Each of the arguments that have been laid out to criticize this bill are baseless speculation from the radical left because they want illegal aliens to vote in our elections,” Noem stated.

“There’s only one reason that anyone would oppose this bill, and that’s because they would want to cheat.”

RELATED: Lone Republican defies Trump, votes to tank the SAVE Act

Kristi Noem. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Reporters pressed Noem for specifics about Arizona’s election system, including whether “emphasizing election security threats without evidence” would “undermine public confidence” or further “misinformation.”

“We have a SAVE program that is available to the state of Arizona,” Noem replied, explaining that the state’s election officials could use the program to ensure that those on its voter rolls are verified.

Noem expressed concern that there are likely “many” individuals on Arizona’s voter rolls who should not be casting a ballot, including individuals who may be living in another state.

“I understand that you have mobile homes and boats on lakes that individuals may have as their voter registration address, but not necessarily that is where they live,” she said. “They live in another state, such as California or on the East Coast.”

Noem stated that Arizona has a history of being “an absolute disaster on elections.”

“Your leaders have failed you dramatically by not having systems that work, by disenfranchising the Americans who wanted to vote, that had to stand in lines for hours because machines failed or software failed. There’s no state that could use more improvement than Arizona,” Noem stated.

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