A man convicted for raping an elderly woman and tying her up will spend decades in prison after Ohio police were able to find one thumbprint from the crime scene.

Columbus police said they were called to the Eastmoor neighborhood on Jan. 13 on reports of a rape.

‘This is the nightmare every woman fears. I cannot think of a worse set of facts.’

The 87-year-old woman told police that she awoke to find a man in all black and wearing a ski mask standing over her. He raped her and then tied her up before leaving her in her kitchen.

It took her about three hours to free herself, and then she discovered that he had stolen her car from a detached garage.

Detectives said they were able to identify a suspect through a thumbprint that was found on a bottle of disinfectant wipes. The suspect lived only a few blocks away from the victim.

They arrested 31-year-old Miguel Rodriguez Rolon two days later.

Family members of the victim said she used a walker to get to the court stand and testified against Rolon.

He was found guilty in March of two counts of rape, one count of kidnapping, and one count of aggravated burglary. He was sentenced to at least 84 years in prison.

RELATED: Thug who brutally raped 94-year-old in broad daylight had just been released after other rape charge was dropped, police say

Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Chris Brown excoriated Rolon and called his crime “completely evil” during sentencing.

“It is completely evil to rape an 87-year-old woman. This is the nightmare every woman fears. I cannot think of a worse set of facts,” Brown said. “You’re the reason we build prisons in this country.”

Her family said she still faces a long rehabilitation process, but they are happy that justice was served in the case.

Rolon will also have to register as a Tier III sex offender.

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​Miguel rodriguez rolon, Rape of elderly man, Ohio elderly rape, Rapist gets 84 years in prison, Crime 

U.S. Special Forces recently rescued a pair of downed airmen in Iran. As the stories begin to be disseminated, many in the audience — but sadly, not all in the West, or in America — will listen and read with awe, pride, and patriotism. Most will do so at least until the next exciting event comes along.

Where does the moral imperative of ‘no one is left behind’ come from?

The day after the rescue, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated President Donald Trump and the Americans who pulled off this daring, high-risk mission. Netanyahu said, in part:

All Israelis rejoice in the incredible rescue of a brave American pilot, by America’s dauntless warriors. This proves that when free societies muster their courage, and their resolve, they can confront seemingly insurmountable odds, and overcome the forces of darkness and terror. This rescue operation reinforces a sacred principle: No one is left behind.

The prime minister’s words were appropriate and inspiring. He stated, as have other early reporters, that the Israelis and Americans share “a sacred principle: No one is left behind.” But so far, has anyone — including Netanyahu — made an effort to convey what I suggest to be the single most important piece of information relevant to this — or to any — rescue mission?

Where does the moral imperative of “no one is left behind” come from?

It comes directly from the Book of Genesis. There we read — no less than four times — that God created man in His own image.

In these passages, mankind is said to bear the Imago Dei, the image of God. This means that the individual person, regardless of status, wealth, merit, or demerit, possesses inherent value and dignity. That is why in the West — where the Jewish and Christian scriptures historically were foundational — our rock-solid commitment has been to ensure “no one is left behind.”

If one doubts this assertion, look no further than the military traditions in the non-West — though some in the non-West have adopted Western military values (if not civil values in certain cases), particularly in the Far East.

The reality has been, historically, that outside of the West where the cultural understanding of the Imago Dei was foundational, individual persons were valued only insofar as they were of some use to the community, society, or the state.

In the military context, it was perhaps not surprising that in the Korean conflict, the Soviet military placed rescue as a low priority for its MiG-15 pilots.

Among the many danger signs in the West for decades has been the adoption and implementation by governments of ideas and practices grossly antithetical to the scripture-based teachings of individual dignity, which flow from the image of God in man — from abortion and euthanasia to the depriving of liberty of conscience and freedom of religion.

RELATED: I saw the sky light up over Dubai. The real shock came next.

AFP/Getty Images

The neo-Marxist-based diversity and cancel culture movements have contributed their share to this destructive trend.

So while most once-traditional markers of the West are losing ground, the “sacred principle” expressed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, for now, remains compelling among certain Western militaries, especially America and Israel.

This no-one-left-behind principle was prominently displayed in the air for the first time during the Korean conflict, by which time technological advances made combat rescue a realistic option. The foremost technological advance for this mission was the same type of aircraft that rescued our two Airmen in Iran — the helicopter.

During World War II, as my mentor, friend, and noted air power historian Dr. Earl H. Tilford Jr. wrote, “An aircrew member downed behind enemy lines was virtually certain of capture or death.” But in Korea, a few years later, the young U.S. Air Force’s Air Rescue Service demonstrated with employment of its H-5 and H-19 helicopters and SA-16 amphibian fixed-wing aircraft that combat air rescue was viable.

It was also in Korea that the Air Rescue motto and the Rescue culture were born. Every Rescue member understood that should the unthinkable happen to a U.S. or U.N. airman, and he was forced to leave his aircraft over enemy territory or the adversary’s waters, Rescue crews would risk their lives to fulfill their motto, “That Others May Live.”

But to return to the moral imperative once more. As I wrote in 2020:

In one rescue attempt in December 1969, a total of 336 sorties were flown in support of one F-4 navigator downed near Tchepone, Laos. One pararescueman died, several others were wounded. Of 10 helicopters damaged in the operation, five never flew again. As [Tilford] wrote, “Yet no one asked if the life of one man was worth all the effort.” The question was unnecessary.

The question was not required because the Western culture of the day — though it was beginning to fade — affirmed the inherent dignity of the individual, created in the image of God.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.

​Iran war, Moral imperative, Airmen rescue, Pararescue, Operation epic fury, Trump, Israel, Benjamin netanyahu, U.s. special forces, Opinion & analysis 

For decades, we have been told that we may not be able to end abortion, but we can reduce it. Political reality requires patience. Incremental laws, strategic compromises, and careful coalition-building will, over time, bend the curve downward.

Fewer abortions this year than last. Fewer still the next. This is what we’ve been told, but the numbers are not bending in the right direction.

The same movement that insists on the humanity of the unborn defends strategies that refuse to treat that humanity as legally binding.

In 2020, the United States saw roughly 930,000 abortions. By 2024, annual abortions had surpassed 1 million again. Monthly averages have continued to rise, moving from roughly 88,000 per month in 2023 to nearly 100,000 per month by 2025 — estimated at over 1.1 million abortions a year.

This is not the trajectory we were promised.

Even in a post-Dobbs world — after decades of work, millions of dollars, and countless political victories — abortion remains not only legal in much of the country, but increasingly accessible.

According to the standard used to justify compromise, the results of our efforts have been thoroughly unimpressive.

If compromise is justified because it reduces abortion, what happens when it does not? If the entire framework rests on pragmatic outcomes, then those outcomes must be honestly measured. If they fail, the justification collapses with them.

The central question, though, was never whether compromise works. The central question is whether compromise is obedience.

Scripture is not silent on this. “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). That statement assumes that what is right is already understood — and then confronts the refusal to act on it.

That is where the abortion debate now stands.

RELATED: At its core, the abortion debate is very simple

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

For decades, the pro-life movement has argued — rightly — that the unborn child is fully human. Not partially or potentially human. Not a life that becomes valuable later. A human being, made in the image of God, from the moment of conception.

And yet, that premise is not applied in law.

Equal justice is withheld. Justice is knowingly delayed. Entire classes of human beings are acknowledged in rhetoric and denied in practice — through heartbeat bills, 20-week bans, and fetal pain bills.

The same movement that insists on the humanity of the unborn defends strategies that refuse to treat that humanity as legally binding.

To know that a child is fully human and yet defend a legal framework that allows that child to be killed is not a lesser evil. It is a greater evil — because it is compounded.

Scripture goes further. When knowledge increases, so does accountability. When leaders teach truth, they are bound to it. And when they fail to act on what they teach, they do not merely err — they invite judgment.

We have been told to evaluate abortion policy on outcomes alone. But Scripture does not separate outcomes from obedience. It ties them together. God does not bless disobedience because it is politically strategic.

When disobedience is institutionalized — when it becomes the operating principle of a movement — the results should not surprise us.

RELATED: The collapse of conservatism nobody wants to admit

Blaze Media Illustration

Abortion does not decrease under compromise because compromise is not a neutral tool. It is a moral decision. It trains a culture to tolerate the very evil it claims to oppose. It teaches legislators to delay what they confess is urgent. It forms a people who say that the unborn are fully human, while structuring their laws as though they are not.

This is why the numbers do not tell the story we were promised. Not because the strategy was insufficiently refined, but because it was fundamentally misaligned. The issue is not that we have failed to compromise enough. It is that we have compromised at all.

God does not require political feasibility. He requires obedience.

Obedience does not ask how much injustice can be tolerated while we make progress. It asks what justice demands — and then establishes it.

Until that shift is made, the pattern will remain. More laws, more campaigns, more assurances of progress — and the same or worse results. Not because we lack the power to change it, but because we refuse to apply what we already know to be true. Until we do what is right, we should not expect the numbers to change — because God does not bless disobedience. He judges it.

That is why we must fight to establish equal justice under the law for our preborn neighbors — not by regulating abortion, but by abolishing it.

​Abortion, Roe v wade, Dobbs v. jackson, Pro life, Scripture, Obedience, Republicans, Political compromise, Opinion & analysis 

The approval of a $6 billion data center in a Missouri city led voters to kick out four members of the city council who were running for re-election.

The four incumbents lost by a wide margin to their challengers, and the council was unable to meet Wednesday evening because of a lack of quorum.

‘This data center fight has struck this community to the core and really, honestly ignited a community-driven effort here.’

The council approved of the data center project on March 30 by a vote of 6 to 2, and three of the incumbents who lost their elections had voted in favor of the data center.

“I think when the people in leadership are not listening, it shows that democracy is a solution to them ignoring their constituents,” said Gabe Cotton, a voter opposed to the data center, to KTVI-TV.

Opponents accused city officials of violating transparency laws before approving the plan by CRG Clayco to build on a 360-acre property near Highway 67.

“This data center fight has struck this community to the core and really, honestly ignited a community-driven effort here,” said Dan Moore, one of the candidates who defeated an incumbent in the election. “People are awake now, and we’re not going to let this continue on anymore.”

Festus City Administrator Greg Camp argued that the data center would bring new opportunities for the city from increased tax revenue.

“It’s unlike anything that any of these, certainly the city, or any of those institutions, have ever seen before,” Camp said.

The results of the election must be certified before they are official.

Supporters of the data centers say that critics are exaggerating their detrimental effects and argue that they’re critical for the U.S. to stay in the artificial intelligence race.

RELATED: ‘We are totally unprepared’: Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez propose law to shut down future AI data centers

“Banning data center construction is absurd and completely unacceptable. We need commonsense rules that protect consumers from rising energy bills, but stopping progress altogether — and losing to China — is the wrong approach,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) on social media Thursday.

“Americans shouldn’t see their energy or water bills go up, but we also can’t afford to lose the computer race to China. We’re in a new Cold War, and sidelining data center development risks ceding our technological edge,” he continued.

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​Festus missouri, Data center vote, City council voted out, Data center opposition, Politics 

Four Texas teens kidnapped a high school student and tortured him after a dispute over a girl, police records say.

The Houston Chronicle identified the suspects — all 17-year-olds — as Jose Rojas-Alvarado, Oscar Armando Santiago-Martinez, Angel Lemus-Perez, and Carlos Roberto Oliva-Villeda.

The affidavit said the suspects threatened to kill the alleged victim and harm his family and friends if he contacted the police about the reported encounter.

Court records show that all four suspects have been charged with aggravated kidnapping with a deadly weapon and engaging in organized criminal activity — both first-degree felonies.

Citing an arrest warrant, KVUE-TV reported that the alleged victim departed Del Valle High School with three of the four suspects and went to a nearby gas station on Feb. 19.

The alleged victim told police that the suspects — whom he had been friendly with for approximately two years — invited him to go and get food, the affidavit said.

However, the affidavit also said the suspects drove past the restaurant and instead drove the alleged victim to Rojas-Alvarado’s home, where the student said he had previously visited.

The alleged victim told investigators that he and the suspects were in the garage of the home talking for about an hour and a half before they instructed him to sit in a chair in the middle of the room, where he had his hands and legs restrained with duct tape, according to the affidavit.

“Two of the suspects left, with Rojas-Alvarado returning with a gun,” KVUE reported. “He then allegedly pressed the gun to the victim’s head and told him not to move as the other suspects began restraining him in the chair with duct tape.”

The affidavit said the suspects took turns hitting the alleged victim with aluminum baseball bats, belts, and a walking cane while Rojas-Alvarado held him at gunpoint.

Police said the alleged victim told them that Lemus-Perez heated a box cutter with a lighter and pressed it against his chest, while Rojas-Alvarado forced him to drink from a bottle of clear alcohol.

The alleged victim informed investigators that Rojas-Alvarado threatened to cut off his toe with the box cutter if he didn’t drink the alcohol from the bottle, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit said Rojas-Alvarado grabbed a chainsaw and a machete while the suspects threatened to cut off his body parts. However, the alleged victim said Rojas-Alvarado was unsuccessful in starting the chainsaw.

RELATED: Woman thought she was buying a puppy — instead she’s lured into an ambush, shot, set on fire in likely revenge killing: Cops

The purported victim said Rojas-Alvarado told him he was being beaten and tortured for talking to his girlfriend, the affidavit revealed. The alleged victim said Rojas-Alvarado ordered him to stay away from his girlfriend.

The affidavit said the suspects threatened to kill the alleged victim and harm his family and friends if he contacted the police about the reported encounter.

The alleged victim told investigators that Rojas-Alvarado deleted his and the other suspects’ contact information from the teen’s phone, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit said the suspects cut the alleged victim loose from the chair and then dropped him off at an unknown location.

KVUE reported that police obtained a search warrant and discovered evidence at the residence of Rojas-Alvarado that corroborated the alleged victim’s claims.

According to KVUE, police noticed contusions and redness on the alleged victim’s thigh consistent with blunt force trauma, as well as irregular marks on his chest, back, and abdomen.

During follow-up interviews with detectives, Santiago-Martinez, Lemus-Perez, and Oliva-Villeda admitted to planning the alleged attack a week prior and then coordinating and carrying out the purported confrontation, KVUE stated.

KVUE reported that Santiago-Martinez and Oliva-Villeda confessed to threatening, beating, and holding a toy gun to the head of the alleged victim.

The four suspects were arrested.

The Del Valle Independent School District provided the following statement to KEYE-TV:

Del Valle ISD is aware of the reports of an off-campus incident that resulted in the arrests of former DVISD students. The incident is being actively investigated by the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. The district does not have further information at this time. The safety of our students and staff is our top priority, and we will continue to monitor this incident. We will always communicate with the school community when there are impacts to the school environment.

J’Kaideon Mitchell, a student at Del Valle High School, told KEYE, “I thought it was insane, especially at our school. It’s just crazy how strong that person would have to be to report it and just stay alive, honestly.”

The investigation is ongoing.

The Travis County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.

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​Texas, Kidnapping, Torture, Teens, Assault, Crime 

Hollywood actor George Clooney criticized President Donald Trump for threatening to destroy Iran, and the White House fired back with a humorous response on social media.

The actor and director was speaking to about 3,000 high school students in Italy on Wednesday when he said the president’s threat would constitute a war crime if he followed through on it.

‘You can still support the conservative point of view, but there must be a line of decency, and we must not cross it.’

“Some say Donald Trump is fine. But if anyone says he wants to end a civilization, that’s a war crime,” Clooney said. “You can still support the conservative point of view, but there must be a line of decency, and we must not cross it.”

The president posted the message on his Truth Social account on the day of a deadline he had set for Iran to stop blocking ship traffic across the Strait of Hormuz.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” he posted on Tuesday morning.

“47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!” he added.

Many other critics called for the president to be removed from office via the 25th Amendment for the threat to end a civilization. That evening, however, the president announced that a ceasefire had been reached with Iran after they both agreed generally to pause the conflict for two weeks.

Assistant to the President and White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung fired back at Clooney in a post on the X platform.

“The only person committing war crimes is George Clooney for his awful movies and terrible acting ability,” he posted.

Oil prices dropped after the announcement of the ceasefire, but the agreement appeared to be on shaky ground after Iran accused Israel and the U.S. of violating the terms only a day later.

RELATED: Weeks after hosting ritzy fundraiser for Biden, George Clooney calls for his replacement: ‘It’s devastating to say it’

Clooney went on to express his concerns about the U.S. possibly leaving NATO.

“I’m worried about NATO,” the actor said. “It has ensured that Europe, but also the rest of the world, has been safe. Dismantling an institution like this worries me. Aside from many mistakes, I believe the U.S. [with NATO] has also done many extraordinary things that have stood the test of time.”

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​George clooney vs trump, Trump war crimes, Civilization end threat, Iran us israel ceasefire, Politics