One-half of the sibling pair charged in connection with an IED discovered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa allegedly consulted an AI bot to help the other sibling flee the country.

Alen is believed to still be in China.

After Alen Zheng, 20, allegedly planted the bomb at the base visitor center last month, his sister Ann Mary Zheng, 27, allegedly used ChatGPT to help Alen escape to China. Federal prosecutors claim that she asked the bot:

how to obtain a Chinese visa,how they might transfer ownership of some of Alen’s belongings to her, andto find schools in China that Alen might be able to attend.

Ann Mary is accused of helping Alen cover his tracks and then evade capture. She has been charged with evidence tampering and assisting after the fact and faces up to 30 years if convicted. She appeared in court on Tuesday regarding possible pretrial release, though the judge has not yet issued a ruling.

RELATED: China caught ‘trying to disrupt our justice system’: DOJ accuses 10 Chinese spies and communist agents of ‘malign schemes’

WD Stuart/Getty Images

A 911 call to report the bomb came in on March 11, but investigators found nothing in their initial search of the base. An IED was later discovered on March 16. The device never detonated, but officials have described it as “viable” and “potentially very deadly.”

​Chatgpt, Macdill air force base, Ann mary zheng, Alen zheng, Tampa, China, Ied, Politics 

President Donald Trump has announced plans to issue paychecks to Department of Homeland Security employees amid the ongoing partial shutdown, which has left Transportation Security Administration officers working without pay for weeks and jammed up airport security lines nationwide.

TSA agents’ last full paycheck was on Feb. 14. Nearly 500 workers have quit since the shutdown started, and the callout rate reached 11.83% as of March 26, CNN reported.

‘Defund-the-police Democrats have kept @DHSgov closed in an attempt to slow down ICE’s efforts to remove murderers, rapists.’

Trump previously directed the DHS to work with the Office of Management and Budget “to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown, consistent with applicable law.”

As a result of Trump’s directive, on March 30, many TSA workers received at least part of their overdue pay after missing two full paychecks.

On Thursday, Trump announced additional steps to ensure all DHS employees receive their wages.

“Republicans are UNIFIED, and moving forward on a plan that will reload funding for our FANTASTIC Border Patrol and Immigration Enforcement Officers,” Trump wrote in a post on social media.

RELATED: Senate approves DHS funding — but there’s a catch

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images

Trump criticized Democrats for being “fully and 100% committed to the Radical Left Policy of Open Borders and Zero Immigration Enforcement” that has allowed unvetted “Murderers and Criminals of all types” into the United States. He added that he hopes their actions will “cost them dearly in the Midterms!”

The president stated that he would take executive action to address the ongoing issue.

“I will soon sign an order to pay ALL of the incredible employees at the Department of Homeland Security,” Trump wrote. “Their families have suffered far too long at the hands of the Extreme Liberal ‘Leaders,’ Cryin’ Chuck Schumer and Hakeem ‘High Tax’ Jeffries.”

Trump declared that “help is on the way for our Brave and Patriotic Public Servants who have continued to work hard, and do their part to protect and defend our Country.”

RELATED: Delta revokes major travel perk for Congress amid ongoing DHS shutdown

Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg/Getty Images

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin thanked the president for his latest announcement.

“For over a month, the defund-the-police Democrats have kept @DHSgov closed in an attempt to slow down ICE’s efforts to remove murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists from our country and open our borders. Time and time again the Democrats have prioritized violent illegal aliens over American citizens,” Mullin wrote.

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​News, Markwayne mullin, Department of homeland security, Dhs, Donald trump, Trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, Border patrol, Immigration and customs enforcement, Ice, Transportation security administration, Tsa, Chuck schumer, Hakeem jeffries, Dhs shutdown, Politics 

Social media was taken by storm this week when reporting by the Daily Mail revealed that Kristi Noem’s husband, Bryon Noem, was allegedly chatting up women from the “bimbofication” fetish scene.

However, not only was he allegedly praising the heavily augmented appearances of the women he spoke to — but he was allegedly sending them photos of himself wearing leggings, a flesh-colored, skintight suit, and what appear to be balloons mimicking large breasts under his top.

“I heard a really, really interesting story about this. So he [allegedly] liked to message online porn performers and send them money. Allegedly, he sent them up to $25,000. And the obvious place you go with this is, ‘Hey, his behavior could have left Kristi Noem vulnerable to blackmail,’” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments.

And according to an article from the New York Post, Noem herself responded that she was “blindsided.”

However, Gonzales isn’t buying it.

“Are you really blindsided by something like that? Like, you really have no idea that your husband likes to cross-dress and he’s sending up to $25,000 to online porn stars?” Gonzales asks.

“In our marriage,” Gonzales tells her husband, Stephen, “that just literally would not be possible to be blindsided by.”

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Kristi noem, Bimbofication, Kristi noem husband, Bryon noem 

The Maven Smart System is briefly explained in the “one-pager,” a Palantir-produced document that frames the system as an “AI-enabled platform” for something called Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control. The prose is the sterile, aspirational language of the Pentagon, emphasizing a “live, synchronized view of the battlespace,” the language of “decision advantage,” a phrase that suggests we can outthink our adversaries by processing data more accurately.

MSS is no longer an AI prototype. It has become a durable layer in the military’s information architecture, a Program of Record transitioned to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2023.

In the first 24 hours alone, the system processed a thousand targets.

The money is real and the timelines are long: a $480 million Army contract in 2024, followed by a $795 million modification in 2025, both reaching toward 2029. There is also a $99.8 million vehicle designed to expand access across the services. MSS is a story of how an automation effort for drone video became the epistemic infrastructure for modern American war.

Birth of a twin

The precondition for MSS was a crisis of human attention. In 2017, Deputy Secretary Robert O. Work issued a memo establishing the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, nicknamed Project Maven. The problem was simple and overwhelming: They had too much data and not enough eyes. Enormous volumes of full-motion video from unmanned systems were piling up, outstripping the capacity of human analysts to “process, exploit, and disseminate” them. The initial goal was simple: data labeling and algorithms to detect, classify, and alert.

By the time the project evolved into the Maven Smart System, it had become an apparatus that observes, organizes, and normalizes the battlespace. At its heart is the “Maven Ontology,” described as an operational “digital twin.” In this world, the messy heterogeneity of war (the images, the reports, the movement) is translated into a queryable database of objects, properties, and links. The analyst no longer interprets raw feeds; he operates on already-structured objects. The battlespace becomes a manipulable database.

The interface itself (Gaia for mapping, Maverick and Target Nexus for identification) is designed for scaling. It includes LLM-powered workflows and an Agent Studio in which users can build interactive assistants to query the ontology in natural language. One can ask for “detections of X” across thousands of objects and receive an answer in seconds. These interfaces are sometimes described as video game-like, which captures the ease of navigation while minimizing the gravity of the destruction it represents.

RELATED: Trump acted first — and the ‘experts’ are furious because it worked

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

By early 2026, the user base had doubled to 20,000 active participants, a scaling that found its ultimate expression in Operation Epic Fury. In the first 24 hours alone, the system processed a thousand targets, with many thousands more to follow. This is the kill chain compressed from hours to minutes, an acceleration that effectively removes the friction of deliberation. War is no longer an event to be survived, but a dataset to be optimized, a feedback loop in which the destruction of the target serves primarily to improve the next detection.

How fast is too fast?

The logic of the platform is “fight-tonight” readiness and “rapid sensor-to-shooter engagements.” The Marine Corps speaks of a “fully digital workflow” for target management, pressuring the military toward a tempo in which speed is the organizing value. Yet the demands of war require discrimination and proportionality, context-sensitive reasoning that cannot be scaled by a Model Catalog.

The danger is the category error: treating the output of the machine as if it were a judgment. Humans have a tendency to “automation bias,” to over-trust the platform, especially under the crushing pressure of time. When the system pre-structures perception and prioritization, responsibility is dispersed through chains of mediation and eroded before human approval is even requested.

The platform is spreading through sale and licensing agreements like enterprise software. NATO has adopted “MSS NATO” for Allied Command Operations, with training already integrating the system into exercises and simulations. In the U.S. Army, the fielding is rapid, with training described as an “accelerated learning effort.” Software now changes faster than doctrine, habits, or the slower virtues of judgment.

The Pentagon has “Responsible AI Guidelines” and strategy documents that emphasize the ability to disengage or deactivate systems with unintended behavior. These frameworks exist in constant tension with the platform’s own gravity within the process, which pulls toward more data, more detections, and faster workflows.

We are left with a question of agency. In the MSS architecture, control is lost or found in how the targets are modeled, how the alerts are tuned, and how the ontology is constructed. The system is built to make war more legible and therefore more actionable. Legibility, however, is not the same as understanding. One wonders if “decision advantage” can truly co-exist with the capacity to consider, to scrutinize, or to refuse a path that a platform has already made so efficient.

​Tech, Pentagon, Palantir, Iran, Epic fury, Battlespace, War 

A male suspected of fatally shooting two men just hours and miles apart Sunday in Attala County, Mississippi, allegedly attempted to break into a home — but the armed homeowner was ready for him.

Authorities told WLBT-TV the first shooting occurred around 1 p.m. when deputies and EMS were dispatched to County Road 1107 after a man had been shot in the road.

‘There is no way to explain that.’

Tim Lawrence, 67, was pronounced dead at the scene, the station said.

Chris Hughes, 41, was identified as a suspect, and authorities were told that Hughes had been picked up and was a passenger in a gray GM truck, WLBT reported.

Deputies at 3:20 p.m. were dispatched to yet another shooting on Country Road 1141, the station said.

A gray GM truck matching the description of the vehicle Hughes was believed to be in was found wrecked, and the driver — 46-year-old Jeffery Mallet Jr. — had been shot, WLBT reported. Mallet later was pronounced dead, the station said.

Authorities said Mallet and Hughes were cousins, WAPT-TV reported.

The two shooting scenes were approximately four miles apart, WLBT noted, adding that as a manhunt was underway, a perimeter was secured, checkpoints were set up throughout the area, and multiple drones and a state highway patrol helicopter were deployed.

RELATED: Armed male enters Florida home, won’t leave — then threatens homeowner while advancing toward him. But victim also is armed.

A search warrant was executed on Hughes’ home, but the residence was found empty, WLBT said.

Soon after, gunshots were heard, and law enforcement went toward them to find Hughes tried to break into a homeowner’s back door, WLBT reported.

But WLBT said the homeowner fired a weapon, striking Hughes.

EMS was dispatched, and Hughes was taken to a hospital where he later was pronounced dead, WLBT noted.

“There is no way to explain that,” Attala County Sheriff Curtis Pope told WAPT. “No matter how long you’re in this business, every situation is different.”

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​Crime thwarted, 2nd amend., Guns, Gun rights, Fatal shooting, Attempted home invasion, Mississippi, Murder suspect, Crime 

For decades, the abortion debate has revolved around a single question: When does life begin? Scientists are asked to answer it. Legislators argue over it. Courts try to define it. Activists debate heartbeats, brain waves, viability, and development.

But while this question is important, it is not the most important question. The real question is what gives human life value.

The abortion debate will never be settled by science, politics, or emotional arguments. It is ultimately about where human value comes from.

If human life has no intrinsic value, then it does not really matter when life begins. And if human life does have intrinsic value, then the moment a human life exists, it must be protected. The entire issue hinges not on biology, but on value.

Biology shows life, not value

Modern science has made one fact undeniable: from the moment of conception, a new human organism exists. This is basic embryology. A distinct human life begins at fertilization with its own DNA, its own development, and its own biological trajectory.

Science is very good at describing life. It can measure heartbeats, detect brain activity, and observe development in remarkable detail. But science has a limitation: It can describe life, but it cannot assign value to it.

A microscope cannot tell us that murder is wrong. DNA cannot tell us that humans have rights. A heartbeat cannot tell us that a life is sacred.

Science describes what is. It cannot tell us what ought to be. Value, morality, and justice must come from somewhere else.

The image of God

The Bible answers the value question in the very first chapter. Genesis 1:27 says that God created man in His own image. This is one of the most important statements in all of Scripture, because it explains why human life has value at all.

Human beings are not valuable because they are intelligent, strong, independent, or useful. Human beings are valuable because they are made in the image of God.

This is not poetry. It is ontology — a statement about what man is. The image of God is the foundation of human dignity, human rights, and justice itself. Remove the image of God, and there is no objective reason why humans should be treated differently from animals. Rights become preferences, and justice becomes power.

The image of God is what makes human life sacred.

RELATED: We must resist a culture that redefines death as dignity

Mininyx Doodle/Getty Images

Value comes from what something is

One of the great errors of modern thinking is the idea that human value comes from ability or development. Our culture often assigns value based on intelligence, awareness, or productivity. But abilities exist on a spectrum. Some humans are more intelligent than others. Some are stronger than others. Some are more developed than others.

If value comes from ability, then human rights belong only to the strong, the intelligent, and the capable. But justice requires something far more stable than ability. Justice requires that human value be tied to what a human is, not what a human can do.

And what is man? Man is the creature made in the image of God.

The image of God does not grow over time. It is not earned by development. It is not granted by government. It does not appear at birth or increase with intelligence. It is inherent to what man is from the moment he exists.

If a human exists, the image of God exists

Once we understand that human value comes from the image of God, the abortion debate becomes much clearer. The question is no longer about heartbeats or brain waves or viability. It becomes much simpler: When does a human begin to exist?

And the answer to that question is at conception. All things begin at their beginning.

We do not say a tree begins halfway through its growth or that a river begins miles downstream. Things are defined by their beginning, not by later stages of development.

From the moment a human exists, the image of God exists, human value exists, and justice demands protection for that human life.

The issue is not development, location, or independence. The only issue is what the child is: a human being made in the image and likeness of God.

RELATED: James Talarico found a verse — and twisted the meaning

Danielle Villasana/Getty Images

The debate is about value

This is why the abortion debate will never be settled by science, politics, or emotional arguments. It is ultimately about where human value comes from.

If value comes from society, then society can decide who has value and who does not. If value comes from ability, then the strong will always rule over the weak. If value comes from preference, then power decides everything.

But if value comes from God, then every human life — born or unborn, strong or weak, wanted or unwanted — has equal worth because every human bears the image of the Creator.

Once we understand that human value comes from the image of God, the conclusion becomes unavoidable. To destroy that life is not merely to end a biological process — it is to destroy a human being who reflects the Creator Himself.

The doctrine of the imago Dei does not allow for partial justice, developmental value, or conditional protection. The image of God demands that every human life be treated with equal justice from the moment that life begins.

Because human value does not come from development, ability, or location. Human value comes from God.

​Pro life, Abortion, Roe v wade, Dobbs v. jackson, Image of god, Imago dei, Human life, Conception, Human rights, Opinion & analysis 

President Donald Trump characterized Operation Epic Fury as a successful military operation that is “nearing completion” in his address to the nation on Wednesday evening.

Although he struck a celebratory tone — lauding, for instance, American armed forces’ “swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield” — Trump suggested that the increasingly unpopular conflict will continue for at least two or three more weeks, during which time the U.S. will purportedly “bring [Iran] back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”

‘Hollywood delusions have so poisoned your minds.’

While well-received by some in America — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), for instance, said that it was “the best speech I could’ve hoped for” — remnants of the Iranian regime were less receptive to Trump’s remarks.

Tasnim News Agency, a state media outfit associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that Amir Hatami, the commander in chief of the Iranian Regular Armed Forces, advised his subordinates to “monitor enemy movements and actions with maximum vigilance, analyzing them moment by moment, and to implement countermeasures against enemy assaults at the appropriate time.”

Hatami reportedly noted further that in the event of a ground invasion into Iran, “not a single individual should survive.”

RELATED: Trump says Iran asked for a ceasefire — but the US has one major condition

Explosion in Tehran. Contributor/Getty Images

In addition to vowing counterattacks, Hatami framed Trump’s speech as confirmation that the U.S. and Israel intend to “erase Iran’s name and existence.”

Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, shared a statement on X stressing that Iranians “give everything — everything we’ve got — for the land we love.”

“We are not warmongers,” continued Ghalibaf. “But when the time comes to defend our homeland, every last one of us becomes a soldier.”

The speaker claimed that roughly seven million Iranians have committed to picking up arms in defense of their country. He then concluded with the challenge, “Bring it on.”

Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters — the outfit that coordinates Iran’s joint military operations — said in a video statement on Thursday that American and Israeli intelligence about Iranian military might “is incomplete” and that their alleged faulty assumptions “will only deepen the quagmire in which you have trapped yourselves.”

Zolfaghari suggested further that “this war will continue until your humiliation, disgrace, permanent regret, definite defeat, and surrender.”

Seyed Majid Moosavi, an Iranian military commander presently running the IRGC Aerospace Force, said in response to War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s echo of Trump’s “Stone Age” threat, “It is you who are taking your soldiers to their graves, not Iran, whom you seek to drag back to the Stone Age. Hollywood delusions have so poisoned your minds that, with your paltry 250-year history, you threaten a civilization over 6,000 years old.”

While Iranian regimists responded especially poorly to Trump’s speech, oil prices and the markets also reacted in an unfavorable manner.

Brent crude oil was trading at under $100 per barrel on Wednesday prior to the president’s remarks. It shot up afterward in intraday trading to over $108 per barrel and remained over $107 on Thursday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average reportedly dropped by 1.3% on Thursday; the S&P 500 dropped 1.2%; and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.7%.

As promised, the U.S. continued its aerial attack on Iran in the wake of Trump’s speech, allegedly wounding former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi — an adviser to the government whom the New York Times reported was apparently helping to facilitate peace talks between Vice President JD Vance and Iranian authorities.

Iran, in turn, launched numerous missiles at Israel and neighboring Arab states on Thursday.

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​War, Iran, Conflict, Foreign entanglement, Interventionism, Tehran, Military, Stone ages, Donald trump, Trump, Politics