Intense feuds over theological differences between traditional Christians (Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox) and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints date back to 1830, immediately after Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith launched his church.

After nearly 200 years of strife, that fierce debate transformed into an unprecedented, inspiring moment of interfaith healing on Sunday night at Utah Valley University — a predominantly Latter-day Saints campus and the largest university in the state — where prominent evangelical Protestant Pastor Greg Laurie hosted a revival event called “Hope for America.”

‘We’re going to go to that place of darkness, and we’re going to turn on the radiant light of Jesus Christ and proclaim the gospel that Charlie believed.’

Organizers created the event to rebuild spirits at the site of Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September. Students and faculty felt distraught after the trauma of Kirk’s murder, which happened in broad daylight, shortly after students returned to campus from summer break.

Kirk — a prominent conservative activist, confidant of President Trump, and founder of Turning Point USA — was brutally gunned down, allegedly by a deranged gunman from southern Utah, while Kirk spoke outdoors near the UVU student services building.

For many Americans, the first time they had heard of UVU was for this infamous, gut-wrenching reason.

“We’re going to go to that place of darkness, and we’re going to turn on the radiant light of Jesus Christ and proclaim the gospel that Charlie believed,” Laurie said in a press statement announcing the exciting gathering, organized with just six weeks’ prep time for an event that typically takes six months.

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Chet Strange/Getty Images

Laurie, 72, is the founder of Harvest churches in California and Hawaii and of Harvest Crusades. A prolific evangelist who fills up stadiums around the world in massive Billy Graham-style revival events, Laurie is a best-selling author and movie producer. His 2023 film “Jesus Revolution” tells the story of his conversion away from the drug-infused culture of 1970s California.

Laurie planned to come to Utah in 2027, but Kirk’s assassination sped up the timeline to offer a timely balm to the community. He was also co-hosted by pastors from more than 100 local Protestant churches who helped promote the gathering. Tickets were free, all quickly snapped up by attendees for the 8,500-seat UCCU Center, the basketball arena on campus. Laurie said there were an additional 67 overflow sites in the area to watch. The revival featured music from renowned Protestant Christian artists Chris Thomlin and Phil Wickham.

UVU president Astrid Tuminez said 70% of UVU’s students identify as Latter-day Saints, according to Courtney Tanner at the Salt Lake Tribune. Utah Valley has the highest concentration of practicing Latter-day Saints in the world.

I grew up in the Latter-day Saints tradition, and my ancestors worked with Smith and other early pioneer leaders like Brigham Young. As a child, I attended an elementary school down the road from UVU. Back then, it was the much smaller Utah Valley Community College.

As I share in my memoir, “Motorhome Prophecies,” released last year, at that school we had only one non-LDS student in my class (a Catholic). I felt suspicious of her and afraid to attend her birthday slumber party.

But such is the suspicion of many who grow up in the majority of any dominant culture against the minority.

I stopped practicing the Latter-day Saints faith after my Brigham Young University graduation in 2005 at age 22. I later formally resigned from the Latter-day Saints organization in 2010 and got baptized as a Protestant, eight years ago this Dec. 3.

‘You meant it for evil; God meant it for good.’

So I am thrilled to see these bridges being built in real time. This type of unity ripened years prior under the leadership of the late Latter-day Saints leader Russell Nelson, who passed away in late September.

Laurie asked me to help him workshop his remarks prior to delivery. I was honored to provide whatever insight I could in hopes of serving Laurie’s profound desire to share the message of Christ’s redemption for all mankind.

“Why did Charlie Kirk die in such a tragic way, only a short distance from where we are right now?” Laurie wrote in his remarks. “I do not know the answer to that question, but I know Charlie is in heaven. But this event tonight would not be happening if not for that horrific event.”

Indeed, life’s most wrenching crucibles can propel us to our greatest moments of growth and freedom. In his remarks, Laurie also quoted from the book of Genesis: “But Joseph said to them, ‘ … you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.'”

“This your moment. Don’t wait for a tragedy. Don’t scroll past this one more time. Come to the Father, tonight!” Laurie said.

It’s miraculous to see how evangelicals and Latter-day Saints — groups with such a long history of heated disagreements — came together to unite in service of healing in God’s name.

My prayer is that Hope for America is just the first in a long series of interfaith reconciliation gatherings among Latter-day Saints, Protestants, and Catholics that will cultivate shared bonds among people of faith — all children of our heavenly Father.

​Greg laurie, Charlie kirk, Mormon, Christianity, Christian revival, Utah valley university, Faith 

There’s a term for artificially generated content that permeates online spaces — creators call it AI slop, and when generative AI first emerged back in late 2022, that was true. AI photos and videos used to be painfully, obviously fake. The lighting was off, the physics were unrealistic, people had too many fingers or limbs or odd body proportions, and textures appeared fuzzy or glossy, even in places where it didn’t make sense. They just didn’t look real.

Many of you probably remember the nightmare fuel that was the early video of Will Smith eating spaghetti. It’s terrifying.

This isn’t the case any more. In just two short years, AI videos have become convincingly realistic to the point that deepfakes — content that perfectly mimics real people, places, and events — are now running rampant. For just one quick example of how far AI videos have come, check out Will Smith eating spaghetti, then and now.

None of it is real unless it is verifiable, and that is becoming increasingly hard to do.

Even the Trump administration recently rallied around AI-generated content, using it as a political tool to poke fun at the left and its policies. The latest entry portrayed AI Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero while standing beside a miffed Chuck Schumer who is speaking a little more honestly than usual, a telltale sign that the video is fake.

While some AI-generated videos on the internet are simple memes posted in good fun, there is a darker side to AI content that makes the internet an increasingly unreliable place for truth, facts, and reality.

How to tell if an online video is fake

AI videos in 2025 are more convincing than ever. Not only do most AI video platforms pass the spaghetti-eating Turing test, but they have also solved many of the issues that used to run rampant (too many fingers, weird physics, etc.). The good news is that there are still a few ways to tell an AI video from a real one.

At least for now.

First, most videos created with OpenAI Sora, Grok Imagine, and Gemini Veo have clear watermarks stamped directly on the content. I emphasize “most,” because last month, violent Sora-generated videos cropped up online that didn’t have a watermark, suggesting that either the marks were manually removed or there’s a bug in Sora’s platform.

Your second-best defense against AI-generated content is your gut. We’re still early enough in the AI video race that many of them still look “off.” They have a strange filter-like sheen to them that’s reminiscent of watching content in a dream. Natural facial expressions and voice inflections continue to be a problem. AI videos also still have trouble with tedious or more complex physics (especially fluid motions) and special effects (explosions, crashing waves, etc.).

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Photo by: Nano Calvo/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

At the same time, other videos, like this clip of Neil deGrasse Tyson, are shockingly realistic. Even the finer details are nearly perfect, from the background in Tyson’s office to his mannerisms and speech patterns — all of it feels authentic.

Now watch the video again. Look closely at what happens after Tyson reveals the truth. It’s clear that the first half of the video is fake, but it’s harder to tell if the second half is actually real. A notable red flag is the way the video floats on top of his phone as he pulls it away from the camera. That could just be a simple editing trick, or it could be a sign that the entire thing is a deepfake. The problem is that there’s no way to know for sure.

Why deepfakes are so dangerous

Deepfakes pose a real problem to society, and no one is ready for the aftermath. According to Statista, U.S. adults spend more than 60% of their daily screen time watching video content. If the content they consume isn’t real, this can greatly impact their perception of real-world events, warp their expectations around life, love, and happiness, facilitate political deception, chip away at mental health, and more.

Truth only exists if the content we see is real. False fabrications can easily twist facts, spread lies, and sow doubt, all of which will destabilize social media, discredit the internet at large, and upend society overall.

Deepfakes, however, are real, at least in the sense that they exist. Even worse, they are becoming more prevalent, and they are outright dangerous. They are a threat because they are extremely convincing and almost impossible to discern from reality. Not only can a deepfake be used to show a prominent figure (politicians, celebrities, etc.) doing or saying bad things that didn’t actually happen, but deepfakes can also be used as an excuse to cover up something a person actually did on film. The damage goes both ways, obfuscating the truth, ruining reputations, and cultivating chaos.

Soon, videos like the Neil deGrasse Tyson clip will become the norm, and the consequences will be utterly dire. You’ll see presidents declare war on other countries without uttering a real word. Foreign nations will drop bombs on their opponents without firing a shot, and terrorists will commit atrocities on innocent people that don’t exist. All of it is coming, and even though none of it will be real, we won’t be able to tell the difference between truth and lies. The internet — possibly even the world — will descend into turmoil.

Don’t believe everything you see online

Okay, so the internet has never been a bastion of truth. Since the dawn of dial-up, different forms of deception have crept throughout, bending facts or outright distorting the truth wholesale. This time, it’s a little different. Generative AI doesn’t just twist narratives to align with an agenda. It outright creates them, mimicking real life so convincingly that we’re compelled to believe what we see.

From here on out, it’s safe to assume that nothing on the internet is real — not politicians spewing nonsense, not war propaganda from some far-flung country, not even the adorable animal videos on your Facebook feed (sorry, Grandma!). None of it is real unless it is verifiable, and that is becoming increasingly hard to do in the age of generative AI. The open internet we knew is dead. The only thing you can trust today is what you see in person with your own eyes and the stories published by trusted sources online. Take everything else with a heaping handful of salt.

This is why reputable news outlets will be even more important in the AI future. If anyone can be trusted to publish real, authentic, truthful content, it should be our media. As for who in the press is telling the truth, Glenn Beck’s “liar, liar” test is a good place to start.

​Tech 

A horrific incident on the el train in Chicago on Monday has led to a woman in critical condition with severe burns.

Police say that a 45-year-old male had a “verbal altercation” with the 27-year-old woman before the alleged attack, but a source who spoke to CWB Chicago contradicted the account.

The arson incident would be his 23rd arrest. Some of those arrests include other incidents of arson.

The source said the attack was unprovoked and completely random.

A person of interest was apprehended by police, but he has not been charged yet.

The source told CWB Chicago that the woman was paying attention to her cell phone on a Blue Line train at about 9:26 p.m. when the man doused her with a liquid from a bottle. She tried to run away, but he was able to catch up to her and light her on fire, according to the source. The man was also lit on fire during the altercation.

The woman was transported to Stroger Hospital in critical condition.

CWB Chicago reported that the suspect had previously been charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, but a judge denied a request to keep him in custody and ordered 24/7 electronic monitoring instead.

Three weeks later, another judge modified the terms to allow him to leave his home outside daytime hours, which includes the time of the alleged assault.

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The report also said that the suspect had been arrested 22 times since 2016 by the Chicago Police Department alone. The arson incident would be his 23rd arrest. Some of those arrests include other incidents of arson.

A source told CWB Chicago that no one on the train stepped in to help the woman after she was lit on fire. A witness also described the man as black.

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​Woman lit on fire, Chicago train, Unprovoked attack, Public transit attack, Crime