Two Florida 18-year-old males were arrested after taking part in what Ocala Police called a “social media stunt” last weekend.

And what did our heroes do, exactly?

‘You know what they say: They don’t arrest the smart ones. Somebody needs to take a lawnmower and a leaf blower to those haircuts though, good Lord.’

Well, police said Janek Szkaradek drove a lawnmower through a Target store on SW College Road on Saturday while Luke Charske recorded the hijinks on video.

Szkaradek’s questionable driving skills resulted in a damaged door at the store.

If that weren’t enough, Szkaradek the previous night used a leaf blower inside a Culver’s restaurant on SW College Road, police said.

Law enforcement officials weren’t amused.

“These actions endangered people and caused property damage,” police said. “They are crimes, not harmless videos. Think before you record — it’s not worth an arrest and a criminal charge.”

Police said Szkaradek was charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct for the incident at Culver’s and disorderly conduct for the incident at Target. Police said Charske was charged as a principal to disorderly conduct for the incident at Target.

RELATED: Video: Florida motorist decides to drive in reverse for a while — and then comes face-to-face with deputies

Many commenters under the Ocala Police Department’s Facebook entry about the lads’ bad behavior were at once merciless and hilarious:

“You know what they say: They don’t arrest the smart ones,” one commenter wrote. “Somebody needs to take a lawnmower and a leaf blower to those haircuts though, good Lord.””Beavis & Butthead 2026 Edition,” another user reacted.”I’m surprised natural selection didn’t take them with the mower,” another user observed. “They ought to make them take the mower and blower and do everyone’s yard work!” another commenter declared.”Congrats boys — now you have something to put on your resume,” another user quipped.”I want to know the brand name of the leaf blower. Left out that important detail,” another commenter noted. “Mine hardly moves the leaves off my patio … inquiring minds want to know.”

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​Dumb teens, Ocala, Florida, Lawn mower, Target, Arrests, Charges, Stunt, Crime 

On a recent episode of “Relatable,” Allie Beth Stuckey sat down with Latter-day Saints podcaster Jacob Hansen to dive into all things Mormonism vs. Christianity. Allie asked all the toughest questions that illuminated both the crossovers and the differentiations between her evangelical Christian faith and the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In one of the spiciest segments of this 90-minute debate, Allie and Hansen tackled the crucial theological question: Are God, humans, angels, and even Satan all the same “type” of being?

In Allie’s perspective, this question isn’t about semantics. Our answer determines how we view God, Jesus, our great enemy, and what it means to be made in God’s image — all things that have eternal implications.

“There seems to be a little bit of a different origin story, though, that both Jesus and Satan were created in eternity past … that Satan and Jesus were brothers, [and] that we also — all of humankind — are brothers and sisters of Satan and Jesus. Is that correct?” Allie asks.

“I would say that Jesus and Satan are brother and sister in the same way that you and Nancy Pelosi are sisters,” Hansen jests.

“In Job 1, it says that the sons of God approached God and Satan was among them, right? So, okay, Satan is one of the sons of God, and Jesus is called the Son of God. So isn’t there some sense in which there’s some relationship there?” he continues.

But Allie interprets Scripture differently.

“How do you square that with the origin story that we read in Scripture that Satan was a fallen angel? … Jesus even says that he saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky, that he led his own army of rebellious angels who were demons in hell. And we don’t read that he was this being that was a brother to Jesus,” she counters.

“[Christians] would view angels as a totally different species from human beings, as some totally different creature. We don’t hold to that sort of view. We believe that angels are also the same species as human beings,” Hansen says.

“Scripture says that angels long to see what we see, that they long to know what we know. And so there does seem to be a distinction there,” Allie disputes.

Hansen concedes that there is certainly a difference between humans and angels, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are different beings entirely. “Perhaps they’re pre-embodied beings or they’re post-embodied beings that are no longer embodied,” he says, “but we don’t make this distinction that there’s all these different sort of species of creatures that are out there. … We are all children of God.”

And that includes Jesus in the Mormon faith. Hansen points to Christ’s words in John 20, when he tells his disciples, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,” as evidence that Jesus is a created being just like humans.

Similarly, there’s nothing in Scripture, he argues, to suggest that angels “are of a different genus” than humans, making Satan (a fallen angel) a brother, in essence, to both human beings and Jesus.

“You’re kind of almost equating humans to God or that we can ascend to god-like status, and is that a belief that the LDS church has?” Allie follows up.

To hear Hansen’s answer, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Ascend to godlike status, Christianity vs. mormonism, Church of jesus christ, Evangelical christian faith, Fallen angel, God humans angels, Jacob hansen, Latter-day saints, Lds church, Origin story, Relatable, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Sons of god, Mormon theology, Blazetv, Blaze media 

The Android operating system is all about customization and user choice, but if you own a Samsung Galaxy phone, you’re getting ready to have one less option for texting your friends and family. Samsung recently announced that the official Samsung Messages app is shutting down this summer, and you will need to migrate to an alternative by the deadline.

Phasing out Samsung Messages

Although Google offers its core apps (colloquially known as GApps) on most Android devices for free, Samsung also has its own versions that come preloaded on its Galaxy phone lineup. One of those apps is Samsung Messages.

Samsung didn’t explicitly reveal why it is closing down its messaging app.

Billed as a simple text messaging app, Samsung Messages has long been the place where Galaxy owners send SMS and MMS to friends, family, co-workers, and anyone else with a phone number. That all changed in 2021 with the launch of the Galaxy S21 series. Those were the first phones in Samsung’s lineup to trade Samsung Messages for Google Messages, leading to all subsequent models launching with Google as the default texting option.

This year, Samsung is finally closing the loop, as it plans to shut down Samsung Messages entirely in favor of Google Messages, with a vague end-of-service deadline set for July 2026.

The end of Samsung Messages is a net benefit for users

Although it might be a pain for some users who have still hung on to the aging messages app, the shutdown and migration to Google Messages are actually a good thing. As we covered earlier this year, Google Messages is one of the only text messaging apps on Android that supports Rich Communication Services, the new texting gold standard that replaced SMS and MMS.

In case you need a quick refresher: RCS is better than antiquated texting tech because it offers end-to-end encryption for increased security between Android users (with iPhone encryption coming soon), cross-platform read receipts, improved group messaging features, and support for higher-res media files.

RELATED: RED FLAG: FBI says these apps let China suck up your personal data

Dragos Condrea/Getty Images

All in all, RCS is simply better, and since Samsung Messages doesn’t support it, Google’s version seems like a no-brainer.

How to set Google Messages as your default messaging app

Whether you still use Samsung Messages as your daily texting app or you’re not sure which app is set as your default, here’s how to check your settings to ensure that Google Messages is set up correctly:

Make sure Google Messages is downloaded and installed on your device. You can grab the app from the Google Play Store if you need it.Open the Settings app on your Samsung Galaxy device.Scroll down and tap “Apps” near the bottom of the page.Select “Choose default apps” at the top.Tap “SMS app.”Make sure the Google Messages app — the one with a blue messages icon and a white background — is selected.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Galaxy Z Fold7 on Android 16

Some caveats to consider

Before you do anything else, there are a few caveats to the shutdown that you should know:

Users on older Galaxy devices running Android 11 or lower will not be impacted by the switch. You can continue to use the same text messaging app unabated.Users on Android 12 or 13 may need to manually change the Messages app on their dock from Samsung Messages to Google Messages once the switch is complete. Everyone else will see Google Messages in their dock automatically once the switch is made.Samsung Messages will still be accessible and functional for emergency use for all users, even after the shutdown window has closed.

The reason Samsung Messages is shutting down

Samsung didn’t explicitly reveal why it is closing down its first-party text messaging app after all these years. However, there are a couple of possible reasons for the switch.

First is RCS support. Google doesn’t necessarily own the technology behind this new messaging standard, but it has championed the solution since bringing it to Android in 2019. More importantly, Google’s acquisition of Jibe Mobile in 2015 — an RCS company — gave it the foundation to sidestep carriers that drag their feet on enabling RCS support, in the same way that Apple subverted carriers with its own iMessage service on iOS. Through Google Messages, Google can control RCS features and adoption throughout the entire Android ecosystem and ensure a consistent experience across devices.

Second, Samsung and Google have grown closer in their partnership over the years, working together on huge projects like the Wear OS reboot in 2021, as well as the Samsung Galaxy XR headset that launched late last year. The switch to Google Messages is just another example of the companies collaborating to centralize and strengthen the Android ecosystem amid the growing threat that is Apple.

​Tech 

If the United States is serious about giving citizenship to worthy immigrants, we also need to be serious about revoking it from the unworthy.

More than 800,000 immigrants became American citizens in FY2024, and a comparable number are expected in FY2025. There are more than 25 million naturalized American citizens — about half the foreign-born population. I welcome those who followed the rules and took the Oath of Allegiance in good faith.

But many didn’t. That’s where denaturalization comes in.

Becoming an American citizen is a privilege, not a right.

The question of revoking citizenship from immigrants is part of a broader debate about what membership in our national community means — a debate made especially urgent by the waves of mass immigration the political class has allowed into our country over the past 50 years.

A vigorous, ongoing, and unapologetic commitment to denaturalization is an important part of the effort to restore integrity to U.S. citizenship. It is not about restricting citizenship gratuitously, but about demonstrating that becoming an American citizen is a privilege, not a right.

Historically, the number of people denaturalized has been quite low. From 1990 until the first Trump administration, fewer than a dozen immigrants a year on average lost their citizenship through a civil or criminal court process.

The most notable targets were not ordinary fraudsters but war criminals, terrorists, and human rights violators who lied on their applications.

The focus broadened in the first Trump term. The Justice Department created a unit devoted to investigating and litigating denaturalization cases, and the number of cases grew to around 40 per year.

An increase in denaturalizations actually first started under Obama due to technological advancements, and the effort has been stepped up even further in Trump’s second term.

Last year, the Justice Department issued a memo promising, among other things, that “the Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the part of the Department of Homeland Security that handles such matters, has set a target of referring 100 to 200 possible cases per month to the Justice Department.

The immigration game

Our relatively easy citizenship process is generally a good thing. Whether the number of newcomers each year is high or low, the goal for admitting foreigners should be their full absorption into American society.

This is not the way citizenship is handled in, say, the Persian Gulf states, where large foreign majorities are not part of the political community and never can be. In a republic like ours, however, the chief goal of immigration must be to turn newcomers into Americans.

Though it also involves a lot of paperwork, becoming a citizen is not like getting a driver’s license or opening a bank account. A better analogy is that the immigrant is “marrying” America, or being “adopted” by her. Such an arrangement should not be entered into lightly, but once consecrated, it should not be dissolved lightly.

If the candidate for citizenship lied or was never eligible for naturalization to begin with, the relationship must be annulled. A federal court ruling on the issue didn’t use the metaphor of annulment, but the parallel is clear:

Setting aside naturalization for failure to comply with the particular prerequisites to the acquisition of citizenship is not a punishment; it merely represents an undoing of that which should not have been done in the first place.Even now, the number of denaturalizations is lower than you might think, given how pervasive fraud is in every corner of our immigration system

Under current law, the reasons for denaturalization must predate the acquisition of citizenship rather than be based solely on conduct after the swearing-in ceremony, however repellent that conduct might be.

Conduct after naturalization can be considered, but only as evidence that the applicant was lying when he took the oath of citizenship. For instance, if you became a Nazi or communist shortly after naturalization, you were likely lying when you swore to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

But even during World War II, the Supreme Court held the government to such a high standard of proof that the Justice Department found it difficult to denaturalize Nazis. In response, Congress enacted a provision that affiliation with a group that would have precluded naturalization within five years of becoming a citizen is prima facie evidence that the person was not attached to the principles of the Constitution when he took the oath.

This provision has never been challenged in court, mainly because it has seldom, if ever, been used. But it might end up in court soon if certain congressional proposals succeed.

For instance, in response to the revelations of widespread fraud by Somali-born naturalized citizens, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) introduced the SCAM Act to facilitate denaturalization. The bill would expand the five-year window to 10 years and widen the offenses that could lead to denaturalization.

Within 10 years after taking the oath, if the new citizen joins a foreign terrorist organization, defrauds the government, or commits an aggravated felony or an espionage offense, those facts would be considered prima facie evidence that at the time of taking the oath, the person was not of good moral character, was not attached to the principles of the Constitution, and was not well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States — all bars to citizenship.

In other words, commission of the crimes would be evidence that offenders were never eligible for citizenship in the first place, so their acquisition of citizenship would be considered void.

One way to minimize the issue of denaturalization is to do a better job at the front end and not approve applications from unworthy people. To this end, USCIS has resumed neighborhood investigations into certain applicants, “reviewing their residency, moral character, loyalty to the U.S. Constitution, and commitment to the nation’s well-being.”

This is obviously labor-intensive, but it’s better to reject the citizenship applications of liars, fraudsters, and criminals than to try to denaturalize them after the fact.

RELATED: The homicidal empathy of the left’s immigration policies

John Moore/Getty Images

Taking citizenship seriously

Increased focus on denaturalization is but one front in the broader campaign to restore the integrity of American citizenship. President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order — declaring that children born to illegal aliens, tourists, foreign students, and other nonresidents should not be citizens — was recently argued before the Supreme Court, which is expected to issue its ruling this summer.

The administration is also moving forward on an initiative to restrict birth tourism — where pregnant women enter on visitor visas specifically so their children will obtain automatic U.S. citizenship. This is designed to put some teeth in a regulation issued during the first Trump term requiring consular officers to deny visas to pregnant women whose primary purpose in coming to the U.S. is to obtain citizenship for their child.

Other changes necessary to restore the meaning of citizenship have not received the same attention. Foreign-language ballots, for instance, are an absurdity. Why even require candidates for citizenship to pass an English-language test if the core sacrament of our civic religion can be conducted in Korean, Spanish, or Armenian?

New citizens swear to “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.” But that part of the oath is legally meaningless since the Supreme Court in the Afroyim decision ruled that taking away someone’s citizenship for expressions of dual citizenship was unconstitutional.

While restoring the value of citizenship is not an issue confined to immigration, mass immigration exacerbates it in every way. Denaturalization would simply not be as pressing an issue if annual legal immigration were dramatically reduced. A smaller flow of new immigrants, and the consequent reduction in the number of applicants for citizenship, would reduce the number of mistakes and thus the need for denaturalizations.

As with almost every concern regarding immigration, part of the answer is always less, please.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the American Mind.

​American citizens, Birth tourism, Birthright citizenship, Mass immigration, Us citizenship, Denaturalization, Legal immigration, Supreme court, Immigration system, Trump, Opinion & analysis