A Florida 13-year-old male was arrested after photos of a gun and a written death threat were sent over social media, authorities said Thursday.

Deputies with the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office began investigating the incident on July 7 after the victim’s mother called 911 to report the threat to law enforcement, authorities said.

‘I want to remind parents to stay engaged in what their kids are doing online and who they’re talking to.’

The victim, also 13, received several Instagram messages earlier in the day from the suspect that included a photo of the suspect holding a handgun as well as a written message that read, “Tn 8:00 pm we be there we alr got lo,” which translates to, “Tonight 8:00 pm we be there we already got location,” authorities said.

The victim told deputies he believed the suspect planned to show up at his home and shoot him at 8 p.m. that night, authorities said.

The suspect later told deputies that he and the victim used to be friends but had a falling-out, authorities said, adding that the suspect also stated that he had messaged the victim that day, and they were planning to fight.

Deputies arrested the suspect and transported him to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility, where he was later transferred to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, authorities said.

“Threats are no joke, and we take every threat seriously. This teen had already made plans to fight the victim, and he made it clear it wasn’t going to be a fistfight,” Sheriff Rick Staly said. “I want to remind parents to stay engaged in what their kids are doing online and who they’re talking to. Teach them the proper way of handling disagreements and be the sheriff of your home.”

RELATED: Florida girl, 12, accused of threatening to ‘shoot up’ elementary school, threatening teacher

Image source: Flagler County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office

Blaze News has reported extensively on similar arrests in Florida recently:

In May, a 12-year-old girl was accused of threatening to “shoot up” an elementary school and threatening a teacher.An 11-year-old boy who was arrested in March for making a death threat was charged with the same crime in October, officials said.Also in March, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office arrested a 10-year-old boy and perp-walked him on camera after officials said he threatened to bring a gun to his elementary school and left a kill list in his classroom.In February, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said officers arrested a 12-year-old girl after she posted online a “detailed manifesto” about carrying out a mass shooting at a middle school due to bullying.Also in February, a pair of 15-year-olds were arrested after being accused of threatening to shoot up high schools, police said.In late October, an 11-year-old girl was arrested after writing a “kill list” at her desk at school, police said. Then just two weeks later, an 11-year-old boy from the same school district was arrested after allegedly creating a “kill list” at school, police said.Also in October, a Florida sheriff’s office came under fire for posting a 9-year-old male’s mug shot on Facebook after his felony arrest for allegedly bringing a knife into his elementary school.Just a week prior, that same sheriff’s office said a 10-year-old was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, a third-degree felony, after bringing a pocketknife to school and threatening another student. The sheriff’s office posted the suspect’s name and mug shot.

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​Florida, 13-year-old, Arrest, Instagram, Flagler county sheriff’s office, Death threats, Gun, Social media, Florida department of juvenile justice, Crime 

Tucked into a draw on our Montana property stands a Douglas fir that a forester estimated to be more than 600 years old.

It grows beside a creek, sheltered by surrounding hills from the worst of the wind. The draw stretches back toward the forest and up the mountain, while the opposite hillside rises steeply above it.

God never promised His people a life without storms. He promised His presence in the midst of them. Still, we are tempted to believe the world has somehow spun beyond His control.

It is an easy place to linger.

Long before my father-in-law bought this property, others recognized that. Arrowheads and stone tools have been found nearby over the years. With fresh water, shelter from the wind, and a commanding view of the valley, it was a natural place to camp.

I sometimes wonder who sat beneath those branches centuries ago.

When friends and family visit, I often take them to see the tree. Some stare in wonder. Others shrug.

My father-in-law never shrugged.

He was so taken with the old fir that he made a simple wooden sign and named it “Legacy Tree.”

The name stuck.

Whenever I stand there, I find myself reaching out to touch its weathered trunk.

Sometimes, it helps to touch something living that has survived.

Six centuries have a way of putting things in perspective.

When this tree was young, Christopher Columbus was still trying to persuade Queen Isabella to finance an uncertain voyage across the Atlantic.

While Martin Luther challenged the church in Wittenberg, the tree quietly added another ring beneath its bark.

It stood while America’s founders pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.”

It was already centuries old before anyone called this land Montana.

Generations passed beneath its branches. Empires rose and fell. Men walked on the moon beneath the same sky that has watched over this tree for more than six centuries.

RELATED: America’s birth defect did not define our destiny

Stevanovicigor/Getty Images

History hurried by. The tree kept growing.

It survived fire, lightning, drought, insects, brutal winters, heavy snow, fierce winds, and everything else the Montana mountains could throw at it.

Fallen trees lie scattered across the property. Some finally yielded to age. Others were struck by lightning or brought down by wind and snow.

Why this Douglas fir still stands while others do not is a mystery known only to its creator.

One day, it too will fall.

Until then, it stands because God sustains it.

Jesus told us to consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. He pointed to ordinary things people passed every day and used them to reveal extraordinary truths about His Father’s care.

Standing beneath this old fir, I have begun to wonder whether that invitation extends beyond flowers and sparrows.

If our heavenly Father clothes lilies that bloom for only a season;

if He watches over birds that few people notice;

if He has sustained this tree through six centuries of Montana winters, lightning, and fire;

how much more will He sustain His children?

That question lands differently today than it did a few years ago.

We live in an age of perpetual anxiety. Every news cycle insists catastrophe is moments away. Every political fight is described as the final chance to save civilization. Social media rewards outrage.

Fear has become a business model.

Wars rage overseas. Political divisions deepen at home. Each day seems to bring another reason to worry about tomorrow.

Scripture repeatedly tells us, “Do not be afraid.”

The world profits by feeding our fears. Scripture answers by reminding us who reigns.

RELATED: Every child needs to hear: Daddy’s here

A-Digit/Getty Images

God never promised His people a life without storms. He promised His presence in the midst of them.

Still, we are tempted to believe the world has somehow spun beyond His control.

We all endure our own Montana winters and summers filled with lightning: illness, grief, financial strain, broken relationships, uncertain futures, seasons when the wind seems relentless and hope feels scarce.

Standing beneath the old fir, I hear Christ’s words with fresh ears.

Consider the lilies. Consider the birds. And perhaps, if you will permit one Montana addition to the list, consider an old Douglas fir.

Sometimes, it helps to touch something living that has survived.

Each time I leave that quiet draw, I remember that the God who has faithfully sustained that tree throughout its existence has faithfully sustained me throughout mine.

The headlines will keep shouting.

God will remain faithful.

​Montana, Douglas fir, Martin luther, History, Lilies of the field, Scripture, Politics, Opinion & analysis, Caregivers, Faith, Jesus christ, Christianity 

Alex Reads Tarot had nearly 1 million followers, but her following has dropped significantly after renouncing her former practice and publicly declaring her faith in Jesus Christ.

In a farewell message posted to social media, she explained that some might find her decision surprising.

“And some people may wonder how I can be saying this after spending years of doing the work that I’ve done, doing it professionally. But all I can do is be honest,” she said. “I am not going to be offering any more readings or sessions. I’m not going to be creating any more tarot content. And once this account is gone, I will not be returning.”

“And I don’t know exactly what comes next for me, but what I do know is that Jesus Christ has saved my life, and I can no longer ignore that reality,” she added.

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey is impressed.

“She had nearly 1 million followers. She deleted all of her tarot-related content, said she would no longer create social media videos. She explained that her change of heart wasn’t something that was sudden, but it happened gradually over the past year,” she says.

“As her faith in Jesus grew, as her beliefs deepened, she found herself wrestling with questions she could no longer ignore. And this is so important,” she adds.

However, her past followers are not impressed.

One commenter on Reddit wrote, “I’m all for people exploring their own spirituality, but I felt so disappointed when she said, ‘Jesus Christ saved my life,’ or whatever she said. She used to seem so open about everything … she could have at least left her videos up since they seemed to genuinely help people. I can’t help but think someone is influencing her in some way. I hope I’m wrong and I hope she finds happiness.”

“Someone like this who is not a Christian on Reddit clearly just doesn’t understand that light can’t have fellowship with darkness, and eventually the light crowds out the darkness,” Stuckey comments.

“You can’t practice witchcraft and promote witchcraft and also be walking with Christ,” she adds.

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.

​Alex reads tarot, Allie beth stuckey, Jesus christ, Witchcraft, Spirituality, Religion, Christianity, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

The resurrection lies at the very heart of the Christian faith.

When Paul describes what the gospel consists of, he lists two foundational elements — “Christ died for our sins” and “he was raised on the third day.” Both events happened “in accordance with the Scriptures,” and the risen Jesus was seen by numerous individuals (1 Corinthians 15:3⁠–8).

‘After all the reasoning and all the rationales, I’d still desperately prefer to be a conscious, healthy human being than a corpse. Who wouldn’t?’

Unlike most other religions, whose teachings consist of moral or metaphysical principles, Christianity depends crucially on the historical death and resurrection of its founder.

As New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg observes in his commentary on 1 Corinthians:

Older Eastern religions do not even require the actual historical existence of their founders for their beliefs and practices to make sense. In some ways they are more akin to philosophies than to historical truth-claims (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism). But Christianity lives or dies with the claim of Christ’s resurrection.

‘If Christ has not been raised’

Indeed, Paul states this to be the case: “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. … Your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17).

But Christ has been raised, and his resurrection vindicates his divine identity and all that he taught. Having proclaimed that “This Jesus God raised up,” Peter summarizes what this reveals: “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:32, 36). Similarly, in Acts 17, Paul tells the philosophers in Athens that the evidence that Jesus will one day judge the world is that God “has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (17:31).

Given the centrality of this event to Christianity, is there good reason to believe it truly happened? It’s beyond the scope of this article to provide an in-depth defense of the resurrection, but a few points will suffice to show that it stands on solid historical ground.

Original creed

Returning to 1 Corinthians 15, scholars have recognized that Paul is quoting a pre-existing creed addressing the resurrection in verses 3⁠-7. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in approximately A.D. 54, a mere 20 years (roughly) after Jesus’s death. The creed he quotes, however, is much earlier than this, showing that belief in the resurrection was present from the beginning of the Christian movement and not a later legend that developed over decades, as some skeptics assert.

The eminent New Testament scholar James D.G. Dunn concurs, stating we can be “entirely confident” that this tradition was formulated within months of Jesus’ death. Other scholars date the creed somewhat later, to within a few years of Jesus’ death, but in any case, it is an extremely early witness to belief in the resurrection, and Paul likely received it directly from Peter and James, the brother of Jesus, both of whom were eyewitnesses (Galatians 1:18-24).

Thus, the belief that Jesus rose from the dead was present almost immediately after the crucifixion and was based on the firsthand testimony of those who say they witnessed it.

Our deepest longings

As human beings, we yearn to find meaning for our lives and see death as something to be avoided. The renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl observed that the “striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.” Likewise, philosopher Clifford Williams points out that we “intensely want our lives to be meaningful, to count for something, to matter not only in individual and social ways but in a ‘cosmic’ way.”

If we accept the West’s dominant philosophy of naturalism, however, objective meaning is lost and mortality is assured. Naturalist philosopher Alex Rosenberg expresses it this way:

What is the purpose of the universe? There is none.

What is the meaning of life? Ditto.

Why am I here? Just dumb luck.

… Is there a soul? Is it immortal? Are you kidding?

… What happens when we die? Everything pretty much goes on as before, except us.

Rosenberg attempts to obscure the implications of naturalism with humor and nonchalance, but it’s undeniable that losing meaning and facing our own extinction is devastating. As physician Alex Lickerman confesses in Psychology Today, “I’ve tried to resolve my fear of death intellectually and come to the conclusion that it can’t be done, at least not by me.”

In that same article Lickerman notes that he’s “always surprised by people who say they’re not afraid to die. … I’ve always wondered if that answer hides a denial so deeply seated it cannot be faced by most. Certainly, this has been the case with me. I love being here and don’t want to leave.”

RELATED: Fine-tuned for life: How our one-in-a-million universe points to God

Heritage Images/Getty Images

No consolation

Most prominent nonbelievers seem to agree.

Even in “The Consolations of Mortality” — a book meant to help readers accept death — writer Andrew Stark admits, “After all the reasoning and all the rationales, I’d still desperately prefer to be a conscious, healthy human being than a corpse. Who wouldn’t?”

Similarly, notable atheist Sam Harris concedes that his philosophy does little to banish dread of mortality: “I think we can admit that atheism doesn’t offer real consolation on this point. … The thing that gets lost, the thing for which there is no real substitute, is total consolation in the face of death.”

Death defeated

But what if death has been overcome and God has a purpose for our lives?

The apostle Peter declares that God has given believers “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead … so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Peter 1:3, 21). The resurrection doesn’t merely demonstrate that human beings survive death, but that Jesus conquered death for all of us. “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54). Even now, while on earth, we can experience “the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).

Contrary to naturalism, for those who place their faith in Christ, life will continue in the presence of loved ones and in fellowship with our Creator. We will fulfill the purpose for which we were created: to know God, to love him, and to enjoy him forever. The paradise we lost in Eden will be regained in a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21). We’ll spend eternity learning more about God’s infinite nature and enjoying fellowship with his people from every age. We’ll also continue to create things of “glory and honor” that will contribute to the splendor of God’s kingdom (Revelation 21:26). The popular idea that people in heaven will spend their days floating on clouds while playing harps has no basis in Scripture.

Let’s be thankful to God that because of Christ’s sacrifice for our sins and resurrection, we have a glorious destiny if we receive this gift. May we also share this good news with those who lack hope and see no real purpose for their lives.

​Christian faith, Mortality, Resurrection, Fear of death, Atheism, Gospel, Jesus christ, Faith 

A specter is haunting America — the specter of communism. Across the country, socialists are emerging from the political margins, convinced that their moment has arrived.

Recent victories by Zohran Mamdani and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York and Melat Kiros in Colorado have emboldened the Democratic Socialists of America. The organization is now looking beyond deep-blue strongholds toward battleground states such as Michigan and Wisconsin.

The red wave is rising. Americans must stop it before it reaches shore.

Abdul El-Sayed could very well capture the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Michigan, while Francesca Hong is mounting a serious campaign for governor of Wisconsin. Hong recently finished close behind Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez in a straw poll of Democratic state convention activists.

The movement suffered a setback in Maine, where Graham Platner ended his Senate campaign after a former girlfriend accused him of sexual assault. Platner denied the allegation. His departure, however, does not mean the socialist faction will relinquish its growing influence within the Democratic Party.

Some Democrat leaders are now trying to distance themselves from the movement. They cannot so easily escape responsibility for it.

For decades, Democrats at every level have cultivated the soil in which this radicalism has grown.

In Portland, Oregon, activists tore down statues of America’s founders while local leaders proved unwilling or unable to stop them. More recently, Mamdani used his Independence Day address to portray his opponents as believing that America is “an arena of supremacy” reserved for those with the correct race, accent, or ancestry.

The remark did not directly condemn America as such. It did, however, reflect the left’s familiar habit of interpreting the country primarily through oppression, exclusion, and domination.

Gallup’s latest polling shows how deeply that attitude has penetrated the Democrat electorate. Only 14% of Democrats say they are extremely proud to be American, compared with 70% of Republicans and 28% of independents.

RELATED: What if the commies were right after all?

bauhaus1000/iStock/Getty Images

Patriots instinctively recoil from such contempt for the country. But they should also understand precisely why socialism and communism are incompatible with American principles.

The founders built the republic on natural rights. From those rights flow liberty, private property, religious freedom, free enterprise, and self-government.

Communism rejects them all.

It replaces private property with state control, religious faith with materialism, voluntary exchange with centralized planning, and political dissent with coercion.

The modern democratic socialist may avoid the language of dictatorship and revolution. The underlying tendency remains the same: Transfer more authority from citizens and local institutions to the state.

Mamdani calls for government-run grocery stores, rent controls, and sweeping redistribution. Hong favors aggressive state action to impose her economic and climate agenda. El-Sayed campaigns for Medicare for All, placing still more of the health care system under federal control.

Each proposal is presented as an isolated benefit. Together, they describe a political philosophy in which government assumes ever more responsibility for providing food, housing, medical care, employment, and personal security.

That bargain always comes with a price.

Socialists begin by promising free goods and services, financed by taking the people’s “fair share” from wealthy “parasites.” But economies do not run on resentment. When governments suppress prices, punish investment, seize property, and replace market signals with political commands, the results are familiar: shortages, corruption, censorship, and poverty.

Stalin’s Soviet Union imposed collectivization and famine on Ukraine, killing millions. Castro’s Cuba still struggles to provide reliable electricity and basic goods. Venezuela fell from one of Latin America’s wealthiest countries into hyperinflation, scarcity, and mass emigration.

These catastrophes were not unfortunate deviations from socialism. They followed from concentrating economic and political power in the same hands.

America rests on the opposite premise.

It trusts citizens more than bureaucrats to understand their own needs, pursue their own interests, and build their own lives. The Constitution divides power precisely because the founders feared a state capable of crushing liberty while claiming to act for the public good.

RELATED: Democrats can’t outrun their socialist wing

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The Democratic Party now faces a pipeline of candidates who reject that inheritance, moving from DSA chapters into Democratic primaries and, increasingly, elected office.

The stakes extend beyond New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Colorado.

America will not survive another 50 years — let alone another 250 — by embracing the ideas that impoverished, terrorized, and destroyed societies throughout the previous century.

The new socialists may have better branding, fashionable social-media accounts, and carefully softened language. Their program still demands that Americans surrender more of their property, independence, and authority to the state.

The red wave is rising. Americans must stop it before it reaches shore.

​America, Communism, Darializa avila chevalier, Democratic party, Democratic socialists of america, Graham platner, Medicare for all, Melat kiros, Natural rights, Opinion & analysis, Red wave midterms, Socialism, Zohran mamdani 

The state of Texas continues to experience a mass influx of Indian immigrants, who are now the largest Asian subgroup in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The increase in population growth is in part due to the state’s robust H-1B program. Indian nationals consistently receive roughly 70% of all approved H-1B visas in Texas due to its booming tech, IT, and engineering sectors.

It’s no surprise, then, that the majority of the H-1B fraud cases and investigations that have been publicly reported or pursued in Texas in recent years involve Indian nationals, Indian-origin individuals, or firms primarily serving Indian workers.

BlazeTV’s Sara Gonzales has been at the forefront of these investigations — busting allegedly fraudulent Indian-run businesses claiming to sponsor H-1B visa workers. Her work was the catalyst for Governor Greg Abbott’s freeze on new H-1B hires at state agencies and universities and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s state investigations and lawsuits against dozens of suspect companies.

But Sara’s issues with Texas’ growing Indian community go beyond just fraud.

“All of these people come here illegally or legally, scam our system, drive up home prices, and then s**t on our neighborhoods — like quite literally,” she says.

She points to a story that has gone viral of an Indian man publicly defecating in a Texas neighborhood.

Sara is horrified but not necessarily shocked by the incident.

“Do you think that when they come here, they’re going to stop s**tting in the streets? No, of course not,” she says. “They don’t respect our country. They are coming here to take.”

“This is not the first time we’ve had some documentation of an Indian person or an immigrant of some sort who doesn’t respect our country, doesn’t respect our rules … caught, like, peeing right outside their restaurant that they work at,” she continues.

“You can take the Indian out of India, but can you take the India out of the Indian? Apparently not.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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, H-1b fraud, India, Indian immigration 

A national five-year plan tells you what a regime believes about the unfolding of society over time: that the future is an engineering problem, history has a rhythm, and the state holds the baton. China is now in its 15th such plan. Its language has evolved over the decades. Whereas early plans stressed Soviet-assisted heavy industry, the current one elevates “AI Plus,” swarm intelligence, embodied AI, and intelligent agents. The word “rejuvenation” appears with the frequency of a liturgical response. But the plan remains a metronome for national development, as an official commentary put it in 2026.

China spent 3.93 trillion yuan on research and development in 2025, or 2.8% of GDP. The country holds 6.3 million valid invention patents and installed 295,000 industrial robots in a single year, 54% of all the industrial robots installed on Earth. Nature Index ranks the Chinese Academy of Sciences as the world’s leading research institution.

China’s supercomputers now hold the top global ranking.

For the first time, the World Intellectual Property Organization placed China in the global innovation top 10 and says the country leads the world in knowledge and technology outputs. Stanford’s AI Index reports that the performance gap between American and Chinese AI models has mostly closed. These indicators report a condition that already exists.

However, the interesting question about China’s technological future has never been whether its numbers are big, but what kind of civilization produces them and, in return, what kind of civilization they produce.

Engineering everything

Writer Dan Wang calls China an “engineering state,” which he contrasts with America’s “lawyerly society.” In a lawyerly society, problems are disputes to be adjudicated, interests to be balanced, rights to be negotiated in the shadow of precedent. In an engineering state, problems are systems to be optimized. You do not argue about the bridge; you build the bridge. You build it faster than anyone expected, and then you build the rail line to the bridge and then the city around the station, and soon the question of whether the city was a good idea becomes moot because the city is already there and full of people buying things on their phones.

By December 2024, China had 1.1 billion internet users, more than a billion online payment users, and 974 million online shoppers. Seventy percent of citizens over 60 were shopping online. Short-video platforms had become major retail channels, with 71% of viewers reporting purchases after watching. What is happening is a compression of social acts: Entertainment, advertising, recommendation, checkout, and social proof collapse into a single continuous interface. Commerce is atmosphere, the feed a way of life.

RELATED: Just how American is the Trump phone? This teardown reveals the truth.

Eduard Lysenko/Getty Images

The philosopher Yuk Hui has argued that technology is never culturally neutral, that different civilizations articulate different relationships between nature and technical practice, and that the assumption of a single universal technics, Greek in origin and Western in development, has blocked serious thought about what Chinese technology might mean on its own terms. For example, China has built a governance architecture around AI that looks little like America’s approach of permissionless innovation followed by belated regulation. China’s algorithmic recommendation rules already require platforms to promote “mainstream values” and “positive energy.” Its measures on generative AI require legal data sources, accuracy improvements, and safeguards against harmful outputs. Its 2025 labeling rules mandate disclosure of AI-generated content. China is engineering the moral atmosphere in which its AI systems operate.

A civilization at stake

The question this raises is the oldest one in the modern history of Chinese technology, first posed during the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s, when Qing reformers tried to borrow Western military and industrial methods without disturbing the civilizational order that received them. The May Fourth intellectuals of 1919 radicalized the problem by turning science into a slogan for national salvation. The People’s Republic added the Soviet planning apparatus. Each generation has found a new way to ask the question: How much of modern power can be adopted technically without rewriting the civilization that adopts it?

The answer apparent in the current data is that China has become extraordinarily good at a specific kind of technological work but has not yet settled the deeper question. China leads the world in deployment, turning research into factories, interfaces, supply chains, and mass habits with a speed no other country can seem to match. Its Shenzhen industrial parks run AI models that optimize manufacturing parameters 30 times an hour. Its robot installations outnumber those of every other nation combined. Its open-weight AI models such as DeepSeek V4 have pushed cost-efficient, deployable intelligence to the center of the national ecosystem.

Our future?

The United States still produces more frontier AI models, holds higher-impact patents, and dominates AI data-center infrastructure. China’s basic-research share of R&D spending, while rising, remains low among top performers: 7.08% in 2025, up from 6% in 2019, which represents real movement as well as a persistent tilt toward application over inquiry. China’s supercomputers now hold the top global ranking, but on benchmarks more relevant to AI workloads they rank fourth, running on domestic chips not yet at the leading edge. The semiconductor constraint and export controls are real. The gap between “registered users” and “actual users” of generative AI, between 600 million and 249 million, tells its own story about the distance between infrastructure and habit.

The most plausible future is that China becomes the place where 21st-century technologies are most completely socialized — embedded into schools, factories, transport, shopping, and the daily texture of regulation and moral instruction. China will be the civilization that most thoroughly absorbs technology into ordinary life, and in so doing, reshapes what ordinary life can mean. The question is whether absorption at that scale and speed leaves room for the things that cannot be optimized. That question, too, is very old, and the five-year plan cannot answer it.

​Tech, China, Artificial intelligence 

It’s no longer a secret that most of the food Americans eat is detrimental to their health. From chemical pesticides and GMOs to artificial additives, preservatives, and dyes, much of the common foods available today are loaded with junk known to cause health issues — even serious ones, like cancer and disease.

Few, however, know that Big Food is largely owned by tobacco companies. On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie Beth Stuckey sits down with Ashley and Patrick Sullivan, the creators of the documentary “Breaking Big Food,” which pulls the curtain back on how the tobacco industry hijacked our food system and sparked a major health crisis.

“In 1985, R.J. Reynolds, the maker of Camel cigarettes, purchased Nabisco for about $5 billion. In 1988, Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, purchased Kraft Foods for about $13 billion,” Patrick explains, noting that “these are just two of the examples of Big Tobacco buying up” big name food companies.

“By the 1990s, Big Tobacco actually controlled about 40% of the food supply in America,” he adds.

Ashley explains that the reason for the push to control Big Food stemmed from the government’s decades-long anti-smoking campaign that resulted in a sharp decline in U.S. adult smoking rates — and a whole lot less cigarette sales.

“[Tobacco companies] saw number one, the industry that they were in was going down in flames and maybe saw an opportunity in the food industry to go in and say, ‘We are the addiction people, let’s figure out how to apply what we know to processed foods,”’ she says.

“How did that actually affect the ingredients in the products at these companies?” Allie asks.

Patrick says it began with the most rudimentary of business questions: “How do we get our customers to buy more of our products?”

Science provided the answer.

“The tobacco scientists became food scientists, and they began studying how do we tickle the pleasure centers of the brain with potato chips and candy and sodas, and they found this sort of perfect mixture of fat, salt, and sweet that makes it so no one can eat just one,” he explains.

They also found ways to save money by using preservatives to expand the shelf life of food products and making cost-effective ingredient swaps, like “switching from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup.”

Companies used crafty marketing strategies, Ashley notes, to distract the public so it didn’t notice the significant changes that were being made to food ingredients.

“Let’s color this with red dye 40 and make it look really pretty. Let’s do these fun ads. Let’s target children, make it fun for them to want to purchase these foods,” she says.

“Let’s put a toy inside of the cereal. Let’s give a free gift with a Happy Meal,” Patrick adds.

Then the government inverted the food pyramid, recommending high portions of grain over any other food group. That wasn’t because humans thrive on a grain-rich diet but because of the “lobbying efforts on the behalf of grain producers,” Patrick notes.

To hear more of this fascinating interview about how America’s food system became poisoned, 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.

​Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, Maha, Big food 

The gains made in classical education in recent years are truly encouraging. Students are once again learning great names and great stories, and they are encountering primary texts that invite them to participate rather than be passive observers.

But while the classical academic program is teaching our children the names of virtues long out of fashion, we should ask whether we have created the conditions in which those virtues can truly take root and flourish.

Students need raw contact with nature so that virtue is exercised with cold hands and aching backs, not merely batted around the seminar table as an abstraction.

In the “Cyropaedia,” Xenophon’s account of Cyrus’ formation and adventures before he ascended to Persia’s throne, Xenophon describes the paideia, or the process of formation whereby young men become statesmen. Xenophon’s Cyrus grew up with rigorous discipline: combat, cold exposure, fasting, and the austere corrections of men hardened by war.

His education was a series of experiences fashioning him for military service, accustoming him to privation, and schooling him in the unapologetic art of justice.

What Xenophon sketches out, in the main, mirrors the Greek historian Herodotus’ description of the education of noble Persian youth in “The Histories.” They were sent away to spend time with military commanders on the empire’s frontiers.

Far from the corrosive luxuries and intrigues of the court, the young learned to “ride, shoot the bow, and speak the truth.” Only when sufficiently hardened were they considered fit to return to the seats of power and take their place in the political life of the empire.

Both Herodotus and Xenophon depicted an ideal education that prioritizes exposure to nature, the cultivation of martial virtue, and the use of simple, manly rhetoric consisting of straightforward, honest speech — rather than the forked-tongued parlance common in the halls of power. This, both Greeks report, is education that forms kings.

Unfortunately, this is far removed from our modern approach to education. You won’t find anything like the kind of education depicted in the “Cyropaedia” in public, private, or STEM-focused schools — or even most classical schools.

To help us take seriously what Xenophon and Herodotus say about education, especially where it is at odds with contemporary practice, we should enlist the aid of John Henry Newman, a theologian who wrote luminously about education. In a series of sermons, Newman criticized the nearly homogeneous-in-form book learning we call education today.

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In a sermon on the state of innocence before the Fall, Newman argues that our reason is just as fallen and corrupt as our passions. He asks, “What then is intellect itself, as exercised in the world, but a fruit of the fall, not found in paradise or in heaven, more than in little children, and at the utmost but tolerated in the Church?” He continues, noting that after the Fall, “passion and reason have abandoned their due place in man’s nature, which is one of subordination, and conspired together against the Divine light within him, which is his proper guide.”

Newman acknowledges reason as a gift from God for which we should be grateful. But this hardly contradicts his call for us to refrain from idolizing it, whether at the expense of the passions or not.

In another sermon, Newman exhorts, “Now the danger of an elegant and polite education is, that it separates feeling and acting; it teaches us to think, speak, and be affected aright, without forcing us to practise what is right.” He continues: “The refinement which literature gives, is that of thinking, feeling, knowing and speaking, right, not of acting right; and thus, while it makes the manners amiable, and the conversation decorous and agreeable, it has no tendency to make the conduct, the practice of the man virtuous.”

This sounds like bad news for a culture whose educational practice consists almost entirely of sitting, reading, and thinking.

But we might object that reading about heroic characters can inspire us to emulate their virtues. So too can vicious characters warn us off their path and help us to see patterns of evil as they develop. Without rejecting literature-based education entirely, Newman plays out a likely scenario involving the breakdown of character when it has been reared on affect rather than its rougher cousin, reality:

For instance, we will say we have read again and again, of the heroism of facing danger, and we have glowed with the thought of its nobleness. We have felt how great it is to bear pain, and submit to indignities, rather than wound our conscience; and all this, again and again, when we had no opportunity of carrying our good feelings into practice. Now, suppose at length we actually come into trial, and let us say, our feelings become roused, as often before, at the thought of boldly resisting temptations to cowardice, shall we therefore do our duty, quitting ourselves like men? Rather, we are likely to talk loudly, and then run from the danger. Why? — rather, let us ask, why not? What is to keep us from yielding? Because we feel aright? Nay, we have again and again felt aright and thought aright, without accustoming ourselves to act aright; and though there was an original connexion in our minds between feeling and acting, there is none now; the wires within us, as they may be called, are loosened and powerless.

“Loosened and powerless” is a sad substitute for what Newman suggests we ought to demonstrate instead: “hardy, rough-handed obedience.”

We now find ourselves back with Cyrus on the frontier, where reality itself is the teacher and the lesson is not optional. Even students in the best classical schools today spend too much time in purely intellectual arenas, where they can separate feeling from action, sentiment from reality — arenas where talk is as cheap as it is plentiful.

Fortunately, there is a corrective. But be warned: It is as rugged and as demanding of adults as of the young. It will require many in education who are accustomed to the relative comfort of lecture halls and seminar tables to relearn the feel of callouses and the inevitable alternation between sweating and shivering that the unmediated life provokes.

The corrective, simply put, is robust physical training in fitness, athletics, or the school of the outdoors — camping, climbing, and diving. Students need raw contact with nature so that virtue is exercised with cold hands and aching backs, not merely batted around the seminar table as an abstraction.

They need hard, physical work — tilling the soil or caring for animals — that teaches patience and responsibility and impresses upon them the limits of human will. They need to willingly forgo modern comforts that obscure the lessons contained in God’s book of nature.

Hard labor and self-mastery learned through challenge can no longer serve as mere supplements to education. As long as we treat them as such, we should not expect our children to demonstrate the “hardy, rough-handed obedience” that Newman argued is the hallmark of citizens of great nations.

Editor’s note: This article appeared originally at the American Mind.

​Public schools, Private schools, Classical education, Physical education, Xenephon, Herodotus, John henry newman, Physical labor, Cyrus the great, Opinion & analysis