Spencer Pratt says he has damaging evidence against one of the Los Angeles mayoral candidates after he was boxed out of the primary election.

Pratt initially came in second place when the first ballot count was announced on election night, but his lead was whittled away by successive ballot counts until socialist city councilwoman Nithya Raman overtook him.

'The city is a mess, and you're about to reward the arsonist who torched the place with four more years of destruction.'

Rather than abandon his effort to save Los Angeles, Pratt released a fiery and defiant video Friday claiming to have damaging audio secretly recorded by a candidate's staffer.

"You think you could get rid of me that easily?" Pratt says in the video.

"I didn't get in this for political power; I got in this to expose this corrupt machine, and nothing's changed," he added.

He referred to Raman and incumbent Mayor Karen Bass as "morons" and "dumb and dumber," a reference to the popular movie. Pratt also claimed that many Los Angeles business owners and entrepreneurs told him they were leaving the city because of the inept government.

"That means the city has to cut services. More potholes, less firefighters, less police patrols, more criminals, more drug addicts terrorizing your communities," Pratt continued.

"You have no idea how bad things are about to get for this city. Look at this place already," he added.

"This city is a mess, and you're about to reward the arsonist who torched the place with four more years of destruction?" he said.

Bass will go up against Raman, who previously endorsed Bass and was counted as one of her allies. Some on the left see Raman as the manifestation of a party battle between centrist moderates and the far-left socialist fringe trying to take over.

"My goal hasn't changed. I've been laser-focused on stopping these commie animals, and I will stop them. If you think we uncovered a lot of fraud and evil in the campaign, just wait," he added.

KTLA-TV published Pratt's video in its entirety on its YouTube channel.

RELATED: Socialist mayoral candidate is outraged at encampment outside her LA home — but its not what it seems

"So Karen, Nithya, ask yourself, is it possible that one of your employees may have a recording of you doing or saying something that would force you to resign in disgrace?" he asked. "I hope you sleep well at night over the next five months."

The latest ballot count with about 99% of the votes had Bass at 34.3%, Raman at 29%, and Pratt at 25.5% of the votes. The difference between Pratt and Raman was about 30K votes.

"It's war!" Pratt said in the video.

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While BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock admits Victor Wembanyama is the San Antonio Spurs’ “biggest star,” he isn’t impressed with the NBA player’s attitude toward the country that’s signing his paychecks.

This is because before the beginning of Game 3, Wembanyama made it a point not to be on the court for the national anthem.

“I do not like Victor Wembanyama, and I didn’t like him before Game 3, and what transpired in Game 3 really made me dislike him,” Whitlock says.

“He did not take the court for the national anthem before Game 3. Victor Wembanyama, I believe, stood in the tunnel, in the locker room during the national anthem before Game 3, and no one talked about it,” he explains.

“This isn’t a coincidence that a Gregg Popovich-run organization has an anti-American Frenchman who can’t come out and respect the national anthem in a country that’s paying him millions upon millions of dollars, a country that’s making him the face of professional basketball,” he continues.

“This guy is the most coddled and pampered athlete perhaps in NBA history, maybe in sports history,” he says. “He’s getting the Colin Kaepernick treatment.”

Whitlock calls the NBA star a “punk” who’s being tolerated purely because “the NBA is a global basketball league, and the NBA is a propaganda arm of the Marxist, socialist, communist agenda.”

“And so, America’s the bad guy, and Victor Wembanyama, the guy the NBA is trying to make the face of the league, can’t even come out and participate in the national anthem,” he adds.

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A U.S. congresswoman says new evidence released by the national intelligence director should void one of the two impeachments of President Donald Trump.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said the allegations that Trump was guilty of colluding with the Russian government were false.

'It was a terrible lie that tore this country apart, and was plotted by a weaponized intelligence agency under Obama.'

Trump was impeached in 2019 over alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his campaign to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate corruption allegations in a supposed attempt to damage the Biden family ahead of the 2020 election.

Luna said new evidence contradicted the claims that underpinned the impeachment.

"I will be putting forward a resolution to void the fraudulent impeachment of President Trump during his first term in office. Russia collusion never happened," Luna wrote in a statement on social media.

According to the report from DNI Tulsi Gabbard, the investigation into the president's call had been spun out of "politicized, manufactured narratives" created by Trump's political opponents.

"It was a terrible lie that tore this country apart, and was plotted by a weaponized intelligence agency under [former President Barack] Obama. There is no monetary value that can be assigned to the damage this lie caused. It destroyed families’ relationships with one another, our country’s comradery [sic], and our relationship with another nuclear super power (Russia) that could have resulted in war," Luna added.

"Thank goodness the admin has started to restore that relationship, but HISTORY should reflect what actually transpired," she added.

Gabbard has since announced that she is stepping down from the DNI office. The former Hawaii congresswoman said that her husband was diagnosed with an "extremely rare form of bone cancer" and was facing difficult treatment challenges.

The president wants to replace Gabbard with Jay Clayton, the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

RELATED: Rep. Luna rejects ‘s**t hit piece’ implying ‘something distasteful’ between her and Trump

Trump was impeached by the House in 2019, but the Senate refused to convict him. A second impeachment over Jan. 6 was also successful in the House in 2021, but he was ultimately acquitted again in the Senate for the second impeachment.

The president called impeachment a "dirty, filthy, disgusting word" as well as a form of "giant presidential harassment" in 2019.

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BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo apparently lives rent-free in the head of John Oliver, the English agitpropist who long played second fiddle to the eponymous host of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

Oliver melted down in 2022, for instance, not only over Rufo's campaign against radical gender ideology but over his successful efforts to rid American schools of critical race theory.

'Say what you will about — here it comes — the Nazis, but stick with me, credit where it's due.'

On Monday, the liberal commentator — whose transvestite-produced HBO show had a defamation suit dropped earlier this month by an Obama judge — targeted Rufo again, this time over the role he has played in New College of Florida's conservative renaissance.

Florida under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has managed to break the radical left's stranglehold over the education system, pushing back against critical race theory, LGBT propaganda, and historical revisionism in the classroom; nuking university DEI programs; keeping men out of girls' sports; and eliminating discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin in public institutions.

DeSantis' strategic appointments — particularly those he made to New College of Florida's 13-member board of trustees in early 2023 — have been a critical piece of this institutional reconquest, the significance of which is clearly not lost on Oliver.

Oliver excitedly caught his audience up, stating that DeSantis "appointed six new board members who are political allies including Chris Rufo, the conservative activist who then tweeted, 'We are now over the walls and ready to transform higher education from within.'"

After characterizing Rufo as a "cartoon supervillain" and randomly joking about masturbation, Oliver stated, "Rufo is constantly sounding the alarm over the woke indoctrination of young people, but being appointed as a trustee at New College actually represented something new for him: a chance to put his ideas into practice. And as he explained at the time, his goal was nothing less than to offer a blueprint for what conservatives could then do for education nationwide."

"John Oliver just can't get enough," Rufo responded on X. "This is his third story calling me a 'supervillain.' I take it as a compliment."

RELATED: Trump’s Justice Department is shining a light on woke universities — finally

Thomas Simonetti/Washington Post/Getty Images

In addition to bemoaning New College's transformation into an exemplar for other institutions aspiring to break free from their woke encumbrances, Oliver also complained on Monday that the liberal arts college axed its gender studies program.

The liberal host made a note of "Rufo bragging they'd gotten rid of a 'massive' and 'radical' department that indoctrinates students."

Rufo motioned at an August 2023 board meeting to begin to dissolve the program, stating online, "We are the first public university in America to begin rolling back the encroachment of queer theory and gender pseudoscience into academic life."

After the board voted 7-3 in favor, the college's only full-time gender studies professor — a woman who identifies as a man — subsequently submitted a resignation letter, thereby evidencing her political bias and ideological capture.

In a letter dated August 2023, the radical professor wrote, "Eliminating Gender Studies is a reactionary attempt to prevent cultural shifts that scare you. Gender has changed before, and it is changing again. You can’t keep your kids from being gay or trans."

In addition to whining about the demise of the school's gender indoctrination program, Oliver melted down on Monday over the college's 2024 disposal of propaganda — some of it apparently damaged by Tropical Storm Debby — from the defunct Gender and Diversity Center's library, likening it to Nazi book-burnings.

Oliver highlighted an Aug. 16, 2024, tweet in which Rufo wrote, "We abolished the gender studies program. Now we’re throwing out the trash."

The British propagandist said in response on his show, "Say what you will about — here it comes — the Nazis, but stick with me, credit where it's due, I know when the Nazis went after books, they went big."

"Ideologues capturing something that they hate, claiming that they want to fix it, and then destroying it instead," Oliver said later in his tirade. "But seldom has that move been more blatant than watching people talk about great debates and classical education, only to then drive away faculty, refer to books as trash, and assemble a veritable Avengers of D-list conservatives, celebrities, creeps, and weirdos."

New College officials such as David Rohrbacher, provost and vice president of academic affairs, wholly rejected Oliver's framing.

"What I’m proud about over the last three years is that in addition to many, many new ideas, new projects, new policies, new educational strategies," Rohrbacher told the Free Press, "New College remains the college it was in terms of that model of experimental learning and experiential learning."

Multiple professors told the FP that while the college now has fewer radical course offerings, the new leadership does not police what they teach.

New College President Richard Corcoran emphasized that "the great liberal-arts schools that are not indoctrinating, that have great [test] scores and get great students — yeah, that would be who we’d like to be."

Corcoran noted further that most of the "ideological warriors have left" and the people the school has been hiring are "a who's who of faculty in the history of the college."

Oliver's panicked episode aired in the wake of a deal reached late last month by state lawmakers, which, if finalized, will transfer control of the University of South Florida's Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College.

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A dispute over player eligibility now has Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) involved after he entered himself into the fray on Thursday.

The Big 12 Conference finds itself with its hands tied after a court ruling pumped the brakes on the NCAA punishing a Texas Tech player.

'Any such action would be unlawful and would expose the Conference to substantial liability.'

Quarterback Brendan Sorsby was caught earlier this year gambling on NCAA games, and it turned out he had been betting on his own team for years. Sorsby wagered approximately $90,000 over four years, On3 reported, and he also allegedly used sportsbook accounts registered to his friends and family.

Earlier this week, a Texas judge in Lubbock County, where Texas Tech is located, temporarily prevented the NCAA from enforcing a permanent eligibility ban on Sorsby, meaning the 22-year-old will be able to play this season for the Red Raiders, apart from the first two games.

Then came reports that the Big 12 and other conferences were considering boycotting Texas Tech altogether, with Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor telling Yahoo Sports that the Big 12 had "serious conversations" about it.

Enter Texas AG Paxton's office, which sent a letter to the conference saying the state could seek "substantially more than $200 million" if the Big 12 tries to move forward with the boycott.

Reporter Pete Nakos posted the AG's letter, which said Texas is aware of the attempted sanctioning of Texas Tech for "continuing its support of Mr. Sorsby as a student-athlete."

"This letter serves to notify the Big 12 that any such action would be unlawful and would expose the Conference to substantial liability," Paxton's antitrust chief, Thomas York, wrote.

RELATED: 'USA!' chants rock Madison Square Garden as Trump attends NBA Finals

The letter continued, describing the possible plan as "a naked horizontal agreement among competitors to disadvantage Texas Tech by cutting off access to the resources it needs to compete."

The state government argued this would open up the conference and its members to potential damages stemming from Texas Tech's "lost football revenues, damages to its alumni contributions, and damages to its recruitment, plus attorneys' fees."

Paxton's office also cited a possible breach of contract and "tortious antitrust," described as "any sanction that disrupts or interferes with Texas Tech's existing or potential contracts associated with its football team."

This includes the disruption of potential sponsorships, ticket sales, and other commercial relationships, for example.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (R) then fired off a letter of his own, calling Paxton's claims "meritless" and "facially absurd."

Drummond also expressed support for the Big 12 sanctioning Texas Tech over the Sorsby saga.

Texas Tech "has shirked responsibility by running with a bogus claim to a friendly court. Its leadership has prioritized winning over sport, over honor, and over integrity. If Texas Tech will not do the right thing, the Big 12 should," he wrote, according to images of the letter shared by ESPN college football reporter Pete Thamel.

RELATED: 'I had the right papers': Somali World Cup referee booted from US gets an answer from the White House

John E. Moore III/Getty Images

As Blaze News previously reported, members of the Big Ten and the SEC have also discussed refusing to play Texas Tech.

Thamel cited three unnamed Big Ten sources on Monday night who said they planned on discussing the possible sanction, while University of Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks reportedly issued an internal memo to his school's coaches advising them not to schedule any games against Texas Tech in any sport without conference approval.

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A deadly shooting unfolded in Midland, Texas, Friday morning before a standoff with police that reportedly left the suspected gunman dead.

Midland Police responded to an active shooting incident in the 4600 block of West Wall Street, officials said.

'We see the drones, and then we see the Texas Rangers and the undercover cars with lights on. ... Had to be, seems like, 50 police officers, like a small army.'

Officers heard gunfire coming from a building and worked quickly to secure and clear the area, officials said, adding that "armored units were deployed, and partner agencies assisted in the response."

The shooting left at least one victim dead and 10 others injured, officials told NBC News.

The suspect was seen dead with a drone, Midland Mayor Lori Blong told CBS News.

More from NBC News:

Nine victims were taken to Midland Memorial Hospital, a spokesperson for the hospital said. Three are undergoing surgeries, and one is in recovery. Two others are stable and remain in the emergency department, and three have been discharged.

Another person was taken to Odessa Medical Center Hospital.

A spokesperson for the city could not confirm if all of the victims had been shot.

Video reportedly from the scene captured the startling sounds of the shooting.

Blong added to CBS News there was no indication that any police officers were injured.

Lee Carlisle was at a nearby Super 8 Motel and described to CBS News what he saw and heard.

"We heard several, several gunshots, like 20 gunshots, and then it moved down — the whole situation moved further down," Carlisle told the news network. "We see the drones, and then we see the Texas Rangers and the undercover cars with lights on. ... Had to be, seems like, 50 police officers, like a small army."

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement: "Cecilia and I are deeply saddened by the senseless act of violence in Midland. We are praying for the victims, their families, and the entire community," he wrote on social media.

RELATED: CA man finds home intruder firing shotgun at his wife — and ends the threat permanently

"I have been briefed on the matter and commend the swift response from the Midland Police Department, DPS and all assisting law enforcement agencies," Abbott added.

Midland is located in Western Texas about three hours south of Lubbock.

This is a developing story; updates may be added.

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Both Elon Musk and his company SpaceX broke records on Friday, while bringing thousands of uplifting stories along with it.

Not only has SpaceX, founded in 2002, finally gone public with a massive opening on the NASDAQ, but with it, everyday employees' lives are changed forever.

'... from engineers to Cafeteria workers.'

SpaceX's IPO has successfully raised $75 billion, making Musk the world's first trillionaire, officially. Outlets including Reuters have reported that the company — now trading under SPCX — will boost Musk's net worth to more than $1.1 trillion due to his controlling shares.

With him will come new millionaires in the thousands. More than 4,000 people will see a huge financial boost from the offering, which has been reported to include even cafeteria workers who have long held on to stock in the company.

Musk shared a post on X that stated the IPO will "create 4,400 new Millionaires, from engineers to cafeteria workers. God bless Capitalism."

Although the SpaceX owner has already distributed the wealth in that sense, he has made more shares available than is typical of most IPOs; more than 20% of available shares are reserved for retail investors, according to Yahoo.

RELATED: Mamdani announces new city office that sounds just like DOGE — and gets nailed with mockery

Adam Gray/Bloomberg/Getty Images

SpaceX's successful round of $75 billion more than doubles the previous highest market debut from 2019, from Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, that raised $29.4 billion.

The record-setting raise makes SpaceX the largest IPO launch in history with a valuation of $1.77 trillion, per Yahoo Finance.

Musk had been estimated to have a net worth of $782 billion as recently as Thursday, which still had him as the richest person in the world pre-trillionaire status. He has almost three times the wealth of Google co-founder Larry Page.

RELATED: America's most powerful AI superchips may be in China's hands

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images

Musk told JPMorgan Chase during a livestream last week that SpaceX had been cash-flow positive since around 2015; however, the company reported $18.67 billion in revenue in 2025 but incurred a $4.94 billion net loss.

The entrepreneur added that SpaceX is raising capital for "a significant growth phase" that includes plans to put over 100,000 satellites into orbit and build AI data centers in space.

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Just over a year after President Donald Trump’s administration instructed the federal government to cancel several media outlet subscriptions, Politico announced that it is sunsetting one of its news brands.

The federal government spent over $8 million in 2024 on Politico-related subscriptions.

‘The government shouldn’t subsidize poor journalism.’

In Feb. 2025, the White House directed the General Services Administration to “pull all contracts” for Politico and its stand-alone energy and environment brand, E&E News. Other government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Veterans Affairs, also canceled their subscriptions to Politico’s services.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced last year that he had terminated over $1 million in annual media subscriptions, including nearly $460,000 for the EPA’s membership to Politico and E&E News.

“Best $458,919 we ever saved on behalf of taxpayers,” an EPA spokesperson told Blaze News. “The government shouldn’t subsidize poor journalism, and it’s a stinging indictment of the previous administration that they wasted so many hard-earned American tax dollars keeping this outlet afloat.”

RELATED: Veterans affairs secretary says department discovered high-priced contract with Politico — and canceled it

Robert Alexander/Getty Images

Politico pushed back against criticism that the federal government was subsidizing the media through subscriptions. The outlet released a statement in 2025 insisting that it has “never received any government funding” in the form of subsidies, grants, or “handouts.” It noted that “most” of Politico Pro and E&E News subscribers are in the private sector.

Despite insisting that Politico has “no financial dependence on the government,” the outlet laid off 3% of its staff, including E&E News journalists, in Jan. 2026, according to Semafor.

Politico acquired E&E News in Dec. 2020, aiming to “reach a large new audience of subscribers.” Yet, approximately 16 months after the Trump administration began canceling media subscriptions, Politico announced it is closing the stand-alone brand.

RELATED: Trump orders another federal agency to axe media contracts amid Politico controversy: Report

KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP/Getty Images

Politico framed the sunsetting of E&E News as a strategic restructuring move that consolidated its U.S. Politico Energy and E&E teams “into a single powerhouse.” The announcement did not mention any revenue pressure, but framed the changes as a “new chapter.”

“Beginning in September, we are modernizing how we deliver our energy and environmental policy journalism and launching a more focused, high-impact portfolio of daily news and intelligence products,” Politico wrote.

“As part of this shift, E&E News will no longer operate as a separate brand. Its journalism and expertise will be fully integrated into POLITICO’s energy and environment portfolio of stories, briefs, analysis, and newsletters,” it continued.

Politico did not respond to a request for comment.

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U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has told the Trump administration that unless it provides statements denying the establishment of the "anti-weaponization" fund, a lawsuit would continue against the president.

The lawsuit against the fund was filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has argued that the billion-dollar fund was just another mechanism for the president to pay off his friends and allies.

'This is about seeking accountability for all Americans who were victims of lawfare and weaponization.'

President Donald Trump has touted the need for the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund to compensate Americans who have been unfairly prosecuted by the government, including J6ers.

The fund was created in a settlement after the president dropped his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax documents.

Administration lawyers argued that the issue was moot, citing testimony from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who told members of the U.S. House that it would not go through. However, he would not provide a written statement saying the same.

"We are not moving forward with the fund. Period," Blanche said.

Brinkema cited statements from the president to cast doubt on that argument and called on both Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to provide concrete statements against the fund's creation. She gave the administration a week to provide her with a declarations under penalty of perjury that the fund would not be established.

Democrats in the Senate also tried to pass a provision against the anti-weaponization fund in an ICE funding bill but were denied by Republicans.

"This is about seeking accountability for all Americans who were victims of lawfare and weaponization: millions of Americans whose online speech was censored at the behest of the government, parents silenced at school boards, Senators whose records were secretly subpoenaed, churchgoers targeted by the FBI, and so on," reads a description of the fund from the Justice Department.

RELATED: Video shows Nancy Pelosi exploding with fury at reporter over Jan. 6 claims: 'SHUT UP!'

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington excoriated the fund in a statement accusing the president of "brazen" corruption.

"By settling his absurd $10 billion lawsuit against his own administration, Trump and the Justice Department just engaged in the most brazen act of self-dealing in the history of the presidency, and did so quickly in order to avoid the scrutiny of the judicial process, while quite likely violating the Constitution's Domestic Emoluments Clause in the process," a CREW statement reads.

"This is one of the single most corrupt acts in American history," the group concluded.

Brinkema is 81 years old and was nominated to the court by former President Bill Clinton.

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Despite multiple controversies coming to light over the past few months, Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner has secured the Democratic nomination in his state — winning a whopping 72% of the vote and defeating state governor Janet Mills.

Among those controversies was an account on an app known for sexual predators; a Nazi tattoo; and abuse and cheating allegations from women he has dated.

But on election night, Platner spun the recent controversies to a crowd of supporters by harping on “love and redemption.”

“Love and redemption. Redemption is not just some simple or easy destination. It’s a journey. I’ve made mistakes in my life. Mistakes that I regret, that I live with. That I continue to learn from. I’m still far from perfect,” Platner said.

“Every day I wake up, and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before. And if you give me the chance, I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator,” he added.

“You called a guy a Nazi for years; then you elected one,” BlazeTV host Dave Landau tells co-host Stu Burguiere on “Stu and Dave Do America.” “It’s just ironic.”

Stu agrees, pointing out that the left even called Charlie Kirk a Nazi.

“So let’s get a guy with a Nazi tattoo,” he says, before recalling an article written by the Free Press on Platner, which he says catches Platner in “another pathological lie.”

Despite uncovered text messages showing that Platner had a romantic relationship with one of his accusers, Platner claimed they didn’t even date.

“Obviously not a casual relationship,” Stu says, explaining that many of the various resurfaced text messages were from 2025 — which was "approximately six weeks before he launched his senatorial campaign.”

“The last message he sent was right before he launched his campaign. Could there be anything more transparent? … It’s like Jeffrey Epstein coming off of his first, you know, arrest, and saying, ‘Well, he’s saying he’s a better guy and there’s not much more going on,’” he continues.

“You don’t run that guy for office,” he says. “There’s something going on, and we’re going to learn more about it, I’m sure.”

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The Maextro S800 wants very badly to be a Rolls-Royce.

At 18 feet long, painted two-tone, lined with soft leather, backed by Huawei and built by a thousand robots in Hefei, it has the size and the price tag of ambition. What it lacks is the one thing Rolls-Royce has spent a century perfecting: restraint.

A car that can park itself is a clever feat of engineering; most Rolls-Royce owners employ a driver for that.

The Maextro comes with a 40-inch screen, roughly 40 speakers, and a party trick that lets it park itself while you film it for social media. Rolls-Royce sells the absence of gimmicks. The Maextro sells gimmicks as a feature.

Treat what follows as a cultural diagnosis. The car is just a symptom of a nation rich in cash and short on class.

Motor trend

I lived and worked in China for two years. The Maextro is the most expensive version of the kind of tacky automotive excess I saw every day on the streets of Shanghai and Chengdu.

A pearl-white BMW 7 Series gliding through traffic with a Pikachu decal the size of a dinner plate slapped on the rear door. A matte-black Porsche Cayenne with Hello Kitty stickers ringing the wheel wells. A Mercedes S-Class in a finish that violates several local optometry standards, with the owner's WeChat QR code printed on the trunk in case you wanted to add him.

People who make these choices have plenty of money. They want you to know it, immediately, from a great distance, with no possibility of misinterpretation.

The Maextro is that instinct scaled up and given a research and development budget.

Spirit of Excess

Rolls-Royce understands something the Maextro does not, which is that genuine luxury operates on the principle of subtraction. The iconic Rolls-Royce Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament is small. The grille is dignified. Everything about the car suggests that the owner has nothing left to prove, because the proving was done by his grandfather, his great-grandfather, or some ancestor who did something morally questionable in the 1700s and was richly rewarded. Old money and new money operate on very different frequencies

China, in fairness, has had perhaps 30 years to figure out what to do with serious wealth. Desperate poverty was the default for many Chinese until relatively recently. The first generation of Chinese billionaires grew up eating cabbage in winter and now own art collections that would make a Medici blush. There is no inherited playbook for this. There is no grandfather who can pull you aside and gently suggest that the diamond-encrusted Vertu phone might be a touch much. The cultural muscle memory for restrained wealth hasn’t had time to develop, because the wealth itself is still wet behind the ears.

RELATED: Who makes the Waymos flooding American streets? China.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

From Ming to bling

So you get the Maextro: a "luxury vehicle" that confuses features with refinement, that mistakes the bill of materials for taste. Forty speakers is a number a teenager picks. A 40-inch screen is what you install when you have never considered that a car's interior might benefit from looking less like a control room. A car that can park itself is a clever feat of engineering; most Rolls-Royce owners employ a driver for that. The Maextro is engineered to impress someone standing on the sidewalk. The Rolls-Royce is engineered to impress the person sitting inside it. These are different products serving different psychologies, and only one of them is luxury.

There is something comical about watching a nation with 5,000 years of refined aesthetic standards produce a flagship sedan that resembles a karaoke lounge on wheels. This is country that gave the world Song dynasty celadon and Ming furniture so understated it still looks modern.

The classical Chinese ideal was the scholar in the bamboo grove, the brushstroke that suggests rather than declares. Somewhere between the Cultural Revolution and the iPhone, that sensibility was misplaced. What replaced it is a culture where a man worth $200 million still feels the need to wrap his Bentley in something that announces itself from a block away, because somewhere in his lizard brain, he’s still the kid whose grandmother boiled tree bark during the famine.

The Maextro will sell. It will sell to people who want a Rolls-Royce and cannot quite stomach the price and to people who want a Rolls-Royce and find the actual Rolls-Royce insufficiently exciting. It will be photographed at the entrances of exclusive nightclubs and parked outside fancy restaurants where the valets know to leave it where everyone can see it. It will do everything its buyers want a car to do.

What it won't do is fool anyone who has ridden in the real thing. Taste is built, not bought. China has the money now. The wisdom to spend it well is a generation or two behind.

A Catholic company with an "extremely popular" product said it has decided turn away from using artificial intelligence, no matter the cost.

A well-known Catholic retailer called the Little Catholic Box said the company's decision to use AI received passionate opposition from its consumer base.

'AI can be a valuable tool that requires vigilance.'

The company took out a Facebook ad on Tuesday that discussed its extremely popular Saint Trading Cards and said they "were prototyped using AI."

After using AI-generated images for the cards, the company's leaders said the backlash inspired them to do more research and even reach out to real, human artists for their input.

However, what truly seemed to change the company's mind was words from the pope on AI and the direction of humanity in the face of emerging technologies.

Referring to the pope's May 15 encyclical entitled "Magnifica Humanitas," Little Catholic Box wrote that while "AI can be a valuable tool that requires vigilance" it can "never replace the human person."

From that point forward, the company decided not to use AI for its art and vowed to start commissioning original art from "human artists."

In the face of a longer timeline and higher costs, the leaders of the Catholic company — founded by parents of seven — said they believed the change would actually result in a better product and "stronger Catholic community overall."

RELATED: A real nation knows who is in and who is out

AI-generated art previously used by the Little Catholic Box. Image courtesy the Little Catholic Box

Pope Leo XIV's letter thoroughly discussed the rapid increase and digitalization of the world through AI and robotics. However, he left room for grace, even for AI, and said technology should not be considered, "in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity."

"On the contrary, it has formed part of our history since the beginning as 'a profoundly human reality, linked to the autonomy and freedom of man,'" he added.

The pope stressed being "profoundly human" in an era of AI and called on Catholics to "safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us."

"Let us not be afraid to get our hands dirty," Leo continued, "on the 'construction site' of our time."

This included placing the human person "at the center of our choices," while making the "rejected stones" of society the cornerstone, which he listed as including "the poor, the sick, the migrants, and the least among us."

RELATED: Brazil sends off its World Cup team in the most Catholic way possible

Human-created art now used by the Little Catholic Box. Image courtesy the Little Catholic Box

The Little Catholic Box said the company is still going to sell through its original set of AI works, but has now paid out human artist commissions for the new products.

"We feel really good about the direction these products are headed, but it honestly bothers us that Set 1 is still for sale," the company claimed.

In a comment to Blaze News, owner Greg Johnson said AI was initially used to generate images of the saints because the company "believed it was the fastest and cheapest way to bring them into existence with extremely limited resources."

Johnson said they immediately discovered that a large segment of their market was "adamantly opposed to the use of AI" for this purpose, and when further research was conducted into AI ethics, they "concluded that we could no longer use it."

"While our initial decision to use AI seemed to make sense at the time, we did not fully understand how its use would alienate a significant portion of our audience, some of whom we will never win back," he added.

At first, Johnson also explained, he did not fully understand the arguments against the use of AI around sacred images.

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The trial for a Bulgarian immigrant to Scotland took an unexpected turn when the judge made a ruling surrounding claims of racism.

Ilia Belov, a 22-year-old Bulgarian immigrant, was convicted on Thursday following a violent incident with a group of young girls that took place last September, resulting in one female, then 12 years old, being dubbed the "Scottish axe girl."

'The words of the children were eloquent to describe your behavior.'

The young lady and her family had said for months that she had acted in self-defense when she wielded an axe and a blade in order to protect herself and her friends from abusive migrants.

This week, the judge of Dundee Sheriff Court, Sheriff Timothy Niven-Smith, convicted Belov after seeing what was described as "proof beyond reasonable doubt."

As reported by the Irish News, Scottish axe girl, now 13, claimed Belov made sexual remarks to her as she and friends walked to a bus stop: "He kept saying, 'Come here sexy. I will show you how to have a good time,'" the girl recalled. She also said Belov shoved her to the ground while his sister, whom he called for help, arrived and attacked another girl.

The Bulgarian agreed that he both called his sister and shoved the girl, but only to protect his sister after allegedly seeing the young girl had a knife under her shirt. He also denied making sexual remarks and accused the girls of calling him a "f*****g migrant."

However, the judge was not having it.

On top of describing Belov's defense as "neither credible nor reliable," Niven-Smith called it a revision of the facts, especially in the face of video evidence that was shown to the court.

RELATED: 'No such thing as a defensive weapon': Judge warns Scottish axe girl she shouldn't have carried blades

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Niven-Smith then completely dressed the Bulgarian down, saying that he found his testimony to be "wholly unconvincing and self-serving."

The judge called out inconsistencies in Belov's story, including that he had turned his back to the girl despite claiming he was fearful he would be attacked by her. Niven-Smith then blamed Belov's comments as the reason the whole ordeal started.

“I accept that as a result of the comments you made abuse was directed at you, which included swear words, including you being called a 'f*****g creep and an immigrant,'" the judge detailed.

Then, Niven-Smith delivered a striking rebuff of Belov's defense.

"The words of the children were eloquent to describe your behavior given your age and their respective ages," the judge stated. "Having made the sexual remarks to the children you then, enraged by the fact that they became angry and started shouting abuse at you, followed them."

Niven-Smith criticized Belov for calling his sister — who "immediately" attacked one of the girls on arrival — instead of calling the police or leaving the area.

RELATED: Police charge man and woman in connection with Scottish axe girl incident

NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV/AFP/Getty Images

Belov's claim that the young girl could be seen with a knife under her T-shirt was also rejected, with the judge saying he was "entirely satisfied" that the video footage showed the Bulgarian indeed assaulted the girl.

Belov was convicted of assault and behaving in a "threatening or abusive manner" toward four girls.

His sister, 20-year-old Nadjedzha Belova, pleaded guilty to one charge of assaulting a 13-year-old girl.

The siblings will be sentenced on August 5.

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Marine veteran and former Alaska Attorney General Daniel S. Sullivan has served in the U.S. Senate since 2015 and is now seeking re-election. The Anchorage-based Republican's route to victory is anything but assured, especially with Democratic challenger and former Rep. Mary Peltola leading him in recent polls.

The Alaska Division of Elections appears, however, to be eliminating at least one obstacle to Sullivan's success in the Last Frontier's Aug. 18 nonpartisan top-four primary, namely Daniel J. Sullivan of Petersburg.

'The preponderance of evidence does not support your eligibility.'

J. Sullivan, a 69-year-old retired teacher who was born in the Midwest, reportedly registered as a Republican earlier this year and entered the race to oust Sen. S. Sullivan on May 29, just before the deadline for filing.

The namesake challenger said that he had "every right to stand up and do this" and characterized himself as a "pragmatic Republican centrist."

Something stinks

The newly minted Republican's candidacy didn't pass the smell test where Sen. S. Sullivan, other Alaska Republicans, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee were concerned.

Sen. S. Sullivan told CNN earlier this month that J. Sullivan's candidacy was effectively a Democratic effort to "cheat."

The senator said, "Democrats recruited a guy by the name of Dan Sullivan. He is a liberal progressive, right. We've seen it — his donations to all the far-left groups. He's donated to Peltola, OK. His whole purpose of running is to confuse Alaskans."

RELATED: Steve Hilton secures spot in California gubernatorial runoff and considers teaming up with Spencer Pratt

Ex-Rep. Mary Peltola (D). Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service/Getty Images.

Alaska's News Source confirmed that a Dan Sullivan with a Petersburg zip code had previously donated to Peltola campaigns — in 2022 and in 2024. A spokesman for Peltola's campaign has denied involvement with J. Sullivan's Senate bid.

The NRSC filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on June 6, stating that "there is reason to believe Daniel J. Sullivan and Amber Lee of Amber Lee Strategies have engaged in a coordinated scheme to launch a U.S. Senate candidacy in violation of the Federal Election Act's prohibition on fraudulent misrepresentation of campaign authority at 52 U.S.C. §30124."

Blake Murphy, general counsel for the NRSC, noted in the complaint that:

• J. Sullivan's campaign logo and website "closely mimics" that of S. Sullivan's campaign branding;
• J. Sullivan has donated to Peltola;
• the press release promoting J. Sullivan's candidacy for Senate was authored by Amber Lee, a Democratic consultant and Peltola supporter; and
• FEC records show that Amber Lee Strategies has received thousands of dollars for "PAC Strategy Consulting" from a federal PAC that has supported Peltola.

Murphy suggested that the purpose of J. Sullivan and Lee's alleged fraudulent misrepresentation was to "deceive and mislead Alaskan voters to the detriment of another candidate."

The NRSC asked the FEC to investigate the matter and — in the event that wrongdoing is confirmed and found willful — refer it to the Justice Department for further review.

The Alaska Republican Party separately filed a pair of complaints with the state's Division of Election. One of the complaints claimed that J. Sullivan's candidacy was improper because his declaration of candidacy said he was affiliated with the GOP despite having an "undeclared" political affiliation at the time, reported the Anchorage Daily News.

Disqualification

Alaska Lt. Gov Nancy Dahlstrom notified J. Sullivan on June 8 that she had requested an investigation into his eligibility, claiming that the allegations against him were credible.

On Wednesday, Carol Beecher, director of the Division of Elections, delivered the namesake challenger some bad news, writing, "Based on a review of the evidence presented and in the [Division of Elections'] possession, the Division has determined that the preponderance of evidence does not support your eligibility for the office of United States senator."

Beecher gave J. Sullivan until 5 p.m. on Thursday to respond to the Alaska GOP's complaints, after which time she said a final determination would be made.

The namesake challenger said in response that Dahlstrom's "actions create the impression that the state government is being used to protect an incumbent senator from facing competition at the ballot box. That's not how elections should work."

"I am a qualified candidate who followed the rules and filed to run for office under my legal name. Yet, unsupported accusations have been given credibility while political operatives continue their effort to keep me off the ballot," continued J. Sullivan. "The people of Alaska are fully capable of deciding for themselves who should represent them in Washington."

A former Louisiana mayor — described as a "predator" with "Botox and high heels" — learned her fate after being convicted of child sex crimes for abusing her teen son's underage friend at an alcohol-fueled pool party, according to multiple reports.

In March, 44-year-old Misty Roberts was convicted of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and indecent behavior with a juvenile.

'This predator was not hiding in a van carrying candy or a puppy.'

Fox News reported that Roberts was sentenced on Tuesday to 90 days in jail for having sex with a teen boy in 2024 while she was mayor of DeRidder.

Roberts received two concurrent five-year suspended sentences, which she will avoid serving provided she complies with the terms of her probation.

The judge ordered Roberts to register as a sex offender and pay a $5,000 fine.

Prosecutors petitioned for her to receive the maximum prison sentence of 17 years for both charges.

According to KPLC-TV, Beauregard Parish District Attorney James Lestage said, "We argued for the maximum sentences, which we feel are appropriate. I don’t think the sentence that was imposed reflects the severity of the crimes."

Roberts' defense attorney Todd Clemons said of the judge's ruling, "We appreciate that the judge put a lot of thought and consideration into this decision."

Clemons said, "The state wanted 17 years, so the outcome could have been much worse than 90 days."

Roberts could be released from prison in fewer than 90 days with good behavior, her attorneys said.

Roberts' attorneys stated, "With the good-time credit available under Louisiana law, the time Misty actually serves is expected to be shorter, and she intends to begin serving it without delay, complete it, and meet every condition the court has set."

Roberts’ co-counsel Adam Johnson insisted that she already has received "a life sentence" by having to register as a sex offender.

According to KPLC, Roberts' attorneys previously requested a new trial, blaming "inconsistencies" in the victim’s testimony. However, Judge Kent Savoie denied a new trial.

KPLC reported that a statement from the victim's mother was read in the courtroom: "This predator was not hiding in a van carrying candy or a puppy."

"This danger came from a predator with hair extensions, high heels, Botox, and other modifications," the mom said before Roberts was sentenced.

Roberts told the judge, "I blame myself then, I blame myself today, and I will blame myself for the rest of my life. I let a lot of people down, and I am the only person responsible for that.”

According to KPLC, Roberts added, "What an embarrassment I’ve been to this city. I've made a mess of all of this, but it certainly was not my intent."

Roberts told the courtroom, "I just want to be their mom. I'm here just asking for grace and mercy and the opportunity to do what the Lord has asked me to do, which is be a mom."

Roberts added, "To the [victim’s] family, I am sorry. I can’t give back the high school days ... I can’t take away the embarrassment that so many mean people on the internet have put them through."

American Press reported that Dr. Sasha Joy Lambert, a clinical psychologist hired to evaluate Roberts' mental health, determined that the former mayor "was not mentally healthy" around the time of the incident.

Lambert said Roberts was dealing with her father's declining health, her divorce, and her fiancé committing suicide.

"She was in a mental health crisis," Lambert said of Roberts.

RELATED: Teens describe shattered lives as 'party mom' gets max punishment: 'It's her turn to serve a very long sentence in jail'

KPLC reported that lead prosecutor Charles Robinson stated, "We're talking about an elected public official who had sex with a child at a children’s birthday party."

The New York Post reported that Robinson also said of Roberts, "This is not a dumb lady. This is somebody who managed an entire city budget."

Robinson noted, "She has not come to the realization of accountability. She is not sorry."

Blaze News previously reported that Roberts had been serving her second term as mayor after winning re-election in 2022 at the time of the child sex abuse.

In another previous Blaze News report, Roberts told the victim he "looked good, started winking at him, and dancing on him" during the boozy pool party.

The victim — who was a friend of Roberts' son — said he was intoxicated when Roberts sexually assaulted him.

"While it was happening, I couldn’t feel my body," the teen said of the sexual encounter. "After we had sex, I kinda was realizing what was happening."

Roberts' daughter testified that she saw her mother and the victim "on top of each other" on the night of the party.

Duncan Clanton — Roberts' ex-husband and father of their two children — testified in court that his ex-wife informed him she had sex with a minor.

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The leading Democratic candidate for the open Michigan U.S. Senate seat is playing defense now that a former paid staffer has been indicted in connection with a series of anti-Semitic attacks.

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced that eight defendants had been charged for an alleged conspiracy "to threaten University of Michigan leaders, law enforcement, and businesses, including the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit" over their supposed ties to Israel.

'El-Sayed continues to pander to terrorists.'

Among those indicted is 24-year-old Mariam Muhammed Odeh of Dearborn, Michigan. She has been charged with one count of conspiracy to transmit threats in interstate and foreign commerce, according to the Detroit News.

The DOJ press release claimed that the eight defendants and some unindicted co-conspirators targeted the victims in the wake of the attacks on October 7, 2023, demanding that the victims immediately divest from Israel completely or the defendants would compel them to do so "by any means necessary."

The defendants allegedly uncovered the targets' personal information, including home addresses, business relationships, and personal acquaintances. They also allegedly plotted ways they could "harm the targets and their families, including poison, bombs, and psychological torture."

The suspects apparently put some of their plots into action, allegedly vandalizing homes and other property with Hamas-linked symbols and messages such as "Intifada," "Free Palestine," and "F**k You," images from the press release showed.

The suspects made further threats online, posting messages such as, "You cannot hide," and "We only come back stronger," alongside photographs of the destruction they caused, the DOJ claimed.

"The defendants also left demand notes containing additional threats, caulked doors shut, bike-locked entryways, broke windows, and threw glass jars filled with butyric acid and dye into the homes," the press release claimed.

RELATED: FBI walks through chilling final hours before 'Hezbollah-inspired' terrorist tried to kill Jewish kids in Michigan

Composite of FBI photos of Ayman Ghazali

From February until April 15, Odeh was a paid staffer at the campaign of far-left radical Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

El-Sayed's campaign initially claimed Odeh worked for the campaign for only two weeks but subsequently issued a follow-up statement confirming that her tenure with the campaign was much longer.

"Upon discovering an error in reviewing our HR files, we’d like to correct information on her employment for transparency. She was hired in February as an hourly employee and left the campaign on April 15. The campaign issued one missed hourly back payment in May that will appear on our next FEC filing," spokeswoman Roxie Richner said Thursday in a text message, according to the Detroit News.

The campaign paid Odeh $747 in two payments made in March, the News reported, citing fundraising disclosures.

However, Odeh seems to have characterized her affiliation with the campaign differently, claiming that she had "full-time employment for approximately four months" "for a local Senate candidate," a pretrial officer told the court, the News reported.

An attorney for Odeh did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

On his campaign website, El-Sayed has championed "Medicare for all," reforming the Supreme Court, and "abolishing ICE." He opposes "mandatory voter ID laws" and prefers instead to "make voting easier" with automatic voter registration and re-registration as well as "no-reason absentee and early in-person voting."

El-Sayed also received criticism for expressing sympathy for Ayman Ghazali, the "Hezbollah-inspired" terrorist who tried to murder school children and other Jews at a Reform synagogue and school in West Bloomfield Township on March 13.

While condemning the attack and anti-Semitism more generally, El-Sayed noted in a four-minute video statement released just hours after the incident at Temple Israel that Ghazali "lost family, including two children," a niece and nephew, in strikes on Lebanon that were part of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

"Hurt people hurt people," El-Sayed said.

"Imagine there was no war in Iran. Imagine if there were no airstrikes in Lebanon. Imagine if his family had never died. Imagine there was never an attack on Temple Israel. That's the world that we want to live in."

Samantha Cantrell, regional press secretary for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, indicated the indictment of Odeh is further evidence of a character issue for El-Sayed: "El-Sayed continues to pander to terrorists. He found it difficult to condemn the Synagogue attack on Jewish children, mourned the death of the Ayatollah, campaigned with known anti-Semite, Hasan Piker, and now this."

Despite his radical positions, El-Sayed holds the lead in aggregate polling. According to the latest RealClearPolling average, El-Sayed leads fellow Democratic candidates Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow by 3.7 points.

El-Sayed is vying for the U.S. Senate seat now open after Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced in January 2025 that he would not seek another term. The Michigan primary election is scheduled for August 4.

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The cruelty is the point?

We have gotten used to the partisan, unfunny version of former “Man Show” host Jimmy Kimmel. He’s the guy who plays the free-speech martyr on his ABC late-night show without ever defending the free speech of the others.

'When they go low, we go high,' Michelle Obama infamously said. No one believed it, but it sure sounded good.

Remember when he spoke out on behalf of singer M.I.A. after she was fired from Kid Cudi’s tour for sharing right-leaning views on stage? We sure don’t.

Still, Kimmel hit a new low this week, even if that didn’t seem possible. He mocked Spencer Pratt for coming in third in L.A.’s recent primary battle. Never mind the dubious nature of L.A.’s never-ending vote counting process.

Pratt lost his home and every precious item in it during the Palisades fires, and it spurred him to run for office. He wasn’t remotely MAGA or cruel, just a father and husband defending his family and hoping to do good for his city.

That’s it.

For that, Kimmel told his ABC fans that he got a U-Haul rental for Pratt so he could keep his word about leaving L.A. if he lost the race.

“Mazel tov and goodbye, Spencer Pratt!”

We’ll be saying the same when ABC finally realizes how terrible Kimmel is for the country, no doubt …

'Fascist' fan Platner still Democrat fave

“When they go low, we go high,” Michelle Obama infamously said. No one believed it, but it sure sounded good.

The gals at the far-left “The View” can’t even fake that any more.

Co-host Sunny Hostin admits that Graham "Maine Kampf" Platner is all the terrible things we’ve heard about him, down to his Nazi tattoo. But he must get our vote anyway.

For reasons, or something.

“Look, I don't think Republicans, at this point, can ask us to take the moral high ground. That is over at this point. … It's time for Democrats to stop that nonsense, put emotions on the side, let's be strategic, let's get some power, let’s take over the Senate and let’s take over the House and let's right the ship! Let's get our country back!”

At this point, Hostin and Co. could stop calling President Donald Trump “Hitler.” It might reflect too kindly on their new favorite candidate …

RELATED: Spencer Pratt 2.0? Actor Michael Rapaport eyes run against NYC Mayor Mamdani

Bravo/Getty Images

No Time to Fry

An old “Gilligan’s Island” episode found the castaways discovering a Japanese soldier from WWII. He thought the war hadn’t ended yet, yuk yuk, and captured Gilligan and pals.

Pierce Brosnan sounds a bit like that while promoting climate change hysteria. The cause du jour has been dropped by Greta Thunberg. Major media outlets like Politico and NPR have dialed down their coverage. Even former scaremonger Bill Gates now says it’s not as big a deal after all.

Tell that to the erstwhile 007.

Pierce Brosnan fired up his Instagram account, from his Hawaiian home, to push the fear movement anew.

“Climate change is often spoken about as a scientific issue, an environmental issue, an economic issue. And it is all of those things. But above all, it is a moral issue. … Human activity — the burning of fossil fuels, the destruction of forests, and the relentless exploitation of our natural world — has altered the delicate balance of the Earth’s climate.”

The ghost of Alan Hale Jr., aka the Skipper, would like to swat Bronson’s head with his hat …

Broken Clock Awards

Sometimes far-left celebrities throw us curveballs. This week, two did just that, buckling our knees like vintage Clayton Kershaw. First, Whoopi Goldberg defended President Donald Trump.

No, really.

It wasn’t about policy, though. Goldberg says the president, a huge Knicks fan, should be able to attend one of the NBA Finals games against the San Antonio Spurs.

“I think anybody who’s a Knicks fan should be there,” Goldberg said. “You earned the right as a Knicks fan. I don’t have to like you.”

Huge if true. And it’s true!

Even more startling? Trump derangement sufferer Stephen King similarly praised the president this week, at least indirectly. That in itself is stunning, given the level of invective he shares against Trump.

The horror guru shared an image of the recently upgraded reflecting pool in Washington, D.C., a pet project for the president. King noted the image was “very beautiful,” no caveats.

Who knew “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” was a true story?

On June 9, Graham Platner won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Maine, securing approximately 72% of the vote in the primary to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November.

His campaign was highly scandal-ridden due to revelations, including a chest tattoo resembling a Nazi SS symbol, sexually explicit texts sent to other women while married, allegations from multiple ex-partners of emotional volatility, heavy drinking, and physically threatening or abusive behavior, and resurfaced Reddit posts containing remarks many found offensive, homophobic, and inflammatory.

Despite these controversies, Platner prevailed with strong grassroots and progressive support.

BlazeTV's Pat Gray was surprised by the lack of outrage. “None of these scandals have had any effect on his candidacy,” he sighs.

But what shocked him even more was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) comments to reporters on Tuesday. Following Platner’s victory, the democratic socialist — and one of the most vocal critics of Republican scandals — appeared to hypocritically shrug off his numerous controversies.

“When it comes to the substance of this reporting, obviously there's a lot in that behavior that's really challenging. It's hard to stomach ... but at the end of the day, I think that this is a choice,” she told CNN’s Manu Raju.

“If the choice on the ballot is between that and a senator who's voted to take health care away from millions of Americans, that's the situation that we have to weigh,” she added.

Co-host Keith Malinak translates her words: "Is he sexting with women and wearing Nazi tattoos and mocking those that serve in our armed forces? Yeah, but he would vote for the government to spend money for other people's health insurance.”

“I mean, she literally said something like, ‘at the end of the day, it's a choice.’ What a profound statement that is,” scoffs Pat. “Obviously it's a choice, and you made the bad choice there.”

Jeffy speculates that the scandals surrounding Platner are likely even deeper, considering progressive activists Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan, who recruited Platner, admitted in an interview with Wall Street Journal reporter Aaron Zitner to paying a professional vetting/opposition research firm “a whole chunk of money” to scrub Platner before his campaign even began.

But it wasn’t wholly effective given the scandals that have dominated the news cycle of late — including a deleted post from 2021 where Platner wrote, “I got older and became a communist.”

“It’s despicable,” says Pat.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Eighty-six is more than just a number. It is slang that for roughly a century has meant "to get rid of" or "to throw out."

When used in reference to a person, 86-ing can mean the person's termination of employment or denial of service. To "86 someone" does, however, have another widely understood meaning: to kill that person.

'Any threat against the president is taken very seriously.'

Just weeks ahead of the primary America250 celebrations in the national capital and days ahead of the UFC match at the White House, a massive "86 47" appeared etched or possibly chemically burned into the grass on the National Mall, just east of the World War II memorial.

The numbers 86 and 47 — the latter an apparent reference to the 47th president, Donald Trump — were still visible on Friday in the live images taken by EarthCam's camera, which is mounted atop the Washington Monument.

Members of the National Guard and U.S. Park Police responded to the scene of the vandalism, which was reported around 11:30 a.m. on Thursday. The area was promptly roped off by National Park Service workers.

Park Police said that grass samples have been collected for testing.

"The deranged vandalism on our National Mall will not be tolerated," the U.S. Department of the Interior, which manages national parks like the National Mall, said in a statement obtained by NBC News. "Any threat against the president is taken very seriously by the department, and our U.S. Park Police will investigate this incident and hold those responsible accountable."

White House spokesman David Ingle condemned the act, stating, "Anyone who engages in or endorses political violence or assassination culture must be condemned in the harshest terms possible."

RELATED: Texas radical charged with making terroristic threats against Erika Kirk

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Just days ago, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss — an appointee of former President Barack Obama — barred the National Park Service from preventing an anti-Trump group from waving an "86 47" flag around in the area.

The radical group in question, Accountability Now USA, has volunteers calling nonstop for the president's ouster and protesting the Trump administration near the George Meade statue on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. The group was notified in April by an NPS agent that the display of "unprotected obscenity" was "not protected by the First Amendment and is therefore prohibited and a violation of law."

The Obama judge evidently didn't share the NPS' concerns about the group's inflammatory messaging targeting a man whom assassins have attempted to murder on at least three occasions. Moss wrote, "The term '86' is used far more often to mean 'throw out' than 'kill,' and it appeared at a demonstration that was focused, of all things, on the constitutional impeachment and 'removal' of the President."

The unknown radical or radicals behind the vandalism at the National Mall and Accountability Now USA's flag-bearers are hardly the only individuals who have used the numbers to publicly call for Trump's elimination of one kind or another.

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted in late April over his since-deleted social media post featuring an image of seashells arranged to form the numbers "86 47." Comey was charged with threatening the life of the president and transmitting in interstate and foreign commerce a communication that contained a threat to kill the president.

While she has not similarly been indicted, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) faced backlash in 2020 during Trump's first term for conducting an interview with a pin displayed behind her that read "8645." Trump was then the 45th president.

The Trump War Room account said at the time, "Whitmer is encouraging assassination attempts against President Trump just weeks after someone sent a ricin-laced packaged to the White House."

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Fans have shelled out hard-earned cash for 007: First Light, making it a smash hit for developer IO Interactive.

But with more than 3 million sales in the first two weeks, there are still questions about the game's profitability and, of course, its ideological direction for James Bond.

'We are well above our forecasts at this point.'

The truth is, the James Bond video game franchise has chugged along like a broken locomotive for the better part of 20 years, with First Light being the first console release for the iconic brand since 2012's 007: Legends, which was viewed quite unfavorably.

However, with help of IO Interactive, Bond has been ported from a mostly nonexistent gaming environment to a fairly good and playable game.

Your gameplay, Mr. Bond

First Light looks and feels an awful lot like the Hitman games — which IO Interactive makes — utilizing stealth elements and interactive characters as its bread and butter. Where the titular hit man has in his repertoire multiple costume changes and the use of closets or containers to dump dead bodies, 007 employs gadgets and persuasion.

On to the game. After getting through a gigantic user license agreement, followed by an exhaustive privacy policy, fans eventually get to find out how Bond became 007.

Gamers will love the fly-by introductory sequence that breezes through game mechanics in a fun way, making it feel like the opening montage of a movie.

However, this introduction eventually turns into several boring training missions where Bond is forced to make decisions in the dreaded "mash X or Y" style to work through scenarios that don't really matter. For example, after being poisoned, Bond must choose to inject one syringe or another; the antidote or something else. The game prompts you to press both at the same time; if you don't, nothing happens. Bond injects both anyway, and the story continues.

The unfortunate beginning is the game's worst part. Soon some mission freedom is allowed. After making their way through forced many forced pathways, gamers eventually land on an extremely James Bond-esque title screen, complete with a Lana Del Rey theme song and a (PG) sex scene. It's once again an immersive, movie-like environment.

Once the story moves into actual missions, though, the game settles in to remind you of Hitman in all the best ways. You can beat up anyone you please, wander around the mission looking for secrets, and, in very Bond ways, manipulate enemies.

Fake surrenders, radio frequency poisonings, and malfunctioning vacuum cleaners are just some of the dynamics at play as Bond infiltrates rooms and gets key intel, satisfyingly providing multiple pathways to complete a mission.

RELATED: Idris Elba: Black James Bond was never 'realistic' possibility

Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

Diversity or nothing

While the game is the best we've seen from Bond in more than a decade, one can't help but notice that certain elements do feel like an Amazon-backed tribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion was force-fed into the game.

The first stirrings come courtesy of Moneypenny, played by Kiera Lester. Instead of going with how Lester looks in real life, her appearance is warped into a heavily androgenized and non-feminine version of herself, complete with baggy "boss lady" suit pants.

Moneypenny sassily introduces you to M, the leader of British secret service, MI6. This role is now played by British actress Priyanga Burford, a Sri Lankan woman who was significantly de-aged for the role.

Burford previously played MI6 scientist Dr. Symes in 2021's live-action "No Time to Die," which of course makes no sense in the game context unless her character took a huge pay cut and became a scientist later in life.

Yet the rest of the game, including all of Bond's fellow spies, puts the woke away, delivering instead the classic English personalities we have all grown to love. You have to relish the drab disgust with Bond that wafts off of "Walking Dead" actor Lennie James' John Greenway.

Any trace of what would otherwise seem like typical progressive-style diversity is reserved for nondescript MI6 scientists and background characters, all of whom are given slapstick one-liners and buffoonish behaviors.

The player therefore gets an impression that the DEI-scented British government roles are there to quietly make a point. Moneypenny long served as Bond's flirtatious counterpart, but since she is now emptied of any feminine charge, the flirting moves to fellow secret agent Cressida, who is quickly framed up as a possible love interest.

RELATED: iPhone's debut crushed young women's fertility, new study says

A pretty penny

As reported by Game Developer, IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak has said he's "very confident" the game will be profitable for the studio, after reports that it had an eye-popping production cost north of $200 million.

"We are well above our forecasts at this point," Abrak said.

Yet Steam charts, often used as a barometer for game performance, had First Light peaking around 71,000 concurrent players on PC, which reportedly represented about a third of the game's sales.

This does not look good for a game of this magnitude or budget. Current players have been floating around 19,000 for the past few days at the time of this writing. These figures have First Light barely breaking the top 100 of the charts.

Nevertheless, when all is said and done, 007: First Light represents a significant step forward for the franchise, marking the first game of its kind worth talking about in around a quarter-century. All it took was kind of copying another successful game.

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I’m a huge basketball fan. I grew up watching the NBA, arguing about players who retired before I was born, and wasting hours on a no-look pass nobody had asked for. But if basketball is a passion, soccer is something deeper.

I have supported Manchester United since I was old enough to go to the bathroom unsupervised. My father, meanwhile, is a diehard Liverpool supporter. Growing up, our house was less a home and more a demilitarized zone. United against Liverpool was the closest my family came to civil war. If United won, I floated around the house for days. If Liverpool won, my father suddenly became the world's most insufferable human being.

That rivalry taught me why soccer is special. Half the beauty of soccer is the madness. The missed chances. The terrible refereeing decisions. The goalkeeper who slips at the worst possible moment. The defender who accidentally turns a routine clearance into an own goal.

Perhaps when it's too late, you realize perfection is often sterile.

Human error is a part of the beautiful game.

For most of soccer's history, fans accepted that referees would occasionally get things wrong. Sometimes those mistakes hurt. Sometimes they helped. Sometimes they became legendary stories repeated decades later in pubs, living rooms, and stadium parking lots. Then came VAR.

From helper to master

For anyone unfamiliar, VAR stands for video assistant referee. In simple terms, it is soccer's version of instant replay on AI-infused steroids. A team of officials watches the game through cameras and can tell the referee to stop play and review decisions involving goals, penalties, red cards, and offside calls.

The idea sounds reasonable enough. Use technology to make the game fairer.

The reality has been something rather different.

A striker scores. The crowd erupts. Fans hug strangers. Drinks fly through the air. Somewhere, a man loses his glasses and another loses his mind. Then everyone waits. And waits. And waits.

A group of officials in a room filled with screens begin examining freeze-frames as if they were analyzing evidence from a murder investigation. Lines appear on the screen. Angles are checked. Pixels are interrogated. The striker's left nostril may have wandered two millimeters beyond the last defender.

Two minutes later, the goal is disallowed. The stadium goes silent. What was once one of the most emotional moments in sports now comes with a mandatory waiting period. Every goal feels like it must survive an IRS audit before it can officially exist. VAR arrived to correct errors and corrected the joy out of the game instead.

RELATED: Top companies admit humans cost less than AI — but still want more bots

L-R: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Timothy Hurst/MediaNews Group/Denver Post/Getty Images

The suspense is gone. The spontaneity is gone. Fans now celebrate goals with the enthusiasm of someone waiting for a bank transfer to clear. Nobody knows whether they should cheer immediately or wait for the algorithmic overlords in the replay bunker to issue a ruling.

And now something similar may be coming to basketball.

Like clockwork

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently discussed plans to use AI-powered camera systems to automatically make certain officiating decisions, particularly objective calls like out-of-bounds plays. Cameras would surround the court, instantly determining who touched the ball last.

Many will argue that this will eliminate mistakes. Maybe. But sports are rarely damaged by too much humanity. If anything, they are usually damaged by too little. The danger isn’t that AI gets calls wrong, but that it gradually turns the game into a laboratory experiment in which every action is measured, verified, and approved by machines.

Today, it's out-of-bounds calls. Tomorrow, it's automatic travel violations. Next year? AI-generated foul probabilities. A few years after that, an algorithm to calculate whether a defender's facial expression suggested illegal contact. At some point, the referee becomes less an official and more a highly paid hall monitor standing near a very expensive computer.

Basketball fans should pay attention, because technology rarely arrives with a modest appetite. Name one piece of tech that hasn't colonized everything around it. Even something that began as small as a step counter now grades how you sleep. VAR will not be the exception.

The NBA undoubtedly has officiating problems. Every fan knows it. Every playoff game seems to produce a new controversy. But there’s a real difference between improving officiating and outsourcing the soul of the game.

Sports are compelling because humans play them and humans judge them. Players make mistakes. Coaches make mistakes. Referees make mistakes. Fans make mistakes too. I once bet a ridiculous sum on a United academy prospect I was sure would be the next Ronaldo. Last I checked, he was playing for a third-tier side somewhere in East Asia.

Perfection sounds appealing. Then one day, perhaps when it's too late, you realize perfection is often sterile. This risk, now facing soccer and basketball, ultimately menaces all our sports. In our obsession with eliminating every error, we seem bent on eliminating everything that makes sports feel alive: all its unpredictable moments. Arguments, controversies, the stories people remember for decades.

Yes, once every decision is handed to a machine, the games may become more accurate. They will also become a lot less interesting, because they'll be so much less human.

To me, at least, a world where nobody can scream at the referee from the couch hardly sounds like progress at all.

“Accuracy comes before speed.” That was California Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s message to voters in a press release issued two days after officials began counting ballots from June’s primary. In the same release, she reminded voters that the count could continue for up to 30 days after Election Day.

Weber argued that California is “taking the time to do this work correctly” to protect voters’ rights and ensure election integrity.

After 2022, 2024, and this year’s primary, the problem no longer looks like a glitch. It looks like a pattern created by poor policy choices.

She is right about one thing: Accuracy matters.

Every lawful ballot should be counted. Every voter should be confident that election officials will get the count right.

But a week after Election Day, California was still processing 1.4 million ballots under a system that routinely extends vote counting for days and sometimes weeks after voters cast their ballots.

That raises a question California’s leaders seem increasingly unwilling to answer: Why are voters repeatedly told they must choose between accurate elections and timely results?

This is not the first time California has found itself in this mess.

In 2022, several California congressional races remained unresolved long after Election Day while control of the U.S. House hung in limbo. Two years later, California took 38 days to certify its election results. Now in 2026, Californians are again waiting weeks after Election Day for final results.

The details change. The outcome does not. Californians keep waiting.

So why does this keep happening?

The answer starts with California election law. According to CalMatters, the delay is due in part to policies California adopted to make voting easier after the COVID-19 pandemic: Every registered voter receives a mail ballot, and ballots remain valid as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at county elections offices within seven days.

Election law expert Hans von Spakovsky has argued that California’s slow vote count is not an isolated incident or unexpected complication. It is the way the state’s election system is designed.

RELATED: ‘Fraudster’s paradise’: Feds plan to file election fraud charges in California

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In other words, California is not experiencing an unexpected delay. It is experiencing the predictable results of the laws it chose.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) helped cement those policies in 2021 when he signed AB 37, making universal vote by mail permanent. His office promoted the law as “landmark elections legislation” that would expand vote by mail and strengthen election integrity.

Yet, Californians are now being sold the idea that waiting days or weeks for election results is simply the reality of modern elections.

It is not. It is the reality of California elections.

Timely results are part of election integrity. The longer ballots remain uncounted, the longer election officials must maintain secure chains of custody, verification systems, and storage. Delay does not automatically mean fraud. But delay does create more opportunities for confusion, suspicion, and avoidable controversy.

If California leaders want faster results, they should examine the policies that slow them down.

Instead, voters are told these delays are the unavoidable cost of administering elections in a large state. That explanation falls apart under scrutiny.

Look at Florida. The 2000 presidential election exposed serious weaknesses in that state’s election system. Legislators responded by reforming the state’s election administration and ballot-processing procedures.

Today, Florida is one of the fastest states in the country to report election results.

Florida allows election officials to begin processing mail ballots before Election Day, giving counties a head start on verification. The state also requires most mail ballots to be received by Election Day rather than days afterward. Voters whose signatures are missing or do not match generally have a much shorter window to fix those problems than California voters do.

Florida proves that accuracy and speed are not mutually exclusive.

California has chosen a different approach.

This is about more than administrative efficiency. In five months, Californians will return to the polls for the midterm election. Voters deserve confidence that the results will be accurate. They also deserve confidence that those results will arrive on time.

RELATED: Homeless people on Skid Row claim they were paid to vote — and not for Spencer Pratt

Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Lawmakers should examine whether ballots should continue arriving after Election Day and still be counted. They should review whether lengthy ballot-curing timelines help voters or simply extend uncertainty. Election officials should also receive every opportunity to process ballots before Election Day so results can be reported faster once polls close.

Most important, California leaders should stop pretending accuracy and speed are enemies. Florida proves they are not.

Weber says accuracy comes before speed. California voters should ask why they cannot have both.

After 2022, 2024, and this year’s primary, the problem no longer looks like a glitch. It looks like a pattern created by poor policy choices.

California built an election process that can take a month after Election Day to resolve.

Voters should stop accepting that as normal.

A 12-year-old boy and his 11-year-old sister were traumatized by two thugs who robbed their lemonade stand after threatening them with a gun, according to the kids' father.

David Byrne said his two children were selling lemonade in their south Boston neighborhood when they were approached by two juveniles at 4:40 p.m. on Wednesday.

'This is appalling; this is grotesque. This is something that should not happen to young kids.'

The juveniles said they wanted to buy lemonade but walked away after claiming they didn't have any money. A few minutes later they returned, and one flashed a black gun in his waistband.

"My kids immediately just put their hands up and said, 'Take whatever you want.' So, I'm proud of my kids for that, and I'm proud of them for basically protecting each other but also being smart in that bad situation," Byrne said to WBZ-TV.

The juveniles allegedly took all of the cash that the children had earned and fled on foot.

"This is appalling; this is grotesque. This is something that should not happen to young kids," the father said to WHDH-TV.

"Can't have a gun and can't be robbing lemonade stands. It's as easy as that," he added.

He went on to say that the children were sad and a little bit disturbed by what happened.

Boston police said they were searching for the juveniles and that no arrests had been made. They did release video and images of suspects they believed to be the juveniles responsible for the armed robbery.

RELATED: Video captures man walking up to kids' lemonade stand and running away after snatching their money

Boston Police Dept.

Residents of the neighborhood expressed their shock at the incident.

"It's awful and scary and definitely something you don't want to come home to after a night. It's disappointing. I didn't expect it on our street," Suzanna Ruotolo said.

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Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn said the residents were getting together to make sure the lemonade stand would reopen with the support of the community.

"Let's show them how much love and support the Southie community has for them. It is also our understanding that 50% of proceeds will be donated to a local organization working to prevent gun violence," Flynn said.

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As election integrity debates continue to rage across California, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck believes state leaders are making a dangerous mistake: treating skepticism as a threat instead of addressing the concerns behind it.

“What’s happening in California is dangerous, and ... if you can be reasonable and you can listen without the lens of your tribe, there is a way to an answer here. But nobody seems, especially on the left, nobody seems to want to actually fix the problem,” Glenn says.

“And so what do they want to do? They want to shut you up,” he adds, explaining that Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that “said fines and jail time [for] three years if you are interfering with the election.”

“This particular penalty is aimed at people who physically walk off with boxes of ballots,” Glenn explains. “Listen to the language around it.”

“The governor wrote a letter telling his officials to ‘count fast’ so the ‘election lies’ don’t take hold. Stop and think about that for a second. Wait a minute. The chief executive of the largest state in the union has appointed himself the man who decides which doubts are lies,” he says.

“And in the same season, his allies pass a provision that tells election observers they may no longer challenge the signatures on the ballot they’re watching get counted. So, they didn’t criminalize your doubt. They did something quieter,” he continues. “They turned down the lights in the room where the counting happens. And you’re told it’s a conspiracy theory to ask, ‘Why did it get so dark?’”

Glenn explains that a glaring issue with this is that the government cannot ever “be the arbiter of truth.”

“Especially when the question on the table is about the government itself. You cannot let the accused run the evidence room,” he says.

“You’re accusing California of having fraud, and what do they do? They say, ‘No, we’re in charge.’ Right? You’re the one that everybody’s saying is causing the fraud, and they’re saying, ‘No, you can’t question because there’s no fraud,’” he continues. “That doesn’t help anything.”

“This is not a conservative idea or a liberal idea. It’s just how you keep a free people free,” he adds.

The only things certain in life are death, taxes, and the permanence of a government program. But what happens when a private company turns its agenda into a government program?

You cannot build a more financially secure business model than permanence. That helps explain why OpenAI is now reportedly in discussions with the Trump administration about a possible public equity stake in the company.

Unlike the dot-com bubble, whose infrastructure later supported real economic growth, rotting data centers will not leave behind comparable public value.

After all, what else is a company with $1.4 trillion in obligations and only $14 billion in revenue supposed to do?

Why was OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Capitol Hill last week? According to the Financial Times, he was effectively selling Americans the rope to hang themselves. The plan proposed by OpenAI and other companies would reportedly create a sovereign-wealth-style fund into which AI companies would contribute equity so that the public could share in the sector’s soaring valuations.

That sounds generous until one remembers that this is still a loss-making sector built on staggering capital demands.

What is the rationale? Asked about equity stakes on Air Force One, President Trump suggested that “pieces” of AI companies could be “given to the American public” to quell growing alarm over the rapid rollout of the technology.

In other words, Americans are being asked to surrender farmland, neighborhood continuity, and the reliability of the electric grid to cloud-based, surveillance-enabling chatslop. In return, they may receive the honor of owning the losses from an insolvent business model.

The president confirmed the idea at a press conference on Wednesday, saying he would soon meet with “the top 12 or 15 executives” about “giving back something to the public.” He promised that “the public will become very rich.”

That promise should terrify everyone.

Once generative AI becomes a public project, the industry will move beyond “too big to fail.” Whatever happens to the companies or the broader sector, their success will become artificially and inextricably tied to the economy. Every government favor, subsidy, guarantee, and bailout will then be justified as necessary to protect the public’s stake.

RELATED: The AI boom is turning public meetings into crime scenes

Natalie Behring/Getty Images

Last November, OpenAI’s chief financial officer let the cat out of the bag when she said the company would need the government as a “backstop” for its business model. Sarah Friar later denied seeking a bailout. But a leaked 11-page letter from OpenAI to the Office of Science and Technology Policy urged the government to provide “grants, cost-sharing agreements, loans, or loan guarantees” to build America’s AI industrial base — all, naturally, to “compete with China.”

Fast-forward six months, and “backstop” now appears to mean a public “stake” in the company.

Everyone knows OpenAI’s generative AI model is unsustainable. It is built on unfathomably expensive capital expenditures for every token of AI usage.

Companies such as JPMorgan are reportedly finding that employees, after being pushed to use generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude, are spending more on tokens than their individual salaries. Uber’s chief technology officer said last month that the company burned through its entire 2026 budget for Claude Code and Cursor in just four months. In the irony of ironies, Microsoft itself reportedly told engineers in a major division to stop using an AI coding tool because the cost-to-utility ratio was not there.

The reality is that AI would work better through localized edge computing with low latency than through cloud-based hyperscale data centers that require unsustainable amounts of land, capital, resources, and power while causing other harms. China is producing cheap open-source AI. America is pouring concrete.

But the scale of that concrete — and all the materials, inputs, and power needed to support it — is unsustainable. Everyone knows it. Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle issued 47% more debt in the first five months of this year than they did from 2020 through 2024 combined. Total spending per capita now exceeds spending on the railroads in 1859, which at least served a clear public need that could be monetized over time.

RELATED: After fierce debate, Trump opts for federal controls in AI development

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images

There is no amount of monthly household or business subscription fees that will make this investment break even. The costs will only increase because the model depends on a resource-stripping industrial footprint and GPUs that have few other useful functions and depreciate within a few years.

Unlike the dot-com bubble, whose infrastructure later supported real economic growth, rotting data centers will not leave behind comparable public value.

The tech companies, land developers, and venture capital firms understand that this is a Ponzi scheme. They are racing to take these companies public so that they can be folded into indexes, ensuring that trillions in pension funds are funneled into an unsustainable business model. Once that happens, even if a more efficient approach to AI becomes obvious, the economy and government will already be too dependent on the data center model to let it fail.

That is why these companies are also seeking federal land for their projects, a favor not extended to ordinary industries. SoftBank, the Japanese investment company trying to underwrite much of OpenAI’s speculative build-out, is reportedly pushing for a federal land project in Ohio to reduce costs. But banks are already balking at these ventures after SoftBank failed to secure a $6 billion loan for OpenAI.

Green energy taught us a simple lesson: When the only path to profitability runs through government favors, we should not start down that path.

OpenAI does not need a public stake. It needs public skepticism.

Americans should not be asked to subsidize a speculative industry, sacrifice land and power, and then call the bailout wealth creation. If AI companies cannot survive without government backstops, loan guarantees, public land, and pension-fund capture, then they are not building the future.

They are building the next permanent government program.

Philadelphia police have released surveillance video of suspects wanted in the fatal shooting of a Penn State student in South Philadelphia, WPVI-TV reported.

Billy Schmidt, 22, was shot dead early Saturday morning in the 1900 block of Durfor Street, the station said.

'He was a really good person who cared about everybody and never hurt or bothered a soul, never bothered anyone, and for him to get shot like that is a travesty.'

Investigators said video released Wednesday shows suspects walking in the area of 20th Street from Ritner Street to Jackson Street before encountering Schmidt, WPVI said.

The suspects also allegedly were seen fleeing on foot in the area of 22nd and Porter streets after the shots were fired, the station said.

Schmidt, a Penn State senior, was shot just yards from his family's home around 1:30 a.m., WPVI reported.

Family members told the station Schmidt was returning from a nearby bar where he was watching the NBA Finals with friends.

"He was a really good person who cared about everybody and never hurt or bothered a soul, never bothered anyone, and for him to get shot like that is a travesty," Bill Schmidt, the victim's father, told WPVI.

More from the station:

Surveillance video captured by nearby cameras appears to show the moments leading up to the shooting. In one video, a man can be seen throwing a cell phone. Seconds later, another man runs around a corner with Schmidt chasing him. The gunman then turns around and shoots Schmidt in the chest.

Bill Schmidt said he later found his son's phone under a car and turned it over to police.

"I'm shocked he chased them after they took his phone," the elder Schmidt said, according to WPVI. "From what we're told, another person came out and shot him."

Lifelong friends of Schmidt gathered at a memorial in South Philadelphia on Wednesday evening, the station said.

"Leaning on each other is all we did growing up, and that's what we'll continue to do," Jaden Kelly of South Philadelphia told WPVI.

"I hope they find them. I want [them] in jail. That's what I want. They don't deserve to get to walk away from what they did," Matthew Segal of South Philadelphia also told the station.

RELATED: Karmelo Anthony appeals his murder conviction in stabbing death of Austin Metcalf

Friends told WPVI they didn't learn of Schmidt's death until the next day; now they're cherishing the moments they had with him Friday night into Saturday morning.

"The way he always said goodbye. It was a big hug and 'I love you,' and I'm happy we got to say that one last time," Gino Russo of South Philadelphia recalled to the station.

A vigil was set for Thursday night, WPVI said.

"They are animals for doing that to him," the victim's sister said, according to a Fox News video.

In addition, police are offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, WPVI said, adding that those with information are asked to call 215-686-TIPS.

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The driver and passenger of a tractor trailer are facing federal charges after they sped away from a Border Patrol checkpoint before having to stop after their vehicle caught fire.

Bodycam footage published by WFAA-TV showed police officers frantically trying to open the trailer doors to save the dozens of suspected illegal aliens inside.

All of the migrants were pulled to safety, and no one was harmed.

On June 4 at about 8:36 p.m., Jairo Julian Holguin-Florentino was driving the tractor trailer through the Falfurrias checkpoint before a service canine alerted police to the possible presence of trafficked migrants.

The driver sped away on Highway 281 instead of stopping for a secondary inspection, and various agencies gave chase.

Police used spikes to flatten the vehicle's tires in an attempt to stop the driver, but he continued to drive on the rims and the vehicle caught fire.

The driver and passenger were dragged out of the cab and arrested when police said they heard screaming coming from the locked cargo trailer of the burning vehicle.

Video showed officers rescuing dozens of migrants as smoke and fire engulfed the trailer. All of the migrants were pulled to safety, and no one was harmed.

Officials later said there were 39 rescued illegal aliens who were from Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.

The Texas Department of Safety published video of body camera footage from the incident on its YouTube channel.

RELATED: At least 46 illegal aliens found DEAD in a trailer in San Antonio, and death toll may climb higher

"This case highlights the serious risks associated with human smuggling, including dangerous and life-threatening conditions inside concealed vehicles," reads a statement from the U.S. Border Patrol about the incident.

Holguin-Florentino is the father-in-law of the passenger who was arrested, Cristian Johansel Mirambeaux-Martinez.

"This incident is a reminder of the dangerous lengths human smugglers will go to when engaging in this criminal activity, and DPS is proud to work with our federal partners, like [U.S. Border Patrol], to stop them," reads a statement from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

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Vance Boelter admitted to shooting Mark Hortman at the entrance of the victim's home before chasing down Melissa Hortman to shoot her numerous times and place his 9mm gun to her head.

The guilty plea ended the federal criminal prosecution in the horrific murders of a Democratic Minnesota state representative and her husband, as well as the attack on another political couple.

'While the legal process may provide accountability, true healing requires something more from all of us.'

Boelter was arrested by the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office two days after the June 14, 2025, attack that shook Minnesota.

He had impersonated a police officer when he showed up at the home of Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and shot him and his wife numerous times before he shot at their daughter, Hope Hoffman.

Boelter then went to the Hortmans' front door to kill the couple.

Prosecutors said he had a list of other lawmakers he was targeting and visited the homes of those lawmakers but found no one at home.

John Hoffman, his wife Yvette Hoffman, and their family were in the audience at today's hearing.

Boelter pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking, two counts of murder, and two counts of firearm discharge. He agreed to serve two life sentences and another 40 years in prison. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to not seek the death penalty, according to U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen.

"Political violence is a scourge in our nation," Rosen said after the plea deal. "We now expect Vance Boelter will spend the rest of his natural life in prison without parole. To all of those who would commit political violence: this Justice Department will seek and obtain the longest prison terms for your offense."

Boelter is also facing numerous state charges related to the attacks, including first-degree premeditated murder, attempted first-degree murder, felony cruelty to an animal, and impersonating a police officer.

RELATED: Exclusive: Assassination suspect Vance Boelter tells STUNNING inside story about shooting

The Hoffman family released a statement Thursday about the plea deal.

"There is not justice when our family and our state will never truly heal. While the legal process may provide accountability, true healing requires something more from all of us," their statement reads.

"The choice we've made is to go forward with public service and being present for our community," the family added. "The opportunity to justice is for Minnesotans and Americans to serve is to treat people with respect, to stop de-humanizing each other, and to stop dividing our country with hate and rhetoric."

A GoFundMe page set up to help pay for the Hoffmans' recovery raised over $265K.

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President Donald Trump named Jay Clayton, the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, as his next director of national intelligence.

The president made the announcement on Truth Social after many Republicans objected to his nomination of Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as temporary DNI.

'Few people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay.'

"I am pleased to announce the Nomination of very Highly Respected Jay Clayton, former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the former Head of Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the most prominent and successful Law Firms anywhere in the World," the president wrote, "and the current United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to be the next Director of National Intelligence and, importantly, to serve in my Cabinet."

Clayton was previously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a vote of 61-37 to lead the SEC.

"Few people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay," the president added. "I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible."

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina praised the pick in a statement on social media.

"Jay Clayton is an OUTSTANDING choice by President Trump to serve as Director of National Intelligence," he wrote. "Jay is a proven leader with a distinguished record of public service and sound judgment needed to lead our intelligence community. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure his swift confirmation."

Tillis vehemently opposed the nomination of Pulte, whom he called an "incendiary attack dog" that didn't have "a prayer" to get past the Senate.

RELATED: Federal housing director calls for investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell — and for his removal

"Whoever told the president to go ahead and commit to this publicly before vetting it should lose their jobs, because they should know that the math just works against Pulte being confirmed," Tillis said at the time.

Democrats warned that they would oppose Pulte as well as the extension of FISA surveillance authorization.

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Karmelo Anthony says he is unable to pay for an attorney for his appeal after being convicted in the murder of high school track star Austin Metcalf.

Anthony is requesting a court-appointed attorney, according to a filing that claimed he was a "penniless, destitute, and indigent person."

The Anthony family reportedly purchased a new car and moved into a ritzy neighborhood in a gated community after the killer's bond was lowered.

The high-profile murder case has led to suspicions that the Anthony family misspent $625,000 that was raised from their supporters.

Anthony was convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison for stabbing Metcalf during an altercation at a track meet event in Frisco, Texas. His attorney, Mike Howard, said they were going to immediately file an appeal.

"After the conclusion of the trial yesterday, we gave the court our official notice that Karmelo Anthony is filing an appeal," said Howard. "We believe there are several important issues for the appellate courts to consider. An appeal is the next part of the legal process and a right afforded every American."

The case has become a flash point in the public debate between those claiming the U.S. is irredeemably racist and others who say the conviction and sentence were appropriate for Anthony's violent attack.

Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas responded to the conviction by claiming that the Metcalf family didn't know the depth of agony that all black mothers feel.

"Black women, especially black women who have black male children, live in fear and agony every single day, a fear and agony that, I promise you, the Metcalfs probably never spend a day living that way," the congresswoman said.

"We're gonna have to have just some real conversations about race in this country," she added, "but also just, like, what are we going to do to protect ourselves."

RELATED: White-hating agitator claiming Karmelo Anthony was 'legally lynched' is a criminal, disgraced ex-judge

A Daily Mail report said the Anthony family purchased a new car and moved into a ritzy neighborhood in a gated community after the killer's bond was lowered from $1 million to $250,000 in April 2025.

Anthony had claimed that he was protecting himself and that Metcalf had put his hands on Anthony before the lethal stabbing. Officials admitted that the knife Anthony brought to the event was not illegal according to Texas law.

He will eligible for parole after serving at least half of his sentence.

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