Brianna and Kierianna Long now face several charges in connection with the May 30 incident, including assault with intent to murder, assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder and assault with a dangerous weapon, according to local reports. Both women have pleaded not guilty.

The two sisters entered the restaurant, ran behind the counter and attacked the 23-year-old employee after they were given a wrong order, prosecutors said, according to the outlet.

MICHIGAN ATHLETE LURED BY SNAPCHAT MESSAGE BEFORE BEING SHOT, DUMPED IN LAKE WHILE STILL ALIVE

The sisters threw items at the employee, chased her through the restaurant, hit her with pots and pans, attempted to throw hot grease on her head and threatened to kill her, according to prosecutors.

"I'm going to kill you," one of the sisters allegedly said during the encounter, WDIV reported.

The employee was then stabbed in the stomach with a knife by Kierianna, prosecutors said.

The injured employee had to be taken to the hospital for surgery after she ran out of the restaurant and hid inside a strangers vehicle while calling for help.

Brianna, 29, and Kierianna, 26, fled the scene after the attack but were eventually arrested by police.

Defense attorneys attempted to dispute the allegations in court, arguing that the employee triggered the assault by saying that she did not "give a f---" about the food order error before throwing items including knives first during the incident.

ARMY VETERAN DIES MONTHS AFTER DOORDASH DRIVER ALLEGEDLY SUCKER PUNCHED HIM OVER SPEEDING COMPLAINT

Brianna, who was 9 months pregnant at the time of the incident, gave birth four days before her arraignment, her attorney said, ClickonDetroit reported. She pleaded with the judge by saying that she was innocent and had a 4-day-old baby at home.

Both sisters pleaded not guilty to the charges. Brianna was held on a $25,000 cash bond and Kierianna was held on a $100,000 cash bond.

Natravien R. Landry, 27, pleaded guilty June 11 to second-degree murder and use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence in the killing of U.S. Army Sgt. Andre S. Stewart Jr. at what was then Fort Eisenhower, now Fort Gordon, in Augusta, Georgia. Landry faces a minimum of 10 years and up to life in federal prison, according to federal prosecutors.

The shooting happened on the morning of Dec. 14, 2024, at an apartment complex on the military base.

According to a probable cause arrest affidavit, Landry was at drill duty earlier that morning and was on a break when he went to the woman's home.

NAVY SAILOR ADMITS KILLING FELLOW SERVICE MEMBER AS MOTHER QUESTIONS MISSED WARNING SIGNS

A witness told authorities that Landry noticed a black truck parked in front of the apartment and asked who owned the vehicle.

Suspecting another man was at the residence, Landry barged inside the apartment and upstairs to a bedroom where he found Stewart, who was dating the woman at the time, according to federal prosecutors.

The woman said they were sleeping when she heard a commotion. Two children were also present at the time of the incident.

Landry, who was aware Stewart was unarmed, shot him once in the chest. Stewart was later pronounced dead.

After the shooting, Landry fled the residence and the military base, but he was later arrested during a traffic stop on Interstate 85 by the Meriwether County Sheriffs Office.

He threw the gun out of the window, but it was later found by deputies. Testing proved that the recovered handgun was used in the shooting.

Landry later admitted to the shooting in a Mirandized interview.

SOLDIER CHARGED WITH MURDER AFTER FEMALE SERGEANT'S BODY FOUND IN DUMPSTER AT MISSOURI BASE

The woman told investigators that Landry was jealous of Stewart.

Stewart's sister wrote shortly after the incident that her brother was "viciously murdered." She said he left behind a 5-year-old son who was one of the children in the apartment at the time of the shooting.

Landry's sentencing date has not yet been set.

The seven scheduled fights are expected to go on for approximately four hours, and the UFC is prepared to enforce 30 minute delays for lightning but the likelihood of thunderstorms in the area was high enough that the organization opted to push everything back one hour. Live coverage was still set to begin at 8p.m. ET, but the first fight was delayed until 9p.m.

UFC calls for Freedom 250 delay due to looming thunderstorms https://t.co/sEFx6Mz3aH pic.twitter.com/b3s1JMupZg

New York Post (@nypost) June 14, 2026

As The New York Post reported, Weather Channel projections called for a 57 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms in the 8 p.m. hour and a 100 percent certainty of thunderstorms in the 9 p.m. hour.

Dana White addressed the possibility of weather-related delays earlier in the week, saying, I dont care if it snows, rains, whatever; were going. And even lightning. You guys all played sports when you were growing up whenever there was lightning, youd sit the lightning out, and then when it was over, you played. Thats what well do.

The Weather Channel posted the forecast earlier on Sunday, prompting a defiant response from the White House: Rain or shine, were celebrating our great country no matter what. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Eric Trump gave fans a sneak peek of the UFC set-up from the roof of the White House just hours ahead of the event: All right, guys, UFC starts in a couple hours. Heres what it looks like from the top of the White House.

pic.twitter.com/NNvczB02Nr

Eric Trump (@EricTrump) June 14, 2026

pic.twitter.com/NNvczB02Nr

Eric Trump (@EricTrump) June 14, 2026

Once the fights get started, any lightning strikes within an eight-mile radius of the White House will trigger an automatic 30-minute delay.

On Friday, the baseball team held Pride Night, dedicating the game to a celebration of Pride and the LGBTQIA+ community that included pregame festivities, in-game celebrations, and appearances. The event featured same-sex couples renewing their marriage vows on the field in the presence of a drag queen, and the team celebrated the LGBTQ community through rainbow-colored hats, according to FOX. 

A few players, however, took a stand including Landen Roupp, who was raised in rural North Carolina and attended a private Christian school. Before heading to the mound, he inscribed the Bible passage from Genesis 9 on his cap.

The verses describe Gods promise to Noah and all future generations that he would never again destroy the earth with a flood, with the rainbow serving as the sign of that covenant.

And God said, This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.' Genesis 9:12-16

An article from The Athletic expressed outrage over their decision, saying the Bible verses missed the point  during a night that was supposed to be dedicated to support and belonging. 

After the game, Roupp said his Biblical gesture reflected his moral convictions. 

Why was it important to write that verse tonight?

ROUPP: The rainbow is a symbol of Gods covenant to us, and us as believers stand firm in that Theres no hate at all.

What would say if somebody considered that derogatory toward them as a community?

ROUPP: As a https://t.co/jaEs3ikn4U pic.twitter.com/yYOaJ0UvE7

KNBR (@KNBR) June 13, 2026

The rainbow is a symbol of Gods covenant with us, and we as believers stand firm in that Theres no hate at all, he told reporters. Its just what I stand for and what I stand in, I believe in God.

What would you say if somebody considered that derogatory toward them as a community? a reporter asked him.

As a believer, I would push them to read the Bible. God has blessed me in so many ways, and I dont think Id be here right now if it wasnt for Him. 

Roupp was not alone. His pitch reliever, Sam Hentges, refused to wear the hat at all, for a very similar reason. 

I dont morally support it, he said. 

A recent Gallup poll showed that Roupp and Hentges are not alone, revealing declining support for LGBTQ+ issues across the board. 

The poll said same-sex marriage support dropped to 65%, which is down 6 points, and moral acceptance of gay/lesbian relations stood at 62% the lowest since 2016. 

The decline in support was driven largely by Republicans, with only 35% approving of same-sex marriage, the lowest level since 2011. The percentage of Americans who view gender transitions as morally acceptable also fell to 38%.

Tucker brings deep roots in Virginia journalism to the role. He was the founding editor of The Virginia Flyover, a publication he launched in the fall of 2024 to cover news from across the state. His timing proved fortuitous as the publication launched just as Hurricane Helene struck.

During his time at The Virginia Flyover, Tucker reported on major federal and statewide elections, provided in-depth coverage of Virginias congressional redistricting, and tackled issues ranging from health care and data centers to Navy deployments and criminal cases.

Tucker is based in Richmond and will report on stories from across the commonwealth.

At The Virginia Flyover, we tried to provide a brief overview of all the news from Virginia each day, but our format didnt allow us to examine any particular story in depth, Tucker said. Im looking forward to digging into and providing detailed coverage of important stories that matter to Virginians and our fellow Americans.

Earlier in his career, Tucker served as a senior writer at The Heritage Foundation. He contributed to Americas Opportunity for All, Heritages 2012 blueprint for the countrys political future. He is a graduate of Syracuse Universitys Newhouse School.

Richs firsthand knowledge of Virginia politics and policy makes him an ideal fit for what were building, said Bradley Devlin, politics editor for the Daily Signal. Rich and Joe Thomas will give Virginians the on-the-ground coverage they deserveand that the national media too often overlooks.

Virginia has long been a bellwether state for national politics, and the Daily Signal is committed to covering it comprehensively. With Thomas and Tucker working in tandem, readers can expect expanded reporting on the issues that matter most to Virginiansfrom Richmonds statehouse to communities across the commonwealth.

Tucker joins a growing network of state-based journalists at the Daily Signal, which has expanded its footprint to include correspondents in California, Georgia, and Ohio. The Daily Signals Texas bureau will launch soon.

Learn more about the State News Network and subscribe to our newsletters.

The robbery happened Wednesday afternoon near West Ninth Street, when two suspects allegedly approached two children operating the stand, stole their cash box and displayed a firearm during the incident.

Officials said the arrested suspect is facing multiple firearm-related charges, including two counts of armed robbery and two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm.

The second individual involved remains at large.

FLORIDA BOY OPENS LEMONADE STAND TO COVER DAYCARE TUITION FOR FALLEN OFFICER'S SON: 'WHAT JESUS WOULD DO'

The suspects allegedly targeted a lemonade stand run by an 11-year-old girl and her 12-year-old brother, CBS 4 Boston reported.

The Boston Police Department (BPD) said the pair made several passes by the stand before approaching and asking whether Apple Pay was accepted.

GOOD SAMARITAN GROCERY SHOPPER, DAD KILLED WHILE TRYING TO STOP TEEN ROBBERY SUSPECTS

Before the children could respond, the suspects allegedly grabbed the cash box, with one flashing a black firearm tucked into his waistband.

The Boston Herald reported that the suspects allegedly stole about $50 from the cash box.

Police said the 14-year-old suspect was arrested Friday after the police released surveillance video and photos of the two suspects Thursday afternoon in an effort to generate leads.

In the video, the suspects were seen wearing black face coverings, with one also carrying a black backpack and a pink box believed to be containing the cash.

Officials said the teen will be processed as a juvenile delinquent and is expected to be arraigned in Boston Juvenile Court on delinquency charges.

The police said it is actively reviewing the facts and circumstances surrounding the incident and urged anyone with information about the second suspect to contact detectives at (617) 343-4742.

The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete, President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform around 5:30 p.m. ET local time in Washington on Sunday. His post came shortly after Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has served as a mediator, announced a deal had been struck early on Monday local time.

The pact will be officially signed on Friday in Switzerland, Sharif wrote. 

The precise terms were not immediately known. Sharif said in a post on X that the pact called for the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.

Lebanon has been a sticking point in negotiations, with Israel and Hezbollah ignoring calls from Trump and others to stop their attacks on each other in recent weeks.

Trump said the Strait of Hormuz, a major shipping lane for global energy supplies that Iran has effectively shut down for months, would open on Friday, and that he had ordered the end of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow! Trump wrote.

Oil prices fell on the news. Brent crude futures fell 4% in early trading on Monday, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate slid more than 4.6%.

Irans deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said a more expansive agreement would be negotiated during a 60-day ceasefire period, including sanctions relief. The fate of Irans nuclear program will also be addressed in those later talks, sources previously told Reuters.

Thousands of people have been killed, mostly in Iran and Lebanon, since U.S. and Israeli forces first attacked Iran on February 28. Iran has struck Israel and Gulf states hosting U.S. bases and has effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, pushing up global energy prices. U.S. forces have blocked Iranian ports in response.

There was no immediate reaction to the announcement from Israel, which has said it was not party to the planned U.S.-Iran deal. 

The Iran war has become a political liability at home for Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress, with public opinion polls showing Americans deeply frustrated by rising gas prices ahead of Novembers midterm elections. But Trump has also faced pressure from members of his own party who insist that Irans nuclear program must be completely shut down.

Israeli Attack

The agreement was sealed despite an Israeli strike on Lebanon on Sunday that drew criticism from both Iran and Trump.

Iranian negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf earlier said Israels latest attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut, which Israel said targeted Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants, showed the United States lacks the will and ability to fulfill your commitments in a post on X.

Irans foreign ministry said it held the United States responsible for the attack. Iran warned of a strong response, and its top joint military command said the finger (is) on the trigger ready to fire at the enemys heart. 

In a post earlier on Sunday, Trump said: This mornings attack on Beirut should not have happened, particularly on a special day when we are so close to a Peace Deal with Iran. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has differed with Trump over American demands that Israel curb its military action in Lebanon to allow the United States to reach a deal with Iran. 

Israel has said it will retain freedom of operations in Lebanon, while Iran has made a full ceasefire there an important component of its demands.

Trump updated Netanyahu on the progress toward a peace deal during a phone call on Sunday, Israels N12 reported, citing a senior official.

Deal Terms

A senior Iranian official earlier told Reuters that, under the terms of the draft deal, the United States would agree to release $25 billion of frozen Iranian assets, while Iran would agree not to produce or acquire nuclear weapons. The official said Iran agreed to maintain the nuclear status quo, including no uranium enrichment or expanding nuclear facilities, until a final deal is reached.

A U.S. official, speaking before the deal was announced, said the agreement would ultimately lead to the dismantling of Irans nuclear program, with its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to be destroyed and removed. A senior Iranian official said the draft deal would allow Iran, which denies seeking a nuclear bomb, to dilute its enriched uranium inside the country.

Qatari negotiators flew to Tehran on Sunday morning as part of efforts to finalize the agreement, a source with knowledge of the situation told Reuters.

At pro-government rallies across Iran on Saturday night, residents and news agencies reported that hardliners opposed to the framework agreement loudly voiced their dissatisfaction.

A resident in the northeastern city of Mashhad told Reuters that some protesters chanted Death to the compromiser, in an apparent reference to Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus, Phil Stewart and Parisa Hafezi. Writing by Timothy Heritage and Joseph Ax; Editing by Sergio Non, William Mallard, Alex Richardson, Will Dunham and Barbara Lewis)

Senator McConnell was admitted to the hospital this morning. He is receiving excellent care, David Popp, spokesperson for the senator, said in a statement, according to Politico. 

The 84-year-old senator is a polio survivor and has, at times, had balance issues and sometimes needs to use rails to assist him in walking. In February 2025, the longtime Senate Majority Leader announced he would not seek reelection after a series of concerning medical setbacks.  

In 2023, he was rushed to the hospital after he tripped and fell during dinner.

A couple of months later, the Kentucky Republican went viral for all the wrong reasons, freezing up in a concerning medical episode while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill. 

Odd moment: McConnell freezes at start of Senate GOP leadership press conference and is escorted to the side by his colleagues pic.twitter.com/hT5bLnstOS

Raquel Martin (@RaquelMartinTV) July 26, 2023

Good afternoon, everyone. Were on a path to finishing the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) this week, theres been good bipartisan cooperation and a string of McConnell said, before going silent for about 20 seconds before some of his colleagues intervened to check on him.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), who is a physician, grabbed onto McConnells arm and asked, You okay, Mitch?

Is there anything else you want to say or should we just go back to your office? Barrasso asked. Do you want to say anything else to the press?

Barrasso and McConnell then stepped away for a brief period of time before returning.

 Sen. John Thune (R-SD) took over the press conference and addressed the media.

An aide for McConnell at the time said that the senator felt light-headed and stepped away for a moment. He came back to handle Q and A, which, as everyone observed, was sharp.

Back in 2019, McConnell also suffered a fractured shoulder after he tripped and fell at his home in Kentucky.

With few details available about the cause of his hospitalization or his condition, colleagues on Capitol Hill offered their well-wishes.

Join me in lifting Senator McConnell in prayer for a swift recovery. Grateful to hear he is receiving excellent care from his medical team, and we look forward to seeing him in the Senate halls soon, Senator Tim Scott said.

The Office of Special Counsel released a report this week that confirmed the disclosure of Education Department whistleblower Timothy Mattson, who said the departments Office of Civil Rights unlawfully processed complaints about gender identity discrimination after a federal judge halted an executive order from going into effect that was the basis for the investigations.

According to Mattsons disclosure, the Office for Civil Rights investigated a school that restricted athletic competition to biological sex.

In another case, the department opened a probe of a school that declined to change a students name and pronouns in academic records and restricted bathroom use to biological sex.

Some of those officials remain in positions of authority at the department under the Trump administration, according to a whistleblower advocacy group.

The substantiated allegationsthat senior leadership directed or facilitated the circumvention of a binding federal injunction over multiple years and across multiple officesraise serious concerns that demand accountability, Charles N. Baldis, chief counsel for the Office of Special Counsel, wrote.

While ED has outlined some corrective steps, I believe that more robust action is required to ensure accountability and prevent recurrence, Baldis wote.

Department officials followed President Bidens executive order in processing these complaints, but this was contrary to a federal court injunction.

On his first day in office, Jan. 20, 2021, Biden signed an executive order expanding Title IX protections to cover gender identity and sexual orientation. Title IX is a law that says no person shall be excluded from participation or discriminated against on the basis of sex.

In response to the order, 22 states sued in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

In July 2022, U.S. District Judge Charles E. Atchley Jr. granted a preliminary injunction blocking the federal government from implementing guidance documents that expanded Title IX based on the January 2021 executive order. The judge also denied the federal governments motion to dismiss.

In June 2024, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the preliminary injunction.

The report says that despite the court injunction, seven of the 12 regional Department of Education offices opened cases for investigation or mediated cases in violation of the injunction.

Education Department officials also went against the advice of the departments legal counsel and the Justice Departments opinion, according to Empower Oversight, a whistleblower group that represented Mattson.

The whistleblower disclosure says that leadership from the Office for Civil Rights repeatedly gave staff instructions to continue with cases and suggested other employment might be necessary for those not on board, according to Empower Oversight.

This report is a clear vindication for Tim and the rule of law, Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt said in a public statement.

The Office of Civil Rights defied a direct federal court order and continued to target schools for lawful policies, Leavitt continued. Unfortunately, however, staff in senior supervisory positions who aided, abetted, or quietly complied with the illegal actions are still in positions of authority. The federal government needs to hold them accountable.

The offices final report comes about two years after Mattson made his disclosure.

Among the reports recommendations were to complete an internal investigation and impose appropriate disciplinary action, up to and including removal.

The Education Department did not respond to inquiries for this story.

In April 2024, Empower Oversight filed a disclosure with the Office of Special Counsel on behalf of Mattson, which asserted the Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights continued to process complaints under Title IX on issues related to gender identity and sexual orientation in states covered by the courts injunction.

The allegations were referred to then-Secretary of Education Miguel Cardonas office.

The Education Departments first draft investigation report omitted certain information, causing the Office of Special Counsel to request a supplemental response from the agency.

EDs subsequent investigation revealed significant shortcomings in the initial report and response to OSC, including a failure to accurately assess readily available materials, conduct additional relevant interviews, and to forthrightly respond to the whistleblowers core allegation of whether OCR, under the leadership of Assistant Secretary Catherine Lhamon, failed to abide by the injunction, the OSC report says.

The conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, working with the Catholic financial advisory firm IWP Capital, urged DoorDash to reconsider its reliance on the SPLC, which critics accuse of putting mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits on a hate map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan.

DoorDash uses the impact platform Deed to facilitate employees charitable giving and volunteering. DoorDash has formally requested that Deed allow DoorDash employees to connect with nonprofits, even if they appear on the SPLCs map.

ADF, IWP Capital, we believe this is a great win for shareholders and employees, and were very happy with the result, Noah Nash, legal counsel for ADFs Corporate Engagement Team, told the Daily Signal in an interview Thursday. It sets an excellent example for other companies to follow.

A DoorDash spokesman confirmed that the company had asked Deed to make use of the SPLC filter optional, rather than the default.

Outsourcing Charity Vetting to SPLC

Deed describes itself as a global workplace giving, volunteering and employee wellbeing platform, and states that its Fortune 500 partners support 2 million global nonprofits with ease.

On its frequently asked questions page, Deed notes that it offers flexible and customizable screening options for vetting nonprofits. The page explains that many of our partners utilize common industry standards, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center hate list and a similar anti-hate list in Canada, for screening purposes.

Benevity, a similar platform that claims to connect nearly 1,000 enterprise companies to a network of 513,000 nonprofits after vetting 2.2 million of them, also uses the SPLC hate map to vet nonprofits. Benevity has claimed that the hate map filter is an option rather than a default setting.

Benevitys denial that it defaults to the SPLC filter is hard to square with its own history, Greg Scott, executive vice president at 1792 Exchange, previously told the Daily Signal.

Benevitys former CEO, Kelly Schmitt, delivered a PowerPoint presentation in 2021 explicitly stating that the company had vetted almost 2 million nonprofits, adding that it used the Southern Poverty Law Center Hate List.

Nash, the ADF attorney, told the Daily Signal that ADFs efforts led to Verizon opting out of using the SPLC hate map filter on Benevity. Salesforce has also directed Benevity to stop using the SPLC filter for its employee giving, after pressure from the Heritage Foundation.

Its absolutely astounding how many companies have adopted the use, either directly or through a vendor, to screen out nonprofits that are on the SPLC list, Nash, the ADF attorney, told the Daily Signal.

Our goal is to go one by one, knock on doors, and help people understand what the SPLC has done and help root it out, he said. Its like a cancerwe dont just want you to take out a little bit of it.

Whats Wrong With the SPLC?

The SPLC has gained renewed scrutiny after a federal grand jury handed down an 11-count indictment, charging the center with wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to conceal money laundering. The indictment claims that the SPLC spent some of its donors money to prop up the very hate groups it claims it exists to oppose, including by paying for KKK hoods and reimbursing racists for cross-burning materials.

The SPLC, for its part, claims it was merely funding informants who would tip the center off to any potential violence before it happened. Yet the indictment claims that at least some of the money functionally supported the hate groups, enabling the SPLC to fundraise off claims that hate was increasing.

Critics also say the SPLC exaggerates hate by placing mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a hate map with Klan chapters. The map inspired a terrorist attack in 2012.

The SPLC hate map includes ADF, alongside other conservative Christian nonprofits, such as the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

Our belief at ADF is, of course, that the SPLC is a religiously discriminatory list, Nash, the ADF attorney, told the Daily Signal. He warned that employers face potential legal risk for using the map, because it may involve treating religious employees differently.

The SPLC claims it puts groups on the hate map for their statements vilifying others, such as LGBTQ people, not for their religious beliefs, but the criticism often amounts to the same thing. Conservative Christians hold traditional positions on LGBTQ issues that directly conflict with the SPLCs stances.

If you take a position on the issues that they disagree with, and youre outspoken about it, youll be on the list, he noted. The institutions that are willing to call evil evil and good good, you know, then you land on the SPLC hate list.

At about 11:35 a.m., a skydiving aircraft, a Pacific Aerospace P750, crashed while departing Butler Memorial Airport in Missouri, according to the FAA. Butler is about 65 miles south of Kansas City, Missouri.

FOX4 reported that 11 of the 12 victims were skydivers. The other victim was the pilot of the plane. All people on board have died.

Troopers are on scene assisting the Butler Police Department & Bates County Sheriffs Office of a Fatal Plane Crash near the Butler Memorial Airport. At this time reports indicate all occupants (12 total) have perished. Updates to follow, The Missouri State Highway Police confirmed on social media.

Some of the victims family members witnessed the crash, according to the Associated Press, citing Bates County Sheriff Chad Anderson. Clergy and volunteers responded to support relatives at the scene, while authorities continued efforts to identify some of the victims.

Video circulating on social media appears to show the aftermath of the crash. 

The cause of the crash remains unclear. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating. 

???? NEW: A plane has crashed in Butler, Missouri

All 12 occupants 11 skydivers and a pilot have died pic.twitter.com/WemiRdBThA

Politics US (@PolitlcsUS) June 14, 2026

This is a breaking story. Stay with The Daily Wire for updates.

America's affordability crisis is real. Inflation is hurting families. Housing costs are through the roof. The American dream feels increasingly out of reach for many young people.

Our story isn't unique. For most of history, families have built stability and wealth together rather than waiting until they had already achieved it.

But what if part of the problem isn't just economic? What if it's cultural?

What if it's that more and more of us are postponing or outright rejecting the very milestones that once allowed our country to thrive?

For generations, marriage and family were some of the biggest building blocks of financial stability and success. Today, marriage rates are declining, family formation is delayed, and birth rates have fallen so low that we cant even replace ourselves. At the same time, Americans are marrying later than ever, and first-time homebuyers are now 40 years old on average.

These aren't isolated trends. They are interconnected signs of a culture that has turned family from a foundation for building a good life into a finish line that many feel they must reach only after they have "made it."

Foundation, not finish line

I didnt grow up in affluence by any means. Things were often tight at the Thorman household with nine children (yes, all from the same parents), though none of us went without. My parents and their friends welcomed kids into the world with open arms even though they had no idea how they were going to afford us.

When my older siblings were born, things were so tight that they mostly lived on beans and rice and a whole lot of prayer. My dad worked extremely hard, and with smart financial decisions coupled with his integrity and strong work ethic, his salary increased over the years just as the data has long predicted.

But one thing my parents didnt have was Pinterest-perfect homes, luxury vacations, or every financial box checked before starting a family. They just did it. They just got married young, committed to one another, welcomed children, and built a life together.

I'm not advocating for irresponsibility, but we need to regain knowledge that was once intuitive: Marriage and family don't stand in the way of financial success; they help create it.

Having it all

Our culture has it all backward. The expectation that we have to travel the world, have perfect-looking homes, and "find ourselves" before settling down has not made us happier or more financially savvy. Rather, it has only made us more miserable, lonely, and empty.

The very lies society feeds us about delaying marriage and family in order to "have it all" often undermine the very things people are seeking: financial stability, purpose, belonging, and long-term happiness. These are not obstacles to marriage and family; they are the fruit of them. We have convinced an entire generation that family should come after success, when for much of human history, family was the primary way people built success.

The data bears this out. Marriage and stable two-parent households consistently produce better economic outcomes: higher household income, greater wealth accumulation, lower poverty rates, and greater financial stability for children. Imagine that. The family structure God designed not only benefits individuals spiritually and emotionally, but also creates some of the strongest economic outcomes for families and society alike.

Having a family will alter your priorities, and rightly so. For my husband and me, having two kids (with more to come, God willing) has changed how we spend our money, where we spend our time, and what we value the most. We hardly get to take vacations, let alone the kind "influencers" brag about on social media, and thats OK. Ill take my kids over luxury experiences every day. So yes, kids change your lifestyle and thats a good thing.

For me, I get to do life with my best friend and make carbon copies of us, and its exceptionally awesome. I want everyone to experience it, because my family isn't the obstacle to a meaningful life; its the source of one.

My story isn't unique. Social science has been documenting the economic benefits of marriage and family for decades.

RELATED: How to bring Charlie Kirk's vision to life starting in your own family

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Marriage: The great anti-poverty program

Washington politicians love to debate tax credits, subsidies, and government programs, yet one of the strongest predictors of economic stability isn't a government policy at all it's marriage. Certainly, government policies matter. Washington can lower taxes, reduce burdensome regulations, and make housing more affordable. But no government program can replace what strong marriages and families provide: stability, sacrifice, belonging, and a purpose larger than ourselves.

Research from the Institute for Family Studies found that among Millennials who graduated high school, worked full-time, and married before having children, 97% avoided poverty altogether by their mid-30s. Far from being obstacles to financial stability, marriage and family are often among the strongest predictors of it.

My husband and I are a testament to that reality. We got married in our 20s with very little to our names. No trust funds or other "head starts"; nor did we have every financial box checked. We simply started building our life together anyway.

Since then, our careers have grown and our incomes have increased. After living in a small apartment and saving as much as possible, we purchased our first home including a nice yard to play in after welcoming our first child. Our story isn't unique. For most of history, families have built stability and wealth together rather than waiting until they had already achieved it.

Worthy inheritance

The financial advantage enjoyed by married households extends to the whole family. Children raised in stable two-parent homes are far less likely to experience poverty and far more likely to move up the economic ladder. In 2021, just 9.5% of children living with two parents were in poverty, compared to 31.7% of children living with a single parent.

Strong families provide stability, support, and opportunity in ways that no government program can ever replicate. If we truly want to reduce poverty, expand opportunity, and strengthen our nation's long-term prosperity, we must acknowledge the indispensable role marriage and family play in human flourishing.

Whatever efforts Washington makes to ease Americans' financial burdens whether through tax cuts or education reform lasting change must start with us. Too many young people who tell themselves they're putting off marriage and children for financial reasons are in fact mistaking risk for impossibility. Building a life has always required a leap of faith.

It's a leap more of us have to make if we want to keep the American dream alive. Can we afford to have children? The better question is can we afford not to. If we want more prosperity, opportunity, and stability, we should start by strengthening the institution that has helped make those things possible for generations: the family.

The Optional Practical Training program, created in 1992, allows foreign students to remain in the United States to work for nearly four years after graduation. Employers receive a tax break for hiring foreign graduates under the program, which some say gives foreign nationals an advantage over U.S. citizens. 

F student visa holders, including OPT graduates, are considered nonresident aliens for their first five calendar years in America. For those years, their wages are exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxesfor both the employee and the employer.

While the Department of Homeland Security has the authority to end the program by issuing a new rule, President Donald Trumps administration has not publicly begun the rulemaking process, leading some conservative members of Congress to propose their own bills to end the program. Immigration hawks have supported the administrations tough border policies but believe the OPT program should be a major priority as well. 

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, thinks Trump has the philosophy of legal good, illegal bad, which conflicts with some Republicans who want to limit legal immigration. 

He isnt where the next generation of Republican policymakers are, like JD, like Sen. Schmitt, like Brandon Gill in the House, who are actual restrictionists, and acknowledge that numbers themselves are too high. Its not just a problem of illegal immigration, he said.

I think one of the places you see the president not being a restrictionist is in the relatively limited action, so far, thats been taken against OPT, he said.

Tension Over OPT

Many in the MAGA base fear U.S. citizens losing job opportunities to foreign graduates. 

It makes you mad, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told the Daily Signal. We all pay our taxes, and then we create incentives for our companies in our country to hire foreign workers.

We have so many Americans that dont have jobs, he said, calling for an end to the program. This should happen today, one, to help Americans get jobs, and number two, we got to get rid of this for the fraud. Number three, weve got a lot of people here from Communist China, theyre spying on us and stealing things from our companies.

Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, says the program is the gateway drug of our scam legal immigration system because it allows corporations to hire an unlimited number of foreigners rather than American citizens.

Kevin Lynn, founder of an organization representing U.S. tech workers, said the Department of Homeland Security should have ended the program in the first few weeks of the administration. 

The problem is we have a lot of pressure from the tech firms, Lynn said. These guys have all set up shop in Washington, D.C. They have the presidents ear, and this is one of the things that they like. 

The White House said the presidents immigration policy supports the American people.

President Trumps top priority has always been and will always be doing whats best for the American people, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Signal. Every element of his policy agenda, including his immigration policy, reflects that priority.

She cited the presidents moves to restrict travel from corrupt countries, ensure access to quality jobs for Americans, prevent abuse of the immigration system, enforce immigration law, and deport illegal aliens.

This is the commonsense agenda that the American people elected him to enact, she said.

Whats the Current State of OPT?

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a January letter to Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., regarding the program that the agency was reevaluating whether the current regulatory frameworkincluding the scope and duration of practical trainingappropriately serves U.S. labor market, tax, and national security interests and remains aligned with congressional intent. 

However, Noems replacement, former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, has not updated the administrations stance on the OPT program.

Under Secretary Mullin, DHS is laser focused on its mission of making America safe again. DHS continues to arrest the worst of the worst, deliver the most secure border in American history, and stop drugs from pouring into our communities, a spokesperson for the agency told the Daily Signal in a statement.

Rosemary Jenks, co-founder of the Immigration Accountability Project, believes there are many experienced policy people at DHS who know exactly what the impact of OPT is. Still, she said its more likely that Congress will act first.

I dont have any indication that the administration is planning to end it, but obviously there are several bills in Congress that would end it, she told the Daily Signal.

[DHS] could have done it on day one if they had wanted to, and they obviously havent, Jenks added. 

Progress in Congress

Members of Congress have introduced measures to end or pause the program.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced the 2026 American White-Collar Worker Jobs Act, which would eliminate OPT. Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., introduced the End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026, which would halt the program. 

Crane said his bill would halt visa abuses for three years and enact reforms when the program resumes. 

Congress should do everything in its power to prioritize the interests of American citizens, not the profit margins of massive corporations, he told the Daily Signal.

By ending Optional Practical Training, codifying the $100,000 H-1B fee, and implementing additional commonsense changes, we can stop the displacement of hardworking Americans once and for all, he added.

An NBC News survey released Sunday morning shows that Americas deep political polarization is increasingly spilling over into national identity and expressions of national pride.

Overall, about 56% say they are extremely or very proud to be American, while 29% report having little or no national pride at all. The divide deepens among party partisanship and age. 

This number is in decline, polling guru Steve Kornacki said.

About 90% of Republicans say they are proud to be American, compared with just 29% of Democrats who say the same. The gap also widens by age: roughly three-quarters of adults aged 65 and older report feeling proud of their country, while that figure drops sharply among younger Americans, with only 36% of those ages 1834 saying the same.

NBC News poll: How proud are you to be an American?

Overall
Extremely/very 56%
Not very/none 21%

Extremely/very by party:
GOP 90%
Dem 29%

By age:
65+ 75%
18-34 36%

Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) June 14, 2026

A majority (58%) also says the nations best days are in the past, not the future, according to the poll.

The results closely mirror another survey recently obtained by The Daily Wire, which points to a notable decline in expressions of patriotism. According to Cygnal, a political polling and analytics firm, just 58% of respondents said they are extremely or very proud to be American, including only 28% of voters under 30. Meanwhile, 30% of Democrats said they are not at all proud of the nation.

This youth pride collapse is broader than the midterm and worth flagging as a standalone trend; it cuts across the usual partisan framing and will outlast this cycle, the polls analysis said. 

In that survey, voters overall said Democrats are too focused on opposing Trump by a 6-point margin; however, this sentiment was significantly stronger among swing voters, where the margin widened to 23 points.

Its striking that when you look at age and gender breaks, women under the age of 55 are the only group who think Democrats actually offer a more compelling alternative every single other group thinks the left is just focused on Trump, John Rogers, Cygnal senior partner and pollster, said in a statement to The Daily Wire. 

Swing voters trust Republicans over Democrats on immigration by a 53% to 23% margin, on crime by 47% to 22%, and on government spending by 39% to 23%, while independents also lean Republican on all three issues, according to the pollsters analysis.

The data points offer a bright spot for Republicans facing national headwinds fueled by high gas prices and rising inflation, which voters rank as their top priorities, according to the Cygnal poll. 

At about 11:35 a.m., a skydiving aircraft, a Pacific Aerospace P750, crashed while departing Butler Memorial Airport in Missouri, according to the FAA. Butler is about 65 miles south of Kansas City, Missouri.

FOX4 reported that 11 of the 12 victims were skydivers. The other victim was the pilot of the plane. All people on board have died.

Troopers are on scene assisting the Butler Police Department & Bates County Sheriffs Office of a Fatal Plane Crash near the Butler Memorial Airport. At this time reports indicate all occupants (12 total) have perished. Updates to follow, The Missouri State Highway Police confirmed on social media.

Some of the victims family members witnessed the crash, according to the Associated Press, citing Bates County Sheriff Chad Anderson. Clergy and volunteers responded to support relatives at the scene, while authorities continued efforts to identify some of the victims.

Video circulating on social media appears to show the aftermath of the crash. 

The cause of the crash remains unclear. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating. 

???? NEW: A plane has crashed in Butler, Missouri

All 12 occupants 11 skydivers and a pilot have died pic.twitter.com/WemiRdBThA

Politics US (@PolitlcsUS) June 14, 2026

This is a breaking story. Stay with The Daily Wire for updates.

Pratt announced that he and his wife, fellow reality star Heidi Montag, were suing Los Angeles almost immediately after the deadly fire destroyed their home but he responded on Sunday to the news that Kenneth D. Bass was also joining the suit over the loss of his multi-million-dollar Malibu home.

I am proud to be teaming up with Karen Bass brother in suing his sister for her reckless negligence that led to the destruction of our homes, Pratt captioned a clip from a local news report. I hope their Thanksgiving dinner isnt too awks. I know ours hasnt been the same since last year

I am proud to be teaming up with Karen Bass brother in suing his sister for her reckless negligence that led to the destruction of our homes. I hope their Thanksgiving dinner isnt too awks. I know ours hasnt been the same since last year pic.twitter.com/d8YyGjJ775

Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) June 14, 2026

The ABC affiliate revealed court documents that showed Kenneth D. Bass as a plaintiff in a case filed in May, in which he joined the class-action suit and claimed to have suffered from smoke inhalation, severe emotional distress, mental anguish and annoyance in addition to the loss of his home.

As part of the mass tort legal process, Mr. and Mrs. Bass names were formally added as some of the nearly 40,000 victims who suffered losses. Their family connections are irrelevant, and as non-public citizens they are entitled to respectful privacy as they pursue their legal rights along with all represented victims, attorneys for Kenneth Bass and his wife told The New York Post.

The home in question has not been rebuilt, and Bass sold the 1.5-acre lot that still includes a putting green, a pool, and a guest house that were not lost in the fire for $2 million last May.

The suit blames the citys failure to respond to the fire on the reservoirs that were depleted: The Palisades Fire has been a traumatic event for its victims, who through no fault of their own, went from homeowners to homeless in a matter of hours.

During a recent campaign event, Mayor Bass who is facing a run-off challenge in November from Democratic-socialist city councilwoman Nithya Raman was clearly avoiding the question when she was asked three times about her brothers addition to the suit.

Were not talking about that! an aide pushed back as Bass was pressed on the issue.

However, the news that Rideout Arsenal, a firearms designer and manufacturer, will be moving from Fredericksburg to a new, $22 million manufacturing facility in Thomasville, Georgia, brings new questions about their real commitment to affordability.

According to surveys developed by Robert Half, a human resources consulting firm, and conducted by independent research firms, 62 percent of Americans would relocate if their job moved and 75 percent of 18- to 35-year-olds would.

So, lets say that 50 percent of the 100 jobs Gov. Brian Kemp announced this week in telling the Georgia press about Rideouts move are ex-pat Virginians. That means 50 people in one of the most expensive places to live in the United States are now unemployed.

According to City-Data.com, the Spotsylvania cost of living index is 125.8, meaning expenses are about 25.8 percent above the U.S. average. Thats a lot of rent assistance and Medicaid they will need (if we ever get the budget passed but I digress).

Travis and Kelsey Rideout have said that the new gun laws that the governor signed earlier this year significantly influenced their decision to move.

Jim Wood, owner of Big Ridge Guns and Archery in Waynesboro, Virginia, as well as a city councilor there, told me, States like Georgia are creating an economic plan that benefits the citizens of their state and making it appealing for businesses such as Remington, Heckler and Koch, Rideout Arsenal, Glock and Daniel Defense to make it their home base of operations. The states that lose these great companies due to their taxation, woke ideology and left-wing social activism are the driving force in the recent cultural migration increase.

By the way, according to BestPlaces.com, the median home price in Fredericksburg is $399,200. In Thomasville, Georgia, it is $189,000. So in a way, the governor has made it more affordablefor the Rideouts and their employees who chose to leave with them.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

Put aside what you think of Sundays extravaganza. There is still a good reason to embrace June 14: Flag Day.

Those allergic to all things Trump should remember that Flag Day existed decades before he was born and, God willing, will endure for generations after.

Flag Day has a long tradition. Yet if not for its coincidence with Trumps birthday, it would likely pass with little notice. That is a mistake. This is not a call to worship a colorful banner. It is a call to remember that Americans left, center, and right are united by founding principles from the Declaration of Independence, represented by Old Glory.

On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved a resolution establishing a uniform national flag. The 13-star flag, commonly associated with Betsy Ross, became a rallying banner and a source of pride. It was not yet revered as it would be later, but it symbolized the freest nation in world history.

Then came the Civil War and the lowering of the flag over Fort Sumter. That image triggered an outpouring of love for Old Glory.

Jonathan Flynt Morris, a banker and strong Republican Unionist, urged Charles Dudley Warner, editor of the Hartford Evening Press, to write about the need not merely to respect the flag, but to revere it. On June 10, 1861, Warner followed that advice and proposed a new holiday: Flag Day.

This flag is our dearest symbol of nationality, Warner wrote. It stands for civil liberty on this continent. To keep it full high advanced is our highest pride; to strike at it is to arouse all the passion of the nation to defend it, and to punish the perpetrators of the outrage.

Flag Day celebrations began in Warners home state of Connecticut. They slowly spread to schools in Wisconsin in 1885, New York schools in 1889, and then to Philadelphia and public buildings in New York state in 1894. An American Flag Day organization was created to further the movement.

President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, issued the first federal recognition of the holiday on May 30, 1916. Wilsons proclamation called for patriotic exercises that would give significant expression to our thoughtful love of America and our understanding of the great mission of liberty and justice to which we have devoted ourselves as a people.

RELATED: Damning poll reveals what Democrats ACTUALLY think of America ahead of its 250th birthday

Stan Grossfeld/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

He also called Americans to rededicate themselves to the principles of independence, liberty, and right, which no person can corrupt and no influence could draw away from their ideals. Finally, on Aug. 3, 1949, President Harry S. Truman, also a Democrat, signed an act of Congress designating June 14 of each year as National Flag Day.

Flag Day exemplifies our shared American creed. It was the brainchild of Republicans, spread outside party politics, and was instituted nationally by Democrats. Its purpose is to recommit us to the founding principles declared in the Declaration of Independence and embedded in the Constitution: equality, limited government, the rule of law, unalienable rights, the social compact, and the right to alter or abolish oppressive government.

America did not fully live by those principles in 1776, and we do not perfectly live by them today. But belief in those principles has inspired generations of patriots to move us closer to their fulfillment. Abolitionism, womens suffrage, and the civil rights movement all called upon Americas first principles to push the country toward its promise. At its best, our flag stands for liberty and equality.

Those allergic to all things Trump should remember that Flag Day existed decades before he was born and, God willing, will endure for generations after. It is not about one man. It is a call for all Americans to unite around the principles that made the country possible.

We should answer that call.

Seventeen months into his second term in office, Trump has repeatedly pushed the boundaries of the U.S. presidency to command attention and project strength. His latest stage is the Ultimate Fighting Championships Octagon, the eight-sided cage erected within eyeshot of his White House bedroom for the event titled UFC Freedom 250. That is a reference to the 250th anniversary of the nations founding next month.

The event comes as Trump grapples with the four-month-old Iran war that has pushed consumer prices to a three-year high and, as shown in public opinion polls, unnerved many voters. It also coincides with his birthday and his efforts to counter perceptions that he is becoming a lame duck president.

A Respite From War

Trump is set to watch 14 mixed martial arts fighters from five countries try to kick, punch and grapple their way to a victory before an expected audience of 4,000 people inside a 92-foot-tall (28 meters) makeshift venue, nicknamed The Claw. The main event, scheduled for up to five rounds, features UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria against former interim titleholder Justin Gaethje. The fights are set to begin at 8 p.m. (0000 GMT Monday).

Tickets were not sold publicly. UFC offered some to guests paying more than $1 million, according to a person familiar with the matter. A quarter of the audience will be military service members, according to the Trump administration.

Trump asserted broad executive authority to stage a private companys event on federal grounds, a break with norms that drew a legal challenge and raised concerns about the cost of the event and the potential for ethical conflicts. The UFCs parent company is publicly traded TKO Group Holdings. 

In a Reuters/Ipsos online poll of 4,531 U.S. adults conducted June 3-8, just 16% said it was appropriate for Trump to hold the event. A judge declined on Friday to block the event in a legal challenge by plaintiffs who had argued that his administration exceeded its authority in staging it by, among other things, failing to get congressional authorization.

Trump has long been close with UFC Chief Executive Dana White and the Ellison family, whose Paramount has a $7.7 billion deal to air UFC fights until 2033. 

White has used the sports popularity, particularly with younger men, to support Trumps campaigns dating back to his first run for the presidency in 2016.

UFC has said it spent more than $60 million on the event and will not make a profit.

In the run-up, Trumps trust purchased stock in TKO Group Holdings while a company that licenses the presidents likeness marketed commemorative coins for as much as $12,000. One of the events sponsors, Crypto.com, previously partnered with Trump Media & Technology Group.

The White House has denied that any conflict of interest exists and said the Trump family manages the presidents business affairs.

The vast majority of Americans are not celebrating 250 years of America by watching a UFC fight, said Dan Rayburn, an independent streaming analyst. This is really a private event.

Spectator-in-Chief

Trump has made sports a recurring feature of his presidency, weighing in on issues including transgender athletes and pay for college football players, and has attended a range of major sporting events.

France delayed the Group of Seven summit, which starts on Monday, to accommodate Trumps attendance at the UFC event.

About a fifth of Americans call themselves MMA fans. According to the findings of the Reuters/Ipsos poll, they do not have a particularly high opinion overall of Trumps job performance, with 45% approving and 55% disapproving. That exceeds his 35% approval rating among all Americans but is well below his 79% approval rating among Republicans.

MMA fans skew male and tend to identify as more politically independent, with nearly half of those polled saying they do not identify with either party. About a third identified as Republicans and one in five as Democrats.

The arena will provide an intimate setting for the bouts. Some fighters are expected to begin their walkout to the Octagon from the Oval Office and then pass through the Rose Garden or the West Wing colonnade. The arena is 20 rows deep on all sides. Noise from the sound system caroms off the facade of the White Houses Truman Balcony, shaking the executive mansions walls.

Tens of thousands of people will be able to watch the fights on a big screen from a nearby park. Daytime temperatures exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) are expected to cool by the evening, but the U.S. National Weather Service forecasts rain and thunderstorms. The arena was not built with a roof.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jacob Bogage in Washington; Additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Will Dunham)

The crash happened near Butler Memorial Airport, about 65 miles south of Kansas City, according to a statement from the Missouri State Highway Patrol on X.

Troopers, along with officers from the Butler Police Department and deputies from the Bates County Sheriff's Office, responded to the scene and are assisting with the crash investigation.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

And Seth Gruber, CEO of White Rose Resistance, is relaying this warning, explaining that it means by promoting vice, the regime promotes slavery, which can then be fashioned into a form of political control.

That sentence I just said Allie Beth is the beating heart of libido dominandi: the lust to dominate, he tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on Relatable.

Dominion becomes domination when man listens to and accepts the serpents counterfeit kingdom. And the things that we were called to steward ... become the very things we are now enslaved to, he says.

Domination is a reflection of your own slavery projected onto others. But dominion is a reflection of your own stewardship exercised on behalf of others. So one is the city of man, and one is the city of God, he continues. But in each case, it reveals who or what we really worship.

"Vice," Gruber explains, "is contagious.

And like anything contagious, its easily spread.

Tyrants work very hard to spread the infection, he explains, because they know that a virtuous populace cannot be controlled. So they have to corrupt, seduce, blackmail. They have to weaponize lust.

Gruber likens this to Jeffrey Epstein, because if you cannot defeat militarily, you can always corrupt through sexual enticement.

Maybe thats why the Epstein list will never get released, he adds.

Stuckey agrees, adding, "What a fascinating, very disturbing connection ... Epstein, you can just see it."

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

Before 11:30 a.m., a private plane departing Butler Memorial Airport reportedly turned around for unknown reasons before crashing near Business 49 Highway, according to FOX4 Kansas City. Butler is about 65 miles south of Kansas City, Missouri.

FOX4 reported that 11 of the 12 victims were skydivers. The other victim was the pilot of the plane. All people on board have died.

Troopers are on scene assisting the Butler Police Department & Bates County Sheriffs Office of a Fatal Plane Crash near the Butler Memorial Airport. At this time reports indicate all occupants (12 total) have perished. Updates to follow, The Missouri State Highway Police confirmed on social media.

Video circulating on social media appears to show the aftermath of the crash. 

It remains unclear what type of aircraft was involved or what caused the crash.

???? NEW: A plane has crashed in Butler, Missouri

All 12 occupants 11 skydivers and a pilot have died pic.twitter.com/WemiRdBThA

Politics US (@PolitlcsUS) June 14, 2026

This is a breaking story. Stay with The Daily Wire for updates.

Pratt announced that he and his wife, fellow reality star Heidi Montag, were suing Los Angeles almost immediately after the deadly fire destroyed their home but he responded on Sunday to the news that Kenneth D. Bass was also suing over the loss of his multi-million-dollar Malibu home.

I am proud to be teaming up with Karen Bass brother in suing his sister for her reckless negligence that led to the destruction of our homes, Pratt captioned a clip from a local news report. I hope their Thanksgiving dinner isnt too awks. I know ours hasnt been the same since last year

I am proud to be teaming up with Karen Bass brother in suing his sister for her reckless negligence that led to the destruction of our homes. I hope their Thanksgiving dinner isnt too awks. I know ours hasnt been the same since last year pic.twitter.com/d8YyGjJ775

Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) June 14, 2026

The ABC affiliate revealed court documents that showed Kenneth D. Bass as a plaintiff in a case filed in May, in which he joined the class-action suit and claimed to have suffered from smoke inhalation, severe emotional distress, mental anguish and annoyance in addition to the loss of his home.

As part of the mass tort legal process, Mr. and Mrs. Bass names were formally added as some of the nearly 40,000 victims who suffered losses. Their family connections are irrelevant, and as non-public citizens they are entitled to respectful privacy as they pursue their legal rights along with all represented victims, attorneys for Kenneth Bass and his wife told The New York Post.

The home in question has not been rebuilt, and Bass sold the 1.5-acre lot that still includes a putting green, a pool, and a guest house that were not lost in the fire for $2 million last May.

The suit blames the citys failure to respond to the fire on the reservoirs that were depleted: The Palisades Fire has been a traumatic event for its victims, who through no fault of their own, went from homeowners to homeless in a matter of hours.

During a recent campaign event, Mayor Bass who is facing a run-off challenge in November from Democratic-socialist city councilwoman Nithya Raman was clearly avoiding the question when she was asked three times about her brothers addition to the suit.

Were not talking about that! an aide pushed back as Bass was pressed on the issue.

President Donald Trump says hell create the jobs and future you deserve.

President Joe Biden liked to say, Help is on the way.

I prefer President Ronald Reagans: The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, Im from the government and Im here to help.

An economy runs best when government gets out of the way and lets free market competition work.

Economist Donald Boudreaux gets that, and its why The Triumph of Economic Freedom is the title of his new book.

Boudreaux explains in my new video: The more we move away from free markets, the worse things become.

Bidens spending increased inflation, and his administration gave billions of dollars to politically connected companies like Intel. Now, Trumps doing similar things.

Free markets are on the ropes now, says Boudreaux. Its really important that people step back, look at economic history theyll see that we prosper more the more economically free we are.

Now, people blame greed and free markets for the high cost of housing and daycare.

Housing is rising in prices chiefly because of government! says Boudreaux. Land use restrictions reduce the supply and restrict building. Rent control reduces the supply of rental housing Daycare is riddled with government regulations, which raises the cost of those things.

Houses and daycare would be cheaper and better if capitalists were allowed to freely serve their customers without government intrusion.

Likewise, AI will lower costs, but it will also eliminate jobs, so ignorant politicians like Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., want laws to protect existing jobs. Bad idea, says Boudreaux.

Some jobs are destroyed, but others are created. The jobs created tend to be better  If we had today the same technology we had 40 years ago, the only web designers would have eight legs Our living standards rise as a result of these innovations People might not like change, but you cant get economic growth without it.

Some politicians want to tell stores how many self-checkout lanes theyre allowed and how many employees must work at registers.

How does government know the right number of workers in any business?! Thats up to those businesses, says Boudreaux. Its in their interest to run their companies as efficiently as possible, which keeps down prices. When government does things like this, thats going to raise the prices.

Seattles new socialist Mayor Katie Wilson says shell help people by making sure they have more leisure time.

You should have time to read a book and lay on the grass, she says. We need bread. But we need roses, too.

Pretty words, laughs Boudreaux, but what business is it of government to decide how people should spend their time? Thats an individual decision. Why should government put its finger on the scale?

To make life nicer, I say.

If I want to work more, youre making life worse for me, not nicer. I can smell the roses on my own time.

Wilson also says, We cannot allow giant grocery chains to close stores at will and leave behind food deserts.

What shes proposing, replies Boudreaux, is to prevent stores from closing or downsizing. Once she does that, shell find that fewer stores will move in. The long-run effect will be fewer grocery stores in Seattle.

Politicians belief that they know better how to help people sometimes leads to absurd ideas, like a Minnesota legislators plan to study the benefits of shoplifting because perhaps people are relying on that maybe its assisting them.

Lets then also study the benefits of pickpocketing, armed robbery and burglary, replies Boudreaux. After all, those people get income from that.

These politicians just want to be kind, I push back.

Its not kind to people victimized by shoplifting. [It] raises the cost of operating grocery stores which raises grocery prices that low-income families have to pay.

More often than not, government tries to help but makes things worse.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

On Friday morning, Statehouse News Bureaus Jo Ingles posted on X that she spoke with OCC board member Prentiss Haney, who indicated that FBI agents came to their Northeast Ohio office on Thursday. Agents reportedly searched and took laptops and other electronic devices and interviewed those with the organization.

In speaking with Ingles, Haney said the raid was politically motivated and compared it to one of the most brutal moments of the civil rights movement. This is not normal business. I mean theres no reason for over 100 agents to be knocking on the doors of everyday Ohioans, he said. Demanding and accusing people of voter fraud as if it was a witch hunt and, and scaring them with the children, following them in their cars to school and to work. I mean this was a full-out assault. I mean, we havent seen anything like this since Selma.

This refers to the March 7, 1965 Bloody Sunday incident in Selma, Alabama where state troopers attacked civil rights marchers with clubs and tear gas.

When have we ever seen federal forces used to come after civil rights leaders, community organizers, volunteers who are doing voting rights at this scale? So that is very concerning where we are at, he added.

CBS News later reported on Friday that the FBI presented a search warrant, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter, and noting that it was part of an ongoing fraud-related investigation.

The Ohio Organizing Collective describes itself as having a vision to organize everyday Ohioans, building transformative power organizations for racial, social, and economic justice as well as build a democratic multi-racial populist governing coalition in Ohio.

The group has posted on social media against HB 472, a bill that just passed the state legislature and is awaiting Gov. Mike DeWines signature. The bill requires photo ID for mail-in ballots and is meant to complement a resolution the state legislature also passed that would enshrine voter ID into the constitution. Ohioans will vote on the ballot initiative in November.

The group also has spoken out against Louisiana v. Callais, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in April against racially drawn congressional districts. The Ohio Organizing Collective also took a stance against Secretary of State Frank LaRose sharing voter data with the Department of Justice to verify voter eligibility as well.

Thursdays raid has drawn the outrage of Ohio Democrats, including Reps. Shontell Brown and Joyce Beatty, as well as Democrat nominee for governor Amy Acton and former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running against Republican Sen. Jon Husted in the 2026 special election. Ohio Democratic Party Chairwoman Kathleen Clyde also spoke out, as did Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb.

Marcell Strbich, who ran for secretary of state as a Republican but lost to Treasurer Robert Sprague, commented on the raid multiple times on X, claiming that Ohio has a problem with third-party voter engagement organizations, defrauding elections, and calling for new laws.

Strbich has been vocal about the need for voter ID for mail-in ballots.

CBS News reporting noted that in 2017, a paid canvasser for Ohio Organizing Collaborative pleaded guilty for involvement in a fraudulent voter registration scheme.

The Daily Signal reached out to the organization and the FBI but did not hear back in time. A DOJ official told CBS News that the affidavit is under seal.

Search warrants are authorized by a judge and anything said by any organization or others in the media is unfounded speculation, as the target of any investigation is not privy to the search warrant affidavit until after the indictment, the official said.

Seemingly all at once, the CEOs of the worlds leading AI platforms, particularly OpenAI and Anthropic, both reneged on their opinions on artificial intelligence in the workplace. Where AI was once prophetically decreed to replace everyone's jobs, now these bots are being positioned as tools to enhance human productivity instead.

But why? For what reason would the AI CEOs, who once plotted workplace domination, suddenly turn back on their greedy aspirations? Did they suddenly remember that humanity must somehow live on after all the jobs dry up? That their companies will lose money if consumers dont exist to buy products and services? That its actually evil to force people into unemployment amid a hostile takeover of the entire economy?

Public sentiment around AI is at an all-time low, and it continues to bottom out.

Maybe. Or perhaps something is forcing their hands.

Four reasons the AI job apocalypse is finished

Its IPO time

Both OpenAI and Anthropic are at pivotal points in their meteoric rise to ubiquity. Neither company is turning a profit, and as time drags on, venture capitalists, who will never get a return on investment with generative AI, are more likely to reduce or even pull their funding. That means AI companies looking to survive the impending bubble have to find funding elsewhere. The answer is to go public.

The two AI giants plan to launch IPOs this year, and they need strong public support to drive value. If the companies are perceived as harmful or even complicit in obliterating the workforce and killing the economy, their IPOs will tank. As a result, they have pulled back on the dystopian warnings of mass unemployment as they tidy up their reputations to portray benevolent corporations bent on helping humanity instead of hindering it.

Reality check

While the AI CEOs promised a workplace revolution on the backs of their LLMs, the real-world applications for these platforms have fallen short of expectations. In May, Starbucks retired its AI-powered inventory system, despite supposed improved product availability in stores ushered in by the service. Employees responded by praising the change, saying, in effect, thanks for discontinuing automatic counting! The thought behind it was great, but the execution was proving difficult.

Also in May, a Gartner study revealed that 80% of companies that replaced employees with AI did not see better returns. Meanwhile, companies that added AI to their workforce to enhance the productivity of existing employees without eliminations saw the strongest gains, highlighting the need for skilled employees to coexist alongside AI platforms.

RELATED: Google's new daily helper knows all about you. Just how creepy is it?

Google's new daily helper knows all about you. Just how creepy is it? Marina113/Getty Images

Lastly, some companies, like Meta, are learning the hard way that AI isnt a replacement for human intellect. As we reported in early June, hackers tricked Metas AI customer support bot into changing the passwords on high-profile Instagram accounts with little security to stand in the way. This was a massive blunder for Meta which recently laid off 8,000 employees in favor of AI in what became the companys largest account breach ever.

Public protests

Public sentiment around AI is at an all-time low, and it continues to bottom out as time goes on. Just last month, numerous videos surfaced of college graduates booing commencement speakers for merely bringing up AI. Young people looking to enter the workforce, where entry-level positions are among the first to dissolve in the AI race, seemingly appear to hate LLMs. Since this demographic is the future customer base for AI giants, OpenAI and Anthropic would be stupid to continue to ruin young peoples lives with more promises of job replacements.

Another point of contention among the people focuses around data centers. Not only do these massive buildings devour local energy, there are also growing reports that they generate loud noises that have caused some unsettling health effects, including headaches, dizziness, nausea, sleep disturbances, and more.

Hefty price tags

Finally, companies are learning that AI is expensive to run at scale. Microsoft, one of the leaders in the AI space, canceled its Claude Code licenses for employees just months after starting the program. Although no official reason was given, the high cost and volume of Claude tokens required for sophisticated projects is believed to be the culprit. At the same time, Ubers chief operating officer cited concerns over the high cost of AI that made it difficult to justify. Even AI GPU maker NVIDIA admitted that human employees cost less than AI bots.

During a recent event, Sam Altman was asked about the sizeable AI costs for businesses. He feigned ignorance, stating that "the issue never came up in the past when setting the prices for companies. "People were totally happy with the amount they were spending. That appears to no longer be the case.

The Optional Practical Training program, created in 1992, allows foreign students to remain in the United States to work for nearly four years after graduation. Employers receive a tax break for hiring foreign graduates under the program, which some say gives foreign nationals an advantage over U.S. citizens. 

F student visa holders, including OPT graduates, are considered nonresident aliens for their first five calendar years in America. For those years, their wages are exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxesfor both the employee and the employer.

While the Department of Homeland Security has the authority to end the program by issuing a new rule, President Donald Trumps administration has not publicly begun the rulemaking process, leading some conservative members of Congress to propose their own bills to end the program. Immigration hawks have supported the administrations tough border policies but believe the OPT program should be a major priority as well. 

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, thinks Trump has the philosophy of legal good, illegal bad, which conflicts with some Republicans who want to limit legal immigration. 

He isnt where the next generation of Republican policymakers are, like JD, like Sen. Schmitt, like Brandon Gill in the House, who are actual restrictionists, and acknowledge that numbers themselves are too high. Its not just a problem of illegal immigration, he said.

I think one of the places you see the president not being a restrictionist is in the relatively limited action, so far, thats been taken against OPT, he said.

Tension Over OPT

Many in the MAGA base fear U.S. citizens losing job opportunities to foreign graduates. 

It makes you mad, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told the Daily Signal. We all pay our taxes, and then we create incentives for our companies in our country to hire foreign workers.

We have so many Americans that dont have jobs, he said, calling for an end to the program. This should happen today, one, to help Americans get jobs, and number two, we got to get rid of this for the fraud. Number three, weve got a lot of people here from Communist China, theyre spying on us and stealing things from our companies.

Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, says the program is the gateway drug of our scam legal immigration system because it allows corporations to hire an unlimited number of foreigners rather than American citizens.

Kevin Lynn, founder of an organization representing U.S. tech workers, said the Department of Homeland Security should have ended the program in the first few weeks of the administration. 

The problem is we have a lot of pressure from the tech firms, Lynn said. These guys have all set up shop in Washington, D.C. They have the presidents ear, and this is one of the things that they like. 

The White House said the presidents immigration policy supports the American people.

President Trumps top priority has always been and will always be doing whats best for the American people, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Signal. Every element of his policy agenda, including his immigration policy, reflects that priority.

She cited the presidents moves to restrict travel from corrupt countries, ensure access to quality jobs for Americans, prevent abuse of the immigration system, enforce immigration law, and deport illegal aliens.

This is the commonsense agenda that the American people elected him to enact, she said.

Whats the Current State of OPT?

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a January letter to Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., regarding the program that the agency was reevaluating whether the current regulatory frameworkincluding the scope and duration of practical trainingappropriately serves U.S. labor market, tax, and national security interests and remains aligned with congressional intent. 

However, Noems replacement, former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, has not updated the administrations stance on the OPT program.

Under Secretary Mullin, DHS is laser focused on its mission of making America safe again. DHS continues to arrest the worst of the worst, deliver the most secure border in American history, and stop drugs from pouring into our communities, a spokesperson for the agency told the Daily Signal in a statement.

Rosemary Jenks, co-founder of the Immigration Accountability Project, believes there are many experienced policy people at DHS who know exactly what the impact of OPT is. Still, she said its more likely that Congress will act first.

I dont have any indication that the administration is planning to end it, but obviously there are several bills in Congress that would end it, she told the Daily Signal.

[DHS] could have done it on day one if they had wanted to, and they obviously havent, Jenks added. 

Progress in Congress

Members of Congress have introduced measures to end or pause the program.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced the 2026 American White-Collar Worker Jobs Act, which would eliminate OPT. Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., introduced the End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026, which would halt the program. 

Crane said his bill would halt visa abuses for three years and enact reforms when the program resumes. 

Congress should do everything in its power to prioritize the interests of American citizens, not the profit margins of massive corporations, he told the Daily Signal.

By ending Optional Practical Training, codifying the $100,000 H-1B fee, and implementing additional commonsense changes, we can stop the displacement of hardworking Americans once and for all, he added.

Virginia has to have a budget by June 30, Republican Virginia state Sen. Glen Sturtevant told The Daily Signal. After fighting for several months on the budget, state leaders are locking horns over data centers and increasing taxes.

If theres an actual shutdown and theres no money appropriated, you know teachers arent getting paid, cops arent getting paid, Sturtevant continued.

Sturtevant explained that the Senate, including many Democrats, wants to eliminate the 20-year-old tax break for data centers that currently costs Virginia $2 billion a year that has to be made up for by taxing Virginians. House Democrats and Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger want to keep that tax break in place, protecting the data centers.

I am somebody who thinks we need to get rid of the data center tax break, because I dont think we need to be giving $2 billion a year to huge AI big tech firms, Sturtevant continued. Its ultimately Virginians who pay for that in higher electric bills.

Data centers have taken over Virginia in recent years. Eighty-eight have already been built, and 100 more have been approved and begun construction. Sturtevant says they have worn out their welcome.

Its in my view that they dont all need to be built in Virginia. There are 49 other states where they can build them. Weve kind of done our fair share, Sturtevant said.

Twenty years ago, the tax break was put in place to support and grow Virginia, creating jobs and bringing new technology to the commonwealth. Thanks to the tax break and the industry growing, Sturtevant says these are the largest, most profitable, wealthiest companies in the world, who no longer need a tax break incentivizing them to build in Virginia.

Now the centers cost Virginians billions. In order to pay the teachers and pay the police and pave the roads, that extra money in many respects has to be made up by average everyday Virginians by paying higher property taxes, sales taxes, and income tax.

The Virginia House has presented its budget, with support from the governor, which includes this tax break. But overall, Sturtevant says, its bad and theres a lot to be concerned about.

In addition to the tax break, House Democrats are pushing for a 150% salary increase for state legislators and a recreational marijuana policy which will basically turn Virginia into like a Colorado or California having a pot shop on every corner, the senator told The Daily Signal.

Virginia has been central to the development of American government. English settlers established their first permanent North American settlement at Jamestown in 1607. That outpost soon grew into the thriving Virginia colony.

The United States would be born in Virginia as well, although that didnt happen for more than a century. Through its people, its government, and its commerce, the Virginia colony played a driving role in forging American independence during the years leading up to the Revolutionary War.

Americas founding ideals were draftedwe believeby George Washington and George Mason in the Fairfax Resolves of 1774. Among other grievances, the resolves protested British overreach regarding taxation and representation, judicial powers, and trade and commerce in the colonies, Encyclopedia Virginia reminds us.

Just two years later, Americans were ready for a birthday celebration on July 4, 1776. Thats the date when American patriots, meeting in Philadelphia, approved the wording of the Declaration of Independence.

Drafted by Virginian Thomas Jefferson, it was sent to a printer named John Dunlap. About 200 copies of the Dunlap Broadside were printed, with John Hancocks name printed at the bottom, the Constitution Center writes. Today, 26 copies remain.

However, those copies were fragile, much like the country they formed.

The United States has been the planets dominant power for so many generations that it is easy to forget that when it was launched in 1776, the new country contained only about 2.5 million people, most living on the edge of a vast continent. Greatness was our birthright, but only because brave patriots were willing to stake their lives on a series of ideas.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, the declaration states. [T]o secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Those ideas would stand the test of time, but the written version of them wouldnt.

To preserve the ideas for future generations, in 1823, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, son of a signer of the declaration, ordered an engraving to be made to recreate and preserve the declaration. Washington engraver William Stone did just that, including the original text and a facsimile of the script of the signers. A contemporary newspaper reported that it took Stone three years to create his copperplate engraving, but nobody is sure how he did it.

As we approached the 250th anniversary of the signing of the declaration, there was this real effort to preserve that document, not only the ideals of the document, but what it actually looked like, according to the Virginia Museum of History and Cultures Andrew Talkov.

The most recognizable feature of the Stone engraving is its large size, close to the size of the parchment original, which measures about 24 by 30 inches, the National Archives explained. Another characteristic is that the State Department had Stones engraving printed on parchment, a specially prepared animal skin that is thicker than paper. Finally, the 1823 printing included a line at the top that it was printed at the order of Adams: Engraved by W.I. STONE for the Dept. of State by order/of J.Q. ADAMS Secy of State July 4th 1823.

The copy that Virginians are invited to see this month is even more rare: It is a paper copy of Stones engraving, one of only two such copies known to exist. This version belongs to Sweet Briar College and is on loan to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture through Independence Day.

I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States, John Adams wrote on July 3, 1776. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Indeed, we do not.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

Piker and Uygur were slated to speak at an SXSW London when the British Home Office suddenly revoked their visas. Their reasoning was that it would not be conducive to the public good for them to enter the country.

The radical pair instantly did what people like them always do. They blamed Israel, despite the fact that right-wing influencers who are pro-Israel have also been recently banned, and that the U.K. government is openly hostile to the Jewish state.

That led a number of right-of-center intellectuals, some of whom I deeply respect, to argue that the ban was folly. Both the Free Press and National Review editorial boards published pieces criticizing the ban on both pragmatic and philosophical grounds, asserting that the bans would both foster more anti-Israel sentiment and were also a betrayal of free speech and classical liberalism. Several other notable conservatives made similar arguments, including that a confident civilization wouldnt need to do this.

But why should the U.K., Europe, or perhaps even the entire West be confident right now?

The entire continent is a shell of itself by any conceivable metric. Militarily impotent, economically depressed, and morally bankrupt, Western Europe is simply not in a position to be taking for granted that people will see radicalism for what it is when exposed to it.

Only a small minority of young Europeans say they are willing to fight and die for their country. Radical Islamism is becoming more prevalent by the day. Europe needs to be on a defensive posture, and that means fighting back against the forces that seek to destroy it by any means necessary, not being open to a good clean debate for the future of humanity.

The principled case for letting the pair travel is that liberalism dictates such. But Piker and Uygur are not British. Weve seen similar arguments play out in the United States during the second Trump administration, about how to extend rights to non-citizens that we all agree citizens do have.

I am not a constitutional lawyer, so I wont weigh in on the American legality, and Im not a scholar of the British legal system either, so I wont opine on Uygur and Pikers legal rights across the pond, because I dont know. What I will say is that I see no reason to extend the full charities of Western liberalism to foreigners who wish to destroy it.

This is the rights version of suicidal empathy. Being a free speech absolutist comes from a good place. And within our own borders with our own people, it is necessary. But theres no compelling reason a society must let in outsiders, with no stake in its fortune, to interlope, spread the seeds of destruction, and then go back where they came from, even from a classically liberal viewpoint.

The strongest argument comes from the pragmatists. Rich Lowry makes a version of this case, arguing that the ban is counterproductive because it raises the profile of the offenders in the U.K. and gives them an opportunity to clownishly blame Israel for it.

Lowry makes the good points that the British Home Office is run by a critic of Israel, the country is run by a left-wing government, and the country itself is profoundly anti-Zionist at this point, so of course its silly to blame Israel. That is all true, which is why I come to the opposite conclusion.

The suggestion that this ban is going to make more people aware of the dunce duo, and thus more likely to subscribe to their ideas, falls flat when they are already aligned with the majority. The case that it gives them an opportunity to falsely blame Israel falls flat because the case is so facially absurd.

Rather, the prevailing takeaway from this decision is that two destructive provocateurs were made to face consequences for their actions. That is all too rare today, and its about time that a Western government stood up for itself.

Overnight, police arrested more than 60 people and responded to at least four stabbings and one shooting as thousands flooded the streets to celebrate the teams first championship in more than half a century.

The charges, according to The New York Post, included assault on a police officer, criminal possession of a gun, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and obstruction of governmental administration. 

At least 10 members of the NYPD were injured, including one officer who was struck by a glass bottle, according to The Post. 

Dramatic videos circulating on social media captured scenes of the mayhem, including rioters setting fire to school buses before fire officials extinguished the flames.

???? BREAKING: Rioters have begun setting the school buses ON FIRE in Times Square during the Knicks riots

Police do not have NEARLY ENOUGH SUPPORT

Mamdani and Hochul have ABSOLUTELY FAILED NYPD and law abiding New Yorkers pic.twitter.com/yMtwfvhvFa

Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 14, 2026

Its absolute anarchy in New York City, Barstool Sports posted on X. 

Other videos captured loud flash bangs, fireworks, fans destroying street vehicles, and burning items in the street. 

Knicks mania turned into complete insanity in Times Square when fans smashed and tore apart several school buses in the packed party hub including one that was left completely engulfed in fire. pic.twitter.com/Q9MFnkWxS7

New York Post (@nypost) June 14, 2026

Not everyone turned to violence. One viral clip showed thousands in the streets and hanging from apartment buildings singing Jay-Zs Empire State of Mind, capturing the unapologetic energy of the Big Apple.

EVERYONE IN NYC IS SINGING EMPIRE STATE OF MIND https://t.co/theerk3Y6r

Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) June 14, 2026

Congratulations to Jim Dolan and the New York Knicks!!! What a year it has been but, even more so, what incredible playoff wins we have all witnessed, especially the last four Maybe the greatest in the history of basketball, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social. Also, tonight, a superstar was born. His name is Jalen Brunson, and there are others, including, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, and great Patriot, Mitchell Robinson!

Last week, Knicks owner James Dolan stated that New York City officials, not President Trump or the Secret Service, were responsible for the intense security surge around Madison Square Garden during Game 3 of the NBA Finals, as previously reported by The Daily Wire. 

On Monday night, as the Knicks hosted the NBA Finals in the Big Apple for the first time in decades, local authorities imposed strict access controls around the arena ahead of President Trumps attendance. Only ticketed fans were permitted within the secured perimeter, which featured expanded checkpoints, street closures, and restricted movement zones around Penn Station and nearby blocks.

But according to Dolan, the crackdown was not driven by federal officials.

Look, lets just talk about the Game 3, right? The Secret Service didnt demand this stuff. It was NYPD, and it was really the commissioners office, Dolan said during an appearance on The Carton Show.

Dolans comments appear to contradict the narrative that President Trump and the Secret Service sparked the confusion and long lines outside Madison Square Garden.

All because Donald Trump wanted to make it about himself, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said of the situation. I trust New Yorkers will let him hear how they feel about that.

What he actually saw stunned him so intensely that it now ranks among his top five most shocking experiences ever.

The reason I was shocked is there was so many spiritual vibes to this movie, he said on a recent episode of Unashamed.

Between the main characters being named Grace and Rock, several nods to the idea of a "savior of the world," and themes of self-sacrifice and redemption, Jase was astonished that Hollywood produced such a film, especially in this age.

But then the real stunner came.

There is a Phil Robertson quote in the movie, Jase exclaims.

After the movie ended, Jase set out with a mission to discover the "story behind how a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster managed to slip a Phil quote into the script.

Artificial intelligence gave him a strange answer: The line in Project Hail Mary was not a Phil Robertson quote, even though it is a universal accepted fact that he coined the phrase.

But Jase doesnt need AI to confirm what he knows is true. There is a Phil Robertson quote in there, and I didn't think that was an accident based on everything else I had seen.

Jase, calling the movie top-notch, praises the directors for allowing the film to play both sides of the spiritual argument.

He recalls a scene in which Ryland Grace (played by Ryan Gosling) has a spiritual conversation with Eva Stratt, the no-nonsense administrator who gets tapped by world governments to lead Project Hail Mary.

Grace inquires whether or not she believes in God, to which she replies, It's better than the alternative.

It was just like, well, I know which side of the production that line came from, says Jase, calling the film a wonderful experience.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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The heart is evoked when a husband and wife make their wedding vows. The heart is what jumps when a parent meets their child for the first time. Knowing someones heart means we have encountered their depths in love.

Since 1856, the Catholic Church has dedicated the month of June to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The entire month serves as an invitation to grow in relationship with Jesus and to become more like Him.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart has its roots in the prayer experiences of a 17th-century nun named St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. She received visions and words from Jesus between the years of 1673 and 1675. Christ told her that now was the time for His love to be spread more emphatically to the world.

He said: My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must spread them abroad by thy means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious treasures which I discover to you, and which contain graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition.

The words and appearance of Jesus fueled Margaret Marys prayer life and enabled her to have a deeper encounter with the living God.

Jesus told her: I will be your strength. Fear nothing, but be attentive to My voice and to what I shall require of you that you may be in the requisite disposition for the accomplishment of My designs.

This devotion has spread far and wide, teaching and forming the faithful in three ways.

First, we must constantly remember that God is real and that His love for us is beyond all understanding. Christ communicated that his burning love could not be contained. There is a need for it to be spread.

God is love. The love of Christ is not the love of this world, however. Real love needs truth. The love that Christ offers is not cheap; it is not concerned with feelings alone. The love of Christ is sacrificial. It counts no cost. It is the love of the cross. This is the love that Jesus invites us to experience and then to spread abroad like Margaret Mary did.

Second, the devotion reminds us that God chooses to arrive in our lives in ordinary ways. Margaret Mary was a simple nun in France. Jesus chose her to be the conduit for the world to receive the message of the Sacred Heart. He came to her in her normal prayer time before the Eucharist.

The Sacred Heart ought to remind us that our simple commitment to daily prayer and to worship on Sundays creates the foundation for God to interrupt our lives with His lovejust like He did with Margaret Mary.

Finally, the message of the Sacred Heart implores us to listen for the voice of God each day. Few will ever receive a vision of Jesus, like St. Margaret Mary did, but we can truly hear Him and see His plans for us when we cling to prayer.

Life can be challenging. Loved ones become sick. Jobs are lost. Relationships are broken.

There is a constant need for us to return to prayer, the deep relational connection with God. It allows us to hear how the heart of God is inviting us to take the next step while trusting that His love will carry us through everything.

This month, be a person of the Sacred Heart. Strive to hear the voice of Jesus, trust in His plans, and be committed to loving like He does.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

In an interview with local outlet WFAA, Judge John Roach, known for his no-nonsense and straightforward approach, said he spent months preparing for the high-profile trial that captivated attention across the country.

I know I made people mad, but Im not here to make them happy either, he told WFAA.

He defended one of his most controversial decisions of the trial: banning cameras from the courtroom. 

Yes, it was an easy decision. Ill tell you why, my primary goal in every case is to make sure the defendant and the prosecution get a fair trial. Period, Roach said. I had to do a balance between the medias right to know and to be able to report whats going on, because I think thats extraordinarily important. I think its important that the general public had access to the courtroom, and to see what was going on.

Roach also shot down claims he had a personal relationship with the Metcalf family. 

I wouldnt know Mr. Metcalf prior to this trial if he walked up to me and said hello, he said.

On Tuesday, a Texas jury convicted the 19-year-old of first-degree murder and sentenced him to 35 years behind bars for fatally stabbing Austin Metcalf at a track event in April 2025 in Frisco, Texas. 

Judge Roach said the jury got it right. 

Yes, they did because they were picked based upon the law, they listened to the facts, it happened in this courtroom, and they got a verdict, he said. 

Karmelos murder conviction ended a legal saga but provided fresh ammunition for the Anthony family to blame their sons conviction on racism and hurl accusations at the jury.  

In an interview with CBS Texas, Anthonys mother, Kayla Hayes, rejected the panels conclusion that her son intended to kill Metcalf.

My son is no murderer. My son didnt intend to hurt anyone, Hayes said. My son was defending himself, and thats what hurts so bad.

Jeff Metcalf, the father of Austin Metcalf, blasted Karmelo Anthonys parents as cowards, accusing them of making the high-profile murder case about race.

Drew Anthony. Kayla. Youre cowards. You wouldnt even show up for your sons sentencing or victims statement impacts. You abandoned your kid. You left him there. I guess hes no more use to you because you cant get any more GoFundMe money or [GiveSendGo] money. You are grifters. You should be ashamed of yourself, Metcald said.

You raised that child, and I swear to God, CPS should come check on those other three that you still have, he added.

The Daily Wire previously reported that Anthonys family raised more than $635,000 through a crowdfunding campaign during the murder trial.

One day after a jury sentenced him to prison, Anthony filed a notice of appeal. The filing begins the formal process of challenging both his conviction and sentence, which can take years to progress through the courts and does not guarantee a new trial.

Anthony was transferred to a state prison near Navasota, Texas. His intake photo shows his head shaved as he begins his 35-year sentence.

He seems like a nice young man who committed a crime, and he understands today more than any day before the consequences of committing a crime like he did, Judge Roach said of the convicted killer.

Anthony, 19, was convicted of murder in the stabbing death of Austin Metcalf, 17, and sentenced to serve 35 years in prison. Carter argued that because minorities are not interchangeable, Anthony was not provided with a jury of his peers at trial and she said that alone was grounds for him to receive a new trial.

Carter, a black woman who describes herself on X as a descendant of slaves, prefaced her statement by admitting that she had not yet read a full transcript of the trial but then immediately argued that she didnt need to because it was already clear to her that Anthony had not been granted a fair trial.

I have not yet read the full trial transcript. But so far, I do know this. Karmelo Anthony was entitled to a jury of his peers. He did not get that, she claimed. On that ground alone, he is entitled to a new trial. Minorities are not interchangeable. The prosecutors reported proffered reasons for striking all black jurors   that they were teachers appears to be pretext.

But by law, a jury does not have to reflect the race of the defendant rather, it must be made up of a reasonable cross section of the community, and both attorneys and judges are to do their best to ensure that the jury is made up of individuals who will decide the case based on the facts presented rather than preexisting biases.

The jury in Anthonys case was made up of multiple ethnic minorities in spite of claims made by Anthonys father and others that the jury was all white including Asian, Indian, and Hispanic. The prosecution did challenge several potential jurors who were black because they were educators and the murder had happened on school grounds. The judge accepted those challenges as valid.

Anthony needs a new lawyer on appeal and in a new trial, Carter continued, arguing that Anthonys court-appointed attorney had not done a good job. She left out the fact that, after raising some $600,000 via GiveSendGo, Anthonys family had gone with a court-appointed lawyer after claiming that he was unable to afford a private attorney.

His trial lawyer allowed in opinion evidence that should have been struck. He also seemed unable to appreciate and counter the impact of racial overtones in that case. Those overtones are clear even on Twitter commentary as folks seek to paint Metcalf as having no culpability in what happened and Karmelo as a complete monster, she insisted. The facts on how the matter escalated are more complicated than that. He and they had no such authority. They are also apparent in the statements that seek to deputize Metcalf and other kids with authority to remove Anthony. They had none and initiated the conflict. That does not mean they should have been killed but it means they have explaining to do. The lawyer for Anthony apparently did not require that explaining. It is fair to ask how the Anthonys ended up selecting that lawyer.

Her final jab was aimed at the trial judge, and she claimed that he should be disqualified because he gave an interview that could have negatively affected the appeal rights of the defendant.

After commemorating the anniversary of the D-Day landings, and as we part with many of their last witnesses, it behooves Americans to reflect on what those young men did and why it is still of the highest consequence to us. 

By the time the Western Allies were ready to commence the liberation of the Continent, on June 6, 1944, France had been under Nazi occupation for just shy of four years. The Germans had built a fearsome line of dug-in fortifications, bolstered by artillery and guarded by the remnants of the Luftwaffe: the Atlantic Wall. 

To free Europe, it was necessary to form an amphibious forcethe largest the world had ever seenand launch it directly at this deadly bulwark. 

Its one thing to read about this operation. Its quite another to walk the hundreds of yards down Omaha Beach and see how open and vulnerable the landing ground was.  

To feel the English Channel freezing your feet and weighing down your clothes, and to imagine it reddened with blood and overturning the reinforcements.  

To look at the sheer cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, and to picture machine gunners picking off your buddies as you all realize the ladders you brought were too short.  

To see the 20-foot bomb craters still marking the land above the coast. 

Who were the men who endured this? And why did they? 

These men stood to sacrifice some of the highest blessings of lifeyouth, health, home, familyand they knew it all too well. Nothing shows this better than a letter from Rear Adm. Don Moon, the commander of Assault Force U for Normandy, to his wife and children, dated June 2, which is now visible in the museum above Utah Beach. 

Moon professes courage: When the time comes I shall carry the countrys banner high and apply all power to the enemys defeat. But he plans for the worst.

He tells his wife: I know that the world can hold no greater treasure than the love, affection, and companionship you have showered upon me. To you in case of my non-return, I bequeath the problems and the joys of bringing our darlings to manhood and womanhood in the way you and I think they should be raised. 

He expresses his wishes for each of his children in turn. He hopes that they would develop virtue and kindness and strength of character. 

Like John Adams, who once resolved to study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Moon, facing possible death in war, encourages his son David in the development of his talents of mimicry and acting if he feels this could be his calling. 

Eisenhowers men knew that if they did not go, theyand the worldwould lose something even more precious than their personal blessings of home and family: a Western civilization that recognizes the God-given dignity of every human person.

Rising high over Gold Beach are stirring symbols of this civilization: a Crucifix and a statue of the Blessed Virgin. Likewise, Juno Beach bears the Cross of Lorraine, a symbol of free France and of its foundation. 

With such strength emboldening them, the men who stormed the beaches could say, in the words of one veteran of Gold Beach: I wouldnt have missed it for the world. 

For thousands, this dedication proved fatal. Not far from the road to Omaha Beach, Avenue de Bedford Virginie U.S.A., is a memorial to the community in America which took the highest losses at D-Day. 

The images of these Bedford Boys are sobering: 19 photographs, all bearing the same death date, June 6, 1944. Most of the men were in their early twenties. 

The French at Normandy have not forgotten what these men did. Au contraire, driving through the region, one might think they had all personally experienced the liberation. 

Allied flags adorn streets, shop windows, and private homes in villages and farmland alike. Fresh roses and poppies cover the ground in front of memorials and graves. 

As a visiting American, the most beautiful moment came as I walked slowly through the American cemetery, surrounded by the graves of 9,389 Americans who died to free France. Hearing a French mother hush her young daughter, then watching hundreds fall silent as the American flag was lowered and Taps was played, I fought tears. 

Particularly now, when personal memories of the Second World War are quickly fading, we in America must take a cue from the pious people of Normandy. 

We must remember the liberators. 

In our own day, many are being deceived by the same lies that led to the rise of fascism in Europe: Men and women are again listening to demagogues who exalt omnicompetent government and subordinate free thought and independent churches to state-sanctioned notions of morality. Some today even echo the despicable and irrational hatred of Jewish people that led to the evil of the Holocaust. 

Everyone wants a standard around which he can rally. Rail as we might against the false standard of deconstruction, if we do not replace it with the memory of our heroes, the flame of liberty, which they kept burning at the price of so much blood, will not outlive them. 

Christians believe the Trinity because it is the inevitable conclusion of what Scripture teaches about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of the Trinity is therefore not an arbitrary invention. Nor is it a concession to polytheism. It is precisely the opposite: a refutation of polytheism.

The story begins in Genesis.

The Jewish Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament, taught something unique among the religions of the ancient world. Pagan nations treated their gods as physical beings within the universe. Israel taught that God created the heavens and the earth. God was not part of the system. He brought the system into existence.

God is therefore not made of matter, not located at one point in space, and not one deity among many. He alone existed from eternity. Everything else had a beginning.

Israel was repeatedly tempted to compromise with the polytheistic religions around it. Time after time, the prophets called the nation back to the worship of the one true God. Through Isaiah, God declared, I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God (Isaiah 45:5).

The God of Israel was understood to be eternal, immaterial, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good. These are not properties material deities could possess.

That raises an obvious question. If Christians inherited this uncompromising belief in one God, how did they arrive at the doctrine of the Trinity?

John opens his Gospel with these words: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).

John then tells us that all things were made through the Word. The Word is distinguished from God, yet the Word is also called God. John 1:3 says all created things came into existence through Him. If all created things were made through the Word, then the Word Himself cannot belong to the class of created things.

Then John tells us, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14). The eternal Son of God became incarnate as Jesus Christ.

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The New Testament repeatedly presents the same pattern. At Jesus baptism, the Son stands in the water, the Spirit descends as a dove, and the Father speaks from heaven. The three are clearly distinguished from one another, yet elsewhere in Scripture the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each identified as God.

Jesus commanded His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Baptism is done in the name of God. Paul gives a Trinitarian benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14. Jesus, the Lamb of God, sits on the throne of God.

Jesus also claimed an existence that preceded Abraham: Before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58). His words echo the divine name revealed to Moses. The Jews understood the implication and tried to stone Him for blasphemy. Elsewhere, they accused Him of making Himself equal with God.

Scripture also attributes personal qualities to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit teaches, speaks, guides, gives life, and can be grieved. He is not merely an impersonal force.

The early Christians therefore found themselves committed to three truths taught by Scripture:

1. There is only one God.
2. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.
3. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct from one another.

Deny any one of those truths, and you contradict the Bible.

Over the first several centuries, as pagan polytheists converted to Christianity or challenged it, the church debated how best to explain the doctrine of God from Scripture.

The Gnostics denied that Jesus was truly incarnate. They taught that He was a spirit who only appeared human. In doing so, they denied the incarnation.

Another early controversy involved Sabellius, who taught what later became known as modalism. According to this view, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are merely different manifestations of the same divine person.

The church rejected this because Scripture repeatedly distinguishes the Father, Son, and Spirit from one another.

Then came Arius, who taught that the Father alone is eternal and that the Son is the first and greatest creature.

As Christians reflected on the biblical evidence, the church clarified its teaching: The Father is eternally unbegotten. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and, in Western theology, from the Father and the Son.

The doctrine can be summarized simply: God is one what one divine essence and three whos three distinct persons.

The church eventually summarized the biblical teaching as one God in three persons. Not one God and three gods. Not one person appearing in three forms. One God, three persons.

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Brent Asay/iStock/Getty Images

The doctrine of the Trinity is therefore not an arbitrary invention. Nor is it a concession to polytheism. It is precisely the opposite: a refutation of polytheism. The doctrine preserves the full teaching of Scripture and answers the questions Scripture itself forces us to ask about God.

What is striking is how often modern religious movements that spin off from Christianity repeat ancient errors. Some deny the full deity of Christ, as Arius did. Others collapse the distinctions among the persons, as Sabellius did. Still others deny Christs full humanity or full deity. Some even teach polytheistic material gods.

What has united Christians across denominations and centuries is their shared commitment to the biblical doctrine of God. By contrast, new religious movements often claim allegiance to Scripture while introducing another authority that corrects, supplements, or supersedes it.

When Jesus called people to believe in Him, He did not require them to master centuries of theological debate. But neither did He leave them free to invent their own Jesus. They were to believe true things about Him and reject false things about Him.

A person may sincerely use the name Jesus while holding beliefs about Him that contradict the Jesus revealed in Scripture. The issue is not sincerity but identity. Not, What do I feel? but, What does the Bible say?

The question is whether the Jesus a person believes in is the Jesus revealed in the Bible or a Jesus drawn from some other source.

The churchs long debates about the Trinity were not abstract philosophical exercises. They were answers to the most important question any person can ask: Who is Jesus Christ in the Bible?

The mac and cheese kids meal features a medium cup of macaroni and cheese, made with Chick-fil-As blend of Parmesan, Cheddar, and Romano cheeses.

The meal also includes a side, a drink, and a toy. The fast food chain famous for chicken first introduced macaroni and cheese as a been a side item for regular meals in 2019.

The new kids meal reflects customers requests for more flexible menu options for children who do not like chicken. A February Reddit thread was filled with users excited about the idea of a macaroni and cheese kids meal.

This really seems like a no brainer [sic] to me, one user said. I didnt eat meat as a kid and would have loved to have this option.

The kids meal is now available at participating locations for $6.75.

My kids absolutely love their Mac and Cheese and one of [them] wont touch the nuggets, another Reddit user said. Id love to see them add a Mac and Cheese kids meal.

This is the first time Chick-fil-A has offered a non-chicken entree in a kids meal. Its other options include regular or grilled chicken nuggets and chicken strips.

Customers can choose from sides including applesauce, a fruit cup, and waffle fries. Drink options include apple juice, chocolate milk, regular milk, and orange juice.

The new meal is being debuted alongside several new kids meal toys as well, according to Fox Business. The toys include a Cow Case with foldable games, a Cow Kart cardboard racer, a keychain, and Hasbro Cow Games.

The kids meal was introduced as Chick-fil-A announced the return of seasonal summer menu items such as the pineapple dragonfruit lemonade, the honey pepper pimiento sandwich, and the peach milkshake.

Im a Carolina Panthers fan, I dont particularly care where the Bears play from a geographic standpoint. It certainly would be lame for the Chicago Bears, one of the more storied franchises in the NFL, to play somewhere other than Chicago, but Im not emotionally invested in it.

What I am emotionally invested in is preventing the pussification of American sport, which is why the Bears move is troubling to me. Its troubling because theyre apparently going to build an indoor stadium wherever their new home is, be it in Indiana, Illinois, or elsewhere.

To put it bluntly, domed football stadiums are an affront to God. Football is the ultimate expression of American masculinity. Its a battle of physical strength and endurance, toughness, and gladiator spirit. It is not for the faint of heart, and it is not meant to be played in prime conditions. In fact, one of the appeals of the game is that it can be played rain or shine, sun or snow, sweltering heat or frigid freeze.

Replacing Soldier Field with a dome is a pinch of salt in the wound. Its one of the iconic venues of football. Again, I dont care about the Bears either way, but even I get a little tingle up the spine when I tune into a primetime matchup at Soldier Field in December, maybe a dusting of snow covering the grass, that orange C in the middle of the arena. Its up there with the Heinz, Lambeaus, and Arrowheads in terms of aura.

Domes are the antithesis of football, and dare I say America. They are fake in their presentation, communist in their value, and European in their softness. If I have to explain that to you, you just dont get it.

The NBA has been destroyed by flopping losers. Soccer is never going to happen. Baseball is my favorite sport, but it is at the mercy of the elements. We cant lose what makes football different, or America wont have a true mans game it can call its own any longer.

I figured Mom was a soft touch for superstition. A nice lady with a nervous habit dressed up as theology. Turns out the habit was sound and the theology even sounder.

You are not emptying the mind. If anything, you are spilling the contents before a higher power who already knew what was in there.

A recent study published in Religion, Brain & Behavior by researchers in Ireland looked at 628 middle-aged adults from the Midlife in the United States project, a long-running national study that has tracked the health of thousands of Americans since 1995.

They put participants through a standardized stress test and measured what their hearts and blood pressure did under pressure. They found that people who scored higher on private religious practices showed lower systolic blood pressure reactivity to the stressor.

Essentially, when life throws a curveball, the praying person's heart absorbs the hit.

Religious but not spiritual

The researchers separated two things most people lump together: private religious practices (prayer, Scripture reading, devotion at home) and what they called daily spiritual experiences (a general sense of the sacred, feelings of connectedness, vague "spiritual" vibes). Only the first category, the one with actual prayer in it, produced the cardiovascular benefit.

This matters because the modern wellness industry has spent two decades trying to sell Americans on a defanged, deracinated version of spiritual practice. Meditation retreats. Mindfulness courses. Breath-work seminars at $400 a weekend. All of it positioned as the secular, sophisticated alternative to what your grandmother was doing for free with a worn King James Bible.

But prayer and meditation are not the same animal. The wellness industry would like you to believe they are interchangeable, two flavors of the same practice, both leading to lower cortisol and better sleep. That is a lie.

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Empty promise

Meditation, in its popular Western form, is largely about emptying the mind. You sit, you breathe, you observe your thoughts like passing strangers you owe nothing to, you achieve a kind of inner stillness.

The goal is detachment. You are training yourself to step back from your own mental chatter and watch it from a distance. The self is the subject, the object, and the audience all at once. If it works, you feel calmer. If it doesn't, you feel like you spent 20 minutes wondering if you turned off the stove

Prayer is the opposite. Prayer is a conversation. There is a Person on the other end of the line, and that Person is listening. You are addressing someone, asking, thanking, confessing, repenting, interceding for your sisters job interview. You are not emptying the mind. If anything, you are spilling the contents before a higher power who already knew what was in there.

Meditation looks inward. Prayer looks up. Meditation is a monologue performed for an audience of one, who is also the performer. Prayer is a dialogue with the Creator of the universe. Meditation assumes the cosmos is indifferent and that the best you can do is make peace with that.

One assumes you are a bundle of neurons talking to itself. The other assumes you are a soul talking to its Maker.

That difference is the whole game.

Praying together, staying together

And the benefits extend well beyond the cardiac. A 2016 systematic review examined a dozen randomized trials and found prayer reduced anxiety in mothers of children with cancer, helped chemotherapy patients cope, and improved spiritual well-being across the board.

Then there is collective prayer, which deserves its own paragraph. Something happens when believers gather and pray together that doesnt happen alone in your kitchen.

A hospital-based study published in ScienceDirect documented measurable benefits among patients and staff at an outpatient clinic that began every workday with group prayer. The faithful have known this for 2,000 years. Fears that felt enormous at three in the morning shrink to a manageable size when spoken aloud in the presence of people who love you and a God who loves you more.

Burdens get distributed. A timid believer hears a confident prayer spoken aloud and realizes that confidence is available, not reserved. A confident believer hears someone else struggle to find words and remembers that brokenness is not a disqualification. The result is a kind of mutual restocking.

Kneeling and dealing

Which brings me to the deeper point. America is in a mental health crisis. Antidepressant prescriptions keep climbing. In 2023, loneliness was declared a public health emergency by the surgeon general himself. Suicide rates among the youth are at generational highs.

Pundits offer theories that include smartphones, social media, economic precarity, and polarization. All are real, but all are partial. The fuller explanation is the one your pastor has been preaching for years. You cannot evict God from a culture and expect the building to stand. A nation that traded the sanctuary for the self-help aisle was always going to drown in despair. There is a God-shaped hole in the modern Western psyche; stuffing it with meditation apps and microdoses is like trying to plug a dam with Kleenex.

Prayer is older than the problem. Prayer is bigger than the diagnosis. The studies show it, and Christians know it.

Students from families with lower education levels must rely more on schools to provide information. Poor reading and math scores nationwide do not give confidence that schools in low-income areas are bridging the gap. Many schools have reduced time spent on history, science, geography, literature, and civics in favor of generic reading strategies, so-called social-emotional learning, and gender studies. Schools often cut the very subjects that help students.

Differences in background knowledge have enormous implications for teaching reading. Two students can read the same paragraph and perform differently on the test, not because one is more intelligent, but because he knows the topic better.

For decades, researcher and former professor E.D. Hirsch argued that literacy is connected to content and vocabulary. Hirsch has argued that broad general knowledge is essential for reading comprehension because students need prior knowledge to understand what they read. 

Likewise, professor of cognitive psychology Daniel T. Willingham, who researches reading comprehension, has also found that background information is important for students to understand text.

The evidence behind this approach is compelling. A 2024 report in Education Next observed long-term reading gains among students attending schools using knowledge-rich curricula. Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development similarly found that elementary students who learned under the Core Knowledge curriculumwhich was developed by Hirschimproved their reading abilities.

While much of the education establishment doubles down on skills and spends less time on content, some educators are bucking the trend by reemphasizing rigor and factual memorization.

Liberty Common School in Fort Collins, Colorado, has used the Core Knowledge curriculum since 1997. The curriculum gives students a foundation in a range of subjects, including history, geography, literature, science, music, and the arts. School officials report their 2025 graduating class had Colorados highest composite SAT score.

The Great Hearts network of schools also uses a classical liberal arts curriculum focusing on great books. The Great Hearts network started in Arizona, but parent demand helped expand the academies to Louisiana and Texas. Instead of narrowing instruction, these schools immerse students in primary sources and maintain high academic expectations.

Students cannot analyze history they do not know, evaluate scientific claims they do not understand, or engage in civic debate without any understanding of civilization. Knowledge is a prerequisite for any critical thinking. Yet state lawmakers in California, New Jersey and Vermont have ethnic studies standards or requirements that emphasize activism, identity politics, and lived experiences with no civics requirements.

Encouraging schools to adopt knowledge-rich curricula is a proven approach to closing the achievement gap. It is one of the few education reforms that should attract support across ideological lines.

America does not suffer from a shortage of taxpayer spending. It has a knowledge problem. Schools cannot continue stripping content out of classrooms while expecting literacy rates and civic understanding to improve.

If policymakers genuinely want to close the achievement gap, they should start by recognizing what that gap represents: unequal access to knowledge.

Born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York, Trump shares his birthday with Flag Day, a coincidence he has long called a point of pride. I am blessed to have shared my birthday with the Star-Spangled Banner, he once said. Today, as the country marks its own 250th year of independence, the celebration feels fitting for a man whose supporters say has spent a lifetime putting America first.

Trumps road to this point in history has been anything but conventional. A real estate mogul turned reality television star turned political phenomenon, he stunned the world in 2016 by winning the presidency without a single day of prior government or military service. He left office in January 2021 and then came back to do it again four years later.

In doing so, he became the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive terms, reclaiming the White House in 2024 with a decisive electoral victory. As he blows out the candles on his 80th birthday, the record books are already being rewritten around him.

From a conservative standpoint, Trumps presidential resume is formidable. His first term unleashed one of the most prosperous economies in modern American history. Before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, his administration oversaw the creation of 7 million new jobs, drove unemployment to a 50-year low of 3.5%, and saw wage growth surge fastest for the very workers politicians have long promised to help blue-collar Americans and those at the bottom of the income ladder. Middle-class family incomes rose nearly $6,000, and poverty rates for Black and Hispanic Americans fell to record lows.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act the largest tax overhaul in a generation slashed the corporate rate from 35% to 21% and delivered meaningful relief to working families. Nearly 9,000 Opportunity Zones were created, channeling $75 billion in private investment into communities long overlooked by Washington.

On the courts, Trumps impact may outlast every other element of his legacy. He appointed three Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett cementing a 63 conservative majority, and placed over 200 federal judges on the bench, reshaping the judiciary for a generation.

His first term also saw the replacement of NAFTA with the stronger USMCA trade deal, the construction of over 400 miles of border wall, the brokering of the historic Abraham Accords in the Middle East, and the launch of Operation Warp Speed, which delivered COVID-19 vaccines in record time.

His return to power in 2025 has been equally bold. In his first year back, Trump signed over 225 executive orders a single-year record delivering rapid-fire action on border security, energy production, and government reform. The results speak for themselves. Unauthorized border crossings have plummeted to near-zero. U.S. crude oil production hit a record 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025. The newly created Department of Government Efficiency has identified billions in potential savings, marking the most aggressive downsizing of the federal bureaucracy since the Reagan era. And the One Big Beautiful Bill delivered further tax and spending reforms through Congress.

Today, as Trump watches UFC fighters battle on the White House lawn in a celebration that doubles as Americas 250th birthday party his supporters would argue the man himself mirrors the occasion: a little older, a little louder, and still, unmistakably, in the ring.

Happy 80th, Mr. President.

Federal prosecutors have quietly submitted new evidence under seal in the case against Timothy Hudson, who is accused of sexually assaulting and killing his stepsister, 18-year-old Anna Kepner, onboard a Carnival Cruise ship.

In a pair of filings entered in federal court in Miami on June 8, prosecutors revealed they have obtained "newly disclosed, supplemental information" supporting their effort to revoke the release of Hudson, identified as T.H. in the filings.

The new filing comes as Hudson was allowed to remain free until his September 2026 murder trial. In April, a federal grand jury indicted Hudson as an adult; he is accused of first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse after Kepner was found dead in November 2025 inside a Carnival cruise cabin that was traveling on the high seas toward Miami.

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Prosecutors said the sealed filing contains information concerning the "performance of any examinations or tests," and they are asking the court to consider it as part of their effort to revoke the teen suspect's release pending trial.

The new evidence, however, does not identify what kind of examinations or tests were conducted or what they showed as the order was immediately placed under seal and the court granted the request.

FBI WEIGHING STATE OR FEDERAL CHARGES AGAINST 16-YEAR-OLD IN ANNA KEPNER CRUISE SHIP HOMICIDE CASE: LAWYER

The evidence was submitted as part of the governments ongoing "Motion for Review and Revocation of Order of Release Pursuant to the Bail Reform Act," which is their effort in overturning the teens release and placing him back into custody before trial.

At the time he was arrested he was charged as a juvenile and allowed to live with an uncle because of his age. But in April a federal grand jury indicted him as an adult, introducing the possibility that he could be jailed as he awaits trial.

ANNA KEPNER'S FATHER WANTS STEPSON TO 'FACE THE CONSEQUENCES' IN CRUISE SHIP DEATH CASE

But on May 27, a judge ruled that the accused teen could continue to remain free pending his murder trial with certain restriction.

"If it were a 20-year-old under the exact circumstances I probably would have detained," U.S. District Judge Edwin Torres said. "The presumption would be we were just not going to take that chance."

"This is a different animal," Torres said.

ANNA KEPNER DIES MYSTERIOUSLY DURING FAMILY VACATION ON CARNIVAL CRUISE SHIP: TIMELINE OF EVENTS

Kepners parents have voiced their outrage that Hudson is not jailed pending his trial.

"Were upset that hes still out. Were six months in, and he should already have been arrested, and yet hes free to do whatever he wants right now," Christopher Kepner told the Daily Mail. "Thats our problem. Hes been able to do whatever he wants and go where he wants, but the familys been sitting here unable to do anything."

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If convicted, the teen could face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

"I want to see him in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. He does not need to be free. He does not need to be in the general public, around any kids or women in general," Christopher Kepner said.

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NO CAUSE OF DEATH FOR CHEERLEADER FOUND DEAD ON CRUISE SHIP AS REPORT REVEALS REMAINS FOUND HIDDEN UNDER BED

Nov. 6, 2025, dinner: Prosecutors say Kepner left dinner because she wasnt feeling well, saying that she had mouth pain from her braces and an upset stomach, and returned alone to cabin 8343.

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7:35 p.m.: CCTV allegedly shows Hudson entering the cabin.

7:38 p.m.: CCTV allegedly shows Kepner entering the same cabin. Prosecutors say she was never seen leaving again.

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7:51 p.m.: Kepner's 13-year-old brother briefly entered the cabin and later told investigators he saw her alive.

7:51 p.m. to 10:13 p.m.: Prosecutors say Kepner and Hudson were alone in the cabin for roughly three hours.

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10:13 p.m.: Prosecutors say Hudson exits the cabin and looks left and right down the hallway.

10:53 p.m.: Prosecutors say Hudson places the privacy sign on the cabin door and goes back inside.

11:21 p.m.: Kepner's younger brother returns briefly to the cabin. He later tells investigators he did not see her inside.

12:09 a.m.: The brother returned again. Prosecutors say Hudson blocked him from entering, told him he was changing and made him wait outside for a couple of minutes.

12:09 a.m.: The brother said the bathroom and closet doors were open, and the cabin lights were on.

Morning of Nov. 7: Prosecutors say Kepner's phone, which was missing from the cabin, was tracked by ship Wi-Fi/router data moving along the same path as Hudson.

9:26-9:55 a.m.: Prosecutors say CCTV and router data placed Hudson, and allegedly Kepner's phone, near the jogging track, smoking area and later near the trash-bin area where the phone was found.

11:24 a.m.: Cabin attendants discovered Kepner's body, prosecutors say, wrapped in bedding and partially hidden under a bed, with a box of life vests positioned to obscure it.

America turns 250 this July. For a country that can't agree on anything especially about Donald Trump what is reflected back isn't always easy to look at.

'It looks real good. And you know what, 'scuse my French, but I f**king hate that.'

In preparation for the 250th celebration, the pool was drained, painted, and fenced off. It brought on lawsuits, court hearings, and more cable news segments than anyone expected from a paint job.

And then the water came back in. On June 4, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool refilled under a blazing June sun. Tourists, joggers, and D.C. regulars lined the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to watch the water rise.

The reflecting pool is the centerpiece of a broader $95 million push by the Trump administration to restore Washington ahead of the 250th. Under Executive Order 14252, "Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful," the National Park Service launched a sweeping effort to restore fountains, rehabilitate historic landscapes, and address aging infrastructure across the city.

The funds come not from the NPS' congressional budget but from national park entrance fees money the agency is legally permitted to redirect at its discretion.

More than 20 fountains that had sat dry for years some for decades are flowing again. The Columbus Circle fountain in front of Union Station was turned back on in late May for the first time since 2007. Meridian Hill Park's cascading fountain the longest in North America is running again.

The reflecting pool is the latest in a series of restoration projects that have drawn surprisingly positive reactions across the city even from residents who didn't vote for Trump.

RELATED: The fountains in DC are back on. It turns out that decline was 'a choice.'

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The pool was designed by architect Henry Bacon and completed in 1923 a long, narrow mirror stretching almost 2,030 feet between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Trump compared the pool's length to "skyscrapers."

The nation's reflecting pool has also been leaking for most of its existence. The original structure was built without pilings on the soft, dredged riverbed and started losing water almost immediately.

The Obama administration spent $34 million and closed the pool for nearly two years, rebuilding the structure with foundation support and installing a brand-new filtration system. The algae came back within a month. The leaks never stopped.

By the time Trump took office, Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said it was losing 45,000 gallons a day.

The Biden-era NPS received estimates "above $100 million" for another fix and didn't move forward.

Trump ordered a different approach. Workers drained the pool, hauled away what he says were 12 truckloads of garbage, sealed the cracks, and replaced the filtration system with a state-of-the-art ozone nanobubbler the first of its kind at the pool. Then, they coated the basin in what the president calls "American Flag Blue."

When Trump first visited the drained pool on May 7, he said previous estimates to fix it had run as high as $355 million and 3.5 years. He initially said it would cost $1.8 million and take one week.

The contract was signed for almost $6.9 million awarded to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a Virginia firm, through an expedited no-bid process. The DOI later revised the timeline to a month and added $6.2 million, citing the urgency of the July 4 deadline.

It took six weeks. Federal contracting records show the final cost came to just under $14.2 million more than eight times Trump's 1.8 million estimate, yet roughly 4% of the $355 million he said it could have cost otherwise. Trump says the work will last 50 to 100 years.

"Our country is about beauty, cleanliness, safety, great people," he told reporters who questioned why he was focused on the pool during a period of international tension. "Not a filthy capital."

Trump drove his motorcade across the drained floor to inspect it personally. He also posted an AI image of himself and other Cabinet members swimming in it.

"It won't leak; it will shine and be the pride of Washington, D.C., for decades to come," said Trump.

RELATED: America 250 UFC event at risk: Anti-Trump group sues to shut down event on behalf of Democratic activists

Blaze News

But the landscape architects and historic preservationists weren't concerned about the preventable water loss. They were concerned about "American Flag Blue."

"It wasn't intended as a place that looks jolly like your local golf course," said Judy Scott Feldman of the National Mall Coalition, a nonprofit that helps protect the area's historic legacy. The Cultural Landscape Foundation filed suit, calling the project a "permanent blemish" that would turn a national landmark into a "theme park."

The pool's original bottom was dark asphalt and tile not Obama's 14-year-old tinted gray concrete that critics defended as "historic." The NPS agreed that a darker bottom, like Trump's dark navy, improves reflectivity.

An EarthCam time-lapse from the top of the Washington Monument shows what actually changed. The pool isn't green any more. Trump's new nanobubbler targets the algae, and the sealant addresses the leaking joints that the Obama renovation didn't.

One problem reportedly remains: two miles of cracked underground pipes that, if they fail, could shut down the filtration system and bring the algae back. The Trump administration says pipe replacement will begin in the fall.

Blaze News went out to the National Mall and asked five people what they thought.

A resident who has run the Mall route for six years barely broke stride. "I didn't like the construction, so I started running the Jefferson Memorial way. Honestly, I don't even care who did it. It was Trump, right? I'm not really political I work in tech. It looks fine."

A 13-year-old on his school trip said his class had studied the "I Have a Dream" speech just weeks before. "I didn't know the pool was broken. I just thought it was always like this."

A retired couple from Western Pennsylvania had been here before once for the Bicentennial in 1976 and twice since 2023. He pointed to their matching MAGA hats. "We promised to come back only to Trump's Washington," he said, "and seeing it completed makes me feel more patriotic than I already was."

Not everyone Blaze News spoke with voted for Trump. In 2024, Washington, D.C., voted more than 92% for Kamala Harris.

A college junior interning on Capitol Hill had watched the construction drag on through her first weeks in the city. "I tried walking by here to romanticize, you know, my D.C. hot-girl summer," she said. "The construction was low-key annoying. Our office has been talking about it, and besides the fact that it seems, yet again, like just another one of Trump's pet projects, I wouldn't go as far as to say it looks bad."

A lifelong resident who works in education stopped at the edge of the pool, looked out at the water, and said: "I'm not going to give that man credit. I'm just not. But it does look good. It looks real good. And you know what, 'scuse my French, but I f**king hate that."

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One of the first shocks I experienced when I became the Bishop of Arlington was being in this office and looking out and seeing the Capitol and the Washington Monument from my window, Burbidge told The Daily Wire in a recent interview. There are some heavy hitters here who are influencing our countrys politics.

For about two years, those heavy hitters included Vice President JD Vance, who, as a first-term senator from Ohio, settled his family in Northern Virginia. Vances Catholicism has been a central part of his identity since his 2019 baptism  back when he was still just the author of Hillbilly Elegy and a promising young man.

Vance, who tells the story of his faith journey in a forthcoming book, Communion, may have broken the land speed record for transition from catechumen to prominent Catholic. By the time Donald Trump asked him to join the presidential ticket, he was one of the most well-known American Catholics, second only to the man he and Trump were running to succeed.

Once in office, Vance became the locus for Catholic critiques of the Trump administrations foreign policy and immigration crackdown which earned the White House rebukes from Pope Francis and now Pope Leo XIV, whose elevation to the Throne of St. Peter moved Vance a few notches down the list of prominent American Catholics.

Burbidge knows all of this. Hes met Vance, he says, but hasnt had a formal meeting with him since he became vice president. And Burbidge realizes the vice president has a particular challenge before him, not just as a Catholic leader, but one with a countryman in Rome. But the bishop who encouraged Trump and Vance in January 2025 to develop a national immigration policy that reflects the Catholic commitment to human dignity and the common good stressed that Vance has all the tools he needs to navigate choppy theological-political waters.

We have a mandate to be not only citizens, but to be faithful citizens, Burbidge says. You cant separate what you know to be true and what you profess to believe into your life as a politician. And will you have to pay a price for that sometimes? Of course you will. Will you maybe be rejected by others? Of course you will. But theres no other path.

This is whats so great about being Catholic, the bishop adds. Theres a consistency of the gospel of life and the truth.

Now, does this become more challenging for a politician? Im sure it does. But you cant be one person here and another person here.

A Philadelphia native ordained in 1984, Burbidge began his episcopal journey as the auxiliary bishop of his hometown in 2002. Named bishop of Raleigh in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI, he held that post for a decade before Pope Francis named him the fourth bishop of Arlington. Its a role to which Burbidge a polished speaker unafraid to preach the gospel of life to all manner of politicians seems uniquely suited.

It really doesnt matter whos in office, Burbidge says when asked how hes navigated the transition from President Joe Biden, a Catholic who flouted the Churchs teaching on abortion, to Trump and Vance, whose paeans to the faith have not kept them out of the fray.

Its always going to be a challenge, because [the Catholic Church is] so beautiful, the way we teach the gospel of life. It confuses people that we can be on this side or that side, but the truth of the gospel, what were teaching doesnt change because of whos in office.

The bishop certainly practices what hes preaching here. Burbidge issued his statement on immigration less than two weeks after Inauguration Day, reminding the Trump team of the Churchs stance before it had finished unpacking.

Burbidge had plenty of practice dealing with politicians by this point. From 2022 to 2024, he chaired the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Pro-Life Activities Committee. In that role, he chastised Biden for causing great scandal when he announces both his faith and his pro-abortion position publicly, calling on the president to repent.

Still, Burbidge goes out of his way to stress that his role is no different than that of other bishops. He does not tell his priests to preach to the powerful in the pews and thinks there should be no effort at all for priests to do that.

For all thats happening in the American church, Burbidge is most excited about the things that get bishops excited: seven ordinations this year and 12 in 2025; 39 active seminarians; mass attendance rebounding to pre-COVID numbers; 27 George Mason students brought into the church this Easter alone, the work of just one campus priest.

We have so many young adults who are fully engaged in the life of the church, Burbidge says. We are very, very blessed with vocations and we have so many beautiful holy families, holy marriages, from which vocations so often come.

With a flourishing diocese and rising levels of religiosity among young Americans, Burbidge is optimistic about the future of the country and the church. And he sees even more reason for hope in Pope Leo, whom he praises for the serenity and the simplicity and the joy he has projected in his first year as pontiff.

I think it was a blessing, a gift, that he knows the United States, Burbidge says. Hes lived here, hes from here. He speaks the language. He gets us, and I think he understands us, in our politics and our culture and things like that.

One might say its providential, the ascension of an American pope at the dawn of a very Catholic age in American politics. Abortion and immigration, the twin issues of our time, make it clear that Catholic social teaching does not cleave easily along party lines. And yet, the days of Catholics sidestepping politics seem to be over.

The Republican nominee for president in 2028 will almost certainly be Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both Catholics. And at least two Democratic frontrunners  California Governor Gavin Newsom and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are proximately Catholic as well. Our nations next presidential election may not just be a referendum on competing political systems, but competing conceptions of Catholicism.

Regardless of whether that happens, American Catholics will certainly be glad to have one of their own leading the church in the coming years. But perhaps theyll also look to a prelate just two years younger than Pope Leo, another son of a great American city whose ordination came almost two years to the day of the Holy Fathers.

As a bishop, I have to have full responsibility for every soul entrusted to me, Burbidge says. And therefore, I have to speak truth and love, and love involves speaking the truth.

So, I think that if youre a Catholic and youre running for office, your bishops going to be talking to you.

***

The White House lawn will become the stage for a celebration unlike anything in recent American history on Monday. As part of the nations 250th birthday festivities, a UFC fight card will take place on the grounds of the Peoples House. One of us will be participating. The other will be cheering as a friend and supporter. Most importantly, our sons will be watching.

Many people will see a cage fight. We see something else entirely.

We see an opportunity to celebrate America in a way that matches the scale of this historic milestone. America did not endure for 250 years through caution. It endured through courage, perseverance, sacrifice, and a willingness to meet challenges head-on.

When we met several years ago at Penn State University, neither of us could have predicted where life would lead. One of us would pursue a career in professional fighting. The other would dedicate his life to building homes and communities. On the surface, those paths seem very different. Yet the values required for both pursuits are remarkably similar.

Both demand discipline, require accountability, reward perseverance, and teach humility. Most importantly, both remind us that success is rarely achieved alone. It requires mentors, family, faith, and a community that challenges us to become better men.

That is why we continue to meet each week with a group of fathers committed to sharpening one another through friendship, mentorship, and Bible study. In a culture that has made a sport of attacking masculinity, we have found value in gathering with other men who are committed to faith, family, and serving our community.

We know mens Bible studies and fellowship groups like ours are thriving across the country. In spite of attempts to shame men for leaning into masculinity, we see men modeling the biblical principle of iron sharpening iron in a positive way. It helps explain a surprising trend emerging among young men.

According to a recent Gallup survey, 42% of young men now say religion is very important in their lives, surpassing young women for the first time in the 25 years Gallup has tracked the question.

Why? Because men crave community and brotherhood. They want to be challenged. They want to belong. They want to know their lives matter. Every generation eventually discovers that material success alone is not enough. Young men are searching for purpose, responsibility, and relationships that challenge them to grow, and they want to be part of something larger than themselves.

We believe the ultimate model of masculinity is found in Jesus Christ. He paired strength with humility, combined leadership with service, and expressed love through sacrifice.

Some people will never be comfortable with a UFC event on the White House lawn. Thats their right. Americans have always disagreed about how best to celebrate our nation and express its values. And sufferers of the infamous derangement syndrome will inevitably dismiss the whole thing as the president throwing himself a birthday party. What is happening on that lawn is far more meaningful than that.

We believe many critics are missing a larger story. The search for what some critics have called throwback masculinity is leading many young men back to faith. In our own weekly Bible study, we have seen it lead men back to fathers, coaches, pastors, and mentors.

As America prepares to celebrate 250 years of freedom, our hope is not simply that people remember a historic UFC event. Our hope is that they remember the values that made such a celebration possible in the first place: courage, perseverance, sacrifice, faith, and personal responsibility.

Tomorrow, millions of Americans will watch what happens inside a cage on the White House lawn. We encourage them also to watch the healthy masculine relationships being built outside the cage. Look at the enthusiasm of our young sons, who but for this fight may have never become interested in celebrating Americas 250th birthday at all.

And like fathers across this country, we will be hoping they grow into men who love God, serve others, lead their families well, and embrace the responsibilities that come with freedom.

That legacy is worth every fight.

***

Bo Nickal is a mixed martial artist. Michael Burkentine is a real estate developer.