The mass rioting and destruction across France in recent weeks has laid bare the direct connection between multiculturalism and authoritarian political movements across the West, as does the similar chaos in countries such as Albania, Belgium, Italy, and Portugal.

The resemblance to the mass disturbances in the United States in 2020 is obvious, with all these incursions combining ethnic agitation with socialism and Marxism, a red-green alliance financed significantly by outside forces such as foreign billionaire Neville Roy Singham and communist parties around the world.

America is the home of Americans: a people born of liberty who are intent on maintaining the world’s greatest home for freedom and serving as an example to the rest of the world.

This combination shows that the planned destination of multiculturalism is hard socialism or, looking further down the road to perdition, outright communism.

The same struggle over identity and political power is visible in American cities and states where progressive movements seek to make group identity the organizing principle of public life. The Trump administration has begun reversing Biden-era immigration policies, but enforcement alone cannot answer a more fundamental question: What holds Americans together?

A fierce argument over national identity runs through our immigration debate. The 250th anniversary last week of an obscure Virginia bill offers a revealing glimpse of how long that argument has endured.

On October 14, 1776, Thomas Jefferson presented a naturalization bill drafted by Edmund Pendleton to Virginia's General Assembly. He entitled it “Naturalization of Foreign Protestants” and proposed citizenship for foreign Protestants who swore fidelity to the commonwealth and obedience to its laws. The bill also offered newcomers $20 toward passage and 50 acres of unappropriated land. In Pendleton's original conception, the invitation was explicitly religious: Protestants would enlarge a people whose convictions he regarded as central to the commonwealth.

Jefferson revised the bill, removing its Protestant restrictions and replacing “foreign Protestants” with broader language. The editors of Jefferson’s papers say his changes were designed to open citizenship to Jews, Catholics, and other non-Protestants. The Assembly did not enact the bill. Yet the disagreement survives in another form today: Is America a particular people shaped by an inherited way of life, or a proposition to which newcomers can subscribe?

Pendleton emphasized the formation of a people, while Jefferson rejected a religious test for joining it. Both drafts required an oath of fidelity; neither can be reduced neatly to today’s slogans. But they reveal different instincts about what a political community needs in order to endure.

RELATED: France and the United States can’t govern on blind trust

Remon Haazen/Getty Images

Americans still debate those instincts. One vision sees the United States as a “shining city on a hill,” a people demonstrating the value of a distinctive inheritance. Another emphasizes its welcome to the “wretched refuse” of other nations, placing faith in the power of American principles to transform those who arrive. The economic claims made for immigration are important, but the fiercest disagreements concern what newcomers must share with the people already here.

Those who describe America chiefly as a proposition often claim the moral high ground, dismissing their opponents as bigots or religious zealots. That tactic has proved effective in a cultural struggle in which collectivists seek to redefine the country in their own image. In my view, progressives, socialists, and communists increasingly subordinate freedom of speech, religion, association, and enterprise to an expansive conception of equality enforced by the state.

The result is a politics that invokes equality while giving ever more authority to government officials. If America is only an abstract proposition, the meaning of that proposition can be rewritten by whoever captures the institutions that teach and enforce it. Equality can then displace liberty as the nation’s defining value.

We have reason to take the ideological change seriously. In a July survey, the Cato Institute found that 38% of Americans under 30 held a favorable view of communism. That is a striking measure of the ground an ideology once broadly rejected has gained among the young.

The answer is not to replace a purely propositional identity with an ethnic test or a mandatory religion. Pendleton’s Protestant requirement was itself a statement of values, however narrowly he understood them. He wanted to establish Protestantism as the premise behind Virginia’s expansion of immigration, considering an obvious connection between Protestantism and the rise of representative government.

RELATED: Pray for the country. Then do your part.

Imagedepotpro/Getty Images

In reality, America’s inheritance is centuries of struggle to build and preserve a constitutional order that protects liberty. Americans are born into that legacy, and newcomers can join it. The common obligation is to sustain it, even when powerful institutions press us to abandon it. Such an identity requires more than a passing declaration of agreement with an abstract creed.

The public may be more receptive to this argument than our political disputes suggest. Cato also found that 71% of Americans surveyed believe the ideals and institutions of the founding are part of their inheritance. That is a foundation on which to build a common national life.

We need to build on that attitude and reinforce the public appreciation of our inheritance as Americans. The flying of other nations’ flags at anti-government rallies is an obvious manifestation of the weakening of our national identity by mass immigration and collectivists’ domination of the nation’s education system and mass culture over the past several decades.

Protection and reinvigoration of respect for the nation’s founding values will require a general agreement on the answer to the question of “What is an American?” I believe that the unifying answer is that America is the home of Americans: a people born of liberty who are intent on maintaining the world’s greatest home for freedom and serving as an example to the rest of the world.

An Arizona man was sentenced to a little more than three years in prison for threatening to "execute" President Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

Rene Ortiz of Casa Grande issued the written threats on Election Day in 2024, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona.

He wrote that he would shoot 'the incoming fraudulent elected [President of the United States] … at the inauguration on January 20th, 2025.'

The 56-year-old wrote a note asserting that he would "execute the newly elected [President of the United States] by firing an M-16A2 service rifle with a magazine of 6 rounds" and delivered it to the federal courthouse in Phoenix.

That threat was directed at both candidates, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

After Trump won, Ortiz issued another written threat that was delivered to the federal courthouse in Tucson.

In that threat, he wrote that he would shoot "the incoming fraudulent elected [President of the United States] ... at the inauguration on January 20th, 2025."

Ortiz was interviewed by U.S. Secret Service, and he reiterated his intent to attack the president.

He was arrested on Jan. 17, 2025, before the presidential inauguration.

Ortiz was convicted by a federal jury on June 8 and was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Stephen M. McNamee on Tuesday.

More recently, a 24-year-old man named Jaden Read was arrested after posting on social media that he would kill the president when he visited Kansas.

RELATED: Man served time for threatening to kill Trump — then gets arrested for more alleged threats against Trump

"Let's shoot Trump honestly, where's our shooter? I’m tired of living this money life," Read allegedly wrote in Facebook comments.

"Can we shoot him in Kansas please I will myself," he allegedly wrote in another comment.

"[I know] where your speech will be. Already mapped out roofs around," he added.

He was arrested in Clearwater, Kansas, on Saturday.

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An obscure rapper from Minnesota who goes by the name of Tufawon (real name Rafael Gonzalez Jr.) recently traveled to France and joined protests at a high school in Saint-Denis alongside Greta Thunberg. He led chants, including “f**k ICE” and “ICE out,” and performed his song “No One Is Illegal.”

When Gonzalez returned to the United States, he posted the following Facebook message urging white Americans to stir up the same dissent here:

“After returning home from France I can clearly see how we need to become far more radicalized in the states. We have to be more enraged. Our comfort is hindering our progress. It really and truly needs to be white people that go outside and raise hell if we want to see revolution. There are far too many neoliberals that are just as bad as the fascists. The French have figured this out a while ago. Now it’s time to take it to the next level. Go f**k s**t up white people. It’s your time.”

Beck mocks the 40-year-old’s claim that rioting produces real results, noting, “We’re going to have a teacher who shows up in a classroom we just burned down.”

Gonzalez’s rallying cry reminds Glenn of Hitler’s 1933 speech in which he said, “Don’t talk to me about victory. This isn’t victory. Victory only comes after war.”

“There is a whole book that is written about this particular speech and about how he wrote it because he was nuts. ... Kind of like this,” he adds, referring to Gonzalez.

As for Gonzalez’s claim that “white people” specifically need to join the unrest, Glenn retorts, “I thought all white people were bad.”

He then turns to Gonzalez’s remark that “there are far too many neoliberals that are just as bad as the fascists.”

“I told you they're going to come and eat you. They are going to eat you, my friend,” Glenn laughs, underscoring his repeated warnings that radicals will eventually turn on the moderate left.

“‘The French have figured this out a while ago,”’ he reads from Gonzalez’s Facebook post. “Yes, they did when they pulled the guillotines out.”

Interestingly, when Gonzalez spoke with the New York Post, he claimed he traveled to France for vacation and that his participation in the French protests was “very spontaneous.”

“What a coincidence that is,” Glenn scoffs.

To hear more, watch the video above.

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A little more than a week ago, I attended a gathering for “young conservatives” at Lazarus, a bar on East Sixth Street in Austin. The occasion was a book talk about holidays and preserving family traditions. I arrived early, passed the build-your-own nacho station, redeemed my free drink ticket, and found a seat among roughly 30 people, mostly men in their 20s and 30s.

The author, a working astronaut, began with a question: “How many of you have children?” Just one hand went up. Once the nervous laughter faded, the conversation moved to spacesuits. But the moment captured a problem that is far larger than one room in Austin: Why are so few young people starting families?

A culture devoted to personal possibility can lose sight of the people who come after us.

The numbers are sobering. The United Nations estimates that the global fertility rate fell from 4.8 children per woman in 1970 to 2.2 in 2024. The world's population is still growing, but more countries are having fewer children than would be needed to replace one generation with the next. That shift will affect economies, communities, and how people imagine their futures.

The usual explanations are familiar. Young adults date less, marry later, struggle with housing costs, and find relationships harder to build in a screen-mediated world.

Yet economics and technology do not settle the question. In a 2024 Pew Research Center survey, 57% of adults under 50 who said they were unlikely ever to have children cited a simple reason: They don’t want to. That figure describes a particular group, not all young adults. Still, it invites a cultural question: What has changed about our understanding of a good life?

Fifty years ago, Tom Wolfe offered one answer. His 1976 essay “The ‘Me’ Decade and the Third Great Awakening” described Americans absorbed in “remaking, remodeling, elevating, and polishing” the self. He contrasted that obsession with an older sense that people belonged to a “great biological stream”: They carried forward something inherited from their ancestors and entrusted something to their descendants. Wolfe saw more Americans daring to step outside that stream.

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard later encountered a similar restlessness in America. He saw a country fascinated by speed, reinvention, and the perpetual justification of its own existence. The self was no longer merely something to be cultivated. It was a project that could be endlessly redesigned.

The older warning came from Alexis de Tocqueville. In “Democracy in America,” he described individualism as a “mature and calm feeling” that draws a person away from the wider community into a small circle of family and friends. Tocqueville's individualist still had that circle. What happens when it contracts further, until the individual becomes the central obligation?

RELATED: Young men are being left behind

Kieferpix/Getty Images

Individualism has given America extraordinary wealth, innovation, and freedom to pursue a life of one's choosing. Those achievements should not be dismissed. But a culture devoted to personal possibility can lose sight of the people who come after us. Children demand time, sacrifice, and commitments that resist being rearranged around our preferences. If freedom becomes simply the absence of such obligations, family formation begins to look less like a natural part of life and more like an obstacle to self-realization.

Governments have tried to make parenthood easier. Singapore subsidizes child care; Hungary offers housing and tax benefits; South Korea supports fertility treatments. These policies can relieve real burdens, especially for people who want children but cannot afford them. Yet they have not produced a reliable formula for reversing low fertility. “No government has discovered a policy that produces sustained bumps in fertility,” Texas A&M historian Trent MacNamara told Business Insider.

Long before today's demographic debate, Theodore Roosevelt worried about what he called “willful sterility.” Writing in 1911, he blamed “selfishness,” the “love of ease,” and a retreat from risk and duty. His language was severe. His underlying challenge remains recognizable: What are we willing to sacrifice for a future we will not live to see?

RELATED: Conservatives are blowing the easiest political win in America

Blaze Media Illustration

Allan Bloom later worried that young people’s “primary preoccupation” was themselves, “understood in the narrowest sense.” Oswald Spengler reached for an even bleaker formulation in “The Decline of the West”: “Children do not happen,” he wrote, when people can no longer find a reason for their existence. Neither writer supplied a birth-rate policy. Both were asking what people believe their lives are for.

No tax credit or dating app can answer that question by itself. Financial help may make it possible to have children, but a society must also regard family life as something worth choosing. It must leave room for obligations that cannot be measured solely by their return to the self.

Back at the bar in Austin, one hand rose when the astronaut asked who had children. The talk moved on. The question should not. A civilization that prizes individual freedom must still decide what, and whom, it hopes will come after it.

President Donald Trump issued an unequivocal endorsement of the controversial political video advertisement from Republican Vivek Ramaswamy.

The ad features the mother of his opponent for the gubernatorial race in Ohio calling her a liar and asking Ohioans not to vote for her.

'That took a lot of courage to do but, essentially, what she was really doing was saving Ohio from making a truly horrible choice!'

Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate, excoriated Ramaswamy for using her mother in an ad after Acton suffered sexual abuse by her mother's partner when she was a child.

Various Republicans have called on Ramaswamy to take the ad down, but the president is not one of them.

"Vivek Ramaswamy put up a very powerful Ad about a mother saying that her daughter, Amy Acton, who is running for Governor of Ohio, is a liar, and much worse," Trump wrote in a post on social media Thursday.

"The Press, in a concerted and well coordinated attack, is trying to get Vivek Ramaswamy to 'take down the Ad.' Frankly, anybody whose mother spoke about a daughter in that way would normally lead to the daughter being precluded from serving in Office, let alone the Office of Governor," he added.

He went on to fully endorse Ramaswamy leaving the ad up.

"I only wish the mothers of my opponents would be so brave as to come forward and explain that their son or daughter is a liar, and much worse," he added. "That took a lot of courage to do but, essentially, what she was really doing was saving Ohio from making a truly horrible choice! The Press is trying to convince everyone that this Ad is bad, because it's so good!"

Among the more prominent Republicans calling for the ad to be taken down was Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R).

"The ad, on its face, is deeply, deeply troubling. But when you know the rest of the story, when you know the backstory, when you know that the husband of the mom was indicted by a grand jury after hearing testimony, and that he took off along with the mother," DeWine said to reporters.

"When you know that, it just, to me, makes it more serious. It makes it just more wrong. So it's wrong to run this ad ... I would just urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down," he added.

On the other hand, Vice President JD Vance excoriated Republicans for criticizing Ramaswamy.

RELATED: JD Vance says he is 'DISGUSTED' with Republicans after controversial Ramaswamy ad

Acton was 12 years old when her biological father reported her stepfather to police over allegations that he had raped Acton for a period of time, beginning December 1976 and ending April 1978.

Acton's stepfather, Cledith Arthur, pleaded not guilty and then failed to appear in court before becoming a fugitive from the law. He died in 2004.

The Rooster political blog first shared the ad, but the Ramaswamy campaign took responsibility for the video Tuesday and indicated it had plans to spend $4 million to promote the ad.

Ohio governor polls 2026: Acton vs. Ramaswamy

pollwatch.theblaze.com

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Washington state officials are facing criticism over their handling of a protest related to a biological male trying to run on the girls' cross-country team.

About a dozen girls on the Camas High School cross-country team walked away when their race began at a district-level cross-country event on Tuesday.

'Students do not need to provide medical or legal documentation to participate in athletics matching their gender identity.'

They are opposed to the inclusion of a biological boy who decided to switch to the girls' team mid-season after initially joining the boys' team.

Protests and counter-protests have erupted over the issue, and sometimes they got physical.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association oversees high school sports and said only that students can compete in a sport consistent with their gender identity.

"School personnel responsible for student eligibility work collaboratively with the student athlete to determine eligibility under those rules," reads the policy from WIAA.

The WIAA handbook adds: "Students do not need to provide medical or legal documentation to participate in athletics matching their gender identity."

One student athlete spoke to KING-TV about her fellow students' decision to protest. She did not want to be publicly identified.

"A lot of the girls on my team decided that they felt it was unfair to their sport, like it could affect their times and their places," the girl said. "Besides that, it's not my issue. Live your life how you want. I am completely fine with trans kids."

A protester with a sign that read, "Let our trans kids play" offered the counter-opinion.

"They deserve to be included as representatives of their own identity. They are trans girls. They are girls," she claimed.

RELATED: Female wrestler alleging sexual assault by trans-identifying male during match sues high school to stop the policy

The biological male finished second out of 26 runners on Wednesday and displaced a biological girl from competing in the regional race. He had placed 76th among boys just a few weeks prior.

Camas is a city of about 26,000 people in the southwest corner of the state.

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An Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in New Jersey led to assault charges for an illegal alien from Honduras, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The incident unfolded on Oct. 4 when ICE officers ran a license plate check on a truck in the area of another federal operation in Gibbsboro.

'Licona Amador will be held accountable under federal law for allegedly defying lawful commands from ICE officers and escalating the encounter by threatening violence.'

Officers discovered the truck was registered to 27-year-old Reinieri De Jesus Licona Amador, and the driver of the truck matched a photo of Licona Amador on file, the complaint claimed. Immigration records said he was illegally present in the U.S. and subject to removal.

The officers lit up their emergency lights, and Licona Amador pulled over. When they approached the truck, they were wearing badges and clothing that clearly identified them as "ICE" and "police," the press release said.

At that point, the officers saw Licona Amador reach back into a tool container in the back and pull out a hammer, the complaint claimed.

According to the allegations, the officers ordered him to stop moving, but he refused to follow their orders and moved to the passenger seat with the hammer. They tried to physically restrain him, but he was able to climb out of the truck and then allegedly "swung his hammer multiple times" at two officers, according to the press release.

The complaint indicated that the suspect did not manage to strike the officers, identified as Victim 1 and Victim 2.

"Victim 2 also stated that, had the hammer actually made physical contact with either Victim 1 or Victim 2, Victim 2 thought that the hammer would have caused serious, and potentially fatal, injuries to Victim 1 or Victim 2," Special Agent Javed Narain wrote in the complaint.

RELATED: Video shows brawl after high school walkout protester allegedly hit pro-ICE man — and the man is charged with child abuse

U.S. Attorney's Office of New Jersey press release

The U.S. Attorney's Office for New Jersey released images from body camera footage showing a man with a hammer.

Officers sprayed him with pepper spray and were able to subdue him after that. They also called for EMS, but Licona Amador refused treatment, the complaint said.

Another passenger in the vehicle at the time was identified as an illegal alien from Honduras who had been previously issued a final order of removal, the complaint noted.

"Threats, violence, and obstruction directed at federal law enforcement officers are unacceptable and jeopardize the safety of both our personnel and the public," reads a statement from Michael McCarthy, the special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in New Jersey.

"Licona Amador will be held accountable under federal law for allegedly defying lawful commands from ICE officers and escalating the encounter by threatening violence," he added.

"These acts of violence cannot be tolerated and must end," McCarthy concluded.

Licona Amador was arrested Monday. If convicted on the assault charge, he faces a possible sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

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Midterm elections are just 12 days away, and a lot hangs in the balance for the GOP. The Texas U.S. Senate race is one of the biggest and most closely watched of the 2026 midterms, as Attorney General Ken Paxton faces off against Democrat James Talarico.

On a recent episode of “Predictable,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere highlighted Texas as a major warning sign for Republicans.

Even though polling margins have narrowed between Paxton and Talarico, Stu notes that prediction markets still favor the Democrat.

“A 62% chance for James Talarico to win that race, according to Kalshi right now,” he says.

But he still leaves the door open for Republicans: “Republicans could easily win Texas.”

He notes that one of the show’s recurring thesis points is that voters often “come home” closer to Election Day.

“If you’re a Republican voter, maybe you’re a little upset with Paxton, you get to that voting booth, you kind of say, ‘You know what, I don’t want a Democrat Senate,’ so you might come home,” he says.

The Texas governor’s race between Republican incumbent Greg Abbott and Democrat Gina Hinojosa looks more promising for the GOP, but only moderately so, says Stu.

“Greg Abbott in my own state here in Texas [is the] 73% favorite over Gina Hinojosa, who’s running a lot of ads now,” he adds.

“Now it’s got to the point where every single ad is one of these candidates in Texas. They’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s amazing to watch in action.”

While Abbott currently holds a clear lead on the markets, Stu warns that “Democrats do have a chance to win” the gubernatorial race.

Watch the full episode of “Predictable” to see Stu’s complete Senate map breakdown, how the prediction markets are pricing other key races, and why he thinks some of the movement toward Democrats may be more about money flowing into the markets than actual polling shifts.

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A pair of 15-year-old females are accused of conspiring to carry out a school shooting in Southern California — and they allegedly had a hit list.

Authorities said the investigation began Oct. 6 after the FBI alerted the Corona Police Department and the Riverside County Sheriff's Office about social media threats targeting Corona High School, KABC-TV reported.

'The average suspect that commits a crime like this is going to do it independently or by themselves, and it is not very common for them to be females.'

Detectives arrested a female who attends Corona High School, the station said, adding that detectives then identified and arrested another girl who attends Norco High School after a search of several homes in Riverside County and an examination of electronic devices and messages.

KABC, citing police, said search warrants uncovered evidence that the teenage females had spent several months researching school shootings and discussing how they could potentially carry out an attack at Corona High School.

The investigation also revealed the pair discussed how they could obtain weapons to carry out the attack, police told the station.

Authorities said no weapons were found during the home searches, KABC noted, adding that both teens remain in custody on charges of conspiracy to commit murder.

KCBS-TV reported that the Riverside County District Attorney's Office said it couldn't confirm the charges or the suspects' identities because of their ages.

"The average suspect that commits a crime like this is going to do it independently or by themselves, and it is not very common for them to be females," Corona Police Lt. Robert Montanez told KCBS, while adding that the suspects had a map of the high school campus and ways to get around the law and acquire guns, as well as "specifics how they would carry out the attack."

KCBS added that the teens allegedly had a list of targets that included both students and teachers — and potentially were planning some sort of revenge.

RELATED: Teenager fatally shoots 3 children, teacher at Oregon elementary school before parent shoots gunman dead, police say

Research cited by NPR found that only about 3% of school shootings involve female perpetrators, KABC reported.

Those with information about this case are urged to call Corona Police Det. Edwards at 951-279-3656 or email george.edwards@coronaca.gov, KABC added.

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The decline of mainstream media was supposed to create a better-informed public. Instead, the “red-pilling” of the masses — which BlazeTV host John Doyle calls “normies” — have caused them to trade one media bubble for another.

“It hasn’t made them better informed. It hasn’t made them better at critical thinking. They are looking at the reflexive impulse some people have to believe everything, and they have the same reflexive impulse to disbelieve everything, but they are not actually seeking truth independently,” Doyle argues.

He likens it to being in the “labyrinth.”

“I’m in the labyrinth. ... I’m seeking the truth. What happens if a bunch of r*****ed people are now in the labyrinth with me? Do you think they’re going to be better able to navigate?” he asks.

“Do you think that they’re going to be able to arrive at the truth? No,” he answers. “They’re going to freak out and be anxious all the time and spur out, and they’re going to summon the Minotaur with their screaming and their crying and their complaining. This is not actually good.”

These people, he says, “would be better if they were just watching CNN because CNN will rack up all of the dubs from the Trump administration.”

“They will talk about the greatest effort to combat legal immigration in a century,” he explains, noting that while “everything is going so well,” no one wants to know it.

“People want the mythology. They want to be entertained. They want to think that guy that they trusted actually freaking betrayed them,” he says.

“When you’re arguing with a normie, when you are arguing with an Instagram-Reels American, guess what you’re arguing with? You’re arguing with Instagram Reels, and the reels cannot hear you,” he continues.

Doyle uses the Epstein files as an example, saying, “You still have people bringing this up.”

“They talk about the Epstein class,” he says. “Even leftist politicians, you know, people who like openly advocate for the mass importation of the demographics most likely to traffic children. Complete amnesty for the demographics most likely to engage in the abuse of children.”

“They literally want to pass laws to make this no longer illegal. Anyway, these people are now very concerned about the Epstein class,” he continues.

“They want to believe that all of these people, even if they’re evil, are in control and everything that’s going on is going, you know perfectly according to their plan. And that’s because they have these feelings, maybe because of their own incompetence or their own failures,” he adds.

These “red-pilled normies,” he says, “want to believe they don’t have agency in their own lives.”

“And so the solution is just to keep bitching on the internet and do nothing and wait for some kind of collapse,” he adds.

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Winston Churchill helped lead Britain through the Second World War, wrote millions of words, and won the Nobel Prize in literature. He also took a nap every afternoon.

And he didn't simply doze off in an armchair. He got undressed and climbed into bed, equipped with custom-fitted beeswax earplugs to shut out the bustle of wartime London. His naps were sacrosanct, even as the demands of running a country at war frequently kept him working well past midnight.

There's even a technique called the 'nappuccino': Drink a cup of coffee immediately before a short nap, so the caffeine starts working around the time you wake up.

"Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion," he wrote in his wartime memoir "The Grand Alliance."

The British Bulldog would probably have had little patience for the latest headlines warning that daytime napping may be linked to dementia.

Dementia danger?

The warnings follow a new study from Johns Hopkins researchers involving 995 Americans ages 65 and older. Researchers examined their napping habits and tracked them for up to a decade. Those who napped most days or every day had a 48% higher relative hazard of developing dementia than those who rarely or never napped.

That's a sufficiently alarming figure to make anyone think twice about an afternoon snooze. But a closer look at the findings offers some reassurance to those of us who enjoy one.

People who fell asleep unintentionally had a 39% higher relative hazard of dementia. Those who deliberately chose to nap, however, showed no statistically significant association with dementia after the researchers adjusted for other factors.

The study also found an association for naps lasting 30 minutes or less, so the findings aren't an unqualified endorsement of the power nap. Nor can the researchers say whether napping contributes to dementia or whether the changes associated with developing dementia make people sleepier during the day.

For now, at least, the recliner can stay.

Churchill's second day

Churchill regarded his afternoon nap as indispensable to getting through the day. And he had little patience for half measures.

As he explained to Walter Graebner, a Time-Life executive who worked with him on his war memoirs, the proper way to nap was to take off your clothes, get into bed, and sleep. No dozing in a chair with your shoes on.

He also rejected the notion that an afternoon rest meant accomplishing less. He believed his routine effectively gave him a day and a half for every ordinary day.

Churchill's sleeping habits were unconventional even by the standards of men who worked late. He often conducted business from bed in the morning, took his afternoon nap, and returned to work deep into the night. The beeswax earplugs were no legend, either: The International Churchill Society reported that a pair, along with the plaster casts used to make them, were auctioned in 2012.

Of course, Churchill's habits don't prove that napping is healthy. His prodigious consumption of alcohol and cigars hardly makes him a model for preventive medicine. But nobody could accuse the man of being lazy.

RELATED: Apparently, we need experts to teach us how to walk now

Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Sleep like a soldier

Soldiers have a reputation for being able to sleep almost anywhere, whenever the opportunity presents itself. It's a useful ability in a profession where a missed night's sleep can have rather more serious consequences than a sluggish afternoon at the office.

The U.S. Army even has a name for the practice: tactical napping.

According to guidance from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, tactical naps are brief periods of sleep intended to restore and sustain military readiness. Soldiers are encouraged to nap before anticipated sleep deprivation and during extended operations when circumstances permit.

The trick is to nap before you're exhausted, not just after. Walter Reed recommends finding somewhere dark, quiet, and comfortable and allowing yourself time to shake off the grogginess afterward. There's even a technique called the "nappuccino": Drink a cup of coffee immediately before a short nap, so the caffeine starts working around the time you wake up.

NASA has also studied the benefits of a well-timed snooze. In an experiment involving long-haul airline pilots, those given the opportunity to rest slept for about 26 minutes on average and subsequently performed better and remained more alert than pilots who stayed awake.

Lead researcher Mark Rosekind later put the improvements at 34% in performance and 54% in physiological alertness.

Twenty-six minutes of sleep and a measurable improvement in the ability to do your job. How's that for a productivity hack? No cold plunges, carefully timed sun exposure, or adaptogenic mushrooms required.

Permission to nap

Frequent, unexplained daytime sleepiness can be a sign of inadequate nighttime rest, a sleep disorder, medication effects, or an underlying medical condition. Nor can a nap make up for consistently failing to get enough sleep at night.

But there's a considerable difference between repeatedly falling asleep when you don't intend to and deliberately setting aside a little time to rest.

For most healthy adults who find naps useful, 20 to 30 minutes in the early afternoon is a reasonable place to start. Nap too late and you may interfere with nighttime sleep. Sleep too long and you risk waking up groggy.

And if you need a more dignified justification than simply being tired, tell your colleagues you're following the example of Winston Churchill and the United States Army.

Tech trillionaire Elon Musk issued a warning to Democrats after hearing their plans to investigate him over his time in the Trump administration.

Musk was responding to an article with a bevy of comments from Democrats saying they will hound him and his many companies if they win power in the midterm elections.

'Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets.'

Democrats have long accused Musk of having various conflicts of interest with the actions he took when he headed up the Department of Government Efficiency.

"Live by the sword, die by the sword. Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets …" he wrote Wednesday on X, the social media platform he owns.

In another post, he responded to liberal talking head Kara Swisher claiming Musk could have been in jail if Kamala Harris had won the 2024 presidential election.

"And that's not because she's some avenging fury. It's because there's a lot of questions around different companies of his," she said.

"If Donald Trump loses the House and the Senate ... I'd be worried if I were him! No matter how rich he is, there are all these agencies, some of which he put a knife in and killed in the DOGE, many of whom were investigating him," she claimed. "He stopped half a dozen investigations of his various companies."

Musk responded simply, "Message received."

Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington pointed to recent allegations that Musk had restricted Ukraine's use of Starlink internet ahead of a damaging Russian attack.

"What happens when one guy gets a giant contract from the government and then uses it to do something that shuts down communication in a war that has been extremely important to the United States to support Ukraine?” she said.

RELATED: 'False and misleading and nonsense': Elon Musk CRUSHES editor on 'far right' accusations

"Congress must demand a full accounting of the damage Mr. Musk and DOGE caused, and we will not let anyone obstruct our oversight," said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), who is also a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Spokespeople for Musk did not respond to multiple requests from Politico for comment.

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Thousands if not millions of families in Texas recently received a pamphlet in the mail titled "Texas Trans and LGBTQ+ Student Resource Guide," seemingly providing information to trans-identifying minors seeking emancipation from their parents and/or sex-rejection procedures.

There was widespread outrage but also skepticism over the mailers, especially after the radical organization named and promoted in the pamphlet — the Transgender Education Network of Texas — denied responsibility for it.

'I think that their own materials ... like their "Back to School Toolkit" — I think they deserve scrutiny as well.'

TENT says it was not responsible, and evidence points to a possible election-time "op" by an out-of-state actor. However, critics have observed that the controversial messaging in the flyer greatly resembles what has been pushed by TENT and other trans activist outfits in the state.

Disavowal

The pamphlet states, "You are not alone. There are people in Texas who will help you find support."

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales, X

After discussing emancipation, "what to do if your parents don't support you," and "what to know about hormones or gender affirming care," the pamphlet devotes two pages to promoting TENT and its "Trans Texas Takeover Fall Tour," which is an actual tour with upcoming events scheduled across the state.

Earlier in the month, multiple phone numbers sent provocative texts to Texans also linking to TENT's newly scrubbed website and its "Back to School Toolkit," reported the Tribune.

One text allegedly stated, "New school year? Here's your complete guide on bathrooms and beyond for trans kids at school," with a link to a TENT toolkit.

RELATED: Talarico slithered around the truth at his town hall. Here’s the gaslighting he tried to pull.

L-R: David Buono/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images; Luis Soto/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

These communications prompted outrage and an investigation request by Texas state Rep. Jeff Leach (R).

Leach has since supplemented his request, asking Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton to look into the "possibility that the communications and associated toolkit may not originate from the group whose name it was sent under."

Paxton's office did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

TENT has disavowed the pamphlet and the text messages.

TENT noted in a statement on its website, "We are aware of text messages and now physical mailers that have been circulated concerning TENT that appear to have been issued by or on behalf of the organization. These text messages and mailers were not authored, authorized, approved, or distributed by TENT and are not affiliated with our organization. The texts do not represent the official position or communications of the organization."

Mimi Marziani, a lawyer at the law firm retained by TENT, told NBC News, "This was deliberately injected into public conversation right as early voting was taking place, and I do not think it was a coincidence."

While TENT has denied involvement, Jonathan Covey, the director of policy for Texas Values, told Blaze News, "I think that their own materials that they do have and that we have been able to see — like their 'Back to School Toolkit' — I think they deserve scrutiny as well. We think that some of the positions that they take undermine parents' roles in their children's lives."

Covey underscored the need to identify the individuals behind the mailer and how they "obtained all that mailing information."

"Families deserve answers about where that information came from," added Covey.

Origin

WFAA-TV, KHOU-TV, the Texas Tribune, and sleuths online have connected the pamphlet back to a limited liability company that was registered in Wyoming last month, reinforcing suspicions that this mailing campaign may have been an election-time "op" all along.

The return sender listed on the mailer is "Texas Transgender Student Union," an outfit that does not appear to be an organization with a presence in the state. The return address in Meadows Place, Texas, isn't a valid address, referring instead to the middle of a street. It also appears to be a look-alike address modeled on Transgender Education Network of Texas' address.

Snopes highlighted, however, that a similar address turns up a nearby mailbox at a UPS store.

The Texas Observer's Steven Monacelli discovered this week that the Texas Transgender Student Union "is a real organization — but it was only formed in September in Wyoming as an LLC and is entirely separate from TENT, the organization marketed in the fliers."

Wyoming Secretary of State Business Center

The LLC's registered agent is the popular corporate filing service Northwest Registered Agent LLC; its organizer is listed as Taylor Newman; and it is tied to an address in Sheridan, Wyoming, which has been linked to various companies accused of scams.

Newman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Northwest Registered Agent told WFAA-TV:

One of our main jobs is receiving state and legal notices for our clients and forwarding them promptly. This gives agencies a way to serve legal notices on companies, even if they don’t have a physical office location, and it keeps businesses reachable by law enforcement and regulators. That is where our involvement ends. We have no way of knowing someone’s intent when they’re forming a new company, and Northwest Registered Agent has no knowledge of, or involvement in, our clients’ business operations.

TENT has reportedly sent a cease-and-desist notice to the Texas Transgender Student Union as well as to a pair of digital messaging companies that reportedly delivered the text messages on Oct. 12 and 13.

The Senate campaigns of state Rep. James Talarico (D) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News but told CBS News Texas that they had nothing to do with the LGBT mailer.

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Hollywood’s commitment to diversity is hollow, according to rapper and television producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.

The “Power” producer says the industry’s investment in black programming fails to match its rhetoric.

'They're not screaming for diversity. Are you crazy?'

OG Hollywood

“They’re not screaming for diversity. Are you crazy?” Jackson told Andrew Schulz on his podcast “Flagrant.”

“They don’t care to see you n*****s on the TV, bro,” he laughed.

Jackson appears alongside Schulz in the new “Street Fighter” adaptation, which opened October 16. Their conversation turned to the difficulty of building a television business and the kinds of projects Hollywood is willing to finance.

Jackson argued that “white Hollywood,” which he called “the original Hollywood,” remains the industry’s most commercially successful model.

Movies starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, he said, attracted audiences across racial and national lines because they were well made and properly financed. Viewers could see themselves in the characters regardless of their own backgrounds.

Jackson pointed to Tony Montana, the Cuban refugee played by Pacino in “Scarface,” as a character whose ambition resonated with audiences far beyond his own nationality.

But Jackson also sees a business opportunity in the industry’s funding priorities: He faces fewer well-financed competitors making programming for his audience.

“If you make diversity, I’m up against not so many fabulously financed projects,” he explained.

RELATED: SENIOR MOMENT: Veteran 'SNL' player breaks ranks to scold Shane Gillis for jokes

American stream

Jackson executive produces the “Power” franchise, which grew out of the Starz crime drama that aired from 2014 to 2020.

He said the rise of streaming services has helped create an opening for his work, with competing platforms needing shows that bring in subscribers.

“So when I come in, I’m able to to create s**t that is beyond ‘up to standard’ because of the landscape of the business. I’m coming at a time that you got streamers and apps and all of these different things.”

RELATED: Dana Carvey has just one word for Shane Gillis' controversial 'SNL' routine

Johnny Nunez/WireImage

Where is the love?

Jackson also questioned why the “Power” franchise’s popularity with black and Latino audiences had failed to translate into Emmy recognition.

“They don’t care about diversity. Trust me,” he said. “I’ve been No. 1 in African-American and Latino households for, and this s**t is crazy, like for 13 years.”

While none of the dramas he produced have won Emmys, Jackson took home a trophy for his 2022 performance in the Super Bowl halftime show.

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Android already has spam protection for phone calls and text messages. But while these features can help curb unwanted communications from shady characters, it is not always obvious when you’re getting scammed on the calls or messages you accept in real time. For this, Android has a new scam detection solution powered by Gemini.

The advent of AI has made it easier for scammers to target individuals and trick them into handing over personal data or money. Thanks to voice cloning technology and deepfake videos that can impersonate real humans you may know in real life, some of these scams are sophisticated enough to deceive even the more suspicious among us.

You are essentially inviting it to scan through your personal information and analyze it in search of scammy behavior.

But just as AI has made the call and texting scam landscape more hazardous to tread, AI might also be the thing to save us — or at least that is what Google believes. The company recently announced new scam protection features for Google Messages on Android that are powered by Google Gemini.

Once enabled, the new enhanced AI-powered scam features offer three points of additional protection over Google’s existing scam prevention capabilities. They:

1. Use Google’s powerful cloud servers to analyze long conversation threads within the Google Messages app, searching for signs of scammer intent based on the context of the conversations.
2. Search for malicious links — both existing and newly generated — within messages and flags them as unsafe to keep users from clicking on them.
3. Offer a redesigned warning system that gives users more time to stop and consider the safety of links embedded within messages to prevent accidental clicks.

The catch, of course, is that to use the new AI-powered scam protection features in Android, you have to trust Gemini to keep an eye on your text messages. You are essentially inviting it to scan through your personal information and analyze it in search of scammy behavior.

Google thought about this beforehand, which is why all conversations are routed through Private AI Compute, a system Google introduced in late 2025 that isolates your data on Google’s servers with additional privacy, security, and encryption in place. According to Google, “This ensures sensitive data processed by Private AI Compute remains accessible only to you and no one else, not even Google.”

To further ease concerns, the enhanced scam protection features in Google Messages are entirely opt-in, so you can choose to disregard, if you don’t want Gemini snooping through your texts.

RELATED: Time to declare independence from phishing scams — here's how

vchal/Getty Images

In addition to better scam prevention tools for Google Messages, Google also brought two meaningful upgrades to scam call protection:

1. Automatic screen-share privacy now hides private content, like passwords, credit card information, and banking details in Chrome and Android WebView while in screen-sharing mode with friends, family, or colleagues. These features are in addition to existing screen share protections available in native apps.
2. Proactive call-forwarding protection prevents incoming callers from forwarding your call to another number in an attempt to steal one-time passcodes that would give them access to one of your accounts.

Enhanced protection mode for Google Messages is rolling out to users now, first on Google Pixel and “hundreds of millions of additional users later this year.” As for added protections for phone calls, these will be implemented automatically.

If you haven’t already enabled Android’s existing spam text and call features, follow our detailed guides at the links. Both of these can help you reclaim a bit of peace from incessant scammers trying to trick you into turning over personal information.

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The next major political crisis in America is not going to be a spontaneous one, according to research by conservative analyst DataRepublican.

“At this very moment, a powerful group of quasi-government elites are quietly plotting to stage massive civil unrest in our nation. That means violence. And if not for one person, you might not have known about this at all until suddenly you came face to face with that violence,” BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler explains.

DataRepublican, who Wheeler notes “helped Elon Musk’s team dig up tangled webs of corruption in the belly of the swamp,” has now “unearthed a chilling plan concocted by the far left to stage a coup and topple the United States government.”

“And it’s about to take place,” she warns.

The plan, she says, works like this: “If Democrats take both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections here in a couple of weeks, if Democrats win both houses of Congress, then this plot will be activated. That’s its trigger.”

“DSA radicals will suddenly take to the streets, becoming foot soldiers, is what they’re calling themselves in this campaign. Their goal is to create constant clashes with the administration, particularly between these DSA foot soldiers and law enforcement — federal law enforcement — deliberately crossing what they’re calling the ‘red line,’” she explains.

“They will do this deliberately to provoke what they call a doomsday response from President Trump. Specifically, they intend by their violence to provoke President Trump into invoking the Insurrection Act,” she continues. “They plan for this in 2027.”

When Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, the DSA plot only thickens.

“The DSA will then attempt to delegitimize the entire federal government as a result, provoking Democrat governors in blue states across the country to openly rebel against President Trump in the name of quote-unquote democracy,” Wheeler says.

“The result will be a complete destabilization of our government with the express ultimate goal of annihilating our system of self-governance, which they hate. They will use their pseudo civil war as their battle cry for 2028,” she continues.

“And once they’ve seized power in 2028, they plan to impose their entire anti-American, anti-freedom, anti-God, anti-capitalism, anti-private-property, anti-nuclear-family, anti-Christian, demonic communist agenda on you,” she adds.

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Albertans overwhelmingly rejected a move toward independence Monday, but supporters of separation insist the issue is far from settled.

In a provincial referendum, roughly 76% of voters chose Option 1 — for Alberta to “remain a province of Canada” — while about 24% backed Option 2, which would have begun the legal process required to hold a binding referendum on separation.

'Keep your nose out of American politics,' said Hoekstra.

The results remain unofficial until October 29.

The vote was quickly dubbed a “referendum on a referendum.” Even an Option 2 victory would not have meant Alberta was leaving Canada. It would have started the process toward another, binding vote on whether the province should separate.

Premier Danielle Smith campaigned for Option 1 alongside Prime Minister Mark Carney and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

American interference?

The federalist cause also received some enthusiastic help from the Canadian press. Days before the vote, the Globe and Mail published a lengthy investigation connecting Alberta separatists to American Republican political operatives and alleging that independence leaders had offered Washington access to the province's natural resources, including fresh water and oil royalties, in exchange for assistance.

But the investigation's most explosive allegations were disputed by some of its own sources.

Dennis Modry, a co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project, acknowledged discussing possible resource arrangements with the United States. But fellow APP co-founder Jeff Rath, an Alberta lawyer who arranged the meetings with State Department officials, insisted none of those proposals had been discussed in Washington. The Globe also acknowledged that no agreements had been reached and quoted a White House official saying that no American support or commitments had been offered.

Writing in a sharply critical response, Alberta commentator Colin MacLeod accused the newspaper of combining separate incidents and individuals into a misleading narrative of coordinated American interference.

The investigation also documented American Republican consultants promoting political software to Alberta separatists. But APP leader Mitch Sylvestre told the Globe he refused to give the consultants access to his organization's membership list, citing serious concerns about privacy.

In an exclusive interview with Blaze Lifestyle before the vote, Rath accused the Globe — which he characterized as one of the government's “propaganda arms” — of deliberately misleading readers.

“But what surprised me was, like, how blatantly they lied and how foolish the lies were,” he said, singling out the allegation about trading Alberta's water for American assistance.

“I mean, completely ludicrous. We have the St. Mary's River watershed, and we have the Milk River watersheds. They're the only rivers that flow from Alberta into the U.S. They're governed under an international agreement by an international commission. You know, there's not enough water in either one of those rivers to supply Las Vegas, let alone all of California.”

'A massive machine'

On Tuesday, Rath told Blaze Lifestyle that the defeat would not end the independence movement.

He predicted support would grow as Carney's Liberal government made life more difficult for Albertans and said he was proud of the result his side achieved against a powerful political establishment.

“We fought a battle against a massive machine,” Rath said.

Smith, meanwhile, was ready to put the question behind her.

“So tonight I want to invite every Albertan who may still feel hopeless or frustrated with the past direction of our country, to believe and hope in Canada again,” she said.

“Because although our country isn’t perfect and there is still much work to be done, I believe that Canada is on the rise again.”

RELATED: Exclusive: US ambassador says Canada walked away from 'the best trade deal' — twice

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Who's interfering with whom?

But the referendum produced an awkward bit of cross-border symmetry.

In the closing days of the campaign, Carney warned foreign governments — specifically including the United States — to stay out of Alberta's vote.

“Our expectation is, to be absolutely clear, on foreign governments, United States included, is we don't get ourselves involved in their elections, they don't get themselves in our elections,” Carney said.

At almost exactly the same time, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra was accusing Canadian politicians of edging toward interference in America's November 3 midterm elections.

“We are closely watching Canadian activities because it appears that some of this, from our perspective, in the way that we view our elections, could be inferred to be election interference,” Hoekstra said in an interview with "The Really Big Show."

Among his examples were comments from Industry Minister Mélanie Joly about designing retaliatory tariffs to hit politically sensitive U.S. states.

Hoekstra's advice to Canadian politicians was considerably less diplomatic.

“Keep your nose out of American politics,” he said.

In July, Carney appointed Maia Johnson, an American citizen and former Hillary Clinton campaign aide, as chief operating officer of the Prime Minister's Office.

One wonders what the reaction would have been if Carney had appointed a former Trump campaign operative instead. Would the Globe and Mail have been so relaxed about American political influence in Ottawa?

A powerful Democrat state senator in Virginia faces multiple federal charges related to a years-long alleged conspiracy.

On Thursday morning, Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas and six other individuals, including a few of her relatives, were charged for their alleged roles in a criminal enterprise that acquired and distributed large quantities of marijuana.

'I've got too old to not be greedy.'

While there are eight charges in the 45-page indictment brought against the seven individuals, Lucas is charged with five, namely, racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana, conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and maintaining a drug-involved premises.

Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel gave a press conference in the wake of the arrests, confirming that all seven individuals were in police custody.

In his explanation of the case, Blanche emphasized the alleged abuse of public trust by an elected official.

"Her first duty should have been looking out for her constituents before herself," Blanche said, referring to Lucas.

RELATED: Virginia Democrats trying to force through illegal power-grab make ANOTHER humiliating mistake

Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot/Getty Images

Patel, likewise, called the findings evidence of the "epitome of hypocrisy for a public official," adding that the alleged conspiracy resulted in an estimated $5 million in ill-gotten gains.

Thursday's arrests come just months after the FBI and SWAT teams raided Lucas' offices and her nearby dispensary, Cannabis Outlet.

At the time, Lucas painted the raid as a politically motivated attack, saying, "I am not backing down, and I will keep fighting for the people of Portsmouth and the Commonwealth of Virginia."

The allegations in the indictment stretch back at least to 2019 and extend to the present day. And some of the more recent evidence has caught many observers' attention.

On a recorded call with an unindicted co-conspirator back in February, Lucas allegedly discussed "the possibility of UCC #2 receiving a license and sharing the proceeds with her because 'this is our last chance at generational wealth. ...I've got too old to not be greedy.'"

Days before at the end of January 2026, according to the indictment, Lucas allegedly discussed marijuana and marijuana licensing as a way for her to "get generational wealth and this is my last chance."

Lucas has served since 1992 in the Virginia state Senate. She currently serves as the president pro tempore as well as the Senate Finance Committee, where she has reportedly used her position to shut down legislation she opposed.

“This is the circus we always expected it to be, and we will wait for further details to have a more specific response,” Brian Woolfolk, chief counsel for the L. Louise Lucas Legal Defense Fund, told the Associated Press.

Lucas' X account posted a message Thursday morning that read in part: "I grew up under Jim Crow. I've seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them. I spent my life fighting back, and I'm not stopping now."

"I will not be intimidated. I will not be bullied. And I will not back down," the message concluded.

Asked during the press conference about critics decrying the arrests as "political payback" and the "circus" comment from Lucas' lawyer, AG Blanche referred people to the indictment, emphasizing that the DOJ does not do "political paybacks" and, more importantly, that the investigation began many years before the current administration.

Blaze News previously reported that the investigation was initiated by President Joe Biden, citing the AP.

In a twist of irony, some commentators resurfaced a March 30, 2023, post from Lucas in which she gloats about President Donald Trump's indictment that day: "Donald Trump just learned no one is above the law!"

Lucas and her alleged co-conspirators are expected to make an initial appearance in federal court on Thursday afternoon, per Blanche and Patel.

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An anti-capitalist cafe in South Minneapolis decided in January that it would not only deny service to federal agents but would "function as a free and donation based restaurant" until the end of the city's so-called "occupation" by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It turns out that feeding leftists for free and antagonizing potential customers is an unworkable business model.

'We are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city.'

Dylan Alverson, the owner of Modern Times on 3200 Chicago Avenue, announced on Saturday that the cafe — which in desperation resumed charging for food in what Alverson dubbed "a fascist economy" — will soon be closing its doors for good.

"For the last 6 years, I’ve been trying to prove that Modern Times can continue to exist. I’ve exhausted every option without compromising the core fundamentals that make Modern Times what it is," Alverson noted in a post on Facebook. "Because of this, we have made the choice to close at the end of the year. This has been an incredibly difficult decision and one that did not come lightly."

In a lengthy eulogy for his dream, Alverson characterized the cafe — which underwent a rebrand as Post Modern Times — as a "glorious and radical experiment" that "put people over profit, quality over margins, and creativity at all costs."

After complaining about the cafe's struggles and blaming a world "that doesn't make sense," he acknowledged that the failing establishment "ran for over 6 months as a completely free restaurant" and "gave away 30,000 meals and spent through our original donations."

RELATED: Berkeley set out to defend DEI — and found no financial upside

Jerome Gilles/NurPhoto/Getty Images

According to Alverson, the cafe has been losing $10,000 a week.

Though he admitted elsewhere that he had implemented "the worst and most psychotic business structure," he also characterized giving meals away for free as an act of protest after the fatal shootings of anti-ICE radicals Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

"I am sick of generating money for the soldiers in our streets and for a government that won't protect us — a government who is actively inflicting daily harm on its citizens," he wrote on Jan. 26. "Effective tomorrow we are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city. We refuse to generate taxes under the guise of a functioning for-profit capitalist business aligned with government strategy."

Alverson's decision to stick it to ICE by forgoing profits captured the attention of liberals farther afield.

In addition to receiving donations from around the country, the cafe garnered positive media attention including from the New York Times, which presented this "social experiment" largely as a success story and optimistically reported in June that "profits are up."

Two months after the Times' glow-up, Modern Times showed signs of strain, announcing "PRICES ARE RETURNING TO THE CAFE."

The New York Times' podcast "The Daily" revisited Alverson's doomed experiment this month, noting that while the cafe wasn't making money, its owner appeared keen that "this new model is something that other restaurants could adopt."

Alverson stated in his closure announcement, "The only way for places like Modern Times to exist in the future is to actively challenge the reasons why it can no longer exist."

This is not the first anti-capitalist establishment to go belly-up in recent years.

The Anarchist, a leftist establishment in Toronto, Canada, that touted itself as an "anti-capitalist, anti-colonial cafe, shop, and radical community space on stolen land," permanently closed in 2023.

Although the Anarchist charged money for its food, its anti-Catholic, anti-police owner stated that "the lack of generational wealth/seed capital from ethically bankrupt sources left [him] unable to weather the quiet winter season, or to grow in the ways needed to be sustainable longer-term."

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Nine male teens brutally beat up a lone male victim after he defended a bullied female at a Florida high school, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office said.

The 17-year-old male victim of the beatdown was having lunch Friday with his girlfriend in the cafeteria at Harmony High School in St. Cloud when they saw another female being bullied, officials said, adding that carrots were being thrown at her.

'This victim did the right thing by standing up for another student being bullied. He is the brave one; the nine teens that chose violence against him are the cowards.'

The male victim told the suspects to stop throwing food at the female, officials said, and two males argued with the victim and his girlfriend.

The male victim then tried to de-escalate the situation by leaving the area with his girlfriend, authorities said.

But just after 2:30 p.m. the same day, deputies responded to reports of an off-campus physical altercation, officials said.

The male victim was walking to his car when one of the suspects, a 16-year-old, struck him, authorities said.

With that, the other eight suspects — ages 14 through 18 — repeatedly threw punches at the victim’s face and head, leaving him bloodied and injured, officials said.

The victim's mother took him to a hospital, and he received 11 stitches to close the wounds in his face, authorities said.

Deputies received a cellphone video of the beatdown, officials said, adding that the clip was used to identify all the suspects.

Deputies on Wednesday went to Harmony High School and arrested the nine male students who participated in the crime, officials said, adding that all nine were charged with felony aggravated battery and felony inciting a riot.

Two 18-year-olds — Quianelle Antonio Reyes-Cintron and Brian Alexander Ramirez — were booked into the Osceola County Jail, officials said, while the seven minor suspects were taken to the Juvenile Assessment Center.

RELATED: Thugs ages 11 to 14 gang up on, mercilessly beat up victim on sidewalk — and adults are done: 'I'm very fearful for my life'

Officials said Sheriff Chris Blackmon wants to send a message to all students attending public or private schools in the county. “If you put your hands on another student on or off campus, deputies will arrest you. This victim did the right thing by standing up for another student being bullied. He is the brave one; the nine teens that chose violence against him are the cowards.”

Osceola School District Superintendent Mark Shanoff added the following, authorities said: "Let me be clear: physical intimidation, threats, or acts of violence of any kind will not be tolerated in our schools or in our community, whether on or off campus. Such behavior is fundamentally inconsistent with the values of our school district and the standards of conduct we expect from every student. We take these matters seriously, and there must be accountability when those expectations are violated. I am grateful for our tremendous partnership with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office and our law enforcement partners, whose collaboration is essential to maintaining safe communities and ensuring our students are held to the highest standards of respect, responsibility, and personal conduct.”

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