Bob Heft claimed he designed the current 50-star U.S. flag as a high school project and sent it to President Eisenhower for approval in 1959.

'Snapchat's design product made it impossible'

The Iranian terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued an ominous warning on Thursday claiming that ships attempting to navigate the Strait of Hormuz without using approved Iranian regime routes would face unspecified "dangers" in those waters.

The post Failing to Shut Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s IRGC Tries to Scare Ships Out of It appeared first on Breitbart.

Authorities discovered Richard and Rita Zajko dead from gunshot wounds in their Pennsylvania home in Jan. 2023. The couple’s 33-year-old child, Michelle “Jamie” Zajko, was charged with the double murder on Wednesday.

Michelle Zajko has been tied to the Zizians, a cult of trans-identifying extremists whose members have been linked to numerous killings across the country, including the death of a Vermont Border Patrol agent who was gunned down during a traffic stop in Jan. 2025.

'We are finally at the point where we can say beyond any doubt that Michelle Zajko was at least part responsible for the death of her parents,' the DA claimed.

Several days after the deaths of Richard and Rita Zajko, police detained Michelle Zajko, who was staying at a Pennsylvania hotel with Daniel Blank, an individual who has also been associated with the Zizians.

Inside Blank’s hotel room, law enforcement discovered a Smith & Wesson 9mm and five boxes of ammunition believed to belong to Michelle Zajko.

Blank — who has been charged with trespassing, obstruction of justice, weapons violations, drug possession, and felony drug-trafficking — was released from custody in Feb. 2026 after posting $15,000 bond. The conditions of his release require him to live alone and to submit to GPS tracking.

Police claimed that Michelle Zajko engaged in suspicious activities following the murders, such as purchasing firearms and burner phones and transferring large sums of cash.

RELATED: The Zizians’ violent spiral: A trans group tied to killings across America

Michelle Jamie Zajko. Image source Allegany County Sheriff's Office

Michelle Zajko was also previously accused of purchasing the guns confiscated from Teresa “Milo” Youngblut and Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt, other alleged Zizian members, after the shooting death of Vermont Border Patrol agent David Maland.

Michelle Zajko is being held without bond at the Allegany County Jail in Maryland while facing charges for alleged trespassing, obstruction of justice, weapons violations, drug possession, and felony drug-trafficking charges.

Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse announced new charges against Zajko on Wednesday related to the murder of Richard and Rita Zajko.

“It is an exhaustive investigation that took years to put together. But we are finally at the point where we can say beyond any doubt that Michelle Zajko was at least part responsible for the death of her parents,” Rouse stated.

Rouse stated that Michelle Zajko “did not act alone” but that authorities “don’t know who her co-conspirators were.”

RELATED: Nonbinary suspect allegedly opens fire on Border Patrol agent — incident eerily similar to last year's fatal shooting

Daniel Blank. Image source: Allegany County Sheriff’s Office

The Zajko family released a statement in response to the latest charges.

“There has been much speculation, misinformation, and disinformation about our Rick and Rita and our niece. It has been difficult and challenging to hear and read and not comment until the appropriate time. That time is now. The evidence will speak loudly and decisively for us, as it will for Rick and Rita. Now is the time for the facts and the truth to be known,” the statement read.

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A cargo ship traveling through the Strait of Hormuz on a United Nations-approved route was hit by a projectile Thursday, the British military said, as several tankers made their way out of the channel using the same path.

The post British Military Says Cargo Ship Was Hit While Crossing Strait of Hormuz appeared first on Breitbart.

Russia is moving a significant part of its air defenses to protect a handful of prime targets, including Moscow, as Ukraine's long-range drones hammered sites deep inside the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

The post Zelensky Claims Russia Forced to Move Air Defences Back to Moscow appeared first on Breitbart.

The biggest threat to the validity of an election is "when you don't vote in person," Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily.

The post Exclusive – Sen. Rand Paul: Biggest Threat to Validity of an Election ‘Is When You Don’t Vote in Person’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Ferrari's long-serving head of marketing has announced his departure from the luxury automaker just weeks after the unveiling of the company's first electric vehicle sparked widespread criticism.

The post EV Loser: Ferrari Marketing Chief Steps Down After Electric Car Fiasco appeared first on Breitbart.

Acting President of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez on Thursday announced that VenApp, a state-owned social media platform once used by Nicolás Maduro to hunt anti-socialist dissidents, is being used to report missing individuals in the aftermath of Wednesday's deadly twin earthquakes.

The post Venezuelans Using Phones for Flashlights, Maduro Spying App to Find Missing Earthquake Victims appeared first on Breitbart.

Boomer Esiason blasted the WNBA for its constant abuse of its only true star, Caitlin Clark, because, he says, she is straight and white

The post VIDEO: Boomer Esiason Says Caitlin Clark Is Targeted Because She is ‘Straight and White,’ Urges Her to Play Overseas appeared first on Breitbart.

The U.S. Supreme Court has given President Donald Trump a major victory in his mission for mass deportations of migrants from the U.S.

SCOTUS ruled Thursday that the Trump administration was within its power to strip Temporary Protective Status from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians. The 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court ruling that had postponed the termination of TPS for 6,000 migrants from Syria and 350,000 migrants from Haiti.

'The Trump administration continues to lawfully end the egregious abuses to our immigration system that have hurt Americans for years.'

"The TPS statute plainly bars consideration of respondents' nonconstitutional claims," wrote Justice Samuel Alito in the majority opinion.

While the defendants' attorneys had argued that the administration had acted out of racial animus, Alito noted that "the current administration, which has terminated every TPS designation that has come up for renewal, simply opposes the TPS program, at least as it has been implemented in the past."

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the dissent written by Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote that the plaintiffs "deserve better" than the decision made by the majority.

"True enough that TPS is a temporary program, and that it did not promise the plaintiffs never-ending humanitarian protection," wrote Justice Elena Kagan.

"But the law prevents the program from ending as it likely did here — without the required consultations about country conditions and, as to Haiti, with impermissible race-based considerations tainting the decision."

Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, praised the ruling and reiterated the administration's claim that previous Democratic presidents had misused the TPS program to grant de facto amnesty to migrants.

"It was never intended to be a pathway to permanent status or legal residency, and it is committed to the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security," she said. "The Trump administration continues to lawfully end the egregious abuses to our immigration system that have hurt Americans for years."

RELATED: Springfield officials, Ohio activists brace for end to TPS protection for Haitian migrants

Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA law professor who argued on behalf of the Syrian plaintiffs, called on Congress to vote to pass legislation in favor of TPS protections.

"Without TPS, millions of individuals who are part of our communities are at risk of being sent back to countries in crisis," he said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York responded that Democrats are eager to intervene on behalf of the migrants affected.

"In a cruel and inhumane decision, the Supreme Court just turned its back on more than 300,000 Haitians and thousands of Syrians who have worked and raised families here because they faced violence and instability back home. TPS exists for exactly this reason," he said in a statement on social media.

"I have introduced legislation to extend TPS for Haitians and will keep fighting to protect Haitian and Syrian families from being forced back into danger," he added. "America should not turn its back on people who came here seeking safety."

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This was the right result, but the decision should have been unanimous.

In a major win for the administration of President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued a ruling allowing the removal of the temporary protected status (TPS) of Haitian and Syrian nationals in the U.S.

Far-left journalist Joy Reid said that Juneteenth should be celebrated as America’s true Independence Day, not July 4th, contending that Black people do not celebrate the holiday.

Joe Rogan and Tim Dillon agree Los Angeles is slowly becoming more like Detroit as the entertainment industry flees California due to taxes and regulation.

The anxiety surrounding TikTok was never difficult to understand. Parents worried about what their children were watching and how much time they were spending online. Politicians sounded alarms about biased algorithms. Experts warned about mass manipulation.

Letting a foreign-owned app into a teenager’s hand felt like a reckless gamble, because it was. Yet a smartphone still requires a conscious choice to unlock a screen and tap an icon.

Interactive teddy bears, on the other hand, require nothing but an innocent child's trust. When that cuddly toy rolls off a Chinese assembly line, as most of them do, it opens a pipeline from the playroom straight to a foreign government. American households are welcoming data collection hubs directly into the family circle, by way of devices that arrive packaged as comforting companions.

When toys become spies

The scale of this threat surpasses the reach of traditional social media. TikTok captures keyboard strokes and viewing histories. A conversational toy captures the raw psychology of a developing child. It records bedtime fears, family schedules, and background arguments. Children speak to their favorite toys with total honesty. Into tiny microphones, they whisper secrets they would hide from their own parents or not even think to share.

Parents must recognize that convenience carries a hidden cost.

This intimate surveillance apparatus serves the strategic ambitions of the China's Communist Party. Article 7 of China's 2017 National Intelligence Law mandates that all domestic organizations cooperate with state intelligence efforts. Every audio file, voiceprint, and psychological profile collected by these toys belongs to Beijing on demand. Chinese tech firms must comply with state security services. American stores hand valuable shelf space over to surveillance tools funded by Washington's primary adversary. The software inside these items acts as a digital Trojan horse.

Every conversation helps these toys learn more about the children using them, from their interests and fears to how their thinking changes over time. The underlying systems log levels of vocabulary, emotional triggers, and psychological vulnerabilities. Voice data creates a permanent biometric print. The microphones pick up everything spoken in the room, capturing financial anxieties, parental disputes, and daily routines. This data provides a detailed map of the American household. Chinese manufacturers program these devices to deliver those family secrets directly to state security agencies.

Cascading perils

The immediate danger to children operates on physical and ideological levels. These toys rely on large language models trained on uncurated datasets. They frequently hallucinate, generating false information with absolute confidence. A plastic dinosaur might tell a child that eating pennies unlocks a secret treasure. It might explain that electrical outlets are actually secret doors meant to be explored with a fork. Physical safety depends entirely on the erratic outputs of a remote server.

The ideological conditioning is equally deliberate. When a child asks a DeepSeek-connected toy about human rights or international history, the toy's response reflects Chinese state-trained data. The toy may repeat approved talking points in a soothing, reassuring voice. It may reframe authoritarian propaganda into nighttime fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

RELATED: AI is killing the how-to book — and literacy is its next victim

CookiesForDevo/Getty Images

Current legal frameworks offer no protection against this encroachment. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act dates back to the days of dial-up internet. The law stops at regulating website cookies, completely missing the fact that smart toys can now record and copy a child’s speech. Market incentives ensure that retail supply chains favor these products. Store owners buy these devices at low wholesale prices to maximize holiday profit margins. Corporate compliance departments check for physical choking hazards, battery security, and lead paint. They ignore the open server connections, routing data straight to Hangzhou.

No comprehensive legislation bans foreign-controlled AI from interacting with minors. No regulatory agency has the authority to audit the source code of imported smart toys. Politicians treat the issue as a distant problem, ignoring the shipping containers currently arriving at American ports.

Asleep at the wheel

Parents assume that product safety extends to the software inside a colorful box. They expect the government must somehow vet items sold by reputable retailers. That assumption is an illusion. The market moves faster than Congress or bureaucratic regulators. The pursuit of low-cost electronics ensures that families remain the primary target of data acquisition. The defense of the playroom relies entirely on a parent turning the power switch off.

It's a corporate playbook that depends on parental exhaustion. A busy parent views a responsive toy as an affordable, good-enough babysitter. The device never grows tired of hearing the same story. It never snaps or loses its patience. It merely listens, logs, and transmits. The child receives a tireless friend, and a foreign intelligence service receives a permanent listening post in the American bedroom.

Moreover, this dynamic transforms childhood into a commodity. In previous generations, children enjoyed a period of unmonitored development. They processed thoughts, threw tantrums, and invented games without creating a permanent record. Smart toys end this privacy. A child's formative years become training data for algorithms designed to predict and shape human behavior.

Securing the home requires a fundamental shift in consumer awareness. The immediate solution remains low-tech. Parents must recognize that convenience carries a hidden cost. The safest toy lacks an internet connection. It contains no microchips, no microphones, and no software updates. It requires imagination rather than automated code. Until federal policy confronts the reality of digital espionage in consumer goods, the boundary of the home depends on a basic refusal to connect the playroom to the internet.

Mike Rogers says the Democratic Party has moved far to the left, claiming Michigan voters are waking up to socialist shift as primaries heat up.

French populist leader Marine Le Pen has vowed to put in place a "massive air-conditioning plan" using interest-free loans intended for the "green" transition to mitigate the impact of future heat waves like those the country is currently experiencing.

The post Le Pen Calls for Massive Investments in Air Conditioning as France Swelters Under Heat Wave appeared first on Breitbart.