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Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, a pair of convicted hackers based in Alexandria, Virginia, were arrested on Wednesday over an alleged conspiracy to destroy government databases and other crimes.After doing prison time for wire fraud and conspiring to hack into the U.S. State Department, the Akhter twins, one of whom previously served as a cybersecurity contractor with the State Department, managed to secure jobs as federal contractors — working as engineers for Opexus.'Their actions jeopardized the security of government systems.'Opexus, a company that handles sensitive data for most federal agencies and has received over $50 million in contracts from various agencies over the past decade, determined earlier this year that it had been compromised in February by two employees.A Bloomberg investigation revealed in May that after one of the agencies with which Opexus was working, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, flagged the twins as possible threats on account of their criminal records, the duo were fired on Feb. 18.The company later discovered that while being fired and immediately afterward, the twins allegedly accessed sensitive documents and compromised or scrubbed dozens of databases, including those containing data from the General Services Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.The FBI, FDIC Office of Inspector General, Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case.The brothers were indicted on Nov. 13 for allegedly working to harm Opexus and its U.S. government clients "by accessing computers without authorization, issuing commands to prevent others from modifying the databases before deletion, deleting databases, stealing information, and destroying evidence of their unlawful activities," the DOJ said in a release.RELATED: Could hackers target your car's tires? Muneeb Akhter. Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/Washington Post via Getty ImagesAccording to the indictment, Muneeb Akhter allegedly deleted approximately 96 databases storing U.S. government information — including databases containing records and documents related to Freedom of Information Act matters as well as sensitive federal investigative files.Muneeb Akhter is also accused of asking an artificial intelligence tool how they could cover their tracks after deleting a DHS database.After he got fired from Opexus, Muneeb Akhter allegedly obtained data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and is accused further of stealing copies of IRS information including federal tax information and other identifying information for at least 450 individuals.Opexus did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News."These defendants abused their positions as federal contractors to attack government databases and steal sensitive government information," said Matthew Galeotti, acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice's Criminal Division, in a statement. "Their actions jeopardized the security of government systems and disrupted agencies’ ability to serve the American people."Muneeb Akhter has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and to destroy records, two counts of computer fraud, theft of federal records, and two counts of aggravated identity theft. His twin, Sohaib Akhter, was charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and to destroy records and computer fraud.While Sohaib Akhter faces a maximum penalty of six years in prison, Muneeb Akhter faces a mandatory minimum penalty of two years of prison time for each aggravated identity theft count and a maximum penalty of 45 years for the other charges.The duo pleaded guilty in 2015 to a different set of crimes.Muneeb Akhter hacked into the website of a cosmetics company and stole thousands of customers' credit card and personal information. He and his brother used the stolen data to pay for flights, hotel stays, various goods, and attendance at professional conferences. Muneeb Akhter proceeded to hand off the stolen data to a "dark net" operator who cut him in on the profits from the sales.The other brother, meanwhile, used his contract position at the State Department in 2015 to steal personally identifiable data belonging to various people including co-workers and a federal law enforcement agent who was investigating him.According to the Justice Department, Sohaib Akhter later hatched a scheme to ensure perpetual access to various State Department systems and, with the help of his twin, attempted to install an electronic collection device inside a State Department office, which would have enabled the hackers to remotely steal federal data.Years earlier, Muneeb Akhter hacked into a Maryland-based private data aggregation company that he was performing contract work for, giving his brother access to a database of federal contract information to give their technology company an upper hand when bidding for contracts and clients.Like Blaze News? 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Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, a pair of convicted hackers based in Alexandria, Virginia, were arrested on Wednesday over an alleged conspiracy to destroy government databases and other crimes.After doing prison time for wire fraud and conspiring to hack into the U.S. State Department, the Akhter twins, one of whom previously served as a cybersecurity contractor with the State Department, managed to secure jobs as federal contractors — working as engineers for Opexus.'Their actions jeopardized the security of government systems.'Opexus, a company that handles sensitive data for most federal agencies and has received over $50 million in contracts from various agencies over the past decade, determined earlier this year that it had been compromised in February by two employees.A Bloomberg investigation revealed in May that after one of the agencies with which Opexus was working, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, flagged the twins as possible threats on account of their criminal records, the duo were fired on Feb. 18.The company later discovered that while being fired and immediately afterward, the twins allegedly accessed sensitive documents and compromised or scrubbed dozens of databases, including those containing data from the General Services Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.The FBI, FDIC Office of Inspector General, Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case.The brothers were indicted on Nov. 13 for allegedly working to harm Opexus and its U.S. government clients "by accessing computers without authorization, issuing commands to prevent others from modifying the databases before deletion, deleting databases, stealing information, and destroying evidence of their unlawful activities," the DOJ said in a release.RELATED: Could hackers target your car's tires? Muneeb Akhter. Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/Washington Post via Getty ImagesAccording to the indictment, Muneeb Akhter allegedly deleted approximately 96 databases storing U.S. government information — including databases containing records and documents related to Freedom of Information Act matters as well as sensitive federal investigative files.Muneeb Akhter is also accused of asking an artificial intelligence tool how they could cover their tracks after deleting a DHS database.After he got fired from Opexus, Muneeb Akhter allegedly obtained data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and is accused further of stealing copies of IRS information including federal tax information and other identifying information for at least 450 individuals.Opexus did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News."These defendants abused their positions as federal contractors to attack government databases and steal sensitive government information," said Matthew Galeotti, acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice's Criminal Division, in a statement. "Their actions jeopardized the security of government systems and disrupted agencies’ ability to serve the American people."Muneeb Akhter has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and to destroy records, two counts of computer fraud, theft of federal records, and two counts of aggravated identity theft. His twin, Sohaib Akhter, was charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and to destroy records and computer fraud.While Sohaib Akhter faces a maximum penalty of six years in prison, Muneeb Akhter faces a mandatory minimum penalty of two years of prison time for each aggravated identity theft count and a maximum penalty of 45 years for the other charges.The duo pleaded guilty in 2015 to a different set of crimes.Muneeb Akhter hacked into the website of a cosmetics company and stole thousands of customers' credit card and personal information. He and his brother used the stolen data to pay for flights, hotel stays, various goods, and attendance at professional conferences. Muneeb Akhter proceeded to hand off the stolen data to a "dark net" operator who cut him in on the profits from the sales.The other brother, meanwhile, used his contract position at the State Department in 2015 to steal personally identifiable data belonging to various people including co-workers and a federal law enforcement agent who was investigating him.According to the Justice Department, Sohaib Akhter later hatched a scheme to ensure perpetual access to various State Department systems and, with the help of his twin, attempted to install an electronic collection device inside a State Department office, which would have enabled the hackers to remotely steal federal data.Years earlier, Muneeb Akhter hacked into a Maryland-based private data aggregation company that he was performing contract work for, giving his brother access to a database of federal contract information to give their technology company an upper hand when bidding for contracts and clients.Like Blaze News? 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For most of modern Western scientific history, mind reading has been dismissed as fantasy. It’s a topic mainstream medicine ignores, as it can’t be explained without challenging the materialist worldview — that the universe and everything in it is merely physical stuff — which has dominated science since the Enlightenment.But one person is changing that. Dr. Diane Hennacy, a neuroscientist and author, says her research proves that mind reading, telepathy, and other paranormal abilities are not only possible, they’re thriving in a very specific population: nonverbal autistic people.In this riveting interview, Glenn Beck speaks with Dr. Hennacy about mind-bending phenomena that will upend the way you think about human consciousness. Dr. Hennacy’s research inspired the highly popular podcast “The Telepathy Tapes” — a deep dive into claims of telepathy, savant skills, and other types of extrasensory perception in nonspeaking autistic people.Most believe that autistic individuals who cannot speak aren’t cognitively functioning at full capacity. In other words, they’re not “all there,” but Dr. Hennacy says the opposite is true. They’re ultra there. Even though autism is the result of a disruption in one’s brain development, the brain doesn’t necessarily fail to develop; it just pivots and develops differently to accommodate for a loss of sensory motor skills.Her theory is that when autism bars a child from verbal communication and typical cognition, he taps into different kinds of processing. “It's a more primal sense that I think we all have, but what happens is it gets buried ... and it atrophies to some extent,” she explains.These alternative pathways to knowledge and communication give people abilities the neurotypical world can’t even begin to fathom, like the ability to read minds, communicate telepathically, accurately predict the future, perform complex skills they’ve never been taught, and access hidden information — almost as if they see beyond the physical realm into an immaterial plane of universal knowledge.Dr. Hennacy gives several examples: a boy who could sense illness in people, children who can read their caretaker’s mind with near perfect accuracy, and people who can perform extraordinary tasks without ever having been taught.Non-speakers she’s met and studied from all over the world report congregating at a place dubbed “the hill” — an immaterial spiritual space they say is “guarded by angels,” who teach them things.“If you look at spiritual traditions, [specifically] Eastern spiritual traditions, they talk about a place that sounds just like the hill, and it really is a spiritual realm that you can go to when you reach a certain level of spiritual development,” says Dr. Hennacy.“In a way, I think that we all come from the hill, and what happens is as we identify more and more with this identity — as Diane or Glenn or whoever ... we become more and more disconnected from the source that we come from,” she theorizes.“Now what we need to do is we need to learn how to climb the hill back up, and I think that these autistic kids, it's almost like they’re our sherpa guides.”To hear Dr. Hennacy’s story — how she went from a scientist committed to the materialist paradigm to one of the world’s leading experts in extrasensory perception — and hear more of her stunning research, watch the full interview above.Want more from Glenn Beck?To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Students and alumni of the University of Pennsylvania were surprised to receive a vulgar email from the university's account after it was hacked Friday.The university confirmed that the email came from a security breach and that its incident response team was investigating the incident.'This is obviously a fake, and nothing in the highly offensive, hurtful message reflects the mission or actions of Penn or of Penn GSE.'"The University of Pennsylvania is a dogs**t elitist institution full of woke retards. We have terrible security practices and are completely unmeritocratic," reads the hacked email, which was posted to social media. "We hire and admit morons because we love legacies, donors, and unqualified affirmative action admits. We love breaking federal laws like FERPA (all your data will be leaked) and Supreme Court rulings like SFFA," the email continues. "Please stop giving us money."The subject heading reads, "We got hacked (Action Required)." The hackers referred to the Supreme Court decision in favor of the Students for Fair Admissions in 2023 that forbid race-based affirmative action in admissions to colleges. They also accused the college of violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which protects students' school records data. RELATED: Cybersecurity expert says he accidentally discovered 'disturbing' data transfers from TikTok: 'The app should be banned' A university spokesperson released a statement decrying the email. "A fraudulent email has been circulated that appears to come from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education," the statement reads. "This is obviously a fake, and nothing in the highly offensive, hurtful message reflects the mission or actions of Penn or of Penn GSE."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Students and alumni of the University of Pennsylvania were surprised to receive a vulgar email from the university's account after it was hacked Friday.The university confirmed that the email came from a security breach and that its incident response team was investigating the incident.'This is obviously a fake, and nothing in the highly offensive, hurtful message reflects the mission or actions of Penn or of Penn GSE.'"The University of Pennsylvania is a dogs**t elitist institution full of woke retards. We have terrible security practices and are completely unmeritocratic," reads the hacked email, which was posted to social media. "We hire and admit morons because we love legacies, donors, and unqualified affirmative action admits. We love breaking federal laws like FERPA (all your data will be leaked) and Supreme Court rulings like SFFA," the email continues. "Please stop giving us money."The subject heading reads, "We got hacked (Action Required)." The hackers referred to the Supreme Court decision in favor of the Students for Fair Admissions in 2023 that forbid race-based affirmative action in admissions to colleges. They also accused the college of violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which protects students' school records data. RELATED: Cybersecurity expert says he accidentally discovered 'disturbing' data transfers from TikTok: 'The app should be banned' A university spokesperson released a statement decrying the email. "A fraudulent email has been circulated that appears to come from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education," the statement reads. "This is obviously a fake, and nothing in the highly offensive, hurtful message reflects the mission or actions of Penn or of Penn GSE."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
An outage on Amazon's web hosting service caused a sweep of app outages after the company faced issues at an east-coast operations center.AWS hosts about 6.3% of all websites, but some of the biggest brands' communications platforms also rely on the service.'I don't trust Signal anymore.'When reports started rolling in around 3 a.m. Eastern Time, Amazon said it was dealing with an "operational issue" that was affecting 14 services at its northern Virginia center.Snapchat, McDonald's, and even Ring doorbell cameras were among some of the applications affected. Even gaming platforms like Roblox and Fortnite were affected, as were messaging and communications programs like Zoom and Signal. According to NBC News, about 6.5 million reports piled up that said over 1,000 sites and services had gone offline.After 6:30 a.m., AWS said it had "fully mitigated" the issues; that was until 10:14 a.m., when it confirmed "significant API errors and connectivity issues across multiple services in the US-EAST-1 Region."The widespread outage sparked conversations about the fragility and dependency of major companies and even institutions, as the blackout affected the U.K. government's HM Revenue and Customs department, which handles tax services.With Signal affected, purporting to be an encrypted chat, X owner Elon Musk jumped on the opportunity to cast doubt on the app and direct readers to his own version, X chat.RELATED: Amazon invests $500M in mini nuclear reactors to power AI operationsThe messages are fully encrypted with no advertising hooks or strange “AWS dependencies” such that I can’t read your messages even if someone put a gun to my head. You can also do file transfers and audio/video calls. 
Reality is hard for many people across the political spectrum to accept, especially when it comes to children being raised by their married, biological mother and father.“Before you post your caveats and your kind of exceptions to that, that is the ideal. That is in general true. That is in principle true. Every data set we have — and we’ll get into some specific numbers — shows that kids are best suited to live with their married biological mom and dad,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey says.While sometimes the scenarios that lead to a child being separated from both or one of his biological parents are tragic, sometimes they’re also simply because of the “sexual revolution that has occurred over the past 20 years and especially the past 10 since Obergefell.”“We are talking about intentionally creating motherless and fatherless children, intentionally taking children out of the ideal and putting them in — in the most charitable terms — a less than ideal situation, knowing that the data shows us that this is not best for their well-being,” Stuckey explains.And it’s no longer just two men or two women ensuring that children grow up in these less than ideal, fatherless or motherless situations.In Canada, three men who are in a “polycule” adopted a three-year-old girl through Quebec’s youth protection services. The “polycule” had to be approved first as foster parents, which they say required “a lot of work and openness to their relationship.”“It’s through that process that they learned that we are a little different because we’re three, but we’re not different from any other family,” one of the men said in an interview.“You actually are, though, because you’re three dudes, which tells me you have no moral limits. Like if you’re willing to not only defy nature, and you are willing to defy even liberal definitions of marriage, and you live in some kind of inherently unstable polycule situation, then you do not have the correct components to raise a child,” Stuckey says.“Even if we take religion out of it, let’s just look at this scientifically,” she continues. “Two men or two women who want to be in a relationship have to acknowledge that they do not have the parts that are needed to create a child. And therefore, because biology, not bigotry, has set limitations on your reproductive abilities, then there should be limits and restrictions and regulations around your ability to obtain and raise a child.”“I’m very sad for this little girl. … This little girl would be better off in foster care until she is 18 years old than living with three men who are living in a polycule situation. One hundred percent. Because there is no end to the confusion and instability and chaos that a situation like this can cause,” she adds.Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
The top leaders of the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed in a recent interview that the evidence in the suspicious death of sex offender billionaire Jeffrey Epstein pointed to a definitive conclusion. While the circumstances of Epstein's death have led many to suspect that he was killed in order to protect those who were complicit in his alleged underage trafficking ring, FBI Director Kash Patel said the evidence supported the official explanation of suicide. 'You know a suicide when you see one, and that's what that was.' Patel made the admission while he and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino were being interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business. Video of the interview aired on Sunday. "You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide," said Bartiromo. "People don't believe it." "They have a right to their opinion," Patel replied, "but as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who's been in that prison system, who's been in the metropolitan detention center, who's been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that's what that was." "He killed himself," Bongino agreed. "Again, I've seen the whole file. He killed himself."Video of the interaction between Bartiromo, Patel, and Bongino was widely circulated on the internet, where it garnered millions of views. Some members of the Trump administration had been criticized for promising to release Epstein files and apparently stalling on the issue. RELATED: Federal judge orders dozens of names of Jeffrey Epstein associates be unsealed Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck responded to the admission from the FBI on social media. "FBI Director @Kash_Patel and @dbongino now claim they believe Epstein's death WAS a suicide," wrote Beck. "They didn't used to believe that. I STILL don't believe that. However, I know Dan Bongino. I think he's a credible guy. He loves his country. I know Kash Patel. I think he's an honorable guy. He loves his country." Beck listed the evidence that the FBI must release in order to alleviate the suspicions of many who doubt the official story of Epstein's death. "I tend to believe Patel and Bongino. I don't believe there's some sort of conspiracy inside MAGA," Beck added. "But I also believe that Epstein didn't kill himself with a PAPER SHEET. So, show us the facts. We must restore trust."One of the Epstein accusers, Virginia Giuffre, died in April from suicide, according to a statement from her family, which sparked even more speculation. The 41-year-old had been in a bus accident and accused her husband of abuse prior to her death. Authorities have initially said the suicide was not suspicious. RELATED: Pam Bondi says Epstein client list is sitting on her desk 'right now' and being reviewed for release Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
If you’re an American woman, there’s a high likelihood you grew up playing with the classic American Girl dolls — where each doll came with a story depicting a historical, pure Americana tale. But if you’re a young girl in today’s America, that’s all changing. The classic American Girl doll has taken a turn for the politically correct, with its latest Instagram post featuring an American Girl doll celebrating the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr as a part of its “Cultural Celebrations” outfit line. Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable” grew up playing with the dolls and devouring their stories, so she's more than a little disappointed that her daughters won’t experience the same magic that once was. “I’m a girl mom who has three little girls who love dolls and would love American Girl. I would love to take them to the American Girl store. I grew up reading the American Girl books. They were some of my favorite books. I remember their lives; I remember their stories and all of their different personality traits,” Stuckey recalls. “They always championed basic virtues and also just showing appropriate confidence as a girl and the value and the uniqueness of being a girl,” she continues. “But we’ve started seeing some sketchy things over the years, because as we know, as a principle, if an institution is not explicitly biblical, not just explicitly conservative, but explicitly biblical, it will end up veering into degeneracy.” “It will end up veering to the left, questioning basic realities like gender, breaking down the moral values that we have agreed upon at least as culturally Christian Americans for a very long time,” she adds. Stuckey’s concern is that Islam is now being seen as a formidable part of American society. “When I look at Muslim-majority countries everywhere, most of them are completely rot with archaic violence and chaos and oppression of the most vulnerable. When we look at all of the major terrorist groups around the world,” she says, “all of these terrorist groups, save a couple, are Islamic in nature.” “When we look at the religious affiliations of the groups most violently persecuting both Jews and Christians around the world, it’s all Islam,” she continues. “That is not to say that every person who is Muslim is violent; that is not to say every person who is Muslim is going to be a terrorist or is going to be a radical extremist, but obviously we see the common denominator there.” Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
A motley crew of leftists descended on the nation's capital on Saturday. Blaze Media national correspondent Julio Rosas was on the scene, capturing some of the less inhibited among the activists resort to their apparent default: dehumanizing rhetoric. As part of a nationwide "Hands Off!" protest, some radicals ambled to the National Mall to express their displeasure with President Donald Trump and his popular agenda. While uniformly anti-Trump, there was a variety of grievances expressed by the cacophonic mob even though the organizers made clear that they had three reasons for mobilization. The reasons were: to stop Trump and Elon Musk's imagined "illegal power grab"; to condemn the administration and congressional Republicans for supposedly "gutting services, raising prices, and racing towards slashing Medicaid, Social Security, and more"; and to clutch pearls about the administration's supposed pursuit of "destruction for the benefit of their billionaire allies." Of course, numerous protesters veered off message, dusted off the slogans of yesteryear, and championed the causes of Black Lives Matter, gender ideology, and an unaccountable federal bureaucracy. Other radicals farther afield donned keffiyehs and swarmed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Potomac Center Plaza as part of the separate "April 5 March on Washington." Those in this second camp, which Rosas tracked over the course of the day, protested the Trump administration's foreign policy as well as its enforcement of federal immigration law; demonized ICE agents; condemned the deportation of pro-Hamas radicals, including Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk; criticized Israel; and reaffirmed their "commitment to the liberation of Palestine." The groups that ultimately swarmed the ICE headquarters included the Palestinian Feminist Collective, the climate alarmist group Planet Over Profit, and the local chapters of the George Soros-funded Students for Justice in Palestine — a group endorsed last year by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Gaza-based terrorist group that combines Marxist-Leninist ideology with Arab nationalism. Outside the ICE offices, protesters demanded the release of Mahmoud Khalil and other pro-Hamas international students facing deportation. Khalil, a Syrian-born activist leader who previously attended Columbia University, allegedly hid his former employment with a Hamas-tied UN agency when filing his green card application. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in reference to Khalil's arrest last month, "We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported." — (@) Activists also called for a moratorium on ICE removal operations. Prior to raging impotently outside the ICE offices, various activists made speeches. 'There is only one solution: antifada, revolution.' Linda Sarsour — the Palestinian-American activist whose radicalism proved too much even for the Biden administration which disavowed her — told the mob standing near an "abolish Israel" sign that "we are all adversaries to U.S. foreign policy" and that the radical mob was "the moral consistency of America." One speaker honored Palestinian "martyrs" killed during the Hamas-Israeli war without distinguishing between civilians and terrorists. Another tethered Palestinian activism to the broader socialist cause, indicating that capitalism is at fault. Muna Qadan of the Palestinian Feminist Collective threatened a "new world order" and the "vengeance of the oppressed" and stated that "there is only one solution: antifada, revolution." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
As Blaze News reported last week, a Los Angeles County deputy with a stellar record is staring down hard time in federal prison after a suspect accused him of using excessive force during a 2023 arrest. Evidence now indicates that L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna may have prompted a federal investigation into the incident, leaving deputies and other personnel feeling betrayed. Blaze News caught up with the deputy's attorney, Tom Yu, as well as a spokesman for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Professional Association, Nick Wilson, to better understand the prevailing sentiment among L.A. County deputies about this case and to learn why they hope Deputy Trevor Kirk may yet avoid time behind bars. 'Safely handcuff the suspect': Deputy Kirk and a fateful detainment On June 24, 2023, Deputy Trevor Kirk and another deputy drove to the WinCo supermarket in Lancaster, California, in response to a report of a possible robbery in progress involving a man and a woman. A source affiliated with LASPA told Blaze News that the woman had been "caught in the act." When loss prevention officers confronted the suspects in the case — Damon Barnes and Jacy Houseton — the suspects allegedly assaulted the officers. According to reports, Houseton even pulled down her face mask and spat on one of security guards. Kirk and the other deputy encountered Barnes and Houseton in the parking lot outside the store, identifying them as individuals who matched the suspects' description. Though Barnes ran his mouth a bit, he was otherwise detained without incident. Houseton was a different story. 'She took a swing at him, backed off, and then continued to actively resist arrest.' While deputies placed Barnes in handcuffs, Houseton stood nearby filming with her cell phone. Having already identified her as the other suspect in the alleged robbery and possible assault, Kirk then reached for her cell phone. After a brief scuffle, Kirk brought Houseton to the ground, at which point she began accusing him of "manhandling" her. She also repeatedly threatened to sue Kirk and hollered phrases often associated with George Floyd and Eric Garner, who both died during encounters with law enforcement: "Get your neck [sic] off my … off my … I can’t breathe." Houseton continued to yell and flail about. She also appeared to disobey orders to put her hands behind her back, so Kirk pepper-sprayed her in the face on two separate occasions. Houseton later received treatment for injuries. Bodycam video of the incident can be seen below: — (@) A summary of the incident from the Department of Justice painted a grim picture of Kirk's actions. "Kirk grabbed J.H. by her arm, hooked his left hand behind her neck, and violently threw her face-first to the ground," it said. It also accused him of pressing his knee into Houseton's neck and failing to issue her the proper commands. In February, Kirk, a 32-year-old Army veteran and father of two, was convicted by a federal jury of one felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. According to court records, it took jurors just two hours to render their verdict. In reporting on Kirk's conviction, KCAL described the incident as a "vicious assault" involving a "disgraced deputy." Attorney Tom Yu and LASPA representative Nick Wilson are frustrated with the way the incident has been framed by federal investigators and critics. For one thing, by all accounts, Kirk has an "outstanding" record, Yu said. Kirk is well liked in the department and has no other allegations of misconduct against him or any poor performance reviews. With regard to the incident with Houseton, Wilson told Blaze News that Kirk used only "minimal force" that qualified as a low-level, "category 1" use of force, as listed in the policies of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. Wilson also claimed that Houseton had been "resistive" and "violent" during the encounter with Kirk. "She took a swing at Trevor Kirk when he first went to detain her and put hands on," he said. "She took a swing at him, backed off, and then continued to actively resist arrest." "Deputies are trained to take suspects who resist to the ground in order to gain compliance and to safely handcuff the suspect," Yu said in a statement in the days following the incident. What's more, both Barnes and Houseton have a criminal history. Barnes has a string of arrests dating back to 1987, including convictions for arson, weapons and drug offenses, and resisting an officer. He was also accused of robbery in 1995. Houseton was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in 2005 but had that conviction effectively dismissed from her record three years later, presumably after satisfying the terms of her probation. To be fair, Yu noted, Kirk did not know about those prior convictions when he met the pair in the parking lot that day. However, Kirk also did not know whether they were armed, though it turns out they were not. Neither Barnes nor Houseton was ever charged in connection with the alleged robbery of the WinCo store, which KCAL-TV later downplayed as merely a possible "shoplifting," or the alleged assault on the loss prevention officers. Houseton did follow through on her promise to sue the department and was reportedly awarded $1 million. At a press conference about the lawsuit, Houseton claimed Kirk "tried to kill" her and implied that the excessive force was racially motivated. Her attorney, Caree Harper, added, "It doesn't happen to white folks like this, and we're not gonna have it happening to black folks like this." WinCo did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News. 'Hanging deputies out to dry': Sheriff Luna gets involved An internal affairs investigation was initiated almost immediately following the detainment at WinCo, and the fallout might have been kept in house but for one problem: Video of the encounter between Kirk and Houseton had already been made public. Activist groups — including Cancel the Contract Antelope Valley, a far-left "social justice" organization — quickly planned demonstrations denouncing what they viewed as another racially charged instance of police brutality. "As black residents of this community, we are tired of living in fear of the police," said group co-founder Waunette Cullors. 'The sheriff buckled under political pressure.' About a week after the incident, Sheriff Robert Luna addressed the controversy publicly, describing the video footage as "disturbing." "It's disturbing. There's no ifs, ands, buts about it," he said at a press conference. Wilson believes that in the summer of 2023 — a time when BLM riots and "defund the police" movements continued to reverberate three years after George Floyd's death — Luna was sensitive to external pressure. "After this use of force, the civil rights community, the activist movements raised hell within the sheriff's department," Wilson told Blaze News. Even though Kirk was reportedly "cleared at a station level," Luna decided to invite federal agencies to investigate Kirk's actions as well, Wilson claimed. "The sheriff buckled under political pressure and made sure that this case was handed over to the DOJ for prosecution," Wilson continued, thereby "hanging deputies out to dry." Both Wilson and Yu told Blaze News they were "certain" that Luna's office initiated federal involvement, though Luna denies it. In a statement to Blaze News, Deputy Miesha McClendon of the Sheriff's Information Bureau claimed, "Despite allegations to the contrary, this case was not referred to the FBI nor the U.S Attorney’s Office by anyone within the Department as indicated in the official court transcript." McClendon also added: The Department recognizes that having one of our employees convicted by a federal jury is a significant matter, and we understand the frustration it has caused among our personnel. ... The Department will be conducting a thorough review of the case to identify any specific issues to determine if modifications to training are needed. Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images L.A. deputies were so outraged at the treatment of one of their own — a colleague some believe was "politically" persecuted after simply following department protocol — that upon Kirk's conviction in February, Luna held a private meeting with personnel from the Lancaster sheriff's station. During that two-hour meeting, which was secretly recorded, Luna expressed regret for characterizing the footage as "disturbing." He also suggested that he had nothing to do with contacting the feds about the incident. "I can tell you this with confidence that what I said that day," Luna appeared to say, referring to his "disturbing" remark, "did not have anything to do with the FBI. "The FBI received this case from the plaintiff's attorney," Luna explained. The "plaintiff" in this case was presumably Houseton, who filed a lawsuit. During the clips of the conversation reviewed by Blaze News, the voice identified as Luna's admits to having "failed" his team members. He also indicates that he had not personally reviewed the incident footage, which others in the room characterize as "innocuous" and not too "grievous." Deputies also repeatedly ask Luna to use the power of his office to stand with Kirk and publicly oppose his conviction. Luna promised he would consider it. Luna's history with law enforcement in general is rather mixed, even though he has spent his entire career as a cop, first with the Long Beach Police Department and now as the head of the largest sheriff's department in America. Though Luna wanted to be a police officer from the time he was little, he indicated to the L.A. Times that he grew up in a community that was generally distrustful of law enforcement. Luna also recalled to the Times an incident in which he was apparently the victim of unnecessary police aggression. "At age 13, he said, he was slammed face-first against the hood of a sheriff’s deputy’s car for crossing against a red light on his bicycle," the outlet summarized for a profile piece in October 2022, shortly before Luna was elected sheriff. Luna also campaigned for sheriff on the promise of breaking up so-called "deputy gangs." While he has since managed to ban such gangs, he has yet to name a single deputy gang member, Wilson told Blaze News. Additionally, Luna has a track record of handling possible instances of excessive force within his department. During one of the occasionally violent demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd's death, an officer with the Long Beach Police Department shot a journalist with a "foam projectile," the LAist reported in 2020. LBPD — then helmed by Police Chief Luna — ultimately determined that the shooting "was within policy," the outlet said. 'To show unity': Deputies make their voices heard The deputies of L.A. County have not taken the conviction of Kirk or Luna's alleged capitulation to leftist pressure lying down. For example, a handful, including a sergeant, have reportedly refused to accept medals and other accolades awarded by the department. They even "refused to actually go to the awards ceremony," Wilson insisted. 'The magnitude of this boycott ... makes Luna look terrible in the law enforcement community nationwide.' In a more widespread show of solidarity with Kirk, hundreds of L.A. deputies and other staff members have decided to boycott one of their favorite annual events: the Baker to Vegas relay. While the L.A. Sheriff's Department regularly fields two dozen or so relay teams, this year, at least 20 sheriff's stations — including Santa Clarita, West Hollywood, two detention centers, the Training Bureau, and, of course, Kirk's home station in Lancaster — are refusing to participate. Protesting the Baker to Vegas relay is no minor demonstration. Billed as "the world’s most prestigious and unique law enforcement foot race," the event draws teams from across the country and across the globe. "There's folks flying in from Brazil. There's folks from Australia, from Germany," Yu told Blaze News. "This is a big thing." Yu would know. Now an attorney, Yu spent 15 years as a deputy with the LASD. The deputies who race are very "competitive," he said, often averaging five and a half minutes per mile. "I tried out for a county-wide team," Yu recalled. "I ran a six-minute mile, and I did not make the team." "It's to show unity," Yu explained. "It's to run for your fallen brothers and sisters, for mental health. There's a lot of suicides in law enforcement, so it's a huge race." Wilson confirmed to Blaze News that Sheriff Luna has participated in the event and understands its importance to department staff. "The magnitude of this boycott ... makes Luna look terrible in the law enforcement community nationwide," Wilson said. "To have the deputies not show up, it makes Luna look terrible." This year, the Baker to Vegas race is scheduled for April 5 and 6. Instead, many L.A. deputies are opting to participate in a 5K race to raise money for Kirk and his family. While Yu and Wilson are expecting a good turnout for the alternative race, they claimed that Luna may be trying to spoil or otherwise interfere with the event by attempting to ascertain the individuals orchestrating it. Wilson shared with Blaze News a screenshot of one such message, allegedly from a Luna ally: Screenshot shared with Blaze News. Used with permission. Yu and Wilson believe the purpose behind these probing questions is to intimidate would-be participants and convince them not to join the Kirk race. "We've had multiple deputies tell us and send us screenshots of friend requests and questions from Luna's staff asking who's boycotting, who is drumming this up, and applying pressure to deputies ... as a form of retaliation," Wilson said. In the statement given to Blaze News, Officer McClendon of the information bureau addressed the accusations of intimidation: The Department issued an internal global email on March 5, 2025, to personnel after it had received several reports from personnel who have stated they have been targeted with actions of harassment, threats of retaliation, and bullying related to participating in the Baker to Vegas race. We want to emphasize that whether or not personnel choose to participate, any form of harassment, retaliation, or misconduct will not be tolerated under any circumstances. 'No-brainer': Trump, Dhillon, and righting a wrong Despite what Wilson calls the "cloud" hanging over the department, he, Yu, and others hold out hope that Kirk can still avoid prison time. The clearest way for him to do so would be for the judge, a long-serving Reagan appointee, to vacate the verdict. While such an outcome may sound like a long shot, there are encouraging signs. For example, following the guilty verdict, the judge did not remand Kirk to custody, a decision which Yu described as "very rare." 'They were laughing, smiling, high-fiving each other, giving each other hugs.' Moreover, the federal investigation into Kirk and his federal prosecution began under the Biden administration. During the trial, Wilson and Yu claimed that in a show of force, federal agencies packed the courtroom with young agency newcomers who enthusiastically supported the prosecution. After the guilty verdict was announced, these agency supporters cheered loudly, Wilson claimed. "They were laughing, smiling, high-fiving each other, giving each other hugs," he said. "It was shocking." With President Trump now in office, the DOJ has new leadership who may view the prosecution of Kirk in a different light. One individual with some influence in the Trump administration with strong ties to California is Harmeet Dhillon, now the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ. Wilson, Yu, and others are hoping she will intervene on Kirk's behalf. Dhillon's office and the DOJ did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images While Dhillon is aware of Kirk's case, she likely does not know "the extent of the miscarriage of justice," Yu said. Wilson believes that if the right people in the administration get wind of Kirk's situation, they will act. "If they understood the extent of this, this would be a no-brainer," he said. "It's just getting the information to them." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
WNBA star Caitlin Clark may be known for her incredible skills on the basketball court, but sportscasters don’t seem to care about that. Rather, they choose to focus on something else: her race. “When given a chance to talk about Caitlin Clark, they’re always going to racialize it and try to demonize Caitlin Clark’s fanbase,” Jason Whitlock of “Fearless” comments. “Covering the WNBA this past season, Caitlin Clark’s rookie year, for all of the conversation that surrounded her, some which was fair, and some which wasn’t, the one thing that I cannot deny is the amount of little girls that were showing up to follow her,” ESPN analyst Monica McNutt said in a recent interview on BBC. “She was a white girl from the middle of America, and so she represented a whole lot to a lot of people,” McNutt continued, adding, “We attach our fandom to these icons for all types of reasons, and sometimes they may not be based in all truth.” Whitlock believes the interviewer, BBC journalist Katty Kay, spurred on the race baiting. “Did you see the strategy of the white liberal woman that was there to spur on the race baiting?” he asks. “She’s trying to lob up a softball, ‘play the race card Monica McNutt,’ and this is where I’m going to defend Monica McNutt.” “There’s that kernel and element of truth that Caitlin Clark and all the little suburban white girls that have hopped on board with the WNBA have hopped on board because Caitlin Clark resonates with them more so than the, and I’m just generalizing here, than the angry black lesbians who dominate the WNBA.” “There’s a high percentage of them, and they all like to get in front of a microphone and express their anger and demonize whiteness. The entire league went head over heels for Black Lives Matter,” he continues, adding, “So yes, have parents in suburbia and little girls in suburbia said, ‘Hey, I can relate to Caitlin Clark, look at her nuclear family, look at her Catholic nuclear family, she’s like us, she has a boyfriend.’” “Yes, people find that relatable,” he adds. Want more from Jason Whitlock?To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
A licensed embalmer was arrested after she allegedly cut off a dead man's genitals and stuffed them into his mouth. The horrific incident was reported to Houston police by an embalming student at the Memorial Mortuary and Crematory in Texas. The trainee claimed to have seen 34-year-old Amber Paige Laudermilk commit the act after finding out the man had been a registered sex offender. 'No matter what one thinks of his life, the law requires that he be treated with dignity in death.' Police said that Laudermilk used a scalpel to stab at the genitals of Charles Roy Rodriguez in February. Rodriguez had been charged with sexual assault in 2001 and received 10 years of deferred adjudication before he died at the age of 58 of natural causes. Rodriguez was cremated after the alleged desecration of his corpse. “This case is about two troubled people: the victim who was a registered sex offender and the defendant, who is accused of viciously attacking his dead body,” said Precinct One Constable Alan Rosen in a post on Facebook. “No matter what one thinks of his life, the law requires that he be treated with dignity in death.” After Laudermilk allegedly committed the abuse, one of the witnesses said Laudermilk remarked, "You didn't see anything," in a manner that was perceived as a threat. “I don’t know the suspect’s past, but we have the utmost empathy for anyone who has been the victim of a sexual assault or is the family or friend of someone who has been the victim of a sexual assault,” Rosen concluded. “The facts clearly indicate she was angry and I hope after this is resolved in the courts, she gets the help she needs.”Rosen posted an update that Laudermilk had turned herself in and was being held at the Harris County Jail with a bond of $5,000. Video from the mortuary can be viewed on the news report from KPRC-TV on YouTube. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
One the world's most prominent gain-of-function researchers — whose methods were adapted by researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology for work on chimeric viruses — and one of the scientists who helped furnish Anthony Fauci with what he needed to downplay the lab-leak theory are now sounding the alarm about dangerous new coronavirus experiments conducted by the Chinese. Criticism may have been easier this time around, given that the critics and their friends do not appear to be directly linked to the dangerous research in question. Ralph Baric and W. Ian Lipkin expressed concern in a March 3 New York Times op-ed that Chinese scientists "are experimenting with viruses in ways that could put all of us in harm's way." Baric, a professor in the departments of epidemiology and microbiology at the University of North Carolina, is a leading proponent of gain-of-function research who successfully fought for an exemption from the Obama administration's moratorium on the dangerous practice in order to keep manufacturing artificial SARS-like viruses. He became an especially controversial figure during the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over 7 million people worldwide. Lipkin, the John Snow professor of epidemiology at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, was one of the co-authors of the controversial March 2020 paper "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2," which Fauci used on multiple occasions to suggest to the American public that COVID-19 was not a lab leak but rather an animal virus that jumped to a human. Lipkin, who later thanked Fauci for his "efforts in steering and messaging" regarding the virus' origins, has reportedly long had a cozy relationship with Chinese communist authorities. Baric and Lipkin indicated that they are particularly concerned about experiments conducted by WIV researchers and other Chinese scientists on a deadly coronavirus called HKU5-CoV-2. These experiments are detailed in a recent paper published in the scientific journal Cell. The duo noted that the virus at the heart of the study "belongs to a subgroup of viruses that are classified alongside the one that causes MERS and that can have fatality rates far higher than that of the virus that caused the Covid pandemic." While HKU5 can infect humans and has the potential to be far more lethal than SARS-CoV-2, Chinese scientists have apparently been meddling with the fully infectious virus in a lab with "insufficient" containment controls. There are multiple biosafety level ratings for laboratories ranging from BSL-1 to BSL-4. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "each biosafety level builds on the controls of the level before it." 'Potentially dangerous research should not be done without proper precautions.' A BSL-4 lab, for instance, is designed to handle microbes that are "dangerous and exotic, posing a high risk of aerosol-transmitted infections" that could prove fatal. Researchers in such a lab must manipulate the infectious agents using a gas-tight sealed container with a double HEPA filtered exhaust while wearing protective gear. Alternatively, they must wear a full-body, air-supplied positive pressure suit. Researchers must also undergo routine medical surveillance for signs of infection. Such a high-security lab must also be located in a separate building or in a restricted zone of an existing building with double locking doors and provided with a dedicated supply of air along with decontamination systems. Despite the dangers posed to the researchers and the rest of mankind, the Chinese researchers have instead been experimenting in a lab described as BSL-2 plus. BSL-2 labs are meant to handle only microbes that pose, at worst, moderate hazards to researchers and the environment. "Decisions about what level of precaution is appropriate for research are typically made by a study's lead scientist and an institutional biosafety committee," wrote Baric and Lipkin. The lead scientist on this dangerous study was Shi Zhengli, whose track record for safety is less than stellar and with whom Baric has previously collaborated. According to a 2021 article in the MIT technology review, Baric asked Shi, who is the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the WIV, for the genome of a new coronavirus Shi found in bat excrement. He apparently wanted to take the "spike" gene from the novel virus and stick it into a copy of a SARS virus he had on hand. Ultimately, Baric's team tested the resultant chimeric virus on humanized mice and in a petri dish of human airway cells and discovered that it could indeed infect humans. Baric and Lipkin noted in their op-ed that while the relevant authorities in China apparently approved the dangerous new experiments on HKU5, "it is not sufficient for work with a new virus that could have significant risks for people worldwide." "Work with viruses that have the potential to become threats to public health should be restricted to facilities and scientists committed to the highest level of safety," added the duo. According to Baric and Lipkin, governmental and nongovernmental agencies that fund research on viruses should require "proof that investigators meet global standards." Additionally, scientific journals should insist on similar standards for the studies they accept. The duo concluded, "Potentially dangerous research should not be done without proper precautions to prevent deliberate or accidental spread." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
President Trump’s shock-and-awe strategy is working beautifully, but it’s usually Democrats whose jaws are on the floor. However, his recent announcement to turn Gaza into an America-owned boomtown has everyone dumbfounded — including Glenn Beck. While Glenn doesn’t necessarily agree that America should own lands that belong to Israel, he can’t help but see the absolute genius in Trump’s plan. Glenn explains that Trump’s idea to own Gaza equates to “all of the Palestinians in Gaza going away,” but nobody is talking about that because they’re too busy talking about how “the United States wants to make Gaza into the Riviera.” Trump drops a proposal and suddenly “we are not talking about moving 1.7 million people into other countries,” says Glenn, calling the tactic moving “the Overton window.” This kind of strategy, however, wouldn’t work if Trump was a bluffer. But he’s not. “He never bluffs,” says Glenn, calling this trait “the best thing about Donald Trump.” Glenn explains that when Trump presents a proposal like this, everybody takes him seriously, and they should. Truth be told, Trump most likely would jump at the opportunity to own and run Gaza. But is that really in the cards? “I don’t think so,” says Glenn. To hear his full analysis, watch the clip above. Want more from Glenn Beck?To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Republican holdout Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Monday that she would vote to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. Gabbard's nomination appeared to be on the ropes after some Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee grilled her over her support for whistleblower Edward Snowden and questionable comments about the intelligence community. 'Ms. Gabbard shares my vision of returning the agency to its intended size.' Among the swing votes were Collins, who said her concerns were satisfied after she personally spoke with Gabbard and heard that she planned to reduce the size and scale of the DNI office. “After extensive consideration of her nomination, I will support Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence,” said Collins in a statement. “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence … has become far larger than it was designed to be, and Ms. Gabbard shares my vision of returning the agency to its intended size.”Gabbard's nomination may come down to Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, who grilled her about Snowden during the hearing. She said unequivocally that she believed Snowden broke the law but would not say whether she still believed he deserved a pardon. Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma said afterward that he was surprised by her response to the line of questioning. "I was surprised because that doesn't seem like a hard question on that," Lankford said Thursday. "It wasn't intended to be a trick question by any means."The committee will likely vote on Gabbard's confirmation on Tuesday. If the committee approves, the entire Senate will vote on the confirmation. "I look forward to working with Ms. Gabbard to strengthen our national security," Collins concluded. Collins came out against the nomination of Pete Hegseth to head the Department of Defense, but he was confirmed in a tie vote that was decided by Vice President JD Vance. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!