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As Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem now presides over one of the most powerful bureaucracies in the federal government. An agency tasked with security, law, and human consequence. What a show. Kristi Noem is not governing so much as managing a lie that has grown too large to control. It is the lie that toughness is leadership, that cruelty is clarity, and that repeating something loudly enough—no matter how false—eventually turns it into truth. Her administration d

The internet exploded when Taylor Swift and Blake Lively's private text messages surfaced in court documents, but everyone focused on the wrong scandal. Forget Justin Baldoni. The real revelation is watching two best friends navigate the brutal reality that sometimes your ride-or-die is also kind of a nightmare, and you love her anyway. Blake Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment during filming of "It Ends With Us" and claimed he orchestrated a smear campaign. Baldoni c

President Trump stood in the White House briefing room Tuesday, marking his first anniversary back in office, and dropped a statement that was resounding. While defending his administration's aggressive immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, he noted that Border Patrol agents are predominantly Hispanic. According to Customs and Border Protection data, over half of Border Patrol agents serving on the southern border identify as Hispanic. Applications surged 70 percen

Thousands of people rang in 2025 standing on the Brooklyn Bridge in freezing temperatures, phones out, waiting for fireworks that were never going to happen. The show they came for existed only in their feeds. Days before New Year's Eve, TikTok and Instagram accounts flooded social media with videos showing spectacular fireworks exploding over the Brooklyn Bridge. Some footage was pure AI fabrication. Other videos recycled genuine clips from Fourth of July celebrations, repac

I can hear Vicente pacing in the kitchen. Back and forth. Back and forth. I'm in bed, pretending to be asleep, but really I'm just counting his steps. It's 10:50 pm, and his dentist appointment is at 8 tomorrow morning. This is how it always goes. A week before any appointment, I remind him. Five days later, I remind him again. The morning of, I'll remind him one more time. Then I set my alarm for 5 am because Vicente needs exactly two and a half hours to prepare himself for

George H.W. Bush entered the presidency with credentials that made most politicians look like amateurs. Navy pilot in World War II. Not some cushy desk job either. He flew actual combat missions over the Pacific, where getting shot down meant the ocean swallowed you whole. He got himself a Barbara and married her. Yale graduate with Phi Beta Kappa honors. Oil company tycoon. He made himself a millionaire before most people were buying their first home. Like the overachiever h

A data broker called Gravy Analytics compiled a list of 1,238 applications that feed location data into its surveillance apparatus. The spreadsheet, obtained by 404 Media and Wired through a Freedom of Information Act request, exposes the mundane reality of modern surveillance infrastructure. Jigsaw puzzles, weather apps, and Muslim prayer time calculators all participate in the same data harvesting operation that helps government agencies track American citizens without warr

Not all friendships are created equal. Some people will bleed you dry and act shocked when you finally cut them loose. Start with the emotional dumpers. You know the type. They show up, unload their entire psychological inventory like you're a storage unit, then bounce feeling refreshed while you're left processing their unresolved trauma. Venting and genuine emotional processing are different sports. One is screaming into the void for temporary relief. The other requires sit

American history education operates on a foundation of convenient mythology. Teachers perpetuate these fabrications with the confidence of people who've never fact-checked a textbook. Generations of students recite historical fiction as gospel truth. Take July 4th. The entire country shuts down every year to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence on a date when nothing was actually signed. The document went to print on July 4th, 1776, but signatures didn't a

In January 2019, fifteen hundred private jets flew into Davos so the world's richest people could hear Sir David Attenborough talk about climate change. Nobody seemed to notice the problem with that. Dutch historian Rutger Bregman attended the World Economic Forum for the first time that year. The annual gathering brings together political leaders, CEOs, and billionaires to discuss global issues. He watched them spend days talking about participation, justice, equality, and t

Rome - Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani, legendary Italian fashion designer, has peacefully passed at the age of 93. Garavani opened a fashion house on Via Condotti in Italy. Known by the V logo, Valentino served as the creative director and influencer of the house from 1959 until around 2008. "Valentino Red" became a symbol of the fashion icon. His love for the color seemingly stemmed from the opera Carmen, a Spanish bel canto, that filled a stage with impressive red cos

Chicano. Mexican‐American. Same roots, different cultures. This isn’t just a box you check on a form—it’s the story of how people pick their label and decide how loud they want to be. How, then, is it that every Chicano is a Mexican‐American, yet not every Mexican‐American identifies as Chicano? Etymologically, many scholars trace “Chicano” to a colloquial contraction of “Mexicano.” In certain Spanish dialects—particularly among indigenous and working‐class communities—the “x

If you think Brooklyn Beckham has it easy, Jesus of Nazareth never had it so good.

The Supreme Court handed down a decision in September that should terrify anyone who thinks showing an ID means they belong here. In Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, the Court's conservative majority allowed federal immigration agents to resume raids across Los Angeles after a lower court tried to stop them from targeting people based on race, language, workplace, and location alone. The Fourth Amendment requires reasonable suspicion before law enforcement can detain you. That means

George Strait is a Republican. He is. Not on paper, of course, because that would mean accountability, but in all his actions, Strait has been very obvious about who he supports, and it's not the people who listen to his music. The King of Country stood next to Donald Trump at the Kennedy Center. He smiles in photos with Greg Abbott, the governor who has turned the Rio Grande into a deadly obstacle course of buoys and razor wire. Strait doesn't hide his politics—he just doesn

On Tuesday, January 13, 2026, the courtroom erupted when Velma Lisa Duran, sister of slain teacher Irma Garcia, snapped. "My sister went into the fatal funnel," Duran shouted. "She did it. Not you!" Her outburst interrupted testimony about the "fatal funnel"—law enforcement jargon for the first bodies through a door when bullets are flying. The defendant, former school resource officer Adrian Gonzales, faces 29 counts of child endangerment. Prosecutors argue he abandoned his

Martin Luther King Jr. made history at thirty-five when he became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded him the 1964 prize "for his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population." He was the twelfth American to receive it and only the second African American. His response to the honor revealed everything about his priorities. He immediately announced plans to donate the entire $54,123 prize to advancing

There was a time when America believed in itself the way a teenager believes in summer—endless, sunlit, and promised. Don McLean caught that feeling just as it slipped through the fingers of the time. American Pie wasn’t only a song; it was a vigil. A long, circling goodbye to a country that thought tragedy was an interruption, not a condition. “The day the music died” marked more than a plane crash. It marked the moment when innocence stopped being renewable. Buddy Holly, Ri

Rio Grande City formed a committee to explore building an eighteen-hole municipal golf course, a project that would finally give the city the recreational infrastructure other Valley towns have maintained for decades. The committee has begun planning feasibility studies. Rio Grande City already had a golf course once. The Fort Ringgold Golf Course operated from November 1970 until roughly 1990. Pete Diaz Sr., the Valley Mart magnate who transformed his family's grocery store

Congress just authorized federal agents to examine the naked bodies of children. Alone. Without their parents. They're calling it the Kayla Hamilton Act. H.R. 4371 passed the House 225-201 on Monday. Seven Democrats handed Republicans the margin they needed. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Laura Gillen of New York, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Adam Gray of California, and Marie Glusenkamp Perez of Washington decided invasive body exam