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The Media Is Fueling a Spate of Wild Conspiracies – RedState– redstate.com
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We have to suppose that it is a natural offshoot of a severe act taking place, that some people would tread into the landscape of conspiracies. It is not unexpected, but we seem to be experiencing an elevated level of this activity today. In the wake of the grievous murder of Charlie Kirk, there has been a flurry of these instances, but the sourcing of this may have much to do with the added aspect of political tribalism.

While conspiracy theories are not a new phenomenon, what is notable now is how many who claim to have elevated thinking are instead descending into the fever swamps. An application of pragmatism is not only absent, it is resisted, and that is the tell. And the denials of the motives behind the shooting seen in the press are only feeding this hysteria.

Currently on social media, two such prevailing theories are floated: That the presented text messages between Kirk’s assassin and his lover are fabricated, and that at least one lynching has boldly taken place on a college campus. These are cases that beg for clarity and evidence, and the absence of such is held up as proof.

Regarding the texts presented by the authorities, the prevailing theory is that nobody of the shooter’s age fashions their texts in the manner seen in these exchanges. The concept is that these were crafted by out-of-touch law enforcement figures. When I asked one such true-denier on social media where the evidence exists that these were fake messages, I was told that it is found on social media posts. (Naturally, the next step was not showing these examples but the instruction that it was incumbent upon me to seek out their proof.)

The Future Role of Clans in Gaza– warontherocks.com
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In 2024, Yaniv Voller wrote “The Inevitable Role of Clans in Post-Conflict Stabilization in Gaza,” where he argued that clans will continue to be a popular and likely method of stabilizing Gaza after fighting ceases. In the wake of the Israel Defense Forces’ official launch of a ground offensive into Gaza City, we invited Yaniv back to reflect on his arguments.Image: RafahKid Kid via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2024 article, “The Inevitable Role of Clans in Post-Conflict Stabilization in Gaza,” you wrote about the Israeli government’s consideration of using clans as proxies once the war concludes.

‘I will not pull back from CELEBRATING’: Law professor’s Charlie Kirk comments lead to calls for her termination– www.thecollegefix.com
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Key Takeaways

  • Arkansas state officials are calling for the termination of law professor Felicia Branch after she made controversial comments celebrating the death of political commentator Charlie Kirk.
  • Branch, who recently joined the University of Arkansas Little Rock, was suspended after posting on Facebook that she would not pull back from ‘CELEBRATING’ Kirk’s death, calling him ‘an evil man.
  • Attorney General Tim Griffin and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemned Branch’s remarks as unacceptable, with Griffin stating that her comments justify political violence and do not align with the standards expected of educators.
  • The Chancellor of U. Arkansas Little Rock emphasized the need for educators to maintain higher conduct standards and condemned Branch’s remarks as contrary to fostering a civil and rigorous academic environment.

Trump Designating Antifa as Major Terrorist Group– townhall.com
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Pres. Donald Trump is designating Antifa as a major terrorist organization, he said on Truth Social on Wednesday night.

“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

 

The White House confirmed the post.

After Kirk’s assassination, Trump said that he would find the groups that fund political violence, Townhall’s Katie Pavlich posted.

“My administration will find each and everyone of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence including the organizations that fund it and support it.”

Debunking the 6 Most Common Charlie Kirk Fake Quotes and Lies from Leftists– www.westernjournal.com
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Due to its importance, The Western Journal has made this premium article free to all readers. However, if you would like to read more articles like this and support Christian, conservative content, we encourage you to become a member

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination at an event at Utah Valley College last week, there was an outpouring of grief — as well as misinformation.

There was misinformation about who the killer was. About conservatives “canceling” people. And, more than anything, there was misinformation about what Charlie Kirk said and believed.

These quotes have been passed around so much that they’re basically gospel at this point. They’re also mostly bunk. As proof, let’s do a deep dive and look at six of the most commonly twisted Kirk quotes that we’ve seen peddled by the left in the wake of his death.

1. The racial slur quote.

The internet’s version: “I live like a capitalist every single day, chink.”

Reality: If you heard one quote that was manipulated to look as if that Charlie Kirk was a real figure of hate — David Duke, but slicker and with more avenues to power — it was probably this one.

The quote was posted multiple times in X threads related to Kirk’s death, along with the context-less clip of the alleged quote.

ABC’s Gutman Goes on X to Regret Calling Kirk Suspect’s Texts ‘Very Touching’– www.newsbusters.org
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Early Wednesday morning, ABC chief national correspondent Matt Gutman took to X and not on-air to offer his attempt at apologizing for fawning Tuesday afternoon over text messages between the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination and his trans lover as “lovingly” stated, “very intimate,” and “very touching.”

Gutman stated at 6:32 a.m. Eastern ahead of his Good Morning America liveshot about the case (albeit back in Los Angeles) the following:

1. Yesterday I tried to underscore the jarring contrast between this cold blooded assassination of Charlie Kirk – a man who dedicated his life to public dialogue – and the personal, disturbing texts read aloud by the Utah County Attorney at the press conference.

He then added that “I deeply regret that my words did not make that clear. But let there be zero doubt here: I unequivocally condemn this horrific crime and the pain it caused Charlie Kirk’s family, those who were forced to witness it at UVU, and the millions of people he inspired.”

Reminder: Gutman has already been suspended twice by ABC (once for false information, another for insubordination).

As a reminder, below is the first of two insane glorifications of the alleged assassin and his trans lover (or click here to read our full write-up and analysis):

He also doubled down on ABC News Live, not even ten minutes later (emphasis mine):

It’s heartbreaking on so many levels, Kyra. Obviously, Charlie Kirk was murdered brutally in front of a crowd of thousands…[O]n the other hand, there is this duality of a very a portrait of a very human person, a very human experience from this entire family…the kid who had got a 34 out of 36 on the ACT, who had a 4.0, who got a full ride to college here…I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a press conference in which we’ve read text messages that are A, so fulsome, so robust, so apparently, allegedly self-incriminating and yet, on the other hand, so touching — right — with the suspect reaching out to his roommate, who was allegedly his boyfriend, who we understand, you know, identified as male at birth, now identifies as female. And the terminology he used, he was trying to protect him. He kept calling him ‘my love.’ ‘My reason for doing this is to protect you,’ you know, but also asking him to delete the messages and not speak to law enforcement. So there’s this, this heartbreaking duality that we’re seeing very tragically playing out here.

When a Generation Stays Inside: Civic Consequences of Our Digital World | American Enterprise Institute– www.aei.org
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A new survey reveals that Gen Z spends, on average, less than an hour outdoors on weekdays and many can go days without leaving their homes. By contrast, members of Gen X average more than an hour outside, with time outdoors still part of daily life. Nearly 70 percent of young adults say they regularly spend multiple days entirely indoors, citing bad weather, lack of time, and discomfort with being alone.

At first glance, this might seem like a lifestyle quirk. In reality, it signals how profoundly our patterns of movement, socialization, and engagement with the world have changed with serious implications for civic life.

Time outdoors has always been about more than exercise or fresh air. Parks, sidewalks, and playgrounds have historically been places where neighbors meet, children play, and civic bonds form. Athletic fields and the front porch were once shared spaces where democratic habits were practiced. When younger generations spend less time in these settings, we lose more than recreation. We lose arenas where trust, norms, and community are built.

The new report highlights that this disconnect is felt culturally as well as physically. Nearly half of respondents say there is a “nature deficit” in the media and entertainment they consume. People may stream endless content about the natural world, yet rarely experience it firsthand. Gen Z, in particular, reports a desire to disconnect from screens, but their actual time in nature is lower than previous generations. This gap between aspiration and behavior shows that younger adults are not rejecting nature outright, but face barriers—social, physical, and cultural—that make engagement harder.

After the royal pomp, Trump’s state visit turns to politics and a meeting with Starmer– timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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LONDON: After the pomp, it’s time for the politics. President Donald Trump will meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, the final day of the U.S. leader’s state visit to Britain, with tech investment, steel tariffs and potentially tricky topics on the agenda. The president and first lady Melania Trump were feted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Wednesday at Windsor Castle with all the pageantry the monarchy can muster: gold-trimmed carriages, scarlet-clad soldiers, artillery salutes and a glittering banquet in a grand ceremonial hall.
British officials have festooned the trip with the kind of superlatives Trump revels in: It’s an “unprecedented” second state visit for the U.S. leader, featuring the biggest military honor guard ever assembled for such an occasion. On Thursday, it is Starmer’s turn to welcome the president to Chequers, a 16th-century manor house northwest of London that serves as a rural retreat for British leaders. Trump’s British hosts want to celebrate the strength of the U.S-U.K. relationship, almost 250 years after its rocky start in 1776.
Trump will be welcomed by a ceremonial honor guard complete with bagpipers – a nod to the president’s Scottish heritage – and shown items from the archive of wartime leader Winston Churchill, who coined the term “special relationship” for the bond between the United States and Britain. There’s also a lunch of Dover sole followed by key lime pie, and a display by the Red Devils army parachute team.
Trans-Atlantic tech partnership to coincide with the visit, Britain said U.S. companies had pledged 150 billion pounds ($204 billion) in investment in the United Kingdom, including 90 billion pounds ($122 billion) from investment firm Blackstone in the next decade. Investment will also flow the other way, including almost $30 billion by pharmaceutical firm GSK in the U.S.

Pennsylvania shooting: At least 2 seriously injured; police involved– timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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At least two people were seriously injured in a shooting connected to a “police incident” in York County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, authorities said. Governor Josh Shapiro confirmed he had been briefed and was heading to the area. “We ask those in the area to please follow the directions of local law enforcement and Pennsylvania State Police,” he posted on X.The shooting occurred in North Codorus Township, about 115 miles west of Philadelphia. The incident unfolded along a rural road lined with farms and a red barn, news agency AP reported.Social media visuals showed helicopters landing in fields to airlift the injured. A local school district issued a shelter-in-place order, clarifying that neither students nor schools were directly involved. “Authorities advised us to hold students and staff in our buildings as a precaution while several area roads are closed,” the district said in a statement.Meanwhile, the Mexican Consulate in Philadelphia said it was monitoring the situation closely and urged Mexican residents in the area to follow official guidance. The region is a major apple-growing hub that employs many seasonal migrant farm workers from Mexico.Police have not provided any details about who was involved in the shooting.

International Students in China Complain, “Quark AI Has Forgotten Us!”– chinadigitaltimes.net
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Some international students in China have taken to social media platform RedNote (Xiaohongshu) to complain about being excluded from obtaining free educational accounts for Quark AI, an LLM tool widely used by their Chinese university classmates. Using the hashtag #WeStudyInChina, these students have also set up an online “message wall” to lobby for inclusion in the popular AI tool.

Chinese online reactions to the students’ pleas ranged from sympathy to amusement, Schadenfreude to national pride. Some commenters highlighted the perceived privileges enjoyed by exchange students in China, while others pointed to the clamor for Quark AI as a sign that Chinese AI tools have finally become cutting edge. Others noted the similarities between these recent “Quark AI refugees” and the millions of so-called “TikTok refugees” who joined RedNote earlier this year when a U.S. ban on TikTok seemed imminent. (After U.S.-China bilateral trade talks in Spain this weekend, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the two nations had reached a framework deal to divest TikTok’s ownership from Chinese parent company Bytedance.)

In a recent WeChat article titled “As International Students in China Are Reduced to ‘Quark AI Refugees,’ Should We Gloat, or Feel Proud?” blogger Xiang Dongliang discusses various aspects of the controversy, including China’s educational subsidies for foreign students, on-campus segregation of Chinese and international students, and the rise of xenophobic attitudes in Chinese society. In the end, Xiang suggests that neither smug nationalism nor petty Schadenfreude is an appropriate reaction to the travails of exchange students in China:

I came across this particularly interesting trending topic: “Quark AI has forgotten us!”

A law enforcement surge has taken a toll on children of immigrants in Washington schools– abcnews.go.com
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WASHINGTON — The last time she saw her husband, the father of her three children, was when he left their Washington apartment a month ago to buy milk and diapers. Before long he called to say he had been pulled over — but not to worry, because it was just local police. The next time she heard from him, he was at a detention center in Virginia.

Since that day, the 40-year-old mother of three has been too afraid to take her two sons to their nearby charter school. Like her husband, who has since been deported, she is an immigrant from Guatemala and has lived in the U.S. illegally for more than a decade. She spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear she would be targeted by immigration authorities.

All three of the couple’s children were born in the nation’s capital, and the older two attend a local charter school. She planned to keep them home until a volunteer offered to drive them. Still, one of the boys was so upset over his father’s absence he missed three days of school one week.

Schools in Washington reopened late last month against the backdrop of a law enforcement surge that brought masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into normally quiet neighborhoods, scenes likely to be replicated elsewhere as President Donald Trump dispatches federal agents to the streets of other big cities.

French unions strike against austerity, pressuring Macron – Reuters– news.google.com
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Hundreds of thousands took part in anti-austerity protests across France on Thursday, urging President Emmanuel Macron and his new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to acknowledge their anger and scrap looming budget cuts.
Teachers, train drivers, pharmacists and hospital staff were among those who went on strike as part of the day of protests, while teenagers blocked dozens of high schools for hours.

Elon Musk announces SpaceX’s new watership ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’: The bizarre name and the mission behind it |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed on September 16, 2025, that the company is developing a new watership designed to transport its massive Starship rockets from Starbase, Texas, to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Musk first teased the vessel with a cryptic “You’ll Thank Me Later” post on September 8, which sparked speculation across social media. The watership is intended to move Starships horizontally, a strategic step ahead of SpaceX’s ambitious goal of 25 Starship launches per year from Florida. The name appears to nod to science fiction, following SpaceX’s tradition of naming vessels after Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, reflecting Musk’s playful approach to blending technology and imagination.

Why Elon Musk named the Watership ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’

The watership’s unusual name continues SpaceX’s trend of quirky, science-fiction-inspired naming conventions. Previous drone ships like A Shortfall of Gravitas and Just Read the Instructions were named after fictional spaceships in Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels. Musk’s choice of “You’ll Thank Me Later” may reflect both humor and confidence in the vessel’s importance for Starship logistics. While the name is unconventional, it highlights SpaceX’s culture of creativity and its willingness to blend technical innovation with pop culture references, a hallmark that has captured global attention.

Trump asks Supreme Court to allow him to fire Lisa Cook from Fed Board of Governors– www.cbsnews.com
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Washington — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow President Trump to remove Lisa Cook from her position on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors while a legal challenge to her firing moves forward.

In its request for emergency relief from the high court, the Justice Department said that the justices should freeze a lower court decision that ordered Cook to be reinstated to her post on the Fed Board.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled earlier this week that Cook could remain in her role while a legal challenge to her firing moves forward.

In a filing to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the dispute involves “improper judicial interference with the President’s removal authority — here, interference with the President’s authority to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for cause.”