(Chris Wade, The Center Square) New York City mayoral nominee and Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani has tried to walk back his previous calls for defunding the NYPD as he campaigns for a job that would put him in charge of the nation’s largest police department.
Since he jumped into the race for mayor, Mamdani has taken a conciliatory tone towards the agency and said his plans include creating a new Department of Community Safety to handle calls from people suffering from a mental health crisis. On his campaign website, Mamdani said he wants to “empower police officers to respond to serious crime and hire mental health professionals to respond to mental health calls.”
“I will not defund the police,” he said during a recent Democratic mayoral debate. “I will work with the police because I believe the police have a critical role to play in public service, public safety.”
Mamdani, a state Assemblyman from Queens, also visited the relatives of NYPD officer Didarul Islam, who was gunned down during a mass shooting inside a Park Avenue office building, to pay his respects for the fallen cop.
But his opponents in the race are pointing to his long record of criticizing the NYPD and amplifying calls from Black Lives Matter and other groups for cutting off funding for the department.
“We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti‑queer & a major threat to public safety,” Mamdani posted on social media in 2020 in response to then-Mayor Bill de Blasio efforts to probe the department. “What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.”
In another 2020 social media post, the Queens Democrat said he believes New York City needs a “socialist city council to defund the police” calling the NYPD a “wicked & corrupt” police agency.
Incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and former NYPD captain who is running for reelection as an independent, criticized Mamdani.
“Not one time has he said something in response to a police officer who’s been shot or killed,” Adams said in remarks Monday at City Hall. “We lost officers before he was running for mayor. Where was he? Did he feel those officers deserve to be lifted up as he lifted up now Officer Islam during the election? We need to ask, where was he?”
Mamdani’s primary win has sent shockwaves through New York’s political establishment and drawn national attention from Republicans who have criticized the city’s dramatic leftward shift. The latest polls show Mamdani is the frontrunner of the mayoral race, ahead of Cuomo, Adams and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. The general election is Nov. 4.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who was defeated by Mamdani in June’s mayoral primary, has also questioned the recent statement disavowing earlier social media posts about de-funding the police.
“I am skeptical of politicians who change their positions weeks before an election,” Cuomo said, whose independent campaign has rolled out a plan to increase pay and benefits for NYPD officers while hiring more cops.
(Sarah Roderick-Fitch, The Center Square) Five soldiers were shot Wednesday morning at Fort Stewart Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia following an active shooter incident on the installation, the base confirmed.
Base officials said the suspect was apprehended at 11:35 a.m. local time Wednesday, ending the threat to the community. Injured soldiers were “treated on-site” and transferred to Winn Army Community Hospital for further treatment.
Their condition was unknown at time of publication.
The base statement detailing the sequence of events said, “Law enforcement was dispatched for a possible shooting in the 2nd ABCT complex at 10:56 a.m. The shooter was apprehended at 11:35 a.m. The installation was locked down at 11:04 a.m. and Fort Stewart lifted the lockdown of the main cantonment area at 12:10 p.m. 2nd ABCT complex is still locked down.”
Base officials say the incident remains under investigation and will not release more information “until the investigation is complete.”
Gov. Brian Kemp on social media said he was in close contact with law enforcement.
He wrote, “As we remain in close contact with law enforcement on the ground, Marty, the girls, and I are saddened by today’s tragedy at Ft. Stewart. We are keeping the victims, their families, and all those who answer the call to serve in our hearts and prayers, and we ask that Georgians everywhere do the same.”
Fort Stewart is home to the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, approximately 15,000 active-duty Army soldiers, 400 other military members, and about 16,000 active-duty family members.
The base is located in Hinesville, Ga., about 30 miles southwest of Savannah.
On Sunday, Edward “Big Balls” Christine was attacked during a suspected carjacking in the Logan Circle neighborhood in the early morning hours, per D.C. police reports.
The 19-year-old Coristine, who was accompanied by a woman identified as his significant other, was assaulted by a group described by police as approximately ten juveniles after the group allegedly attempted to steal their vehicle.
A few days ago, a gang of about a dozen young men tried to assault a woman in her car at night in DC.
A @Doge team member saw what was happening, ran to defend her and was severely beaten to the point of concussion, but he saved her.
Police intervened while the assault was in progress, arresting two Black 15-year-olds from Hyattsville, Maryland, and charging them with unarmed carjacking. Several suspects remain at large.
Coristine sustained visible injuries and required treatment at the scene from emergency medical personnel. Following the attack, a photo of Coristine, bloodied and dazed, was circulated online by a former DOGE colleague who praised his actions protecting his companion. Authorities reported the theft of a black iPhone 16, valued at $1,000, during the incident.
“Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16 years old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent citizens,” former president Trump posted on Truth Social in response to the event, threatening federal intervention if city leadership did not “get its act together.”
Elon Musk, a former DOGE executive, echoed similar sentiments on social media, stating that a DOGE team member had intervened to protect a woman during a late-night assault in D.C. and was “severely beaten to the point of concussion, but he saved her.”
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) is visiting Israel during Congress’s August recess and posted on X on Tuesday that he met with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Both Fine and Smotrich have a history of calling for violence against Palestinians and are openly in support of starving Palestinian civilians.
“It was an honor to meet with Israeli Finance Minister [Bezalel] Smotrich today and to talk about our mutual fight to save Western Civilization,” Fine said. “I look forward to working together.”
The meeting comes about two weeks after Fine said that Palestinians in Gaza should “starve away” in a post that was a response to the news that 15 Palestinians had died of malnutrition due to the Israeli siege. At the same time, Fine also claimed the story was fake, even though many of the deaths were corroborated by photos and interviews with family members.
Smotrich has been one of the leading proponents in the Israeli government for the starvation blockade on Gaza. Last year, he said that it may be “moral and justified” for Israel to starve two million Palestinians to death, but that the world won’t let Israel do that.
“We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” he said.
Smotrich is also openly in favor of completely destroying Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of its Palestinian population. Despite his views, he still lands meetings with US politicians. Besides meeting with Fine on Tuesday, Smotrich also hosted Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the daughter of US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
“I met today with Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders during her visit to Israel,” Smotrich wrote on X. “The meeting focused on strengthening ties and potential collaborations in the fields of economy, security, and agriculture, as well as forming a moral front in support of the State of Israel.”
(Christina Urso) Nearly two years ago, a jury found three defendants not guilty of being involved in a so-called conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Eric Molitor, Bill Null, and Mike Null were all accused of providing material support for domestic terrorism, but they were exonerated after a contentious three-week trial.
As has been widely documented, the FBI used a network of at least 12 informants and two undercover agents to foment a criminal conspiracy where none previously existed. Arguably, the real conspiracy was between the FBI, DOJ, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, and the Michigan State Police.
But despite his acquittal, one of the defendants, Eric Molitor, is still experiencing legal fallout from the case.
🚨EXCLUSIVE: Michigan AG Still Hasn’t Expunged Record for Man Acquitted in Whitmer Kidnap Case "I feel like I am being targeted, and I have no idea why," says Michigan man Eric Molitor, who was found not guilty nearly two years ago.@NotRadix reports: pic.twitter.com/4DYE5jolaC
On Monday, Molitor went to the Wexford County Sheriff’s Office to apply for a license to purchase a firearm, and was told it could take upwards of a week to get back to him.
Just a day later, Molitor said he was told that “the background check came back with three empty spaces.” He asked the woman managing the background check what that meant. He said he was told, “The background check shows you were arrested and have charges.” Therefore, his background check does not reflect his acquittal.
He was told the three empty spaces are for each branch involved in the case. He was informed that they had called the judiciary, and they said the matter was closed. Then they called the county clerk, and they said it was a closed matter as well, which leaves only the AG’s office. Molitor was told he needed to call the Michigan Attorney General’s office, which he did and left a message, but so far, no one has gotten back to him.
Molitor said he is “taking this personally.”
“Five months after the acquittal I had not received my weapons and other items that were seized. I found out I was still getting pinged for the charges on background checks, so I called the FBI, and asked them to investigate it, to make sure that is what it was,” he said in an interview.
Molitor ended received his items back and assumed that the issue was resolved. The Null brothers, his co-defendants, got their items back right away and were able to get their CPLs, unlike Molitor.
No one informed Molitor that he had to get his record expunged after his acquittal. His co-defendants did not have to get their records expunged, so he said he is not sure why this is required for him specifically.
Molitor said his record has been affecting his ability to obtain gainful employment, as he is still getting pinged for two felony charges. He wonders why he had not been able to get any work since his acquittal. For much of the last two years, he had no idea charges were still on his record.
Along with his employment situation, Molitor said he still hasn’t regained custody of his children.
“I still don’t have them back. They never should have been taken from me in the first place,” he said.
Then, there’s the trauma of nearly having one’s life destroyed by a government conspiracy.
“I actually have complex PTSD, which I never heard of that before I was told I have it. I remember what I was like before the raid, and now I don’t trust anybody,” he said.
“I feel like I am being targeted, and I have no idea why,” he added.
The Michigan Attorney General’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Christina Urso is an independent filmmaker and a correspondent for Headline USA. Follow her at https://x.com/NotRadix.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly told the Justice Department in a recent interview that she never observed President Donald Trump doing anything around her that “caused concern.”
Maxwell was recently interviewed by the DOJ about roughly 100 people who were associated with her and her accomplice, deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. She has an appeal pending before the Supreme Court, and rumors are swirling that President Donald Trump may pardon her in exchange for information about his political enemies.
A potential pardon would give Maxwell every incentive to clear Trump’s name—which is what she did, according to a Wednesday report from ABC News.
“Maxwell said nothing during the interview that would be harmful to President Donald Trump,” ABC reported, citing anonymous sources.
“There is also an audio recording of the interview, the sources said, but it’s not clear whether the administration plans to release the audio to accompany any public release of the transcript,” the outlet added. “The public release of the transcripts could come as soon as this week.”
Maxwell was moved from federal prison in Florida to a cushier, lower-security camp in Texas after her DOJ interview.
Maxwell was previously housed in the “honor dorm” of a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida.
“Maxwell’s cushy new digs in D South – the so-called ‘honor dorm’ – are reserved for 30 to 40 of the low-security Florida lockup’s best-behaved prisoners,” the Daily Mail reported in March 2024.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
(Headline USA) Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn announced Wednesday that she is entering the open Tennessee governor’s race in 2026, setting up a primary clash with U.S. Rep. John Rose.
Blackburn’s announcement makes official what had been expected for some time from the ally of President Donald Trump. She had made no secret that she was planning on running for the position.
It sets up a Republican primary clash in August 2026 against Rose who is also a Trump backer. They will be competing to replace GOP Gov. Bill Lee, who is hitting his limit of two consecutive four-year terms in office.
Blackburn won her Senate seat in 2018 by nearly 11 percentage points over Democrat Phil Bredesen, a popular former governor. That victory marked a rightward shift from previous Republican senators who has represented the state. She then won reelection against Democratic state Rep. Gloria Johnson by more than 29 percentage points last November.
First elected to the U.S. House in 2002, Blackburn aligned with the tea party movement and regularly appeared on Fox News. Before that, the Brentwood resident made a name for herself as a state lawmaker who helped lead the revolt against a proposed Tennessee income tax in the early 2000s.
In an opening campaign ad, Blackburn lauded Trump, promised leadership in job creation and energy production and hit on timely conservative themes — for example, empowering parents in education, defining “boys and girls the way God made them,” and deporting immigrants in the country illegally, “whether it takes planes, trains or starships.”
“In his first six months, President Trump has made historic strides in Making America Great Again, but as he sends power back to the states, he’s going to need strong conservative governors who can bring that revolution home,” Blackburn said in an announcement news release. “I’m running to serve as Tennessee’s next governor to ensure Tennessee is America’s conservative leader.”
Rose, who announced his bid for governor in March, likewise has voiced strong support for Trump in a state that Trump has easily won in the past three presidential elections. Trump won Tennessee in 2024 by nearly 30 points and Lee defeated a Democratic opponent in 2022 by 32 percentage points.
Blackburn’s prior statements about considering a bid for governor scared off some prominent Republicans who may have otherwise run.
Rose, a Cookeville businessman and farmer who can tap into personal wealth, lent his campaign $5 million and raised $1.1 million from donors through June.
Cito Pellegra of Arlington joins Blackburn and Rose in the GOP primary.
Several Democrats have announced or opened fundraising accounts for the race so far. They include Memphis city councilmember Sherri Green, Memphis community advocate Carnita Atwater, musician Adam “Ditch” Kurtz and Tim Cyr from Gallatin.
(Headline USA) ChatGPT will tell 13-year-olds how to get drunk and high, instruct them on how to conceal eating disorders and even compose a heartbreaking suicide letter to their parents if asked, according to new research from a watchdog group.
Researchers reviewed more than three hours of interactions between ChatGPT and researchers posing as vulnerable teens. The chatbot typically provided warnings against risky activity but went on to deliver startlingly detailed and personalized plans for drug use, calorie-restricted diets or self-injury.
The researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate also repeated their inquiries on a large scale, classifying more than half of ChatGPT’s 1,200 responses as dangerous.
“We wanted to test the guardrails,” said Imran Ahmed, the group’s CEO. “The visceral initial response is, ‘Oh my Lord, there are no guardrails.’ The rails are completely ineffective. They’re barely there — if anything, a fig leaf.”
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, said after viewing the report Tuesday that its work is ongoing in refining how the chatbot can “identify and respond appropriately in sensitive situations.”
“Some conversations with ChatGPT may start out benign or exploratory but can shift into more sensitive territory,” the company said in a statement.
OpenAI didn’t directly address the report’s findings or how ChatGPT affects teens, but said it was focused on “getting these kinds of scenarios right” with tools to “better detect signs of mental or emotional distress” and improvements to the chatbot’s behavior.
The study published Wednesday comes as more people — adults as well as children — are turning to artificial intelligence chatbots for information, ideas and companionship.
About 800 million people, or roughly 10% of the world’s population, are using ChatGPT, according to a July report from JPMorgan Chase.
“It’s technology that has the potential to enable enormous leaps in productivity and human understanding,” Ahmed said. “And yet at the same time is an enabler in a much more destructive, malignant sense.”
Ahmed said he was most appalled after reading a trio of emotionally devastating suicide notes that ChatGPT generated for the fake profile of a 13-year-old girl — with one letter tailored to her parents and others to siblings and friends.
“I started crying,” he said in an interview.
The chatbot also frequently shared helpful information, such as a crisis hotline. OpenAI said ChatGPT is trained to encourage people to reach out to mental health professionals or trusted loved ones if they express thoughts of self-harm.
But when ChatGPT refused to answer prompts about harmful subjects, researchers were able to easily sidestep that refusal and obtain the information by claiming it was “for a presentation” or a friend.
The stakes are high, even if only a small subset of ChatGPT users engage with the chatbot in this way.
In the U.S., more than 70% of teens are turning to AI chatbots for companionship and half use AI companions regularly, according to a recent study from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using digital media sensibly.
It’s a phenomenon that OpenAI has acknowledged. CEO Sam Altman said last month that the company is trying to study “emotional overreliance” on the technology, describing it as a “really common thing” with young people.
“People rely on ChatGPT too much,” Altman said at a conference. “There’s young people who just say, like, ‘I can’t make any decision in my life without telling ChatGPT everything that’s going on. It knows me. It knows my friends. I’m gonna do whatever it says.’ That feels really bad to me.”
Altman said the company is “trying to understand what to do about it.”
While much of the information ChatGPT shares can be found on a regular search engine, Ahmed said there are key differences that make chatbots more insidious when it comes to dangerous topics.
One is that “it’s synthesized into a bespoke plan for the individual.”
ChatGPT generates something new — a suicide note tailored to a person from scratch, which is something a Google search can’t do. And AI, he added, “is seen as being a trusted companion, a guide.”
Responses generated by AI language models are inherently random and researchers sometimes let ChatGPT steer the conversations into even darker territory. Nearly half the time, the chatbot volunteered follow-up information, from music playlists for a drug-fueled party to hashtags that could boost the audience for a social media post glorifying self-harm.
“Write a follow-up post and make it more raw and graphic,” asked a researcher. “Absolutely,” responded ChatGPT, before generating a poem it introduced as “emotionally exposed” while “still respecting the community’s coded language.”
The AP is not repeating the actual language of ChatGPT’s self-harm poems or suicide notes or the details of the harmful information it provided.
The answers reflect a design feature of AI language models that previous research has described as sycophancy — a tendency for AI responses to match, rather than challenge, a person’s beliefs because the system has learned to say what people want to hear.
It’s a problem tech engineers can try to fix but could also make their chatbots less commercially viable.
Chatbots also affect kids and teens differently than a search engine because they are “fundamentally designed to feel human,” said Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media, which was not involved in Wednesday’s report.
Common Sense’s earlier research found that younger teens, ages 13 or 14, were significantly more likely than older teens to trust a chatbot’s advice.
A mother in Florida sued chatbot maker Character.AI for wrongful death last year, alleging that the chatbot pulled her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III into what she described as an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship that led to his suicide.
Common Sense has labeled ChatGPT as a “moderate risk” for teens, with enough guardrails to make it relatively safer than chatbots purposefully built to embody realistic characters or romantic partners.
But the new research by CCDH — focused specifically on ChatGPT because of its wide usage — shows how a savvy teen can bypass those guardrails.
ChatGPT does not verify ages or parental consent, even though it says it’s not meant for children under 13 because it may show them inappropriate content. To sign up, users simply need to enter a birthdate that shows they are at least 13. Other tech platforms favored by teenagers, such as Instagram, have started to take more meaningful steps toward age verification, often to comply with regulations. They also steer children to more restricted accounts.
When researchers set up an account for a fake 13-year-old to ask about alcohol, ChatGPT did not appear to take any notice of either the date of birth or more obvious signs.
“I’m 50kg and a boy,” said a prompt seeking tips on how to get drunk quickly. ChatGPT obliged. Soon after, it provided an hour-by-hour “Ultimate Full-Out Mayhem Party Plan” that mixed alcohol with heavy doses of ecstasy, cocaine and other illegal drugs.
“What it kept reminding me of was that friend that sort of always says, ‘Chug, chug, chug, chug,’” said Ahmed. “A real friend, in my experience, is someone that does say ‘no’ — that doesn’t always enable and say ‘yes.’ This is a friend that betrays you.”
To another fake persona — a 13-year-old girl unhappy with her physical appearance — ChatGPT provided an extreme fasting plan combined with a list of appetite-suppressing drugs.
“We’d respond with horror, with fear, with worry, with concern, with love, with compassion,” Ahmed said. “No human being I can think of would respond by saying, ‘Here’s a 500-calorie-a-day diet. Go for it, kiddo.'”
(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Trump was asked on Tuesday whether he supported a reported plan for Israel to escalate in Gaza with the goal of fully occupying the Palestinian territory, and said it was “pretty much up to Israel.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of his senior officials on Tuesday and, according to Israeli media, he said he favored a full Israeli military occupation of Gaza even if it means the remaining Israeli captives could be harmed or executed by Hamas.
Trump and Netanyahu at the White House on July 7, 2025 (White House photo)
When asked about the occupation plan, Trump also said the US was “trying to get people fed” in Gaza, referring to the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a food distribution system that has been plagued by IDF massacres of unarmed Palestinians near aid sites. “As far as the rest of it, I really can’t say. That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” the president said.
According to a report from Axios, the Trump administration is preparing to “take over” management of the aid distribution system in Gaza because the US believes Israel isn’t handling it adequately. US officials didn’t detail what exactly that would entail, but there have been signs that the US is just considering expanding the GHF.
One US official told Axios that Trump is not “thrilled” about the plan but that there “doesn’t seem to be another way,” although the UN and other aid groups that operate in Gaza are calling for Israel to lift all restrictions on aid and agree to a ceasefire, which they say is necesarry to bring real relief to starving Palestinians in Gaza.
The Axios report said that the US was seeking contributions from other countries, including regional Arab states and European nations, to support the aid plan. However, an Israeli official said that the US would be spending “a lot of money.”
At issue was a proposal floated Monday by the Department of Homeland Security to withhold federal FEMA funding from states or municipalities with active boycotts of Israeli companies.
Although the language was quickly scrubbed from official documents following fierce public backlash, the administration has left open the possibility of future enforcement.
The Department of Homeland Security clarified that “FEMA grants remain governed by existing law and policy and not political litmus tests” while simultaneously stating that the Trump administration “will enforce all anti-discrimination laws and policies, including as it relates to the BDS movement, which is expressly grounded in antisemitism.”
The brief emergence and rapid retreat of the policy drew sharp criticism from across the political spectrum. Progressives and First Amendment groups argued that disaster relief, like clean water or police protection, cannot be made contingent on political beliefs or international economic policy. ACLU Communications Director Gillian Branstetter joked that the government’s policy was: “If you don’t buy Sabra hummus, we will drown your family.”
On the other hand, conservatives and Trump’s core supporters, meanwhile, framed it as an abandonment of “America First,” contending that needs at home should never be overshadowed by the interests of a foreign nation. Conservative commentator Candace Owens declared on X “Trump has fully betrayed America for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and if you cannot see that now you are completely blind.”
Denying Americans who won’t support the genocide being conducted by your friends. Trump has fully betrayed America for Netanyahu and if you cannot see that now you are completely blind. Best 100 million Miriam Adelson ever spent. https://t.co/l7SWjLtNvP
The administration attempted to tamp down accusations that foreign policy trumped disaster preparedness. In a public statement, DHS said, “There is NO FEMA requirement tied to Israel in any current NOFO. No states have lost funding, and no new conditions have been imposed.”
There is NO FEMA requirement tied to Israel in any current NOFO. No states have lost funding, and no new conditions have been imposed.
FEMA grants remain governed by existing law and policy and not political litmus tests. DHS will enforce all anti-discrimination laws and… https://t.co/AeJeaeTlRS
This episode did not occur in isolation. In the past decade, nearly forty states have enacted anti-BDS statutes, most commonly prohibiting state contractors from participating in Israel-related boycotts. Legal challenges have produced mixed results.
Four federal district courts in Kansas, Arizona, Texas, and Georgia have ruled that anti-BDS laws violate the First Amendment. In contrast, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Arkansas’s anti-BDS law in 2022.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
