A Florida family was completely devastated by the tragedy that unfolded on Monday after a father went to pick up a child at day care in Plantation.The man, who was not identified publicly, believed he had dropped off the child in the morning and went to work. At the end of the day, he went to the day care and let out a scream after finding his horrific mistake.'He opened the door, then slammed it shut. ... And he let out this scream.' The child was found dead in the back seat of the car.Leslie Novoa, the owner and director of A World of Discovery Academy, explained to the South Florida Sun Sentinel why the staff didn't react when the child wasn't dropped off that morning.Novoa said the man and his wife would alternate dropping off two kids at the day care. On that day, they called to inform them that they would not be dropping off the older child.When they didn't drop off any child, Novoa said no one found it suspect."This is a tragedy that happened to them and to all of us," said Novoa, who said the family had been very caring and very loving in their interactions.Novoa said the man had expected to pick up the child and only realized what happened when he opened the back door of the car."He opened the door, then slammed it shut," Novoa said. "And he let out this scream."Plantation Police said they were called to the day care on a report of "a deceased child in a vehicle."Firefighters responded to the emergency and confirmed the child had died.RELATED: Michigan parents charged with murder and torture after their 7-year-old boy dies with disturbing weight The National Safety Council said about 37 children under the age of 15 die each year on average after being left in a vehicle."Nearly every state has experienced at least one death since 1998," the group added. "In both 2018 and 2019, a record number of 53 children died after being left in a hot vehicle."About half of the hot-car deaths result in charges against a parent, and of those, about 80% result in convictions. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Former special counsel Jack Smith has been a constant target of fury and legal threats by President Donald Trump, dating back to even before the election, when the famed prosecutor was helming a pair of federal criminal cases against him.But Smith doesn't dwell much on the possibility that Trump's Justice Department will fabricate some charges against him, he told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace in an exclusive interview on Thursday. There's something he worries a lot more about."Do you think that this is a department that you could send someone to go work in, and they could be asked to indict you?" asked Wallace.Smith agreed "that could happen" — however, he continued, "in the Justice Department, even as we sit here right now, there are lots of people doing good work prosecuting violent crime, protecting their communities, doing the everyday work of being a prosecutor. And yes, it could happen. That could happen, and that would be unfortunate. And then you might have to step down." Nonetheless, he added, "I don't want to see people run from public service because of that possibility.""Do you expect to be indicted?" Wallace followed up, noting that Trump "said he would indict you."Smith replied, "I'll tell you, Nicolle, I honestly do not spend a lot of time thinking about the things he says about me and his threats about me."Instead of that, he continued, "I'm really focused on the people who I worked with, looking out for them. I'm really focused on how the Justice Department is going to be better going forward, things like that."What Smith worries about more, he made clear, is the future of the people he worked with who helped him do his job.Ultimately, Smith said, "I had an all-star team ... the agents on my case, if I were to walk you through all the awards they've won throughout generations of administrations, we would be here all night. These were superstars. I'm much more concerned that those people get to serve in the department, get to serve in the bureau again someday." - YouTube www.youtube.com
According to the renowned fascism historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the Supreme Court has become President Donald Trump’s “partner in corruption,” not only working to enrich those who are in on the scam, but reshaping the U.S. as an authoritarian state in which one must “fear and obey” Trump.“This is the summer of corruption,” wrote Ben-Ghiat on Thursday. “Defined as the abuse of power for private gain, corruption can happen in any kind of organization and government, but under authoritarianism it attains a new status: it is how the executive branch operates, expands its power, and recruits elite and grassroots partners. The Supreme Court is one of these partners, as we’ll see below.”The Trump administration and its enablers on the Court, argues Ben-Ghiat, “are providing Americans and the world with a lesson in how corruption can become systemic.” This, she says, is the goal of all authoritarians: they “seek to retool government and the culture to create the conditions to lie, steal and repress people with impunity. That means going after journalists, judges, investigators, opposition politicians and others who expose official wrongdoing. It also means puffing up the leader’s personality cult and inventing narratives, backed by complicit religious institutions, about his selflessness and purity.”She raises the example of Justice Clarence Thomas, who has a well-documented history of “accepting luxury gifts and travel from billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow,” who in turn “has a garden full of statues of dictators, and collects Adolf Hitler and Nazi memorabilia.” And, according to Ben-Ghiat, “As per the sacred laws of corruption, these ‘gifts’ were likely supposed to be repaid whenever Thomas put on his robes. No matter that the Court, which has no ethical oversight mechanism, finally instituted a code of conduct in November 2023, which states that justices must ‘uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary’ and avoid actual and apparent impropriety.”Thomas has paid no attention to this code, refusing to recuse himself in cases involving Trump’s election lies, even though Thomas’s wife Ginny was directly engaged in those lies. As Ben-Ghiat muses, “What good would Thomas be as a link in the chain of corruption if he took himself out of the game just when he was most needed?”“And here we arrive at the Supreme Court as a partner in Trump administration corruption, first by giving the President immunity for official acts, and now by upholding his right to dismiss an official on political grounds,” writes Ben-Ghiat. “A landmark ruling in July 2024 gave the president ‘the power of a king,’ as the Brennan Center termed it, conferring upon him absolute immunity (for the exercise of core constitutional powers) and presumptive immunity (for all other official acts). This created the legal space for a lawless individual such as Trump to feel even more emboldened to use corruption and violence to destroy our democracy and make money doing it.”Now, while the Supreme Court has for 100 years upheld that the president does not have the authority to fire heads of independent agencies without cause, Trump’s allies on the court have overturned that precedent, creating conditions for further “systematic corruption.”“We need to see this decision through autocratic eyes,” explains Ben-Ghiat. “Not obeying the Leader, refusing to participate in his corruption, and politicizing the practice of government are acts of negligence and malfeasance in office in the authoritarian world. Such people must be removed from public service, lest they influence others with their moral stances.”The power to fire agency officials at will is exactly what the president needs to shape government to his private agenda. According to Ben-Ghiat, proof of this intention was revealed by the words of Solicitor General John Sauer, who represented the Trump administration in the case, arguing before the court that the president needs to be able to remove officials in the agencies because “the President must have the power to control and…the one who has the power to remove is the one who…is the person that they have to fear and obey.”
The US believed Israel was plotting to kill Iran's head negotiators, Abbas Araghchi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, in the middle of the peace talks, with America going as far as to warn Tehran through third party countries of the risks, officials said.
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s recent report appears to show that immigration contributes to an increase in home prices. The June report notes that the national housing shortage ranges from “1.5 million to 7.3 million units,” and argues that demographic changes due to immigration policy will weaken housing demands. “Looking ahead, demographic trends are weakening the […]
