Karmelo Anthony’s lawyer blamed his alleged murder victim Austin Metcalf for the fatal run-in at a track and field meet in Texas last year as Anthony stuck to his long-shot self-defense argument.
President Donald Trump said the US must respond after he blamed Iran for shooting down an American military helicopter off Oman, posing a new threat to the peace deal he’s said for weeks is close.
Minnesota has terminated the billing privileges of thousands of Medicaid providers flagged as “high risk” for fraud after the Trump administration threatened to withhold $2 billion in Medicaid payments flowing to the state over mismanagement concerns. In order to release the funds, the cleanup of Minnesota’s Medicaid enrollment records was required by the U.S. Centers […]
For more than two generations, Bill Pulte's family has had close ties with a covert Christian group that has backed allies of President Donald Trump and other conservatives, according to a report on Tuesday.The acting national intelligence director's grandfather and father have been closely involved with a group known as The Family, or The Fellowship, which organizes the National Prayer Breakfast and a C Street congressional residence on Capitol Hill. These are "leaders and financial backers of a secretive Christian organization that conducts shadow diplomacy around the world, according to public records and documents I obtained," wrote Jonathan Larsen in a Substack post, which was republished by Salon."Pulte’s grandfather, at one point one of the wealthiest men in the world, built a Fortune 500 company and gave tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to charity before his 2018 death," Larsen wrote. "He was also friends with Doug Coe, died in 2017 after decades leading the secretive, controversial Fellowship Foundation that built and sustained a global right-wing network including dictators, lobbyists, and corrupt millionaires largely united against labor, LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights."Pulte's exact connection to The Fellowship remains unclear. It's said he was close to his grandfather, his namesake, who was a longtime friend of Coe's, Larsen wrote. Pulte's father has continued to fund religious charities connected to The Fellowship."If Pulte is personally connected to The Fellowship, he’d hardly be alone in the administration’s upper ranks," Larsen wrote."Secretary of State Marco Rubio used to live at the C Street townhouse, as did Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the United Kingdom, former 'Apprentice' producer Mark Burnett, is a regular at The Fellowship’s National Prayer Breakfast," Larsen explained."But the ties extend beyond overlapping at religious charities in the orbits of Michigan philanthropists. Pulte had a significant personal relationship with Coe, who hobnobbed with presidents of both parties and leaders of nations around the world," Larsen wrote.And that's not the only connection the Pulte family has to top political families — or the Trump family.Pulte's father also played a role in Trump's bidding war against Epstein for a Palm Beach property, which was noted by Substacker Greg Conners."The notorious bidding war for a Palm Beach estate between Trump and Jeffrey Epstein involved a third party. It was Mark Pulte, who veered off from the Pulte home-building business to focus on luxury properties. As Conners notes, Pulte, father of Trump’s appointee, outbid Epstein and was the one who actually bid up the price Trump ended up paying," Larsen added.
Attorney Dan Cogdell backs Paxton’s Democratic opponent and says the Republican is too focused on appeasing TrumpA lawyer who represented Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general, for nearly a decade over accusations of corruption and securities fraud is supporting Democrat James Talarico – and not his former client – in one of the biggest US Senate races.Talarico on Monday drew attention to his campaign winning the endorsement of Houston attorney Dan Cogdell, who was part of Paxton’s defense team during the Republican’s historic impeachment trial in 2023 that ended in acquittal. Continue reading...
The White House vehemently denied a report last Friday about a heightened counterintelligence threat, but on Monday night, Vice President JD Vance appeared to undercut that denial with a blatant but indirect admission.On Friday, NBC News reported that the Pentagon had raised its counterintelligence threat level on Israel to “critical” – its “highest level” – amid concerns that the Middle East nation was “ramping up its spying on the U.S.” The White House dismissed the report as entirely “false,” and claimed the source of the information – two U.S. officials and one former official – did not “have any knowledge of what’s going on.”And yet, when asked by Fox News’ Jesse Waters “how concerned” he was about “Israel spying on the United States,” Vance did not push back on the claim, and instead stressed that the United States and Israel had diverging interests.“Well look, obviously the Israelis and I – excuse me, the Israelis and the United States have a lot of shared interests, but we also have some situations where our interests diverge,” Vance told Waters. “The president has been very clear that while Israel obviously has some objectives that it has, the United States’ main objective in Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and we’ve actually created the space necessary where the president believes that we can get the long-term settlement to Iran’s nuclear deal.”In 2021, Israeli military intelligence officers “were caught planting listening devices at [the Defense Intelligence Agency] headquarters,” according to The New York Times, and in 2025, were caught attempting to “plant a listening device in a Secret Service vehicle.” Last year also saw U.S. Lt. Gen. Patrick Frank summoning an Israeli official for a meeting after discovering recording devices allegedly planted in a U.S. military base, per The Guardian.Vance continued, “Now, Israel may like that, they may not like that, but fundamentally we think this is in the best interest of the United States, so we’re going to keep on pursuing it.”🚨 MUST WATCH: ISRAEL WAS JUST CAUGHT SPYING ON THE PENTAGON AND TRUMP’S TOP NEGOTIATOR… VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE REACTS 🚨“Israel may like that, they may not like that… this is in the BEST INTEREST of the United States of America” 🇺🇸🔥 pic.twitter.com/JkNc0rDjqE— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) June 9, 2026
A 41-year-old man confronted a teen about talking too loudly on his phone aboard a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus in the Bronx Monday, after which the teen shot the complaining man to death, police sources told the New York Daily News.The victim was shot in the stomach on a Bx36 bus on East Tremont Avenue near White Plains Road around 2:30 p.m., police told the Daily News.'It's really sad. ... I don't think I'll ever get back on a bus.'Medics rushed the victim to Jacobi Medical Center, where he died, the paper said, adding that the victim's name was not immediately released.The shooter was last seen fleeing south on White Plains Road and has not been caught, the Daily News added.The shooter is estimated to be between 13 and 16 years old, the New York Post reported.RELATED: 'White boy,' 'cracker': Subway rider dares to glance at hollering female behind him — so she veers into beatdown mode: Cops The shooter was wearing a white T-shirt and carrying a black handgun, law enforcement sources added to the paper.RELATED: Thug punches, kicks, stomps man to death in subway station because he didn't like the way victim looked at him, officials say The Post added that a bloodstain was still visible on the sidewalk after the shooting, and the area around the bus was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape as cops investigated."It's really sad," one man told WCBS-TV. "You know, I haven't gotten on a bus in probably 30 years, but I don't think I'll ever get back on a bus."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Last week, a jury was seated in the Karmelo Anthony murder trial in Collin County, Texas. Despite a Batson challenge from the defense, no black jurors were selected.Anthony was charged with first-degree murder in April 2025 when he allegedly stabbed 17-year-old high school student Austin Metcalf in the chest after a verbal confrontation. Anthony pleaded not guilty to the charges, claiming he acted in self defense, despite the victim being unarmed.BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock was “overjoyed” when he heard the news that all prospective black jurors were struck, believing that true justice is only possible if black bias is not a factor.But now that the trial is underway, there’s a new concern that’s making some Texans worried: What if a guilty verdict sparks mass riots? Former Infowars host turned independent media entrepreneur Owen Shroyer, who lives in Austin, Texas, is one of those cautionary voices.On June 4, he tweeted: But Whitlock disagrees.“I think all the emotion around this trial, the support of Karmelo Anthony, I think it's all bought and paid for and fake,” he counters. “I don't think there are real people in support of Karmelo Anthony.”While Shroyer agrees that a guilty verdict is unlikely to culminate in “Black Lives Matter-style riots,” he does believe there will be consequences at the “local” level.“Based off of what I saw outside of that courtroom, I do believe there is going to be a local community ... issue,” he says. “I don't know if it'll get to the level of Ferguson with buildings on fire, but I do anticipate there'll be some stress and strife if Karmelo Anthony gets a long sentence.”Supporters of Karmelo Anthony have gathered daily outside the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney, Texas, wearing matching “We Declare He Will Walk Free” T-shirts and chanting slogans like, “Self-defense is not a crime,” while protesting the lack of black jurors. One protester has gone viral for repeatedly shouting, “The only good cracker is a dead cracker!” directly in front of police officers.“Once you get a group like that that truly believes that they're fighting racism, and that's a cause that they're going to get out in the streets for, sometimes these things can tend to grow and get some gravity,” says Shroyer.But Whitlock has sources in the Frisco area who have led him to believe that much of the hype is manufactured.“I know a few people in Frisco, Texas. I spent some time a year ago talking to a woman whose daughter went to high school with Karmelo Anthony. I just think the people on the ground know like Karmelo Anthony was a troublemaker, and this story is BS,” he says.Shroyer, however, believes our highly racialized time has produced people who “are not logical” and “don't care about the facts.”He recounts how during the Michael Brown trial in 2014, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, a black man, concluded that Brown never said, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” But despite this verdict and copious forensic evidence and credible witnesses supporting Officer Darren Wilson’s account, protesters “didn’t change their minds” and even continued to protest.“These people, unfortunately, they're very emotional-based,” says Shroyer.To hear more, watch the episode above.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.
President Trump hit back at Stephen A. Smith before leaving New York just after midnight Tuesday after the ESPN analyst wildly ranted he would blame the president if the Knicks lost Game 3 in the NBA finals.