The NBA has described a strip club as an "iconic cultural institution."Along with musical performances, a podcast, and chicken wings, the Atlanta Hawks have announced a "Magic City Monday" on March 16 against the Orlando Magic.'Allowing this night to go forward without protest would reflect poorly on us as an NBA community.'In the official announcement, promoted by the NBA itself, the league declined to note that Magic City — the establishment being celebrated — is actually a strip club, nor did it even describe it in a tamer fashion, like an exotic dancing club, for example.Instead, the venue was celebrated as having a "pivotal role in hip-hop and Black culture.""This collaboration and theme night is very meaningful to me after all the work that we did to put together 'Magic City: An American Fantasy,'" said Jami Gertz, principal owner of the Hawks. "The iconic Atlanta institution has made such an incredible impact on our city and its unique culture."Melissa Proctor, Hawks executive vice president, avoided stating the true nature of the club also, instead mentioning "the food ... the music and the exclusive merchandise."The bizarre promotion drew reaction from San Antonio Spurs center Luke Kornet, who pointed to the obvious omission of Magic City being "Atlanta's premier strip club."RELATED: Michael Jordan shocks NASCAR by doing something no one has done in 77 years In a written post to his page on Medium earlier this week, Kornet — a devout Catholic, according to the New York Times — asked the NBA to cancel the promotion and to respect and protect women instead."The NBA should desire to protect and esteem women, many of whom work diligently every day to make this the best basketball league in the world. We should promote an atmosphere that is protective and respectful of the daughters, wives, sisters, mothers, and partners that we know and love."The 30-year-old went on: "Allowing this night to go forward without protest would reflect poorly on us as an NBA community, specifically in being complicit in the potential objectification and mistreatment of women in our society."Along with stating that he and other players were surprised by the themed night, Kornet said the league should hold a "higher standard" for what it promotes.RELATED: NJ governor crushed with boos at Devils game before honoring Team USA hero Jack Hughes Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images "The celebration of a strip club is not conduct aligned" with what the NBA purports to be, Kornet added.Sharing Kornet's sentiment was Golden State Warriors veteran Al Horford. "Well said Luke," Horford wrote on X, sharing a copy of Kornet's statements. Horford played for the Hawks from 2007 to 2016.Despite the brazen celebration of the club, this appears to be the only instance that the NBA or one of its teams has promoted a business of this nature.The Hawks and NBA did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Department of War has set its sights on hypersonic weapons, vehicles that maneuver through the atmosphere at Mach 5 and beyond. The very speed of these weapons, their desirable property, raises new challenges for their use. Hypersonics move the friction of the battlefield upstream into the design, manufacturing, and test ecosystems, where failures can be expensive and hard to diagnose.The allure of these systems is “decision-centric.” The idea, borrowed from John Boyd, is to get inside an opponent’s decision cycle, his "OODA loop," and force a state of perpetual disorientation. The wager is that speed plus maneuverability can deliver a kind of supremacy that feels, to those in the Pentagon, like control over time itself.The history of this pursuit is a recurring military revolution of time compression. In 1968, the rocket-powered X-15 made its final flight, an engineering path the U.S. partially explored and then left dormant for decades. Now, the Department of War frames its latest tests as a return to that aerospace mastery.To bridge this gap, the military has begun to borrow the jargon of Silicon Valley.The context is different this time, and the pressure of the moment is no longer speculative. Russia has claimed the combat use of its Kinzhal and Zircon missiles in Ukraine. China, according to the Department of War’s 2025 reports, possesses the world’s “leading hypersonic missile arsenal.” These events convert the technology from a next-gen category into an “enacted reality,” a spectacle of intimidation that shapes budgets and public mythologies.The American effort is split between two architectures: the boost-glide vehicle, which maneuvers through the upper atmosphere after being launched by a rocket, and the hypersonic cruise missile, an air-breathing vehicle powered by a scramjet. The scramjet is a particularly demanding piece of engineering, requiring supersonic combustion to occur in extremely short “residence times” at extreme temperatures. These systems make the operational promise that they can fly in the upper atmosphere, between 80,000 and 200,000 feet, effectively exploiting the altitude bands where existing sensors and interceptors struggle to maintain continuous observation.The department’s own vocabulary reveals a more earthbound struggle. Officials describe a portfolio that is a grinding capacity contest involving aero-aerothermal science, high-temperature materials, and supply-chain fragility. The Government Accountability Office notes that the limited experience in producing these weapons makes cost prediction and schedule control unusually difficult. RELATED: 'Painful days': Iran kills US troops as Trump threatens decapitated Iranian regime Photo by Daniel Torok/White House via Getty ImagesThe fiscal year 2026 research funding request for hypersonics was $3.9 billion, a sharp drop from the $6.9 billion requested in FY2025. As of early 2026, the department has not yet established stable “programs of record” for these weapons, implying that the mission requirements and long-term funding remain unresolved.To bridge this gap, the military has begun to borrow the jargon of Silicon Valley. It speaks of delivering a “minimum viable product.” It aims to develop capability at the “speed of relevance,” a phrase that imports the tempo of commercial tech into the military imagination. The warfighter is reimagined as a “user” whose feedback shapes “capability increments.”The constraints on this vision are mundane. The GAO identifies aged facilities and “insufficient sustainment” as major risks for test capacity. There are long lead times for specialized carbon-carbon materials and limited suppliers for thermal protection. To enhance the workforce, the department is spending $100 million to run a university consortium to cultivate a community of labs and curricula.The speed of these weapons affects the attacker as well as defender. When decision time shrinks, the temptation to automate launch decisions grows. Arms control analysts warn of “flash” dynamics driven by machine interpretation and rapid escalation pathways. This concern became concrete on February 5, 2026, when the New START treaty expired. For the first time in decades, the United States and Russia have no binding bilateral framework for strategic predictability. In this vacuum, strategic stability is a contested design space in which weapons, sensors, and machine-speed doctrines interact.

The founder of Star Autism Center admitted that he began the $6 million scam after "investors" approached him and provided families from the Somali community to bilk the federal government out of taxpayer cash.Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf was only 22 years old when he started running the scheme after dropping out of St. Cloud Technical College in Aug. 2020.The more services the families signed up for, the more they would receive in kickback payments. Yussuf said he registered his center with the Minnesota Secretary of State and was able to enroll as an Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program provider with the Minnesota Department of Human Services on the very same day.Court documents said that some of the workers at the Star Autism Center were unqualified family members as young as 18 years old.Yussuf admitted that he didn't know anyone with autism, so the "investors" arranged for families in the Minneapolis Somali community to sign up for the autism services.Some of the families received monthly kickback payments for signing up, and Yussuf said that many had falsified diagnoses obtained for the sake of the scam. The more services the families signed up for, the more they would receive in kickback payments. Yussuf and his partners then sought and gained reimbursement for the faked services from Medicaid and bilked the federal government out of $6 million over four years.The fake autism center CEO pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and faces five years in prison once he is sentenced.Yussuf sent more than $200K of the stolen funds to Kenya, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. RELATED: Minnesota news outlet is getting wrecked online for story on Somali migrants' economic impact on Minnesota Prosecutors say they are planning to indict Yussuf's "investors" in the scam.Blaze News' requests for comment from the Minnesota Sec. of State's office as well as the Minnesota Department of Human Services were not immediately returned. The Trump administration is investigating Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Tim Walz (Minn.) for possible obstruction of justice related to the Somali community schemes. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Being president of the United States is a job unlike any other. Wise leadership often goes unnoticed because the public never sees the disasters it prevented. Feckless leadership leaves a paper trail of avoidable tragedy — and nowhere does that trail run clearer than immigration.The mass shooting over the weekend in Austin, Texas, offers a grim case study. Ndiaga Diagne opened fire at a popular bar near the University of Texas, killing two people and injuring 14 others before police killed him. The story of how he entered the country, stayed, and ultimately gained citizenship reads like a checklist of missed opportunities for enforcement and vetting.A government that takes national security seriously screens more aggressively, removes violators faster, and treats immigration law as law — not as a set of suggestions.Diagne, a 53-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Senegal, moved through an immigration system that repeatedly rewarded leniency and procedural box-checking over basic security judgment. As the U.S. hardens its defenses amid escalating conflict with Iran, the country should confront these shortcomings and adopt reforms that put Americans’ safety first.A path to citizenship full of red flagsDiagne’s record raises questions that any serious system should have addressed long before he was granted citizenship.He entered the United States on a B-2 tourist visa on March 13, 2000, during the Clinton administration. A year later, New York City police arrested him for illegal vending. That offense alone might not have warranted major action, but it marked the beginning of a pattern. Reports also suggest he overstayed his visa, since tourist visas for Senegalese citizens typically allow a stay of six months.By 2006, during the George W. Bush administration, he adjusted his status to lawful permanent resident through marriage to a U.S. citizen. In April 2013 — during the Obama administration — he became a naturalized citizen, despite earlier signs of disregard for immigration rules and later arrests in New York between 2008 and 2016. Some of those matters remain sealed, and public reporting about the underlying conduct varies, but the volume alone should have triggered deeper scrutiny at every stage.Reports also describe Diagne as emotionally disturbed. He reportedly applied for asylum years after becoming a citizen — a move that makes little sense on its face and raises further questions about stability, intent, and how carefully officials reviewed his file over time.The attacker’s presentation added another disturbing layer. He wore a hoodie emblazoned with “Property of Allah” alongside an Iranian flag. Reports about images from his home also claim he kept pictures of Iranian leaders. Even if investigators ultimately draw a different conclusion about motive, the optics underscore the obvious point: When the system admits, legalizes, and naturalizes people with glaring warning signs, the country absorbs the risk.None of this looks like a one-off error. It looks like a culture of permissiveness — a system that too often treats enforcement as optional and vetting as a formality.RELATED: The great replacement, American style piranka via iStock/Getty ImagesWe’ve seen this pattern beforeAustin did not occur in a vacuum. The 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack left 14 people dead and 22 injured at a holiday party. One perpetrator, Tashfeen Malik, entered the U.S. on a K-1 fiancé visa during the Obama administration. Investigators later said she pledged allegiance to ISIS online before the attack.San Bernardino revealed the same basic weakness: immigration pathways that assume good faith, overlook warning signals, and fail to connect the dots until bodies lie on the ground.Now place those lessons in the current context. Iran’s regime has built its influence by exporting terror through proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas. As U.S. and Israeli strikes pressure Tehran, the regime’s remaining options include asymmetric retaliation. Domestic security officials should treat that risk seriously, especially after reports that the Biden-Harris administration released more than 700 Iranian nationals into the interior. Even if only a tiny fraction pose a threat, the consequences could be catastrophic.America cannot afford “sleeper” operatives posing as refugees or asylum-seekers from terrorist-sponsoring regimes. A government that takes national security seriously screens more aggressively, removes violators faster, and treats immigration law as law — not as a set of suggestions.Democrats have opposed border security, tougher deportations, and reforms such as the SAVE Act. They dress up their opposition as compassion. In practice, permissive policies expand the pool of illegal residents, increase pressure for amnesty, and reshape political incentives through reapportionment and election machinery. Americans pay the price. The dead in Austin and San Bernardino paid the price.Americans should say, with one voice: No more.

On an episode of “Moonshots with Peter Diamandis” released earlier this year, Elon Musk dropped a statement so chilling, it stopped Glenn Beck in his tracks.“Well, one, like, side recommendation I have is, like, don’t worry about, like, squirreling money away for retirement in, like, 10 or 20 years. It won’t matter. ... If any of the things that we’ve said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant,” the tech titan said.Diamandis followed up with an equally chilling statement.“The services will be there to support you. You’ll have the home. You’ll have the health care. You’ll have the entertainment,” he said.Musk then likened today’s AI progress to a roller coaster car perched at the crest of a hill, insinuating that right now we’re in the stomach-churning hang time before the inevitable free fall.“I think we’ll hit AGI next year in ’26,” he posited. (Note: The podcast was recorded in December 2025.) Glenn unpacks the gravity of Musk’s shocking statements: “AGI is artificial general intelligence. That means the computer — the AI system — is smarter at everything than any human is. It is better at, name the topic, than the best human you can find, and it can do everything that a human can do better than a human.”But unlike Musk and Diamandis, Glenn isn’t as optimistic about this techno-utopia that AI will supposedly create.“We have got to prepare for this,” he warns.Already AI is replacing workers in many industries, but the free fall into rendering humans virtually useless has yet to come but approaches closer every day, he says. “It’ll go the factory worker, then the truck driver, then the coder, then the accountant, the analyst.”“The ground is shifting quickly,” he says, warning that the world is gearing up to propose dystopian ideas to compensate for the coming AI takeover — ideas we must be prepared to reject.One of the most prominent (and harrowing) “solutions” is universal basic income — that is, regular cash payments provided by the government or a similar authority to every individual in a population, with no conditions attached.“I am dead set against that,” Glenn says.“[UBI] is the modern version of bread and circuses — and make no mistakes, the communists, the social planners, the Davos crowd, they’re going to offer it all as, not as a temporary bridge, but as a permanent arrangement,” he cautions.Already, the globalist elites are devising plans to create “a managed society — a population that is pacified, production centralized, dependency normalized,” he explains, citing the work of WEF agenda contributor Yuval Noah Harari, who’s argued that AI and automation will create a “useless class” of people who become superfluous to the economic and political system and therefore must be provided for with universal basic income and essentially sedated via computer games, virtual reality, and possibly even drugs.“People are going to go for this,” Glenn says, “not because they love collectivism, but because nobody offered them another path.”It’s essential, he argues, that we explore other avenues for how to handle the AI takeover before true panic sets in and the frenzied masses agree to something disastrous.One promising alternative, Glenn says, originates from celebrated free-market economist Milton Friedman, who, despite being “accused of being a defender of the coldest kind of capitalism,” supported “a version of basic income” called the “negative income tax.”This idea, Glenn explains, proposes eliminating the welfare state — “that’s food stamps, housing subsidies, overlapping programs, bureaucracy” — and “[replacing] all of that with a simple income floor that everybody gets.”“If you earn below a certain threshold, the government will send you supplemental income, but as you earn more, the support will phase out very gradually,” he adds, noting that the genius in this plan is the preservation of “incentive.”“Technological advancement is going to become so severe at some point that AI could create pockets of severe displacement, and with that, you’ll either get violent populism, authoritarian redistribution of wealth, or a market-compatible safety valve, and that’s what [Friedman’s] negative income tax was — a pressure release without central planning,” Glenn says.If we fail to choose the path that preserves our freedom, a bleak “new world order and one world government” will greet us on the other side of the impending AI apocalypse.To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the video above.Want more from Glenn Beck?To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.