A counter-protester lit what police said was an explosive device during a protest Saturday against Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York City. The counter-protester also was caught on video uttering "Allahu Akbar" as police were arresting him.New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Sunday announced that the device was real — not a hoax device or smoke bomb, WNYW reported.'Based on preliminary examination and X-ray imaging, the devices, which were a bit smaller than a football, appear to be a jar wrapped in black tape, importantly, with nuts, bolts, and screws along with a hobby fuse that could be lit.'"It is, in fact, an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death," Tisch said on X.A second deployed device was still being analyzed Sunday.The initial protest, called “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City,” was led by Jake Lang; police called Lang a "far-right provocateur." The protest outside Gracie Mansion — the mayor's residence — drew a counter-protest dubbed “Run The Nazis Out Of NYC.”Fistfights erupted between the two sides, the New York Times reported.Tisch stated during a press conference following the altercation that counter-protester Emir Balat, 18, “lit and threw an ignited device.”“Witnesses reported seeing flames and smoke as it traveled through the air before it struck a barrier and extinguished itself a few feet from police officers,” Tisch said. RELATED: Mamdani walks back popular progressive campaign promise to pedestrians One of the devices deployed at Saturday's dueling protests in New York City. Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty ImagesBalat then ran to retrieve a similar device from another man — identified as 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi — lit the device, ran toward the protest, and dropped it, WNYW-TV reported.Balat and Kayumi were arrested at the scene Saturday and were in custody in connection with the devices, police told the station. It isn't clear if the device that was determined to be an explosive was the one that was thrown or the one that was dropped.“Based on preliminary examination and X-ray imaging, the devices, which were a bit smaller than a football, appear to be a jar wrapped in black tape, importantly, with nuts, bolts, and screws along with a hobby fuse that could be lit,” Tisch added.A video circulated online showed a male hurling one of the devices reportedly into the crowd of anti-Mamdani protesters. A separate clip showed NYPD officers arresting the same male, who repeatedly uttered “Allahu Akbar.”RELATED: Austin’s ‘Property of Allah’ shooter is immigration failure made flesh Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty ImagesNo explosions or injuries were reported.Lang described the incident as a direct threat to his life: “Americans Christians WILL NOT be intimidated by ISLAMIC TERROR ATTACKS!!!. Last night after the attempted assassination on my life with a F**KING NAILBOMB in NYC.”However, Mamdani's press secretary Joe Calvello had a different take in a statement to WNYW in an earlier story: "The ‘Crusade Against Islamification’ gathering held outside Gracie Mansion today by Jake Lang, a vile white supremacist, was despicable and Islamaphobic."On Sunday, Mamdani released a statement also condemning Lang as a “white supremacist” and claiming his protest was “rooted in bigotry and racism.”“Such hate has no place in New York City. It is an affront to our city’s values and the unity that defines who we are,” Mamdani also wrote.While the mayor condemned the use of an explosive device, he did not acknowledge that police said it was carried out by a counter-protester. Not to mention that the suspect repeatedly uttered "Allahu Akbar" during his arrest.“What followed was even more disturbing. Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are,” Mamdani said of the deployment of the explosive device.Article III Project’s Mike Davis slammed Mamdani for failing to "condemn" the "Islamists" police arrested.“Has your wife praised the terrorists yet? Are you sad the bombs didn’t detonate? Resign,” Davis stated.“The Trump Justice Department must bring federal terrorism and related charges. There is no chance justice will get delivered by the Islamic Caliphate of New York,” Davis added.Journalist Nick Sortor in a social media post reacted as follows: “In Mamdani’s New York City, Islamists throwing BOMBS at Pro-Christian protestors while screaming ‘ALLAHU AKHBAR’ is apparently NOT considered terrorism. 9/11 was forgotten awfully quickly.”Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) blamed the violence on “a serious radicalization problem on both the far left and the far right.”“No one should be surprised,” Adams wrote in a post on social media. “After years of hateful rhetoric and incitement, attempts to justify attacks on Jews in Israel, praise for violence like the killing of a CEO, and chants about ‘globalizing the intifada’ and ‘Death to America,’ words have now escalated into violence on the streets of New York City, with explosives being thrown.”Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A California woman — dubbed the "party mom" by local authorities — has been convicted on dozens of charges related to hosting alcohol-fueled parties for young teens. The district attorney's office determined that the mother "endangered" teens and "coordinated" sexual assaults during boozy parties involving her 15-year-old son.On Wednesday, a jury convicted 51-year-old Shannon O'Connor of 48 charges — including two felony charges of sexual penetration — stemming from hosting parties for teens that included alcohol and sexual conduct, the Santa Clara District Attorney's Office stated in a news release titled, "Party mom convicted: Faces long prison term."'This defendant not only didn't protect these children, she endangered their safety, coordinated their sexual assaults, and she tried to get them not to tell.'The Mercury News reported, "The sexual penetration convictions were the most serious, as prosecutors argued that O'Connor sexually assaulted the two girls by enabling them to become so intoxicated they could not legally consent."KTVU-TV reported, "After the verdicts were read, the parent of one of the victims called O'Connor a 'predator,' a 'stalker,' a 'groomer,' and a 'harasser,' who was 'very good at what she did.'"O'Connor could face more than 30 years in prison, according to the Mercury News. Plus, she must register as a sex offender. Her sentencing is scheduled for March 26 in Santa Clara County Superior Court.The district attorney's office said in the statement that O'Connor, also known as Shannon Bruga, hosted "drunken parties for young teenagers where she bought alcohol and egged on sex acts — some with teens too drunk to consent."The announcement noted that O'Connor purchased vodka and whiskey for the teenagers and even provided them with condoms.The DA said O'Connor "discouraged the teens from telling their parents or police about the parties or calling for help when one of the victims passed out in their own vomit."The district attorney's office pointed out that the children at these boozy parties were "mostly 14- and 15-year-olds."Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said, "This defendant not only didn't protect these children, she endangered their safety, coordinated their sexual assaults, and she tried to get them not to tell."Rosen added, "These brave kids came forward to tell the truth about what happened and to put a stop to it."RELATED: Teens testify they saw mayor having sex with 16-year-old boy during boozy pool party at her home. Now verdict is in. As Blaze News reported in October 2021, O'Connor organized secret parties for teens, purchased "copious amounts of alcohol" for the underage attendees, and even encouraged them to have sex.An investigator for the DA's office said in court records that O'Connor "supplied excessive amounts of alcohol to her son and his minor friends to the point where minors would vomit, be unable to stand, and fall unconscious," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.The Mercury News previously reported that the parties took place at O'Connor's $4.7 million home in Los Gatos.The Santa Clara District Attorney's Office said in October 2021 that the "child abuse charges outline a long line of O'Connor's drunken and destructive house parties for young teens lasting from 2020 to earlier this year."O'Connor warned the teens to keep the boozy parties secret, according to authorities."She would warn the teens not to disclose the parties, or she could go to jail," the DA's office stated.What's more, the DA's office said O'Connor even "handed an underage teenager a condom and pushed him into a room with an intoxicated minor.""During a New Year's Eve party at her home with about five 14-year-olds, the defendant watched and laughed as a drunk teen sexually battered a young girl in bed," the DA stated.The DA's office said O'Connor also "brought one drunk teen into a bedroom at her home where an intoxicated 14-year-old girl was lying in the bed."After the underage girl allegedly was sexually assaulted, the juvenile female asked O'Connor: "Why did you leave me in there with him?"The DA's office revealed that O'Connor also used the Snapchat social media platform or text messaged teens to "leave their homes in the middle of the night" to "drink at her home.""In another case, she let a minor drive her SUV in the Los Gatos High School parking lot while two other teens held on to the back," the DA's statement reads. "One fell off and was knocked unconscious."The Mercury News reported in October 2021 that O'Connor was "apparently known as 'the cool mom' since the older son was in middle school and had raised eyebrows among some parents for her chumminess with her sons' friends."Citing prosecutors, Fox News previously reported that O’Connor pressured teen girls to engage in sexual acts with boys — including her then-15-year-old son."If the girls did not consent, the 47-year-old mom would allegedly pull them aside for 'a private conversation' until they each went into a room with a boy," according to Fox News.The Washington Post, citing court documents, reported in 2021 that "when O'Connor suspected one teen was telling outsiders about her secret parties, she threatened to spread rumors about the girl and persuaded other teens to harass her."Court documents also state that the girl "suffered mental and emotional turmoil," including panic attacks, and subsequently needed to sleep in her parents' bedroom.In October 2021, O'Connor was arrested at her home in Ada County, Idaho. O'Connor was extradited to the Santa Clara County Jail.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Looking for a present for a young child? Amid the cultural maelstrom of 21st-century America, there’s a gift that’s better than anything in the toy aisle.Nothing will have a bigger lifelong impact than instilling a young person with an intense love of reading. And since March is National Reading Month, there’s no better time to start.While the brain candy of colorful screens is a child magnet, there are ways parents can compete with such allure.You may have seen this bumper sticker: “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” That may be true for some children, but in most homes, a mother or father is a child’s first and best teacher.Blessed with encouragementI was blessed with a mom who was both a caring parent and a teacher — a reading specialist. With her encouragement, I absorbed the basics of reading before kindergarten, and for the rest of my academic endeavors, I consistently read years ahead of my grade level.My aversion to math meant that whatever learning successes I achieved in my young life were rooted in my ability to read quickly and retain the information.Although these skills were a crucial component of my success in college and graduate school, this reading proficiency dramatically assisted me in law school, where I consistently ranked in the top tier of my class.Those pondering a career in law may be deterred when they learn that most successful law students read at least two hours of dry material for every hour of class time. That means a law student may spend 40 hours a week reading court opinions written decades or even centuries earlier, packed with terse legalese. Reading well really matters if you want to be a lawyer or most other careers.Brain-candy bluesWhile the brain candy of colorful screens is a child magnet, there are ways parents can compete with such allure. One that worked for me was the permission to stay up past my normal bedtime if I was reading in bed. I plowed through several books a month using that laudable loophole.Parental encouragement like this is worth the effort. Studies show early readers do far better in their later academic endeavors. They also become better writers. Whether writing in cursive or typing on phones, writing well opens doors that nothing else can.The downward trend line of Americans reading is as obvious as a tuba in an elevator. The more exposure to watching videos a young child has, the lower the chance of success in future learning endeavors. Worse yet, some studies suggest that poor reading skills make it more likely that kids will engage in other behaviors parents fear, like teen pregnancy, delinquency, and addiction.RELATED: How the laptop revolution destroyed public education Blaze Media illustrationChatbot challengeAI makes the matter worse. AI engagement often doesn’t require typing or reading. Push a button and ask the chatbot a question, and you’ll hear some kind of answer. Whether it’s correct or not, you’ll likely have to do some — ahem — deeper reading.Parents need workable solutions that don’t feel like making a child take the one bite of cold broccoli he’s been rebuffing all dinner long. That’s why, when my children were younger, we set aside times when the family sat together reading silently, each of us enjoying our own selected book. Even 40 minutes of this twice a week will move your child far ahead of most peers.Our kids also enrolled in a reading challenge. After finishing several books over a few weeks, they were invited to an event where they skated with a few local NHL hockey players on the big-league rink. I still remember their wide eyes peering up at those elite athletes. It was clear that this incentive made those hours with books worth even more than the stories they read.Book 'emParents can offer similar rewards. Trips to the library end with ice cream. Older kids can read aloud to the preschooler down the block. The family applauds after three-minute book reports at dinner.Our family discussed books all the time. We recommended books to one another and then shared the insights we gained. To this day, we refer to key moments from novels we all read and how those insights apply to something in our lives.How to get there? It starts with showing children that there’s something a screen simply can’t offer, like the electric thrill of a world built entirely from their own imagination. When a boy reads a story, every dragon is his dragon, scaled in colors he chooses, breathing fire that smells exactly how he imagined dragon fire should smell. A girl reading of a magic castle can determine how dark the shadows around it appear. And the face of the explorer inside is hers.No director, no animator, no algorithm decides what wonder looks like — the child does. That creative power is genuine adventure, the kind that stretches young minds in ways passive viewing never can. A video delivers a finished world; a book hands a child the raw materials to build one.The best gifts don't come wrapped in paper or require a charging cord. They come with dog-eared pages, late bedtimes, and kids who never quite stop reading. That's the gift. Just children, books, and a world they built themselves.

God’s command to honor your mother and father comes naturally to some people but can feel extremely difficult — or even impossible — for others, especially if they grew up in an abusive home.But the fifth commandment isn’t caveated by any exceptions for dishonorable, difficult, or abusive parents. God requires us to honor our parents unconditionally.For the person who seeks to uphold God’s commandments but comes from an abusive home, what does that look like? Is God requiring them to endlessly endure torment?On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” BlazeTV host Rick Burgess addresses this difficult scenario. After Rick published his book “Men Don’t Run in the Rain: A Son’s Reflections on Life, Faith, and an Iconic Father,” he started receiving feedback from people who couldn’t relate to his positive relationship with his father. They came from backgrounds where abuse, cruelty, or severe mental health issues were rampant in the home.“I cannot keep allowing [my abusive mother] into my life. ... I’m much better off when we do not have a relationship,” one “Strange Encounters” listener wrote in an email to Rick.“I want to do right by God, so I’d love a little bit of wisdom on how to move on with my life respectively and continue to be right with God,” he added.Rick, expressing deep sympathy to those who grew up in difficult homes, says that people often mistakenly equate God’s command to honor our parents to a lifelong prison sentence where they are not permitted to distance themselves from the toxicity.“When the Bible says to honor your mother and father, it does not mean that if your mother and father were bad people or treated you poorly, that you’re just supposed to disregard that or that somehow that’s OK because they’re your mother and father,” he corrects.Honoring our parents, Rick explains, is less about our parents and more about our own freedom and spiritual health.“What Scripture is talking about is not how they lived their life. It’s talking about how you, me — their children — how we live our life. It’s calling us to a high standard. It’s calling us to not repeat the mistakes that they made,” he says, encouraging people from toxic homes to “[break] that generational cycle.”“[Demons] love bitterness, and they love to manipulate you through it. Unresolved anger, this kind of stuff, it’s damaging you. It’s not doing anything to the people you’re upset with,” he continues.It is entirely possible, Rick argues, to physically and emotionally distance ourselves — maybe even cut off contact altogether — from our parents and still honor them simply by living honorable lives.“We live our lives in a way that brings honor to them, whether they deserve it or not,” he says.“I’ve got people even in my own family ... where, honestly, my life and even theirs is a lot healthier if we just don’t interact very much,” Rick admits.“But what I have done is, I have no bitterness toward this family member. ... I have forgiven for anything that they did that hurt me, and I’ve asked them to forgive me for anything I’ve done that hurt them. But that doesn’t mean that we hang out all the time because it’s just not healthy, and that's OK.”To those who want to uphold God’s command to honor their parents but feel that distance is the best path, Rick’s advice is simple: “Get rid of the bitterness. ... Get rid of the anger, and offer them complete forgiveness, but you’re under no obligation to continue to be manipulated by people.”To hear more, watch the full episode above.Want more from Rick Burgess?To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.