On a recent episode of “The Drive,” my co-host Karl Brauer and I got into a discussion about a pair of bills being considered in my home state of New York.One sets a goal of reducing driving across the entire state by 20%. The other would tax certain fuel-efficient vehicles by the mile and require an electronic device in the car to keep track.To calculate the tax, qualifying vehicles would be required to have an onboard electronic unit installed when the vehicle is registered, re-registered, or renewed. I had a fairly basic question: This might work for New York City, but how exactly are the rest of us supposed to drive 20% less?Even a Californian like Karl saw the problem immediately.“There's this whole area, the politicians might have heard of it,” he joked. “It's called Upstate New York.”Exactly.If you live in Brooklyn, you may have a subway station a few blocks away. Where I live near Buffalo, and across huge stretches of Upstate New York, your car isn't some luxury you can casually replace with a subway, bicycle, or comfortable pair of walking shoes.You drive to work. You drive your kids to school. You drive to buy groceries or see family.For millions of New Yorkers, driving isn't optional.Miles to goSo what exactly is Albany proposing?The Get Around NY Act, sponsored in the Senate by Brooklyn Democrat state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, would establish a goal of reducing the total number of vehicle miles traveled in New York state by 20% by 2050.Now let's be precise about what the bill does, because it's important. Nobody is proposing that a police officer check your odometer on Dec. 31 and issue you a ticket because you drove 12,000 miles instead of 9,600. The 20% target applies statewide, not to individual drivers. The bill would instead use transportation policy to push the state's total mileage downward.Under the legislation, state and local highway projects that expand road capacity would have to undergo a "vehicle miles traveled impact assessment." If a project doesn't align with the state's 20% reduction goal, officials would have to change the project or offset its effects through measures designed to reduce driving.Those measures could include expanded public transportation, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, "micro-mobility" infrastructure, parking-demand management, transit-oriented development, and other land-use changes.What are the alternatives?Gounardes has been very clear about the idea behind it. "If we measure VMT, we can work to reduce it," he said while criticizing the state's transportation master plan. He added that this doesn't mean New Yorkers need to travel less because the state can create better ways for them to get to work, school, and everywhere else.I'll bite. What exactly are these better options for people who don't live in New York City?Even New York's own climate planners acknowledge the problem. State climate materials say many New Yorkers depend on single-occupancy vehicles because they have limited access to public transit.Of course they do. New York is a huge state. Once you get beyond its dense urban centers, the transportation equation changes quickly. The state itself administers rural transit programs specifically to help people in smaller communities reach jobs, schools, health care, and stores.That doesn't mean nobody should build better public transportation. Build it. If you can give somebody a faster, cheaper, and more convenient way to get where he needs to go, he'll probably use it.But you can't create a subway by passing a mileage target.Pay as you goAnd this isn't the only vehicle-miles proposal Gounardes has introduced. A separate bill, S4196, would replace some of the gas-tax burden on fuel-efficient vehicles with something entirely different: a tax on every mile they travel on New York's public roads.The proposal would apply to vehicles rated at least 30 miles per gallon or 30 MPGe. Owners would pay 1.9 cents for every taxable mile driven.Drive 10,000 miles in New York and that's $190. Drive 15,000 and it's $285.But here's the part that really caught my attention. To calculate the tax, qualifying vehicles would be required to have an onboard electronic unit installed when the vehicle is registered, re-registered, or renewed. The device would use GPS or comparable technology to determine how many miles the vehicle travels on New York public roads and regularly transmit the taxable mileage to the Department of Taxation and Finance.The legislation includes privacy protections. It says the unit would report aggregate taxable mileage rather than your exact location, travel times, or individual trips. Drivers of fuel-efficient gasoline vehicles could also claim a credit for the gasoline taxes they continue to pay.RELATED: Automakers were ready to kill the gas car. Buyers had other ideas. Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesUnwanted passengerGood to know — but we're still talking about the state requiring a GPS-capable electronic device in your private vehicle so it can calculate a tax based on how much you drive.And New York would make sure it's there. The bill would add the device to the equipment checked during the state's annual vehicle inspection. The inspector would record both your odometer mileage and the mileage reported by the onboard unit. Tampering with or disconnecting the device with the intent to evade the tax could bring penalties.The rationale for a mileage tax isn't difficult to understand. Gasoline taxes help pay for roads. As vehicles become more efficient and EVs buy no gasoline at all, states collect less fuel-tax revenue even though those vehicles still use — and wear — the roads.Look at the two proposals together. One bill establishes a state policy of reducing the number of miles New Yorkers drive by 20%. Another creates the infrastructure to measure the miles driven by a growing share of cars and charge their owners for every one.They're separate bills with separate purposes. The Get Around NY Act is aimed at transportation planning and emissions. The mileage-tax bill is aimed at replacing declining gasoline-tax revenue. But if you're a driver, they meet at exactly the same place: your odometer.And that brings me back to life outside New York City. What happens when you can't reduce your mileage?Maybe your job is 30 miles away. Maybe the closest specialist your child needs is an hour away. Maybe you're caring for an elderly parent in another town. Maybe your kids play sports. Maybe you live somewhere where "take public transit" means arranging your entire day around a bus that comes a few times rather than every few minutes.Those miles aren't indulgences. They're life.There's an enormous difference between giving people alternatives to driving and designing policy around the assumption that they'll drive less.Give me better public transportation. Give me roads that are safe. Give me communities where people who want to walk or bicycle can do it safely. Give consumers choices.But before Albany decides New Yorkers should collectively drive 20% fewer miles, I'd like lawmakers to spend some time asking why we're driving those miles in the first place.Because outside the five boroughs, the answer is often pretty simple. We have somewhere we need to be.

A female Arizona State University senior allegedly punched a police officer and interfered in an arrest over the summer — after which police used force against her and criminally charged her.Eryn Bonner was criminally charged in connection with a violent July arrest on Mill Avenue in Tempe, KNXV-TV reported.'The female is actually striking the police officer with her fists and her legs. That fits that definition of aggravated assault.'A Tempe spokesperson confirmed to KNXV that Bonner faces two misdemeanor charges in Tempe City Court: disorderly conduct under state law and interfering with police under city code.The city previously told KNXV that Bonner punched a police officer several times, and the station added that video of the incident appears to show that moment in question, with the officer sitting over Bonner before striking her.The Tempe Officers Association shared the following statement supporting the charging decision and standing by officers' actions, the station said:The filing of charges against Ms. Bonner aligns with what the complete video evidence has shown from the beginning: This incident was far different from the brief clip circulated on social media and her attorney's repeated misstatements about the facts of the case.The video shows Ms. Bonner repeatedly ignoring officers’ commands to step back while they were attempting to control an active arrest. TOA remains confident that the officers acted appropriately under difficult circumstances. The relevant video has been released. The case remains under internal review and, when that is complete, the full facts and analysis will be available for public review. We see no basis for a third-party investigation.KNXV said the Maricopa County Attorney's Office declined to pursue felony charges and that an initial misdemeanor charge was filed and later dismissed before Tempe refiled the case with additional misdemeanor charges.A city spokesperson previously said the original charge was dropped to allow prosecutors to refile it alongside additional charges after reviewing all available evidence, the station said.Josh Logan — a former Chandler police officer and founder of Guardian Training and Consulting who has worked shifts on Mill Avenue — told KNXV in a previous story that his review of the video shows Bonner re-approaching officers after they told her to get back and that she did more than that."The female is actually striking the police officer with her fists and her legs," Logan added to the station. "That fits that definition of aggravated assault."Logan also told KNXV that if the officer’s account of Bonner striking the officer multiple times is true, the force used against Bonner is justified in most police department’s policies: "If you reach that level of active aggression, you're within policy to perform closed fist strikes to the face."The station said Bonner — a member of the ASU stunt team — was left with bruises for days following the incident.Her attorney, Benjamin Taylor, told KNXV that the officer who took Bonner to the ground should be fired, calling his actions "very excessive" and accusing the city of targeting his client: "This is the way to try to cover up the officer's wrongdoing. Two months later to pursue these charges seems very vindictive."Taylor added to the station that civil action typically cannot be filed when someone is convicted of a crime: "Usually, when cities bring charges months later, [they're] trying to cover up for their civil liability."A Tempe Police Department spokesperson told KNXV that an internal review of the incident is still ongoing.RELATED: July 4 mob attack on female cops: 3 adults, 4 kids charged with possession of machine gun, theft of Taser, assault on police Taylor also repeatedly has called for an external review of the arrest, saying the sergeant overseeing Tempe's investigation was previously suspended in a use-of-force case, the station said. However, the city's police union has pushed back, calling the move an attack on the investigation's integrity, KNXV added.Taylor said Bonner has pleaded not guilty, the station said, adding that a pretrial conference is scheduled for Nov. 4 in Tempe City Court.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Sylvester Stallone is one of America's most recognizable actors. He also stands as a rare representation of sanity in Hollywood, refusing to dance to the industry's carefully choreographed ideological drumbeat.His new memoir, "The Steps," documents his rather fascinating rise to fame.Casting agents repeatedly shoved him out of their offices, telling him his voice sounded like a broken garbage disposal and his face looked like a stroke survivor's.The story starts on July 6, 1946, in a maternity ward in Hell’s Kitchen. The delivery went sideways when a careless doctor dragged him into the world with a pair of forceps, severing a facial nerve and paralyzing the lower left side of his lip, chin, and tongue.Hangdog sneerThe easily avoidable accident left him with a permanent hangdog sneer and slurred speech, a combination that made childhood an endless gauntlet of brutal teasing. His home life proved equally chaotic, torn between a short-tempered barber father and an oddball mother who dabbled in astrology and DIY medicine.His parents eventually “shipped” him off to a boarding home, and he bounced between over a dozen different institutions before finishing high school. Teachers saw him as a lost cause, while his peers treated his cartoon-character name as an open invitation to brawls. He routinely answered the mockery with his fists, accumulating bad grades, behavioral warnings, and a growing reputation as a feral misfit.By the early 1970s, Stallone was stranded in Manhattan with a few dollars in his pocket, sleeping on wooden benches at the Port Authority Bus Terminal when he couldn’t afford rent. To keep from starving, he took on whatever absurd odd jobs came his way. He cleaned out lion cages at the Central Park Zoo, a gig where he lived in constant fear of urine sprays and sharp claws. He worked at a fish market slicing heads off cod, cut hair in a basement using box cutters with hands that “resembled ten bananas connected by foam rubber,” and worked as an usher at the Baronet and Coronet Theatre. He even sold his beloved bull mastiff, Butkus, outside a 7-11, a moment he describes in "The Steps" as his absolute bottom.RELATED: Mel Gibson has been fighting this fight longer than you think Ellen DeGeneres/Twitter/Sunset Boulevard/Getty ImagesRejection as rocket fuelHis early acting credits were equally unglamorous. Desperate for heat during a brutal winter in a tiny room on 46th Street, he agreed to star in an adult movie called "The Party at Kitty and Stud's" for $200. "The whole thing was an embarrassing debacle," he writes in the book, maintaining a dry, self-deprecating tone about his total lack of hope and dignity. Casting agents repeatedly shoved him out of their offices, telling him his voice sounded like a broken garbage disposal and his face looked like a stroke survivor's.Stallone used the rejection as rocket fuel, sitting down with a notebook to study screenplays and figure out how stories actually worked.The turning point came in March 1975, when he watched Muhammad Ali fight Chuck Wepner. Wepner was an obscure boxer who lost the fight, yet managed to knock Ali down and survive 15 punishing rounds. Stallone locked himself in a room for three days and hammered out the screenplay for "Rocky." When producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff offered him $350,000 for the script, Stallone refused to sell unless he played the lead role. He had $106 in his bank account, and his wife was pregnant. Still, to his credit, he held firm against every attempt to replace him with an established star like Robert Redford or Ryan O'Neal.Stubborn to a fault, he got his way and managed to get the film made for under a million dollars. "Rocky" went on to win Best Picture at the 1977 Academy Awards, instantly turning him into a massive movie star.Stallone eventually bought his dog back for $1,500.Eye of the tigerThe middle section of "The Steps" tracks his explosive run through the 1980s, but here the narrative loses some of its original momentum. Stallone is most entertaining when he is broke, angry, humiliated, and scheming his way toward the next opportunity. Once the rags become extreme riches, some of that desperate comic energy disappears. There are stretches where a story about an almost pathologically determined outsider turns into the considerably less relatable story of a very famous movie star.But Stallone taps into his inner Rocky in the final act, reviving the book by confronting his age (80) and mortality with absolute honesty. A churchgoing Catholic, he suggests that although life can be difficult, “you just get stronger the more you fight back and finally realize that God’s greatest gift is your heart and the will to keep going.” It’s a little cliché, but the New Yorker is nothing if not genuine.He looks back on his career choices with surprising sincerity, admitting when his ego got the best of him during his late 1990s box-office flops. He presents himself not as a genius auteur, but as a relentless, working-class craftsman who understood his own limitations better than his critics did. "The Steps" succeeds because it avoids fawning self-congratulation, standing as an inspiring account of a man who escaped a nightmare to achieve the American dream.

The last thing the NFL needs is another national anthem controversy.One online video, however, has the Chicago Bears in the spotlight for a player's actions during "The Star-Spangled Banner," and one online video may be all it takes.'Don't pray to Allah during OUR national anthem!'Before the Bears' game against the New York Jets on Sunday, wide receiver Kalif Raymond was spotted alone on the edge of the end zone grass at Soldier Field in Chicago during the national anthem, seemingly praying on his hands and knees.Raymond rose to his feet for what appeared to be the final 20 seconds of the anthem performance, standing still.Raymond was spotted performing similar actions before Week 3's game against the Philadelphia Eagles, also at Soldier Field in ChicagoSome fans immediately took Raymond's actions as a sign he is a Muslim."Don't pray to Allah during OUR national anthem!" wrote radio host Grant Stinchfield on an X post.However, other fans quickly pointed to Raymond attending both a private Christian high school in Georgia and the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, a private Jesuit college.In fact, last Thursday the Bears posted a YouTube video with Raymond wearing a microphone on the field, where he is seen saying, "I'm going to thank Lord Jesus first."Further evidence of his Christian faith comes from 2022, when Raymond said he was "just thankful that the Lord blessed me" after winning a game ball for his performance.Still, some fans found the display disrespectful to the anthem.RELATED: Former NFL player and Christian minister says Muslim players are being unfairly punished "Is this respectful during the National Anthem?" a post asked. A reply stated, "Anyone disrespecting the national anthem like this (or kneeling) should be fined and suspended."The NFL's most infamous controversy came when quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem in 2016. The former San Francisco 49ers player's performance was a vague protest about injustice and police brutality:"I am not going to stand to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick said at the time.Many other players protested similarly in subsequent weeks, including retired player Ray Lewis, who joined the Baltimore Ravens' protest but decided to get down on both knees instead.Other famous prayers in the NFL include former quarterback Tim Tebow, who made his name into a verb by "Tebowing," which meant to take a knee in the end zone to pray after scoring a touchdown.RELATED: NBA team hires and fires announcer on same day over teenage tweets: 'Asian people p*** me off!' Amy Lemus/NurPhoto/Getty Images The NFL rulebook does not specifically mention conduct during the national anthem.At the height of the kneeling controversy though, outlets referred to a league Game Operations Manual that encouraged players to stand for the anthem but didn't required them to. The NFL vice president of corporate communications confirmed this to FactCheck.org in 2017.The previously listed operations manual no longer appears online, and the current operations manual mentions the national anthem only with regard to its maximum length.The Bears organization 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!

Laws are often passed under the guise of protecting the vulnerable, but sometimes they hurt the very people they’re intended to protect. And immigration policy expert Lora Ries is no stranger to this, telling BlazeTV host Nick Freitas that this has been going on for decades when it comes to child trafficking and immigration policy. “In 2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act became law and it created a T visa for victims of trafficking even though we already had something called an S visa, which was nicknamed, you know, the snitch visa,” she explains.The “snitch visa” allowed immigrants to "temporarily come into the U.S., help this prosecution testify in a criminal case, … and then depart.” “Instead of using that, which they should have done, they created a T visa, which became both a temporary visa but also a permanent visa,” Ries says. “It just has become yet another pathway for permanent immigration,” she continues, “And so this victim can then bring in their family members, their parents, who often put them into the trafficking situation to begin with. And on and on.”Freitas points out that this creates an incentive for “people to send unaccompanied minors into the United States.” “That may sound very, very generous, but in reality, you’re creating a situation where human traffickers are going to exploit this,” he adds.Despite the policy being “about prosecution,” Ries explains that when the bill was first introduced in 2000 and passed, “The estimated number of trafficking victims was 600,000 to 800,000."The State Department reports that this number has now skyrocketed to 27 million. “So this is not working,” Ries says, “and it gets reauthorized every few years. And just more money going out the door.”Ries also explains that “when the Department of Homeland Security was created, the House Judiciary Democrats in particular insisted that the functions for giving shelter to unaccompanied minors and sponsors was not going to go in DHS.”“They said, ‘Nope, it’s going over to the Department of Health and Human Services.’ And so that department receives a lot of money to go to these, you know, anti-trafficking NGOs. And during Biden’s four years, 550,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border,” she continues. “Four hundred thousand of them, Biden’s HHS lost track of. And so those functions need to be taken away from HHS. It is not HHS’ mission and they’re clearly bad at it, and it needs to go back to DHS,” she adds. “Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.