An illegal alien from Honduras is reported to have stabbed a man on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina. Suspect Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia is in custody and has been charged with attempted first-degree murder. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has logged an arrest detainer for the man.   The incident marks the second stabbing on Charlotte’s transit systems in five months.   “Another stabbing by an Illegal Migrant in Charlotte, North Carolina,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend. “What’s going on in Charlotte? Democrats are destroying it, like everything else, piece by piece!!!”  Decarlos Brown Jr. was arrested over the summer and later indicted by a grand jury in the stabbing death of Ukrainian woman Iryna Zarutska. If convicted, Brown could face the death penalty.   Charlotte is a Democrat-run city with Democrats holding the majority of city council positions and controlling the school board. Vi Lyles, a Democrat, currently serves as the mayor of Charlotte. The city has not had a Republican mayor in over 15 years.  “Everyone deserves to be and feel safe in our city, and there is no room for violence in our community,” Lyles wrote on X after the Friday stabbing incident. “There are several aspects of public safety that are outside of the city’s jurisdiction, including immigration policy and enforcement, but we will continue to focus on public safety and ensuring a safe and vibrant community,” the mayor added.   The man stabbed in the most recent incident was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. A spokesperson for the Charlotte Area Transit System said the violence does not appear to have been random but the result of an “altercation between two individuals that escalated,” according to the local outlet WBTV 3.   Since Zarutska was stabbed on a Charlotte light rail train in August, the Charlotte Area Transit System has “taken a proactive and robust approach to keep employees and passengers as safe as possible by deploying additional off-duty [Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department] officers, private security personnel, new technology and safety reporting tools,” the train system Interim CEO Brent Cagle said.   Authorities arrested Honduran Solorzano shortly after the stabbing on Friday.   Suspect Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia. (DHS) In 2018, Solorzano was issued a final order of removal from an immigration judge and was removed in March 2018, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Authorities apprehended him crossing the border illegally in 2021 and he was removed but reentered the U.S. at an unknown time.   “This heinous stabbing by this twice removed illegal alien should have NEVER happened,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said. “ICE lodged an arrest detainer to ensure Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia is not released back into North Carolina neighborhoods. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the county will honor the detainer since they have a history of not cooperating with ICE,” she said.  Charlotte is not a “sanctuary city,” but Sheriff Garry McFadden has a reputation of not willingly cooperating with ICE. Despite opposition from local leaders, immigration officials are carrying out enforcement efforts in the community.   In November, DHS launched Operation Charlotte’s Web in North Carolina to “target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to the Tar Heel State because they knew sanctuary politicians would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets,” according to DHS.   “Under President Trump, ICE is being unleashed to ensure public safety for all Americans,” Noem said. “Make no mistake: We will not rest until every depraved criminal illegal alien is removed from our communities.”  The post Trump Bashes Charlotte Democrats After Second Stabbing on Train   appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Is the American Left finally waking up from its decadeslong climate catastrophism stupor? For years, climate alarmism has reigned as political catechism: The planet is burning, and only drastic action—deindustrialization, draconian regulation, even ceasing childbearing—could forestall certain apocalypse. Now, at least some signs are emerging that both the broader public and leading liberal voices may be recoiling from the doom and gloom. First, recent polling shows that the intensity of climate dread is weakening. According to a July 2025 report from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, while a majority (69%) of Americans still say global warming is happening, only 60% say it’s “mostly human-caused”; 28% attribute it mostly to natural environmental changes. A similar October 2025 study from the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute found that “belief in human-driven climate change declined overall” since 2017. Interestingly, Democrats and political independents, not Republicans, were primarily responsible for the decline. Moreover, public willingness to countenance personal sacrifice in the name of saving the planet seems to be plummeting: An earlier October 2024 poll from the Pew Research Center found that only 45% said human activity contributes “a great deal” to climate change. Another 29% said it contributes “some”—while a quarter said human influence was minimal or nonexistent. The moral panic is slowly evaporating. Millions of Americans may still believe warming exists, but far fewer view it as an imminent existential threat—let alone embrace sweeping upheavals in energy policy and personal lifestyle. The fading consensus among ordinary Americans matches a more dramatic signal from ruling class elites. On Oct. 28, no less an erstwhile ardent climate change evangelist than Bill Gates published a remarkable blog post addressing climate leaders at the then-upcoming COP30 summit. Gates unloaded a blistering critique of what he called “the doomsday view of climate change,” which he said is simply “wrong.” While acknowledging the serious risks for the poorest countries, Gates insisted that humanity will continue to “live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.” He added that “using more energy is a good thing, because it’s so closely correlated with economic growth.” One might be forgiven for suffering a bit of whiplash. The unraveling of climate catastrophism got another jolt recently with the formal retraction of a high-profile 2024 study published in the journal Nature. That study—which had predicted a calamitous 62% decline in global economic output by 2100 if carbon emissions were not sufficiently reduced— was widely cited by transnational bodies and progressive political activists alike as justification for the pursuit of aggressive decarbonization. But the authors withdrew the paper after peer reviewers discovered that flawed data had skewed the result. Without that data, the projected decline in output collapses dramatically to around 23%. Oops. The climate alarm machine—powered by the twin engines of moral panic and groupthink homogeneity—is sputtering. When the public grows skeptical, when billionaire techno-philanthropists question the prevailing consensus, and when supposedly mainstream scientific projections reverse course, that’s a sign that the days of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” propaganda documentary and John Kerry’s “special presidential envoy for climate” globe-trotting vanity gig are officially over. Ultimately, no one stands to benefit more from this incipient trend toward climate sanity than the American people themselves. In an era where optimism can be hard to come by, the professed certitude of imminent environmental apocalypse is pretty much the least helpful thing imaginable. If one is seeking to plant the seeds of hope, nothing could be worse than lecturing to the masses that one is a climate change-“denying” misanthrope if he has the temerity to take his family on an airplane for a nice vacation or—egad! —entertain thoughts of having more children. Even more to the point, given the overwhelming evidence that Americans are now primarily concerned about affordability and the cost of living, more—not less—hydrocarbon extraction has never been more necessary. There are green shoots that liberals and elites may be slowly—perhaps grudgingly—giving up on the climate catastrophism hoax to which they have long stubbornly clung. In America’s gladiatorial two-party system, that could well deprive Republicans of a winning political issue with which to batter out-of-touch, climate change-besotted Democrats. But for the sake of good governance, sound public policy and the prosperity of the median American citizen, it would be the best thing to happen in a decade. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Welcome Demise of Climate Change Catastrophism appeared first on The Daily Signal.

I’ve watched two American cities make opposite choices about the same problem. As a young man, I worked in Memphis: first as a traveling salesman, then as a law student, and finally as an attorney at a Memphis law firm. As an associate lawyer, I dreamed of escaping the daily grind by writing a great American novel. A fellow named John Grisham beat me to it, writing a book called “The Firm,” which was loosely based on my then-Memphis law firm, Baker Donelson. I guess that is why, many years later, I’m still a practicing attorney and John Grisham has written 55 published books. Although I reside in Springfield, I’ve spent considerable time in Chicago over the past 10 years. While Chicago is bigger than Memphis, the two cities are similar in that I love them both and both are high crime cities. Based on 2024 numbers, Chicago has led the U.S. in total murders for 13 years. Memphis ranked second in homicides per capita among large cities.  I happen to know what it means to be on the wrong end of urban violence. I was held up at gunpoint in Memphis. That experience taught me something that no policy paper ever could: When you’re facing a criminal with a weapon, political debates about federal jurisdiction become meaningless. What matters is whether your city is doing everything possible to keep people safe. To that end: Memphis said yes to federal help. Chicago said no. The results tell you everything you need to know about what happens when politics overrides public safety. Memphis Chose Cooperation In Memphis, the numbers speak louder than any political speech. When the city partnered with federal law enforcement through the Memphis Safe Task Force, murders dropped 48%, sexual assaults fell 49%, and robberies decreased 61% in just 56 days. Overall crime hit a 25-year low. Murder reached a six-year low. Sexual assault dropped to a 20-year low. A Memphis resident at a Grizzlies game said what statistics can’t: “It is so peaceful … we’re just enjoying life and it just feels so free.” Chicago Chose Politics  Chicago took a different path. Mayor Brandon Johnson stated that the city “does not intend to apply for any federal grants that require the city to comply with President Trump’s political aims.” The cost of that decision? A Chicago nonprofit lost $3.7 million in federal funding for violence prevention. Programs that could have saved lives disappeared because of political positioning. Meanwhile, only 6% of major crimes result in arrests in Chicago. Less than 20% of murders get solved. For non-fatal shootings, the clearance rate drops to 5%. The False Frame Some frame this as a battle between local control and federal overreach. That’s inaccurate. Memphis didn’t surrender authority. The city multiplied its resources. Federal agents brought additional manpower, expertise, and the ability to prosecute cases in federal court where sentences carry more weight. Mayor Paul Young said efforts were “guided by one purpose: to uplift our community.” The partnership worked because it focused on outcomes, not ideology. The real question is: Do you want leaders to prioritize safety or political statements? Politics Has a Body Count Do you want leaders to prioritize safety or political statements? I’ve seen both approaches. The difference isn’t subtle. In Memphis, people feel safer walking their streets. Crime data confirms what residents experience daily. Chicago rejected the offer of federal help, and encouraged a rebellion against enforcement of federal immigration law. In the past month, we saw another deadly teen takeover of downtown Chicago, career criminals terrorizing Chicago Transit Authority riders, school children beating up a mom with her child, and more gang violence. You can debate federal policy all you want. But when your city faces a crime crisis, the question becomes simple: Will you accept help or grandstand while people suffer? Memphis answered that question. So did Chicago. The results speak for themselves. Originally published by RealClearPolitics. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Two Cities, Two Crime Strategies: What I Learned Living in Both appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FBI Director Kash Patel is back in the safe zone again. The on-again, off-again MAGA media lynch mobs gunning for Patel to be ousted from the key Cabinet post over his perceived mishandling of several high-profile investigations and unmet demands for transparency have crested and fallen too many times to count during his tumultuous nine months in office. But on Thursday, Patel instantly regained any lost footing after announcing the arrest of the alleged Jan. 6, 2021, pipe-bombing suspect. In a major breakthrough in one of the FBI’s most high-profile unsolved cases, the FBI Thursday morning arrested Brian Cole Jr., 30, in his family’s Woodbridge, Virginia, home and accused him of placing pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic Party headquarters in Washington, D.C., the day of the U.S. Capitol riot. Cole has been charged with transporting an explosive device and attempted malicious destruction using explosive materials, according to court documents. The bombs never detonated, and there’s a lingering question about whether they were capable of doing so. Regardless of the level of danger, the pipe bombs have fueled a flood of conspiracy theories over who planted them and why no law enforcement officers found the device placed at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, even though the Secret Service had swept the site before then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ visit that day. As video footage of FBI agents surrounding Cole’s house played on several cable TV stations, Patel, surrounded by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, and a phalanx of top federal law enforcement officials gathered under the klieg lights at the Justice Department press room for a victory lap on the arrest. The Trump administration investigators had pinpointed Cole not because of any new tip, but just old-fashioned police work, Patel said. Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s FBI let the case gather dust for years, Trump officials argued. “This cold case languished for four years until Kash and Bongino came to the FBI,” Bondi told reporters Thursday. An affidavit signed by an FBI agent who worked on the case and released to the public showed that the FBI tracked Cole’s bomb-making equipment to purchases at Home Depot and Walmart. It also said Cole’s cellphone pinged in the area of the Republican and Democratic Party headquarters on the night of Jan. 5, 2021, when video showed a shadowy individual in a hoodie planting the bombs. His car, according to the affidavit, was also a half mile from the bombs on the same night. The suspect’s motives remain a mystery, but reports surfaced Thursday afternoon that the alleged bomber had anarchist leanings. While critics, including former FBI agent and podcaster Kyle Seraphin, cast doubt that the evidence against Cole Jr. was anywhere near conclusive, Bondi and others, including U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, heralded the arrest as a bombshell achieved through diligence and constant coordination between law enforcement agencies. “This execution was flawless in terms of teamwork, resilience, and just a good, old-fashioned way of police getting the job done,” Patel told reporters, noting it was Bongino who led the monthslong investigation. “When you let good cops be cops, this is what happens. I’m eternally grateful to the team behind me, to the leadership at the FBI who made this possible.” Bongino praised Trump for setting the tone and giving them marching orders to “go after the bad guys and stop focusing on other extraneous things not related to law enforcement.” Indeed, for many critics, especially those on the right, the FBI that Kash and Bongino inherited had become politically weaponized against Trump and conservatives to the point it public trust in the agency was at historic lows. Under Biden, the FBI had produced internal directives to investigate parents who criticized local school boards, including Catholics and pro-life individuals, and had spent an inordinate amount of time and resources interrogating and arresting individuals who entered the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riots, even those who played no role in the violence. When Patel and Bongino arrived at the FBI, MAGA world cheered, but expected instant reforms and transparency on some of the most controversial law enforcement matters, including the Jeffrey Epstein underage sex trafficking scandal. Transparency on the Epstein case proved much harder to achieve, as rumors for months have swirled that a number of prominent politicians on both sides of the aisle, including former President Bill Clinton and even Trump himself, could be exposed for involvement. Bondi followed her promise to release the Epstein files with an embarrassing White House scene in February in which the attorney general handed out binders of what she inaccurately cast as newly declassified Epstein information to pro-Trump influencers who would later complain that they contained previously released files. Bongino was so unhappy about the “Bondi binders” and the public backlash over them that he considered leaving his job in July after a heated confrontation with the attorney general, followed by a threat to quit unless Trump fired Bondi. The ultimatum, which leaked to the press, fueled speculation over who would survive the next few weeks, Bondi or Bongino. The ugly spat subsided, and both Bondi and Bongino survived. But dissent from the left and the right against Patel and Bongino had ebbed and flowed during his nine months on the job with reports as recent as last week that Patel was on thin ice and set for removal. The rumors of Patel’s imminent departure reached a crescendo heading into and over the Thanksgiving weekend until the White House poured cold water on the reports that Trump was poised to fire Patel. Last weekend, The Telegraph, a British newspaper, citing anonymous sources, claimed that the “mood is miserable” inside Patel’s “chaotic” FBI. Rank-and-file FBI agents were reportedly angered by several perceived blunders, including that Patel had prematurely announced that the FBI had thwarted a potential terrorist attack in Michigan on Halloween, in what critics said allowed suspects to flee. Back in September, during the furious manhunt for Charlie Kirk’s assassin, he claimed a killer was in custody when he wasn’t. Democrats have always taken a dim view of Patel’s leadership at the FBI. Buoyed by reports that the White House was losing patience with the director, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker reminded Patel during a September hearing that a capricious boss might bring his career to an end.  “I don’t think you’re fit to head the bureau, but here’s the thing, Mr. Patel, I think you’re not going to be around long,” Booker said.” I think this might be your last oversight hearing.” Patel fired back that the senator was “an embarrassment.” Over the last month, prominent conservative voices have started to pile on. In mid-October, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson published a bombshell report showing that Trump shooter Thomas Crooks had a much larger and far more anti-Trump digital footprint than the Biden-era FBI had portrayed. The New York Post’s Miranda Devine advanced Carlson’s reporting by releasing even more of Crooks’ social media activity—including his visits to DeviantHub, a well-known gender-bending website frequented by furries. Even though the FBI declined to comment for the Devine’s report, a few days later Patel unsuccessfully tried to poke holes in the reporting in interviews with other reporters. Just last week, Patel also announced a “full force” “coast-to-coast” manhunt for the National Guard attacker when the murderer was already in custody. Patel subsequently clarified that the comments were related to a broader investigation into potential accomplices or a wider plot, and not the announcement of a new manhunt for the already apprehended primary attacker. Then on Dec. 1, Devine published a report from “an alliance” of anonymous active-duty and retired FBI agents and analysts claiming that the agency was a “rudderless ship” under Patel and Bongino, who were more concerned with building “personal resumes” and engaging on social media than reforming the agency. The alliance’s report also included an embarrassing tale about Patel refusing to disembark from a plane in Utah the day after Charlie Kirk’s assassination until he was given an FBI raid jacket and then ended up wearing a woman’s jacket. Patel has denied parts of the story, arguing that he needed a rain jacket because he had no time to pack before heading to Utah after Kirk’s killing. The alliance planned to send its 115-page report to Congress later that week. The same group had previously issued damning reports on the Biden-era FBI warning about crippling DEI and the political weaponization of the agency. Bongino fired back at the report, arguing that it was the work of disgruntled “deep-state” FBI agents who were angry over the reforms he and Patel had instituted.   Patel then touted several major reforms during his short tenure and a long list of accomplishments, which included the arrests of 25,000 violent criminals, a 100% increase from last year, and the location and identification of 6,000 victims of child trafficking. Patel also argued that espionage arrests are up 35% under his watch, while fentanyl seizures have increased by 31%. Still, as of Wednesday, the future of Patel’s and Bongino’s tenure felt rocky at best—until the big announcement that the pair, with the help of key senior FBI agents, had cracked the J6 bomber case. A source close to the White House and familiar with the president’s thinking described Patel as “a guy with nine lives because anytime you think you have him, he comes back around and does incredible work.”  The administration has repeatedly and strongly dismissed reports that Trump was considering moving on from his FBI director. To quell the rumors last month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted a photo of Trump and Patel giving the thumbs-up in the Oval Office. After the arrest of the suspected J6 pipe bomber, the same source suggested that another beleaguered Cabinet member look to the FBI director as an example for managing presidential expectations—that “maybe Pete Hegseth needs to start taking pages from Kash Patel’s book.” Why keep Patel around? It’s simple, the source said. He puts more points on the board for the administration than he takes off with controversies. “If there’s talk about whether or not they’re going to drop you, but you keep on winning, even by a small margin, a win is still a win,” the source added, “and the GM is not going to fire you.”   Another source close to White House and familiar with Trump’s thinking argued that Patel, Bongino, Bondi, and even U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro are working closely and cohesively to “make America safe again.” “For all this talk about Pam and Kash being on the outs, you don’t have this level of success if there is a dysfunctional relationship between the FBI, the DOJ, and the D.C. attorney,” the source said. A senior Senate Republican brushed aside “the online back-and-forth” that had consumed Patel in recent weeks, dismissing the controversies as “Beltway chatter.” The results, particularly the arrest of the alleged J6 pipe bomber, not Patel’s pugnacious social media posts, speak to his record leading the FBI so far. “It’s obvious that Patel and Bongino are prioritizing public safety above everything else,” the aide told RCP before adding that the arrest is “a major example of how that leads to success.” Originally published by RealClearWire The post Pipe-Bomb Suspect’s Arrest Solidifies Patel’s Standing appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Google settled a racial bias lawsuit for $50 million. Merrill Lynch paid $20 million. Maryland taxpayers will have to pay $3 million to make a racial discrimination suit go away. “This is ridiculous! Taxpayers should not be on the hook for this!” complains Heather Mac Donald, author of “When Race Trumps Merit.” In our new video, she argues that companies and governments feel forced to pay because of a legal doctrine called “disparate impact.” “Most people don’t even know what it is!” I say. “It is their greatest weapon against excellence,” she replies, “and it is an abuse of the spirit of our civil rights laws.” Disparate impact rules say any policy or test in which some races or sexes do better than others is illegal discrimination, even if the policy has nothing to do with race or sex. “The Maryland State Police wanted to make sure state troopers could read at a very basic level,” says Mac Donald. But because black applicants got lower scores, the test was ruled racist. Because women got lower scores on the physical fitness test, the state was also found guilty of sexism. State politicians promised to change their standards and create new tests. Maryland taxpayers still have to pay millions. “Disparate impact means an institution can be completely colorblind, it can want to have as many different races as possible, but if it has a standard that blacks do poorly on, you got to throw out the standard,” says Mac Donald. New York taxpayers also paid about $2 billion because lawyers said a test for teachers was racist. Mac Donald says: “Even though you’ve spent decades throwing out every question on this exam that has too wide a racial divergence, you still didn’t have the same proportion of black applicants passing as white applicants, we’re going to throw out the exam. And you, New York taxpayers, are liable for $2 billion!” I push back, saying the reason blacks are behind “is because of the legacy of slavery … That’s all they’re saying. Remember that.” “No,” replies Mac Donald, “they’re saying much more than that! … We have way overcorrected. You can have meritocracy in an institution, or you can have diversity. You cannot have both.” Now President Donald Trump has ended disparate impact rules in the federal government. “We’re bringing meritocracy, the American way, back!” said his energy secretary. Trump also told colleges to get rid of DEI programs. “Some did kind of dismantle the DEI offices,” says Mac Donald, “but a lot of other ones just renamed them. ‘Diversity and Equity’ becomes ‘Belonging and Community.’” At the University of Virginia, staffers were caught bragging about it. “We have to change the names of some of our programs,” says one. “We have ‘queer brunch.’ You can’t call it ‘queer brunch’ anymore. You (have) to call it ‘cozy brunch’ … We’re doing the same stuff, but changing the names a little bit.” “It is an act of narcissism and ego on the part of these college administrators who only care about the photos that show up on their college website and making sure that they’re suitably diverse,” says Mac Donald. “None of your viewers should give any benefit of the doubt to these bureaucrats. There’s no knowledge required to be a diversity bureaucrat. The only thing necessary is you’re willing to prosecute the race hustle.” That’s doing real harm, she says. “You already have medical schools that have simply waived the medical college admissions tests for black students because they do so poorly on them. They are bringing blacks into medical schools with qualifications that would be automatically disqualifying if presented by whites or Asians.” These facts are unpleasant for many to hear. But they deserve to be heard. Institutions should have one standard for excellence. “Ban discrimination,” says McDonald, “but we do not ban excellence. We do not ban high expectations … Have a single level of excellence in this society. That is how we’re going to move forward.” COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Disparate Impact appeared first on The Daily Signal.