One person was killed and five others were injured after a private jet crash-landed on a Texas highway Tuesday night, sending a fireball into the night sky near the U.S.-Mexico border — and prompting ordinary citizens to spring into action before emergency crews could even arrive. The NetJets-operated Cessna Citation Latitude went down on Loop 20 in Laredo shortly after 10 p.m., striking a moving car before skidding across multiple lanes and coming to rest upside down and engulfed in flames. Six people were aboard. Five survivors were transported to a local hospital in stable condition. One did not make it.      Video circulating online captured the harrowing scene: a jet tipped to its side, consumed by fire, with bystanders refusing to stand by and watch. One man used a sledgehammer, another a shovel to try to shatter the cockpit glass and open the aircraft’s door in a desperate bid to pull survivors from the wreckage. Their actions, caught on camera, are the kind of American grit that doesn’t make many headlines but should. “It looked like part of a movie. I was in shock,” said witness Zayra Garza, who had been driving her co-workers home when she stumbled onto the crash. “What was worrying me was the fire. I was concerned that it could have just exploded at any time.” According to flight tracking data from FlightRadar24, the aircraft departed San José del Cabo, Mexico, at approximately 6:18 p.m. local time, bound for Austin. It diverted toward Laredo after the airport tower reported a mechanical issue and lost contact with the plane. Minutes later, it was down. NetJets — the private aviation company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway — confirmed it is cooperating with authorities. Federal agencies, including the FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board, are investigating. Some first responders suffered smoke inhalation. Loop 20 remained closed through Wednesday morning, with closures stretching from Saunders southbound to Highway 359 northbound. Laredo Mayor Dr. Victor Treviño urged residents to be patient and avoid speculation while investigators do their work. “As mayor, I understand the importance of allowing investigators to complete a thorough and objective review before drawing any conclusions,” Treviño said. “Aviation investigations take time.” “Regrettably and tragically there is one deceased involved in this crash,” Laredo Police Public Information Officer Jose Baeza told reporters. “What we have tonight is a tragic event.” Those involved in the crash have not yet been publicly identified pending next-of-kin notification.

Law enforcement officials discovered the alleged plot to attack the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House over the weekend after a concerned mother called police, according to an FBI criminal complaint. Officers showed up at the home of 19-year-old Tycen Proper on the evening of June 10 after they received a phone call about a “disturbance” from his mother. Proper would later tell investigators that he and multiple others planned to stage a terror attack involving the exploding drones and sniper rifles, FBI Task Force Officer Christopher Betts said in a criminal complaint.  Proper and four other men have been arrested for their involvement in the alleged plot which appeared to be motivated in part by the government’s handling of the Epstein files. The complaint said that Proper’s mother told police she was “concerned about her son” due “to his recent conduct, including firearms purchases and communicating with certain individuals online.” Credit: Wired in Live After officers arrived at the home, they spoke with Proper and his parents. His father told police that he “had recently met random people online and had been planning ‘recons’ with these individuals.” In a later interview with the FBI, Proper’s mother claimed that he had “recently begun interacting with a group online that was comprised of individuals who claimed to be ex-military and Christian-based. She didn’t know the name of the group, but they expressed ultra-religious and anti-government sentiments, specifically citing grievances about government corruption, the handling of the Epstein files, data centers taking up all the water in communities, and other government actions.”  Proper’s mother also said “she observed him recently engaged in physical training” and “researching and mapping locations in the area just northwest of Washington, D.C.”  “She stated that she also observed additional images and maps being sent to him from unknown individuals through texts and Discord messages, and she would overhear PROPER talking to these individuals verbally on his phone,” the complaint said.  The FBI said that the plot aimed to target the wealthy and Republican politicians who the plotters accused of being compromised by Israel, including Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Senator Jim Justice (R-WV), Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Rep. Carol Miller (R-WV), and Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV).  “The members of that group stated that they wanted to protect the United States, which they believed was headed in the wrong direction,” the FBI complaint said. “Members of that group believed that the United States needed to be torn down so that it could be rebuilt.”

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** You’ve seen George Washington bravely crossing the Delaware, posing for a portrait as he stretches out his arm to welcome the future, and staring solemnly on the $1 bill. But one common — and contested — motif finds him doing something totally different: kneeling on the ground in prayer. Arnold Friberg painted one such image, “The Prayer at Valley Forge,” for America’s bicentennial celebration in 1976. Now at America’s 250th, it’s making critics furious. “A scene inspired by the winter at Valley Forge has become more prominent in the Trump era, along with claims that the United States was founded as a Christian nation,” warned the New York Times last month. Thanks to President Donald Trump, a culture writer for the paper suggests, “the image of Washington at prayer, some scholars say, has gone from being a patriotic commonplace to a politically charged statement.” “Conservative Christians love this painting of George Washington,” NPR sneered less than two weeks later. “The event it depicts may not have happened.” There is no shortage of iconic paintings that depict historical moments merely imagined by the artist, though the idea that Washington might visibly pray for his army at a low point in the revolution is not so ridiculous. Historian Thomas A. Tweed is doubtful, though he concedes that this particular mythos does match the man Washington was. “Parson Weems, Washington’s early biographer, concocted that story — as well as the yarn about George and the cherry tree — to establish the moral character and personal piety of the first president and, thereby, advance a particular view of national belonging and church-state relations,” Tweed wrote. “There is some truth in the claim, and in the images. Washington did pray, though perhaps not the way Weems described, and he did attend church services, though not on Communion Sunday. Washington was not a conventional Christian, but he also wasn’t a church-hating atheist.” Notably, NPR’s report repeated the first half of that quote, but not the second. “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.” —George Washington, 1789 pic.twitter.com/i4i9HLJvfk — U.S. Department of Labor (@USDOL) December 27, 2025 Casting doubt on the validity of the image of Washington in prayer has become something of an elite pastime. In this context, a new play at the Museum of the Bible becomes even more powerful. Running through Friday, the one-man play “A General’s Prayer” finds George Washington alone at camp in Valley Forge, poring over a package of letters and keepsakes from his wife, Martha, and debating how to implore Congress for more funds for his sick and half-clothed troops. Played by James Denton of “Desperate Housewives” fame, Washington is verbally processing his legacy in this war, his responsibility to his troops, and his relationship to the divine — all while speaking directly to the audience, whom he calls “my anonymous confessors.” The 70-minute play is punctuated by Washington’s self-deprecating humor; “I do wonder if history might mostly paint me as a man who stands upright in boats,” he muses. This Washington is not the legend of history books. He’s vulnerable, approachable, a man who stands amid a snowy encampment mourning his comrades and recalling his near-death experience in battle as he asks, “For what had I been saved?” The name of the play may set off Christian nationalism alarm bells for those who always hope to hear them, but the play’s primary focus is not so much the general’s faith as it is his struggle to wrangle his passions, guide his troops, and be seen as a man who, though he didn’t feel so himself, was stoic in the face of tragedy. Near the end of the play, Washington pauses stage right for a silent prayer, posing as he appears in the much-maligned paintings. When he returns, he says a prayer for the nation and appeals to the audience to remember and protect our founding ideals. In a discussion at the end of opening night, playwright Dean Batali told the audience that the owners of Friberg’s painting, First Freedom Art Company, commissioned him to create a play about it. “I just didn’t want to do, necessarily, a flag-waving, simple play,” he said. “And I certainly didn’t want to do a whole play about a guy just praying. So I tried to make it about the struggle that maybe is relatable to all of us, and what it takes to bring us to our knees.” His goal, he added, was “also to talk about the country in a way that wasn’t just making us proud of ourselves just for the sake of being proud,” but suggesting that “maybe we have something to live up to.” This used to be the kind of thing we could all support. The image of George Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge may not be literally accurate, but the legend is true in spirit, an interpretation legacy media outlets would also like to debunk if they could. The idea that our Founding Fathers looked to a higher power for guidance, and that we would serve our country well by doing the same today, may not seem like a radical one. But to today’s critics, “A General’s Prayer” may be more transgressive than anything running on Broadway.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** The debate over declining fertility has sparked endless conversations about the underlying causes. As the goalposts keep moving, one thing remains constant: Women continue to bear the brunt of the criticism. We’ve reached a point where the message is that women are “too old, too career-focused, and have high body counts,” while men are increasingly detached from the broader conversation about marriage and fertility. To be fair, men have faced their own backlash in recent years. The era of “toxic masculinity” often dismissed traditionally masculine traits such as providing and protecting. The rise of women in higher education and the workplace brought many benefits, but it also coincided with the expansion of DEI initiatives that, too often, pushed men down in the process. But we’ve overcorrected. The pendulum has swung from bashing men to bashing women. Yet tearing down either sex will not increase fertility rates, which ultimately depend on healthy men and women liking, not resenting, each other. I’m challenging these claims because many factors are at play, and narrowly defining the problem — often done by people who married young and had children before experiencing the realities of the modern dating world — is not helping. Here is the anecdotal pushback from women who have walked — or are still walking — the single road. Claim #1 – Women who work don’t want marriage In response to this increasingly popular claim, I posted the following on X in April: I’m 46 and have worked in DC for 26 years. During that time, I’ve met and befriended many women in high-level careers. Not one has ever told me she chose her career over marriage. In fact, all of them were trying to find a husband. The idea that Millennial or Gen X women… — Beverly Hallberg (@BeverlyHallberg) April 11, 2026 Since then, I’ve asked numerous women across the country for their perspective on whether they chose career over marriage. Woman, age 40, married at 35: “I worked because I had bills to pay as the sole wage-earner in my home.” Woman, age 38, single: “I entered into a career after my education, but I have never ‘chosen’ a career over marriage. I’ve had a career as a way of supporting myself because no one else was going to support me otherwise.” Woman, age 30, single: “I’ve had a career, but I’ve always wanted to be married. Given the option, I would have chosen marriage over my job every time.” The consistent response is that work is a necessity because bills don’t pay themselves. Rather than relying on welfare, many choose to work, acting as good stewards and contributing to the tax base, which in turn benefits other families. A counterpoint often cited came from Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire. It’s not so much that Millennial and Gen X women consciously choose careers over marriage. It’s that the choices they make (and are encouraged to make) make marriage less likely. Case in point: moving to D.C., where the men are sociopaths or homosexuals or both. https://t.co/fKsEpg3g1j — Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) April 11, 2026 The claim that women are unintentionally choosing singleness doesn’t hold up, as data show most working women eventually get married and have children, just later than previous generations. And as Patrick T. Brown wrote, “A typical girlboss is not having as many kids as her grandmother, but she’s having, on average, as many as her mom, or is getting quite close.” It’s fair to discuss the biological realities of marrying and having children later in life, but equating work with rejecting family just doesn’t add up when 80% of women work at some point in their lives, and many are or will be wives and mothers. Claim #2 – Women are single because of “girlboss messages” When the “girlboss” narrative was challenged, the blame shifted to “girlboss messaging,” with critics claiming the majority of women have embraced the idea that career is the most important thing in life. I asked women if that was the case. Woman, age 30, single: “I have never personally felt discouraged from getting married. I have seen examples in the media of the message that women should enjoy their twenties and settle down later, but that has never resonated with me.” Woman, age 35, single: “I’ve been surrounded by positive people in happy marriages my entire life and soundly rejected narratives that discouraged marriage.” Woman, age 38, married at 36: “The only thing that has discouraged me from marrying were my experiences with men in real life and hearing about other women’s experiences in bad marriages online.” They don’t deny that such messages exist, but they reject the idea that women simply absorb everything culture produces. It’s also worth noting that there is plenty of pro-family content in feminist culture. The Kardashians are a prime example: Whatever critiques one may have of their lifestyle, most have children, with motherhood normalized rather than dismissed. Add to that Justin Bieber and his wife publicly celebrating the birth of their son, and reality programming like “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” which frequently features mothers, some documenting IVF journeys and others sharing the devastating experience of losing a child. This brings us to the current claim. Claim #3 – Hookup culture led to the decline in fertility “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper’s pregnancy announcement sparked backlash as though she should be condemned to lifelong spinsterhood because of past sexual behavior. While many men and women don’t sleep around, Cooper reflects broader secular norms. And this is where the conversation should begin — not with labels or double standards, but with an honest look at the cultural forces shaping sex, marriage, and fertility. Some of those forces are clear. Feminism advanced the idea that women could engage in sex more like men, reshaping expectations around commitment. At the same time, COVID-era isolation and technology fueled rising loneliness and further commodified dating through apps. Compounding the problem are growing struggles among some men with pornography, drugs, online gambling, and gaming, all of which can create additional barriers to forming stable relationships. Here’s what women are saying about dating bottleneck: Woman, age 35, single: “Dating apps and the paradox of having too many choices have made modern dating difficult.” Woman, age 23, single: “I am single because men in my circle have not pursued or dated me.” Woman, age 38, married at 36: “A lot of men waste women’s time in their 20s in forever-girlfriend relationships because they’re hoping someone better will come along but refuse to be alone. The solutions are to help men improve, not telling women to accept less than they offer themselves.” Woman, age 33, single: “I’ve stayed single so long because the pool is so bad. I try hard to give all kinds of men a chance, but they either aren’t happy, don’t have jobs, ghost once I say yes to a date, or some combination of those.” Woman, age 40, married at 39: “Are mature men leading droves of younger men away from selfishness, pride, and pornography? If so, humble, beautiful women in every city I’ve lived in would love to discover the coordinates of their base camp.” If politics is downstream from culture, then fertility decline is as well. The problem with blaming women is not only that it fails to capture the full picture, but that it can also pressure some into unhealthy marriages. As someone who has written openly about leaving an abusive husband, I know firsthand that a destructive marriage is far worse than singleness. If women are unwilling to marry men struggling with addictions, a lack of drive, or other character issues, they may remain single longer than they hoped — or not marry at all. In many cases, remaining unmarried can reflect wisdom rather than failure, however painful that path may be. The right has its own form of identity politics, often reducing women to their marital and maternal status, even though many find themselves in this situation due to cultural factors rather than individual choices. If we fail to recognize this, we risk driving men and women further apart. *** Beverly Hallberg is the president of District Media Group and a senior fellow at Independent Women.

Now liberals are equating UFC with porn and lynching. God, they ruin everything. They’ve gone completely off the rails. These people hate men. They hate women who like men. They hate patriotism, marriage, babies, traditional entertainment, and anything that looks like unapologetic joy. Except Joy Reid’s version of it, maybe. And did I mention they loathe men? This is where the Democratic Party stands in 2026: proving every single day that there’s no crawling back to sanity. They’re not moderating. They’re not reflecting. They’re doubling down on the sneering, joyless, elitist nonsense that already cost them working-class voters by the truckload. Take the recent White House UFC event on the South Lawn. Conservative writer Marc Thiessen praised it as Trump opening the doors to regular Americans — the kind who enjoy motocross rallies and monster truck shows. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg responded by sneering that if you’re okay with that, you’re an elitist snob in reverse. Then she went nuclear: “Like Ultimate Fighting, porn is extremely popular, but I somehow doubt Thiessen would defend a Democratic president who invited a bunch of OnlyFans creators to the Oval Office while he was losing a war.” Wild comparison. Is she on Hunter Biden’s crack? But somehow it got worse. On Jim Acosta’s show, historian Heather Cox Richardson — the same one who treats every Republican breath as a constitutional crisis — actually said this with a straight face: “It’s not really a stretch to say that the same impulse that created the UFC fight on the White House lawn is the impulse that really pushed lynching in the late 19th century.” Lynching! And Perma-victim-Acosta just hmmed in agreement, like she’d dropped profound historical wisdom instead of a brain-melting false equivalence. UFC fights equal lynching. UFC fights equal porn. Motocross rallies equal baskets of deplorables. Got it. By this logic, anything popular with normal Americans is automatically suspect or sinister. They despise us. Not in the polite “we disagree on policy” way. The Left genuinely believes all Republicans are flannel-wearing hillbillies who enjoy combat sports, big trucks, and rowdy crowds, and that we’re the moral and cultural scum of the earth. They would rather die than be caught enjoying the same things the rest of the country finds entertaining. Motocross rallies are awesome. So are monster trucks. UFC is about as American as it gets — a nation born from fighters, revolutionaries, risk-takers, now celebrating disciplined, high-level athletic competition in a ring. Neither has a damn thing to do with lynching or porn. One is a consensual sport between trained professionals. The other was a racist mob murder. (Smells like the abortion movement in America if you ask me.) Goldberg should sit this one out. The party lecturing America about sexual liberation has produced exactly what you’d expect. Gallup data shows Republicans are dramatically more likely to be married than Democrats, especially in prime family-forming years. The gap has widened over decades as Democrats have embraced lifestyles that de-emphasize marriage and family formation. Institute for Family Studies research consistently finds that conservatives and Republicans have higher fertility rates and are far more likely to have children. Liberal women, by contrast, show markedly lower completed fertility and higher rates of childlessness. This isn’t random. It tracks with broader attitudes. Liberals have long led the charge on “sex-positive” culture that celebrates casual sex, delayed or rejected marriage, and the normalization of platforms like OnlyFans. Democrats poll more favorably toward expansive views on sexual liberation and non-traditional arrangements. The party that claims to champion “joy” and “inclusion” has produced a demographic reality of more single adults, lower marriage rates, and fewer babies — while sneering at the people who still value the opposite. That’s why Democrats keep bleeding support. They’re hemorrhaging non-college voters, men, and anyone who doesn’t want to be lectured about their entertainment choices or family decisions. The party that once claimed the lunch-bucket crowd now looks down its nose at them from coastal enclaves. When Trump leaves office after his third term, they’ll have nothing left but the same tired hatred of the next guy. No positive vision. Just more pearl-clutching at monster trucks and cage fights and happiness. Meanwhile, UFC is thriving. It’s one of the fastest-growing sports globally, with massive viewership, huge revenue, and broad appeal — especially among young men who need exactly the discipline, fitness, and male camaraderie it provides. Training in martial arts builds confidence, respect, and resilience. Plenty of guys who were drifting have found purpose in the gym and the cage. It’s popular across every demographic the Left pretends to speak for. Of course they would hate it. If liberals could drop the snobby nonsense for five minutes, they might notice that millions of normal Americans — including plenty who aren’t hardcore conservatives — enjoy UFC precisely because it’s raw, competitive, and unfiltered. It celebrates toughness and skill instead of fragility and grievance. But they can’t. They’re too far gone. They represent an increasingly angry, single, low-fertility, joy-allergic class that thinks the height of sophistication is comparing a sporting event to historical atrocities. New York Times. Heather Cox Richardson. Jim Acosta. You suck at this. You don’t understand the country you claim to analyze. You don’t even like it. And every time you open your mouths to equate cage fighting with lynching or porn, you just remind the rest of us why normal people tuned you out years ago. America was built by fighters