EXCLUSIVE: Trump Lays 'America First' Plan For Helping Ukraine End War, Casts Doubt On Putin-Zelenskyy Meeting

'Umpires immediately ejected him under Little League rules prohibiting unsportsmanlike conduct.'

Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is running for governor to build on the policies she helped Gov. Glenn Youngkin craft and implement over the past four years, and the Youngkin administration drew attention to six key success areas, in particular. When asked if she was running to continue the administration’s legacy, Earle-Sears said, “Well, of course, and they’re working.” She drew a contrast between herself and Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives. “I don’t need on the job training because I have been here doing the work for these past four years,” Earle-Sears told The Daily Signal in an interview Wednesday. “I am ready to take command on Day One. She will need on-the-job training.” Youngkin’s office emphasized many successes and credited Earle-Sears as instrumental in its efforts. “Simply put, Virginia has never been in a stronger position than she is today,” Peter Finocchio, the governor’s spokesman, told The Daily Signal. Earle-Sears, “as one of the governor’s closest advisors, has been a key partner every step of the way.” The Spanberger campaign attacked the Youngkin-Sears record in a statement Thursday. “Virginians deserve leaders who have real plans to deliver results for the Commonwealth, and Abigail has a record of doing just that,” a campaign spokesperson told The Daily Signal. “Following Virginia losing its ‘Top State for Business’ ranking under the watch of Winsome Earle-Sears, Abigail believes Virginia’s governor should be focused on growing business investment and creating good-paying jobs, which is why she has rolled out her Growing Virginia Plan to boost Virginia’s workforce and economy.” While Virginia slipped from first place in CNBC’s state rankings for business last month, it remains high—at fourth in the nation. Economic Growth Finocchio emphasized the lieutenant governor’s impact on Youngkin’s economic policies, in particular. “Lieutenant Governor Earle-Sears, as a small business owner, has worked hand-in-glove with the governor to bring the common sense fiscal leadership to Richmond that has fostered over $125 billion in business investment, spurred the creation of over 270,000 new jobs and over 250,00 open jobs currently, and ushered in surplus after surplus each fiscal year,” he noted. While CNBC estimates a hit to Virginia’s employment as President Donald Trump trims the size and scope of the federal government, Youngkin’s office cited federal data showing that the Old Dominion’s economy added 276,100 jobs since January 2022, when Youngkin became governor. In July, Youngkin announced that he had slashed regulations by 25%, achieving his administration’s goal six months early. His administration streamlined or repealed nearly 89,000 requirements and eliminated 11.5 million words from official documents. He set a new goal to cut 35% of the state’s regulations by January 2026. The Office of Regulatory Management estimated these cuts save taxpayers $1.2 billion per year. Tax Relief Finocchio said this economic growth “has enabled the Youngkin-Sears administration to deliver more than $9 billion in tax relief for Virginia families, eliminating the state-level grocery tax, doubling the standard deduction for all Virginians, removing state taxes on military retirement pay up to $40,000, and eliminating the regressive carbon tax on utility bills.” Youngkin removed the carbon tax on utility bills by withdrawing from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the contested claim that burning fossil fuels will harm the global climate. He signed the biennial budget bill on May 2, adding $1 billion in tax relief to reach the $9 billion figure for the full administration. The roughly $2 billion surplus in fiscal year 2025 enabled this relief, according to his office. Tackling Crime Finocchio also touted the administration’s Operation Bold Blue Line, which aimed to increase law enforcement pay, launch a recruiting effort, provide increased training and equipment, and provide more resources to victims. Youngkin’s office celebrated “a 30% drop in homicides, a 44% decline in year-to-year overdoses, along with one of the highest rates of overall drug-overdose death reduction in the nation, and more than 3,500 arrests made in partnership with federal law enforcement through the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force.” Education Youngkin won the 2021 gubernatorial election in no small part due to his focus on parental rights in education, and the administration has claimed multiple victories in this key area. Finocchio mentioned the growth in lab schools, K-12 schools that partner with higher education institutions to pioneer new forms of education. The state Education Department has approved 15 lab schools. Youngkin also signed Senate Bill 879, which created an alternative licensing route for career and technical education teachers. Youngkin and Earle-Sears took action on “the screen-fueled youth health crisis by passing laws capping social media use by children under 16 to an hour a day and implementing bell-to-bell cell phone-free education,” Finocchio noted. The law requires social media companies to identify minor users under 16 and restrict their use to one hour per day, unless a parent consents to increase the limit. Maternal Mortality The governor’s office touted other successes regarding family life. According to the Virginia Department of Health, maternal deaths hit a tragic high in 2021, with 49.2 deaths for every 100,000 live births. The rate dropped to 47.1 per 100,000 live births in 2022, and then dropped by more than half in 2023 (to 18.4) and remained less than half the 2021 number in 2024 (at 24.5). The administration credited its Healthy Moms, Healthy Families, Healthy Communities initiative. This initiative provided $2.5 million to fund pilot programs featuring health hubs, extended postpartum coverage for mothers on Medicaid, and signed bills to increase access to doulas. In June, the governor signed bills raising standards for maternal care. The administration also touted its “Right Help, Right Now” program to invigorate Virginia’s behavioral health system and combat depression. Unleashing American Energy Finocchio also celebrated strides toward nuclear power, particularly in helping make Virginia “the home of the world’s first grid-scale nuclear fusion reactor.” Youngkin announced last month that the Virginia Department of Energy received a $197,500 grant to prepare an area in Wise County for a small modular reactor, a kind of advanced nuclear power plant. Last year, Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced it would build the first grid-scale commercial fusion power plant in Virginia. Youngkin’s administration directed a $1 million grant to the project. Proponents defend nuclear as a reliable, cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels. Youngkin’s office supports it as an all-of-the-above approach to energy sources. The post 6 Youngkin Successes as Earle-Sears Runs to Further His Legacy appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Europe Is Dying -- Are We Next?

There are softball interviews, there are T-ball interviews, and then there’s whatever New York Magazine and Vox Media's Pivot podcast host Kara Swisher did on Friday with California Gov. Gavin Newsom when she asked him what his favorite meme is. In recent days, Newsom tried to mimic President Trump’s social media-posting habits under the argument that conservative dislike of his new hobby means he is only exposing hypocrisy. In reality, Newsom’s act just comes across as a ham-fisted derivative of the original from someone trying too hard to get elected president in 2028.     It has also exposed that for a lot of liberals, their problem with Trump’s social media posts isn’t the insults, memes, or merchandise, per se, but that they were on the receiving end of those insults. Swisher was all for the insults so long as they were directed the other way, “Okay, so do you have a—I'm going to get to the more serious thing with redistricting, but what—do you have a favorite of your memes. Calling Trump 'tiny hands' was nice. You're getting prayed over by Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock and an angelic Hulk Hogan—” Newsom interrupted to explain, “Oh, that was my favorite,” as Swisher continued, “There was a lot of user-generated chesty stuff going on with you there.” A sarcastic Newsom added, “Yeah, they finally did untouched photos of me without a shirt on, which is good to finally see something that’s not edited. Yeah.” Swisher then repeated her original question, “Is there one that you like that you're like, ‘well done’? It's a team of people, right?” Newsom also repeated his earlier answer, “I, come on, I think Hulk—God bless Hulk. I'm sorry for his passing, his family's loss, but I think that Tucker-Kid Rock, come on. That's why it's a T-shirt. It's available on the Patriot site. And, you know, and before the meme coin, as I said, the Bible's already sold out and, I'd encourage you—that's going to be limited edition, that T-shirt.” Swisher also promoted the store, “Where do the proceeds from the Patriot Shop go and the meme coin?” According to Newsom, this entire act is about saving democracy, “Well, in the meme coin that will soon be the Trump corruption coin, available to all of you. All of those go to our Campaign for Democracy. They go for this effort on the redistricting. They go into, they go into this effort. They go into our effort to continue to raise awareness and continue to communicate and organize.” Politicians will do stunts like this, but Swisher should also have asked if this Patriot Shop will also be selling dinner reservations for the French Laundry or Panera Bread gift cards instead. Here is a transcript for the August 29 show: Pivot 8/29/2025 KARA SWISHER: Okay, so do you have a—I'm going to get to the more serious thing with redistricting, but what— do you have a favorite of your memes. Calling Trump “tiny hands” was nice. You're getting prayed over by Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock and an angelic Hulk Hogan— GAVIN NEWSOM: Oh, that was my favorite. SWISHER: —there was a lot of user-generated chesty stuff going on with you there. NEWSOM: Yeah, they finally did untouched photos of me without a shirt on, which is good to finally see something that’s not edited. Yeah. SWISHER: Is there one that you like that you're like, “well done”? NEWSOM: No, I thought— SWISHER: It's a team of people, right? NEWSOM: I, come on, I think Hulk—God bless Hulk. I'm sorry for his passing, his family's loss, but I think that Tucker-Kid Rock, come on. That's why it's a T-shirt. It's available on the Patriot site. And, you know, and before the meme coin, as I said, the Bible's already sold out and, I'd encourage you—that's going to be limited edition, that T-shirt. SWISHER: Okay, I'm excited for the steak. Where do the proceeds from the Patriot Shop go and the meme coin? NEWSOM: Well, in the meme coin that will soon be the Trump corruption coin, available to all of you. All of those go to our Campaign for Democracy. They go for this effort on the redistricting. SWISHER: Redistricting. NEWSOM: They go into, they go into this effort. They go into our effort to continue to raise awareness and continue to communicate and organize.

Language, religion, and culture can be barriers that prevent people from different backgrounds from understanding one another. But time — the ongoing flow of moments from the past, through the present, and into the future — is something that unites us in its universality, right?Not necessarily.It turns out that time is also subject to interpretation.“What if I told you that for many African societies, the concept of the future doesn't exist and that instead of time moving forwards, time actually moves backwards,” said Instagram user @mumbipoetry in a viral August 18 post.Quoting Kenyan philosopher John Mbiti, she says, “time is a two-dimensional phenomenon with a long past, vibrant present, and virtually no future,” where the present encompasses “the now, the recent past, and the immediate future,” while “the vast endless past [is] where all events eventually go on to live forever.” But because “time is made up of events” and must be “experienced in order to be real,” the future “cannot constitute part of time” because it has neither events nor experience to legitimize it.A year isn’t measured by Earth’s rotations around the sun; it’s measured by events. “A year is only over when those four seasons have taken place, so a year could take 365 days, 390 days — it doesn’t matter,” she explained, contrasting it with the Western world’s concept of time, where it’s treated as a “commodity” that can be “spent, saved, wasted, or lost.”This two-dimensional understanding of time is why many African languages “don’t have a word to describe the distant future,” she explains.The African notion of time is a real head-scratcher for Westerners, who are constantly preoccupied with thoughts of the future.This difference, says BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre, is “so radical it makes cooperation basically impossible.”Could this dismissal of the future be one of the reasons why much of Africa continues to face significant economic and social challenges? Could it be evidence that our two worldviews are incompatible? “If you do not have a future, how do you understand planning for something? How do you understand a lower time preference that would allow you to build civilization? How do you understand denying yourself today so that you can thrive tomorrow?” Auron asks.Having no concept or language for the future has sprawling implications that impact the individual person and the entire civilization, he explains. From contracts that establish future obligations to time zones, delivery schedules, and business deals, how does anyone thrive if their notion of time is that it only exists once an event takes place?“People who do not have a word to describe this phenomenon [of the future] are going to have a very, very hard time working inside our system, adopting our customs, and they're going to lose out in the larger global economic picture — the geopolitical picture,” says Auron, pointing out that liberals often whine that this view is “imperialistic.”“Yes, it is Western-centric. It is ‘racist’ to the extent that it favors people of European descent who understand the world in this way,” he adds. “But that's also why it works.”“Maybe it's the way [Africans] want to live, but it will fall behind people who have a different conception of reality, a different understanding of time. Again, you don't have to hate people or make fun of people … because they have this different understanding, but you definitely need to factor that in when you're deciding who should be in your country and whether or not your system can be applied to other people.”To hear more of Auron’s analysis, watch the episode above.Want more from Auron MacIntyre?To enjoy more of this YouTuber and recovering journalist's commentary on culture and politics, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mysteriously vanished while traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing — and it's still unclear what caused the plane's disappearance. The post What Really Happened To Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 The Night It Disappeared? appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Sit This One Out, Blimpy: X ENDS J.B. Pritzker for Scolding Trump to Be More Like Illinois Students

A lot of those older Samsung products still hold up surprisingly well, and Galaxy Upcycling at Home lets you repurpose them in a pretty practical way.

A lot of those older Samsung products still hold up surprisingly well, and Galaxy Upcycling at Home lets you repurpose them in a pretty practical way.