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The Department of Homeland Security has refused to follow a law mandating it take DNA samples from illegal immigrants taken into custody, which would identify violent criminals and child traffickers, employees told the U.S. Senate this week. Speaking to senators on Tuesday, three former WMD officials presented evidence that DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had blocked their efforts to comply with a 2005 law, then retaliated against them when they sounded the alarm about the lawbreaking. “Given the enormous potential of DNA collection to facility solving crimes, we took our job seriously,” Fred Wynn said. Law enforcement experts from CBP’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) unit were tasked with implementing a mandatory program to DNA-test illegals. But higher-ups at DHS were so opposed to the law that they continuously thwarted it, eventually disbanding the entire WMD division, the whistleblowers say. Disbanding the division may have opened the United States to a WMD attack, in addition to criminals crossing the border. The disbanding also allowed hundreds of thousands of children to stay with people who claimed to be relatives, but who may have been child labor or sex traffickers. DNA testing is the only reliable way to ensure that children aren’t coming across the border with traffickers, or being taken to live with them by U.S. officials as “sponsors.” Mark Jones, previously the acting director of CBP’s WMD unit, said that “the DNA tool is invaluable especially when establishing family units.” More than half a million “unaccompanied minors” have crossed the border illegally and been allowed to remain in the country, and are “reunited” with people purporting to be their relatives, who have sometimes been traffickers. Jones said the WMD team had its responsibilities stripped, and were told to come to work and simply sit and do nothing. In one case, one team member was told to report to a new desk that had no internet, phone, or power. “Certain senior officials were hell-bent on slow-rolling any process or pilot program that enabled DNA collection,” he said. In 2018, Jones heard the special assistant to the Customs and Border Protection chief say that “the Commissioner does not want to do this,” while another official said, “if we have to, we will get the press to capture us forcibly taking DNA from an 89-year old woman to garner outrage,” he said. That year, DHS “shut down the DNA collection pilot program and disbanded the WMD division,” and Jones was demoted three levels, he said. Mike Taylor, the third WMD whistleblower, said the men have repeatedly reached out to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but have received no corrective action. Meanwhile, those who retaliated against the men have been promoted. Congress passed a law requiring the DNA testing of criminals and illegal immigrants in 2005, with near-unanimous bipartisan support. In 2010, the year the requirement kicked in, Barack Obama’s DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder asking for a postponement, writing that “we intend to phase-in implementation over the next year.” Holder acquiesced, with an admonishment that DHS should work quickly. Ten years later, DHS had simply not done it, and cited the memo from Holder as evidence that it has been exempted from following the law. In August 2019, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a federal agency that investigates whistleblower disclosures and retaliation, found that DHS’s “noncompliance with the law has allowed subjects subsequently accused of violent crimes, including homicide and sexual assault, to elude detection even when detained multiple times by CBP.” The report points to an illegal immigrant who committed multiple sexual assaults in Arizona in 1997. Though the individual had the DNA of the perpetrator, they could not find a match, since the suspect was not in the system. The crime was only solved in 2019 because the suspect went on to go to prison for another crime, at which point he had his DNA taken. In 2021, OSC found that DHS retaliated against the whistleblowers due to “displeasure with the Complainants’ perceived and actual involvement in bringing to light the agency’s intentional, decade-long failure to implement a law.” The office lambasted DHS for lawbreaking and retaliation in the strongest possible terms, and said DHS had given shifting excuses that were demonstrably untrue. Nonetheless, the retaliation continued. In 2022, DHS took Jones’ and Taylor’s badges, guns, and law enforcement credentials. Taylor lost his law enforcement retirement pension despite his having nearly reached the required 20 years of service. In 2023, DHS sought to make the whistleblowers’ claims out to be a conspiracy theory with another misleading statement, telling the New York Post that “The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) terminated its investigation into these claims without issuing a Prohibited Personnel Practice Report or seeking corrective action.” Recently, CBP has engaged in limited DNA testing of illegals—37% in fiscal year 2023. Even with that subset, it matched with the DNA of 1,037 wanted, violent criminals. Illegal immigrant DNA was responsible for 42% of all crimes solved using the FBI’s DNA database. But that meant that nearly two million illegals in DHS custody did not get DNA swabbed that year. Jones noted that “we likely missed over 1,600 violent criminals in 2023 alone” based on the match rate of the smaller sample. So far in fiscal year 2024, DNA testing of illegal immigrants has matched the DNA of people wanted in 10 homicides and 145 sex offenses. The limited DNA testing belatedly implemented by DHS has been carried out in a way that ensures it won’t stop known violent criminals from being allowed to stay in the country. Although the technology exists to take and process a cheek swab on site in 90 minutes, DHS mails the samples to FBI headquarters and gets the results back months later. By that time, the illegal immigrants have already been released. Failing to use rapid, on-site technology means the DNA samples will only be useful in identifying the illegal aliens if they commit crimes in the future. The more illegal immigrants are tracked with their DNA, the more crimes they are tied to—an uncomfortable fact for Democrats who claim that illegal immigrants do not commit crimes. Last month, a man wielding a machete tied up and sexually assaulted two 13-year-old girls in New York City. DNA from the victims tied the crime to Christian Inga, an illegal immigrant who was swabbed when he crossed the border in 2021. Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five, was raped and murdered last year. Charged in her death was Victor Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was also suspected of a homicide there. Maryland police had a DNA sample of the perpetrator, but nothing to compare it to. Although Hernandez had been captured at the border three times, his DNA was never taken. Maryland police ultimately identified Hernandez by comparing his DNA to that of his relatives. Tuesday’s congressional panel was conducted by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI). The senators held the hearing as an unofficial “roundtable,” as Democrats, who control the Senate, refused to participate. Grassley said the Biden administration has refused to respond to his oversight inquiries on the topic. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running for president and has positioned herself as a tough-on-crime prosecutor, was tasked by Biden with managing issues related to the border. Related: Whistleblowers Detail How 85,000 ‘Unaccompanied Minors’ Went Missing After Biden Admin Dropped Them Off With ‘Sponsors’

As the 2024 Olympics kick off in Paris this week, we’re thinking of all of our female athletes – some whose right to compete on the biggest stage in the world was nearly stripped in the name of inclusion. After participating and winning accolades in the female NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, Lia Thomas sought legal action to be allowed to pursue a spot on the U.S. women’s national team in Paris. Had the challenge been successful, Thomas would have joined New Zealand weightlifter and Tokyo Olympian, Laurel Hubbard, in receiving praise from the Left for “making history” or exuding “courage.” But there is nothing historic about turning back the clocks 50 years to a time when women did not have an equal playing field. And there’s nothing courageous about stealing opportunities that women have worked towards for their entire lives. Not too long ago, these statements were considered non-controversial and indisputable. Women were championed for their successes in athletics – receiving trophies, scholarships, and recognition for their leadership. But that all changed when the Biden administration entered the White House. In just under four years, Joe Biden and the radical Left have completely overhauled Title IX protections and erased equal opportunity for women in order to fit their woke narrative. It all began with a simple question: can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’? It’s not a trick question, and yet, a female nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States could not answer because she wasn’t “a biologist.” On the surface, that might not seem like a big deal, and it was shrugged off by many liberal commentators. In reality, Justice Jackson’s inability to give an uncomplicated definition raises serious questions about her willingness to protect women, especially in cases relating to Title IX. WATCH: “What Is A Woman?” on DailyWire+ It’s almost laughable how quickly the Democrats rushed to mimic the hypocrisy. Since Justice Jackson’s viral moment, Merriam-Webster changed its definition of the word ‘female,’ Michelle Obama used the term ‘womxn’ in a social media post, and the Justice herself referred to pregnant women as “pregnant patients” in a dissenting opinion. Imagine that: the Party that loves to brag about how pro-woman they are, can’t even define the term, let alone bring themselves to say the word. After all, with so many pronouns in today’s world, why should being a woman be so special? Respectively, as a female United States Senator and a former 12x All-American swimmer with direct experience of this injustice, we have both been given unique voices to stand up against the movement by the Left to erase women’s sports. In our home state of Tennessee, we know the difference between a man and a woman. We know that men do not belong in women’s sports. We know that women are uniquely gifted and should be recognized for their accomplishments. It’s all common sense. But that’s not the case everywhere, and the Left would love nothing more than to get us all to conform to their standards. The war against women is no longer hypothetical, and while Lia Thomas may have lost the battle this time, the Left’s persistence knows no bounds. Allowing males to compete against females will be the new norm for Americans competing at every level — including at the 2028 Olympics — if something isn’t done. That’s why we will keep up the fight — whether it’s in Washington, in the media, or in the sports arena. Future generations of girls depend on us to preserve the equality that generations before us fought so hard to achieve. * * * U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn serves as Tennessee’s first female United States Senator. Riley Gaines is a spokeswoman at Independent Women’s Forum and a 12x All-American swimmer from the University of Kentucky.

Many people might remember the old American Tourister luggage commercials. In them, the designer luggage was pitted against a gorilla to demonstrate the product’s durability. In an impromptu version of product durability testing, mountain goats used a car roof and luggage carrier as a jungle gym. Michael Ryno Photography captured the footage while the vehicle owner was hiking Tour de Abyss. @superglamp Goats on my car while we were hiking Tour de Abyss. We came back to hoof prints all over the car and knew there had been shenanigans but this was better than we could’ve ever imagined. Both the @Subaru of America, Inc. and @Yakimaracks held up against the field testing. Best products on the market! Thank you to @Michael Ryno Photography (IG: mnryno) for capturing this footage. Go give him some follows both here on TT and IG. He’s got great content! #mountbluesky #mountaingoats #subaru #subaruoutback #yakimaracks #14ers #colorado ♬ original sound – Superglamp Remarkably, there were hoof prints all over the Subaru and the Yakima luggage box on top, but neither had damage. The vehicle belongs to TikTok user Superglamp, who asked anyone who saw the mountain goats on her car to provide any available footage. Several followers told Superglamp they had seen a video on Instagram and pointed her toward Michael Ryno‘s page. The power of social media connected the photographer and the Subaru owner, and that’s why we’re here. The video was already viral on Michael’s Instagram and aired on 9News Denver. Michael had been filming a herd of goats in the area when he noticed the goats exploring the car. The mountain goats had quite the party on the car, bouncing around and using the luggage box like a trampoline. Many speculated that the video would make a great insurance commercial. When she posted the video, Superglamp tagged Subaru of America, Inc. and Yakimaracks. What a great testimony to overall product durability! Image from TikTok. Superglamp is an adventurer; you can follow her on her TikTok channel for great content. She travels around the Colorado mountains as an all-season hiking enthusiast. If you like general content with great photography and video, follow Michael Ryno on Instagram. In today’s clip, he is responsible for the video capture of the mountain goats having a party on the car. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Subaru Withstands Vigorous Field Testing By Wild Mountain Goats appeared first on InspireMore.

Regardless of where you stand on the spider fear scale, there’s no denying that these arachnids exhibit a remarkable array of really cool behaviors. From building their own trapdoors to mimicking flowers, spiders exploit their niches with incredible adaptations. While you might think of these niches as under garden pots and the corners of your house you can’t reach with dusters, spiders have also taken to the skies.While it might be the eight legs that freak people out the most, ballooning is a somewhat different way of getting about. In the past, the ballooning method was poorly understood, thought to mainly involve the wind – even Charles Darwin himself questioned how so many spiders came to land on the HMS Beagle on a calm day. Eventually, researchers figured out that electric fields are involved. A spider holding onto a thin strand of silk senses electric fields via tiny hairs called trichobothria. When the field is strong enough, they launch themselves into the air. Which begs the question: why?Ballooning is typically seen in young spiders who need to disperse away from the hatching site to find areas without so many other spiders, such as their parents and siblings, to compete with. Being a spiderling also has the advantage of being more lightweight than a full-grown adult, and thus able to go much further. Some species are even able to disperse hundreds of kilometers using this method. Researchers have discovered another behavior known as tiptoeing, where the spider stands on the ends of its legs and holds its abdomen into the air. In an experiment, the team found spiders tip-toed and even managed to take off with no airflow, but lost the ability when the electric fields were turned off.“Previously, drag forces from wind or thermals were thought responsible for this mode of dispersal, but we show that electric fields, at strengths found in the atmosphere, can trigger ballooning and provide lift in the absence of any air movement. This means that electric fields as well as drag could provide the forces needed for spider ballooning dispersal in nature.” explains lead researcher Dr Erica Morley, an expert in sensory biophysics, in a statement in 2018. So don't worry, spider fearers – if you want to stop them ballooning into you, just find the electrical field off switch. 

Each year, the average number of people injured from lightning strikes in the US is around 243, with roughly 27 people dying as a result. With a peak temperature of 27,760°C (50,000°F) – that’s nearly five times hotter than the surface of the Sun – it is, unfortunately, unsurprising that lightning can be so deadly, but what is really happening to the human body when lightning strikes?To understand the effects of lightning strikes, we first have to understand what causes them to occur.How does lightning form?Lightning forms as a result of warm air rising and cooling to make small droplets of water that eventually form a cloud. If warm air continues to rise, these droplets combine to make larger droplets that eventually freeze to become ice crystals. As these ice crystals grow, they become too heavy to be held in the cloud and can fall to the ground as hail.As growing hail stones move around the cloud, they become negatively charged by rubbing against smaller positively charged ice crystals. As the hail collects at the base of the cloud, this area becomes negatively charged, while the lighter ice crystals remain at the top of the cloud with a positive charge.The particles with negative charges are attracted to the Earth’s surface. “Grounding objects” like trees and other tall, conductive structures reduce the distance between the negatively charged particles and the Earth’s surface, making them vulnerable to being struck. When the attraction becomes too strong, the positive and negatively charged particles discharge causing a strike of lightning. The lightning causes a rapid expansion of heat and air, which causes a loud clap of thunder.According to The Met Office, it’s estimated that lightning strikes the Earth approximately 44 times every second with nearly 1.4 billion lightning strikes annually. While rare, lightning striking humans is thought to injure around 240,000 people and kill 24,000 people each year worldwide.Lightning strike injuriesCarrying 10 million volts of energy (for reference, powerlines carry around 100,000 volts), lightning strikes can cause serious damage to most systems within the body. The most commonly affected areas are the circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems.While lightning strikes can cause brain hemorrhaging, strokes, and deep tissue injuries, the most reported deaths occur as the result of cardiac arrest where the strike’s current has disrupted the natural rhythm of the heart. Counterintuitively, administering another electric shock with a defibrillator after someone has been struck by lightning may increase their chances of survival.Lightning strikes can also cause the respiratory system to become paralyzed as a result of the strong current. To avoid suffocation, artificial respiration is required.Damage to the nervous system can often lead to keraunoparalysis – a temporary paralysis that affects the lower limbs – as well as impaired reflexes and ongoing neurological symptoms like depression and anxiety.Blown eardrums, damage to the eyes, and burns on the skin are also common due to the intense sound, light, and heat that can cause clothes and hair to catch on fire. For those who survive, it’s estimated that 74 percent suffer some form of long-term disability, with brain damage causing changes in mood and memory, and nerve damage causing chronic pain and mobility issues.While experts aren’t entirely sure what causes neurological issues from lightning injuries, it’s thought to be a result of the current causing tissue damage in the brain and the effects of blunt force trauma caused by the abrupt pressure change.“Lichtenberg figures” are also a rare side effect of lightning strikes. Created when electrical discharges pass along the surface of the skin or through insulating materials, Lichtenberg figures, or “lightning flowers”, create intricate tree-like patterns on the skin. They’re thought to occur as a result of fluid leaking into the surrounding tissue from damaged blood vessels.Types of lightning strikeThe effects of being hit by lightning can differ depending on the type of strike that impacts the victim. Categorized into five variants, some lightning strikes can be significantly more common, and more deadly, than others.Direct strikes are the least common, making up between 3 and 5 percent of strikes, but the deadliest. During a direct strike, part of the current passes through the body and part passes over the skin’s surface (called flashover). While flashover causes burns to the skin, the current that passes through the body causes the most serious damage as it travels through the cardiovascular and nervous systems. This strike tends to occur to victims who are standing in open areas where their body is the main lightning discharge channel.Side flashes, also called a “side splash”, occur when a taller object near the victim gets struck and a portion of the current jumps from the object to the person, “short-circuiting” the current. This strike tends to occur when a person has taken shelter under a tree or other large object and is within a foot or two of it.Ground currents occur when an object or the ground is struck, the current continues to travel along the ground’s surface, so anyone outside in the vicinity of a strike is at risk of being affected by the ground current. The lightning enters the body at the contact point closest to the strike point and travels through the body, exiting at the contact point furthest from the strike. The larger the distance between the contact points, the more severe the injury, making larger animals more at risk of death through ground currents. As they can affect multiple individuals at once, ground currents are one of the most common causes of lightning injury and cause the most lightning deaths. Side flashes and ground currents together make up 80 percent of lightning trauma cases.Conduction accounts for around 5 percent of lightning injuries and can affect people both inside and outside the home. They happen as the result of lightning striking something metal. While metal does not attract lightning, if it picks up any of the current from a strike it can conduct it for as long as the metal chain goes uninterrupted. This means people can be shocked through metal fencing or even a building’s plumbing and electrical systems.Streamers account for the remaining 10-12 percent of cases and can cause death and serious injury. Streamers occur when positively charged electrical forces on the ground become attracted to the negatively charged currents in the storm clouds. As the clouds release a “leader”, it typically approaches the ground and is met by a streamer to form a lighting channel. When a leader is discharged, however, all the surrounding streamers will also discharge, and if a person is part of one of the discharged streamers they can be killed or injured regardless of whether the lightning channel was completed between the streamer and the cloud.        A 2020 report also found that men make up a larger percentage of lightning strike victims, speculating that men “are unwilling to be inconvenienced by the threat of lightning, are in situations that make it difficult to get to a safe place in a timely manner, don't react quickly to the lightning threat, or any combination of these explanations.”The report looked at lightning deaths in the US between 2006 and 2019, of which there were 418 cases. Despite the common belief that golfing is the activity that puts you most at risk of lightning strikes, the report stated fishing is actually the deadliest activity with 40 deaths, followed by being at the beach, camping, and boating. Men accounted for 79 percent of all fatalities and women had fewer deaths than men in every category.For most people, there’s only a roughly 1 in 1.2 million chance of getting hit by lightning in any given year in the US, but not for ex-park ranger Roy C. Sullivan of Virginia, USA. Sullivan is the only known person to be struck by lightning seven times, between 1942 and 1977, and he survived each one.To stay safe from lightning strikes, remember that if you can hear thunder you’re probably in striking distance. Keep low, avoid tall objects, and get inside a building or car.