Cringe Inducing

Here’s a statistic that might surprise you: around one in five people in the US have a sexually transmitted infection at any one time. There’s nothing wrong or shameful about that – in this age of modern medicine, many are curable and all are treatable – but if you have one, you at least ought to know about it, right?That’s one reason why the results of a new analysis – a critical literature review some 32 papers strong from researchers at the University of Tennessee – are so worrying. According to their results, only around one-half of people who have an STI actually mention it to a prospective sexual partner. In fact, only about one-half of people think they should even have to say anything.“STI cases continue to rise annually, yet the STI disclosure literature published across the last two decades has not kept pace,” the authors write. Which is a problem – because, of course, “sexual partners […] face increased susceptibility for contracting the STI(s), if they did not already have the STI(s) and were not the individuals who transmitted it initially.”Now, perhaps you’re aghast at the one in ten people who are apparently knowingly risking others’ health in order to continue getting their rocks off – and it’s true that in some cases, “it’s just a one-night stand” was deemed reason enough to not come clean. But the overall picture is more nuanced than that, the authors found: “many individuals are not receiving sufficient comprehensive sexual health education,” they write. And the culprit? Our old friend abstinence-only sex education: “Rather than being taught how to correctly use prophylaxis, identify its limitations, and understand the scope and transmissibility of STIs, youth are only encouraged to be abstinent,” the researchers explain.That’s right: not only is it bad for your mental health, useless for stopping sex before marriage, and downright counterproductive for reducing teen pregnancies, it turns out abstinence-only sex “education” has rendered many completely ignorant of important sexual health knowledge. For example, the researchers found that many STI-positive people were under the impression that sexual activity was only risky if they were experiencing symptoms: “Many believed, especially in the case of herpes, that being asymptomatic, STI dormancy, and using prophylaxis were enough to completely prevent transmission, and this negated the necessity for them to disclose,” they noted.But of course, that’s not true. “Although the likelihood of the transmission of herpes is decreased when asymptomatic and using prophylaxis, it is still possible,” cautions the paper. The same is true of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasis, all of which can be spread without the presence of symptoms or even semen, and all of which featured heavily in the responses to various studies in the review (the most common conditions were herpes and HPV, while HIV was excluded from consideration.)Outside of simply lacking the relevant knowledge, there are other factors at play when it comes to disclosing – or not – an STI-positive status. “For some individuals, it may not be the safest decision to make,” the authors point out; for others, the psychological baggage that comes with a diagnosis is simply too great: “For many, the sexual self is ‘damaged’ upon diagnosis,” they write, “and these deeply meaningful, symbolic processes certainly influence disclosure decision-making.”So, what’s the solution? According to the researchers, a massive change in sex education is needed. “The findings from this review highlight individuals’ gaps in sexual health knowledge,” they write. “This is not surprising, particularly in the United States, as comprehensive sex education remains taboo, rather than the norm.”That’s not just a job for schools, they add: healthcare providers, especially those who deal directly with people learning their STI-positive status, should be involved too. “The advice that practitioners may give patients will vary depending on the type of STI, which can also inform disclosure-efficacy coaching. This would be an opportunity to provide counseling about how to notify their current partner and deliver treatment, encourage routine testing, and discuss disclosure strategies should future instances arise,” the authors suggest. “Regardless of the type of STI, patients could be referred to more in-depth counseling services, if necessary, to process the diagnosis and develop strategies for disclosure, should they decide to do so.”And underpinning all of this? Destigmatization – both of having an STI, and of sexual activity itself. “Providing individuals with accurate sexual health knowledge, ample opportunities for testing and treatment, and helping them build confidence in their sexual decision-making is paramount,” the researchers conclude.“Each person interested in pursuing sexual activity with another, regardless of whether they have an STI, should feel empowered to facilitate conversations about their sexual health and wellness with others, including conversations about consent, contraception, preferred sexual behaviors, sexual histories and STI status.”The review is published in The Journal of Sex Research.

The fourth test of Starship has been a success. The Starship and Super Heavy booster combo lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, at 7:50 am local time. The test was for Super Heavy to demonstrate that it could land back on Earth and for Starship to successfully reenter through the atmosphere after having gone into orbit.Neither Starship nor Super Heavy landed. They are designed to do so but it was not part of this test. Super Heavy used a virtual tower, acting like it was landing on land and reigniting the engines just above the sea of the Gulf of Mexico, demonstrating that it can be done.Starship reached an altitude of 212 kilometers (132 miles) before coming back to Earth. The ship got beat up during re-entry, with the flaps breaking apart a bit and a camera getting cracked. It safely reached terminal velocity and was able to re-orient itself and perform its first-ever landing burn, before safely splashing down.    IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Put together, Starship and Super Heavy are the biggest and most powerful rockets ever built. In total, they make up a rocket that is 122 meters (400 feet) tall. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will be used to take astronauts back to the Moon, is 98 meters (322 feet) tall. For historical comparison, Super Heavy has twice the thrust of the Saturn V, which took the astronauts of the Apollo missions to the Moon. In the future, SpaceX hopes to increase the thrust by up to three times what was achieved by Saturn V.SLS was briefly the record holder of tallest and most powerful rocket ever built. But if there is a competition, it is friendly. SLS and Starship have to work together to return astronauts to the Moon. SLS will bring the Orion capsule to Lunar orbit – a special one called the Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit – where it will encounter Starship. Starship then will ferry the astronauts to and from the Moon’s surface.Without Starship, there is currently no way of getting to the lunar surface, hence the importance of these tests for the future of lunar exploration. Starship needs to demonstrate continuous safety and success. Two more tests are expected this year but SpaceX has not yet shared any details about them.Starship has so far achieved several successes but all its flights have ended in fire. The first launch in April 2023 showed that the rocket can fly but Super Heavy and Starship couldn’t separate which led to SpaceX deliberately blowing up the rocket to keep it from veering off course.There was a lot of discussion about the first test being rushed at the behest of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who was claimed to be keen to make a weed-related joke about the launch date as it lifted off on 4/20. Another point of evidence of the rush job of the launch was the extensive damage the rocket did to Starbase – its launch platform. Its powerful engine ended up blowing out a chunk of concrete from beneath its orbital launch mount and raining debris in the vicinity. The second test was in November 2023. It was another partial success, building on the first launch. The Super Heavy booster exploded, but luckily after it had separated from Starship. But Starship too ended up going boom. Contact was lost between Starship and ground control after 9 minutes and the onboard computers exploded the ship.The third test was the closest to a complete success. It took place in March and was the farthest and fastest that Starship has ever flown. Both Super Heavy and Starship were supposed to do a soft splash landing, but neither did. Super Heavy hit the Gulf of Mexico as fast as a F1 car. Starship burned over the Indian Ocean instead of splashing down in it.  

During the mid-late Eocene epoch, 44-34 million years ago, large parts of Antarctica were ice-free, creating room for river systems now long frozen. Sediments from the Amundsen Sea came all the way from the mountain range that spans the continent, revealing there was no inland sea in between to capture them.The world was a hotter place in general 40 million years ago, but the difference was most stark in Antarctica. Great ocean currents drew warm water down from the equator to lap at its margins, before the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current blocked their passage. Consequently, while the highlands were glaciated, and the lowlands got snowy in winter, forests flourished.Forests need rain, and regular rain means rivers. However, identifying where these ran is challenging. There has been plenty of time for the landscape to change since the ice came. Consequently, we can’t just look at the current lie of the land and assume water flowed to what is now the lowest point.Drilling through all that ice to establish what it was like long ago is a challenge, but Professor Cornelia Spiegel of the University of Bremen and colleagues found an easier way to identify Antarctica’s lost rivers. They drilled into sediment around the coast using the icebreaker Polarstern.In the Amundsen Sea, the team found 17-24 meters (56-79 feet) of sediments composed of minerals that do not match those of nearby West Antarctica. Instead, these came from the Transantarctic Mountains, which divide East and West Antarctica. Unfortunately, no fossils were found in these sediments to indicate the ecosystem of the era,As their name suggests, these mountains run right across the continent, but that crossing is at right angles to a line from the South Pole to the Amundsen Sea. For the minerals to have reached there in the Eocene, they must have been carried by a river 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) long, or more if it meandered. Such a length is not exceptional – it would barely make the top 100 in the world today, but it would have dominated West Antarctica, then, as now, much smaller than its eastern counterpart.The Transantarctic debris would have been deposited into a swampy river delta, with the authors choosing the Rhine and the Rio Grande (the US/Mexico one) as modern counterparts.Mountain ranges will always produce glaciers, rivers, or both to carry the precipitation that falls on them away. However, a much shorter trip to the sea might have been expected. “The existence of such a transcontinental river system shows that – unlike today – large parts of West Antarctica must have been located above sea level as extensive, flat coastal plains,” Spiegel said in a statement.Sea levels were higher then, with much less water trapped in ice, so these West Antarctic plains must have been a fair bit higher than they are today. On the other hand, they couldn’t have been too high, or they would have been covered in ice, even under the warmer conditions of the time.For around 10 million years, a river flowed from the Transantarctic mountains to the Amundsen Sea. The route is not known, but the most likely one is outlined here.Image credit: Zundel et al., Science Advances 2024 (CC BY 4.0)Spiegel and co-authors conclude a set of events, including the depositing of sediments in the Amundsen Sea, rift-related magmatism, seafloor spreading, and the rise of the Transantarctic Mountains all started around the same time: 44-40 million years ago. This followed around 40 million years when the area had between relatively tectonically quiet. The deposition may have been stopped 34 million years ago by the onset of permanent glaciation, or by the development of a seaway closer to the mountains.Given the erosion or subsidence that has taken place since, we can’t expect the return of such a river when West Antarctica is ice-free, something that may happen disturbingly soon. Nevertheless, the authors argue that only by understanding what the world was like back then can we understand how it changed to one with permanent sheets of ice at the poles.The study is published in Science Advances.

Indigenous Americans played a more active role in shaping early trans-Atlantic trade than they are given credit for. Typically, European colonizers are seen as the main drivers of these ancient exchange networks, yet a new analysis of 370-year-old glass beads indicates that Native communities were conducting their own business transactions independently of any Old World influence.Produced in places like Venice, Paris, Amsterdam and Rouen, glass beads played a major role in shaping the interactions between early European settlers and the Indigenous communities that inhabited North America during the colonial period. However, after analyzing more than 1,000 of these European-made beads from the Western Great Lakes region, the authors of the new study found that many of these predated the arrival of the first missionaries in the area.Furthermore, chemical similarities between these beads and those found hundreds of kilometers away in Ontario indicate that they were traded between the Indigenous peoples of these two regions with no input from Europeans. More specifically, members of the Wendat Confederacy appear to have sold beads to the Anishinaabe and other First Nations around the Western Great Lakes prior to 1650, with the first Europeans arriving around 1670.Originally based in Ontario, the Wendat - or Wyandot - Confederacy saw some of its members relocate to the Western Great Lakes shortly after 1650. Beads uncovered from several Wendat sites prior this move were found to contain high levels of trace elements such as zirconium, hafnium and niobium, indicating that they were probably produced in Rouen.Tellingly, beads from pre-1650 sites in the Western Great Lakes region display this same chemical composition, which means they must have been traded to these communities by members of the Wendat Confederacy when they still lived in Ontario - or Wendake, as their territory was known.“In the Western Great Lakes, bead chemistry indicates connections to Wendake at sites that pre-date the AD 1650 westward Wyandot movements, suggesting down-the-line exchange” between these areas prior to the arrival of the first French-speaking missionaries, write the researchers. “In this way, our work provides new supporting evidence for relationships among different communities and Nations […] highlighting Indigenous participation in emergent global trade,” they add.Commenting on these insights in a statement sent to IFLScience, study author Dr Heather Walder explained that “glass beads can show how Indigenous people maintained social relationships and actively moved as strategies of resilience and resistance during the 17th century in the North American Great Lakes Region.”“In short, beads are not (just) clocks! Unlocking their chemical composition using high-tech methods can help us tell stories of the relationships among communities on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean,” she said.The study is published in the journal Antiquity.

In a recent interview on The Shawn Ryan Show, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson shared his evolving perspective on extraterrestrial life and religion. Carlson, who previously delved deeply into the subject of UFOs, revealed that he has ceased his inquiries into the topic. “I’m satisfied that I know enough; I don’t really want to know that much more,” Carlson stated. “I’ve stopped being curious about this because I don’t want to know anymore.” Carlson’s comments extended beyond extraterrestrial life to a broader discussion about religion. He noted striking commonalities among world religions and creation myths, particularly the belief that supernatural beings can take physical form. “If every culture in the world, that we know about, who’s left any kind of written or physical record is reaching the same conclusions about something, maybe there’s something there? Maybe it’s not so crazy to think that what everyone else has always thought since the beginning of time,” he reflected. Carlson also highlighted a significant shift in religious belief that he attributes to the advent of the nuclear age. “It’s only since 1945, when America dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, that people have come to think differently about religion,” he said. “From then until now, it’s just a speck of time in the continuum of history. For that one period we’ve assumed that [religion is not] true, but everyone else has assumed that it is true. I’m going with everyone else on that.” During the interview, Carlson recounted his discussions with government insiders, which profoundly influenced his views. “I was really shocked by what credible people told me,” he recalled. “I became completely satisfied that they were not lying.” Carlson had previously indicated that classified information about UFOs could have significant global repercussions if disclosed. On the Redacted podcast with Clayton and Natali Morris, he mentioned, “The more you dig into that and talk to people with actual knowledge. Again, this is another story where there are some fanciful ideas floating around but there just isn’t any evidence that they’re true. But if you talk to people who have actual knowledge of it that they gathered themselves, there are parts of that story that I do not understand at all that are really, really, really dark … That story bothers me.” His comments come in the wake of retired Maj. David Grusch’s testimony before Congress last summer, where Grusch alleged that the U.S. is hiding a long-term program focused on retrieving and reverse engineering unidentified flying objects. “I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access,” Grusch stated, according to the Associated Press. The post Tucker Carlson discusses his shift in beliefs about aliens and religion appeared first on Anomalien.com.

UFC heavyweight Curtis Blaydes said if he were a different nationality, he would likely get a bigger push from his company.Blaydes is set to fight for the UFC heavyweight title at UFC 304 against interim-champion Tom Aspinall and was a bit of a surprise booking for the promotion given the lingering fight between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic for what is considered the true heavyweight belt.The Illinois native appeared on "The MMA Hour" with Ariel Helwani to discuss the details on how the fight came to be."I knew I was an option," Blaydes said regarding his potential at getting a title shot. The fighter recognized that there were other options for the UFC, though, saying "you never know." Blaydes cited other fighters like Jones, Alex Pereira, and even seemingly retired fighter and WWE wrestler Brock Lesnar as possible options for the UFC.Then, Helwani brought up the No. 2-ranked fighter Cyril Gane, a former champion who apparently turned down the fight offer to act in a movie."What about Cyril Gane?"Helwani asked. "It comes out that they asked him too, right? So, how do you feel about them asking him and apparently he turned it down because he had a movie."'I highly doubt they pay him what you're gonna get for a title shot.'"I'm not surprised," Blaydes replied. "I've been saying for two years now he gets what he gets because he's French. He brings in all the French. If I was a Jamaican or German or just anything but just your standard American, I would be getting more push," he claimed.Gane is the only UFC titleholder to come from France and has headlined the only two UFC events to take place in the country.In September 2022, he beat Tai Tuivasa at Accor Arena in Paris, then in September 2023, he beat Sergei Spivac in the same arena."I don't mind it. It's business," Blaydes continued. He added that he didn't understand the reason why Gane would take less pay to appear in a movie."It's the marketing and that's fine, I'm happy he turned it down. I have no idea why he would turn it down even if he is in a movie, I highly doubt they pay him what you're gonna get for a title shot, but whatever. I'm just happy that I get this opportunity."The heavyweight went on to say that he feels Aspinall is the legitimate champion, and although it may upset Jones to hear, he said that he believed Aspinall to be the best heavyweight in the world right now.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Hunter Biden is in court for allegedly lying on a federal form to purchase a gun in 2018 — and he should be on trial for a lot more. “These federal level crimes again are a part of the government and media’s misdirection. They would love us to zoom in and just look at that,” Glenn Beck explains, noting that there are a whopping 170 crimes Hunter is implicated in. On October 27, 2016, Hunter was under the influence of crack when he crashed his car in Arizona on his way to rehab. Hunter then dropped off his second car at the rental facility near the airport where he accidentally left personal IDs, a crack pipe, and a bag filled with cocaine in it. Before the lab test came in proving that it was cocaine, both the city and county attorney decided not to prosecute. “Why? Would your family member ever get the same courtesy?” Glenn asks. Arizona isn’t the only state that’s let Hunter off unscathed. In Connecticut, a woman who is currently in jail for other crimes arranged a meeting with Hunter to bring him crack cocaine. Later that month, Hunter’s texts revealed he was not only consuming drugs but trafficking them — as well as arranging sex with women. “Have you heard about the Connecticut sex crimes, ‘cause the sex crimes, wow,” Glenn says. Hunter solicited a woman for sex after another woman left his room, where he then solicited two more prostitutes through an online escort service. The next day, Hunter solicited a third prostitute — but he didn’t stop there. He continued to solicit prostitutes throughout his time in Connecticut, even recording a video of him having sex with a prostitute and smoking crack. Money transfers reveal thousands of dollars paid to these prostitutes. “Is there anyone in Connecticut that would like to maybe prosecute for a crime?” Glenn asks, shocked. Hunter also took his crimes to Delaware, where he was doing drug deals — one with a registered sex offender — and smoking crack. Hunter made sure his crack use was on camera again, when he was caught naked doing the drugs at a public spa. Hunter then bought a gun and lied about his drug use, before discarding his gun in a trash can at a grocery store. As he continued his fun with more prostitutes, no arrests were made. In Florida, when Hunter sent money to a Ukrainian escort, the transfer was flagged by JP Morgan as possible human trafficking. These crimes continue across the country, with no repercussions. “One hundred seventy of these that we know of, 170 times the banks sent out an alert saying, ‘We think there’s something wrong here,” Glenn says. “These are the crimes that we know about and have clear cut evidence, like open and shut case here,” he continues, adding, “It’s weird, they see the Biden name and immediately stop pursuing the case.”

A town in Connecticut has come under fire after its council voted against raising the thin blue line flag to honor a state trooper killed in the line of duty.On the afternoon of May 30, Trooper First Class Aaron Pelletier, 34, conducted a routine traffic stop along eastbound I-84 in Southington, about 20 miles southwest of Hartford. While he was standing on the shoulder and addressing the driver whom he had just pulled over, a pickup truck suddenly swerved onto the shoulder, swiped Pelletier's police cruiser, and then struck Pelletier before speeding away.'Our flag policy prohibits us from doing anything associated with hate.'Pelletier was pronounced dead at the scene. He was a nine-year veteran of the force, a husband, and the father of two children. His K-9 partner, Roso, was in the police vehicle at the time of the crash but was not injured. — (@) Pelletier's funeral was scheduled for this past Wednesday, and Rich Bailey — a Republican member of the Wethersfield, Connecticut, town council and the son of a retired police officer — wanted his community to honor the fallen trooper. So on Monday, two days before Pelletier's funeral, Bailey proposed that the town hoist the American Blue Line flag at half-staff on Wednesday in Pelletier's memory."In my home, [the flag] means police, and they protect us, and they are our first line of defense," Bailey said. "They always are, and they’re always here, and they’re always for us."His colleagues on the council disagreed, voting 5-3 against raising the police flag. Democrat Councilman Miki Duric claimed he voted against the measure not because he has any animus against police but because municipal law requires 30 days' notice to raise a flag. "This policy is being tested at the moment. It’s not a perfect policy," Duric said. "I think this is something we should look into. In case of emergency or things like this, we can have different approach. But that’s not what policy says at the moment."Other Democrats on the council admitted that they view the thin blue line flag as a divisive symbol. Emily Zambrello even claimed that it represents "hate.""It represents racism and antagonism to many, many people, and if you don’t personally believe that, and you fly at your own house and you think it means something to you, that is much more positive," she claimed. "It’s just not how many people feel about it, it’s not appropriate to raise it over our town hall, especially when our flag policy prohibits us from doing anything associated with hate."Even Democrat Mayor Ken Lesser suggested that the police flag has been co-opted by evil-minded people. "It has now been used by white supremacist groups and other far-right types of groups," he claimed. "Even many police departments around the country and in the state of Connecticut say we don’t authorize or use that flag."As a compromise, someone suggested flying a flag to honor all first responders, but Bailey rejected that idea, Mayor Lesser claimed."All we are doing is trying to respect a fallen police officer," Bailey insisted.A prearranged Pride ceremony went on as scheduled this week but was limited in scope because of Pelletier's death. The American, POW, and Pride flags were all lowered to half-mast in his honor, according to video of the ceremony.A suspect in the crash that killed Pelletier has been arrested. Alex Oyola-Sanchez, 44, has been assessed several serious charges, including second-degree manslaughter with a motor vehicle, evading responsibility resulting in death, driving under the influence, and failing to drive in the proper lane. He remains in custody on a $5 million bond.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Tucker Carlson recently interviewed Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, 42, who was re-elected earlier this year with over 83% of the vote. Interested in possible lessons for the U.S., Carlson pressed Bukele about his successful transformation of the Latin American country from a blood-soaked gangland into the second-safest country in the Western Hemisphere. While the two discussed possible replicable successes that the United States could benefit from as well as God's role in MS-13's defeat, the Salvadoran president also obliged Carlson in providing former President Donald Trump with some advice in light of the Republican's recent conviction before a Democratic judge in a Democratic enclave on charges brought by a Democratic prosecutor. Self-congratulatory losers "What advice would you give to another former democratically elected leader seeking office who is facing jail time?" asked Carlson. After a pregnant pause, Carlson added, "Anyone, just if there was such a person." "If there was a way to stop the candidacy, then he's probably in trouble," said Bukele. "But if there's no way to stop him from competing in the election, all the things that they do to him will just give him more votes." 'They're making a huge mistake.' "That seems to be happening," Carlson replied. "Either you stop the candidacy or you let him be," said Bukele. "But just, you know, hitting him with — you're making the greatest campaign ever." When pressed on whether he thinks Democrats are conscious that their efforts to imprison the presumptive Republican nominee ahead of the general election might backfire, Bukele indicated that some are likely aware, but others are ostensibly preoccupied chasing after the admiration of their peers and congratulating themselves. "They're making a huge mistake. Huge, huge mistake," added Bukele. The Salvadoran president's suggestion that Trump might be best served leaning into Democrats' attacks so long as the attacks do not preclude him from competing in the election was far from the only insight he shared with Carlson. To replicate a 'miracle' Early in the interview, Carlson asked, "If you can fix El Salvador, what are the lessons for the rest of us? What did you do first?" 'Once you achieve peace, you can struggle for all the other things.' "You cannot do anything if you do not have peace. Right. And when I say peace, I include wars, civil wars, invasion, crime," said the president. "Once you achieve peace, you can struggle for all the other things." Blaze News previously reported that there were 51 homicides per 100,000 in 2018, the year prior to Bukele's election. Under his leadership, the homicide rate fell to 7.8, such that El Salvador witnessed fewer homicides that year (495) than were reported in Democrat-run Chicago during the same period (695). Reuters indicated that crime dropped again last year by an estimated 70%, leaving the country with a murder rate of 2.4 per every 100,000. The former "murder capital of the world" claimed earlier this month that the rate in 2024 presently now sits at two homicides per every 100,000. While Canada long had the lowest murder rate in the Americas, its rate has alternatively climbed every year from 2018 to 2022, such that it is poised to lose the top spot to El Salvador if it has not already. To bring about the peace he referenced in his conversation with Carlson, Bukele's administration waged war on terroristic gangs, cracked down on some civil rights, and tossed 1% of the adult population in jail, citing proven and alleged gang affiliations. "I can tell you the official formula [for busting the gangs] and the real formula," Bukele told Carlson. "So the official formula is that we did a plan ... that was comprised of phases. So we rolled out the first phase and then the next one, then the next one. And then gangs started attacking back, so we had to roll out everything at once." Bukele noted that the accelerated crackdown prompted by the gangs' counteroffensive ultimately worked. "In a couple of weeks the country was transformed because the gangs were not yet arrested but they were on the run," said the president. "We basically pacified the country in a couple of weeks. To successfully execute each phase, Bukele indicated he doubled the size of the army and equipped it to effectively combat the gangs. While effective strategy and force of arms were apparently the official formula for success, Bukele indicated the unofficial formula was prayer. 'Victory was because we won the spiritual war.' "It's a miracle," said Bukele. "When gangs started attacking us back, basically, they killed 87 people in three days, which for a country of 6 million people is crazy." Bukele said that this bloodletting made clear that the defeat of 70,000 gangsters, clearly willing to inflict maximum damage on the country's 6 million citizens, was an "impossible task." The president told Carlson that at the time, he met with his security Cabinet and said, "We are looking into an impossible mission here, so we pray." Sure enough, everyone present — all apparently believers — apparently asked God for wisdom, for minimal civilian casualties, and for support in their battle against MS-13, which Bukele underscored is a "satanic" gang. "Victory was because we won the spiritual war," concluded Bukele. "Because [we] didn't have competition. I mean, they were satanic. I think that made it easier." — (@) Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!