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San Francisco plots outdoor smoking ban as locals erupt

San Francisco is rolling out a sweeping outdoor smoking ban that would snuff out cigarettes on bar patios and parklets across the city.

The move has ignited outrage among local business owners, who argue the draconian measure is just the latest example of government overreach putting neighborhood bars at risk.

The controversial ordinance, being crafted by Supervisor Myrna Melgar and Dr. John Maa of the San Francisco Marin Medical Society, would require bars and taverns to follow the same smoke-free outdoor regulations already imposed on restaurants under state and local law, KTVU reported.

If passed, customers would no longer be allowed to smoke while enjoying drinks at outdoor bar spaces across the notoriously left-leaning city.

Maa, a surgeon backing the proposal, insisted the crackdown is necessary to protect patrons, workers and pedestrians from secondhand smoke.

“This is to protect the patrons of these establishments and also importantly, the employees and anyone who might be exposed to secondhand smoke,” Maa told the outlet.

He argued San Francisco should put public health ahead of business profits.

But furious bar owners have slammed the proposal as an example of heavy-handed government meddling.

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AI Is Losing The PR Battle And The Consequences Could Be Huge

Lately, when watching high-profile sporting events like the NBA Playoffs, you may have noticed a rash of commercials for artificial intelligence (AI) companies. While average commercials strive to show off new products or services or recruit new customers, these AI commercials seem to have a different primary objective. They seem to target goodwill.

Heartwarming commercials show families bonding over AI-generated memories, where AI brings life to old family photos. Emotional voice-overs promise connection, creativity, and even nostalgia. These AI companies are trying to sell people a good reputation.

This strategy should tell us something. Companies don’t often spend millions trying to make you feel good about their brand unless they know, deep down, that you don’t trust it.

Despite hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into AI development, the industry is quietly losing the battle for hearts and minds. And sentimental advertising is not doing much to fix this problem.

Rare Bipartisan Agreement on AI

A new national survey from Marquette University Law School should give the AI industry serious pause. According to the poll, roughly 70 percent of Americans believe artificial intelligence will do more harm than good for society. Even more striking, the skepticism cuts across party lines.

Poll Director Charles Franklin put it bluntly: “It really is striking … there’s pretty much bipartisan skepticism … That’s an awful lot of partisan agreement, where we normally see Republicans and Democrats on opposite ends.”

In today’s political climate, bipartisan agreement on anything is rare. On AI, however, Americans seem united, just not in the way Silicon Valley might hope.

Worse yet is the fact that this poll supports similar findings on AI skepticism from numerous other surveys. A particularly damning NBC News poll from last month showed that AI’s net favorability rating ranked lower than nearly every other topic.

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Caught On Tape: California Billionaire Tax Architect Admits Wealth Confiscation Could Go Even Further

One of the co-authors of California’s controversial ‘one-time’ tax on billionaires appeared to suggest that the levy could extend beyond a single imposition.

Marxist economics professor Emmanuel Saez, who hails from France, made the comment during a Tuesday debate against economist Arthur Laffer at the University of California, Berkeley.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a one-time tax. Because you can’t surprise billionaires more than once,” Saez said. “Even then, maybe some of them were expecting something like this. So, it’s going to be a debate about this time, you know, a permanent wealth tax at a low rate that’s going to last for a number of years.”

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Mayor Overruled After He Dissolved Entire Police Force Following Dispute with His Wife

Municipal government is usually defined by procedure, paperwork, and painfully slow decision-making.

Not in the small town of Cohutta, Georgia.

In the span of a little over a week, the town went from a workplace mediation involving the mayor’s wife, to the firing of the entire police department, to an emergency public meeting that reinstated every officer almost as quickly as they had been dismissed.

According to WRCB-TV, the issue originally began between local officers and Cohutta Mayor Ron Shinnick’s wife.

Several officers had filed complaints about Shinnick’s wife, Pam, who had previously been relieved from her duties as town clerk for creating a hostile work environment.

The officers alleged that Pam still had access to private town information and other sensitive data.

This would eventually lead to formal mediation resolving the matter, and the town attorney assuring the local police officers that their jobs were not in any sort of danger.

About a week later, by Wednesday morning, Shinnick had dissolved the entire department.

When asked by WDEF-TV about the abrupt nature of the dissolution — and whether he was concerned about the livelihoods of these officers — Shinnick largely waved both concerns off.

“Well, I don’t think it’s that dire at all,” he said. “They’ll get a paycheck. We’re not that way, and I appreciate their service, okay? It is time for a change.”

Shinnick further compared the chaotic ordeal to sports: “It’s a guy thing. You know, occasionally, college football programs, you have to change the coach, and some people like it, some don’t. And that’s just kind of the way it happens sometimes, you know?”

That mayor’s words didn’t land with many of the officers.

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Iranian Agent in the U.S. Coordinates Arms Pipeline Fueling the Sudan War

On the night of April 18, federal agents intercepted Shamim Mafi at Los Angeles International Airport as she attempted to board a flight to Istanbul. The 44-year-old Iranian national and U.S. permanent resident was arrested on charges of trafficking arms on behalf of the Iranian government. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli stated that she is charged with “brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan.” She has pleaded not guilty. Her trial is scheduled for June 23.

In addition to alleged arms trafficking, the case has uncovered a logistics network that has been moving Iranian weapons through Sudan for more than a decade. The pipeline has survived Israeli airstrikes and the Abraham Accords and is now operating at a scale that dwarfs anything previously prosecuted in a U.S. courtroom.

Court records show Mafi brokered a contract worth more than $72.5 million for Mohajer-6 armed drones from Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, destined for Sudan’s Ministry of Defense. Beyond the drones and 55,000 bomb fuses, the complaint alleges she arranged the sale of 500 non-guided aerial bombs, 70,000 AK-47s, 250 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 1,000 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and 500,000 rockets.

Mafi allegedly operated through an Oman-registered front company, Atlas International Business LLC, which received more than $7 million in payments in 2025 alone. The payments were structured to evade detection. Some funds were transferred through informal hawala money-exchange systems operating across the Middle East and Africa, while other amounts moved through banks in Dubai and Turkey. Additional payments were reportedly delivered in crates of $100 bills.

Search-warrant records show nearly 62 bidirectional contacts between Mafi and an officer from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) between December 2022 and June 2025. During interviews with FBI agents, Mafi acknowledged the contact.

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New York Times announces the end of the climate change hoax

For almost the entirety of the half century I have lived on Earth, I have had experts, teachers, politicians and activists hectoring me about how climate change is going to destroy the planet. But this week, in The New York Times, of all places, is evidence that climate alarmism is finally cooling down.

“Democrats Do Not Have To Campaign On Climate Change Anymore,” blared the headline, this week, as author Matt Huber argues that voters are rather turned off by the subject. I would like to suggest that this is because it is the single most expensive lie in human history.

In elementary school, I endured warnings of a coming ice age, then by high school it was global warming that was minutes away from ending humanity. By the time I was an adult, the warming having failed, surprisingly, to occur, we settled on “climate change,” as the vague name for the inevitable apocalypse.

In 2018, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was coming into prominence, she told us that we had a mere 12 years to fix the climate problem or we would all die. In that time, untold trillions of dollars have been spent by the government, along with basically every business in the country, to hold the weather at bay, even though every prediction the alarmists have made has fallen flat.

Miami, my friends, is not underwater.

It’s not just the expense of climate alarmism, it’s what it has kept us from doing, as well. How much would a gallon of gas cost today had we been drilling for oil instead of pretending the “emergency” meant we all had to switch to electric cars by next Tuesday?

With precious few exceptions, every single thing in our lives has been made much more expensive by the cult of climate and its constant lamentations about the end of days. Entire generations of our youth have been terrorized, just as their parents were by nuclear bomb drills, into thinking they may be the last human beings to ever live.

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Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Name Pops Up MULTIPLE Times in $250 MILLION Feeding Our Future Fraud Emails – Including One Titled “Ilhan’s Office” – But the Radical Squad Member REFUSES to Turn Over Documents to Minnesota Investigators

Fresh court exhibits from the massive $250 MILLION Feeding Our Future fraud trial have revealed that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s name appeared MULTIPLE times in email chains and text messages with convicted fraudster Aimee Bock, the mastermind behind the largest COVID-era fraud scheme targeting children’s nutrition programs.

According to trial exhibits unsealed in Aimee Bock’s case, Omar’s office was directly involved in communications with the fraud ring.

According to resurfaced trial exhibits from Bock’s 2025 conviction on wire fraud, conspiracy, and bribery charges, one email chain between Bock and Omar’s office was literally titled “Ilhan’s Office.”

Another email from February 2021 carried the subject line “help with USDA food program,” right in the middle of the massive scam that funneled hundreds of millions in federal pandemic funds to fake meal sites, luxury cars, jewelry, and overseas real estate, according to the New York Post.

Text messages recovered during a raid of Bock’s Minnesota home also show direct communication between the fraudster and Omar’s congressional staff.

More from the Post:

A few days after Bock’s email to Omar, on Feb. 28, Bock exchanged messages with Abdikerm Eidleh, a Feeding Our Future employee who fled the country after he was indicted in 2022. The subject line of their emails was “Ilhan’s Office,” according to the court documents.

While the list of exhibits is public, the contents have been sealed by the court.

The exhibits also include a text message string between Bock and Omar, which was uncovered during a raid of Bock’s Minnesota house, records show.

Bock has been leaking documents from behind bars through her college-age son ahead of her sentencing to try to shift some of the blame to elected officials, Minnesota federal prosecutors have alleged.

It’s unclear if those leaked documents were related to Omar.

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Soaring Death Toll In Lebanon As Full-Fledged Israel, Hezbollah Fighting Returns

Full-fledged war has returned to Lebanon as the government has announced that at least 23 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes on Saturday alone. 

Stretching back into Friday, this brings the total death count to at least 50 killed over the past 24 hours of Israeli bombings, also as Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) late on Saturday said rescue operations were still ongoing for bystanders missing underneath the rubble.

Heavy bombing has not ceased in southern Lebanon, as the Israeli military says it’s trying to root out and destroy Hezbollah, including raids on the districts of Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil and Sidon, among others. Several were also killed in Tyre on Friday.

But Israeli forces have also absorbed casualties, with The Times of Israel describing the following serious drone strikes launched from Lebanon:

On Saturday, the terror group launched several salvos of explosive-laden drones and rockets at Israeli forces. One drone struck Israeli territory, close to the border with Lebanon, seriously injuring a reservist soldier and moderately wounding a reservist officer and another reservist soldier.

The troops were taken to Galilee Medical Center, which said the seriously wounded soldier underwent surgery and was now stable in the intensive care unit. The moderately wounded troops were scheduled for surgery later.

In another incident, the military said an explosive drone struck an unmanned engineering vehicle in southern Lebanon, causing damage. No injuries were caused.

There are reports of the IDF issuing evacuation orders for various areas, only to attack the so-called safe zones. For example the below comes via Israeli sources:

“In light of the Hezbollah terror organization’s violations of the ceasefire agreement, the IDF is forced to act against it with force and does not intend to harm you,” warned army spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee.

Meanwhile, Lebanese media reported that Israeli airstrikes on Saturday killed at least 12 people, including in areas where no evacuation orders were issued.

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Iran Has Nuclear Energy, Not Nuclear Weapons

Last week, on May 5, 2026, President Trump told a group of young children in the Oval Office that “we have to make a journey down to Iran to take the nuclear weapon. They would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks.”

Trump also told the children, “Iran with a nuclear weapon…maybe we wouldn’t all be here right now… I can tell you, the Middle East would have been gone. Israel would have been gone. And they would have trained their sights on Europe, first, and then us.”

According to the White House website, Trump warned Iran against having nuclear weapons on 74 occasions prior to the war.  Since the war began on February 28, 2026, Trump has discussed Iranian nuclear issues in at least 20 documented public appearances, based on the Senate Democrats’ Trump transcript archive and Roll Call’s Factbase transcript database.

Some of Trump’s more pointed claims:

About six weeks into the current war, on April 16, 2026, Trump said Iran “would have had a nuclear weapon within one month” if the U.S. had not used B-2 bombers to strike Iranian civilian nuclear energy facilities during the June 2025 war on Iran.

About one month after the war began, Trump said on March 27, 2026, “the Iranian lunatics refused to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons” after the June 2025 war.

And on February 24, 2026, just four days before starting the current war in Iran, Trump said that Iran was “warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, and in particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue. They’re starting it all over…”.

Trump’s statements go beyond saying ‘Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.’ He has repeatedly claimed that Iran was weeks away from having one, that U.S. strikes stopped Iran from obtaining one, and that Iran was trying to rebuild or continue a nuclear weapons program.

But Trump’s claims are not supported by the record. In fact, official statements from U.S. intelligence, the State Department, the IAEA, and others state that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, is not currently building one, and does not seek to build one.

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Rutherford County Library ‘Book Ban’ Investigation: Books Moved, Director Fired

The library board voted that a collection of children’s books featuring LGBT content was to be pulled from the shelves of the Rutherford County, Tenn., library’s children’s section. The books in question would be transferred to the adult section, but the library would not remove the titles altogether.

Former library director Luanne James intentionally left the books in the children’s section instead, keeping them there because of her First Amendment-related beliefs. Ms. James was fired as a consequence of intentionally disobeying the library board’s decision.

The board met to resolve the book issue on March 16, and Ms. James lost her job on March 30.

Oddly enough, she had just been onboarded in July 2025 and moved to the Rutherford County Library System from the York County Library System in South Carolina. The library found an interim director to replace Ms. James until someone applies to take her position. 

Sixty-three percent of Rutherford County residents are Christian, but a tiny 8% of the full U.S. population is LGBT, as per the Pew Research Center.

A growing population does not enjoy LGBTQIA+ themes in books whose target demographic is children. Heather Cook, who lives in Rutherford County, claimed to be “standing for the truth in opposition to the deception of transgender ideology and gender confusion.” Fellow Rutherford County citizen Emily Adams said, “If parents want their children to have access to these books, they don’t even need to go to the library. They can buy it on Amazon, or they can check them out themselves and bring them home.” 

From Richard Land’s Christian Post article, county news reports, and the Pew Research Center, one may infer that many Christians in Rutherford disapprove of surprise LGBT themes in reading materials. 

Rutherford is conservative and the fifth-largest Tennessee county as of 2026. This county is close to the metropolis of Nashville and includes bustling, populous cities, such as Murfreesboro and Smyrna. Of all Rutherford County’s cities, Murfreesboro has the largest population. 

Interestingly, 66.1% of Rutherford County citizens voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election cycle. At that time, Rutherford was the fourth-largest county. 

According to the Associated Press and the Christian Post, 132 books were relocated.

One rough count taken from the Rutherford County Library Board meeting minutes contained 124 books total and the motivations behind the censorship. Almost all of them were censored on the grounds that the content “promotes gender confusion,” and approximately 79% of those books were specifically flagged for LGBT themes. Eight other books were censored for violent passages, while an additional 10 were removed for mature themes.

The meeting minutes handout contained 33 pages of large spreadsheets organizing the books by reasons for censorship and their target demographics. The spreadsheets were each a page wide. 

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