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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a new job to add to his long resume of Trump administration responsibilities: wedding DJ.

Mike Brown is bringing a second pair of glasses to the second round.

The incident comes as a bizarre new TikTok trend -- dubbed "Scientology speed running" -- has seen thrill-seeking influencers charging into properties owned or tied to the Church of Scientology.

DOJ Releases Report Alleging Anti-Christian Bias Under Biden

Authored by Savannah Halsey Pointer via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on April 30 released a 500-page report detailing alleged anti-Christian bias on the part of the Biden administration.

According to the report by the DOJ’s Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, the former administration’s prosecutions, policies, and practices constituted bias throughout multiple agencies, in accordance with the administration’s priorities.

The task force is chaired by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“No American should live in fear that the federal government will punish them for their faith,” Blanche said. “As our report lays out, the Biden Administration’s actions devastated the lives of many Christian Americans.”

Around 200 pages of the report are dedicated to the actions of more than 17 federal agencies that uncovered alleged religious discrimination. The investigation included a review of internal discussions and case files, as well as prosecutorial decisions.

There were details of a since-retracted 2023 FBI memo on “radical traditionalist” Catholics, which cited the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The review also listed Biden-era regulations on abortion, contraception, gender, and human sexuality, among other issues that pitted the government against religious groups.

The report also makes note of the Biden administration’s reading of the 2019 Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which led to decisions that were based on what the Trump administration report called “sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools and sports.”

According to the DOJ report, the previous administration used the FBI, IRS, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and other agencies to monitor, investigate, and apply pressure to various Christian groups at a federal level.

The current DOJ’s task force was formed in accordance with President Donald Trump’s Feb. 6, 2025, executive order titled Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.

The president ordered multiple agencies to investigate what he called an “egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses.”

Conflicting Response

This is a “very different Department of Justice ... than the previous administration,” said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers.

“The conclusion in the report, at least from an enforcement perspective, was that ... federal law was disproportionately used to prosecute pro-life and other Christians under the Biden administration,” he told The Epoch Times.

However, Rahmani, who worked at the DOJ from 2009 to 2012, said that while policies change, he has not seen a “systematic bias for or against” any one religious group.

“I don’t necessarily see ... [that] Christian activists in this country are receiving more prison time for violent acts, as opposed to, you know, Muslim or other religious groups.”

According to Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, director of the Conscience Project, the report “calls out the brazen assault against religious freedom by the former administration for what it was: a failure of constitutional and statutory duty.”

Picciotti-Bayer said in an emailed statement that the Biden administration disregarded “fundamental guarantees” in the First Amendment and federal civil rights law, and treated “sincere religious objections as obstacles to overcome, prosecuting peaceful prayer, trampling on parental rights and steamrolling conscience rights.”

The Interfaith Alliance, however, which states its mission is to “challenge Christian nationalism and religious extremism,” responded to the DOJ report, saying their group has “consistently opposed the work of this ‘task force.’” It accused the DOJ of trying to “undermine Americans’ religious freedom and First Amendment rights.”

The alliance called the task force’s report a “political stunt designed to promote the lie that American Christians are a persecuted group, while providing justification to target anyone deemed out of step with their Christian nationalist agenda.”

Previous Report

This report comes just weeks after an 800-page report from the department, detailing the “weaponization” of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which called out alleged prosecutorial problems, surveillance activities undertaken by pro-abortion groups, and failures to comply with federal law.

Biden’s DOJ did not enforce the law evenly, according to the April 14 report.

The task force under the Biden administration treated pro-life groups differently from pro-abortion groups, outlining disproportionate coordination with pro-abortion groups that, according to the report, indicated bias and prosecutorial overreach.

In her statement, Picciotti-Bayer said, “Religious freedom isn’t a courtesy the government extends—it’s a legal check on what government can do. It’s refreshing to see that recognized today.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 22:10

It was nearly an improbable victory for the Celtics, nearly managing to snag a Game 7 victory without superstar Jayson Tatum.

The only thing keeping the US economy from falling off a cliff is AI spending.

A blaze engulfed the science lab on Saturday night, risking the loss of decades of research.

The US Spends More On 'Defense' Than The Next 8 Countries Combined

For the first time on record, the top 15 military spenders allocated more than $2 trillion to defense in 2025.

Total global defense spending also reached a record $2.6 trillion, signaling a major shift in geopolitical priorities.

Using data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, this visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, ranks the 15 countries driving this surge in military spending.

While the U.S. still operates on an entirely different scale, the biggest shift is happening in Europe, where countries are no longer just maintaining military capacity but expanding it significantly.

The $2 Trillion Arms Race: Defense Spending by Country

The U.S. defense budget reached $921 billion in 2025, larger than the combined military spending of China, Russia, Germany, the UK, India, Saudi Arabia, France, and Japan.

Looking ahead, Donald Trump has proposed increasing defense spending to $1.5 trillion by 2027, although this plan has not been enacted. If realized, this would represent roughly 90% higher spending than the Cold War peak in real terms.

China ranked second globally with $251.3 billion in defense spending in 2025. Its share of Asia’s military spending has climbed to 44%, up from 39% in 2017, highlighting its expanding regional influence.

Below is the breakdown of the 15 nations with the largest defense budgets in 2025.

Russia’s defense budget reached $186.2 billion in 2025, rising by more than $40 billion in a single year and equivalent to 7.3% of GDP.

However, spending is expected to decline in 2026, the first drop since the invasion of Ukraine. With a growing deficit, the country faces mounting economic pressure, though higher oil prices have recently provided some relief.

Europe’s Expanding War Chest

With Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and pressure from the U.S., European NATO members have committed to spending 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035.

This would translate to roughly $1.2 trillion by 2035, the largest defense buildup among these countries since the Cold War.

Outside of Russia, Europe holds six of the world’s 15 largest defense budgets, led by Germany ($107.3 billion) and the UK ($94.3 billion). Both countries increased spending by tens of billions between 2024 and 2025.

What was once gradual growth has become a sharp acceleration, making defense one of the fastest-growing spending categories across advanced economies.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the world’s largest armies in 2026.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 21:35

A sea of vivid purple lupine carpet the Bald Hills near the Lyons Ranch Trailhead in northern California, where the flowers are expected to last through May. 

The Rangers filled their director of player development role internally.

The big winner of UCLA’s spring football game was anyone looking for signs of life in the program.

The event also hosted Dirty Lola, a Netflix-featured "pleasure expert," who fielded anonymous questions from eager attendees ranging from relationship advice to kink curiosities.

Reseda neighbors have had it with a naked man terrorizing the community but the LAPD says he hasn't committed any crimes.

Alaska Governor Vetoes Election Reform Bill Due To 'Significant Operational Burdens'

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a major election reform bill on April 30, arguing it would place “significant operational burdens” on the state’s Division of Elections months before high-stakes statewide and federal contests.

Alaska Gov. Michael Dunleavy in Washington on Oct. 29, 2019. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

The bill, at least a decade in the making, sought to allow absentee and other ​voters track their ballots and see when they had been received and ​counted.

Dunleavy announced the veto of Senate Bill 64 after the measure arrived following its passage in both chambers of the legislature.

The legislation, which had won bipartisan support in the state’s House of Representatives and Senate, also sought to expand acceptable voter identification, modify voter roll ⁠maintenance, change the absentee ballot timeline, and create a rural community liaison position.

“Going forward, I encourage those who wish to continue this work to use this bill as a starting point to ensure that any proposed changes comply with state and federal law and pass any election legislation on a timeline that allows the Division of Elections to develop, test, and implement the necessary systems properly,” Dunleavy said in an April 30 statement. “While the Alaska gasline bill is the most important bill this session, I am open to a conversation with lawmakers on how we can address the legal and operational issues this session.”

In his veto letter, the Republican governor noted his misgivings about provisions requiring expanded ballot tracking and the curing of minor errors on mail-in ballots. He said such changes would be particularly difficult to implement securely and reliably ahead of the November elections.

“Taken as a whole, the bill would impose significant operational burdens on the administration of Alaska’s elections during an election year,” Dunleavy wrote. The Division of Elections had warned such mid-cycle alterations would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible,” to complete without risking reliability.

House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, an independent, said the veto was disappointing.

“This was a bipartisan effort to address the real challenges of voting in a state as vast, rural, and remote as Alaska,” Edgmon said in a statement. “Alaskans deserve a system that reflects our unique geography, not one that ignores it. This veto does exactly that.”

State Sen. Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat from North Anchorage and one of the bill’s key sponsors, said in a post on social media that the legislation was a “decade in the making, passed with broad bipartisan support, and reflected the governor’s own stated priorities.”

He said the veto also blocks efforts to strengthen voter ID rules.

“The Governor’s veto also blocks tightening of voter ID laws that would have limited acceptable IDs to government-issued identification,” Wielechowski added.

The legislature will have an opportunity to override the veto in the future.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 21:00

An old but memorable view holds that “an ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.”

The way things are going for the Yankees rotation, allowing one earned run in five-plus innings nearly qualifies as a disappointment.

It looked like a home run. Sounded like a home run. Heliot Ramos thought it was gone. So did the Giants' broadcasters.

President Trump said he is reviewing Iran's latest proposal for ending the war as tensions with the Islamic Republic continue to mount.

Darrell was found dead at his home in Arizona on April 22.

Darrell was found dead at his home in Arizona on April 22.