Democratic socialist NYC mayoral nominee yanked from podium while answering questions
An endorsement event for Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, came to an abrupt end Monday when he was pulled offstage by a campaign aide.
After accepting the American Federation of Musicians, Local 802’s endorsement, Mamdani answered a few questions about former Gov. Andrew Cuomo deciding to stay in the race as an independent candidate and his upcoming meeting with House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
About 20 minutes into the event, before Mamdani could continue answering reporters’ questions, his campaign staffers stepped in to say: “I think we’re done here. We’re going to go. Come on. We’re wrapping up, folks. Sorry folks. We’re wrapping up.”
But Mamdani stood by the podium, attempting to hear the reporters’ questions over the chorus of campaign aides’ voices, until the band on site for the event began playing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” With a smile on his face, Mamdani was pulled away when a campaign aide grabbed his arm.
MAMDANI LANDS ENDORSEMENT OF A TOP CUOMO BACKER IN NYC MAYORAL PRIMARY
Mamdani has kept a busy campaign schedule since securing the Democratic nomination last month.
MAMDANI’S PRIMARY WIN EXPOSES DEMOCRAT DIVIDE AS TOP LEADERS WITHHOLD ENDORSEMENTS
He has hosted several endorsement events, including from the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and New York Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat. The campaign has opened up questions to reporters at the end of these endorsement events.
The 33-year-old candidate is expected to host an event with fellow self-described democratic socialist, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Mamdani ahead of his primary win last month.
And during the endorsement event Monday, Mamdani confirmed his meeting with Jeffries later this week. Jeffries told Fox News Digital he would meet with Mamdani at home in Brooklyn at the end of the week.
The House Minority Leader has yet to endorse Mamdani since he secured the Democratic nomination.
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“I’m looking forward to that meeting with Congressman Jeffries,” Mamdani said Monday before adding, “I’m looking forward to being a partner to Congressman Jeffries in winning back the House and continuing to fight back against Donald Trump’s agenda, and in delivering, at the same time, for New Yorkers across the five boroughs.”
Christian coffee shop owner helping homeless faces protests in far-left city
Jamie Sanchez has felt a calling to serve the homeless ever since he was a child. But he never imagined that following that calling would lead to him being labeled a bigot.
“It was really strange, actually, because we all of a sudden started getting like messages on Instagram about how we hate gay people and just like random comments like that,” Sanchez told Fox News Digital. “And come to find out there was like an organized group ready to protest the opening of our café before we even open. We did some digging, and we found out it was strictly because we were Christian.”
Sanchez is the owner of The Drip Café in Denver, located in the Art District on Santa Fe Drive. He also runs a homeless ministry called “Recycle God’s Love,” that he started in 2012 with his late wife, Carolyn, who died from cancer in 2018. What began as a small group offering Bible studies and meals to the homeless has grown into a widespread community initiative, involving churches, local businesses, and volunteers, providing hundreds of people with everything from haircuts to food to clothing and housing.
“Over the years, it has just grown into just an amazing community of believers and people who really have a heart to help people who are in need and to do it selflessly,” Sanchez told Fox News Digital.
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In 2022, Sanchez took the ministry a step further by launching “Project Revive,” a faith-based initiative designed to support homeless individuals seeking to rebuild their lives. The program helps the homeless access housing, transportation, identification, addiction counseling, and jobs — grounded in Christian discipleship.
As part of this mission, Sanchez opened The Drip Café the next year. It’s a regular coffee shop that also hires and mentors individuals who have completed the ministry’s program, and are sober and ready to reintegrate into the workforce.
“We’ve had a few people go through the project so far, and it’s been very successful,” he said.
However, even before The Drip Café opened its doors, Sanchez says they began receiving social media messages accusing the café of being anti-gay. On the opening day, protesters, organized by a local group called the Denver Communists, held signs and passed out flyers accusing the coffee shop of being run by a “right-wing church” that hated those in the LGBTQ community.
“I was in shock,” Sanchez recalled. “Our whole purpose opening the café was to serve the homeless community and help people get off the street, change their lives. And here we got a group who just hates us because we’re doing that, and we’re Christian.”
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The group objected to Recycle God’s Love calling homosexuality a sin in its mission statement.
They protested outside the café every weekend initially. Now, about 10–20 people protest outside their shop every first Friday of the month during the area’s art walk event.
Despite attempts to engage with them peacefully, Sanchez says he’s been met mostly with silence or shouting.
He said protesters followed two elderly women into the store one time and screamed at a blind Christian DJ on another occasion.
“Here’s this group trying to act inclusive, and they are harassing a Black blind guy in front of my café because he’s Christian,” he said.
SEATTLE COFFEE SHOP OWNER WHO HAD CITY EVENT CANCELED BY LGBTQ BACKLASH DEFENDS HIS FAITH
His property has been vandalized, windows broken and “Keep Santa Fe Gay” stickers have been left on windows and mirrors. Recently, a spray-painted image of a KKK member hanging was left on the café’s front door.
The Christian shop owner maintains he harbors no hatred toward the protesters. He sees the backlash as part of a spiritual battle. After finding no help from local authorities, he and his team chose to hold live worship music in the café every first Friday to help “drown out” the commotion outside.
“I love them even though they don’t believe me and I’ve never shown anything but love to them and that’s why the only pictures they have of me is praying for them,” he told Fox News Digital. “I understand that they feel like they are having an identity crisis, and they might feel hopeless and lost and the only way to rectify that feeling is through the Son of God who is Jesus Christ.”
The Denver Communists told Fox News Digital they were not protesting the café strictly because it is Christian, but because of its religious beliefs on sexuality.
“There are plenty of Christian denominations that don’t share their bigoted view, such as the ELCA [Evangelical Lutheran Church in America] and we’ve been joined by pastors and many Christians in our protests. Since then Drip has doubled down on its homophobic position,” a spokesperson for the group said. “Jamie and his bigoted coffee shop don’t have a monopoly on Christianity, but he sure is willing to try and profit off of it.”
The communists say they view the protests as part of a “broader struggle” against forces like the Trump administration, which they say is attacking LGBTQ+ rights.
“We may not succeed in running the Drip out of town before the end of its lease, but that is ultimately irrelevant. The protests against the hate-café are serving as a training ground for new queer-rights activists, the message of queer liberation is being spread, and our ultimate victory, while delayed, is inevitable,” the group wrote in a blog post shared with Fox News Digital.
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The group also claimed Sanchez was affiliated with neo-Nazis and said they’d been subjected to slurs and threats by staff, which Sanchez adamantly denied. He disavowed any hate shown to the protesters by others outside his café and claimed the communists had spread lies about him and his shop.
“The communists have told me I’m not welcome, told me to kill myself, and my response is, ‘I love you, and you are welcome to come in peacefully.’ We have offered them free coffee and food on cold days,” he told Fox News Digital. “It’s very silly of them to say I am part of a Nazi group, considering I am a brown-skinned Hispanic.”
Left-wing accounts cheer as Vance’s children face hostile crowd at Disneyland
Left-wing Bluesky accounts defended Vice President JD Vance’s young children facing jeers and boos during their trip to Disneyland over the weekend.
Vance was with his wife Usha and their children at the California amusement park where they faced cheers and boos from park attendees. Their trip also drew a large protest outside the Grand Californian Hotel and along Disney Way over the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
As news about people booing Vance and his family, including his children, spread on the social media site Bluesky, some users encouraged the jeers for the kids to learn that their dad “is a piece of s—.”
DEMS RUN TO THE BLUESKY BLOCK BUTTON AS VANCE TROLLS THEM ON THEIR OWN VIRTUAL TURF FOR SOLID WEEK
“People who feel bad for JD Vance’s kids as family gets booed at Disneyland. I get it, but better those kids know now what their father is about. Other kids are watching their parents get shipped off to gulags,” Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery wrote.
She added, “Also, JD Vance knows he’s going to be booed at Disneyland or the Kennedy Center or wherever. He doesn’t have to go with his kids, but…he probably wants the optics of his family being booed. So…yeah.”
“He uses his kids as human shields,” former Ohio congressional candidate Shannon Freshour replied, linking to a story about Vance being confronted by pro-Ukrainian protesters while with his young daughter.
“This is gonna sound snarky but if your dad is a piece of s— it’s better to realize it sooner rather than later,” former HuffPost reporter Michael Hobbes wrote.
University of Washington associate professor and astrophysicist Sarah Tuttle commented, “[I]t turns out finding out that JD vance is being booed in Downtown Disney is exactly the news I needed.”
“Also, unless those kids have burner accounts on bluesky, hearing ordinary people boo is literally the only way they will learn he’s a piece of s—,” author Elon Green wrote.
The Vance’s three children are 3, 5 and 8 years old.
Fox News Digital reached out to Vance’s team for comment.
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One of the more notable critics of Vance’s Disneyland trip included California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who attacked Vance on X over the Trump administration’s recent ICE raids in the state.
“Hope you enjoy your family time, @JDVance. The families you’re tearing apart certainly won’t,” Newsom wrote.
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The vice president responded by thanking Newsom for the well-wishes without addressing the governor’s comment about families being separated.
“Had a great time, thanks,” Vance wrote back.
‘Useful idiots’: Israeli-Arab activist blasts ‘Squad’ for twisting Middle East facts
Members of the “Squad” are undermining coexistence between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, Israeli-Arab activist Yoseph Haddad told Fox News Digital.
“Representatives of the Squad are trying to harm the coexistence and partnership that exist in the region between Arabs and Jews,” Haddad said. “I think it was [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez herself who said she had no idea about the geopolitics of this region—she’s right. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib know exactly what’s going on here, but they decide to lie and twist the facts.”
Haddad, the CEO of Together Vouch for Each Other — an organization founded in 2018 by young Israeli Arabs to bridge cultural and religious divides — has emerged as a prominent voice in Israel’s public diplomacy efforts following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre.
Since the attack, Jewish communities across the United States and Europe have faced a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents, with pro-Hamas demonstrations appearing on college campuses as early as October 8.
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“The first group is what I call the useful idiots — people who have no idea what’s going on but joined because it felt like the cool thing to do,” Haddad said. “Then there are the paid protesters. You see the same faces at different rallies holding different signs — sometimes it’s about LGBTQ issues, sometimes it’s pro-Palestinian, sometimes it’s about internal American problems.”
“It’s always the same person, just a different outfit and a different sign,” he continued. “And the third group — the most dangerous—are the extremists who’ve come from the Middle East. Those are the ones we should be most concerned about.”
Haddad traced the rise of extremist voices in the West to waves of immigration and population displacement from conflict zones in the Middle East. While the majority of Muslim immigrants fled persecution in search of a better life, he said, a vocal minority brought with them the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, effectively holding their communities hostage.
“When you have so many immigrants all around the world, it’s enough for 10 or 20 percent of them to be extremists — and suddenly, you’re dealing with millions of extremists,” he said.
“Ostriches, when there is a danger and there is a problem, what they do is they stick their head in the sand thinking the problem will just pass because nobody will notice them,” he added. “And this is what the weak governments are doing right now, becoming like an ostrich. The only problem is that no one will skip them over, it will make it easier to chop their heads off.”
Addressing accusations that Israel enforces an apartheid system between Jews and Arabs, Haddad rejected the comparison outright.
HARVARD DEAN’S COUNCIL MEMBER RESIGNS FROM POST AFTER LAWSUIT CLAIMS HE ‘AIDED AND ABETTED’ HAMAS
“In real apartheid, like in South Africa, everything was segregated — transportation, hospitals, courts, sports, even walking on the sidewalks,” Haddad said. “But if you actually come to Israel and see life here, it’s the complete opposite — 180 degrees different.”
“Stop speaking from a place of emotion — that’s exactly what The Squad is doing,” he continued. “Start talking about facts. Then you’ll realize that anyone who concludes Israel is an apartheid state is an imbecile.”
He also mentioned a run-in he had with a protester, who he refers to as “the useful idiots.”
They have no clue … One time, I read the charter of Hamas to some pro-Palestinian useful idiot, I read it to them, and I said you agree to this, and they said no, no, no I didn’t know that. And I said yes, but this is what you are supporting, and he had the headband of Hamas on his head. You understand that this is what you are supporting.
“He literally took the band off after that. Such useful idiots like this you have a lot, not just in the United States, you can see it in Europe as well.”
When asked what he believes the Palestinians ultimately want, Haddad pointed to slogans often heard at anti-Israel and antisemitic protests, such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “There is only one solution: Intifada revolution.”
“The majority of Palestinians do not want to live side by side with Israel,” Haddad said. “So when people talk about a two-state solution and question Israel’s commitment, I say: Don’t ask the Israelis — ask the Palestinians. You’ll be shocked to find that many of them aren’t willing to accept it.”
Haddad pointed out that history can be approached in multiple ways — through religious texts like the Torah for Jews, the Bible for Christians and the Quran for Muslims. Even those who are atheists can look to history books for evidence of the deep-rooted connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.
Haddad argued that the Torah explicitly mentions the presence of Jews in Israel, tracing their presence back thousands of years. He also highlighted the Biblical reference to the birthplace of Jesus in Jewish Bethlehem, challenging the notion that Palestinian Muslims have a historical claim to the land before the Jews.
Haddad noted that while Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Quran, the term “sons of Israel” appears more than 43 times. He also emphasized that the name “Palestine” was imposed by the Romans as a punishment for the Bar Kokhba revolt.
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Haddad highlighted that in 1947, Arabs had the opportunity to establish a Palestinian state through the U.N. Partition Plan, which the Jews accepted despite receiving less land and fewer resources. However, the Arabs rejected the plan and opted to wage war. When the Jews emerged victorious, 156,000 Arabs remained within what became Israel. Sharing his personal connection to this history, Haddad explained that his grandfather was one of those Arabs who stayed and eventually became part of the Arab Israeli identity.
“It’s either you accept the fact that Israel exists and is here to stay, or you continue with this cycle of bloodshed and death that we are trying to escape,” said Haddad. “But the ones who will suffer the most are you, the Palestinians, whether in the West Bank or Gaza.”
Several requests for comment sent to Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Omar were not returned.
Influential pastor dies at 86 after decades of global Bible teaching
John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, died Monday at the age of 86 after a battle with pneumonia.
“Our hearts are heavy, yet rejoicing, as we share the news that our beloved pastor and teacher John MacArthur has entered into the presence of the Savior,” read a Monday-night post on the X account of “Grace to You” which is MacArthur’s media ministry. “This evening, his faith became sight. He faithfully endured until his race was run.”
The announcement comes after associate pastor Tom Patton told congregants at a July 13 Sunday service that MacArthur had been hospitalized with the illness, according to The Roys Report.
“This week, Pastor John contracted pneumonia,” Patton previously said during the service. “He was admitted into the hospital and may be in the presence of the Lord soon.”
CALIFORNIA PASTOR JOHN MACARTHUR HOSPITALIZED WITH LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESS AS CHURCH COMMUNITY RALLIES
MacArthur began his work at Grace Community Church after graduating from Talbot Theological Seminary in 1969, according to the church’s website. Throughout his time in leadership, the church’s two morning worship services reportedly grew to fill the 3,500-seat auditorium to capacity, with thousands of members joining various training programs and fellowship groups.
In 1985, MacArthur became president of The Master’s University, a four-year accredited liberal arts Christian college located in Santa Clarita. One year later, he founded The Master’s Seminary, a graduate school specializing in preparing men for full-time pastoral roles and missionary work, according to Grace Community Church.
MacArthur also served as president and featured teacher with Grace to You, a nonprofit organization specializing in the development and distribution of his audio recordings, books and the “Grace to You” television and radio programs.
Additionally, MacArthur penned nearly 400 books and study resources, including and , with his titles being translated into over two dozen languages, according to the church’s website.
CALIFORNIA PASTOR JOHN MACARTHUR ‘DOING BETTER’ AFTER SUDDEN ILLNESS
The pastor previously made national headlines in 2020 after a California judge ruled the church could continue holding in-person services despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide coronavirus restrictions.
MacArthur had suffered from years of health complications, including a sudden onset of illness while preaching at a 2023 service. Since then, he has reportedly undergone multiple surgeries targeting atrial fibrillation and other conditions.
However, his health reportedly continued to decline, with Patton telling members of the community that the pastor’s recovery from “three surgeries in the second half of 2024” was “slower than expected,” and saw “occasional setbacks affecting his heart, lungs and kidneys.”
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Earlier this year, MacArthur was hospitalized while undergoing a “second procedure” on his lungs, the outlet reported.
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MacArthur is survived by his wife, Patricia, four children and fifteen grandchildren.
25-year-old social media star makes waves in Arizona race as Hogg predicts ‘history’
A 25-year-old social media influencer and progressive activist is hoping to follow in Zohran Mamdani’s footsteps by pulling off a stunning, come-from-behind victory in a high-profile Democratic Party congressional primary.
Deja Foxx is the youngest of the five candidates running in Tuesday’s primary in the race to fill the seat of the late Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, who died in March from complications related to cancer treatment.
The winners of the Democratic and Republican primaries will face off on Sept. 23 in a special election to serve the final 15 months of Grijalva’s term in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, a heavily blue district that stretches from Tucson to Yuma and includes almost the entire length of the state’s southern border with Mexico.
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“This moment calls for more than a politician. You deserve a fighter,” Foxx said in a social media post. “This is more than a campaign. This is a movement. This is a fight for our future.”
Foxx, who went viral as a teenager for confronting then-Republican Sen. Jeff Flake over the issue of reproductive rights, enjoys the support of gun-control crusader David Hogg, who recently stepped down from his position as a Democratic National Committee vice chair after upsetting party leaders for his efforts backing primary challenges against what he called “asleep at the wheel” older, longtime incumbents in safe, blue districts.
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Hogg, who campaigned with Foxx this past weekend across the district, predicts she will “make history in Southwest Arizona.”
Additionally, he compared her surging poll numbers in the final days of the primary campaign to that of Mamdani, the 33-year-old Ugandan-born state lawmaker who topped former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and nine other candidates last month to win the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City.
Similar to the New York City mayoral primary, the contest in southern Arizona will be viewed by many political pundits as a barometer of where the Democratic Party is headed as the party deals with longstanding divisions between its establishment and outsider, and progressive and moderate wings.
The frontrunner in the race appears to be 54-year-old former Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva, who is the daughter of the late congressman.
She enjoys the backing of some of the state’s top Democrats, including Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, state Attorney General Kris Mayes and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Grijalva is also supported by two top progressive champions – Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York – who both backed Mamdani in the New York City mayoral primary.
Former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez, indigenous activist and scholar Jose Malvido Jr. and former healthcare executive Patrick Harris Sr. are also running for the Democratic nomination in the majority-Hispanic district where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a nearly two-to-one margin.
More than $2 million has been dished out to run ads in the Democratic primary, with some of the money coming from outside groups.
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Contractor and small business owner Daniel Butierez, restaurant owner Jorge Rivas and general contractor and vehicle accessory business owner Jimmy Rodriguez are vying for the Republican congressional nomination in the district.
Polls in the district close at 7 p.m. local time, which is 10 p.m. ET, and no results will be released until an hour after the polls close.
Hollywood heir accused of beheading wife, in-laws dies before release of key evidence
Sam Haskell IV, the Hollywood scion accused of chopping up his wife and in-laws before tossing a disembodied torso into a dumpster, has died in a Los Angeles jail while awaiting trial, according to authorities.
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman revealed in a statement that prosecutors had damning new evidence against him that was going to be made public at an upcoming preliminary hearing — including that he was having an affair with a 27-year-old woman and had been arrested with a bloodsoaked knife containing the DNA of all three victims.
Corrections officers found the 37-year-old dead from an apparent suicide in his cell Saturday, days before the hearing, where prosecutors were expected to outline the case against him. He previously pleaded not guilty.
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“Instead of standing before a judge and answering for the crimes he’s been charged with, the defendant managed to escape justice,” Hochman said in a statement. “This is one last cruel act by someone who did the most horrific things for reasons we will never entirely know. A family that has been dealing with unimaginable loss now has been robbed of their chance to face him, hold him accountable for his barbaric actions, and openly share their grief and their cherished memories of their loved ones.”
Haskell’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He previously told Fox News Digital that the court’s assertion his client was at risk of self-harm was “wild speculation” and condemned a judge’s decision that forced him to appear shirtless or wear a protective vest at prior hearings.
HOLLYWOOD HEIR SAM HASKELL’S TIKTOK RANTS EMERGE AS SUSPECT IN HEADLESS TORSO CASE HEADS TO COURT
Haskell, who opted to face the court without a shirt, was facing three counts of murder for the Nov. 6, 2023 slayings of his wife Mei Haskell, 37, her mother Yanxiang Wang, 64, and her stepfather Gaoshan Li, 71, as well as additional special circumstance allegations. He would have faced life in prison without parole if convicted.
“He was obviously an unhinged individual,” said Joshua Ritter, a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney and a Fox News contributor. “The crime itself speaks to his mental unrest. It’s not so uncommon that we see people commit murders based on financial or marital difficulties, but the idea of going as far as killing your in-laws and chopping their body parts up is very extreme.”
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Hochman’s office released a summary of the evidence prosecutors planned to unseal at the hearing.
After killing and dismembering all three victims, he allegedly paid $500 to a group of day laborers he asked to remove a series of heavy black trash bags from the home, where they all lived together, according to prosecutors. After picking up the bags, one of the workers looked inside and saw human remains. The day laborers gave the money and the bags back to Haskell and called police.
Investigators previously said that by the time officers arrived at his house, Haskell and the bags were gone. Fox News Digital also reported that surveillance cameras at a gym in Encino showed him placing a heavy bag in the dumpster outside. A homeless man looking through the trash made the gruesome discovery and called 911.
Police found his wife’s car, which had her stepfather’s blood inside, Hochman’s office revealed Monday. They tracked Haskell to an Airbnb nearby, which investigators allege he had rented for himself and the children he shared with Mei Haskell after the murders.
When police arrested Haskell, he was carrying a pocket knife and a Home Depot receipt from a few days earlier listing plywood, a moisture barrier, coveralls and diamond saw blades, Hochman’s office said Monday.
In his rented SUV, he had a loaded .357 revolver, 32 rounds, a blood-covered knife, the family’s passports and a one-way ticket to Japan, according to authorities. They separately seized $67,000 cash during a search on his office.
DNA testing on the knife matched blood to all three victims, according to prosecutors.
“You do have to take into account the timing of all of this,” Ritter told Fox News Digital. “He’s been in prison for some time. I imagine he had opportunities for this kind of action before now. But it does seem interesting that it would come on the eve of a date that would expose all of the horrible things that he’d been up to.”
Police later recovered eight more bags containing bloody evidence, but not the remains of his in-laws — and they said that “large amounts of blood” had been cleaned up at the family home.
As for Haskell’s alleged 27-year-old mistress, authorities say she told them Haskell told her in October 2023, shortly before the murders, that his parents would be taking over care for his children. Then he invited her on a trip to Japan. In addition to the one-way ticket he had, prosecutors say he bought her a round-trip ticket.
“It’s interesting to me that, here’s a guy looking at life in prison without parole, multiple murders, it’s as bad as it’s going to get,” Ritter said. “There’s a strong likelihood that he will never see the outside of the prison again, but he is such a narcissist that he is more concerned with the embarrassment of perhaps his extramarital affair becoming exposed than he is with life in prison — if that is what motivated this.”
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The remains of Mei Haskell’s parents have not been found.
Haskell’s parents, Hollywood producer Sam Haskell III and beauty queen and actress Mary Donnelly Haskell, are known for a series of Christmas movies. His father was also a former talent agent who represented George Clooney and Dolly Parton, among other A-list stars. He declined to comment.
New survey shows ‘biggest boomtowns’ in America — and red states are leading the pack
The South hosts a substantial number of the metro areas experiencing the fastest growth in the U.S.
That’s according to a recently released report from LendingTree that determined eight of America’s 10 “biggest boomtowns” were located in the south, with Texas and Florida leading the way.
Four different states within the South had a presence among the top 10 fastest-growing cities, with a Western state — Colorado — also making an appearance, according to LendingTree.
Florida was a standout, claiming half of the spots in the LendingTree’s ranking of the top 10.
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The site identified the 10 fastest-growing metro areas in the U.S. using data that took into account measures such as median earnings, annual gross domestic product changes, population, housing and active workforce populations from 2021-2023 that it grouped within broader categories of “people and housing,” “work and earnings” and “business and economy.”
At the top of its ranking, the below five metros were found to have shown the fastest growth.
Austin, Texas
In addition to receiving the No. 1 overall ranking for growth, the capital of the Lone Star state also took the top spot for the “people and housing” and “business and economy” categories, according to the report. Its annual gross domestic product posted a 14.6% jump between 2021 and 2023, more than any other metro LendingTree looked at.
Orlando, Florida
Orlando, which placed No. 2 overall, had the highest score when it came to “work and earnings,” per LendingTree.
North Port, Florida
North Port is located in southwestern Florida not far from Sarasota. It showed strong growth in its GDP, number of houses and number of residents, among other things, according to the report.
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, often referred to as Music City, serves as the capital of Tennessee. It was found to be the city exhibiting the fourth-fastest growth, with a score of 69.5 overall, LendingTree said.
Cape Coral, Florida
Cape Coral posted a rise of 12.3% in annual GDP between 2021 and 2023 and notched quite a jump in employer identification numbers, helping it place No. 2 in the “business and economy” category, the report indicated. The metro sits across the Caloosahatchee River from Fort Myers.
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The remaining five metros that made up the 10 “biggest boomtowns” included Colorado Springs, Colorado; Charleston, South Carolina; Lakeland, Florida; Deltona, Florida; and Denver, Colorado.
LendingTree linked Florida’s large presence in the top 10 to its tax policies, its post-secondary institutions supplying workers and its business policies.
In total, the site analyzed 100 of the country’s biggest metros. Apart from one of them, each city had a decrease in its unemployment rate between 2021 and 2023, according to the report.
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Across the country, the unemployment rate stood at 4.1% as of June, according to the Labor Department.
WNBA star’s careless pass becomes internet sensation as Chicago falls to Minnesota
Chicago Sky star Angel Reese notched her ninth consecutive double-double on Monday night against the Minnesota Lynx despite a lackadaisical effort in the second quarter with the team up eight points that went viral.
The play in question came with about a minute left in the first half. Reese tossed the ball up the court, but there was nobody around to receive it. Instead, Lynx guard Courtney Williams stole it away and dished it to Bridget Carleton for the 3-pointer.
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Reese had five of the team’s 18 turnovers. Chicago gave up 47 points in the second half and lost the game, 91-78. The Lynx moved to 19-4 on the year and the Sky fell to 7-14.
The second-year player still managed to score 22 points to lead the team and grab 10 rebounds. The last game she failed to record a double-double was all the way back on June 21 against the Phoenix Mercury when she had nine points and two rebounds.
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Since then, Reese has been on a statistical tear. She’s averaging 13.6 points, 12.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game this season.
Reese is about to enter the second All-Star Game of her career this coming weekend in Indianapolis.
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For the Lynx, perennial WNBA MVP candidate Napheesa Collier led all scorers with 29 points with five assists and three steals. Williams had 18 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.