Android users beware! A new version of a tried-and-true malware is out in the wild, and its latest capabilities make it dangerous not just to rooted devices, but it can attack run-of-the-mill Android handsets too, including yours. Nobody is safe, but there are things you can do to avoid this problem entirely.

The malware in question goes by the name RedHook. In the grand timeline of viruses, RedHook isn’t a terribly old problem. The malware was first discovered in July 2025, barely a year ago.

It can be extremely difficult or even impossible to remove.

Even back then, RedHook was a tricky little beast. As an Android Remote Access Trojan, it had the power to imitate government and financial websites and apps, which it used to trick users into enabling accessibility settings that gave the malware the permission to access sensitive data on the host phone. From there, RedHook could steal anything, including the user’s identification, banking credentials, and more.

On the upside, RedHook wasn’t really a problem for American users, as it was mostly aimed at phones in Vietnam. Still, the specter of this RAT loomed in the dark corners of the internet, waiting for its chance to emerge once more and wreak havoc on unsuspecting users.

Although the origin of RedHook is unknown, the initial code included elements of the Chinese language, suggesting a connection with mainland China.

RedHook gets an upgrade

One year later, RedHook is now even more dangerous than before, thanks to a new upgrade. The malware comes with all the same tricks, but now it can access a phone by highjacking Wireless Android Debug Bridge, the debugging software built directly into Android that allows developers to transfer files and issue commands from their device to the targeted phone. Even worse, this trick doesn’t require administrative control over the targeted phone via root access, meaning that every Android phone is vulnerable.

If that weren’t bad enough, Vietnam users are no longer the central target. The malware has also popped up in Indonesia, and it could spread if the latest upgrade proves effective.

How to keep your Android phone safe from RedHook

Like a proper parasite, RedHook must make its way into its host before it can become a problem.

RELATED: A crushing hack shows whether you keep your money depends on how you store it

narvo vexar/Getty Images

The best way to keep RedHook from getting its paws on your phone is to ensure you don’t download any suspicious apps. For most people, this won’t be an issue. As long as you download apps directly from the Google Play Store — which are regularly scanned and vetted for their authenticity and security — you will likely be safe.

As for the more daring Android users, side-loading apps from third-party app stores or unknown origins is the fastest way to unwittingly load a virus onto your precious phone, and once it’s there, it can be extremely difficult or even impossible to remove. Proceed with caution.

RedHook’s timing couldn’t be any worse

The RedHook upgrade comes at a tricky time, as Google was recently compelled by Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge James Donato to allow third-party app stores onto the Google Play Store, thanks to an antitrust case that Google lost against Epic Games. In other words, Google is essentially being forced to allow potentially dangerous storefronts to proliferate its own app store in order to maintain Android’s open platform among competitors.

Now, that doesn’t mean all third-party stores are bad. However, if you plan to download an app from one of them, make sure you know and trust the app store and the developer behind the app you wish to install first.

Also, just because Google Play will include third-party stores doesn’t mean you have to download or use them. You can simply ignore them and continue to use your Android device as you always have.

​Tech, Android, Malware, Security, Hackers 

A middle school teacher was arrested over her inappropriate interactions with a 16-year-old boy in juvenile corrections in Galveston, according to Texas police.

46-year-old Kristi Hanks of La Marque allegedly sparked the relationship with the boy while working at the Galveston County Juvenile Justice Center.

‘I’d rather be dead than them know that I was a pedophile … since you like to throw that in my face.’

The sheriff’s office said officials were contacted by the juvenile center after they expressed concern about her relationship to the boy.

Investigators gathered evidence that included material evidence, interviews with several individuals, and statements from Hanks.

The victim allegedly told investigators he got in trouble after writing in a book that Hanks had a “big butt.” The teacher, however, told him she took it as a compliment and they exchanged phone numbers.

The graphic calls between the two included them exposing themselves, police said.

He also told police that he met Hanks twice at a park for sex but that she got scared and “left before the sexual acts were done.”

Hanks would also allegedly rub her clothed genitals against his arm at school.

He threatened to expose the relationship and demanded that she buy him a gun and give him $2,000. She complied and later reported the gun stolen.

Police say she was still texting the boy when she was arrested on Aug. 19 during a traffic stop near her home.

“I just cleaned out my bank account for you,” read one of the alleged texts.

“I’d rather be dead than them know that I was a pedophile … since you like to throw that in my face,” she wrote in another text.

RELATED: 100 cops responded when teacher said student slashed her with razor — she’s got arrested

The Galveston County District Attorney’s Office determined there was enough probable cause to charge the teacher with an improper relationship between educator and student. Prosecutors also recommended a $100,000 bond.

The district said Hanks was placed on administrative leave as soon as officials were made aware of the allegations. A profile page for her still exists at the Dunbar Middle School, where she says she’s a fifth-grade social studies teacher and got engaged during the COVID pandemic.

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​Pedophile, Teacher arrested, Texas, Teacher sex scandal, Blackmail, Crime 

Iran has been reported to be using negotiations with the United States to buy time, strengthen its position around the Strait of Hormuz, and rebuild military capacity for a wider conflict. The Trump administration needs a new Red Sea strategy. It should begin with Somaliland.

The Houthis recently fired on a ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and Iran has reportedly told the group to be prepared to close the waterway if the United States strikes Iran’s power grid. The Bab el-Mandeb is a global shipping artery and a pressure point on energy markets.

The crises in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are warnings. Iran and the Houthis are trying to turn geography into coercion. The United States should turn geography back into deterrence.

The warning is clear. The United States cannot rely indefinitely on distant strikes and vulnerable Gulf bases to protect shipping through the region’s choke points. Washington’s bombing campaign failed to neutralize the Houthi threat, leaving the group able to threaten commercial shipping, Gulf partners, and Israel.

The moment calls for more than another round of airstrikes. The United States should recognize Somaliland.

Somaliland has governed itself for decades, has shown interest in deeper ties with the United States and its allies, and sits beside one of the world’s most important maritime corridors. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has argued that recognition would advance U.S. interests in the Horn of Africa through counterterrorism, anti-piracy operations, and cooperation with partners such as Taiwan and Israel. He is right.

Recognition should be followed by a formal security relationship allowing regular intelligence cooperation, military access, and a forward operating presence along the Gulf of Aden.

Geography is Somaliland’s strongest argument. It sits across from Yemen near the approaches to the Red Sea and the same waters the Houthis have threatened to close.

Others have noticed. Reports indicate that Israel has explored a strategic presence in Somaliland as part of its response to the Houthi threat. The United States has no comparable formal footprint. Access there could support counter-Houthi operations, intelligence collection across the Gulf of Aden, and the fight against Al-Shabaab in Somalia. Israel understands the value of the location. Washington should too.

The United States also needs to reduce its dependence on bases within easy striking distance of Iran. On a recent webinar, retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former head of U.S. Central Command, described the problem bluntly: “No one in their right mind would ever put the CENTCOM forward headquarters, you know, 100 miles away from Iran, yet that’s where it is.”

RELATED: The Navy has a choice: Get better or become less relevant

Krisztian Elek/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

He elaborated: “It’s good to be close to your potential enemy because it’s a short commute to the fight. It’s bad to be close to your potential enemy, because he has the ability to strike you very quickly.”

I have previously argued that Washington should distribute regional assets across secure, aligned territories rather than concentrate them where host governments can restrict access, basing, or overflight. Somaliland would not replace Al Udeid or every existing Gulf facility. It would give the United States another option when allies limit operations or adversaries threaten choke points.

A U.S. presence in Somaliland would also signal that Washington is willing to reward capable partners instead of remaining trapped by diplomatic habits that no longer serve American security. Recognition would carry costs, including friction with Somalia and other governments committed to Somalia’s territorial integrity. Those costs should be weighed against the strategic value of a reliable partner at the mouth of the Red Sea.

The crises in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are warnings. Iran and the Houthis are trying to turn geography into coercion. The United States should turn geography back into deterrence.

Recognizing Somaliland would give the United States a stronger hand in the Red Sea, a better position against terrorist threats, and greater freedom to operate when existing partners hesitate. A proactive strategy begins by securing options before the next crisis closes them off. The time to act is now.

​Counterterrorism, Deterrence, Israel, Somalia, Strait of hormuz, Yemen, Iran, Somaliland, Red sea, America first, Foreign policy, Opinion & analysis 

The assassination of Charlie Kirk was a devastating blow to conservatives, but almost as shocking was the response from parts of the left. Major figures issued the expected denunciations, yet plenty of ordinary progressives celebrated the violent death of a father and husband or mocked his memory online. Conservatives learned that some of their neighbors were perfectly willing to cheer the murder of a political opponent.

Since then, trade wars, foreign wars, and the usual daily controversies have offered convenient distractions from a much darker realization: Something about American politics has changed. The old assumption that nearly everyone still accepts the same basic rules can no longer be taken for granted.

Conservatives did not choose existential politics by themselves, and they cannot end it simply by wishing for a return to normal.

Denial is a common response when a problem is too large to contemplate. The possibility that a substantial number of Americans now see political violence as acceptable has implications the conservative movement would rather avoid. Yet reminders keep appearing.

Recent videos again showed people mocking Kirk’s death, including a drag performance and comments from streamer and democratic socialist Hasan Piker. It is much easier to argue about tactics, personalities, or the latest outrage than to ask what kind of political order produces people willing to celebrate an assassination.

Piker’s case is especially egregious because he met Kirk and debated him in person. He has built a career around revolutionary rhetoric and violent political fantasies, including lurid comments about landlords and capitalists, and “soak[ing] in the blood” of his capitalist enemies. That he remains a major online personality illustrates the asymmetry conservatives have noticed for years: Rhetoric that would end a career on the right is often treated as edgy entertainment when it comes from the left.

America has received an almost embarrassing number of blessings from God Almighty, which makes it easy to forget that our political experience is historically unusual. The United States occupies a vast, resource-rich territory protected by oceans and has fought remarkably few wars on its own soil. We have not faced sustained internal danger in generations. That security has encouraged an ahistorical view of politics as a permanently orderly process.

Modern Americans expect Mr. Smith to go to Washington, make a speech, win an argument, and then shake hands with the opposition. Every election is called the most important of our lives, but the ritual remains the same because the underlying disputes are assumed to be manageable. If the argument is over marginal tax rates, retirement ages, or entitlement formulas, that expectation makes sense. Those are technocratic disagreements inside a shared political order.

But some disputes are not like that. Consider the fight over the euphemistic “gender affirming care” for minors. One side believes the state must protect children from genital mutilation. The other believes the state has a right to seize children if parents refuse to go along. There is no clever tax-credit compromise that resolves the underlying question. One side’s victory necessarily means the other side’s destruction. That is what existential politics looks like.

RELATED: Who gets the GOP when Trump is gone?

Blaze Media Illustration

This is why Carl Schmitt has re-entered conversations on the right. Certain conservatives often reduce his friend-enemy distinction to a license for treating anyone who disagrees with you as a mortal foe. That isn’t the useful part of Schmitt. His point is that politics becomes political in the fullest sense when groups understand that a conflict touches the survival of their way of life. His framework is gaining salience because Americans increasingly encounter disputes that feel exactly like that.

The left supports policies many conservatives believe would permanently transform the country: open borders, abortion on demand, racial preferences in hiring and admissions, aggressive secularization, and aggressive state intervention in disputes between parents and children over gender. Some activists openly discuss prosecuting former Trump officials, restructuring the Supreme Court, and changing the composition of the Senate through statehood. Antifa militants have attacked federal facilities and officers. None of this requires believing every Democrat is a revolutionary. It requires noticing that the revolutionary faction has real power.

Progressives understand something conservatives still resist: America increasingly contains rival moral communities sharing the same geographic space.

Mass immigration, ideological sorting, institutional polarization, and the radicalization of political factions have eroded the common assumptions that once made bipartisan compromise possible. Our deepest disagreements are no longer simply about the size of government or the proper tariff. They concern rival definitions of family, justice, citizenship, equality, religion, and even human nature.

This is not without precedent. Shays’ Rebellion was put down by force. The Civil War settled secession through force on a catastrophic scale. Federal troops enforced school integration in Little Rock when state resistance defied constitutional authority. These cases are radically different in scale and moral content, but they share one uncomfortable fact: Political orders eventually enforce some answers and reject others. Two incompatible legal regimes cannot govern the same question in the same place forever.

RELATED: Stop ‘owning the libs’ and start owning institutions

Blaze Media Illustration

We are far closer to Little Rock than to Gettysburg, and conservatives should resist fantasies of civil war. But they should also stop pretending every conflict can be reduced to a policy seminar. About a decade ago, people on the right began asking whether conservatives “know what time it is.” Most still do not. People like Piker serve as reminders that the other side may understand the stakes more clearly.

The left, in its current radical form, cannot be treated as just another coalition with which conservatives alternate power while everything important remains intact. Elections will decide who controls institutions capable of reshaping the country for generations. Someone will win these fights. Someone will lose. The victor will alter the political order.

Conservatives did not choose existential politics by themselves, and they cannot end it simply by wishing for a return to normal. Ignoring that reality only guarantees that their children inherit a country they no longer recognize. Conservatives are not required to become nihilists, but they are required to understand the stakes before deciding how to fight. The hour is already late.

​Charlie kirk, Leftist violence, Trade wars, Hasan piker, Carl schmitt, Progressives, Democrats, Republicans, Immigration, Supreme court, Civil war, Opinion & analysis 

Why are so many young men checking out of modern society? According to Nick Freitas, the answer — unlike what the Gen X and Boomer generations would have you believe — goes far deeper than laziness or a lack of resilience.

Freitas tells Christopher Rufo and Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman on “Rufo & Lomez” that the first thing to consider is that there is a real problem and it’s “different from what we faced in the past.”

“It’s really easy to point back like, ‘Oh, you think it’s hard now? What about the 19-year-olds that were storming Normandy?’ It’s like, yeah, that was hard. And that’s why we lift up and we celebrate the 19-year-olds that stormed Normandy,” Freitas explains.

“The problem is we have a bunch of 19-year-olds now where first of all, there’s no Normandy to storm, and they’re being told that all of the characteristics or instincts that would have informed the man storming the beach in Normandy are now bad, evil, toxic, horrible, and need to be repressed,” he says, noting that “that’s the part that’s unique.”

“That’s the part that I think Gen X-ers and Boomers have a hard time understanding is that the culture has shifted so much as to deliberately target the very things that young men were designed, I believe, designed by God to be,” he adds.

Freitas notes that it’s “confusing and horrific” to attempt to thrive in an environment “where you’re told that all of your instincts are bad and you need to be emasculated.”

In order to deal with this, Freitas explains that “one of the big things” he tells young men is to seek identity through Christ.

“It’s eternal. It doesn’t promise me that everything is going to be going good. But it’s eternal. I believe it’s true. And so in so far as that’s where I get my identity, then all of a sudden I always have identity, meaning, and purpose,” he says.

“I never lose it, and it cannot be taken away from me,” he adds.

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​Christ, Christopher rufo, Gen x, Identity, Jonathan keeperman, Nick freitas, Young men, Blazetv show 

A Jewish Democrat had a telling response when asked on CNN if he’s supporting U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim.

Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey was being interviewed by Dana Bash when she asked him to entertain a theoretical question.

‘For the future of our party, Democrats have to call out his hate and condemn these dangerous views.’

“I know this is a hypothetical. … You’re a lifelong Democrat. If you were a Michigan voter, how would you vote in the Senate race?” asked Bash.

“One thing’s clear. There’s no way I’m ever coming out for El-Sayed right now,” Gottheimer responded with a laugh.

“This is a guy who has made it very clear his views toward, and has refused to back off his views toward, Jewish Americans,” he added.

“And I hope he comes out and clarifies where he is. I also hope that he does the right thing and condemns Hasan Piker clearly, and in a language very clearly,” Gottheimer concluded.

He went on to call out Democrat New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and others for not doing enough to call out anti-Semitism in their party.

The moment encapsulated the rift in the Democratic Party between those who support Jewish Americans and those who blame them for all of society’s ills. Among the latter is Piker, who has said that America deserved the 9/11 terror attacks and has expressed support for terrorists as long as they’re targeting Israel.

Video of the interaction was widely circulated on social media.

RELATED: Democratic Party has become so crazed, far-left AG Nessel avoids convention over safety

“For the future of our party, Democrats have to call out his hate and condemn these dangerous views. Anyone campaigning with him is part of the problem,” said Gottheimer in a post on social media.

Others like Hunter Biden say the extremists are the future of the Democratic Party.

The full video of Gottheimer’s appearance on CNN was available for viewing on YouTube.

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​Democratic party, Hasan piker, Antisemitism, Israel, Politics 

Radical leftist Hasan Piker is at it again after spending the weekend mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk — singing the “We Are Charlie Kirk” AI-generated song while on a live tour.

A video circulating on social media shows Piker mocking Kirk in front of a crowd while his podcast co-hosts laugh.

“We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame / We’ll fight for the gospel, we’ll honor his name,” Piker sang while the crowd and co-hosts laughed along.

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is disgusted.

“You have Hasan Piker, who these days is kind of just the Democrat Party spokesman, who just this weekend continued to mock Charlie’s death,” Gonzales says.

“It’s funny that a husband and a father was brutally murdered, assassinated in broad daylight for the entire world to see on film. It’s so funny. It’s so funny that he was murdered because he was speaking freely,” she continues.

“It’s so funny that Hasan Piker is out here mocking the death and somehow is still a hero to the left even though he literally calls for people to be murdered,” she adds, playing a clip of Piker saying that property owners should be killed.

“Kill those motherf**kers and murder those motherf**kers in the street. Let the streets soak in their f**king red capitalist blood, dude,” Piker said on his podcast.

“Hasan Piker, as we’ve talked about before, lives in like … a $2.7 million home in West Hollywood,” Gonzales says.

“He thinks it’s funny that Charlie Kirk died. He’s like, ‘Just kill those property owners. Let the streets soak in their blood.’ And he has a really nice life because of that,” she adds.

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​Charlie kirk, Hasan piker, Radical leftist, Sara gonzales, Blazetv show