A knife-wielding male hijacked a Chicago Transit Authority bus in the middle of the night earlier this week, but the wise bus operator used her experience and wits to pull off a daring escape.

Police said the suspect was aboard a southbound No. 53 CTA bus just before 2:40 a.m. Wednesday in the 2400 block of North Pulaski Road in the Belmont Gardens neighborhood when he pulled out a knife and demanded the bus not stop, WLS-TV reported.

‘She could see him through the mirror, what he was doing, jabbing with the knife, like he was going to stab her.’

The bus driver, a 57-year-old woman, tripped a silent alarm, the CTA told the station.

After a bus supervisor located the bus, the bus driver escaped out a window in the 900 block of North Clark Street, police told WLS.

The bus traveled about 6.5 miles after leaving its normal route, the station said.

The suspect got off the bus and ran into Washington Park, WLS said, adding that police took him into custody in the 100 block of East Chestnut Street just before 3:20 a.m.

The bus driver’s union leaders described what they saw on the bus’ surveillance video, the station said.

“She could see him through the mirror, what he was doing, jabbing with the knife like he was going to stab her, but only doing it in a motion where she could see through the mirror,” Michelle Townsend, second vice president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241, told WLS.

The station said it’s unclear what the suspect wanted.

Police said charges are pending, and no injuries were reported, WLS added.

RELATED: 7 females, 2 males accused of ganging up on, beating up train passenger in Chicago

Acting CTA President Nora Leerhsen said there was a 47% drop in serious crime across the transit system compared to last year, the station reported, adding that buses saw a 40% drop.

Leerhsen added to WLS that Chicago police officers’ hours patrolling the transit system have increased by 75% since December, especially during evening and overnight hours.

In March, Cook County Sheriff’s officers also began patrols, the station said.

WLS said the increased security comes after President Donald Trump threatened funding due to violent attacks in the CTA system — including one last November when Lawrence Reed allegedly set a woman on fire on the Blue Line.

The station added that violent crimes across the CTA system — including stations and platforms — “remain at a high level, with 779 violent crimes committed in a 12-month period between April of last year and this year.”

The CTA over the summer will launch a pilot program featuring violence interrupters and crisis intervention specialists who hope to help stop crime before it happens, WLS reported.

One person walking out of the Red Line’s Roosevelt station Wednesday weighed in on CTA safety, the station said: “It’s a traveling hotel. You know what I’m saying. It is dangerous.”

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​Crime thwarted, Chicago, Knife, Driver escapes, Arrest, Chicago transit authority, Bus hijacked, Crime 

It’s time to dismantle one of the most degraded sectors in American higher education: schools of education. The colleges responsible for training and certifying the majority of our nation’s teachers have become factories for mediocrity and indoctrination.

States have both the authority and obligation to replace these monolithic institutions by promoting better teacher-prep pathways that are already proving their worth across the nation.

As recent graduates of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, we believe that teachers must be more than competent technicians — they must deliberately form American citizens.

The declining value of schools of education is an opportunity for states to look elsewhere for teacher preparation.

Today, however, schools of education are the chief culprits in the growing disquiet among pundits and everyday Americans about the value of the traditional four-year college experience. Graduates with bachelor’s degrees in education are among the lowest earners of any college major. Even more alarmingly, recent research shows their degrees aren’t worth what they paid and are often financed with loans.

These schools are also failing to live up to their own promises. The National Council on Teacher Quality found in its most recent study that only one in eight teacher-prep programs dedicate “sufficient time” to covering fundamental math content; 28% of elementary programs “adequately address” all core components of reading instruction; and 3% require candidates to take courses in necessary science and social studies content.

Other research has further exposed education schools’ century-old dismissal of, and contempt for, rigorous academic content.

What are these institutions of higher learning teaching instead? American schools of education have long been infiltrated by the left’s “long march through the institutions” and serve as havens for neo-Marxist ideas.

At Stanford, we weren’t taught about the science of reading or what knowledge children should learn. Rather, we read Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” a radical polemic that rejects the teaching of received knowledge as oppressive and envisions schools as drivers of political activism.

This intellectual lineage explains why critical theory and its offshoots such as the 1619 Project, which is riddled with historical inaccuracies yet was taught in 4,500 classrooms in a single year, have become so dominant in American public education.

At our alma mater, the influential education professor Jo Boaler has led efforts, backed by debunked research, to remove algebra from California middle schools while simultaneously building a consulting enterprise that charges schools thousands of dollars to implement these same “reforms.”

RELATED: College professors want your child’s soul. Here’s how you can stop them.

Angela Lewis/Bloomberg/Getty Images

All of this points to a simple conclusion: Education schools will not be reformed from within. A machine built on a flawed foundation cannot be repaired by replacing a few parts. We should not expect universities to solve the problem. They are the problem. The declining value of schools of education is an opportunity for states to look elsewhere for teacher preparation.

States can improve the quality of teacher preparation and boost teacher effectiveness by promoting alternative teacher training programs that are already proving their worth. Prospective teachers should first earn a bachelor’s degree in the subject they will teach — history, biology, math, or literature — then enter a focused, apprenticeship-style training under veteran classroom teachers.

Across the country, a growing ecosystem of alternative programs is allowing individuals without education degrees to enter the teaching profession. To be most effective, such programs should emphasize clinical practice, a proven predictor of teacher effectiveness that is often missing from university teacher preparation. This approach also enables new educators to earn their credentials while working and earning a good wage.

Clinical practice means educators are trained not in the ideological vacuum of schools of education, but inside real classrooms, learning from real teachers, and working with real students. In this way, teachers are grounded in the practical knowledge and skills that impact students’ academic outcomes, not ideology.

Studies show that in the first few years of teaching, demonstrated effectiveness is a far better predictor of long-term quality than the pathway through which a teacher was certified — and that greater differences exist among teachers who trained in the same program than those who bypassed such programs entirely.

Teach for America corps members, who are generally young, non-education majors, on average produce stronger gains for students than their traditional counterparts. At worst, they are no less effective than those who spent four years in a typical teacher prep program. Even earning a master’s degree in education does not reliably produce better educators.

Florida, for example, has developed a teacher certification program for professionals with non-education bachelor’s degrees and an apprenticeship program for those with associate’s degrees. These programs feature high-quality, self-paced curriculum modules for participants.

Tennessee offers the Job-Embedded Practitioner Licensure Program, enabling new educators to bypass the traditional credentialing bureaucracy entirely and earn their license while serving as teachers of record.

Arizona provides an Alternate Teaching certificate that similarly emphasizes real-world preparation, including a requirement that candidates demonstrate proficiency in both the U.S. Constitution and the Arizona Constitution, ensuring that even non-traditional entrants receive a grounding in civics free from ideological overlay.

Any replacement for the failed ed-school model must form educators capable of passing along the blessings of liberty to future generations. It’s time to recover the true purpose of public education: pursuing truth, cultivating virtue, and forming citizens who are morally capable of sustaining a free republic.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.

​Teacher training, Woke teachers, Dei, Lgbtq, 1619 project, Schools of education, School teachers, Stanford, Critical theory, Jo boaler, Opinion & analysis 

Trump Mobile has finally begun shipping its phones just days after liberal pundits called the company a scam over its delays.

Earlier this week, left-wing media began claiming en masse that the phones may never be released because the company had changed its terms of service.

‘Phones that were preordered are starting to be delivered to customers this week.’

Trump Mobile took $100 deposits for smartphones last year, with the release slated for August 2025. About nine months later, media members pointed to the company’s terms and conditions, updated in April, which said it “does not guarantee that a Device will be produced or made available for purchase.”

“A preorder deposit provides only a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale,” the terms stated, according to Fortune.

This sent liberals into a frenzy, with progressive Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) claiming customers “got scammed” while citing a Stephen Colbert video that said the phones may never come. Pundits from “The Daily Show” and Chris Cuomo shared similar sentiments about the phone’s delayed release.

On Thursday, however, Trump Mobile finally announced it would start shipping the T1 smartphone, a gold-colored device running on Android with a massive 512GB storage.

“Phones that were preordered are starting to be delivered to customers this week,” Trump Mobile CEO Pat O’Brien told Reuters.

RELATED: Democrat bill would force you to give Big Tech your ID just to use your phone — or the internet

O’Brien said the delays happened because his company had to work through multiple stages of development to ensure components were up to standard.

The phone is priced at $499, is branded with Trump messaging, and includes a Snapdragon 7-series processor, 12GB of RAM, a 6.78-inch display, a 5,000mAh battery, and a 50MP triple camera system.

Pundits would be better suited to critique the phone on its hardware, as GizChina described it as a “reskinned version of the Chinese-made Wingtech Revvl 7 Pro 5G.”

PC Mag rated that phone a 3 out of 5 in 2025.

The T1 was also compared to the HTC U24 Pro in terms of hardware, a Taiwanese-made phone from 2024.

Furthermore, Trump Mobile initially promoted the T1 as being “designed and built ⁠in the United States,” but CEO O’Brien said the first devices would be “assembled in the U.S.” with the aim to release a phone with most components being made domestically at some point.

RELATED: Trump’s FCC is finally clearing the path for landline upgrades

On its website, Trump Mobile boasts a $47.45 monthly plan in honor of the president, with unlimited calling, texting, and data.

With no contract, the company offers roadside assistance to subscribers, with the ability to bring one’s old phone over to the network; a Trump phone is not required.

The delay of around 280 days is not quite the longest in phone release history. Back in April 2011, the white iPhone 4 dropped after a 308-day pushback.

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​Mobile phone, Smartphones, Stephen colbert, Trump mobile, The daily show, Cell phone, Trump phone, T1, Tech 

The Riverside Sheriff’s Office reassigned a school resource deputy as it investigated an arrest where he slammed a female student to the ground outside a California high school.

The officer was sent to address a physical fight between students on Tuesday at about 3:47 p.m. near the campus of Vista del Lago High School in Moreno Valley.

‘She was on the ground and, yes, she got rowdy, and he was just moving her around like a rag doll.’

An Instagram influencer told KTLA-TV that he heard about the incident and went to document the incident. He posted the video he captured of the rough arrest.

Police said the girl tried to pull away as the officer attempted to detain and handcuff her.

“Put your hands behind your back. Stop,” the deputy said to the girl. “Stop doing what you’re doing!”

The influencer, who didn’t want to be publicly identified, admitted that the girl was resisting arrest. He claimed that she was 14 years old, but it’s unclear whether that is accurate.

“She was on the ground and, yes, she got rowdy, and he was just moving her around like a rag doll,” he added.

The student was evaluated by paramedics and was eventually arrested on suspicion of battery and resisting arrest.

The Moreno Valley Unified School District released a statement to KTLA indicating that it had reached out to the family of the girl to offer support.

Many people online were very supportive of the officer’s actions.

“Thank you officers for your service. These feral, vile rabid citizens needs to learn law, order and swift justice!” said one user on the X platform.

“[I don’t] give a damn what sex or race. You play stupid games. You win stupid prizes,” another response reads.

“Act like animals get treated like an animal,” another user replied.

“Stop resisting arrest you dumbasses you won’t be roughed up. You got what you deserve,” another said. “I’m tired of hearing little pansy ass p***ies can’t handle it when they’re trying to resist screw you you got what you deserved.”

RELATED: Teen bragged in rap song about killing rapper, sheriff says, but cried ‘like a baby that lost his pacifier’ when charged with murder

“The Riverside Sheriff’s Office takes each use of force very seriously and makes every effort to de-escalate these situations whenever possible,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

“As with all use-of-force incidents, a review will be conducted to ensure compliance with our policy and training standards,” they added.

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​Resisting arrest, High school student arrest, Student police brutality, Moreno valley school district, Politics 

There’s a conversation happening behind closed doors in Washington that should make every American pay attention, and it has nothing to do with EV mandates or fuel economy targets.

This time, it’s about war, capacity, and whether Detroit is about to be pulled into something far bigger than the auto business.

GM is expected to compete for a major Army contract to develop the next-generation infantry squad vehicle, a platform designed to replace the aging Humvee.

According to the Wall Street Journal, senior Pentagon officials have been quietly engaging with leadership from General Motors and Ford Motor Company, including CEOs Mary Barra and Jim Farley. The message is not subtle. The U.S. may need its automakers to help build the tools of modern warfare.

RELATED: Colorado’s speed-camera traps just got way more aggressive

Donato Fasano/Getty Images

Running on empty

This is a direct response to a growing problem that Washington can no longer ignore. Ongoing conflicts abroad have exposed a reality that’s uncomfortable but unavoidable. The United States does not currently have the industrial capacity to produce munitions, missiles, and advanced defense systems at the speed and scale modern warfare demands. Stockpiles are being drained faster than they can be replenished, and the traditional defense contractor base is under pressure.

While the Pentagon has dismissed these claims, the fact remains the U.S. military seems to be on the hunt for manufacturers. And when you need scale, speed, and manufacturing expertise, there’s one place you go: Detroit.

Let’s be honest about what this really means. This is not a routine government outreach effort. This is Washington signaling that America’s industrial base may need to shift priorities, and fast. The auto industry, which has spent the last decade being pushed toward electrification at enormous cost, is now being evaluated for something entirely different: its ability to support national defense on a large scale.

History of help

There is precedent for this, and it’s not ancient history. During World War II, American automakers famously halted civilian vehicle production and became the backbone of military manufacturing. Tanks, aircraft, trucks, engines, all of it rolled out of facilities that once built cars for Main Street. It was called the arsenal of democracy, and it worked.

The question now is whether history is about to repeat itself, not through mandates, at least not yet, but through “collaboration,” which in Washington terms often means something a lot closer to expectation than suggestion.

These discussions are still in the early stages, but don’t mistake “preliminary” for unimportant. Pentagon officials are asking hard questions. Can automakers pivot their production lines quickly? Do they have the workforce flexibility? Can their supply chains handle defense-grade manufacturing? And perhaps most importantly, what regulatory and contractual barriers stand in the way?

Companies like GE Aerospace and Oshkosh Corporation are already part of the broader conversation, bridging the gap between commercial manufacturing and defense production. Oshkosh Corporation in particular has long operated in both civilian and military spaces, producing tactical vehicles while maintaining a diversified portfolio. That kind of hybrid model may soon become more common if Washington gets its way.

Boon or boondoggle?

But this isn’t just about national security. It’s also about economics, and that’s where things get complicated.

Automakers are navigating one of the most challenging environments in decades. Sales growth has cooled. Profit margins are tightening. The cost of electrification has ballooned beyond early projections, putting enormous pressure on balance sheets. Billions have been spent chasing EV targets that consumers have been slower to adopt than expected.

In that context, defense contracts start to look less like a burden and more like an opportunity. Stable, long-term revenue backed by government funding has a certain appeal, especially when your core business is under strain.

That doesn’t mean this is an easy pivot. Building consumer vehicles and building military hardware are fundamentally different businesses. Defense manufacturing comes with layers of compliance, extensive testing requirements, and procurement cycles that can stretch for years. This isn’t about slapping a different badge on a pickup truck and calling it a day.

Factories would need to be retooled. Workers would need retraining. Entire supply chains would need to be adjusted to meet military specifications. And all of it would have to happen within a regulatory framework that is far more complex than anything the auto industry deals with today.

Factory flex

Still, if there’s one thing American manufacturers have proven, it’s that they can adapt under pressure. During the COVID-19 pandemic, both GM and Ford shifted production to build ventilators in partnership with medical companies. It wasn’t perfect, but it was fast, and it demonstrated something important. When pushed, this industry can move.

Now, the Pentagon is betting that same flexibility can be applied to defense production. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been explicit about the need for what he calls a “wartime footing” in manufacturing readiness. That phrase matters. It doesn’t necessarily mean the U.S. is entering a traditional war, but it does mean planning for sustained, high-volume production of military equipment.

And the financial scale behind that planning is enormous. The Pentagon’s proposed $1.5 trillion budget would be the largest in modern history, with significant allocations for munitions, drones, and next-generation battlefield technologies. That kind of spending demands one thing above all else: capacity. And right now, capacity is the bottleneck.

There’s also a strategic shift happening here that shouldn’t be ignored. For years, the U.S. has relied on a relatively small group of defense contractors to supply its military. Those companies are highly capable, but concentration creates vulnerability. Expanding the industrial base to include commercial manufacturers could increase resilience and reduce dependency on a limited number of suppliers.

Civilians sidelined?

That’s the upside. The downside is just as real.

What happens when civilian manufacturing capacity is redirected toward defense? What does that mean for vehicle production, pricing, and availability? And how does this reshape the long-term business models of companies that were already in the middle of a massive transition toward electrification?

These are not abstract questions. They are practical concerns with real economic consequences.

Timing is another factor that adds urgency to the conversation. These discussions reportedly began before recent escalations in global tensions, but the current geopolitical environment has only intensified the pressure.

Some automakers are already positioned to step into a larger role. General Motors, for example, operates a defense subsidiary that produces an infantry squad vehicle based on the Chevrolet Colorado platform. It’s a relatively small part of the business today, but it serves as proof of concept. Automotive technology can be adapted for military use, and it can be done efficiently.

Looking ahead, GM is expected to compete for a major Army contract to develop the next-generation infantry squad vehicle, a platform designed to replace the aging Humvee. This isn’t just a transport vehicle. It’s being envisioned as a mobile command center, a power hub, and a critical component of modern battlefield operations.

That kind of project sits squarely at the intersection of automotive engineering and defense innovation. It’s also a preview of what could become a much larger trend.

In the near term, expect more discussions, more feasibility studies, and more pressure from Washington. The Pentagon is clearly signaling that it wants industry to be ready, not just willing. Readiness is the key word. This is about preparation for a scenario where demand spikes and the current system can’t keep up.

In the longer term, this could fundamentally reshape how we think about American manufacturing. For decades, the auto industry has been driven by consumer demand, regulatory requirements, and technological innovation. Now, national security is entering the equation in a much more direct way.

Detroit has always been a symbol of American industrial strength. Now, Washington is looking at it as something more, a potential force multiplier in a world where manufacturing capacity is becoming a strategic asset.

​Ev mandates, Ford motor company, General motors, Modern warfare, National defense, National security, Lifestyle, Auto industry, Pentagon, Pete hesgeth, Cars 

Many Americans today feel like they’re being crushed by the weight of modern life.

“Right now, absolutely everything feels unstable — the economy, the culture, politics, wars breaking out, our families, prices climbing. Paychecks somehow or another feel smaller every single month. People are screaming at each other online,” Glenn Beck sighs.

Over time, this pressure begins to erode the human soul and sow seeds of anger and bitterness.

Glenn has experienced the effects of this himself, especially in his 20s and 30s.

“I got in this place to where I thought, you know, if I can just get ahead of the next disaster, or if I could just get the next promotion, if I could just get that raise, buy that house, afford that car, if I could just win the next argument, if I could just get people to see things what I want them to see, then maybe I’d feel OK,” he recounts. “No, no — those things would happen, and then I would feel more empty.”

Even though today Glenn is in a far more healthy place and no longer copes with “drugs and alcohol,” he admits that he still finds himself numbing in other ways, like “doomscrolling.”

“I think that’s where a lot of people are right now. … We are spiritually exhausted; we are emotionally way underwater; we are isolated,” he says.

He knows from personal experience, however, that trying to rigidly control everything is not the answer. Freedom, he says, is actually found when we finally realize that control is an illusion.

“We’ve tried to predict the future, fix the country, save our kids, survive the economy, hold our relationships together, and then somehow or another still sleep well at night. No wonder people are cracking,” he proclaims.

There’s only one way we survive this: “radical honesty.”

“And it starts with looking in the mirror and dropping the act that you’re in control,” Glenn says frankly.

He argues that when we attempt to control everything, we’re allowing fear to sit behind the steering wheel of our lives.

“We have to start saying, ‘Fear has been driving a lot of my decisions, and it’s got to stop,”’ he says.

No more blaming the media, politicians, or our parents for our own shortcomings. “Start telling the truth about you,” Glenn urges, acknowledging that this is “hard” but leads to “freedom.”

Once you see yourself clearly, the next step is to “surrender to the understanding that [you’re] not God” and thus have no control over anything external.

This doesn’t mean that we give up on the pursuit of what’s good and true; it just means we stop trying “to carry the entire weight of the world on [our] shoulders,” Glenn says.

The only thing we can and should try to control, he encourages, is our own behavior.

“Tell the truth. Make amends. Be dependable. Stay sober or soberminded. Love your family deeply. Spend every minute present with them. Admit when you’re wrong. Turn off the phone. Help the person in front of you. … Get your soul in order,” Glenn implores.

“A society only survives when enough ordinary people choose to live their lives with integrity while the world around them has lost its mind, and I think people deep down are starving for this right now.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

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​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Burnout, Blazetv, Blaze media, Digital age, Spiritual battle