Nearly One-Third Of Gen Z Steers Clear Of Car Insurance, Survey Finds

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A significant share of American drivers have opted to avoid insuring the vehicles they drive amid the rising cost of living and shifting consumer habits, a recent survey finds.

Around 30% of Generation Z — people born between 1997 and 2012 — admitted to owning or driving an uninsured vehicle within the past six months, according to a survey TransUnion published Tuesday. While the reasoning by respondents vary, key factors involve shifting behaviors by consumers as well as the unpredictability of economic outlooks — including effects of the Iran War — making the true costs of car ownership undesirable.

As perhaps the most commonly experienced cost, the average price of a regular gallon of gasoline in the United States was roughly $4.07 at the time of publication, and $0.92 higher than one year ago, according to AAA.

The research was based “almost exclusively” off of TransUnion’s internal data. The global consumer credit reporting agency did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

“We know affordability is a big challenge for Gen Z, and that certainly helps explain their lapses in coverage,” TransUnion senior director of strategic planning Patrick Foy stated in the report’s accompanying press release. “However, we don’t think that’s the whole story as more indicated that they simply chose not to renew their coverage than were unable to pay.” (Read more from “Nearly One-Third Of Gen Z Steers Clear Of Car Insurance, Survey Finds” HERE)

Rep. Nancy Mace Reveals New Tattoos as She Launches YouTube Show after Losing Political Career

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Outgoing firebrand Rep. Nancy Mace used her new YouTube talk show to debut spicy tattoos on both arms — as she went sleeveless in public for the first time in months.

Mace (R-SC) broke out her inked-up gun show while promoting “Get Maced,” a program where she will apparently address news of the day.

The 48-year-old South Carolina Republican revealed in February that she got several tattoos, which provided her “the pain that I need to feel.”

However, she had kept them almost entirely covered up in public until she took to social media late last week to tease her future plans.

Back in February, she said she got nine tattoos in rapid succession to mark the exodus of staffers from her office who badmouthed her to the press and the breakup with her fiancé — among other bad experiences.

The 48-year-old also described it as a way to “reclaim” her identity and body. (Read more from “Rep. Nancy Mace Reveals New Tattoos as She Launches YouTube Show after Losing Political Career” HERE)

Photo credit: Nancy Mace / YouTube Screenshot

Harvard Professor Slammed For Allegedly Relying On AI In Anti-Trump Op-Ed

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A star economist at Harvard is taking heavy criticism over accusations that artificial intelligence did most of the work on his anti-Trump column.

Ricardo Hausmann wrote the opinion piece attacking President Donald Trump’s tariffs for the Financial Times, which ran it Thursday. He is the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School and director of Harvard’s Growth Lab. The outlet later attached an editorial note to the article conceding that AI had played a role.

“It has come to our attention that AI was used to condense a longer draft of this column prior to submission to the FT and our own editorial involvement,” the note reads, according to the Financial Times. The paper added that its code of conduct bars AI from the writing process.

Readers flagged the column on social media over its wooden prose before the disclaimer appeared. One X user called it the worst AI slop yet seen in a major outlet. Another posted a screenshot from the detection tool Pangram indicating the 841-word piece was 71% AI-generated.

Pangram and its chief executive, Max Spero, have become a frequent authority in disputes over AI authorship, though the tool’s reliability remains contested, according to Slate. The Guardian dismissed one Pangram accusation against a longtime staffer as preposterous. A separate case saw the detector score a novel at 78% AI, a finding that helped sink the author’s book deal even as she denied using the technology, according to Fortune. (Read more from “Harvard Professor Slammed For Allegedly Relying On AI In Anti-Trump Op-Ed” HERE)

Iran Denies Report of ‘Backchannel’ Negotiations with U.S.

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Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Monday dismissed “fabricated” reports in American media of secret “backchannel” negotiations between the U.S. government and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The report on backchannel communications, published by Axios on Sunday, said that former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard set up the line of communications in May, using the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, as a go-between.

According to the report, Barzani used his ties with the IRGC to get in touch with its leader, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi. Vahidi said he supported the work of Iran’s negotiators, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

Barzani relayed the message back to Gabbard, providing important information at a time when many observers thought the IRGC was working to sabotage negotiations. It was also unclear at the time whether Aragchi, or any other representative of Iran’s secular government, had any real power to make an agreement with the United States.

The report said the Trump administration wanted to open this channel of communication wider, developing Barzani into an intermediary, and possibly even arranging direct talks between American and Iranian representatives in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Iranians allegedly balked at this proposal, in part because they feared Israel might try to assassinate any representatives they sent to Erbil. (Read more from “Iran Denies Report of ‘Backchannel’ Negotiations with U.S.” HERE)

Trump instructs Pentagon to Reduce Military Exercises with South Korea

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President Donald Trump said on Sunday he had instructed the Pentagon to substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea in a social media post that also mentions Seoul’s refusal to take part in actions against Iran.

Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site that, although it was too late to cancel the exercises entirely, he was “not happy” that the United States had previously agreed to participate.

The president also cited his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“These exercises are not only costly… but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” he wrote.

Trump also pointed to South Korea’s stance on the US-Israeli conflict with Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump has instructed the Pentagon to substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, he said on Sunday in a social media post that also mentioned Seoul’s refusal to take part in actions against Iran. (Read more from “Trump instructs Pentagon to Reduce Military Exercises with South Korea” HERE)

NYC: Socialist Lawmaker Claims Stealing for ‘Biological Need’ Should Not Be Illegal

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A socialist lawmaker in New York City has claimed “biological need” gives shoplifters the right to steal from store shelves.

State Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, who describes herself as a “neighborhood organizer” and “democratic socialist,” made her comments on Thursday outside Manhattan Criminal Court, the New York Post reported Saturday.

She was joined by members of Court Watch NYC, which claimed they monitored hundreds of arraignments for several days and found half of those cases were misdemeanors.

Gallagher said:

Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty-people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap. And that means if you’re stealing those things, you need them. And we are choosing to protect billion-dollar companies, like CVS and Walgreens, over the people who are struggling to get by. So I would say that the true crime is that there is such incredible wealth disparity in this city that there are people who can be thrown in jail simply for having a biological need.

Gallagher said she is fighting to “pass things like treatment not jail and that we hold the line on the incredible criminal justice reforms that we have done over the last 10 and 20 years that are constantly being threatened by right-wing media who are looking to fear monger about people who are actually just in absolute dire straits.” (Read more from “NYC: Socialist Lawmaker Claims Stealing for ‘Biological Need’ Should Not Be Illegal” HERE)

Man Who Carried Clinton Nuclear ‘Football’ Reveals What ‘Scares the Hell out of Me’ about Trump’s Air Force One Story

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A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who carried the nuclear “football” for former President Bill Clinton says the extraordinary Air Force One shell game departing Ankara, Turkey, last month to protect President Donald Trump from a potential attack was hardly unprecedented.

“It was brilliant,” retired Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson told Fox News Digital. “I wish I had been a part of it. That’s how well done it was.”

But Patterson is warning that exposing the vital national security secrets behind such operations could put presidents, military personnel and the White House press corps in danger for years to come.

Patterson served as Clinton’s senior military aide for a period of two years and was responsible for the president’s emergency satchel, and in a 20-minute interview Wednesday, he explained how presidential decoys, aircraft swaps and other acts of deception are longstanding tools used to protect the commander in chief, his senior officials and the “privileged” Air Force One press corps.

What alarms him, Patterson said, is not that Trump’s security team used the tactic — including the catering truck sleight of hand he was intimately a part of during the Clinton administration — but that details of how it was done are now spilling into public view.

“I hope that they prosecute this to the fullest,” Patterson said. “Whoever leaked that, in my opinion, and having been involved in this, was highly placed in that process.” (Read more from “Man Who Carried Clinton Nuclear ‘Football’ Reveals What ‘Scares the Hell out of Me’ about Trump’s Air Force One Story” HERE)

Democrat Charged In Alleged $1,500,000 Pandemic-Era Fraud Scheme

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The Democratic mayor of Lawrence, Mass. has been arrested and faces charges for allegedly fraudulently obtaining more than $1.5 million in pandemic-era small-business loans and misusing the money, the Department of Justice said Friday.

Brian DePeña, 61, was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering and is set to make an initial appearance in a Boston federal court on Friday, the DOJ said in a news release. DePeña used the funds from the pandemic relief loans to fund his campaign account, pay personal taxes, and pay off more than $880,000 in high-interest mortgages, the department alleges.

“Mayor [DePeña] was elected to be a leader for the City of Lawrence. He was looked up to and trusted by his constituents, but he betrayed that trust through his alleged corruption and lies,” U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said in a statement. “Today’s arrest is just another example of our determination to root out fraud by anyone, even public officials and holding elected officials accountable.”

In 2020 and 2021, DePeña applied for Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) for Tenares Tire Services Inc., a Lawrence-based tire sales and automotive services business that he owned, the DOJ alleged, citing charging documents. The EIDL program provided loans and advances aiming to “help businesses recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic,” according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Working capital did not include financing a political campaign, paying personal taxes, or paying off mortgages, according to the DOJ. (Read more from “Democrat Charged In Alleged $1,500,000 Pandemic-Era Fraud Scheme” HERE)

Retail Sales Suffer Biggest Drop In More Than A Year As Iran War Casts Shadow Over Economy

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Americans sharply pulled back on retail spending in July even as inflation remained elevated, raising fresh questions about whether the U.S. economy is weakening beneath the surface of the Iran war’s supply-driven price shock.

Retail sales fell 0.6% in July from the previous month, the Commerce Department reported Friday, marking the largest monthly decline since May 2025 and missing economists’ expectations for a modest increase. The Federal Reserve acknowledged that the conflict in the Middle East produced supply shocks, particularly in energy, contributing to elevated inflation.

The central bank simultaneously warned that household consumption had been growing only modestly.

For American households, the problem is more straightforward: they face higher prices while the economy shows signs of weakening demand. The result is less purchasing power and fewer opportunities to absorb another round of higher costs.

The headline figure is nominal, meaning it is not adjusted for inflation. Consumer prices increased another 0.1% in July, according to government data, meaning the underlying volume of goods purchased fell by more than the headline retail figure suggests. A rough adjustment for consumer-price growth would put the July decline in real terms at around 0.7%, though the precise figure depends on the deflator used for retail sales. (Read more from “Retail Sales Suffer Biggest Drop In More Than A Year As Iran War Casts Shadow Over Economy” HERE)

CBP Says ‘Limited’ Barriers Going Up Amid Backlash For National Park Construction

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) clarified Thursday that infrastructure being constructed to prevent border crossings at Big Bend National Park will be “limited.”

“Big Bend belongs to the American people, and our job is to keep it safe. So, let’s be clear about what is — and is not — happening there,” a CBP statement reads.

The agency will not be building a 30-foot wall or stadium lighting through the local state and national park, according to the statement. They plan on adding one new access road, improving existing roads, installing detection technology and placing barriers for vehicles in some strategic locations.

Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Aug. 7, highlighting the concerns of Texans that the department had plans to construct a border wall through the parks.

Protesters gathered at Santa Elena Canyon earlier in August, chanting, “No road. No wall. No wire. No way,” in the belief that DHS would be “bulldozing” Big Bend National Park for border construction.

(Read more from “CBP Says ‘Limited’ Barriers Going Up Amid Backlash For National Park Construction” HERE)