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Via American Greatness,

Testimony from multiple eyewitnesses cast doubt on Karmelo Anthony’s claim that he acted in self-defense when he fatally stabbed 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a track meet.

Several student witnesses described a confrontation in which Anthony, 19, allegedly refused repeated requests to leave a tent occupied by students from Frisco Memorial High School before the encounter turned deadly.

One 17-year-old student-athlete testified that Anthony did not appear to be acting in self-defense.

According to the witness, Anthony kept his hands inside his backpack until Metcalf shoved him, at which point he allegedly pulled out a knife and stabbed the teen in the chest.

“That’s lethal force against non-lethal,” the witness told the court.

The testimony directly challenged a central argument advanced by Anthony’s defense team. Anthony has claimed that Metcalf and his brother, Hunter, confronted him together, forcing him to use the knife to protect himself.

However, the 17-year-old witness testified that he never observed the brothers ganging up on Anthony.

Other witnesses described an escalating confrontation after Anthony entered the Frisco Memorial team tent.

According to testimony, students repeatedly asked Anthony to leave, with one witness estimating that the requests were made as many as 15 times.

A 15-year-old witness told the court that Anthony “tried to provoke us” after being asked to leave. The witness later stated, “He committed murder.”

A 16-year-old student recounted that Anthony sat down inside the tent and attempted to start a conversation, allegedly saying, “Crazy weather, huh?”

Witnesses testified that members of the Memorial team then asked Anthony to leave. Instead, they said, he became increasingly agitated and refused to go.

According to testimony, Anthony responded by saying, “F–k y’all. I’m not going to leave.”

Witnesses further alleged that Anthony taunted the students, saying, “Y’all are a bunch of p–sies. Y’all not going to do anything. Touch me and see what happens.”

Several witnesses also testified that Metcalf sought to avoid a physical confrontation.

According to their accounts, Metcalf told Anthony, “I’m not going to fight you.”

One student offered a different version of events, testifying that Anthony had been invited into the tent by a teammate. However, the witness also stated there was no apparent reason for someone to bring a knife to a track event.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warmly greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Pyongyang Monday, kicking off Xi’s two-day state visit to the internationally isolated country – which is his first trip there in seven years.

Xi has called for deepening “strategic coordination and cooperation” with North Korea shortly after receiving a lavish, red carpet welcome at the airport. The two sides should inject “powerful momentum” into their ties, Xi said according to a readout released by Chinese state media Xinhua.

The Chinese leader spoke of a friendship that was ‘generational’ with the DPRK, in advancement of the ‘socialist cause’.

There is plenty that is ideological found within the official readout in the wake of the two leaders’ initial meeting, per Xinhua:

No matter how the international situation changes, the Chinese party and government’s firm stance on highly valuing China-DPRK traditional friendship will not change, the firm support for General Secretary Kim in leading the DPRK’s socialist cause will not change, and the firm commitment to safeguarding the shared interests of the two countries and preserving a favorable strategic environment will not change, Xi said.

Xi pointed out that, in the face of the profound changes unseen in a century that are accelerating across the world, the two sides should take a broad and long-term view, build on past achievements and open up a new future, draw wisdom from the development process of the relations between the two parties and the two countries, seize opportunities in the prevailing trend of human history, inject new contemporary connotations and strong impetus into the traditional friendship between China and the DPRK, and open up a brighter prospect for the socialist cause of the two countries as well as regional peace and development.

This cooperation is expected to be on several fronts, including economics and trade, agriculture, health, construction, as well as science and technology, Xi underscored.

Kim along with his first lady, Ri Sol Ju, enthusiastically greeted Xi and were shown clapping as the Chinese presidential plane touched down earlier in the day. Huge portraits of Xi and Kim have been installed over Pyongyang’s main Kim Il Sung Square, where Xi’s motorcade was also greeted with big displays of pageantry, including a mounted cavalry escort.

NBC has some interesting commentary which points out that Kim is in a rare position of strength based on some recent firm, anti-West geopolitical stances taken and maintained:

But the North Korean leader is playing host from a position of rare strength, and his country has come a long way since Xi Jinping’s last visit seven years ago.

Kim’s backing of Russia’s war with Ukraine has paid dividends, his weapons program has cemented North Korea’s status as a de facto nuclear state, and an economy that buckled under the pressure of pandemic isolation and sanctions has since rebounded.

Indeed, Kim has of late been aggressively hyping his country’s nuclear modernization and expanse program. There’s not doubt he’s also closely following and taking notes on the Iran crisis. 

WATCH: Xi Jinping landed in Pyongyang for his first North Korea visit in nearly seven years.

Kim Jong-un rolled out the red carpet personally, greeting Xi and Peng Liyuan with a full honour guard. pic.twitter.com/9X9kK44No0

— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 8, 2026

Iran, which does not yet have nuclear weapons status, has been attacked by the United States and Israel – and so Pyongyang sees its nuclear expanse path as more justified than ever at this point, also given Washington still views North Korea as a ‘pariah’ state.

Another interesting development mentioned in state media relates to efforts to open borders: “Xi called on both sides to leverage the opportunity of the full reopening of border crossings and the resumption of civil aviation flights and international passenger trains to increase people-to-people exchanges and foster mutual interaction,” wrote Xinhua.

Authored by Maria Mocerino via Interesting Engineering,

The University of Manchester has discovered that the world’s largest scorpion, which lived 415 million years ago, was hiding in the museum’s collection for 150 years.

Since the 1870s, researchers have debated the identity of the strange fossil remains lurking in the Manchester archives. They possessed tiny fragments recovered from sites in England and Wales that puzzled them, but they could not piece them together. Was it a large woodlouse-crustacean?

In the 1980s, some research suggested that a scorpion might be the source of the fossil remains. However, this hypothesis faced challenges due to a lack of fossil evidence of its most distinctive feature: its tail.

To resolve the debate, paleontologists conducted a study of the remains using modern imaging and analytical techniques, according to a press release from the University of Manchester. They were “able to build a clearer picture of the animal than was previously possible, which is really exciting.”

The 3.3-foot-long Praearcturus gigas scorpion now joins the ranks of Earth’s ferocious prehistoric beasts, boasting pincers 6.2 inches long. As it roamed the Earth over 400 million years ago, researchers sought to understand the factors that allowed this prehistoric predator to grow to such an astonishing size.

The T. Rex of Scorpions

According to the study authors, “Along with dinosaurs, mammoths, and other charismatic megafauna, giant arthropods are an iconic symbol of the Earth’s deep paleontological history in popular culture.”

Lead author Dr. Richard J. Howard, Curator of Fossil Arthropods at the Natural History Museum in London, described the imagery often associated with giant arthropods: “Carboniferous rainforests filled with giant millipedes or dragonfly-like insects… but Praearcturus lived at least 50 million years earlier, well before the evolution of trees, when life on land was just beginning.“

In other words, researchers may have identified the T. rex of arthropods nearly two hundred million years before the rise of the dinosaurs. The Praearcturus gigas lived during the Early Devonian period – a time when forests had not yet evolved – so this giant scorpion lived among small plants and fungi, as per the press release.

What Did It Eat?

Researchers were stunned: how did the scorpion grow to such a size, surrounded by relatively unassuming and unimposing neighbors? The answer lies in its lack of competition. As few large animals were present at that time, Praearcturus was free to become a predatory giant, according to the NYPost.

Furthermore, the “cool” creature, which might inspire a new figurine in a child’s toy collection, may have been partially aquatic, as suggested by its epimera – the descending lateral plates or flaps found on the bodies of crustaceans.

Dr. Howard stated in Live Science, “Without complex ecosystems to support Praearcturus on land, these animals probably spent part of their lives hunting in water.” The Praearcturus was even “before its time,” and its extraordinary size might be explained by one factor: water.

“This places Praearcturus at a pivotal moment in Earth’s history when animals were first experimenting with life outside the oceans,” as per a press release.

“The boundary between land and sea was much less defined at this time,” Dr Greg Edgecombe, Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum, London, and co-author of the study, continued. “Praearcturus gives us a fascinating glimpse into how early animals adapted to these changing environments.”

“It may even represent a lineage that returned to the water after earlier ancestors had already begun living on land,” AOL concludes.

You can read the study here.

A House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report released Monday paints a devastating picture of both Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison, finding that they both knew about widespread fraud in state social services programs and failed to act.

The report centers on the Feeding Our Future scandal, in which a Minnesota-based nonprofit systematically exploited federal COVID-19 relief funds intended to provide meals to children.

So far, more than 60 people have already been found guilty of fraud in connection with the scheme, the majority of whom are of Somali descent. Some defendants used stolen taxpayer money to buy luxury goods, while others funneled proceeds to a radical Islamic terrorist group operating in Somalia. At least $300 million in federal child nutrition funds were placed at serious risk, and approximately $9 billion in Medicaid losses resulted from the broader fraud environment state officials allowed to fester.

“Fraud warnings were elevated to the most senior levels of the Minnesota state government, meaningful corrective action was delayed or avoided, and payments continued long after credible signs of fraud emerged,” the report states.

Senior officials in Walz’s office and Ellison’s office knew about systemic fraud concerns as early as 2019 within the Minnesota Department of Human Services and, by April 2020, within the state Department of Education, the report says, directly contradicting Walz’s and Ellison’s public statements.

This matters because both men held legal authority to cut off payments to fraudulent operators. Neither exercised it, even though Walz was aware of the suspected fraud in Feeding Our Future by 2020, and the payments continued.

The fraudsters didn’t just know how to exploit the system for financial gain; they knew how to blackmail state officials to keep their scheme going. When workers inside the Department of Education tried to audit child care and nutrition programs, providers accused them of racism. The accusation worked. Officials backed down despite holding evidence that funds were being fraudulently diverted. Dozens of human services department staff were warned, explicitly, that raising fraud concerns would get them labeled as racists and damage the government’s reputation. Some were pulled into supervisory meetings. Others were excluded from the very internal discussions about the fraud they had flagged.

And the directive to look the other way from the fraud came from the top down. One Minnesota Department of Education official who first contacted the FBI about Feeding Our Future told investigators her supervisors pressured her to stop investigating “at every turn” and that she got her “hand slapped” for continuing to look into it. Staff feared reporting fraud to the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General because that agency would notify the Commissioner or HR, who would then retaliate against them. The internal culture the Walz administration built was one in which accountability was the threat, not the fraud.

Rather than combating the fraud, the Walz administration spent resources monitoring employees to keep them in line. The priority, the report shows, was getting ahead of press coverage about the fraud, not stopping it.

“Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison are responsible for one of the most stunning oversight failures this Committee has ever examined,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said in a statement. “Today’s report is the culmination of months of investigative work and reveals hard evidence showing how the Walz Administration failed to stop widespread fraud, allowing criminals to enrich themselves at the expense of American taxpayers. Billions of dollars were stolen because Minnesota state leaders turned a blind eye to rampant fraud and retaliated against state employees who dared to raise concerns. It is now clear the Walz Administration chose to protect the system rather than protect the taxpayer.”

The report makes clear that this fraud wasn’t some bureaucratic mistake or a problem that went unnoticed. Senior officials were repeatedly warned about what was happening. They chose not to act in order to preserve their political relationship with Minnesota’s Somali community, manage the fallout, and sideline the employees who were raising red flags and trying to stop it.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

…on the eighth anniversary of the Kavanaugh nomination. It now appears that there are some women who are not to be believed… when the Senate may be in the balance..

“It’s clear the fix is in.”

Those words from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). came with her vote against confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Warren was outraged that her fellow senators refused to believe a woman who came forward with a decades-old allegation against Kavanaugh that lacked any corroboration.

It now appears that Kavanaugh’s former accusers are making the case that he was treated unjustly at their hands. At least they are now willing to swap “Me Too” for Maine.

Warren’s words were part of a mantra from Democratic members that either you believe women about sexual harassment and assault, or you are enabling abusers.

It was almost exactly eight years ago, in July 2018, that President Trump nominated Kavanaugh to fill the seat of retiring Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh, who was at first a very uncontroversial nominee, suddenly became the target of a well-financed, well-orchestrated campaign that would continue to resonate in that fall’s election campaigns. At the time, your failure to accept the word of Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh had assaulted her in high school was just proof that you and the system were sexist.

Long after the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh, the left continued to claim that his presence on the Supreme Court “rests on a mountain of misogyny.” In Ms. Magazine, actress Kathleen Turner reminded people that not believing women was furthering misogyny: “Survivors who come forward break the rules of silence a sexist society demands, and society expects them to pay a price.”

If you recall, the lack of evidence led to the Senate Judiciary Committee combing through Kavanaugh’s personal calendars. Denials that such a thing had ever happened, coming from childhood friends, were treated as still more evidence of sexism.

Screenshot/Judiciary Committee

There was Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who grilled Kavanaugh about using the term “boofing” (apparently referring to passing gas) with a high school friend as if it were a confession to a rape.

His inquisitorial barrage was something straight out of the McCarthy period.

Whitehouse expressed disgust that some would not take Ford’s word for it, declaring, “Today I stand with women who are brave enough to come forward with their stories of abuse and mistreatment. They deserve to be heard and credible allegations must be investigated. We must believe survivors, not bully them.”

Whitehouse is now a major donor and supporter of Graham Platner, the leading Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Maine.

He dismisses the New York Times accounts from women of Platner’s physically and mentally abusive behavior.

Instead of believing these women, he reportedly attacked Lyndsey Fifield, who “bravely” came forward publicly with her story at the request of Times reporters.

Whitehouse is quoted as saying that he was “unimpressed” by the allegations and the multiple women coming forward “seems like a lot of nothing.” He suggested that he is not prepared to believe a woman if she is a conservative. “I mean, the only one who had anything to say that seemed ‘unsettling’ was a woman who works for right-wing political operations,” he said.

That attack was picked up by others like writer Krystal Ball. She too had denounced those who did not believe Ford in the Kavanaugh controversy. In the past, she claimed at that time, “women just didn’t come forward. They knew they wouldn’t be believed.”

Now she cannot imagine why anyone would believe these women, particularly Fifield. “NYT published uncorroborated accusations against [Platner] of ‘unsettling’ and ‘toxic’ behavior that came from a Heritage staffer who previously worked for a conservative org that backs Collins,” she posted online.

Fifield, after sharing stories with the Times of Platner’s alleged abusive behavior, went public to complain that the newspaper had failed to include the corroboration she had provided. She posted that the paper not only failed to include that she has supported Democrats for office, but also asked, “Why does it say ‘nobody could corroborate’ when I offered them sources that COULD corroborate?”

She added, “The Times also failed to include any mention that I DID confide in multiple friends through the years that Graham had been abusive — long before he was running for office. Those friends confirm they told the Times so.”

If true, that is a strikingly different approach from the one taken by the media in reporting on the Kavanaugh allegations.

All the familiar faces are now attacking or dismissing these allegations.

That includes Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who campaigned for Platner this week. Khanna had previously pounded his chest in public over the Kavanaugh allegations: “I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.”

Some of the usual suspects are now quiet, and for good reason. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) dismissed Kavanaugh’s claims of innocence but later resigned from their respective offices after accusations of misconduct and harassment.

Of course, the sexual misconduct and mistreatment of women is not the only controversy surrounding Platner, who has reportedly ridiculed a wounded veteran, dismissed rape victims, and made other comments on his since-deleted Reddit account about Blacks and rural Mainers that would be considered disqualifying for most candidates. He made many other posts that were deeply offensive and some that were, frankly, gross.

Nevertheless, figures like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) would not even address the allegations, simply repeating awkwardly, “We’re going to … take back the Senate.”

Back in 2018, Schumer was proclaiming on the Senate floor, “For too long, when women have made serious allegations of abuse, they have been ignored. That cannot happen in this case.”

For her part, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) proclaimed her faith in any woman making such allegations in 2018. Now, she repeats, like Schumer, “I’m very optimistic we’re going to win Maine.”

In “A Man for All Seasons,” there is a scene where Sir Thomas More confronts Richard Rich, a former protege who lied in court to convict him in exchange for being named attorney general of Wales. As Rich passes by, More asks: “For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for Wales!”

The response by Democratic leaders today appears to be, “Well, yeah — not for Wales, but we’ll do it for Maine.”

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.“

There is not much to get excited about in canned-soup maker Campbell’s third-quarter results, with sales slumping and softness in its snack unit weighing on performance. But one revealing detail from management’s earnings call earlier on Monday offers a broader read-through on the consumer: households may be spending much more time cooking at home and pulling back from restaurants in the second half of the year. 

The canned-soup maker reaffirmed its full-year outlook, but Wall Street analysts were muted on the third-quarter results. 

BNP Paribas Max Gumport told clients that two key concerns remain: Campbell’s ability to stabilize organic sales in the snack unit and to navigate another year of elevated inflation. He noted the quarterly beat was driven largely by SG&A and below-the-line items, while the guidance reaffirmation was partly supported by an expected fourth-quarter tariff refund benefit. 

Third-quarter adjusted EPS printed at 50 cents, beating the 48-cent Bloomberg Consensus estimate but down from 73 cents in the same period one year ago. Net sales fell 4.4% to $2.37 billion, slightly below estimates. Organic net sales declined 4%, worse than the 3.3% drop analysts tracked by Bloomberg expected, with both meals & beverages and snacks down 4%.

Margins remained pressured. RBC Capital analyst Nik Modi said, “The company is navigating a challenging environment marked by inflation-driven margin headwinds and tariff impacts, which compressed adjusted gross margins by -240 bps points.” 

Campbell’s still expects full-year adjusted EPS of $2.15 to $2.25, versus the Bloomberg Consensus of $2.17, and organic net sales to fall 1% to 2%, versus the estimate of -2.14%. 

Notice how Campbell shares were crushed in the era of food inflation.

After the earnings release, Campbell’s held an analyst call.

David Palmer, senior managing director and head of restaurant and food producers at Evercore ISI, asked Campbell’s CEO Mick Beekhuizen about trends surrounding the snack-related portfolio:

Obviously, heading into fiscal ’27, you’re going to be dealing with the inflation you talked about, and the choices you’re making around snacks and those things will be cause for noise and varying degrees of sales or profit pressure. But I’m wondering if you’re just thinking about your core businesses and the goal of returning those to at least some modest growth, profitable growth. Where do you think are the near and medium-term potential wins, most improved areas that we’ll see from organic sales perspective? And then I have a quick follow-up.

Beekhuizen’s response revealed one very important trend: he expects at-home cooking to remain resilient in the back half of the year.

His response:

Sure. even if you look at this quarter, I’ll highlight a couple of areas, and I appreciate you asking the question because there are very clear proof points in this quarter that we can continue to support. Within the meals & beverage portfolio, the at-home cooking consumer trend is resilient, and we expect that trend to continue. And that is a big part of our meals & beverage portfolio plays right into that consumer trend.

The at-home cooking comment piqued our interest because it dovetails with a recent UBS note from analyst Dennis Geiger, the bank’s U.S. restaurants equity research analyst, who expects restaurant spending to remain in a “difficult cycle” through the second half of the year. That only lends credibility to Beekhuizen’s view that consumers are likely to continue leaning into home meals as mounting macro pressures weigh on discretionary dining.