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Where evil tried to win: How a Utah revival turned atrocity into interfaith miracle
Intense feuds over theological differences between traditional Christians (Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox) and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints date back to 1830, immediately after Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith launched his church.
After nearly 200 years of strife, that fierce debate transformed into an unprecedented, inspiring moment of interfaith healing on Sunday night at Utah Valley University — a predominantly Latter-day Saints campus and the largest university in the state — where prominent evangelical Protestant Pastor Greg Laurie hosted a revival event called “Hope for America.”
‘We’re going to go to that place of darkness, and we’re going to turn on the radiant light of Jesus Christ and proclaim the gospel that Charlie believed.’
Organizers created the event to rebuild spirits at the site of Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September. Students and faculty felt distraught after the trauma of Kirk’s murder, which happened in broad daylight, shortly after students returned to campus from summer break.
Kirk — a prominent conservative activist, confidant of President Trump, and founder of Turning Point USA — was brutally gunned down, allegedly by a deranged gunman from southern Utah, while Kirk spoke outdoors near the UVU student services building.
For many Americans, the first time they had heard of UVU was for this infamous, gut-wrenching reason.
“We’re going to go to that place of darkness, and we’re going to turn on the radiant light of Jesus Christ and proclaim the gospel that Charlie believed,” Laurie said in a press statement announcing the exciting gathering, organized with just six weeks’ prep time for an event that typically takes six months.
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Chet Strange/Getty Images
Laurie, 72, is the founder of Harvest churches in California and Hawaii and of Harvest Crusades. A prolific evangelist who fills up stadiums around the world in massive Billy Graham-style revival events, Laurie is a best-selling author and movie producer. His 2023 film “Jesus Revolution” tells the story of his conversion away from the drug-infused culture of 1970s California.
Laurie planned to come to Utah in 2027, but Kirk’s assassination sped up the timeline to offer a timely balm to the community. He was also co-hosted by pastors from more than 100 local Protestant churches who helped promote the gathering. Tickets were free, all quickly snapped up by attendees for the 8,500-seat UCCU Center, the basketball arena on campus. Laurie said there were an additional 67 overflow sites in the area to watch. The revival featured music from renowned Protestant Christian artists Chris Thomlin and Phil Wickham.
UVU president Astrid Tuminez said 70% of UVU’s students identify as Latter-day Saints, according to Courtney Tanner at the Salt Lake Tribune. Utah Valley has the highest concentration of practicing Latter-day Saints in the world.
I grew up in the Latter-day Saints tradition, and my ancestors worked with Smith and other early pioneer leaders like Brigham Young. As a child, I attended an elementary school down the road from UVU. Back then, it was the much smaller Utah Valley Community College.
As I share in my memoir, “Motorhome Prophecies,” released last year, at that school we had only one non-LDS student in my class (a Catholic). I felt suspicious of her and afraid to attend her birthday slumber party.
But such is the suspicion of many who grow up in the majority of any dominant culture against the minority.
I stopped practicing the Latter-day Saints faith after my Brigham Young University graduation in 2005 at age 22. I later formally resigned from the Latter-day Saints organization in 2010 and got baptized as a Protestant, eight years ago this Dec. 3.
‘You meant it for evil; God meant it for good.’
So I am thrilled to see these bridges being built in real time. This type of unity ripened years prior under the leadership of the late Latter-day Saints leader Russell Nelson, who passed away in late September.
Laurie asked me to help him workshop his remarks prior to delivery. I was honored to provide whatever insight I could in hopes of serving Laurie’s profound desire to share the message of Christ’s redemption for all mankind.
“Why did Charlie Kirk die in such a tragic way, only a short distance from where we are right now?” Laurie wrote in his remarks. “I do not know the answer to that question, but I know Charlie is in heaven. But this event tonight would not be happening if not for that horrific event.”
Indeed, life’s most wrenching crucibles can propel us to our greatest moments of growth and freedom. In his remarks, Laurie also quoted from the book of Genesis: “But Joseph said to them, ‘ … you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.'”
“This your moment. Don’t wait for a tragedy. Don’t scroll past this one more time. Come to the Father, tonight!” Laurie said.
It’s miraculous to see how evangelicals and Latter-day Saints — groups with such a long history of heated disagreements — came together to unite in service of healing in God’s name.
My prayer is that Hope for America is just the first in a long series of interfaith reconciliation gatherings among Latter-day Saints, Protestants, and Catholics that will cultivate shared bonds among people of faith — all children of our heavenly Father.
CHAOS at UC Berkeley: Dr. Frank Turek exposes VIOLENT attack on free speech
The chaos, harassment, and violence that unfolded at a recent TPUSA event at UC Berkeley were so bad that the Department of Justice and FBI are now investigating.
“Antifa is an existential threat to our nation,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X following the event. “The violent riots at UC Berkeley last night are under full investigation by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force. We will continue to spare no expense unmasking all who commit and orchestrate acts of political violence.”
Alongside comedian Rob Schneider, author Frank Turek hosted the Turning Point event that packed the university’s Zellerbach Hall — and he’s telling BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey what really happened.
“Antifa was there, obviously. They were hurling insults and slurs at the people trying to get in. They set off fireworks, which sounded like gunfire, so people were scrambling,” Turek explains.
“The university police did not keep the walkway free to allow people to get in. So people were spat on, people were harassed, and they were not only harassed getting in, Allie, they were harassed getting out,” he continues.
“Most of these people were probably George Soros-funded, you know, liberal agitators,” he adds.
And these protesters were vile, shouting disturbed things like “f**k your dead homie” to mock the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
“Isn’t it ironic, Allie, that these people who say they’re fighting for inclusion, tolerance, and diversity will not include you and will not tolerate you for holding a diverse view?” Turek asks. “And they claim that we are the fascists.”
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Man allegedly lit random woman on fire on Chicago train — suspect had numerous previous arrests
A horrific incident on the el train in Chicago on Monday has led to a woman in critical condition with severe burns.
Police say that a 45-year-old male had a “verbal altercation” with the 27-year-old woman before the alleged attack, but a source who spoke to CWB Chicago contradicted the account.
The arson incident would be his 23rd arrest. Some of those arrests include other incidents of arson.
The source said the attack was unprovoked and completely random.
A person of interest was apprehended by police, but he has not been charged yet.
The source told CWB Chicago that the woman was paying attention to her cell phone on a Blue Line train at about 9:26 p.m. when the man doused her with a liquid from a bottle. She tried to run away, but he was able to catch up to her and light her on fire, according to the source. The man was also lit on fire during the altercation.
The woman was transported to Stroger Hospital in critical condition.
CWB Chicago reported that the suspect had previously been charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, but a judge denied a request to keep him in custody and ordered 24/7 electronic monitoring instead.
Three weeks later, another judge modified the terms to allow him to leave his home outside daytime hours, which includes the time of the alleged assault.
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The report also said that the suspect had been arrested 22 times since 2016 by the Chicago Police Department alone. The arson incident would be his 23rd arrest. Some of those arrests include other incidents of arson.
A source told CWB Chicago that no one on the train stepped in to help the woman after she was lit on fire. A witness also described the man as black.
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Fooled by fake videos? Unsure what to trust? Here’s how to to tell what’s real.
There’s a term for artificially generated content that permeates online spaces — creators call it AI slop, and when generative AI first emerged back in late 2022, that was true. AI photos and videos used to be painfully, obviously fake. The lighting was off, the physics were unrealistic, people had too many fingers or limbs or odd body proportions, and textures appeared fuzzy or glossy, even in places where it didn’t make sense. They just didn’t look real.
Many of you probably remember the nightmare fuel that was the early video of Will Smith eating spaghetti. It’s terrifying.
This isn’t the case any more. In just two short years, AI videos have become convincingly realistic to the point that deepfakes — content that perfectly mimics real people, places, and events — are now running rampant. For just one quick example of how far AI videos have come, check out Will Smith eating spaghetti, then and now.
None of it is real unless it is verifiable, and that is becoming increasingly hard to do.
Even the Trump administration recently rallied around AI-generated content, using it as a political tool to poke fun at the left and its policies. The latest entry portrayed AI Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero while standing beside a miffed Chuck Schumer who is speaking a little more honestly than usual, a telltale sign that the video is fake.
While some AI-generated videos on the internet are simple memes posted in good fun, there is a darker side to AI content that makes the internet an increasingly unreliable place for truth, facts, and reality.
How to tell if an online video is fake
AI videos in 2025 are more convincing than ever. Not only do most AI video platforms pass the spaghetti-eating Turing test, but they have also solved many of the issues that used to run rampant (too many fingers, weird physics, etc.). The good news is that there are still a few ways to tell an AI video from a real one.
At least for now.
First, most videos created with OpenAI Sora, Grok Imagine, and Gemini Veo have clear watermarks stamped directly on the content. I emphasize “most,” because last month, violent Sora-generated videos cropped up online that didn’t have a watermark, suggesting that either the marks were manually removed or there’s a bug in Sora’s platform.
Your second-best defense against AI-generated content is your gut. We’re still early enough in the AI video race that many of them still look “off.” They have a strange filter-like sheen to them that’s reminiscent of watching content in a dream. Natural facial expressions and voice inflections continue to be a problem. AI videos also still have trouble with tedious or more complex physics (especially fluid motions) and special effects (explosions, crashing waves, etc.).
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Photo by: Nano Calvo/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
At the same time, other videos, like this clip of Neil deGrasse Tyson, are shockingly realistic. Even the finer details are nearly perfect, from the background in Tyson’s office to his mannerisms and speech patterns — all of it feels authentic.
Now watch the video again. Look closely at what happens after Tyson reveals the truth. It’s clear that the first half of the video is fake, but it’s harder to tell if the second half is actually real. A notable red flag is the way the video floats on top of his phone as he pulls it away from the camera. That could just be a simple editing trick, or it could be a sign that the entire thing is a deepfake. The problem is that there’s no way to know for sure.
Why deepfakes are so dangerous
Deepfakes pose a real problem to society, and no one is ready for the aftermath. According to Statista, U.S. adults spend more than 60% of their daily screen time watching video content. If the content they consume isn’t real, this can greatly impact their perception of real-world events, warp their expectations around life, love, and happiness, facilitate political deception, chip away at mental health, and more.
Truth only exists if the content we see is real. False fabrications can easily twist facts, spread lies, and sow doubt, all of which will destabilize social media, discredit the internet at large, and upend society overall.
Deepfakes, however, are real, at least in the sense that they exist. Even worse, they are becoming more prevalent, and they are outright dangerous. They are a threat because they are extremely convincing and almost impossible to discern from reality. Not only can a deepfake be used to show a prominent figure (politicians, celebrities, etc.) doing or saying bad things that didn’t actually happen, but deepfakes can also be used as an excuse to cover up something a person actually did on film. The damage goes both ways, obfuscating the truth, ruining reputations, and cultivating chaos.
Soon, videos like the Neil deGrasse Tyson clip will become the norm, and the consequences will be utterly dire. You’ll see presidents declare war on other countries without uttering a real word. Foreign nations will drop bombs on their opponents without firing a shot, and terrorists will commit atrocities on innocent people that don’t exist. All of it is coming, and even though none of it will be real, we won’t be able to tell the difference between truth and lies. The internet — possibly even the world — will descend into turmoil.
Don’t believe everything you see online
Okay, so the internet has never been a bastion of truth. Since the dawn of dial-up, different forms of deception have crept throughout, bending facts or outright distorting the truth wholesale. This time, it’s a little different. Generative AI doesn’t just twist narratives to align with an agenda. It outright creates them, mimicking real life so convincingly that we’re compelled to believe what we see.
From here on out, it’s safe to assume that nothing on the internet is real — not politicians spewing nonsense, not war propaganda from some far-flung country, not even the adorable animal videos on your Facebook feed (sorry, Grandma!). None of it is real unless it is verifiable, and that is becoming increasingly hard to do in the age of generative AI. The open internet we knew is dead. The only thing you can trust today is what you see in person with your own eyes and the stories published by trusted sources online. Take everything else with a heaping handful of salt.
This is why reputable news outlets will be even more important in the AI future. If anyone can be trusted to publish real, authentic, truthful content, it should be our media. As for who in the press is telling the truth, Glenn Beck’s “liar, liar” test is a good place to start.
Iran’s freedom fighters put America’s No Kings clowns to shame
Liberals in the United States keep pretending to “resist” a democratically elected president they smear as an “authoritarian.” Meanwhile, real resistance fighters push back against a real authoritarian regime — in Iran.
For well-to-do white liberals, “resistance” amounts to a bumper sticker, a hashtag, a chant, and a safe protest march. No American faces arrest for opposing President Trump or his policies. Police never cracked down on thousands of No Kings demonstrators. The government never shut down the internet. No American risks execution for demanding new leadership.
Partisan voices push the false claim that Americans must choose between sending troops or doing nothing. Anyone who actually listens to Iranian dissidents knows better.
Iranian dissidents face all of that and more. Their resistance carries the cost of blood, freedom, and life.
Last weekend, I saw real resistance up close. More than 1,000 Iranian dissidents gathered in Washington, D.C., for the Free Iran Convention to plan for a future free from the mullahs’ rule. Panels featuring scholars, women, young activists, and even voices from inside Iran painted a picture of a regime on the brink.
As the regime clings to power, it leans harder on censorship, torture, and public executions to keep Iranians living in fear.
This crackdown unfolds against an economy collapsing under its own weight. More than 80% of Iranians live below the poverty line. Inflation punishes the entire country. Unemployment keeps climbing.
The harsher the repression, the more Iranians recognize the only path forward is regime change.
In 2018, 2019, and 2022, Iranians took to the streets in nationwide uprisings. Thousands died. Tens of thousands went to jail. As 2025 unfolds, the question no longer asks if another uprising comes — only when.
The West now faces its own question: Will we be ready to support the Iranian people when that moment arrives?
Here at home, partisan voices push the false claim that Americans must choose between sending troops or doing nothing. Anyone who actually listens to Iranian dissidents knows better.
A third option exists — the one championed by Maryam Rajavi and the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition that rejects both the shah’s dictatorship and the mullahs’ theocracy.
Rajavi, elected by the NCRI as president for the transitional period after the ayatollah’s ouster, puts it plainly:
Neither appeasement nor war, but regime change at the hands of the Iranian people and their organized, legitimate, and just resistance. We do not seek money or weapons. We only ask that this resistance be recognized.
This resistance already lives and breathes inside Iran. The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran stands as the largest and best-organized opposition movement in the country. Resistance units operate in all 31 provinces. They have carried out thousands of attacks on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij — the regime’s main instruments of suppression.
These units organize protests, strikes, and anti-regime campaigns. Their intelligence network exposed Tehran’s clandestine nuclear program and uncovered terrorist plots funded by the regime.
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Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The cost has been staggering. Since 1981, the regime has killed more than 100,000 PMOI/MEK members. Countless others have been imprisoned, tortured, or targeted in state-funded smear campaigns.
The idea of negotiating with the Iranian regime belongs to the realm of fantasy. No meaningful difference separates so-called hard-liners from so-called moderates. Both factions produce economic ruin at home and terrorism abroad. Young Iranians see the truth plainly.
During the Free Iran convention, Seena Saiedian — an Iranian American and law student at the University of Virginia — captured the desperation:
The landscape for the youth in Iran is bleak: hyperinflation, high unemployment, censorship, repression. Iranian youth see no hope for moderating or reforming the current regime. By every metric, life gets worse. The root cause of every challenge Iran’s youth face is the current regime.
The Iranian dictatorship will collapse. History guarantees that. The only question: Will the United States shorten the Iranian people’s suffering or extend the mullahs’ reign of terror?
If we want a secular, democratic Iran — one capable of fostering peace in the region — we must say clearly that no negotiation can salvage the current regime. No deal will reform it. No diplomatic fantasy can tame it.
We must tell the Iranian people and the brave resistance units operating inside the country that the United States stands ready to recognize their efforts and their right to chart a future for a free Iran.
The United States doesn’t need to send money, weapons, or troops. The regime is already on the brink of collapse. The Iranian people are already mobilizing. They need moral clarity from the West — not silence, appeasement, or more excuses.
Supporting freedom against tyranny is the American way. It always has been. And standing with the people of Iran honors the moral foundations that built this nation.
‘O’ NO: The View Goes Off the Rails as Hosts Argue Over Michelle Obama Claim [WATCH]
![‘O’ NO: The View Goes Off the Rails as Hosts Argue Over Michelle Obama Claim [WATCH]](https://hannity.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/View-300x167.png "View")
The View turned heated this week as the co-hosts dissected former First Lady Michelle Obama’s claim that America isn’t ready for a woman to be president.
Dem Nominee in Tennessee Special Election Smeared Her Own State As ‘Racist’
Tennessee is a racist state—at least according to Aftyn Behn, the Democratic nominee for the special election for Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District.
The post Dem Nominee in Tennessee Special Election Smeared Her Own State As ‘Racist’ appeared first on .
Same Game, Different Name: ‘Radioactive’ Arabella Advisors Announces Rebrand to ‘Sunflower Services’ as Prominent Donors Flee
Arabella Advisors, the shadowy for-profit consulting firm that managed a multibillion-dollar network of liberal dark money groups, is now Sunflower Services. The company announced Monday it has rebranded and sold off its fiscal sponsorship business to a new firm amid a series of high-profile investigations into its finances and billionaire Bill Gates’s decision to end a longstanding partnership with the organization.
The post Same Game, Different Name: ‘Radioactive’ Arabella Advisors Announces Rebrand to ‘Sunflower Services’ as Prominent Donors Flee appeared first on .
Trump defends H-1B; undercuts his own immigration narrative
Whether it’s building the wall or mass deportations, President Trump’s most memorable position for the past decade has been immigration.
But in a recent interview on Fox News, the president made it clear that his view on H-1B visas doesn’t align with his illegal immigration policy.
“Does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? Because if you want to raise wages for American workers, you can’t flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of workers,” host Laura Ingraham said to the president.
“You also do have to bring in talent,” Trump responded.
“Well, we have plenty of talented people,” Ingram fired back, to which Trump responded, “No, you don’t.”
“You can’t take people off … an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory; we’re going to make missiles.’ … It doesn’t work that way,” Trump continued.
“I mean, the truth is, like, Trump has always been a little squishy on this issue,” BlazeTV co-host Lomez says on “Rufo & Lomez,” pointing to an episode of the “All-In Podcast” where during an interview, the president spoke about preserving student visas.
“Let me just tell you that it’s so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools also. … What I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college, I think you should get, automatically as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” Trump said.
“And that includes junior colleges, too. Anybody graduates from a college, you go in there for two years or four years. If you graduate or you get a doctorate degree from a college, you should be able to stay in this country,” he continued.
Lomez tells co-host Christopher Rufo that he believes Trump is compromising with Big Tech, noting that the industry says “they’re dependent on these H-1Bs to sort of continue the business model that they currently have.”
While this is “actually probably true,” he’s not pleased with Trump helping this industry in this way.
“It is not therefore incumbent on the United States people and on President Trump to allow them to continue these abusive practices with regards to H-1B. So while that might be their business model, it ought not to be their business model, and we may have to take some coercive action so that they change their business model,” Lomez says.
However, he also believes that what President Trump has said regarding H1-Bs is being taken “way out of proportion.”
“It is a statement on a news show that is not necessarily reflected in what is actually happening from a policy point of view,” Lomez says.
“By this point, it sort of surprises me that people don’t understand the way he speaks publicly is not always indicative of his policy prescriptions,” he adds.
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Chicago community outraged over viral video of mom and kids getting jumped by grade-school children
Residents of a Chicago suburb are calling for action after a viral video on social media showed a mother and her two children getting attacked by a gang of schoolchildren.
33-year-old Corshawnda Hatter was walking with her son and daughter on South Bensley Avenue in the South Deering neighborhood on Monday at about 3 p.m. when they were attacked. They were walking home from Orville Bright Elementary School at the time.
‘It’s been an ongoing thing in this community, and the parents don’t take accountability for anything their kids do.’
The video shows the children laughing and mocking the mother and children before cornering them against a chain-link fence. Hatter tries to protect her children before the attackers begin punching her and drag her to the ground, where she is kicked and beaten.
The video lasts about two minutes.
Hatter and her son were treated at a hospital for injuries sustained in the attack.
On Tuesday, dozens of people showed up at the school demanding accountability and calling for students to be expelled. Hatter described what happened to her at the impromptu gathering.
“I asked my kids to come to the next side of the street with me, so they wouldn’t get jumped,” she recalled.
“So we kept walking. They followed us all the way,” she added. “And then they fought my son and hit my son first. … Then they dragged me in the grass and pulled my little baby’s hair out.”
She said she had a meeting with school officials about the incident.
Others told WGN-TV that the students had been terrorizing the neighborhood but that parents were to blame.
“It’s been an ongoing thing in this community, and the parents don’t take accountability for anything their kids do,” said one parent. “If my kids were being messy, I’m going to come out here and let it be known. I’m going to shut it down.”
Chicago Public Schools released a statement offering few details.
“We are horrified by the attack on this family, and we are working collaboratively with city departments and agencies to provide support to the victims of the attack. CPS is coordinating closely with the Mayor’s Office, CPD, CHA, and other city departments to provide additional support to the family,” read the statement in part. “School administrators, teachers, and support staff work with students to create an open environment where conflicts and grievances can be addressed.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson reacted on social media and called the attack “unacceptable” in a long statement saying he was deeply disturbed by the incident.
Hatter said outside the school that her son had been previously bullied by students.
“I’m trying to get justice for my son,” she said.
“And you deserve it!” a supporter responded.
CPD said no arrests had been made but that the department had increased the police presence at the school — for the rest of the week.
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