• AI data centers boom out West
  • Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or…
  • Oct. 11, 2025, 8:00 AM EDTBy Alicia Victoria…
  • Palestinians Begin Return Home As Ceasefire Takes Effect

Be that!

contact@bethat.ne.com

 

Be That ! Menu   ≡ ╳
  • Home
  • Travel
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Contact Us
  • Politics Politics
☰

Be that!

Woman in Graceland fraud scheme sentenced to nearly five years in prison

admin - Latest News - September 23, 2025
admin
17 views 20 secs 0 Comments



Lisa Jeanine Findley, a Missouri woman who attempted to steal Graceland from the family of Elvis Presley, was sentenced to more than four years in prison. NBC News’ Priscilla Thompson reports on details of the case.



Source link

TAGS:
PREVIOUS
Sept. 23, 2025, 5:16 PM EDTBy Curtis Bunn and Tyler KingkadeIn 2016, Charlie Kirk wasn’t yet a household name. The young activist had co-founded Turning Point USA four years earlier to help spread conservative ideas on college campuses. But shortly after President Donald Trump’s first election, the group launched an ambitious new project — the Professor Watchlist — aimed at highlighting what it saw as left-leaning bias in higher education. The list, easily available online, now has more than 300 professor names, listed under categories like “Terror Supporter,” “LGBTQ,” “Antifa” and “Socialism.” Once dismissed by critics as a fringe culture war stunt, education experts say the list helped kick off a movement that continues today to monitor and expose perceived ideological opponents. Since Kirk’s assassination earlier this month, that movement has accelerated, with conservative activists systematically outing people in what critics have decried as a right-wing version of “cancel culture.” The backlash has led to the removal or resignation of dozens of teachers and professors who allegedly disparaged Kirk or celebrated his death online.“If you make statements that right-wing politicians don’t like, then you can lose your job. Period. That is chilling,” said Isaac Kamola, director of the American Association of University Professors’ Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, who runs a project called Faculty First Responders that helps professors who have been targeted by Turning Point or other groups. “The Professor Watchlist planted that seed.”NBC News interviewed six professors on the watchlist, added between 2016 and 2023. Some are on it for work they published and others for outspoken social media posts. Once added, they received negative messages and comments; two said it escalated to death threats.This atmosphere, which intensified as social media culture evolved, changed how students and professors interact, said Peter Lake, director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University College of Law. The watchlist was part of a shift that made “what had been a semi-private space — the classroom — into a place where statements or discussions could get national attention,” Lake said. Knowing a stray comment could go viral stifles free speech, he added.“When you step in the classroom, you might as well be in the studio,” he said. “People are going to record what you’re saying, they may publish it, they may take it out of context, they may share it with your enemies — anything can happen now and it frequently does.”Charlie Kirk near the campus of Georgia State University in Atlanta in 2024.Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP via Getty Images fileThose forces were at work earlier this month, for instance, when conservatives circulated a video of a Texas A&M student confronting a senior lecturer in the English department for teaching about gender identity, citing Trump’s executive order recognizing only two genders. The lecturer, who was not on the Professor Watchlist, was fired and two administrators were removed from their posts. Last week, university president Mark Welsh also resigned amid the controversy.Some conservatives argue the watchlist was a necessary antidote to left-wing bias on campus and helped counter-balance the criticism of right-wing professors. It was “part of changing the way the right engaged with higher ed,” said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. “The problem is not with the list,” he said. “The problem is that the list was ever necessary.”Turning Point USA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Charlie Kirk himself defended the project as “an awareness tool” in a 2018 interview with “The Opposition,” a Comedy Central TV show.“It’s not ‘Professor Blacklist’ and it’s not ‘Professor Hitlist,’” Kirk said at the time. “We’re not calling for the termination of these professors — let the schools make their own decisions.”Some professors targeted by the watchlist said it sparked a campaign of harassment against them.Shawn Schwaller, an assistant history professor at California State University, Chico, was added to the list in 2021. His profile includes a long list of allegations, including that he had disparaged conservatives. In one article Schwaller wrote, he offered a defense of protesters at a right-wing Christian event who used flash bombs and bear spray, arguing that they were responding to the “intensely violent rhetoric of a white Christian supremacist.”Schwaller said he was surprised by the response he received online once his name went public. “I hope the professor gets some lead,” one post read. Another said, “He better get a third eye behind his head because its gonna get serious for him.”Preston Mitchum, a former Georgetown Law adjunct professor, found himself on the list after writing on X, formerly Twitter, in 2017, “All white people are racists. All men are sexist. Yes, ALL cis people are transphobic. We have to unpack that. That’s the work!” Mitchum had also appeared on a Fox News panel alongside Charlie Kirk to discuss issues around race after President Trump met with Kanye West in 2018. He said he had been receiving backlash from his tweets but the vitriol increased after the segment aired.He received unwanted calls and emails, Mitchum said, including death threats. “I’m a Black, queer man. I don’t scare often,” he said. He said he finds it hypocritical that Kirk is hailed as a champion of free speech yet created a tool he believes has been used to silence people. “The entire goal is censorship, like fundamentally, the goal is to get you to stop talking,” he said.Preston Mitchum said he received death threats after appearing on the Professor Watchlist and on a panel with Charlie Kirk.Kollin BensonFor some professors, being put on the list was a badge of honor. Charles Roseman, an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was added after co-authoring an article on sex and gender in Scientific American in 2023. “I’m quite glad to draw their ire,” he said. “I’m glad that they disapprove of me. That’s quite the compliment.”Kirk, in a 2016 interview with Time magazine, said the list was not meant to intimidate or “make these professors feel any less secure.” “The inspiration was just to shine a light on what we feel has been an unfair balance toward left-leaning ideas and biases in our universities,” he said.In the years since its inception, the watchlist seems to have inspired other groups. Right-wing influencers like Libs of TikTok now regularly spotlight individual faculty they believe want to indoctrinate students, while conservative parent groups like Moms for Liberty have advocated for state laws limiting what can be discussed in classrooms or shared in libraries. These activists are close allies of the MAGA movement.Republican governors, such as Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas, have also made fights over “wokeness” in colleges a core component of their legislative agendas. Death of Charlie Kirk raises questions about future of free speech in America02:00John Wesley Lowery, an expert in higher education law who advises universities on compliance with federal regulations, said it’s simpler to share details about professors today than when the watchlist was first launched. “It is so much easier to crowdsource information now,” he said. And that’s not the only change, he said, noting that past activism targeted individuals. “What we’ve seen over the last week instead is far more concerted efforts to immediately place pressure on institutions to take action.”Lake, of Stetson University, said the watchlist was a catalyst in changing the way professors work. Among professors writ large, he said, there is an “air of fatalism — do the job long enough, and you could step on a land mine and that could be it.” It’s not only professors who limit what they say in class now, he said. The same is true among students. Lake brought up Kirk’s assassination a couple times in class recently, and there was “no reaction,” he said. “They don’t want to get caught up in a whirlwind.”Curtis BunnCurtis Bunn is a reporter for NBC BLK.Tyler KingkadeTyler Kingkade is a national reporter for NBC News, based in Los Angeles.Melissa Chan and Jo Yurcaba contributed.
NEXT
'Rapturetok' videos go viral on social media
Related Post
October 4, 2025
Trump responds to Hamas agreeing to release hostages
September 21, 2025
Kirk supporters on Kimmel suspension
October 1, 2025
Sept. 30, 2025, 10:07 AM EDT / Updated Sept. 30, 2025, 8:50 PM EDTBy Scott Wong, Frank Thorp V and Kyle StewartWASHINGTON — The federal government is barreling toward a shutdown Tuesday night, with President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders engaged in a fierce blame game and trading insults about each other.Hours before the midnight deadline, the Senate on Tuesday gaveled out for the evening with plans to return on Wednesday. A shutdown is all but assured to begin after midnight.It’s unclear where the parties go from here. The Senate Tuesday evening voted down competing Republican and Democratic plans to stave off a shutdown.House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he hoped the defeat of the GOP bill — for a second time this month — “will open lines of communications” with Republicans. That has not yet happened.“Leader Schumer and I have made clear we are ready, willing and able to sit down and with anyone, anytime, any place to fund the government and to address the Republican health care crisis,” Jeffries said shortly before the Senate votes.Senate fails to pass funding bill, shutdown imminent00:36Bipartisan talks have been at a standstill in the 24 hours since the Big Four congressional leaders met with Trump at the White House Monday.The impacts of a shutdown would be felt by many. None of the millions of federal workers would be paid, and hundreds of thousands of them would be furloughed. In recent days, White House officials had tried to allow military personnel to continue receiving pay during a shutdown, according to a source familiar with the discussions, but those efforts were unsuccessful. So service members wouldn’t be paid during a shutdown, either.And the White House has threatened to fire federal workers in a shutdown as well. Asked Tuesday morning how many government employees his administration would lay off, Trump responded: “Well, we may do a lot, and that’s only because of the Democrats.”The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that a government shutdown would lead to the furlough of about 750,000 federal employees.Responding to Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who asked for the assessment, the CBO said of the furloughed workers: The “total daily cost of their compensation would be roughly $400 million. The number of furloughed employees could vary by the day because some agencies might furlough more employees the longer a shutdown persists and others might recall some initially furloughed employees.”Federal agencies, including the Defense and State departments, have already posted their plans for how they will operate.In the final hours before a shutdown, the two parties traded insults rather than serious proposals.Trump shared a crude post on Truth Social Monday night that showed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., with fake AI-generated audio, saying Democrats “have no voters anymore, because of our woke, trans bulls—” and that if they give undocumented immigrants health care, they would vote for his party.The post depicted Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache as he stood silently by Schumer’s side. Mariachi music played in the background.The video referenced a Trump talking point that Democrats are demanding health care for undocumented immigrants in exchange for their votes to keep the government open. Democrats have called that a lie. They have pushed to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies and to undo Trump’s Medicaid cuts, not to pay for health care for people who are in the country illegally.Schumer responded to the video on X, writing: “If you think your shutdown is a joke, it just proves what we all know: You can’t negotiate. You can only throw tantrums.”Jeffries had tough words for Trump during a news conference on the steps of the Capitol on Tuesday morning. “Mr. President, next time you have something to say about me, don’t cop out through a racist and fake AI video,” Jeffries said, surrounded by dozens of rank-and-file Democrats. “When I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face.”The House leader also shared a photo on X of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. “This is real,” Jeffries wrote above the photo, which was taken at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 1997. (Trump has said he and Epstein had a falling out, and he was unaware of the financier’s crimes.)The personal insults indicated that the two sides were nowhere close to an agreement to keep the government’s lights on past Tuesday’s deadline.“It looks to me like we’re headed for a shutdown,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., earlier Tuesday. “And you know me, I’m the most optimistic person you know.”High-stakes White House meeting as government shutdown deadline looms02:18Political theater dominated on Tuesday. Democrats filed onto the House floor during a pro forma session as the party’s top appropriator, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, attempted to offer her party’s plan to keep the government open. But Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., who was presiding, did not acknowledge her and quickly adjourned. “Shame on you!” some Democrats jeered at Griffith. Democrats on the floor had a poster with Speaker Mike Johnson’s face on it and the words: “Missing Person.” Johnson, R-La., was in the Capitol on Tuesday and attended the Trump meeting a day earlier. But the House left town Sept. 19 after passing a seven-week funding bill and is not set to return until Oct. 7. By Tuesday evening, the GOP-controlled Senate made a last-gasp attempt to avert a shutdown but came up short. The upper chamber voted down competing Democratic and Republican funding plans, a repeat of earlier this month when the same bills failed to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to pass.The GOP bill had cleared the House on a party-line 217-212 vote on Sept. 19, but it was rejected Tuesday in the Senate 55-45, shy of the 60 votes needed to break a Democratic filibuster. Three members of the Democratic Caucus — Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Angus King, I-Maine — joined Republicans in voting yes; just one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted no with Democrats.The rival Democratic bill to fund the government was also rejected, on a party-line 47-53 vote.If a shutdown occurs, “that’s a sad day for the country, it truly is. We have to find a better solution,” said Fetterman, who voted for both bills. “As a senator, I think that’s one of our core responsibilities, keep the government open … and then debate and figure out some kind of compromise.”Republicans have argued that Democrats could avert a shutdown by simply voting for the House-passed continuing resolution, or CR, which would fund the government at current levels through Nov. 21.But Democrats said they are trying to stave off a looming “health care crisis.” Specifically, Democrats want any CR to include an extension of Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year. They have also pushed for rolling back some of the cuts and changes to Medicaid that were enacted in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” earlier this year.Speaking to reporters in the Capitol after Monday’s meeting with Trump, Schumer said Trump appeared to be “not aware” of the impacts of expiring Obamacare subsidies on everyday Americans. And he urged Trump to try to convince GOP leaders on Capitol Hill to back a deal to extend those subsidies.”It’s now in the president’s hands,” Schumer said, with Jeffries at his side. “He can avoid a shutdown if he gets the Republican leaders to go along with what we want.”Scott WongScott Wong is a senior congressional reporter for NBC News. Frank Thorp VFrank Thorp V is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.Kyle StewartKyle Stewart is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the House.Brennan Leach, Gabrielle Khoriaty and Sahil Kapur contributed.
September 30, 2025
Trump, top lawmakers fail to make progress in averting looming shutdown
Comments are closed.
Scroll To Top
  • Home
  • Travel
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Contact Us
  • Politics
© Copyright 2025 - Be That ! . All Rights Reserved