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An alumni group is questioning the academic value of a course on offer at the taxpayer-subsidized University of Virginia — a course taught by a non-straight poet who apparently encourages students to consult animals about their supposed oppression.The Jefferson Council, an alumni group "committed to leading the University of Virginia back to Thomas Jefferson’s legacy of freedom and excellence," noted Wednesday on X, "A course titled 'Ecofeminist Poetry & Poetics' being taught this spring at the University of Virginia has students 'listen' to plants and animals to better understand how 'settler colonialism' and slavery 'thrive off of the intrinsic interconnectedness between species.'"'Birds, goats, willow oaks, and lichen will accompany us through the semester.'"This is a real taxpayer-funded class," the group continued. "Is this what higher education has become?"The description for the graduate course on the UVA English department's website — which contains quotes from identitarian feminist and LGBT activist Alexis Pauline Gumbs — states:This interdisciplinary course will interweave brief readings from ecofeminist theory, ecopoetics, and black and indigenous environmental theories with books of contemporary ecofeminist poetry. This curriculum will encourage each of us to see what happens when we “rethink and re-feel,” writes Gumbs, our own “relations, possibilities, and practices” in conversation with the more-than-human world.The course syllabus notes that "birds, goats, willow oaks, and lichen will accompany us through the semester as we too attempt to listen across species," reported the College Fix.University records show that associate professor Brian Teare, a "queer"-identifying climate alarmist who specializes in environmental humanities and "queer theory," has taught versions of the ecofeminist course for several years.RELATED: Why do state schools bankroll people who despise the state? Photo by Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty ImagesJohn Gardner, president of the Jefferson Council, told the College Fix, "It is surprising to the extent that such an inane and clearly agenda-based politicized course could find its way into the curricula of any respectable institute of higher learning.""It is not surprising to the extent that over the past decade or more the increasingly left-wing politicized faculties of most universities have turned their curricula into woke fantasylands," added Gardner.'It is more suitable to be a course taught in Orwell’s "1984."'Teare and the university did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.Gardner referred to three other radical courses at the university that warrant concern: "Women and Gender in the Deaf World"; "Gender, Body Image, and Social Activism"; and "Queer Judaism," which poses the question, "What if we approached Judaism as a queer religion?""There are many others with the common theme that they are mostly narrowly focused on allegedly marginalized ‘identity groups’ based on race, gender, or ethnicity and are often intended to promote a predetermined agenda," said Gardner.The alumni group's president noted that Thomas Jefferson founded the university because "he felt it was important to have an educated and informed citizenry to sustain a successful republic."Gardner suggested that courses like Teare's "are not meant to follow truth, but to advance a political/social agenda. It is more suitable to be a course taught in Orwell’s '1984' than at Mr. Jefferson’s university."In 2025, UVA received over $338 million dollars in funding from the state.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

It may be one of the most remarkable technological breakthroughs in human history. Ask the American public, though, and you’ll hear something else entirely about artificial intelligence.A recent NBC News survey asked registered voters how they feel about a range of public figures and political topics. The results were striking. While Pope Leo posted a net favorability rating of +34, artificial intelligence came in at -20. That puts AI near the bottom of the list, ranking ahead of only the Democratic Party and Iran. According to the poll, only 26% responded “positive” to AI, while 46% responded “negative.”Who designs the systems? Whose values do they embed? Who gets accountability when they fail? The public does not have satisfying answers, and the industry hasn’t given them many.Think about that for a moment.A technology widely touted as capable of curing diseases, discovering new materials, and unlocking unprecedented productivity is viewed more negatively than every U.S. politician and institution included in the poll.Artificial intelligence may be revolutionary, but unless its architects confront the distrust surrounding it, AI risks losing the public confidence it will ultimately depend on.A perfect storm of distrustAs someone who follows AI closely, I can’t point to a single cause of the unease. It looks more like a perfect storm.For decades, science fiction trained audiences to associate AI with dystopia. From “2001: A Space Odyssey” to “The Terminator,” AI often appears as the moment humanity loses control of its own creation. Fiction isn’t the whole story, but it primes the public to expect the worst.Many Americans also worry about what AI will do to the workforce. Automation has threatened certain industries for years, but AI scales the threat. It now appears poised to hit huge swaths of white-collar work, including creative fields and even decision-making roles once assumed to require human judgment.Then came the explosion of what critics call “AI slop.” Across the internet, AI-generated articles, videos, images, and posts flood the feed. Much of it is low-effort content built to attract clicks, not provide value. The internet already buckles under misinformation and spam. AI has supercharged this problem.Americans also distrust the companies building these systems. The left has long been skeptical of massive corporations wielding too much power. The right grew more suspicious after years of fights over social media censorship and ideological activism. ESG efforts, which used corporate power to reshape incentives around political priorities, only reinforced the sense that tech and finance elites want to run the country by proxy.In short, both sides now distrust many of the institutions developing artificial intelligence. That is a bad position for an industry trying to introduce world-changing technology.When the experts sound the alarmPublic unease also draws fuel from the people closest to the machine. Several prominent voices in the AI world have issued stark warnings about risk.Elon Musk has suggested there may be “only a 20% chance of annihilation” from future advanced AI systems. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has cited a 25% chance AI development goes “really, really badly.” Geoffrey Hinton, often called the “godfather of AI,” has floated human extinction-level risk in the 10% to 20% range over the coming decades.When the builders of a technology openly speculate about catastrophic outcomes, it’s not surprising the public grows uneasy. To the average voter, it can sound like civilization is playing Russian roulette — and the people loading the cylinder are asking to be trusted.RELATED: Ex-NFL player asked ChatGPT for advice after allegedly murdering his fiancée Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty ImagesPower, control, and fear of the unknownBeyond jobs and misinformation, a deeper concern lies underneath: AI is becoming an infrastructure of decision-making.Algorithms already shape what news we see, what products we buy, and what ideas spread online. As AI grows more capable, it will influence public opinion, political discourse, and cultural norms even more.In authoritarian systems, that becomes an obvious tool of surveillance and control. But even in a constitutional republic, concentrating that much power in a handful of corporations — or in government — raises hard questions. Who designs the systems? Whose values do they embed? Who gets accountability when they fail? The public does not have satisfying answers, and the industry hasn’t given them many.The AI industry should pay attentionDespite the excitement in Silicon Valley and Washington, the NBC poll reveals a simple truth: Much of the public does not trust AI. For the companies racing to build ever more powerful systems, that should be a wake-up call.The industry often sells AI in near-utopian terms: medicine, energy breakthroughs, scientific discovery. Those gains may come. But many Americans see something else. They see massive data centers consuming energy while the internet fills with synthetic garbage. They see tech firms raising and spending billions while ordinary life gets harder. They see executives talking openly about betting civilization on tools they admit they don’t fully control.If AI’s architects want public buy-in, they will have to address these fears directly.A good place to start would be a clear public commitment to the constitutional principles Americans still expect: free speech, individual liberty, and personal autonomy. If AI will play a larger role in shaping information and decisions, the public needs confidence that these systems will protect fundamental freedoms rather than erode them.AI will be shaped, in part, by trust. Right now, that trust is in short supply.

A 22-year-old man allegedly attacked a 94-year-old woman who was sitting in a rocking chair on her front porch and brutally raped her in broad daylight, police say.The suspect, identified as Jeremiah Taylor, had numerous allegations of sexual assault in his background, including one against his own foster mother.'I don't know what word you really use. I'm really dumbfounded to try to explain it.' The Baton Rouge Police Dept. said officers responded to a report of a sexual assault on March 5 and identified a suspect within minutes of releasing images to the public the next day.Taylor was initially booked on charges of first-degree rape, second-degree battery, and cruelty to the infirm. He is being held at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. He is being held without bond.Baton Rouge Police Chief T.J. Morse said the evidence against Taylor is overwhelming."When you're looking at one of the most vulnerable parts of our population, the elderly, to take advantage of them in this way, horrendous, unacceptable," Morse said. "I don't know what word you really use. I'm really dumbfounded to try to explain it."WLBT-TV reported that sources indicated the victim suffered broken bones during the assault.Morse also expressed frustration that Taylor had a violent criminal history but had been released from jail in January after the most recent arrest was dismissed by a district attorney."It is a source of contention. It is a source of frustration on our department and with our officers," he added. "Why this has happened is some questions that I would love you all to ask the rest of the judicial system."Taylor had prior arrests for simple burglary, first-degree rape, theft, and second-degree battery. After an investigation, he was charged with raping another victim three times, one of which was the day after he was released from jail in January. RELATED: Long Island mom raped in front of her daughter during brutal home invasion. Police have arrested a 14-year-old suspect. A WBRZ-TV report showed that a man matching Taylor's description was caught on video appearing to stalk another woman before she walked into her house, and he turned around immediately. Another woman who said she had been his foster mother during the COVID pandemic claimed that he had sexually assaulted her as she slept. "Jeremiah was with me maybe six to eight months before he thought it was OK to inappropriately touch me," the woman said to WBRZ. She says she pressed charges but believes nothing happened because he was underage at the time. He was accused of raping a family member as well, but those charges were dropped when the victim could not be located by the district attorney. Taylor had two words to say when reporters asked him if he raped the 94-year-old woman as accused. "F**k no," he said. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

As the military conflict between the United States and Iran approaches its third week, many are asking questions like, “How many warheads do we have left?”; “How many missiles do they have left?”; “What is this going to cost?”; and “What is this going to do to oil?” says Glenn Beck.While these kinds of questions are only natural, the bigger concern, he says, is “what [we’re] fighting.”“I'm not making a case to fight Iran or this war or anything,” he assures.But “you have to understand what you’re dealing with.”And what we’re dealing with is an apocalyptic form of Islam known as "Twelver Shi'ism."On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn exposes this radical theology that has guided Iran's top leaders, military operations, and possibly even its lethal responses to Trump and Israel's joint attacks. “The name [Twelver Shi'ism] comes from their belief in the 12th Imam — divinely appointed leader ... that succeeded Muhammad. ... Muhammad was the first; the 12th one, Muhammad al-Mahdi, he was believed to have disappeared in the ninth century in a well when he was a child,” Glenn explains.“According to the Twelver belief, he's going to climb out of that well, and he's going to return in the end days, OK? And when he returns, he's going to establish a perfect Islamic justice that will oversee the entire world; he's going to defeat all evil; he will convert everyone to Islam; and he'll rule from Jerusalem, and the world's transformed,” he continues, emphasizing the parallels in Christian end-times prophecies.But what does this have to do with the current conflict with Iran?“[Twelvers] truly believe that they can hasten [Mahdi’s] return if they plunge the world into chaos. ... That crisis prepares the ground for the final victory of Islam,” says Glenn, drawing a parallel to Revelation’s prophetic warnings of “global upheaval, wars, famine, [and] pestilence” followed by “a powerful figure ... promising peace and justice,” who is actually the Antichrist — “the deceiver."“The hero in one story looks very much like the villain of the other story.”Even though “not every Shia Muslim believes in accelerating chaos ... the most powerful clerical authorities in Iran do believe it," says Glenn.“In fact, Iran's leadership, they frame the military mission in these terms,” he adds, noting that Iran’s “armies reference the Mahdi directly" and are taught that “they're preparing for the Mahdi's return.”Even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — the central religious and political leader of the Iranian regime that drove out the Shah in 1979 — thought the “Twelvers were too dangerous,” despite believing in hastening the return of the Madhi through chaos.“The ones [Khomeini] said were too dangerous because they were so unpredictable and could get everybody killed ... those are the people that are in charge of [Iran] right now,” Glenn warns.“That's not religious speculation. This is state ideology. And these are the people that are arming the terrorist groups and sending signals to sleeper cells possibly here in America."Currently, Iran is actively launching missile and drone strikes on several of its Arab neighbors, which seems counterintuitive to us.But we have to “stop thinking like a Westerner,” says Glenn.If Iran’s goal is to “get everybody at war with each other,” starting with “setting the Arab world on fire” makes sense in its grand scheme to hasten the Mahdi’s return.“So we have to ask ourself: Who are we actually dealing with?”To hear more, watch the video above.Want more from Glenn Beck?To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.