Newsweek faced fierce mockery on social media after it included a quote from a parody account on social media and had to issue a correction. The outlet published an article entitled "How Republicans And Democrats Reacted to Surprise Hunter Biden Pardon" about President Joe Biden's sweeping pardon issued for his son on Sunday. Among one of the quotes was one falsely attributed to Parik Patel, who was identified as the father of Kash Patel, the nominee to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 'Absolutely humiliating for you, yet not in the least bit surprising.' "Joe Biden was so worried about MY SON Kashu becoming director of the FBI that he decided to pardon his so Hunter Biden of all his crimes," wrote Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. However, the account was actually a parody account, and Newsweek was immediately ridiculed for failing to confirm the account's identity. "Newsweek quoting Kash Patel's father, despite the account they cite not only being a super obvious parody but also clearly marked as such, exemplifies peak 'journalism,'" replied author Hans Mahncke. "WTF! @ParikPatelCFA is a parody account, not @Kash_Patel 's father, you idiots. Legacy media is a joke!" responded the India Policy account. "Such ‘quality’ journalism, can’t even figure out an obvious parody account that literally says ‘parody’ in the bio. Absolutely humiliating for you, yet not in the least bit surprising," read another reply. Newsweek later deleted the quote and issued a correction. The parody account responded to the embarrassing incident and thanked the outlet. "Thank you @Newsweek for amplifying my message - Hunter Biden was pardoned just in time before my son Kashu could prosecute him for his crimes," the account posted. In October, Newsweek was similarly mocked when it characterized a publicity stunt at McDonald's by President-elect Donald Trump as "staged." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has closed four Western North Carolina disaster recovery centers and is tearing down its employee housing village west of Asheville while nearly 5,200 storm-displaced households are still living in hotels with no other shelter options. The exodus of FEMA staff from the region comes on the heels of the late November withdrawal of the National Guard and the pullout of U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps service members in late October. Some local residents say they feel abandoned by the federal and state governments. Storm victim advocates say a massive crisis is brewing with more than 5,000 families slated to lose FEMA hotel vouchers as Christmas approaches. The landscape of the devastated region is dotted with tents that serve as the only shelter for some families who are forced to brave overnight temperatures that recently dipped into the teens. Some residents are unable to live in their damaged homes, and even more had their homes and property completely swept away by flooding and violent mudslides. 'It is horrific what’s going on there.' The pace of federal housing help is far outstripped by the need. Only 27 FEMA mobile homes and trailers have been delivered to Western North Carolina families whose homes were destroyed in the devastating flood spurred by Hurricane Helene in late September. A FEMA official said victims must file for storm aid by Jan. 7. A FEMA official told Blaze News that 5,179 households are still using FEMA hotel vouchers and have no long-term housing available. The agency has helped 4,950 households find “suitable longer-term housing” as part of its Transitional Sheltering Assistance program. “As of Nov. 25, 5,179 households remain checked in to hotels, and we will continue to work with these families to assist them in determining their long-term solution,” a FEMA official said in an email to Blaze News. The program typically provides 60 days in the "immediate aftermath of a disaster," the official said. “Unfortunately, this program cannot continue indefinitely,” the FEMA official said, “and typically partnering hotels will reduce their availability to the program as business patterns resume.” FEMA housing village packed up That news is no comfort to storm victims who watched during Thanksgiving week as FEMA dismantled its employee housing village in Candler, N.C., and closed four disaster recovery centers in Western North Carolina. Cotton Logistics, a federal contractor based in Katy, Texas, began tearing down the FEMA employee housing village in Candler before Thanksgiving, according to local relief volunteers who visited the site. Cotton provides turnkey housing solutions for FEMA staff and contractors who respond to disasters around the nation, according to the company’s website. The company supplies housing units, laundry trailers, dining facilities, restrooms, showers, and other support services. In a Nov. 22 news release, FEMA said it was closing disaster recovery centers in Sparta, Dallas, Sylva, and Old Fort, N.C. Storm survivors can visit any FEMA assistance center or use the agency's website to register for help. A responder housing village was built in Candler, N.C., to accommodate FEMA staff and free up area hotel rooms for use by storm survivors. The site is now closed down and abandoned.Photo by Steve Baker/Blaze News The “responder village” site in Candler was one of several built in October with single-unit housing for FEMA employees and federal contractors. The sites were built to allow as much hotel space as possible to be dedicated to storm survivors. The Candler site offered lodging, showers, medical care, dining, and electrical service, Josh Wert, director of FEMA’s responder support branch, told Blaze News on Oct. 18. In mid-October, FEMA had more than 1,400 staff in the region. Blaze News reached out to Wert for more details on the closing of the Candler site but did not get a reply by press time. During Thanksgiving week, local residents who noticed the Candler site was abandoned found pallets of food left behind that were apparently slated to be thrown away. Volunteers loaded the food onto trailers and distributed it to needy Western North Carolina families. It appears that in some cases, FEMA staff are living out of mobile housing units on the same site as the disaster recovery center where they work. A Bunkhouse trailer is parked near the Asheville disaster recovery center. Blaze News asked the FEMA News Desk about the closing of the Candler site but did not receive a reply by press time. Bridging the gap Volunteers and charitable organizations are stepping up in an attempt to fill the huge void between the urgent housing demand and the small dent made to date through placement of FEMA mobile homes and trailers. Solutions being put in place include donated RVs and tiny houses that allow families to remain on their properties. Groups such as Operation Shelter and EmergencyRV.org were busy during the long Thanksgiving weekend delivering RVs to bring some of the families in from the bitter cold of their wind-battered tents. Woody Faircloth, founder of EmergencyRV.org, said as of Dec. 1, his charity has delivered 56 free RVs to Western North Carolina families. That’s more than double the number of units placed in the field by FEMA. Sampson Hickox of Operation Shelter loads supplies to be used to stock an RV being donated to a Western North Carolina family left homeless by Hurricane Helene, on Nov. 29, 2024.Photo by Erin Derham There are still more than 700 families registered with EmergencyRV.org in need of shelter, he said. “It’s really sad,” Faircloth said after spending five days delivering RVs in Western North Carolina over the Thanksgiving holiday, “and it’s going to get worse before it gets better with all these hotel vouchers expiring. “Nobody, not a single person we’ve talked to, had any kind of flood insurance, and so all their insurance claims are denied,” Faircloth said. “I mean, it is horrific what’s going on there.” Matt Van Swol, an Asheville resident who helps to coordinate and publicize the local disaster response, said he does not understand why FEMA is downsizing when the region is still badly hurting. “We are literally driving in an RV from Utah this week for a family of 6,” Van Swol told Blaze News. “Why are they [FEMA] leaving? The work hasn’t even begun.” Cassie Clark, a North Carolina storm victim advocate with more than 15,000 followers on X, castigated the government for its response to Helene. “What is happening in Western North Carolina is a disgrace, and it falls on the heads of our federal government, our state government, our local government,” Clark said in a video posted to X. “It’s a disgrace, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.” — (@) North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, in late October said the state was leading an “unprecedented response and recovery effort.” The overall government response in North Carolina pales, however, compared to other storms over the past quarter-century. The National Guard dispatched more than 51,000 Guardsmen to rescue and relief operations after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast in August 2005. It was the largest domestic Guard deployment in U.S. history, according to the National Guard's online Katrina timeline. National Guard, U.S. Army, and U.S. Air Force personnel assigned to Hurricane Helene relief in North Carolina totaled more than 6,200 over the course of seven weeks in fall 2024. The last of those service members pulled out the week before Thanksgiving. The Department of Defense committed more than 16,000 personnel after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Some 17,000 troops were deployed to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricanes Maria and Irma later that same year. The U.S. military committed 17,000 troops to Haiti after a 2010 earthquake and sent 15,000 to Indonesia after a tsunami in 2005. 'Support from the federal and even state government is very, very thin, and that should not be the case.' Erin Derham, an Asheville filmmaker, accompanied local contractor Sampson Hickox from Operation Shelter to stock up and deliver a donated RV to a mother with a 1-year-old baby and five other children who had been living in a tent for two months. The RV was donated by a member of Crestview Baptist Church in Canton, N.C. Operation Shelter stocked it with food, baby supplies, and cleaning products before turning it over to the family. “It got down below freezing as we dropped off the last camper tonight,” Derham posted on X Nov. 29. “I have never received so many hugs in my life. Families are sleeping warm.” Derham connects with families in need of shelter, then coordinates with Hickox to deliver donated RVs. Volunteers from Operation Shelter deliver and set up a donated RV for a family in Western North Carolina on Nov. 29, 2024.Photos by Erin Derham “He and I deliver the RVs together,” Derham told Blaze News. “He’s a firefighter and builder. Truly the heart of our team. We have an RV going to a young family this Friday. Sampson got his best friend to drive to Utah to pick up the donated RV.” Operation Shelter is run by Shawn Hendrix, who pledged on social media Dec. 2 to bring gifts on Christmas Eve to children at the Black Mountain Home in Black Mountain, N.C. “We will not let this storm take Christmas from these kids,” Hendrix wrote on X. Faircloth, who drove a large RV from Colorado to Western North Carolina just before Thanksgiving, said it is difficult to even describe the massive damage done by the unprecedented rains and high-velocity mudslides that devastated the region. “Just the scope of it is so large,” Faircloth said. “It’s every creek, every river, and anything near it is either totally destroyed or has been completely submerged by water. I mean, it is unbelievable. It is breathtaking, to be honest.” 'We will never forget about you.' Debris still lodged high in trees gives testimony to the deadly 35- to 40-foot walls of water, mud, and building materials that swept down the mountains during Helene. Faircloth said he saw sheet metal dangling from a tree 40 feet off the ground. “I've never seen anything like this,” he said. Van Swol said people on social media have accused him of being overly dramatic about damage and debris conditions on the ground, so he took drone video to prove his point. “I just went out and shot probably a half-hour worth of video of debris swinging from trees,” Van Swol said. “Eighteen-wheelers upside down in the French Broad River. Debris remains strewn across the landscape and on the banks of the French Broad River near Asheville, N.C.Photo by Matt Van Swol “The amount of debris strewn along the riverbanks of the French Broad River is eye-watering,” he said. “I’ve seen the same tanker trucks and shipping containers in the water just floating there for weeks.” Just before the Nov. 5 presidential election, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Army told Blaze News that the military should have been doing much more in terms of building shelters, stringing temporary power in remote areas, rebuilding washed-out roads, and more. Casey Wardynski, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and Reserve affairs under former President Donald J. Trump, said the failing response by the Biden-Harris administration was “pathetic.” “I know the response one would’ve seen with Trump, and I know the sense of urgency that you would’ve had with Trump,” Wardynski said. Some 142,000 Guardsmen were activated to fight wildfires in 2022, and 62,000 military troops responded to Hurricane Ivan, Wardynski said. With Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, “support from the federal and even state government is very, very thin, and that should not be the case.” President Trump visited Swannanoa, N.C., on Oct. 21, pledging to bring a much more robust humanitarian relief effort than that put forth by the Biden-Harris administration. “We will never forget about you,” Trump pledged. “We’re going to be working with you for a long time to come to get it back together.” Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Evangelical Christian television network Daystar is currently embroiled in a scandal of the nastiest kind: the alleged sexual abuse of a child and the attempt to cover it up. Founded by the late Marcus Lamb, Daystar is a family-run organization. Following Lamb’s tragic death in 2021, his widow and the co-founder of Daystar, Joni Lamb, assumed the role of president. Her son, Jonathan Lamb, served as the vice president up until recently when he was fired for failing to meet performance standards and refusing to participate in remedial protocols. Since Jonathan’s termination, allegations from the past have resurfaced. Jonathan and his wife, Suzy, are now claiming that Marcus and Joni buried the sexual abuse of their daughter back in 2021. Joni claims that this is a blackmail campaign by Jonathan against her and her late husband for leadership changes at Daystar that barred Jonathan from serving in the role of president. So who’s lying? Did Marcus and Joni really try to cover up the sexual abuse of their granddaughter to protect Daystar’s image? Or is Jonathan Lamb attempting to blackmail his parents for barring him from the role of Daystar president and then firing him? Allie Beth Stuckey dives into the scandal. “Jonathan and Suzy Lamb alleged that in the summer of 2021, they caught ‘Pete’ alone with their unclothed daughter in a room at a beach house Daystar rented for its annual executive retreat in Miramar Beach, Florida, and confronted him about it,” Allie reads from a report. “When Suzy Lamb reported this to Joni Lamb, Suzy claimed that she was told not to report it to the police. Jonathan and Suzy claimed that Joni and Marcus told them that Pete had been cleared of any wrongdoing by forensic psychologists, who had interviewed and examined him,” she added, playing a video of the statement Jonathan and Suzy posted to X recently. According to their statement, at the time of the incident, they agreed to trust Marcus and drop the allegations against Pete. However, soon after Jonathan was terminated from Daystar last month, the allegations resurfaced, with Jonathan and Suzy Lamb claiming that “Jonathan’s late father, Marcus, and mother worked to protect ‘Pete’ and Daystar’s image rather than their own granddaughter.” “Daystar released a written response last week claiming that they investigated the claims internally and found no evidence of wrongdoing,” says Allie. “They also point out that the allegation became public only days after Joni had fired Jonathan from the network earlier in November.” Jonathan, however, claims that his firing came after the allegations resurfaced. “He says that he was officially fired on the Saturday after the story was published,” says Allie. “Joni vehemently denies all allegations of a cover-up or dissuading her son and daughter-in-law from going to the police, saying that they are completely false,” says Allie, playing a segment of Joni Lamb’s official statement. As of now, the truth is unclear. “Unfortunately, this is a story that we have heard over and over again, even among those who consider themselves a part of the church,” says Allie. “We need to pray here for true transparency, for truth to win, and for justice to win.” “I just think about this little girl, who is either a true victim of sexual abuse, and her sexual abuser is walking around out there unscathed and potentially protected, or she is being used in an internal power struggle,” she adds. “Either way, she seems to be a victim here.” To hear more of Allie’s commentary and more details on the story, including the full history of the daughter’s alleged sexual abuse and Jonathan’s refusal to sign an NDA at Daystar, watch the episode above. Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

I traveled around the country as an elite swimmer for more than a decade, and I could never have imagined a world where men would be welcomed into the female-only bathrooms and locker rooms I used. I instinctively knew that separate spaces were for my privacy and protection. But as I have shared my own story about having to compete against a grown man in the pool, I’ve seen how broken our nation’s understanding of sex is. It's come so far that even organizations that were once “pro-woman” have completely rejected the basic understandings of woman and womanhood. The gender ideology madness must stop, both for the protection and privacy of women and girls and for the long-term health of the rising generation. Earlier this year the National Women’s Law Center, an organization supposedly founded by women to protect women, filed a brief opposing my suit against the NCAA on the grounds that “woman” should be redefined to include men. When leading “pro-woman” organizations are engaged in a campaign of lies about basic physiology and anatomy — when they support men more than they support women — we need leaders who are bold. We need leaders who speak out and refuse to cave to critics. Last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) did just that. He sent shock waves through the media for saying something so painfully obvious that it would have gone unnoticed even a few years ago. Johnson simply said: Men are men, women are women, men cannot become women. He understands that the government should protect men’s and women’s privacy, safety, and opportunity. For nearly all of congressional history, this sentiment was so widely understood that it did not need articulating. But in our modern world, where traditional definitions of sex have been conflated with completely flexible and ever-changing understandings of “gender identity,” Speaker Johnson might as well have set off a grenade. His comments were made as all newly elected members of Congress were beginning their orientation in Congress. One of those new members is Sarah McBride, a Delaware man who says he identifies as a woman. I know Speaker Johnson, and he is a man of principle and faith. Just a few months ago, he hosted a panel regarding Title IX protections and invited me, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), and Independent Women’s Forum Chairman Heather Higgins. He was clear about his positions and criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to change the definition of “sex” to include “gender identity” under Title IX. Johnson once again showed leadership last week on the critical issue of protecting women. He used his authority over the Capitol’s facilities as speaker of the House to ensure single-sex facilities would remain separated by sex and to protect women-only spaces. This is not an attack on Rep. McBride (D), as some in the media are suggesting. In fact, Johnson noted that McBride is a duly elected member of Congress who deserves to be treated with dignity as a human being and with the respect that comes with high public office. But McBride is also a victim of the modern gender ideology that says men can become women and that tells individuals suffering from gender dysphoria that the issue lies with their bodies, not with their minds. The treatments offered to these people can end in sterility, loss of sexual function, and numerous other devastating and irreversible medical issues. The Independent Women’s Forum has detailed the stories of many detransitioners who have had their bodies mutilated by doctors who told them to take puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and have healthy body parts surgically removed. Many of these detransitioned men and women are now suffering from intense regret along with permanent physical damage, but as they have spoken out and tried to warn others, they have been excoriated by the same left-wing media and activist class that has been demonizing Johnson’s decision to stand with women. The gender ideology madness must stop, both for the protection and privacy of women and girls and for the long-term health of the rising generation. Right now, all Americans who care about the future and safety of their daughters, or nieces, or sisters, or cousins have a responsibility to speak up and reject the lies of our modern age that call men women and women men. Mike Johnson is standing up for women everywhere by taking a stand to keep men out of women’s bathrooms in the House. I hope his actions inspire leaders across the country to do the same. Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

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