Florida police said that an undercover sting operation caught 27 men who were allegedly seeking to have sex with children. Among the suspects arrested was a former pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters released details about the five-day "Operation Valiant Knight" at a media briefing on Monday. 'The internet provides new and frightening opportunities for predators to victimize our children.' “Undercover detectives posing as children, chatted online with these adults," said Waters. "These adults solicited sexual activity and committed to engaging in sex acts with purported minors and pre-arranged locations." The men were made to believe they were talking to a 14-year-old girl on the internet in most cases. Police said they were immediately arrested after they arrived to have sex with minors. Waters said 24 men were arrested initially and three others were arrested during a follow-up investigation. Video released by police showed the moment that Austin Maddox, a former major league baseball player, was tackled by police as he walked to a home allegedly expecting to engage with sex with a child. Maddox had played for the University of Florida and was drafted in 2012 by the Boston Red Sox. He played with the team in 2017 before he was released in 2019. He was charged with four felony counts and held in jail on a $300,000 bond. The other men arrested ranged from 19 to 69 years old, according to police. "As you can see from these photographs, these men run the gamut of ages, backgrounds, and races," said Waters at the media briefing. One man, Matthew Moses, believed he was talking to a stepmother that was going to allow him to have sex with her stepdaughter. Another man, 69-year-old Christopher Brand, was arrested after he allegedly tried to solicit sex from a 14-year-old. Others arrested were a respiratory therapist at the Mayo Clinic and a former janitor with the Duval County Public Schools District. A defense attorney for Maddox said that the man intends to fight the charges and plead not guilty. “JSO and our partners put the highest priority on the safety and security of our children," said Waters. "As the internet provides new and frightening opportunities for predators to victimize our children, our investigators, along with those with our partner agencies will continue to proactively identify and apprehend child predators before they have the opportunity to act upon their perversions,” he added.Here's more about the sting operation: Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama are pushing a measure that would make it so that as a condition of receiving Medicaid funding, states may not bar the practice of in vitro fertilization.The text of the measure defines in vitro fertilization as "the practice whereby eggs are collected from ovaries and manually fertilized by sperm, for later placement inside of a uterus."'Dystopian nightmare.'"The legislation would require, as a condition of receiving federal Medicaid funding, that states don't prohibit IVF," Cruz and Britt noted in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. "IVF is profoundly pro-family. Some 2% of live births in the U.S. result from IVF, representing tens of thousands of families fulfilling dreams of parenthood.""Our bill doesn’t impede states from setting up health and safety standards to govern IVF, nor does it compel any individual or organization to provide IVF against its wishes or beliefs. It simply ensures that access to IVF is fully protected by federal law, as there is currently no such federal law in place," the GOP lawmakers wrote. "This is an opportunity to unite on a shared bipartisan commitment to life, family, and personal liberty by protecting access to IVF treatments in every corner of America."But BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey has offered a starkly different take."Included in the 'right to IVF' is the right to create, select, discard, buy, and sell living human beings. Dystopian nightmare," she tweeted in response to a post about the senators' proposal. — (@) Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

In February 2009, Sandra Herold called her friend Charla Nash to help her round up her agitated chimp, Travis, and bring him back into the house. Instead, Travis viciously attacked Nash, tearing off her eyelids, nose, jaw, lips, scalp, and hands. The post Sandra Herold Raised Her Pet Chimp Travis Like A Son — Then He Brutally Mauled Her Friend Charla Nash appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Biden Says You Think He’s Kidding That He Has Tons of Morehouse Men in the White House

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chair Martin Gruenberg announced his resignation Monday, finally succumbing to a months-long scandal over sexual harassment and other misconduct at the top bank regulator.

A federal judge will reopen the sentencing hearing for the man who broke into Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco home and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer after the judge failed to allow him to speak during his court appearance last week.

The taxpayer-funded status of the renowned Truman Scholarship is in jeopardy because of an alleged bias against conservatives.

The National Rifle Association Board of Directors elected former Republican congressman Bob Barr as its new president on Monday.

Novelist Salman Rushdie warned that if there were to be a Palestinian state in the Middle East, it would mirror what the Taliban is doing in Afghanistan, would be ruled by Hamas terrorists, and be a satellite state for Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.

The United States and Saudi Arabia are close to a final agreement on a bilateral defense pact after the U.S. national security adviser made significant progress in talks with the Saudis over the weekend, the White House said on Monday.White House national security...