UNBIASED - The Stories Behind the Missing/Dead Scientists & Researchers, SCOTUS's Voting Rights Act Decision, the WHCA Dinner and What We Know About the Suspect, the End of Spirit Airlines, and More.

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: The White House Correspondents Dinner and What We Know About the Suspect (3:30) Supreme Court Issues Voting Rights Act Decision (17:32) The Stories Behind the Missing/Dead Scientists and Researchers (25:24) DOJ Indicts Southern Poverty Law Center (37:06) DHS Officially Reopens After Congress Passes Bill Excluding Immigration Enforcement Operations (42:45) Spirit Airlines Goes Out of Business; Here's Why (46:21) ⁠Watch⁠ this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. All sources for this episode can be found ⁠here.⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One day, you're negotiating with suppliers. The next, you're installing a shelf in the back room. Running a business means moving in many directions all the time. TD's new small business banking accounts are built for how your business moves. It's how we're making banking more human. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Monday, May 4th, and I am officially back.

It has been two months, I think exactly nine weeks maybe since I went on maternity leave, something like that. But a lot of you have asked for an update. So let's see, what do I have to fill you in on? Well, I will say that a lot of people have messaged me on social media asking, you know, when I had my baby and whether it's a girl or a boy and what his or her name is. And I've been reluctant to share anything just because I do really believe in keeping, you know, keeping your personal life private. I'm not a lifestyle influencer or anything like that. I just report

on the news. So I think in my case, it just makes the most sense. And what I prefer to do is keep a lot of things private. But I do have a soft spot for my podcast listeners. And I know that you guys, a lot of you guys have been here from the beginning. And I don't know. I just, I feel this, I feel this sense of trust with you guys. So those of you who tune into the podcast will be. or I guess we'll get the exclusive announcement that I had a baby girl. I won't be sharing her, you know, exact birthday or her name or anything like that, but I did have a baby girl. I had her at the end of February. So literally like within days of Unbiased University starting, I was in the hospital. So that's been crazy and exciting and all the things the last two months

have just absolutely flown by. We've been having the best time. We've been having the best time. and yeah, it's just been such a whirlwind. I'm equally excited to come back to work, but also anxious to see how this plays out as far as, you know, taking care of a baby and, you know, working because I do work a lot. But luckily, my husband also works from home so him and I can kind of tag team and hopefully it goes okay. But that's really the latest over here. My birthday was in April, April 20th. And so I am officially 33 years old. So that's been the last two months in Jordan's world. But yeah, so that's the update I have for you. But let's get into the news. Let's let's talk about what's going on. Today's episode will be a little bit

different than regular episode. So I'll be covering some of the biggest stories from the last two months just to kind of get everyone on the same page. We've obviously missed some things. And then on Thursday, we'll get back to regular programming where we'll just cover the top stories from the last few days or so, we'll do quick hitters, rumor has it, et cetera. We will take the following stories in no particular order. I did source them from all of you, though. So I asked all of you on Instagram what you wanted to hear about. You told me I picked the most frequently submitted story requests, and I went with those. I won't be covering you wrong because I did a whole special report back in March. So if you do want to hear about the ongoing conflict, go ahead and listen to my March

16th episode. And yes, certain things have changed since then, of course, but it is a great episode to listen to if you just kind of want to understand why we're in this conflict to begin with. So with that, I think today will also be a little bit longer of an episode if my estimation is correct. I just have a lot of notes, a lot of things to talk about and it's looking like this episode will be on the longer side. So without further ado, let's get into it. Let's start this episode talking about the shooting incident and alleged assassination attempt at the White House Correspondence Dinner. We will first talk about what exactly the White House Correspondence Dinner is, just to give you that proper context.

And then we'll talk about what exactly happened and why some people are claiming that this was staged and whether there's any merit to those claims. So first, the White House Correspondence Center is this annual gala held by the White House Correspondents Association, which is a nonprofit organization that represents journalists who cover the president. the White House Correspondents Association also manages media access to the White House. And every year they put on this dinner that helps fund scholarships for journalism students and kind of just acknowledges the achievements of those in the journalism profession. But it's also supposed to be kind of a fun thing, right? Since the 80s, one of the more fun moments of this dinner is actually when the host of the dinner, which is usually a comedian, ross the president and his administration.

There have actually only been five times since the 80s that the White House Correspondents Association opted to have someone other than a comedian provide the entertainment for the dinner that was in those instances were in 1999, 2003, 2019, 2025, and this year. This year, the White House Correspondents Association invited mentalist Oz Perlman as the entertainment, but I digress. The point being, it's supposed to be this fun dinner for a good cause, and this year's dinner took place on Saturday, April 25th at the Washington Hilton Hotel. According to court documents, as well as an accompanying video, shortly before 8.40 p.m., a man named Cole Thomas Allen,

can be seen leaving his 10th floor room inside the hotel, dressed in black. He was carrying a shotgun, a handgun. He also had a black bag, which allegedly contained multiple knives. And he then walks into the hallway of the dinner's security checkpoint, and then he kind of turns right before he gets to the metal detectors and goes through this nearby doorway, which actually leads to another hallway with elevators. One second after he walks through that doorway and out of the camera's view, an officer and his dog actually approached the door. The dog sniffs in the doorway for a few seconds. The officer looks down the hallway for about 12 seconds, and then both the officer and the dog eventually turned to walk away. One second later is when Alan can be seen rushing back out of that

doorway with the shotgun and running through the security checkpoint toward the ballroom where the dinner was being held. He did not make it to the ballroom. Now, the court documents imply, but don't specifically state that Alan fired a gun as he ran past the security checkpoint. Specifically what the court documents say is, quote, Alan approached and ran through the metal detector holding a long gun. As he did so, U.S. security service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot. U.S. Secret Service Officer VG was shot once in the chest. Officer VG drew his service weapon and fired multiple times at Allen. who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot.

Allen was subsequently arrested. End quote. Now, we also know from the sworn affidavit, which was filed along with Allen's charges, that Alan made a hotel reservation at the Washington Hilton Hotel on April 6th for three nights spanning from April 24th to April 26. Now, that's what the affidavit says, okay? But April 24th to April 26 is actually only two nights. So I'm not really sure why the affidavit says three nights.

I don't know if it was three nights and the affidavit was wrong or the dates were wrong or if it was only two nights and the dates were correct. I don't know. But anyway, the affidavit says Alan took a train from his home near L.A. to Chicago where he arrived on April 23rd. He then took a train in Chicago to D.C. and arrived in D.C. around 1 p.m. on the 24th. He checked into his hotel on the 24th. The dinner was the following day. As I mentioned, at about 8.40 p.m. is when Cole breached that security checkpoint and headed in the direction of the ballroom with two firearms in his possession. So we had a 12-gauge pump action shotgun

and he had a Rock Island Armory 1911 38 caliber pistol. Shortly before that moment, he allegedly sent an email to some of his family members as well as his former employer, which read, quote, I wish I could have said anything earlier, but doing so would have made none of this possible. My sincerest apologies for all the trouble I've caused. And quote, then attached to that email was a text file titled apology and explanation. That file reads in part, quote, hello everybody. So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused.

I apologize to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for most wanted. I apologize to my colleagues and students for saying I had a personal emergency. By the time anyone reads this, I probably most certainly do need to go to the ER, but can hardly call that not a self-inflicted status. I apologize to all of the people I traveled next to, all the workers who handled my luggage, and all the other non-targeted people at the hotel who I put in danger simply by being near. I apologize to everyone who was abused and or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.

I don't expect forgiveness, but if I could have foreseen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it. Again, my sincerest apologies. On to why I did any of this. I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflect on me, and I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crime. Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first

real opportunity I've had to do something about it. While I'm discussing this, I'll also go over my expected rules of engagement, probably in a terrible format, but I'm not military, so too bad. Administration officials, not including Mr. Patel, they are targets prioritized from highest ranking to lowest. Secret service, they are targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethaly if possible, aka I hope they're wearing body armor because center masks with shotguns messes up people who aren't. Hotel security, not targets if at all possible, aka unless they shoot at me. Capital police, same as hotel security, National Guard, same as hotel security, hotel employees, not targets at all, guests, not targets at all. In order to minimize

casualties, I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs, less penetration through walls. I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary on the basis that most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile rapist and traitor and are thus complicit, but I really hope it doesn't come to that." And quote. Alan allegedly signed the email, uh, cold force friendly federal assassin Alan. So Alan was ultimately charged with three crimes, attempt to assassinate the president, transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.

Like I said, his charges imply that Allen fired his gun as he brought. breach that security checkpoint. But the actual affidavit filed by the FBI agent doesn't specifically say that Allen did fire the gun. It just says Secret Service heard a gunshot as Alan ran through the checkpoint. What we've learned about Alan is that he's 31 years old and according to his LinkedIn profile, he is a self-employed video game developer and part-time teacher. He has a mechanical engineering degree from Caltech, a master's in computer science from California State University, and he worked for a tutoring firm in Torrance, California, called C2 Education. He actually received a teacher of the month award from that company in 2024.

Now, it's unclear if he was still employed by the company at the time of the shooting, but one source did say that he was tutoring as recently as April 14th. one of Allen's family members reportedly told investigators that Alan made radical comments and that he constantly referenced a plan to do quote unquote something to fix the issues with today's world. They also said he was part of a group called the Wide Awakes and that he attended a no king's protest in California. We also know that he donated to Harris's campaign in 2024.

So that's a little bit about, you know, what we've learned about the suspect. But following the incident, rumors started swirling on social media almost immediately that this shooting was staged. Those who are saying it was staged essentially claimed that it was part of a plan by Trump or those within his administration to distract from the recent bad polling numbers or the ongoing conflict with Iran. But what basis do these claims have? Well, first and foremost, as of today, just want to be clear, there's no credible evidence that this attack was staged. Nonetheless, less, those that believe this was staged have pointed to various remarks, instances,

et cetera, that they say support their claims. So we'll go through each of those things that people are pointing to. But again, just note there's no credible evidence at this point that this was a staged attack. So first, people say Caroline Levitt dropped a hint as to what was going to transpire that night when she said before the dinner that there would be shots fired. So she was talking to a comedian and Fox News host about, you know, what we could expect from Trump's speech at the dinner. And she said, quote, he's ready to rumble.

The speech will be classic Donald J. Trump. It'll be funny. It'll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room. So everyone should tune in. It's going to be really great. End quote. Some people also point to the fact that the affidavit doesn't explicitly say Alan fired his weapon.

And of course, that's something I mentioned earlier. Now, that in and of itself doesn't mean anything, but those who are saying this was staged are pointing to that as evidence. It is worth noting that while the affidavit doesn't explicitly say Allen fired a weapon, acting attorney general Todd Blanche has said on multiple occasions that based on the information his department has Allen fired a gun and that's why he was ultimately charged with discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. people have also pointed to a Fox news clip, which shows a reporter who was on site in the ballroom calling in, you know, live on air after this whole thing happened. And the reporter said how before the incident she was sitting next to Caroline Levitt's husband. And he said to her, quote, you know, I watched you on TV, you do a great job. You need to be very safe. And quote, the reporter then said that Levitt's husband looked very serious when he said that to her.

and kind of looked around the room. And then Leavitt's husband said, there are some, and then that's when the audio cut off. So the Fox News anchor, who was on the other end of the call with the reporter, said the call dropped because of issues with the reporter's phone signal. But those who are saying this was staged, say the call ended because Fox wanted to prevent the reporter from revealing the truth, that, you know, the attack was staged and that Leavitt's husband knew about it. However, the reporter later took to X to explain that her phone was cut off because there was barely any service in the ballroom and wrote in part, quote, to finish the story,

he was telling me to be careful with my own safety because the world is crazy, which is what my own father and other people have said to me recently. He was expressing his concern for my safety, end quote. And then some people have pointed to acting attorney general Todd Blanche allegedly saying, sometimes you find bullets, sometimes they disappear. So he didn't say exactly that, but I'll tell you what his exact quote was. During a news conference following this incident, a reporter asked Blanche how many bullets were fired during the shooting. And he said, quote, I want to be very careful in answering that question. When you do ballistics evidence collection and research, it's very complicated. When you fire a bullet, the bullet ends up somewhere. Sometimes you find it,

sometimes you don't. So with that quality, fire, we believe right now that there were five shots fired from the same firearm. But there's a team of folks looking at this that are experts and the evidence collection team that were in that area of the hotel where the shots were fired were at work all night. They have the evidence they collected, but it's not an exact science from the standpoint that, for example, the buck shot when that shot, it's scattered everywhere and sometimes it just disappears actually, depending on where it hits. end quote. And those are really the main claims that people are relying on when they say this was staged. But again, at this point, there is no credible evidence that it was. All right, let's take

our first break here. When we come back, we'll talk about this recent Voting Rights Act decision out of the Supreme Court. We'll also talk about the mystery surrounding the disappearance, plural or deaths of various scientists and researchers. You're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no, other than they won. How did Donald Trump turn the presidency into a king? Well, it didn't start with him. It was the goal of a decades-long master plan. When the president does it, it is not illegal.

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Welcome back. Let's talk about this Supreme Court decision out of Louisiana. So we'll go over the background first, okay? and then we'll get into what the actual decision said and we'll kind of break this down. So after the 2020 census, Louisiana redrew its congressional map. However, the new map that it drew included only one majority black district out of six total districts. Okay. And this was despite the fact that Louisiana is one third black. In other words, black voters make up roughly 33% of Louisiana's voters. But with this new map, they only had real voting power in about 17% of the districts. So a group of black

Louisianians sued and they argued that the new map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it diluted black voting power. Now, the Voting Rights Act prohibits voting laws or procedures that deny or abridge the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or membership in a protected language minority group. And this doesn't just ban laws or maps that, you know, are intentionally racist. It also covers those that have a discriminatory effect, even if that wasn't necessarily the intent. So the black voters sued and at first, the courts sided with them, right? So the lower court judge said that Louisiana needed to go ahead and redraw its map to include a second majority black district because the map that it had drawn likely violated Section 2 of the Voting

Rights Act. That ruling was upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and so in 2024, the Louisiana legislature went ahead and drew another map that included this second majority black district. This time, though, a group of individuals who refer to themselves as non-African Americans brought a lawsuit. Okay, so they argued that this new map now unconstitutionally sorted voters by race and therefore violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. So the basis of the suit is different, right? That first lawsuit was based on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The second lawsuit is based on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

As we know, the equal protection clause says that everyone has to be treated equally under the law or everyone in similarly situated groups has to be treated equally under the law. So to be clear, the group of non-African American voters couldn't change. challenge this new map under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it's not that their voting power was being diluted. Instead, their issue was that this new map relied too much on race when drawing district lines, basically saying the state sorted people by race instead of treating everyone equally. And the lower court agreed. The court held that the new map, the second map, did violate the equal protection clause by sorting voters based on race. And it blocked Louisiana

from using this latest map in future elections. Okay. So following this ruling, the black voters and the state of Louisiana, who were now on the same side, appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. And that is how we got to the Supreme Court. As we know, the justices did agree with the court below and ultimately struck down Louisiana's map. But before we get to the court's decision and rationale, there are a couple of interesting things

that I want to point out. So first, the justice has actually initially heard arguments in this case in March of last year, March of 2025, okay? But just before they took their break for the summer, they actually, typically they would issue a decision after hearing arguments, right? But in this case, instead of issuing a decision, they went ahead and issued this order that said the case would actually be re-argued in the fall because they wanted the parties to touch on this other issue that wasn't touched on in the original arguments. So the case, case was going to be re-argued in the fall. And that's why the case was argued again this past October and why we're just now getting a decision. The other interesting thing worth pointing out is that when this case was initially argued in March of 2025, the state of Louisiana and the black voters were were on the same side defending the state's second map.

And the self-proclaimed non-African American voters were on the other side, challenging the map. right? But by the time this case was re-argued in October, the state of Louisiana switched sides. So once the court heard re-heard arguments, you had the black voters on one side defending the map and the state of Louisiana and the non-African American voters on the other side challenging the map. We don't typically see a party switch sides in the middle of a Supreme Court proceeding. But nonetheless, that's what happened here. So when the court heard arguments in October, The black voters argued that Louisiana's second map should be allowed to stand because, according to the state itself, the main goal was not race when it drew this map.

It was politics. Louisiana said it drew the map to protect certain Republican incumbents. And as we've talked about in the past, political gerrymandering is generally allowed. States are allowed to draw maps that benefit Republicans or Democrats. What they can't do is draw maps where race is the main factor unless they have a strong legal reason for doing so. So the black voters argument was essentially this was a political map. This was not an unconstitutional racial map and therefore should be allowed to stand.

The non-African American voters, the party that initially filed the lawsuit challenging the map, right, said, well, no, actually, race did come first. Louisiana first decided to create a second majority black district because of pressure from the courts in the Voting Rights Act. Only after that did lawmakers figure out how to draw the districts in a way that also protected Republican incumbents. So their argument was even if politics played a role here, race was still the starting point. And if race was the main driver, then the map violates the Equal Protection Clause and has to be struck down. And then finally you have the state of Louisiana basically arguing that, you know, if the Voting Rights Act forces a state to draw a map based on race, then the court should actually just consider striking down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act altogether. Spoiler alert, the court did not do that.

But those were the three sides at play here. So the justice has basically had to answer two questions. First, was Louisiana's second map drawn mainly because of race? And second, if it was, did Louisiana have a strong enough leave? legal reason to do that. The court's answer to the first question was yes. The majority said Louisiana's goal in adopting the 2024 map was in fact racial because the whole point of the new map was to create a second majority black district after a lower court said Louisiana's earlier map likely violated the voting rights act. Then the court moves on to the second question. Was that legally justified?

The majority said no. The court said that complying with section two of the voting rights act can be a strong enough legal reason for a state to consider race when drawing a map, but only if Section 2 actually requires the state to do that. And in this case, the court said, Section 2 didn't require Louisiana to create a second majority black district. So Louisiana used race to draw the map, but didn't have a strong enough legal reason to justify it, according to the court. And therefore, this new map was unconstitutional or is unconstitutional. Okay, let's now switch gears a bit and talk about the disappearances and deaths of scientists, researchers, and officials who have ties to government programs. Since 2022, 13 U.S. scientists, researchers, or officials have either died or disappeared.

All of them appeared to have ties to either nuclear or space programs and in some cases classified projects. But here's the thing. Since 2025, the pace of these disappearances and deaths, it's really picked up. So in 2022, there was one death in 2023. There was one death in 24. There were two deaths. But in 2025, there were two deaths and five disappearances. And in 26, so far, there's been one death and one disappearance. So we're going to start from the beginning. We're going to take this in order, starting on June 11, 2022. Amy Eskridge was a 34-year-old plasma physicist studying anti-gravity technology. She had previously worked with NASA.

She died by suicide. Now, one of Eskridge's friends said that she told him that if she died by suicide, it wouldn't be true and said that she was being targeted by a directed energy weapon. So the friend claimed that Eskridge had texted him and said, quote, if you see any report that I killed myself, I most definitely did not. If you see any report that I overdosed myself, I most definitely did. did not. If you see any report that I killed anyone else, I most definitely did not. And quote, Eskridge's dad, though, who's a former NASA employee himself, does believe that her death was a

suicide. He has said, quote, scientists die also just like other people. And quote. So that was the first death. Then July 30th, 2023, Michael Hicks, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, died at the age of 59. He worked on big space projects until 2022, which was one year before his death. He worked on projects like NASA's DART program, which was testing to see if it was possible to deflect an asteroid. He specialized in asteroids and comets. Now, his cause of death was not officially released to the public. However, his daughter told CNN that her dad struggled with with known medical issues and that she didn't understand the connection between her dad's death and the other missing scientists. Then May 12th, 2024, Matthew Sullivan, a 39-year-old

former employee at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, the National Security Agency, and the Air Force Intelligence Agency died of an apparent accidental drug overdose in his home in Virginia. Now, his death happened shortly after he agreed to testify before Congress on government UFO programs. July 4th, 2024, Frank Mywald, another NASA Jet Propulsion Lab researcher. He died at the age of 61. His death is also not publicly known. May 8th, 2025.

Anthony Chavez, a former employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was last seen leaving his home on foot. He has not been seen since, despite multiple search efforts. He was 79 years old. Chavez retired from. the lab in 2017. While he worked there, he supervised construction at the site. A detective has told CNN there were no indications of foul play, but there were also no signs that he was planning to leave for any good amount of time. Chavez's friend has called Chavez's disappearance extremely

unusual and noted that Chavez's car was locked and parked in his driveway and that his wallet, car keys and personal items were all inside his home. So he thinks that Chavez left his home with the intent of not being gone for more than a few minutes and just never came home. Now, Los Alamos National Laboratory, where Chavez worked, was the site of the government's top secret Manhattan project during World War II to make a nuclear weapon before the Nazis. And we'll talk about another missing scientist in just a minute who also worked at that same laboratory. 8. June 22nd, 2025, Monica Jacinto Reza, she was an aerospace engineer who also worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. She disappeared on a hike at the age of 60s. So she was out on a hike

with a companion. The two were separated by about 30 feet when Reza's companion says he or she saw Reza smile and wave. And then when the companion turned back around, Reza was just gone. And that's all we know. Reza was the director of the NASA Labs material processing group. And during the 90s, she co-invented a nickel-based super alloy used in rocket engines. The House Oversight Committee has cited a report that says Raysa had a close professional connection to another missing scientist named Will Cassland, who we'll talk about in just a minute. That report says that they were both part of an Air Force funded research program and

early 2000s pertaining to advanced materials that were needed for reusable space vehicles and weapons. Then June 26, 2025, Melissa Cassius, a 53-year-old administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory, also disappeared. Cassius had dropped her husband off at the lab that morning where he also works, but because she forgot her badge, she went back home and she worked from home that day. when her daughter came home later in the day, she said her mom's car was at the house, but her mom was gone. The mom's phone, purse, and wallet were all at home, and she was reportedly last seen walking alongside a highway. New Mexico State Police have said there was no suspected foul play. July 22nd, 2025, Joshua LeBlanc.

29-year-old NASA electrical engineer died in a fiery car crash in Alabama. His Tesla reportedly hit a guardrail and then multiple trees before it ultimately caught on fire and his body was pulled from the car once it was, you know, the fire was well underway. However, what sparked questions is the fact that his phone and wallet were still at his apartment. These are obviously things that we typically take with us when we get in our car. At the time of his death, he worked on nuclear propulsion projects at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. August 28th, 2025, Stephen Garcia, a government contractor at Kansas City National Security Campus in Albuquerque. He disappeared after he left home on foot with just a handgun, no phone, no keys.

His work involved the production of non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons. December 12th, 2025, Jason Thomas, a biologist for the pharmaceutical company Novartis. He was reported missing by his wife when he didn't come home. his body was recovered from a Massachusetts lake this past March. His wife did say that he had been struggling to cope with the recent deaths of his parents. December 15th, 2025, Nuno Loriero, a 47-year-old plasma physicist, fusion scientist, and MIT professor. He was shot to death at his apartment in Massachusetts.

Now, his death was actually attributed to Claudio Manuel Neves Valenti, the man who carried out that shooting at Brown University. If you remember, he carried out the shooting at Brown. Two days later, he allegedly shot this guy and then he was found dead in a storage unit. Valenti, the shooter and Lauriero, hopefully I'm saying that right, they attended the same university program in Portugal between 1995 and 2000, but still no motive for, you know, the murder was was ever established. Then February 16th, 2026, Carl Grilmer, an astrophysicist at Caltech who worked with NASA and worked on projects involving the search for water on other planets. He was shot to death on his front porch. A 29-year-old man named Freddie Snyder was charged with Grilmer's

murder, but the men apparently did not know each other at all, and investigators have yet to find a motive there. February 27, 26, William Neal McCasland, a retired Air Force general disappeared after leaving his house in New Mexico. He took with him a 38 caliber revolver in a leather holster. He had his hiking boots and he had a wallet, but not his phone and not his glasses. He has not been seen since and he is the fourth scientist to disappear from New Mexico specifically in the last year. During his time in the Air Force, remember, this was the one that was linked to the other scientist. He oversaw classified space weapons programs and he was the head of a research facility that is rumored to house extraterrestrial debris from a 1947 alleged alien crash in Roswell, New Mexico.

McCasland's wife has said that connection has caused misinformation to spread and denied that he had, you know, classified or specialized knowledge about either extraterrestrials or UFO programs. And then most recently, on April 20th, David Wilcock, a YouTuber, paranormal writer, and UFO researcher died by suicide at the age of 53. This one is a little different than the others. It's different in the sense that he researched UFOs as a hobby. He was not a professional researcher or scientist. And it's also different because he reportedly shot himself in front of police officers following a standoff. So there were witnesses to his death. And his family has also released a statement that says, you know, he took his own life. He had a long struggle with depression and a

financial debt. So that's the deal with him. But that brings the total to 13 professional researchers, scientists or officials, 14, if you include Wilcock, who was a hobbyist. Now, if you're coming to me to give you, you know, some secret intel as to what's going on here, I really hate to let you down. I don't have that. Okay. All I have. is what people are saying. And so far, NASA has said there's no indication of a security threat. President Trump has said that he has yet to see any evidence that shows that any of these deaths or disappearances are connected. In fact, on April 18th, Trump said that he was in a meeting about this situation and that he expected to know more in about a week and a half.

But then about a week and a half later, he said that the number of deaths and disappearances is small relative to the number of scientists that exist. And that, quote, there's not much of a connection, end quote. He did say the administration is going to be doing a full report, so we'll have to see what that looks like. And we know that at this point, the FBI is spearheading an investigation. The House Oversight Committee is looking into it as well. Lawmakers are specifically requesting information from the FBI, Department of Energy, NASA,

and the Pentagon. The main concern from lawmakers is really whether foreign adversaries like Russia, China, or Iran are involved in this. So that's what they're trying to get. down to the bottom of. Okay, let's take our second and final break here. When we come back, we'll talk about the SPLC indictment, the DHS funding bill, and the recent news about Spirit Airlines. Welcome back. The Southern Poverty Law Center or SPLC was indicted by a federal grand jury on April 21st. And I know a lot of you want to know exactly what's going on here.

So we'll cover it. So first of all, what I want to say is the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC is a nonprofit organization that focuses on civil rights litigation. Okay, so they file lawsuits against extremist groups, government agencies, they file lawsuits on behalf of prisoners or students, they file, you know, lawsuits based on voting issues or civil rights cases, things like that. The SPLC's website says it defends racial justice issues by strengthening democracy and voting rights, dismantling white supremacy, ending unjust enrichment, and eliminating poverty and economic inequality. Okay, so why was it indicted? Well, the DOJ alleges that the SPLC has been secretly

using donated funds to pay people that are tied to groups like the KKK and neo-Nazi organizations. So basically, according to the DOJ's allegations, donors were giving their money to the SPLC, thinking they were supporting the fight against extremism, but the SPLC was instead using some of these donated funds to benefit the very people and groups that they claimed to oppose. So back in the 80s, the SPLC started operating this secret network of informants who were either associated with groups like the KKK or had infiltrated these groups at the SPLC's direction. And the SPLC called these informants either field sources or just simply the Fs. So, you know, one informant might be F37, another one might be F3.7.

another one might be F-41, so on and so forth. Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC allegedly secretly funneled more than $3 million in SPLC funds to these various informants. According to the indictment, the objective of this scheme was to obtain money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for. Then, in order to secretly pay these individuals, the individual, the informants. The SPLC allegedly opened bank accounts that were connected to fictitious entities,

names like Fox Photography, Rare Books Warehouse, Northwest Technologies, and this allowed the SPLC to hide the true nature source ownership and control of this, you know, donated money that the SPLC used to allegedly pay these individuals. And in order to keep the scheme going, the SPLC allegedly made a series of false statements related to the office. operations of the accounts, meaning they filled out paperwork with the banks to open the accounts that, you know, were false because these fictitious entities didn't really exist, et cetera, et so the issue is that the SPLC allegedly used donor funds to pay these informants without telling donors. It's not necessarily that they had informants, right? It's that they allegedly

used donor funds to pay the informants without telling the donors. and then those funds potentially benefited the same organizations that the SPLC is trying to fight against. Now, the SPLC has quote unquote strongly denied any wrongdoing. It says that the government is blatantly mischaracterizing its efforts to fight hatred and violent extremism. And following the indictment, the SPLC actually filed two motions meant to refute certain remarks that acting attorney general Todd Blanche has made. So while appearing on the Ingram angle on Fox News, Blanche said that the government didn't have any information that would suggest that the SPLC shared information that it learned from the informants with law enforcement. But the SPLC says this isn't true. The SPLC says that just weeks before the indictment, its lawyers gave information to the government demonstrating unequivocally that the SPLC had shared information from its informants with law enforcement.

The SPLC noted specific examples like in 2017 ahead of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. They supposedly gave information to the government. Then in 2019, the SPLC says it gave law enforcement information about a planned attack in Las Vegas by a member of a white supremacist extremist group. So that's what the SPLC is saying. Here's the thing. The SPLC is facing 11 charges, six counts of wire fraud related specifically to six, wires that were sent to various informants on April 25th, 2023, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank, one count for each of those documents I talked about earlier that

were filed with the bank related to a fictitious entity, and then one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. Because this is an entity facing charges, if there is a conviction, the SPLC would have to forfeit any money it made from these alleged illegal acts. We're not talking about jail time here, okay? But we'll have to see what happens. There is talk that this was a rushed indictment and that the DOJ itself had some concerns about the strength of the case. Democratic lawmakers alleged that they were told by a whistleblower that federal prosecutors in Alabama were reportedly ordered to, quote, rush through the indictment despite serious concerns about the strength of the case. And quote, Democrats have said they were going to be opening an investigation into the matter.

So as with any criminal charges, they will have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to result in a conviction. Okay. Moving on to the DHS funding bill this past Thursday. The 76-day DHS shutdown finally came to an end. This was also the longest shutdown of a federal department in U.S. history. I just want to kind of quickly talk about it, quickly talk about what happened. As we talked about before I went on maternity leave, the DHS was shut down because Republicans and Democrats could not agree on the terms. to fund the department. Democrats were not happy with the way ICE was operating in the wake of the deaths of Alex Pruddy and Renee Good. They wanted reforms. Republicans opposed those reforms. Democrats wanted things like requiring federal officers to wear body cameras, banning officers from wearing masks, ending roving patrols, mandating judicial warrants, things of that nature. Democrats said without those reforms, they would not agree to fund ICE or border patrol.

Now, what ended up happening is Congress basically compromised and said, okay, you know what, let's just fund as much of the DHS as we can agree on and we will deal with immigration enforcement separately at a later date. But what I want to do here is back up a little bit to March. Back in March, okay, when the DHS shutdown was getting a little bit worse, we were seeing those crazy security lines at certain airports. The Senate went ahead and unanimously passed this bill that funded all DHS agencies except the immigration enforcement agency. And when that bill went to the House, House Republicans immediately opposed it, right? Speaker Johnson actually called the bill a joke. So when it became more clear that the House was not moving on this bill, that's when President Trump used that executive action to keep DHS employees paid during the shutdown.

And that was back in March, like we said. But then by the end of April, there was really no real end in sight, right? The funds that the administration had allocated to pay DHS employees were running out. And nothing was really happening. So House Republicans eventually agree to move forward. And they basically said, okay, we'll vote on that Senate passed bill so long as both chambers of Congress agree to tackle funding for immigration enforcement separately through what's called budget reconciliation. Now, the thing with budget reconciliation is that it's this special process in Congress that makes it easier to pass certain budget related bills in the Senate. because normally most bills need 60 votes in the Senate to overcome what's called a filibuster.

The filibuster is how the minority party typically prevents legislation from being passed, right? But reconciliation bills are protected from the filibuster, which means they can pass with just a simple majority. And that's big for Republicans because they control both the House and Senate. So if they can put ICE and Border Patrol funding into a reconciliation bill, they don't need any Democratic support. to pass it. Of course, that's assuming most Republicans are in favor of the reconciliation bill. So to be clear, the most recent bill funded all of DHS except for immigration enforcement operations. But that doesn't mean ICE and Border Patrol stopped operating, right? Because remember, as we've talked about in the past, those agencies already had their own funding from the one big

beautiful bill act that was passed last year. So they weren't relying on this bill in the same way that agencies like TSA, FEMA, and the Secret Service were. Now that said, they'll still need their annual funds replenished, and that's what Republicans will try to do via the budget reconciliation process. But that's just to say, these immigration enforcement agencies have had funding. They've been running. That's why they weren't as much of a concern for the Republicans. Okay. Now we're moving on to the final story, which is Spirit Airlines. On Saturday, Spirit Airlines let all of its customers, know that all flights would be canceled effective immediately and that the airline is essentially going out of business. On its website, the company wrote in part, quote, it is with great disappointment that on May 2nd, 2026, Spirit Airlines started an orderly wind down of our operations effective immediately.

To guess, all flights have been canceled and customer service is no longer available. We are proud of the impact of our ultra low cost model on the industry over the last 33 years and had hoped to serve our guests for many years to come. end quote. Now, we had been hearing some rumblings of this possibility in the days leading up to Saturday. I think the Wall Street Journal was the first to report on it, if I'm not mistaken, or at least the first to report that it could halt operations as soon as Saturday. As far as why this is happening, Spirit basically ran out of money. Okay, the company really hasn't been doing well for a few years now. It attempted to merge with JetBlue back in 2022. You probably remember that. That merger failed in 2024. And that is ultimately what led to

Spirit's first bankruptcy filing later that year, and then Spirit again filed for bankruptcy in 2025. In fact, when Spirit made its first bankruptcy filing in late 2024, it reported that it had lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020. So this has been a long time coming of, you know, dire financial straits. Then beginning in 2025, Spirit cut 4,000 jobs and about 200 routes. So the struggle isn't really a new thing. But what apparently set the airline over the edge is the recent hike in jet fuel prices because of the conflict with Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reported that Spirit's bankruptcy restructuring plan had assumed a jet fuel around $2.24 per gallon for 2026. But because of this conflict, prices reached around $4.51 per gallon as of late April.

So Spirit's restructuring plan was basically its roadmap, right, for how it could survive bankruptcy and keep operating. But if Spirit's plan assumed fuel would cost one amount and then fuel ends up being a lot more, the math is no longer mathing, as the kids say. And because fuel is one of an airline's biggest expenses, it just threw off the entire plan. And just to touch on the bigger picture related to fuel, a new Deutsche Bank forecast says U.S. Airlines could spend $24 billion more on fuel each year than the bank expected before the conflict began. The bank does think airlines might be able to bring in about $14 billion in extra revenue to help cover those higher costs, but even with that, airline profits are expected to be $8.4 billion lower than previously projected. And that's just not in regard to spirit, obviously. That is for all airlines across the board. Now,

something else worth mentioning here is Spirit's rescue deal. Okay. So the rescue deal was basically a last-minute lifeline from the federal government to keep Spirit up and running while it went through its bankruptcy proceedings. The federal government was going to give $500 million up to $500 million in financing to spirit. And in return, the government would get warrants, meaning the government would have the right to buy a large ownership stake in spirit once it came out of bankruptcy. Some reports like the one from Bloomberg law reported that the proposed stake could have been as much as 90 percent of Spirit. So a pretty big stake. Also, the government would have come before any other lenders if Spirit completely collapsed. That was also a term of the deal, but the deal didn't go through.

It fell apart. Spirit creditors did not agree to that deal in time. Spirit actually held a board meeting on the deal, but the board members were not able to come to an agreement. So it's not that fuel prices alone caused Spirit to close. Spirit was already obviously in a pretty weak financial position. But when that restructuring plan no longer made sense and, you know, Spirit couldn't agree to this rescue deal, that's when Spirit ultimately went ahead and just completely shut down operations. All flights were canceled. Customers were given refunds. Employees no longer have jobs. And it's essentially just wrapping up any outstanding obligations at this point. Based on what the company has said, there's really no chance it resumes operations. What could

happen is an investor or another airline comes in, buys the spirit name during bankruptcy. see, that could theoretically, you know, like relaunch an airline using the same name, but that would be the closest, closest thing to Spirit actually, quote unquote, coming back. Even in that case, it would still be a different company with different owners, different routes, different prices, different policies, et cetera, et cetera. Now, something else to keep in mind, and this is more of a big picture impact, because Spirit was a major very low cost airline and will no longer serve the market, there will be fewer low fare options.

that's not just because Spirit itself is gone. Spirit's prices also helped keep other airline prices down on competing routes. So if there's less low-cost competition, we'll likely see airfare get even more expensive, especially in the cities and routes where Spirit was particularly active. And that is what I have for you just like that. I am back. It's like I was never gone, right? Now, like I said, at the beginning of today's episode,

today was basically just a recap of some of the bigger stories that we've missed. starting Thursday, we will be back to regularly scheduled programming where it's just, you know, news from the days leading up to that episode. For instance, I know today the Supreme Court temporarily restored access to get an abortion drug by mail. So we'll talk about that on Thursday, as well as anything else that happens between now and then. Have a great next couple of days, and I will talk to you again on Thursday.