Florida woman killed a cat, put its remains in a blender, and then drank them: Seriously!

A young Florida woman is accused of killing a neighborhood cat and then blending its organs to drink. ​Juliana Alyssa Brown captured the animal in May 2024 while her family was on vacation, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Independent. At first the 21-year-old tried to kill the cat by drowning it in a white trash bag, before stabbing it with a kitchen knife, the affidavit said. Pasco County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Brown earlier this month after a mandatory clinical reporter told them she had confessed to the killing.

“The defendant proceeded to admit to trying to kill the cat various ways over the course of several days,” the affidavit stated. “The defendant explained the cat was screaming in pain which caused her to become ‘sexually aroused’. “Ultimately the defendant was able to drown the cat in her bathroom. Following the cat’s death the defendant placed it in a refrigerator hiding it from family members. “The defendant admitted that she skinned the cat, dissected its organs, placed them in a blender and drank them.”

The accused told patrol deputies she decapitated the animal, keeping its head for several months by preserving it with alcohol, per the affidavit. Brown told cops she often fantasized about killing animals and had done so since she was three years old. The sheriff’s office said the suspect had given them photographs showing the cat alive and then skinned two days later, as well as the knife she claimed she used to kill the animal.

Brown was arrested on October 14, according to jail records, and has now been charged with one count of aggravated animal cruelty causing excessive pain or death. The sheriff’s office requested a high bond be set “due to an enhanced fear of public safety”. ​“I understand that cruelty to animals is often a precursor for individuals who go on to carry out mass attacks or acts of targeted violence against individuals,” a deputy wrote in the affidavit.

​Under Florida Statute 828.12(2), aggravated animal cruelty is a third-degree felony and punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000, The Herbst Firm says. Anyone convicted of the crime could also be required to undertake an anger management program or psychological counselling.

 -Owen Scott, The Independent 

HELP THEM, TRUMP!

 

Glory to Ukraine (Слава Україні!)

 

Across Ukraine, centuries of history live in golden-domed cathedrals, medieval city streets, ancient fortifications, and remarkable architectural treasures. These places tell the story of a nation and its people—and they are part of humanity’s shared cultural heritage.

Sadly, many of these treasures are now at risk.

🏛️ Ukraine’s cultural heritage is under attack. As of July 29, 2026, UNESCO had verified damage to 545 cultural sites across Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. These include religious buildings, historic structures, museums, monuments, libraries, and archaeological sites. Not all are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but each represents a piece of Ukraine’s cultural history.

⛪ Saint-Sophia Cathedral and Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra have suffered damage. This remarkable World Heritage property in Kyiv represents nearly a thousand years of Ukrainian history, faith, and architecture. In June 2026, a Russian drone strike severely damaged the Dormition Cathedral within the Lavra complex, affecting its roof and structure. UNESCO has been working to support emergency stabilization and preservation efforts.

🏰 Odesa’s historic center has also been hit. Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023, Odesa’s historic center is celebrated for its distinctive architecture and rich cultural history. Russian attacks have damaged historic buildings and religious landmarks, including the Transfiguration Cathedral. UNESCO has sent experts to assess the damage and support restoration efforts.

🏘️ Lviv’s historic heritage faces threats, too. The historic city center is renowned for its architectural layers and cultural influences. Russian attacks have caused damage to historic buildings in the city and its surrounding heritage areas, highlighting the risks facing Ukraine’s architectural legacy.

🌍 Why does this matter to the world? UNESCO World Heritage Sites are recognized for their outstanding universal value. They belong not only to the countries where they stand but also to the cultural inheritance of humanity. When a historic cathedral, museum, or centuries-old building is damaged, the loss extends beyond bricks and stone. It threatens the stories, craftsmanship, traditions, and memories passed down through generations.

💙💛 Preserving Ukraine’s heritage means preserving its identity. Ukrainians continue to protect their museums, document damaged monuments, rescue cultural collections, and work to restore what has been lost. Their determination shows that defending a country also means defending its history and culture.

At Ukrainian Apparel, we believe that supporting Ukraine means more than wearing its colors. It means learning about its history, celebrating its culture, and helping keep its stories alive.

Every design is an opportunity to share a story, celebrate Ukrainian identity, and connect people around the world with Ukraine’s heritage.

Thank you for standing with Ukraine and helping keep its history alive.

With Love, 💙💛
— Ukrainian Apparel

 

"Trump is openly embracing Putin and is working to destroy the strongest and most successful alliance in human history..."

 

It was exactly ten years ago that then–Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told the American people that Russian president Vladimir Putin hoped to have a “puppet” in the White House, and that Donald Trump was that puppet.

A scowling Trump responded: “No puppet. No puppet.”

Clinton continued: “It’s pretty clear.

Trump interjected: “You’re the puppet.”

Clinton continued: “It’s pretty clear you won’t admit…”

Trump interjected: “No, you’re the puppet.”

Clinton: “...that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race.”

Trump shook his head disparagingly.

Ten years later, Trump is openly embracing Putin and is working to destroy the strongest and most successful alliance in human history to cement that partnership, apparently with an eye to enriching himself.

And so, the events of the present change the way we see the past. Had Trump strongly supported Ukraine as Congress has demanded, and stood firm against Russia, a country that is, after all, a minor economic player whose military is flailing at its attempt to absorb its neighbor, we would rightly dismiss Clinton’s warning as campaign hyperbole. As it is, though, Trump’s tie to Putin—the story he has always tried to bury by calling it the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax”—seems likely to emerge as the central story of the Trump years.

As Clinton wrote today: “In just the last few days: Trump made a deal for the U.S. to buy Russian diesel, an economic lifeline for Putin; he and Elon Musk blamed each other for an order that slowed down Starlink satellite connectivity over Ukraine, hampering the country’s defenses during a devastating Russian attack; and Trump waived sanctions on Russia that Congress, led by his late friend Lindsey Graham, had pushed for. Now, Putin has proposed a summit with Trump and Xi to decide Ukraine’s fate for them, bulldoze a century of international cooperation, and frame Russia as an equal to the U.S. and China. We’ll see if Putin’s puppet continues to dance on his strings.”

Second, as no one paying even a modicum of attention can have missed, Trump is so unpopular that support for Republicans has fallen into historically low numbers. The gutting of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), tariffs that have destroyed markets for agricultural products and increased prices, the war on Iran that has sent prices of gasoline and especially diesel soaring and thus increased the cost of everything that travels by train or truck, the blatant corruption that is lining the pockets of Trump and his cronies while ordinary Americans can’t make ends meet, and now Trump’s open embrace of Russian president Vladimir Putin—all wildly unpopular positions—mean that the districts that were firmly Republican by double digits just two years ago are now up for grabs.

That shift has revealed something interesting. Republicans running for office are refusing to hold town halls or to engage in debates with Democratic challengers. When they do show up, they tend to show how unserious they are about filling elected office, as Republican Dan Sullivan of Alaska illustrated when he asked the moderators at a debate with Democrat Mary Peltola if she had been given the questions beforehand because she seemed to be reading from notes while he didn’t know how to answer the questions. As the moderators quashed his allegation, Peltola noted: “I’m prepared!”

In the past, Republicans in safe Republican districts did not have to appeal to constituents or campaign, apparently because the letter “R” was enough to get voters to make a mark next to their name. In this new environment in which constituents are furious with Republican policies, Republicans hoping to be elected continue to keep their heads down, apparently hoping that they can be elected, or reelected, if they simply keep their mouths shut.

Their invisibility raises the question of why these people, who evidently don’t care about representing their constituents, would want to hold national office. Perhaps they want to hobble the federal government to enable wealthy businessmen to gain even more control over the country. Perhaps they want to enable the rise of a theocracy. Perhaps they are hoping to make money off their offices. Perhaps they simply want the prestige of a federal office.

But the extreme gerrymandering of states at the hands of Republican lawmakers that made their candidates shoo-ins in the past also means those Republican candidates are weak. New scrutiny of those candidates as Democrats challenges them is revealing just how weak they are.

In Texas, for example, Republicans are running Trump’s hand-picked candidate for the U.S. Senate, state attorney general Ken Paxton, a stunningly corrupt man who has recently been revealed to have spent New Year’s Eve 2024 partying in Dubai with a mistress and two men who are fugitives from U.S. law. In Kansas the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate is incumbent senator Roger Marshall, a man who has been revealed as having sued more than 700 of his obstetrical patients for unpaid bills, resulting in 81 arrests.

In North Carolina, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley has little to recommend him other than Trump’s endorsement; the same could be said of the Republican candidate for Senate from South Carolina, Darline Graham, whose main qualification is that she is former South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham’s sister. The story is the same across the country as Republicans field subpar candidates. Even in Maine, where Senator Susan Collins should have been a strong candidate for the party, stories of apparent corruption are undermining her candidacy.

As Paul Waldman noted in Public Notice on October 15, these stories and others are “just the Senate candidates. Up and down the ballot, the [Republican Party] has nominated crackpots and nitwits, none more colorful than Victor Marx, their nominee for governor in Colorado. Marx refuses to say how many people he has killed (though he says his stepfather forced him to commit his first murder at age 7), hunts demons, claims he can call in US airstrikes, and boasts of being a seventh-degree black belt in a martial art he invented. Normal stuff!”

In contrast to the Republicans hoping to coast to election, the Democrats running for office are holding town halls, listening to the people of their districts, needling their opponents who refuse to debate, and using the word “mission.”

The contrast between the two is a snapshot of a dying party that is no longer bothering to compete, and a rising party whose candidates are eager for the job and willing to work for it. It reminds me of the 1850s, when the Democrats, who were so accustomed to holding office that they assumed they were entitled to their posts, met the rising Republicans, whom Democrats considered too uncouth to hold office, but who ended up dominating the political system for the next seventy years.

—Heather Cox Richardson

 

"The Framers of the Constitution thought they had designed a system that would prevent the rise of a tyrant"

 

Yesterday, Lingling Wei, Alex Leary, Thomas Grove, and Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal reported that Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has proposed a meeting next month with Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping to decide the fate of Ukraine.

The reporters explained that a three-way summit with China and the U.S. would cement Russia’s status as one of the world’s three great powers, a status Putin has sought since 2000 when he entered the Kremlin. 

Such a summit would formally acknowledge that the U.S. had broken from Europe and allied with Russia, a goal for Putin as he tries to take control of Ukraine.

A former Russian intelligence officer told the reporters that the summit would replace the rules-based international order established by the United States and its allies and partners after World War II with a system that divides the globe into spheres of influence.

After ten years of Trump insisting that reports of his cooperation with Russia were a hoax, here we are, watching one profoundly unpopular man tear apart the global system under which we have lived for eighty years in order to climb into bed with Vladimir Putin.

In just over a week, Trump has lifted sanctions on the sale of Russian oil on the global market, a way both to send desperately needed money to Russia to fund its war on Ukraine and to begin the process of reintegrating Russia into the global economy. 

Either Trump or Musk or both appear to have slowed down Starlink and Starshield—the two systems that manage communications for defense and offensive drones, respectively—making them inoperable during one of the worst Russian bombardments of the war.

And on Friday, Trump waived additional sanctions Congress demanded in a recent law named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) two days before the sanctions were to go into effect. Putin confidant Kirill Dmitriev, who manages Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, reposted an AI-generated image of the U.S. eagle standing next to a Russian bear, snarling at a British lion standing next to the flag of the European Union—the U.S. and Russia standing shoulder to shoulder against the United Kingdom and Europe—with the caption “Things Have Changed…”

Over the post, Dmitriev wrote: “Together.” He cheered on Trump’s waiving of the sanctions imposed by the Graham Act and, in response to a post claiming that Trump’s move to bolster Russia had caused panic in Europe and Ukraine, posted: “Checkmate.”

In The Atlantic, national security scholar Tom Nichols noted with evident disgust: “The American commander in chief has abandoned the Western order, the most successful—and powerful—security arrangement in human history.” 

This decision, Nichols wrote, appears to have had nothing to do with the national interest of the United States. Instead, Trump appears to have thrown out the world order because of his own personal interests, his admiration for Putin, his resentment of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, “and quite possibly other factors that so far have remained obscured from the American public.”

Outrage over Trump’s actions has come from across the political spectrum. Nichols notes that former federal prosecutor turned conservative commenter Andrew McCarthy wrote that Trump is giving Putin “aid and comfort.” Those words echo Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, which defines treason against the United States, as “levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

McCarthy’s blistering article in the National Review on Saturday reminds readers that Putin is a murderous dictator who is actively supporting Iran’s military operations against the United States with both intelligence and drones and provoking U.S. allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). And yet Trump is siding with him against Ukraine, a U.S. ally. McCarthy demanded Congress hold “immediate hearings about this week’s shocking escalation of the Trump-Putin alliance.”

The backlash appears to have pushed Trump to try to justify his gutting of the Graham Act, at least. This afternoon, he posted on social media: “My decision on Russia is a very simple one.” He went on to claim that he didn’t want “to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table” in the quest for a peace deal with Ukraine.

He shrugged off Russia’s support for Iran in its war against the U.S. by suggesting it “is doing very little, if anything, to help the Islamic Republic of Iran, compared to what they could be doing, and I want to keep it that way.” 

And then he attacked Zelensky, blaming Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries rather than his own war on Iran for the high cost of diesel in the U.S. and claiming that Zelensky “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.”

Nichols tore through this screed, calling it a pathetic admission of Trump’s weakness “in his relationship with the Kremlin boss.” “The leader of the most powerful nation on the planet,” Nichols pointed out, “is trying to get everyone else, including the American Congress, to avoid antagonizing Putin, instead of warning Putin not to even think about aiding Iran.”

Until now, Nichols wrote, “[a] world in which the White House is allied to the Kremlin was…the stuff of paranoid fiction. Manchurian candidates and red presidents were fantasies.” Now that alliance exists. Nichols laments that Trump and Putin have fulfilled the dreams of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the Cold War leaders who followed him, humbling and humiliating the mighty United States.

The Framers of the Constitution thought they had designed a system that would prevent the rise of a tyrant. They believed U.S. representatives would be so fearful of a leader's abuse of power that they would impeach any president who overstepped his authority, and that U.S. senators would be so jealous of their own power they would convict, and tyranny would not be able to take root. The Framers especially did not anticipate that senators, to whom they deliberately gave longer terms than they gave the president, would put party over country and stand aside as a president and his appointees captured the prerogatives of the Senate.

And yet, here we are.  But even given the evidence of the past ten years, it is truly astonishing to see Republicans, who for more than forty years have championed President Ronald Reagan for his stance against the Soviet Union, stand aside as Trump trashes the post–World War II system of global security in order to ally the United States with a Russian dictator.

-Heather Cox Richardson

 

The MAGA Crackup Has Begun

Trump’s lawlessness, incoherence, cruelty, and desperation are increasing as we approach a blue wave election that appears increasingly likely to sweep out Republican majorities in the House and Senate, flip numerous governorships, and deliver significant blows to Republicans in state races. Trump has tried everything in his playbook: attempting to sabotage mail-in voting, effectively bribing voters with a ludicrous promise of a $5,000 check if they keep Republicans in power, and traveling to red states to deliver rants intended to pump up his base. 

And yet, his own conduct further undercuts Republicans’ already-dismal election prospects, with Republican candidates straining to run from policies in which they have been complicit (e.g. tariffs, the war, ICE’s reckless blitz).

In the latest Washington Post-ABC poll, his approval hit a new low of 33 percent, with a dismal 22 percent among independents. His handling of the economy has plunged to 28 percent and all the way to 21 percent on affordability (which he says is a hoax). Under Trump, “the Republican Party is worse at 28 points underwater (35% favorable and 63% unfavorable),” while large majorities “call Trump and the Republican Party ‘too extreme’ — 66% and 55%, respectively” (vs. just 36 percent for the Democratic Party). And a key finding: “By a wide margin, Americans prefer that the next Congress be controlled by Democrats, to act as a check on Trump (59%) than by Republicans, to support Trump’s agenda (35%).”

Democrats, understandably, are therefore thrilled Trump keeps insisting voters pretend he is on the ballot. In just the past week, his total capitulation to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on sanctions relief and his psychotic ramblings out on the stump might instead convince voters Democratic majorities are urgently needed to keep him on a short leash. 

(His treacherous betrayal of Ukraine and unabashed cheerleading for Putin triggered an unusual bipartisan backlash, demands for investigation, proposals to countermand the diesel bailout, and further questions about his personal and financial motives.)

Trump’s behavior on the campaign trail has only intensified the sense that the country is rudderless, careening from one disaster to another without a sentient leader. “Trump, 80, has used his appearances to muse about animals’ opposition to the second amendment, to call one Republican candidate ‘nerdy,’ and to demonstrate a hitherto unexpressed fascination with ‘asses’ — men’s and babies’, in particular,” The Guardian reported. “Along the way Trump has repeated his lie that 2020 was a rigged election, claimed, falsely, that he has secured $21T in foreign investment in the US, and issued dark warnings about Democrats.”

As happens when a regime is hurtling toward defeat and popular support plummets, the wheels seem to be coming off the already-rickety Trump regime bus. The forced resignation of grifter Kimberly Guilfoyle, revelations about the donors who forked over $330 million for the East Wing destruction/ballroom monstrosity, the firing of disastrously incompetent Katie Zacharia (replete with leaks from insiders disparaging her), and the possible ouster of Chief of Staff Susie Wiles mean the knives are out as Trump flunkies search for scapegoats. (“Staff upheaval is expected as officials brace for a blame game over Republican performance, with some distancing themselves from what they see as a fading political movement,” the Los Angeles Times confirmed.)

Most disastrous for Republicans, Trump’s policies have created the perfect storm. On the economic front, consumer and producer numbers released last week confirm that prices have soared, reminding voters that Trump’s toxic brew of tariffs and soaring energy costs resulting from his calamitous war have made ordinary life unaffordable for millions. (His fiscal trainwreck has contributed to soaring interest rates, raising the potential for stagflation like we saw in the 1970s and ’80s.) Trump’s illegal, reckless war continues to drag down Republican candidates who are forced to defend their acquiescence in this strategic, military, moral, and economic debacle.

Trump can no longer rely on his go-to issue: immigrant fearmongering. His violent, lawless assaults on immigrants have killed scores of people on the streets and in detention, separated families, inflicted economic hardship, and undermined the rule of law, alienating even Republicans. 

His latest, outrageous effort to deport a political opponent, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), laced with racism and devoid of any legal basis for violating the 60-day pre-election moratorium on political-related prosecutions, reflects white nationalists’ desperation and political tone-deafness as they make a single controversial congresswoman into a national political martyr.

While lashing about like a wounded animal, he is also getting slapped down by courts in a wide array of cases (e.g., dismissal with prejudice of the Reflecting Pool prosecution, rejecting demands for state voting roll data, stopping the Kennedy Center threatened shutdown/teardown, complete defeat in the effort to exclude certain news outlets from the White House, the vindication of smeared FEMA employee Mary Comans) as they recognize his lawlessness and express outright fury, as Judge Ana Reyes put it in the East Potomac golf course case, over the Justice Department’s frivolous filings, gamesmanship, and outright defiance of court orders.

The paranoia on the left runs deep, with many insisting Trump is “more dangerous than ever.” But they should not confuse desperation with danger, nor impulsiveness with potency. Though Trump’s nutty rhetoric may intensify and his executive edicts may multiply, democracy forces should refrain from treating him as a political colossus. 

Swinging and missing does not make Trump more powerful; it convinces his congressional allies to distance themselves, judges to forcefully rebuke him, and his former supporters to turn the page. More frequent retreats (e.g., halting public financing for ads, calling off the live-streaming of the Fort Hood murderer’s execution, resuming Starlink connection for Ukraine, firing his spokeswoman) suggest criticism is eroding his resolve.

As Trump’s losses mount and his power drains away, and as both congressional allies and courts deny him deference, Democrats must not let up. Once in power, Democrats must not only seek to reverse policy debacles (e.g., take back tariff authority, reverse Medicaid and SNAP cuts, reinstate Affordable Care Act subsidies, defund ICE) but also pursue every avenue of accountability.

In sum, we are seeing the political death spiral of a regime under the tutelage of a mentally decrepit narcissist. Decisive, overwhelming Democratic wins up and down the ballot can disabuse Republicans of the notion there is any benefit or future in continuing to align themselves with a fascist movement that has done extraordinary damage to our economy, democracy, and social fabric.

The full impact of an election loss of the magnitude we expect will play out over months as regime figures get thrown overboard or run for the hills and surviving Republicans in Congress race to create space between themselves and a failed presidency. 

For Democrats and all pro-democracy forces, it will be vital to take advantage of the disarray in MAGA ranks to begin reversing policy blunders, holding wrongdoers responsible, and erecting reforms to restore democratic institutions and place our constitutional system on firmer footing. Meanwhile, Democrats would be wise to echo Trump’s call for voters to pretend Trump is on the ballot. He certainly is — and the country is in desperate need of protection from the mad wannabe king.

---

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Demonstrators at an Oct. 1. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

 

A priest is crushed to death by a giant altar cross during livestreamed mass

A priest was crushed to death by a giant altar cross during a live Catholic Holy Mass broadcast in Latin America. Patricio Sanchez was leading the service when the heavy wooden crucifix on the wall behind him appeared to detach. Patricio had just adjusted his glasses when he was smashed onto the altar table in front of him.

Churchgoers rushed to help the priest who became pinned under the cross but he was killed instantly by the impact. The jaw-dropping tragedy occurred on Saturday afternoon at a church in the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil. The horror struck around 27 minutes into Patricio’s livestream at Guayaquil’s Perpetuo Socorro Church.

Overnight the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Guayaquil confirmed the priest’s death. A statement said: “We inform you that our beloved Father Patricio Alfredo Sanchez Molinari, who served as parish priest of the Perpetual Help church in the Central Vicariate, has departed for the Father’s House to enjoy his presence and glory. The Archdiocese of Guayaquil joins in prayer for the eternal rest of his soul and expresses its solidarity, affection and love to the Redemptorist family, his relatives and friends.”

- by Natalia Penza, NewsBreak