Crews began removing the final three Confederate-linked statues from the grounds of the Virginia State Capitol on Friday after Democrats buried a provision in the budget that set up the removal.
The statues depict Confederate General Thomas &#8220;Stonewall&#8221; Jackson, Confederate General and two-time Virginia Governor William &#8220;Extra Billy&#8221; Smith, and Confederate Army surgeon Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire. Capitol Square has <a href="http://www.vacapitol.org/statues.htm">displayed</a> Jackson&#8217;s statue since 1875, McGuire&#8217;s since 1904, and Smith&#8217;s since 1906.
Former state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) introduced legislation earlier this year directing the state to remove the statues. It passed the Senate but died in a House committee before lawmakers resurrected the plan during state budget negotiations, WTVR Richmond <a href="https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/richmond/removing-confederate-statues-capitol-square-aug-28-2026#google_vignette">reported</a>.
Virginia gifted the Confederate statues to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, according to the Department of General Services.
&#8220;Stonewall&#8221; Jackson is one of the Confederacy&#8217;s most iconic generals. His actions at the First Battle of Bull Run helped lead the Confederates to a major victory early in the Civil War. A separate monument to Jackson that had stood on Richmond&#8217;s Monument Avenue since 1919 was removed in July 2020 during the protests and riots that followed George Floyd&#8217;s death.
Smith took over as a commander of Confederate troops after their commander died, despite acknowledging that he had little knowledge of battlefield tactics.
McGuire served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army who worked to save numerous lives. After the war, he served as the president of the American Medical Association, as <a href="https://x.com/BlueBoxDave/status/2093375266240213425">pointed out</a> by Fox News Digital columnist and West Virginia resident David Marcus.
&#8220;I guess Woke 1.0 is still with us, after all,&#8221; Marcus <a href="https://x.com/BlueBoxDave/status/2093373688548651133">said</a> of the statue removal, referencing a comment made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) when she was pressed about radical leftist priorities like defunding the police. “I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy,&#8217;” AOC said.
Marcus added, &#8220;It’s interesting that the people who tore down statues, renamed schools, and banned mascots, are furious that the inviolable name of Lake Ontario could ever be altered.&#8221;
The Left has aggressively pushed for the removal of statues depicting Confederate figures — and sometimes even Founding Fathers — since 2015. The movement to remove depictions of American history gained steam in 2017 after the deadly Charlottesville rally and in the summer of 2020 following the death of George Floyd and the ensuing riots. Public <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-protests-poll/a-majority-of-americans-want-to-preserve-confederate-monuments-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKCN1B12EG/">polls</a> during that time showed that a plurality of Americans <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confederate-statues-removal-polls_n_599de056e4b05710aa59841c">favored</a> keeping the statues in place despite the Left&#8217;s campaign to tear down historic monuments.
Despite the public opposition to taking down the monuments, around 90 Confederate statues were <a href="https://cwmemory.com/recent-confederate-monument-removals/">removed</a> in 2020 alone. Ten monuments were torn down by rioters that year. From 2020 to 2024, a total of 123 Confederate monuments have been taken down across the country, including 38 in Virginia.

Civil War Statues

Dems Use State Budget To Remove Final Confederate Statues From Capitol Grounds

American History

Civil War

Confederacy

Confederate Flag

Democrats

Virginia

The National Rifle Association is going on the road for the 2026 midterm elections, launching its first-ever national bus tour Thursday to mobilize gun owners across 13 states where control of Congress and statehouses is up for grabs, the group exclusively told The Daily Wire.
The NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) launched the 2026 NRA’s Gun Bus Battleground Tour, sending a tour bus on a more than two-month, 63-stop trek through key battleground states. The tour will conclude on Election Day, November 3.
The tour is designed to bring NRA-ILA staff and volunteers directly to voters rather than relying on traditional campaign advertising. “Gun owners don’t need another polished ad interrupting their favorite show. They need real conversations about what’s at stake for the Second Amendment,” NRA-ILA Executive Director John Commerford told the Daily Wire. “The Gun Bus Tour puts NRA staff and volunteers on the ground where it matters most — talking directly with the men and women who form the backbone of this organization,” Commerford continued. “This is how we build lasting political power: one conversation, one neighborhood, one vote at a time.”
The tour will travel through Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Stops will range from gun stores and manufacturing facilities to college football tailgates and community events, including Michigan’s annual Oktoberfest. The tour will also feature appearances from pro-Second Amendment candidates running for local, state, and federal office.
The NRA’s first stop will be in Dillon, Montana, at Montana’s Biggest Weekend, a Labor Day celebration centered around the Beaverhead County Fair. The event includes rodeo competitions, livestock shows, a carnival, a country music concert, and a parade.
Other stops include college football matchups, including the Iowa vs. Iowa State tailgate in Iowa City; the Wisconsin vs. Penn State tailgate in State College, Pennsylvania; and the Kentucky vs. South Carolina tailgate festivities in Columbia, South Carolina. They will also stop at the NRA’s National Sporting Clays Championship in San Antonio, Texas.
The tour comes as Republicans defend their majorities in both chambers of Congress and as gun rights remain a major dividing line between the parties. The NRA says its goal is to ensure that pro-Second Amendment candidates retain control of Congress and state governments while supporting candidates in critical state and local races.
NRA CEO Doug Hamlin warned that recent gains for gun owners could be reversed if Republicans lose control of Congress or statehouses. “Across the country, the NRA is working tirelessly to advance and protect the rights of law-abiding citizens,” Hamlin said. “Thanks to our incredible staff and millions of NRA members, we have secured major victories that have ushered in a golden age of gun ownership.”
“However, while we are enjoying unprecedented success, if we lose pro-gun majorities in Congress and the statehouses, the incredible gains we have made can be wiped out by the stroke of a pen,” he added. “That is why it is more critical than ever for gun owners to get activated and vote to protect their sacred, God-given rights.&#8221;

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EXCLUSIVE: NRA Hits The Road For Midterm Battleground State Tour

2026 Midterms

2nd Amendment

firearms

Georgia

Guns

Iowa

Michigan

Montana

National Rifle Association (NRA)

Nebraska

North Carolina

Ohio

Pennsylvania

Second Amendment

South Carolina

Texas

Tour

Wisconsin

Wyoming

Where I live, tucked in the Virginia woods in D.C.&#8217;s outer suburbs, a body being found stabbed to death and doused in gasoline is virtually unprecedented. The murder was unsolved, and the killer could be lurking in any of our backyards.
I don&#8217;t typically go on Nextdoor, the hyperlocal social media app designed to bring neighbors together to discuss issues like community safety, but this seemed like exactly what it was made for. Everyone there was on edge.
Its users are already a notoriously jumpy bunch. Every Fourth of July, someone will invariably write that they think they heard gunshots. A man once pleaded with people on his block to stop using their fireplaces in the winter because the smoke coming from chimneys assaulted his nose on his afternoon walks.
Yet when an arrest was made, I could find no stand-down notification on the platform. So I took it upon myself to calm them with a one-sentence message: &#8220;A 19-year-old illegal immigrant has been arrested for stabbing the woman in Great Falls Park.&#8221;
Suddenly, the trembling fear of these residents of a wealthy D.C. enclave reversed. People who endlessly discussed the best way to rat on a neighbor with a barking dog to their HOA turned into gargoyles that took a blasé view of cold-blooded murder.
&#8220;Do you post every time a person from another race commits a crime? Or every time a U.S. citizen commits a crime?&#8221; a woman wrote.
&#8220;There have only been nine murders in Fairfax this year,&#8221; another said, as if that made it no big deal.
On a platform where a large portion of the posts are literally &#8220;I saw a fox, should I be concerned?&#8221; &#8220;I heard a loud noise&#8221; or &#8220;I lost my dog,&#8221; the threshold for alerting neighbors was suddenly revised: A literal murder in our backyards should go unexamined.
Someone posted a picture of white males and wrote, &#8220;These so called citizens kill more than any immigrant.&#8221; Similar posts followed, saying that residents of Fairfax County should instead be on the lookout for white men.
The fear they held hours prior was gone, along with any outrage that murder had crept into a peaceful place, or sympathy for the victim. Multiple people invoked an unnamed academic study which, they said, held that illegal immigrants are more law-abiding than Americans.
Of course, murder in Fairfax County is a rare enough thing that you don&#8217;t need an academic study: There had been eight people arrested for murder this year (one had two victims), so I replied by listing each of their names, along with their immigration status. Four were illegal immigrants. A fifth had a foreign name but an unknown immigration status. A sixth was a juvenile whose information was unknown.
I posted that list with no further comment.
Then I got an email that anonymous moderators had deleted my post for &#8220;discrimination.&#8221;
With the facts deleted, residents then suggested that the stabbing in our quiet community wasn&#8217;t at the hands of an illegal immigrant at all. After all, how could multiple sources fail to mention such an obviously significant fact if it were true?
&#8220;Where are you seeing he&#8217;s illegal? I&#8217;ve read several articles and not one said,&#8221; one said.
&nbsp;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1163297" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-suspension-526x576.jpg" alt="" width="526" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-suspension-526x576.jpg 526w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-suspension-274x300.jpg 274w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-suspension-768x841.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-suspension.jpg 1180w" sizes=" (max-width: 526px) 100vw, 526px" /></div>
&nbsp;
A killing in a town populated by Cabinet secretaries and Virginia&#8217;s former governor is a newsworthy event, so Fairfax County police chief Kevin Davis held a press conference. But when a reporter asked the killer&#8217;s immigration status, he, too, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFRpMgMAYOQ">refused</a> to say. (The future killer, we know thanks to federal authorities, had been apprehended when crossing the border, but the Biden administration <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disturbing-details-emerge-after-illegal-immigrant-kills-mother-of-young-child">knowingly unleashed him</a> into the interior of the country instead of turning him back.)
Nextdoor&#8217;s moderators (the site literally encourages people to &#8220;report a neighbor&#8221; to its anonymous mods) seemed to be concerned that too many people were finding out the truth. A few hours after I posted the thread, I received another email saying my entire account had been &#8220;temporarily suspended&#8221; due to the original one-sentence post, and the whole thread was whisked into the ether.
&nbsp;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1163295" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-report-neighboir-561x576.jpg" alt="" width="561" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-report-neighboir-561x576.jpg 561w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-report-neighboir-292x300.jpg 292w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-report-neighboir-768x788.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/nextdoor-report-neighboir.jpg 772w" sizes=" (max-width: 561px) 100vw, 561px" /></div>
&nbsp;
Sean Kennedy, who runs a public safety nonprofit called Virginians for Safe Communities, postulated that the site may object to the language &#8220;illegal immigrant,&#8221; preferring euphemisms like &#8220;people who are unlawfully present.&#8221;
So he made a similar post without using the term.
His account, too, was banned.
It didn&#8217;t seem to be language they objected to — it was people knowing the facts at all. Those who posted the <a href="https://www.fox5dc.com/news/half-fairfax-county-homicide-suspects-2026-u-s-illegally">local TV story</a> &#8220;Half of Fairfax County homicide suspects in 2026 are in the U.S. illegally&#8221; also were sanctioned.
Illegal immigrant crime has become a hot-button topic in Northern Virginia because any clear-eyed view of crime in general will spot the wildly disproportionate connection — and Democrats&#8217; role in it. Just this week, we learned that an illegal alien and Islamic extremist who killed someone in Fairfax in 2019 fled the country after the local prosecutor, Steve Descano, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/islamist-immigrant-murderer-allowed-to-flee- country-was-given-48-hour-leave-from-mental-hospital">helped him get a foreign passport</a>.
Some Virginia residents have wondered: How can Fairfax residents keep voting for this? There are multiple reasons, but one is that they genuinely don&#8217;t know it&#8217;s happening.
Virginians elected Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, for governor just months ago. On her first day in office, she signed an executive order ending cooperation between Virginia&#8217;s prisons and ICE. This has been the focus of a high-profile dispute every time one of these murders occurs, with Spanberger refusing to agree to turn the murderer over for deportation after his sentence.
Yet when the area&#8217;s congressman, Don Beyer, was asked about this horrific case, he didn&#8217;t defend the Democrat line — he pretended it wasn&#8217;t happening. &#8220;My understanding of the law is anyone who&#8217;s committed a serious felony is turned over to ICE,&#8221; he said.
If Democrats want to run on a policy that illegal immigrants should be able to enter the country at will, and be helped to stay even after they kill someone, that&#8217;s their right. But doing it while hiding it, and the effects, shouldn&#8217;t be.
Hyperlocal social media is a promising idea, but Nextdoor has bungled the chance for billions of dollars as badly as Virginia&#8217;s politicians bungled the chance to save four people&#8217;s lives this year. Nextdoor&#8217;s message that at least half of actual Americans aren&#8217;t welcome as customers might explain why it is <a href="https://about.nextdoor.com/press-releases/nextdoor-reports-second-quarter-2026-results">losing millions of dollars</a>. 
The site didn&#8217;t respond to a request for comment.
Ironically, people in our sleepy corner of Fairfax County will be better informed by The Daily Wire, a Nashville-based publication, than by one that&#8217;s supposedly hyper-local. Here&#8217;s the truth about every alleged murderer in Fairfax this year:
<ul class="ul-list" data-mark="*">
<li class="md-list-item">Abdul Jalloh, an illegal immigrant from Sierra Leone. Was arrested more than 30 times, but prosecutor Descano dropped the charges, enabling him to kill a stranger, Stephanie Minter, at a bus stop.</li>
<li class="md-list-item">Misael Lopez Gomez, a Guatemalan illegal immigrant, who allegedly beat a 3-month-old baby to death.</li>
<li class="md-list-item">Anibal Armando Chavarria Muy, a Guatemalan illegal immigrant who was arrested for stabbing a man to death.</li>
<li class="md-list-item">Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos from El Salvador, the illegal immigrant whose alleged murder was censored by Nextdoor</li>
<li class="md-list-item">Thapa Chhatra, whose immigration status is unknown and who was killed by police after stabbing three people</li>
<li class="md-list-item">An unknown juvenile</li>
</ul>
Only two 2026 murderers in Fairfax County are known to be Americans. One is Leland Jameson, a retired university professor and the only white man on the list. The other is Justin Fairfax — a black Democrat politician who served as lieutenant governor of Virginia and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disgraced-democrat-used-his-kids-money-to-help-murder-their-mother">shot his wife</a> in April.

Fairfax County Police Department / Nextdoor

Nextdoor Kicked Me Off Its Platform For Telling People About A Murder

Social Media Censorship

Authorities revealed that the illegal immigrant accused of killing the mother of a young child in Virginia grabbed a weapon and filled a bottle with gasoline before the fatal stabbing.
Salvadoran national Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos, 19, allegedly murdered Carmen Lizet Puch, 42, at a park in Great Falls, Virginia. During a press conference Wednesday afternoon, authorities shared that Cedillos-Campos and Puch worked together at a local restaurant and were involved in an &#8220;intimate relationship.&#8221;
Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said the two planned to meet at the park on Monday morning. The night before the killing, Cedillos-Campos left the restaurant armed with a fixed-blade knife, black latex gloves, and a water bottle that he later filled with gasoline, all of which he took from the business, Davis said, adding that it was &#8220;all very premeditated.&#8221;
&#8220;He ended up siphoning gasoline out of his motorcycle. He filled the water bottle with gasoline after he dumped the water,&#8221; Davis said.
Authorities believe Cedillos-Campos fatally stabbed Puch inside her car before dumping her body in the parking lot.
&#8220;We know that our killer stabbed our victim repeatedly and eventually doused her in gasoline and tried to set her on fire. He was unsuccessful in the attempt to burn our victim,&#8221; he said.
The suspect confessed to the murder after his arrest in Prince George&#8217;s County, Maryland, Davis added. He is charged with second-degree murder, according to police.
Just before 7 a.m. on Monday, a jogger in the park discovered Puch&#8217;s lifeless body near her 2011 Honda Civic, according to 7News.
Cedillos-Campos crossed the border illegally near El Paso, Texas, in April 2024 and was quickly released into the United States, despite telling federal agents he wasn&#8217;t afraid to return to his home country, law enforcement sources told The Daily Wire.
In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security accused Biden administration officials of &#8216;hand-delivering&#8217; Cedillos-Campos to Fairfax County before they &#8220;recklessly unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into American communities and abused the law to do so.&#8221;
The spokesperson also called out Democratic Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger for turning her state into a &#8220;hotbed of illegal alien crime&#8221; by adopting sanctuary policies.
&#8220;During her first days in office, Governor Spanberger signed executive orders banning state cooperation with ICE as well as terminating 287(g) state and local agreements. We are urging Governor Spanberger to put her community first and turn over this criminal illegal alien to ICE,&#8221; the spokesperson said.

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Disturbing Details Emerge After Illegal Immigrant Kills Mother Of Young Child

Crime

Illegal Immigration

Murder

An illegal immigrant from El Salvador is accused of fatally stabbing a Virginia mother before dumping her lifeless body near a jogging trail in Great Falls, Virginia, The Daily Wire has learned.
Police in Fairfax County said Wednesday that authorities had arrested 19-year-old Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos in connection with the homicide of Carmen Lizet Puch. Cedillos-Campos crossed the southern border into El Paso, Texas, in April 2024 and was quickly released into the United States, law enforcement sources told The Daily Wire.
At the time of his border crossing, Cedillos-Campos said he did not fear returning to his native country of El Salvador, but he was released anyway, sources said.
A jogger discovered Puch&#8217;s body just before 7 a.m. on Monday near her 2011 Honda Civic, which was parked in the lot at Difficult Run Park along Georgetown Pike near Old Dominion Drive, according to 7News.
&#8220;In Great Falls, it’s probably one of the safest places ever in the world,&#8221; Clare, who was out hiking with a friend Tuesday, said. &#8220;To have something happen like that feels personal, scary.&#8221;
Authorities said more details would be provided Wednesday afternoon.
&#8220;There is no immediate indication that this was a random act,&#8221; Capt. Jason Chandler said during a news conference on Monday.
Puch was the mother of a young daughter and worked with Cedillos-Campos at Bitez restaurant in Herndon, according to NBC Washington. Cedillos-Campos allegedly stabbed Puch while she was inside her vehicle.
Abdul Anwari, the owner of Bitez, said he and his employees were shocked after learning of Puch&#8217;s murder, NBC Washington reported.
“I don&#8217;t know if you can process something like this. It&#8217;s not something you expect. It&#8217;s not something that anyone would ever want to happen,” he told News4. “But you know, we&#8217;re still taking it [a] minute at a time.”
Anwari said a fundraiser has been set up to support Puch&#8217;s surviving daughter.
“We have a GoFundMe account set up, but we&#8217;re actually doing, we are personally donating to the family as well,” Anwari said. “But anyone in the community that can help, obviously, this is going to go directly to the family, and as far as I&#8217;m concerned, it should go to the daughter and make sure that she&#8217;s OK.”
Puch&#8217;s family members, who live in New Jersey, immediately drove to Virginia after learning of her killing to take care of her daughter, according to NBC Washington.

Untitled design – 2026-08-19T100359.432

Illegal Immigrant Fatally Stabbed Mother And Left Her Lifeless Body In Park, Police Say

Death

illegal immigrant

Stabbing

An Islamist illegal alien murderer was allowed to escape back to his home country thanks to Virginia officials, who failed to get a guilty verdict even after he admitted guilt, helped him get a foreign passport, and allowed him to leave the mental hospital on unsupervised visits.
In 2019, Abdulloi Toshpulodzoda stabbed his roommate Mohammed Hemmatian to death in their Vienna, Virginia home. He was found &#8220;covered in blood from head to toe,&#8221; and told police &#8220;I am guilty,&#8221; according to court records. Less than a decade later he&#8217;s escaped punishment and is back home in his native Tajikistan.
Court records show that Fairfax County was paying for an apartment for Toshpulodzoda to live in while on leave from his mental health facility. While on the 48-hour pass, and he bought a one-way ticket and fled to his country, which borders Afghanistan in Central Asia.
&#8220;On July 6, 2026, the Acquittee was permitted to leave [the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute] on an approved forty-eight hour pass to an apartment made available through the Fairfax Permanent Supportive Housing Program,&#8221; the court documents obtained by The Daily Wire say. &#8220;He boarded an international flight at Washington Dulles International Airport and traveled to Istanbul, Turkey. He thereafter traveled to Dushanbe, Tajikistan.&#8221;
Although Toshpulodzoda admitted guilt for the murder, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity after his attorney said he was &#8220;fixated on religious topics and he was illogical and nonsensical.
&#8220;His brother would take him to a mosque for spiritual cleansing,&#8221; the lawyer said. &#8220;Unfortunately, his family did not assist Mr. Tospulodozoda with mental health treatment.&#8221;
A psychologist named Sahair Monfared was put in charge of evaluating the man &#8220;given the intertwining of Islam with Mr. Tospulodozoda&#8217;s delusions,&#8221; and he recommended that he be granted the not guilty ruling. Another independent psychologist hired by the prosecutor&#8217;s office agreed.
In October 2022, the not guilty by reason of insanity judgment was entered &#8220;with the concurrence of&#8221; the county prosecutor, Democrat Steve Descano, who won office with the financial backing of George Soros.
In May 2024, Descano teamed up with the murderer&#8217;s lawyer to ask the judge to give him &#8220;permission for an escorted visit&#8230; to the Tajikistan Embassy in Washington, D.C. to obtain a passport.&#8221;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1159657" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/descano-passport-420x576.jpg" alt="" width="420" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/descano-passport-420x576.jpg 420w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/descano-passport-219x300.jpg 219w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/descano-passport-768x1053.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/descano-passport.jpg 958w" sizes=" (max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px" /></div>
In 2025, the Fairfax County Community Services Board and Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute acknowledged that Toshpulodzoda was an illegal immigrant and murderer, but said &#8220;the Forensic Review Panel is of the opinion that Mr. Toshpulodzoda is an appropriate candidate for conditional release,&#8221; meaning being able to leave confinement for good. The &#8220;conditional release plan&#8221; was signed by Azure Baron, chair of the panel, and six other officials.
On June 11, 2026, Judge Stephen Shannon blocked the permanent release, writing that &#8220;the Acquittee remained mentally ill and in need of inpatient hospitalization&#8221; and &#8220;shall not be released from custody and inpatient hospitalization without further order of this Court.&#8221;
Descano opposed the release. The judge&#8217;s reasons for blocking release included shielding the murderer from deportation, with court records saying the &#8220;Acquittee will not receive treatment if deported.&#8221;
Just days later on June 25, the mental hospital, which is operated by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, authorized him for one of his &#8220;unaccompanied community visits not exceeding forty-eight hours,&#8221; which they had permitted since 2024, and which prosecutors said did not conflict with the ruling. The Department did not return a request for comment.
Descano&#8217;s chief of staff, Laura Birnbaum, told The Daily Wire that the prosecutor&#8217;s office helped him get a passport &#8220;for documentary purposes,&#8221; and that the not-guilty ruling &#8220;is made by a judge after reviews from multiple independent clinicians.&#8221;
&#8220;We have opposed his release specifically because of community concerns,&#8221; she said. Asked if Descano believed he should be deported, she said &#8220;our goal is to make sure people are not harmed wherever he ends up,&#8221; suggesting that deporting him would place a murderer on the loose in another country.
She declined to say whether Descano opposes mental hospitals allowing murders 48-hour passes that cause them to live in the Virginia community. She said those decisions are up to the mental health department.
However, a similar case in neighboring Loudoun County contradicts that. When the mental hospital proposed granting 16 hour unsupervised visits to Melvin Wasike, who similarly stabbed someone to death, Republican prosecutor Bob Anderson publicly objected and contacted the hospital, which reversed its decision.
Descano has asked the judge for a &#8220;judicial capias&#8221; so Toshpulodzoda &#8220;may be apprehended and detained if he presents at any United States port of entry or is otherwise located within the United States.&#8221; The filing makes no mention of attempting to locate him abroad.
Since 2021, 15 murderers in Fairfax County, nine of them with foreign names, have been ruled not guilty by reason of insanity or not competent to stand trial, according to data compiled by Virginians for Safe Communities.
Descano is under investigation by the federal government after his campaign platform said he would help illegal immigrants avoid &#8220;immigration consequences.&#8221; The federal government and Republicans in Congress said that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-county-d-a-handing-out-get-out-of-jail-free-cards">amounted to discrimination</a>. Descano denied implementing his campaign promise, but a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fairfax-prosecutor-broke-law-by-treating-illegals-more-favorably-ag-alleges">long list of cases</a> show Descano repeatedly declining or dropping egregious charges against illegal immigrants.
A large portion of the murders in Fairfax have come at the hands of illegals, such as Sierra Leone national <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/illegal-immigrant-accused-of-another-brutal-virginia-murder">Abdul Jalloh</a>, 32, who had 30 prior arrests – almost all dropped by Descano – before he allegedly murdered Stephanie Minter at a Fairfax County bus stop, and Salvadoran migrant Marvin Morales-Ortez, 23, who allegedly fatally shot a man a day after authorities released him from jail and ignored a federal immigration detainer.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger has declined to hand illegal immigrant murderers over to federal immigration authorities.

Afghan Refugees Arrive At Dulles Airport After US Pulls Out Final Troops

Islamist Immigrant Murderer Allowed To Flee Country, Was Given ’48-Hour’ Leave From Mental Hospital

Immigration

Islam

Virginia was born in an argument about freedom. Before the Bill of Rights, there was a Virginia Declaration of Rights. Before there was a nation, Americans believed government exists to serve the individual, not the other way around. That inheritance is why I&#8217;ve spent my career defending the idea that free markets, free minds, and a free society are not luxuries, but are the bedrock on which everything else in American life is built.
That is also why I’m partnering with the Freedom Foundation in their mission to protect worker freedom.
For years, I&#8217;ve watched government union bosses in state capitals across this country trade on the language of &#8220;workers&#8217; rights&#8221; while quietly stripping public employees of the very rights that make America the bulwark of freedom: the right to speak freely, the right to think for yourself, and the right to say no. Freedom of speech and freedom of conscience aren&#8217;t just clauses in the First Amendment; they are sacred promises. For too many public sector workers, those promises have gone unkept.
When that promise is broken, it can have dramatic consequences. A home-care provider was locked in a room until she agreed to sign a union card. More than a dozen documented cases of workers whose signatures were forged onto union membership forms they never saw, let alone signed. Jewish teachers and professors forced to fund unions that have turned a blind eye to open antisemitism in their own ranks. These are not abstractions. These are our neighbors, teachers, correctional officers, and caregivers, who never consented to being spoken for, and who have had nowhere to turn when the union that claims to represent them stops representing their values.
This is what happens when compulsion replaces choice, and it is precisely why the Freedom Foundation exists: to give public employees back the freedom that union bosses have spent decades taking from them, one payroll deduction at a time.
I&#8217;ve seen this fight up close in Virginia, where union allies in Richmond have made no secret of their ambition to unwind our Right to Work protections, the same protections that have made our Commonwealth a magnet for jobs and investment for generations. Right to Work isn&#8217;t an anti-union slogan. It&#8217;s a simple, commonsense principle. No American should be forced to join or fund an organization as a condition of holding a job. Weakening this law wouldn&#8217;t empower workers; it strips away their ability to say no. It is the definition of worker freedom, and I intend to fight that effort with everything I have by assisting an organization that has the track record, the litigators, and the resolve to win that fight state by state.
Nowhere is that disconnect between union bosses and union members more obvious than in the teachers unions. These organizations like to present themselves as the voice of every teacher in America, when in reality, as we saw during the COVID school shutdowns, it was the opposite. Just this summer, the National Education Association&#8217;s Representative Assembly elected leadership tied to a Democratic Socialists of America convention, pushed through new transgender ideology resolutions for the classroom, and raised member dues to pay for it. This isn&#8217;t new: the Chicago Teachers Union has sent delegations to Venezuela to study Hugo Chávez&#8217;s &#8220;Bolivarian Revolution&#8221; as a model. A recent analysis of the NEA&#8217;s own $450 million annual budget found that less than 10% of it went to anything resembling direct representation of members — contract fights, grievances, the actual job of a union. The rest fuels a political machine that most of the teachers paying into it never asked for and don&#8217;t agree with.
Survey after survey shows the teaching profession is far more politically diverse than its union leadership, a meaningful share of teachers identify as moderate or conservative, and plenty of self-described liberal teachers have no interest in DSA-style politics in their classroom or their contract. In New York City, teachers themselves have described watching a small, highly organized socialist caucus capture their union and steer it away from bread-and-butter representation toward permanent activism. This is not democracy but rather a hostile takeover of an organization funded by mandatory dues, and it is exactly why so many teachers who love their students and love this country feel like their union no longer speaks for them — because it doesn&#8217;t. It speaks for its leadership&#8217;s politics, on their dime, whether they like it or not. That is precisely the model I believe that every state that values liberty should reject: an end to taxpayer dollars subsidizing union politics, full stop. Public money should educate our kids, not bankroll a political operation most taxpayers, and most teachers, never agreed to fund.
I’m assisting the Freedom Foundation because free markets, free minds, and a free society don&#8217;t defend themselves. They require people willing to stand up for the individual against entrenched, well-funded special interests, even when those interests hide behind sympathetic language.
On the 250th anniversary of the “New Birth of Freedom” that is the United States, we understand that Americans didn’t win their freedoms by staying quiet or passive. I&#8217;m honored to be part of a movement to stand with thousands of teachers, caregivers, and public servants who simply want the freedom to choose for themselves.
***
Jason Miyares served as Attorney General of Virginia, 2022–2026, is a Partner at Torridon Law PLCC and serves as a Senior Advisor to the Freedom Foundation.

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Unions Silenced The American Worker, Now It’s Time To Reclaim Freedom

DW Opinion

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An Israeli-American woman said she was told to leave a Virginia permanent makeup studio after the owner learned she was Israeli.
Jessica Walton had gone to Karimi Brows in Alexandria for an eyebrow appointment with owner Fatana Karimi. The two had been discussing Afghanistan, and Walton later said she thought they were having a pleasant conversation about the country&#8217;s culture.
Walton then told Karimi she was Jewish and half-Israeli.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 JEWISH ISRAELI-AMERICAN WOMAN KICKED OUT OF VIRGINIA BUSINESS AFTER OWNER LEARNED SHE WAS ISRAELI
According to ILTV, a Jewish Israeli-American woman says she was denied service at Karimi Brows in Alexandria, Virginia, after the owner learned she was Israeli.
Video from the… <a href="https://t.co/1k8HLxyHPT">pic.twitter.com/1k8HLxyHPT</a>
— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) <a href="https://x.com/MOSSADil/status/2089050396341997637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 16, 2026</a></blockquote>
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“I don’t support Israel,” Karimi told her, per a video of the encounter captured by Karimi. Karimi added that she is “a big free Palestine” advocate and “massive for Palestine.”
Karimi told Walton that the situation would have been different if Walton had said there was a genocide occurring or that she did not support the Israeli government&#8217;s actions.
“Get out of my office,” Karimi told her.
Walton protested that she had done nothing wrong and had not brought politics into the conversation.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Walton said. “I didn’t say anything political.”
Walton said she had come to the business for a service and argued that she was being treated differently because she was Israeli.
Walton then asked Karimi to return the deposit she had made for the appointment and said she would pursue legal action if it was not refunded.
According to Israeli news outlet ILTV, Walton did not receive her deposit back.
Karimi posted her own account of the appointment, accusing Walton of steering the conversation towards politics and arguing that she had repeatedly attempted to steer it back to eyebrows.
According to Karimi&#8217;s business <a href="https://www.karimimade.com/about-us-1">website</a>, she received her permanent makeup license from Virginia&#8217;s Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation in 2019 and specializes in eyebrow procedures, including microblading, nano techniques, and powder brows.
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Pro-Palestinian Activists Occupy Charing Cross Station London

‘Get Out Of My Office’: Israeli-American Woman’s Appointment Takes An Ugly Turn

antisemitism

Free Palestine movement

A House Democrat found himself on the wrong side of transgender activists as he was told to “shut the f*ck up” during a dispute over one of his previous votes. 
Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) recently faced the ire of leftist activists for voting with Republicans in support of a bill aimed at shielding kids from being pushed to embrace gender confusion at school behind their parents&#8217; backs. During a town hall in King George County last week, several transgender-identifying constituents and local Democrats tore into Vindman for supporting the measure. 
“Congressman, you need to shut up and listen,” a member of the King George Democratic Committee said, <a href="https://www.advocate.com/politics/national/eugene-vindman-transgender-confrontation">according</a> to The Advocate, an LGBT-focused outlet. “Sometimes your constituents — you’re getting feedback right now,” the member said.
“This is me standing around here,” Vindman said. “It’s contentious, but I came in here, and I was attacked by you, and I’m staying here to continue this conversation.”
“Shut the f*ck up,” the committee member reportedly said.  
“No,” Vindman said. “You can’t f*cking talk to me that way.”
Many Democrats across the country have struggled with their messaging on transgender issues in the aftermath of the 2024 election when President Donald Trump ran a series of successful ads targeting Vice President Kamala Harris over the issue.
Vindman, whose purple Virginia district is being targeted by Republicans, voted for the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act” in May. The legislation, which passed out of the House, says schools could lose federal funding if they hide a child’s so-called gender identity without parental knowledge. 
The Virginia Democrat&#8217;s profane exchange with the activist came after multiple gender-confused constituents attacked Vindman for his vote on the parental notification bill. 
“How can you one week say, ‘Hey, they’re important to our community,’ and then the next week, vote to out kids?” one transgender-identifying man asked, according to the Advocate. 
Vindman defended his vote, saying he did it to avoid being attacked by Republicans in campaign ads. 
“Why do you think the Republicans put forward a bill like that?” he said. “They put forward a bill like that so they can get Democrats in districts that are very purple where they can beat them over the head.”
“I’m a parent. I’m a dad,” Vindman added. “I care deeply about my kids, and that’s what I voted on.”
A black woman accused the Ukrainian-born Vindman of “showing” his &#8220;privilege&#8221; after he told her he was a Jewish immigrant.  
Vindman later apologized for his comments during the town hall. 
“I want to sincerely apologize for my actions,” he told the Advocate. “I failed to meet my own high standards, and for that I am sorry. As a leader, I should spend more time listening and less time talking. Last night I failed to do that.”

Eugene Vindman 4/23/26

Trans Activists Tell Dem Candidate ‘Shut Up And Listen’ To His Face

LGBTQ

Transgender

U.S. Politics

Five people were wounded when at least one gunman opened fire at Virginia State University early Saturday morning, just two days before the start of the semester.
Gunfire erupted near some of the university’s dormitories in Chesterfield County around 1:30 a.m. ET, WTVR CBS 6 <a href="https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/chesterfield-county/virginia-state-university-shooting-prompts-lockdown-aug-15-2026">reported</a>. When police arrived, they found five people suffering from gunshot wounds. One victim was initially treated for life-threatening wounds and was later upgraded to critical condition. The other four victims appear to have suffered minor graze wounds.
In a post on social media, university officials said that the shooting involves &#8220;multiple suspects.&#8221;
&#8220;VSU Police and the Chesterfield County Police Department are actively investigating,&#8221; Virginia State University said at 5:56 a.m.
In an update at 8:22 a.m., the university said that the lockdown had been lifted, but &#8220;a significant law enforcement presence remains on campus as the investigation into this morning&#8217;s shooting continues.&#8221; It appears that no suspects have been taken into custody as of time of publication, and the university urged anyone with information on the shooting to contact law enforcement.
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<a href="https://t.co/f0NBAWU38r">pic.twitter.com/f0NBAWU38r</a>
— Virginia State University (@VSU_1882) <a href="https://x.com/VSU_1882/status/2088602135357239647?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 15, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Virginia State University is a historically black land-grant university in Ettrick, Virginia, just south of Richmond. It&#8217;s current on-campus <a href="https://www.vsu.edu/about/">enrollment</a> is around 5,000 students. The university&#8217;s fall semester is set to begin on Monday.
This is a developing story. Stay with The Daily Wire for updates.

Virginia State shooting

Multiple People Shot At Virginia State University

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A powerful industry demands special treatment. Its executives promise national prosperity. Its lobbyists warn that resistance will only help a foreign rival. And ordinary Americans are told to accept the costs because that’s what the free market requires.
That was the argument behind NAFTA and decades of offshoring. Corporate America shipped jobs overseas and hollowed out communities that had supported American manufacturing for generations in search of cheaper labor. When companies couldn’t move the work abroad, they pushed for more guest workers and looked the other way when illegal immigration expanded the supply of cheap labor.
But the profits kept flowing upward. Working Americans were left with the consequences.
Now Big Tech is using the same playbook to push data center projects through without answering basic questions. Is there enough reliable power and water, and will the companies demanding them actually pay the full cost?
Instead of answering, the industry hides behind “artificial intelligence” and “China.”
Question whether another data center should be built, and someone will accuse you of helping Beijing. Ask who will supply the electricity or pay for the infrastructure, and you’re told you oppose innovation. Raise concerns about water, land, or higher utility bills for consumers, and the industry dismisses you as an environmental extremist.
China is a real threat. America should lead the world in technological innovation. But Big Tech is presenting a false choice. Give it every approval, subsidy and public resource it wants, or risk losing the technological race to China.
Look at what these companies are actually demanding here in Virginia: approvals, tax breaks, electricity, water and infrastructure, all paid for by homeowners and working Virginians. They don’t get to wave the flag while shifting the bill onto Virginia families. That is corporate welfare.
And Virginia shows exactly where this argument leads. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/chart/top-states-data-centers/">A national database counted nearly four hundred data centers in the Commonwealth, with hundreds more planned or under construction</a>. Virginia has far more operating and proposed facilities than Texas, California, or any other state.
Big Tech’s track record should make conservatives skeptical of its sudden appeals to “American jobs.” <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/grassley-durbin-take-aim-at-tech-finance-and-retail-sectors-for-favoring-h-1b-visa-holders-over-american-workers">These same companies have laid off huge numbers of American employees while continuing to import foreign workers through the H-1B program</a>. They make business decisions based on labor costs and profit margins. Yet when they want tax breaks, electricity, water, land, and infrastructure, they suddenly invoke the American worker and national security.
The industry has spent heavily to make its own corporate interests sound like the national interest, building an enormous political and messaging operation of lobbyists, political action committees, advertising campaigns and paid influencers. <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/super-pac-backed-by-openai-and-palantir-is-paying-tiktok-influencers-to-fear-monger-about-china">Recent reporting even exposed a coordinated campaign offering social media influencers thousands of dollars per video to warn that any limits on the industry would help China</a>. Conservatives should recognize an astroturf campaign when they see one.
Virginia has already done more than its share. That’s why <a href="https://www.wtkr.com/news/virginia-state-senator-calls-for-data-center-moratorium">I’ve called on Governor Abigail Spanberger to use every lawful authority available to immediately pause new data center approvals across the Commonwealth</a>.
<a href="https://jlarc.virginia.gov/landing-2024-data-centers-in-virginia.asp">An analysis prepared for Virginia’s General Assembly</a> found that data center growth is the main reason the state’s electricity demand could double within ten years. Meeting that demand would be extraordinarily difficult even if Virginia had a sensible energy policy.
It does not.
The <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/static/bill-details/20201/SB851">Virginia Clean Economy Act</a> requires utilities to retire nearly all power plants in Virginia that emit carbon by 2045. It also mandates an enormous buildout of intermittent solar and wind generation, with the costs generally recovered directly from utility customers.
The law didn’t create the data center boom. It just makes the consequences worse by tying one hand behind Virginia’s back while electricity demand explodes.
<a href="https://jlarc.virginia.gov/pdfs/reports/Rpt598.pdf">Virginia’s own analysis warns that data center growth will add hundreds of dollars a year to a family’s electric bills</a>. That comes after Virginia already gives the industry <a href="https://budget.lis.virginia.gov/amendment/2026/1/SB30/Introduced/MR/0/14s/">about a billion dollars in tax breaks each year</a>. Families are subsidizing the industry through the tax code, and now they are being forced to subsidize it again through their electric bills.
And then there is the water. <a href="https://jlarc.virginia.gov/pdfs/reports/Rpt598.pdf">Virginia data centers already use more than 2 billion gallons of water a year</a>. <a href="https://rga.lis.virginia.gov/Published/2026/RD295/PDF">A state study warns that groundwater supplies in eastern Virginia are already severely strained</a>. In much of the region, there simply isn’t enough dependable groundwater to support another large data center.
The hypocrisy is glaring. Families and businesses around Virginia were <a href="https://www.governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/news-releases/2026/june-releases/name-1119790-en.html">asked to conserve water</a>, even as massive new data center projects continued moving through the approval process. Take shorter showers. Use less water. Accept higher electric bills. Watch your local countryside disappear beneath solar farms and transmission corridors.
Virginia tells families to cut back. But it refuses to tell Big Tech “no.”
Governor Spanberger’s response has been to tax growth and announce narrow reforms while keeping approvals moving. Virginia recently <a href="https://budget.lis.virginia.gov/item/2026/2/HB30/Chapter/3/3-5.24/">imposed a new tax on electricity consumed by data centers</a>, which the governor presents as a measure of accountability. In reality, it gives state government a new revenue stream tied directly to even more data center growth. That just creates a perverse incentive for state and local leaders to keep rubber-stamping projects.
<a href="https://www.governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/news-releases/2026/august-releases/name-1122057-en.html">State regulators did recently require data centers to pay for transmission infrastructure built exclusively for their projects</a>. That fixes one bill. But it doesn’t determine who pays to build the power plants needed to meet the new demand, how to protect constrained water supplies, how to fix the disastrous Virginia Clean Economy Act, or how to stop another project from being approved.
That is why Virginia needs a moratorium.
Stop approving projects while the Commonwealth determines whether more data centers should be permitted at all, whether reliable power and water actually exist, who will pay the true costs, and what protections must be in place before approvals resume.
The industry will call that radical. What’s radical is approving hundreds of industrial projects first, and expecting families and ratepayers to deal with the fallout later.
America needs computing capacity to remain competitive. But that doesn’t mean trillion-dollar companies get to build wherever they want, consume whatever resources they want, and hand the bill to everyone else.
We’ve seen this movie before.
Powerful corporations promise prosperity. Government gives them what they want. The profits flow upward, the costs are spread among everyone else, and working Americans are told that questioning the arrangement makes them backward, anti-business, or unpatriotic.
We shouldn’t repeat the mistakes of NAFTA and offshoring simply because today&#8217;s corporations sell computing power instead of imported goods.
America can beat China without giving Big Tech a blank check.
Virginia families shouldn’t have to pay more, use less water, and watch their communities transformed so these global corporations can keep building without any restrictions.
Virginia families have carried enough of the load.
Pause the projects.
***
Glen Sturtevant is a Virginia state senator representing Central Virginia in the state’s General Assembly.

Amazon Bets $150 Billion on Data Centers Required for AI Boom

Big Tech Is Selling Corporate Welfare As Patriotism

Big Tech

Corporate Welfare

Data Centers

Energy Policy

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) announced on Tuesday afternoon that it is investigating a confirmed case of the dengue virus that was locally transmitted.
A resident in Northern Virginia who “did not have known travel outside of Virginia” before presenting symptoms of the illness has tested positive for the virus, as reported by <a href="https://www.wsls.com/news/local/2026/08/04/vdh-investigating-dengue-virus-in-northern-virginia-first-ever-documented-case-of-virus-being-acquired-locally/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=snd&amp;utm_content=wsls10">WSLS 10 News</a>. The VDH, as well as the Fairfax County and Loudoun County Health Departments, are investigating the first documented dengue case originating in Virginia.
“The patient is known to have been in close proximity to a recent internationally acquired case in a Virginian who was diagnosed a couple weeks prior,” the VDH wrote in a <a href="https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/clinicians/clinician-letters/vdh-identifies-a-locally-acquired-case-of-dengue-virus-infection-in-northern-virginia-resident/">statement</a>.
“Dengue viruses are spread to people through the bites of infected Aedes species mosquitoes. Transmission of the virus likely occurred when a local mosquito bit the internationally acquired case while infectious and subsequently infected the second case.”
At the time of publication, the commonwealth’s health department and authorities had not provided any additional information about the severity of the patient&#8217;s symptoms or where in Northern Virginia the patient lives.
Cases of dengue fever can range from mild or even asymptomatic to severe disease. Mild symptoms include headaches, nausea and vomiting, and rashes on the skin. One in every 20 infected people develops severe dengue fever, which can potentially result in shock, internal bleeding, and even death.
According to the CDC, dengue is usually spread through the bites of infected Aedes mosquitoes and does not spread through casual contact between people. Rarely, it can be transmitted from a pregnant woman to her fetus, or through blood transfusions, organ transplants, and needlestick injuries.
The VDH explained that there is no evidence that the virus is still spreading and no additional reports of dengue fever in the state: “The potential risk for acquiring dengue virus in Virginia remains low.”
The Virginia case follows two locally acquired dengue <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/state/florida/miami/2026/08/05/miami-dade-palm-beach-county-locally-acquired-dengue-mosquitoes/91178621007/">cases</a> confirmed in Florida on Monday — one in Miami-Dade County and one in Palm Beach County — which prompted the Florida Department of Health offices in both counties to issue mosquito-borne illness alerts. They are the second and third locally acquired cases reported in Florida this year, following one in Hillsborough County in July.

Aedes aegypti biting human skin

A Tropical Virus Usually Linked To Travel Just Changed The Rules

Dengue

Mosquitoes

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