Divers recovered and safely detonated a grenade-type improvised explosive device at the J.B. Converse Reservoir dam in Mobile, Alabama, a federally designated critical infrastructure site that supplies the region's drinking water.
Local outlet Fox10TV reports that the Gulf Coast Regional Maritime Response and Render-Safe Team retrieved and detonated the grenade-type IED at the 3,600-acre artificial reservoir, which holds about 17 billion gallons of water and serves as the primary drinking water source for the 350,000 people in the Mobile area.
🚨WHAT THE HELL?!!!!
Divers doing a ROUTINE maintenance check at the Converse Reservoir dam in Mobile, AL...
...just found an underwater IED!!!!
Apparently a grenade-type bomb was sitting submerged at the bottom of a dam that holds an entire city's DRINKING WATER.
It took… pic.twitter.com/Rh5VQMspcU
Divers conducting routine maintenance surveys found the device, prompting a multi-agency response that included the Mobile County Sheriff's Office, the FBI Bomb Squad, the Mobile Police Department Explosive Ordnance Detail, the ALEA Bomb Squad, and the Daphne Search and Rescue Team. The Department of Homeland Security was notified of the incident.
"This is an unprecedented threat, and we are fortunate that this device was discovered before it could cause serious damage to our water supply or harm to individuals. We are grateful for the professionalism and competency of our law enforcement partners – as well as the quick thinking of our contractors and divers – in identifying this device and safely destroying it," Bud McCrory, the director of Mobile Area Water and Sewer System, stated.
The incident recalls a 2010 report from Texas, when federal agents warned that Mexican drug cartels were plotting to blow up a border dam. The broader infrastructure security concern today is far more serious, given the millions of illegal aliens who have flooded the nation during the Biden-Harris regime.
Tyler Durden Thu, 05/14/2026 - 21:20Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Population growth in medium-sized cities largely remained steady even as the national population barely grew, Census Bureau officials said on May 14.
An aerial view of the Texas Capitol in Austin, Texas, August 4, 2025. Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesMidsize cities grew by an average of 0.7 percent from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025, compared with 1 percent the year prior, according to the newly released analysis. In comparison, the average growth for the largest cities and large cities was just 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively, down from 0.9 percent and 1 percent.
Small cities had an average population growth rate of 0.1 percent, down from 0.3 percent.
“Big-city growth slowed significantly between 2024 and 2025, with some major hubs even seeing small declines,” Matt Erickson, a statistician in the Census Bureau’s Population Division, said in a statement. “In contrast, midsized cities found a ‘Goldilocks zone’ where domestic and international migration, paired with new housing, helped prevent the sluggish growth seen in small towns and larger metropolitan centers.”
The new data came several months after the Census Bureau estimated that immigration to the United States plummeted from mid-2024 to mid-2025, amid a Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigration.
A general view of the skyline of Manhattan from the One World Trade Center Tower in New York City on June 15, 2021. Mike Segar/ReutersThe bureau estimated at the time that the country added 1.8 million people, for a growth rate of 0.5 percent.
The bureau classifies cities as: largest cities (at least 250,000 residents), large cities (50,000 to 249,999 residents), medium-sized cities (5,000 to 49,999 residents), and small cities (fewer than 5,000 residents).
Some of the fastest-growing cities are in the medium-sized group, including Princeton in Texas, which grew by 18 percent to 43,524 residents.
Other large population jumps were recorded in the medium-sized cities of Melissa, Anna, and Forney in Texas; Haines City in Florida; Waukee in Iowa; Kuna in Idaho; and Foley in Alabama.
Even when larger cities saw strong population growth, they were often eclipsed by nearby suburbs. Charlotte, North Carolina, for instance, grew by 20,731 residents between 2024 and 2025, numerically more than any city in the country.
The population in nearby Fort Mill, South Carolina, though, jumped by a larger percentage, increasing by 6.8 percent to 38,673.
Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Celina in Texas, and Seattle, Washington, increased the most numerically behind Charlotte.
New York City, easily the most populous city in the country with some 8.5 million people, logged a population decline of 12,196 during the time period in question.
An undated file photograph shows a general view of Sixth Street in Austin, Texas. Rich Fury/Invision/APMost growth across cities of all sizes took place in the South, which includes Texas.
Austin crossed the 1 million threshold between 2024 and 2025, marking the 12th U.S. city to reach seven digits in population.
Tyler Durden Thu, 05/14/2026 - 20:55Capital One is under fire once again over allegations that it has denied banking services to gun retailers and other customers viewed as politically conservative, even as President Donald Trump’s executive actions seek to curb such practices.
A Maryland gun store, United Gun Shop of Rockville, recently filed a lawsuit alleging that Capital One, working through payment processor Melio Payments, blocked it from using the bank’s platform for business transactions after flagging its operations in the firearms industry. The store received notices in 2025 and 2026 stating that Capital One and Melio could not serve businesses in that sector, according to the legal complaint.
The case has drawn attention from Consumers’ Research, a conservative watchdog group, which on Thursday issued a “woke alert” highlighting the allegations against the bank.
“Capital One has been caught debanking law-abiding citizens again. It apparently isn’t enough for Capital One to fund and promote racist DEI, climate activism, and extreme transgender policies; the company is also debanking its own customers simply for holding views outside leftist ideology,” Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild said in a statement to The Daily Wire.
🚨 Despite President Trump’s executive order banning debanking, @CapitalOne is already facing new allegations in a lawsuit from a Maryland gun shop.
United Gun Shop claims the bank effectively debanked them — not for fraud, not for any illegal activity, but seemingly because… pic.twitter.com/q6sIIMDBXA
Capital One is among nine large banks under review by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as part of that broader inquiry, the outlet pointed out.
Capital One is also facing ongoing litigation in Florida after a federal judge in Miami dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Trump Organization accusing Capital One of politically motivated "debanking," while allowing the claims to be refiled. The suit, filed in March 2025 by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust and affiliated entities — originally in Miami-Dade Circuit Court before being removed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida — alleges that Capital One abruptly closed hundreds of Trump-linked accounts in 2021 following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in what the Trump family has described as an act of political discrimination.
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman granted the bank's motion to dismiss on March 20, 2026, calling the original complaint deficient, yet he gave the Trump family until July 2 to file an amended version with stronger evidence. Capital One has denied any discriminatory intent and continues to defend the closures as a legitimate business decision made for legally and regulatorily permissible reasons.
Tyler Durden Thu, 05/14/2026 - 20:30