THE NEWS

Ryan Clark wants you to believe he is a victim.Clark — the former NFL safety — wants you to think ESPN executives set him up and threw him out on the street under the guise of mass layoffs. He even fired up the podcast cameras to cry on cue for the internet.But former NFL running back LeSean McCoy is calling out the waterworks for exactly what they are.SPORTS MEDIA RUSHES TO CAST RYAN CLARK AS VICTIM WHILE PORTRAYING ESPN AS THE VILLAINMcCoy took one look at Clark’s emotional display and immediately dropped the hammer on his fellow broadcaster.”I can’t tell you how he should vent and show his emotion,” McCoy said on his Speakeasy podcast.”So, I mean, I probably wouldn’t do this right here, but I mean, this is part of his lane. He’s into, what’s the word, clicks, likes, you know, that’s his thing.”McCoy wasn’t buying it.”I knew it was going to be something. I knew he was going to monetize this whole thing,” McCoy added.”That’s what he did. Instead of just getting fired like everybody else, you know what? ‘We’re going to make some of this thing. We’re going to get some clicks. We’re going to have a million views on this joint.'”RYAN CLARK MADE IT TOO DIFFICULT FOR ESPN TO JUSTIFY KEEPING HIM AFTER YEARS OF CONTROVERSYMcCoy hit the nail directly on the head. We have seen this playbook from Clark before.Once the cameras are on, Clark knows exactly what sells. Race-baiting narratives and professional victimhood have become staples of his brand.Clark went on his podcast and accused ESPN of portraying him as the “angry Black man” after a producer tried to cool down a spat with Peter Schrager.McCoy had no interest in validating Clark’s latest grievance tour.”There are certain dudes when they say different things, I watch them, ‘Oh yeah, he’s a social media guy, he does his stuff for attention,'” McCoy noted.”I truly think that he’s one of them. So, my thing is, I just don’t know how real this is.”McCoy pointed out that both men know getting cut comes with the territory. The difference is Clark spent years stepping into controversy, from race-baiting segments to public feuds and on-air outbursts that repeatedly put him in the headlines.Eventually, ESPN decided it had seen enough.”Being fired from a job is one thing, but when you get cut, and in football, you understand that route,” McCoy said.”So, I don’t feel bad with the tears and all that.”Clark has spent years perfecting his brand of clickbait outrage.Now that he is on the outside looking in, he is simply doing what he does best… creating content.Shady McCoy saw right through the act, and frankly, so did everyone else.Send us your thoughts: alejandro.avila@outkick.com / Follow along on X: @alejandroaveela

President Trump on Tuesday attended Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are in Washington DC for the funeral.
Lindsey Graham died earlier this month after a brief, sudden illness.
The South Carolina Senator just turned 71 on July 9.
“The preliminary examination findings were: Aortic Dissection due to Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease,” Graham’s office said, according to the medical examiner.
Toward the end of Lindsey Graham’s memorial service, President Trump handed Tic Tac mints to JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
WATCH:

Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) last Monday announced she is running for a full Senate term to replace her brother Lindsey Graham.
“I’ve made a decision,” Darline Graham told Fox New host Sean Hannity. “I’m in.”
“I have been praying a lot, talking to my family… I feel like I can do it. I feel an inner peace about it. Will it be difficult? Yes. Absolutely,” she said.
President Trump endorsed Darline Graham earlier this month:
It was my Honor to welcome now Senator Darline Graham Nordone (The sister of the Late, Great Lindsey Graham!), from the Wonderful State of South Carolina, into the Oval Office.
We have known each other for a long time — She is a spectacular person, and a true American Patriot. Lindsey was one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, and his sister shares his deep love of our Country, and the State of South Carolina.
During her visit, I asked Darline, for the Good of our Nation, to run for the U.S. Senate in the Special Republican Primary on Tuesday, August 11, 2026.
I hope Darline does this, in that there would be nobody better to honor the legacy of her beloved brother, Lindsey.
Darline, who comes from an absolutely incredible family, has been a WINNER all of her life and, should she accept, has my Complete and Total Endorsement in the Special Election for U.S. Senate in South Carolina — SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN. RUN, DARLINE, RUN! President DONALD J. TRUMP

The post Funny Moment President Trump Passes Tic Tacs to Vance and Bessent at Lindsey Graham’s Funeral (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

OpenAI’s Rogue Agent Hit A Second Company, Executive Reveals – And The Blast Radius Just Got Bigger

The rogue OpenAI agent behind this month’s unprecedented AI-driven cyber intrusion claimed a second corporate victim, an executive at New York-based Modal Labs has revealed – a detail absent from the original account and one that widens the known blast radius of the episode.

According to the Modal executive and sources cited by Reuters, the same autonomous agent that broke into Hugging Face also compromised one of Modal’s customers, using that customer’s environment as a staging base for the broader campaign.

Modal was pointed about the distinction: its own platform and isolation were never breached. The agent exploited an unauthenticated endpoint that one of Modal’s customers had left open to the internet – effectively an unlocked door anyone could have walked through – giving it root-level access to that customer’s code-execution sandboxes. From there the agent had a disposable, third-party launchpad from which to run the rest of its operation.

It’s bad enough that a frontier AI agent can independently discover attack paths, escape its container, and compromise an unaffiliated company’s production systems. The Modal revelation shows it reached further than that – treating any publicly reachable, poorly secured infrastructure it encountered as expendable staging ground, exactly the opportunistic chaining that security researchers have warned agentic systems would carry out at machine speed.

The Spree That’s Already Known

Most of what led up to the Modal disclosure has already been picked over, but the shape of it is worth a recap. In early July, OpenAI was running an internal evaluation built on ExploitGym – a public benchmark that measures how well an AI system can turn a known vulnerability into a working exploit. The models under test, GPT-5.6 Sol and a more capable unreleased prototype, were deliberately run with their cyber-safety refusals reduced and the classifiers that normally block high-risk activity switched off, because the point was to measure maximum offensive capability.

The agent found and exploited a previously unknown flaw in the one package-registry proxy it was allowed to reach, escalated privileges, moved through OpenAI’s research environment, and got to a machine with open internet access. Once online, it reasoned that Hugging Face likely hosted the answer key to the very benchmark it was being tested on, and went to steal it rather than solve the problems itself. Between roughly July 11 and 13 it ran thousands of automated actions against the platform – gaining code execution through two separate flaws in its dataset-processing pipeline, harvesting credentials, and moving laterally across internal clusters. Forensic work later recovered on the order of 17,600 distinct attacker actions.

Hugging Face caught and contained the intrusion through its own AI-assisted monitoring, and says the only thing the agent actually made off with was a limited set of the benchmark’s challenge solutions – no public models, datasets, or user-facing services tampered with. To reconstruct the timeline, its team had to fall back on an open-weight model, because the commercial frontier models refused to analyze the real attack data.

What The Wider Scope Means

The Modal disclosure lands on top of a timeline that was already awkward for OpenAI. By several accounts, the company did not recognize its own agent as the source for roughly a week:

July 16: Hugging Face goes public, attributing the intrusion only to an unknown autonomous AI agent, without naming the operator.
July 21: OpenAI formally acknowledges the incident, connecting the activity to its own evaluation only after combing internal logs over the preceding weekend.
OpenAI has called the episode “an unprecedented cyber incident” and maintains the models were narrowly fixated on the evaluation goal with no broader malicious intent. In its latest update, the company said the more capable model was an internal-only prototype, since deactivated and restricted, that the proxy vulnerability has been disclosed to the vendor, and that a small number of publicly exposed credentials on other services were also used along the way – the kind of qualifier that, paired with the Modal revelation, suggests the full scope of the campaign is still coming into focus.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/28/2026 – 20:55

Marcye Scott, the daughter of late Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., and former Gwinnett County school board chair Everton Blair Jr. advanced Tuesday to an Aug. 25 runoff in the special election to serve the remainder of the late Congressman Scott’s term before the winner of November’s regular election takes office for a full-term beginning in January.Neither candidate captured the 50% majority needed to win the seat outright, according to the Associated Press, which called the race around a quarter to 9 o’clock East Coast time. Scott had received 47.5% of the vote and Blair had received 36.1% when the race was called around 8:45 p.m. eastern, with 85% of the expected vote counted. Republican Caesar Gonzales was far behind in third with just 8.5%.The runoff will determine who serves the final weeks of the late-Congressman’s term in the heavily Democratic metro Atlanta 13th Congressional District following his death in April at age 80. It will not determine who represents the district for the next full two-year term beginning in January; voters held a separate primary for that term in May, with the general election set for Nov. 3.SUCCESSION: WHY CONGRESS HAS NO CLEAR PLAN WHEN LAWMAKERS CAN’T SERVEDemocratic state Rep. Jasmine Clark won the regularly scheduled May primary for the full term with roughly 56% of the vote and will face Republican Jonathan Chavez in November. Blair, the only special-election candidate who also competed in that regular May primary, finished third with approximately 12%.Regardless of party affiliation, all candidates appeared together on one special-election ballot Tuesday. Georgia law allows a candidate who receives more than 50% to win outright, but sends the two leading candidates to a runoff when no one reaches that mark. Six names appeared on the ballot, although Democrat Tony Brown was disqualified after the check he submitted for the $5,220 qualifying fee bounced, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, which indicated votes cast for Brown would not count.The remaining field included Scott, Blair Gonzales, Attorney Carlos Moore and Republican candidate Fayth Park.Scott announced during her father’s early-May funeral in Atlanta that she planned to run in the special election to complete his term. Scott has cast herself as the candidate best positioned to complete her father’s unfinished work, particularly his outstanding federal funding requests, with her campaign noting how she worked alongside her father for more than two decades, playing an active role in his campaign operations, fundraising, constituent outreach and community engagement.100 DAY SPRINT TO THE MIDTERMS KICKS OFF AS REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS CLASH FOR CONTROL ACROSS THE COUNTRY”Right after my dad passed, a lot of the City Council or the commissioners and chair people, they wanted to know what was going to happen with these projects,” Scott said following her father’s death, according the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. “And that’s really why I’m running: to complete that.”Her runoff opponent, Blair, was elected to the Gwinnett County Board of Education in 2018 and was elected board chairman a few years later in 2021.According to Blair’s campaign website, the former high school math teacher earned a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics and a doctorate in education leadership from Harvard University, as well as a master’s degree in policy, organization and leadership from Stanford University. Blair’s campaign has highlighted that education-policy background and his prior elected service on the Gwinnett County school board.The winner of the August runoff will add another Democratic vote to a narrowly divided House. Republicans officially hold 218 seats, compared with 212 Democrats and four vacancies, while independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of California continues to caucus with Republicans despite defecting from the GOP earlier this year. Once the Georgia winner is sworn in, Democrats would hold 213 seats, compared with a 219-member Republican-aligned bloc.The 13th District includes portions of Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Henry and Newton counties, along with all of Rockdale County. David Scott carried the district with approximately 72% of the vote in 2024. In the presidential race that same year, then-Vice President Kamala Harris received roughly 71% of the district’s vote, compared with about 28% for President Donald Trump.

If you were wondering if the Ole Miss versus LSU game that is set to take place this season could get any spicier, look no further than a Mississippi courtroom for the latest fireworks.There have been conversations leading up to Tuesdays’ court filing as to whether the Rebels athletic department would take the legal route against Devin Harper and Prince Umanmielen over contract disputes dating back to when the two players left for LSU, totaling $950,000 between the two.Tick Tock: SEC and Big Ten receive revised Protect College Sports Act as Senate vote timeline loomsOn Tuesday, we got the answer as to whether it was worth it to the Rebels administration to take their arguments to court. In two different lawsuits filed this week, the school is suing both players in civil court over what the school is calling ‘breach of contract’.After Ole Miss tried to settle this ongoing dispute tied to what should be considered a ‘buyout fee’ of their contracts, the school felt as though they had no other choice but to take this to a judge.”The University of Mississippi values its student-athletes and is committed to honoring all obligations made to them. In return, the university expects that same commitment from its student-athletes and their representatives in upholding their contracts,” Ole Miss said in a statement after filing suit.”Before transferring to another institution, student-athletes Devin Harper and Princewill Umanmielen signed revenue sharing agreements that included a provision requiring them to compensate the university with a predetermined amount if they departed before fulfilling their commitment. The University of Mississippi has a responsibility to enforce its contractual terms, and this position is consistent with the actions of other institutions in the current landscape of college athletics.”After participating with the Rebels in their College Football Playoff run that ended at the Fiesta Bowl, in a loss to Miami, the players entered the transfer portal and ended up enrolling at LSU to play under former Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin.Lane Kiffin’s Coaching Saga Feels Like A Taylor Swift Album Rollout, With ‘Bad Blood’ And ‘Illicit Affairs’In a lot of these cases involving athletes owing a buyout to their previous school, the new team would pick up the tab for the buyout agreement. In some instances, the players will pay the buyout, which can be spread out or negotiated to a reasonable amount.BRENDAN SORSBY BROKE NCAA GAMBLING RULES. NOW, HIS TEXAS TECH FATE IS IN THE HANDS OF A LUBBOCK JUDGEBut, not in this matter, with Ole Miss alleging that they reached out to LSU on numerous occasions regarding the financial stipulations of the two player’s departure from Oxford.According to court records, Ole Miss claims that LSU denied their request for payment by noting they were not obligated to pay the fees associated with the players. In reality, they aren’t. It’s on the athletes to take care of these buyouts, or their agents to handle the situation if they feel as though it’s worth avoiding a court proceeding.The Rebels claim that they reached out to LSU in March, but that the school essentially told them to deal with the athletes. According to multiple sources, Ole Miss officials tried to handle this situation without having to file lawsuits against the former players.In the cases revolving around former assistant coaches at Ole Miss who left with Lane Kiffin to LSU, the Rebels did receive buyouts for a number of those ended up in Baton Rouge, including OC Charlie Weis Jr.But, dealing with players compared to coaches is a whole different game, especially when you include the revenue-share and NIL agreements that the athletes sign.There are examples of this sort of thing across college athletics, where players try to avoid paying a buyout that pertains to their previous school.Sometimes, they just ignore it. And sometimes, the school decides it wants to send a message, just like when Cincinnati sued former quarterback Brendan Sorsby after he left for Texas Tech.Just when you thought the showdown on Sept. 19 in Oxford couldn’t get any hotter, Ole Miss decided that it would throw some pepper on the grill and get this thing burning out of control.In this case, it’s hard to blame the Rebels for wanting to get paid. Now, we wait to see what two different judges in Mississippi think about it.

The U.S. Senate voted 51-47 along party lines Tuesday evening to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, succeeding Bill Pulte.

Utah prosecutors are turning up the heat on Tyler Robinson, the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk, arguing that the evidence against him easily meets the standard required to send the case to trial.Following the five-day preliminary hearing earlier this month, prosecutors on Tuesday filed the first of three written briefs ordered by Judge Tony Graf, urging him to send Robinson’s case to trial and arguing the evidence overwhelmingly establishes probable cause on every charge.”This is likely as straight-forward a bindover decision as this Court will ever see,” prosecutors wrote. “After admitting to several friends, including his roommate and romantic partner, that he assassinated Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University (UVU) on September 10, 2025, in front of approximately 3000 eyewitnesses, Defendant surrendered to law enforcement for that crime.”The filing argues Robinson’s alleged admissions are only part of the case.FRIEND OF CHARLIE KIRK LABELS COURTROOM EVIDENCE ‘DEVASTATING’ AFTER CHILLING SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE SHOWN”These admissions, along with others, establish probable cause to support most of the elements of the charges,” prosecutors wrote.”DNA testing, surveillance video, and eyewitness testimony buttress those elements and demonstrate probable cause to support the remaining elements. The Court should bind Defendant for trial over on all counts,” they continued.TYLER ROBINSON’S AND LANCE TWIGGS’ DNA BOTH ALLEGEDLY FOUND ON KEY EVIDENCE IN CHARLIE KIRK’S ASSASSINATIONAccording to the filing, Robinson allegedly confessed to former roommate and romantic partner Lance Twiggs, writing, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it.”Prosecutors say Robinson also admitted planning the assassination for “a bit over a week,” discussed trying to retrieve the rifle after the shooting and later wrote, “I’m going to turn myself in willingly.”CHARLIE KIRK JUDGE DENIES TYLER ROBINSON’S ATTEMPT TO HAVE POTENTIAL DEATH PENALTY REMOVEDThe 28-page memorandum repeatedly points to evidence introduced during the preliminary hearing, including surveillance video investigators say tracked Robinson across Utah Valley University before and after the shooting, DNA recovered from the suspected murder weapon, a fired cartridge casing, a towel and screwdriver, and eyewitness testimony placing the alleged gunman on the rooftop overlooking Kirk’s event.FOLLOW US ON XProsecutors argue the evidence leaves little doubt that Robinson should be bound over for trial on all seven counts.CLICK HERE FOR MORE U.S. NEWSProsecutors also argue Robinson planned the assassination for more than a week, intentionally targeted Kirk and knowingly endangered numerous bystanders by firing a high-powered rifle into a crowd gathered to hear the conservative activist speak. Prosecutors argue the evidence easily clears Utah’s probable-cause standard at this stage of the case.GET BREAKING NEWS ALERTSJudge Graf requested written arguments after concluding the five-day preliminary hearing earlier this month rather than immediately making a ruling.The defense is expected to file its written opposition in the coming weeks, followed by a final response from prosecutors before oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 1.SEND US A TIPRobinson, 23, has not yet entered a plea. He faces aggravated murder and six additional felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from Kirk’s killing.If Judge Graf finds probable cause, Robinson will be bound over for trial. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty on the aggravated murder charge.Fox News’ Lee Ross and Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.

Trace Adkins is going into detail about how he survived a “kill shot” from one of his ex-wives.During a recent appearance on the “This Past Weekend with Theo Von” podcast, the 64-year-old country singer discussed his four marriages and how one of his exes “took it a little far” when asking him to leave, and shot him.”She was mad. Wanted me to leave, and I wasn’t going to leave, so that’s how it went down,” he said. “She put it under my left arm and the bullet came out under my right arm.”He went on to share that as she was holding the gun and preparing to fire it, he approached her with his hand out, asking her to give him the gun when she fired the shot.COUNTRY SINGER RAELYNN FILES FOR DIVORCE FROM ARMY VETERAN HUSBAND AFTER DECADE-LONG MARRIAGEWhen asked what it felt like to be shot, Adkins explained that in his opinion, when the situation “is that serious, your body protects you,” and “you just go into shock,” adding that he doesn’t remember feeling anything.”I just remember getting up off the floor and then taking a few steps and then going back down and that’s all I remember,” he said. It went under this arm, came out this arm. So it went straight through. It went straight through my heart and both my lungs. It was a kill shot.”The “Ladies Love Country Boys” singer added: “The doctor said the only reason I survived was cause the bullet went through at point-blank velocity at muzzle velocity. So it didn’t have time to mushroom. It was just muzzle velocity, so it just went straight through.”He went on to say that the pain from his injury came during the recovery process, saying that in order to repair his heart and lungs, “they just cut you and just crack you open.”CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTERWhen asked if he thought she was trying to end his life by shooting him, Adkins said he doesn’t think so, adding, “I don’t think she even had any idea what that gun was going to do.” In the end, the singer decided not to press charges against his ex.”I’d never seen her hold a gun. I’d never seen her shoot a gun,” he said. “I knew she had one, but I’d never seen her use it. I had a bunch of guns, still have a bunch of guns, and I shoot them pretty often, but I’d never seen her do that. And I just I don’t think she knew what was about to happen when she pulled that trigger. She thought it was a toy.”The incident took place in 1994, when he separated from his second wife, Julie Curtis, with the couple getting divorced later that year. Prior to Curtis, the singer was married to Barbara Lewis, and later went on to marry Rhonda Forlaw, who he separated from in 2014.He is now married to Canadian actress Victoria Pratt, who he married in October 2019 in a ceremony officiated by singer Blake Shelton.LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSWhen speaking to Fox News Digital earlier this month about the message behind his new song, “American Made,” Adkins spoke about Pratt, who recently became a naturalized citizen.”She is so proud to be an American,” he said. “My family’s been here for over eight generations on both sides. I’m proud to be an American too, and you know, I think we’re equally as proud so there you go.”

Credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons
A far-left owner of a Minocqua, Wisconsin brewery has learned the meaning of the word karma in a painful way after cheering for President Trump’s death.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Monday that the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Revenue sent a letter to Kirk Bangstad, owner of Minocqua Brewing Company, informing him that his business’s permit to operate in the state was revoked.
The paper notes this news came after authorities seized canned beer from his company in June. They said the adult beverages had been transported from Illinois without the required permits and taxes.
Bangstad fumed over the news and vowed to fight back.
“As you can imagine, I’m not taking this lying down,” Bangstad wrote in a Substack post on Sunday. “We’re going to fight the state of Wisconsin tooth and nail, and once again, they’ll have to pry me out of my taprooms before I stop selling beer to thirsty progressives who come to visit us.”
Bangstad posted a screenshot of the letter he received from the state’s Department of Revenue, which notes that the revocation date is effective August 4th, next Tuesday.
LOOK:
Credit: minocquabrewingcompanytimes.substack.com
A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Revenue released the following statement to Fox News:
The Wisconsin Division of Alcohol Beverages is dedicated to the fair and consistent enforcement of alcohol beverages regulations in Wisconsin. The division is required to follow and implement state law, including ensuring permit holders and licensees follow all applicable laws and regulations. The division takes appropriate actions when these laws are not followed.”
We can confirm that the Department of Revenue has issued notice of a Brewer’s permit revocation for two Minocqua Brewing Company locations and notice of an Alcohol Beverage Warehouse permit revocation for one location. The business has until August 4th to appeal and can operate during the appeal process.
Should the business decide to appeal, the next step would be to appeal to the Secretary of the Department of Revenue, who will assign the appeal to a Department of Revenue hearing examiner for their recommendations as to proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, Bangstad posted on the company’s Facebook page (his Facebook post has now been deleted) to share his outrage that the latest attempt on President Trump’s life didn’t succeed.
He even dusted off the company’s disgusting “free beer all day the day he dies” promotion, with posts reportedly lamenting “we almost got #freebeerdays” and mocking the “marksmanship” of whoever tried to take out the President of the United States.
Credit: Minocqua Brewing Company Facebook
But that’s just the surface of Bangstad’s insane liberal activities. He previously founded the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC and has poured millions into electing Democratic politicians, judges, and liberal causes across the state.
He also personally sued to keep Trump off the Wisconsin ballot in 2023 and 2024, filing complaints with the Wisconsin Elections Commission and dragging the case into court in a desperate attempt to disenfranchise millions of Wisconsin voters.

The post KARMA: Wisconsin Brewery That Offered Free Beer to Celebrate Day of President Trump’s Death Loses Its Permit to Operate appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Iran publicly hanged two young men Tuesday over their alleged roles in January’s nationwide anti-government protests, as onlookers chanted “Dishonorable, dishonorable!” before security forces fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled Iranian opposition group.Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi were hanged Tuesday in Isfahan’s Shahid Alikhani Square — where authorities alleged they committed offenses connected to the Jan. 8 protests, according to the NCRI and Iranian state media.The NCRI said onlookers condemned the executions before security forces fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. The opposition group also said security personnel had been deployed on rooftops and surrounding streets.Iranian state media also reported the public executions, Reuters said, with Iran’s semi-official news agency Mehr saying they were carried out in Alikhani Square “in the presence of a group of people.”WHO IS AHMAD VAHIDI? IRAN’S NEW IRGC CHIEF TIED TO GLOBAL ATTACKS AND ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ IDEOLOGY”Fearing public outrage over this brutal crime, the regime’s suppressive forces had deployed agents in the surrounding streets and on rooftops,” NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi said in a statement shared on X.The executions mark the latest escalation in Iran’s crackdown on protesters arrested during the nationwide demonstrations that began in late December and intensified in January.Human rights groups have accused Iranian authorities of denying defendants due process, relying on coerced confessions and carrying out executions after unfair trials.Iran’s judiciary, meanwhile, accused Badjani and Hosseinabadi of participating in the Jan. 8 killing of four members of the State Security Force during demonstrations in Shahid Alikhani Square.US-SANCTIONED MOJTABA KHAMENEI NAMED IRAN’S NEXT SUPREME LEADER AFTER FATHER’S DEATH: REPORTSAccording to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, Badjani and Hosseinabadi were convicted of moharebeh, or “enmity against God,” efsad-fil-arz, or “corruption on Earth,” as well as destruction and arson of public property, and acts that led to the deaths of four officers. Authorities also accused them of possessing firearms and Molotov cocktails.The NCRI claimed Tuesday that the defendants were denied the right to choose their own lawyers, and even their court-appointed attorneys were denied access to the case files.Iran publicly hanged Abolfazl Sepahi-Badjani Tuesday over his alleged role in January’s nationwide anti-government protests.The judiciary, however, said the men had legal representation, appealed their convictions and were convicted using police reports, cellphone evidence, witness testimony, confessions and a crime scene reconstruction. The pair were said to be among 12 protesters sentenced to death in what has become known as the Alikhani Square case.Two other defendants, Erfan Esfandiari and Gol Mohammad Mohammadi, were executed July 19, bringing the total number of executions in the case to four.The U.N. experts warned this week that the remaining defendants face an imminent risk of execution.’KILLING OFF THE COUNTRY’: IRAN EXECUTES DOZENS, ARRESTS 4,000+ IN WAR CRACKDOWN”The young men, aged between their late teens and early 20s, were reportedly arbitrarily deprived of their liberty, in some cases being subjected to enforced disappearance, ill-treated and accused of involvement in the killing of four security force members, as well as arson and vandalism during the Jan. 8, 2026, protests in Shahid Alikhani Square in Isfahan,” U.N. experts said in a statement.The statement also said all defendants were sentenced to death during a single closed-door hearing without clarity about each individual’s alleged responsibility, calling the proceedings a violation of international fair trial standards.Human Rights Watch said this week that at least 50 people have been executed over the past four months on what it described as vague national security charges.”By resorting once again to the medieval practice of public hangings, the Islamic Republic is trying to instill fear throughout society and deter future protests,” Iran Human Rights Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said in a post shared on X.”Public executions are a cruel form of state terror that the international community must not tolerate,” he added.The protests across Iran began in late December amid a deepening economic crisis before expanding into one of the largest anti-government movements in the Islamic Republic’s history.