Sentence tossed in Arizona case where deceased victim was depicted speaking in AI-generated video

• October 2, 2026

By JACQUES BILLEAUD

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona man’s 10-year manslaughter sentence has been tossed in a case where a video generated by artificial intelligence portrayed the deceased victim addressing a judge before the punishment was imposed.

In a decision released Wednesday, the Arizona Court of Appeals concluded Gabriel Paul Horcasitas must be resentenced in the 2021 shooting death of Christopher Pelkey because the AI video wasn’t reliable.

The court found the video crossed the line, saying it didn’t reflect actual events and presented statements made in the footage as coming directly from the victim.

“Indeed, rather than document an event or recording a particular moment, the AI video presents a depiction of the victim and his thoughts created from the imaginings of the victim’s sister,” the three-judge panel wrote.

Jessica Gattuso, an attorney who represented victims in the case, and Kristen Reller, Horcasitas’ lawyer, declined to comment Thursday on the decision.

Reller had argued Superior Court Judge Todd Lang violated due process protections by relying on AI evidence. Gattuso and prosecutors told the appeals court that the lower-court judge didn’t err, saying the footage was an accurate representation of Pelkey’s character.

In what’s believed to be a first in U.S. courts, Pelkey’s family used AI to create a video of his likeness to give him a voice. Pelkey’s sister, Stacey Wales, raised the idea of her brother speaking for himself after struggling to figure out what he would say.

Wales expected an appeal on the sentence and was disappointed the AI video was cited as the reason, saying her only goal was to humanize her brother for the judge. “It feels unfair because there is a convicted murderer sitting in prison that has blankets and walls of protection around their rights. Where are the rights for the victim?” Wales said.

A victim appeals lawyer has told the family that using AI again could result in another appeal. “We will continue to let his voice be heard in whatever allowable medium we can convey that through the court system,” Wales said. The AI-generated victim impact statement was played during a May 2025 sentencing hearing after nine of Pelkey’s family members and friends stood before the judge describing how emotionally devastated they were by his killing.

Authorities say Horcasitas, 55, fatally shot Pelkey, 37, during a November 2021 road rage encounter at a stoplight in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. Pelkey, who was unarmed, was shot after getting out of his truck and walking toward Horcasitas’ vehicle.

Horcasitas was convicted of manslaughter in Pelkey’s death and endangerment for a gunshot that struck another vehicle at the intersection during the encounter.

The AI rendering of Pelkey said he wished he could still be with his friends and family, voiced a belief in forgiveness and said it was a shame Horcasitas had encountered him because “in another life, we probably could have been friends.” The video didn’t request a specific prison sentence.

Horcasitas’ appellate lawyer argued her client had no meaningful opportunity to rebut material in the AI-generated video.

It’s not clear if attorneys or the court were aware in advance that an AI-generated video would be used. But attorneys representing Pelkey’s family said in court records that Arizona law does not require victims to disclose statements they plan to make in court to prosecutors, defense attorneys or the judge — and that victims can exercise their rights by speaking before the court or submitting statements that are written or recorded on audio or video.

In a statement Thursday, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said its prosecutors knew the victim’s family would address the court during sentencing but weren’t aware of the nature of it.

While the use of AI within the court system is expanding, it’s typically been reserved for administrative tasks, legal research and case preparation. In Arizona, it’s helped inform the public of rulings in significant cases.

But using AI to generate victim impact statements marks a new tool for sharing information with the court outside the evidentiary phases.

Reller told the appeals court that the video doesn’t disclose who wrote the words used by the AI version of Pelkey and wasn’t backed up with evidence establishing that its contents accurately reflected Pelkey’s views. It also had an “undue emotional weight” and conveyed an authenticity that wouldn’t have been there had a family member read the same words aloud, Reller said.

Horcasitas’ lawyer contended the judge weighed the statements made in the AI-generated video when deciding on a sentence, but prosecutors argued Lang didn’t consider the footage when issuing the punishment.

Shortly before delivering the sentence, the judge commented that he “loved that AI” but didn’t say from the bench whether the video factored into his decision. Lang said he felt Pelkey’s “obvious forgiveness of Mr. Horcasitas reflects the character I heard about today.”

The family’s lawyers say the judge was already inundated with relevant information from Pelkey’s family and friends before the AI video was played — and that nothing in the video was inflammatory. They also said Pelkey’s previous attorney didn’t object to the AI video.

Associated Press writer Mikella Schuettler in Phoenix contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

It’s hard to predict who will be suicidal. It’s easier to ensure people can’t shoot themselves

• October 2, 2026

By Aneri Pattani, KFF Health News

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.”

Paul Nestadt is about as steeped in suicide prevention as a person can be.

He treats suicidal patients as a psychiatrist, has co-authored scores of research papers on how and why people kill themselves, and teaches graduate courses on the subject.

But he’ll be the first to admit: “I can’t tell you which of my patients is likely to die by suicide in the next six months.”

Almost nobody can.

Research shows predictions of who will be suicidal are only slightly better than a coin toss. And they haven’t improved over 50 years.

But that doesn’t make Nestadt hopeless. Instead, it pushes him to pursue interventions that don’t require pinpointing people at risk.

Chief among them: making it harder for people to carry out the act of killing themselves.

“Instead of asking every doctor to figure out which patient will die by suicide and locking that patient up, it might be that we need to make sure there aren’t loaded guns available,” Nestadt said.

In an ongoing series, KFF Health News is examining approaches to suicide prevention that expand beyond providing people at risk with medication and therapy. Although those are lifesaving measures, many clinicians, researchers, and people who have lost loved ones to suicide agree that more is needed. The challenge is that when it comes to firearms, broad policy approaches quickly become constitutionally complicated and politically polarizing.

Research shows that limiting access to lethal means is one of the most promising approaches to save lives. It can involve erecting barriers on buildings and bridges to prevent people from jumping, as well as decreasing the number of pills someone can buy or be prescribed at once.

And reducing access to guns.

“That’s the one that will save the most lives,” said Nestadt, medical director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Suicide Prevention.

It may also be the most difficult to achieve.

More than 28,000 people killed themselves with a gun last year, representing more than half of all suicide deaths in the U.S., according to preliminary federal data. Even as overall suicide rates have dipped recently, gun suicides have hit record highs for five years in a row.

Many of the deaths are among middle-aged white men and veterans, two groups that have had high suicide rates for years. But more recently, gun suicides have risen among women and among some Black and Latino men. Researchers say a surge in first-time gun buyers during the covid pandemic underscores the need for prevention efforts that can be applied widely.

Some people assume it’s futile to restrict access to bridges, pills, or guns. The thinking goes: Those who want to kill themselves will simply find another way.

But research refutes that. Creating barriers for one method doesn’t typically push people to another.

Suicide risk can surge quickly, with people spending less than an hour or even five minutes between deciding to die and acting on it. Anything that delays such action — for example, having to unlock a safe to access a gun — gives them time to reconsider or for someone to intervene.

However, in the U.S., discussion around guns — even in the context of a traditionally bipartisan topic such as suicide prevention — is a political lightning rod. Mentions of background checks, waiting periods, or red flag laws often send people running to their respective corners. Gun owners and the firearm industry say many of the policies suicide prevention advocates seek threaten their Second Amendment rights, and many policymakers see the topic as a nonstarter.

President Donald Trump has been a strong ally of gun owners. His administration has rolled back dozens of firearms regulations and rescinded a previous surgeon general’s warning that called gun violence a public health crisis. It has also revoked grants focused on addressing community gun violence and cut federal staff working on the issue.

The White House did not respond to specific questions about how these actions may affect the nation’s high rate of gun suicides or what it’s doing to prevent such deaths. But spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that “President Trump is committed to Making America Healthy Again and that includes mental health.” She pointed to the administration’s support for developing psychedelic treatments for mental illness and an announcement of $52.5 million in grants for veteran suicide prevention.

The limits of red flag laws

One gun policy that has gained some traction, despite pushback, is the extreme risk protection order, more commonly known as a red flag law.

Adopted in some form in 22 states and the District of Columbia, these laws allow judges to temporarily remove a person’s guns when evidence suggests they pose a danger to themself or others.

Although such laws are often passed in the wake of mass shootings, research suggests they’re more effective at preventing suicide.

Still, they require identifying someone at risk.

Someone like Dorothy Paugh’s dad.

In 1965, when Paugh was a young girl, her dad lost his job. He was distressed, not knowing how he’d support his wife and five children, Paugh said. He reviewed his life insurance policy, told his wife where he kept important documents, and bought a handgun.

“If my mom had been able to get an extreme risk protection order or if Dad’s best friend had asked to hold his gun for a while, maybe my dad would not have shot himself. He might have lived,” Paugh said.

Decades later, Paugh advocated for a red flag law in Maryland and sat in the legislative gallery when the measure was passed.

She believes the law is saving lives.

Studies across other states show that for every 10 to 20 guns removed under red flag laws, one suicide is averted, saving a life.

But Paugh also recognizes the law’s limitations.

“It wouldn’t have saved my son,” she said.

Her 25-year-old son, Peter, fatally shot himself in 2012. He’d recently bought a house with his girlfriend and hosted a birthday celebration for his brother. He’d purchased a gift ahead of Mother’s Day — five novels by Charles Dickens, Paugh’s favorite author — that Paugh received after his death.

Unlike in her father’s case, Paugh said, no one saw warning signs for Peter. “I did not know that my son was suicidal. I didn’t have a clue,” she said. Even if a red flag law existed then, she wouldn’t have thought to use it.

The people most vulnerable to firearm suicide usually aren’t identified as such by family members or clinicians, said Michael Anestis, a clinical psychologist and the executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.

Studies have shown that among people who die by suicide, those who used guns were less likely to have sought mental health care in the past. And most veterans and service members who die by gun suicide never tell anyone about their suicidal thoughts in the months leading to their death.

That’s why red flag laws are just a first step in suicide prevention, Anestis said. They target specific individuals at high risk — the aspect that makes such laws more politically palatable — but they do not apply to the many other people who are quietly suicidal.

Lessons from road safety

Nestadt, the Johns Hopkins psychiatrist, said the nation needs to approach suicide prevention the way it approaches car accidents.

“You’re not trying to figure out who’s at risk of an accident” by testing people’s reaction time or cataloging who gets into fender benders, Nestadt said.

Instead, governments implemented speed limits, passed seat belt laws, and required auto manufacturers to install air bags and shatter-resistant windshields. The crash death rate declined significantly.

Applying a similar strategy to suicide might involve requiring permits and background checks to buy a gun, as well as instituting waiting periods before completing the purchase.

One study found that enacting a permit-to-purchase law in Connecticut was associated with a roughly 15% decrease in gun suicide rates, while repealing such a law in Missouri was linked to a 16% increase in firearm suicide rates.

About three dozen states have enacted laws requiring owners to lock up their guns in homes where children live, a practice shown to reduce youth suicides. That’s an issue of particular importance, with gun suicide rates increasing 245% among Black youths and 98% among Latino youths since 2014.

Anestis said laws requiring permits and safe storage can also reduce homicides and other gun injuries.

Those types of violence not only hurt people directly but also increase their risk of suicide. Research suggests people who are exposed to gun violence in their community experience trauma and become habituated to the idea of injury or death. That “double whammy” makes them more likely to kill themselves, Anestis said.

Responsibility, rights and saving lives

Gun owners and firearm trade associations generally oppose universal measures, such as requiring permits and waiting periods. They prefer education campaigns that teach people how to recognize warning signs, talk about mental health, and safely store guns — initiatives that place responsibility on individuals.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents the firearms industry, has partnered with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to create flyers and brochures to be posted in gun shops.

“Our purpose is to provide educational materials to the firearm-owning community on how to help prevent suicide and save lives,” Bill Brassard, the NSSF’s senior director of suicide prevention initiatives, said in a statement.

The National Rifle Association said policies focused on guns miss deeper concerns that make someone suicidal, such as mental illness.

“Suicide is a serious issue that deserves serious solutions focused on the underlying causes, not on political efforts to restrict the rights of law-abiding Americans,” NRA spokesperson Justin Davis said in a statement. “A truly dangerous individual needs to be incapacitated, not just deprived of one particular means of harm.”

Some initiatives have managed to bring together unlikely bedfellows — gun store owners, public health experts, and even libraries — to provide free locks to secure firearms at home, identify locations that will temporarily store someone’s guns while they’re in crisis, and educate people on how to avoid selling guns to someone who is suicidal.

Those efforts give Paugh hope and fuel her passion to continue advocating for better mental health care, open conversations about suicide, and policies that decrease access to guns.

“It’s not a cure-all,” Paugh said of those policies. But “it does save lives.”

Having lost a parent and a child, she knows how valuable that can be.

“If you’re that one person or that person’s family, it’s all the difference in the world,” she said.

©2026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Republicans and Democrats find a unifying target: pharmacy benefit managers

• October 2, 2026

By Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio, KFF Health News

Amye Joseph says America’s political polarization has made it an “interesting time” in her Tennessee household. She and her husband, Charlie, have been married 35 years. She’s a Republican. He’s a Democrat.

But their shared disenchantment with profit-driven healthcare has provided a unifying target: pharmacy benefit managers, known as PBMs. The Josephs’ frustration is focused on CVS Health. The conglomerate, which reported $400 billion in revenue last year, includes a major health insurer (Aetna), one of the country’s dominant PBMs (CVS Caremark), and America’s largest retail pharmacy chain.

“We hate CVS. I’m going to be straight-up,” Amye Joseph said.

She laments the lack of face-to-face interaction with pharmacists, prices that seem to rise without explanation, and pressure from the couple’s CVS Caremark drug plan to use CVS stores instead of their local pharmacy. “They’re not even a middleman,” she said. “They’re a money grab for CVS.”

PBMs were conceived as a way to manage prescriptions and hold down costs. But these middlemen have become bipartisan punching bags, accused of sucking up profits at the expense of employers, governments, and patients.

And while healthcare debates still divide Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C., taking on PBMs has become a unifying cause in an era of widespread frustration over rising healthcare costs.

In recent years, every state has imposed restrictions on PBMs. The Josephs’ home state of Tennessee, where the GOP has a lock on state government, is among a growing number looking to outlaw companies that own PBMs from also owning brick-and-mortar pharmacies, as CVS does.

That’s aligned conservative, business-friendly Republicans with Democrats traditionally more open to government regulation.

This legislative push reflects a feeling even in the GOP that the market for prescription drugs is being gamed, said Antonio Ciaccia, CEO of 46brooklyn Research, a nonprofit think tank that tracks drug pricing.

“Republicans are looking at this issue, saying, We know what competition is supposed to do, and it isn’t happening,” said Ciaccia, a critic of the PBM industry. “This is not a free market.”

Charlie Joseph, a retired fire captain who now works as a custodian, was miffed when he realized he could save money on his blood pressure medication if he paid cash at his local pharmacy rather than using his CVS Caremark drug plan. He now buys a 90-day supply for the same price he would have paid for a 30-day supply through the CVS plan.

The Josephs don’t like dealing with pharmacy benefit managers. PBMs, designed as intermediaries between drugmakers and insurance companies to negotiate drug prices, have become targets of bipartisan anger over health costs. (Earl Neikirk for KFF Health News)“Right now, it’s more of an inconvenience than anything else as far as it goes, but there’s no consistency,” he said. “The whole healthcare thing is just frustrating, on a good day.”

CVS spokesperson Phil Blando said the price of individual drugs can vary.

“Looking at the price of a single prescription does not reflect the value of a comprehensive pharmacy benefit,” he said in a statement. “Our focus remains delivering the lowest possible total cost and the greatest overall value for members and plan sponsors.”

Unified Opposition

PBM officials say their industry has been unfairly maligned. “PBMs are the only part of the prescription drug supply chain working to lower drug costs, which makes PBMs the target of powerful groups, Big Pharma and pharmacists,” said Greg Lopes, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which represents PBMs across the nation.

“Drug manufacturers attempt to shift blame for high drug costs to PBMs in order to retain their profit margins and weaken PBMs’ ability to lower costs,” he said.

Drugmakers have worked for years to cast PBMs as unnecessary go-betweens, said Barak Richman, a lawyer and economist who studies healthcare competition at George Washington University. He called the fight between the two industries a corporate “cage match.”

“We have wildly passionate partisan divides on a lot of healthcare,” he said. “But there’s a lot of healthcare policy that I don’t think is obviously partisan.”

PBMs haven’t won over many Democrats or Republicans. Attorneys general from nearly 40 states and U.S. territories wrote a letter last year to congressional leaders arguing that “horizontal consolidation and vertical integration have transformed PBMs from useful administrative service providers into market-dominating behemoths.”

In state legislatures like Tennessee’s, shared ownership of PBMs and pharmacies has drawn particular fire. Independent pharmacies have little choice but to contract with major PBMs while also competing with the conglomerate-owned pharmacies. Many lawmakers have said they want to protect small businesses.

“If a corporation argues that its pharmacy cannot survive unless it is owned by the same entity that sets the reimbursement rate, then we’re not talking about a free market. We’re talking about control,” Tennessee state Sen. Bobby Harshbarger said in a February legislative hearing.

Harshbarger, a Republican who led the legislative push, is a pharmacist in a small city in northeastern Tennessee.

His mother, U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.), is also a pharmacist and has sponsored a similar PBM ownership ban at the federal level. The Senate version has brought together some unlikely bedfellows, such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

State Lawmakers vs. CVS

CVS officials argued the Tennessee legislation was misguided. “Any proposed reform should be evaluated based on whether it improves access to care, simplifies the patient experience, and enhances affordability,” Blando said.

It’s unclear whether the PBM ownership ban will do that in Tennessee. An analysis by the state legislature’s researchers concluded that the bill could drive up healthcare costs in the short term.

To fight the bill, CVS launched a $7 million TV advertising campaign, claiming it would have to close all its 134 pharmacies in the state, similar to its threat in neighboring Arkansas when state lawmakers there passed a similar measure in 2025.

CVS also sent text messages to Tennessee customers, asking them to contact their lawmakers to keep pharmacies open. Ominous texts from CVS helped kill a PBM ownership ban in Louisiana last year.

Sponsors of the legislation said closure wasn’t the only option: CVS could also divest either its stores or its PBM.

Tennessee lawmakers moved forward. State Sen. Rusty Crowe, a Republican from northeastern Tennessee, where the Josephs live, told his colleagues before the vote that they should consider the fierce resistance a sign that they were onto something.

“I learned when I was in the Vietnam War, when you start taking on flak, you know you’re over the damn target,” he said.

As with most votes in Tennessee’s legislature, Republicans didn’t need support from Democrats. But they got it anyway.

State Rep. Antonio Parkinson, a Democrat from Memphis, said he felt like he was voting in favor of lower drug prices and supporting “ma and pa” pharmacies. “If there’s a benefit to my people, I’m supporting it.”

CVS has not divested or closed its pharmacies in states that have passed ownership bans — the laws have yet to take effect. The Arkansas ban is being held up in court after CVS challenged the constitutionality of the law. CVS also sued in Tennessee, though the ownership ban doesn’t take effect until 2028.

This article is from a partnership that includes Nashville Public Radio, NPR, and KFF Health News.

©2026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Trump: Europe agrees to release diesel reserves ‘immediately’ as fuel prices hover near record highs

• October 2, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that Europe has agreed to release some of its diesel reserves “immediately,” as the president and his Republican Party face pressure to address surging prices ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Trump announced the action Friday on social media without offering details on which countries were releasing reserves or at what volumes.

“Europe has just agreed to release a massive amount of their heavily stocked Diesel Oil,” Trump wrote. “The process will begin immediately.”

The president faces lagging approval ratings as the Iran war and his trade battles have increased U.S. prices for oil and other goods.

Gas prices in the U.S. and abroad have soared during the eight-month-long war, a cost Trump has repeatedly said is worth it for making sure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons. Trump has insisted prices will come down after the war, though there’s no end in sight.

The national average for a gallon of diesel in the U.S. was $6.37 on Friday, according to AAA, after hitting a record $6.52 on Sept. 22.

Trump had a conversation overnight with French President Emmanuel Macron, the chair of the G7, about the need to address rising fuel prices and the availability of petroleum products, according to the French Embassy in the U.S. Macron on Friday then chaired a videoconference of G7 leaders to discuss the issue.

​ Orange County Register 

6 years later, the office is making a comeback

• October 2, 2026

By Tim Grant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Six years after COVID-19 transformed the way Americans work, the pendulum is swinging back toward the office.

The pandemic forced companies to send employees home almost overnight, transforming remote work from a perk enjoyed by a handful of workers into a necessity for much of the white-collar workforce.

As the health threat from COVID-19 has lessened, companies have been steadily revising their rules about where employees are expected to work. Some have established hybrid schedules. Others have tightened their polices, requiring workers to spend more days in the office.

And some companies have decided that the pandemic-era experiment with remote work has run its course.

Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank made headlines with a dramatic announcement early this year that all of its employees would be required to return to the office five days a week.

“PNC has always been an in-office company,” CEO Bill Demchak said at the time. “It’s not just how we operate — it’s part of our culture. We are a relationship-driven organization, and our strength lies in the connection we build with each other, our clients and our communities.”

PNC’s decision made news, but the bank was hardly alone in reconsidering the long-term role of remote work in corporate America.

At Pittsburgh-based First National Bank, the return actually had begun much earlier and unfolded in stages.

FNB began bringing employees back into its offices in phases, starting in 2021, said Meghan Barr, a communications officer for the bank. The company ultimately returned to full-time, in-office work when conditions improved following the pandemic.

“We believe there is significant value in bringing teams together,” Barr said. “We have found that employees perform at their best when they are connected to colleagues, supported by leaders and equipped with the resources they need to thrive.”

Prior to the pandemic, employees — for the most part — didn’t question the five-day in-person work week or long commutes to the office. What changed after the pandemic is that many employees had proven they could effectively perform their jobs from home.

Hybrid work remains common in 2026, especially for remote-capable and large-company workforces. Research from real estate firm CBRE in May shows that 89% of large organizations now have a formal hybrid work program in place.

Recent Gallup data found around 66% of companies with formal polices now require employees to be in the office at least three days per week, making “3 days in, 2 days remote” the dominate setup across large organizations.

When Gallup studied employees’ preferred work style, researchers found that 50% define themselves as “splitters” and 50% as “blenders.” Splitters prefer to have clear boundaries between their work and personal time. Blenders prefer to mix work and personal time, moving between the two throughout the day.

Remote work may have lost some of its momentum since the pandemic, but it has not disappeared.

For some companies, working remotely was never a response to COVID-19. It was their regular way of doing business.

Carnegie Learning is one example.

The Pittsburgh-based K-12 education company, which provides educational software, tutoring and teacher training, has employees spread across the U.S. and Canada. Rather than impose a one-size-fits-all schedule, the company has built its workplace around flexibility, said Justin Netz Roth, senior vice president of people.

Carnegie Learning maintains offices in Pittsburgh and encourages employees to gather when being together adds value — for onboarding, planning sessions, team meetings and relationship building, for example.

But there is no mandate requiring employees to show up at the office on a set schedule.

And there’s little indication that the company is preparing to reverse course.

“We expect our overall approach to remain largely the same,” Roth said.

“We’ll continue evaluating our workplace practices based on what’s best for our employees, our customers, and our business, but we don’t anticipate shifting away from our remote philosophy,” Roth said.

©2026 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Arkansas gem hunter finds a diamond he claims could be worth $1 million

• October 2, 2026

By LAURA TURBAY

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Jack Pearadin is the first to admit that his diamond-hunting hobby hasn’t paid off, despite sifting rocks for more than a dozen years.

But earlier this year, the Navy reservist and his friend shoveled a 6-carat diamond from a field in Arkansas where he’s found over 300 gems so far. And this one is like nothing he’s dug up before — Pearadin claims collectors have told him it could be worth $1 million.

At least one experienced appraiser told The Associated Press that a diamond of such size and quality could be worth a fourth of that — still an impressive find.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Pearadin said as he livestreamed the discovery on TikTok. “Holy crap, we got a big one!” he yelled after rinsing gravel from a bucket and then flipping the pile onto a table to expose the shiny facets of a 6.03-carat diamond.

Roughly the size of a fingernail, it’s the largest diamond found this year at Crater of Diamonds State Park. More than 37,000 diamonds have been discovered since the former open-pit diamond mine became part of a state park in 1972.

The largest diamond found at the park, ‘Uncle Sam,’ weighed 40 carats

The park charges a $15 entry fee to fill a 5-gallon bucket with rocks, and people can keep any gemstones they find. Most are small and worth maybe a few hundred dollars. The largest diamond ever unearthed in the United States, a 40.23-carat stone called the Uncle Sam, was found at the park in 1924.

Pearadin, originally from Missouri, has been trying his luck at the park since 2013, even moving to nearby Murfreesboro to support his hobby — “I love it that much,” he told The Associated Press. He’s sold most of his diamonds online.

Most of the 400 to 800 diamonds found at the park annually weigh about a quarter of a carat, according to park interpreter Sarah Bivens. But there have been some bigger ones, said park assistant superintendent Waymon Cox: In 2020 a 9-carat diamond was found by an Arkansas bank manager, and in 2024 a French man unearthed a 7-carat diamond.

Diamonds are found in few places in the US

Diamonds are crystallized under tremendous pressure and heat deep inside the Earth and then thrust to the surface through volcanic activity before they’re scattered by water or wind. These natural diamonds are often cloudy and oddly shaped, and lose about 25% of their weight as they’re cut and polished into what a jeweler would sell, according to Nathan Renfro, senior manager at the Gemological Institute of America.

Renfro said the U.S. has only two known primary deposits of diamonds — places where columns of once-molten volcanic rock have reached the surface — Crater of Diamonds and Colorado’s Kelsey Lake, where the land was reclaimed after a commercial mining operation went out of business years ago.

Today, that leaves the Arkansas park as one of the only places in the world where anyone can hunt for diamonds and take their finds with them.

“It’s a pretty remarkable operation that that’s available to the public,” Renfro said. “Most diamond mines are super high security.”

So can Jack finally get a big payday?

A typical .17-carat diamond from the park can sell for around $700, said certified gem appraiser Laura Stanley in Little Rock. But a high-quality six-carat yellow diamond from the park can sell for about $250,000, she said, partly because of their origin.

“They are their own entity,” Stanley said. “It’s the only place in America where you can go find your own diamond and you can’t compare that to a diamond from anywhere else.”

The Uncle Sam crystal was cut and polished into a 12.42-carat diamond gifted to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where it’s on view in the “Great American Diamonds” exhibit.

Pearadin named his latest and biggest find the “American Dream.”

“It’s just this massive, gorgeous yellow diamond,” Pearadin said. He plans to split the profits with fellow gem hunter Michael Schumacher of Wisconsin, who helped dig the gravel that produced the stone, and open his own crystal mine.

Turbay is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

​ Orange County Register 

GOP’s new mantra: ‘Free speech for me, but not for thee’

• October 2, 2026

SACRAMENTO — During his family trip to England last year, Vice President J.D. Vance lectured the European Union on its approach to free speech. Lacking the equivalent of the United States’ First Amendment, European nations — and Great Britain in particular — have admittedly embraced speech policies that most Americans should find creepy.

“Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t,” Vance said, as he blasted German political parties for refusing to work with the far-right AfD party. He also criticized British police for arresting anti-abortion protesters and for their nasty habit of monitoring internet speech.

It’s hard to take issue with Vance’s point about Europe, although it’s always easiest to remove the speck from someone else’s eye than it is to remove the plank from one’s own. As Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi noted shortly after Vance’s tirade, the vice president may be a “raging hypocrite” — but deserved grudging credit given that more than 30 Brits a day are arrested for online speech. That number keeps growing.

By Vance’s own standards, the MAGA movement and the Republican Party (although that’s admittedly redundant, as it’s one and the same) simply do not uphold the principle of free speech — no matter how often they claim to be free-speech absolutists. They insist on being able to say whatever they choose, but are more than happy to clamp down on those who don’t agree.

In the past couple of years, we’ve seen multiple reports of FBI agents showing up at Americans’ doors based on internet posts. The feds admit that they do this, although they insist it is only about keeping Americans “safe.” As Fox News reported in 2024, “FBI agents allegedly told an Oklahoma woman that the agency spends ‘every day, all day long’ questioning people about their social media posts when they arrived at her house to ask about posts she made online.”

As The New York Times reported in September, “A federal judge this week ruled that the Trump administration appeared to have violated the First Amendment rights of a Rochester, N.Y., man by threatening him with prosecution after he sent a scathing email to a top immigration official.” Masked ICE agents have frequently violated our Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, so this shouldn’t be a surprise — but we shouldn’t become desensitized to constitutional abuses.

Most recently, Donald Trump banned three media outlets from the White House. The president’s consigliere, Attorney General Todd Blanche, referred to media access as a “privilege,” not a right. But the administration is wrong here, as it defends its snowflake behavior.

A federal judge on September 24 temporarily rejected Trump’s argument that allowing media access was a threat to national security, especially since Trump made it clear on social media that it was about viewpoint discrimination. He said media outlets ought not to be allowed to report “FICTION and LIES!”

The tussle continues, but it’s clear that Republicans view “fiction and lies” as any reporting that challenges Trump’s tender ego. Other presidents have been hostile to the media, but as the Free Speech Center explains: “No president has ever mounted such an unrelenting and angry attack on a free press. From declaring any article that questions his performance as ‘fake news’ and calling journalists ‘the enemy of the people,’ Trump has orchestrated a government campaign to undermine the First Amendment role of reporters to hold the powerful accountable.”

Barring reporters isn’t the worst of it. As the ACLU noted, “in Portland, Oregon in 2020, federal agents deliberately attacked protestors and journalists — who were visibly identified as members of the press — by shooting them with rubber bullets, spraying their faces with pepper spray, beating them with batons, throwing flash-bang grenades at them, and arresting them.”

Trump has issued executive orders targeting law firms that represent clients he doesn’t like. He has turned the already-problematic FCC into a dangerously politicized agency that attempts to silence broadcast outlets that deviate from the government line. He called for an early review of ABC’s licenses and even for the revocation of licenses over his concerns about alleged Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies. Whatever one’s views of DEI, having the Dear Leader threaten to shut down private news outlets over their editorial policies is chilling.

Trump has threatened to pull licenses from other broadcast outlets over their coverage of the Iran War, which intimidates feckless news organizations into only broadcasting administration talking points. The president also has announced the creation of Trump TV, which is an official White House media outlet that seems indistinguishable from State Run TV in totalitarian nations run by the despots whom the president seems to admire.

There are many more examples, but I’ll conclude by paraphrasing Vance: You either support the First Amendment or you don’t. And Republicans clearly don’t.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group editorial board. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

​ Orange County Register 

Nabbing those with illegally tinted car or truck windows

• October 2, 2026

Q: What, if anything, do our law enforcement officers do about vehicles with illegal window tinting on their windshields and front side windows? Why can’t cars be inspected for possible violations when they are smogged? Why aren’t businesses that do illegal window tinting cited for doing tinting that is against the law? I ask because today I was walking in a crosswalk and I could not make eye contact with the car driver — I couldn’t even see them. Their front window was tinted.

— Sandra Sturla, San Clemente

A: Officers and deputies across the state can give warnings, fix-it tickets or citations to drivers with illegal tinting at their discretion, when they determine it is the best use of their time at that moment.

Surely, plenty of cops don’t like walking up to a darkened driver’s side window, and Honk, like you, Sandra, wants to look a motorist in the eyes before stepping in front of them in a crosswalk.

Those who test vehicles at smog checks lack legal authority to tell someone to yank off their tinting. State legislators likely could empower them, if they wanted to and the smog checkers went along with it.

“Even though window tint beyond the factory tint is illegal (in the front), many tint shops merely advise their customers that it is illegal to operate (with) the dark tint on the front windshield (and) front windows,” Sgt. Kyle Ishii, of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s Traffic Bureau, kindly explained to Honk in an email.

“In theory, if you have a doctor’s note, you can legally operate a vehicle with darker window tint during daytime operations and would need to drive with the windows down at night,” he said.

“Letter of the law makes it illegal for an installer to tint the front windows and/or windshield,” Ishii added. “It is an infraction, which means it would have to be committed in our presence to cite.”

Which could be tricky to actually see the Installer do it.

“We have to balance the demands of our personnel with the time that it would require to sit outside tint shops every day and cite installers for these infractions,” the sergeant said.

Q: Hello, friend! I frequently travel to Fresno using the 5 Freeway, north through the Grapevine. Lately, it has taken up to three hours (for 10 or so miles!!!) to get from Lebec to the Grapevine due to horrendous, nearly stopped traffic. I have tried calling the California Highway Patrol office in Lebec when I am passing through Sylmar, but they are closed on the weekends when I am making that trip. Is there some way to get real-time traffic conditions for a specific area so that, say, I could divert?  I’d much rather take an extra 30 minutes to do that than sit on the 5. Thank you for your usual expert attention to this matter!

— Marty Haynes, Placentia

A: It’s app time, Marty.

Honk has long preferred Waze, so much so that he hasn’t tried other options. Perfect? No, but that app is impressive with its accuracy.

Mrs. Honk, who has used Waze, prefers Apple Maps. And there are other options you could deploy.

HONKING FACT: In Norwalk, at the end of the 105 Freeway at Studebaker Road, crashes happen. Nearby lives Oswald Ponce, who started an Instagram account, @105exitcrashes, now with 22,000 followers, that documents the collisions. Caltrans has made improvements to the intersection, and plans to do more, the agency told ABC7.

Ponce has a sign on a telephone pole in the area that, at least recently, was optimistic. He and others update it. “132 days since last incident,” it read.“(It’s) probably the first time it’s reached 100 days here without a crash in years,” he told the station.

To ask Honk questions, reach him at honk@ocregister.com. He only answers those that are published. To see Honk online: ocregister.com/tag/honk. Twitter: @OCRegisterHonk

​ Orange County Register