A Chinese AI startup says it has cracked the code on what your dog is trying to tell you, and the internet is having a field day with it. The company behind PettiChat claims its wearable device can translate pet vocalizations and behavior into human language with up to 95 percent accuracy. That number went viral after Polymarket posted the claim to X. PettiChat describes itself as the “world’s first real-time pet translator” and is currently raising money on Kickstarter. The device is a small wearable that attaches to a pet’s collar and pairs with a smartphone app. According to the company’s press materials, the AI model was trained on large datasets of animal vocalizations, body language signals, and behavioral samples across multiple breeds. The company cites a 94.6 percent real-time translation accuracy figure and says its model was trained on more than one million vocal and behavior samples. Here is the important part: that accuracy figure is entirely a company claim. The company may have internal testing behind the pitch, but the public case still depends on PettiChat’s own materials rather than outside verification. The skepticism online was immediate and, frankly, pretty entertaining. That response from tech commentator Corey Quinn basically sums up where a lot of people landed on this one. If your dog is barking at the front door, you do not need a $100 AI collar to tell you he wants to go outside. And if your cat is screaming at 3 a.m., the translation is always the same: feed me or suffer. The AI space is full of extraordinary promises right now. Some of them are real. Some of them are vaporware dressed up with a slick press release and a crowdfunding page. PettiChat might turn out to be a genuinely useful tool for understanding broad pet emotions. Or it might tell every dog owner in America that their golden retriever is hungry and loves them, which, again, you already knew. Until someone outside the company actually tests these claims with real science, the 95 percent number is marketing, not fact. Enjoy the memes in the meantime. Polymarket put the strange claim into the social-media bloodstream: NEW: Chinese AI pet translating startup claims it can interpret pets' speech with up to 95% accuracy. — Polymarket (@Polymarket) May 23, 2026 The immediate reaction from the tech world was part fascination, part disbelief: Every AI pet translator output is “I love you and I am hungry.” Congratulations, you've built a 95% accurate model because that's also 95% of what the dog is thinking. https://t.co/nSYs4FkHQz — Corey Quinn (@QuinnyPig) May 23, 2026 Polymarket put the claim in front of a wider audience, while Dexerto tracked the viral AI pet translator story this way: Polymarket wrote that a Chinese AI pet translating startup claims it can interpret pets’ speech with up to 95 percent accuracy. That phrasing matters. The post did not prove the figure. It highlighted a claim from the startup behind the product, which is exactly how this story should be read. Dexerto reported that a China-based startup claims to have invented an AI-powered device capable of translating pet behavior and vocalizations into human speech. Dexerto’s own framing treated the product as a viral entertainment-tech story built around a startling accuracy claim, not as a settled scientific breakthrough. The viral hook is obvious: millions of pet owners have wondered what their dogs or cats are trying to tell them. The harder question is whether an AI collar can do more than guess from sounds, body language, repeated behavior patterns, and a well-edited product demo. PettiChat and its PR Newswire release describe the device and the company’s accuracy claims in more detail: PettiChat says its product is a wearable pet translator built for a two-way conversation between owners and pets. On its own site, the company claims Pettichat uses advanced AI to deliver 94.6 percent real-time translation accuracy and translates automatically in 1.2 seconds. In its April 14, 2026 Kickstarter announcement, PettiChat said the device weighs 27 grams and uses a specialized AI model trained on more than one million vocal and behavior samples. The company also said its team spent two years testing the device on more than one thousand real cats and dogs. PettiChat’s release says the device can translate pet sounds into human language and also turn human words into sounds pets instinctively recognize. The company framed the product as a bond-building tool for pet owners, with chat history in the companion app and an integrated location feature. PettiChat said early Kickstarter rewards included a $119 “Super Early Bird” slot, and the company claimed $1 million in angel funding to support production and delivery. HotHardware added the necessary skepticism around what this technology may actually be able to do: HotHardware described PettiChat as an AI-powered smart collar, but it also flagged the size of the company’s leap from pattern detection to near-perfect real-time translation. Decoding pitch, tone, and context to estimate whether a pet is angry, hungry, or playful is scientifically plausible. But translating a bark or meow into a specific English sentence is a much bigger claim. The story also carries the usual crowdfunding caution: slick demos and bold claims can arrive long before ordinary buyers get a finished product in their hands. That caution is especially important when the selling point is not just a gadget, but a promise to cross the language barrier between humans and animals. HotHardware’s bottom line was blunt: if the product ships, early backers may be better off expecting an amusing novelty than a true Dr. Dolittle experience. That is the key tension in this story. The claim is fascinating, but the proof still has to catch up with the pitch. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

A federal terrorism case out of the Southern District of New York has revealed one of the most chilling assassination plots against a member of the President Trump’s family ever made public. According to sources cited by the New York Post, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, an alleged commander linked to both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iraqi militia Kata’ib Hizballah, personally targeted President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, for assassination. The motive, per reporting: revenge for President Trump’s January 2020 drone strike that killed IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad. The federal complaint, filed by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and available through the Justice Department, charges Al-Saadi with terrorism-related offenses tied to plots against targets on U.S. soil. Sources familiar with the investigation told the Post that Al-Saadi viewed Ivanka as a high-value target and sought to “burn down the house of Trump” in retaliation for the Soleimani operation. Al-Saadi is described in reporting as a senior figure within the Iran-backed militia network that has long threatened American personnel and interests across the Middle East. Kata’ib Hizballah has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department since 2009 and is responsible for hundreds of attacks on American troops in Iraq. The Soleimani strike remains one of the most consequential national security decisions of President Trump’s first term. Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s proxy war apparatus across the region, and his killing was celebrated by many in the national security community but drew immediate vows of revenge from Tehran and its allied militias. Those threats, it now appears, extended directly to the President’s own family. As Breitbart reported, the plot underscores the persistent and personal nature of Iranian-backed terrorism threats against American leaders and their families. The case is a stark reminder that the Iranian regime and its proxies have never stopped plotting violence against Americans, including those closest to the President. It also raises serious questions about how many similar threats have been intercepted, and how many more may still be active. Federal law enforcement deserves credit for dismantling this particular plot before it could be carried out. But the fact that an IRGC-linked terrorist commander was allegedly working to murder the President’s daughter on American soil should send a clear message to every policymaker in Washington: the Iranian-backed threat has already reached federal court, Jewish targets, American interests, and now, according to source reporting, President Trump’s own family. The New York Post put the allegation on its cover as the story spread: Today’s cover: Ivanka Trump targeted for assassination by IRGC terrorist in twisted plot to avenge president taking out his mentor: sources https://t.co/3J6M6jg7P2 pic.twitter.com/AoKmiSsplo — New York Post (@nypost) May 23, 2026 The Daily Caller also picked up the reported threat against the Trump family: Prominent Member Of Trump Family Reportedly Targeted For Assassination By Foreign Agent: 'Burn down the house of Trump' https://t.co/7IKgN8isT2 — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 23, 2026 The New York Post reported the Ivanka Trump targeting allegation: Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi was identified in source reporting as the man who allegedly targeted Ivanka Trump for assassination. The allegation is that Al-Saadi, described as an Iraqi national and alleged Iranian-backed terrorist figure, wanted revenge for the 2020 U.S. drone strike ordered by President Trump that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani. The Post cited sources saying Al-Saadi had a blueprint of Ivanka Trump’s Florida home. Entifadh Qanbar, a former deputy military attache at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, told the outlet that after Soleimani was killed, Al-Saadi spoke about killing Ivanka to burn down the house of Trump. That Ivanka-specific allegation sits on top of a broader federal terrorism case already moving through the Southern District of New York. The distinction matters: the source reporting names Ivanka as the alleged target, while the court case supplies the official terrorism-case foundation. The Associated Press reported on the federal terrorism case against Al-Saadi: Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi is accused of plotting at least 18 terror attacks in Europe in retaliation for the U.S. and Israel war with Iran. The complaint says he sought to attack a New York City synagogue and provided an undercover law-enforcement officer with photos and maps of Jewish centers in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona, that he planned to target. He is also accused of involvement in two recent attacks in Canada: an attack on a synagogue and a shooting at the U.S. consulate in Toronto. Federal prosecutors said he directed and urged attacks on U.S. and Israeli interests, including killing Americans and Jews. Al-Saadi is charged with conspiracy to provide material support to Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militant group, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He also faces terrorism and bombing-related conspiracy counts that could carry life in prison if convicted. The Justice Department complaint provides the primary-source backbone for the federal case: The federal complaint charges Al-Saadi with terrorism-related offenses tied to alleged support for Kata’ib Hizballah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The complaint provides the official case backbone for the alleged attack network, including the planned attacks on Jewish and American targets. It does not need to do the work of the separate Ivanka-source allegation to make the case serious. The federal filing already describes a defendant accused of coordinating or encouraging attacks across borders, seeking targets in the United States, and supporting designated foreign terrorist organizations. The document describes a defendant allegedly tied to a campaign that reached across Europe, Canada, and the United States, with attacks and planned attacks aimed at American, Israeli, and Jewish interests. That is why the Ivanka allegation lands inside a larger national-security frame rather than as an isolated threat. The reported target was President Trump’s daughter, but the alleged pattern reaches U.S., Israeli, and Jewish targets across multiple countries. Breitbart also followed the report and connected it to President Trump’s strike on Soleimani: The report framed the alleged Ivanka target as revenge for President Trump’s elimination of Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani was killed in a U.S. strike in Baghdad in January 2020 during President Trump’s first term. For years, Iranian-backed actors and sympathizers have treated that strike as a grievance to be answered. The allegation against Al-Saadi fits that pattern: a Trump family member allegedly targeted in a twisted attempt to make the president pay personally for taking out one of Iran’s most powerful terror commanders. The report also repeated Qanbar’s account that Al-Saadi spoke of killing Ivanka to burn down the house of Trump. That is the political and security stakes of the story. This was not merely another abstract terror case; source reporting says the threat reached directly into the family of the president who ordered the strike on Soleimani. Seen beside the federal case, the alleged Ivanka plot shows why the Trump administration’s hard line on Iranian-backed terror networks remains a live domestic-security issue, not just a foreign-policy debate inside Washington. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

The gunman who opened fire at a U.S. Secret Service checkpoint near the White House on Saturday evening has been identified as 21-year-old Nasire Best, according to law enforcement officials cited in multiple reports. Best died after Secret Service officers returned fire. President Trump was inside the White House at the time but was not impacted. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the bureau was on the ground almost immediately. FBI is on the scene and supporting Secret Service responding to shots fired near White House grounds – we will update the public as we’re able — FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) May 23, 2026 According to Fox News, the incident unfolded around 6 p.m. Eastern near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, where a male suspect brandished a pistol and fired roughly three shots toward the White House. The timeline from Fox News puts the first shots around 6 p.m. Eastern near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, close to the White House security perimeter. A male suspect armed with a pistol reportedly fired roughly three shots toward the White House before U.S. Secret Service personnel returned fire and struck him. The lockdown was lifted around 7:30 p.m. Eastern after the immediate threat was contained. Fox reported that a nearby civilian was also shot during the exchange, that the suspect was later pronounced dead, and that no Secret Service personnel were injured. The key White House detail is this: President Trump was inside the executive mansion while the incident unfolded, but officials said he was not impacted. The suspect also never breached the general perimeter of the White House grounds. Fox also noted that reporters and federal officers described a heavy law-enforcement response around the complex after the shooting. The scene quickly shifted from an initial lockdown to a controlled federal response around the checkpoint area. The Secret Service released a preliminary statement shortly after the lockdown was lifted. Preliminary statement regarding the shooting incident on 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. pic.twitter.com/NOdFKmwVuU — U.S. Secret Service Office of Communications (@SecretSvcSpox) May 24, 2026 Reporters on the North Lawn described the moment the shots rang out. I was in the middle of taping on my iPhone for a social video from the White House North Lawn when we heard the shots. It sounded like dozens of gunshots. We were told to sprint to the press briefing room where we are holding now. pic.twitter.com/iqdQwh4soq — Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) May 23, 2026 The suspect’s identity was first reported by the Associated Press, which cited a law enforcement official. The AP also uncovered a troubling history. The identification update names the deceased suspect as 21-year-old Nasire Best. The Associated Press attributed the identification to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation, so the name should be treated as reported identification rather than a formal public Secret Service naming release. The court-record history is what makes this update especially troubling. District of Columbia records reviewed by the AP show Best was arrested in July 2025 after attempting to enter a different White House checkpoint without authorization, refusing commands to stop, claiming he was Jesus Christ, and saying he wanted to be arrested. After that earlier incident, a pretrial stay-away order was issued, which typically bars a defendant from going near a person or location before trial. A bench warrant followed in August after a noncompliance notice when Best failed to appear for a later hearing. AP also reported that Saturday’s shooting was the third gunfire episode near President Trump in roughly a month. The earlier incidents involved the White House Correspondents Dinner in April and a May 4 shooting near the Washington Monument. This was the third time in roughly a month that gunfire has erupted near President Trump. Shots were fired near the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April and again near the Washington Monument on May 4. No official motive has been released. The investigation is ongoing, with the FBI and Secret Service leading the response. The immediate takeaway is that Secret Service agents at the checkpoint did exactly what they are trained to do. They neutralized the threat and kept the President safe. The deeper question is how a 21-year-old with an existing bench warrant and a documented history of erratic behavior at White House checkpoints was able to approach with a loaded weapon in the first place. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

A federal appeals court has vacated a landmark ruling that said water fluoridation at current U.S. levels presents an “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, without consideration of costs or other non-risk factors, including an unreasonable risk to a potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulation under the conditions of use.” Could Water Fluoridation Be Ended After Landmark Court Decision? The ruling had ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address the health risks of fluoride in drinking water. However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the district judge had “commandeered” the case and abused his discretion by refusing to rule on the first trial record. "In an unsigned opinion, the three-judge panel vacated Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s ruling and sent the case back to him in San Francisco with instructions to rule on the dispute based on the evidence presented at a first bench trial rather than on additional evidence that the judge decided to include on his own accord to conduct a second bench trial," Courthouse News Service stated. "A federal court just told a judge to ignore years of fluoride safety data and travel back to 2020. The science didn't change. The courtroom rules did," said Mary Holland, president and general counsel at Children’s Health Defense. A federal court just told a judge to ignore years of fluoride safety data and travel back to 2020. The science didn't change. The courtroom rules did. @CHDTVLive @ChildrensHD @BrianHookerPhD For the complete Defender story: https://t.co/7MS3sTzBBs pic.twitter.com/AqGPzaWEX3 — Mary S. Holland, Esq. (@maryhollandnyc) May 22, 2026 More from Courthouse News Service: Chen, a Barack Obama appointee, had agreed with a plaintiff consortium of organizations and individuals concerned that the addition of fluoride to drinking water at a concentration of 0.7 mg/L presents an unreasonable risk to human health. He had ordered the EPA to rely on guidance of the Toxic Substances Control Act to determine the safety of artificially fluoridated drinking water. “The district court abused its discretion when it refused to rule on the first trial record, despite the parties’ assertions that it should, and when it held the case in abeyance to wait for the completion of an additional study to which the parties had already stipulated not to present at trial,” the panel said. As such, the panel agreed with the EPA that the judge violated the so-called party presentation principle, which holds that the litigants, rather than the judge, are in charge of framing their dispute and developing the evidentiary record. Food & Water Watch — joined by other opponents of water fluoridation, like Moms Against Fluoridation and several individuals — sued the EPA in 2017, challenging the agency’s rejection of their petition to consider whether drinking fluoride is dangerous to human health, eventually leading to Chen ordering the EPA initiate rulemaking on the chemical. “It should be noted that this finding does not conclude with certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public health,” Chen said in his 80-page ruling, but, “there is an unreasonable risk of such injury, a risk sufficient to require the EPA to engage with a regulatory response.” On appeal, the federal government argued Chen’s decision meant that the case would be decided not merely on evidence presented in the nonprofit’s petition, but on evidence submitted later and scientific studies peer reviewed afterward. "The EPA claims to want to Make America Healthy Again. It had an opportunity to do just that on the fluoride issue. In the fall of 2024, a federal district court found (after hearing extensive expert testimony) that adding fluoride to water poses an unreasonable risk of neurological harm in children, and ordered EPA to eliminate this risk. In the final days of the Biden administration, the EPA announced (as expected) its intention to appeal this landmark decision. This announcement, however, had no binding effect on Lee Zeldin and the new administration," said Michael Connett, a partner at Siri & Glimstad representing the anti-fluoride plaintiffs. "Zeldin had complete discretion to stand down on the appeal, and to follow the court's order to protect Americans from the health risks posed by fluoridation. Zeldin, however, chose to continue with the appeal. Despite repeated pleas from the MAHA community, Zeldin and the EPA have persisted with its odious appeal. And now, based on a procedural technicality, a federal appeals court has granted Zeldin's request to vacate the district court's order," Connett continued. "EPA has thus officially undone a historic opportunity to protect the public from a toxic chemical added to most American water supplies (and all beverages and foods made with the water). There are many ways to describe EPA's conduct here, but Making America Healthy Again is not one of them," he added. The EPA claims to want to Make America Healthy Again. It had an opportunity to do just that on the fluoride issue. In the fall of 2024, a federal district court found (after hearing extensive expert testimony) that adding fluoride to water poses an unreasonable risk of… https://t.co/z7yk0oRqQ1 — Michael Connett (@michaelpconnett) May 22, 2026 The Defender explained further: Connett said the decision was “a very expansive and unprecedented application of the party presentation principle.” He said that to date, “this principle has really only been applied to situations where judges raise new legal issues, not where judges use procedural mechanisms to resolve the issues presented.” Under the TSCA, if the EPA denies a citizen petition, petitioners have the right to sue the agency. The law is unique because it specifies that the court then evaluates whether the chemical in question presents an unreasonable risk to health or the environment in a “de novo” proceeding, during which it evaluates evidence presented by both sides and gives no deference to the agency. Rather than ruling after the first trial in 2020, Chen put the trial on hold, pending the release of a multiyear government study into fluoride’s neurotoxic effects, so he could base his decision on all available evidence. Once that study was released — despite government officials’ attempts to suppress it, which were revealed through Freedom of Information Act requests — the second trial continued and Chen issued his ruling in an 80-page decision detailing the evidence supporting his decision. The appellate court didn’t comment on plaintiffs’ arguments that TSCA allows this type of judicial procedural discretion, nor did it engage the substance of Chen’s findings. Instead, in an eight-page decision, the 9th Circuit panel affirmed the EPA’s argument that Chen improperly paused the case for more than a year to await that study, which was not yet available during the first trial. The court concluded that the judge effectively reshaped the evidentiary record, exceeding the proper judicial role. FAN board member Rick North told The Defender the judgment is a disappointment.

For almost 30 years, four American families waited for justice. On February 24, 1996, Cuban military fighter jets shot down two unarmed civilian Cessna aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a South Florida humanitarian organization that flew missions searching for Cuban migrants in distress at sea. The planes were over international waters. Four men were murdered: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales. Now, President Trump’s Department of Justice has unsealed a superseding indictment charging 94-year-old Raul Modesto Castro Ruz and five Castro-regime co-defendants for the shoot-down. “Over three decades later, we are committed to holding those accountable for the murders of four brave Americans: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales,” said Acting Attorney General @DAGToddBlanche. The United States and @POTUS will NOT forget… pic.twitter.com/n2e7ZDzEgL — U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) May 20, 2026 The charges include conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, two counts of destruction of aircraft, and four counts of murder. If convicted, the defendants face a possible maximum penalty of death or life imprisonment on the murder and conspiracy counts. As with all criminal defendants, those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced the indictment: The Southern District of Florida said Raul Modesto Castro Ruz, 94, and five Castro-regime co-defendants are charged over the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue, also known as Hermanos al Rescate. According to the Justice Department, Brothers to the Rescue was a Miami-based humanitarian organization that flew across the Florida Straits to search for Cuban migrants in distress. Prosecutors allege Cuban intelligence infiltrated the group and sent flight-operation information back to the Cuban government before the attack. The indictment alleges Cuban military fighter jets, under a chain of command overseen by Raul Castro, fired air-to-air missiles at two unarmed civilian Cessna aircraft outside Cuban territory. The charges include conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, two counts of destruction of aircraft, and four counts of murder. DOJ also said the pilots had departed from Opa-locka Airport for a planned humanitarian flight, and that both targeted aircraft were destroyed without warning during the mission. Brothers to the Rescue, also known as Hermanos al Rescate, was a humanitarian volunteer group based in South Florida. Their pilots flew unarmed Cessna planes over the Florida Straits looking for Cuban rafters and migrants who were stranded or in danger of drowning. On that day in 1996, Cuban MiGs intercepted and destroyed the two small aircraft in broad daylight over international waters, killing all four crew members aboard. The attack was an act of premeditated murder against unarmed civilians on a humanitarian mission, and it has stood as one of the most brazen acts of state-sponsored violence against American citizens in the Western Hemisphere. For decades, no charges of this magnitude were brought. The Obama administration normalized relations with Cuba without ever pursuing accountability for the four dead Americans. President Trump’s Justice Department sent a different message. As reported by Local 10 News in Miami, the indictment was met with deep emotion in the South Florida Cuban-American community, where the Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down remains a defining moment. The families of the four victims have waited nearly 30 years to see the men responsible formally charged by the United States government. This indictment sends a clear signal: America will pursue those who kill its citizens, no matter how powerful the perpetrators believe themselves to be, and no matter how much time has passed. The Justice Department also laid out why the case still matters after three decades: Federal prosecutors said the victims were Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales. The department said the attack followed prior Cuban military training to locate and intercept slow-moving civilian aircraft. DOJ said the two aircraft, identified by tail numbers N2456S and N5485S, were targeted during a planned humanitarian flight south of the 24th parallel. If convicted, the defendants face a possible maximum penalty of death or life imprisonment on the murder and conspiracy-to-kill-U.S.-nationals counts. The department said Raul Castro and one co-defendant also face up to five years in prison on each aircraft-destruction count. Those maximum penalties are set by Congress, and any sentence would ultimately be decided by a judge. The department emphasized that an indictment is an allegation, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in court. Raul Castro is 94 years old. Justice does not have an expiration date.