Country star Chris Young just reminded America what real integrity looks like—forfeiting his entire paycheck so fans devastated by a Wisconsin winter storm could get full refunds. A Storm Derails the Show, But Character Prevails When a fierce winter storm swept across southeast Wisconsin on November 29, it created treacherous conditions that left many concertgoers stranded. The region experienced between three and six inches of snowfall coupled with dangerous high winds, transforming what should have been a memorable evening into a safety hazard. While some dedicated fans braved the elements to attend Chris Young’s performance, countless others found themselves unable to make the journey, facing the difficult choice of sacrificing their ticket investment or risking dangerous road conditions. pic.twitter.com/CGMRPlmmju — ChrisYoungMusic (@ChrisYoungMusic) November 30, 2025 Young’s Unconventional Response: Principle Over Profit Rather than pocketing his performance fee as is standard industry practice, Chris Young made an extraordinary decision. He instructed the venue to refund all ticket holders—whether they attended or not—by waiving his entire earnings for the show. Young announced the decision publicly on Instagram, writing, “I waived my fee for this show so all tickets can be refunded. I have instructed the venue to refund tickets to the point of purchase, whether you were there or not.” This move prioritized fan welfare over personal financial gain, a principle increasingly rare in entertainment. Safety and Gratitude at the Core Young’s message emphasized that fan safety remained his paramount concern. He wrote, “Your safety is of the utmost importance and is never taken for granted,” and extended appreciation to those who battled adverse conditions to attend. He also acknowledged the broader impact, recognizing that many fans simply couldn’t make the trip due to circumstances beyond their control. His closing sentiment—”Sending love to your families and I hope you have a safe and happy holiday”—reinforced that genuine care for his audience, not obligation, drove his decision. #chris Young pic.twitter.com/EcrPWbNC8V — Chris Young (@ging69610) December 1, 2025 Conservative Values on Display In an era when corporate interests often trump individual responsibility, Young’s actions exemplify the conservative principle of personal integrity and accountability. He didn’t blame the weather, demand insurance payouts, or pass losses to fans. Instead, he absorbed the financial hit himself, demonstrating that real success isn’t measured solely in dollars but in character. His fans recognized this immediately, flooding social media with praise and calling him a “class act”—a reminder that principled action still resonates deeply with Americans who value honor and genuine care.

'America is losing the AI race to China'

Even if cancer can survive chemotherapy, it’s no match, at least for a moment, for the smile that shines from underneath a pile of puppies. Pile of Puppies is a Portland-based nonprofit that brings large litters of puppies to the homes of chronically or terminally-ill children. It was founded by Jennifer Trepanier, a woman who […] The post A Pile of Puppies Treatment Cheers Up Seriously Ill Kids with Bundles of Cozy Joy appeared first on Good News Network.

To say we live in weird times is an understatement. And as amazing as the technology is, the world of artificial intelligence is making life in a weird world all the more so. In the past month, the song at the top of Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart was not written and sung by a down-on-his-luck guitar player with boots and a cowboy hat. It wasn’t even sung by a pop star as a crossover hit, as has recently been the trend. The No. 1 song, “Walk My Walk,” by the artist Breaking Rust, was 100% generated by AI. It’s a catchy tune, with pop-like beats and a depth of lyric that rivals most chart-topping country songs—which is to say not that deep. The chorus is defiant: “You can kick rocks if you don’t like how I talk, I’m gonna keep on talking and walk my walk.” I’m not sure if telling someone to “kick rocks” is a real insult in certain regions, or just an AI hallucination, but it gets the point across that the singer is going to go his (its?) own way. If I had to be honest, it’s not all that bad, compared with the balance of popular songs on the market. It so perfectly hits the spot of the music market that I suspect the AI prompt that started it was something like, “Write me a catchy country song that mimics the style of chart toppers over the past two years.” Real Music on Ice? It’s not just country music that’s getting the AI love. A group called Fake Music Lab (at least it’s honest!) made a video called “Reimagining ‘Ice Ice Baby’ as a soul song,” taking the ’90s hit rap song by Vanilla Ice and using AI to generate what Ice himself might call a pretty dope melody. In fact, in a twist, Vanilla Ice apparently thought the AI version of his song was so VIP that he reposted it on his own YouTube channel. I guess anything less than the best is not a felony after all. If ’90s rap is not immune, then other genres are certainly fair game. Fake Music Lab also has a bluegrass version of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” and an outfit called ReGrooved has a “dark country” version of Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight.” For these AI cover songs, the flattery of imitation (and paid royalties on the songs) may outweigh any copyright or brand-dilution concerns the artist might have. Given that they’re all robotic voices, no singers were harmed in the production of these songs—except the ones who didn’t get the job. In Praise of Robots When it comes to praising the Lord through music, Asaph the psalmist said it best: So we will not be silent before You. Morning and evening, Your praise will dwell on our lips. Our children will learn the refrain of Your faithfulness, and their children after them will proclaim it anew. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; His steadfast love is the song that upholds the world. Except Asaph never said that. ChatGPT said it when I asked it to write me a psalm in the style of Asaph that talks about singing praises. It turns out AI is well-versed enough in the Scriptures to write a pretty decent psalm.  And it’s not just chatbots writing verse on demand. Just like in country and pop music, AI is generating lyrics, music, and vocals for Christian songs. For example, a YouTube channel called Bible Folk has released in recent months a spate of long videos that contain dozens of songs based on books of the Bible. One video, titled “If the Apostle Paul sang Romans in Folk, it would sound like this …” tackles themes from the book of Romans. With folk backing tracks and a country-like voice, the “album” features songs with lyrics like: I am not ashamed of the gospel call It is the path that saves us all To everyone who will believe the gift of God we freely receive. Like Breaking Rust’s “Walk My Walk,” the music is not awful, especially when compared with its contemporary Christian music competition. Though the Bible Folk lyrics are generally pretty simple, they are at times more theologically robust than some CCM songs. The lyric above is, after all, a paraphrase of Romans 1:16—and if we apply poetic license broadly, a real person writing such songs might be applauded. But a real person is not writing, and a real person is not singing, and any applause would fall on deaf ears—if there were any performers’ ears to hear. These AI songs are at best arrangements of material that living musicians have explored and written in the past century or so of recorded music. All in good fun, there’s nothing inherently wrong with using a computer to make ordered sounds. The Wisdom of Ick But there’s something about AI music—especially of the Christian sort—that doesn’t sit well. And it’s hard to say what that wrong feeling is. A certain “ick factor” presents itself when you find out that it’s a machine writing the song, writing and playing the beat, and packaging it all together. The late ethicist Leon Kass, when describing a similar feeling people get when thinking about human cloning, called this the wisdom of repugnance: Revulsion is not an argument; and some of yesterday’s repugnances are today calmly accepted— though, one must add, not always for the better. In crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it. That wisdom is an echo of what David the (real) psalmist sang about in Psalm 8:4-6: What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet Machines may be shiny and new, but they are not crowned by God with glory and honor. And last I checked, machines are still included in the “all things” under the feet of mankind. When those things get turned upside down, the world feels a bit more icky. I could be wrong, but I suspect that the lasting difference between AI music and music made by human beings will be that AI music will not be lasting. The classic AI tracks of yesteryear will fade into obscurity within months, to be remembered only by future AIs who train themselves on available music.  Only real music will persist, and anything less than the best is a felony. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Originally published by The Washington Stand The post Artificial Music for Artificial Ears: AI Rocks the Jukebox appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Early human ancestors saw much brighter stars than any in the modern night sky.

Our ears and stomachs are very good at picking up on changes in acceleration.

Brain scans reveal why we flinch when movie characters get injured.

Women across America want real choices. Unfortunately, pro-abortion advocates have spent decades determining what “choice” women should want — while attacking pregnancy resource centers that offer women what they need. For the past three decades, it has been my privilege to serve as a volunteer and board member at Aid for Women, a network of pregnancy centers and maternity homes in Illinois. The success of pregnancy resource centers like ours in offering women genuine support and resources has made us targets for pro-abortion smear campaigns, lawfare, and even physical attack.Pro-abortion activists don’t seem to care if women, children, and families are cut off from the support they need.On Dec. 2, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that perfectly encapsulates the targeting and harassment organizations like ours have suffered for years.The case, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin, will determine whether the New Jersey attorney general can arbitrarily demand private donor lists and other confidential information from First Choice Women’s Resource Center without cause.It’s critical that the Supreme Court rule favorably toward First Choice Women’s Resource Centers and send a warning to those targeting pro-life work nationwide.Pro-abortion attacks on pregnancy resource centers have escalated in recent years.Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, pro-abortion radicals unleashed a summer of rage that included physical violence on nearly 100 pregnancy resource centers nationwide. These attacks were shocking to those of us stepping up to meet the need post-Dobbs, especially after fresh polling revealed that 60% of post-abortive women said they would have preferred to parent if they had more resources and support.We were baffled why anyone would want to cut off support networks for women, many of whom clearly wanted to choose life, at a time when increased limits on abortion made our work more essential than ever. Even in blue states that do not have a single restriction on abortion, pro-abortion politicians have striven to strangle our support networks and shut us down.Those of us at Aid for Women felt each of these attacks personally. Even still, we had no idea that we would soon experience pro-abortion “rage” firsthand.This past August, our center staff served countless babies and moms, oblivious to the Democratic National Convention that was being held in our state.At that convention, former Vice President Kamala Harris’ Democrat nomination acceptance speech fearmongered about President Trump’s abortion agenda, alleging that Trump and his allies would endanger women and their rights.Just hours later, one of Aid for Women's Chicago pregnancy centers was badly vandalized, with doors cemented shut and red paint thrown on the windows, graffiti reading, "Fake Clinic! The dead babies are in Gaza." The political vitriol from the DNC undoubtedly inspired the physical attack on our center.Unfortunately, the vandals only succeeded in hurting the very women they claim to champion.The following day, a dozen pregnant mothers who had booked prenatal appointments at Aid for Women were unable to be seen by the organization’s physician and nurse practitioners due to the vandalism. Dozens more could not visit to pick up the diapers, formula, infant and maternity clothing, and household supplies that Aid for Women provides — all free of charge and all without any government assistance. Every service and item given to pregnant women is provided through the generosity of donors.RELATED: The FDA’s deadly betrayal of pro-life America STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty ImagesWhat those attacking our center failed to realize is that many of our clients live below or just skimming the poverty line. Some have housing insecurity. And their inability to access our center for the care that they needed likely affected them dramatically.Unfortunately, pro-abortion activists don’t seem to care if women, children, and families are cut off from the support they need.As we approach oral arguments in First Choice Women’s Resource Center, Inc. v. Platkin, the attacks on centers like ours serve as a powerful reminder that those offering alternatives to abortion have become punching bags of abortion extremists that will do anything to stop lifesaving work and promote abortion.For example, the New Jersey attorney general is alleged to have singled out First Choice Women’s Resource Center because of its pro-life and Christian views. New Jersey officials allegedly have spent months harassing First Choice with crippling administrative requirements, threatening legal sanctions if the organization refused to produce private donor records and other private information — all of which is confidential to protect those involved from the very real threat of pro-abortion retribution.Compounding this injustice was the shocking truth that New Jersey officials did not have a just cause for this burdensome lawfare and still have not submitted any evidence of wrongdoing by First Choice or any of its associates.Despite this, donors and volunteers engaging in charitable work face the possibility of intimidation and retribution for putting their money — and their time — where their mouths are.It’s critical that the Supreme Court end this unfair lawfare against First Choice and draw a line to stop pro-abortion attacks on pregnancy resource centers once and for all.

Last week, my colleague Ryan Thorpe and I broke a story about widespread fraud committed by Somalis in Minnesota. Members of the state’s Somali community allegedly participated in complex schemes related to autism services, food programs, and housing, which prosecutors estimate have stolen billions of taxpayer dollars. Even worse, some of the cash has ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization in Somalia.The story quickly reached the White House. Within days, President Trump announced that he was revoking Temporary Protected Status for all Somali migrants in Minnesota.Progressives have suggested that our reporting and the subsequent policy change were “racist.” While many of those indicted in these schemes are Somali, these critics argue, the federal government should not hold Minnesota’s Somali community corporately responsible for the actions of individuals.Little Mogadishu in Minneapolis has a real problem, and it is about time that our government began facing it.This criticism is superficially appealing, but it isn’t persuasive on closer inspection.First, a description of the facts should not be measured as “racist or not racist,” but rather as “true or not true.” And in this case, the truth is that numerous members of a relatively small community participated in a scheme that stole billions in taxpayer funds. This is a legitimate consideration for American immigration policy, which is organized around nation of origin and, for more than 30 years, has favorably treated Somalis relative to other groups. It is more than fair to ask whether that policy has served the national interest. The fraud story suggests that the answer is “no.”Second, the fact that Somalis are black is incidental. If Norwegian immigrants were perpetrating fraud at the same alleged scale and had the same employment and income statistics as Somalis, it would be perfectly reasonable to make the same criticism and enact the same policy response. It would not be “racist” against Norwegians to do so.Further, Somalis have enormously high unemployment rates, and federal law enforcement has long considered Minneapolis’ Little Mogadishu neighborhood a hot spot for terrorism recruitment. We should condemn that behavior without regard to skin color.The underlying question — which, until now, Americans have been loath to address directly — is that of different behaviors and outcomes between different groups. Americans tend to avoid this question, rely on euphemisms, and let these distinctions remain implied rather than spoken aloud. Yet it seems increasingly untenable to maintain this Anglo-American courtesy when the left has spent decades insisting that we conceptualize our national life in terms of group identity.The reality is that different groups have different cultural characteristics. The national culture of Somalia is different from the national culture of Norway. Somalis and Norwegians therefore tend to think differently, behave differently, and organize themselves differently, which leads to different group outcomes. Norwegians in Minnesota behave similarly to Norwegians in Norway; Somalis in Minnesota behave similarly to Somalis in Somalia. Many cultural patterns from Somalia — particularly clan networks, informal economies, and distrust of state institutions — travel with the diaspora and have shown up in Minnesota as well. In the absence of strong assimilation pressures, the fraud networks aren’t so surprising; they reflect the extension of Somali institutional norms into a new environment with weak enforcement and poorly designed incentives.The beauty of America is that we had a system that thoughtfully balanced individual and group considerations. We recognized that all men, whatever their background, have a natural right to life, liberty, property, and equal treatment under the law. We also recognized that group averages can be a basis for judgment — especially in immigration, where they can help determine which potential immigrant groups are most suitable and advantageous for America.RELATED: Chip Roy’s immigration blitz hits the lawless left and the squish right Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesThese principles are in tension but not in contradiction. As a sociological matter, a policy of equal rights for all individuals will result in unequal outcomes among groups. This is not a sign of injustice per se. It is an inevitability. No two groups are the same, and therefore, no two groups will have the same outcomes in a system of individual liberty and equality.The firestorm around the Somali fraud story was so intense precisely because it forced this question into the spotlight. For decades, America has given Somali immigrants special privileges through TPS. We have expected Somalis to play by the rules, contribute to the country, and assimilate into the culture. Some individuals have certainly done so, but as the fraud story suggests, many others have not. A rational government would amend its policies accordingly.We can see the same process playing out in other parts of the world. In the United Kingdom, mass immigration from incompatible cultures is creating a civilizational crisis. Rather than replicate the policies of our sister country, we should accept reality and adopt a more thoughtful policy, which recognizes cultural norms as a reasonable measure of capacity to assimilate and to contribute.The president should stand firm. Little Mogadishu in Minneapolis has a real problem, and it is about time that our government began facing it.Editor’s note: This article appeared originally on Substack.

Trinity College Dublin’s Old Library will close for restoration and construction in 2027. What does that mean for the medieval manuscripts and books housed there?