'Appoint a new Parliamentarian'

'A 413% increase in assaults'

'Russia won't capitulate'

'I lived the American dream for sure'

SUNDAY AFTERNOON ... BIDEN REVEALS 'AGGRESSIVE' PROSTATE CANCER ... Joe Biden Diagnosed With ‘Aggressive’ Prostate Cancer Former President Joe Biden received a diagnosis of prostate cancer on Friday, according to a Sunday announcement by his personal office.

'[Trump] is in great health'

Column SFF Bestiary Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Octopus We may never truly or completely understand the octopus — and that’s what makes it so fascinating. By Judith Tarr | Published on May 19, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Kathleen Harmon Courage’s 2013 book, Octopus!, subtitled The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea, is no relation to the 2025 documentary of the same name. It touches on some of the same themes, but it goes in a somewhat different direction. As a work of prose nonfiction, it can delve deeper into the facts and the science, and it does exactly that. It’s extensively researched and compulsively readable. Courage begins with an expedition to one of the hubs of octopus fishing in the world, Vigo in Galicia, Spain. She calls it “the epicenter of octopuses.” It’s not only a major fishery in its own right but also a major processing center for octopus fisheries elsewhere—and a center for the scientific study of cephalopods. There is, she makes sure to tell us (with photo), a statue of Jules Verne there, though the cephalopods in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas are squid. She focuses on the octopus as food for humans, in its historical context and as it’s happening around about the year 2012. We’re treated to a recipe for the local delicacy, Pulpo a Feira, a festival dish of octopus, potatoes, paprika, and salt. It’s delicious, she says. No qualms here about eating a sentient creature. We’ll see more recipes and more discussion of the culinary uses of the octopus as she travels around the coasts of Europe and the Americas, with references to Japanese and Korean specialties. She’s particularly fascinated by Korean-style octopus, Sannakji, aka “live” octopus, as prepared by Sik Gaek restaurant in New York. It’s an illustration of a point, that the octopus has a notable amount of brain power in each of its arms as well as in its main brain. Sannakji consists of freshly killed octopus arms cut up a la sashimi, on lettuce with sliced raw garlic, green onions, jalapenos, and a couple of dipping sauces. Eating it involves wrestling with the actively wiggling segments and the very sticky suckers. Again, she says, it’s delicious. She obsesses over it for days after. It was the most intimate dining experience I’ve ever had. Although for the poor octopus it was not the best of times, to me, it felt almost as if we shared the dining experience. She is in fact obsessed with the octopus in all of its manifestations. She hunts it, eats it, talks to people who study it both for its own sake, as biologists, and for its uses to the military and to the science of robotics. The octopus for her is more than a scientific curiosity. She’s particularly interested in what it can do for humans. Humans have a tendency to make everything about them. We see it in the documentary, too. The marine biologist gets an octopus tattoo and makes an octopus quilt. The writer sees in the female octopus’ breeding cycle a reflection of their relationship with their own mother. Courage wants to learn everything she can about this fascinating and mysterious creature. Mysterious for many reasons. Its weird anatomy and physiology by human standards. Its short life and, in human terms, tragic reproductive cycle. And above all, the difficulty of studying it. It’s not just that an animal with blue blood, three hearts, eight semi-autonomous arms lined with suckers that can each act individually and smell and taste, a superpower-level gift of disguise, and no apparent social life or parental nurture, is pretty much the opposite of everything a human is. We can’t truly imagine how it lives in its world or how it thinks. We also face serious challenges in getting it to cooperate. First we have to find it, and then we have to identify that we find. That means mounting lengthy and expensive expeditions to the oceans of the world. Once we get there, we have to track down an animal that can disguise itself as anything from a rock to a sea snake. That hides in spaces inaccessible to humans, though we might find evidence of it in the “garden” of its cast-off prey. That may look completely different in its larval form, and that may be so sexually dimorphic that, as with the blanket octopus, the female is huge and blanket-like and the male is a tiny little nubbin of a thing that doesn’t even look like the same species. Once we find it, we have to keep it. An octopus can not only ooze through minuscule gaps in any trap we may build, its arms are strong enough to lift a locked lid or pull the trap apart. (Though that being said, Galician fishermen catch octopuses in baited creels that rely on the animal’s tropism toward dark enclosed spaces. Once they’re in, as long as they have something to eat, they’re not interested in leaving—no need to block their exit.) It can easily escape an aquarium and either go hunting in another nearby or find its way outside. This often is fatal for the octopus, since they can’t survive out of water for very long. But that doesn’t stop them from trying. Once that obstacle has been overcome, we still have to deal with the fact that the octopus is a fantastically uncooperative research subject. Anything you put on it, it can and will pull off. It’s extremely difficult to immobilize without killing it. Everything is wiggly and wriggly and at the same time, as far as we can tell, insatiably curious. It wants to check you out. And pull you apart. And eat you. It’s also very difficult to breed in captivity. You can get a male and a female together and she may produce eggs, but once those eggs hatch, they need far more space than a lab or even a commercial farming operation can offer. The hatchlings need live food, which will as likely be each other as whatever you try to feed them, and they grow at a phenomenal rate. The only really effective way to obtain them is to capture them in the wild. Which circles back around to the problem of how to find and keep them (either for research or for eating). It also presents a problem for taxonomy—for identifying and studying the many species of octopus. Not only the difficulty of finding students willing or able to devote time to classifying the hundreds of known species, but also the nature of the animal itself. “They are a very difficult group of animals to clinically describe,” Eric Hochberg says, not in the least because they’re so malleable in their shapes and colors. So that means looking a little more closely than you might have to for a bird. Big-time understatement there. Still, in Courage’s view, octopuses are worth it for what they can do for us. She lists some of the options. Engineering and robotics—a whole new concept of the robot, soft rather than hard, infinitely flexible, with semi-autonomous limbs. Pharmacology, especially the composition of its venom and its possible use in painkillers. Neurochemistry. Design and control of an artificial brain. The art and science of disguise, from color-changing fabrics to cloaking devices. Explorations of cognition, the nature of consciousness, the range of perception in an animal that lives in a truly alien environment by human standards. We may never truly or completely understand the octopus. And that’s what makes it so fascinating. She describes it at both the beginning and the end of the book, in the words of filmmaker Jean Painlevé, as “a joyous confusion of the mysterious, the unknown, and the miraculous.”[end-mark] The post Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Octopus appeared first on Reactor.

The House Budget Committee advanced the Republican budget reconciliation bill Sunday night after three days of negotiations brought enough additional cost-saving proposals to convince four GOP budget hawks to reverse their initial opposition. The bill passed by a 17-16 margin, with all Democrats on the committee voting against it. The bill, if it passes the full House and Senate would fulfill a number of President Donald Trump’s campaign promises, such as extending his 2017 tax cuts and funding border security. The four Republican holdouts who previously voted down the bill had demanded it be amended to frontload savings in Medicaid and eliminate Biden-era green energy subsidies, are now allowing what Trump calls the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” to advance. Three voted “present”: Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Chip Roy of Texas. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania, who also voted against the bill on Friday, voted “yes.” The results come after a weekend of negotiations, in which leadership worked to find a deal with fiscal hawks such as Roy, who demanded amendments to the bill such as implementing Medicaid work requirements earlier than the current target of 2029. In DC tonight working with colleagues & staff to get a bill done that both cuts spending to reduce deficits more quickly & extends tax cuts.The White House is working hard & ?providing ?strong leadership to help us deliver. Much left to do so Back to the pizza & meetings! pic.twitter.com/O2vSy5HClK— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) May 16, 2025 “We’ve been working through the entire day with my colleagues,” Roy said Friday after initially voting down the bill in committee.  “We have to deliver on extending the tax cuts, but getting also the spending cuts necessary to get deficits down. Too much of the current bill has the spending savings in the out years. Those need to be moved forward.” Ultimately, the fiscal hawks allowed the bill to pass, saying they had made progress in weekend negotiations. pic.twitter.com/pu4ezOMsdH— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 19, 2025 “CONGRATULATIONS REPUBLICANS!!! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” wrote Trump in celebration of the vote. The hawks who initially voted down the bill indicated that some of their demands had been satisfied, but that there was still work to be done. “Importantly the bill now will move Medicaid work requirements forward and reduces the availability of future subsidies under the green new scam.” However, Roy also said that” the bill does not yet meet the moment,” and that it leaves “almost half of the green new scam subsidies continuing.” Roy also said that the bill does not address all of his criticisms of the federal government’s funding of state Medicaid programs—namely, that the federal government will continue to match state payments to Medicaid expansion enrollees at a higher rate than for Medicaid’s pre-Obamacare enrollees. Roy added that he “joined with 3 of his colleagues to vote ‘present’ out of respect for the Republican Conference and the President to move the bill forward.” Tonight, after a great deal of work and engagement over the weekend, the Budget Committee advanced a reconciliation bill that lays the foundation for much needed tax relief, border security, and important spending reductions and reforms.  Importantly the bill now will move…— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) May 19, 2025 The Freedom Caucus put out a similar statement, saying, “While progress has been made on advancing the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ out of the Budget Committee, it does not yet meet the moment,” reads the caucus’ statement. “We are determined and committed to working through the remaining obstacles within this bill, and we stand with our colleagues Reps. Roy, Brecheen, Clyde and Norman in the Budget Committee who voted present to signal the need for further negotiations.” Negotiations are likely far from over. Leadership still must negotiate with a group of four New York Republicans who are demanding a higher cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions. The bill is scheduled to go to the Rules Committee for a hearing on Wednesday at 1 p.m., a committee Roy and Norman sit on as well. The post Budget Committee Passes ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ After Negotiations appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Apple’s push to bring advanced artificial intelligence features to iPhones in China is drawing fire in Washington, where a proposed partnership with Alibaba has sparked intense scrutiny over the potential implications for censorship, surveillance, and military tech development. The deal, designed to power iPhones in China with Alibaba’s AI models, has raised alarms among US lawmakers and national security officials. They are questioning whether the arrangement would give a Chinese tech giant access to data or technical insight that could be funneled into broader state-run programs, including those tied to China’s military strategy. In recent meetings, US officials pressed Apple executives about data-sharing practices and any regulatory agreements the company may have with Chinese authorities. Apple, according to sources briefed on the discussions, was unable to provide detailed answers. This controversy highlights how Apple’s efforts to remain competitive in China are colliding with rising geopolitical tension. The company’s ability to match its AI offerings across global markets is central to its growth strategy, yet doing so in China comes with risks that go far beyond software integration. China is Apple’s second-largest market, accounting for nearly 20 percent of its global revenue. The company’s aim is to provide users in the country with the same level of functionality as iPhone users elsewhere, especially after it unveiled Apple Intelligence, a suite of features that have been somewhat underwhelming and partially helped along in the West by OpenAI’s technology. But with OpenAI unavailable in China, Apple began talks with several domestic providers before settling on Alibaba. That move has been met with resistance from members of Congress. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, criticized Apple’s lack of transparency, saying, “It is extremely disturbing that Apple has not been transparent about its agreement.” He continued, “Alibaba is a poster child for the Chinese Communist Party’s military-civil fusion strategy, and why Apple would choose to work with them on A. is anyone’s guess.” Concerns are rooted in the growing role AI could play in national defense. Technologies capable of writing code or managing tasks could also be applied to autonomous weapons systems, drone coordination, and other military functions. The US government has already imposed restrictions on China’s access to high-end AI chips and tools, and officials fear that commercial collaborations may erode those barriers. During a March meeting with the House Select Committee on China, Apple executives were reportedly unable to clarify the scope of the Alibaba deal. Among the unanswered questions were what kind of user data might be shared, and whether Apple had agreed to abide by Chinese regulations that could demand broader data access or restrict speech-related functions. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Apple-Alibaba AI Deal in China Triggers US National Security Concerns Over Data Sharing and Military Ties appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A legal challenge unfolding in Kansas could reshape how adult websites are held responsible for not introducing digital ID verification on their platforms. Four lawsuits filed last week target adult sites for allegedly skirting Kansas law, which demands age-verification tools. We obtained an example of one of the lawsuits for you here. The actions, brought by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and a Kansas law firm, were filed on behalf of a 14-year-old and the child’s mother. This marks the first time a minor has sought to use such state laws to pursue damages. Unlike federal legislation, which imposes no ID age-check requirements on adult content providers, Kansas is part of a growing coalition of states implementing their own rules. Roughly 20 states have passed similar laws, with Louisiana leading the charge in 2023. Kansas followed with a statute that not only outlines standards for age verification but also grants residents the power to sue companies that fail to comply. More: Louisiana Is Pushing Digital ID. The Personal Data Of All Driver’s License Holders Have Just Been Breached. “This law gives private individuals and groups the authority to take action,” Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach told Fox News in a segment. His office filed its own suit earlier this year against an adult website, accusing it of disregarding Kansas’ age verification rules. That case remains active. According to the new lawsuits, the teenage plaintiff accessed adult content through an old laptop, despite parental efforts to prevent it. NCOSE claims the exposure was aided by algorithms and recommendation systems tied to the websites or their partners. The filings assert that such platforms funneled the child toward sexually explicit material, even though his parents had put controls in place. “The parents in this instance thought they did everything right,” NCOSE General Counsel Benjamin Bull explained. “It’s just a question of when children will gain access… unless these online platforms actually install age verification, this boy’s … what’s happened to him and what’s happened to hundreds of thousands of others is just going to continue and get worse.” More: The Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda One of the sites named in the lawsuits is Chaturbate, operated by Multi Media LLC. While the site claims to have age-gating features in place, the plaintiffs argue that these mechanisms are easily bypassed and fall short of Kansas’ legal threshold. Multi Media LLC disputes the claims entirely. In a statement, a spokesperson said the company’s age-verification system performed correctly and blocked the plaintiff from viewing adult content. “The platform’s ID verification age gate functioned exactly as expected,” the spokesperson said, calling the lawsuit “completely baseless.” The company also asserted it had explained the situation to the plaintiff’s attorneys months ago and is now considering seeking sanctions in response. Despite the platform’s denial, Kansas officials maintain the lawsuit’s signal that the law is having its intended impact. “Companies are being taken to task for marketing this material in a way that minors can get it,” Kobach said, adding that the availability of reliable age-check technology makes continued lapses unacceptable. The lawsuits are seeking no less than $50,000 in statutory damages for each violation, as well as compensation for harm, legal fees, and other potential remedies. The lawsuits in Kansas not only raise questions about age verification but also spotlight a broader and increasingly urgent debate over digital privacy. The push to require identity checks on adult websites has prompted concern among privacy advocates, who warn that such mandates threaten the foundation of online anonymity and expand the amount of sensitive data platforms are incentivized, or required, to collect. In states like Kansas, where the law compels adult sites to verify that visitors are adults, the most commonly suggested method is through government-issued photo identification. This practice forces users to submit highly personal information to access legal content, dramatically shifting the web from a space of pseudonymity and freedom to one of surveillance and gatekeeping. Platforms, in turn, must either build or outsource infrastructure capable of scanning, storing, and managing that data, raising the stakes in terms of both privacy and cybersecurity. When a user submits an ID to gain access to a website, the verification process doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It typically involves third-party processors or proprietary systems that handle and cross-check the data. This collection, even if ostensibly temporary or encrypted, becomes a honeypot for malicious actors. Should that data be breached, leaked, or misused, the consequences could include identity theft, public exposure of personal behavior, or even extortion, especially in a context as stigmatized as adult content consumption. Privacy advocates argue that mandatory digital ID verification schemes not only erode civil liberties but also undermine trust in online platforms. They warn that once data collection becomes normalized, companies may be tempted to retain more than what is strictly necessary or to repurpose it for advertising, analytics, or sale to third parties. The more entities that touch the data, the more entry points exist for abuse. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Kansas Lawsuits Target Websites Over Alleged Lack of Digital ID Verification appeared first on Reclaim The Net.