The people of Paris have made a bold move by transforming their city into one that puts kids first. Under the leadership of the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, the School Streets initiative has a mandate to transform 300 streets into pedestrian walkways that cater to families walking to and from schools by 2026."About 180 School streets have been redesigned and completely pedestrianized. The idea, of course, is to cut the through traffic to get people to go to school on foot, children and parents," Paul Lecroart, Senior urban planner for the Paris Metropolitan region, said in a video by Streetfilms.Streetfilms produces short films that show how intelligent transportation design and policy can improve places to live, work, and play. Paris School Streets: Safe for Children, Safe for Everyone youtu.be "You're creating a totally different experience for the students. You're reducing traffic noise, you're reducing traffic pollution, and you're giving the children a play space and a gathering space at the beginning and end, in the middle of their school days," says Marcel Moran, PhD.The new streets are adorned with greenery and fun, kid-friendly designs. Some have large, red storage sheds filled with toys and games for kids and their parents to play after school. School Streets are created in two phases. In the first, they close the street to cars to see if it negatively affects traffic or causes problems for residents. Then, if it works out, the city does the proper planning and design to turn it from a road for cars to a school street by adding lush greenery and repaving it for pedestrians. Residents sometimes hesitate to shut down the roads in front of their homes. But many enjoy the new transition to a place that encourages community. After the streets are repurposed, what was once a dangerous road now becomes a place where families congregate and kids can come and go as they please in an area designed to promote safety and mental health.

When people have children there is all sorts of unsolicited advice and comments that seems to just spring out of people's mouths. In most cases the people making the remarks are attempting to be helpful, but that doesn't mean that it actually is helpful. Sometimes what is meant to be a kind word comes out sounding more hurtful than helpful. Jimmy Knowles recently uploaded a skit that humorously highlights some of the unsupportive things people say to moms. The man plays all the parts in the skit, alternating between different moms and their "helpful" commenters. The video opens up with a mom sounding overwhelmed about how hard some of the days are with the kids. Immediately someone rebuts, "just remember, you chose this when you had them."Not helpful. It seems that sometimes people forget that moms are also humans who have bad days and a full range of emotions. But the next person who popped up to give out a little commentary wasn't much better. Each advisor seems to be worse than the last. Moms were completely on board with the message in Knowles' video. Many shared their own experiences while others shared more helpful things people could say that are actually supportive. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jimmy Knowles (@jimmy_on_relationships) "I’ve never heard someone say 'you can’t complain about your work, you accepted their offer. Be grateful.' Parenting is the only place this is the norm and it’s so delusional," one person writes."I am the middle of 5 sisters. I’m all about supporting moms. Helpful things to say: - I’ll take the kids to the bookstore for a couple hours. - When can I come help out with housework? - I made dinner. 350 for 30 minutes. Salad isn’t dressed. - I’ve got 3 hours and I’m all yours. What can I do? Kitchen cleanup? Walk the dog? Bathroom duty? Feed the kids lunch while you go for a walk? Help!! Do something. Words are cheap. Actions are love," someone shares."Here’s a great response- You work so hard honey. Thank you. Or from mom- you are such a good mom. I know it can be hard. How about you bring them over here and go have a date night or a quiet night at home," another says."We. Just. Need. Validation. Y’all," someone declares.People aren't asking for much, just actual help either when they're feeling overwhelmed or before they reach the point of overwhelm. Validation and simply listening empathetically can go a long way.

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A major hitch. The post Julian Casablancas’ one big problem with Television: “I don’t relate” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed Res. 165, which aims to block the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule, on a party-line vote of 210-205.  Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The new rule, issued on April 19, 2024, extends what qualifies as discrimination based on sex to include gender identity. (READ MORE: Title IX Expansion Is Rejected By the States) The bill will advance to the Democrat-controlled Senate. If it becomes law, it will invalidate the Biden administration’s new rule and prevent future administrations from making any similar rules. The White House has promised that President Biden will veto the bill if it lands on his desk. Democrats claim that the bill would harm LGBTQ+ students and encourage discrimination. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) called the bill “shortsighted, petty, and cruel.” Republicans championing the bill worry the new Title IX rule will take away hard-won athletic opportunities and endanger women when they are forced to share private spaces with biological men.  After the bill was passed, its sponsor, Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) declared on X, “It’s a great day for our daughters and granddaughters, who deserve protection from Biden’s radical attempt to force men into their private spaces & athletics.” The House just passed my bill to protect girls’ sports by blocking Joe Biden’s radical Title IX rewrite. It’s a great day for our daughters and granddaughters, who deserve protection from Biden’s radical attempt to force men into their private spaces & athletics. pic.twitter.com/SGyH3ITls4 — Rep. Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) July 11, 2024 The new rule for Title IX is also being fought by the states. Twenty-six attorneys general are fighting the rule and 14 states have temporary injunctions blocking it. In addition, a federal judge ruled that the Department of Education cannot enforce the rule in schools across the country with students who are members of Young America’s Foundation or are children of members of Moms for Liberty. The rule is set to go into effect on Aug. 1.  The post House Passes Bill Blocking Biden Administration’s Changes to Title IX appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The Biden administration reinforces its ranks with what some reports see as yet more ardent censorship advocates.

Microsoft has developed a new iteration of its neural codec language model, Vall-E, that surpasses previous efforts in terms of naturalness, speech robustness, and speaker similarity. It is the first of its kind to reach human parity in a pair of popular benchmarks, and is apparently so lifelike that Microsoft has no plans to grant access to the public.

Del Bigtree: "Something made every government act exactly the same way and I will tell you when I was in Geneva it all became very clear…they're building an empire there…this is like a supervillain's paradise…it's like a world takeover is being staged and these massive… pic.twitter.com/c40ZQ7glmr — Camus (@newstart_2024) July 11, 2024