When you’re out having fun with friends, the last thing you want to do is stay hypervigilant over your beverage. But when you take a look at how common it is for someone to spike your drink, it’s clear that there’s a reason why it’s recommended that you do. Still, knowing something doesn’t mean it’s easy to take action. Plus, it’s much more difficult to keep your drink safe than you may think. That’s why Shirah Benarde came up with a little experiment to demonstrate how easy it is for someone to slip something into your drink — but don’t worry, for this experiment, Shirah uses harmless Swedish Fish. No matter how much you understand the dangers of having your drink spiked, seeing what she’s able to pull off is shocking. You can watch the viral video below. @shiraah Its Swedish Fish time… #drinkspikingprevention #safetytips #safety #goingoutoutfit #bartendersoftiktok #spiked ♬ original sound – sped up songs <3 In the video, Shirah has no problem finding ways to covertly place Swedish Fish in her friends’ drinks. This is true no matter if they had a cup with a large or small opening. As a result, a conversation has started around why it’s oh-so important to stay safe when you’re out, even with friends. Because, as Shirah notes in the above video, most people are spiked by someone they know. Shirah isn’t new to raising awareness of the dangers of getting spiked. At only 16 years old, she began to work on a scrunchie that doubles as a drink cover. She found inspiration for it in a dream after someone close to her was roofied. You may have even seen Shirah on Shark Tank, showcasing her company Nightcap. Woman Uses Swedish Fish to Show How Easy it is for Drinks to Get Spiked View this post on Instagram A post shared by shirah (@shirahbenarde) “The one where someone approaches you with a question is real,” someone shares in the comments. “Happened the same way to me too, he asked me where the toilets are.” “I feel like this (safe version) should be done at high school dance and at some point in the night announced to check cups just so teens can see,” another person writes. “Because it’s not just alcohol that can be spiked.” You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post Woman’s Cautionary Video Shows Her Friends How Easy It Is To Spike Their Drinks appeared first on InspireMore.

The Mets' dysfunctional ways continue

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Justice Department’s Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, will be hit with three ethics complaints and a criminal referral Monday, The Daily Signal has learned. Article III Project is filing both the ethics complaints and criminal referral, which calls upon Attorney General Merrick Garland to open a criminal probe into Clarke on the grounds that she “knowingly and willfully” made “materially false statements” and that she committed “perjury.” “There is ample evidence to support this referral for false statements and perjury,” Mike Davis, founder and president of Article III Project, said in the criminal referral. Davis’ organization is focused on defending constitutionalist judges, opposing radical judicial nominees, and pushing back on “radical assaults on judicial independence” such as court-packing. The filings follow an April 30 report from The Daily Signal revealing for the first time that Clarke hid her arrest for a domestic violence incident and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was awaiting Senate confirmation to her high-ranking Justice Department post. Her ex-husband, Reginald Avery, has told The Daily Signal that Clarke attacked him with a knife, slicing his finger to the bone, while they were married in 2006. That record was later expunged, The Daily Signal confirmed. 66747fbea19496e2fa0100fb_ClarkeDOJRefDownload Asked by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., during her confirmation, “Since becoming a legal adult, have you ever been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime against any person?” she responded, “No,” according to a 66-page document she submitted under oath to “Questions for the Record” from senators. Clarke has not responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal, though the DOJ previously acknowledged receipt of these requests. Following The Daily Signal’s initial report, Clarke told CNN she hid the arrest during her Senate confirmation but then alleged she was the victim of domestic violence at the hands of her ex-husband. Avery told The Daily Signal he did not abuse his ex-wife. “Avery has accused Kristen Clarke of a violent crime,” the Article III Project criminal referral states. “He also has alleged that local Maryland police arrested her. Police and court records corroborate the occurrence of the arrest.” “Most crucially, Kristen Clarke acknowledged it in her statement to reporter Hannah Rabinowitz of CNN,” the criminal referral continues. “Kristen Clarke answered Senator Cotton’s question under oath in a manner contrary to her admission three years later.” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke at a press conference in Los Angeles. (Photo: Irfan Khan/Getty Images) That criminal referral calls Clarke’s conduct “egregious,” arguing that Cotton asked her a straightforward question that she “willfully” and “knowingly” gave a false answer to. “Kristen Clarke claims that she had an ‘option’ not to disclose this incident,” Davis continues in the referral. “This assertion shows an utter disregard for the role of the United States Senate in evaluating the worthiness of a nominee for confirmation. Neither Kristen Clarke nor the State of Maryland is entitled to decide what information the Senate deserves to know. That prerogative lies with the Senate. Senator Cotton asked a routine question, and Kristen Clarke failed to answer it honestly.” That referral also points out that Garland has repeatedly stated that “nobody is above the law,” including former President Donald Trump. “But,” Davis said, “with Garland’s refusal to take any action more than seven weeks after uncontroverted evidence and public reporting of Kristen Clarke’s perjury to the Senate, it is very clear Kristen Clarke is above the law.” Article III Project also filed ethics complaints with the New York and Washington, D.C., offices of disciplinary counsel, as well as with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility. The DOJ and Washington ethics complaints note that Clarke, like every other nominee who requires confirmation by the Senate, had to answer a series of questions under oath in both in writing and verbally. “Kristen Clarke’s knowingly and willfully false answer to one of these questions constitutes the basis for this complaint,” the complaint to the DOJ states. The New York ethics complaint accuses Clarke of violating the state’s code of professional conduct that prohibits lawyers from “engaging in illegal conduct that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer.” It also argues that Clarke’s “unambiguous answer to Senator Cotton’s question was dishonest because she denied an accusation and an arrest that had occurred”—a “misrepresentation” that was “material because such an accusation bears on the character and fitness of a nominee for a powerful government position, especially one that involves enforcement of our laws.” “Kristen Clarke’s misrepresentation is aggravated by her continuing refusal to acknowledge it three years later,” the New York ethics complaint states. “Instead, she maintains that the Senate was not entitled to know the truth about the July 4, 2006, incident.” The Daily Signal’s reporting on Clarke prompted calls for her to resign from Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican, the New York Post Editorial Board, and others. In early May, a group of conservative leaders called on Clarke to resign from her leadership position in a letter they sent to the high-ranking DOJ official. Kristen Clarke is in charge of enforcing civil rights laws.She enforces those laws aggressively against anyone who sneezes near an abortion clinic.And not at all against those who vandalize churches.She lied under oath during her confirmation proceedings, and should resign. https://t.co/5tHpaG4a2W— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 1, 2024 “The American people have lost trust in your ability to lead the Civil Rights Division,” reads the letter to Clarke signed by Advancing American Freedom Executive Director Paul Teller, American Accountability Foundation’s Tom Jones, Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins, and CatholicVote President Brian Burch. “We request that you resign immediately.” That letter repeatedly references The Daily Signal’s reporting and includes a copy of the original story. It also points to Clarke’s enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, also known as the FACE Act, against pro-life activists. “The American people deserve a Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice led with honesty and integrity,” the letter says. “Since taking over the Civil Rights Division, you have weaponized the Department of Justice by wielding the FACE Act against pro-life Americans in an unprecedented manner—even while standing idly by as churches and pro-life pregnancy centers are vandalized and Jewish students are unable to attend class on college campuses.” The post EXCLUSIVE: DOJ’s Kristen Clarke Hit With Criminal Referral, Ethics Complaints for ‘Perjury,’ ‘False Statements’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

An international group of astronomers, including scientists from the University of Exeter (UK), as stated on the educational institution’s website, made an important discovery. They discovered three so-called super-Earths at once, which orbit a relatively close orange dwarf star to us. Astronomers have discovered three new exoplanets (as worlds outside the solar system are called), which are still in the status of candidates for the title of planet. This means that further observations should confirm this fact. The new exoplanets belong to the super-Earth class. This means that they are larger in mass than our planet, but they have less mass than the ice giants of the solar system, Uranus and Neptune. Scientists believe that the three planets have a mass that is 5-11 times the mass of Earth. Further observations will help clarify this parameter for each world. The discovered potential super-Earths orbit the Sun-like star HD 48498, which is relatively close to us at a distance of 55 light-years. The two planets closest to the star have orbital periods of 7 and 38 days. That is, the length of the year is exactly this number of days. But most of all, astronomers were interested in the third planet, which has an orbital period equal to 151 Earth days. For Earth it is just over 365 days. This super-Earth is within the habitable zone of its star. This means that there could potentially be liquid water on the surface of the planet. And water is the source of potential life. According to scientists, this discovery is important because the planets were discovered near a star similar to the Sun and this is the closest planetary system to us with a super-Earth located in the habitable zone of its star. Scientists called the discovery an exciting step forward in the search for habitable planets. The post Three Earth-like planets discovered near a nearby star appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Massachusetts, the only state in the nation with a right-to-shelter law, is battling the budgetary consequences of its sanctuary policies amid the Biden administration's self-inflicted border crisis.The influx of illegal immigrants arriving in the state seeking taxpayer-funded shelter and aid does not appear as though it will let up any time soon. Massachusetts' limited homeless shelter system reached capacity with 7,500 families in November. Since then, it has been relying on residents' dollars to fund temporary "overflow" sites to house the illegal aliens that continue to flood into the state, with very few moving toward independence. Illegal immigrants residing in these overflow shelters are those currently on the state's Emergency Assistance waitlist to move to more stable accommodations.Gov. Maura Healey's (D) administration reported that 11,000 individuals arrived from October 2022 through September 2023.'This is not a short-term problem; it's a long-term fiscal problem.'Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, told Blaze News, "I've estimated that the number of new illegal migrants under Biden is 50,000, which is a big increase over recent years. Even though Massachusetts, in the last 10 years, has had one of the fasted growing rates of illegal immigration, this is a huge increase even above that. There's no doubt that the Healey administration's policies have a lot to do with it.""Certain politicians have put out the welcome mat for illegal immigrants, and it's a well-known sanctuary state," Vaughan added.The financial impact on taxpayersMassachusetts' right-to-shelter law, passed in 1983, requires the state to provide housing to all pregnant women and families with children. The state's shelter system considers children to be those under 21 years old. The law demands that the shelter accommodations include refrigeration and basic cooking facilities. In some overflow temporary emergency shelter locations that lack such amenities, taxpayers are dishing out more funds to pay vendors to deliver food to the illegal immigrants, a WBZ February report revealed.The news outlet's investigation discovered that Massachusetts taxpayers are spending roughly $64 per day to feed each illegal immigrant. The news outlet obtained vendor contracts for a number of services, including 17 hotel and motel contracts totaling over $116 million for fiscal year 2024, ending in June. Some of the hotels have also been contracted to provide three meals per day, WBZ reported.The state's Democratic leaders have asked the Biden administration to send more federal aid to keep up with the influx of illegal aliens, but local politicians remain resistant to the idea of reforming the right-to-shelter law or the state's sanctuary policies. Vaughan told Blaze News that the funds used to pay for the hotels that were converted into shelters were "taken from a rainy day fund.""It's not going to be renewed. It's not clear where they're going to get the money for 2025," Vaughan said."The short-term cost is enormous, but the long-term cost exists as well if people end up staying here," she continued. "Most of them don't qualify for any path to a Green Card, but unless there is much, much more robust enforcement of immigration laws, and less sanctuary policies, and when employers are not able to hire them, they're going to stick around for awhile. All of those policy changes would take years to implement."Healey's administration plans to begin sending out 90-day eviction notices in July to push some families to move from the state's overwhelmed emergency shelter system by the end of September.'It's time for her to take this issue seriously and reform the state's right-to-shelter law.'Instead of reevaluating the state's policies that act as a magnet to illegal aliens, Healey has, like many other Democratic politicians, used the opportunity to blame Republicans in Congress for rejecting a Senate bill introduced earlier this year. Democratic lawmakers have remained steadfast and united in their claim that the legislation, if passed, would have stopped the uptick in illegal immigration. However, conservatives have repeatedly denied those claims and argued that the bill was not designed to fix the open border crisis. At the time Healey announced new limits on shelter stays, she stated, "As Congress has repeatedly failed to act on this federal problem, Massachusetts has been going above and beyond.""This new length of stay policy will strengthen those efforts to connect families with the resources and services they need to move into more stable housing and contribute to our workforce," Healey claimed.Since Massachusetts ran out of emergency shelter space, some illegal aliens have been sleeping on the floor at Boston Logan International Airport. In recent months, the number of individuals using the airport as a shelter appears to have increased. Reports from early this month estimated that there are more than 100 illegal immigrants sleeping in the airport's baggage claim area while they wait for other accommodations to become available.Politicians force local residents to take a backseat to illegal aliensHealey and her administration faced intense backlash from the Roxbury community after shuttering the neighborhood's recreational center and using the space to house hundreds of illegal immigrants. Residents protested the decision, calling on Healey to open up shelters in more affluent neighborhoods instead. After a few months of shelter operations, Healey announced that the recreational center in Roxbury, one of Massachusetts' poorest neighborhoods, would reopen to the community for the summer. Residents' displeasure appeared to push Healey to promise the facility would receive some updates prior to its grand reopening.With the shelter's closure and illegal aliens filing up the airport, the governor's office announced in May that it plans to convert Bay State Correctional Center in Norfolk, a decommissioned prison, into the next overflow shelter for approximately 400 families."A lot of the communities that have been hosting these new illegal migrants have been complaining about it. And there have been problems in a lot of these facilities," Vaughan told Blaze News. "It's almost like these shelters have become a hot potato that needs to be tossed around so that no one gets burned too badly.""It does not make sense to keep moving people around like this. And the state knows that many of them are still going to need shelter long after they would like them to move on," she added.The "hot potato," which appears to have now been passed along to Norfolk, has residents upset and concerned about the state's plans to convert the former correctional facility and push a massive uptick of children into the community's already at-capacity school system.'The outrageous costs of this right-to-shelter program are continuing to add up totaling over $1.2 billion.'During a June 4 Norfolk Select Board Bay State Community Forum, locals asked Healey's administration whether it could guarantee that the correctional facility shelter would be closed within 12 months. A spokesperson for the governor's office replied, "Our plan is based on the funding available. Our plan is to close it within six to 12 months."John Semas, a Norfolk resident, told WFXT, "There is no turning back when this happens, our schools are overcrowded as it is, we have a budget problem — this isn't a humanitarian question, this is a mathematical question, it cannot happen."Vaughan told Blaze News that the Norfolk school system will be forced to "absorb enormous costs to provide schooling to all of these new arrivals.""A number of studies have shown that the costs of educating students who don't speak English are 20% to 40% higher than native-born students," Vaughan stated. "There is very little additional revenue that the towns are going to get to accommodate these kids, especially if they're already at capacity. So, it can't help but have an impact on all of these kids going to these schools. The teachers are going to be stretched; the classrooms are going to be overcrowded; money is going to have to be reallocated from other programs to pay for this."Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance explained the extent of the illegal immigration crisis' impact on local school systems. Craney told Blaze News, "Local towns are mandated by state law to provide education to any and all children residing within their borders. When the administration decides to convert a prison into a high capacity migrant shelter, the local school districts are required to educate all of the new children living there. The small towns these migrant camps are being sited in are being absolutely overwhelmed by the huge influx of children into their districts and are receiving next to no help from the state to mitigate the issue."Craney called on Healey to reform the right-to-shelter law."Instead, Governor Healey is jetsetting to Italy and passing the buck to federal politics," he continued. "Governor Healey needs to take responsibility for this crisis and actually do something to remove the pull factors leading migrants to make the long journey from the open southern border all the way to Massachusetts. It's time for her to take this issue seriously and reform the state's right-to-shelter law."According to Axios, the state estimated it will cost $915 million in fiscal year 2025 to provide shelter accommodations to illegal aliens. Rep. Aaron Michlewitz (D), the chairman of the Massachusetts House Ways and Mean Committee, stated in March that the state is experiencing "a migrant crisis like no other state in the nation, one that has put our emergency family shelter system and our budget at a breaking point at the moment."Vaughan stated that Massachusetts is "a perfect case study that proves that you cannot have unlimited illegal immigration and a welfare state that guarantees everyone all of these services.""It's just impossible to sustain," she told Blaze News. "A lot of these people have immigration court dates that are five to seven years away. This is not a short-term problem; it's a long-term fiscal problem.""Even if the border was shutdown tomorrow, the costs of this influx are going to remain for many years because, the longer that these families are allowed to stay, then they start becoming eligible for welfare programs like Medicaid and food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the means-tested welfare programs," Vaughan remarked. "Already about half of the new arrivals are immediately eligible for welfare programs. But more are going to be added to the eligible population after five years."A GBH News/CommonWealth Beacon poll conducted by the MassINC Polling Group revealed that immigration is a top concern for Massachusetts residents. Of the 1,000 individuals surveyed, 28% said "the current migrant situation" is "a crisis," and another 39% called it a "major problem." Despite the polled residents' concerns, 79% said they still support the state's right-to-shelter law. However, 47% said they do not support providing emergency shelter accommodations to illegal aliens, while 45% said they strongly or somewhat support providing it.Massachusetts state Sen. Ryan Fattman (R) told Blaze News, "The Massachusetts Senate was given the opportunity to do right by our residents and the majority party failed to do so. I have been advocating for a residency requirement since the state budget debate in 2023. Despite raising concerns then about this crisis, the legislative leaders have failed to act. Not only did they fail to include a residency requirement, they failed to establish prioritization for the hardworking, taxpaying families of Massachusetts.""The outrageous costs of this right-to-shelter program are continuing to add up totaling over $1.2 billion," Fattman continued. "Not only does this prove to be wildly unfair to residents of the Commonwealth, it is unfair to the vast majority of programs in the state whose funds are being cut because there isn't room in the budget. I will continue to highlight this issue because the hard working people of Massachusetts deserve to have their tax dollars spent in a way that benefits all of us."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Roland Martin may know a lot about media and politics, but the veteran journalist and cultural commentator needs to learn a valuable lesson about human nature. Weakness is always met with aggression.Martin recently posted a picture of himself on social media wearing a shirt that had “Vote Like a Black Woman” written across his chest. Given the fact that over 90% of black women voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Democrats call black women the “backbone” of the party, it’s safe to assume he meant “vote blue, no matter who.” The men who want to be allies with women who resent their 'male privilege' will continue to be publicly disrespected until they get a backbone.Roland Martin is a poster boy for an entire generation of men who have been ground down and had their rough truth-telling edges sandblasted by a culture saturated in feminism. These men want to keep their positions of influence and power, so they figure appeasing the sisterhood is a good strategy for survival.What they don’t realize is that an ideology rooted in the rejection of nature will never produce gratitude. Even concessions by men are met with resentment. The more men give, the more feminists demand. Others complain about the fact that the progress they desired didn’t come sooner. The breakdown of the family has had a ripple effect on the gender dynamics in every other part of black America. For example, black women have a significant amount of influence in the Democrat party and the corporate media outlets that are a mouthpiece for the left. Progressives love black women in positions of power, especially when they use their platforms to rail against the twin evils of racism and sexism. The exchange between Zerlina Maxwell and MSNBC anchor Craig Melvin a few years ago captures this dynamic perfectly. Maxwell is a political analyst who claimed misogyny torpedoed Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign in 2020. Maxwell didn’t explain why Warren, the first female senator in the history of Massachusetts, came in third among women in her home state. She didn’t need to. Instead, she jumped straight to charges of sexism and demanded more men publicly support women in leadership roles. Craig Melvin, the man moderating the discussion, sheepishly obliged: “Um ... ok ... uh ... for the record, I want to see women in positions of power.”The black community’s inverted gender dynamics are also why former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross felt comfortable saying black men in Georgia should “get in line” behind black women and vote for Stacey Abrams back in 2022. She knew none of the male panelists — including Roland Martin — would challenge her. Black male feminists are trained to sit silently when black women are doing the hard work of leadership. The reason women like Maxwell, Cross, Sunny Hostin of “The View,” and radical feminists like professor Brittney Cooper speak with such condescension toward black men is because they have contempt for weak men. It is one of the cruel ironies of human nature. The alpha females who see themselves as leaders don’t respect the types of men who want to follow them. Women are naturally hypergamous, which is why they desire mates they perceive as having a higher social status than their own. They generally desire men who are taller, older, more educated, and earn more money than they do. One analysis of U.S. Census data found male doctors often married nurses and teachers. Female physicians, however, did not “marry down.” Regardless of socioeconomic status, women typically pursue relationships that take them to a higher level. This explains why the marriage between black women and white liberals that has powered the Democratic Party for more than 60 years is the strongest political union in America. It’s a marriage of convenience, not love. Politicians get votes, bureaucrats get job security, and black women of every income and education level get access to resources. It may not be an iron triangle, but to paraphrase Ecclesiastes 4:12, this three-strand cord is not easily broken. A wise husband and wife will vote for what is in the best interest of their household. But when marriage is no longer the foundation of the family, men and women think like mercenaries, each out for their individual good. Political parties know this and use it for their own benefit.If order is ever to be restored to both the black family and community, black men will need to lead the way, not follow black women to the voting booth. This is one reason the uplift-through-politics strategy that men like Roland Martin push will never work. It’s also why big government liberals will be resistant to a "marriage before carriage” movement that would inevitably diminish their role in black households. So will the feminists who love to see black men willing to think, speak, act, and vote like black women. Democrats have black women as their “backbone.” The men who want to be allies with women who resent their “male privilege” will continue to be publicly disrespected until they get a backbone.

To the ESG movement, a company whose board is primarily accountable to shareholders is thought to be endangering its own reputation.

The Supreme Court decision, while welcome, has left human personhood not up to scientific determination but to democratic selection.

Remarks from NRI’s Regional Seminars.

Nothing might change — except the politics of the 2024 presidential campaign.