In a world first, scientists have literally opened a window into the human brain. They inserted a transparent panel into the skull of a patient and were able to collect high-resolution imaging data through it while the patient was awake and performing tasks, the first time such a feat has been achieved.The patient who volunteered for this pioneering study was 39-year-old Jared Hager, who suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) during a skateboarding accident in 2019. As is quite common in such cases, part of Hager’s skull had to be surgically removed to give space for the brain tissue to swell as it healed. Because of delays during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hager was unable to have a prosthesis installed to repair the skull for over two years – definitely not ideal, but if you’re of the “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” school of thought, clearly a good opportunity to try out some experimental brain imaging.While awaiting surgery, Hager volunteered for a research project run by Charles Liu, a professor at the Keck School of Medicine and director of the USC Neurorestoration Center, in collaboration with colleague Jonathan Russin and a team at Caltech. When the time came for Hager’s prosthesis surgery, he again teamed up with the scientists, who by this time were investigating a novel technique called functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI).Compared with something like an MRI scan, ultrasound is cheaper, more portable, and more comfortable for the patient. You also have to lie very still in an MRI machine, whereas with ultrasound you can collect data while people are taking part in normal activities.  Patients with TBI often develop neurological issues, including dementia, so it is hoped that fUSI could be a way of monitoring this. “If we can extract functional information through a patient’s skull implant, that could allow us to provide treatment more safely and proactively,” Liu explained in a statement. The snag is that fUSI doesn’t work through a conventional skull prosthesis. That’s where this idea of a transparent window came in. Made of polymethyl methacrylate – a bit like plexiglass – it served the dual purpose of repairing Hager’s skull while also allowing brain imaging data to be collected. The whole piece of plastic was 4 millimeters thick, with a 2-millimeter-thick section to give the ultrasound transducer access to the brain’s parietal and motor cortices.“This area of the brain, which is important for forming intentions and carrying out motor actions, has already been thoroughly studied via other methods in our lab,” explained Professor Richard Andersen, part of the team at Caltech, in another statement. The team had already done some modeling, as well as experiments on rats, to try out different types of implants and to hone the fUSI parameters in order to get optimal results. Primate data had proven the technique could provide useful information. Now, it was time to try it on a human. Before and after the surgery, Hager was asked to solve a “connect-the-dots” puzzle on a computer and to play some tunes on his guitar while the ultrasound was performed. The key question was whether fUSI would still be accurate and precise when done through a clear plastic window.“The fidelity of course decreased, but importantly, our research showed that it’s still high enough to be useful. And unlike other brain-computer interface platforms, which require electrodes to be implanted in the brain, this has far less barriers to adoption,” Liu said. Not only does having a window installed in your brain allow for nifty experiments like this, it might actually be better for patients in the long run, as Russin explained: “One of the big problems when we do these surgeries is that a blood clot can form underneath the implant, but having a clear window gives us an easy way to monitor that.”If more people were to be offered this alternative prosthesis, it could allow scientists to gather useful data about TBI outcomes on a broader scale. Clinical trials would be needed before the technology could be rolled out more widely, and more studies are needed to build on the data gathered from Hager. “Jared is an amazing guy,” Liu enthused. “His contributions have really helped us explore new frontiers that we hope can ultimately help many other patients.” This work has already begun, with attention turning to other experimental technologies like laser spectroscopy. “What our findings [show] is that we can extract useful functional information with this method,” said Liu. “The next step is: What specific functional information do we want, and what can we use it for?”The study is published in Science Translational Medicine.

Planetary scientists have discovered something truly unexpected happening above Mars’s highest peaks. The volcanos from the Tharsis region there show traces of frost, but it's not frozen carbon dioxide like elsewhere on Mars. This frost is actually water ice.  Mars has a thin atmosphere made of mostly carbon dioxide, and these extinct volcanos rise through a large chunk of it. The biggest is Olympus Mons, which is a shield volcano 600 kilometers (370 miles) in diameter, about the size of the entire state of Arizona. Depending on how you measure its altitude, it sits at around 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) high, between 2.5 and three times Earth’s highest mountain, Mt. Everest (which we have all been pronouncing wrong).The other volcanoes, Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons, all sit between 14 and 18 kilometers in height. The volcanos’ caldera are caved in creating a place for frost to condense, a unique microclimate that allows the condensation of water ice even at the low latitude of the volcanos. The altitude was not expected to play a role in allowing for frost to form since the Martian atmosphere is so thin.“We thought it was impossible for frost to form around Mars’s equator, as the mix of sunshine and thin atmosphere keeps temperatures relatively high at both surface and mountaintop – unlike what we see on Earth, where you might expect to see frosty peaks,” lead author Adomas Valantinas, who made the discovery as a PhD student at University of Bern and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University, said in a statement sent to IFLScience. “Its existence here is exciting, and hints that there are exceptional processes at play that are allowing frost to form.”High res image by CaSSIS showing the bluish frost on the caldera floor and northern rim of Olympus Mons. The image is around 4.5 km per pixel and 40 km wide.Image credit: Adomas ValantinasFor several years, researchers have studied a water ice cloud forming from Arsia Mons during the Martian spring. Now, it appears that there more water events happening there. The volcanos seem to focalize the little moisture present in the Martian atmosphere into an area at the top where the conditions are just right for the ice to condense.“Winds travel up the slopes of the mountains, bringing relatively moist air from near the surface up to higher altitudes, where it condenses and settles as frost,” added co-author Nicolas Thomas, Principal Investigator of Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) on Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), the crucial instrument to this discovery.  “We actually see this happening on Earth and other parts of Mars, with the same phenomenon causing the seasonal martian Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud. The frost we see atop Mars’s volcanos appears to settle in the shadowed regions of the calderas especially, where temperatures are colder.”      3D model of Arsia Mons' caldera and the frost deposits in blue. These volcanoes are not just the tallest one in the whole Solar System but they are also extremely well studied. So why was this not seen before?“There are a few reasons: firstly, we need an orbit that lets us observe a location in the early morning. While ESA’s two Mars orbiters – Mars Express and TGO  – have such orbits and can observe at all times of day, many from other agencies are instead synchronised to the Sun and can only observe in the afternoon,” explained Valantinas. “Secondly, frost deposition is linked to colder martian seasons, making the window for spotting it even narrower. In short, we have to know where and when to look for ephemeral frost. We happened to be looking for it near the equator for some other research, but didn't expect to see it on Mars’s volcano tops!”This disocvery adds some important knowledge to what we we know and expect about water on Mars, and will be important in the future exploration of both robots and humans.The study is published in Nature Geoscience.

Fresh off the back of “don’t body slam an orca” we’re back with another article about leaving wildlife alone. A rise in wildlife rescue centers taking in dyed birds from gender reveal parties and other events leads us to yet another sentence we can’t believe we have to type: DON’T DYE BIRDS.On March 28, the Leicestershire Wildlife Hospital in England admitted a pigeon that had been dyed pink – most likely for a gender reveal party, the hospital explained on social media. Among the challenges this pigeon faced, such as being a more obvious target for predators including domestic cats, the toxins from the dye can affect breathing and eating behaviors. "This pigeon sadly didn’t make it, he was incredibly malnourished, dehydrated and had significant wounds caused by [a] cat," wrote the hospital. "This pigeon sadly didn’t make it, he was incredibly malnourished, dehydrated and had significant wounds".Image courtesy of Leicestershire Wildlife HospitalA second pigeon was taken to Pudz Animal Sanctuary in South Killingholme, England after being dyed pink. "It's just for a few minutes of entertainment, then the bird has to live with that for the rest of its life". Sanctuary founder Shena Fairless told the BBC. The pigeon, which has been named Polly, is fortunately settling in well at the sanctuary and seems to be recovering. Across the pond in February 2023, a pigeon named Flamingo after the pink hue its feathers had been turned also passed away after it was rescued in New York City. The Wild Bird Fund wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “Despite our best efforts to reduce the fumes coming off the dye, while keeping him calm and stable, he died in the night. We believe his death was caused by inhaling the toxins.”                IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.“Dove releases sound romantic, but take away the decorations and Instagram photos, and they are the equivalent of dumping your helpless pets on the side of the road. This is no way to celebrate anything.”According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), cases like those of Polly and Flamingo are becoming more widespread, especially in the UK. A spokesperson for the charity told the Mirror, “intentionally painting a pigeon's feathers is unacceptable as it could cause health problems, impair their ability to fly and make them more vulnerable to predators. In addition, dye and paints can be toxic to birds and other animals, and they would be likely to try to clean any such substance from their coat or feathers which could result in them swallowing it. From time to time, we do hear anecdotally about incidents involving animals being affected in this way - and sadly we fear social media trends could be fuelling this."Over in Brazil in 2022, a couple dyed an entire waterfall blue for a gender reveal, potentially contaminating an entire town's water supply, while other gender reveals have caused wildfires and even earthquakes. Maybe just wait until the birth instead?

Friday's PBS NewsHour featured a discussion with congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins on what Donald Trump is looking for in a vice-presidential running mate (“loyalty….including whether the 2020 election had fraud in it or not”). But it took a turn into PBS’s new pro-Biden campaign angle, protecting American “democracy” from Trump’s potential veep selections. PBS put together a supercut of four potential Trump picks being pestered by liberal media reporters, showing those Republicans (horrors!) suggesting that the 2020 election had been tilted toward Biden (evidence that includes Big Tech’s censorship of the sordid story of Hunter Biden’s laptop and various election-law shenanigans in Pennsylvania in 2020).  LISA DESJARDINS: And this, in a way -- while this whole thing is speculation, this, in a way, is why we're focusing on this right now, because this isn't just fawning. We know this has very great significance for the future, especially if Trump is reelected. And if you pay attention to what some of these candidates for vice president are saying, they're talking about their loyalty to Trump in ways different with themselves in the past on very important issues, including whether the 2020 election had fraud in it or not. Desjardins engaged in a bait-and-switch, setting up a conversation about American democracy but actually focusing on the much narrower questions of Republicans accepting a Biden win that hasn't occurred yet, and also whether Donald Trump will get a fair shake in the 2024 rematch, considering the ongoing attempts by Democrats to kneecap him via lawfare. DESJARDINS: So I want to take us through something unusual, a series of sound bites when some of these candidates were asked about what they think about our democracy and specifically about this coming election, whether they think that it will be secure or, and also the past election. Sen. J.D. VANCE (R-OH): I think that Donald Trump will be the victory [sic]. And if it's a free and fair election, Dana, I think every Republican will enthusiastically accept the results. And, again, I think those results will show that Donald Trump has been elected president. KRISTEN WELKER, Moderator, Meet the Press: Will you accept the election results of 2024, no matter what happens, Senator? Sen. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): No matter what happens? No, if it's an unfair election, I think it's going to be contested by either inside. WELKER: No matter who wins. Senator, no matter who wins. RUBIO: Well, why don't you -- I think you're asking the wrong person. The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory since 2000, every single one. JONATHAN KARL, Moderator, This Week: He still hasn't accepted the results of the election. Sen. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Jon, he says, and I agree, that the election was not fair, that it was rigged in many ways, with Democratic states and cities changing election law and election practices up to the last minute. KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN Host: Had you been vice president on January 6, 2021, what would you have done? Rep. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): I stood up for the Constitution. I believe it was… COLLINS: No, what would you have done if you were vice president? STEFANIK: I would not have done what Mike Pence did. I don't think that was the right approach. DESJARDINS: As they're being vetted behind the scenes, these are very important public signals that they are sending to Trump that we need to watch. Notice that most of the Republicans pushed back on those leading, loaded questions from the press with how Democrats loosened election laws in 2020 and how Democrats can be "election deniers." These pro-Biden anchors don't ask Democrats about that. This has been a repeated drumbeat from PBS, that the potential Republican veep picks are demonstrating "damaging denialism."  PS: Desjardins weirdly claimed it was abnormal to seek a staunchly loyal vice president, and turned to St. Louis University law professor Joel Goldstein to warn: "And yet, if you have a process that really encourages people to be obsequious, it really undercuts that important purpose of the vice presidency as it's developed and evolved." Do they really think Kamala Harris doesn't appear obsequious in public?  This segment was brought to you in part by Cunard.

"There is an old trial lawyers saying: 'When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on you side, pound the table.'”  -- Patrick Buchanan, 1975 When it comes to making the case for Hunter Biden, Mika Brzezinski has managed to devise an alternative to pounding the table when the facts and the law are against you. On today's Morning Joe, Mika repeatedly got choked up when discussing the trials and tribulations of Hunter, and the Biden family at large. And to be clear: the case against Hunter Biden is about as open-and-shut as can be. There is overwhelming evidence to support the indictment, which the Department of Justice described this way [emphasis added]: "Hunter Biden purchased a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver from a federally licensed firearms dealer on Oct. 12, 2018. When purchasing a firearm, a prospective purchaser must fill out a Firearm Transaction Record, ATF Form 4473, and certify that all of his or her answers on the form are true and correct. As alleged in count one of the indictment, Hunter Biden knowingly made a false written statement on the Form 4473, intended and likely to deceive the dealer he purchased the firearm from, when he certified that he was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance. In fact, he knew that statement was false, according to the indictment." The defense argument, as put forth by lead defense counsel Abbe Lowell, amounts to asserting that, well, yeah, Hunter was a user of, and addicted to, illegal drugs at the time he submitted his application. But in his drug-addled mind, he thought he was clean. Good luck with that -- although who knows what verdict a jury from the Big Guy's home state of Delaware might render. Mika was emotional throughout, but in the video, you'll see her get especially choked up at 00:06, 00:59, and 02:41. Mika touted an article by Molly Jong-Fast on how Republicans are playing a "dangerous game" by discussing Hunter Biden, that "shaming the family" is a political loser. She said of addiction: “The disease that Hunter Biden has is the same disease that I have. It’s the same disease that, you know, almost 20 percent of the country has.” Note: Mika repeatedly tried to twang the heartstrings. She twice mentioned that Hunter is Biden's last "remaining son." She mentioned that Joe had lost a wife and a baby in a car accident, and that son Beau had died of a brain tumor. But whereas she claimed that Americans think Biden is a "nice guy," she failed to mention that, for decades, Biden falsely claimed that his wife and daughter had been killed by a drunk driver.  Biden has also falsely claimed, as even the leftist Daily Beast has acknowledged, that Beau died in Iraq. And as for Biden being the loving father of Hunter, for years, Joe helped Hunter make piles of cash that he squandered on crack and hookers. Voters or jurors could see him (broad brush) as an enabler, not a stern dad. And it can be imagined that Joe enabled Hunter in part because the Big Guy was getting his "10 percent," or a piece of the grift. Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 6/10/24 7:00 am EDT MIKA BRZEZINSKI: So, Molly, Trumpers and Republicans actually holding office [voice breaks] in Congress, they love this story. They love going after Hunter. They actually screamed at him nasty things when he walked into a hearing room, acting like eighth graders. I mean, really badly, poorly behaved eighth graders. And that they love to sort of go after Hunter and equivocate with this versus Donald Trump's trial. Your latest opinion piece is really interesting to me because I saw this the last time around with Joe Biden. People don't like it when you go after his remaining son. They like Joe Biden overall. They think he's a nice guy. And going after the remaining son didn't seem to fare well for those trying to do it. But you write this, "Republicans [sniffles, clears throat] going after Hunter Biden for his addiction are playing a dangerous game." And in  it, you write in part this, "FoxNews' The Five co-host Jeanine Pirro reportedly complained about 'eight jurors who have someone in their family who's had a drug or alcohol addiction problem or someone who died from alcohol or addiction. So they picked a jury who is sympathetic. And herein lies the problem with the ongoing Republican attack on Biden: Seating jurors who have experiences with addiction to various degrees does not make a jury sympathetic. It makes it informed. Addiction is a disease. People who struggle with addiction are sick, not bad.' . . .  I'm curious, Jon Meacham, the position that President Biden is in here. And by the way, I know that you have worked with him at times. JON MEACHAM: Yeah. MIKA: But personally, I want to talk to you personally about this. Because Americans know that he lost a baby and his wife decades ago in a car accident. Americans know that he lost his son, Beau, to a brain tumor. Americans know the family has struggled. He still steps up and serves. I'm just curious, how is this fervent desire to hurt Hunter -- and I'm not talking about in court. He's got to go to court. He's got to show up, and he's got to face the music.  I'm talking about the people going crazy about Hunter. Whether it is Jeanine Pirro or Republicans in Congress or the Trump campaign, how does this [gets choked up] hurt Joe Biden, except for personally? MEACHAM: Oh, I think it's simply a personal -- not simply. I think it's a personal cost. Politically, I don't think anyone -- MIKA: Yeah. MEACHAM: I mean, the tone, and I appreciate the tone in which you asked the question and Molly speaking. I hate beginning a sentence about this topic with politically, comma, but I'll do it quickly -- MIKA: Right. MEACHAM: -- because it transcends that. Politically, no, I don't think so.Anyone who -- MIKA: I don't think so either. MEACHAM: Yeah, anyone who's going to vote against President Biden because of his son's struggles is not what I would call a swing voter, right?

On October 7, Hamas terrorists butchered over 1,000 Israeli civilians and took hundreds more hostage. Since then, Hamas has refused to release the remaining hostages, and reports have begun to mount about the number of hostages who have been found dead during the course of Israel's military operation in Gaza. Over the weekend, the Israeli Defense Forces mounted the largest hostage rescue operation since the start of the war. The raid took place in a crowded area full of civilians because Hamas chose to hide the hostages there. By all accounts, when Israeli forces began their operation, Hamas returned fire from civilian buildings with heavy weaponry, including RPGs. To the extent that civilians died during the rescue, most reasonable people would conclude that the fault for this lies with the group that took hostages, hid them among its own civilians, and then used those civilians as human shields against the hostage rescuers. Not, however, the usual cadre of current and former MSNBC personalities who serve as de facto mouthpieces for Hamas. Immediately the coordinated campaign began to suggest both that Israel was at fault for these civilian deaths and also that the death toll was much higher than it likely was. The campaign began by uncritically repeating the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry's death toll, which claims over 200 civilian deaths. Liberal writer and Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali typified the response: — (@) MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin continued the refrain of Hamas talking points: — (@) Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan was likewise horrified that civilians were killed during a hostage rescue — horrified at the people who rescued the hostages, of course, rather than the people who took the hostages. — (@) It is worth noting that even the Associated Press, which continues to uncritically report casualty figures from Hamas' "Gaza Health Ministry," was forced to concede in a recent report that death totals reported by Hamas are "at odds with underlying data." The outlet further noted that Hamas has systematically overestimated the number of women and children killed, which is often used as a proxy for estimating civilian deaths: "In February, ministry officials said 75% of the dead were women and children – a level that was never confirmed in the detailed reports. And as recently as March, the ministry’s daily reports claimed that 72% of the dead were women and children, even as underlying data clearly showed the percentage was well below that." The IDF estimates fewer than 100 total casualties in the raid. It is impossible to know for certain right now which figure is correct, but the side that has not spent this war systematically inflating civilian casualties for political gain ought perhaps to be entitled to the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the head count of this raid. Overall, Hamas' efforts to redirect public opinion, as attempted by Ali, Hasan, and Mohyeldin above, have perhaps unsurprisingly not been persuasive with the American people, who by most estimates still side with Israel in the conflict by about a 2:1 margin.

Fox News Digital reported that a group of high schoolers in Kansas took part in a "senior assassin" prank last month that featured gel bead guns. But the situation turned serious when one teenager was shot with a real firearm that left him paralyzed from the waist down.Deputies from the Sedgwick Sheriff's Office reportedly responded to a shooting that took place outside a Goddard Walmart just before 5:00 p.m. on May 11. The victim, 18-year-old Anakin Zehring, suffered a gunshot wound to the back, striking his kidney, liver, and spinal cord.'He sustained severe injuries, including a bullet wound that punctured his duodenum (upper part of the small intestine) and damaged his spinal cord, causing loss of sensation from the waist down.'According to Zehring's GoFundMe page, "On May 11th, our lives changed forever when my son was involved in the tragic incident at the Goddard Walmart shooting.""He sustained severe injuries, including a bullet wound that punctured his duodenum (upper part of the small intestine) and damaged his spinal cord, causing loss of sensation from the waist down. Despite undergoing four surgeries and intense medical care, his recovery journey is just beginning, and we need your help."Two other teenage boys were with Zehring when the incident occurred, but they soon fled the scene. The authorities eventually caught up with the teens to question them about the tragic incident. The three teens had been playing "senior assassin" — a social media-originated game that usually features high schoolers targeting one another with gel-bead guns and water guns. Many teens who take part in the game post footage to social media.Zehring and his friends ran into trouble after they started shooting their gel-bead guns at a 17-year-old female and her 17-year-old boyfriend outside the Goddard Walmart. While Zehring told the authorities that his friend shot the gel blaster, his friend said it was Zehring who fired at the two teenagers, according to the report. The New York Post reported that it was only after the two teens were shot at that the teenage girl called her father, Ruben Marcus Contreras, and told him what happened.Contreras eventually made his way to the Walmart parking lot and spotted Zehring and his two friends in a Chevrolet Spark. Contreras removed his handgun from his waistband and fired into the vehicle. He ultimately struck Zehring.Reports have stated that Contreras has since been charged with first-degree attempted murder.At the time of this report, Zehring's GoFundMe has raised $12,074 of their $50,000 goal. "Every donation, no matter how small, brings us one step closer to ensuring he gets the care and support he needs. We are eternally grateful for any assistance you can provide. If you cannot donate, your prayers and shares of this campaign are equally valuable in spreading the word," the fundraiser said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Voters across the Atlantic Ocean sent a message to the political establishment Sunday night, driving the European Parliament rightward and humiliating parties whose policies have radically transformed the continent with unchecked migration, failed assimilation, costly climate alarmism, and globalist tendencies. The election results will reverberate for weeks and months to come. One country's prime minister has already resigned, and other leaders now face potential ousters in their respective nations. Italy As of Monday morning, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's national conservative Brothers of Italy party had gained 14 seats and secured nearly 29% of the vote. Reuters indicated the party's success Sunday more than quadrupled its showing in the 2019 European Union election and exceeded the 26% it secured in the 2022 national ballot. "I am proud that Italy will present itself to the G7, to Europe with the strongest government of all. This is something that has not happened in the past but is happening today, it is a satisfaction and also a great responsibility," said Meloni. "What we need is a Europe that will listen to citizens, that will look more to the centre-right and has more pragmatic and less ideological policies," added the Italian prime minister. This victory has made Meloni one of the most powerful figures in the EU. Meloni's Brothers of Italy party is part of a coalition in the parliament called European Conservatives and Reformists, which now holds 73 seats in the 720-seat parliament. ECR is set to gain the support of the National Popular Front of Cyprus, which secured 11% of the vote Sunday, largely on a message to address the problem of immigration. Just as ECR made headway Sunday, so did the right-wing Identity and Democracy coalition, which nabbed nine seats for a total of 58. ID's gains were driven in large part by the success of France's National Rally. France Marine Le Pen's National Rally party ran circles around French President Emmanuel Macron's pro-European Renaissance Party, more than doubling its votes with 31.37%. The Need for Europe coalition, which includes Macron' Renaissance Party, secured only 14.6% of the vote. This result was so embarrassing as to prompt Macron, who already lacks a majority in the French parliament, to call snap national elections on June 30 and July 7 and to call for the dissolution of the National Assembly in a few weeks. After the French people largely kicked his party to the curb, Macron tweeted, "I have confidence in the ability of the French people to make the fairest choice for themselves and for future generations." Axios highlighted that Macron leaned in to old scare tactics following his humiliation. "The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger for our nation and for Europe," said the president. "After this day, I cannot go on as though nothing has happened." "The French people have sent a very clear message to the Macronist power, which, vote after vote, is disintegrating," Le Pen noted on X, suggesting that such is the consequence of denying a people their history and curbing their "influence, identity and freedom." Following Macron's announcement of the National Assembly's dissolution, Le Pen said, "I call on the French to come and join us to form a majority around the RN [National Rally] in the service of the only cause that guides our steps: France." Macron's government is not the only one left tottering after Sunday's election. Germany Despite its vilification by the liberal media and the German political establishment, and a member's pre-election stabbing, Alternative for Germany gained six seats and placed second with 15.9% of the national vote. The top spot was firmly held by the center-right Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, which took 30.2% of the vote. Extra to its 5% gain over its showing in the 2019 EU election, Alternative for Germany managed to beat German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's establishment Social Democratic Party, which is expected to finish third with less than 14%. According to the German publication Bild, 76% of Germans think the SPD-led (Social Democratic Party) government is not governing successfully. 570,000 voters who cast votes for the SPD in 2019 instead cast votes for AFD on Sunday. Social Democratic Party politician Lars Klingbeil doubled down on his party's ineffective rhetoric after its trouncing, stating, "I believe that the result of the European elections will wake many people up to the fact that the Nazis have become stronger in this election." The Telegraph indicated that less than a third of German voters cast ballots for the ruling parties combined. Joining Scholz's party in humiliation was the Green Party, which hemorrhaged roughly 9%, and Scholz's coalition partners, the Free Liberals, which netted 5%. Migration and refugees were far and away the top concerns for Germans going into the election — more so than energy, climate, the economy, pensions, and the war in Ukraine. The poor showing of Scholz's ruling coalition has prompted some to suggest the government has lost legitimacy. The AFD reportedly seeks to join the ID coalition, sacrificing its scandal-plagued candidate Maximilian Krah to sweeten the deal. That would mean that between the ID and ECR, rightists in the European Parliament would control over 131 seats in the chamber, not including the seats held by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, by the Polish Confederation party, and other right-leaning groups. Elsewhere In Spain, the center-right People's Party overtook leftist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Spanish Socialist Workers Party. The PP took 34.2% of the vote and gained nine seats, ending up with a total of 22 of Spain's 61 seats in the European Parliament. Sanchez's radical party lost a seat and now only has 20 seats. The right-leaning Vox party came third with six seats, having secured an additional two seats Sunday and 9.6% of the vote. Dutch politician Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom gained six seats and 17.7% of its nation's total vote, placing second in the Netherlands. The Party for Freedom campaigned primarily on two issues: immigration and health care, reported the NL Times. "The Greens and Liberals are the big losers, they will lost many seats in the European Parliament," Wilders tweeted Sunday. "On the other hand, the PVV is winning big, just like our friends in France, Belgium, Austria, Portugal and many other countries. It was a very beautiful election day!" In Austria, the Freedom Party, whose members will join the ID coalition, placed first with 25.7% of the vote, gaining three seats for a total of six in the parliament. According to EuroNews, the Freedom Party largely campaigned on an anti-immigration, anti-Green Deal, and Euroskeptic platform. Ahead of the vote, the Freedom Party wrote on X, "Asylum crisis, corona chaos, warmongering and eco-communism – are you fed up with all of this? Then ABSOLUTELY VOTE FOR THE FPÖ today! Together we will STOP the EU madness!" A weepy Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced his resignation Sunday after his Flemish Lierals and Democrats party was crushed by right-leaning and nationalist parties. Croo's party lost a seat, such that it placed last with only one seat in the parliament. "For us, it's a particularly difficult evening. We lost. As of tomorrow, I will resign as prime minister," said Croo, reported the Guardian. The nationalist right-wing New Flemish Alliance placed first. Its leader, Bart De Wever, will likely become the country's next prime minister. The anti-immigration Vlaams Belang Party came second. Unsuccessful concern-mongering, continued Ursula von der Leyen, a member of the centrist European People's Party — the biggest coalition in the new legislature — vowed to serve as a check on the ascendant right, reported Reuters. "We will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right," said von der Leyen. "But it is also true that extremes and on the left and the right have gained support and this is why the result comes with great responsibility for the parties in the center." Von der Leyen's continued presidency over the European Commission will rely upon the backing of the EU's national leaders. Days ahead of the election, the BBC warned that a rightward shift might mean "more power for nation states, less 'Brussels interference' in everyday life"; less power for the European Commission; tougher EU legislation on migration; and a pushback against climate alarmist policies. Upon seeing the results pour in, the Washington Post sounded the alarm that the "'cordon sanitaire' erected by more mainstream parties against the putative descendants of Europe's fascist movements had collapsed" and that "a new age of right-wing politics in the West" had arrived. The New York Times noted that right-wing parties "have gained across the continent as voters have grown more concentrated on nationalism and identity, often tied to migration and some of the same culture-war politics pertaining to gender and L.G.B.T.Q. issues that have gained traction in the United States," then warned the result could "hearten kindred political forces loyal to former President Donald J. Trump as he seeks a return to office." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is worried that former President Donald Trump will put her in jail if he wins the presidential election in November, according to the New York Post. She recently spoke with Kara Swisher on her show, "On with Kara Swisher." The episode was released to the public on Thursday. The interview touched on several topics, such as AI, Gaza, and the upcoming presidential election.'I feel like what we saw in his first presidency was an amuse-bouche to what his intentions are.'“I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “He’s out of his mind. I mean, he did his whole first campaign around ‘lock her up.’ This is his motto."Despite characterizing government as "a business," Ocasio-Cortez went on to say that she takes Trump "at his word when he says that he’s going to round up people. I take him at his word when he threatens journalists. I take him at his word."“I feel like what we saw in his first presidency was an amuse-bouche to what his intentions are. He has learned from his mistakes of appointing professionals, and he will not make that mistake next time.”But her words seem to run counter to what Trump has recently stated. During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump was questioned about critics who have suggested that he would seek retribution if he makes it back into office.“Number one, they’re wrong,” the former president said. “It has to stop, because otherwise, we’re not going to have a country. Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them, and it’s easy, because it’s Joe Biden and you see all the criminality, all of the money that’s going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine.”When Ocasio-Cortez was asked about whether she believed Trump had a real chance of winning the election, she said he "absolutely [has] a chance to win.""That is why I have thrown my support behind Biden early and I support it vociferously,” she continued. “It is unequivocal that if Donald Trump wins, we are looking at the potential dissolution of democracy in the United States of America and the question about what would happen to me or the Democratic Party is a joke compared to the question of what is going to happen to our country.”Despite delivering old talking points about the "dissolution of democracy" if Trump gets elected, Ocasio-Cortez also mentioned that she understands the lack of support for Biden among young voters.“I think when it comes to presidential elections, and especially to young people, I understand the lack of support for President Biden. And I think the demoralization around the president has caused folks to sometimes tune out on down-ballot candidates that will actually advance more alignment with their interests. And so the answer here is to get into the game, not to get out of it," she said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Discover the grisly stories of the five victims of Jack the Ripper who were brutally snuffed out in London's Whitechapel district starting in the summer of 1888. The post The Victims Of Jack The Ripper And Their Tragically Overlooked Stories appeared first on All That's Interesting.