'He is very enamored'

'Gross mismanagement of local Democrat leaders'

Excerpts literary fiction Read an Excerpt From The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu In the aftermath of her mother’s death, Eleanor is unmoored. By Kim Fu | Published on February 17, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu, an eerie lit-fic novel of grief and guilt, publishing with Tin House on March 3. In the aftermath of her mother’s death, Eleanor is unmoored. For years, her mother orchestrated every detail of her life—from meals, to laundry, to finances—so that Eleanor could focus on her career as a therapist. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final directive: use her inheritance to buy a house.Desperate to obey her mother one last time, but finding few options she can afford, Eleanor impulsively buys a model home in a valley-turned-construction site, a picturesque development steeped in a shadowy history. It feels like a fresh start, until the rain comes—an endless, torrential downpour. As water seeps in through the house’s cracks, the line between what is real and what is not begins to blur. Haunted by the stories of her clients, a stream of workmen and bureaucrats she can’t trust, and visions of ghosts from her past and present, Eleanor’s reality unravels, and she is forced to reckon with the secrets she’s buried and the dark choices she’s made. Sunset came on early, the valley surrounded by mountains and rises on all sides, the sun dropping behind the western hills during Eleanor’s last appointment. She turned on the canned downlights and the wooden chandelier, and the room became almost painfully, clinically bright. It was only then that she realized the house had no window coverings. She had somehow not thought about it all day, or noticed during that first tour—she’d just admired the large windows, the dramatic flood of daylight. In a way, it wouldn’t matter for a long time. There’d be no one to see her until next summer, when Matt had said construction would resume, and the days were only getting shorter, so waking with the sun wouldn’t be an issue. She turned off the downlights. From one of the front windows, she noted that the other house, the black-frame house, did have a mix of curtains and roller shades, some open and some closed. All the windows were dark. She would have to worry about whoever lived there looking in, if in fact someone did live there. There were no other cars. She turned off the chandelier, plunging the room back into darkness. She walked around the perimeter, window to window. She couldn’t make out much in any direction. The distant, tightly packed trees were black in the darkness, as were the empty building sites. Only the gravel road reflected the moonlight. The light in the construction office cut a small square of yellow into the blackened mountainside, but seemed to cast no outward glow. An animal fear rose in her, a sense of being exposed, surrounded, seen and unseeing. She wanted to feel celebratory and adult, her first night in the first home she’d ever owned, but she couldn’t help picturing the house from the outside, her figure visible as she walked from room to room, as she sat at the table, climbed the stairs, got into bed. She tested the taps and flushed the toilets. She felt amazed everything worked, everything was real. She could not bring herself to strip completely to shower, even though the upstairs bathroom had no windows. The air in the bedroom felt stale. The mechanism to open the window was complex: a flip lock on either side, a winch in the middle she had to turn to send the top half of the window outward and up, like a hat brim. That noxious industrial smell of the surrounding land entered the room, but it came with a breeze, carrying the scent of waxy pine needles and turned earth from farther upwind. Buy the Book The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts Kim Fu Buy Book The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts Kim Fu Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget She made up the bed with the clean sheets she’d brought. She smoothed and tucked the bedding crisply. All of this belonged to her. All these bare, lovely rooms, more than she’d ever thought possible. Lele would be proud. She would be relieved to know that Eleanor had broken through the inertial tide that had carried her along since Lele’s death, that she had done something so drastic, invested wisely, transformed loss into safety and power. In her new house, Eleanor told herself, she would stop staying up all night, stop sleeping between clients in the middle of the day, stop drinking so much coffee she could feel her heart vibrating in her throat like a live bird. She would eat regular meals, take her own therapeutic advice, rejoin the land of the living. Here, she would choose what to remember and what to forget. * * * Rain pattering on the skylight woke her in the night. She got up and closed the window, fumbling to remember how in the dark, which way to wind the handle, unsure if the locks had caught their latches. She felt her way back into the bed. She looked up at the skylight, droplets striking the glass and forming ripples and dimples, lulling her with their gentle drumbeat. A hand slipped into Eleanor’s under the duvet. Small, bony. Callused fingers, but preternaturally soft along the thin skin of the back, from the hand cream Lele had kept in her purse and beside every sink, applied a dozen times a day. Lele lay beside her, flat on her back. She wore the cotton pajamas she’d died in, buttoned to the collar and densely patterned with orange flowers, each bloom the size of a fingernail. Her grip was loose and limp. Lele turned just her head toward Eleanor, smiling—a mischievous, impish grin she’d never worn in life. In the first months after Lele died, Eleanor had of course seen her everywhere: in a stranger’s gait as they walked down the sidewalk, in the slant of their shoulders, the back of any dark head of hair. Any woman with her coloring, her height, or any single shared feature—her rounded nose in profile, her unpierced ears, a coat she might have worn—had entered Eleanor’s field of vision as Lele. Before the turn, as in a magic trick, before the betrayal that revealed they had been someone else all along. But never like this, never a sustained visitation in her bed—a Lele that stayed, a Lele she could touch. The smile on her face ground against Eleanor’s memories like an ill-fitting gear. You’re not my mother, she thought, the knowledge immediate, reflexive. But of course it wasn’t. It was a pleasant, lucid-feeling dream, something Eleanor had made for herself. A housewarming gift from her own mind. * * * The rain, in the morning, had turned violent, now crashing upon the skylights as though trying to break through. Wind drove the water sideways, lashing against the windows. The warping streams made it appear as though the house were underwater. Eleanor had woken late, in the murky aquarium light. She had a client in less than half an hour. She was alone. As she stepped out of bed, Eleanor’s bare feet landed in a puddle. Water was pooling beneath the bedroom window she’d opened the night before. A thin stream of water ran down the inside of the glass. She must not have closed it fully. She unlocked and opened the window. Water gushed in and onto her pajamas and feet, from where it had pooled along the top of the frame. She winched it closed as tightly as she could. When she depressed the locks, they felt softer than before, and didn’t click. She had left the moving box containing towels on the upstairs landing. She tore the tape open with her hands, grabbed one, and used it to sop up the puddle as best she could. Over her wet pajamas, she threw on one of her rotation of solid-colored sweaters that were presentable from the chest up. She rushed downstairs, leaving wet footprints. The wind was rattling the windows, and a louder, metallic rattling, like a propeller on a loose bolt, was coming from the kitchen. She sat down at her computer, the other chairs tucked in around the dining table, hurriedly pulling her hair into a bun as the platform loaded. Her client appeared on-screen. Choppy when in motion, edges and borders softened. He talked, as he had for the last four sessions, about his more accomplished older brother. “Let’s revisit some of our strategies for dealing with envy,” Eleanor said. She leaned forward as she answered the session-end prompts, the font small and unscalable, her face six inches from the screen. When she sat back, closing the laptop lid, her eyes darted left, drawn to a change, something out of place. Lele sat in the chair at the head of the table. She was dressed in the same orange pajamas, smiling again, but now her mouth was stretched tight, her eyes blank, as though she’d been posing too long for a photograph. For a photographer who would neither take the picture nor let her go. Excerpted from The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu. Copyright © 2026 Kim Fu. Published with permission from Tin House, an imprint of Zando, LLC. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts</i> by Kim Fu appeared first on Reactor.

A coalition of Congressional Democrats unveiled a resolution titled the “Trans Bill of Rights” last week to push back against the “fear” and “hatred” propelled by those who believe that one’s sex corresponds to their biological sex. As written by Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., in a press release, the resolution aims to direct the federal government to expand transgender access to public “services” and “accommodations.” The bill language adds that it aims to ensure that “transgender and non-binary people” get “equal access” to “services and public accommodations that align with their gender identity. The bill also states that transgenders should be allowed to access “the full range of places and services that members of the general public utilize.” Although the bill does not explicitly specify what public “accommodations” the public generally uses, and the Democrats who introduced the bill did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment, policy experts such as Vice President of Social and Domestic Policy at the Heritage Foundation Jay Richards believe that the “public accommodations” in question could include women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and personal spaces. “I’m certain that’s what the drafters intend,” Richards told The Daily Signal. Other provisions include allowing taxpayer funded transition surgeries and abortion, and require institutions to recognize one’s gender identity, or lack thereof, as a legitimate biological gender, which Richards considered to be harmful. “The bill would promote experimental, body-altering interventions for minors,” Richards stated. Senior Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation Laura Hanford echoed Richard’s remarks and told The Daily Signal by allowing gender affirming care to take place, this “Bill of Rights” could further harm children. “They will continue to try and portray the Administration’s actions as excessive in an effort to make themselves look like they are protecting those they are, in fact, harming, she said. “This “Bill of Rights” is an effort to continue to claim that erasing woman and harming children is a “right” to protect rather than an excess to abolish.” In November, the Department of Health and Human Services described gender affirming care as “sex rejecting procedures” that pose “medical dangers” to “children.” However, even though the Trump administration has fought to eliminate transgender ideology and gender affirming care procedures, other conservative policy experts like Hanford that those actions could be reversed under a Democratic administration. Hanford added that the Democratic Party is “lavishly funded” by the LGBTQ activist lobby,” adding that “these groups have not abandoned their goals.” “While the Trump Administration has secured tremendous gains such as gender clinics pausing sex-rejecting procedures, these can readily be reversed in a new administration,” Hanford said. Since his election, the Trump administration has introduced policy to reverse the progressive transgender ideology pushed by Democrats under President Joe Biden’s administration. In Feb. 2025, President Donald Trump signed the Keeping Men Out Of Women’s Sports executive order, which banned biological males from competing in federally funded women’s sports. Trump argued that allowing men who identify as women in women’s sports is a direct violation of Title IX of the Education Act of 1972, which states that educational institutions receiving federal funds cannot deny women an equal opportunity to participate in sports. Weeks before, the House passed Rep. Greg Steube’s, R-Fla., Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which was sent to the Senate for a vote. “Men have no place in women’s sports,” Steube wrote in a statement. “Republicans have promised to protect women’s sports, and under President Trump’s leadership, we will fulfill this promise.” State lawmakers have also continued to push back in recent years. In 2025, Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., who was then a state senator, introduced legislation to ban LGBTQ+ flags from being flown on government property, including schools. Just recently, lawmakers in Illinois introduced legislation that would designate “transgenderism” as a “mental illness.” The post Democrats’ New ‘Trans Bill of Rights’ Looks to Undo Trump Policies to Protect Women’s Spaces appeared first on The Daily Signal.

GENEVA, Feb 17 (Reuters) — Iran and the United States reached an understanding on Tuesday on main “guiding principles” in talks aimed at resolving their longstanding nuclear dispute, but that does not mean a deal is imminent, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said. Oil futures fell and the benchmark Brent crude contract tumbled more than 1% after Araghchi’s comments, which helped ease fears of conflict in the region, where the U.S. has deployed a battle force to press Tehran for concessions. “Different ideas have been presented, these ideas have been seriously discussed, ultimately we’ve been able to reach a general agreement on some guiding principles,” Araghchi told Iranian media after the talks concluded in Geneva. A U.S. official said Iran would make detailed proposals in the next two weeks to close gaps in the nuclear talks. “Progress was made, but there are still a lot of details to discuss,” said the official, who declined to be identified. Both Sides Have ‘Clear Next Steps’ The indirect discussions between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside Araqchi, were mediated by Oman. The White House did not respond to emailed questions about the meeting. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi said in a post on X “much work is yet to be done” but Iran and the U.S. were leaving with “clear next steps”. Just as talks began on Tuesday, Iranian state media said Iran would temporarily shut part of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil supply route, due to “security precautions” while Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards conducted military drills there. Tehran has in the past threatened to shut down the strait to commercial shipping if it is attacked, a move that would choke off a fifth of global oil flows and drive up crude prices. Responding to comments by Trump that “regime change” in Iran might be the best course, the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, warned that any U.S. attempts to depose his government would fail. “The U.S. President says their army is the world’s strongest, but the strongest army in the world can sometimes be slapped so hard it cannot get up,” he said, in comments published by Iranian media. Speaking at a disarmament conference in Geneva after the talks, Araghchi said that a “new window of opportunity” had opened and that he hoped discussions would lead to a “sustainable” solution that ensured the full recognition of Iran’s legitimate rights. Earlier, Trump said he himself would be involved “indirectly” in the Geneva talks and that he believed Tehran wanted to make a deal. “I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday. “We could have had a deal instead of sending the B-2s in to knock out their nuclear potential. And we had to send the B-2s.” The U.S. joined Israel last June in bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. The U.S. and Israel believe Iran aspires to build a nuclear weapon that could threaten Israel’s existence. Iran says its nuclear programme is purely peaceful, even though it has enriched uranium far beyond the purity needed for power generation, and close to what is required for a bomb. Iran Says It Will Only Discuss Nuclear Program Since those strikes, Iran’s Islamic rulers have been weakened by street protests, suppressed at a cost of thousands of lives, against a cost-of-living crisis driven in part by international sanctions that have strangled Iran’s oil income. Washington has sought to expand the scope of talks to non-nuclear issues such as Iran’s missile stockpile. Tehran says it is willing only to discuss curbs on its nuclear program—in exchange for sanctions relief—and that it will not give up uranium enrichment completely or discuss its missile program. Khamenei reiterated Iran’s position that its formidable missile stockpile is non-negotiable and missile type and range have nothing to do with the United States. A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday the success of the Geneva talks hinged on the U.S. not making unrealistic demands and on its seriousness on lifting the crippling sanctions on Iran. (Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Elwely Elwelly in Dubai, Menna Alaa El-Din in Cairo, Humeyra Pamuk in Budapest, Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru, Steve Holland in Washington, Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Lincoln Feast, Sharon Singleton and Gareth Jones) The post Iranian Foreign Minister Says Progress Made in Nuclear Talks With US appeared first on The Daily Signal.

They took in two kittens and a cat thought to be their mother, only to discover the gentle protector was a male. BestFriendsFelinesLast month, a concerned member of the public reached out to their local rescue, Best Friends Felines, after finding three struggling cats in their yard.Two of them were around two months old, clinging to a much larger orange-and-white cat. Although the rescue was already at full capacity, they couldn't turn the trio away and stepped in to help. The team quickly secured the two starving kittens along with the adult cat they had been told was their mom.It didn't take long for the team to realize that the "mother cat" was, in fact, a male. BestFriendsFelinesRescuers carefully combed the area to ensure no other cats or kittens had been left behind. After an extensive search, none were found. "Due to the state of the kittens, we suspect their mother cat has moved on," the rescue shared.The kittens, named Dobby and Gremlin, were underweight, dirty, and terrified of people, but they were finally safe. BestFriendsFelinesThe orange-and-white cat, named Linkle, was estimated to be around 18 months old. Gentle and sweet-natured, he didn't mind the kittens clinging to him or hiding behind him for comfort. "Even though life hasn't started off well for him, he has a huge heart and has shown great courage."From day one, Linkle stepped into the role of big brother, "snuggling up to the kittens, keeping them warm, and offering quiet comfort like a true little guardian." BestFriendsFelinesLinkle arrived with visible battle scars across his face, clear signs of a difficult life on the streets. Despite everything he'd been through, he made it his mission to protect the little ones. He was incredibly tolerant, allowing them to use him as a shield as they adjusted to their new world."Not long after coming into care, Linkle was seen giving one of the kittens a protective cuddle while they were all curled up sleeping. It just melted our hearts." LinkleBestFriendsFelinesLinkle surprised his foster family when he began playing "a game of cat footsies" not long after arriving. Though he was nervous, he showed just how much love he still had in him and how deeply he wanted to trust.The kittens are warming up to their people and learning that they always bring food. "Dobby is obsessed with bunny-kicking toys that are much bigger than he is and loves napping on a pair of dumbbells." DobbyBestFriendsFelinesGremlin, the smaller of the two, is a fluffy bundle with the most charming wispy ear tufts. He may be tiny, but what he lacks in size, he more than makes up for in personality. He loves tube treats and will race across the room to tackle his brother.Linkle is growing more confident by the day, settling into indoor life and warming up to the idea that humans can be trusted. He's discovered his reflection in the mirrors and developed a love for treats, but whenever his little brothers demand attention, he's right there, ready to shower them with affection. GremlinBestFriendsFelinesThanks to the timely rescue, Linkle and the kittens no longer have to worry about where their next meal will come from. Every night, they nestle together in a warm bed and fall asleep to the soothing sound of their purrs.Linkle remains a devoted big brother with so much love to give. "With patience, love, and a safe home, we know Linkle's true colors are going to shine. Whoever gets to call him theirs will be very lucky indeed." BestFriendsFelinesShare this story with your friends. More on Linkle, Gremlin, Dobby, and Best Friends Felines on Instagram @bestfriendsfelines and Facebook.Related story: Couple Went to Shelter Just to 'Look at' a Cat with Enormous Cheeks, It Turned Out to Be So Much More

Gavin Newsom Gets Ratioed for His Dumbest Tweet Ever

On Monday afternoon in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, there was sadly the latest case of trangender violence inflicted on innocents refusing to celebrate their deranged life choices and rejection of basic biology as a man pretending to be a woman stormed his son’s high school hockey game and killed two, injuring three, and dying by suicide. By Tuesday morning when these facts had come to light, ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS Mornings barely covered it and did the bidding the pro-trans cult by minimizing the shooter’s delusions. Despite having an editor-in-chief in Bari Weiss who made a name for herself in part by being anti-woke and a believer of basic biology, CBS Mornings only gave it 27 seconds courtesy of a five-sentence news brief from featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers. WATCH: This 27-second news brief was all the Bari Weiss-led ‘CBS Mornings’ had on the transgender shooter who killed two and injured three at a Rhode Island youth hockey game. Notice Vlad Duthiers refused to call the shooter transgender, only saying “the shooter had a history of… pic.twitter.com/phpOa0aLPe — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 17, 2026 The only allusion to the shooter was when he said in the third sentence that CBS’s “Rhode Island affiliate WPRI obtained court records showing that the shooter had a history of conflicts with family, some involving the shooter’s gender identity.” Duthiers stayed away from having to render judgement on the pronouns, instead calling Dorgan “the shooter.” ABC’s Good Morning America wasn’t any better in being honest with viewers about what happened. Co-host Michael Strahan twice teased “chaos” at the hockey game, adding in a second that the show would dive into “[w]hat we know about the person that stepped into help stop the gunman.” “Hockey rink horror. Deadly gunfire ringing out at a high school game. Young players and families run and skate for cover. This morning, what we know about the person who stepped into help stop the gunman,” co-host Robin Roberts said in another tease. Wait, neither respected Dorgan’s pronouns! Someone tell GLAAD. That rare dispensing with playing word games to please the trans mob continued into the actual coverage, which lasted a minute and 47 seconds. Co-host George Stephanopoulos began: “We’re gonna turn now to the deadly shooting at a high school hockey game in Rhode Island. The gunman killed two people, injured three more before killing himself.” Correspondent Stephanie Ramos only once identified Dorgan and his mental struggles at the very end, otherwise sticking to “the gunman” and the motive as having been “a targeted family dispute.” ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ did everything it could to completely omit the Rhode Island hockey shooter was transgender, only saying the shooter was “Robert Dorgan, who also went by Roberta.” Here was the closest Stephanie Ramos got at the very end... “Investigators say the… pic.twitter.com/pK9zpLYsDb — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 17, 2026 After describing the video from behind the player benches that caught the sounds of gunfire, Ramos finally arrived at the shooter, but didn’t show any of the glaring, striking images of the man cosplaying in tight dresses with a stuffed chest. All she said was the following: Investigators say the shooter, identified by police as 56-year-old Robert Dorgan who also went by Roberta, entered the arena carrying multiple weapons appearing to target a family member...His daughter telling WCVB he struggled with mental health issues. NBC’s Today went a different direction in both the amount of coverage (four minutes and 23 seconds) and going further than the others to emphasize the gunman’s motives being tied to being trans. In the first hour, co-host Craig Melvin threw to correspondent Emilie Ikeda on scene by explaining “we’re learning more about a terrifying shooting that unfolded in the middle of a high school hockey game in Rhode Island” that left “three people...dead, including the suspected shooter.” Ikeda said the game “was supposed to be a day of celebration — senior night for high school hockey players,” but “quickly turned into terror at this hockey rink” and collateral damage in “what police describe as an isolated, targeted family dispute[.]”  In contrast to ABC’s ‘GMA’ and ‘CBS Mornings,’ NBC’s ‘Today’ had a segment in each hour about the Rhode Island transgender shooting and both times pointed out the shooter wanted to become a woman, showed photos of the man in a dress, defended trans Rep. McBride (D-DE) on X, and… pic.twitter.com/PQECIyn2h3 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 17, 2026 Following sound from a dispatcher and the Pawtucket police chief, Ikeda dipped into the shooter’s state of mind (or lack thereof). This was far less than one would want or would happen if, say, the shooter were a straight, white male with a MAGA hat: Overnight, authorities identifying the shooter as Robert Dorgan, who they say went by Roberta Espositso. Social media showing Dorgan discussing getting gender reassignment surgery and recently responding to attacks on a transgender congresswoman, writing “do not wonder why we Go BESERK.” Police say it appears the suspect died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, adding authorities retrieved multiple firearms from the scene. They say one person tried to subdue the shooter. Incredibly, Dorgan appeared to have had some white supremacist tattoos (including an “SS”), meaning this would have been a way bigger story in the press if he weren’t insisting he’s a woman. “And Pawtucket police say the shooter was attending the hockey game to watch a family member. A woman who identified herself as the daughter of the suspect to other local media said, ‘he shot my family and was very sick with mental health issues.’ Local, state, and federal authorities including the FBI now on the ground and investigating exactly what happened,” she later concluded. The second hour saw Ikeda hit a few highlights in a live shot (click “expand”): High school hockey players were on the ice when gunshots began to ring out, sending players and spectators scrambling for safety. Police say that a gunman opened fire around 2:30 yesterday afternoon killing two people and critically injuring three others. They have since recovered multiple firearms at the scene behind me as the investigation continues. And they believe that a Good Samaritan actually stepped in and likely prevented further bloodshed. Overnight, they identified the suspected gunman as Robert Doragan, born in 1969, they say, who also goes by Roberta, seen on social media discussing getting gender reassignment surgery. Doragan, they believe, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They say this was the result of an isolated — and this was a family dispute. Local, state, and federal officials, including the FBI, now on the ground investigating exactly what happened. Here in Pawtucket, we’re less than five miles away from Brown University, where two months ago, a mass shooting killed two students and injured nine others. The governor posting that the state is grieving again To see the relevant transcripts from February 17, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

It didn't take long for a Chinese-owned AI company to get slapped with reality from American companies.ByteDance, known for its short-form video app TikTok, released Seedance 2.0 on February 12, allowing users to create realistic AI videos from simple text prompts.'Stealing human creators' work in an attempt to replace them with AI generated slop is destructive to our culture.'Quickly, users were recreating lifelike scenes that included everything from influencer videos to Hollywood action sequences. However, it only took Hollywood about 24 hours to make the call to its legal teams about what was being posted online that featured its copyright-protected material.Disney was seemingly the first to let ByteDance know it needed to stop what it was doing, and the company sent a letter to ByteDance that accused it of pre-packaging its product with "a pirated library of Disney's copyrighted characters from Star Wars, Marvel, and other Disney franchises, as if Disney's coveted intellectual property were free public domain clip art."According to Axios, Disney attorney David Singer also accused ByteDance of "hijacking Disney's characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works.""ByteDance's virtual smash-and-grab of Disney's IP is willful, pervasive, and totally unacceptable," the lawyer added.In response, ByteDance assured the concerned parties that it would be acting to prevent the use of unauthorized materials.RELATED: Amazon's Ring is running a spy ring from your home. Here's how to turn it off. The company told CNBC that it "respects intellectual property rights" and has "heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0.""We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users," a spokesperson claimed. It wasn't long before huge groups like the Motion Picture Association jumped in to back Disney up; the MPA represents not only the Mickey Mouse company, but Netflix, Paramount Skydance, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros., and Discovery."In a single day, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has engaged in unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale," MPA chairman Charles Rivkin said in the statement.Rivkin said the "infringement" affects "millions of American jobs" by disregarding the well-established copyright laws that are already on the books.The Human Artistry Campaign — which represents groups like SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America — also chimed in and said that Seedance 2.0 was attacking every creator around the world."Stealing human creators' work in an attempt to replace them with AI generated slop is destructive to our culture: stealing isn't innovation," the group said in a statement.RELATED: Scammers are now using AI chatbots for financial extortion For reasons unknown, the AI video generator became popular very quickly with those looking to recreate Hollywood-tier fight scenes with some of their favorite comic book characters, like Superman and the Incredible Hulk.However, other fight scenes included bringing cartoons like "Dragon Ball Z" to life, while others featured rooftop fisticuffs between celebrities like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Flickr/Wikimedia CommonsPattie Boyd with George Harrison in 1966 (left), and Eric Clapton on guitar in 1975 (right). There are women who marry rock stars, and then there’s the woman who married two rock legends. Pattie Boyd was a blonde, doe-eyed girl from South West England. After finding success in modeling, she was cast in the 1964 Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night. She had a single, one-word line. But a more notable result of her casting was meeting George Harrison, whom she went on to marry. Though her relationship with Harrison would not last forever, it did lead to her meeting his good friend Eric Clapton — who would be her next husband. Pattie Boyd’s Fateful Encounter With George Harrison And Their Famous Marriage Wikimedia CommonsPattie Boyd, pictured in 1965. Born in Somerset, England on March 17, 1944, Pattie Boyd eventually moved to London in 1962. She found work as a shampoo girl at a beauty salon, but was soon inspired to pursue modeling after an agent approached her with a new job offer. Her modeling career quickly took off, and before long, she was posing for some of the best fashion photographers in New York and Paris. She eventually worked her way to the front cover of Vogue magazine. In 1964, Boyd received a different type of call from her agent. He told her to report to London’s Paddington Station, because she had been given a small bit role in a film involving the Beatles, amidst the rise of Beatlemania. In A Hard Day’s Night, Boyd played a schoolgirl, whose only line was the word “Prisoners.” Small a role as it may have been, it was enough to get George Harrison to notice her, as she instantly caught his eye. While the two were still on set together, Harrison asked Boyd to go out with him. More specifically, he asked her, “Will you marry me?” Boyd had a boyfriend at the time, so she initially declined his proposal. “Are you completely mad? Dump the boyfriend immediately,” Boyd recalled a friend saying to her. “So I did.” Pattie Boyd and George Harrison soon became an iconic couple. He was the Quiet Beatle, she was the Vogue model. When they actually did get married in 1966, Boyd said, “I was so happy I thought I might burst.” Their marriage was marked by several milestones. The Beatles song “Something,” from the album Abbey Road, was written for Boyd by Harrison. Boyd also claimed that she was the one who introduced Harrison to meditation, leading to the Beatles’ highly publicized trip to India in 1968. Meanwhile, Harrison and the Beatles introduced the formerly innocent Boyd to drugs like LSD, and by 1969, Boyd and Harrison had been arrested for marijuana possession following a police raid. Despite the excitement, Boyd claimed that after returning from India, Harrison’s spirituality made him increasingly isolated. He would spend hours alone chanting and meditating, and before long, the pair’s marriage suffered. How Pattie Boyd Was Drawn To Eric Clapton — And How That Relationship Also Deteriorated Universal Images Group North America LLC/AlamyEric Clapton and Pattie Boyd, pictured together in London in 1974. In the meantime, George Harrison had become good friends with guitarist Eric Clapton, who had been visiting Harrison’s home more frequently. Pattie Boyd could tell early on that Clapton was interested in her. Thus began the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll love triangle. Whenever Boyd felt neglected by Harrison, Clapton showered her with attention and compliments. It wasn’t just light-hearted flirting either, as Clapton soon grew infatuated with Boyd, and he wasn’t shy about sharing his feelings with her. As Boyd recalled, Clapton invited her over to the London apartment that he shared with his Derek and the Dominos bandmates. He wanted to play her a song he was working on. “It was the most incredible song,” she remembered. The song he played was about a man who was completely captivated by a woman, begging her to be his. That song was “Layla,” and it is arguably one of Eric Clapton’s most famous songs to date. As it turned out, there was a party planned for that exact same evening. Pattie Boyd, George Harrison, and Eric Clapton were all in attendance. At one point during the gathering, Clapton nonchalantly went up to Harrison and said, “I have to tell you something. I’m in love with your wife.” Harrison was reportedly furious after hearing this, telling Boyd in a bout of anger to just go off with Clapton. She didn’t. Instead, she stayed with Harrison for another three years. What ultimately made Boyd leave him was the discovery of an affair that Harrison was having. In true rock ‘n’ roll fashion, it was with Maureen Starkey, the wife of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. Pattie Boyd and Eric Clapton later moved in together and eventually married in 1979. At first glance, it seemed like both had gotten their happy ending. But Boyd and Clapton’s relationship was also riddled with turmoil. Not only were there alleged affairs on both sides, but Clapton’s alcoholism also complicated matters. Eventually, Boyd found out that Clapton had a baby by another woman, resulting in a separation in 1987 and a divorce in 1989. As dramatic as the situation seemed, Clapton’s friendship with Harrison somehow survived. Harrison even once said this of Boyd and Clapton’s relationship: “I’d rather she be with him than some dope.” Wikimedia CommonsA more recent photo of Pattie Boyd, taken in 2018 in Liverpool. When Harrison died in 2001 after a battle with cancer, Clapton was the musical director for the “Concert for George” tribute show. And shortly before Harrison perished, he made sure to visit Boyd so he could say goodbye. As Boyd remembered: “He came with some little gifts and we played music and had some tea. It was lovely to see him, but I knew he wasn’t well. I sensed that he wanted to see me rather than leave it too late.” Boyd went on to marry a third time in 2015. It was her first marriage to a non-musician — Rod Weston, a former property developer. In more recent years, she has also made a name for herself as a photographer, even publishing books like Pattie Boyd: My Life in Pictures. Rediscovering photos she’d taken in the past (including some of fellow celebrities) inspired her to share them with the wider world. And though she had first risen to fame as a subject of photography, she was clearly just as happy behind the camera as she was in front of it. After reading about Pattie Boyd, go inside the surprising stories behind nine of your favorite Beatles songs. Then, learn about Brian Epstein, the man who discovered the Beatles. The post Inside The Life Of Pattie Boyd, The Swinging ’60s Icon And Rock ‘N’ Roll Muse appeared first on All That's Interesting.