This could help recovery.

Will Georgia Children Be Protected From Adult Groomers?

In the heart of Milwaukee‚ a spirited 16-year-old Shih Tzu known for his love of adventure found himself at the center of an unexpected journey. His human‚ Jenny Hazard‚ reminisces about his younger days as a “runner‚” a trait that foreshadowed the evening’s events. As it turns out‚ Bear isn’t done with his adventuring just... The post Woman searching for her missing senior dog finds him “hamming it up” at a local bar appeared first on Animal Channel.

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The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and a George Soros-funded organization are worried about a supposed lack of election censorship. A Feb. 10 PBS segment hysterically asked‚ “Can social media companies safeguard the 2024 election against misinformation?” To emphasize the supposed gravity of an alleged lack of election-interfering censorship‚ PBS cited the woke‚ conservative-hating Free Press‚ which also happens to have received multiple grants from Soros‚ the leftist billionaire and Democratic megadonor. PBS also brought on former Facebook Director of Public Policy Katie Harbath. She called for government-tech censorship collusion and approvingly described election censorship spending from Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok. Host John Yang said at the beginning of the segment‚ “In December‚ an advocacy group called‚ ‘Free Press’ said Meta‚ YouTube and X have rolled back a total of 17 policies intended to protect against hate speech and misinformation. The group also said layoffs at the three companies make it harder to enforce the safeguards that remain.” Yang condemned social media platforms’ concessions to free speech but also cited the Free Press‚ a demonstrably left-wing advocacy group‚ to do so. He later whined that Meta and Google allow ads questioning the honesty of the 2020 election. Blogs on Free Press’s website include such blatantly biased pieces as‚ “The Media Must Atone for Enabling Trump's Fascism.” The website of Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) shows four grants awarded to Free Press between 2017 and 2021‚ for a total of two million dollars. Free Press wasn’t the only biased source for the segment‚ though. Harbath complimented platforms that‚ according to her‚ are trying to keep elections “safe” from free speech. “Some‚ such as TikTok have invested a lot into this. In a recent hearing‚ their CEO [Shou Zi Chew] mentioned they're going to invest 2 billion into trust and safety‚” Harbath stated‚ before mentioning the billions Meta spent on election interference. Harbath confessed that Big Tech can “actually end up taking down more legitimate speech than probably what many people would want.” That didn’t prevent her from demanding more investment in Big Tech meddling in elections worldwide. She even urged tech-government collusion‚ especially in light of artificial intelligence. “But we absolutely need the government‚ too‚” the former Facebook executive asserted. A Media Research Center poll found in November 2020 that 17 percent of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s voters would not have voted for him had they known the scandals censored by Big Tech and the legacy media. Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency on AI‚ clarity on so-called hate speech and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored‚ contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form‚ and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

A leftist legal group heavily funded by leftist billionaire George Soros is trying to convince a federal appellate court that the First Amendment right to free speech doesn’t necessarily protect … free speech. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL) actually argued that if the speech in question could be considered to constitute the murky concept of “harmful election disinformation‚” First Amendment protections should be tossed to the curb. The group broke down its dystopian stance in a press release summarizing the sentiment of an amicus brief it filed with the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals for the ongoing United States v. Douglass Mackey case. Soros injected LCCRUL with at least $10‚729‚441 between 2016 and 2021 alone.  The LCCRUL’s extensive monetary connections to Soros are especially concerning given the latter’s deep investment into undercutting free speech online writ large. MRC Free Speech America released a study in September 2023 uncovering how Soros had funneled over $14.8 million to at least 50 leftist anti-free speech groups attempting to quash so-called “disinformation” online and elsewhere between 2017-2021. LCCRUL based its argument on the initial outcome of the Mackey case‚ which RealClearInvestigations Editor-at-Large Benjamin Weingarten referred to as a “straight-out-of-the-Soviet Union case.” The defendant — a Twitter troll — was sentenced to prison by a U.S. District Court judge for posting an anti-Hillary Clinton meme on his Twitter account in 2016. “Avoid the line. Vote from home. Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925‚” the spoof ad read. The Second Circuit Court later stayed the initial prison sentence in favor of Mackey until after his appeal was adjudicated. The Soros-funded LCCRUL was clearly triggered. "[T]he First Amendment does not protect efforts to spread harmful election disinformation with the intention of disenfranchising” voters‚ the group whined in its press release. In essence‚ objectionable speech on elections must be verboten‚ even if it’s a meme!  The LCCRUL even spun race into its argument by assuming that if the Court doesn’t adopt its dystopian anti-free speech view‚ minority voters will be too stupid to think for themselves. “[I]f the court provides protection to the kind of conduct at issue in Mackey‚ it has the potential to threaten the exercise of the right to vote by populations targeted by such deceptions—often Black communities and other communities of color.” In another amicus brief to the Second Circuit opposing the dystopian position‚ attorneys Russell B. Balikian &; Cody M. Poplin pointed out that Congress has established no federal statute prohibiting false speech about elections: The First Amendment likely tolerates narrow and clearly defined bans on disseminating knowing lies regarding election procedures—that is‚ false statements of fact (not opinion‚ humor‚ parody‚ hyperbole‚ or the like) made with actual malice regarding the time or place of an election‚ or the procedures one must follow to lawfully cast a valid vote. But Congress has not enacted any federal law that clearly criminalizes such conduct‚ [emphasis added.] In fact‚ Balikian and Poplin argued‚ “the district court's broad reading of Section 241 [of 18 U.S.C. that led to Mackey’s jailing] brings the statute into conflict with the First Amendment and risks chilling protected political speech.” The statute‚ as America First Legal pointed out in a press release on a separate brief it filed in support of Mackey‚ is “generally referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act.” Specifically‚ said AFL‚ “Speech about elections and political rivals – even if misleading or inaccurate‚ and especially satirical speech – is as old as democracy itself‚ yet no one ever thought Section 241 made that a crime." In its press release‚ AFL noted that it was “telling that the government has cited no cases where section 241 has been applied to deceptive speech on any topic.” The LCCRUL proceeded to racialize the case in its rant by diminishing minority voters’ capabilities to determine facts for themselves. “There continue to be significant developments in the technologies that allow people to create misleading and harmful election disinformation and deter marginalized communities from exercising their voting rights. Our democracy cannot afford to let this trend continue unchecked‚” propagandized LCCRUL senior counsel Marc Epstein in the press release. Free speech be damned! Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency‚ clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored‚ contact us at the Media Research Center contact form‚ and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

This week‚ I tried out the Apple Vision Pro. That’s the device you’ve been seeing on the news: the bulky‚ unwieldy headgear; the bizarre images of people attempting to manipulate the air in front of them; even some people driving while looking like Geordi La Forge from “Star Trek.” It’s extraordinary. As a piece of technology‚ I’ve never seen anything like it. It takes the apps on your phone and places them in the world around you: you can pin them in various rooms in your home. This essentially makes television extraneous; it allows you to post lists of groceries on your refrigerator; it allows you to speak with people in real-time while navigating the real world. The graphics are in the early stages‚ but they’re just as mind-boggling: one app called Encounter Dinosaurs introduces you into a prehistoric landscape‚ complete with dinosaurs. Remember how terrible movie 3D is? This is nothing like that. It’s totally immersive‚ and reacts to you. So‚ what does this mean? On a raw level‚ it means that entertainment like movies and gaming will be leagues better than anything now available. You’ll be fighting with a lightsaber like Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars”; you’ll be surfing waves along with Kelly Slater. You’ll also be in landscapes far from your office or cubicle — you can already seat yourself in the midst of a nature landscape near Mount Hood‚ complete with soundscapes and full 360-degree view. But as the technology progresses‚ it means something far more dangerous: the complete transformation of human relations. Why? Because right now‚ everyone knows that you’re engaging in a mixed reality; after all‚ you look like an idiot wearing around scuba gear in broad daylight. But presumably‚ the technology will get smaller and less obtrusive. It’s not hard to foresee a future when people will have all the same capabilities and more‚ but projected into contact-lens type technologies. And when that happens‚ everything changes. Imagine walking around‚ being able to access answers to any question by referring to ChatGPT — without anyone knowing you’re doing so. Every conversation becomes a supplemented conversation. Every job interview becomes a test of AI rather than a test of the human being. Every date becomes a date between two AI prompts. Or imagine a shared reality in which everyone wearing the technology sees the filters projected by others — so that normal human appearance disappears‚ corrected by the technology toward the unobtainable ideal. Imagine an even more dystopian world in which Apple or another major corporation controls what you see and hear by barring certain content or mandating certain language. The world of supplemented reality can open new vistas. But it can also become jet fuel for human frailty and sin‚ the same way smartphones have been. Imagine children growing up with such technology‚ removed from the normal consequences of life‚ their thinking atrophied by AI superpower‚ never having experienced the difficulty and beauty of normal human relationships. We are opening a can of worms here. And that can of worms can’t be closed. All of which means that even as our society throws away classical virtue‚ nothing is more necessary than its rapid reinstitution. If we advance technology and give people new capacities while ignoring the natural limitations of human beings‚ we are likely to meet with the ugly consequences of unknown unknowns.

Washington‚ D.C.‚ cops attempting to make an arrest in connection with alleged animal cruelty were met with a barrage of bullets‚ prompting a standoff that remains ongoing as of Wednesday afternoon.At 7:30 on Wednesday morning‚ police officers with the Criminal Apprehension Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department joined members of the Humane Rescue Alliance to execute an arrest warrant for suspected animal cruelty at a residence in a southeastern neighborhood of our nation's capital. Officials knocked on the door and asked the male suspect to exit the residence. Rather than comply‚ the man reportedly opened fire‚ wounding three officers‚ before barricading himself inside. As of Wednesday afternoon‚ the suspect‚ whose name has not been released‚ remains in his residence as crisis negotiators attempt to draw the standoff to a peaceful resolution.So far‚ they haven't succeeded. Chief Pamela Smith told reporters‚ "This remains an active situation and the individual has continued to fire from that location." Smith also seized the opportunity to call for harsher punishments for gun-related crimes‚ Politico reported.Meanwhile‚ the three officers were swiftly transported to Medstar Washington Hospital Center and treated for non-life-threatening injuries. One officer sustained two shots that‚ thankfully‚ both struck his protective gear. The other two officers sustained wounds to their "lower extremities‚" D.C. police union chairman Greggory Pemberton stated‚ according to the New York Post.A fourth officer was also injured during the incident‚ though not by gunfire. No other details regarding that officer's injury have been reported.Because of the ongoing standoff‚ several roads have been blocked off and two elementary schools in the area placed on lockdown. A third school is on "secure status‚" preventing students and staff from entering or exiting the building‚ but instruction has otherwise continued as normal.Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol‚ Tobacco‚ Firearms &; Explosives are also on the scene.Humane Rescue Alliance Field Services Director Dan D'Eramo issued a statement in response to the shooting: "Our thoughts are with our partners at MPD who are being treated in the hospital and we are wishing them all the best in their recovery. We could not fulfill our mission without them. We are also concerned for the safety of the officers who remain on scene‚ the community members who continue to be affected‚ and the animals whom we were there to protect."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors‚ sign up for our newsletters‚ and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

California may be forced to cover at least $300 million spent on its COVID-era housing program after a "retroactive" rule change prompted the Federal Emergency Management Agency to place caps on reimbursements‚ the New York Post reported.In March 2020‚ California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom enacted Project Room Key‚ a program that placed homeless people into empty hotel rooms to cut back on the spread of COVID-19.FEMA officials guaranteed it would reimburse California cities and counties 75% of the program's cost. Later‚ it stated it would reimburse the entire cost through July 1‚ 2022‚ and then 90% after that. However‚ in October‚ the federal agency stated that it would not provide reimbursements for many hotel stays longer than 20 days between June 2021 and May 2023‚ according to the San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco officials claimed they were blindsided by the October announcement and would have acted differently if the reimbursement cap had been shared previously. According to data reported by the San Francisco Chronicle‚ the city spent $84‚600 to house each homeless person. San Francisco wants federal taxpayers to cover the $190 million spent to house 5‚000 people.California Office of Emergency Services Director Nancy Ward sent FEMA a memo in January calling on the agency to reverse its decision. According to Ward‚ FEMA "inconsistently" applied its policy across the nation.San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin stated‚ "It's not over until FEMA sings‚ and we're not done."In a letter to FEMA officials‚ San Francisco Controller Ben Rosenfield accused the agency of implementing an "impermissible retroactive law.""We intend to explore every option to appeal any claims denied by FEMA Region 9 that we believe to be eligible for reimbursement‚ based on the guidance in effect at the time‚" he said.According to city officials‚ FEMA's refusal to cover the expenses could pose a "significant potential risk" to its budget. Without reimbursements from FEMA‚ Sonoma County could be on the hook for $32 million and San Diego County for $28 million‚ Cal Matters reported.Daniel Lopez‚ a spokesperson for Newsom's office‚ told Cal Matters that the governor's office looks forward to FEMA "honoring its commitments."FEMA told the Post that all states were provided "the same guidance and policy updates throughout the pandemic." "FEMA is committed to working with each impacted jurisdiction on all requests for federal funding to maximize reimbursement for the appropriate life-saving measures they implemented to protect their citizens from COVID-19‚ while also ensuring the appropriate oversight of federal funds‚" it added.The agency is still reviewing funding requests submitted by states‚ cities‚ and other jurisdictions. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors‚ sign up for our newsletters‚ and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Since the first man‚ the human race has expanded and developed in a simple way: A man and a woman have sex‚ and a man's sperm fertilizes the woman's egg. Within four days of fertilization‚ a tiny cluster of cells begins to develop – the embryo. That embryo‚ which has now expanded to around 100 cells filled with fluid‚ travels along the fallopian tube and‚ within a week of conception‚ resides in the uterus‚ anchoring into the mother's body‚ growing by drawing nutrition from blood vessels and glands. Within two months of conception‚ the embryo becomes a fetus and‚ after nine months‚ a baby. This is a miracle of human nature you likely learned in science class – and is solely down to the wonder of a mother's womb. Infertility rates are rising by 1% every year in men. "By 2045‚ if that trend continues‚ the majority of couples would need reproductive assistance‚" Cohen says. However‚ a minority of the scientific community have taken a different view. These scientists have a plan to remove the human from the post-conception process – to grow embryos independent of a womb and instead to nurture them artificially. The ability to independently develop a human being outside a mother's womb would have enormous ramifications for society and the human race. "What does it mean for society when we can produce children without any burden on women?" asks Maneesh Juneja‚ a digital health futurist. "It would have huge economic and societal effects." Its potential has been backed by the likes of Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin‚ who have both said that the development of artificial wombs could solve the world's imminent population crisis. The potential ramifications of this research are so significant that there are plenty of competing projects to try to bring artificial wombs out of the laboratory and into reality. Exo-Genesis‚ a community looking to promote the development of extra-uterine devices that can grow human babies in vitro‚ held its first in-person meetup in San Francisco in late February. Among the attendees was Divya Cohen‚ a medical doctor‚ MBA‚ and MPA with nearly two decades of experience in health tech startups. "I feel very strongly that we need to make this a reality‚" says Cohen. About 13% of women want to be mothers but don't want to go through pregnancy. Infertility rates are rising by 1% every year in men. "By 2045‚ if that trend continues‚ the majority of couples would need reproductive assistance‚" Cohen says. "This isn't the only technology that would be useful‚ but it's certainly a tool." Technological wombs gremlin/getty It's a technology that is reportedly being developed in university laboratories around the globe. China's Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology claimed to have developed an AI-based technology that can nanny human embryos in artificial wombs by monitoring levels of nutrition and carbon dioxide in artificial environments that help grow embryos to term – a key issue in previous experiments that have tried to develop embryos outside a natural womb. The goal of the AI is to mimic the inexplicable alterations and changes that a mother's body subconsciously undergoes to nurture an embryo throughout pregnancy – and that is easier said than done. While AI gained plenty of attention and many news stories‚ the reality is more prosaic: The technology hasn't been tested in humans. Despite the splashy headlines‚ it isn't guaranteed to be all that effective. One project at the forefront of artificial womb development – one of three papers discussed at the Exo-Genesis meeting in San Francisco – was based in the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot‚ Israel. Alejandro Aguilera Castrejon is the lead author of the project to gestate a mouse embryo. "The goal is to inject human cells into embryos to create chimeric models‚" says Aguilera Castrejon. So-called chimeric models‚ where human cells are injected into the embryos of other species and then tracked to model as closely as possible what would happen to the human cells in the embryonic stage‚ are used because it's impossible to conduct laboratory tests on human embryos. Prior experiments had allowed similar chimeric-modeled embryos for two days – but Aguilera Castrejon's carefully monitored conditions permitted the embryo to grow for six days after it was implanted into a mouse‚ five days after fertilization. He and his colleagues are now working on starting the same process to grow embryos from day zero of fertilization rather than day five. The hope is that similar methods can be applied to humans. But there are some issues. The mouse embryos Aguilera Castrejon works with die after day eleven of the fertilization process because they become too big‚ preventing the oxygen and nutrients that would help them grow further from entering the embryo. "They basically die‚" he says. That problem with mouse embryos is likely to be compounded with humans. Another challenge Aguilera Castrejon and his colleagues faced was keeping the embryo free of infection and contamination – an issue exacerbated should a similar experiment take place with human embryos because they take longer to develop. A mouse pregnancy lasts twenty days; humans‚ nine months. "The longer you have the embryo in culture‚ there are more things that can go wrong‚" he says. The 29-year-old researcher‚ who has been working on his project for five years‚ believes that artificial human wombs are a while off. "In mice‚ I would say maybe it'll be a reality in ten years‚" he says. In humans? "I don't think I'll live to see humans‚" he says. Aguilera Castrejon believes it'll take "at least fifty years" for science to bring a human embryo to full term and that it's not just the technological and biological challenges of doing so that are preventing development. In Israel‚ even if Aguilera Castrejon and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute had the technical knowledge to grow a human embryo for the first month of its formation‚ they couldn't. "Maybe at some point society will advance to allow us to be born outside the uterus‚" he says. "I think technically this will be possible‚ but the main limit is the ethical aspect." Regulations are being removed In May 2021‚ the stem cell research community's public voice‚ the International Society for Stem Cell Research‚ dropped a rule that had previously prevented human embryos from being cultured for more than fourteen days. Some concerns remain about mixing human stem cells and non-human embryos in chimeric models – most recently over a 2021 U.S.-China project that combined humans with macaque monkeys – but there is a growing acknowledgment that such experiments are necessary steps for the future of fertility. While Aguilera Castrejon is pessimistic that babies grown outside their mothers' wombs will be born in his lifetime‚ he does see a shift in attitudes‚ even in his five years in the field. For Cohen‚ the conversation must move beyond the field into the wider world. When she brings up the topic with her friends in science‚ they too often don't know about the risk of a potential population crisis. "We want [the rate of population replacement] to be 2.1‚ but in the U.S. it's 1.6‚ and in Japan it's 1.3‚" she says. "That means that we are very quickly turning into an upside-down pyramid society. If that continues‚ we're going to be in serious trouble by then. I think we could see a future similar to 'The Handmaid's Tale.' I used to read that book and thought it would never happen – but now the science suggests it could happen." As for Aguilera Castrejon's skepticism about whether it's possible in his lifetime‚ Cohen says that we need less talking and more action. "I'm worried we're seeing a trend where that's going to hit us in 2045‚ and there are two alternatives‚" she says. "One is we get into this scary dystopian future‚ or we start working on the science and building what would help us outmaneuver that."