Inspired by an innovative Chilean forest restoration effort, the English town of Lewes is enlisting the help of dog walkers to rewild a local nature reserve. Heavily degraded by foot traffic, the project co-ops dogs’ tendency to run about in the woods to spread wildflower seed from saddlebags strapped to a harness around the dog’s […] The post Armed with Backpacks of Seeds, Local Pooches Enlisted to Help Rewild Urban Nature Reserve appeared first on Good News Network.

News Bagman After This Bagman Trailer, You’ll Never Look at Zippers the Same Way Again We’ll just never sleep again, it’s fine By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on July 30, 2024 Credit: Lionsgate Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Lionsgate I never thought that a zipper closing up could be terrifying, but then I watched the trailer for Bagman. The video lays out the premise of this horror movie from Lionsgate: the Bagman is a mythical creature that steals children, puts them in his bag, and eventually eats them. He is a scary story that has permeated across time and across cultures. Why, you may wonder? Because he’s real! Here’s the film’s official synopsis: In the dark horror film Bagman, a family finds themselves ensnared in a nightmare as they are hunted by a malevolent, mythical creature. For centuries and across cultures, parents have warned their children of the legendary Bagman, who snatches innocent children and stuffs them into his vile, rotting bag—never to be seen again. Patrick McKee (Sam Claflin) narrowly escaped such an encounter as a boy, which left him with lasting scars throughout his adulthood. Now, Patrick’s childhood tormentor has returned, threatening the safety of his wife Karina (Antonia Thomas) and son Jake (Caréll Rhoden). The movie comes to us from director Colm McCarthy, whose previous credits include several episodes of Peaky Blinders, as well as Doctor Who, Sherlock, and the Black Mirror episode, “Black Museum.” It’s written by John Hulme. No news yet on when Bagman will make its way to a screen near you. Though if the logline of the film is to believed, “he’s always closer than you think.” Something to ponder as you lay in bed at night trying to find sleep! Check out the trailer below. [end-mark] The post After This Bagman Trailer, You’ll Never Look at Zippers the Same Way Again appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Epic Fantasy Read an Excerpt From Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragons of Eternity An intrepid woman and her friends have inadvertently altered the future of their world—now they must try to restore time. By Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman | Published on July 30, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Dragons of Eternity, the final volume of the Dragonlance Destinies trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, out from Random House Worlds on August 6th. When Destina Rosethorn and her companions were transported to a time centuries before their birth—to the days of the Third Dragon War—the Graygem of Gargath brought chaos to the battlefield and changed the course of history. Upon returning to the Inn of the Last Home, where their journey began, Destina’s party discovered a world completely changed. The forces of evil now hold sway over their land.The River of Time is rising, flowing inexorably toward the present day. Destina and her friends must make one last, desperate attempt to restore time’s river to its proper channel. If they do not succeed, the altered past will sweep over the present until no trace of their old world remains. Tanis Half-Elven arrived at the Inn of the Last Home in the morning just before noon. He had flown on griffinback through a storm, and although he was wet and chilled, he looked about with pleasure. Autumn was his favorite time of year to visit Solace, when the vallenwood trees burned with golden flame. Even now, when dark clouds filled the sky and a steady rain seemed to try its best to quench the fire, the trees still brightened the dreary day.  Tanis had traveled from Palanthas, where he and his wife, Lau­rana, were trying to arrange a meeting of the Whitestone Council. Tanis was glad to be able to leave, get away from the talking and arguing, scheming and bargaining. The work he and Laurana were doing was good and would mean peace for Ansalon for many years. But the talks were tedious, frustrating, and slow-going.  Tanis had no formal role in the proceedings, which meant he could slip away from the meet­ings to pay a visit to his friends Tika and Caramon, to congratulate them on the birth of their second child. He was soaked through and dispirited by the time he reached the inn, but the familiar surroundings lifted his spirits. The inn was warm and crowded and noisy. Tika greeted him with a smile and scolded him for traveling through the storm. She took his cloak to dry by the fire, then led him to his usual table, which was located near the bar so that Caramon could join in the conversation while he worked. Buy the Book Dragons of Eternity Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman Buy Book Dragons of Eternity Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Tika and her husband, Caramon, were the inn’s proprietors, and she waited on customers while her husband reigned over the bar. “Shouldn’t you be resting?” Tanis asked, seeing her carrying four plates of spiced potatoes, balancing two on her forearms and holding one in each hand. “You just gave birth!” “I had a baby, not the plague,” said Tika. “Young Sturm’s down for his nap or I’d let you meet him.”  She moved among the tables, delivering the plates and mugs of ale, then came back to sit down beside Tanis. “Any word from Tas?” Tanis asked. “No,” said Tika, sighing. “I miss him. I’d give most of the spoons to have him back. I’m sick at heart with worry that something has happened to him. I never did trust that woman!” “What woman?” Tanis asked, unable to follow the leap in Tika’s conversation. “That Rosebush woman,” said Tika. “Wearing that horrid, ugly gem around her neck.” “Destina Rosethorn,” Caramon called from behind the bar. “You sent us that letter telling us about how you met with Astinus and found out that Destina had gone back in time to the Third Dragon War and taken Raistlin and Sturm and Tas with her.” “You’ve heard nothing of them since?” Tika asked. “I haven’t,” said Tanis. “Truth to tell, I’ve been so busy, I hadn’t thought about it. I guess I assumed that since I hadn’t heard any­thing, all was well and everyone had come back safely.” Tika shook her head. “We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Tas, and you know he would have come here to tell us his adventures.” “True,” said Tanis, troubled. “I’ll go see if your food’s ready,” Tika said, rising. She returned with a full plate and set it down in front of him. “Otik’s spiced potatoes—crispy, just the way you like them. Do you need anything else?” Tika asked. “You were going to bring me a mug of ale…” Tanis reminded her. “So I was!” said Tika, sighing. “I’m that worried, it slipped my mind. Maybe it’s the gloomy day, but I feel like trouble’s coming. Terrible trouble, and I don’t know what or why. I’ll fetch the ale.” Caramon handed the mug to Tika, who carried it back to Tanis. She was starting to sit down when she heard a baby crying. “He’s awake from his nap. I’ll introduce you.” Tika brought the baby to show Tanis, who smiled to see the fuzz of red hair that covered the baby’s head, a match to Tika’s own red curls. “Meet our little Sturm,” she said. “We thought we would name him after our dear friend.” “A fitting tribute,” said Tanis. Tika cradled the baby in one arm and picked up Tanis’s plate. She was heading to the kitchen when she suddenly gasped and dropped the plate on the floor as a column of shimmering air, like waves of heat rising off a sunbaked road, materialized in the center of the inn. Customers saw it and bounded to their feet in alarm. Some of them ran for the door. Others remained, either too hungry or too curious to depart. Tanis jumped up from the table, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Caramon handed Tika their older son and stood in front of his fam­ily, prepared to defend them. Reprinted from Dragons of Eternity: Dragonlance Destinies: Volume 3 by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. © 2024 Wizards of the Coast LLC. Published by Random House Worlds, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. The post Read an Excerpt From Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s <i>Dragons of Eternity</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from professor Peter St. Onge. The share of young adults still living with their parents just hit its highest level since 1940. Of course, in 1940, they lived at home because they were saving themselves for a good [husband or wife]. Today, they live at home because rat-infested, one-bedrooms cost 60 hours a week packing groceries. It’s getting worse fast: At age 25, 14% of the Silent Generation lived at home. It was 15% for Boomers. It was 20% for Gen X, 27% for millennials, and now it’s 30% of Gen Z. Taken all together, young adults living at home went from 7% in 1970 to 17% today and rising fast. Note that in 1970, most young adults living at home could afford to move out—60%. Today, that’s 18%. The other 82% are stuck. This is interesting because adults forced to live with their parents is yet another data point in the most important economic question today: Are we still getting richer or have we finally killed the golden goose that delivered rising incomes generation after generation since 1789? In other words, did socialism finally break the camel’s back? On that metric, apparently, we’ve been going backwards since 1970. So, what happened in 1970? President Richard Nixon. Namely, the bipartisan Washington spending orgy—guns and butter they called it, for the welfare superstate paired with the Vietnam War. That orgy led to a devaluation of the dollar; they’d spent too many into existence. Which led to Nixon temporarily ending gold convertibility on Aug. 15, 1971—yes, temporary in government does mean forever. At that point, it was off to the inflation races—and the debt races. In recent videos, I’ve talked about how inflation and debt drive income inequality, pumping up the assets of the rich and leaving the plebs with nothing but inflation. One consequence, apparently, is millions who can’t afford to live on their own until they’re 35—an age where their parents already had three kids in a house they owned—while they can’t even afford to rent. In case we wonder why nobody’s having kids, [economics writer Mike “Mish”] Shedlock dug into the numbers to see what’s driving it. For one thing, incomes are falling. Since 2000, the median real income for young adults has dropped by 10%, while rent has soared since COVID-19, up 25%, according to official numbers. The upshot is, just 18% of young adults living at home can afford to move out. Even those with college degrees are forced to live at home—1 in 8, which is double the rate in 1970. This is partly because of six-figure student loans, but even without student-loan payments, the percent who can afford to renttheir own place is at a record low. In short, the golden goose is on life support, whether or not you went to college. As bad as central banking is for the country—the inflation, the boom-bust recessions, the bank bailouts—it’s catastrophic for the young, who are fleeced to pump the bags of elderly millionaires. A few months ago, I quoted [NYU Stern School of Business marketing] professor Scott Galloway’s rant about how young voters are p—ed off about being poor and are ready to burn it all down. Unfortunately, few of them connect the dots that their tormentors are in Washington, and that they themselves have been the useful idiots who made it happen. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Young Adults Still Living at Home With Parents at Highest Rate in Nearly 85 Years appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Is Kamala Harris running for president or prom queen? Superficiality is nothing new in American politics, and Donald Trump certainly knows how to use playground tactics—like tagging opponents with childish, yet effectively humiliating, nicknames. Trump is about much more than taunts, however. From immigration to foreign policy and everywhere in between, he’s staked out clear and controversial positions. The Harris campaign, on the other hand, is trying its best to turn her into a featureless political mannequin. With a little help from friends in media and tech, Harris’ record as President Joe Biden’s “border czar” and America’s “most liberal” senator (according to GovTrack in 2019) is being erased. Wikipedia editors removed Harris from a page listing “executive branch czars,” while GovTrack “retracted” its single-year rankings soon after Biden dropped out of the presidential race and cleared the way for Harris. Aided by the salesmanship of sympathetic journalists, the Harris campaign so far has been all about vibes, not substance. The latest issue of New York Magazine even proclaims “Kamalot,” with a cover blurb boasting, “the Democratic Party discovered its future was actually in the White House all along.” Biden’s bid for a second term wasn’t struggling just because the president is too feeble to campaign. The Biden-Harris record by itself was enough to put the Democrats at a disadvantage. Harris knows her only hope of winning in November is to run on anything but that. Immigration, foreign crises, inflation—Harris is faced with all the failures of the administration she shares with Biden, without having his decades of experience to draw upon. So instead of making issues her signature—other than abortion—she’s conducting her campaign like it’s a deleted scene from “Mean Girls.” Like cliquish teenagers bullying their classmates, the Harris team has taken to labeling their rivals “weird.” Campaign statements and social media posts brand Trump “old and quite weird” and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, “weird” and “creepy.” Neither Republican is any stranger to name-calling, to be sure. Trump delights in it, while Vance has lately been pilloried in the press for remarks he once made about “childless cat ladies who are miserable.” The 2024 election is turning into a high-school popularity contest—who’s sitting at the cool kids’ lunch table? Yet Vance, like Trump, is unmistakably an issues candidate, with a focus on the needs of the working class and the irresponsibility of America’s elites. And his resume is anything but weird: Vance served his country during wartime in the Marines and had a successful business career before becoming a bestselling author. He’s married and the father of three children. Some Democrats might find the fact that Vance is a Catholic convert to be weird, but voters probably won’t—Biden’s Catholic affiliation certainly didn’t do him any harm at the polls. Yet Republican and Democratic tickets this year could both stand to learn, or re-learn, a lesson from 2016. Donald Trump won the White House that year because he gave hope to Americans who’d been written off by the likes of Hillary Clinton, and all too many in the GOP, as “deplorables.” Trump’s base doesn’t just consist of prosperous businessmen and happily married conservative Christians—it includes people who’ve lost jobs to bad trade deals and excessive immigration and lost loved ones or limbs to wars the politicians never knew how to win. Divorced men skew highly Republican; unmarried women, with or without cats, are overwhelmingly Democratic. In other contexts, Democrats pride themselves on being the party of the weird and misfit, the economic underdog and cultural outcast, but Harris is positioning herself as the queen of the in-crowd. The problem with running a campaign like a pep rally is that millions of Americans, especially in some of the mostly tightly contested Rust Belt states, aren’t cool enough for school: They’re adults with adult hardships. They need more than marketing campaigns from the candidates, and if Kamala Harris wants to be president, she’s going to have to talk about immigration, tariffs, the sky-high costs of groceries, housing, and raising a family—things that Vance has been talking about since he wrote “Hillbilly Elegy” and that Trump understood instinctively when he ran against the Republican establishment and beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. The trouble for Harris is that her most enthusiastic supporters are the media’s mean girls, not parents or working-class stiffs, who probably seem “weird” to the kids at places like New York Magazine. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Kamala Harris’ ‘Mean Girls’ Election appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Election Iranterference: Tehran Working to Stop Trump -- By Any Means Necessary

After a week off, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show returned on Monday with Jon Stewart in the anchor seat to recap President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside and Vice President Kamala Harris taking his spot as the Democratic presidential nominee. During a segment with correspondent Josh Johnson, the duo claimed that race-based attacks are all Republicans have and even implied that the party wants to call Harris the N-word. Stewart asked Johnson, who was pretending to be a reporter who had been given insight into GOP strategy towards Harris, “Josh, you’ve been down in D.C. What is the latest, Josh?” Johnson began by claiming that “Kamala Harris is a confusing candidate for Republicans. They feel she's too young to be president, but too old to be a woman.”     He also claimed, “They feel she's too young to be president, but too old to be a woman. But they do have some very promising areas of attack. She's too short. She's bad at video games, all of 'em… Oh, oh, and she laughs funny. You know, the laugh of a drunk girl who lost her purse and then realized she was actually wearing her purse the whole time. America hates that kinda laugh. It's not that funny, Stacey!” Stewart followed up by wondering, “Where do you think the attacks are going to land?” Switching to race, Johnson predicted, “Well, as you mentioned earlier, I really think the winner is going to be: ‘she's black!’ Sorry for yelling. That's how it was said to me.” Johnson then proceeded to rattle off a list of supposed Republican attacks on Harris, “No, they have all kinds of attacks ready. I'm seeing, uh, black. Black. Uh, black woman. I got this one: American-African. Which sounds scary when you flip it like that… they were looking at me when they said this one: ‘Like you, but lady.’ Also got some more: black, blackity black, urban, doesn't crack. At least they know. Ooh, I can't even say this one! Oh, my lord. ‘From Kenya.’ I think that one is leftover from the last time someone was – you know.” When Johnson claims, “I can’t even say this one,” it is clear what he is talking about. No Republican is going to be campaigning on the idea Harris is unqualified to be president because she is black or is fighting the urge to call her the N-word. The comedy shows, however, will continue to lie to their liberal audiences to make them feel better. Here is a transcript for the July 29 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 7/29/2024 11:15 PM ET JON STEWART: For more on the Republican response to Kamala Harris, we go live to Washington, D.C., with senior political correspondent Josh Johnson. Josh, thank you so much! Thanks for joining us! Josh, you’ve been down in D.C. What is the latest, Josh? JOSH JOHNSON: This is a tough one for them, Jon. Kamala Harris is a confusing candidate for Republicans. They feel she's too young to be president, but too old to be a woman. But they do have some very promising areas of attack. She's too short. She's bad at video games, all of 'em. Grand Theft Auto, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Super Mario Party, Mario Party Superstars, Grand Theft Mario Party. Oh, oh, and she laughs funny. You know, the laugh of a drunk girl who lost her purse and then realized she was actually wearing her purse the whole time. America hates that kinda laugh. It's not that funny, Stacey! STEWART: Where do you think the attacks are going to land? JOHNSON: Well, as you mentioned earlier, I really think the winner is going to be: “she's black!” STEWART: Okay. JOHNSON: Sorry for yelling. That's how it was said to me. STEWART: Just yelled, "She's black"? JOHNSON: No, they have all kinds of attacks ready. I'm seeing, uh, black. Black. Uh, black woman. I got this one: American-African. Which sounds scary when you flip it like that. STEWART: Yup, I could see that. I could see that.  JOHNSON: Oh, oh, ooh, they were looking at me when they said this one: "Like you, but lady." Also got some more: black, blackity black, urban, doesn't crack. At least they know. Ooh, I can't even say this one! Oh, my lord. "From Kenya." I think that one is leftover from the last time someone was -- you know. STEWART: Black? JOHNSON: You said it, not me. STEWART: So black on every page? JOHNSON: It's most of the words. STEWART: It's tough. JOHNSON: Yeah. Black to you, Jon.

The Cackling Coven of ABC’s The View largely embraced the new campaign message of Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats of calling any and everything about Republicans “weird.” They praised how “effective” it supposedly was. But, as co-host Joy Behar warned, it opened them up to people putting them under the magnifying glass; which is what NewsBusters will do here, highlighting a lot of their truly weird comments and takes. “I think the problem is that the GOP needs to convince voters that Trump and Vance are regular guys and they're not. They are weird just like they've been called,” proclaimed staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners). She would go on to argue in favor of using the word “weird” because it was “innocuous” and “benign.”     Moderator Whoopi Goldberg boasted: “Well, Democrats seem to have landed on this word that they think sums up the Republican ticket.” “Now, getting to the weird thing that they've really turned on the right, the Harris campaign is really kind of taken that weird. Think about it. People on the right say a lot of weird things,” declared pretend independent Sara Haines. “So, that is why that is so effective, is there is so much weird on the other side. But that pretty much sums it up.” Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin falsely claimed she didn’t like “name-calling” but liked throwing around the word “weird” because, “I don’t see as below the belt.” Behar seemingly knew this blog was coming because she warned the rest of the cast: “I don’t think you should use the word ‘weird.’… [It] opens the door for the other side to say, ‘Well, you think we're weird? Look at you.’” What’s actually weird was Farah Griffin once announcing on the show that she wouldn’t have an issue with her husband having a drunken one-night stand as long as he didn’t fall in love: “I could forgive, like, a drunken hookup mistake. I could not forgive falling in love with someone else." She later doubled down on it, and then explained how to introduce another lover into a relationship.   Alyssa Farah Griffin says she'd be cool with her husband getting drunk and having sex with someone else and not telling her. "I could forgive, like, a drunken hookup mistake. I could not forgive falling in love with someone else." pic.twitter.com/2jemVtYSon — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 6, 2023   Haines also found it “weird” that Republicans didn’t think drag shows were an appropriate place for kids to be. What’s actually weird was Haines once insisting: “So, I've always found everyone belongs at a drag show.” Fake Republican Ana Navarro also weirdly argued that drag shows are fine for kids because drag queens had never killed anyone, which was also a falsehood. Goldberg was arguably the queen of weird on The View. She recently argued that even if President Biden had “pooped his pants” she’d still vote for him, adding that she too had “poopy days all the time.” There was also the time she falsely suggested the Holocaust wasn’t about race and doubled down on it by saying Jews were better at hiding than blacks; that was pretty weird.   Whoopi: "I don't care if [Biden] pooped his pants. I don't care if he can't put a sentence together. Show me he can't do the job, and then I'll say, okay, maybe it's time to go...I have poopy day all the time. All the time." pic.twitter.com/QlMHzH8LF9 — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 8, 2024   As for Hostin, there was the time she weirdly announced that she had inspected Ambassador Nikki Haley’s vagina: “I remember when Hillary Clinton was running, there was a lot of talk about ‘I don't vote for someone just because she has a vagina.’ Well, last I checked Nikki Haley has one too.” And she has repeatedly recounted how she once stole all of her then-boyfriend/now-husband’s phones and threw them onto a highway because he hung up on her once.   Mentally unstable Sunny Hostin retells the story of how she got revenge on her then-boyfriend/now-husband by going into his home, stealing all his phones, and throwing them on the highway to be run over. "If you don't have proper phone etiquette you don't need a phone." pic.twitter.com/hkCGUgCWSY — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) March 24, 2023   There was also the time the cast had a conversation about if having sex with a ghost counted as cheating and Behar said: “I've had sex with a few ghosts that have got pregnant.” Farah Griffin admitted: “Honestly, I need the positive reinforcement in my life being like ‘oh baby, oh baby’ outside the shower, even if it’s a ghost. I’ll take it.”   "If you have sex with a ghost, do you get pregnant?" - Sara Haines "Is it cheating?" - Alyssa Farah Griffin "You're not cheating if it's a ghost." - Sunny Hostin "I've had sex with a few ghosts that have got pregnant." - Joy Behar "I'm going to let it ride." Whoopi Goldberg pic.twitter.com/jMc92JzyOG — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 20, 2022   In the weird words of Captain America, “I can do this all day.” The transcript is below. Click "expand' to read: ABC’s The View July 30, 2024 11:04:08 a.m. Eastern (…) SUNNY HOSTIN: I think it's just going to get worse. I think that the bar is already low and we've heard the attacks. She didn't earn it. She is a DEI candidate. Some people are calling her crazy. They're calling her dumb. Which is -- WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Don't they do that to women all the time? HOSTIN: All the time and specially, unfortunately women of color. But you know, I think the problem is that the GOP needs to convince voters that Trump and Vance – GOLDBERG: And themselves. HOSTIN: - are regular guys and they're not. They are weird just like they've been called. [Applause] GOLDBERG: Well, Democrats seem to have landed on this word that they think sums up the Republican ticket. [Montage of Democrats calling Republican “weird”] [Cackling laughter from the co-hosts] GOLDBERG: So, I mean really the question is, what on God's green Earth makes them think that taunting people and women in particular -- what makes them think this is going to work for them? SARA HAINES: So, first of all – So before we get to the weird part, I want to talk a little about the laughter. Donald Trump's obsession with the laughter. There was an article in The Atlantic where it says this comes from Trump's upbringing. (…) HAINES: So, he used to say, his father drilled into him laughing is to make yourself vulnerable, it’s to let down your guard in some way. So, Donald Trump thinks laughter is weakness, which is why if you look around you'll have never seen him laugh. HOSTIN: Have you never seen him laugh? ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: I thought about this. I’ve never seen him laugh. He does a smile and he just pauses. I've never seen him laugh. GOLDBERG: He just shows teeth. He doesn’t even smile. HAINES: It’s why he would also like take a joke like at the White House Correspondent Dinner to a point of running for a presidency because that humor is too vulnerable for him. Now, getting to the weird thing that they've really turned on the right, the Harris campaign is really kind of taken that weird. Think about it. People on the right say a lot of weird things. Whether you think of monitoring girls' periods. That's weird. FARAH GRIFFIN: That's weird. HAINES: Banning books. Coming for drag shows. And by the way, if your kid is gay, they're already gay. Like nobody is turning them anything. (…) HAINES: So, that is why that is so effective, is there is so much weird on the other side. But that pretty much sums it up. JOY BEHAR: It doesn't mean the left has to use it. I don't agree with that. I don’t think you should use the word “weird.” Call him what he is, a convicted felon. HOSTIN: Yeah, that's better. I agree with that. [Applause] FARAH GRIFFIN: I think it's both because -- BEHAR: Opens the door for the other side to say, “Well, you think we're weird? Look at you.” It’s to much weird. The name-calling. Take the high road. Get off the weird thing. Just call him what he is. FARAH GRIFFIN: I don't like name-calling. You’re not going to see me do it unless I slip up and I’ll own it. But “weird” I don’t see as below the belt. HAINES: I don’t either. (…) HOSTIN: To Joy's point in terms of this weird thing, because I thought weird was pretty innocuous. So, that felt benign. (…)

A new report from two DEI-driven organizations claims that roughly 10% of the workforce in the commonwealth of Massachusetts has "limited-English proficiency."On Monday, MassINC, a nonprofit that works to promote "inclusive" economic opportunities in Massachusetts, and the UMass Donahue Institute, which wants to "advance equity and social justice" as part of the public and economic outreach for the University of Massachusetts President's Office, published a report calling for better "English for Speakers of Other Languages," or ESOL, services.'Massachusetts cannot continue to fund the world’s illegal and inadmissible migrants. We simply do not have the capability or the funds.'The report claimed that the need for ESOL is "urgent" since some 480,000 Massachusetts residents — roughly 10% of the state's workforce — lack important English-language skills. Such language issues prevent these "newcomers" from reaching "their full potential" and from contributing more substantively "to the commonwealth’s social and economic vitality," the report said. What's more, the report indicated that these numbers might now be passé since they rely on data from 2022. As Massachusetts is the only right-to-shelter state in the union, thousands of illegal immigrants have been transported there from the border in the last few years, causing the migrant population to swell.The immigration population has gotten so out of hand in Massachusetts that far-left Gov. Maura Healey has begun to offer illegal aliens free flights out of her state. "I want to be clear, particularly to people outside of Massachusetts who may have gotten word that this is a place to come, that we do not have room here in Massachusetts," Healey said on Tuesday.Despite the ever-increasing migrant numbers, the MassINC/UMass Donahue Institute report fretted that not enough has been done to accommodate them. "While Massachusetts has developed many creative models to deliver these services, state and federal ESOL spending has not kept pace with the growth of our foreign-born population."The authors of the report also lamented that the state has not catered enough to the needs of migrants, noting that many of them "have limited access to transportation and struggle to find time for classes between work and childcare." Still, the authors believe that increasing migrants' English proficiency by just one level could generate $3 billion in additional earnings, the New York Post said.Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance is less optimistic about the economic advantages of more ESOL programs and services, claiming that they attract more migrants who then further drain a system already stretched too thin. "The report proves what many of us have been fearing for a long time, this is not a sustainable way for the state to operate moving forward," Craney told Blaze News. "Massachusetts cannot continue to fund the world’s illegal and inadmissible migrants. We simply do not have the capability or the funds. Massachusetts is the most generous state for welfare benefits for illegal and inadmissible migrants, and Governor Maura Healey needs to eliminate these magnets that make our state a top destination."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A 16-year-old Brazilian skateboarder competing in the Olympics used her time in the spotlight to highlight her Christian faith.At the Tokyo 2020 Olympiad, skateboarder Rayssa Leal became one of the youngest athletes ever to win a medal in competition when she took home silver in street skateboarding. She was just 13 years old at the time.'For me it is important, I am Christian, I believe a lot in God.'On Sunday, Leal followed up her performance in Tokyo by winning the bronze medal in the same competition in Paris.At one point during the competition, Leal used sign language to communicate what is to her an important truth the entire world needs to hear: "Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life." You can view the video of Leal using sign language to share her Christian faith here.Leal's decision to use her field of play to make an explicit religious message seemingly contradicts Rule 50 of the International Olympic Committee's charter, which states, "No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas."That prohibition, however, could not stop Leal."I did it because I do it in every competition," she later said, according to a translation of her remarks. "For me it is important, I am Christian, I believe a lot in God. There I asked for strength and sent a message to everyone, that God really is the way, the truth, and the life."I did it in sign language because the microphone probably wouldn’t pick up my voice, so it was the way I found to communicate with everyone. I think that’s very important," she added.The world-famous athlete, who boasts more than 8 million followers on Instagram, even joked about receiving a warning from the IOC for apparently violating Rule 50."Boy, if I got a warning — I don't know yet because it hasn't reached me yet — that's it. If I get a warning, we'll find out later," she said, according to a Brazilian news outlet.To celebrate her bronze medal, Leal posted a picture on Instagram and quoted Joshua 1:9, which says, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!