July 19 (Reuters) - Over its past two terms, the U.S. Supreme Court has put an end to five high-profile and politically sensitive cases emerging from one particular federal appeals court on the same basis, declaring that the litigation should not have been allowed in the first place. In all five cases - involving abortion rights, online free speech, federal student loans, immigration and Native American child welfare - the justices overturned rulings by the staunchly conservative...

President Biden's top campaign advisors both weighed in on Friday to comment on widespread speculation surrounding the 2024 presidential race. The first clarification came from Campaign Chair Jen O'Malley Dillon, who left no room for question during an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "The president's in this race," O'Malley Dillon told the hosts. "You've heard him say that time and time again, and I think we saw on display last night exactly why, because Donald Trump is not...

Employees of a Texas-based nonprofit that provides housing to unaccompanied migrant children repeatedly subjected minors in its care to sexual abuse and harassment, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a new lawsuit.  From 2015 through at least the end of 2023, multiple employees at Southwest Key Programs, the country’s largest private provider of housing for unaccompanied children, subjected unaccompanied children in their care to “repeated and unwelcome sexual abuse,...

US President Joe Biden is looking forward to "getting back on the campaign trail next week", fortifying his commitment to stick in the race as more Democrats on Friday called for him to step aside as the party nominee. “The stakes are high, and the choice is clear. Together, we will win," he said. His statement comes amid conflicting reports of conversations within Mr Biden's circle and the larger party about the president's future. Over the last several weeks, the president has been...

President Joe Biden said on Friday that he would be returning to the campaign trail next week to continue to take on rival Donald Trump, as he contends with the fallout of his COVID-19 diagnosis and growing calls from Democrats for him to bow out. "I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump's Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our...

TikToker EchoBadlistener has his hands full with four dogs: Morty (deaf and blind), Echo (deaf and visually impaired), Winston (overweight), and Frank, who, in his owner’s estimation, is “not too smart.”But even though Morty can’t see or hear, he enthusiastically greets his owners whenever they come home. A recent TikTok video that has been seen over 9,000 times shows how Morty has given his high-energy hellos to his owners over the past four years.Although Morty sometimes takes a little while to find their exact location, once he zeroes in, he leaps up and grabs them with his paws or makes excited doggie donuts in the middle of the kitchen. @echobadlistener Little kangaroo #deafdogsoftiktok #blinddogsoftiktok #fyp #threedeafdogs #morty #babymorty So, how does Morty know when his family is home if he can’t hear or see? Dogs have an incredible sense of smell up to 10,000 times greater than a human’s. So he picks up on their scent when they enter the house. He is also probably very sensitive to familiar vibrations, such as a door opening and closing, and can feel footsteps when people walk across the floor.Morty and his sister Echo are deaf and have vision problems due to birth defects that come from breeding merle dogs. Merle is a genetic pattern in a dog's coat that causes irregular patches of color on a lighter background. It's also known as dapple in some breeds. When two merle dogs breed, each puppy in the litter has a 25% chance of becoming a double merle. Double merles have a very high chance of having congenital eye defects and hearing impairment due to a lack of hair pigment in the inner ear. But being deaf and blind doesn't stop Morty from recognizing his owners and showing them what a good doggo he is.

Kids and phones—it’s the modern age dilemma of every parent. When to let them have a phone, what apps to allow them to use on it, how to monitor their usage…none of these are questions with set answers. The only thing we do know is that making the wrong choice can lead to serious consequences for a child’s mental health and development, so parents are understably wary. One mom named Kailey recently shared how this anxiety even led her to taking away her tween daughter’s phone after she had already had it for a year. In a video posted to her TikTok, Kelly explained that at first giving her two daughters phones at the age of 10 brought her “peace of mind.”Phones gave her daughters more independence to roam the neighborhood and go to friend’s houses, while still being able to contact her if anything went wrong, and she could track their whereabouts. This felt especially important to her since so many parents don’t have landlines, nor do they exchange each other’s contact information. Kelly “struggled” with this decision, given all the information out about granting kids phones too early, but ultimately thought this was the best option. That is…until now. Kailey went on to say that over a year's time, she has seen firsthand how “detrimental” phones can be. Perhaps most surprising of all, Kailey added that it wasn’t social media that was the big problem. “You can block the social media. That stuff’s all easy,” she said. “What it is ... is hormonal girls being jealous.” @the_geriatricmillennial Taking away my 11 year old daughters phone agter having one for a year because its feeling like more negative than positive lately. No opinions needed, parentinf kids in the digital age is hard enough but would love to hear what other parents are doing to maintain their kids independence while also being safe #momofteens #momoftweensgirls #momofdaughters #parentingadvice #teenswithphones #millennialmom #momsover30 ♬ original sound - Geriatric Millennial | Kailey Kailey then shared the story of how her daughter was out with friends when one of those friends posted on Snapchat. Her daughter doesn’t have Snapchat but was recorded in the video. Another friend who does have the app saw the video and demanded to know why Kailey’s daughter was hanging out with that friend instead of them. Cue drama. “And then my daughter feels bad and she has to make up a lie because she doesn’t want to hurt that friend’s feelings.”While Kailey knows that jealousy and teenage girls have gone hand-in-hand long before iPhones, she felt that—despite all the precautions she’s taken—it only made the problem worse. This eventually led her to deactivating her now 11-year-old’s phone. “We can’t keep them from having phones forever...they’re a part of the teenage experience now, but at what expense?” she concluded. “We as parents need to band together and agree that we’re not going to allow it until 14, 15, 16.”Down in the comments, other parents understood Kailey’s experience completely. One person shared “My daughter is 11. I reluctantly got her the phone last summer. I totally regret it. The texting drama is nuts. I have all social media blocked.”However, many felt like this decision would bring about more problems—either by compromising her daughter’s trust or ending up making her feel isolated from her friends.“When you take it away they will hide more from you,” one person said. “They will make accounts on their friends phones, and now they won’t talk to you about problems.”“I was cut off from my friends because I was the only one without a phone (at 11 specifically) and it was the worst thing for friendships. Nobody cared to include the girl they can’t text. I’m 26 now,” another recalled. Others pointed out that it might be overlooking the real problem: navigating conflict. As one person put it: “It sounds like you need to have multiple conversations with her about making good friends vs bad friends and being mindful about who she surrounds herself with and a lesson on boundaries with friends.” In a follow-up video, Kailey stood by her choice, acknowledging that while we’re never going back to a time without smartphones and their inherent issues, she thinks that waiting until her kid is older is the necessary “happy medium.” Finding a happy medium is a good way of putting it, for sure. And getting to that balanced place might require some experimentation, since no two kids are alike, and since this is still fairly new parenting territory. Of course, knowing how long to keep kids as kids is not new and will always be a challenge for parents in one way or another.

Her death brought on the first anti-stalking laws.

The opposition to President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has intensified considerably. Today alone, 10 Democrats — including New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich — joined the pile-on. A growing development threatens to make the whole situation all the more complicated: Biden’s allies and Kamala Harris’ allies are increasingly at odds. Harris’ allies are incensed that Biden’s allies have denigrated her in order to argue for Biden’s continuance in the race.  The anger from Harris’ camp began just two days following the debate, the New York Times reported. That’s when the Biden campaign used polling data to argue in a fundraising email that the president would perform better in the election than other Democratic candidates. One of the candidates whose data was included was Harris.  In this case, Harris’ staffers pushed back on her allies’ anger, arguing that Harris “had a responsibility to stand by the president and allow him to say that he is uniquely positioned to win,” according to the Times.  But, at other times, Harris and her staffers have believed that Biden’s camp has gone too far in the direction of disparaging her in order to push the idea that Biden is the best Democratic candidate. For instance, a staffer in the White House’s legislative affairs office argued that Harris would not be as strong a candidate as Biden. In response, Harris sent her staffers to communicate a warning shot to the White House’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients. The message was simple: stop speaking negatively about the vice president.  Publicly, Harris has remained dutifully loyal to the president even as these tensions have simmered. But the growing discontent from Harris’ camp could soon become a problem for Biden, especially given the numerous Democrats who are calling for Harris to be the Democratic nominee. Harris’ backing of Biden could become less forceful, causing a further spiraling of the Biden campaign. Or her staffers and allies could begin hatching a plot to make it infeasible for Biden to remain in the race so that Harris can replace him. Alternatively, the president could leave the race and choose to not endorse his vice president out of anger that her allies moved against him.  Already, there are reports that Harris’ allies are working to make sure that Harris would be the nominee in the event that Biden bows out of the race. “Allies of Kamala Harris are engaged in a delicate, behind-the-scenes effort to make sure the vice president moves to the top of the ticket if President Joe Biden steps aside, according to five people involved in the project or with knowledge of the discussions,” reported Politico yesterday. To make matters worse for Biden, the anger from the Harris camp toward the Biden campaign is nothing new. Throughout their terms in office, the president and vice president have been engaged in numerous disagreements, and tensions have at times been hot. Much of it has stemmed from the fact that Harris’ camp has felt she has been excluded from having a significant role in the administration and that, when she was given roles, she was set up to fail.  For now, Harris has to do everything she can to support Biden. But the moment he’s out of the race, she’ll cackle with joy.  The post Biden and Harris Camps Feud Amid Total Disarray appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.