President Joe Biden, at age 81, is just undergoing the "normal aging" process

'Who said anything about safe?'

'It's only going to get more complicated'

Briefing Erupts After Multiple Reporters Bombard KJP With Questions About Neurologist Visiting White House

'We’re not looking for life on this planet because it’s way too hot'

'Headwind to any prolonged drop in their utility bills'

'That would be the biggest nightmare that any party could imagine'

News The Avengers The Avengers Cast Reassembles to Dub Film in Lakota Language Working with The Lakota Language Reclamation Project, the actors came together once more for a very important cause. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on July 8, 2024 Credit: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Marvel Studios Members of the Lakota nation and Marvel Entertainment have teamed up to provide a dub of 2012’s The Avengers in the Lakota language, with the core cast—Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, and Jeremy Renner—coming together to take part. “Our ancestors, they were punished for speaking our language,” Executive Producer Eugene “Ray” Taken Alive said in a video Marvel put out about the collaboration. He added, “Our language, it went underground. It was spoken in bedrooms when the matrons weren’t there at boarding schools. It was spoken in dark rooms where nobody could hear them, but it was still spoken.” The initiative is part of The Lakota Language Reclamation Project, and aims, as Project Executive Producer Cyril “Chuck” Archambault says in the video, “to put the language back in the homes of our people—to be able to have them bond in such a way where they’re having fun watching a movie, and be totally integrated with the language of our people.” The video shows Downey, Johannson and Ruffalo practicing and recording their lines with their Lakota partners. The project took over fifteen months and involved sixty-two Lakota-Dakota language speakers and the original Avengers team. This dubbing project comes after Marvel released the What If…? episode, “What If… Kahhori Reshaped the World,” which had characters speaking Mohawk and Spanish with English subtitles. The Disney+ series Echo, which stars Menominee actor Alaqua Cox as the deaf Choctaw fighter Maya Lopez, also has a dubbed version in the Choctaw language. The Lakota dubbed version of The Avengers is now available on Disney+, and you can watch the video about the process below. [end-mark] The post <i>The Avengers</i> Cast Reassembles to Dub Film in Lakota Language appeared first on Reactor.

The 2024 Republican National Convention‘s Platform Committee has adopted former President Donald Trump’s GOP platform, the Trump campaign announced on Monday, including new language on abortion and the protection of the unborn. That new platform’s abortion language is a significant departure from the party’s life messaging in 2016, since it no longer calls for federal protections for unborn babies and instead suggests that the matter is up to the states. The 2016 platform included the word “abortion” 35 times, while the 2024 platform merely includes abortion once. The new language, under the subhead, “Republicans Will Protect and Defend a Vote of the People, from within the States, on the Issue of Life,” reads: We proudly stand for families and life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process and that the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights. After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people. We will oppose late-term abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments). Conservatives and pro-life activists received the draft language with mixed feelings. Trump’s attention to the pro-life movement has previously caused him to be heralded as the most pro-life president in American history, with the lasting legacy of appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade. Trump also made history as the first president to attend the national March for Life in person, for appointing a slew of pro-life federal judges throughout his four years as president, for signing an executive order protecting infants born alive through botched abortions, and for significantly cutting Planned Parenthood’s federal funding. According to polling released Monday by WPA Opinion Research, 62% of Republican voters said that the Republican Party platform position on life, the family, and religious liberty would affect their vote, the Washington Stand reported. Thirty-seven percent of those polled said it would impact their vote “a lot,” while 25% said it would impact the vote “just some.” In the 2016 RNC platform, which was recycled in 2020, Republicans had emphasized the “Constitution’s guarantee that no one can ‘be deprived of life, liberty or property’” and said that this “deliberately echoes the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that ‘all’ are ‘endowed by their Creator’ with the inalienable right to life.” Then-President Donald Trump speaks at the 47th March For Life rally on the National Mall on Jan. 24, 2019, in Washington. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) “Accordingly, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamentalright to life which cannot be infringed,” the 2016 platform said. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.” It continued: We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, likePlanned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide health care. We urge all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts. In the meantime, we call on Congress to ban the practice of misleading women on so-called fetal-harvesting consent forms, a fact revealed by a 2015 investigation. We will not fund or subsidize health care that includes abortion coverage. Pro-life organizations appeared to cautiously celebrate the new draft GOP abortion stance in statements issued Monday. SBA Pro-Life America said that it is “important that the GOP reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment.” “Under this amendment, it is Congress that enacts and enforces its provisions. The Republican Party remains strongly pro-life at the national level,” the organization’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a statement. “The mission of the pro-life movement, for the next six months, must be to defeat the Biden-Harris extreme abortion agenda.” “The platform allows us to provide the winning message to 10 million voters, with four million visits at the door in key battleground states,” she added. “We are educating voters on the Biden-Harris promotion of abortion for any reason even in the seventh, eighth, or ninth month. We contrast that with protecting the states’ ability to create consensus pro-life laws and provide compassionate options for women and children.” AUL played a unique unofficial advisory role in helping craft the RNC platform that preserved the 14th Amendment. We applaud the #RNC to update the platform language with an emphasis on the states and the tradition of supporting life.https://t.co/f45DZgGgWw— John Mize (@johnmize_) July 8, 2024 Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins issued a similar statement, highlighting enthusiasm for the GOP platform’s mention of the 14th Amendment while mentioning a “new deal” with Trump. “From the day that Roe v. Wade’s corrupt legacy came to an end, the Pro-Life Generation has called for acknowledgment that the 14th Amendment protects all lives—in and out of the womb,” Hawkins said. “The most significant contribution that the GOP platform makes for LIFE comes in celebrating the fact that the 14th Amendment ‘guarantees’ legal protection for the preborn.” “While it’s true that state legislators are now welcomed into this fight for life, the end of Roe actually means that all our elected leaders—local, state, and federal—can now engage on the human rights issue of the day,” she added. “Next up: We are still waiting for President Trump’s new deal with the Pro-Life movement, but given the state focus of this platform, we are asking President Trump to call for Republican voters to reject the extreme, late-term abortion ballot initiatives across the country, beginning in Florida where he visits tomorrow.” The post Draft 2024 RNC Platform Weakens GOP Abortion Stance, Protections for Unborn Babies appeared first on The Daily Signal.

It’s summer, and the Sierra Club says: “This is climate change in action. We are living it.” The United Nations’ secretary-general declares that “a fossil fuel phaseout is inevitable.” And The Lancet, a respected medical journal, insists that nations must swiftly transition away from hydrocarbons. These groups call for reducing use of fossil fuels to tackle the climate crisis. But the downside of reducing fossil fuels is that poverty would rise, especially in emerging economies. In emerging economies, energy poverty deprives hundreds of millions of people of a decent quality of life. Over 700 million globally lack access to electricity, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. About 2 billion still rely on solid fuels such as wood and dung for cooking, leading to around 3.2 million premature deaths annually from harmful pollutants. In many regions, women and children spend an average of 1.4 hours every day collecting these fuels, and even more time cooking on inefficient stoves. Energy poverty deprives emerging economies of opportunities to grow. Modern economies rely on cement, steel, plastics, and fertilizers, often termed “four pillars of civilization.” These pillars are essential for infrastructure (such as highways and factories) and basic goods (such as refrigerators and food). Fossil fuels provide the high temperature needed for cement production, turn iron to steel, convert to petrochemicals such as ethylene and propylene to make plastics, and produce ammonia for fertilizers. Therefore, in an energy-impoverished world, people want more fossil fuel. Maggy Shino, petroleum commissioner of Namibia, speaking at the U.N.’s 27th climate change conference, called COP 27, perfectly summed up what many Africans think: “Africa,” she said, “wants to send a message that we are going to develop all of our energy resources for the benefit of our people because our issue is energy poverty.” India, the world’s most populous country, with 1.4 billion people, understands the need for greater use of fossil fuels. India’s per capita energy consumption is merely 20% of China’s and 8% of America’s. India’s fossil fuel consumption increased by 8% in 2023. For the first time, India used more coal than North America and Europe combined. U.S. electric utilities have doubled projections for additional electricity needed by 2028, primarily driven by an explosion in the number of data centers. America will require an additional 38 gigawatts of electricity, equivalent to about 38 typical nuclear power plants, within the next five years to meet this demand. Similarly, other modernized economies are experiencing increased energy demands because of technological advancements and growing digitalization. To meet the explosive increase in global energy demand, fossil fuels and nuclear power remain the most cost-effective sources. Renewable energy sources, especially solar and wind, are not reliable on their own because they are intermittent and require fossil fuel backups. Additionally, while solar and wind power primarily generate electricity, fossil fuels offer versatility by being suitable not only for generating electricity but also for transportation, heating, industrial processes, and materials. The belief that renewable energy can replace fossil fuels and meet explosive energy demand is unrealistic. The International Energy Agency projects that global demand for fossil fuels will peak before 2030. However, that’s simply driven by wishful thinking rather than reality. Instead, fossil fuel demand will continue to grow in the decades ahead as developing countries increase their energy consumption to alleviate poverty and as developed nations expand their digital economies, especially with the rise of artificial intelligence. Americans shouldn’t fall into the misguided view that the age of fossil fuels is ending. In reality, fossil fuels are essential for both the developing and developed worlds, fostering prosperity and economic growth. The post Why the World Needs Fossil Fuels appeared first on The Daily Signal.