The Pro-Hamas Protest Outside the White House Got Out of Hand

Video games and e-sports continue to rise in popularity across the world, which has led to more and more people of various ages taking up controllers. However, with this surge in popularity and adoption could come some lesser-known problems. For most of us, our gaming habits do not necessarily impact our health – but that doesn’t mean gaming does not exert its own strains on the body.Sure, gaming and e-sports are nowhere near as physically demanding as most traditional sports, but they can still lead to injuries from wear and tear. "Gamer’s thumb" is one common example of this.Although "gamer’s thumb" sounds like it is specific to the world of computer games, it is not limited to gamers. Instead, anyone who takes part in repetitive movements with their thumbs could develop it, including people who text or type a lot, or repeatedly lift heavy objects. For gamers and e-sports players, whether using a console, PC or mobile phone, hours spent tapping on keyboards, twisting, and gripping may make them prone to this problem. The technical name for the condition is “de Quervain’s tenosynovitis”. It is an overuse injury, similar to carpal tunnel syndrome and trigger finger, which causes inflammation of the thumb’s tendons and the sheath that surrounds them. This, it is thought, is caused by the repetitive movement involved in grasping, clenching and pinching movements, which makes the tendon thicken and struggle to move smoothly through its sheath.The recurring motion can lead to pain and tenderness at the base of the thumb. This can sometimes be accompanied by additional pain along the radial side of the wrist – the side where the thumb is. Some people may also experience difficulty moving their thumb, especially when trying to grasp or pinch something.Once the pain sets in, it can easily interfere with everyday activities. Carrying objects or performing seemingly simple tasks like opening jars can become painful.If it is allowed to progress without treatment, the pain may start to impact your gaming performance and experience, due to pain and impaired movement.If you have symptoms like this, it is worth seeking medical treatment. The longer the issue goes on without care, the worse it can get. In some cases, the pain can spread further into the thumb or down the forearm and movement may become more painful too.During examination, your doctor will likely examine the thumb and wrist and may request an X-ray of the hand and wrist area. If the diagnosis is positive, then treatment will focus on pain relief and the restoration of the hand and wrist’s function. In severe cases, a doctor may recommend surgery.Non-surgical treatments include taking anti-inflammatory medications to help ease the swelling and discomfort. Corticosteroid injections are also an option in some cases, and can help lessen pain and inflammation. A doctor may also recommend immobilizing the thumb and wrist area with a brace or splint, this will help prevent further aggravating the affected area.In many cases, treatment for "gamer’s thumb" is straightforward with treatment. However, the best way to avoid the issue is to avoid prolonged periods of gaming and to have breaks between sessions. This will help prevent injury and let you enjoy gaming without issue.  The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.  All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.  

In our hunt for technologically advanced alien civilizations out there in the universe, it is useful to think about what sort of signs of life we ourselves give off, such as radio signals and biosignatures. It's perfectly logical to do so, but it's not altogether ideal. As we've seen over the last few hundred years on our own planet, intelligent civilizations can quickly abandon old detectable technology as their understanding of the universe increases. For this reason, it's also useful to look at what might be possible for ourselves to build in the future. Alien civilizations will have access to the same physics as we do, so if we can imagine projects that are plausible but beyond our current technology, there's a chance that alien civilizations have beaten us to it. One such possibility is a "Dyson Sphere" – a megastructure built around a star to harness all or most of its energy. Though a full sphere built around a star would quickly become unstable, Dyson swarms (many smaller structures that do not form a full sphere) are more plausible, and would offer any energy-hungry civilization a healthy supply of the good stuff with which they could power other ridiculous projects of their choosing.    From our perspective it might be a good thing if they do (assuming they aren't hostile) as these hypothetical structures should give off distinctive signatures which we can observe from Earth (or close enough). Astronomers do look for these signatures, including an excess of infrared heat, and have regularly found candidates worthy of a second look. But how plausible are these structures? And how far are we from creating them?The answer is likely quite far away, assuming no new technological explosion or the demise of civilization. But a few have looked into what it would take for humanity to build our own megastructures, and join everyone else on Type II of the Kardashev scale of civilizations. That would be quite some progress, as currently we haven't reached Type I.   One team from the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University proposed how to make a Dyson swarm, which they deemed the most realistic design, free from the impracticalities of full spheres."The lightest design would be to have very large lightweight mirrors concentrating solar radiation down on focal points, where it would be transformed into useful work (and possibly beamed across space for use elsewhere)," the team wrote in their 2013 paper. "The focal point would most likely some sort of heat engine, possibly combined with solar cells (to extract work from the low entropy solar radiation)".Challenges include coordinating orbits of these structures so that they don't collide with or eclipse each other. According to the team though, the project is not that far out of reach, and could begin within "decades". However, such a construction requires a lot of raw materials, and the price for creating one might be deemed too high for humans to stomach. In short, it would require that we sacrifice one of our Solar System's planets rich in the irons and metals we would require."The planets provide the largest source of material for the construction of such a Dyson swarm," the team continues. "The easiest design would be to use Mercury as the source of material, and to construct the Dyson swarm at approximately the same distance from the sun."Dismantling a whole planet does not sound very simple (unless you're Darth Vader, in which case feel free to skip this paragraph) but the team suggests that it could be feasible using self-replicating Von Neumann probes with the process speeding up as it goes along."Disassembling a whole planet would be a slow process, requiring vast amounts of energy (the gravitational binding energy of Mercury is 1.80 × 1030 J). However, the material removed will be made into solar captors which will generate energy, allowing a more efficient removal of matter, thus generating a feedback loop." Assuming that we take the process slowly, avoiding heavier investments of energy from our limited pre-Dyson swarm supply, the dismantling of Mercury could take 174 years according to Forbes. So it might be a project for a more long-term-minded civilization than ours (with no qualms about destroying a planet in the process). There are many other practical problems to overcome before we could do this, including making self-replicating probes capable of such a project. However, such a project could be feasible for a plucky sub-Type I civilization to dramatically up their galactic game. Which once again begs the question: so where is everybody?

A new explanation for why we have not found dark matter proposes that it doesn’t exist. Instead, the author thinks we have been misunderstanding gravity. He’s not the first to suggest that, but the new proposal, of gravity without mass created by topological defects in space-time, is particularly novel.Dark matter was first proposed in 1932, based on the observation that galaxies are moving in ways consistent with them having more mass than the sum of their stars and gas. What started as a few surprising measurements has blossomed. Simple explanations, such as stellar populations having been undercounted, have definitely failed. A wide array of options have been proposed for what dark matter might be composed of, from primordial black holes to subatomic particles. So far, we haven’t found any of them, other than rogue planets and stellar mass black holes that can each only account for a fraction of one percent of what is missing.This has led some physicists to wonder if we’ve got it all wrong. Perhaps there is no dark matter, and instead, gravity works differently on larger scales than we think. One version of this, known as Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) has got a fair bit of attention, but has proven a lot more popular with online commentators than with physicists, who generally regard it as very improbable.Professor Richard Lieu of the University of Alabama at Huntsville has waded into this situation with his own spin on gravity, one which holds that it can exist without mass. If he’s right, it will turn much of cosmology on its head and make the quest for dark matter an embarrassing diversion in science’s march, like phlogiston. However, there’s a long, long way to go before it is widely treated as plausible, let alone likely.Lieu proposes that topological defects were created in space-time soon after the Big Bang. "Topological effects are very compact regions of space with a very high density of matter, usually in the form of linear structures known as cosmic strings, although 2D structures such as spherical shells are also possible,” Lieu said in a statement."The shells in my paper consist of a thin inner layer of positive mass and a thin outer layer of negative mass; the total mass of both layers—which is all one could measure, mass-wise—is exactly zero, but when a star lies on this shell it experiences a large gravitational force pulling it towards the center of the shell." The force here would have a strength equal to the inverse of distance, rather than the inverse of distance squared as applies under Newton’s law of gravity. Whether this is physically possible is unproven, but Lieu claims to show that it works mathematically.Lieu proposes that as light passes an object like a galaxy in a gravitational lens, it is bent slightly inward by its passage through these shells. This bending would be barely distinguishable from what would occur if there was more mass pulling on it. The same goes for the movements of a star around a galactic center of mass. Since, as Lieu notes, these two phenomena are the basis for our confidence that dark matter exists, an alternative process for both would render dark matter unnecessary.On the other hand, the idea of shells with positive and negative mass on each side is equally unproven, and it’s considerably harder to explain why they would exist at all.Lieu proposes that the creation of these defects was associated with a “cosmological phase transition” in the early universe, where across the entire universe, matter underwent a change of state."My own inspiration came from my pursuit for another solution to the gravitational field equations of general relativity,” Lieu said. This can give “a finite gravitation force in the absence of any detectable mass.”Lieu’s proposal requires several things for which we have no direct evidence, rather than just one, as in the case of dark matter. The researcher himself admits: "It is unclear presently what precise form of phase transition in the universe could give rise to topological defects of this sort.” He has suggested a few possible steps, for example that the shells were once planes or straight strings that became wound up. However, it currently all sounds almost as ad hoc as the epicycles Ptolemaic astronomers used to explain the orbits of planets.In defense of his hypothesis, however, Lieu could point out that the idea is sufficiently new that no one has been searching for suitable evidence. On the other hand, billions of dollars and some of the finest minds of our generation have been devoted to the unsuccessful search for dark matter."This initiative is in turn driven by my frustration with the status quo, namely the notion of dark matter's existence despite the lack of any direct evidence for a whole century,” Lieu added.“Of course, the availability of a second solution, even if it is highly suggestive, is not by itself sufficient to discredit the dark matter hypothesis—it could be an interesting mathematical exercise at best," Lieu concluded. "But it is the first proof that gravity can exist without mass."The proposal is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 

Names are universal throughout human cultures and across different languages. They form a huge part of our identity and help us communicate with each other, but personal names are considered a uniquely human thing. Now, new research has suggested that wild African elephants could address each other with individual specific calls – the equivalent of a name – with fascinating implications for the evolution of language.The new research analyzed calls from wild elephants in two areas of Kenya: the greater Samburu ecosystem to the north, and the Amboseli National Park to the south. The final dataset contained around 470 separate elephant calls. There were 101 unique callers and 117 unique receivers. The researchers only included calls directed at a single individual elephant, and for which the receiver could be identified. The team measured the acoustic features of the elephant sounds and ran a series of statistical tests on the data, to see if it was possible to predict the identity of the receiver from the call. And indeed, this was found to be the case, as the team writes: “[R]eceivers of calls could be correctly identified from call structure statistically significantly better than chance.”One aspect the team were particularly interested in was whether the calls mimicked the receiver’s own vocalizations. This has been observed in other species, such as dolphins, which can learn each other’s individual vocal labels and respond to their own label when they hear it.What was fascinating about the elephant data, though, was that the authors found limited evidence that the callers were imitating each receiver’s own call. "Our finding that elephants are not simply mimicking the sound associated with the individual they are calling was the most intriguing," said study author Kurt Fristrup in a statement seen by IFLScience. "The capacity to utilize arbitrary sonic labels for other individuals suggests that other kinds of labels or descriptors may exist in elephant calls."Elephants have complex social networks, from family groups to the wider clan.Image credit: George WittemyerThe authors also took 17 of the elephants and played them recordings of calls that were originally addressed to them to see how they responded. “Further supporting the existence of vocal labels,” the authors write, “subjects approached the speaker more quickly [and] vocalized more quickly […] in response to test playbacks than control playbacks.”Thankfully, it's unlikely the elephants were troubled by these prank calls, as first author Michael Pardo said: "They were probably temporarily confused by the playback but eventually just dismissed it as a strange event and went on with their lives."Overall, the authors concluded that this could well be the first evidence of a non-human species using a human-like naming system to refer to other individuals. As to why this might arise in elephants specifically, there are some clues we can glean from their social structures. “[D]ue to their fission-fusion social dynamics [elephants] are often separated from their closely bonded social partners,” the authors explain, referring to elephants’ tendency to split themselves up into smaller parties that can then aggregate together to form large groups, sometimes hundreds-strong. “[V]ocal labels probably allow elephants to attract the attention of a specific distant receiver,” the authors continue, also noting that the labels only cropped up in a minority of vocalizations, likely because in many contexts there is no need to use them.There’s also a cuddlier aspect to all this: calling each other by their names could be a way of enhancing social bonding, the authors posit, as is the case with humans. The authors note that the “findings raise intriguing questions about the complexity of elephant social cognition,” and thus open up a fascinating new avenue for researchers to explore.Sadly, that likely won't extend to us being able to have a chat with an elephant, much as we might want to."It's tough to live with elephants, when you're trying to share a landscape and they're eating crops," said senior author George Wittemyer. "I'd like to be able to warn them, 'Do not come here. You're going to be killed if you come here.'"The study is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. An earlier version of this article was published in September 2023. 

Twenty years ago, astronomers used the Spitzer telescope to study Beta Pictoris, a star 63 light-years away. Researchers back then saw a significant amount of dust, shining in infrared. Using Spitzer's successor, JWST, astronomers looked for the same dust and discovered something exciting: The dust was gone.The research team believe that the dust was pushed away by the radiation of the young star. This motion also allowed for the dust to cool off, and it is no longer detectable. If dust can just be swept away, it means that is not standard and constant feature. Something must have caused it, and the astronomers had a very exciting explanation: Asteroid collision.The Beta Pictoris system is young, around 20 million years old. The collision is likely the results of planetesimals colliding on their way to form planets – planets that might one day be like Earth, or Mars, or Venus.“Beta Pictoris is at an age when planet formation in the terrestrial planet zone is still ongoing through giant asteroid collisions, so what we could be seeing here is basically how rocky planets and other bodies are forming in real time,” lead author Christine Chen, a Johns Hopkins University astronomer, said in a statement.Plot of infrared emission from Beta Pictoris as seen by Spitzer and JWSTImage Credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa/Johns Hopkins University, with Beta Pictoris concept art by Lynette Cook/NASA.The team believes that the collision released an enormous amount of dust, equivalent to about 100,000 times the asteroid that brought an end to the non-avian dinosaurs. Beta Pictoris has two gas giant planets that have already formed, but no known terrestrial planets yet.“The question we are trying to contextualize is whether this whole process of terrestrial and giant planet formation is common or rare, and the even more basic question: Are planetary systems like the solar system that rare?” said co-author Kadin Worthen, a doctoral student in astrophysics at Johns Hopkins. “We’re basically trying to understand how weird or average we are.”JWST's fantastic ability to see the infrared universe has once again delivered incredible insights into astronomy. Although this was sort of by omission.“Most discoveries by JWST come from things the telescope has detected directly,” said co-author Cicero Lu, a former Johns Hopkins doctoral student in astrophysics. “In this case, the story is a little different because our results come from what JWST did not see.”The research was presented by Chen at the 244th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wisconsin.

Research is showing that many of our contemporary problems, such as the rising prevalence of mental health issues, are emerging from rapid technological advancement and modernisation. A theory that can help explain why we respond poorly to modern conditions, despite the choices, safety and other benefits they bring, is evolutionary mismatch.Mismatch happens when an evolved adaptation, either physical or psychological, becomes misaligned with the environment. Take moths and some species of nocturnal flies, for example. Because they have to navigate in the dark, they evolved to use the moon for direction. But due to the invention of artificial lighting, many moths and flies are drawn to street lamps and indoor lights instead.The same happens for humans. A classic example is our “sweet tooth”, which motivated ancestral humans to search for calorie-rich foods in nutritionally scarce environments. This sweet tooth becomes mismatched to the modern world when food companies mass produce foods laden with refined sugars and fat, hijacking an otherwise useful trait. The result is tooth decay, obesity and diabetes.The modern world is replete with things that make our once-adaptive instincts go awry. For instance, humans evolved to live in kin-based, nomadic tribes of approximately 50 to 150 close-knit people. Our adaptive need to belong functions well in such settings. In large cities populated by hundreds of thousands of strangers, however, people can end up feeling lonely and like they have not many close friends.Studies have also shown that when social animals are kept in crowded spaces, they experience competitive stress which has consequences for physical health such as poorer immune functioning and reduced fertility. Like the animals in the crowding studies, humans living in crowded cities too can experience unprecedented levels of stress and tend to have fewer children.Cities can be a lonely place to live. metamorworks/ShutterstockThe social inequality in modern societies also differs from the more egalitarian hunter-gatherer environment. Humans evolved to care about social status, which motivates us to redress status gaps between ourselves and others. But when social disparity is too intense and people like Elon Musk, whose net worth would take the average American several million years of work at the mean annual wage to catch up with, are regularly made salient by the media, our concerns with social status can lead to social status anxiety.Social media exacerbates the problems associated with social comparisons. As people typically share the best sides of themselves online, social media presents a skewed impression of reality, which can make viewers feel worse about their own. The quantification of worth through likes and followers also allows people to obsess with greater precision over where they stand in relation to others.Several problematic trends can be understood from this evolutionary mismatch. For instance, competition and status anxiety have been linked to obsessions with educational attainment, vying for prestigious jobs and materialism. There is a growing trend of “going broke to look rich”, as people incur debt to afford things that create the impression of having status.People are also more likely to take risks when they feel that they need to gain a competitive edge. Coupled with the rising cost of living, people can find their jobs are inadequate not only to keep up with societal expectations but also to build wealth. A 2023 report by global investment professionals association, the CFA Institute, indicated that many Gen Z people are turning to risky investments like cryptocurrencies in a bid to cope. The intensely competitive modern world can also drive people to undergo dangerous cosmetic surgeries and weight loss regimes.As people struggle to live up to society’s expectations of successful adults, they seem to be redefining their goals in life. Surveys of Gen Z and Millennial respondents have found that increasing costs of living are forcing these age groups to lower their career ambitions and give up the idea of owning a home, starting a family or even finding a romantic partner. A 2023 survey of 55,000 people born between 1981 and 2012 found that respondents are focusing on caring more for their mental and physical health instead.When competition becomes too intense, people may internalise the pressure and experience anxiety or depression. Researchers have linked self-harm and depression to people feeling they can no longer deal with the demands of modern society. These trends are especially prevalent in countries with a strong shame culture, such as Japan and South Korea.Studies have shown that some externalising responses may include anger at the perceived unfairness of a contest that seems impossible to win, resulting in cynicism, aggression and hostility. A manifestation of this anger can be noted in, for example, “incel” circles, in which men often feel they are unable to find a romantic or sexual partner because the odds are unjustly stacked against them.What can we doThe evolutionary mismatch perspective doesn’t suggest that we return completely to an ancestral way of life, but to find ways to adjust our environment such that it aligns better with our evolved nature. For example, we can think of ways to engineer the built environment to reduce crowdedness or increase access to nature. Indeed, nature immersion, such as forest-bathing (focusing on sensory engagement to connect with nature) and community gardening, can reduce stress and improve wellbeing.Lifestyle changes to reduce consumerism and exposure to mass and social media, alongside focusing on meaningful work rather than job prestige, are also likely to help. Some counter-trends like minimalism and mindfulness indicate a growing awareness that finding contentment in the little things can allow us to avoid the pitfalls of modernity.These are just some ideas. But appreciating the evolutionary basis of our problems and raising awareness of the mismatch perspective may give us a better chance of tackling them at the root.Jose Yong, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Northumbria University, NewcastleThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) released its 2023 yearly report on abortions. The report indicates that zero abortions were reported in the state last year, even abortions needed to save the life of a mother. This is a big indicator that abortion is absolutely not necessary. In June of 2022 when Roe v. Wade was overturned, Arkansas law prohibited abortions in all cases, except to save the life of a mother. ADH reported that prior to the Dobbs decision, there were an average of 3,200 abortions per year in the state, as National Catholic Register reported. The report included stats on abortions based on age and consent required, ethnicity and race, as well as abortions by single and married women as reasons for abortions.  All different categories showed the same result that there were zero abortions that took place in the 2023 year. These numbers do not include abortions that took place via chemical abortions through mail-order abortion pills, nor by women who are residents of Arkansas that traveled to other states to obtain abortions - not to mention any abortions that took place but were not properly documented. On June 3, Family Council, an Arkansas based group focused on promoting traditional family values in the state, published a press release celebrating the results highlighted in the ADH report. “These reports are great news. Arkansas has successfully prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother. Arkansas’ pro-life laws are protecting women, and they are saving unborn children. That is something to celebrate,” the group wrote before warning that some individuals in Arkansas are attempting to pass the “Arkansas Abortion Amendment” in order to “permit abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy in many cases.” Family Council noted that “the amendment would also pave the way for publicly funded abortion in Arkansas by changing Amendment 68 to the Arkansas Constitution that currently prohibits taxpayer funded abortion in the state.” Again, this report cannot possibly be 100 percent accurate in concluding that there were no abortions in the state. People on X even commented that they’d helped people obtain abortions in the state. However, hearing that the numbers are decreasing since Roe’s overturn is a step in the right direction.

Border Patrol agents in the San Diego sector were recently instructed to release illegal aliens from most Eastern Hemisphere countries into the interior of the United States, according to a memo first obtained by the Washington Examiner.The internal communication stated that single adults from more than 100 countries in the Eastern Hemisphere who cross into the U.S. illegally through the San Diego sector are to be processed as "NTA/OR," or Notice to Appear/released on Own Recognizance. According to the memo, the individuals are from "hard or very hard to remove countries" that do not cooperate with the U.S.'s deportation efforts.Illegal aliens from "mandatory referral countries," including Russia, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Moldova, and Kyrgyzstan, are not eligible to be released into the U.S. and request asylum, the memo read.'This is gaslighting our fellow Americans.'A senior Border Patrol official told Fox News' Bill Melugin that instruction to allow illegal immigrants from most Eastern Hemisphere countries into the interior of the U.S. was provided only to the San Diego Sector rather than the entire border. According to the official, the illegal aliens will still not be eligible to request asylum.Department of Homeland Security officials told reporters on Friday that many Eastern Hemisphere countries will not cooperate with the U.S. to take back their citizens, making it difficult to deport the individuals, Fox News Digital reported. Officials stated that they are working with those countries to gain cooperation.According to the memo, illegal aliens from the Western Hemisphere countries, including Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela, are classified as "easy to remove."San Diego Sector Border Patrol agents received the memo shortly after President Joe Biden announced a new executive order that the administration claims would crack down on illegal entries amid the ongoing immigration crisis at the southern border. Biden's order would temporarily suspend unlawful border crossings after entries reach an average of over 2,500 per day over seven days. The order carves out numerous exceptions, including for unaccompanied minors, individuals judged to be "victims of severe forms of trafficking," people with medical emergencies, and those who schedule an appointment through the Customs and Border Protection's CBP One app.On Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) told Fox News Digital that the administration's order will "actually attract and invite even more people to cross the border illegally.""There's no slowing down of people crossing the border. In fact, it's just accelerating. This is gaslighting our fellow Americans. When Biden gets up and says, 'This is going to stop people from coming across the border,' when he says, 'It's going to secure the border,' in fact, it is making illegal border crossings worse," Abbott stated.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Comedian Rob Schneider was reportedly removed from the stage of a fundraising event for a charity after he made jokes about vaccines and transgender people, which offended audience members.Schneider was allegedly asked to end his set early during an event for the Hospitals of Regina Foundation in Saskatchewan, Canada, at a Four Seasons hotel.The comic's jokes and commentary apparently offended several audience members, with one person in attendance claiming that Schneider's words even made some audience members cry."I really felt strongly after seeing many people ... some were in tears, some were incredibly upset, people were leaving the room, that I just said to myself [that] I can't sit by and do nothing," said attendee Tynan Allan. Schneider was saying things that were "very anti-vaccinations" and "very against trans folks," Allan told CBC News, Canada's state broadcaster.'We do not condone, accept, endorse or share Mr. Schneider's positions, as expressed during his comedy set.'Described by the outlet as a "diversity expert," Allan also claimed he heard "misogynistic things" before he decided to complain to event organizers."I went up and and asked to speak to the organizers of the event, at first they were incredibly dejective [sic] and sort of saying 'well, we're not going to do anything and we hired this guy and lots of people are laughing, so why would we shut him down?'"Allan said he complained to organizers that Schneider's content was "completely inappropriate and offensive and really filled with hatred.""We have to recognize what [Pride] day means to people, especially in a hospital setting where people go through gender-affirming care and reproductive care and fertility treatments," Allan continued. Eventually, the foundation acquiesced and asked Schneider to leave the stage, with the activist alleging that security was "waiting to escort him out."The foundation later released statements on Schneider's appearance, apologizing and saying that organizers did not agree with the comedian's statements."While we recognize that in a free and democratic society individuals are entitled to their views and opinions and that comedy is intended to be edgy, the content, positions and opinions expressed during Mr. Schneider's set do not align with the values of our Foundation and team," the foundation said in a statement, according to Global News."We do not condone, accept, endorse or share Mr. Schneider's positions, as expressed during his comedy set and acknowledge that in this instance the performance did not meet the expectations of our audience and our team," the group continued. "An unconditional apology was offered right after to our guests and our community. We reiterate this sincere and unconditional apology today, for any offense caused by Mr. Schneider's recent comedy set, at the Four Seasons Ball."The foundation reportedly stated that Schneider calmly left the stage when he was asked.Schneider has not yet made public remarks about the event, and his representation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!