For 13 years, the Brazilian government has offered its incarcerated citizens a simple deal: read a book, serve less time. This “Remission for Reading” program is now serving as a template to other nations, and prison populations are enjoying similar deals in countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. With a recidivism rate of more than […] The post Prisons Across the World Are Shaving Days Off Sentences for Every Book Read by Their Inmates appeared first on Good News Network.

A famous jump-roper recently saved a young man from drowning after falling through the ice on a frozen lake by using his jump ropes like safety lines. During the 80s, 90s, and 00s, David Fisher became so famous for jumping rope that he authored a pair of children’s superhero books in which he’s portrayed as […] The post World-Record Jump-Roper Uses His ‘Double-Dutch’ Jump Ropes to Save Teen in Icy Pond appeared first on Good News Network.

Books short fiction Five Short Stories About Defiance and Taking Charge Even small moments of dissent and rebellion can spark change… By Ratika Deshpande | Published on February 6, 2025 Photo by lilartsy [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by lilartsy [via Unsplash] One challenge of being a young person in a world ravaged by problems like climate change and political turmoil and a generally uncertain future is that I’m always struggling to fight the helplessness that these problems create, always looking to do something rather than simply passing through time. The word “action” comes attached with terms like “political” and “radical” and “transformative” and “world-changing.” That can lead to feeling frustrated and overwhelmed, as I’ve discussed previously. So, as with other problems, I turn to stories for ideas and inspiration. Because standing up for something, taking action, fighting back, or making changes isn’t always about solving big problems. Sometimes, it’s also about standing up for own selves, fighting our own small rebellions. Consider the following… “Matrimonial Quest at Luna Prime and Other Existential Dread” by Deka Omar Zahra is in her early 40s and finding it quite difficult to find a partner who’s not only close in age but who also shares her fundamental values. She’s not interested in any cosmetic services recommended by the attendant at a Singles Mixer event, or any of the gazillion products being advertised all around Luna Prime. A historian, she knows all about the Luddites as well as the downsides of unchecked technological advancement and consumerism, which makes her meetings with prospective partners even more difficult, because they think people like Zahra have got it all wrong and are stubbornly inconveniencing everyone. Still, she’s willing to try to smile and stick to uncontroversial topics on her very first meeting. But then the e-chaperone of the man she’s meeting scans her physiological status without her consent; abruptly exiting the mixer, she stumbles across a terrified young woman and finds herself getting involved in a situation she knows she should ignore, but it feels too important. There comes a time, after all, when we need to think about the difference between talking about our values and actually acting on them. “Those We See at the Twilight Bridge” by Wendy Nikel Death’s role is to make people’s passing easy. When It comes to them, It wears the face of a loved one and dances with them, taking them twirling over the bridge, at the end of which their dead loved ones wait, their arms open. Every peaceful passing is a job well done. But Death doesn’t always come on its own. Some people call It to them. Death has no choice but to go and offer what comfort It can. Except this time, before a woman crosses the bridge, she faces It and tells It to take charge where It hasn’t before. Soothing words and the face of her mother wasn’t enough for her. She wants revenge. And so for the first time, Death is seriously reconsidering Its role. “The Honey of the World and the Queen of Crows” by Dimitra Nikolaidou When Leandros dies, he finds himself in what is the crossroads between life and death. He meets Magdalene, a nun smoking cigarettes, who offers him one minute in which he can go back, roll away from the mortar shells that killed him and his mate, and drag Yiorgos off to become deserters. The thought is tempting but also horrifying: How could he betray his army, run away selfishly? Magdalene tells him the story of how she became a nun, giving up her love for a prince. She was given a choice not unlike the one the soldier has been given now. Perhaps her decision will help him make his own choice. “Harvest of Bones” by Eugenia Triantafyllou  Raeh’s village is about to be attacked. She and the other women listen to this news from a young soldier and wonder what to do. On the table sits a jar filled with the bones of their ancestors—giant, strong women who fought for them ages ago and will do so again when needed. With the men taken by war and the remaining villagers struggling to survive, they are not equipped to make a stand against the advancing army. They have the bones of their valiant ancestors, but do they have the strength to put up a fight?  “Diamond Cuts” by Shaoni C. White Two actors perform the same painful play, over and over, trapped in the theatre and their roles by the resident sorcerer Maria, who has bound them to the building. The play has been performed for centuries, repeating a ritual that can’t be broken—for if anything deviates from the script even a little bit, not only the actors but even the audience may get hurt, and parts of the building, if not the places outside it, will collapse. When the male lead dies, his stage-partner finds herself grieving and helpless when her new co-star, brought into the whole mess on short notice, suggests resistance. She and her previous partner had attempted running away before, but the magic is too strong, while the exhausted actors can barely keep up. How long will they be able to keep performing night after night when in their hearts the seeds of resistance have taken root, growing ever more insistent? [end-mark] The post Five Short Stories About Defiance and Taking Charge appeared first on Reactor.

If I say that Elon Musk is the smartest, boldest, most creative entrepreneur in the world, I don’t think I will get pushback. President Donald Trump’s move to bring him to Washington and put him at the top of a new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, to do the seemingly impossible—to streamline a vastly outsized government spending behemoth—injects hope that yes, maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. Musk, the world’s richest man, is not beholden to anyone, and so there is little danger of him getting bogged down and imprisoned in the Washington culture of politics and quid pro quo. He can stand above it all and turn the Titanic around before it hits the iceberg for which it’s clearly headed. There’s a lot of talk that almost 75% of the federal budget is untouchable, mandatory spending. The top of that list is the largest, and oldest, entitlement program, Social Security—21% of federal spending. Short of passing a law to change it, it is on automatic pilot. After reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, I see him as uniquely qualified to lead a historic, essential transformation of Social Security. When Trump noted, in his inaugural speech, his commitment “to give the American people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and, indeed, their freedom,” I believe him. But these ideals cannot be achieved without taking on our broken Social Security program. Even the rhetoric surrounding this discussion is not American in character. “Saving the system.” We don’t serve systems in our free country. We preserve the freedom and integrity of individuals. The nation’s Founders, who pledged “our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor” for the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, would be aghast that today practically every young American is forced to pay a tax into a Social Security program that cannot fiscally honor its promised benefits. They would also be aghast that the pedigree of the largest federal program is not American. The first social security system—where citizens were taxed by government, which then promised to take care of them—was introduced in 1889 by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. This was the beginning of the modern welfare state, which inspired Franklin Roosevelt to sign America’s social security system into law in 1935. Immediately after Roosevelt signed Social Security into law, its constitutionality, appropriately, was challenged. Transfer payments—taxing one set of citizens to pay for benefits for another set of citizens—never existed in America and were not viewed as constitutional. However, the Roosevelt-era Supreme Court, by vastly expanding understanding of the Constitution’s “general welfare” clause, opened the door to German socialism in America. The massive growth of entitlement and welfare spending—transfer payments—goes back to that 1937 court decision Helvering v. Davis, which deemed transfer payments, and Social Security, constitutional. While Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln look out onto the National Mall in Washington, the spirit of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck hovers over the whole city. To succeed at this transformational opportunity, I hope Musk will appreciate that first and foremost, this is not about budgeting and accounting but about ideas and principles. No one proposes to threaten Social Security benefits current retirees receive. That is sacred. But we must free young Americans, our future, from failed German socialism, and return them to American capitalism. At least give them a choice—a choice to take ownership of the funds, now being taxed and forced into a broken system, and invest them, over a working lifetime, in the American economy. Washington is now so jaded, our establishment now so confused and corrupt, no one believes it can be done. But it can be done, and Elon Musk can do it. I pray he’ll step up to this historic leadership challenge and save our nation. COPYRIGHT 2025 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 Elon Musk Should Take on Social Security appeared first on The Daily Signal.

PITTSBURGH—The investment firm Ancora is pushing U.S. Steel shareholders to drop the Nippon Steel merger and oust CEO David Burritt, a move that would align with President Donald Trump’s insistence that U.S. Steel stay in American hands. It is unclear from its statement how big a stake in U.S. Steel the Cleveland-based finance company currently has. In September, Trump said despite all of Nippon’s broad promises, he is still set on not having a foreign company own an American one that is so central to national security. “U.S. Steel was the greatest corporation in the world 70 years ago. It was the biggest, best in the whole world,” Trump said, adding that “we have to bring that greatness back” but under U.S. ownership. “We can’t have foreign companies owning our steel companies where they can close it down in case there’s a war in Asia,” he explained. A website published by the activist investor is, unsurprisingly, called “Make U.S. Steel Great Again.” In 2023, U.S. Steel shocked the region and the nation when it agreed to sell a company that was once the largest in the world to Nippon Steel for over $14 billion. It was a deal that former President Joe Biden blocked in January and one that Trump said in September he opposed. In an open letter to the board of U.S. Steel, Ancora said it intends to rally shareholders, of which they are one, around a plan to oust U.S. Steel’s top boss, Burritt. The letter notes its deep roots in the Midwest and its affinity for industrial companies that are the backbone of America’s economy. Ancora said that while it understands why the board explored alternatives in 2023, “its ultimate decision to ignore national security and pursue a risky sale to Nippon—an overseas bidder that came in just $1 per share higher than a competing domestic bidder—has led to a dead end.” Ancora further attacked Burritt, saying he “has been allowed to misallocate capital, issue unreliable and overoptimistic forecasts, and repeatedly miss financial targets.” Ancora noted Trump is a vocal opponent of the deal and a long-term proponent of strengthening America’s domestic manufacturing base. “We see no reason to believe that President Trump, a high-conviction businessman who was elected by middle-class and working-class voters, is going to contradict his self-described ‘America First’ agenda and disregard the opposition of the United Steelworkers,” the letter reads. The controversial sale of U.S. Steel, once the gold star of American strength, to a foreign company rocked the psyche of western Pennsylvanians when it was announced. The sale has also become a hot-button matter locally, with union leadership forcefully against it while many community and faith leaders believe that if the sale does not go through, the remaining U.S. Steel facilities will be vacated and cause more economic devastation in steel towns that have already struggled with steel’s decline. In 2018, Trump, then in the second year of his first term as president, blocked transactions involving China’s ByteDance and Singapore’s Broadcom from acquiring U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm. “You can’t let foreign countries—where who knows what’s going to happen with your relationship with the countries—buy our steel plants,” he said. “If there’s a war, we have to make our army tanks, we have to make our ships, we have to make our everything. And can you imagine if we had to send away for foreign shipments for steel? So we can’t do it.” Ancora is planning to oust Burritt by nominating and electing nine new directors to U.S. Steel’s 12-person board. Ancora noted that its slate is not interested in selling the company but intends to rebuild it. Earlier this month, at a press conference in Butler, Pennsylvania, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said his company would not make a bid for U.S. Steel until Nippon abandons its plans. U.S. Steel, whose headquarters is in Pittsburgh, employs over 21,000 people in the United States. At its peak employment during World War II, it employed 340,000. The company was formed after a 1901 merger of the nation’s leading steel companies, which included Andrew Carnegie’s steel company. Carnegie’s original steel plant, the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, is still in operation in Braddock, Pennsylvania, along Braddock Avenue, right across the street from Sen. John Fetterman’s, D-Pa., home. U.S. Steel is not just culturally significant for Pennsylvanians—the former headquarters along Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh is the tallest building in Appalachia. The company has national significance as well. It is hard to note a significant building constructed over the past few decades that didn’t include steel from the men and women who worked there. COPYRIGHT 2025 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 Ancora Wants to Make US Steel Great Again appeared first on The Daily Signal.

So You Think You've Had A Busy Three Weeks?

"Scienticide" is how the policies of President Milei have been described.

It took nerves of steel just to capture this photograph.

The game changed on Wednesday for young female athletes who have gone through hell fighting to stop men from invading their sporting competitions.  President Donald Trump honored National Girls and Women in Sports day by signing an executive order keeping their sports for girls and women only. ?BREAKING: President Trump signs executive order to keep men out of women's sports surrounded by female athletes! pic.twitter.com/W7cZmCXDGW — Media Research Center (@theMRC) February 5, 2025 “The war on women’s sports is over,” he declared, reversing President Joe Biden’s attempt to surrender their opportunities to biological males, in the name of “transgender” inclusion. JUST IN: President Trump signs executive order banning men from competing in women’s sports. This is Trump's fourth executive order involving transgender people since taking office. "With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over," Trump said, commenting on his… pic.twitter.com/mSVQFj6sFD — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 5, 2025 Leave it to the “progressive” media to whine that ending discrimination against girls discriminates against men who impersonate girls. “There are human rights groups who say that this exposes kids to discrimination. What is your response to that?” asks one “journalist” during a White House briefing shortly before the signing.  REPORTER: "What's the message to schools that don't comply with" the order banning boys in girls' sports? PRESS SEC: "They should, because it's going to be federal law in about an hour and a half." ? pic.twitter.com/cqoXwvYaMt — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 5, 2025 She failed to specify which so-called “human rights” group complained, but her claim falls flat when even a United Nations rapporteur concluded “any country that allows biological men to compete in women’s sports is allowing violence against women.” Before she twisted the order even further, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt put the DNC mouthpiece in her place.  “Kids have already been exposed to discrimination, especially young women and girls who have been forced to shower in locker rooms with biological men… who have been forced to compete on playing fields with biological men, which is incredibly unfair and unsafe and again, an incredibly unpopular policy with the American people,” she shot back. But the “journalist” responded by asking "What's the message to schools that don't comply with the order banning boys in girls' sports?” "They should, because it's going to be federal law in about an hour and a half,” snapped  Leavitt. Just a bit later, her forewarning became a sobering reality for progressives who remain in denial that they can no longer hide behind an activist administration that spares them the rule of law.