Israel led by a fascist authoritarian, Benjamin Netanyahu, who like criminal Trump, cares for nothing but staying in power to avoid going to prison has led his country into committing genocide. And it is being made possible by the bombs and weapons the United States gives Israel. I hope Kamala Harris wins the Presidency, but she is as complicit in this genocide as Biden, and Trump before him have been. I believe historians in the future will see this as one of the great geopolitical errors in American history.
An aid truck crosses the Egypt-Gaza border in Rafah. Photograph: Mohamed Arafat/EPA
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they carried out an airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza aimed at “armed assailants” trying to hijack it but the charity that organised the aid said people killed in the strike were employees of the transport company it was working with.
The convoy, organised by the US-based NGO Anera, was carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah on Thursday evening at the time of the attack. Its route had been coordinated in advance with the IDF, under a deconfliction process intended to prevent aid vehicles being bombed.
Anera’s Palestine country director, Sandra Rasheed, said: “This is a shocking incident. The convoy, which was coordinated by Anera and approved by Israeli authorities, included an Anera employee who was fortunately unharmed.
“Tragically, several individuals, all employed by the transportation company we work with, were killed in the attack. They were in the first vehicle of the convoy.”
Unconfirmed reports from Gaza said five people were killed in the airstrike.
Yet another sex scandal involving a fundamentalist mega church pastor. There are so many of these, I don’t usual cover them as individual events, but I am doing this story because there are so many of these scandals it is clearly a trend. Evangelicals pastors, like Roman Catholic priests, clearly have issues with their sexuality. The difference is priests are supposed to be celibate, whereas evangelical pastors are supposed to be faithful to their wives, or celibate if not married. Yet in both instances puritanical religiosity is unstainable, and these men pray on women, girls, and boys. These are not just sexual moves, they are power moves, using what is supposed to be their spiritual authority, to force sex on their religious followers.
Pastor Robert Morris, seen in a 2020 photo, resigned after a woman said he had abused her on multiple occasions in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12, according to a June 2024 statement. Credit: Alex Brandon / AP
Summer was off to a tumultuous start when allegations of child sexual abuse surfaced on a blog dedicated to Christian survivor stories. This time, the man involved had gone on to lead one of America’s largest megachurches.
Robert Morris, who founded and led Gateway Church for nearly 25 years in the affluent Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, Texas, resigned after the scandal came to light in June. His exit sent thousands of evangelicals into a season of struggle that has lasted months.
Last week, a pastor who oversaw all of Gateway’s campuses departed amid an undisclosed “moral issue,” becoming the latest in a series of changes for the church: The cancellation of its annual conference. The departure of Morris’ successor. The renaming of its Houston campus and […]
Fluoride has long been an issue as to its effects on health. But here is a new, and quite alarming report. Fluoride, it seems, lowers the IQ of children when they are exposed to twice the recommended limit, as many childrren are. I urge you to have your water tested. Pay close attention particularly to Fluoride, lead, and arsenic. If there is an issue with any of these have a water filter installed at the intake point where water comes into your house.Soft drinks, toothpaste, and mouth washes also contain fluoride. Our bodies need a little bit for bone health, but be very careful about fluoride, particularly with children.
Credit: Jim Cole / AP
A U.S. government report expected to stir debate concluded that fluoride in drinking water at twice the recommended limit is linked with lower IQ in children.
The report based on an analysis of previously published research, marks the first time a federal agency has determined — “with moderate confidence” — that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. While the report was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoride in drinking water alone, it is a striking acknowledgment of a potential neurological risk from high levels of fluoride.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the CDC. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
“I think this (report) is crucial in our understanding” of this risk, said Ashley Malin, PhD, a University of Florida researcher who has studied the effect of higher fluoride […]
As you know from reading me I think AI is a very mixed bag. I can see how it could be helpful, I also see how it could, and has been, used in very negative ways spewing AI generated misinformation and fake porn to mention just two of the many damages AI is causing. California is the first state to really think the issue through by passing California’s SB 1047. The tech industry of course, which has profit as its only real priority, is furious and doing everything it can to sabotage such legislation. I think, we need national legislation, regulating this technology before it destroys our democracy and social wellbeing.
Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI Scientist, has warned that liability for mass casualties caused by AI will destroy the industry. Credit: Chesnot / Getty
If I build a car that is far more dangerous than other cars, don’t do any safety testing, release it, and it ultimately leads to people getting killed, I will probably be held liable and have to pay damages, if not criminal penalties.
If I build a search engine that (unlike Google) has as the first result for “how can I commit a mass murder” detailed instructions on how best to carry out a spree killing, and someone uses my search engine and follows the instructions, I likely won’t be held liable, thanks largely to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
So here’s a question: Is an AI assistant more like a car, where we can expect manufacturers to do safety testing or be liable if they get people killed? Or is it more like a search engine?
I have had occasion to meet and speak candidly with several people I didn’t know, and their comments have left me seriously concerned with what I see as the growing sense that America is no longer a country where working hard will give you the success you seek. I see this as a fundamental aspect of the obscene wealth inequality that now shapes American society. I find it interesting that this article is appearing in Murdoch’s conservative Wall Street Journal. I see that as the recognition of a trend that has become irrefutable. I also think the reason that the Harris ticket is doing so well is because they are directly speaking to the trend and promising change.
Americans overwhelmingly desire all the traditional trappings of the American dream—owning a home, having a family, and looking forward to a comfortable retirement. But very few believe they can easily achieve it.
A July Wall Street Journal/NORC poll of 1,502 U.S. adults shows a stark gap between people’s wishes and their expectations. The trend was consistent across gender and party lines, but held more true for younger generations, who have been priced out of homeownership and saddled with high interest rates and student debt.
While 89% of respondents said owning a home is either essential or important to their vision of the future, only 10% said homeownership is easy or somewhat easy to achieve. Financial security and a comfortable retirement were similarly labeled as essential or important by 96% and 95% of people, respectively, but rated as easy or somewhat easy to pull off by only 9% and 8%.
Twelve years ago, when researchers at Public Religion Research Institute asked 2,501 people if the American dream “still holds true,” more than half said it did. When The Wall Street Journal asked the same question in July, that dropped to […]
As this article explains the EPA has issued an emergency ban on a chemical used in commercial pesticides called Dacthal. I hope you don’t use chemical pesticides but, if your do, If you have any pesticides in your garage or garden shack that contain Dacthal, listed on products as dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate immediately take the container to some center that handles poisons. It is dangerous to your health, particularly pregnant women and children.
The pesticide Dacthal is commonly used on strawberries. Credit: bluecinema / E+ / Getty
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued an emergency notice pulling the pesticide dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, also known as DCPA or Dacthal.
The chemical was placed under an emergency order to stop further use, the first order of its kind in nearly four decades, because of the risk it poses to fetuses in pregnant people. According to the EPA, when pregnant people are exposed to DCPA, it can change the fetal thyroid hormone levels.
After birth, the baby may experience low birth weight, impaired brain development and decreased IQ, the agency warned. Later in life, the exposure could also be linked to impaired motor skills. The EPA noted that some of the effects of exposure could be irreversible.
“DCPA is so dangerous that it needs to be removed from the market immediately,” Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said in a statement. “It’s EPA’s job to protect people from exposure to dangerous chemicals. In this case, pregnant […]
