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It sounded like a dream come true, complete with a handsome prince riding to the rescue: the construction of 109 new, sustainable, flood-proof and affordable houses in New Orleans’s Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward, all thanks to movie star Brad Pitt. But the houses that were built fell far short of Pitt’s 2006 promises: they were plagued by mold, electrical fires and unclean water. On Tuesday, 13 years after Hurricane Katrina victims started moving into the buildings, Pitt and his foundation agreed to a settlement that will pay $20.5m to homeowners whose properties began to deteriorate almost as soon as...

A test has found that it costs over $100 to fully charge the battery of an electric pickup truck, far more than it would cost to fill up the gas tank of a large gas-powered truck of similar quality. In 2010, General Motors stopped manufacturing Hummers, a brand of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) that were massively criticized for being massive gas-guzzlers. In late 2020, GMC, a division of General Motors, came out with the new GMC Hummer EV, a line of electric battery-powered pickup trucks and SUVs. (Related: Range test finds gas pickup can tow 2,000-lb trailer...

On April 19, 2018, the California State Assembly approved Bill AB 2943. According to this bill, the Church can no longer preach or teach that homosexuality is wrong and cannot try to correct that behavior. Many are concerned about the ramifications of this. Even psychotherapy for gender dysphoria is against this law. One astute Facebook user commented, "editing the Bible would be the next logical step." The California Assembly, by a vote of 50-18, approved this bill, telling churches and other institutions that uphold traditional beliefs that if they advocated their views about gender and sexual orientation, they could get...

Astronomers may have detected a previously undiscovered "mini-moon" in the solar system: a rocky object orbiting a small asteroid near Jupiter. If the rocky satellite, which is just a little wider than the width of Manhattan, is confirmed to be a proper moon, it would be one of the smallest moons ever spotted. The tiny satellite was discovered by scientists working on NASA's Lucy mission, which is sending a space probe to study some of the Trojan asteroids, two massive groups of space rocks that are located on each side of Jupiter on its orbit around the sun. The Lucy...

Maria Shriver looked unrecognizable while out and about over the weekend. The former first lady of California was photographed in Santa Monica, Calif., sporting a new look while seemingly going makeup-free. In photos obtained by Page Six exclusively, the 66-year-old headed to her car after stopping by the construction site where she is building a new home. While Shriver seemed to be in great spirits, her face looked different than it has in recent years. The niece of the late President John F. Kennedy kept things casual in black leggings, a purple T-shirt and a pair of gray sneakers. Shriver...

"I direct that any additional resources… shall not be used to increase the share of small businesses or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” Treasury Secretary Yellen wrote to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. That directive has been used by media "fact checkers" to deny that the massive increase in IRS personnel under Biden’s Inflation Increase Act will also increase audits of the middle class. Yellen’s statement initially seems reassuring until you look closely at its curious language. Treasury Department spokeswoman Julia Krieger used the same phrasing when claiming that "audit rates relative to historical...

The Washington Post cheered a reported ban of a gamer who made a pro-America modification that offended the rainbow-praising Big Tech overlords. The Post seethed in a story headlined — “‘Spider-Man’ modification scene turns into Pride flag battlefield” — about how the celebration of the newly released PC version of the LGBTQ+-friendly 2018 game “Marvel’s Spider-Man” was being spoiled by “United States flags.” Huh? In The Post’s own words, some gamers tried to thwart any celebration around last week’s release of the PC game “by taking aim at a very specific target: Pride flags.” The offending gamer, “a modder going...

Doubts about continuing to pump weapons and other aid into Ukraine are especially prevalent among independents, at 37%, while 18% of Americans oppose the shipments altogether.The survey suggests waning support for US involvement as the conflict drags on, contributing to surging inflation on the home front. In fact, 40% of Americans now agree with the statement that “the problems of Ukraine are none of our business, and we should not interfere.” That compares with 31% when the same question was asked in April.Moreover, 59% of survey respondents, including 69% of Republicans, agree with the statement that “given the current economic...

Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration and is currently a Professor of Public Policy at University of California, Berkley, expressed interest on Tuesday in making the last name of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis an official synonym for "fascist." Reich is not the first left-wing person to dub the governor a fascist. It has become a more common occurrence as DeSantis has increased his national profile, some think with an eye toward running for the presidency in 2024. "The View's" Sunny Hostin previously called DeSantis a "fascist and a bigot," MSNBC host Joy Reid call...

Morning Consult has reported five years’ worth of data from over 8.6 million participants that shows a trend of America’s registered voters moving steadily to the ideological right. “The left is losing the battle for the minds of the American electorate, Morning Consult research shows, with voters decreasingly identifying as liberal in recent years,” writes Morning Consult political reporter Eli Yokley. “But that doesn’t mean the country is lurching to the right.”Yokley then makes an effort to pretend the trend isn’t what it looks like: “Instead, an increase in the share of Americans who identify as moderate, or who are...

The sunspot, known as AR3085, has also been shooting off several minor solar flares, though nothing strong enough to be disruptive on Earth. The sunspot, known as AR3085, has also been shooting off several minor solar flares, though nothing strong enough to be disruptive on Earth. Sunspots are regions on the sun where magnetic fields are so intense that some heat is prevented from reaching the sun's surface. As such, sunspots may appear as dark patches. Due to the intense magnetic fields, sunspots are known sources of solar activity. When these magnetic field lines suddenly shift, a vast amount of...

President Donald Trump slammed President Biden for orchestrating "another election enhancing money grab" with his move to cancel millions of dollars in student loan debt, warning that working-class Americans will foot the bill, while urging voters to "stop voting for Democrats." "Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats have just orchestrated another election enhancing money grab, this time to the tune of $300,000,000,000 — and just like I predicted, it’s coming right out of the pocket of the working-class Americans who are struggling the most!" Trump said Thursday in a statement. "Crippling inflation, unaffordable energy prices, and WAR — all...

For decades, political combatants under the hypnosis of leftist ideology have had a stranglehold on academia and the American education system. The largest teacher's union in the country advertises itself as non-partisan, but almost exclusively backs Democrat causes and candidates, and the culture of progressive thought so prevalent at the top trickled down, permeating all levels and spheres of education.We've seen schools devolve from institutions of traditional learning into dens of fallacy and pedophilia. City governments paying adult men for sexual performances in front of children, revisionist history to promote a Marxist agenda, and school libraries housing books with themes...

Former President Donald Trump will soon be indicted by a federal grand jury. He is the victim of a federal government that knows no bounds and has assumed powers nowhere granted in the Constitution by the sheer force of its own will. It has created a security state, replete with three lettered acronymic-named agencies — FBI, CIA, DEA, NSA, DIA — that are nowhere recognized in the Constitution, regularly break the written and moral laws, and are themselves far more dangerous to human freedom than the folks they pursue. How many laws have the feds broken? Ha. No one knows...

A Missouri school district has reinstated corporal punishment after parents reportedly called for their kids to be spanked with a wooden paddle, the superintendent claimed. Cassville R-IV School District, located near the Arkansas border, has implemented corporal punishment as a 'last resort' going into the 2022-23 school year. 'It shall be used only when all other alternative means of discipline have failed,' the policy reads. 'It should never be inflicted in the presence of other students.' The punishment technique - which is legal in 19 states - will only be administered in front of a witness and will not cause...

Founded in 2006, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue is a London-based nonprofit with a stated purpose of "safeguarding human rights and reversing the rising tide of polarisation [sic], extremism, and disinformation worldwide." The group previously worked with the Obama administration, combating "violent extremism," and their website lists critical topics most vulnerable to fake news and hate speech, which include:Electoral, climate, and public health disinformationConspiracy networksFar-right extremismLGBTQIslamophobiaA recent blog posted to the ISD website discussed a "hate-riddled public health disinformation campaign" where social media users identified monkeypox as almost exclusively (if not entirely) spread by homosexual male relations and questioned how...

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt released his second general election political ad on Wednesday, hammering “desperate” incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) for releasing ads that are “deemed false, misleading, and full of defamatory claims that don’t add up by several news outlets.” The ad, entitled “Gutter Politics,” will run on cable and broadcast across the Silver State. The spot focuses on how Cortez Masto’s recent mudslinging ads received false ratings from local outlets, including the Washington Post, which gave them seven “Pinocchio’s” combined. The ad states: Catherine Cortez-Masto is desperate — spending millions attacking Adam Laxalt’s family and...

In the wake of the massive raid at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, politicians and pundits are hectoring Americans to blindly trust the FBI. “The men and women of the FBI,” Attorney General Merrick Garland proclaimed, “are dedicated, patriotic public servants.” But the FBI would be more credible if it didn’t claim a right to secretly wield almost unlimited power. Most Americans (53%) view the FBI as “Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo,” a recent Rasmussen poll found. FBI actions 30 years ago at Ruby Ridge help explain the G-men’s fall from grace. Randy Weaver and his family lived in an isolated cabin...

Ankara supports Ukraine's territorial integrity and rejects the illegal annexation of Crimea, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. "The return of Crimea to Ukraine, of which it is an inseparable part, is essentially a requirement of international law," Erdogan said in a video message to the Second Crimea Platform Summit. The Crimea Platform is an international coordination mechanism of Ukraine to draw more global attention to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Erdogan said Ankara will continue to support the Crimean Platform that was established to resolve the Crimean issue through peaceful means. "Türkiye does not recognize...

The crises are now coming home to roost.We’re now entering the third inning of the problems exacerbating around the globe. This is why I created World’s Biggest Trade… and why I give away the momentum indicator to help you navigate these markets in real-time.Right now, the energy sector is holding broad market momentum in barely positive territory. But there’s no doubt now that we are a world in crisis.Harvest is coming. Winter is coming. The recession is here… and will worsen.This is a world in crisis… and it’s high time that our media acts like it and stops painting a...