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The European Union on Tuesday announced stricter content rules for 19 online platforms, including Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. The new rules apply to platforms that have a massive number of followers. The list also features services from Amazon, Google, Meta, Instagram and Microsoft, all of which have more than 45 million active users. Since the number of followers on these platforms is huge, they will now fall under a category known as the Digital Services Act (DSA). The new law imposed measures such as annual audits and a duty to effectively counter disinformation and hate content from August.In four months'...

THIRD WEEK OF EASTER John 6:35–40Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus declares that he is the bread of life and promises eternal life to all who believe in him.Many of the Church Fathers characterized the Eucharist as food that immortalizes those who consume it. They understood that if Christ is really present in the Eucharistic elements, the one who eats and drinks the Lord’s Body and Blood becomes configured to Christ in a far more than metaphorical way. The Eucharist, they concluded, Christifies and hence eternalizes.If the Eucharist were no more than a symbol, this kind of language would be so...

Three men were arrested after allegedly hurling a landscaping rock at a Colorado woman, killing her as she drove just outside of Denver, authorities said Wednesday. Alexa Bartell, 20, "was killed when a rock was thrown through her windshield as she was driving" north in the 10600 block of Indiana Street at about 10:45 p.m. in Westminster on April 19, according to a statement from Jefferson County Sheriff's investigators. Bartell was the last of several cars "struck by large landscaping rocks in a spree that began shortly after" 10 p.m. that night near 100th Avenue and Simms Street in Westminster,...

The bodies of eight people were found dumped in the Mexican resort of Cancun, one of the country’s most popular tourism destinations, authorities said Tuesday. The bodies were discovered over the weekend about 10 miles from Cancun’s beach and hotel zone after police launched a coordinated effort to search for missing people in wooded lots and even sinkhole ponds, also known as cenotes, Mexican authorities said. Oscar Montes de Oca, the head prosecutor of the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo, said five of the bodies were found at an abandoned construction site. Three were subsequently identified as previously reported...

The co-founder of a fundraising group linked to Steve Bannon that promised to help Donald Trump construct a wall along the southern U.S. border was sentenced to four years and three months in prison on Wednesday for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors. Brian Kolfage, a decorated Air Force veteran who lost both of his legs and an arm in the Iraq War, previously pleaded guilty for his role in siphoning donations from the We Build the Wall campaign. A co-defendant, financier Andrew Badolato, was also sentenced to three years for aiding the effort. He had also pleaded...

The South Carolina House Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee has signed off on a measure to repeal certificate of need regulations for most healthcare facilities in the state. S.164 would eliminate the CON requirement for most healthcare facilities. In February, the State Senate approved the CON repeal by a 30-6 vote. Last week, the South Carolina House Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Subcommittee voted in favor of the mandate repeal. "With today’s committee passage, attention now turns to the full House to repeal our state’s certificate of need laws," Americans for Prosperity-South Carolina State Director Candace Carroll...

Gov. Ron DeSantis held trade talks with South Korean officials in Seoul on Wednesday on the second leg of his four-nation trip.

Hello fellow FReepers, would love to pick your brain on a topic I've been thinking about. Are there any reasons why BRICS would NOT want to be the world reserve currency? Are there responsibilities and burdens that would become theirs, should they succeed in doing this? Seems to me that, since the U.S. dollar became the world reserve currency, it is the U.S. that has shouldered the brunt of every (or most) debt, war, international bailout, humanitarian aid, and so forth. If BRICS should succeed, wouldn't these responsibilities/liabilities then transfer to them? This is not a question of "Will or...

A man from California learned a hard lesson about electric vehicles (EVs) after his Rivian truck ran out of battery charge had to be towed out of the Wyoming mountains. “Towed my first EV Today… a brand new $90,000 electric pickup from the rest area on South Pass to Rocksprings…” Jake Yeaman, tow truck operator with Specialty Towing, wrote in a Facebook post. “He had charged in Riverton enough to go 120 miles, but ran out of kilovolts halfway over the mountain (about 60 miles) so you might want to make sure your tank is full of electrons before tackling...

It’s not like Joe Manchin didn’t have every reason to know. But he is throwing a hissy fit about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act’s effects on the American economy and his own state’s. It’s pathetic. Everybody who paid a lick of attention could see that the IRA was just a repackaged Green New Deal. It was packed with spending and provisions that the Congressional Research Service and any sane economist could tell you would increase inflation and reduce energy production. It was a disaster, and Manchin voted for it. Somehow he claims that he was promised that the bill wouldn’t...

A Duke University professor of economics called for $14 trillion in reparations for the descendants of American slavery this past week, which equates to approximately $350,000 per recipient. Appearing on the “Dr. Phil” show, William Darity said cash reparations should be designed to reduce the wealth gap between white and black Americans, which currently stands “in excess of $840,000 per household,” according to Fox News. As for where that prodigious amount of money would come from, Darity said the feds.“It would be paid by the federal government in the same way in which the federal government has met the expenses...

Walt Disney Co. is suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over what it calls a "relentless campaign to weaponize government power" — a major escalation of the year-long clash between the entertainment giant and conservative governor. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida came the same day the governor's handpicked board declared a Disney-friendly deal null and void.

Joe Biden announced his 2024 re-election bid in a video early this morning. I guess with a dementia patient, it’s better to have video you can edit or redo several times instead of attempting an in-person announcement for which Democrats would have to find people who actually want to attend. “Let’s finish the job,” the announcement said, which seems more like a threat than a slogan. Former President Donald Trump responded with a strong condemnation of Biden’s failed presidency. Trump continued to list Biden’s economic failures. ”Real wages have been falling 24 months in a row. In other words, under...

Dementia Joe Biden made it official yesterday that he wants to “finish the job.” Maybe he should learn how to finish a sentence first. The announcement was pre-recorded, for obvious reasons. According to the latest NBC poll, 70% of Americans don’t want Brandon to run again – 70%! That includes a majority of Democrats. Only 26% in the poll want him back on the ballot at age 82. Even Donald Trump has 35% rooting for him to run next year. Rather than releasing that statement – in fact a campaign ad – perhaps Brandon should have put out a videotape...

The suit stemmed from a political reporter's investigation into claims the former congressman's family used undocumented workers on their Iowa dairy farm.

Walt Disney Co. sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, alleging the Republican governor has waged a "relentless campaign to weaponize government power" over the company. The suit dramatically escalates the feud between DeSantis, who is expected to become a top Republican contender for the 2024 presidential race, and Disney. The lawsuit was filed the same day that a DeSantis-backed board moved to undo a development deal that it says Disney struck to thwart its power...

Note: This is the fourth in a 10-part series at PJ Media examining what our nation’s top 10 law schools – according to U.S. News and World Report – are teaching. J. Christian Adams and I are undertaking a deep dive into what is being taught in these law schools. We have already covered Yale, Stanford, and Chicago. If you thought based on our coverage of the curriculums at Yale, Stanford, and Chicago that you had seen the worst of the political indoctrination that passes for a law school education these days, wait until you see the curriculum at the...

Latest job cuts point to ongoing weakness in tech sector.. SAN JOSE — Hundreds more tech and biotech layoffs have rattled the Bay Area job market, cutbacks that hint the sectors are still wobbly and have yet to shift back into hiring mode. IBM, Accenture, Amplitude and Myovant Sciences are among the most recent companies to reveal staffing cutbacks in the Bay Area, according to documents on file with the state’s labor agency. The most recent layoffs produced a combined total job loss of just over 300 positions in the Bay Area. ... All told, starting in July 2022, tech...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is not coming across as "strong or confident," while former President Donald Trump is showing strength, according to radio host and Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk. "I say this as a friend of Ron DeSantis," Kirk said on his radio program recently, reported Mediaite. "He's had a bad month and a half. He has not come across as strong or confident. His team would disagree with what I'm saying. I'm just telling you what the grassroots are saying. I see your emails." Kirk also said DeSantis...

WND News Center) — The family of Sam Brinton – former high-level Biden nuclear-waste appointee, alleged luggage-stealer and self-described “genderfluid bisexual” – is finally speaking out publicly to debunk what they say are lies he told about them. “Former Biden Department of Energy official Sam Brinton claims to have been beaten by their [his] father, who held a gun to their [his] head and forced them [him] into [ex-gay] conversion therapy – but their [his] family insist it is all lies,” reported the New York Post Febraury 19, using Brinton’s “preferred pronouns” of “they/them.” The cross-dressing Brinton was fired in...