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The new California Assembly Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy recently released its first report, which sought to discover which California county was the happiest. The report, meant to guide legislators in crafting future laws, includes survey data from organizations, including the Public Policy Institute of California. Researchers found Alpine County, one of the state’s least populous counties just south of Lake Tahoe, was the “happiest.”

Ron DeSantis never misses, and his response to Hurricane Milton has set another standard. After pre-staging crews to work around the clock, the recovery from the massive storm is well underway. Some in the press are still looking for controversy, though. On Thursday, one reporter tried to blame Milton and the tornados it spawned on "global warming." What followed was a masterclass in both knowledge and how to use it to push back on a narrative. Truly, this is a joy to watch. Take it in because we don't get many politicians on the right who can articulate a point...

One evening in February 1989, my Watergate reporting partner Carl Bernstein bumped into Donald Trump at a dinner party in New York. “Why don’t you come on up?” Carl urged me on the phone from the party, hosted by Ahmet Ertegun, the Turkish American socialite and record executive, in his Upper East Side townhouse. “Everybody’s having a good time,” he said. “Trump is here. It’s really interesting. I’ve been talking to him.” Carl was fascinated with Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal.” Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to join him, in large part, as Carl often reminds me, because I...

ATLANTA -- A federal judge said Thursday that she won't order the presidential battleground state of Georgia to reopen voter registration for November’s elections despite recent disruptions to registration caused by Hurricane Helene. U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross rejected arguments that the state should reopen registration through next Monday. The registration deadline was last Monday and she said in her ruling from the bench Thursday afternoon that there would be no extension. A lawsuit filed by the Georgia conference of the NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda and the New Georgia Project had argued that damage and disruptions...

It’s not your imagination: The ground beneath Southern California has been particularly unsteady as of late, with the region experiencing more moderate-sized earthquakes this year than it has in decades. What precisely is fueling the sequence of shakers is not entirely clear, and officials warn that prior seismic activity does not necessarily mean more powerful temblors are imminent. But the series of modest shakers have many wondering what is going on.“Earthquakes pop off around the state, and it’s a little bit like popcorn that they hit — sometimes they bunch up for reasons that we don’t understand,” said Susan Hough,...

Since we started burning fossil fuels on a widespread, global scale, the number of people killed by natural disasters has gotten smaller, not bigger.Does this mean that we have fewer natural disasters now than in the past?No.Instead, what it means is that the huge amount of wealth that we have created by burning fossil fuels has made us better able to withstand natural disasters.This chart shows the number of people killed (per 100,000 population) by natural disasters by decade.You can see a bigger version of the chart by clicking this link: https://www.businessinsider.com/natural-disasters-used-to-be-so-much-worse-2015-2

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer raised eyebrows Thursday over a bizarre video in which she fed Doritos into the mouth of a liberal podcaster — in which some said was a stunt that imitated the Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion. In the short clip, posted on podcaster Liz Plank’s Instagram account, the lefty influencer was seen on her knees opening her mouth for Whitmer to place Doritos on her tongue. Plank was then seen eating it as the camera panned to reveal Whitmer, in a camouflage Harris-Walz hat. The video is an apparent takeoff on a TikTok meme in which friends...

In a renewed appeal, Pope Francis called for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty, arguing it ‘attacks the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ contrasting against traditional Church teachings that defend capital punishment. Pope Francis has once again called for an end to the death penalty, describing the practice as “always inadmissible” and appealing for its “abolition in all countries of the world.”In an October 10 post on his official X (formerly Twitter) account to commemorate “European and World Day against the Death Penalty,” the Pope wrote that the “death penalty is always inadmissible, because it attacks the inviolability...

Once a huge champion of all things digital, I’ve come to develop serious doubts about the pace at which humanity made the switch from analog to the cloud. The hackings, outages, data breaches, and extended breakages all make the point. But the danger is even greater. Most of the things we use today have not been stress tested. They are centralized and have a single point of failure. And they are very vulnerable. It could all stop in an instant with no sure guarantee of when it will come back. A turning point came for me recently, while visiting a...

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Commencement Address at Harvard University—8 June 1978. {Russian audio with English-translation audio overlay; and English subtitles.} PLEASE NOTE: THERE DOES NOT EXIST A VIDEO WITH ONLY ONE LANGUAGE AUDIO. SORRY. THIS IS HOW IT WAS RECORDED. PLEASE TURN ON CC/SUBTITLES TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE ENGLISH.

Joe Biden: "Former President Trump — Get a life, man. Help these people." Pres. Biden criticizes Donald Trump for spreading misinformation about federal hurricane relief, says the public "will hold him accountable."

[Catholic Caucus] Liberal nun tells Synod reporters some women ‘feel the call’ to the priesthoodSpeaking to Synod reports Monday, Sister Mary Theresa Barron claimed, 'Is the spirit calling women? Because some women do sense a call to priesthood or diaconate.'Sister Mary Theresa Barron, OLA, president of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), told journalists at a Synod on Synodality press conference Monday that some women “feel the call” to the male-only priesthood and thus, the Church ought to listen to them. During a press conference Monday, Barron took a question from a journalist who asked her to describe ways...

Meghan McCain, the daughter of late former Republican presidential candidate and Senator John McCain, posted to social media that there is "no family drama," after her brother took a selfie with Democratic vice-presidential nominee and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. "Yes, I am over here the last republican in the family," McCain posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday. "Albeit, it feels strange, everything is okay. There is no family drama." Vice President Kamala Harris, left, speaks before planting a memorial tree in Washington, D.C., on Monday, October 7, 2024. Meghan McCain, inset, attends the Time100 Gala at Lincoln...

By year-end, Americans will be required to hand over data on their small businesses to the federal government’s law enforcement database... The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is an aggressive domestic program to federally register millions of unsuspecting small business owners under the guise of an “anti-money laundering initiative.” By the end of this year, Americans will be required to hand over their small businesses’ private data — such as owners’ names and home addresses — to the federal government’s law enforcement database, operated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), housed under the Department of the Treasury. Such small businesses...

The late senator's youngest son endorsed Trump's opponent, Kamala Harris, telling CNN he will help her campaign "in any way" he can John McCain's youngest son, 1st Lt. Jimmy McCain, revealed that he is now a registered Democrat — and plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election. Jimmy announced his decision in an exclusive interview with CNN published Tuesday, Sept. 3, during which he also slammed former President Donald Trump and his campaign staffers’ alleged behavior at Arlington National Cemetery last week — which Jimmy, 36, dubbed a “violation.” According to NPR, on Monday,...

A severe solar storm is currently blasting Earth that could stress power grids even more as the US deals with disruptions from Hurricane Milton that hit Florida. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued an extreme geomagnetic storm watch for the next two days after the sun released a powerful a explosion of energy on Tuesday. The level 4 geomagnetic storm began hitting Earth at around 9:30am ET and is expected to continue through Friday.

Actress Sally Field has shared her traumatic experience of getting an illegal abortion in Mexico as a teenager, and calls for voters in the upcoming election to support Kamala Harris, so that reproductive freedoms are protected. Oscar-winning actress Sally Field has posted a video to Instagram in which she remembered the “traumatic” illegal abortion she underwent in 1964 before her acting career took off. Field first wrote about the abortion in her 2018 memoir “In Pieces,” and is using her own experience to highlight the current challenges women are facing since Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, on the...

Vice President Kamala Harris can’t even stumble her way through an emergency storm briefing without making it all about her. Let’s rewind the tape. As Hurricane Milton approached Florida, President Biden hosted a public briefing with a number of high officials. Advertisement

Brittany Mahomes has company in the club of NFL quarterback wives who support Donald Trump. The wife of Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, Annah Tagovailoa, posted a story to her Instagram on Wednesday that praised former President Trump's preemptive response to Hurricane Milton. She re-posted a video from conservative influencer Benny Johnson that showed footage of the former president hosting 275 Florida Power and LIght linemen at one of Trump's resorts in Miami. Trump hosted the workers free of charge as a safe place for them to wait out the hurricane while it made landfall in more northern areas of...

Wildly improbable conspiracy theories about Hurricanes Helene and Milton have spread largely unchecked on social media. The storms were engineered to clear the way for lithium mining. They were sent to help the Democrats in next month’s election. They were formed by weather-controlling lasers. The claims persist despite attempts by scientists and government officials to debunk them with evidence. They survive all calls to reason. The falsehoods, which have been circulating on X, TikTok, YouTube and other platforms, can resemble the conspiracy theories that plague modern American politics. Prominent figures are pushing them, citing unrelated, misleading or outdated evidence. But...