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Expert witness Todd Decker alleges “five or six points of similarity" between Perry's 2013 hit [Dark Horse] and the 2008 Christian rap song "Joyful Noise." Day two of the copyright infringement trial over Katy Perry’s 2013 single “Dark Horse” was characterized by more than one instance of live singing, but it wasn’t the pop star who was giving the performance. Instead, Todd Decker -- a musicologist and professor who serves as the chair of music at Washington University in St. Louis -- belted out some tunes during his testimony on Friday (July 19). Serving as the plaintiffs' expert witness, Decker...

Former House Speaker John Boehner and former Rep. Joe Crowley are joining forces in a bipartisan effort to combat a looming pension crisis affecting nearly 1.3 million American retirees Opens a New Window. Boehner, the Ohio Republican who retired in 2015, is part of the Retirement Security Coalition, a leading force that is raising awareness to the underfunded multiemployer benefit plans. “The job Joe and I have taken on is to try to elevate the seriousness of this problem," he told FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto Opens a New Window. on Thursday. "And Congress really does in fact need to act."...

California’s proposed $26 billion bailout of bankrupt PG&E’s wildfire liability will push the state’s average residential electric rates to 70 percent higher than national average. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill on July 18 that supposedly will share equally between Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) shareholders and its customer the estimated $21 billion liability for 2017 and 2018 wildfire losses. The deal is also contingent on PG&E and the state’s other two investor-owned utilities, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas, contribute another $5 billion to cover losses. According to the latest U.S. Energy Information Agency report, California’s residential...

U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Col. Townsend Whelen was an iconic American rifleman, soldier, experimenter, and leader who lived through the introduction of smokeless powder and bolt action rifles. He wrote voluminously, including several books. He lived a long and useful life, born in 1877, and dying at the end of 1961, at the age of 88. His works live on today and are considered classics. While visiting my brother in Northern Wisconsin, I was perusing his collection of Gun Digests. Looking at early Gun Digests reminds me of how much things have changed, how much we have lost and gained in our...

China’s official demographic figures, including the now-cliched “country of 1.4 billion people”, seriously misrepresent the country’s real population landscape. The real size of China’s population could be 115 million fewer than the official number, putting China behind India in terms of population. This massive error, equal to the combined populations of the United Kingdom and Spain, is a product of China’s rigged population statistics system, influenced by the vested interests of China’s family planning authority. To start with, the raw data of China’s population figures were “adjusted”. China’s total fertility rate, or the number of kids per woman throughout her...

Representative Dan Crenshaw, joined by Representatives Cuellar (TX-28), Flores (TX-17), Gonzalez (TX-15), Lamb (PA-17), Lucas (OK-3) and Walberg (MI-7), introduced the Launching Energy Advancement and Development through Innovations for Natural Gas (LEADING) Act of 2019. The legislation prioritizes research and development funding for technology that captures carbon emissions by instructing the Department of Energy to utilize up to $50 million each year of existing funds. Ultimately, the bill seeks to develop more carbon capture technology to make it more accessible, resulting in widespread use and lower carbon emissions from power plants across the country. Yesterday, the Senate companion bill advanced...

A defiant Turkey said it was considering “alternatives” to US fighter jets, including Russian models or making its own, a day after Washington suspended it from a programme to build and deploy advanced warplanes. The US punished Turkey for its purchase of a Russian air defence system by pushing it out of a long-term programme to upgrade Nato forces with F-35 advanced fighter jets. The Kremlin quickly attempted to exploit the disagreement, which has already drawn Ankara closer to Moscow, offering to sell Turkey Russian fighter planes. Ismail Demir, head of Turkey’s defence industries, responded that “all kinds of options...

A few days before the Fourth of July, British comic John Oliver used the pulpit of his US infotainment show, Last Week Tonight, to deliver a lengthy monologue about the depredations of Amazon.com. His specific complaint was that Amazon doesn’t treat its employees very well.

For years, ESPN indulged in left-wing politics. I wrote about this here and here. But John Skipper, under whose direction ESPN took this unfortunate turn, is no longer running the network. It turned out that he had an addiction problem. Also, ESPN was hurting financially. ESPN’s new head, Jimmy Pitaro, issued a directive — stop doing politics. To my knowledge, it has been followed. Earlier this week, however, an ESPN talk show host named Dan Le Batard violated ESPN policy. He lashed out at Donald Trump over the president’s suggestion that four radical left-wing congresswoman leave the country. He also...

Dive Brief: Six more contractors and designers have settled lawsuits for undisclosed amounts with victims' families and the survivors of the March 15, 2018, pedestrian bridge collapse at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, the Miami Herald reported. Among the companies that settled is FIGG Bridge Group, which designed the pedestrian span. The other five companies are Bolton Perez & Associates; Corradino Group; A&P Consulting Transportation Engineers Corp.; RLT Engineering Services LLC; and Gerdau Ameristeel US Inc. There are more than 20 defendants being sued in civil lawsuits in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for their alleged roles in the collapse. The...

The traffic jams over the Occoquan are so much worse than on any other part of Interstate 95 in Virginia that they throw off the scale of a review of potential traffic improvements for I-95 from North Carolina to the Potomac River. Initial analysis ahead of public meetings this week to identify the Virginia trouble spots shows people spend more than 1.2 million hours a year in delays in just the 1-mile southbound stretch over the Occoquan River. The miles leading up to that are only slightly better, regularly slowed to around 30 mph. Overall, at least 70% of delays...

Like grave robbers opening King Tut’s tomb, Congress can’t wait to get its hands on America’s retirement-account assets. The House passed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act, known by the acronym Secure, in May. The vote was 417-3. The Secure Act is widely expected to pass the Senate by unanimous consent. While ostensibly helping Americans save for retirement, the bill would actually reduce the value of all retirement savings plans: individual retirement accounts, 401(k)s, Roth IRAs, the works. The main problem with the Secure Act is that it eliminates the stretch IRA, the fixed star in the...

ELYRIA — The law firms that represented Gibson’s Bakery and its owners in a lawsuit against Oberlin College have been awarded approximately $6.5 million in attorney fees by Lorain County [Ohio] Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi. The amount is on top of the $25 million in compensatory and punitive damages Oberlin College has been ordered to pay the bakery and its owners, who won a lawsuit against the college last month.

Spalding continued, “When you look at America today, we have no telecommunication equipment manufacturers left that are American companies. When China entered the WTO in 2001, from that time period to 2017, we lost 78,000 factories. We unemployed 3.4 million manufacturing jobs. In the same time, we spent trillions in the Middle East.” “We fell into this trap of believing that open markets lead to wealth, and wealth leads to democracy, and, therefore, if we just open ourselves up to the world, that the world would automatically democratize,” noted Spalding. “In the space of that 20 years, we essentially deindustrialized...

KIEV (Reuters) - The Ukrainian arm of the world's biggest steelmaker said on Saturday that the state security service had searched its plant in Kryvyi Rih, a week after new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy criticized the management. ArcelorMittal has invested about $9 billion in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine's largest steel mill, which is now under close government scrutiny. "Today, Ukrainian Security Service officials arrived at our plant and carried out a search," Alexander Ivanov, the acting head of the mill, said in a statement. Zelenskiy, whose party will fight for control over parliament at an election on Sunday, visited his hometown...

Why was Trump even being asked about straws? you’re probably wondering now. Ah — it’s because last night his own campaign website began selling Trump-branded plastic straws, a bargain at just 15 bucks for, uh, 10 straws. MAGA Nation doesn’t use cuck paper straws (described as “liberal” on the campaign website, no joke). They proudly use plastic — recyclable plastic in this case — and spit in the eye of soy boys who complain about it. The straws have naturally sold out already, proving that there’s no culture war dispute so petty, particularly when it involves a type of political...

The aftermath of two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets shortly after takeoff has led to the global grounding of the airplane. Boeing has been forced to cut production, and even so, undelivered planes are piling up. Big buyers like Southwest American Airlines have been forced to cancel flights during their peak time of year as a result of taking their 737s off line. American lengthened its 737 grounding to June 5 and Southwest, to August 5 [Update: American sent a notice to American Aadvantage members that the grounding would last through August 19]. Even though Boeing is scrambling to...

SHENZHEN, CHINA — In an exclusive interview, Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei, spoke out about the Trump administration’s move to target the Chinese tech giant and emphasized that it does not need U.S. companies in order to survive. The wide-ranging interview with Yahoo Finance covered the impact of the Trump administration’s previous ban on U.S. companies from selling components to Huawei, whether Huawei poses a security risk to the U.S., and recent setbacks at Huawei’s U.S. research arm, Futurewei. Despite those hurdles, Ren insisted, “If U.S, companies were to stop supplying us altogether, our production would not stop...

The trade war between China and the United States isn’t a conflict that will remain confined to the economy. It’s a risky play in a new Cold War. -- Much has been written about the economic wisdom and potential effects of the Sino-American trade war. Yet few understand that the trade war is just one front in what we should view as the Second Cold War. China seems to be in the lead in developing and employing technologies like artificial intelligence, hypersonic missiles, and 5G (which has extensive defense and intelligence system applications). Together, these technologies could create a strategic...