A major international study looking at nearly 300,000 children has revealed a two-way link between the amount of time kids spend on screens and their emotional and social well-being.
Children who spent more time using devices like TVs, tablets, computers, and gaming consoles were at a higher risk of developing problems like aggression, anxiety, and low self-esteem later in life, the study found.
The connection also works in reverse: Children who were already struggling with social or emotional challenges tended to spend more time on all types of screens.
Time spent on gaming consoles was particularly linked to a greater chance of developing issues, according to the study, published Monday in the academic journal Psychological Bulletin.
Nearly half (49%) of its adult members — the oldest of whom are in their late 20s — say planning for the future feels “pointless,” according to a recent Credit Karma poll.
A freewheeling attitude toward summer spending has taken root among young adults who feel financial “despair” and “hopelessness,” said Courtney Alev, a consumer financial advocate at Credit Karma.
They think, “What’s the point when it comes to saving for the future?” Alev said.
That “YOLO mindset” among Generation Z — the cohort born from roughly 1997 through 2012 — can be dangerous: If unchecked, it might lead young adults to rack up high-interest debt they can’t easily repay, perhaps leading to delayed milestones like moving out of their parents’ home or saving for retirement, Alev said.
A male suspect was taken into custody on Sunday after multiple people were set on fire during an event calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza at a pedestrian mall in Boulder, Colorado, authorities said.
“We are aware of and fully investigating a targeted terror attack in Boulder, Colorado,” FBI Director Kash Patel said on X. “Our agents and local law enforcement are on the scene already, and we will share updates as more information becomes available.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement that the attack appeared to be a “hate crime given the group that was targeted.” Weiser said the group meets weekly at the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder to “call for the release of the hostages in Gaza.”
“Hate has no place in Colorado,” Weiser added. “We all have the right to peaceably assemble and the freedom to speak our views. But these violent acts — which are becoming more frequent, brazen and closer to home—must stop and those who commit these horrific acts must be fully held to account.”
The WNBA says it cannot substantiate claims that racist fan behavior took place during a game in Indianapolis between the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever earlier this month.
The league said its investigation included gathering information from fans, team and arena staff, as well as an “audio and video review of the game.”
“We appreciate the quick action by the league and the Indiana Fever to take this matter seriously and to investigate,” Chicago Sky CEO and President Adam Fox said in a statement. “This process demonstrates the league’s strong stance on stopping hate at all WNBA games and events, and we will continue to support those efforts.”
“Over six years ago, after it was reported I had been jumped, City Officials in Chicago set out to convince the public that I willfully set an assault against myself. This false narrative has left a stain on my character that will not soon disappear,” he wrote.
He added, “These officials wanted my money and wanted my confession for something I did not do. Today, it should be clear… They have received neither.”
Smollett said his decision to settle “was not the most difficult one to make,” explaining, “I was presented with an opportunity to make a charitable donation in exchange for the case being dismissed.”
During the ongoing massive manhunt for 10 inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail last week, authorities say the use of facial recognition cameras run by a private organization helped lead to the recapture of one of the fugitives — even as the police department has come under scrutiny by critics from civil rights organizations to conservative politicians over its use of the technology.
Earlier this week, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told ABC News that facial recognition cameras maintained by Project N.O.L.A. had been used in the New Orleans manhunt despite the fact that she recently ordered a pause in the automated alerts her officers had been receiving from the group, which operates independently of the police department.
[…]
In a March 27, 2025 letter to Kash Patel, who was then acting director of the federal Bureau Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms Explosives, Biggs, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, and Davidson raised concerns over news reports indicating the ATF utilized facial recognition technology to identify gun owners. “The Subcommittee has concerns about ATF’s use of facial recognition and Al programs and the effects that its use has upon American citizens’ Second Amendment rights and rights to privacy,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter, requesting documents on policies and training in the use of facial recognition technology.
I’m with the content creators on this one. One could make the argument that having an AI model scoop up copyrighted material for training is okay as long as the model doesn’t actually copy it. In that sense it would not be any different than a person reading a book or listening to a song and using that knowledge to inform some future work. But there isn’t anything that prevents an AI model using the material in a way that violates the copyright. At the very least, it would seem that the tech companies should pay the content creators for their work or pay them if their work is used by the AI model in the future.
Late last year, the U.K. government kicked off a consultation on proposals that would give tech giants and AI labs like OpenAI a legally sound way of using copyrighted content to train their advanced foundational models.
Under the proposals, artists would have to opt out of having their copyright-protected works from being scraped by large language models. LLMs like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini rely on huge amounts of data to generate humanlike responses in the form of text, images, video and audio.
This led to concerns from the U.K.’s creative industries, as it would mean placing the onus on content creators to request not to have their data used for the training of AI models — which, they argue, would amount to giving their valuable work away.
The White House has been fielding proposals aimed at persuading people to marry and have children, an effort being pushed by outside groups focused on increasing the nation’s birth rate after years of decline.
One such proposal that has been pitched to White House advisers is a $5,000 “baby bonus” to every American mother after she gives birth.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday when asked about a $5,000 incentive for new mothers.
A healthy nation has babies and we want to have policies that encourage families. Bribing new moms with $5k does not fix the underlying forces for why people are having fewer babies. Focus on policies that lower the cost of living, make housing more affordable, and stop with the apocalyptic global warming nonsense. We don’t need more welfare. We need a more stable, prosperous nation. Then the babies will come.
Oh, that’s rich. So he can execute someone by his authority for whatever reasons he likes, but he shouldn’t be killed because the government didn’t follow procedures. He’s a coward. If he wants to be a martyr to his monstrous cause, he should man up and welcome the chair.
Luigi Mangione asked a federal judge in New York on Friday to stop the government from seeking the death penalty if he’s convicted of federal charges related to the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, arguing the Justice Department made a “political, arbitrary, capricious” breach of protocol.
“When the United States plans to kill one of its citizens, it must follow statutory and internal procedures,” defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said. “Mangione seeks Court intervention now not merely because the Government has failed to follow these procedures but because it has abandoned them.”
This story is very long, but I encourage you to read it all. It is very telling. I’d like to highlight a few key points.
Audrey Hale felt no hatred against anyone at the school where the former student gunned down six people. In fact, the 28-year-old relished fond memories of The Covenant School and wanted “to die somewhere that made her happy,” Nashville police said.
“Hale bore no grudge against the school or staff” and considered them to be “‘innocents’ and victims on par with herself,” the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said.
Hale attended The Covenant School in the early 2000s, from kindergarten through fourth grade. The former student denied suffering any emotional or physical abuse during this period, investigators said in the report obtained by CNN.
“She felt safe and accepted at The Covenant and made friends with other students,” the report said. “She considered her family life during this time as happy, with a positive relationship with both of her parents and her brother.”
But more than 16 years after leaving the school, Hale targeted the beloved alma mater “due to the notoriety she would obtain” and “because she had a personal connection to the school from earlier in her life and felt she had to die somewhere that made her happy,” police said.
I remember the narrative of the time where liberals were insinuating, or outright accusing, that the murderer targeted this little Christian school in revenge for some past wrong. Perhaps they abused her. Perhaps they stifled her trans yearnings. You know, they said, these oppressive Christian schools repress people and cause them to lash out. Some on the Left jumped all over this little school as a proxy to slander all private Christian schools.
Well, it turns out that she chose this school because it was a place that made her happy and was a joyful time in her life. Would that she had stayed in the embrace of Christianity and perhaps there would have been a different outcome.
While the killer “identified as a male and used he/him as preferred pronouns,” Nashville police said, “Under Tennessee law, a person’s gender identity must correspond with their biological sex or with information present on their certificate of live birth.”
As a result, authorities described Hale as a female in their 40-plus-page report.
Yes, she was a trans.
“Notoriety was the motive,” the report summary says. “It is known that Hale, and other mass shooters, studied material from Columbine High School prior to committing their attacks.”
Yet another mass killer who was motivated by fame. But why?
Hale suffered from anxiety and social phobias, “which led to her self-isolating more often,” the investigative report said.
“Her isolation and loneliness led Hale to begin believing the only true friends she could confide in were her stuffed animals, who she felt would never abandon her,” police said.
“She assigned them names and personalities, took them with her whenever she travelled, and began creating cartoons and digital media, including stories where they demonstrated some of the same emotions she felt.”
[…]
Investigators determined Hale was sane, but evidence suggested worsening anxiety, depression and rage.
She wanted fame because she was lost and lonely. She was clearly suffering from a declining mental state. She felt unfulfilled in her life and lacking worth.
Investigators learned Hale felt chronic loneliness and disappointment.
“She felt abandoned and ignored by those she longed to befriend and engage with romantically, which angered her more than anything else,” the report says.
Make no mistake. This was an evil, narcissistic, monster who is 100% responsible for killing six people including three kids.
But I think it is worth noting the societal implications. We hear more and more about our young people feeling increasingly isolated, depressed, and lonely. Marriage rates are down. Birth rates are down. Church attendance is down. Young people are increasingly living alone until much later than previous generations. We have a couple of generations that are just lost. They lack purpose and they lack a connection to the larger community. With an increasing number of lost, lonely young people, more of them will lash out. Some will do it in harmless ways, some will become monsters – and everything in between.
Crime, like politics, tends to be downstream from culture. We have a culture issue and it’s getting worse.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds from using them on certain candy and sugary drinks.
The bill directs the secretary of the Kansas Department of Children and Families to request a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program at the federal level, to exclude candy and soft drinks from SNAP benefits.
While we see this push coming from states (I think ten are moving the way of Kansas at the moment), we see a push at the federal level too. We also see an incredible push back.
It is beyond dispute that soda and candy are terrible for you. They are garbage calories that make you fat and sick. It is also beyond dispute that a free people should have the right to consume whatever they want – even if it is bad for you. We drink soda and eat candy because they are yummy, and that’s reason enough for a free people.
Opponents of restricting people from using their welfare to pay for soda and candy are arguing that it’s a freedom issue. We don’t want the government telling us what we can and cannot eat. Of course, this is the argument, but it is not the reason. Big Soda and Big Candy made a lot – A LOT – of money off of welfare recipients and they have orchestrated a well-funded campaign to preserve their revenue from the taxpayers.
But let’s take their argument at face value. First, this is not a case of government telling people what they can or cannot eat. This is a case of government telling people what taxpayers are willing or unwilling to pay for. If we ban the use of welfare for soda and candy, every welfare recipient is still free to purchase and consume those items just like people who are not receiving welfare. The difference is that they must now use their own money to buy it instead of the taxpayers’ money.
Second, the government already makes these distinctions. Today, welfare recipients may not spend their SNAP money on booze, fast food, cigarettes, vitamins, supplements, and any number of other things. This change would just add a couple of food categories to the list. I also think that we should add some things to the list of approved items. For example, grocery stores now offer many healthy prepared meal options that are prohibited. We should add those to the acceptable list. We still don’t want welfare to be used to buy dinner at Applebee’s or McDonald’s, but getting a rotisserie chicken or prepared meals from the grocery store should be fine.
The supporting argument for removing soda and candy from the acceptable list is twofold. First, they are terrible for you. Absolutely terrible. Taxpayers should not be paying for people to eat crap or feed their kids crap. It is impractical to prohibit all bad food and we don’t want the government to spend resources weighing in on the relative healthiness of eating habits from vegan to carnivore, but banning an entire category like soda is easy and helpful. Especially since the taxpayers also pay for the healthcare of many welfare recipients, the taxpayers have a moral and financial interest in helping them eat healthier.
Second, on principle, being on welfare shouldn’t be comfortable. We are a generous people and provide a robust safety net for those who fall on hard times and those who need a hand up. But that safety net is supposed to be temporary as people get on their own feet. We have spent a couple of generations destigmatizing welfare and ensuring that welfare recipients can enjoy a life as comfortable as those who are paying their own way. The result has been the advent of generational welfare families and a culture that sucks the productivity and dignity out of entire communities. To reverse this rot, we must make welfare uncomfortable again. People should WANT to work their way off of welfare so that they can enjoy the fruits of their own labor. People SHOULD feel some shame for living off the largesse of their neighbors instead of paying their own way. Being on welfare should not be seen as a way of life, yet that is exactly what it has become. Banning soda and candy would be a very small step toward reinvigorating our culture back to one of proud independence and self-reliance.
MADISON, WI (WSAU) – Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’s office introduced a bill on Friday afternoon that would change the way a Wisconsin state law addresses biological women and men.
According to the bill known as 2025 Senate Bill 45, which was first reported on by conservative radio host Dan O’Donnell, Section 3106 contains numerous examples of terms such as wife, husband, mother, and father being crossed out and removed in favor of terms like spouse, person, and even inseminated person.
The word “mother” is not just a biological designation. The word is pregnant with cultural meaning connoting love, protection, caring, family leadership, and so much more. When someone carries the title of “mother”, they carry much more than the simple biological fact that someone else inseminated them. How insulting it is to a woman and mother to diminish her importance to only being something that a man did to her. Women are not livestock. Mothers are not just inseminated persons.
An interim administration is currently in charge but there are concerns that Islamist groups, which had been pushed to the fringes, have become emboldened again.
The women’s football match was the third to be cancelled in northern Bangladesh in less than two weeks due to the objections of religious hardliners.
In the Dinajpur area, roughly 70km (43 miles) west of Rangpur, Islamists protesting against a game clashed with locals who supported it, leaving four people injured.
A conservative US appeals court on Thursday ruled that a ban on handgun sales to people between the ages of 18 and 21 violates the second amendment.
The ruling, handed down by a panel of three judges on the fifth US circuit court of appeals in New Orleans, comes amid major shifts in the national firearm legal landscape following a landmark US supreme court decision that expanded gun rights in 2022.
The New Orleans court found that the federal law requiring young adults to be 21 is unconstitutional.
“Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected,” the court wrote in their ruling. The ruling sends the case back to a lower court judge.
For the record, I think that Oswald killed JFK just like we’ve been told for years. But I also think that his hostile communist radicalism was nurtured by the Soviet Union and ignored (intentionally?) by the CIA for years.
US President Donald Trump has ordered officials to make plans to declassify documents related to three of the most consequential assassinations in US history – the killings of John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.
“A lot of people are waiting for this for long, for years, for decades,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “And everything will be revealed.”
The order directs top administration officials to present a plan to declassify the documents within 15 days. That does not make it certain it will happen, however.
In a number of sweeping changes that will significantly alter the way that posts, videos and other content are moderated online, Meta will adjust its content review policies on Facebook and Instagram, getting rid of fact checkers and replacing them with user-generated “community notes,” similar to Elon Musk’s X, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday.
The changes come just before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office. Trump and other Republicans have lambasted Zuckerberg and Meta for what they view as censorship of right-wing voices.
“Fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the new policy Tuesday. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”
WASHINGTON, Dec 29 (Reuters) – Jimmy Carter, the earnest Georgia peanut farmer who as U.S. president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, the Carter Center said. He was 100.
Many pixels will be expended about his legacy, but let us pause for a moment and just mourn an American President who has been called home.
HONOLULU (AP) — Warren Upton, the oldest living survivor of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the last remaining survivor of the USS Utah, has died. He was 105.
Upton died Wednesday at a hospital in Los Gatos, California, after suffering a bout of pneumonia, said Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors.
The Utah, a battleship, was moored at Pearl Harbor when Japanese planes began bombing the Hawaii naval base in the early hours of Dec. 7, 1941, in an attack that propelled the U.S. into World War II.
As New York City prosecutors worked Thursday to bring murder charges against Luigi Mangione in the brazen killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, supporters of the suspect are donating tens of thousands of dollars for a defense fund established for him, leaving law enforcement officials worried Mangione is being turned into a martyr.
Several online defense funds have been created for Mangione by anonymous people, including one on the crowdfunding website GiveSendGo that as of Thursday afternoon had raised over $50,000.
The GiveSendGo defense fund for the 26-year-old Mangione was established by an anonymous group calling itself “The December 4th Legal Committee,” apparently in reference to the day Mangione allegedly ambushed and gunned down Thompson in Midtown Manhattan as the executive walked to his company’s shareholders conference at the New York Hilton hotel.
