Asked about the Trump administration's position on Israel's withholding of food and other basic needs for Palestinians, Tammy Bruce - holding her first briefing - indicated that it's Hamas that makes conditions too dangerous for aid to be delivered.

"Aid can only be delivered in a safe framework, so as long as it is something that is unsafe or we can't guarantee the safety of something moving in, that is going to be stopped," she said. "It is not a withholding, but it certainly feels it's a reflection of the framework of the situation on the ground," she added.

"The hostages have got to be released. They need to be released now, the bodies they are holding, everything, everyone needs to be released. And without doing that, there is no path forward," she continued, indicating that the Israeli blockade is indeed being used to squeeze Hamas.

Yet the White House doubled down today on Trump’s line, sharing a government webpage that declared, in a slightly more nuanced phrasing: “Yes, Biden spent millions on transgender animal experiments.” As is typical of DOGE, the page tallies up spending in a completely misleading way in order to arrive at an arbitrary number. One line item, for more than $3 million, was research examining how “sex-specific inflammatory mechanisms controlled by hormones” may contribute to asthma, and whether estrogens account for a higher prevalence of the chronic lung disease in women. A different hormone study, priced at $1.2 million, indeed used “transgenic” — not transgender — mice. About $2.5 million went to a fertility study. Another project looked at how gender hormones affect the gut microbiome of mice. Of the highlighted research that does address transgender health, there’s a $300,000 analysis of breast cancer risk for female-to-male trans individuals taking testosterone. Again, the mice used for clinical purposes did not undergo gender transition.

A single entry, pegged at $455,000, was for HIV researchers looking at the immune response of mice who had been given cross-hormone therapy, which is perhaps the closest the list gets to an example of “making mice transgender.” Clearly, however, that was not the ultimate objective of their work.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26380713

Summary

A Canada goose successfully fended off a bald eagle in a rare 20-minute battle on a frozen lake in Burlington, Ontario.

Captured by photographer Mervyn Sequeira, the encounter took on symbolic meaning amid rising tensions between Canada and the U.S., sparked by Donald Trump's trade policies and comments about annexation.

The confrontation paralleled recent national pride moments, including Canada’s overtime hockey victory against the U.S.

Arellano’s article focused on the KKK’s place in Anaheim city politics a century ago. The AI-generated alternate viewpoint downplayed the KKK’s history there, saying that “local historical accounts occasionally frame the 1920s Klan as a product of ‘white Protestant culture’ responding to societal changes rather than an explicitly hate-driven movement.” A screenshot of the summary, taken by Mac, also noted that “critics argue that focusing on past Klan influence distracts from Anaheim’s modern identity as a diverse city.”

That's literately the headline. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

An Israeli government spokesperson claimed yesterday that Hamas has “enough food to spark an obesity epidemic” after the occupation state decided on Sunday to suspend the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged and devastated Gaza Strip.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18998979

Archived copy of the article

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/39925777

Exactly as the title says: what the fuck.

A former student, Aleysha Ortiz, is suing the city of Hartford and the local board of education. Ortiz alleges she graduated without learning how to read or write. She claims it was due to negligence and lack of proper support for her developmental disabilities.

The lawsuit claims Ortiz was denied necessary testing for dyslexia. It also claims she was removed from special education curriculum and only tested for developmental disabilities on her last day of school, revealing significant unmet educational needs.

The more I read from the article the more I laugh.

DUSHANBE -- Suhrob spent years working on construction sites in Russia to save money for his dream wedding back in Tajikistan.

But just weeks after a lavish ceremony in his home village on the outskirts of Dushanbe, Suhrob, 30, took his 22-year-old bride to court, claiming she wasn't a virgin when they married and demanding that she reimburse the 50,000 somoni ($5,000) he spent for the wedding and dowry.

The bride and her family denied the accusation and countersued Suhrob for defamation, winning $1,000 in compensation for moral damages, according to documents obtained by RFE/RL from the Rudaki district court.

Suhrob has appealed the ruling.

the officers disclosed their jobs to the couple, even encouraging the couple to Google the officers, said Andrew Halverson, a spokesman for the wildlife department’s law enforcement division. The couple joked that they could not find any information online about the officers, and continued talking, Mr. Halverson said. [...] The passengers also showed the officers the skull of an endangered sea turtle they were smuggling in a carry-on bag during the flight.

The day after the flight, officers arrived to execute a search warrant at the couple’s home in Chico, Calif., and found Mr. Fitzpatrick and Ms. Price processing a deer they had hunted illegally that day, the agency said. Deer season was over, and the couple had no deer tags, which California requires in addition to an annual hunting license to hunt big game species.

Officers also found mountain lion claws, taxidermied animals including a ringtail cat and a barn owl, an illegally hunted spike buck and several illegally hunted deer with tagging violations, the agency said. Ringtail cats are a protected species in California, and mounted raptors like the barn owl are illegal to possess without state and federal permits.