U.S.Associated PressBiologists' fears confirmed on the lower Colorado River
Minutes later, the park service confirmed their worst fear: smallmouth bass had in fact been found and were likely reproducing in the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam. They may be a beloved sport fish, but smallmouth bass feast on humpback chub, an ancient, threatened fish that's native to the river, and that biologists like Arnold have been working hard to recover. The predators wreaked havoc in the upper river, but were held at bay in Lake Powell where Glen Canyon Dam has served as a barrier for years — until now.
U.S.The Daily BeastCouple Slain in Parade Nightmare in Front of Their Toddler
On Monday, he was sitting on his walker and surrounded by his family when he was hit by bullets. We all threw ourselves to the ground,” his daughter, Josefina Toledo, told The Daily Beast after the shooting. My dad, since it's difficult for him to walk… he was sitting on his walker and he was hit in his back and in his head.
U.S.PeopleElon Musk Had Twins Last Year with Exec Shivon Zilis Just Weeks Before His & Grimes' Baby Was Born
The 51-year-old Tesla CEO fathered twins with Shivon Zilis last November, according to court documents published by the Insider Wednesday. The twins were born in Austin, Texas. The papers reveal that in April, Musk and Zilis –– who is the project director at his Neuralink company –– asked a Texan county court to change their babies' names so they would "have their father's last name and contain their mother's last name as part of their middle name."
U.S.Associated PressChristians strip down at a South Texas nudist community
The gate opens to reveal a seemingly ordinary community. RVs and small homes line the roads, péntaque and pickleball courts offer residents recreational spaces, and the front office acts as the community's nucleus. Misty Katz, part owner of Nature's Resort, finds comfort in shunning clothes.
U.S.NextSharkCostco’s famous $4.99 rotisserie chicken has a dark side, and the company is getting sued for it
Two Costco shareholders have launched a lawsuit against the company for animal cruelty after reports found that the membership-only grocery has been mistreating its chickens in its $450 million poultry processing plant in Freemont, Nebraska. The lawsuit, filed by shareholders Krystil Smith and Tyler Lobdell at a Seattle court in June, claims “Costco illegally neglects and abandons its chickens,” which, in turn, broke its fiduciary duties. It also mentions that Costco executives had "consciously disregarded clear signs of Costco's ongoing mistreatment of chickens."
U.S.HuffPostMarjorie Taylor Greene Goes Full Kook With Mass Shooting Conspiracy Theory
Conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) claimed this week's mass shooting at a parade in Illinois could have been a secret operation carried out by gun control advocates. “Two shootings on July 4th, one in a rich, white neighborhood and the other at a fireworks display,” she said in a clip posted on Twitter by Patriot Takes, which monitors right-wing media. Greene was referring to the parade shooting in Highland Park, which left seven people dead, and likely an incident in Philadelphia that left two police officers wounded.
PoliticsYahoo Celebrity'Fed up' Debra Messing says she got Biden elected during White House call about abortion rights: Report
The White House orchestrated a call with celebrity Democratic supporters amid the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade... and it didn't go very well. According to a report from CNN, Debra Messing was among the participants "fed up" about President Joe Biden's lack of urgency and the administration being unprepared despite weeks of warning. White House aides co-organized the call with the advocacy group Build Back Better Together.
U.S.INSIDERDad of Highland Park suspect said he sponsored his son's gun permit application because he thought he wanted to go to the shooting range
Seven people were killed in a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. The suspect's father said he sponsored his son's gun permit as he thought he wanted to go to a range. The father of a man suspected of the fatal mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade said he sponsored his son's gun permit application because he thought he wanted to go to a shooting range.
U.S.The Daily BeastLook at My Face and Tell Me We Don’t Need Gun Control
The ambulances and police vehicles that kick off the parade came by, then the marching band passed. That's when we heard it: pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. I thought it was fireworks until I saw people ducking.
BusinessYahoo FinanceOnly one thing will send gas prices back below $4 a gallon, analyst says
Despite West Texas intermediate crude oil futures dipping below $100 per barrel on Tuesday, serious gas price relief may be unlikely happen until motorists make adjustments by driving less. "I think the only thing that's going to make a dent in gasoline or jet fuel prices is demand destruction," Vectis Energy Partners principal Tamar Essner said on Yahoo Finance Live after being asked when gas prices may drop below $4 a gallon (video above). Consumers are beginning to see some pressure taken off their wallets when making their stop at the local gas pump, with the average price of regular unleaded gasoline dropping for the third straight week last week, but prices remain exorbitant as drivers haven't pulled back aggressively on travel.
U.S.Fort Worth Star-TelegramMan lights firework on his head and it explodes into his skull, Texas cops say
A 43-year-old man lit a firework on top of his head, resulting in his near-sudden death in San Antonio, police say. Officers in San Antonio were called to a residential area just after midnight on Tuesday, July 5, following the firework mishap, according to a police report. First responders found the victim was suffering from severe head trauma, with brain matter exposed from his skull, police said.
BusinessMoneyWiseBill Gates just won legal approval to buy 2,100 acres of North Dakota farmland worth $13.5M — and people are ‘livid’ about it all across the state
Bill Gates made his fortune in tech, but he's now betting big on something completely different: farmland. Last week, Gates secured the legal approval for purchasing 2,100 acres of farmland from northeastern North Dakota potato growers Campbell Farms. Of course, this isn't first time Gates has invested in the asset class.
WorldReutersU.S. funeral home owner who sold body parts pleads guilty to fraud
A former Colorado funeral home owner pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a federal charge of defrauding relatives of the dead by dissecting their family members' corpses and selling the body parts without permission, a practice exposed in a 2018 Reuters investigative report https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-funeral. Megan Hess, who operated a funeral home called Sunset Mesa and a human body parts business called Donor Services from the same building, entered the plea to the charge of fraud at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Gordon Gallagher in Grand Junction, Colorado. Gallagher scheduled Hess, who had previously pleaded not guilty, to be sentenced in January, with the prosecution calling for 12 to 15 years in prison.
WorldFTW OutdoorsCan you spot the mountain lion stalking the elk?
Travel Guide Book on Saturday shared an image showing the hind portion of an elk and, somewhere in the arroyo, a predatory mountain lion. Research reveals that the image was captured by a motion-sensor trail camera in October 2019 as part of an arroyo restoration project in New Mexico's Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge. Rio Mora shared the image as a quiz for its Facebook followers in July 2020.
U.S.NextSharkYouTuber gets scam ring in India arrested after hacking into their office's CCTV cameras
A YouTuber allegedly hacked into the CCTV cameras of an India-based scam ring office and gathered enough evidence of fraud to alert local police, which ultimately led to five arrests. The most recent video uploaded by Scambaiter on Sunday, titled “I Got Scammers ARRESTED On Their CCTV Cameras!”, has garnered nearly a million views at the time of this writing. In the 20-minute clip, viewers are given a look at CCTV footage taken from June 13-24, beginning with video of the alleged scammers at work, posing as Best Buy's Geek Squad tech support employees, and ending with their arrest by local police in Punjab, India.
WorldAssociated PressTaliban leader: Afghan soil won't be used to launch attacks
Taliban supreme leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada said Wednesday that Afghan soil will not be used to launch attacks against other countries, and he asked the international community to not interfere in Afghanistan's internal affairs. The Taliban say they are adhering to an agreement they signed with the United States in 2020 — before retaking power — in which they promised to fight terrorists. Since their takeover last year, they have repeatedly said Afghanistan would not be used as a launching pad for attacks against other countries.
- WorldReuters Videos
Explosion rocks Georgia Guidestones, 'America's Stonehenge'
STORY: A large portion of the structure was destroyed before dawn on Wednesday when "unknown individuals detonated an explosive device," the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said on its Twitter feed. The collection of gray monoliths was erected in 1980 in the middle of a large field near the town of Elberton, Georgia, off Highway 77, and is listed as a tourist attraction by the state's travel site and the Elbert County Chamber of Commerce. The GBI said the Elbert County Sheriff's Office, which has joined it and other agencies investigating the incident, discovered the damage when its officers responded to the blast.
U.S.The Daily BeastFamily of Parade Suspect’s Only Friend: ‘It Blows My Mind’
Michele Rebollar remembers the moment during her son Anthony LaPorte's funeral when Bobby Crimo—now charged with massacring seven people and wounding two dozen others at a Chicago suburb's Fourth of July parade—stood up to speak. It was August 2017, and the long-haired, awkward Crimo described how Anthony was one of the only people he had to confide in. “My name is Bobby, and Anthony was the person I would call when I couldn't sleep and he would always reply,” Crimo says in a video of the memorial service reviewed by The Daily Beast.
U.S.In The Know by YahooWoman learns her neighbor pays $600 more in rent than her: ‘Is that legal?’
A woman discovered her landlord is inflating rent prices for new tenants. TikToker @cal_cifer_2.0 dished on what she dubbed “community drama” after her neighbor did some sleuthing around. She lives in an area with a bunch of one-bedroom rentals.
U.S.INSIDERJustice Clarence Thomas once opposed Highland Park's assault weapons ban, saying that the 'overwhelming majority' of those with the rifles use them lawfully
Highland Park, Illinois, banned assault rifles nearly a decade before Monday's mass shooting. The ban was challenged and the case made its way to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear it. In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that an "overwhelming majority" use such weapons lawfully.
PoliticsThe HillGraham’s relationship with Trump comes back to bite him
A special grand jury in Fulton County has subpoenaed Graham along with other Trump insiders as part of an investigation into potential criminal interference in the 2020 election in Georgia, which Joe Biden narrowly won by 12,670 votes. Graham's lawyers issued a statement Wednesday asserting that the senior South Carolina senator is not a subject or target of the investigation, which they denounced as a “fishing expedition. His attorneys, Bart Daniel and Matt Austin, said they would fight the subpoena in court, raising the prospect of a protracted legal battle.
WorldReutersUkraine raises flag on recaptured island as Russia consolidates gains in east
Ukrainian forces raised their national flag on a recaptured Black Sea island on Thursday in a symbol of defiance against Moscow, but Russian forces consolidated gains in eastern Ukraine and probed the defences of potential new targets. Moscow responded to the flag-raising ceremony fast. It said one of its warplanes had struck Snake Island shortly afterwards and destroyed part of the Ukrainian detachment there.
- WorldUSA TODAY
Woman captures moment lightning strikes her husband's truck on interstate in Florida
The woman filming the video said her husband and three children were traveling in front of her when it was hit by the lightning strike.
U.S.Rolling StoneThe Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point: ‘Roe v. Wade’ Edition
In light of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision effectively overturning Roe v. Wade, many reproductive rights activists have criticized cisgender heterosexual men for staying silent on the issue of abortion rights — even though men are arguably just as impacted by the availability of safe, accessible abortion as women are. One surprising straight man who has publicly come out in favor of abortion rights is Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports. Portnoy is no stranger to intense controversy — his former employees have accused him of fostering a toxic and misogynistic work environment, promoting cyberbullying and sexual harassment, and he was even accused of sexual misconduct in a Business Insider expose, which he has vehemently denied.
WorldReutersRussia's stated war aims begin catching up with reality
LONDON (Reuters) - The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament said on Tuesday that Ukraine had become a "terrorist state" and was doing everything to ensure that Russia did not stop its invasion at the borders of the eastern Donbas region as advertised. The remark by Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin marked an escalation of Russian war rhetoric but ignored the fact that Moscow's forces already occupy large parts of southern Ukraine as well. It suggested that Moscow, fresh from seizing the last parts of Ukraine's Luhansk region on Sunday, might be preparing once more to expand its stated war objectives, which it reined back a month into the invasion after an assault on the capital Kyiv and an advance on the second largest city Kharkiv were beaten back.
“Left unchecked, if artificial intelligence reaches cognition … it will be fueled by some of the most inhumane impulses of humanity.”
“Now is the time to stop and think — before our technology outstrips us once again.”
“I don't want to talk about sentient robots, because at all ends of the spectrum there are humans harming other humans.”
“Minds can take different forms … We should avoid reducing questions about AIs to ‘Can AIs think and feel like us?’”
“To identify sentience, or consciousness, or even intelligence, we’re going to have to work out what they are.”