Denali National Park Bridge Crew Ordered to Stop Flying American Flags

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The crew working on a 475-foot-long bridge in Alaska’s Denali National Park was recently told that they could no longer fly the American flag from their trucks or heavy equipment, which are being used in the $207 million Federal Highway Administration project.

The bridge is being built by Granite Construction, after a 2021 rockslide took out a portion of the popular Denali Park Road that is used by visitors and tour buses to access more remote areas of the national park.

Since 2023, construction has been underway to repair the road at mile 45. This spring two mobile trucks and one piece of heavy equipment had been flying standard-sized U.S. flags. . .

According to the contractor, Denali National Park Superintendent Brooke Merrell contacted the man overseeing the federal highways project, claiming there had been complaints about the U.S. flags, and notifying him that bridge workers must stop flying the stars and strips from their vehicles because it detracts from the “park experience.”

Merrell moved to Alaska in 2009 as a transportation planner and environmental coordinator. A Pennsylvania native, she received a master’s degree in urban planning. Prior to moving to Alaska, she worked for the City of Portland and the Gulf Islands National Seashore, along with left-leaning environmentalist and social justice groups such as DNA People’s Legal Services and Columbia Riverkeeper. (Read more from “Denali National Park Bridge Crew Ordered to Stop Flying American Flags” HERE)

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Biden Repeats 2022 Naval Academy Appointment Story at West Point Commencement

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President Biden repeated a claim that he turned down an appointment to the Naval Academy, where he said he intended to play football, during his commencement speech at West Point on Saturday.

Biden, 81, told the graduates that he was “one of 10” appointed to the naval academy by Republican Delaware Sen. J. Caleb Boggs years before he’d go on to defeat him in the 1972 election to become a US Senator.

“I was appointed by the fella I ran against when I was 29 years old to the Naval Academy. I was one of 10. I wanted to play football,” Biden said in his remarks.

“And I’d found out two days earlier they had a quarterback named Roger Staubach and a halfback named Joe Bellino — I said, ‘I’m not going there.’ I went to Delaware. Not a joke,’ the president said. . .

“He has repeated this lie many times before and there is still no record any of it ever happened,” the RNC posted. (Read more from “Biden Repeats 2022 Naval Academy Appointment Story at West Point Commencement” HERE)

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Divided States of America: From Oregon to Louisiana, Campaigns for Secession Are Taking Place at Local and State Levels – And Some Are Succeeding

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In an increasingly divided United States of America, a radical solution to resolve fraught political differences is gaining momentum: secession.

Be it the campaign for Texas to quit the US and form its own republic or efforts by red counties in Oregon to join Idaho, movements are gaining support at both local and state levels.

In nearly every case, the campaigns have been formed in conservative areas by voters eager to break away from the progressive leaders who govern them.

Some are a pipe dream. Texas is unlikely to depart the union any time soon, despite the optimism of those leading its ‘Texit’ independence campaign.

But several localized efforts have succeeded – or gained enough support to be taken seriously. (Read more from “Divided States of America: From Oregon to Louisiana, Campaigns for Secession Are Taking Place at Local and State Levels – And Some Are Succeeding” HERE)

Disney to Stream Gay Dating Reality Show ‘I Kissed a Boy’ for Pride Month

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Disney-owned Hulu will stream the gay dating reality show I Kissed a Boy! as part of the streamer’s programming for Pride month, which kicks off June 1.

Hulu announced Monday its “Hulu Has Pride” line-up, which includes the first season of the BBC’s I Kissed a Boy! In the show, ten gay men are brought to a picturesque Italian villa to test the waters of love. As the title hints, the contestants must first kiss their potential matches before proceeding with the dating process. . .

Meanwhile, the spin-off series I Kissed a Girl! — which features lesbians in place of gay men — is also set to stream on Hulu at an unspecified date, according to a Deadline report.

The Walt Disney Company has been gradually integrating Hulu with the family-friendly Disney+ in recent months. Both services are now available together in a single streaming bundle, with Disney+ subscribers able to access Hulu from a tab within the Disney+ app. (Read more from “Disney to Stream Gay Dating Reality Show ‘I Kissed a Boy’ for Pride Month” HERE)

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Big Tech Has Distracted World From Existential Risk of AI, Says Top Scientist

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Big tech has succeeded in distracting the world from the existential risk to humanity that artificial intelligence still poses, a leading scientist and AI campaigner has warned.

Speaking with the Guardian at the AI Summit in Seoul, South Korea, Max Tegmark said the shift in focus from the extinction of life to a broader conception of safety of artificial intelligence risked an unacceptable delay in imposing strict regulation on the creators of the most powerful programs.

“In 1942, Enrico Fermi built the first ever reactor with a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction under a Chicago football field,” Tegmark, who trained as a physicist, said. “When the top physicists at the time found out about that, they really freaked out, because they realised that the single biggest hurdle remaining to building a nuclear bomb had just been overcome. They realised that it was just a few years away – and in fact, it was three years, with the Trinity test in 1945.

“AI models that can pass the Turing test [where someone cannot tell in conversation that they are not speaking to another human] are the same warning for the kind of AI that you can lose control over. That’s why you get people like Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio – and even a lot of tech CEOs, at least in private – freaking out now.”

Tegmark’s non-profit Future of Life Institute led the call last year for a six-month “pause” in advanced AI research on the back of those fears. The launch of OpenAI’s GPT-4 model in March that year was the canary in the coalmine, he said, and proved that the risk was unacceptably close. (Read more from “Big Tech Has Distracted World From Existential Risk of AI, Says Top Scientist” HERE)

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This Memorial Day Remember the Ongoing Sacrifices of Our Military and Their Families

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Like many Americans, my Memorial Day weekend begins at the airport.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see faces and cell phones pressed to the nearby airplane’s oval windows. A small crowd is also gathered above us in the terminal, looking on. My team of seven sailors, dressed in our summer whites, is waiting on the tarmac of Birmingham’s airport to receive the last remains of our shipmate.

We will carry him to the waiting hearse with all the dignity and precision that we can muster as an honor guard for the U.S. Navy.

In today’s America, the stillness and formality of this moment feels very much out of place with our casual and irreverent culture. I’m proud of my team, but I’m also heartened that busy travelers pause, take off their hats, and silently pay tribute to this sailor coming home.

As an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, I have buried 173 fellow service members. Some have died young, like Joshua Kaleb Watson, an ensign just out of Annapolis, shot by an Islamic terrorist in Pensacola. Others have been old men, like Hormer Kapula, a World War II vet who died at 101 years old. (Read more from “This Memorial Day Remember the Ongoing Sacrifices of Our Military and Their Families” HERE)

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Trump Lawyer: Jurors in Trump Trial ‘Should Have Been Sequestered’

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Trump lawyer Alina Habba said jurors in the former president’s business records trial “should have been sequestered” over Memorial Day weekend in order to prevent their friends and families from trying to influence their opinions.

During an interview on Fox News, Habba, who represents former President Donald Trump, said she felt the jury should have been sequestered away from the news media or even their family and friends over the holiday weekend, adding that they are dealing with a case that is “completely unprecedented and unwarranted.”

Habba’s comments come as the 12 jurors are expected to deliver their verdict regarding Trump facing 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in relation to payments reportedly made to adult entertainment star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election.

“These are not sequestered jurors,” Habba said. “They should have been sequestered because, in my opinion, these jurors are handling something that is completely unprecedented and unwarranted in America. And for them to be able to be out and about on a holiday weekend, with friends and families who have opinions who are watching the news, TV’s on the background at the pool party — I have serious concerns.”

(Read more from “Trump Lawyer: Jurors in Trump Trial ‘Should Have Been Sequestered’” HERE)

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More Than 670 Feared Dead Following Landslide

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Days after a landslide struck Papua New Guinea, the United Nations’s International Organization for Migration increased its estimated death count to more than 670, the Associated Press (AP) reported Sunday.

The increased death toll estimate follows many first responders and local relatives reportedly giving up hope finding survivors in the aftermath of Friday’s disaster, according to the AP.

Serhan Aktoprak, a United Nations representative, told the AP that initial calculations of destroyed homes came out to 60, but local officials updated that number to 150.

“They are estimating that more than 670 people (are) under the soil at the moment,” Aktoprak told the AP. (Read more from “More Than 670 Feared Dead Following Landslide” HERE)

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NFL Officials Walk Back Criticism as Christians Come to Butker’s Defense

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In the face of rabid leftist backlash over an explicitly Christian commencement speech he delivered, football star Harrison Butker is finding plenty of support. The Kansas City Chiefs kicker’s bold proclamation of countercultural Christian truth to the 2024 graduating class at the Catholic Benedictine College sparked the ire of leftists, both within the National Football League and without.

Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and top diversity, equity, and inclusion officer, tried to distance the organization from the biblical worldview espoused by Butker, saying last week, “Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity. His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”

Others have taken aim at Butker’s Catholic faith, smearing him as “extremist,” and an online petition has garnered over 200,000 signatures calling for the kicker to be fired for “discriminatory remarks.”

As clamorous as the left-wing condemnation of Butker has been, support for the outspokenly Christian kicker has been just as loud. During a press conference this week, Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid came to his player’s defense.

“Everybody is from different areas, different religions, different races. And so we all get along, we all respect each other’s opinions. And not necessarily do we go by those, but we respect everybody to have a voice. It’s the great thing about America, man,” Reid told reporters. “The guys are good with that. They understand. They understand how things work. Everybody’s got their own opinion; that’s what’s so great about this country. You can share those things, and you work through it. And that’s what guys do.” (Read more from “NFL Officials Walk Back Criticism as Christians Come to Butker’s Defense” HERE)

DOJ Puts Pro-life Grandmother Behind Bars for Trying to Stop Abortions

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Pro-life activist Heather Idoni received a sentence of 24 months in prison on Wednesday, convicted of federal conspiracy against rights and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges brought by the Justice Department.

Idoni, 59, will spend two years in prison for trying to stop abortions from taking place at a Washington, D.C., area abortion clinic on Oct. 20, 2020. She is mother to 15 children, according to LifeSite news, five of whom are her biological children and 10 of whom she and her husband reportedly adopted from Ukraine. . .

Her sentencing is part of the DOJ’s focus on enforcing the FACE Act against pro-life activists since the June 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade. Led by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the DOJ has charged dozens of pro-life activists for attempting to stop women from aborting their unborn babies.

Idoni is one of several pro-life activists sentenced to prison time in connection to the 2020 incident: pro-life activist Lauren Handy received 57 months in prison, John Hinshaw 21 months, WIlliam Goodman 27 months, Jonathan Darnel 34 months, Herb Geraghty 27 months, and Joan Bell 27 months .

“Federal law is clear: using force, threatening to use force or physically obstructing access to reproductive health care is unlawful,” Clarke said in a release announcing Idoni’s sentence. “People have a First Amendment right to communicate their views but they do not have the right to use chains, locks and obstruction to prevent access to reproductive health care facilities.”

(Read more from “DOJ Puts Pro-life Grandmother Behind Bars for Trying to Stop Abortions” HERE)