Mayor Says 94% of Homeless People Refuse Help Because of Addiction and Mental Illness

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A mayor in California said that 94% of homeless people refuse to accept help because of their issues with addiction and mental illness.

Vista Mayor John Franklin made the comments in an interview with KGTV-TV about the worsening homeless crisis in California.

“Some of them we’ve asked twenty times and developed relationships with,” Franklin said. “And we’ve asked them if they would come and accept a safe warm bed here, three hot meals a day, a hot shower, clean clothes, and unfortunately, because of mental illness and addiction, the answer is, ‘We don’t want to come.'”

A point-in-time count of the homeless population found that the city only had about 170 homeless people, but the figure represents almost double the number from last year when it was only 88 people.

The report found similar increases in nearby regions of San Diego County, including 87% in Carlsbad, 69% in Encinitas, 32% in Escondido, and 25% in Oceanside. Three other cities reported a slight decline in the homeless population. (Read more from “Mayor Says 94% of Homeless People Refuse Help Because of Addiction and Mental Illness” HERE)

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Man Sentenced to Over 100 Years in Prison After Performing Lewd Acts, Threatening Kids

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A 28-year-old California man was sentenced to 135 years in prison last week after being found guilty of performing lewd acts and threatening multiple children under the age of six, according to authorities.

Adam Bendell was sentenced on May 20 following his trial in Placer County, just 60 miles north of Sacramento, in which the jury found him guilty “after considering extensive testimony and evidence presented by the District Attorney’s Office and the Placer County Sheriff’s Office,” a press release from Placer County District Attorney’s Office stated.

“This case relates to a predatory individual who had access to young children through a dating relationship. The defendant exploited a position of trust by inappropriately touching the young victims during ‘bedtime’ or ‘nap time’. The abuse also escalated over time,” the attorney’s office stated.

In February 2021, Placer County Sheriffs received a report regarding three children who allegedly told their families that there had been “inappropriate activity” with a “non-familial adult in their life.” The children were then interviewed by Placer County MDIC and Children’s Advocacy Center which alleged Bendell would “consistently inappropriately touch the young victims” multiple times, who were between the ages of three to six years old.

The investigation also alleged Bendell had groomed the children throughout the abuse, which led to escalating his acts since the children believed they would “get in trouble” if they had told anyone, according to the press release. (Read more from “Man Sentenced to Over 100 Years in Prison After Performing Lewd Acts, Threatening Kids” 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)

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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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)

Veterans in Congress Wash Vietnam War Wall for Memorial Day

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Several veterans currently serving in Congress — from both sides of the aisle — joined together to wash the Vietnam War Memorial ahead of the Memorial Day holiday honoring fallen service-members.

CBS News’ “Face the Nation” shared video of the project on Sunday, showing several members of Congress who served in different branches of the military as they hand-washed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

“Democrat, Republican, black, white, brown, none of that matters,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) said. “It just matters that we’re all Americans.”

Waltz and Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) also spoke with “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan about the “divide” between the 99% of Americans who have never served in the military and the 1% who have. Calling that chasm “deeply problematic as a democracy,” they told Brennan that they have been working together to find better ways to recruit more young Americans to serve.

(Read more from “Veterans in Congress Wash Vietnam War Wall for Memorial Day” HERE)

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Oregon Sees 13th County Vote to Secede, Join Idaho as ‘Greater Idaho’ Gains Steam

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Another rural county has voted to break off from blue-state Oregon and join its red-state neighbor by reconfiguring the state border, the latest victory for the grassroots movement called Greater Idaho.

Crook County voters approved by 53-47% the Greater Idaho resolution asking if they want to enter into negotiations to relocate the border, according to unofficial results from Tuesday’s election.

The vote made Crook the thirteenth county to approve the measure, a proposal rooted in frustration with the Democrat-controlled Legislature dominated by Portland and coastal lawmakers with little knowledge or appreciation of the priorities of eastern residents.

Mike McCaw, Greater Idaho executive director, said the “voters of eastern Oregon have spoken loudly and clearly about their desire to see border talks move forward.”

“With this latest result in Crook County, there’s no excuse left for the Legislature and governor to continue to ignore the people’s wishes,” he said. “We call on the governor, speaker of the House, and Senate president to sit down with us and discuss next steps toward changing governance for eastern Oregonians, as well as for the Legislature to begin holding hearings on what a potential border change will look like.”

(Read more from “Oregon Sees 13th County Vote to Secede, Join Idaho as ‘Greater Idaho’ Gains Steam” HERE)

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