DevCat

Russian President Vladimir Putin has seemingly invited conservatives chafing under "neoliberal ideals" in their home countries to move to Russia, where he claimed "traditional values reign supreme," and Alex Jones suggested he might take him up on the offer.

The Russian president signed a decree offering assistance to foreigners seeking temporary residence in his country and expanding the quota approved by the nation's government and setting aside a requirement for knowing the Russian language, history and basic laws, and Jones urged his followers to consider sanctuary there.

A new analysis released last week by the international non-profit InfluenceMap reveals an overwhelmingly unequal share of fossil fuel pollution worldwide. From 2016 to 2022, 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions were produced by just 57 companies.

Though she argued that she supports “the ability for mothers and fathers to have total access for IVF,” Hyde-Smith said she would not support Duckworth’s legislation.

“The bill before us today is a vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way to far, far beyond ensuring legal access to IVF,” she argued.

The Mississippi Republican said that the bill did not include limits on genetic engineering, surrogacy, or even cloning.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Married people in West Virginia could be charged with certain acts of sexual abuse against their spouses for the first time under a bill passed by the state Senate. The bill pushed by former prosecuting attorney Republican Sen. Ryan Weld would remove marriage as a defense to first- and third-degree sexual assault. There are two crimes of sexual violence outlined in West Virginia code. One is penetrative assault and the other is the forcible touching of a person’s sexual organs, breasts, and some other areas by another person. For the latter offense, there exists a martial exemption that shields a person from conviction if the crime is perpetrated against their spouse.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Monday asked a judge to impose a limited gag order on former President Donald Trump, who is charged in New York with falsifying business records related to hush money he paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

In their request, prosecutors cited what they called Trump's "longstanding and perhaps singular history" of attacking people he considers to be adversaries, including those associated with his other criminal and civil cases.

The trial in Trump's hush money case is scheduled to get underway on March 25.

Benjamin Goggin, NBC News’s deputy tech editor, defended his report on Nazis receiving a “friendly reception” at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference after CPAC publicly called it “false, misleading, and grossly manipulative.”

Goggin noted in his report that CPAC has long had to deal with far-right extremists trying to infiltrate the conference, but in past years would quickly eject those with explicit ties to neo-Nazis, like Nick Fuentes.

“But this year, racist conspiracy theorists didn’t meet any perceptible resistance at the conference where Donald Trump has been the keynote speaker since 2017,” Goggin wrote...

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday sued to block a proposed merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons, saying the $24.6 billion deal could result in higher prices for millions of American consumers.

The FTC filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oregon, alleging that the deal is anticompetitive and could harm shoppers by boosting prices for groceries and other essential household items. The merger could also result in lower quality products and services, as well as limit shoppers' options for where to buy groceries, the agency alleged.

The FTC was joined in the suit by eight state attorneys general and the District of Columbia.

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are children, which pro-choice rights groups have warned could have dangerous implications for fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization.

The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday reversed Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Jill Parrish Phillips’ decision to dismiss a lawsuit in which a couple sued an Alabama fertility clinic and hospital for the “wrongful death” of their frozen embryos in a ruling that was riddled with theology. The couple’s frozen embryos were destroyed after a hospital patient who accessed the freezer that held the embryos dropped them on the floor. The ruling means that the couple can sue for wrongful death.

This should end well. /s

Federal regulators are poised to ban the impersonation of anyone, aiming to thwart scams in an AI-driven world.

Driving the news: The FTC announced Thursday that it's proposing to modify a rule that already prevents the impersonation of government and businesses to include the impersonation of individuals.

Between the lines: The FTC's proposed rule could specifically make it illegal to use AI platforms to foster impersonation, such as "voice cloning" and falsified video.

The Authy Desktop apps for Windows and MacOS that are available or were previously downloaded from authy.com/download as well as those for Linux will reach their End-of-Life on March 19, 2024

As many have observed, these flashpoints show the growing reach of the so-called axis of resistance, the loose group of Iranian-backed militias that is attacking Israeli and U.S. interests across the Middle East. Less noted, however, has been the extent to which this broader conflict has blurred the sectarian divisions that have often shaped the region. After all, the vicious civil wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen have all had a Sunni-Shiite component; for years, Iran and Saudi Arabia have invoked sectarian loyalties in their long-running contest for regional dominance. Yet the war in Gaza has defied this tension: Palestinians are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims, and Hamas emerged out of the Muslim Brotherhood, the most important Sunni Islamist movement, with roots in Egypt. How is it that Hamas has found some of its strongest allies in Shiite-led groups and regimes in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen?