I used to make light of people who skipped out on Thanksgiving or refused to attend special occasions like weddings, baby showers, or anniversaries, due to political divides among friends and family members. Now I better understand why people might have to enforce boundaries when politics enters the picture. Relationships can become tainted. When it’s a loved one, I can find myself in a predicament. Are setting some ground rules the best way to carry on?

When Politics Comes Between Loved Ones

Blanco, TX

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Brigid Pfeifer

There were a number of celebrities who passed away within the past week, including two notable actresses: Shelley Duvall and Shannen Doherty. Shelley Duvall passed away on Thursday July 11th at her home in Blanco, Texas. The cause of death was complications from diabetes and news of her death was confirmed by her partner Dan Gilroy.

Two Beloved Hollywood Actresses Have Passed Away This Week

Secret societies are something that has fascinated humankind for ages. There are numerous movies, books, series, and conspiracy theories surrounding this topic. However, not all secret societies are completely secret. And that makes them even more intriguing and interesting to us. So, if you’re someone who loves to learn about these groups that are shrouded in mystery and speculation, then you’re at the right place. In today’s article, we’re going to explore the world’s most infamous secret societies and the things that could possibly be going on behind the closed doors of these enigmatic organizations.

Exploring the World’s Most Infamous Secret Societies

Do ghosts exist? This question has puzzled humans for centuries. Some swear by their eerie encounters, while others dismiss them as mere figments of imagination. Ghost stories span cultures, from ancient Egyptian spirits to modern-day hauntings. Believers argue that ghosts are the souls of the departed, lingering due to unfinished business or strong emotional ties. Skeptics counter with scientific explanations, attributing ghostly experiences to psychological phenomena or environmental factors. Whether you’re a firm believer or a curious skeptic, the mystery of ghosts continues to captivate our minds. Let’s explore 13 intriguing facts about these elusive entities.

13 Facts About Do Ghosts Exist

What makes a leader truly evil? Is it their ruthless ambition, their disregard for human life, or the sheer scale of their atrocities? History has seen its fair share of leaders whose actions have left indelible marks of horror and suffering. From ancient tyrants to modern dictators, these figures have wielded power with devastating consequences. This list delves into the lives and deeds of 24 of the most malevolent leaders ever to have walked the earth. Prepare to be both fascinated and horrified as we explore the dark legacies of these infamous individuals.

24 Most Evil Leaders In History

Chicago, IL

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Foodie in Chicago

Shortly before 3 AM, people in the Chicago area may have felt their houses shake as a 3.4-magnitude earthquake occurred about 60 miles west of the city. (CHICAGO) The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported a 3.4-magnitude earthquake around Somonauk, IL. Somonauk is in DeKalb and LaSalle Counties, 64 miles west of Chicago.

Did You Feel the Earthquake?

New York City, NY

Cheryl E Preston

Yesterday was the third time this year that an ad stating Chelsea Clinton lives in a beautiful Virginia home popped up on my laptop. My computer did not warn me this was a dangerous site, so this time, I clicked on the link.

Chelsea Clinton is rumored to be living in Virginia but probably still in NYC

They are disturbing, stressful and distressing. Everyone experiences intrusive thoughts from time to time. What you can do to reduce them and when to get help. Do you ever find yourself daydreaming or distracted and your thoughts turn negative? You try to push away the upsetting thoughts, but it’s difficult, or even impossible. Those are intrusive thoughts. They are unwanted and involuntary thoughts or images that pop into our minds and become disturbing, stressful, or distressing. They come in a wide variety of unpleasant topics, commonly self-doubt, or some catastrophic outcome, health or financial.

How to Stop Your Intrusive Thoughts

We live in an amazing world, and we should stop taking it for granted. The following is Chapter 1 from the book The Techno-Humanist Manifesto by Jason Crawford, Founder of the Roots of Progress Institute. The entirety of the book will be published on Freethink, one week at a time. For more from Jason, subscribe to his Substack above.

Life was dirty, difficult, and dangerous for almost everyone who ever existed

Denver, CO

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David Heitz

A dangerous drug that is being mixed into fentanyl is causing those who inject it to develop a rash of sores that resembles a case of flesh-eating bacteria. People experiencing homelessness around Denver can sometimes be seen with these bloody, weeping wounds. I recently mentioned this phenomenon to a fentanyl user who told me about the xylazine connection.

Denver homeless people suffer sores as xylazine enters fentanyl supply

Bucks County Beacon

Conservatives have done the United States a huge favor by explaining in detail what they’ll try to do if Donald Trump is reelected. Project 2025 , a “presidential transition project” of the Heritage Foundation, helpfully lays out how a group of former Trump officials would like to transform the country into a right-wing dystopia where the rich thrive and the rest of us die aspiring to be rich.

Project 2025’s Plan to Gut Medicare and Medicaid

— Dryden, “The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards,” 1672. Before the engine, before the city, before the plow and the chain and the steel axe, was a time when Mankind lived in peace and simplicity. It was a hard life, certainly, often brutish and short as the phrase goes, but it was free, egalitarian and spent in constant communion with nature. From this primordial state, some peoples rose, or fell, depending on one’s view, but a few persevered. They remained unto the very threshold of modernity — some remain even unto today — the last of the “noble savages.”

The Myth Of The Noble Savage

TheConversationCanada

This week, in a devastating story about Alice Munro’s complicity in the sexual abuse of her youngest daughter, we discovered how Munro, a Nobel Prize-winning author acclaimed for her uniquely Gothic interpretation of women’s lives, actually lived her feminism. 

In a first-person essay in the Toronto Star, Munro’s daughter Andrea Skinner details the years-long sexual abuse by her stepfather, Gerald Fremlin, beginning when she was nine years old. In an earlier essay, Skinner wrote: “The sexual abuse of a child is a rape of the mind, in which any fledgling tools for healing are stolen.”

Although Skinner told her father, Jim...

The Gothic horror of Alice Munro: A reckoning with the darkness behind a feminist icon

Missouri State

Fulton, MO

CJ Coombs

Updated on July 17, 2024, concerning two of the missing children listed below. Bringing them home: for 40 years, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has been helping to locate missing children.

Seven teenagers have been missing in Missouri since June 2024

The Forward

(JTA) — On Friday, for the third time since September, Timothy Reif found himself standing in the New York District Attorney’s Office to accept a modernist drawing that the Nazis looted from his family. With him in the room was a relative of another family that survived the Nazis and that — in an unusual...

Another Nazi-looted Schiele painting has been returned to heirs of ‘Cabaret’ inspiration Fritz Grünbaum

Kentucky State

Northern Kentucky Tribune

Kentucky’s Community Actions Partnerships have announced the starts date for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Summer Subsidy, aimed at helping Kentucky households offset summer cooling costs.

LIHEAP Summer Subsidy program to help with summer cooling costs to begin enrollment July 16

Florida State

Uncovering Florida

Most people are guilty of doing it at least once in their lives, many people do it by accident, some do it because they find it fun, and others do it for reasons like honoring loved ones. Regardless of the situation, just about everyone has released a balloon. The difference is that intentionally releasing balloons is now illegal by House Bill 321’s standards.

Law Signed By DeSantis Makes It Illegal To Release Balloons In Florida

Teens need more sleep. School districts can move school start times later to support teens. People often have concerns about moving school start times, but these are addressable. The data (and experience) suggests a change can be made with minimal negative impacts. Moving school start times will have a positive...

Moving School Start Times to Help Teens Get More Sleep

Total Apex Sports & Entertainment

When it comes to the personalities of humans, some zodiac signs are known mostly for their resilience. They possess the ability to shoulder their burdens alone. It could be due to their natural strength or determination. There could be many different reasons as to why these signs are so stoic in nature. These signs somehow make it through life's challenges with a steadfast resolve.

3 Zodiac Signs That Bear the Burden Alone

Who are the figures in Decolonised Structures and what do they represent?. “Decolonised Structures are based on public sculptures in London which were originally commissioned to celebrate colonial figures. I wanted to reflect on the scale of these sculptures and reduce them in size to deliberately bring them to eye level, rather than elevated on a tall plinth.

Yinka Shonibare Explores Colonization, Environmental Themes in Bold Exhibition

NewsBreak

The Problem with Utopias

Imagine a big, welcoming house. Light streams in through the open windows. Surrounding the house are acres of green lawns, meandering footpaths, and sweet-smelling gardens. The...

The Problem with Utopias

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