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On Memorial Day weekend, Garden Grove was an international news story for a terrifying reason: A chemical tank at a local aerospace company was in danger of exploding.

Dodgers starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow and his wife, Meghan, took to Instagram to announce the pregnancy of their first child.

Texas AG Sues Discord For Deceiving Parents, Endangering Children

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against communications app Discord, alleging that the platform allows child predators to exploit children while falsely claiming child safety to parents.

“Discord presents itself to the world as a platform built on community, connection, and safety. It is not,” the lawsuit, filed on May 22 in the District Court of Collin County, Texas, said.

“Behind the safety pages and transparency pages, Discord built and maintains one of the internet’s most efficient hunting grounds for manipulation, grooming, and predatory behavior towards children. Discord did so knowingly, deliberately, and profitably.”

The design choices implemented on the communications platform make it easy for bad actors to locate vulnerable users, build trust quickly, and operate away from public view, the complaint said.

According to a Discord webpage, safety is at the “core of everything” the company does.

In another post, the company claims safety considerations are “fully integrated into our design process.” Discord also says that it has a “zero-tolerance policy” against individuals who engage in sexual grooming or exploitation of minors.

Such promises made to consumers, parents, and regulators were false, the lawsuit alleges.

Discord makes safety an “opt-in rather than default,” the complaint states.

“It chose to leave private servers invisible. It chose to staff its most critical safety function with unpaid volunteers. It chose to expire violations after 90 days. It chose to bury the block button. Discord chose profits and growth over the safety of children,” it states.

A 45-year-old can create a Discord account as a 13-year-old, and the platform has no reliable mechanism to detect or prevent such actions, according to the lawsuit.

While Discord allows channels to be age-restricted if a moderator wishes, this protection depends entirely on the self-reported birthdate entered when a user creates an account. The platform basically created an age-verification system “that a child can defeat in seconds,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit highlights multiple cases of minors being harmed by predators on Discord, including a 13-year-old boy who committed suicide in 2022 after being targeted by the 764 extremist network on the platform.

In another case, a 15-year-old boy committed suicide after he was groomed by a predator on Discord and Roblox to send sexually explicit images and videos, according to the lawsuit.

The complaint noted that Discord has made it into the “Dirty Dozen” list set up by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation for five straight years.

“Sexual abusers return to Discord again and again, thanks to this company’s reputation for lax rule enforcement and dangerous design,” the center said. “Even registered sex offenders have been charged for targeting kids on Discord.”

The lawsuit asks the court to declare Discord’s actions as “unlawful, deceptive, misleading, and unfair” and order the company to implement age verification requirements.

In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, a Discord spokesperson said the lawsuit’s “characterization of Discord does not reflect the platform we have built or the investments we have made in user safety.”

According to the spokesperson, unlike social media platforms, Discord does not have any algorithmic feeds, infinite scroll, or public “likes” that push content to mass audiences.

“Our safety systems combine advanced technology and human-led investigations, alongside user reports to help identify accounts or spaces engaged in harmful activity, including sharing exploitative and child sexual abuse materials,” the spokesperson said.

“We provide teen users and their parents and guardians with important privacy and safety tools, including Teen Safety Assist and our Family Center. We look forward to collaborating with policymakers in working toward a safer online experience for all users on Discord and across the internet.”

Age Assurance Rollout

On Feb. 9, Discord announced it planned to roll out teen safety features globally to ensure a “safer and more inclusive experience” for users aged 13 and older.

This involves an “age assurance process” in which users must submit identification or agree to use facial age estimation technology. However, only in a minority of cases will age assurance be required, according to Discord.

As part of the update, users will have “teen-appropriate experience, with updated communication settings, restricted access to age-gated spaces, and content filtering that preserves the privacy and meaningful connections that define Discord,” the company said.

The updates were scheduled to take effect in March. But on Feb. 24, Discord said that the rollout had been extended to the second half of this year.

Meanwhile, Discord was one of the companies targeted by a recent letter from Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson, who asked the platform to comply with the Take It Down Act by May 19.

The Act requires platforms to set up a process that enables individuals, including children, to request the removal of intimate photos or videos shared without their consent. Platforms must make it easy for victims to submit such removal requests.

The FTC warned that it would “vigorously” enforce the Act, with each violation potentially resulting in civil penalties of $53,088.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/27/2026 - 20:55

A former high-ranking CIA official was reportedly busted by the FBI after agents found a mind-blowing fortune that included $40 million worth of gold bars hidden inside his Virginia home.

The Dodgers aren’t sure precisely how long Kiké Hernández will be out. They just know his return won’t be anytime soon. A day after leaving only his second game of the season with an oblique strain, Hernández had an MRI on Wednesday that revealed a “significant tear” to the side muscle, manager Dave Roberts said....

A southern California family is mourning and demanding justice after a bride-to-be was struck and killed by a hit and run driver while she was waiting at a bus stop in San Diego.

The Jets are adding a veteran kicker to their competition.

Hamas Confirms Death Of Its Top Military Commander In IDF Gaza Strike

Israel's military has just taken out a high-value target, with the confirmed death of the commander of Hamas's military wing, Mohammed Odeh.

He was targeted in a a strike on the Gaza Strip Tuesday, in an operation which injured dozens more bystanders, given a residential building in a very busy market area of Gaza City was obliterated.

via MSN

However, the IDF and Shin Bet security service sought to explain that Odeh used the civilian residential buildings as a hideout, but that his movements starting months ago were being tracked to that location.

By Wednesday, Hamas belatedly confirmed Odeh's death, along with his wife and two of his children.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the "commander of the armed wing of the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza was eliminated yesterday and sent to meet his associates in the depths of hell."

"In the Prime Minister's name and in my own, congratulations to the IDF and the Shin Bet on the brilliant execution," Katz said.

"We committed ourselves to eliminating everyone who led the October 7 massacre, and that is what we will do: They are all marked for death, wherever they may be," the defense chief added.

According to more emerging details of the strike:

Tuesday's strike hit the upper three floors of the al-Kayali building in the center of Gaza City, where streets were busy with shoppers ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Rescue teams rushed to the scene of the strikes but struggled to reach the upper floors because of the scale of the damage and congestion in the area.

Despite a Gaza ceasefire technically having long been in place, sporadic Israeli strikes and interventions in Gaza have continued for the last many months.

This past weekend saw IDF military actions in the enclave ramp up. For example on Sunday Reuters had confirmed new significant strikes on Gaza just as Washington unveiled that a tentative peace deal with Iran has been "largely negotiated" and is at the goal line:

Israeli strikes killed at least ‌three Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, including two members of the Hamas-run police force, health officials said, in violence that underscored the fragility of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire.

Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed one person and wounded two others in the ​Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.

This Gaza escalation has been met with accusations that Israel could be trying to sabotage what it may see as a 'bad deal' with Tehran. 

Israeli strike a building in western Gaza City in an assassination targeting a Mohammed Odeh, described as Hamas’ new military wing leader. He also served as the fifth Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/qNyL8j0YJx

— Eretz Israel (@EretzIsrael) May 27, 2026

Iran has long been trying to link a final peace framework to end to the war to the conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza - but Israel and Washington have consistently rejected this.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/27/2026 - 20:30

The AD went on to say that the situation was “unacceptable” and showed “neglect” toward the student athletes. 

As the Knicks steamrolled the Eastern Conference over the last mind-blowing month, it was easy to forget their backstory as an underdog.

The Longview plant disaster could be one of the deadliest US workplace accidents in recent years.

Lisa Ferguson, Perry’s 25 year business manager and executor of his estate, faced Kenneth Iwasama head on in Federal court Wednesday.

Is Reggie Miller on the Knicks bandwagon? 

"These guys were crushing it," Jonas said of other actors vying for the role.

"These guys were crushing it," Jonas said of other actors vying for the role.

The comedian admitted that she went under the knife in January after pledging to never undergo the procedure.

The comedian admitted that she went under the knife in January after pledging to never undergo the procedure.

Jonathan Loadholt, of Staten Island, previously pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit stalking and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering for taking part in the scheme to kill journalist and human rights advocate Masih Alinejad. 

Viruses For Dummies

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Over this past week, we've been subjected to a flurry of pandemic warnings. It's like the disease of the day: Bird flu, novavirus, m-pox, hantavirus, slap rash (did you miss that one?), and Ebola. A former director of the CDC just warned that this Ebola outbreak could become a pandemic.

Members of the Congo Scouts movement carry an Ebola awareness banner along a street during a public sensitisation campaign amid the Ebola outbreak in Bunia, Congo, on May 23, 2026. AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa

It sounds scary but that is literally impossible for reasons I will explain. My hope is that this article will allow you to know this too. My point is to rescue basic knowledge of infectious disease that every person knew in my grandmother's generation. The postwar period put huge emphasis on this in schooling. It was called public health in those days.

They knew much more than certified experts today.

To be sure, my training is in economics, not virology, not immunology, and not epidemiology. That makes me the ideal teller of the way to understand pathogens. Why? Because this is a subject about which I knew little six years ago but COVID caused me to dive deep into the literature and speed learn.

Shockingly, I now find that I know more than many supposed experts. Why would that be the case? Every profession these days, whether economics or epidemiology, is subject to epistemic capture. They have all created bubbles for themselves that are shaped by industrial forces. To really understand the topic in question often requires a complete outsider.

I'm going to break it down to three principles. If you stick with me, you will carry away a decoder ring to see through every media frenzy about infectious disease.

One, a milder exposure to a pathogen generates broad and lasting immunity against a stronger exposure. This of course is the principle behind vaccination but, as even Fauci once explained, there is no better immunity than that obtained by natural exposure. This principle has been known for thousands of years, documented even in Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War.

I learned it as a kid when I was exposed to chicken pox and gained lifetime immunity. Before the shot came along, exposure of the young kids gave a booster to adults to protect them against shingles.

This is why George Washington did not accept a smallpox variolation (earlier form of vaccination) even as the army under him often did: he had it as a young man. This is the reason the legendary milkmaids of centuries past had clear skin: exposure to cowpox insulated against smallpox. It's why workers in chicken factories are more immune to Bird flu. It's why kids should not be cocooned in germ-free environments, contrary to the fashion these days.

It's why there was so much death in the 1918 flu pandemic. Vast numbers of people due to war and travels were unexposed to the pathogen in question. Several flu seasons prior had gone by with low virulence and exposure. Returning soldiers confronted an immunologically naive population.

It's always dangerous to disturb natural exposure patterns within the social order. After a year of lockdowns, it's not a surprise that the population was more vulnerable to sickness than ever before. Hiding from widespread and mutating pathogens only makes one more vulnerable later. No population cell is more sickly than one that has been isolated from exposure, as centuries of experience show.

Two, with most pathogens, there is a negative correlation (an inverse relationship) between severity and prevalence. When one is up, the other is down. Severity refers to its virulence, its tendency to render cases, hospitalization, and death. It is measured by the case fatality rate or CFR. A pathogen does not arrive with a built-in CFR, like some computer algorithm. It depends on the level of population immunity (see above).

The CFR is different from the infection fatality rate (IFR), which indicates prevalence; that is, how much and how far a pathogenic infection spreads. Infections can be mild. They can even be without symptoms. The IFR is typically lower than the CFR. A high IFR means that the pathogen has a high probability of killing its host upon infection. A high CFR often indicates severe, obvious disease that leads to confirmed diagnosis - but it does not necessarily mean the pathogen is not spreading.

Already I knew something was fishy in the COVID-19 period when mass media conflated cases, infections, and exposures. All the charts we saw on "cases" were not really that; they were positive tests using a technology designed only to capture the presence of the virus, not its medical significance. It was all wildly misleading.

COVID-19 had a very low IFR but a medium-level severity. That is because it was and is an intelligent pathogen. Viruses with unimpressive performance kill their host quickly and thereby do not spread.

Ebola is the classic case. Killing one's host is not the most desirable outcome for a virus. "In ecological terms," writes Sunetra Gupta, "it constitutes a form of habitat destruction. When they kill their hosts, pathogens also kill themselves, and this is a disaster unless their progeny have already spread to another host."

Clever viruses like COVID minimize severity and so they can spread more broadly through the population - the common cold would be a good example. "By being less destructive, a bug may also enhance its chances of transmission," she explains.

Three, the tradeoff between severity and prevalence is subject to a condition called latency. This is the period of time in which the infected person experiences no symptoms and can thus spread the disease. With a typical cold or flu, that period is a few days during which you are infectious and do not know it. Your symptoms will last a few days beyond which you can infect others.

There are viruses that have long periods of latency, among them the one said to cause AIDS. That is why it was so deadly among the vulnerable population. Other peculiar viruses like the hantavirus spread from rats, but typically not between people, and have a long period of latency. It can take eight weeks for symptoms to manifest. It also tends to be true that the longer the latency, the more difficult it is for a virus to spread with casual contact.

When COVID-19 hit, it was the theory of Deborah Birx that SARS-CoV-2 had a two-week latency, which is why she claimed there was silent spread. As it turns out, she was wrong: the latency period is that which is more typical among coronaviruses, a few days.

Nearly all movies about pandemics have to game this point for dramatic purposes. There is invariably some deadly pathogen circulating that suddenly seizes a person who drops dead. Then others with whom that person had casual contact over the prior month start dropping dead. Then dead people are everywhere.

This is all fiction. So far as we have records, there has never been a pathogen that is very severe, very widespread, mutates fast, and carries an extended latency period of months. This is not an accident. It is a biological necessity. It is how we as human beings co-evolved with the microbial kingdom of which we are part.

We have survived because we have adapted alongside and as part of the microbial kingdom. It is not the enemy but essential to our survival. Every movie that posits some other scenario is making stuff up.

And by the way, this is even true of lab-created viruses like that which created COVID-19. It can be nasty, uncomfortable, frustrating, even scary. But even lab-created viruses adapt to the natural world, as we have seen. Alpha became Delta which became Omicron and eventually merged into being part of the seasonable landscape of our lives. This is why every pandemic burns itself out. It's a consequence of immunity born of exposure combined with mutations.

The best way to understand mutations and variants is by analogy to wardrobes of clothing and disguises. Some pathogens come with a vast collection. Malaria is an example. It is always mutating and changing, and so it becomes extremely difficult to chase down and finally to destroy with a vaccine. For many decades scientists assumed that they could get it under control but it was not to be.

It is also true for flu viruses, which have a different garb for every season. This is why the flu shot is not particularly effective and sometimes negative in its efficacy. An example of a virus with an unimpressive wardrobe is measles. It has only one uniform so it was possible to identify and finally to manage to near perfection with a vaccine. That is not to say that the vaccine is superior to natural infection - one infection creates lifetime immunity - because every pharmaceutical has downsides, often unanticipated ones.

As for the others with wide adaptability, there is no way against which they can be vaccinated, even in theory. Many people have tried for countless decades. It is simply not possible for very specific epidemiological reasons. Anyone who says otherwise is a charlatan, now and always. Period. Learn that lesson and spare yourself grief.

How likely is it that we will experience a deadly pathogen that wipes out large swaths of humanity through uncontrolled spread in a manner in which our bodies are unable to withstand? The chances are near zero.

Let's game this out with these observations:

• Measles: severity low, prevalence high, latency short, mutability low
• Flu: severity low, prevalence high, latency short, mutability high
• Ebola: severity high, prevalence low, latency short, mutability medium-high
• Hantavirus: severity high, prevalence low, latency long, mutability low
• COVID: severity medium-low, prevalence high, latency short, mutability high
• Rabies: severity extremely high, prevalence extremely low, latency short, mutability low
• Norovirus: severity very low, prevalence high, latency short, mutability high
• Malaria: severity high, prevalence high, latency short, mutability high

Notice among all those listed, only one seems to evade the mathematical logic of viruses; that is malaria. It is a wicked killer, beyond 600,000 people a year but also not really a virus. It is a parasite with a particular vector of invasion via mosquitos, which is why it is not a pandemic risk but rather a regional risk. For that reason, it does not belong on the list.

See how there is a logic to all this?

Why is it important that everyone - I mean everyone - have a basic understanding of the above? To bring not panic about pathogens but rather a calming wisdom. We evolved alongside pathogens. We understand them better than ever before. Our life experiences have granted us remarkable resilience. We should not be endlessly buffeted by the media winds of frenzy designed to elicit likes and clicks.

Why in the 21st century so many people have chosen to forget what we learned over the course of the 20th century is a true mystery. I hope this article helps trigger some knowledge gain.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/27/2026 - 20:05

Before the Mets faced the Reds at Citi Field, the manager said there are various directions in which the team can proceed, considering Thursday’s day off, but there would soon be clarity.