Category: US News

It’s not just a game for the 250 million players who are eschewing traditional social media, Netflix and other leisure activities in favor of community events like Marshmello’s virtual concert.

Fortnite isn’t just a game — it’s also social media. So says a study from National Research Group, which provides a telling snapshot of the new attention economy. Fortnite players spend more of their free time logging into the battle royale game than they do scrolling through Facebook and Instagram or streaming on Netflix and YouTube.

In the two years since its July 2017 launch, Fortnite has grown into a global phenomenon with more than 250 million active players (82 percent under age 35) and $2.4 billion in annual revenue. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was on to something when he noted in January that the streamer “competes (and loses) more with Fortnite than with HBO.” According to NRG, Fortnite players spend 21 percent of their free time with the game.

The reason? Per Tim Sweeney, CEO of Fortnite developer Epic Games, the title was designed to be a “social experience.” Not only does Fortnite encourage players to hone their skills in competitive matches, but it also offers activities for people who just want to hang out in its virtual world. In February, for instance, the EDM DJ Marshmello hosted an in-game concert that drew 10 million viewers. “The competition for free time is finite,” says NRG CEO Jon Penn. “To have an event that draws that many people, in any capacity, makes the threat of Fortnite being a platform very real.”

NRG indicates that users are responding to the game’s social elements. Researchers write that it “makes people feel good while also providing a worthwhile experience and social connection.” And more social elements could be coming, Sweeney hinted during a March interview with THR. “Just like anybody could create a Facebook page, anybody should be able to express themselves in Fortnite in a huge variety of ways,” he said.

While the majority of Fortnite users are young, it’s the tween demographic that is spending more time in the game in 2019. NRG reports that 53 percent of survey respondents ages 10 to 12 play Fortnite weekly, significantly more than those who said they use Facebook and Instagram regularly.

“Facebook limits usage to 13 years old and up, so most kids don’t have any idea why they’d want to be on it anyway,” says Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, adding, “Fortnite is 100 percent a social platform.”

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President Donald Trump is commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day, joining numerous world leaders and dignitaries in Portsmouth, England today.

That was a key launching point for the Allied forces that sailed from England to storm the beaches of Normandy, France to begin pushing back the Nazi occupiers during World War II. It was a key turning point, and a day of great sacrifice by US troops.

During a special ceremony, President Trump read from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous D-Day prayer that he read to the entire nation on June 6, 1944.

Trump read a portion of FDR’s prayer, saying:

“Almighty God. Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavour. A struggle to preserve our republic, our religion and our civilization and to set free a suffering humanity. They will need thy blessings for the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces but we shall return again and again. And we know that by thy grace and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. Some will never return. Embrace these Father and receive them, the heroic servants, into thy kingdom and O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in thee, faith in our sons, faith in each other and faith in our united crusade. Thy will be done, almighty God. Amen.”

It was a somber and peaceful ceremony, kicking off two days of D-Day observances.

Leaders representing Allied countries showed up from the US, Canada, Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Denmark, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.

Other leaders at the event included Queen Elizabeth II, British Prime Minister Theresa May, French president Emmanuel Macron. On Thursday the focus shifts to France for more events.

D-Day involved more than 150,000 Allied troops flooding the beaches of Normandy in northwest France on June 6, 1944. They were carried by 7,000 boats in a battle codenamed Operation Overlord.

MORE about FDR’s D-Day Prayer HERE, including the transcript of the entire prayer.

I guess it is time for the medieval crusades to reunite.  There seems to be a need to protect Christian all over the world and the news does not even care to cover it!

While you might have seen a decrease in mainstream media reporting regarding Christian persecution, there has only been an increase in the persecution taking place against Christians around the world.  Faithwire: U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom Calls Out Most Oppressive Countries in Daming Report According to the Gatestone Institute, persecution of Christians by extremist groups and individuals is continuing to climb, as the persecution has become more systematic than random. In their latest “Religious Freedom Report,” Aid to the Church in Need warned that around 300 million Christians around the world have been subjected to violence, making Christianity the most persecuted religion in the world.

Raymond Ibrahim of the Gatestone Institute argued that that statistic demonstrates that it is much more difficult for a Christian to live in a Muslim country than a Muslim to live in a Western country. He pointed to a study done by Voices in Europe where they pointed out that the chances of being killed as a Christian, simply for being a Christian, in a Muslim country is incredibly high. Voice of Europe explained that because 300 million Christians have been subjected to violence, that means that in a Muslim-majority country, 1 in 70,000 Christians have been murdered for their beliefs. “This makes the odds of a Christian in a majority-Muslim country being murdered by a Muslim – simply for being what he is – approximately one in 70,000,” Europe Voice pointed out.

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BOMBSHELL:

caught Illegals fleeing from border agents hours ago! 2 miles from our wall. ITS A DAMN CRISIS in sunland park New Mexico! These people didn’t want to be caught.

This is the wall the US army corps of engineers built and was too lazy to go up the mountain like we did!

The shimmering waters of a Chilean lake call to the Dorchaks these days.

The American couple — who six years ago retired to Puerto Octay, a village on Lake Llanquihue, the second largest lake in Chile — say that their lives as real-estate appraisers and investors in South Carolina used to involve a lot of running around, but those days are long gone.

“The sun will come out, and I’ll say, ‘Let’s go get our kayaks and go to the lake,’ ” says Lori Dorchak, 55. “Maybe I’ll think, ‘Well, we’ve really got to finish some project.’ But to heck with that, nope, not anymore: We go to the lake. Life is short.” Or, as Jim, 56, puts it: “We don’t get up in the morning unless we want to get up. … It’s a what-I-want-to-do life now.”

Indeed, life in Puerto Octay — a village in southern Chile brimming with traditional German-style architecture — often revolves around the breathtaking nature at your doorstep. Locals and visitors alike enjoy the beaches abutting the deep blue lake, as well as a variety of water sports like kayaking, fishing, sailing and swimming.

The Dorchaks had never considered Chile as a retirement option — and, for that matter, weren’t considering retirement at age 50. But a series of tragedies hit their family, including the decimation of their real-estate business by the Great Recession: “We had this realization that life is short,” says Jim, 56. “Our dream had always been to have a little farm and raise our kids there.”

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In the middle of Arizona’s desert lies something unexpected: a rather strange, unfinished “city of the future.” Jutting out of the vast, barren Sonoran Desert and reachable only by car, Arcosanti’s domes and curved structures look like something imagined up by a science fiction writer. A nonprofit group called the Cosanti Foundation has been working for decades to create a city that would inspire the future of urban design by incorporating a range of environmentally-friendly features to reduce sprawl and minimize the need for cars while harnessing solar power and natural vegetation to energy reduce costs. The Italian architect who originally envisioned the city, Paolo Soleri, called his ideas “urban implosion” because he wanted to reduce the suburban sprawl that is a feature of many American cities. He also invented the concept of Arcology, a way of thinking about urban design that’s in harmony with the natural world and more sustainable.

Lucke pulls on a Steeler’s jacket and a baseball cap over brown hair that falls halfway down his back, and leads me across the five-acre yard. Out here, 90 miles east of Tucson, the desert is a long sweep of brush the color of beach sand. Lucke seems to slip through the rainy day like a ghost.

The radio station, whose call letters are KHIL, has long been the daily soundtrack for this frontier town (population 3,500) that prides itself on its cowboy culture and quiet pace of life. But six decades after the founding of the station, the property is in foreclosure, with utility disconnect notices coming nearly every month.

Small-town radio is fizzling nationwide, as stations struggle to attract advertisement dollars. And as station owners are forced to sell, media conglomerates snap up rural frequencies for rock-bottom prices, for the sole purpose of relocating them to urban areas. In a more affluent market, they can be flipped for a higher price. With limited frequencies available, larger broadcasters purchase as many as possible – especially those higher on the dial – in a race not dissimilar to a real estate grab.

The “dungeon” turns out to be benign – just the original radio station building. Lucke explains that country music star Tanya Tucker “used to hang out here with the jocks”. This was before she recorded Delta Dawn at the age of 13 and left Willcox to produce a slew of hits, which landed her in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Her familiar drawl can still be heard at the top of every hour on KHIL, saying, “Hello, Willcox. This is Tanya Tucker, and you’re listening to the station I always listened to when I was a kid.”

Except for a washing machine and stacking radio conductors, the dungeon is empty. From here, in a feat of electrical wiring, several radio stations (four of which are run by Lucke) are connected to the 5,000-volt radio tower behind the dungeon, and pushed out into the sky.

KHIL was founded in 1958 by Rex Allen, who gained notoriety as the last of the singing cowboys. On the silver screen, The Arizona Cowboy could be seen strumming a guitar from the back of his horse, until the genre came to a close in 1954. He would go on to narrate a plethora of Disney movies, including Charlotte’s Web, and for years was the voice behind Ford truck and Purina Dog Chow commercials.

Allen – who died in 1999 – is now immortalized by a statue in the historic downtown. Born 31 December 1920 to Horace and Faye Allen in Willcox, Rex Elvie Allen was cross-eyed at birth, reads the plaque below the statue.

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The Trump administration announced Wednesday that government scientists will no longer conduct research using aborted baby body parts. And taxpayer dollars will no longer be used to fund that research at one specific university.

The Department of Health and Services (HHS) will not renew its contract with the University of California, San Francisco following an investigation into UCSF’s research practices. The investigation was part of a broader audit to see if American taxpayer money is helping pay for research involving the body parts of aborted children.

Government-funded research is being allowed to continue under certain circumstances. The decision solely affects research on labs sponsored by the National Institute of Health. So if UCSF wants to continue experiments using aborted fetal tissue it must turn to private funding.

A Trump administration official also told Fox News that universities are free to explore using sources of fetal tissue other than aborted babies.

“It fits inside the wider context of the president’s pro-life agenda since he was sworn into office, So you’ve seen a consistent pattern of pro-life-focused decisions and policy decisions from the president over the last two and a half years,” an official told the network.

“This is consistent with that direction and there will be continued work on the pro-life agenda throughout the rest of the first term and the second term as well, and so we will always work to err on the side of life in all critical decisions that come to the Oval Office at the president’s direction,” the official said.

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MIAMI—The former Florida deputy who failed to confront a gunman during last year’s Parkland school massacre was arrested on June 4 on 11 criminal charges related to his actions, prosecutors announced.

Broward State Attorney Mike Satz said in a statement that 56-year-old Scot Peterson faces child neglect, culpable negligence and perjury charges that carry a combined potential prison sentence of nearly 100 years.

Peterson, then a Broward deputy, was on duty as the school resource officer during the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School but never went inside while bullets were flying. Seventeen people died and 17 others were wounded in the attack.

Peterson’s bail was set at $102,000, Satz said. Once released, Peterson will be required to wear a GPS monitor and surrender his passport, and will be prohibited from possessing a firearm, the prosecutor said.

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WASHINGTON—The U.S. Congress on Monday, June 3, approved legislation providing $19.1 billion in emergency funding for disaster recovery efforts throughout the United States, including Puerto Rico, sending it to President Donald Trump to sign into law.  Final passage came as the House of Representatives voted 354-58 for the measure, which lawmakers and Trump had been in negotiation for months. It was approved by the Senate late last month, and Trump has said he supports it.  House leaders tried three times in the last ten days to win unanimous approval of the bill while most lawmakers were away on recess. But conservative Republicans blocked these efforts, forcing House leaders to wait until the full chamber returned to work on Monday to pass the bill.  The measure would assist victims of numerous disasters over the last two years, from hurricanes in the Southeast to Midwestern flooding and California wildfires. It has funds to repair highways and other infrastructure, including some military bases, as well as aid to help farmers cover crop losses.

The bill also includes a $605 million nutrition program and $304 million in community development grants to help Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, recover from a devastating 2017 hurricane.  Trump had opposed sending any more aid to the Caribbean island but recently relented on this point. The bill also faced delays amid failed talks on Trump’s $4 billion-plus request to care for thousands of migrants being held at the southern border. The sides narrowed their differences but couldn’t reach agreement in the rush to go on recess, but everyone agrees that another bill will be needed almost immediately to refill nearly empty agency accounts to care for migrants. “We must work together quickly to pass a bill that addresses the surge of unaccompanied children crossing the border and provides law enforcement agencies with the funding they need,” said top Appropriations Committee Republican Kay Granger of Texas.

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