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A Texas Woman Died After Waiting 40 Hours for Miscarriage Care

Many noted a striking similarity to the case of Savita Halappavanar, a 31-year-old woman who died of septic shock in 2012 after providers in Ireland refused to empty her uterus while she was miscarrying at 17 weeks. When she begged for care, a midwife told her, “This is a Catholic country.” The resulting investigation and public outcry galvanized the country to change its strict ban on abortion.

But in the wake of deaths related to abortion access in the United States, leaders who support restricting the right have not called for any reforms.

My country's aptitude for remaining entirely unmoved by preventable tragedies that utterly upend political trajectories in other nations has become one of our most globally defining traits.

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Trump Team Holds Breath as Stormy Daniels Returns to Stand

Decided to check in on things. She got a chuckle out of me from some of the quotes attributed.

Necheles asked her about the number of porn films she's written and directed, and said, “You have a lot of experience making phony stories about sex.”

“Wow. That’s not how I would put it," Daniels replied. "The sex in the films is very much real, just like what happened to me in that room” with Trump. She added, "If that story was untrue, I would’ve written it to be a lot better.”

Asked if she'd promised people she'd be instrumental in putting Trump in jail, Daniels said, "No." Necheles then asked her about a social media post where someone had called her a human toilet, and Daniels responded, "Exactly! Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down." Necheles asked if that meant she'd be instrumental in getting rid of him. Daniels said it was "hyperbole." "I'm also not a toilet," she said.

@[email protected] called it saying it would get cringey and gross. The "phony stories about sex" line from Necheles is awful stuff.

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Republican women annoyed GOP Congress won't let them run committees: report

“We’ve never been the party that was about checking boxes or identity politics, but the difference is we have women that are qualified to be chairs, and I don’t know why there wasn’t one who was able to become a chairperson of a committee," she added.

They've created this cartoonish simulacrum of diversity that they treat like some rabid, overzealous movement so they can ignore it.

Nicole, this thing you're disappointed about is what that thing you dismiss as "identity politics" is actually all about, you weiner.

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OK at it Again

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I rarely look at the text of legislative bills, but how does some of this language wind up in binding laws?

"Harmful to minors" includes in its meaning the quality of any material or of any performance or of any description or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse, when it: (a) Appeals to the prurient interest of minors as judged by the average person, applying contemporary community standards;

Who the fuck is the "average person"? What the fuck are "contemporary community standards"? Realistically, I know it's on purpose to give the courts leeway to apply the law loosely, but it's still outrageous.

§18-1513

§18-1514

gaming

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Remembering Prey, Arkane Austin’s masterpiece

I don't know if Prey is my favorite game of all time, but it's on the short list. I can, however, say that it is the game that most fills me with awe. Talos 1 is an extraordinary playspace filled with incredible detail, choice, style, and diversity. The narrative, possibly the weakest element of the game, still packs in a lot of cool ideas and genuine surprises.

Prey also contains by far my favorite opening "level" of all time. Without spoiling, the immediate tonal shift, the creepy mystery, the complete recontextualization of your first 10 or 15 minutes, it's an absolute spectacle.

In a perfect world, all these devs get absorbed by WolfEye Studios or something and they get a bunch of funding to make another massive masterpiece.

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Lara Croft Crowned Most Iconic Video Games Character of All Time, According to BAFTA Poll

Did they publish the poll itself? Curious how they defined "iconic." These results are baffling. I'm most surprised by Shadowheart, who is a great character but...functions as part of an ensemble and is arguably not even the most "iconic" character within her own game. And BG3 itself, despite being one of the most culturally impactful video games in recent memory, still is just too young to qualify for iconic status.

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Louisiana lawmakers vote to remove lunch breaks for child workers, cut unemployment benefits

There is some absolutely hilarious material in here, were it instead fictional.

First-term state Rep. Roger Wilder, R-Denham Springs, who sponsored the child labor measure and owns Smoothie King franchises across the Deep South, said he filed the bill in part because children want to work without having to take lunch breaks.

"I keep trying to give them lunch breaks but they insist on doing what's in the best interest my pocket lining!"

And my favorite, also from Roger Wilder:

“The wording is ‘We’re here to harm children.’ Give me a break," he said. "These are young adults.”

Could you imagine the delivery of this line, with just the right amount of pause after "give me a break" and the right expression to the camera if this were said on something like Parks and Rec?

games

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Hollow Knight: Silksong is out now on Steam - and it broke Steam servers for 30 minutes and counting now

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There's just...so much content out there about Hollow Knight if the answer to your question is of actual interest to you. No shade to you if it wasn't up your alley, but the only kind of response you can get is someone else's opinion. Like, I gave Bloodborne my best effort (30-40 hours of it) but eventually had to give it up, despite loving Demon's Souls and Elden Ring. But I love hearing about others' passion for it all the same and accept that there's a something there that didn't click for me.

FWIW, this is the video that convinced me to play Hollow Knight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm9Q4YLaWLk. It's a long one but it makes a good case.

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‘Longtime’ Hertz customer says he’s ‘done’ after AI scanner flagged water reflection as actual damage: ‘Unchallengable, automated accusation’

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The couple times I've attempted a chargeback, my credit card company has sided with the business. The last time, we'd bought Switch controllers on sale from Walmart's website, but they were sold by a third party and the stick click button didn't work on them. We didn't notice for a couple months because we'd only used them for games that didn't use the stick click. We sent them to Nintendo for repair and they were returned unrepaired because they were counterfeit. We tried contacting Walmart 3 separate times after the seller failed to engage, after which point the return window was closed and the Walmart rep told me to dispute because their hands were tied.

So I did, and sent the product listing, my communication history with Walmart customer service, and the letter we received from Nintendo proving they were counterfeit. The credit card company reinstated the charge. I called them to ask why, and was told they asked Walmart to prove that the order had been fulfilled, and when they sent their evidence the chargeback was automatically canceled. I asked them to reopen it, and they did, and the supervisor told me that because the order was fulfilled and too much time had passed (probably around 6 months by then) there was nothing they could do.

Do not trust your credit card company to rectify malfeasance. The math is not on your side when they weigh the cost of pissing you off as an individual consumer versus the cost of pissing off a large business. They do not have your back.

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The destruction of Palestine is breaking the world

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I'm no less ignorant than you are, but "returning home" isn't as easy as it sounds when your leaders and neighbors were at best complicit and at worst eager conspirators (excepting those who rebelled either openly or secretly) in your extermination. Jews have a rather long history of being...mistreated, for lack of a more appropriate term within reach, so the abstract idea of having a self-governed homeland where you can feel safe as a Jew seems to make some degree of sense in context.

But because Zionism is generally practiced by nationalists and religious zealots, and because colonialism was (and evidently is) still considered a-ok by the global power brokers when all this started, the tone of the occupation became "we're taking your space because we deserve it and you don't" rather than "may we please share your space in mutual benefit for our safe refuge."

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Front Brake Lights Could Drastically Diminish Road Accident Rates

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I think that's a neat idea, but we could instead, collectively, just do better at following other cars at a safe distance. I know it's impractical to expect all drivers on the road everywhere to change their behavior, but it's also persistently frustrating as someone who has for years frequently been stuck in traffic to see 95% of drivers insist on following less than a car-length behind. Following too closely to enable decision-making or accommodate other drivers is the cause of like 98% of both traffic accidents and congestion, according to my completely anecdotal and made up research.

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Marvel Television's Daredevil: Born Again | Official Trailer

Disney's creative integrity is dogshit. The MCU is overstuffed and meandering. I planned to be skeptical.

But goddammit if this trailer didn't give me chills. Charlie Cox's interpretation of Daredevil is quite possibly the best adapted superhero performance I've ever seen. I'd have watched this series beginning to end just to see him playing the part, but the tension, the action, the emotion, the score all worked in this trailer.

Despite my better wisdom I am fucking excited.

Does anyone know what is required viewing going into this? I watched She-Hulk but I think Daredevil was also in Echo or something? Anything else?

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[Discussion] Did Kingsman II failed as a sequel?

I fear Matthew Vaughn has just lost his grip on the humanity that so brilliantly balanced the silly stories he likes to tell. Stardust is one of my all-time favorite movies, and Kick-Ass, X-Men First Class, and Kingsman are some of the most entertaining blockbuster flicks available, where the action is satisfyingly contextualized through excellent character work.

But his last three movies just don't have the right equation. From what I remember, Argyle started out really strongly but seriously devolved after the halfway point. I think he's indulging too much in the overwrought spectacle that he first toed the line of at the end of the first Kingsman.