News From Around the Web
#10 539 Arrested in Massive Human Trafficking Operation in California - Carlos Garcia for Blaze Media
Law enforcement authorities released information about a massive operation targeting human traffickers that led to more than 500 arrests. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said in a media briefing Monday that police had arrested 539 people in the criminal operation. "Human trafficking and child exploitation are devastating crimes that prey on some of the most vulnerable members of our community,'' the sheriff said. Police rescued 54 adults and 11 children from exploitation during the action dubbed Operation Reclaim and Rebuild, he added. 40 of the arrested were suspected "sexual traffickers or exploiters'' while another 271 arrested were suspected "sex buyers.'' Among those rescued was a 14-year-old girl...
#9 Oklahoma Asks Teachers to Return Up to $50,000 in Bonuses the State Says Were Paid in Error - Sean Murphy for AP
With four young children and a fifth on the way, Kristina Stadelman was ecstatic after qualifying for a $50,000 bonus for taking a hard-to-fill job as a special education teacher in Oklahoma. She used the money to finish home improvements and buy a new car for her growing family. Then a letter arrived from the Oklahoma State Department of Education: It told her she received the money in error and must repay it quickly.“I don’t obviously have the money to pay it back by the end of February,” Stadelman said. “I came home the day I found out and just cried for two days straight.” The errant payments, first reported by Oklahoma Watch, and the repayment demands have Oklahoma’s education agency drawing fierce criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, some of whom say teachers shouldn’t be forced to give the money back. Average teacher pay in Oklahoma is about $54,800, which ranks 38th in the country, according to the National Education Association...
#8 Texas University to Cancel Cultural Graduations in Light of New Law - Joshua Q. Nelson for Fox News
University of Texas at Austin (UT) announced that they are canceling cultural graduations due to the Lone Star State’s recent law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices. UT sent an email last week saying that they will cease funding cultural graduation ceremonies, according to the Daily Texan. Senate Bill 17, which went into effect this month, affects DEI offices and programs at public colleges and universities across the state. Their decision came after the university’s Multicultural Engagement Center (MEC) was closed in compliance with the state’s law shutting down DEI offices. The closure of the Multicultural Engagement Center impacted their Black Graduation, Latinx Graduation, and GraduAsian ceremonies...
#7 These ‘Toys’ are Killing our Kids - Julie Scelfo for The Hill
As teen social media use has risen — up to 95 percent of 13-17-year-olds now say they use social media — so has the number of young people dying by suicide. From 2007 through 2021, suicide rates for Americans ages 10 to 24 rose 62 percent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You don’t have to be a genius to connect the dots. Just read Englyn’s story or Gavin’s — which is detailed in a new wrongful death lawsuit his father, a South Carolina state representative, filed last week against Meta and Instagram. (State Rep. Brandon Guffey is not alone: more than 2,000 other families are already suing social media companies over harms their children have suffered, reports CBS News.)...
#6 Microsoft AI Engineer Says Company Thwarted Attempt to Expose DALL-E 3 Safety Problems - Todd Bishop for Geek Wire
A Microsoft AI engineering leader says he discovered vulnerabilities in OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 image generator in early December, allowing users to bypass safety guardrails to create violent and explicit images, and that the company impeded his previous attempt to bring public attention to the issue. The emergence of explicit deepfake images of Taylor Swift last week “is an example of the type of abuse I was concerned about and the reason why I urged OpenAI to remove DALL·E 3 from public use and reported my concerns to Microsoft,” writes Shane Jones, a Microsoft principal software engineering lead, in a letter Tuesday to Washington state’s attorney general and Congressional representatives...
#5 Senators Lobby for More Immigration Despite Objections from GOP Voters - John Binder for Breitbart
The group of Republican senators lobbying for more legal immigration to the United States is increasingly among the party’s fringe, a survey released Friday revealed. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), as well as Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), John Thune (R-SD), and Mitt Romney (R-UT), are currently negotiating a deal with Senate Democrats to increase legal immigration levels by 50,000 green card admissions annually...
#4 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Mulls Running for President as Libertarian as He Struggles with Ballot Access - Cristina Corujo for CBS News
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he is looking into running for president as a Libertarian, since he still faces significant hurdles in gaining ballot access in the vast majority of states as an independent candidate. "That's something that we're looking at," he told CNN's Michael Smerconish Monday in response to a question about whether he'd consider a Libertarian bid. "We have a really good relationship with the Libertarian Party," Kennedy added. Kennedy, who began his pursuit of the presidency as a Democrat early last year and then left the party to run as an independent, noted that at the end of February, he'll be addressing California's Libertarian Party convention...
#3 Shipyard Veterans May Have Been Exposed to Cancer-causing Radioactive Materials - Melissa Chan for NBC News
The Navy has known about multiple environmental contaminations at the base for more than 20 years. In 2008 it conducted a study that found radiation, then publicly documented for the first time in 2023 the detection of radiation involving levels of radium-226 and strontium-90. But the Navy had not alerted Wyand or any others to the potential exposure. A spokesperson said there is no mechanism in place to notify veterans of possible exposures after a base is no longer operational...
#2 Pelosi Faces Backlash for Demanding Swarming Protesters 'Go Back to China': 'Slanderous Accusations - Andrew Mark Miller for Fox News and Hindustan Times
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi., D-Calif., was blasted on social media after a video surfaced from October in which she told pro-Palestinian protesters from Code Pink to "go back to China" where their "headquarters is." "In October, Pelosi told our members calling for a ceasefire to ‘go back to China,’ Code Pink posted on X on Monday along with a video of Pelosi interacting with protesters. "These same women have been protesting for peace at her house for 17 years. Pelosi takes thousands of dollars from AIPAC every year. Who’s the foreign agent here?"
#1 PA Man Posts Video Of Decapitated Father On YouTube During Unhinged Manifesto Rant - Tyler Durden Zero Hedge
Following the publication of a 14-minute, 35-second YouTube video in which he aired his grievances against the Biden administration and federal government en masse, Justin Mohn was arrested by Fort Indian Town Gap Police in central Pennsylvania. Mohn took to YouTube to broadcast his political manifesto titled Mohn's Militia - Call To Arms For American Patriots. The video was laden with incendiary rhetoric beckoning violence against the federal government, with fervent criticism of the leftist agenda he deemed was ruining the country. However, that was not the basis of the charges he was arrested for. Instead, Mohn was arrested in connection with the death of his father, Michael, after he began his YouTube broadcast by showcasing the severed head of his father following his decapitation.
And Now for Something Special 
Foul-Mouthed Parrots are Unlikely Stars at a British Zoo - Bill Chappell for NPR
The parrots are a fount of foul language. Their habit of spouting curse words at a torrid rate has, by turns, mortified and amused the people who work with them at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in Friskney, England. Now, the family-friendly animal park is trying a new plan it hopes will tame the parrots' salty language. It's integrating them into a larger flock, where they will "hopefully learn all the nicer sounds and words," Steve Nichols, the park's CEO, told NPR...
