Young fans of rapper Doja Cat are flocking to church after watching her disturbing new “Demons” music video.

Dressed as a demon, the 27-year-old singer joins others in the industry like Sam Smith and Lil Nas X, in a music video praised by critics but rejected by man Gen Z fans who say it’s gone too far.

“The Doja Cat’s latest demonic song inadvertently caused millions of people to consider going back to church and beginning to pray again,” Christian rapper Ruslan said in a YouTube video.

One of the top comments on Doja Cat’s music video — released last week and has over 8 million views — is, “Thanks Doja to making me wanna go to church everyday.”

“Thanks Doja for reminding me to definitely read my Bible and go to church,” one user commented.

“Doja got me going to church daily now,” another said.

“Going straight into a gospel playlist right after here,” someone else added.

The artist, whose real name is Amala Zandile Dlamini, started alluding to the dark theme in March when she changed her profile picture on TikTok of her dressed as a demon and started posting stills from the music video on her Instagram.

Tens of thousands of fans shared their concerns for her in the comments and said her content was pushing them to seek Jesus.

You don’t need to see the music video for yourself to know it’s intentionally disturbing by paying homage to horror films like “The Shining” and “Poltergeist.”

Read more at: toddstarnes.com

Australians could soon be using a national digital ID that would hold all of your information, acting as a Medicare card, driver’s licence, passport and holding Centrelink details.

A universal ID was first planned by the Coalition and has now been taken up by the Albanese government.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said the ID, which would allowing licences and other forms to be verified online by external organisations, could be rolled out within a year.

There has already been backlash towards the proposed ID, but on Wednesday Ms Gallagher told the Australian Financial Review’s Government Services Summit that the program should be up and running by mid-next year.

‘That’s a pretty tight timeframe, so I don’t want to be held to that. But that’s kind of my roadmap,’ she said.

The Finance Minister said many Australian states are already using digital services to access IDs such as driver’s licences and a nationally-regulated service would be an extension of that.

‘We’ve got the system, it’s just not regulated and not in a shape I think that will allow us to drive it forward and give the interoperability and the economy-wide benefits that come from having a national system, but we’re very committed to it,’ she said.

Ms Gallagher said the service would not be a new card or number but ID forms will be compiled into one system in an ‘easy, secure, voluntary and efficient way’.

Existing state and territory apps would all work together with the new plan, she said.

The minister did, however, admit that the idea is a ‘contested’ one, with petitions already circulating in opposition to it over cybersecurity and data retention concerns, and from anti-government groups.

The plan is also likely to be controversial given it is coming after several major cyberattacks in Australia in the past 18 months, including at Optus, Medibank and financial services provider Latitude.

‘We’ve seen this, particularly coming out of Covid-19 you know, theories, conspiracy theories about what government’s trying to do,’ Ms Gallagher said.

But she said the plan was to allow Australians to have control of their information.

‘It is about securing your information and protecting your information and ensuring that you know, when that information is shared, it’s done under a regulated system,’ she said.

In the UK last February, former prime minister Tony Blair was accused of pushing a ‘creepy’ plan for every Briton to be issued with a digital ID as part of a ‘reshaping of the state around technology’.

Former Conservative Party chairman Jake Berry branded the proposal as ‘a creepy state plan to track you from the cradle to the grave’.

Read more at: www.dailymail.co.uk

A new study found a link between developmental delays and increased screen time for children.

The study was published in the JAMA Pediatrics journal on Monday. It measured childhood development in 1-year-olds who watched screens for as little as one to four hours.

Researchers looked at results from 7,097 children and their mothers who were recruited from 50 obstetric clinics and hospitals in Japan from July 2013 to March 2017.

“It’s a really important study because it has a very large sample size of children who’ve been followed for several years,” explained pediatrics associate professor Dr. Jason Nagata to CNN, who was not involved in the study.

“The study fills an important gap because it identifies specific developmental delays (in skills) such as communication and problem-solving associated with screen time,” he added.

Researchers asked the mothers to self-report several measures of development, including communication skills, fine motor skills, personal and social skills, and problem-solving skills.

Of the children who had greater screen time, the study found that they were up to three times more likely to exhibit developmental delays by age 2. Those children who had more than four hours of screen time were almost five times as likely to display underdeveloped communication skills.

Experts recommended that parents choose other options aside from screen time, such as coloring materials, toys, and books. They also said that parents should limit their own screen time as children tend to mimic the behavior they see.

A separate study from March 2022 found a link between increased screen time and behavioral problems in children.

“There’s a signal there. We’re seeing some association between screen time and behavior problems. It’s not particularly robust, but it’s there,” said Dr. Sheri Madigan, a senior author of the paper.

Read more at: www.theblaze.com

Wow, I am SO happy I did not take my kids to see the Barbie movie.

Call it intuition, but I knew the movie would likely not be good for them.

But I didn’t know exactly WHY until I saw this from Jonathan Cahn.

As usual, Cahn takes what is hidden in plain sight and connects the dots and explains it so clearly that we can all see it.

Then once you see it you can’t UNSEE it.

Watch here: 100percentfedup.com

Is it an answer to our prayers or an idolatrous representation of the Son of God?

That’s the inescapable question faced by those who, depending on one’s theology, either stumble upon or are called to a new AI chatbot which one theologian says is a new representation of Jesus Christ.

Twitch channel Ask Jesus is an experimental AI-generated livestream that gives viewers the chance to query a chatbot “trained after Jesus and the teachings of the Bible.”

The nonprofit project — which is supported by contributions from users and The Singularity Group, described on the Twitch page as “not a Christian organization” — offers “spiritual guidance” or even just “someone to talk to” and responds to questions ranging from theological and practical advice to inane requests to incorporate nonsensical words or phrases into its responses.

For example, a question from user “FXvirusLive” asked the AI Jesus to explain Christianity but to replace every vowel with the word “burger.”

Or the prayer request from user “greenshoesbrownsocks” for their cat Whiskers, but with the phrase “grrrr” inserted after each word.

Another request asks AI Jesus to rap about the Father, resulting in a cringey yet biblically-adjacent “divine rhymes”: “Yo, let me tell you about my Father up in heaven/ creator of the Earth and the stars up in the sky/ He’s a legend/ He brought life into the world/ That’s no lie.”

Upon being asked a sincere question like, “Can you explain more in-depth what it means to be meek?” the chatbot quoted Matthew 11:28-29: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

In response to a question from user “daveisdigital” about which career to choose, the AI pointed to Colossians 3:23, which says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

While a talking image of God might seem blasphemous to some, Joseph L. Kimmel, a scholar of early Christianity and comparative religion at Boston College, argued that this AI Jesus is merely the latest “reinterpretation” of the Son of God.

Kimmel, pointing to various traditional portrayals of Jesus as merely a “prophet” or a “philosopher” in traditions ranging from 19th century American to Hindu mystic to a proponent of Black Liberation theology, says the chatbot is “the latest in this ongoing pattern of reinterpretation, geared to making Jesus suited to the current times.”

Read more at: www.christrian.com

Psychologist with access to students told sexual assault victim to consider ‘restorative approach instead of going to authorities,’ victim tells The Daily Wire

A woman who was sexually assaulted in school as a teenager says the founder of a prominent “social emotional learning” non-profit that receives funding from California public schools pressured her to drop charges against the teacher who attacked her because his arrest could contribute to the “over-incarceration” of black men.

Jennifer Freed, a psychologist, astrologist, and sex guru who runs the “social emotional learning” (SEL) non-profit AHA! Santa Barbara, conducts talk circles with high school students with the goal of “reducing emotional/physical violence in schools by building healthy campus climates,” according to its website. But a woman who participated in those talk circles as a high school student says Freed pressed her to let a teacher who tormented her with sexual advances off the hook.

The woman, who The Daily Wire is referring to only as Maria because she was the victim of an assault as a minor, says Freed delivered a lecture to her about how her accusations against the teacher would contribute to the mass incarceration of black men in America. Freed suggested, according to Maria, that she consider a “restorative approach instead of going to authorities” after the teacher grabbed her buttocks and nibbled her ear when she was 17.

“I was very scared of Jennifer because she’s very persistent in getting what she wants. She said I will feel better if I talk to him and do a restorative approach instead of going to authorities,” Maria told The Daily Wire. “I think it’s really inappropriate for a licensed psychologist to say that to a victim a week after they’ve been assaulted by someone in authority. That really harmed me.”

Freed’s group AHA! Santa Barbara has gained national prominence for its work to advance SEL, a school curriculum that has been embraced by the Left in recent years. Freed’s organization has been feted by celebrities such as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who visited the organization in May to herald its purported mental health benefits for youth. But the actions by Freed could fuel critics who say SEL prioritizes leftist politics over children’s emotional well-being

Maria did not take Freed’s advice. Her accusations against the teacher, a black nationalist and socialist named Matef Harmachis, led to a criminal conviction for battery in 2017, his firing from the school in 2020, and a nearly $1 million settlement with the school district just months ago in a lawsuit that faulted the district for keeping Harmachis on staff despite years of sexually inappropriate behavior.

Freed is just one of the leftists who Maria says turned on her in defense of Harmachis. She told The Daily Wire that she is now “scared for [her] safety” after seeing far-left activists defend her attacker as the real victim because of his race.

Read more at: www.dailywire.com

The combination of “warp speed” advances in neurotechnology, such as brain implants or scans that can increasingly peek inside minds, and artificial intelligence poses a threat to mental privacy, UNESCO warned on Thursday.

The UN’s agency for science and culture has started developing a global “ethical framework” to address human rights concerns posed by neurotechnology, it said at a conference in Paris.

Neurotechnology is a growing field seeking to connect electronic devices to the nervous system, mostly so far to treat neurological disorders and restore movement, communication, vision or hearing.

Recently neurotechnology has been supercharged by artificial intelligence algorithms which can process and learn from data in ways never before possible, said Mariagrazia Squicciarini, a UNESCO economist specialising in AI.

“It’s like putting neurotech on steroids,” she told AFP.

Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO’s assistant director-general for social and human sciences, said that this convergence of neurotechnology and AI was “far-reaching and potentially harmful”.

“We are on a path to a world in which algorithms will enable us to decode people’s mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions,” she told the conference.

In May, scientists in the United States revealed they had used brain scans and AI to turn “the gist” of what people were thinking into written words — as long as they had spent long hours inside a large fMRI machine.

Later that month, billionaire Elon Musk’s firm Neuralink received approval to test its coin-sized brain implants on humans in the United States.

Read more at: www.barrons.com

With child marriage still legal in California, advocates are mounting a campaign to push the state to enact a ban, but their effort is facing surprising opposition from progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.

Dozens of survivors of forced or child marriages traveled to California’s state Capitol in Sacramento last month to protest the state’s existing laws. Dressed in wedding dresses with their wrists tied and mouths taped shut, they called on state lawmakers to finally outlaw the practice.

California, a solidly Democratic state, was on track to be the first to pass an absolute ban on marriages for children under 18. But the legislative proposal was met with opposition from liberal organizations like Planned Parenthood, the Children’s Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The pushback comes out of concerns that imposing an age requirement could set the stage for a slippery slope when it comes to constitutional rights or reproductive choices, specifically that an age requirement could impede a minor’s ability to seek an abortion.

California and Mississippi are the only two states where there is no minimum age requirement to get married. Most states have a minimum marriage age of 16 with parental consent, although it can range from as low as 14 to as high as 18, according to voting rights organization Wisevoter.

Newsweek reached out to Planned Parenthood via email for comment.

Minors seeking to wed in California need approval from a guardian and a court order. But those calling for a ban on child marriages point out that when it comes to issues like statutory rape, California’s definition of unlawful sexual activity between a child and an adult does not apply if the two parties are married.

Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California spokesperson Jennifer Wonnacott told the Los Angeles Times that it “strongly supports protecting youth from abuse of all kinds” but said those protections should “not impede on the reproductive rights of minors and their ability to decide what is best for them, their health and their lives.”

An analysis from Unchained At Last, a nonprofit dedicated to ending forced and child marriages in the U.S., found that between 2000 and 2018, 23,588 minors were married in California, making it the state with the second-highest number of child marriages behind Texas.

Read more at: www.msn.com

A PJ Media commentary by Ben Shapiro examined the influence of advertisers, industry groups, and brand-safety standards on online publishing. It discussed the World Federation of Advertisers and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, arguing that advertising guidelines can affect which viewpoints receive commercial support. The piece raised concerns about the power of private organizations to influence speech and media revenue. Its claims about coordination and intent are the author’s analysis and should be distinguished from the organizations’ stated policies.

Read more at pjmedia.com

A group of 25 Orthodox Jewish rabbis and religious educators issued a statement opposing the use of artificial intelligence chatbots, according to a report circulated in 2023. The signatories expressed concern that chatbot responses could expose users to religiously prohibited material and undermine Torah study and observance. Their statement called for avoiding these tools, including in business settings. The report also described similar restrictions announced by another Hasidic community. The prohibition reflects the views of the rabbis involved, not a universal position among Jewish authorities.

Read more at www.israel365news.com