A Republican congresswoman from Illinois has introduced a bill to clearly define sex based on biology, rather than ideology. “As a mother and grandmother, I am deeply concerned by the Biden administration’s illegal rewrite of Title IX, endangering our daughters and granddaughters in sports and locker rooms,” Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., told The Daily Signal. “My bill simply recognizes the most distinct differences of our humanity—our maleness and femaleness.” “The Defining Male and Female Act will enshrine these definitions in federal law, preventing future departments and administrations from redefining this fundamental characteristic,” she explained. The Defining Male and Female Act of 2024—co-sponsored by Republican Reps. Debbie Lesko of Arizona, Lisa McClain of Michigan, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Claudia Tenney of New York, Barry Moore of Alabama, Greg Steube of Florida, Doug LaMalfa of California, Keith Self of Texas, Michael Guest of Mississippi, and Alex Mooney of West Virginia—is intended to combat the Biden administration’s attempted Title IX rule change. President Joe Biden’s April revisions to Title IX—the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs—include adding “gender identity” to the list of sex-based protections. That would allow males in female sports and private spaces. Biden’s proposed changes were supposed to take effect on Aug. 1, but they have been blocked by a number of federal court injunctions across the country. The Miller bill establishes that there are only two sexes—male and female. “To prevent further efforts to undermine the long-standing meaning and understanding of sex—male, female, and related terms—it is necessary for Congress to reaffirm and codify the meaning of these terms,” the bill says. Rare sexual development disorders are not exceptions to the binary nature of sex, the bill establishes. The legal equality of men and women does not mean that they are the same in every respect, so it’s not unequal treatment under the law to have separate male and female facilities, the bill’s text says. A female is “an individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have, but for a developmental or genetic anomaly or historical accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization,” and a male is an “individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have, but for a developmental or genetic anomaly or historical accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes sperm for fertilization,” according the bill. Miller’s legislation establishes “gender” as a synonym for sex, not a synonym for “gender identity,” “experienced gender,” “gender expression,” or “gender roles.” The post House Bill Would Codify Sex as Male and Female, Not Gender Identity or Expression appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the state had secured a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta over its “unauthorized capture of personal biometric data.” “We have secured a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta to stop the company’s practice of capturing and using the personal biometric data of millions of Texans without the authorization required by law,” Paxton said. “This settlement is the largest ever obtained from an action brought by a single State and the largest privacy settlement an Attorney General has ever obtained. This serves as a warning to any companies engaged in practices that violate Texans’ privacy rights,” he added. BREAKING NEWS:  We have secured a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta to stop the company’s practice of capturing and using the personal biometric data of millions of Texans without the authorization required by law. This settlement is the largest ever obtained from an action… pic.twitter.com/AkOppAGO0K — Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) July 30, 2024 Spectrum News reports: Specifically, Paxton says the data was collected in violation of Texas’ Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. In November 2021, Facebook said it was shutting down its face-recognition system and deleting the faceprints of more than 1 billion people amid growing concerns about the technology and its misuse by governments, police and others. More than a third of Facebook’s daily active users have opted in to have their faces recognized by the social network’s system. That’s about 640 million people. Facebook introduced facial recognition more than a decade ago but gradually made it easier to opt out of the feature as it faced scrutiny from courts and regulators. Facebook in 2019 stopped automatically recognizing people in photos and suggesting people “tag” them, and instead of making that the default, asked users to choose if they wanted to use its facial recognition feature. Researchers and privacy activists have spent years raising questions about the tech industry’s use of face-scanning software, citing studies that found it worked unevenly across boundaries of race, gender or age. Meta agrees to $1.4B settlement with Texas for biometric data usage in Facebook imageshttps://t.co/Lj7lV6XOa9 — KXAN News (@KXAN_News) July 30, 2024 BREAKING: Texas officials say Meta agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement over claims the tech giant used biometric data without permission. https://t.co/FYggq12SFM — The Associated Press (@AP) July 30, 2024 From the Associated Press: Meta said in a statement: “We are pleased to resolve this matter, and look forward to exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including potentially developing data centers.” Filed in 2022, the Texas lawsuit said that Meta was in violation of a state law that prohibits capturing or selling a resident’s biometric information, such as their face or fingerprint, without their consent. “This is by far the biggest state governmental privacy settlement in history,” Chicago-based class action attorney Jay Edelson said in an email. Edelson’s firm filed the lawsuit that settled for $650 million with Meta. The only other larger claim is the Federal Trade Commission’s $5 billion settlement with the company in 2019. To date, Meta has now paid over $2 billion in settlements for biometric privacy claims, according to Edelson. “That is a huge signal to other companies that they should be extremely careful if they want to trade in individuals’ biometric information,” he said. The company announced in 2021 that it was shutting down its face-recognition system and delete the faceprints of more than 1 billion people amid growing concerns about the technology and its misuse by governments, police and others.

The Acting Director of the Secret Service says he is ashamed and cannot defend the security failures that occurred at Donald Trump's Butler, Pennsylvania rally.

On the morning of 29 July 2024, a mass stabbing took place at a dance studio in a community centre in Southport, Merseyside, United Kingdom. Three children were killed and ten people, including eight children, were injured. Police arrested a 17-year-old male at the scene. Eight other children were injured, five of them critically, in […] The post Update on Knife Attack on Children in Southport appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

The hosts of ABC’s “The View” took several potshots at vice presidential nominee JD Vance (R-OH) during Tuesday’s broadcast, claiming that despite the success of his book and the subsequent movie, he was still “a poor dude.” Host Whoopi Goldberg said that she chose to “pity” Vance — in the same way that Mr. T used to say “I pity the fool” — and argued that although she appreciated his book, she believed he’d learned none of the lessons he had written about. The conversation began with an audio clip of Vance from a recent fundraiser where he pointed out that the Democrats’ new de facto nominee — Vice President Kamala Harris — did not have the same Achilles’ heels as her predecessor, President Joe Biden. “Because whatever we might say, Kamala Harris is a lot younger, and Kamala Harris is obviously not struggling in the same ways that Joe Biden did,” Vance said. “This poor guy. I feel so bad for him,” Goldberg said, over the objection of co-host Joy Behar. “No, no, I’m going to. I’m going to pity this man. Remember how Mr. T used to pity the fool? Well, I pity this man. I pity him, because he’s had a very bumpy roll-out so far.” Hostin turned the direct attack on Vance, referencing his book — “Hillbilly Elegy” — and claiming that he lacked “empathy” for poor people and “blamed” them for their circumstances. “What’s so difficult to me is he writes this thing, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ about sort of growing up poor… but he blames the people for their circumstances,” she claimed. “Look, I grew up in poverty, I remember what it feels like to be hungry, I remember what it feels like to not have enough, I remember what it feels like when my mother made my clothes, but I do not blame the people who are still in that circumstance for being in that circumstance.” “This is the thing. He wrote a really interesting and smart book and didn’t recognize that he isn’t out of poverty. He’s bereft —” Goldberg began. “He’s bereft of morality,” Hostin cut her off. “He’s bereft of morality, he’s bereft of empathy,” Goldberg agreed. “He’s got a spine, it’s just not a good one … He’s a poor dude.” WATCH: The View says JD Vance “isn’t out of poverty” and “bereft of morality” and has no “empathy.” “He’s a poor dude.” pic.twitter.com/Z4OWRiYWsy — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 30, 2024