'I want to get to something really important'

A new drug tested in mice septupled the number of beta cells in the pancreas, reversing the symptoms of diabetes until the disease was gone. This has never been achieved before in drug development, and the scientists behind the breakthrough are calling it a “functional diabetes cure.” It took just three months for the mice […] The post Diabetes-Reversing Drug Boosts Insulin-Producing Cells by 700% appeared first on Good News Network.

Excerpts Paranormal Read an Excerpt From Kiersten White’s Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel A vampire escapes the thrall of Dracula and embarks on her own search for self-discovery and true love. By Kiersten White | Published on July 17, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel, a new gothic fantasy by Kiersten White, out from Del Rey on September 10th. Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims.But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches—and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants.Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in twenty-first-century London, when she meets another woman, Iris, who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power.Lucy has long believed she would never love again. Yet she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris while Iris is equally mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by outside forces. Iris’s mother won’t let go of her without a fight, and Lucy’s past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl once more.Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness has always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing? Boston, September 25, 2024 Client Transcript Dracula usually kept three brides, but they lost one in transit. I imagine she’s still wandering around Europe somewhere, trying to find her way to London. Or maybe I ended her existence at some point without realizing it. Doesn’t matter. Although I never knew their names—they didn’t know them, either—for the sake of clarity we’ll call the two brides I met Raven and Dove. Raven had long, thick hair so black it swallowed all light, and Dove’s hair was so ephemeral and white it floated around her like a cloud. Free from my mausoleum, I stood frozen in the cemetery. It was night, but like no night I had ever known. The air swirled with sound and scent, as if all my senses had merged into one. Had rotting roses always shimmered like that? Had birds always flown with such a clatter of wings and creaking feathers? Had the presence of the small creeping things of the earth really been a secret to me, when now they announced themselves with such obvious heat? Heat. I needed heat. I was so brutally cold. I blurred in and out of myself, whole sections of the cemetery appearing and disappearing along with my consciousness. Somewhere close by, there was heat. I let out a cry as my teeth grew into sharp points with an aching pain close to pleasure. And then my teeth found the heat, and I lost myself to the sheer animal joy of satisfying a need. I still don’t know who I killed. I’ll never know. When I think about what I did that night, I can feel the space where I should carry guilt, but there’s nothing there. I wasn’t a person yet—or at least, as much a person as I’m capable of being now. I was merely a squall, a newborn once more. I sat on the ground, shivering in ecstasy, marveling as the heat of another life spread through my body. I hadn’t even remembered I had a body until then. I had only been my senses, and then my teeth. I stared at my hands, amazed at how small and white they were. And my neck—I kept touching my neck. There was nothing there, but I could sense those twin icy points, the holes where I had been drawn out of myself. Where I’d been removed. How had I gotten back in? Buy the Book Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel Kiersten White Buy Book Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel Kiersten White Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget The brides found me there. I would have imprinted on anything that touched me gently that night, a duckling in their confident thrall. Raven hummed and stroked my hair as I trembled. Dove cooed at me, exclaiming over how small I was, how pretty, how new. They coaxed me back to my mausoleum. I was as starving for loving touch as I had been for blood. A flaw that led me here. But we aren’t to that story yet. Being with them felt like… Do you remember the first day you realized you could be the same woman on the inside and on the outside? That the you who had always nestled beneath, hidden and trapped, the you that had always been there, could be the only you? You know who you are. You claim the woman you are and celebrate her. I wish I had been able to do that during my life, too. But the pretty idiot I once was had died alone and afraid and didn’t understand how she felt and could never say what she longed for. What she wanted. Meanwhile, this new pretty idiot I had become, freshly risen from the grave with someone else’s blood coursing through her? She knew what she wanted. I let Raven kiss me and Dove pet me. I felt flush with possibility. I didn’t know what or who I was anymore—and I quickly realized that meant I could be anything. Anyone. I could do whatever I desired, and who could tell me no? Who could say what was wrong, what was wicked, what was unnatural, when everything simply was? I don’t regret what the brides and I did that night and others. I don’t regret losing myself in the rush and thrill of sensation. Letting myself want. I didn’t love the brides and they certainly didn’t love me, but at least there was finally one thing I understood about myself when everything I knew in the world had come undone: Breasts really are fantastic. I mean, just the best. Absolutely divine. I could live for a thousand more years and never tire of them. So that I night I also discovered hands and tongues and teeth and a thousand surprising things to do with them. At the time I thought all those parts of me Raven was finding were entirely new and came with being a vampire. That was how little I’d been educated about the facts of life. It took me too long to realize I could always have felt those things. They didn’t have to be tied to blood and death and violence. They could have been based in love and sweetness and tenderness. Love was never my destiny, though. For a few days we slept tangled and inseparable in my mausoleum, and for a few nights we prowled the darkness, searching only for heat we could steal. Raven hunted with me, but Dove slipped away on her own. Dove always met us before dawn, though, so we could seal ourselves inside my mausoleum once again. When it comes to healing, or regenerating, or merely building up strength, blood is good for a vampire. But sleep is even better—especially a deep mindless undreaming rest in your own grave dirt, but any unhallowed ground will do. Because Dracula had turned each of us into vampires, Dove and Raven could use my grave dirt and find nearly the same level of restoration as they had in their own. But sleeping in your own grave dirt isn’t the only way to find rest. My mausoleum feels like home, the way you sleep better in your own bed than anywhere else, but I can nearly always find somewhere good enough. Old blood helps, whether freely or violently spilled into the dirt. Makes it nourishing, like vampire fertilizer. A battleground, a plague pit, or some other hasty receptacle is best. Cemeteries aren’t actually good at all. It’s not because of the sacred ground nonsense. Don’t take that concept as proof God is real. I rather think I exist as proof in the opposite direction. And if not me, certainly Dracula is evidence there’s no larger plan, no benevolent protector watching out for precious children. No, the real reason is that cemeteries, especially modern ones, are filled with chemical-tainted bodies with almost no blood at all. I haven’t thought of my own mausoleum since I left it the last time. But back then it was my home, one I happily shared with Raven and Dove. I was always eager to get back to it. Sunlight was a cage. We could survive with the rays of the sun beating down on us, but we were trapped by it. Unable to change form, sapped of much of our strength. Raven warned me to avoid it at all costs. One night, though, I hesitated. While I still didn’t have much of myself back—I couldn’t have told you my name or my address, or even told you what my mother looked like, though she’d died only a day before I had—I still held on to one thing: I wanted to see my darling. “I have to go home,” I said to Raven. “Can you help me find it?” Raven stroked my hair. Then she pulled it, yanking my head back. She traced a single sharp nail along the line of my throat. “Pretty thing,” she said. “Silly thing. You can never go back. You forget whose bride you are now.” She dragged me toward my mausoleum, but something made her freeze. She hissed and disappeared into the night. I kept going. People were waiting at my resting place. I could feel their heat radiating outward. I arrived to find four men. It wasn’t their faces I recognized—I had lost those, in the space between dying and waking. But I knew the scent of their blood. Traces of it lingered in my body. How had I come to possess their blood, when I’d never tasted them? One had a growth of pale hair above his lip, as though someone was trying to sweep away whatever came out of his mouth. “Lucy?” he asked. My name! I was Lucy! Or at least, I had been. More names came to me in a sudden spilling rush. Memories are like that, now. Trapped behind a dam, waiting for the right crack to give way. “Arthur!” I said. He’d been my fiancé. There with the doctor, the cowboy, and the old Dutch man. All waiting for me. Longing for me, just as they had before I changed. Flush with blood and full of secrets, knowing at last the pleasures I had been denied my whole life, I opened my arms. I hadn’t wanted my fiancé before, but he was warm. I would teach him such things. I would teach them all such things. They had tried to save me, in their own foolish way. I wanted to let them know it was okay. I was okay. Better than okay. I had been good at showing them what they wanted to see. Now I showed them what they had always secretly hoped for from me. What they still hoped for, based on the blood rushing to their extremities. I was finally unbound, and hungrily curious. Affectionate, even. They were such breakable, mortal things, these four men who had altered the course of my life and death. I’d be careful with them. “Come here,” I said with a laugh. “It’s all right. I’ll kiss you all, and tell you my secrets, and we can at last know one another truly.” And do you know what they did, when I, the object of their mutual affection and lust, revealed myself ready at last to embrace them on my own terms? They recoiled in disgust and horror. For so long I thought it was because I was a vampire. But I’ve been with enough people to know I’m not horrifying. Quite the opposite. My teeth weren’t even out. No, what disgusted them was that they had no power over me. I no longer fit their ideal of a virgin waiting for them to claim me. That was what repulsed them. That was what they found monstrous. I wasn’t theirs anymore, and I never could be again. Naturally, violence came next. Excerpted from Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel, copyright © 2024 by Kiersten White. The post Read an Excerpt From Kiersten White’s <i>Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel</i> appeared first on Reactor.

THE DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff called on President Joe Biden to leave the 2024 presidential race on Wednesday. Schiff—a high-profile Democrat—made a public appeal to Biden to quit the race so that a different candidate can be on the ticket against former President Donald Trump in November, the congressman told the Los Angeles Times. The California Democrat, who is also running for Senate, becomes the 21st congressional Democrat to have called upon Biden to drop out following the president’s disastrous performance in his first presidential debate against Trump in June, according to The New York Times. Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history, and his lifetime of service as a Senator, a Vice President, and now as President has made our country better,” Schiff said in his statement to the Los Angeles Times. “But our nation is at a crossroads. A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November.” The decision about whether to stay in the race “is President Biden’s alone,” Schiff told the outlet, adding that he thinks it is time for Biden “to pass the torch” to a different candidate and “secure his legacy of leadership.” However, Schiff made clear to the outlet that he will still support Biden or whoever else may be on the ticket in November. “I will do everything I can to help them succeed,” Schiff told the Los Angeles Times. “There is only one singular goal: defeating Donald Trump. The stakes are just too high.” The internal Democratic effort to push Biden out of the race is reportedly back on after the failed assassination attempt against Trump on Saturday altered the nation’s political landscape. Numerous national, swing state and internal polls show that Trump is currently in the driver’s seat as November draws closer, prompting a major Democratic concern about Biden’s prospects and even the outcomes of key congressional races down the ballot. Moreover, leading Democratic donors are reportedly freezing about $90 million in donations to a major pro-Biden political action committee (PAC) unless or until Biden gets out of the race. However, the president has so far shown no intention of stepping aside to make space for a different candidate to run against Trump, as he and his campaign have both vociferously dismissed suggestions that he should quit as an elite narrative that is out of touch with how voters feel about the president and his record. Schiff, one of the leading promoters of the debunked Russiagate investigation into Trump, won the Democratic primary for the Senate seat currently occupied by fellow Democrat LaPhonza Butler. The late Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein formerly occupied the seat, to which Butler was appointed by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom after Feinstein passed away in September 2023. Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The post Adam Schiff Becomes Highest Profile Dem Lawmaker Calling For Biden To Bow Out appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Biden Campaign Going Lower and Lower

Not Bows and Flows of Angel Hair: It's Shards of Razor Sharp Fiberglass Everywhere

Sophie Thomas, a 97-year-old woman, was enjoying a peaceful day in her garden, tending to dandelions, when she found herself in a terrifying situation. While pulling weeds, she was suddenly surrounded by four pit bulls, their presence instantly changing the serene environment into a scene of dread. The dogs circled her menacingly, their growls filling... The post Cat sees 4 aggressive dogs circling elderly owner and leaps into action appeared first on Animal Channel.

The post 40 heart-meltingly cute kittens that will destroy your ability to function today appeared first on Animal Channel.

On Tuesday, MSNBC's The 11th Hour hosted ex-Republican George Conway who ridiculed religious people for believing that “God saved Trump” from being killed during the assassination attempt on Saturday. Conway went on to fret that the Republican party will “follow Donald Trump over any cliff and take the country” with them. The segment began with Conway describing the Republican National Convention as an event that “George Orwell could not have scripted better.” The second night of the RNC to Conway was “basically everything standing on its head.” Further, Conway went on to bash people of religion who have “nominated a 34 time convicted felon” yet still believe in all this “religious stuff” like God saving Trump from being killed Saturday night:     CONWAY: Right and nominating a 34 time convicted felon and then we are the party, you know, all the religious stuff. It’s like ‘God saved Donald Trump’ – and you know let's not worry about the kids at these school shootings or whatever but he’s -- this is man of God? I mean, what are we even talking about here? But Conway was far from done as he continued “This is a man who sacrificed everything for his country? What are we even talking about? He is not capable of sacrifice. He's not capable of considering anybody other than himself and they’re treating him like ‘oh he’s done everything for us.’” Stephanie Ruhle interjected “Do you think Nikki Haley is his little Bo Peep?” Conway responded, “She goes to the first – I don’t know -- five, six, seven how many months of her campaign and will not criticize Donald Trump and raises her hand when they ask her are you gonna, you know, are you gonna support a convicted felon?” However, Conway was confused how Haley could go from “spend[ing] three or four weeks trashing the hell out of him including questioning his mental capacity, questioning everything about him” to now openly supporting the former president. Did he miss Kamala Harris implying Joe Biden was racist in the 2020 primaries? Then she became his vice-president pick. Conway did admit that Haley “made some very good points about the budget deficit” under Trump's administration and about national security. Ruhle, unsurprisingly, added that this budget deficit “will only balloon even more if they extend the corporate tax cuts and lower the rate to 15 percent.” Still on fire to bash Trump, Conway concluded “It’s all just – it’s all just bizarro and it is just stuff that doesn’t fit with each other it – I don’t even know what this party stands for other than we will follow Donald Trump over any cliff and take the country with us.” Click "Expand" to view the transcript: MSNBC The 11th Hour 7/16/2024 11:33:55 – 11:35:56 PM GEORGE CONWAY (THE ATLANTIC CONTRIBUTING WRITER): We were just talking about that in the green room and I said Orwell could not have scripted this better. George Orwell could not have scripted it better. I mean, it’s just basically everything standing on its head. “We are the party” we heard somebody – who was saying that tonight? “We are the party of the rule of law” – oh, it was Speaker Johnson. STEPHANIE RUHLE: Yeah. CONWAY: Right and nominating a 34 time convicted felon. And then we are the party, you know, all the religious stuff. It’s like "God saved Donald Trump" – and you know, let's not worry about the kids at these school shootings or whatever but he’s -- this is [a] man of God? I mean, what are we even talking about here? This is a man who sacrificed everything for his country? What are we even talking about? He is not capable of sacrifice. He's not capable of considering anybody other than himself, and they’re treating him like “oh he’s done everything for us.” It’s just crazy and then Nikki Haley – RUHLE: Do you think Nikki Haley is his little Bo Peep? CONWAY: What? I don’t know but I mean Nikki Haley, you know she’s -- what was she doing? Okay, explain to me. She goes to the first – I don’t know -- five, six, seven how many months of her campaign and will not criticize Donald Trump and raises her hand when they ask her are you gonna, you know, are you gonna support a convicted felon? Then she goes out and spends three or four weeks trashing the hell out of him including questioning his mental capacity, questioning everything about him and making some very good points about the budget deficit that skyrocketed during – during his administration -- RUHLE: And it will only balloon even more if they extend the corporate tax cuts and lower the rate to 15 percent. CONWAY: Of course – of course, and then she made some good points about national security about Russia now, you know, this is Make America Safe Again Night and we want to turn Russia over and we want to turn Europe over to the Russians. That’s literally – that’s Trump and that’s Vance. So what are we even talking about here? It’s all just – it’s all just bizarro and it is just stuff that doesn’t fit with each other it – I don’t even know what this party stands for other than we will follow Donald Trump over any cliff and take the country with us.

On Wednesday, the flagship morning news shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC made sure to tout President Biden’s Tuesday afternoon address in Las Vegas to the NAACP convention, but only played up sanguine soundbites calling for a lowering of the temperature of our civic discourse, not those saying Republicans want to “erase..history” and want to take away the “freedom” of black people. So much for a cooling down after the Trump assassination attempt. Take, for example, this clip in which he said Republicans are “risking people’s lives” and not only want to “undo everything they NAACP stands for”, but “deny you freedom”. Not just particular freedoms, but “freedom” period. Turning down the temperature? Biden: Trump and Republicans will “do everything – undo everything they NAACP stands for, but now they're trying to deny it. They’re lying about their Project 2025. They want to deny you freedom, the freedom of the vote, have your vote… pic.twitter.com/JoJJL7OFEE — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 16, 2024 That didn’t make the cutting room floor on any of the networks. ABC’s Good Morning America were stenographers to power with co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos saying Biden was “on the trail in Nevada” and then chief White House correspondent and lead Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce touting Biden as “out here hitting the trail hard, pledging he is all in on this race”.     Bruce continued with two staid soundbites of Biden praising the NAACP and then another talking about the need to balance “lower[ing] the temperature” with “telling the truth” (click “expand”): BRUCE: Overnight, President Biden firing up the Democratic Party’s base — BIDEN: I’m a lifetime member of the NAACP. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] And I am all in! [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]  BRUCE: — glad handing as he reaches out to critical black and Latino voters, with polls showing signs their support is slipping. All as he fights to show doubters in his own party he has what it takes to beat Donald Trump. (....) BRUCE: Back on the trail for the first time since the attack against Trump, he’s urging Americans to cool down the political temperature, but not shying away from drawing a sharp contrast. BIDEN: Now, just because we must lower the temperature and our policy is veradivsposiv [sic], doesn’t mean we should stop telling the truth. BRUCE: Biden fired up, but some in his party still not convinced. How about this part of Biden’s speech where he said not only have Republicans “eviscerated affirmative action” and want to “decimate diversity, equity, and inclusion all across American life,” but “bann[ed] books” and want “to erase Black history”, including the history of lynchings?       Again, none of them cared to mention this apocalyptic talk. NBC’s Today barely brought up Biden’s NAACP speech as his kowtowing to the far-left and endorsing bids to change the Supreme Court was far more interesting. Just over a minute after co-host Savannah Guthrie noted Biden was “hitting the campaign trail in another crucial swing state, Nevada” and senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez led off with the so-called court reforms, but then arrived at Biden’s speech with a pointless soundbite: GUTIERREZ: Meanwhile, President Biden is back on the campaign trail in Nevada, referencing Mr. Trump’s comments from the debate about immigrants taking, “black jobs.” BIDEN: Folks, I know what a black job is. It’s the Vice President of the United States. CBS Mornings had a 28-second news brief with fill-in co-host Adriana Diaz saying Biden used the speech to highlight the fact that Americans can disagree, but must remember we’re each other’s family members and friends: DIAZ: President Biden is back on the campaign trail courting black and Latino voters in the key battleground state of Nevada. He spoke at the NAACP’s national convention yesterday, his first political speech since Saturday’s shooting at Donald Trump's rally. BIDEN: Got to remember — in America, we're not enemies, we're friends, we're neighbors, we're fellow Americans. Most importantly, we must fully and firmly reject not only political violence but violence of any kind. In other words, no time for Biden’s handlers writing standard talking points trashing American as having been a place filled with “racism and violence” and that it can’t be allowed to return to those ugly days (i.e. if Republicans win).     To see the relevant transcripts from July 17, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).