(FOX NEWS) -- Ricky Schroder said this week he believes pornography generated by artificial intelligence is a "dangerous road to go down."

"I'm not an expert on AI, but I'm concerned about people that want to make pornographic images using AI that look like real people," the "Silver Spoons" star told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. "I think that that's a dangerous road to go down."

Schroder, who is a founding member of the Council on Pornography Reform (CPR), said there needs to be legislation regarding the advent of AI in pornography.

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By Jake Smith
Daily Caller News Foundation

A lawsuit alleges that an art school in Los Angeles had to shut its doors due to the city’s persistent and increasing homeless crisis, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday.

The Academy of Media Arts abruptly closed down on Jan. 15 and left dozens of high school students without an immediate resolution for continuing their education, according to the Times. Los Angeles suffers from one of the worst homelessness crises in the U.S. and the city is spending billions to try and fix it.

The school shut down because its location in the L.A. Grand Hotel, where a makeshift homeless shelter is also located, resulted in the homeless population negatively impacting the school, according to a lawsuit filed by school founder Dana Hammond.

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“Our students’ lives were in jeopardy because of the Inside Safe residents,” Hammond told the Times. “We’re not enemies of the homeless shelter, we just can’t put them in the same building as a high school.”

Hammond had initially leased three floors of the L.A. Grand Hotel in 2022 so he could move his school there and offer students better art facilities, according to the Times. The school initially recruited up to 250 students but that number began to decline rapidly down to about 50, leaving Hammond unable to pay rent on the lease in January.

There were multiple reports of the homeless population living at the L.A. Grand Hotel’s shelter negatively impacting or directly interacting with the school and students; one man got into a confrontation with the school’s bodyguard, another man trespassed into the school through the back entrance, and another man had to be subdued by police officers in early January after breaking into the school, according to the Times.

One woman was reported exposing herself to students, and another woman was seen lying naked behind the school in the early hours of the morning and threatened to “shoot and stab” a security guard when approached, according to the Times. Outside the school, drug paraphernalia, empty liquor bottles and garbage litter the sidewalks; the school sign is covered in graffiti.

Hammond said the problems left students terrified, according to the Times.

“Human poop on sidewalk. The smell of urine across campus. Outburst from ‘Inside Safe’ tenants. Break-ins by ‘Inside Safe’ tenants. Drug paraphernalia found on campus. ‘Inside Safe’ tenants found in trash bins,” read comments left on a classroom whiteboard, according to the Times.

The “Inside Safe” program is the initiative of Los Angeles Democratic Mayor Karen Bass to move the city’s massive homeless population off of the streets and into temporary housing such as the L.A. Grand Hotel. Bass has received criticism as homelessness still permeates the city and many who are given temporary housing cannot find permanent housing, and in some cases end up back on the street.

There are roughly 47,000 homeless people living in Los Angeles, and the city spends over $1 billion per year to try and address the crisis. The L.A. Grand Hotel, which has been recruited for the “Inside Safe” program as temporary housing, will receive $20 million from the city for a lease extension through July, according to the Times.

Bass’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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(FAITHWIRE) -- Comedian Rob Schneider believes having a “foundation in God” can lead to greater happiness and fulfillment — and studies consistently back this assertion.

In addition to revealing “hope and strength” found in faith, Schneider also recently told CBN News he finds the atheistic worldview to be so often devoid of hope.

“This idea that things just blew up and ... the universe is things bumping into things, and expanding, and that we, as human beings, are just this freak ... accident that happened,” he said. “[This idea] that this empathy, and compassion, and love that we feel is just this accident that happened, and there’s no reason for it, and nothing will come of it, and eventually the universe will just be a series of black holes.”

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(FOX NEWS) -- First year medical students at UCLA's medical school were allegedly assigned readings from activists and educators calling for the abolition of borders, according to a medical transparency group.

Do No Harm said the readings were assigned in the required course, "Structural Racism and Health Equity." Copies of the documents were shared with National Review on Thursday.

In one reading from a scholarly paper entitled, "Beyond border health: Infrastructural violence and the health of border abolition," the authors call for a "no borders system that privileges liberatory solidarity with migrants."

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By Nick Pope
Daily Caller News Foundation

• A jury found two critics of climate scientist Michael Mann and his signature “hockey stick” model liable for defamation on Thursday, and the ruling could have serious repercussions for scientific discourse in the U.S. going forward, according to several critics of mainstream scientific consensuses.
• Each defendant must pay Mann $1 in compensatory damages. Additionally, Mark Steyn, one of the defendants, will have to pay $1 million in punitive damages, while Rand Simberg, the other defendant, owes Mann $1,000 in punitive damages.
• “I would not be surprised to now see a flurry of lawsuits against people who have been critical of climate science or climate scientists. Such legal action may not be limited to climate — debate over COVID-19 also presents a target-rich environment for unwanted speech to silence,” Roger Pielke, Jr., an academic who writes extensively about the politicization of science, wrote on Friday.

A Washington, D.C., jury found two critics of a high-profile climate scientist liable for defamation on Thursday, an outcome that has the potential to introduce a “chilling effect” on those who criticize scientific consensus, according to several of those dissenting voices.

Michael Mann won a defamation suit he originally filed in October 2012 against Rand Simberg, who compared Mann to convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky for Mann’s alleged data manipulation in his landmark 1998 “hockey stick” climate model in a blog post for the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and Mark Steyn, a right-of-center political pundit who referenced Simberg’s blog post in his own writing about the “hockey stick” model for National Review. Simberg was ordered to pay Mann $1,000 in punitive damages and $1 in compensatory damages, while Steyn must pay $1 million in punitive damages on top of $1 in compensatory damages.

The results of the lawsuit could dissuade critics from vocalizing dissenting opinions against scientific orthodoxy, both in discourse about climate change and beyond, according to some of these dissenting voices.

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“I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protecting free speech,” Mann wrote in a Thursday statement posted to X, formerly Twitter. Mann has also already suggested that he will continue attempts to sue National Review and CEI, which were dropped from the suit in 2021.

For the losers, it just means that the conspiracy must just run deeper and wider:
“The fix was in!”
“DC Jury” [note the racist dogwhistle]
“liberal jurors”
etc. https://t.co/nGpSqeF6WL

— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) February 10, 2024

During the trial, Abraham Wyner, a tenured statistics professor and the chair of the undergraduate statistics program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, testified that Mann engaged in “improper manipulation” of data that made his signature model “misleading,” according to National Review.

Mann’s critics made the connection to highlight what they contend to be the abuse and manipulation of data in the “hockey stick” model, which purports to show that global temperatures have risen sharply in the past several decades relative to the preceding centuries. Critics, including Steyn and Simberg, have targeted the “hockey stick” model for many years, generally positing that it should not be treated as a credible assessment of climate trends because of its perceived flaws.

“The mainstream media, led by The Washington Post, is already salivating over how this court decision could impact criticism of vaccines, COVID measures, election results and climate change,” Marc Morano, a former senior staffer for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who later founded ClimateDepot.com, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This will only embolden claims that some scientific claims are above public scrutiny and will lead to more ‘consensus’ enforcement in areas like climate and public health. Mann’s victory in court may embolden more defamation cases against anyone who dissents from the official government narratives.”

Indeed, several virologists have already implied that the verdict should send a clear message to skeptics who contend that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory as opposed to originating naturally. The Department of Energy and Federal Bureau of Investigation have both stated that the lab leak theory is currently the most plausible explanation.

Other climate scientists apparently followed the Mann trial closely, Kate Cell, a senior climate campaign manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Associated Press. Many of these scientists were hoping for a good result for Mann to “reduce the comfort and regularity with which those who do not accept climate change science speak, and speak very nastily, about climate scientists,” Cell told the AP.

The case was about “the ability of myself and others to speak freely about the most important issues of our day, whether climate change or another issue,” Simberg told the AP before the verdict came down. “If others are faced with over a decade of litigation for giving their opinions, we will all suffer.”

Roger Pielke, Jr., an academic who writes extensively about the politicization of science, agrees with Simberg about the possibility that the verdict could alter scientific discourse on topics reaching beyond climate change, which he believes climate change to be a real and serious threat.

“The case was formally about defamation, but in reality it was not at all about defamation. As Michael Mann stated after the verdict, the case was really about politics and ideology,” Pielke, Jr. wrote on Friday. “The defense made a big mistake in thinking that it would be sufficient to win by proving their case while Mann chose not to put one on. That was wrong … I would not be surprised to now see a flurry of lawsuits against people who have been critical of climate science or climate scientists. Such legal action may not be limited to climate — debate over COVID-19 also presents a target-rich environment for unwanted speech to silence. Watch this space.”

“The larger issues here are not about Mann, but rather the continued failures within the climate science community to uphold fundamental norms of conduct among its own ranks,” Pielke, Jr. added.

While Mann and The Washington Post framed the suit’s outcome as a victory for purportedly principled scientists, he has proven himself not to be above launching harsh insults and accusations at his peers. For example, Judith Curry, a climatologist who has been critical of Mann in the past, said that Mann falsely suggested she had effectively exchanged sex for career advancement when she was younger, according to National Review.

Mann contributed to the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007; the IPCC, as an institution, won the Nobel Prize for “its efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change” that year alongside former Vice President Al Gore.

The IPCC later released a 2012 statement making clear that the institution won the prize, not individual members and contributors. Mann intimated in the original complaint against Steyn and Simberg that he had won a Nobel Prize.

“Proponents of false narratives and apologists for fraud have been gloating about the decision on social media,” Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Ebright was an early advocate of the lab leak theory for the origin of COVID-19, a point of view that many in the corporate press, scientific community and government officials initially derided as bigotry or a conspiracy theory.

Unlike Morano and Pielke, Jr., Ebright is not convinced that the Mann suit will have a pronounced effect on the ability of critics of scientific consensus to speak out.

“I do not anticipate a ‘chilling effect.’ The decision sets no precedent, and persons making truthful claims and having courage in their character will not self-censor,” Ebright told the DCNF.

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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(THE POST MILLENNIAL) – A professor at Laurier University, Ontario is advocating for a lengthening of the LGBTQ acronym to include two-spirit individuals and others, by changing it to MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+.

Dr. Percy Lezard, the co-ordinator of the Indigenous Studies program and a self-identified two-spirit, trans, disabled scholar who uses "they/them/theirs" pronouns, argued that the change was long overdue.

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"If you still exclude the 2SLGBTQ component," Lezard said, "you are literally telling me that the violence that I experience on the daily, or the members of my community experience on the daily, is not important, is not valid and is not worth talking about. So until we move from that space, to including the actual longer acronym, I think the quality of life is not gonna change."

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(Image courtesy Unsplash)

(THE BLAZE) – A third-grade teacher in North Carolina has garnered international attention for charging her students rental fees for their desks and chairs, while making the kids pay fines for bad behavior.

The classroom economy under teacher Shelby Lattimore is receiving praise for teaching kids financial literacy and by providing students with ways to earn a theoretical income for working classroom jobs.

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Students can earn "Miss Lattimore Bucks" for different responsibilities around the school. What started as a "motivator to get them to come to class and just build attendance" turned into children taking jobs such as line leader, door holder, and teacher's assistant.

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(Pixabay)

(THE BLAZE) – Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach is turning up the heat on "troublesome districts" that have doubled-down on policies allegedly allowing schools to "socially transition" students without parental consent. The Republican AG has narrowed the remaining offenders down to a handful of districts, which he appears keen to rein in.

"A child changing his or her gender identity has major long-term medical and psychological ramifications," Kobach said in a statement Thursday. "Parents should know, and have an opportunity to be involved in such an important aspect of their well-being."

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According to the Washington Examiner, Kobach used Parents Defending Education's list of parental exclusion policies to pinpoint offending districts in Kansas. After drilling down on each district's policies and weighing their constitutionality, Kobach identified six school districts that were allegedly undermining parental rights.

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(LAW OFFICER) – A first-year principal at an elementary school in California is in hot water after she reportedly conducted an active shooter drill during which she callously pretended to shoot and kill students, some as young a 4-years-old, according to parents who complained about the unauthorized event.

Nina Denson, who became the principal at Washington Elementary School in San Gabriel in Fall 2023, was placed on administrative leave after the San Gabriel Unified School District began receiving complaints about students being traumatized by the lockdown drill, which took place on Wednesday, KTLA reported.

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Superintendent Jim Symonds of the San Gabriel Unified School District said the safety drill was not authorized. “This type of drill where a scenario was run is not approved by the district nor part of our district protocol,” Symonds confirmed.

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(Unsplash)

(THE NEW AMERICAN) – Michigan officials are calling upon state lawmakers to enact a mandatory state registry of all homeschooled children in Michigan.

Since December 2023, Michigan state officials – including Attorney General Dana Nessel, the state House and Senate Education Committee chairs, the State Board of Education, and State Superintendent Michael Rice – have criticized homeschooling and called for stricter government regulation and oversight over homeschooled students and their parents.

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The motivation for these attacks was the arrest in December of two couples in Clinton County for “allegedly abusing and financially profiting from foster and adopted children.” However, instead of focusing on the crime itself – or on the high levels of abuse in government schools – these officials are broadly attacking homeschooling and parents seeking alternatives to government schools. For example, Attorney General Nessel alleged that homeschooling had contributed to the couples’ actions.

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