All posts tagged: groups

4 Simple Phrases Said By People Who Seem Effortlessly Cool In Groups

4 Simple Phrases Said By People Who Seem Effortlessly Cool In Groups

Published by Jenni Sidey

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic, with about one in two American adults reporting that they experience loneliness. We’re more digitally connected than ever and somehow more isolated, which means that the moments when we’re actually in a room with other people matter more than they used to. The anxiety around group conversations is very real, too. Navigating large groups and working a room comfortably is not easy, but it can be learned. And like anything, practice and a few insider tips certainly help. A woman on TikTok named Victoria posted a video of herself in expert-level yoga poses while sharing her advice for how to interact with people in group conversations. Knowing what to say, how to hold your own, how not to accidentally make things weird? Overwhelming. What makes Victoria’s breakdown so useful is that these aren’t performance tricks or ways to seem cooler than you are. They’re genuinely kind moves that make the people around you feel more at ease. People who seem effortlessly cool in …

Progressive groups launch ad on Earth Day hitting Republicans over gas prices, EVs 

Progressive groups launch ad on Earth Day hitting Republicans over gas prices, EVs 

Published by Sam Flores

Two progressive groups are launching a new eyebrow-raising ad attacking Republicans over gas prices and electric vehicles (EVs) to coincide with Earth Day, as the war between the U.S. and Iran has hit consumers’ pocketbooks at the gas pump.  Progress Action Fund and Energy Everywhere launched a new $500,000-backed ad buy on Wednesday, first shared with The Hill, showing… Source link

Faith groups seek out founding documents in bid to rescue democracy

Faith groups seek out founding documents in bid to rescue democracy

Published by Sam Flores

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (RNS) — The prompt for the after-dinner discussion was a familiar phrase: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Some 90 members of nine religious congregations gathered in the fellowship of hall of University Baptist Church recently to begin a study of the Declaration, with its foundational claim that “all men are created equal.” They are just one of some 30 interfaith “clusters” in 16 states participating in Faith250, a new initiative intended to mark the country’s 250th anniversary, or semiquincentennial, this July 4th. These clusters are now pouring over “America’s sacred texts” as part of a mission to revive democratic values they feel have been eroding. “People are really concerned about what’s happening in our democracy,” said Meg Peery McLaughlin, the co-pastor of University Presbyterian Church and a program organizer. “They have been hungry for a place to bring their concerns about what’s happening and encounter what our shared faith may have to say to it.“ In addition to the Declaration of Independence, the faith clusters will study other foundational texts …

ASOBISYSTEM Groups, Execs on Global Aspirations, ASOBIEXPO Hawaii 2026

ASOBISYSTEM Groups, Execs on Global Aspirations, ASOBIEXPO Hawaii 2026

Published by Daniella Wilson

A day after J-pop fans gathered at Honolulu’s Tom Moffatt Waikiki Shell for a one-night-only concert, Asobi Expo Hawaii 2026, the artists and executives of Asobi System congregated backstage to discuss the event and the company’s global aspirations. As J-pop continues to move further into the U.S. market, Japanese entertainment companies and labels are looking for ways to connect artists with both longtime and potential fans in what was a previously untapped market. Bringing Asobi Expo, an event meant to gather and showcase artists from the Asobi System family, to the U.S. is one way some labels are introducing talent stateside. Other events similar to it, like Japan Culture and Entertainment Industry Promotion Association’s Matsuri event held last year in Los Angeles, are label agnostic. “I thought that was really important to bring [the event] abroad, to really spread the Japanese culture,” Asobi System CEO and founder of Yusuke Nakagawa, tells The Hollywood Reporter. The entertainment company, which he founded in 2007, works to showcase and spread Japan’s famed harajuku culture, which is essentially a …

Spanberger Signs Unconstitutional Bill To Strip Confederacy-Linked Groups Of Tax Exempt Status

Spanberger Signs Unconstitutional Bill To Strip Confederacy-Linked Groups Of Tax Exempt Status

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Jonathan Turley, There has been growing criticism (and falling poll numbers) of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger after she ran as a moderate and then immediately veered to the far left after her election.  Once in power, Spanberger and the Democrats unleashed a slew of tax increases, moved to eliminate all but one Republican district in the purple state, passed an array of anti-gun laws, and enacted other controversial measures. One of these measures is a clearly unconstitutional effort to strip pro-Confederate groups of their tax exemption. This week, Spanberger signed HB167, the law that eliminated the tax exemption for various confederacy-linked groups, including the Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the General Organization of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial, Incorporated, the Virginia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the J.E.B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust, Inc. Notably, as soon as they came into power, Democrats also passed House Bill 1377 to move against the Virginia Military Institute, including appointing a task …

Human rights groups raise alarm over fate of Salvadorans deported from U.S. : NPR

Human rights groups raise alarm over fate of Salvadorans deported from U.S. : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

For the past four years, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has extended a 30-day suspension of rights, effectively creating a police state that keeps Salvadoran deportees from the U.S. trapped in the Central American country’s notorious prisons. Illustration by Jackie Lay/NPR hide caption toggle caption Illustration by Jackie Lay/NPR T remembers the fear she felt when she was deported to her home country of El Salvador from the U.S. late last year. “It was traumatizing, I was so scared,” she told NPR in Spanish. T, who is back in immigration detention in the U.S. now, asked to be identified only by her first initial out of fear for her safety from Salvadoran officials. T fled her country nearly five years ago, because as a transgender woman, she says she was constantly harassed and threatened by men in her neighborhood. Now T says she felt harassed again by Salvadoran authorities at the airport who asked her to strip naked as they checked her for tattoos. “They told me that if my tattoos made reference to gang affiliation, …

Arts Groups Speak Out Against Potential New Tariffs

Arts Groups Speak Out Against Potential New Tariffs

Published by Jenni Sidey

President Donald Trump has said that tariff is “the most beautiful word,” and he has done his best to unilaterally impose these duties to correct what he sees as exploitative trade imbalances. In February, the United States Supreme Court struck down most of Trump’s tariffs on major trading partners Canada, Mexico, and China, ruling that Trump exceeded his authority when instituting sweeping tariffs under a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Experts had told ARTnews that his tariffs would deeply affect the art industry, which breathed a sigh of relief after the Supreme Court ruling. Related Articles But true to form, Trump, who has tried again and again to impose these duties, wants another bite at the apple. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has launched an investigation, authorized by Section 301(b) of the Trade Act of 1974, into the economies of some 60 countries, aiming to discern whether their policies and practices fail to impose bans on the importation of goods produced with forced labor in such a way that would “burden …

Hegseth shares air rescue group’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ prayer at Pentagon service

Hegseth shares air rescue group’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ prayer at Pentagon service

Published by Sam Flores

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday repeated an air rescue group’s prayer that borrows from a scene in Quentin Tarantino’s film “Pulp Fiction.” During a Pentagon service, Hegseth said the prayer — called CSAR 25:17, an apparent reference to Ezekiel 25:17 in the Bible — was recited during a mission to recover the pilot of… Source link

Astronomers discover three distinct groups of merging black holes

Astronomers discover three distinct groups of merging black holes

Published by Jenni Sidey

Black hole collisions do not appear to come from one simple cosmic recipe. After studying more than 150 mergers detected through gravitational waves, astronomers say the growing catalog points instead to three distinct groups of merging black holes. Each group seems to carry its own signature in mass, spin, and how often the mergers happened across cosmic time. Taken together, the pattern suggests that these violent collisions are being built in more than one kind of environment. Their analysis focuses on the fourth gravitational-wave transient catalog from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration, known as GWTC-4. That catalog includes more than 150 detected black hole mergers, enough for researchers to stop treating these events as a single blended population and start asking whether different families are hiding inside the data. Artist’s impression of a pair of black holes merging, involving one with unusual spin. (CREDIT: Carl Knox, OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology) Not one family, but three One clue came from the masses. When the researchers looked across the full sample, they did not see a smooth spread. …

Spanberger signs bill ending tax breaks for Confederate groups

Spanberger signs bill ending tax breaks for Confederate groups

Published by Sam Flores

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) on Monday signed into law a bill eliminating tax exemptions for multiple organizations connected to the Confederacy.  Democrats in the Virginia House and Senate passed HB167 with vote totals of 62-35 and 21-17, respectively, earlier this year. The bill specifically removes the Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the… Source link