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While it’s not exactly news that G and PG-rated films perform well with audiences, particularly families, news headlines tout that Hollywood has “finally” realized that these films do well at the box office.

The Los Angeles Times recently wrote about this phenomenon, proclaiming that “The PG rating has made a major comeback in Hollywood.” The Wall Street Journal wrote, “PG-rated films that appeal to parents, nostalgic childless adults, and children are on a hot streak.”

We hope that streak continues.

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At Lynn’s Warriors, Independence Day is more than fireworks and parades. It is a sacred reminder of the cost of freedom and the duty we all share to protect it.

Our Founders pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to secure a nation built on truth, law and the dignity of the individual. That same spirit drives our fight today to protect the innocent, speak for the voiceless and stand firm against those who seek to destroy the moral fabric of our country. Freedom is never free. It must be guarded, generation by generation.

We believe that true independence means safeguarding our children, our families and our future from exploitation, abuse and silence. While others celebrate blindly, we call on every American to remember: freedom without responsibility is chaos. The battle today may not be on a battlefield, but in courtrooms, classrooms and digital spaces where predators and profiteers lurk. This Fourth of July, let’s recommit to being Warriors for justice, for truth and for the America we must never lose.

The cause of death for Arizona teen Emily Pike has been confirmed, but questions still loom as the search for her killer continues.

According to the Pinal County Medical Examiner’s Office, 14-year-old Pike died from “homicidal violence with blunt head trauma,” according to FOX 10 Phoenix. Although the cause of death has been confirmed, officials have not yet released the full autopsy reports.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, Emily Pike, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, was reported missing in late January. She was last seen walking near Phoenix before investigators found most of her remains, but some have yet to be recovered.

Pike was in a group home when she vanished from the Mesa area. Her former roommate told the media that Pike had a history of running away, and that she vanished after wanting to be with a boy she met while taking guitar lessons.

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UPDATED with Combs’ attorney statement: Awaiting his sentencing fate after being found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, Sean “Diddy” Combs will remain behind bars.

In a shocking move by Judge Arun Subramanian mere hours after a New York jury handed federal prosecutors a walloping defeat with acquittal on the most serious of five charges, racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, the Bad Boy Records founder was denied bond during a Wednesday afternoon hearing. Having failed repeatedly to secure a $50 million bail since being taken into custody by NYPD and federal agents in September, the “All About the Benjamins” performer has been in custody at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center the past nine months.

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The Senate removed the AI moratorium provision from the reconciliation bill in a 99–1 vote early Tuesday morning. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R–Tenn.) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D–Wash.) co-sponsored the amendment to eliminate the provision after Blackburn reneged on a compromise with Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) to amend it over the weekend.

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee released the text of its original AI moratorium provisionon June 5. This earlier version imposed a 10-year period during which $500 million of newly appropriated Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding for “the construction and deployment of infrastructure for the provision of artificial intelligence models” could be withheld from states found “limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models” by the commerce secretary. Last week, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the moratorium satisfied the Byrd rule, which allows only budget issues to be considered in reconciliation text, after the committee specified that it would not condition all $42 billion of BEAD funding appropriated in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on the nonenforcement of state-level AI laws. Still, intraconservative debates about the AI moratorium continued.

The amended AI moratorium, agreed to by Blackburn over the weekend, conditioned the disbursement of the $500 million BEAD funding to states on their nonenforcement of “any law or regulation…regulating artificial intelligence models” for five years. States would still be allowed to enforce “generally applicable” laws, like those “pertaining to unfair or deceptive acts or practices, child online safety, child sexual abuse material, rights of publicity, [and] protection of a person’s name, image, voice, or likeness [that] may address, without undue or disproportionate burden, artificial intelligence.”

The Institute for Law and AI warned that the compromise’s “undue or disproportionate burden” language would “generate additional litigation [and] uncertainty” while failing to shield those laws Blackburn sought to protect. Neil Chilson, head of AI policy for the Abundance Institute, disagreed and argued that an expanded “generally applicable law” exemption would have made it more likely that those laws Blackburn sought to shield would have been protected.

Despite signaling support for the provision’s revised language on Sunday, Blackburn backed out late Monday night. Blackburn said, “This provision could allow Big Tech to continue to exploit kids, creators, and conservatives,” The New York Times reports.

Fairplay, the leading nonprofit committed to helping children thrive in our screen-obsessed culture, congratulates Vermont on becoming the first state in the nation to prohibit schools from contacting students through social media.

The ban comes from a bill that was led by State Rep. Angela Arsenault, who is a member of Fairplay’s Screen Time Action Network Screens in Schools Work Group. The legislation will also add Vermont to the growing number of states that have passed “bell-to-bell” policies that ban the use of phones and personal electronic devices during the school day. Gov. Phil Scott signed the bill into law today.

In 2022, Fairplay, in conjunction with the grassroots members of its Screen Time Action Network Screens in Schools Work Group, wrote and organized a letter signed by over 20 organizations and nearly 30 experts calling on the U.S. Department of Education to issue official guidance against the use of social media to communicate with students.

Fairplay Executive Director Josh Golin, a Vermont resident, said: “I’m proud to see our state take the lead in ending the absurd practice of forcing students to use social media in order to participate in extracurriculars or communicate with educators and administrators. Social media use is linked to mental health struggles and other serious harms for minors, and no child should ever be compelled to use TikTok, Snap, or Instagram in order to participate in school activities. And by requiring schools to have a ‘bell-to-bell’ policy prohibiting phone use, Vermont lawmakers have taken a critical step toward improving the well-being and learning of our state’s students.

“The passage of this first-of-its-kind legislation is a testament to the tireless organizing of the all-volunteer Vermont Coalition for Phone and Social Media Free Schools and the leadership of Rep. Angela Arsenault. Between this and the recently enacted Vermont Kids Code, Vermont is now the clear national leader in protecting children from the dangers of phones and social media.”

Vermont State Rep. Angela Arsenault, the lead sponsor of the bill and a member of Fairplay’s Screen Time Action Network Screens in Schools Work Group, said: “I’m grateful to our House and Senate Education Committees, and especially thankful for the tireless efforts of the Vermont Coalition for Phone- and Social Media-Free Schools. This group of wise, caring, motivated, mostly moms pushed this legislation forward in ways that perhaps nobody else could.

“With the passage of our bill, the school day will soon provide all Vermont kids with a respite from the pressures and harms that are now ever-present in their lives thanks to social media and other online products. The prohibition on schools using social media to communicate directly with students signals our understanding that these products are not safe for kids, and therefore schools should not direct students to use them. It’s as simple as that.”

Laura Derrendinger, one of the lead campaigners for Vermont’s phone-free schools bill and a member of the Screens in Schools working group of Fairplay’s Screen Time Action Network, said: “Now that schools cannot ask or require students to use social media through high school, this aligns with best practice informed by the independent research. This supports families. This also sends a strong public health message. These products are unsafe at any age.”

The Supreme Court of the United States on Friday upheld a Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify visitors’ ages to protect minors from sexually explicit content online.

Justices ruled 6-3 that requiring adults in Texas to verify their age does not violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, noting at least 21 other states imposed similar regulations on sexual material that could be harmful to minors online.

Texas and other states prohibit the distribution of sexually explicit content to children in brick and mortar stores, but online content remains largely unregulated.

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