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Police in New York are looking for the vandals who cut down a flagpole at a memorial honoring five firefighters who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks. The police chief of Washingtonville, a village north of New York City, told the Times-Herald Record that vandals used a tool to cut the flagpole about five feet from its base and then scrawled a message on the part left standing. Police discovered the damage early Wednesday and would not disclose the nature of the message.---

Olivia De Havilland, Late 2019 There are few veterans of Hollywood's Golden Age who are still around, much less still making headlines. But Olivia de Havilland, who turns 104 Wednesday (US time), was always a rule-breaker.She's part of the current furore over Gone With the Wind, since she is the only surviving star of the 1939 epic.In 2017, she also sued FX Networks over her depiction in the miniseries Feud: Bette and Joan, from exec producer Ryan Murphy. After a series of appeals, the court ultimately decided against de Havilland. The ruling represents a rare defeat for her, but serves...

Both the English and the Native Americans Used Children to Learn the Mysterious Ways of Their New Neighbors In 1608, Thomas Savage, age 13, arrived on the first ship from England bringing supplies to the newly founded Jamestown colony. He had been in Virginia just a few weeks when he was presented as a gift to Wahunsenaca, the great Powhatan who ruled over most of the people along the rivers leading into the lower Chesapeake Bay area. In return, Powhatan gave the English a young man named Namontack. Such exchanges of young people were considered normal. As English expeditions began...

Dukes of Hazzard co-stars John Schneider and Tom Wopat addressed the long-time controversy over the show's iconic General Lee car, saying political correctness has gone too far as protests mount over the Confederate flag that the famed vehicle features prominently on its roof. Both stars defended the customized 1969 Dodge Charger used in the hit action and comedy show about cousins Bo and Luke Duke, former moonshiners who live in rural Georgia.

The Pennsylvania Assembly ordered it to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Quaker leader William Penn founding the Colony in 1701 and writing the Charter of Privileges. Quakers were the first and strongest voices to end slavery.  In 1751, Pennsylvania's Assembly declared a "Year of Jubilee" and commissioned the bell to be put in the Philadelphia State House. Speaker Isaac Norris read the Leviticus chapter 25 verse 10: "And ye shall make hallow the fiftieth year, and PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee." "Jubilee" in the Israelite calendar was, after...

In 1778, British Captain James Cook discovered Hawaii, which he named "The Sandwich Islands" in honor of John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich -- the acting First Lord of the Admiralty. Captain Cook was killed on his third visit to Hawaii in 1779. When Captain Cook's voyages were read in England they raised awareness of new lands. This inspired a missionary movement, led by William Carey, who took the Gospel to India in 1793. The Hawaiian Islands were united by King Kamehameha I in 1810. In 1819, King Kamehameha I died. His wife, Kaʻahumanu, and his son, Liholiho (King...

Special Dispatch to the New-York Times. WASHINGTON, Sunday, July 8. During the difficulties with the Mormons, which came near leading to a serious collision with the American troops, a plan proposed by Capt. WALTER M. GIBSON for the immediate emigration of the Mormons to Oceanica was adopted by BRIGHAM YOUNG, and forwarded to Dr. BERNHEISEL to be laid before the President for his approval, with a request for some proposition on the part of the Government to purchase their improvements in Utah. The President refused to notice the matter further than to remark that BRIGHAM YOUNG could do as he...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Downtown businesses in Portland, Oregon, have sustained about $23 million in damages and lost customers because of violent nightly protests that have brought the city to its knees, authorities said Wednesday. At a police briefing, Deputy Chief Chris Davis said the intensity of the violence by an “agitator corps” and the length of the protests that are now in their sixth week are unprecedented in Oregon's largest city. Davis made a sharp distinction between Black Lives Matter protesters, whom he said were not violent, and a smaller group of people he repeatedly called “agitators.” “Quite frankly,...

Seattle city councilmember Kshama Sawant had a personal message for billionaire Jeff Bezos after the passage of the so-called Amazon tax, warning him that “we are coming for you.” The avowed socialist framed Monday’s 7-2 council vote for the hefty payroll tax on larger businesses as a step toward the goal of overthrowing the “bankrupt system of capitalism” and replacing it with “a socialist world.” “And if you, Jeff Bezos, want to drive that process forward by lashing out against us in our modest demands, then so be it,” she said in a video address that was posted Tuesday on...

Conservative group Judicial Watch on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the University of Delaware demanding access to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s senatorial papers. The university, which stores and owns the records, has ignored Freedom of Information Act requests from Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF), the lawsuit says. University officials have denied the requests citing a provision in Delaware law that exempts the school from FOIA requests not related to public funds. They appealed the decision to Delaware’s chief deputy attorney general, who sided with the university. But Judicial Watch and DCNF say the school...

NEW YORK -- Jeffrey Epstein's ex-girlfriend will appear remotely by video for a July 14 courthouse arraignment and bail hearing on charges she recruited girls for him to sexually abuse over two decades ago, a judge said Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan set the date in an order as she announced special arrangements to allow limited public access to the video feed of Ghislaine Maxwell facing charges for the first time in Manhattan federal court next week. **SNIP** Prosecutors say they plan to ask that Maxwell be kept incarcerated pending trial on the grounds that she has the...

Dennis Prager interviews Julie Kelly about her important new book just released today, July 7, 2020. 18 minute audio. Ironic to find it on Hugh Hewitt's website considering his past attempts to damage Trump.

A key F-35 safety system is sustaining damage in Air Force service, forcing the office that overseas the F-35 program to recommend flight restrictions. Under the new guidelines, F-35 jets should socially distance from lightning, maintaining a distance of least 25 miles. The faulty systems could cause a F-35 hit by lightning to literally explode in midair. ================================================================================================= The F-35 Lightning II strike fighter is temporarily barred from flying near actual lightning. More than a dozen Air Force F-35s were discovered with damage to a system designed to prevent catastrophic damage from lightning strikes. The damaged systems place the aircraft...

The Mississippi capital named after Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, voted on Tuesday to remove the former Southern populist's statue from the grounds of City Hall in a 5-to-1 vote. Jackson council members decided to relocate the statue as it becomes another city forced to confront the legacies of slave-owning presidents amid a cultural shift and national reckoning triggered by the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a White police officer in Minneapolis.

A peculiar "gel-like" substance the Chinese Yutu-2 rover discovered in a small impact crater on the far side of the Moon last year has now been identified. According to analysis of the images, and comparison with Apollo samples here on Earth, it's exactly what you'd expect to find on the Moon: rock. More specifically, it's rock that was melted together - likely in the heat of a meteorite impact - to form a dark green, glossy, glassy mass. "Chang'e-4 rover discovered a dark greenish and glistening impact melt breccia in a crater during its traverse on the floor of Von...

Through deep genetic analyses, Stanford Medicine scientists and their collaborators have found conclusive scientific evidence of contact between ancient Polynesians and Native Americans from the region that is now Colombia—something that's been hotly contested in the historic and archaeological world for decades. (snip) Before the study brought scientific evidence to the debate, the idea that Native Americans and Polynesians had crossed paths originated from a complex—both in its structure and origins—carbohydrate: the sweet potato. It turns out the sweet potato, which was originally domesticated in South and Central America, has also been known to grow in one other place prior...

The Jesuits were once renowned for their intellectual rigor. Any person who graduated from a Jesuit-run institution was presumptively well educated, morally centered, and capable of reasoning. Marquette University, a Jesuit institution, has slipped from that standard, for it attacked an incoming freshman for supporting Trump. However, the bracing honesty coming from New Saint Andrews College signals that there's still hope for a rigorous Christian education in America. In 1881, the Jesuits founded Marquette University, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. To Marquette's credit, although established as a single-sex men's college, in 1909, it became the first coeducational Catholic university in the world....

Virginia's James Madison University is renaming three buildings that bear the names of Confederate leaders. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that university’s board of visitors voted to change the names of three halls following requests by students, alumni and campus organizations.

SEATTLE — Mary Kay Letourneau, the former Seattle-area schoolteacher who was at the center of a national scandal in the 1990s when she was convicted of raping her sixth-grade student whom she later married, has died, her attorney confirmed to KOMO News Tuesday night. Letourneau lost a battle with cancer, her attorney, David Gehrke, said. Letourneau was a former Highline teacher who passed away after being ill for some time. She was 58. "It was expected but sad anyway," Gehrke said. "She was a good person.“ Letourneau generated international headlines when she admitted to a relationship with Vili Fualaau, who...

Portland, Oregon - The U.S. Attorney in Oregon announced federal charges Tuesday against seven protesters who are accused in court papers of defacing a federal courthouse and assaulting federal officers during protests in Portland, Oregon against racial injustice and police brutality. The protesters are charged with offenses ranging from disorderly conduct to destruction of federal property and assaulting a federal officer and were released pending trial after a brief court hearing Monday. **SNIP** A sworn affidavit included in court filings says that during an interview after his arrest, Olsen said he was not near the courthouse door and said a...