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The prime minister did not know Lord Mandelson failed security vetting for the role of US ambassador until earlier this week, the government has said. A spokesperson said the decision to go against the recommendation of the vetting agency and allow him to take up the role was taken by officials in the Foreign Office. Sir Keir Starmer has faced calls to resign over allegations he misled Parliament and MPs when he claimed "full due process" was followed during the appointment. It came after the Guardian newspaper reported, external that Lord Mandelson was initially denied security clearance in late January...

... 1973, Jean Raspail, who died aged 94 in 2020, published his dystopian novel The Camp of the Saints, for which he is now mostly remembered (certainly outside of France,... ). The Camp of the Saints is a book that refuses to lie down, so to speak, despite attempts to render it invisible or make it go away. The plot is simple. A huge armada of rotting hulks, bearing a million impoverished and half-starved Bengalis desperate to reach Europe, which they suppose to be a land flowing with milk and honey, sets out from Calcutta and eventually reaches the south...

During a video posted to X on Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon stressed that semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 “are protected by the Constitution.”She pointed to the Supreme Court’s Bruen (2022) decision and said, “When you look at the historical analysis — and Justice Thomas lays this out very clearly — it is clear that semiautomatic rifles of the nature of the AR-15 are protected by the Constitution and the Second Amendment.”Dhillon noted that she sent a letter to Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) warning the DOJ would file a lawsuit if the governor signed the “assault...

Rev. Franklin Graham does not believe President Donald Trump would “knowingly depict himself as Jesus Christ,” weighing in on the controversial AI image posted then deleted on President Donald Trump’s account.Trump sparked outrage after many claimed the commander-in-chief depicted himself as Jesus in an image which shows Trump wearing a white robe with red sash touching a sick American. A nurse and member of the U.S. military are also in the image, which shows an eagle and aircraft in the sky along with the Statue of Liberty and American flag. Trump deleted the image and denied that he was depicting...

April 15 (Reuters) - China has told Danish shipping group Maersk (MAERSKb.CO), opens new tab and Switzerland-based Mediterranean ​Shipping Company (MSC Shipping) to cease operating ports ‌on the Panama Canal, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. In a meeting with China's state planner last month, ​Maersk and MSC Shipping were told to ​withdraw from the Balboa and Cristóbal ports ⁠immediately, the report said, citing two people ​familiar with the talks. Maersk and MSC were told not to "engage ​in illegal activities that harm the interests of Chinese companies, ‌and ⁠to uphold commercial ethics and international rules," the report said. Panama...

US actress Joy Harmon, who was best known for a provocative short scene in the classic film Cool Hand Luke, has died aged 87. Harmon died at home in Los Angeles on Tuesday after being ill with pneumonia for weeks, US media reported. Her character did not have a line in the Paul Newman prison drama and was only on screen for about three minutes, in a car-washing scene rife with sexual innuendo.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a new law criminalizing antisemitism and making it punishable by up to eight years in prison. The new law – signed on Holocaust Remembrance Day – amends Article 161 of the Criminal Code on the violation of citizens’ equality based on their race, nationality, religious beliefs, or disability. This now features the words and “manifestations of antisemitism,” according to the draft law seen by The Jerusalem Post. Part one of the article relates to deliberate actions aimed at inciting hatred or manifestations of antisemitism and at humiliation of honor and dignity. Incitement to antisemitism...

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire. “I just had excellent conversations with the Highly Respected President Joseph Aoun, of Lebanon, and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel. These two Leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10 Day CEASEFIRE at 5 P.M. EST,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “On Tuesday, the two Countries met for the first time in 34 years here in Washington, D.C., with our Great Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. I have directed Vice President JD Vance and...

A graph of the U.S. fertility rate since 1909 recently appeared under the headline, “The U.S. fertility rate reached an all-time low in 2023.” While that statement is true, it understates what is most striking about the data. At a glance, the graph shows that fertility has been relatively stable since about 1970. Before that, however, the pattern was far more dramatic: a steep decline from roughly 1920 to 1933, a strong rebound from about 1941 to 1960, and then another sharp fall from 1960 to 1975, after which the rate leveled off (see figure below). The question is what...

President Donald Trump on April 14 directly addressed Pope Leo XIV in another Truth Social post, drawing attention to the Iranian regime’s reported killing of thousands of protesters in the past two months. “Will someone please tell Pope Leo that Iran has killed at least 42,000 innocent, completely unarmed, protesters in the last two months, and that for Iran to have a Nuclear Bomb is absolutely unacceptable,” he wrote.Protests in Iran erupted in late December 2025 over economic hardships and quickly turned into broader anti-government demonstrations, Zeale News previously reported. Iranian security forces reportedly responded with live ammunition against the...

Police in Fairfax County, Virginia, confirmed Thursday that they found former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax dead in his home in an apparent murder-suicide.“I’m here to confirm the identity of our shooter in this murder-suicide that happened several hours ago as former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said in a press conference Thursday morning. “Fairfax shot and killed his wife inside of their home and then shot and killed himself.”“This has been an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or messy divorce,” he added.Fairfax reportedly shot and killed his wife in the...

There’s a new forecast of the Social Security boost retirees should expect in 2027 - and it’s a huge disappointment for the millions of Americans who depend on their bi-monthly benefit checks... Older Americans absolutely rely on this so-called ‘cost of living adjustment’ or COLA, since more than 40 percent of them depend on Social Security alone for all of their retirement income. The new estimate of the forthcoming official 2027 cost-of-living adjustment shows the average Social Security benefit check will only rise by $56, or roughly 2.8 percent. The average benefits check for retired workers would increase to $2,081...

War Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said the U.S. military is "locked and loaded" and prepared to escalate against Iran if negotiations fail. "We are locked and loaded on your critical dual-use infrastructure, on your remaining power generation, and on your energy industry," Hegseth said during his weekly press conference at the Pentagon, *** "We'd rather not have to do it, but we're ready to go at the command of our president and at the push of a button," Hegseth told reporters*** Hegseth issued a direct warning to Iran's military leadership, saying the imbalance in capabilities is decisive. "Our capabilities...

President Trump’s 2020 election lawyer John Eastman was officially disbarred in Californian on Wednesday. The California Supreme Court affirmed that Eastman was disbarred after a two-year battle with the state bar.

NEW YORK, NY — Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that the city was going to spend a whopping $30 million on his city-run supermarket, with the project expected to take three years to build. Still, he urged the citizens of New York not to wait for his experiment with Communism but to go ahead and get in line for bread now. "Remember, we're not using evil capitalism for this," Mamdani told the press. "We're going to give goods like bread at a reasonable price. We just have to know how many people want that, so if everyone lined up now for...

The gang kidnapped and tied up the victim in a Chicago apartment as they physically tortured and racially abused him on the livestream. They could be heard shouting 'f*** white people' and 'f*** Trump' during the ordeal. During the days-long torture campaign, Hill also called the victim's mother and demanded $300 in ransom for his return. The victim was kidnapped on New Year's Eve after telling his parents he was meeting Hill at a McDonald's and staying at his home. Instead, Hill drove the victim around in a stolen van for a couple of days, ending up at a home...

I was never one to make a big deal out of call center prompts that state "Press 1 for English ... blah blah blah Espanol". My assumption was that a large company wants to be able to assist customers by being able to communicate with them. So in a room with 20 operators, maybe 15 would be native English speakers, and five would be native Spanish speakers. That used to be the case. Not any more. My wife had to call Capital One. She selected English, and the person on the other end could barely speak English, and had a...

Stanford researchers and their European colleagues drew on ancient DNA to construct the first genetic history of Rome...Those genetic data reveal at least two major migrations into Rome, as well as several smaller but significant population shifts over just the last few thousand years...Notably, DNA analysis revealed that as the Roman Empire expanded around the Mediterranean Sea, immigrants from the Near East, Europe and North Africa pulled up their roots and moved to Rome...An analysis of some of the earliest samples more or less comports with what has been found around Europe -- they represent an influx of farmers primarily...

Identical twins Nathan and Nick Roberts, the former a dedicated MAGA supporter and the latter a Democratic Indianapolis city council member, demonstrated that profound political disagreement need not fracture personal relationships during a candid appearance on The Unknowns, hosted by Charlie Stone.

With American warships tightening a naval blockade off Iran and global attention fixed on the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon this week quietly executed a significant move in the Indo-Pacific, announcing a Major Defense Cooperation Partnership with Indonesia that underscores its and the Trump administration's focus on counterbalancing future Chinese aggression. The partnership will elevate bilateral military ties between the two countries in the Strait of Malacca as American forces enforce a naval blockade in the Persian Gulf. When asked about the deal’s impact on the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, a Department of War official told RedState the agreement...