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Mariano Rivera, the New York Yankees’ nonpareil closing right-handed pitcher who helped them win five World Series titles, should be shunned, according to the lefty online journal Daily Beast. Inducted on July 21 to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, Mr. Rivera is anathema to the Beast and its ilk on four counts: — He is a black American athlete who will not trash America.— He is an evangelical Christian.— He is a vocal supporter of Israel.— Perhaps most damning, he has actually participated in White House events with President Trump.Robert Silverman, author of “Inside Baseball Hall of...

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The FBI is going to court to fight the public release of a small number of documents the State Department sent to agents from Christopher Steele, the British intelligence operative and Hillary Clinton-paid political muckraker, during the 2016 election. Normally, such Freedom of Information Act cases don’t merit public attention. This one does. To hear the FBI tell it, the release of former Deputy Assistant Secretary Kathleen Kavalec’s documents is tantamount to giving up the keys to President Trump’s nuclear briefcase, aiding the enemy or assisting terrorists. “We know that terrorist organizations and other hostile or foreign intelligence groups have...

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday that two Somalis who had lived in the United States as refugees were arrested in Arizona last week before boarding a flight to Egypt where they allegedly planned to travel to join the ranks of ISIS. Court documents said that both Mohamed and Hussein entered the United States as refugees from Somalia. Mohamed had been granted lawful permanent residence status by the time he was arrested. Hussein still had refugee status.

THE current solar minimum could last for more than three decades which could lead to temperatures plummeting across the globe, scientists have warned.

San Juan (AFP) - Tens of thousands of water bottles destined for desperate Puerto Ricans after devastating back-to-back hurricanes slammed into the US island territory remain unopened on farmland almost two years later, emergency aid officials confirmed Monday. Aerial images captured by AFP show a sea of water bottles, packaged into massive bundles, heaped on what appears to be a private estate in the Higuillar neighborhood in Dorado, 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of San Juan. In some pictures, the ground isn't visible through the piles. In others, broken pallets can be seen among the stacks.

“‘Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?’” (Matthew 8:26). Sometimes events seem so obvious to us, we wonder why others don’t see the problems or difficulties just as clearly. During the storm the disciples wondered two things: why Jesus could ask them what was so frightening, and how He could not be afraid Himself. In the midst of chaos, any other response seemed absurd. They even accused Him of insensitivity: “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38). But Christ had to rebuke His men because their fear sprang from faithlessness. He basically asked them,...

Aha! A topic -- and these don't come easily these days -- with Donald Trump nowhere near the center -- maybe just the periphery. We'll see. This one bears talking about, even so. The topic, superficially, is the international campaign to delegitimize Israel: the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which last week the U.S. House -- Nancy Pelosi's House -- slammed and condemned by an overwhelming margin. Here, I guess, the president peeks slyly through the curtain. There might not have been a House vote at all but for the sudden hullabaloo, duly encouraged by the president, over the...

Most of us know that U.S. government spending is too high. And the deficit and the debt are going to get us one day. So why doesn’t someone do something? And why has President Trump done a “$320 billion budget deal” with Speaker Pelosi that kicks the can down the road yet again? How come he’s willing to do a deal with Nancy Pelosi that increases spending and raises the debt ceiling through the 2020 election? Well, of course. Trump wants to clear the decks for electoral action, and he doesn’t want to be stubbing his toe on a debt...

n the wake of Sunday’s mass shooting that killed at least three people at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California, anti-gun activist David Hogg has ignited a war of words on Twitter over the need for more gun control, and many Americans are ferociously firing back. “I’m tired,” Hogg tweeted early Monday morning. “I’m tired of tweeting out # [insert city name here] strong every week. I’m tired of moments of silence, thoughts and prayers as people continue to die every day. I’m tired of having a government so divided they can’t come together to save lives or our future.”...

In this age of targeted advertising, I don’t think I have ever been owned by an algorithm as hard as whatever told Amazon to try to and get me to watch The Boys. YouTube ads, sponsored hashtags, Facebook feed spots, I literally could not escape ads for the superhero show, and it was like Amazon was only stopping short of having someone physically shake me and yell “This is a show for you!” in my face. Well, the algorithm was right. I really, really loved The Boys, which clocks in at a tight eight episodes for its first season, which...

Dan Koh should take a bow. He may not have been instrumental in getting freshman U.S. Rep, Lori Trahan to come out for the impeachment of President Donald Trump, but it sure looks that way. And, who knows? Koh may be running against Trahan for Congress again. In a large field of candidates, Trahan beat Koh by only 147 votes following a recount in the 2018 Democrat primary. So, it could be that Trahan, who now holds the Lowell-based 3rd Congressional District seat, could be hearing footsteps. The seat previously held by Rep. Niki Tsongas of Lowell, who did not...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Old Testament) 2 Kings 8 Ahaziah King of Judah 25 In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign. 26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel. 27 He followed the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was related by marriage to Ahab’s family....

cryptic – exchanges occurred when Rep. Jim Jordan fired off a series of heated questions about .. a Maltese professor invariably described as “mysterious,” Joseph Mifsud. Jordan began: The “FBI interviewed Joseph Mifsud on February 10th, 2017. In that interview, Mr. Mifsud lied. You point this out on page 193, Volume I. Three times, he lied to the FBI; yet, you didn't charge him with a crime. Why not?” Mueller was still looking for the page in his binder: “Did you say -- I'm sorry, did you say 193?” “Volume I, 193,” Jordan repeated impatiently. “He [Mifsud] lied three times,...

A vast cloud of nuclear radiation that spreadover continental Europe in 2017 has been traced to an unacknowledged nuclear accident in southern Russia, according to an international team of scientists. The experts say the cloud of radiation detected over Europe in late September 2017 could only have been caused by a nuclear fuel-reprocessing accident at the Mayak Production Association, a nuclear facility in the Chelyabinsk region of the Ural Mountains in Russia, sometime between noon on Sept. 26 and noon on Sept. 27. Russia confirmed that a cloud of nuclear radiation was detected over the Urals at the time, but...

The Treasury expects to sell over $1 trillion in debt this year; issue has little traction in 2020 race ----------- Borrowing by the federal government is set to top $1 trillion for the second year in a row as higher spending outpaces revenue growth and concern about budget deficits wanes in Washington and on Wall Street. The Treasury Department said Monday it expects to issue $814 billion in net marketable debt in the second half of this calendar year, bringing total debt issuance to $1.23 trillion in 2019. That would represent a slight decline from borrowing in 2018, when the...

“Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell” (Proverbs 30:4).

Until his car passed through the gates of Buckingham Palace en route to the kissing of hands, I didn't quite believe Boris Johnson would actually make it to the premiership. That's partly because many years ago he arrived late at a Spectator lunch, told us he'd just realized he was going to be prime minister, and we all laughed. Yet, a quarter-century later, here he is. As his sister Rachel points out, only fifty-five people have ever become UK PM, and, even if one has difficulty recalling the names of any of the recent occupants, that's still fewer than have...

At least 57 people were killed, including 16 who were decapitated, during a vicious gang battle that erupted in a prison in northern Brazil on Monday morning. The unrest is reported to have begun when a local gang stormed a wing of the facility in Para state controlled by a rival group, state news reported. The majority of the victims are believed to have died from asphyxiation, after gang members set fire to part of the prison complex. State media said the violence began around 7 a.m., local time in the Regional Recovery Center in the city of Altamira and...

I recently reread one of my favorite books, Uncle Tom's Cabin. I'm fond of the book, partly because I spent my early 20s living on Forest Street in Hartford, Connecticut, and got to gaze at the beautiful Harriet Beecher Stowe house daily. Because of this pride I feel in Stowe's masterwork, I am deeply troubled by the increase in Democrats using the term "Uncle Tom" to degrade black people who lend their support to President Trump.