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On this day in 1873, Al Smith was born in a tenement on New York’s Lower East Side. His father was Italian American and his mother Irish American. The name “Smith” was an English translation of his immigrant grandfather’s surname “Ferraro.” Smith’s father—a truck driver—died when Smith was about six years old. His widowed and impoverished mother did what widowed and impoverished mothers often did in those days: She opened a candy store. Out of that, she managed to eke out a living for herself and her children. Smith was a proud graduate of Groton and of Harvard. No, wait...

The victim said he was in front of a Foot Locker in Bay Ridge when he was approached by two men he didn’t know. He said one of the men took issue with his clothing and began yelling anti-Jewish slurs at him before punching him in the face.

DEDHAM, Mass. – A Dec. 21 motion for transcript, audio and video recordings of depositions related to the criminal charges against ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was an important step for the prosecution, according to one of his alleged victims present in the courtroom. The motion was a part of a brief second pre-trial hearing in the case at Dedham District Court in Massachusetts. In addition to the motion, the case was continued to March 3 for a status update. McCarrick wasn’t present in the courtroom. His attorney Barry Coburn stated he had no objection to the commonwealth’s motion before exiting the...

Ever-growing environmental threats are pushing many animals and plants to the brink of extinction — the scale of which hasn’t been seen since dinosaurs died out, the German branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said on Wednesday. The stark warnings came as WWF Germany released its “Winners and Losers of 2021,” an annual list of animals whose existence is now acutely under threat — as well as conservation victories. There are currently 142,500 animal and plant species on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) — 40,000 of which are “threatened with extinction.” It...

Quebec is bringing back its controversial overnight curfew beginning Friday at 10 p.m., which is New Year's Eve, and continuing to 5 a.m the next day. Quebec Premier Francois Legault made the announcement Thursday amid increasing hospitalizations and an exponential growth in COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant. Also, beginning on Friday, private gatherings in homes will be prohibited. Only people who live alone or need caregivers will be allowed to join another family bubble. Dining rooms at restaurants will be closed but take-out and delivery options will be allowed to continue...

Former CBS News anchorman Dan Rather was reminded of his past Wednesday night, receiving an onslaught of criticism after citing “truth” when mocking the popular phrase, “Let’s Go, Brandon.” Rather, who was fired from his post as the anchorman in the early 2000s after infamously running a hit piece on former President George W. Bush which was later revealed to contain forged documents — received backlash on social media when he tweeted, “#LetsGoBrandonReallyMeans ‘You can’t handle the truth.’”

A Nigerian Catholic bishop has challenged the United States Secretary of State to justify his decision to remove Nigeria from a persecution watchlist, saying that he has witnessed firsthand the brutal ongoing persecution against Christians in Africa’s most populous nation. "As far as we are concerned, here in Nigeria the persecution is more intense now than ever," Bishop Stephen Dami Mamza of the Diocese of Yola said in a Nov. 2021 interview with the Religious Freedom Institute. Mamza’s diocese is located in northeastern Nigeria, in Adamawa State, near the border with Cameroon. Mamza’s appointment as bishop of Yola came in...

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday commuted the prison term of a truck driver who was sentenced to 110 years after a fatal accident in 2019, reducing the sentence to 10 years. The man, Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, 26, killed four people on April 25, 2019, after, he said, his brakes failed on the downhill grade on Interstate 70 eastbound outside Denver. Prosecutors argued that Aguilera-Mederos acted recklessly and made a series of poor decisions before the wreck

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden revoked the Keystone XL pipeline permit via Executive Order 13990. With the stroke of a pen, Biden canceled a project that would have boosted U.S. gross domestic product by more than $3 billion, carried 830,000 barrels of oil daily from Canada to the United States, and directly and indirectly provided up to 26,000 jobs—11,000 of which were instantly lost. Climate czar John Kerry lent a sympathetic voice to the plight of the newly laid-off workers: “Go to work to make the solar panels.” Then-President Donald Trump had greenlit the project in...

Do you trust your doctor anymore? Honestly? I don’t mean Dr. Anthony Fauci. How can anybody trust him, with all the prevarications, constant shifts in policy and deceptions, not to mention hiding American taxpayer support for gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Virology Lab and other aspects of the doctor’s dark past revealed in great detail in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book? I’m talking about your own personal doctor, the man or woman who has been your friend and trusted counselor for years, maybe decades. How do you feel about that person? Has it changed? What many are perceiving as a...

“We all knew it would happen eventually,” Malone said on his Substack. “Today it did. Over a half million followers gone in a blink of an eye. That means I must have been on the mark, so to speak. Over the target. It also means we lost a critical component in our fight to stop these vaccines being mandated for children and to stop the corruption in our governments, as well as the medical-industrial complex and pharmaceutical industries.”In a conversation with The Tennessee Star Wednesday morning, before he was banned from Twitter, Malone said that he will film an episode...

SEATTLE — The omicron-fueled surge that is sending COVID-19 cases rocketing in the U.S. is putting children in the hospital in record numbers, and experts lament that most of the youngsters are not vaccinated. “It’s just so heartbreaking,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious-disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It was hard enough last year, but now you know that you have a way to prevent all this.” Offit said none of the vaccine-eligible children receiving care at his hospital about a week ago had been vaccinated, even though two-thirds had underlying conditions that put them at risk —...

“Leaving a trail of slime behind him-” Start over. “A repugnant, repulsive reptile-” Try again. “What can be said about him that hasn’t already been said about bubonic plague?” Strike that. Man, I’m really having trouble staying on the high road for this Harry Reid obit. It’s pretty much the job of the Senate Majority Leader to be the Bad Cop and hated by the opposition, but there was just something repugnant and unpleasant about late Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who just died at age 82. Certainly Chuck Schumer is no improvement, but still… Democrats probably love him...

Former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that President Joe Biden was delivering even though he inherited a “mess” from former President Donald Trump. When asked how Biden should combat falling poll numbers, Boxer said, “I think the answer is pretty straightforward with Joe Biden, just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and deliver for the American people.”

Wind gusts have been reported higher than 100 mphColorado wildfires have forced citizens in two cities to evacuate and has produced harrowing videos on social media of residents fleeing the flames.The city of Louisville, which has a population of 21,000, was evacuated after residents in Superior, which has 13,000 residents, were told to leave.Superior is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Denver. Louisville is just 4 miles (6 kilometers) northeast of Superior.A nearby portion of U.S. Highway 36 was also shut down because of fire.The blaze northwest of Superior was one of several fires that started in the area...

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky explained that the recent decision to shorten the isolation period for asymptomatic COVID-19 cases was based on what the federal government “thought people would be able to tolerate.” The latest CDC guidelines were released this week, shortening the 10-day isolation period to five days for individuals who are asymptomatic. Walenksy said the move “really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate,” according to her interview with CNN on Wednesday. “We have seen relatively low rates of isolation for all of this pandemic,”...

The Left’s viciousness, cruelty and bigotry was well displayed during 2021. Indeed, it was a year full of Progressive behavior that would have made George Orwell faint and Stalin proud. This writer has gone through all the Roundups for the year and curated those moments of particular mendouchious twatwafflery to remember. Because they really do hate you. January began with the fraudulent Biden inaugural theme of America United. Pedo Joe’s team couldn’t even keep up the pretense at the inauguration itself where the Ruling Class only allowed the Bushes, Clintons and Obamas to attend while Pelosi publicly brayed her intentions...

Amid the latest hand-waving around vaccines and variants, we can't lose sight of the tragedies still playing out in our cities. Following their push to defund the police, silence and amnesia have gripped Democrats in the weeks following the Nov. 21 tragedy, when a man intentionally drove his SUV through the Waukesha Christmas Parade. As families and communities came together to celebrate this sacred holiday, this career criminal senselessly released on low bail caused six deaths and no fewer than 62 injuries. Easily outraged Democrats have devoted little attention to this intentional attack, as well as the ongoing violence still...

Dr. Ron Elfenbein called the pause in some antibody treatments the 'height of bureaucratic arrogance'.. A doctor in Maryland said he had to cancel potentially life-saving monoclonal antibody infusions for about 250 people over the last week after the federal government stopped distributing treatments made by Regeneron and Eli Lilly because they aren't effective against omicron, even though the delta variant, which the drugs are effective at treating, was still dominant at the time. The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response halted the allocation of those two antibody treatments last Thursday amid the rise of omicron, which...

Karl Marx called religion the “opiate of the masses.” If someone believes in God, they believe that there is a higher power than government, and a higher power than their community. If there is a higher power, then that means tyrants and oligarchies are not the ultimate power, even they have to answer to God. And, since fear is the key component in the playbook for controlling the masses, those who have Faith in God fear not, for they know that God not only protects them, but that if they are snuffed out of their life here on Earth by...