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**SNIP** “I’m ecstatic about the Presidential Center’s location in Woodlawn, especially since Obama was our first African American president,” said Woodlawn homeowner John Odom in an interview with The Maroon during the town hall. “I just hope he doesn’t unintentionally displace his own African American community and cause an influx of Gold Coast residents. 63rd Street was once a thriving, safe African American community, and I would like to see the Obama library bring back some of that.” Patricia Tatum, a longtime Woodlawn homeowner and former nurse at UChicago Medicine, suspects that rising property taxes and pressure from land developers...

Source: Townhall Media/Julio RosasI want to add a few notes to my Christmas weekend column on the Census Bureau's July 2021 state population estimates and what stories they tell about growth and decline in the first 15 months of the coronavirus pandemic. THE IMMIGRATION BUST The big news is about immigration. In the years from 2010 to 2019, the Census Bureau recorded an increase in "international migration" -- immigration, in layman's language -- of 873,000. For the 15 months from April 2020 to July 2021, the corresponding number is only 257,000 -- down 71% from the average of the years...

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was slammed on Twitter after she and her wife, Amy Eshleman, posted a video wishing a 'joyous Kwanzaa' ... The backlash comes as Lightfoot is accused of ignoring the city's surge in violent crimes, including a 25-year high murder rate, with 767 homicides in the city so far this year. Last week, she begged Attorney General Merrick Garland to send ATF agents to the city for six months to help get illegal guns off the street after she slashed the police budget ... Twitter users were quick slam Lightfoot, saying the the principles of Kwanzaa -...

"'Hope' is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul," wrote Emily Dickinson. "And sore must be the storm / That could abash the little Bird / That kept so many warm." Staring ahead on New Year's Eve, at what appear to be the coming storms of 2022, this once-hopeful country is going to have to fall back on its reserves. What storms? Suddenly, the omicron variant of the coronavirus is sweeping the nation, shutting schools, shops, restaurants and bars that were only lately reopened. In this last week of 2021, new infections twice set records. Is a...

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From Fox News: "Gov. Ralph Northam, D-Va., and Democratic Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced Thursday that state and city governments had reached an agreement to transfer the ownership of the city's recently removed Confederate monuments to the Black History Museum. The museum intends to partner with The Valentine and other cultural institutions in Richmond to "determine the proper future use of each piece in the collection," according to a Thursday press release from the City of Richmond. The museum will also receive the empty pedestals on which the statues stood."

Our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., is joining fellow cities NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston in mandating vaccine requirements for indoor spaces. Come January 15th, the District of Columbia will adopt this draconian measure—one that will ultimately drive a deeper wedge between Washingtonians. Lest The District’s policy makers forget: this effort won’t mitigate the spread of the omicron variant. But they’ll proceed with it anyway. Who will be adversely impacted by this new policy? Sadly, the city’s black residents—who comprise 46 percent of the population— will be disproportionately targeted. Fox News reporter Houston Keene noted just 39 percent of its...

The series of measures will reduce annual personal income tax by 110 billion yuan (US$17.3 billion), according to China’s State Council Preferential taxes on year-end bonuses will stay in place until the end of 2023, while lower taxation on equity incentives will continue through next year The Chinese economy still needs policy support and tax cuts are an important stimulus, Jiao Ruijin China will extend some personal income tax breaks, with certain measures to benefit high earners more, as the government seeks to encourage household spending as part of efforts to stimulate economic growth. Preferential taxes on year-end bonuses will...

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the famous allegorical novella about Stalin’s Soviet Union, two pigs begin a revolution by announcing that “All animals are equal.” However, as they become increasingly powerful and start perceiving enemies around them, that slogan changes to the now-famous, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” When it comes to equality before the law, events in federal courts in D.C. and Portland establish that violent leftist animals are way more equal than the conservative animals arrested for events on January 6. Beginning after George Floyd died while in police custody (apparently...

Alaska GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Thursday accepted former President Donald Trump's endorsement, which Trump had vowed to rescind if Dunleavy endorses Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. "Please tell the President thank you for the endorsement. With regard to the other issue, please tell the President he has nothing to worry about," Dunleavy said in a statement referring to Murkowski and put out by Trump. Trump made Murkowski a top target in next year's midterm elections after the senator voted to convict him in his impeachment trial earlier this year. "This is why Mike Dunleavy of Alaska has been,...

Germany will pull the plug on three of its last six nuclear power stations on Friday, another step towards completing its withdrawal from nuclear power as it turns its focus to renewables. The government decided to speed up its phasing out of nuclear power following Japan's Fukushima reactor meltdown in 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the coastal plant in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years earlier. The reactors of Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen C, run by utilities E.ON and RWE, will be shut down on Friday after three-and-a-half decades in operation. The last three nuclear...

A new climate panic is gripping the far-Left profiteers of doom. Those few of Them who are climate scientists have made fame and fortune by telling us the world is toast unless the once-free West (though responsible for only a fifth of the world’s sins of emission) commits economic hara-kiri. The cost of placating climate Communism is already in the quadrillions. However, They are becoming aware that Their official climate narrative is rooted in a grave error of physics – an error so elementary that it can be described here. At a vital point in Their calculation of how much...

Authorities in Illinois are searching for an "armed and dangerous" man after a police officer was shot and killed and another was wounded during a call Wednesday. The officers responded to a Comfort Inn at about 9:40 p.m. "for reported dogs barking in an unattended vehicle which was parked in the parking lot," Bradley Police Chief Donald W. Barber said Thursday morning in a statement. Officers found the room where the owner of the vehicle was staying and "initiated conversation," according to the statement. During the conversation, one of the people in the room attacked the officers, and shot both...

Leading up to the Christmas holidays, we were treated to incessant Christmas songs, one of which is Winter Wonderland. This year, instead of Santa Claus handing out presents in a winter wonderland, we had Dr Anthony Fauci handing out threats of another year of bah and humbug. The above song lyrics can be modified this year in honor of Dr Fauci, “He’ll say, are you vaxxed? We’ll say no man. So you can stay at home all alone.” Dr Fauci said just that, telling Americans to disinvite unvaccinated family and friends from gathering, instead staying home, all to avoid the...

Initially, the restrictions had allowed one person per household to venture out once every two days to buy food and other basic supplies. But the rules were tightened on Monday - banning residents from leaving at all except to get tested for Covid-19. In past days, people have taken to the Weibo social media platform to call for help with getting food and other essentials. Many said they hadn't received their government supplies yet. "I heard other districts are gradually getting supplies, but I didn't get anything. My compound bans us from going out. I ordered some groceries online four...

New Delhi (CNN Business)Two of the world's biggest chipmakers are warning that Covid-19 outbreaks and stringent lockdowns in a major Chinese industrial hub are hampering their operations. Samsung and Micron said this week that they've had to adjust operations in the northwestern city of Xi'an, which is experiencing one of China's worst community outbreaks of the coronavirus pandemic. Authorities have responded by enacting sweeping measures with an intensity and on a scale rarely seen since Wuhan, the pandemic's original epicenter. Any slowdown in output from the city risks worsening the global chip shortage, an ongoing crisis that has limited the...

Russia's biggest “space wars” rocket launch in decades failed and may send 20 tonnes of payload screaming back to Earth, it has been claimed. The new generation Angara A-5 heavy carrier rocket malfunctioned and only made it to “low orbit,” leaving it short of its target and set to fall back to Earth. Although only a mock-up satellite it was crucial to Russia as a new military weapons delivery system and most of it is likely to burn-up on re-entering the atmosphere. Footage showed the spectacular unmanned launch from Plesetsk spaceport on Monday marking a new stage in Moscow’s space...

With a range of 11,830 km and the capacity to carry 207,000 pounds of fuel, the KC-46 can refuel over 64 different types of aircraft and allow dozens of jets to remain airborne for up to 12 hours Israel’s Defense Ministry has signed an agreement with the US government to acquire 12 Lockheed Martin CH-53K helicopters and two additional Boeing KC-46 refueling aircraft. The US Defense Department’s Procurement Delegation signed the letters of acceptance (LOAs) with Israel on Thursday evening to replace the Israel Air Force’s CH-53 Yasur heavy-lift helicopters and Ra’am (Boeing 707) tanker aircraft that are required for...

An armed Arab terrorist attempted to stab soldiers and civilians near the Gitai Avishar Junction in Judea and Samaria, the IDF said. The would-be terror attack, which occurred near the Samaria city of Ariel, was prevented by alert IDF soldiers, who neutralized the terrorist, who later died of his wounds. A woman of 18, who lives in Samaria, has suffered shock and is being treated at the scene by Magen David Adom and United Hatzalah paramedics. The terrorist was evacuated to Petah Tikva's Beilinson Medical Center in critical condition, but died of his wounds a short time later. .....