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Gaza Strip (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Israel kept bombing Gaza on Wednesday after the army warned it is ready for "any scenario" following a drone strike in Lebanon which killed the deputy leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, stoking fears of a regional escalation. Although Israel did not claim the Beirut assassination on Tuesday evening, it was widely assumed to be behind the killing of Saleh al-Aruri, 57, the political number two of its enemy Hamas and one of the founders of the Islamist group's military wing. After Aruri and six other militants were killed in the attack, Israeli...

Under Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, the Lone Star State has conducted its own efforts to independently combat illegal entry into the U.S., and recently made illegal entry into Texas a state crime. The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to permit it to cut a razor-wire fence the state of Texas placed along the Mexican border. The government has argued that the fence interferes with federal border enforcement activities and that the fence presents a safety risk to illegal immigrants crossing the border through the Rio Grande river, the Washington Times reported. The 5th Circuit...

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By promoting "open source jihad," Al-Qaida, the group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is hoping to decentralize weapons manufacturing instructions and materials. Al-Qaeda's Arabian Peninsula branch released a video in English threatening New York City's energy grid and subway system, as well as airplanes in general, with suicide bombers as the group relaunched its English-language magazine, "Inspire." The Transportation Security Administration said Monday that it is monitoring the potential threat posed by the al-Qaeda affiliate, according to NewsNation. Al-Malahem Media, Al-Qaeda Arabian Peninsula's media arm, published the video late last month. It opens with a picture of...

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As we wrote here earlier, it was inevitable that Claudine Gay would eventually step down. A while back, we listed reason #1 of ten why she would resign: "Harvard can claim to be America’s preeminent university, or have a plagiarist as its president—but not both.” To paraphrase Churchill, Harvard had an initial choice between a scandal and dishonor; it chose dishonor and now it will have scandal. The latest six allegations of plagiarism (now totaling some two dozen), if they were to be further excused, ignored, or contextualized, would have continued to have made a mockery of Harvard’s own codes...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The downfall of Harvard’s president has elevated the threat of unearthing plagiarism, a cardinal sin in academia, as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education. Claudine Gay’s resignation Tuesday followed weeks of mounting accusations that she lifted language from other scholars in her doctoral dissertation and journal articles. The allegations surfaced amid backlash over her congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus. The plagiarism allegations came not from her academic peers but her political foes, led by conservatives who sought to oust Gay and put her career under intense scrutiny in hopes of finding a...

I WENT to Edinburgh University in 1985. At that time, it was only 40 years since the end of the Second World War. It seems extraordinary that it is almost 40 years ago from now. Everyone smoked. Everyone went to the pub. It was cheap. I was on a student grant supplemented by benefits in the holidays and the occasional job, but if you were reasonably careful going out wasn’t a problem. The idea that Scotland might become independent didn’t occur to us. In 1985 everyone at university was white. There were hardly any foreign students. The only people from...

In 2024, we hold these truths to be self-evident:- Human nature is immutable, and all attempts to change it are doomed to fail. - Most of society's ills stem from the Left's intentional perversion of Christian principles. See Alinsky's Rule No. 4. - Most sane people already have a religion and do not need tyrannical Leftism as a substitute for lack of faith. - The only hope Western civilization has against the fascist socialists is that their every attempt to create the New Soviet Man has ended in complete failure. But at what a terrible cost... = Everything the government...

The specter of the 2008 housing crisis is haunting 2024, echoing familiar themes of manipulated interest rates and speculative asset mania. The belief that “prices only go up” has fueled a dangerous déjà vu, reminiscent of the days preceding the previous crash. As rates rise, home sales volumes collapse, and builders resort to offering incentives to mask an impending price collapse.

Philadelphia's first female mayor has been sworn in and promptly signed an executive order declaring a Public Safety Emergency to tackle rampant crime. Cherelle Parker, a 51-year-old Democrat and long-serving councilwoman, campaigned on a centrist platform of safety, jobs, and city services. She promised on the campaign trail to hire 300 more police officers, including community officers, and restore 'constitutional' stop-and-frisk. She also put forth the idea of making school year-round, to reduce juvenile delinquency. Her plans will include increasing the number of police officers on the streets with a focus on community policing - a policy she championed when...

Tth elevated interest rates and persistently high home prices, American homebuyers have felt firsthand the squeeze on their budgets. According to real estate mogul Grant Cardone, the necessity for substantially longer mortgage terms is on the horizon. “The savior of America will not be lower prices, it will be longer mortgages,” he said in a recent TikTok video. “In your lifetime, you will see mortgages go from 30 to 40, 50 and maybe even 60 years. You could, if you live long enough, see a 100-year mortgage in America.”

Reflecting on the past several decades of Western culture reveals a strategy at play among those driving the revolution. First, there have been efforts to make sure the broader society sympathizes with their struggles—both of a personal and societal nature. (And Christians surely ought to lead the world in sympathy, but only of the Christlike sort.) Second, there was and is a clear desire to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism through media and individuals’ platforms. And third, there has been and continues to be a concerted effort to demonize those who oppose the revolution. Dissenters will be canceled at a high...

Kirk understood conservatism to be “a disposition of character rather than a collection of reified, abstract political doctrines. It is the rejection of ideology rather than the exercise of it.” This, too, is the understanding of conservatism laid out by the champion of conservatism in the 21st century, my former teacher Sir Roger Scruton.This understanding may help one realize why conservatism fails as an ideology — because it is not an ideology. As Kirk humorously notes early on in one of the early chapters of this book, conservatives who attempt to ideologize conservatism make the first and most egregious error...

A federal appeals court rejected a petition Tuesday to rehear a case related to a natural gas ban proposed by the City of Berkeley, California, which the panel ruled was illegal last year. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ultimately denied Berkeley's petition for rehearing en banc — a motion that received support from the Biden administration, Democratic-led states and environmentalists — after it failed to receive majority support from the court's non-recused active judges. Berkeley filed the motion last year after the court in April that a Berkeley law banning natural gas pipes in new construction...

"And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." "For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. "But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." ☰ John 3 (Other versions) 1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou...

Welcome to The Bicycle Thread. A monthly PING List for bicycle enthusiasts to share experiences, information and ideas. 🚴‍♂️👍

The former Kentucky clerk who refused to grant a gay couple a marriage license must pay an additional $260,104 to the couple, a federal judge ruled last week. David Ermold and David Moore sued former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in 2015 after she declined to issue the couple a marriage license because doing so would violate “God’s definition of marriage” and her religious beliefs as a Christian. The additional fees Davis must pay are on top of the $100,000 in damages she was ordered to pay Ermold and Moore in September after losing the lawsuit the couple brought. Davis’s...

She won’t be leading the Crimson, but green shouldn’t be a problem. Outgoing Harvard President Claudine Gay will still likely earn nearly $900,000 a year despite being forced to resign her position as the school’s top administrator. Political Science professor Gay — who stepped down amid a tempest of allegations she did not do enough to combat antisemitism and academic plagiarism Tuesday — will now return to a position on the Cambridge, Mass., school’s faculty. Prior to being named president just six months ago, Gay earned $879,079 as a Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean in 2021 and $824,068 in...

I remember watching the election returns in 2016 as liberal pundits followed the counting and gradually realized that Donald Trump was going to defeat Hillary Clinton. The next day, supporters cried and howled in despair.The tables were turned in 2020 when Joe Biden, a candidate who couldn’t attract more than 30 people to attend a rally, “defeated” President Trump. The fact that six states simultaneously stopped counting early the next morning and later showed statistically impossible jumps in votes for Biden has led me to an ongoing study of election fraud – vote-count manipulations, dropbox stuffing, and mail-in ballot fraud...