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Taiwan defense officials are raising concerns about a substantial deployment of Chinese naval ships and military planes in the past 24 hours, saying the build-up could eventually lead to war as tensions continue to rise in the area.

Service academies arose back when we believed engineers in the military that our armed forces demand. Very few service grads receive engineering degrees. They now receive degrees in less mission-essential fields like political science and economics, even as we need engineers more than ever.

An evacuation order is in place near the city of Malibu in the US state of California after a fast-moving wildfire broke out and burned hundreds of acres of vegetation. The blaze has been dubbed the Franklin Fire by authorities, who say it started in Malibu Canyon at about 22:50 local time on Monday (06:50 GMT). Firefighters are on the scene and a mandatory evacuation order is in place for a wide swathe of eastern Malibu. A shelter-in-place order applies to much of nearby Pepperdine University. It is not yet clear what caused the blaze, which has been labelled a...

Gorgeous...May it bless your day.

The Eastern European country of Romania was in shock after the first round of its Presidential elections in late November as independent, rightwing candidate, Călin Georgescu, a Euroskeptic who has called the United Nations ‘satanic’ came out as the big winner.Almost as shocking was the fact that the Prime Minister, a leftist-globalist-euro-fanatic candidate, whom all opinion polls called the favorite, came in third and was out of the race. (snip) The Romanian Constitutional Court cancelled the first round of presidential elections a mere days before the second round, which was to take place earlier this month.The court , blamed Russia...

"the Turkish government asked to have the döner kebab recognised as a Turkish specialty...That would give it the same status as Italy's Neapolitan pizza"

While Syria celebrates overthrowing its longtime dictator, it is also being subjected to a new ground incursion and a wave of airstrikes from its neighbor Israel that drew growing international condemnation and concern Tuesday. Saudi Arabia said the actions "confirm Israel's continued violations of the principles of international law," and called upon the international community to respect Syria's "territorial integrity." Iran also condemned the Israeli military's movements, describing them as a violation of the United Nations Charter and calling for immediate action from the U.N. Security Council. And U.S. NATO ally Turkey said Israel was "once against displaying its occupying...

Monday, during an appearance on FNC’s “Hannity,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich likened President-elect Donald Trump to Beowulf, given all of the efforts, including impeachment and assassination, to thwart his rise over the past nine years. “Isn’t it really rooted in this that there is a fear—a healthy fear, a healthy respect for Donald Trump, that he’s strong and tough, and that without even taking the oath of office, he almost single-handedly—his election has reestablished America as the world’s leader?” host Sean Hannity asked. “Look, if you’re a relatively sophisticated leader around the world, and you watch nine years of...

Daily Readings from the USCCB“Jesus said to his disciples: “What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?” Matthew 18:12This Gospel passage goes on to say that the man who finds that one stray sheep “rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.” At first, this might seem unfair. Why not primarily rejoice over the ninety-nine who did not stray? Saint Hillary, in commenting on this passage, interprets the man who sought...

TAIPEI, Taiwan — China's secretive military appears to be up to something around Taiwan, but it's unclear whether it's a formal military drill. Taiwan's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that it has detected a dozen Chinese naval ships and 47 military planes in the past 24 hours but no live-fire activity as in previous military exercises. The deployment covers a wider area this time, with additional ships going beyond Taiwan into other parts of the Pacific, defense officials said at a news conference. Lt. Gen. Hsieh Jih-sheng said China's navy is creating two walls — one at Taiwan's perimeter and another...

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Special Dispatch to the New-York Times. WASHINGTON, Friday, Dec. 9. By the arrival of the mailboat from City Point, we learn that in the rebel lines it was reported on Wednesday evening that SHERMAN's advance was within six miles of Savannah. At this point he had halted and was awaiting the arrival of certain portions of his command which had been sent in different directions for the purpose of misleading the enemy. Deserters who gave this information also state that there is great dissatisfaction in the rebel ranks because correct information of SHERMAN's movements is withheld from them. Especially is...

President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus has said that more than a dozen Russian nuclear weapons have been moved to his country. On Tuesday in post on his Telegram account, he said "I brought nuclear warheads here. Not a few dozen of them." He continued, "Many people write: 'Oh, it's a joke, no one brought anything in.' They did. And the fact that they ... say that it's a joke means they missed it. They didn't even notice how we brought them in."

President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan came to Chicago on Monday to implore Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker to “come to the table” and negotiate with him over a mass deportation plan that he declared would start right here. Homan, the former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term, began a 20-minute address at a Northwest Side GOP “holiday party” with some light ribbing before detailing his plan, which includes verifying the status of asylum seekers and arresting those who are found harboring criminals. “Chicago’s in trouble because your mayor sucks and your...

A manifesto recovered from the alleged shooter of UnitedHeathCare CEO Brian Thompson says that “These parasites had it coming” and “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.” This is music to the ears of many on the left, who cheered when they learned that Thompson had been gunned down and are treating the shooter as some sort of folk hero. “Social media users have sometimes outright gloated at the killing,” is how The Hill put it, describing it as an expression of “populist rage” and then spending the rest of the article trying...

The outgoing Biden-Harris administration gave Iran $10 billion in sanctions relief just days after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, despite Iran’s ongoing attacks against Israel and support for terrorist organizations. The Washington Free Beacon reported: Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined on November 8 that “it is in the national security interest of the United States” to waive mandatory economic sanctions that bar Iraq from transferring upward of $10 billion to Iran in electricity import payments. … Though the first Trump administration did green-light the same waiver—causing tension with some congressional Republicans—it narrowly tailored the waiver to restrict...

WASHINGTON — An Alabama man has been arrested for assaulting law enforcement and other charges related to his alleged conduct during the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol. Robert James Bonham, 44, of Wilsonville, Alabama, is charged in a criminal complaint filed in the District of Columbia with felony offenses of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder. In addition to the felonies, Bonham is charged with several misdemeanor offenses, including entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds,...

Liz Cheney threatened Donald Trump's incoming Department of Justice on Monday, claiming that any move to investigate the now-defunct January 6th committee would be "sanctionable conduct." The statement, put out in response to Trump's recent "Meet the Press" interview, also denied allegations that she and her colleagues destroyed evidence. While speaking to NBC News' Kristen Welker, the president-elect said the following. “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” the President-elect said, referring to Mississippi Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (the committee’s chairman). “They deleted and destroyed...

Membership in the Presbyterian Church (USA) fell further in 2023, according to statistics released last week by the denomination’s Interim Unified Agency, which succeeds the former Office of the General Assembly. Total membership declined by 45,932, or 4%, to 1,094,733 in the most recent reporting year. Presbyterians are older and more likely to be white than the overall U.S. population, with the denomination listing 87.85% as white and 33.46% as over the age of 70. Nationally, 61.6% of the U.S. population counted in the 2020 U.S. Census was white, while 17.3% of those counted were aged 65 and over. The...

The arrest of Luigi Mangione in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO has left friends, family, and acquaintances grappling with shock and disbelief. As investigators piece together the timeline leading to his arrest, new details have emerged about his life in the months preceding his disappearance and alleged crime. Mangione, a 28-year-old former computer science student from Maryland. He was described by those who knew him as intelligent, athletic, and socially well-adjusted. However, the trajectory of his life appeared to change drastically earlier this year following back surgery to address chronic pain caused by a pinched nerve, far-left HuffPost...