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The Sun runs on an 11-year cycle of rising and falling activity, tracked mainly by counting sunspots – the dark patches scattered across its surface. Solar Cycle 25, the current cycle, was forecast as mild, and the sunspot count agreed. But those counts read only the surface. A global network of six telescopes has listened to the Sun’s interior for nearly 40 years, and what it is now telling researchers is not what the surface suggested at all. Listening inside the Sun Scientists have a name for eavesdropping on those sound waves: helioseismology. The waves are trapped inside the Sun,...

Costa Rica health officials are warning that smoking and vaping are putting younger adults at serious risk of heart attacks, with specialists from the Costa Rican Social Security Fund saying people under 40 who smoke or vape may face up to five times the risk of suffering a myocardial infarction compared with non-smokers. The warning comes as Costa Rica marks World No Tobacco Day, observed each year on May 31, and as public health officials push back against the belief that vaping is a safe substitute for cigarettes. Specialists say the problem is not limited to lung damage. Tobacco, nicotine...

Global betting revenue for the upcoming World Cup is likely to be “in excess of $50 billion”, betting expert Darren Small told AFP, for an event he labelled “the biggest circus in town.” The revenue will be significantly higher than the 2022 edition, partly because the quadrennial football fiesta has been enlarged to 48 teams from the 32 in Qatar. Another factor according to Small, Managing Director of Managed Trading Services at Sportradar, is punters have become more “interested in the celebrity of a player” than in the old days of betting simply on a team. Sportradar Group AG is...

New York City has long been a place of extremes. During the Gilded Age (about 1870 to 1900), the contrast in the way the wealthy and the poor lived in New York was drastic... Photograph of William K. Vanderbilt’s home on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street, where the lavish costume ball was held in 1883.In stark contrast to lavish balls and mansions of the city’s wealthiest citizens, photojournalist Jacob Riis captured the shocking living conditions of New York’s poverty-stricken population in How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890). His photographs reveal...

Daily Readings from the USCCBThe Solemnity of the Most Holy TrinityGod so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. John 3:16–18Saint John the Apostle is identified in his Gospel...

What was the population of Israel at the end of the two kingdoms? How many people stayed in the land or were exiled? The tributes exacted by Egypt and Assyria on Judah and Israel are the basis for this rough estimate of Israel's last population. It is assumed these foreign powers took great pains in assessing their tributes, basing them on population and the relative productive wealth of these two countries. Neco laid a tribute on Judah for 100 silver talents and 1 gold talent (2 Kings 23:33). This, of course, was a far cry from the 666 gold talents...

The defending champs have been dethroned. Facing a hostile crowd in Oklahoma City, the San Antonio Spurs showed no sign of nerves, using a balanced attack, excellent 3-point shooting and a stingy defense to pull out a 111-103 victory in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals Saturday night. The Spurs now advance to the NBA Finals for a chance to win their sixth NBA championship — and the first since 2014. They’ll have to get past the New York Knicks to do so, with Game 1 set for Wednesday in San Antonio. Victor Wembanyama, named the Western Conference finals...

There are a lot of stories about Cuba floating around right now. Some are MSM outlets acting like they have a scoop on something that's been happening or rumored to be happening for months. Some are simply absurd and probably not true. Most aren't actually verified by the Donald Trump administration and come from anonymous sources. I'm not even going to bother with those today. I saw this happen in the final months before we captured Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Most of these reporters and media outlets didn't even care about these countries until they became newsworthy, and once they...

Major League Baseball owners proposed a hard salary cap to players as part of the next CBA on Thursday, their first firm cap proposal since 1994. Under the proposal, presented in a meeting with union officials, each team would need to maintain a payroll of at least $171.2 million without exceeding $245.3 million, starting in 2027. That includes player benefits, just as it does under the current competitive balance tax system. If the sides can't negotiate a new CBA before the current one expires Dec. 1, owners are likely to "lock out" the players until a new deal is in...

When the accusation is sexual assault or rape, the rights of the accused go out the window. Prosecutors and plaintiffs' lawyers in civil cases drag in character assassins who know nothing about the alleged assault but instead make their own claims -- without proof -- that they too were victims of the accused, often decades earlier. That's what happened to President Donald Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case, and why he is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the jury's decision. On Wednesday, the justices delayed for the 11th time answering whether they will take up E. Jean Carroll...

Politico continues its dogged faux “reporting” to create a narrative that Democrats are a lock to control the U.S. Senate in 2026. Which gives me a great opening to make one of my periodic updates on some of the crucial Senate races. The Republicans have a 53 to 47-seat majority in the Senate. There are 35 seats up for grabs in 2026. The Democrats need a net pick up of four seats to win control.The central problem for the Democrats is that only two Republican seats – Maine and North Carolina – are in competitive states. The other 20 GOP...

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner has a new problem, and this one is harder to delete.New original reporting by The Wall Street Journal published Friday has tied Platner to an active profile on Kik, a messaging platform with a long and well-documented history of child exploitation, and that law enforcement officials and online safety advocates have repeatedly flagged as a danger to minors.The account, listed under the username "phustle0331," featured a mirror selfie of a towel-clad man. It was linked to other online handles associated with Platner, and remained active as recently as this week.When pressed, Platner's campaign confirmed...

In what could be viewed as the most brazen conflict-of-interest issue in President Trump’s second term, the Pentagon just awarded Dell Technologies a $9.7 billion contract to manage Microsoft software across the entire U.S. military. Trump bought Dell stock just months earlier, publicly urged Americans to buy Dell computers weeks before the announcement, and received a $6.25 billion pledge from the Dell family. That’s the conflict part. WHAT HAPPENED The Department of War awarded Dell Federal Systems, the government-focused subsidiary of Dell Technologies, a five-year, $9.7 billion contract to supply and manage Microsoft software licenses and subscriptions, across the U.S....

For years, China has built what many observers have described as the most extensive surveillance network in human history. Now, thanks to rapid advances in artificial intelligence, that network is evolving into something far more powerful--and far more concerning. According to recent reporting from the Financial Times, Chinese authorities are upgrading their already vast surveillance infrastructure with advanced AI systems capable of analyzing behavior, identifying individuals, predicting crowd activity, and even anticipating potential social unrest before it occurs. This is no longer simply about cameras watching street corners. It is about creating a real-time digital map of an entire society....

There seems to be no shortage of crazy passengers on commercial flights these days. A United Airlines flight heading to Minnesota on Friday was forced to make an emergency landing in Wisconsin after one of the passengers aboard allegedly tried to get into the cockpit. This was according to audio from air traffic control. The flight departed from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on Friday evening and landed in Madison, Wisconsin, instead of Minneapolis for security reasons surrounding the out-of-control passenger. Flight tracking data showed that the plane landed approximately 90 minutes after takeoff. Fox News Reported: A United Airlines...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs started the Western Conference finals with a win in Oklahoma City, then ended the series the same way.The defending champions are dethroned. Wembanyama and the Spurs are headed to the NBA Finals.

A "predator's paradise" May 31, 2026. by Daniel Greenfield. Let’s sum up. Graham Platner is not an ‘oyster farm’, not working class and was not forced to fight in Iraq. Or to put it another way, everything he says about himself is a lie. But well before all this, he did talk about being a Communist, got a Nazi tattoo and posted some nasty stuff. The campaign and its allies defended Platner as just posting things without really meaning them.

Our esteemed editor was once excoriated for saying that the public had had enough of experts. ‘The people of this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.’ His remark sits within a fine conservative tradition: there is William F. Buckley, who stated: ‘I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.’ There is Thomas Sowell, who wrote: ‘Intellectuals are people whose end products are intangible ideas…Whether their ideas turn out to work… is another question...

On May 24-25, we marked the anniversary of Israel’s hasty withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and with it, bringing thousands of Lebanese Christians to Israel. Here is the story of one young man.

WASHINGTON — A massive 300-foot-wide, 150-foot-tall American flag has been draped over the Hoover Dam in Nevada as part of the celebration for America's 250th anniversary.The installation went up on Memorial Day to honor the men and women who gave their lives in service to the country, and will light up each night until July 4. The display uses more than 550 automated LED lights and is completely powered by the dam's hydroelectricity.