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The U.S. has offered a deal to Russia aimed at bringing home WNBA star Brittney Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. In a sharp reversal of previous policy, Blinken also said he expects to speak with his Kremlin counterpart for the first time since before Russia invaded Ukraine to discuss the deal and other matters. Blinken's comments marked the first time the U.S. government has publicly revealed any concrete action it has taken to secure the release of Griner, who was arrested on drug-related charges at a Moscow airport in February and...

Last year, UK cinemagoers were treated to two competing accounts of the story of Julian Assange: Bill Condon’s oddly inert drama The Fifth Estate, and Alex Gibney’s more pointedly dramatic documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks. Although very different in form, content and, indeed, success (Gibney’s film was Bafta-nominated, Condon’s was hailed as one of the year’s biggest flops), both movies wrestled with the conundrum of separating the cult of Assange’s divisive personality from the significance of the information that he helped to publish – for better or worse.

UPDATE: The Secret Service told The Gateway Pundit the agency is investigating the threats to Trump made in the videos. A video posted to the You Tube account of Ebou Bah shows a Black male Muslim holding a knife in each hand threatening to attack leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump over Trump's statement calling for a national security moratorium on Muslim immigration to the United States. The man in the video, who appears to be in his twenties, speaks with in accented English and is highly agitated. He is in 'fighting shape' with well developed biceps and is wearing...

Islamic SocialismFrom the CIA factbook: Following a 1969 military coup, Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI began to espouse his own political system, the Third Universal Theory. The system was a combination of socialism and Islam derived in part from tribal practices and was supposed to be implemented by the Libyan people themselves in a unique form of "direct democracy.[1] The "Green Book" - Arabism, Islam & socialism, with Islam the main line Author John L. Esposito: Under Qaddafi three interrelated ideas were woven into Libya's ideological identity: Pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islam. Qaddafi's appeals to Islam were influenced by his...

Vice President Joe Biden won’t be lectured by Republicans about killing Christmas. “Don’t tell me about Christmas,” said Biden, a former Delaware senator, in an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “I understand Christmas. I've been a senator for a long time. I've been there many years where we go right up to Christmas.”

NEW YORK — Six Bahá’í leaders in Iran were arrested and taken to the notorious Evin prison yesterday in a sweep that is ominously similar to episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Bahá’í leaders were summarily rounded up and killed. The six men and women, all members of the national-level group that helped see to the minimum needs of Bahá’ís in Iran, were in their homes Wednesday morning when government intelligence agents entered and spent up to five hours searching each home, before taking them away.The seventh member of the national coordinating group was arrested in early March...

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005 5:21 p.m. EST 22 Congressmen Hate Christmas This year's "War for Christmas" – keeping "Christ" in the holiday has apparently been won. And, like many "wars," there has even been a Congressional resolution in support of keeping Christmas alive and well. On December 15 the House of Representatives passed a resolution "protecting the symbols and traditions of Christmas" by an overwhelming 401-22 vote. Representative JoAnn Davis (R-VA), the resolution's sponsor, said the resolution was necessary to counter "political correctness run amok." "No one," she said, "should feel like they have done something wrong...