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Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) will run for governor of California in 2026 after current Gov. Gavin Newsom reaches his two-term limit. The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday: Villaraigosa, who has been out of elected office since leaving Los Angeles City Hall in 2013, joins a crowded field of high-level Democratic candidates that includes Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former state Controller Betty Yee, state Sen. Toni Atkins, and state schools Supt. Tony Thurmond. All are vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his second and final term in office.

After the motion was met with resentment, Democratic National Convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa had to call the vote three times to reinstate language into their party platform that recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as well as the words "God-given" in a passage about employment

Archaeologists have uncovered a "monumental" fortification that protected Jerusalem's biblical kings some 3,000 years ago. The "dramatic" archaeological discovery solved a 150-year-old mystery in the City of David. Since 2007, archaeologists have been excavating the area around the Givati Parking Lot, the largest active archaeological excavation in Jerusalem today. The excavation site on the northwestern side of the City of David has unearthed different layers of the city's life from the Middle Ages to ancient times. The most recent archaeological find is the remnants of a moat that split the City of David in half — separating the king's palace...

Excavations in Jerusalem have finally revealed the route of an ancient fortification, according to a report published Sunday.For more than 150 years, researchers have asked: who divided Jerusalem in two? A report published Sunday by the Jewish Press may finally have another piece of the puzzle, bringing researchers a step closer to answering this question.Excavations in the Givati parking lot at the City of David revealed a massive fortification created by quarrying rock between the National Park and the area above, which contains the Temple Mount and the Ofel. Researchers found unearthed perpendicular cliffs on both sides of a moat,...

Researchers suggested that the inscriptions are short cultic proverbs related to the religious temple they were found in, which was burned and destroyed thousands of years ago.The temple was located in an ancient settlement called Deir 'Alla, at the center of Jordan Valley, which runs along the Jordan River from the Sea of Galilee in Israel to the Dead Sea...Archaeologists discovered the tablets in a heavily burned part of the excavation site.The team also found ceramics among the ruins, including goblets and ceremonial vessels, along with armor.Sculptures that were a gift from Egyptian Queen Twosret were also found at the...

One of the big lies in today’s world is that the Jews are white supremacist colonizers, while the people in Gaza and the West Bank are the region’s indigenous inhabitants. In fact, the contrary is true. Jews long predated Muslims in the region, as described in the Bible. Now, there’s more evidence that Isaiah, 2 Kings, and 2 Chronicles all accurately describe the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem 2,700 years ago.During the reign of Hezekiah of Judah in Jerusalem and Sennacherib in Assyria, the mighty Assyrian kingdom attacked Jerusalem (around 701 BC). We know it happened because of a clay prism...

Today in history: King St. Louis IX scores major victory for Christians over Islamic jihadOn June 6, 1249, King Louis IX of France—better known to posterity as Saint Louis—scored a dramatic victory over the Islamic jihad at the start of the Seventh Crusade.uly 7, 2017 - St. Louis, Missouri - The sunset over the Apotheosis of St. Louis statue of King Louis IX of France in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri.Today in history, on June 6, Louis IX of France – better known to posterity as Saint Louis – scored a dramatic victory over the Islamic jihad.It was late May,...

The Persian conquest of Palestine in 614 CE is described in historical sources as a most violent military raid that dramatically affected the political and administrative stability of Byzantine Palestine, involving large scale damage to churches and a mass killing of the local Christian population. Common view has it that the conquest marked a turning point in the history of the Near East and was one of the causes for the rapid Early Islamic conquests, twenty years later. Although the Persian domination - lasting only 14 years (614-628), was a very brief episode in the long historical sequence of Palestine,...

While exploring the area around the hotel that he had been evacuated to along the Dead Sea, Nati Toyikar came across an ancient coin dating back to the Hasmonean period.. An 11-year-old boy found a 2,000-year-old coin belonging to the Hasmonean king and high priest Alexander Yanai, Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday. Nati Toyikar was evacuated from his home, Kibbutz Magen, following Hamas's October 7 attacks. He is currently living in one of the hotels for evacuated residents along the Dead Sea, where, on one of his explorations, he unexpectedly found an ancient coin from the time of Hasmonean...

In the systematic excavation project of the temple area in the lower city of Gath, a team from Bar-Ilan University has overseen the reconstruction of the plants used in Philistine rituals.The mysterious culture of the Philistines that flourished during the Iron Age (1200-604 BCE) profoundly affected the southern Levant's cultural history, agronomy, and dietary customs. More than a quarter century of excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath in central Israel, identified as the biblical Gath of the Philistines and the home of Goliath, has provided a unique window into the world of this ancient civilization.In the systematic excavation project of the temple...

Identifying an archaeological site with biblical stories is often circumstantial. In this case, archaeologists found the biblical archaeology equivalent of the Holy Grail: inscriptions discovered within a few hundred meters from the site, albeit from the 1st century B.C.E., reading "boundary of Gezer" in Hebrew, among other things. But the city's story begins thousands of years earlier...Later excavations in the 1960s and '70s on behalf of Hebrew Union College discerned 26 strata, often with one built upon the last. They range in date from the Chalcolithic period (4th millennium B.C.E.) to the Early Roman period (late 1st century B.C.E).The most...

An extremely rare silver coin that was minted outside the Land of Israel during the Persian Period – within a few centuries of the biblical story of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus in the 6th–5th centuries BCE – has been discovered by an archaeologist during an Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) excavation in the Judean Hills...Minted in a period when the use of coins had just begun, it joins only half a dozen coins of its type that have been found in excavations in the country.An indication of the gradual process of minting coins instead of weighing silver pieces to make...

[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]In 1966, a year before the war that would fundamentally change the country and the region, John Steinbeck arrived.“I want to see everything in Israel,” he told the press.Outraged novels of class warfare like ‘Grapes of Wrath’ had once made the author a favorite of the leftist establishment, but Steinbeck had turned to other topics. He considered his life’s work to be ‘East of Eden’, a retelling of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel in California, which touched on his own...

Itamar Grossman, 13, was visiting the Sussita National Park, on the ruins of the ancient Hellenistic city of Hippos, when something on the ground caught his attention after he went to a vantage point with a cousin to take photos, according to a press release from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.That something turned out to be an ancient bronze ring.“It was a strange and ancient-looking ring,” Itamar said, according to All Israel News. “My brothers and cousins who were with me didn’t think it was anything old, just a ring someone had dropped.”Although his siblings and cousins didn’t think...

Professor Gershon Galil at Haifa University’s Institute for Biblical Studies and Ancient History, along with Eli Shukron from the Bible and Ancient History research institute, found that the 8th Century BC inscriptions – on a stone no bigger than the palm of a hand – not only include Hezekiah’s name, but also list his achievements from the first 17 years of his reign. Those include his commission to carve out the pool at Siloam and the tunnel to access the waters underneath the Gihon Spring. The action is believed to have helped saved the city by denying sources of water...

About 700 years before Christ, Hezekiah built a 2,000-foot-long tunnel through solid rock to secretly carry water from the Gihon Spring in Jerusalem to the Pool of Siloam (also called the Pool of Siloah) just outside the wall around ancient Jerusalem and at the base of the Temple Mount (II Kings 20:20). Hezekiah built the tunnel and Pool of Siloam (a water reservoir like a swimming pool that was about 53 ft long, 18 ft wide, and 19 ft deep) to ensure that Jerusalem had water if the Assyrians surrounded Jerusalem and tried to capture the city. The pool was...

Israeli construction workers were fixing a large water pipe near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount when they noticed mysterious ancient steps. They called on some archaeologists for help, namely Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron. The two proceeded to excavate the site and found one of the most significant archaeological affirmations of the Bible. The steps led down to a 225 feet long pool, the Pool of Siloam. What they discovered matched the exact location of the Bible’s description of the pool. It was next to Hezekiah’s tunnel and near the Temple of the Mount. According to The Bible, King Hezekiah first constructed...

Archaeologists in Israel have unearthed a sacred Christian site in Jerusalem, where Jesus performed a miracle by healing a blind man. The steps to the ancient Pool of Siloam haven't been seen for more than 2,000 years. The discovery of the steps is a bit of a miracle as well. Construction was being conducted in 2004 to repair a large sewage pipe south of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in the City of David. During the repair procedure, a strange scrapping noise was heard. Archaeologists identified ancient stone steps in the vicinity. Since the discovery, major excavations have been taking place in...

The channels may have been used to prepare a commodity "connected to the economy of the temple or palace", said archaeologist Yuval Gadot in the statement...The knee-deep channels, dating back 2,800 years, are located outside Jerusalem's walled Old City. They stand in two clusters, which were discovered 10 metres (30 feet) apart.Forensic testing of the channels found no blood, the Israel Antiquities Authority said - potentially ruling out a role in animal slaughter for banquets or religious sacrifice.The ducts also do not appear to have engineered a flow in a single direction, or debouched into any basin, suggesting they were...

Amit Waldman: A new era in Israel-Italy relations by Giorgia Meloni: In the Italian newspaper La Repubblica it was published that in the debate held at the United Nations, Italy took the side of Jerusalem. In the vote, Rome abandoned its traditional line of abstaining and voted together with the USA, Germany and Israel against The decision to transfer the issue of the ongoing Israeli (what they term an) "occupation" to the Hague Tribunal. [https://t.me/N12Updates/166928] https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2022/11/11/news/onu_israele_palestina_italia_vota_no-374112797/?ref=RHLF-BG-I374116504-P4-S2-T1]