Russia Asks US to Halt Chase of “Stateless” Oil Tanker Fleeing Coast Guard in the Atlantic UNITED24 Media
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04 Culture
As regularly as Obama appointee Judge Indira Talwani finds some creative new way to temporary scuttle a provision of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that bars organizations that provide elective abortion from federal Medicaid funding for one year if they received more than $800,000 in federal funding in 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit says no siree Bob.
Yesterday, in a brief opinion vacating Judge Talwani’s injunction, the appeals court panel, composed of judges appointed by President Biden, concluded that HHS and other federal officials have “made a strong showing at this preliminary stage that they are likely to prevail on the merits.”
Map Shows Anti-Government Protests Spreading Across Iran Newsweek
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Iranian anarchists: Uprising is “genuine self-organisation by ordinary people” Freedom News –
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The Rumford Fire Department is preparing to open Maine’s first Safe Haven Baby Box in February to prevent incidents of deadly infant abandonment.
“I hope we never use it,” Rumford Fire Chief Chris Reed said, according to News Center Maine. “But at least it’s an option.”
Safe Haven Baby Boxes were created to deter parents from abandoning their newborns in unsafe conditions, potentially leaving them to die. Baby boxes are temperature-controlled incubators often built into exterior walls of fire stations, police stations, and hospitals, and can be accessed from outdoors. At-risk mothers can safely and legally place their newborns inside. Once the baby is inside the baby box, the outside door locks, and the mother has time to leave before an alarm goes off to alert first responders or hospital staff to the child’s presence.
The baby is then quickly removed and sent to a hospital for a wellness check. From there, the baby is usually placed into state custody and is often quickly adopted.
A growing number of ultra-wealthy Chinese nationals are turning to U.S. surrogates to have children on American soil, taking advantage of America’s largely unregulated market and birthright citizenship, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
In one such case, Chinese video game billionaire Xu Bo has sought parental rights for at least four unborn children in Los Angeles, having already fathered or arranged surrogacy for at least eight additional children, according to the WSJ. The trend coincides with intensifying debates over the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of U.S. citizenship for anyone born in the country, a policy the Trump administration has sought to reinterpret.
Why this matters for Egyptian history
The Second Intermediate Period, dated roughly 1782–1550 BCE, has long been understood as a time of political fragmentation, military innovation and shifting power. It saw the introduction of new technologies such as the horse-drawn chariot, multiple competing capitals, and weakened central authority. If this period lasted longer than previously thought, historians must rethink how quickly Egypt recovered from collapse, how long the Hyksos ruled, and how the early New Kingdom developed its military and administrative strength. Just as importantly, the revised dating helps resolve a decades-old problem in Mediterranean archaeology: how Egyptian history lines up with Minoan, Levantine and Aegean chronologies. By placing the Thera eruption firmly before Ahmose’s reign, the study removes one of the most persistent points of chronological tension between Egypt and its neighbours.
A conservative Christian woman from Alabama has been identified as one of the two fatalities from Saturday’s shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island that left at least nine others wounded.
Ella Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore at Brown, was a parishioner at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, where Rev. Craig Smalley made the announcement during his Sunday service.
“Some of you haven’t heard, a lot of you have heard … [about] the tragedy yesterday at Brown University, the shooting of a number of people,” Smalley said.. “Tragically, one of our parishioners, Ella Cook, was one of those who was killed yesterday.”
The Little Sisters of the Poor have again asked a federal appeals court late Friday to block a nationwide ruling that rejected their protection from the federal government’s contraceptive mandate. Represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Clement Murphy, the Little Sisters have spent more than a decade in court fighting to defend their ministry from a federal mandate forcing them to either provide contraceptives in their healthcare plan or pay tens of millions of dollars in fines.
They have already prevailed twice at the Supreme Court, including a 2020 ruling that upheld the federal conscience rule shielding them from the mandate. But Pennsylvania and New Jersey have fought in court to strip the Little Sisters of that protection. Earlier this year, a federal district court sided with the states, forcing the Little Sisters back to federal appeals court yet again.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that its Office for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) has launched an investigation into certain housing practices implemented by the City of Boston over alleged racial discrimination in housing.
The investigation focuses on policies described as “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) initiatives, which HUD alleges may violate the Fair Housing Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by incorporating race-based preferences.The notification to the City of Boston was issued recently, following a prior letter from HUD expressing concerns that the city was using federal grant assistance in ways that include prohibited race-based preferences.
Examples include efforts under the city’s Fair Housing Assessment to target homebuyer outreach specifically at Black and “Latinx” families. This involves the Mayor’s Office of Housing, the Boston Planning Department, and the Boston Housing Authority collecting racial and ethnic data to evaluate programs through a racial equity and social justice perspective.
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that New York Attorney General Letitia James cannot stop pro-life pregnancy centers within the state from speaking about abortion pill reversal (APR).ADF Senior Counsel Caroline Lindsay, who argued before the court on behalf of three pro-life pregnancy care organizations, celebrated the ruling, stating, “The court is correct to affirm that women in New York have the right to access information about safe and effective supplemental progesterone through their local pregnancy centers, regardless of what the attorney general may personally believe. The First Amendment clearly protects the right to speak and hear about this potentially life-saving option.”
The case goes back to May 2024, when James announced that she was suing Heartbeat International, a group of pro-life pregnancy care centers that provide referrals for women seeking APR, along with 11 other New York crisis pregnancy centers. James claimed that APR is unproven and unsafe and wanted to block the centers from advertising its availability or discussing it with women.
Representative Haley Stevens (D-MI) has filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., saying that he “has turned his back on science” and failed to protect the American people.
Stevens, who is currently running for Senate in Michigan, had threatened to file articles of impeachment back in September after claiming that his actions and public comments had endangered public health, raised healthcare costs and cut medical research programs.
In a statement posted on social media, Stevens said: “Today, I formally introduced articles of impeachment against Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. RFK Jr. has turned his back on science and the safety of the American people. Michiganders cannot take another day of his chaos.”
Stevens, who calls herself “a very serious lawmaker,” told NBC News, “But I’m not going to sit quietly by while people’s health and safety and lives are on the line.”
Supposed censorship of library books took off as a faux-major issue during the Biden’s Handlers’ Administration. This was almost entirely in response to local efforts to remove LGBTQWERTY+- books from public and school libraries, or to at least place age-appropriate limits on them.
Among the most commonly banned books of all time has been Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. That beloved book has weathered fire from the left and right. Some on the right have wanted to ban it because it depicts a child—Huck Finn—often outsmarting adults. Much of the left thinks the entire book racist, which is odd considering Twain labors mightily to depict slaves as human beings worthy of kindness.
What remains most odd is removing a book from library shelves, or simply applying age restrictions, isn’t censorship by dictionary definition or in practical application. In America, no one is preventing authors from writing whatever they please, nor are publishers prevented from printing a book or book sellers from selling it. There is no prior restraint. This is a happy result of the First Amendment, unlike anything enjoyed by any other nation, including England. Anyone, or any parent, can buy such books at will, and outlets like Amazon make that fast and easy.
According to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, “we cannot incarcerate our way out of violence.” He justified this by claiming “we tried that and we ended up with the largest prison population in the world without solving the problems of crime and violence.” He added that this is “racist, immoral and unholy” and most certainly “is not the way to drive violence down.”
Now, if Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has a better idea, we would like to hear it, but I certainly hope he’s not advocating for the release of prisoners. Because if there is one thing you would assume we should agree on, it’s holding people accountable when they commit violence — but something tells me he believes otherwise.
Members of the Scottish Parliament, which is the latest Western legislative body to consider expanding assisted suicide, rejected efforts in committee to restrict the practice with young people, disabled people, and others.
Liam McArthur, a member of the body, introduced a bill last year that would “allow terminally ill adults in Scotland, who are eligible, to lawfully request, and be provided with, assistance by health professionals to end their own life.”
The legislation is moving through the committee process.
Some of his colleagues introduced a bill restricting the more shocking cases of assisted suicide, under which patients can legally opt to have a doctor take their lives.
Republican Greg Abbot of Texas is calling for a criminal investigation into Islamists operating Sharia courts illegally on Texas soil. Abbot wrote to Texas AG Ken Paxton and relevant law officials, “It has come to my attention that certain entities in Texas—including in Collin and Dallas Counties—may be masquerading as legal “courts” staffed with “judges” issuing orders that purportedly carry the authority to bind individuals to Islamic codes, thereby preempting state and federal laws. Such practices appear to cross the line from permissible internal religious decision-making to violations of state criminal laws.”
Tex Governor Abbot Abbott Calls for Criminal Investigations Into Sharia Courts Operating in Texas – gellerreport.com
We applaud Governor Abbott for addressing this oppressive, parallel government operating in our midst. Under Islamic law, there is no equality for all before the law.
Muslims are the only immigrant group who come to the West with a ready made model of society they believe to be superior to Western law and they work furiously, by all means, to impose it. Under Islam, shariah (Islamic) law supersedes Western law. Anywhere Western law and Shariah law conflict, it is always Western law that must give way. What those of us working in defense of freedom did not expect, was the craven capitulation and cowardice by Western left elites to Islamic supremacy.
California is violating federal law, according to a new lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice.
The state effectively in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, which violates a federal prohibition against the practice. University of California does so, for example, by allowing for in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants who attended school for three years in the state and graduated from high school.
Federal law forbids states from offering better tuition deals to illegal immigrants who reside in the state than it does to Americans from other states.
This illegal “unequal treatment,” according to the lawsuit filed on Nov. 20.
Plaintiffs include Governor Gavin Newsom and the regents for the state university and community college systems.
The North Dakota Supreme Court on Friday restored a near-total ban on abortions, delivering a major victory for pro-life advocates who hailed the decision as a critical step in safeguarding unborn children across the state.
In a 3-2 ruling, the high court found that the state’s pro-life law banning abortions, enacted by the Legislature in 2023, remains constitutional, rejecting a lower court’s earlier decision to strike down the law.
The measure, Senate Bill 2150, classifies killing a baby in an abortion as a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Exceptions are permitted only to save a patient’s life or protect their health, and such rare abortions must occur in hospital settings.
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On Monday, November 17th, the City Council of Wolfforth, Texas (pop. 9,600) became the 85th city in the nation, and the 68th city in the State of Texas, to pass a Sanctuary City for the Unborn Ordinance.
The “Ordinance Outlawing Abortion, declaring Wolfforth a Sanctuary City for the Unborn” passed in a unanimous 5-0 vote, as part of their consent agenda. The City of Wolfforth, located between Ropesville (pop. 434) and Lubbock (pop. 272,086), is the fifth city in Lubbock County to adopt a Sanctuary for the Unborn Ordinance. Wolfforth is also the 15th city and the 20th political subdivision to pass such a measure in 2025.
The Trump administration on Tuesday made a big move forward in its effort to effectively dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, announcing the agency will transfer a lot of its workload to other federal departments.
The new partnerships with the Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State departments will help streamline and consolidate a lot of bureaucracy and red tape, the Education Department announced in a news release.
“By partnering with agencies that are best positioned to deliver results for students and taxpayers, these [interagency agreements] will streamline federal education activities on the legally required programs, reduce administrative burdens, and refocus programs and activities to better serve students and grantees,” the release stated.
New York Times Houston bureau chief J. David Goodman sounded aggrieved in his Texas-based story in Wednesday’s paper, “Texas Declares Muslim Civil Rights Group a Terrorist.” This is how liberal papers routinely describe leftist agitators. They’re “civil rights groups.”
As for the phrase “Muslim Civil Rights Group,” the Times is actually talking about the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Hamas-linked Islamic pressure group. “Civil rights group” should not describe a radical group whose national executive director Nihad Awad declared himself happy about the October 7 massacre by Hamas — a story covered by the Times in December 2023 but ignored in this new story. “I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land,” Awad said.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas declared on Tuesday that one of the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy and civil rights groups is a foreign terrorist organization, saying the move will prohibit the organization from acquiring land in Texas and authorize the state attorney general “to sue to shut them down” in Texas.
In his declaration, Mr. Abbott said that the group, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, had direct ties to Hamas, which has been designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government. The nonprofit, known by its initials, CAIR, has denied having any such ties.
Under the reality-denying concept of “transgender,” which was enshrined in federal regulation in 2012, more and more incarcerated men have been permitted to opt into women’s prisons based on self-identification. There have been some legal challenges to this, but, until now, these efforts have not yet been successful.
In the wake of President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) on Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, two women incarcerated at the sole women’s medical center in the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) system filed suit. This EO included a provision requiring federal agencies to “ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers.” Due to the DC district court issuing Preliminary Injunctions on behalf of male inmates demanding to continue to be housed in women’s prison, the EO has not been implemented.
Texas Christian U. to end gender, race studies departments
Texas Christian University will dissolve its Departments of Women and Gender Studies and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies at the end of this academic year, merging both programs into the English Department.
The decision, announced earlier this month, has sparked debate over whether the action could mark a return to traditional Christian values or is a cosmetic response to donors and political pressure.
Provost Floyd Wormley told faculty the merger is driven by low enrollment and broader budget restructuring that will also combine other small departments. “Decisions are not based on academic content but on data,” a university spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed.
The Ohio House of Representatives advanced two pro-life measures on Wednesday aimed at curbing chemical abortions and educating students on fetal development.
The pro-life bills are drawing praise from advocates who hailed the votes as a victory for mothers and unborn children.
House Bill 324, dubbed the Patient Protection Act, cleared the chamber 59-28. The legislation would classify the abortion drug mifepristone as a “dangerous drug” due to its severe side effects in more than 5% of patients. It prohibits mail-order sales and remote prescribing, requiring women to visit a doctor in person for informed consent about the risks.
“She ran because of me,” Chad “Charly” Mecca said, adding that he had been cited for criminal trespassing and obstructing identification.
Authorities say the trans friend found with Morgan Geyser after her escape from a Wisconsin group home is a biological man who insists the 23-year-old fled because of their friendship, and because she believed staff were trying to keep them apart.
Police located Geyser and Chad “Charly” Mecca, 43, late Sunday night at a truck stop in Posen, Illinois, roughly 150 miles from the Madison area facility she walked out of the day before. Officers had responded to reports of two people lingering behind the building before confirming Geyser’s identity, reports the New York Post.
Late-term abortions can reportedly be performed without a medical reason in Canada, contrary to previous reports.
“There does not have to be a specific medical concern that is named” in order to get an abortion after the first trimester, said TK Pritchard, the executive director of Abortion Care Canada.
Pritchard’s response was in reference to videos taken secretly by Alissa Golob, co-founder of RightNow, a pro-life organization, when she was about five months pregnant. Golob was interested in learning whether she could receive a late-term abortion, “No questions asked, specifically for no medical reason,” according to the National Post.
Canada’s healthcare crisis has entered a new and disturbing phase as the Liberal government funnels a billion dollars to fund care in foreign nations while Canadians at home are being euthanized because they cannot get the treatment they need to survive.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s latest move, pledging over a billion Canadian dollars to fund healthcare overseas, has become the tipping point for many who have watched Canada’s single-payer system crumble for years.
The announcement landed as the country continues to face a wave of avoidable deaths, including cases where desperate citizens are offered Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) instead of the care they were promised.
Over the weekend, the Lepanto Institute received a tip that the Joseph and Mary’s Home, a project of the Sisters of Charity Health System, hired an “abortion rights” activist to be the new executive director of the organization.
The person who submitted the tip also emailed the Sisters of Charity, Marisa Rohn (the interim executive director for the Joseph and Mary’s Home), and the Diocese of Cleveland in the hopes that the Joseph and Mary’s Home would reverse course on Kait McNeeley’s hiring.
Within 24 hours of this email being submitted, McNeeley’s LinkedIn profile was altered in such a way that her history of working for and supporting abortion and LGBT ideologies was scrubbed.
On May 6, 2012, Vice President Joe Biden declared his support for same-sex “marriage” on NBC’s Meet the Press. The culture, Biden said, had shifted, and it was time for politicians to follow. “I think Will & Grace did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody has done so far,” he told David Gregory. “People fear that which is different. Now they’re beginning to understand.”
The mainstreaming of LGBT ideology on the big and small screen was not accidental. In the 2020 five-episode documentary series Visible: Out on Television, a parade of actors, producers, directors, and TV hosts detailed exactly how the movement pushed, in public and in private, to shape the stories that shaped America (and beyond).
As one of the main actors on Queer as Folk, a show that featured explicit depictions of homosexuality, put it, “Television has the power to normalize something that people don’t understand.” Peter Paige of Queer as Folk concurred, explaining, “I firmly believe that television is a weapon to be wielded very thoughtfully.” And so it was. The LGBT movement has owned the entertainment industry for decades, and they are secure enough in their ownership to make documentaries explaining how they pulled it off.