Is that Melania doing the Trump dance?
After years of rumors about her marriage to Donald Trump, Melania left little doubt that she supports him all the way at a joyous New Year's Eve celebration.
The famously low-key First Lady let loose with her own version of the Trump dance at the Mar-A-Lago gathering, where she was seen beaming alongside her triumphant husband, the former and future president.
The vibes were ebullient as the Trump family capped off an emotional year for the Trump family and indeed the nation, which bore witness to a miracle on July 13 when Trump survived assassination by inches.
Melania did not speak at the Republican National Convention days later, where she made an elegant entrance set to Beethoven.
The First Lady was seen gently bopping to the Village People's "YMCA" and singing along to the unofficial MAGA anthem on Tuesday night while her husband performed his signature arm-thrusting move with gusto.
Melania's participation in the MAGA dance party delighted Trump fans online, who shared their surprise at seeing the First Lady show off her fun side.
"Never in my life did I think Melania Trump would be jamming to YMCA on New Year's," one user wrote.
"Melania even does the Trump dance elegant," another observed.
BREAKING: Melania Trump debuts her very own YMCA Trump dance at last night Mar-a-Lago NYE celebrations 😂
What a fun night! President Trump and her father, Viktor, by her side. All smiles ❤️ pic.twitter.com/qR1JgdBfxy
— FLOTUS Report (@MELANIAJTRUMP) January 1, 2025
Melania is famously private, and she has long been the target of rumors concerning her marriage, with many speculating that she doesn't really love her husband.
Over the course of the 2024 campaign, the elusive First Lady grew more outspoken as she vigorously condemned political violence against Donald and the abuse of government power against him and his family, especially the FBI raid of Mar-A-Lago in 2022.
But Melania is prepared to leave the darkness of the Biden years behind - and so is the rest of the country after her husband's re-election, which has filled Americans with newfound optimism.
The president-elect, looking trim in a tuxedo, shared his hope for 2025 as he made a red-carpet entrance with his glamorous wife.
"Just a great year, I think we're gonna do fantastically well as a country," he said.
"There's a light over the whole world, not just our country. There's a lot of very happy people," he added.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Christian communities in the West were once alive and thriving. For example, in the 1950s and early 60s, the world-famous Billy Graham crusades had an immense impact. Millions gathered and heard him speak, both in the largest stadiums in America as well as all over the world. It is said that in his lifetime, Graham has explained the Christian faith to more than two billion on earth.
Yet, something changed in the 1980s and 90s. Materialism, egoism, self-contentment, and complacency soured the once-so-genuinely Christian movements. Many Christians withdrew from engaging actively in "the non-Christian world," arguably reacting to the hostile atheist and Marxist push that increasingly defined the public narrative. The anti-Christian, hedonist development happening outside of the church congregations produced an isolationist attitude, believers now content to stay within the comfortable zone of likeminded peers.
The religious doctrine of "separating yourselves from the world," has sometimes been misinterpreted to legitimizing the Christians' right not to care about what happens in the world. Desensitized to other people's suffering, we grow cold and stop loving one another.
Many do not quite know what to say to a nonbeliever, apart from "Jesus loves you." When questioned, many simply recite Bible verses, yet are unable to link the reference to Scripture to current-day issues, as if reciting a history book. Modern protestant churches focus much on feelings and great music, but less on theology, apologetics and rationally explaining what is logically great about Christianity. Many miss the great theologians such as Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), who explained the faith so eloquently in works such as "The City of God" and "Confessions."
Christianity has an image problem, write David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in "unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity … and Why It Matters." They ask: What do people think about Christians and why do these negative perceptions exist? They find, for one, that today's Christianity reflects a Church infatuated with itself.
Many Christians have lost touch with the outside world, living in a "cultural Christianity," that downplays the inner, spiritual life with its corresponding love for those who are outside the church buildings. It is more about how you are perceived by others in the group, and less about compassion with the outside world. This self-contented form of "Christianity" is often determined by a whole range of culturally determined rules not found in the Bible.
The critique is that many Christian communities enforce strict control, religious restrictions and prohibitions that are based on Christian cultural norms but have little real basis in genuine Christianity. These functions as a "Christian party whip," forcing young believers into an artificial "kindness" or "meekness" seeking to submit them to denominational leaders, who endlessly seek to maximize their personal ministry. These protestant movements are often characterized by strong leading religious figures who, remarkably, seldom make public statements outside of the church buildings. It is almost like they are hiding in church; we rarely see them in the public realm.
How are outsiders ever to find the spiritual reality of Christ, if Christians hide in their congregations, fearful of resistance, when one should have been out at dinner parties, in clubs, at the malls, wherever we all gather and apologetically defending the faith? Do these attitudes actually represent a whole new self-serving, man-made religion in which compassion and love for others is not required?
When was Jesus Christ a boring, weak individual filled with powerless anxiety, who sat silently on church benches, nodding uncritically to everything that was said? Jesus participated everywhere. He did not withdraw into retracted groups, isolated with his disciples. He was at the marketplace, in the Temple, at parties, in open discussions, all the time demonstrating the love of God towards the human race.
Thom and Joani Schultz point out in "Why Nobody Wants to Be Around Christians Anymore: And How 4 Acts of Love Will Make Your Faith Magnetic," that the institutionalized Church has forgotten its main message of love. "We do not go to Church, we are the Church," Schultz writes, the act of love does not show up beneath stained glass, but as every day, ordinary acts done to people you meet throughout the week.
Yet, Christianity was never about selfishness and personal comfortability. Saint Augustine wrote in "Confessions" that Christianity is all about loving others. Love has "the hands to help others, it has the feet that hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. This is what love looks like."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – Middle East/Israel Morning Brief
U.N.'s Albanese deflects blood libel, implies most Israelis are pro-genocide
The U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territories recently set a commenter on an X post of hers straight, when the individual claimed "Jews are capable of eating human flesh." She stated not all Jews should be blamed for Israel's actions, and said "Many, including Holocaust survivors, continue to rise against Israel's crimes against the Palestinians."
However, given her recent record, Albanese also couldn't help but subsequently accuse Israel of genocide with regard to its Gaza war, reported the Jerusalem Post.
Responding to an article in the far-left-wing Haaretz newspaper, in which an IDF reservist alleged his commanding officer deliberately broke the bones in a 4-year-old Palestinians boy's arms and legs with his bare hands, Albanese wrote "not only the Israeli army is ROTTEN to the core, but so are all governments that allow these sickening crimes to be normalized."
"No matter how few they are, we must not invisibilise the Israelis who stand against Occupation, Apartheid, Genocide," Albanese wrote. "May more of them join the anti-Apartheid struggle. Not living a lie and not being racist will be liberating."
U.S. provides Israel with $22 billion in military aid since Oct. 7
The United States has provided Israel with military aid totaling approximately $22 billion since Oct. 7, 2023, which the IDF has used for its operations in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria during the war, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and reported on Ynet.
According to the institute's data, between 2019 and 2023, the U.S. supplied about 69% of Israel's weapons, a figure that rose to 78% in the subsequent period. By December 2023, the U.S. had transferred more than 10,000 tons of weapons worth $2.4 billion to Israel, and this number jumped to 50,000 tons by August 2024, carried by hundreds of aircraft and ships.
The U.S. has provided Israel with a variety of advanced military equipment, including missiles for the Iron Dome system, precision-guided bombs, CH-53 heavy transport helicopters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, 155mm artillery shells, bunker-penetrating bombs, and armored vehicles.
Trump again warns Hamas: 'Return the hostages, or else'
President-elect Donald Trump, who will become America's 47th president in fewer than three weeks, reiterated his warning to any Gazan Palestinian holding hostages to repatriate them before he takes office on Jan. 20.
Asked a question about the captives at a gala event at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump replied tersely, "We'll see what happens. A href=https://www.jns.org/they-better-let-the-hostages-go-soon-trump-warns/>They better let the hostages come back soon," reported the Jewish News Syndicate.
Trump's warning came as there seems to be an impasse regarding the number of hostages Hamas is prepared to release. In a ghoulish development, it wants to include the return of the dead as part of the deal, a demand to which Israel has refused to acquiesce.
Floridian charged with planning armed assault on local AIPAC office
The U.S. Justice Department charged a Gainesville, Florida, man with a count of stalking Monday for allegedly planning to attack an AIPAC office in Florida, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.
Family members told the FBI that Forrest Kendall Pemberton, who went missing from his Gainesville, Florida, home apparently with multiple firearms, appeared to have left a note stating that he would "close the loop," "stoke the flames" and say "goodbye" to his relatives, per an affidavit filed in support of a criminal complaint.
On Dec. 25, law enforcement arrested Pemberton after observing him get into a rideshare vehicle "with an apparent soft rifle case," per the affidavit. He gave the law enforcement officials three guns – an AR-15 rifle, a Luger pistol and a Galil rifle – and ammunition for the latter two, the affidavit added. (The third weapon is Israeli-made.)
Hamas fires rockets at Israel on New Year's Eve for second straight year
For the second New Year's Eve in a row, Hamas disturbed whatever seasonal reverie was taking place by firing rockets at Israel.
The terrorist rulers of Gaza took responsibility for the rockets, according to the Times of Israel, although this year's two projectiles were significantly smaller in both scale and scope than last year's barrage. Fears the Houthis would similarly use the occasion to fire a missile proved unfounded. The IDF reported the Iron Dome missile defense system destroyed one of the rockets, while the other was tracked as it fell in open ground.
Bars and pubs were packed, but at Tel Aviv's Habima Square, activists for the 100 hostages Hamas is still holding in Gaza lit a Hanukkah-themed candle display using the new year to call once again for a ceasefire and hostage deal.
IDF reservists urged not to post on social media after troops doxxed
We live in an age of social media where people record the events of their life in minute detail. However, a pro-Palestinian online group calling itself "Israel Genocide Tracker" is publishing troops' personal information on the internet.
Recent photos of soldiers lighting Hanukkah menorahs in Gaza mean that this issue has re-emerged.Soldiers have previously been warned about not sharing real-time photographs of operations, but this latest issue seems to include any image of an individual in an army uniform, even if it was posted by a family member.
And according to a Jerusalem Post op-ed, there are also legal ramifications. The Hind Rajab Foundation recently called for the arrest of three Nahal Brigade soldiers after they entered the Netherlands.
They were accused of war crimes based on allegations, many of which lacked specificity but were supported by photos and videos shared on social media
Other incidents include an Israeli reservist officer who had to flee Cyprus in November after videos he posted led to calls for his arrest. "They should be encouraged not to post because of the danger it poses," Moodrick-Even Khen said.
Israel warns Houthis they'll face same fate as Hamas, Hezbollah/b>
Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon addressed that body's security council and warned the Houthis to cease their ballistic missile attacks on Israel … or suffer the consequences.
Danon stated that the Houthis risk the same "miserable fate" as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syrian President Bashar Assad if they continue their actions, according to the Media Line.
Danon's warning came hours before Israel's military announced it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, an attack that triggered air raid sirens across the country. Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, a senior Houthi leader, declared the group's intention to persist with its assaults, describing the missile strikes as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
"The pounding of the entity [Israel] continues, and the support to Gaza continues," al-Houthi said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) following the interception.
Israel's population breaks 10 million barrier, more Israelis leaving country
Israel's population broke the 10 million people barrier as the country entered the new year. The total count was 10.027 million, which includes 7.7 million people who are registered as "Jewish" or "Other," which includes non-Arab Christians. The number of Arab Israelis is 2.1 million, according to the Times of Israel. Foreign nationals on extended stays were also included in the total, a category which has not previously been included.
The news of the population growth was tempered, however, by data which showed some 82,000 Israelis moved away from the Jewish state – also known as "yerida" in Hebrew – which literally means to go down. In 2023, the number of Israelis moving out of the country was 55,000, which was itself a significant increase from the decade previously when some 35,000 people per year on average moved away.
Population growth declined to 1.1% from 1.6 percent in 2023, largely due to the increased numbers of Israelis who left, the Central Bureau of Statistics says. According to the bureau, 23,800 Israelis returned home in 2024, and 32,800 new immigrants arrived, down some 15,000 from a year earlier.
Syria appoints first female Central Bank president/b>
Syria's interim government appointed longtime central bank official Maysaa Sabrine to lead the institution making her the first woman to do so in the bank's more than seven decade-history, reported Senator.
The former rebel militants now running the country have said they want to shift Syria to a free-market economy, but their goals will be near-impossible without the West removing sanctions, a Syrian economist told the New York Times.
At a time when every decision is being closely watched at home and abroad, Sabrine's appointment could bode well as a sign of inclusive governance, although there are many who do not believe de facto Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa's about-face.
French jets bomb ISIS fighters, positions in Syria
French warplanes carried out airstrikes against both Islamic State fighters and positions in Syria on Sunday, said the French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu, and reported on Reuters.
"On Sunday, French air forces carried out targeted strikes against Islamic State sites based on Syrian territory,"Lecornu wrote on social media platform X.
The French airstrike followed a similar military strike by the United States in Syria, which the U.S. said had killed two Islamic State operatives.
The French strikes were the first against Syria since the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad in early December.
'Activists' set fire to Israeli flag outside basketball arena ahead of game with Israeli team
Activists set fire to an Israeli flag outside the stadium where the Hapoel Tel Aviv basketball team is set to play Dreamland Gran Canaria tomorrow night, reported the Times of Israel.
According to the local Canarias Ahora site, the "Canarias Insumisa collective" says the flag was burned outside the venue in Las Palmas in Spain's Canary Islands to protest Israel's actions in Gaza amid the war sparked by the Hamas terrorist group's Oct. 7 attack.
The Spanish group also asks local fans not to attend the game, and claims the Israeli supporters may try to provoke them. This seems a clear reference to the events in Amsterdam in November when Muslim immigrants to the Netherlands – mostly from North Africa and the Middle East – carried out a modern-day pogrom on Israeli fans who had come to watch their team participate in a soccer match.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Nik Wallenda, the American acrobat, aerialist, and high wire artist, is famous for his daring feats that have amazed millions around the world. Born Jan. 24, 1979, he is the great-grandson of Karl Wallenda, founder of the legendary Flying Wallendas.
On June 23, 2013, Wallenda became the first person to skywalk across the Grand Canyon. A two-inch-diameter steel cable was rigged 1,400 feet across a 1,500-foot-deep part of the Grand Canyon near the Little Colorado River Gorge in northwestern Arizona.
More than 23 million viewers in the United States, and millions more worldwide, watched as Wallenda did his nearly 23-minute skywalk without a harness, net, or safety tether while facing sudden wind gusts of up to 20 mph. Throughout the walk, he could be heard praising and thanking God. He uttered things like, "Thank you, Jesus," "Thank you, Lord," and "Thank you, God, for calming that cable."
In an interview with "The Christian Post" the day after the skywalk, Wallenda said he often talks to God while he is on the wire. He said, "I find that peaceful and relaxing, and He's the only one up there listening to me." Wallenda added that his faith in Jesus Christ plays a crucial role in what he does. He said, "My life is based on my faith. I guess the biggest role that it plays is that if I do fall and die, I know where I'm going."
While biblical David is not known for walking a high wire, he certainly did experience many trials and hardships in his life. As the author of half of the 150 psalms in the Bible's Book of Psalms, he often described them with great emotion.
David was chased from his home and became a fugitive of King Saul, who was seeking his life because he was jealous of his success and popularity (Psalm 18, 57, 59, 63, 142). He faced betrayal and constant danger of capture as he hid in the wilderness of Ziph (Psalm 54). David was at times surrounded by enemies threatening his destruction, causing him great distress (Psalm 18).
Not all of David's hardships came as a result of his interactions with Saul, but because of his own sins. When he was king of Israel, his adultery with Bathsheba started a cascade of severe repercussions and grief that continued throughout the remainder of his life and that of his family (2 Samuel 12:10-12).
King David's sin with Bathsheba led to her being pregnant with a son, to him murdering her husband Uriah, and the loss of their son (2 Samuel 11). Later, his son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar, and her brother Absalom took revenge by murdering him (2 Samuel 13). After a brief exile, Absalom staged a coup d'état against his father David to take over the kingdom, causing him to flee Jerusalem. The attempted overthrow failed, resulting in the death of Absalom and thousands of soldiers, much to the grief of David (2 Samuel 15-18).
Another of David's sons born after Absalom with his fifth wife Haggith – Adonijah – tried to take the throne for himself. But his power play was defeated when David made his son with his eighth wife Bathsheba – Solomon – king of Israel. After David's death, Adonijah once again made a bid for the throne by seeking to marry one of David's concubines, and King Solomon had him executed (1 Kings 1-2).
Whether David's troubles came from the transgressions of others or his own, he never turned away from God. David trusted in God's mercy and repented when he sinned (Psalm 51; 1 Chronicles 21-22:1). Such was David's relationship with the Lord that He considered him to be a man after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22).
Psalm 23 is one of David's most universally recognized and beloved psalms. Probably written late in his life, it expressed his deep trust in God as the Guider and Protector of his steps and the Provider of sustenance and all blessings.
Key to this psalm was the assurance of God's presence even through the darkest times of his life, dispelling fear and giving comfort.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." (verse 4)
David continually praised and thanked God for His goodness and grace as he walked the tightrope of life, confident that the Lord would get him safely to the end of the line and welcome him into His home forever.
"Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." (verse 6)
While we can appreciate Nik Wallenda's skill on the high wire and his faith in Jesus Christ, all the more can we be inspired by David's faith in God as expressed in the psalms he composed – especially during hard times. From the heights of life to its lowest depths, they reach into every part of our lives. They give us hope and strengthen our faith in God.
We who believe in life and salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ receive His surefooted guidance as He leads us through the tight places of life to the place He has prepared for us (John 14:1-3).
"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." (Jude 1:24-25)
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
There has been much talk throughout 2024 about the "two Americas." On Nov. 5, these two Americas faced off in what many pundits – forgetting, say, the election of 1860 – called the "most divisive election in American history."
This week I received your classic "holiday letter" from a long-time friend who resides in that other America, the one in which I don't reside. Before parsing this remarkable letter from Mrs. X, a description of those two Americas might be in order.
Although our understanding of the two Americas has evolved over time, Canadian Michael Ignatieff – writing in Prospect, Britain's leading current affairs publication – provides a reasonable summary of the post-election status quo as seen from the Left.
In the first America, Ignatieff generalizes, are "younger, city-dwelling, higher income, college-educated men and women, living either on the West or East Coasts."
He continues, "These people have feasted on the tech and AI boom, profited from the stock market rise and leveraged the credentials they earned in American universities to gain power in American government, media and corporations. These Americans still live the dream."
The "second America," Ignatieff writes, is "concentrated among older non-college educated white men living in small towns and rural areas in the south and the Midwest."
He adds, "It's an America that worries that its great days are past, that distrusts the elites on both coasts and fears that America's institutions are irrevocably corrupted."
Despite living in the Midwest, Mr. and Mrs. X are poster children for the First America. Affluent, well-educated, and well-traveled, they have – like their fellow progressives – "essentially endorsed the changes that have convulsed the country since the Sixties."
Endorsing those changes, however, has so estranged them from friends in the Second America that they no longer concern themselves with their friends' feelings. How else to explain a holiday letter to "Friends & Family" that begins as follows.
"Well, damn. I really thought the Holiday Letter in 2016 would be the darkest we would ever have to send. And yet here we are, eight years on, presumably eight years wiser, with eight more years of experience, and our country has gone and done it again. We have elected the rat a second time."
The rat? How, one wonders, did Mrs. X imagine the supporters of said rat would respond to such a hateful slur? I cannot have been the only rat voter to have received this letter.
Mrs. X continues, "We expect time will offer greater clarity about what happened – and what lies ahead. For now, we are trying to absorb that more than 77 million Americans became convinced to choose this path."
Ignatieff, writing from his own experience as a leading Canadian Liberal, explains at least part of the lesson Mr. and Mrs. X needs to absorb: "When liberal progressives translated the revolution of inclusion into affirmative action, speech codes, diversity and inclusion bureaucracies, when they sought to entrench the revolution in a bureaucracy of political correctness, the resentment at the inclusion revolution exploded."
On the personal level, as the holiday letter from Mrs. X reveals, the "inclusion revolution" has led to the exclusion of those who do not share the ever-evolving worldview of the X family.
A one-time moderate and a genuinely decent person, Mrs. X no longer hears what she is saying. She has listened instead to the Siren song of the woke, and followed it unthinkingly onto the shoals of bad ideas and even worse manners.
In my experience, women – especially women of means – have proved particularly vulnerable to this mind-spinning, mass-formation psychosis.
But men are not immune. Mr. X, we are told, 'worked very hard on the Harris/Walz campaign" and is now "exploring several new avenues to get involved in saving our democracy going forward."
This effort on the part of Mr. X to save "our democracy" calls to mind a memorable encounter in June 2024 between a hard-core, Second America MAGA couple and a smarmy First America CNN reporter.
The mocking headline sums it up: "These Trump supporters say America isn't a democracy. And they're okay with it." The headline implies that the Trump supporters welcome America's impending slide to fascism.
What the MAGA people actually – and correctly – said was that America is a republic, not a democracy. On the right this is common knowledge. On CNN, this came as news.
Despite having less formal education than liberals on average, conservatives score better in every political knowledge survey that I have seen.
Were there a humility test, conservatives would score better on that as well. They do not presume others should think – and feel – a certain way, simply because they do.
The truth is there are no two Americas. The holiday letter from Mrs. X shows her to be closer in life-style to those in MAGA America than to those in the alternative world of the woke.
Mrs. X loves her husband of long standing, her two children, and her two grandchildren, and they appear to love her in turn. She is a person of faith and a civic do-gooder.
To understand those other 77 million people with the same dreams and aspirations and ambitions – inside joke – Mrs. X just needs to have her bubble popped.
Happy New Year to all!
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – An Israeli organization, which is committed to restoring Jewish rights in the ancient biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria warned on Wednesday the Palestinian Authority is encouraging Palestinians in the area to continue building on Israel's state-owned land.
Regavim, one of whose three founders was current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (although he is no longer involved), sees its mission as highlighting the numerous infractions of Palestinian construction companies and private Palestinians from building on land, which even according to the Oslo Accords, belongs to the State of Israel.
The group's latest complaint regards the establishment of permanent structures such as villas and a luxurious resort complex near to near the archaeological site of the 'Hasmonean Palaces' in Area C. Land assigned with this designation is for Israel's sole use, in the same way Area A, is supposed to be exclusively under the administration – including civil – of the Palestinian Authority.
"The archaeological site, located in the western Jericho Valley near Nachal Prat (Wadi Qelt), dates back to the Second Temple period and is of unparalleled historical and scientific significance. Among the unique elements of the site, which encompasses the winter palaces of the Hasmonean royal family, are an ancient synagogue, ritual baths, and the best luxury amenities the ancient world had to offer," according to a Regavim statement.
For years there have been twin issues of Palestinians attempting to erase several millennia of evidence of the Israelite and Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, while also simultaneously building on land, which does not belong to them.
At the site now stands an illegal Palestinian holiday resort – complete with an events compound, a swimming pool, and high-end guest rooms. The site has popular accounts on social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, where it invites guests to book events or vacations.
Regavim said it, and the Binyamin Regional Council, had received numerous complaints about the structure over the preceding few years. Some concrete fences were successfully removed, and individual structures demolished, however, construction has seemingly unhindered has continued to expand, only meters away from the priceless archaeological remains, effectively blocking access to the site.
Israel Ganz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council and chairman of the Yesha Council said: "The Palestinian Authority encourages and orchestrates Arab annexation of Area C – using methods that are trampling and destroying magnificent, unique heritage sites, the physical record of history that is a cultural and scientific asset of the Jewish people and the entire world. The Civil Administration must enforce the law more rigorously and put an end to this travesty. It is inconceivable that the Jewish people abandon their national historical property in this way. We must re-establish our presence here, settle and stay here forever."
Moshe Shmueli, Regavim's field coordinator, said: "As we celebrate Hanukkah, this might be the last opportunity to remind ourselves and the world of the grave threat of extinction facing the Hasmonean Palaces, just before ancient history is erased forever. Live on TikTok videos, unashamedly, our unprotected, abandoned national assets – both land and cultural treasures – are being wiped out. The Palestinian takeover is a ruthless, systematic plan that is being marketed as a dream vacation. We must not abandon this strategic area that guards the eastern front of the state."
Regavim's ongoing efforts to protect the Hasmonean Fortresses near Jericho began in 2019, when the Hasmonean necropolis at the site – the largest of its kind in the world – was devastated by PA-approved work.
It is not entirely true to say the government's attention has been diverted away from this arena by the multiple front war the country is still currently engaged in, because this apparently wanton disregard for thousands of years of history has been a feature of successive Israeli administrations.
As for the Palestinian Authority, it joins the list of organizations, including the Jordanian-run Waqf, which administers the Temple Mount, attempting to erase the fact of Jewish connection to the land through archaeological piracy.
President Joe Biden's administration is attempting to limit oil drilling to thwart President-elect Donald Trump's agenda, Newsmax reported. The Interior Department is considering putting a 20-year moratorium on mining and drilling leases for the Ruby Mountains in Nevada.
Trump will take office with a mandate this month in part because of his commitment to energy independence through domestic energy production. His "Drill, baby, drill" agenda is second only to his "Build the wall" promise among supporters.
Unfortunately, the current administration is attempting to hamstring energy production by protecting the area known as "Nevada's Swiss Alps." The plan would prohibit about 264,000 acres from being leased for petroleum drilling and other mining.
The Biden administration notes that the land was historically used by the Te-Moak Tribe, who are part of the Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada. The move to protect the land is being championed by those deferential to native tribes as well as to environmentalists.
According to Fox News, the conflict over this land began during Trump's first administration. The Forest Service had surveyed the area and determined that 54,000 acres in the Ruby Mountains could be suitable for drilling.
However, the plan was ultimately rejected in 2019 after "thousands of comments from the local area, the state of Nevada, and from across the nation" were against the plan, forest supervisor William Dunkelberger. He would go on to sign the final decision to prohibit drilling.
Opposition to the drilling also came from Jenna Padilla, the geologist for the Ruby Mountains ranger district of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in 2018. Padilla determined that the geological studies done "show there is low to no potential for oil."
Now Biden's Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has joined those voices in celebrating canceling the plans to drill. "The Ruby Mountains are an iconic landscape with exceptional recreation opportunities and valuable fish and wildlife habitat worth preserving for the future," Vilsack said in a statement.
"Today’s action honors the voices of Tribal communities and conservation and sportsmen’s groups and marks another important step to protect a treasured landscape," he added. It's unclear whether Trump would revisit the project in his new administration anyway.
Regardless of Trump's plans for this area, the move by the Biden administration is just the latest effort to sabatoge the incoming president's agenda. The New York Post reported that Biden has chipped away at another Trump priority by quietly selling off materials purchased for the border wall.
Trump and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requested a hearing over the practice in December. Reports found that materials, including slats for a border fence, were being auctioned off for as low as $5 each.
Last week, a federal judge blocked the effort. "We have successfully blocked the Biden Administration from disposing of any further border wall materials before President Trump takes office," Paxton said in a statement.
“This follows our major victory forcing Biden to build the wall, and we will hold his Administration accountable for illegally subverting our Nation’s border security until their very last day in power, especially where their actions are clearly motivated by a desire to thwart President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda," he noted. Trump said selling it off was an "almost criminal act."
Biden was a terrible president who ruined the country, and now he can't afford to have Trump show him up by succeeding. It's petty and ridiculous for his administration to do this to Trump's agenda before he even takes office.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A first-grader in Wyoming is being credited with saving his diabetic grandmother's life after he got up in the morning and she was unresponsive, so he got himself dressed, went to school, and reported to teachers what had happened at home.
Medical personnel responded to the home and the grandmother reportedly was fine after treatment.
It is the Cowboy State Daily that documented the heroics of Mason Rasmussen, for whom Kimberly Gibson has guardianship.
Earlier this month, he woke to his grandmother's alarm but found Gibson on the floor of her room.
She hadn't died, but was unconscious from low blood sugar, the report explained of the Rock Springs, Wyoming, woman.
When a second alarm, indicating it was time to catch the school bus, sounded, Mason dressed and went to school.
The report noted that "it showed" that he dressed himself, as he wore cargo shorts, a t-shirt and cowboy boots with no socks.
At Stagecoach Elementary, teacher Caroline Pierpoint saw something was wrong, as wintry temperatures were sub-freezing.
"The school noticed rather quickly he's not dressed like he should be," Sweetwater County Sheriff's Detective Stephanie Cassidy told Cowboy State Daily. "They were like, normally he's a very well-taken-care-of kid. Well-dressed and well-mannered."
When Mason told his teacher, "My grandma's home alone, and she died this morning," the school called county dispatch, and also Gibson's husband, Cory Gibson, working at a power plant an hour from home.
With personnel en route to help the grandmother, Cassidy decided to visit with Mason.
It was while the two visited that Deputy Ana Lindig called Cassidy to say Mason's grandmother would be all right.
Later, she told the publication, she suggested putting together a bravery award and goodie package for the boy.
"Just to say, 'You did the right thing, and you were so brave, ultimately saving grandma's life,'" she explained.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The chief of America's Border Patrol union is warning "sanctuary" ideologues, those officials who set up their own cities and towns as "sanctuaries" for illegal aliens and claim they will not help, or even allow, federal deportation plans, to beware.
"Take President Trump and his administration at their word," explained union chief Paul Perez, "They're going to do the job of protecting Americans. And so it would be incumbent upon those sanctuary cities and jurisdictions to understand one thing. Federal law supersedes state law.
"Any municipality, anybody that's going to get in the way is going to be dealt with. … And so they need to take this incoming administration at its word because they're going to have some of the best legal minds working within the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. So it's not something that they're taking lightly. They're going to do the job."
An open-border practice is one of the key points of Joe Biden's legacy as he prepares to leave the White House in weeks. Millions and millions of illegal aliens have crossed the border because of his policies and practices, and America will face headaches for years because of that, even though President-elect Donald Trump has promised tight security measures going forward, and deportation plans for the illegals already in the country.
Some of the impacts of that Biden policy have been schools overwhelmed with non-English speaking children, a tighter job market, huge new demands on all sorts of social service and government aid efforts, and, too, the threat of criminal illegal alien gangs that now are in the U.S.
Trump has named Tom Homan the new border czar, and he has confirmed there will be immediate repercussions for illegals in the country.
"We'll be ready to launch the day of the inauguration," he said. "Day one will there will be ICE officers across the country will be out on the streets. The priority right out of the gate is public safety threats and national security threats.
He cited the millions now in the U.S. illegally.
"We've got a lot of them look for too, so the public safety threats are plenty, and it's going to keep us busy," he said.
A commentary at Twitchy explained, "Many commenters hope Homan is quick to arrest any local or state officials who dare to obstruct the federal government from fulfilling its duties to round up illegal aliens. … A few arrests will go a long way towards showing officials what will happen if they chose illegal aliens over the law."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
With a new year upon us, when we consider new goals for the next 12 months, here's a worthy ambition to pursue – to get closer to Christ. That resolution would put you in the company of a good number of America's founders.
When the great founding father Patrick Henry was dying, in his last Will and Testament, he wrote to his children, "This is all the Inheritance I can give to my dear family, The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed."
The man who once declared, "Give me liberty or give me death," minced no words about living for Jesus.
George Washington noted that we could never hope to be a happy nation unless we imitated Christ. This was his conclusion in a very famous letter he wrote to the governors of the states in June 1783, after we had won the American War for Independence, by God's grace.
His letter climaxes with this inspirational call to follow in the footsteps of the God-Man from Galilee: "I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection … that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do Justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves, with that Charity, humility & pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion & without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."
Of course, "Pacific temper of mind" refers to a mind at peace and a mind with peaceful intentions toward others. Like his fellow Virginian, the father of our country was encouraging us as a nation to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
The late Dr. Donald S. Lutz was the author of "The Origins of American Constitutionalism" and a long-time professor at the University of Houston.
He pointed out that the founders intended that America would be moral. They also intended that this would be accomplished through voluntary religion – by which they meant Christianity.
Even the liberal-minded Thomas Jefferson once said, "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus."
In his above-mentioned book, Lutz pointed out, "The concept of virtue was central to politics throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in America" (p. 28).
Virtue, of course, was defined with a Biblical criterion, observed Lutz. "In one sense, virtue meant following God's law as found in the Bible. One who did not lie, steal, or fornicate, but who adhered to the golden rule was a virtuous person" (p. 28). Lutz adds, "And the most fundamental assumption is that the American people are a virtuous people" (p. 85, emphasis his).
This sentiment can be found repeatedly from different American founders. Rev. John Witherspoon was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He also was a key educator to many of our founding fathers, including James Madison.
Witherspoon believed strongly that following the Bible is the key to imitating Christ. He said, "The character of a Christian must be taken from Holy Scriptures … the unerring standard."
Regularly reading the Bible has been the habit of many great Americans through the centuries.
Our second president, John Adams, once said, "I have made it a practice every year for several years to read through the Bible." Like many of our presidents, the Bible was the most important book also in the life of John Quincy Adams, his son. JQA served as our sixth president. And what a difference in made in his life. Adams was the "hell hound of abolition."
When he left the presidency, he served in Congress until he died. Why? So he could imitate Jesus by working to uproot slavery in America. While in Congress, he managed to influence the thinking and policies of a one-term Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln.
This was about 15 years before the latter became president and played a key role in ending slavery in America. John Quincy Adams' devotion to Jesus paid off for America and the world – long after our sixth president had died and gone to his reward.
Of course, it should be pointed out that following Christ, or attempting to, doesn't save anyone. Only truly trusting in Christ who died for sinners and rose from the dead saves those who believe. But once touched by Christ, it is a natural outworking of a transformed heart that we want to imitate Him.
As so many great Americans through our history did their best to put their faith in action, we do well to make imitating Christ our goal for the New Year and beyond. Happy New Year.