This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Over the last couple of years there has been an explosion of instability around the world. Multiple armed conflicts now rage, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, a war that has triggered a realignment of interests as several nations have opted to join NATO.
There's also the violence in the Middle East that resulted from the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel just over a year ago, and the thousands dead there.
Further, there's been China's saber-rattling over what territory it wants to take over, and other conflicts that are taking human lives, including armed conflict across Africa.
Critics of Joe Biden blame his weakness on the international stage for the surging loss of life, as the conflicts mostly erupted after he took office, and President-elect Donald Trump has committed to working to end them quickly.
But the results are uncontested: Up to one million deaths in the Russia-Ukraine conflict alone.
And that threat has prompted one nation, Sweden, one of the new NATO members, to begin hunting for cemetery space.
A report at the Independent explains burial associations there, which have a legal responsibility for maintaining resources for the nation, are trying to acquire "enough land for something they hope they'll never have to do: bury thousands of people killed in war."
The report explains the hunt for available land follows recommendations of the Church of Sweden's national secretariat and reflect crisis preparedness guidelines from the national Civil Contingencies Agency as well as the Swedish military, the report said.
The report specifically cited Sweden's decision to join NATO, through which it would be defended by other members and also be called upon to defend them, and "tensions with Russia."
The nation's Burial Act"requires associations to have enough land to bury about 5% of the population within any parish, if needed.
The Independent explained the Goteborg Burial Association, in Sweden's second-largest city, now is hunting for at least 10 acres to handle the casket burials of some 30,000 "in case of war." That's in addition to hunting for another 15 acres for ordinary use.
Goteborg Association spokeswoman Katarina Evenseth said, "The (recommendations) mean that we need more land for burial grounds and this is a phenomenon in the big cities, and a problem in the big cities, where land resources are scarce to begin with and not always sufficient to meet burial ground needs even in times of calm and peace."
The long-neutral nation also has ramped up efforts for crisis preparedness.
"Back in 2015 the government assigned various authorities to once again start engaging in civil defense planning, and many organizations have started planning, with the Church of Sweden being at the forefront of that planning," said Jan-Olof Olsson, an expert on infrastructure protection.
"Unfortunately it is the case that we are reminded to a greater degree that war could happen and that we simply need to be prepared for that," Olsson said.
Sweden's adherence to neutrality shift sharply in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Sweden and Finland both opted then to pursue NATO entrance.
Both nations just weeks ago updated preparedness instructions.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – Israelis were awakened before dawn on Saturday by the sound of rocket-alert sirens as the Houthis in Yemen, who didn't seem to take the hint when the Israeli Air Force smashed its three main ports, fired another ballistic missile toward the country's densely-populated central plain.
Israel's much-vaunted multi-layered defensive missile shield suffered a loss, as the projectile penetrated Israel's airspace and impacted a children's playground among a complex of apartment buildings. Sixteen people were wounded in the incident, mostly from cuts and grazes from falling while running to find shelter and from shards of glass.
Israel's Air Force immediately commissioned an investigation into the failure of the defensive shield missile system to intercept the Houthi ordnance, which the Yemenis claimed was "hypersonic."
This latest attack was the ninth this month and has seen a mixture of missiles and drones targeting Israel's second city Tel Aviv, as well as further south in the country. Indeed, the investigation found that an interceptor missile malfunctioned.
According to Kan News, Arrow interceptors were launched into the upper atmosphere but missed the target outside of Israeli territory. Interceptors were then launched in the lower atmosphere but also missed the incoming projectile.
Israel had more success later in the day as a pair of AH-64 "Apache" attack helicopters chased down an unmanned aerial vehicle and dispatched it with machine gun fire. It seems a tactic it will likely repeat as the helicopters have had significant successes against drone infiltrations.
The big question now is where does Israel go from here. It pounded Yemen on Thursday in response to Wednesday's ballistic missile attack, striking the ports of Hodeida and Salif, and the oil terminal at Ras Isa. Reports have emerged with regard to Yemen. Israeli media suggested plans are already at an advanced stage for another IAF strike on the country.
Indeed, a source close to Yemen's internationally recognized government, headquartered in Aden in southern Yemen, told Kan that Israel should initiate targeted assassinations of Houthi leaders, as it did over the previous year against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"Israel should act as it did in Lebanon and target the top individuals responsible for the Houthis' operations within the organization's leadership," the source said.
Meanwhile, Houthi leaders have reportedly either gone underground or fled Sana'a for fear of targeted assassinations, either by Israel or the United States, which carried out a series of airstrikes, in conjunction with Britain's Royal Air Force on Saturday night.
And Israel is expecting more attacks to emanate from Yemen, as Iran attempts to make good on the loss of its proxies in Gaza, particularly the powerful Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed he is open to the idea of his nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., investigating the long-suspected link between childhood vaccinations and autism.
In fact, reports of autism cases, after being almost insignificant for decades, starting growing in the late 1970s. In 1986 the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was adopted which protected vaccine makers from any liability whatsoever for problems their products caused and since then the cases have exploded.
Trump's comments came during a recent interview with Meet the Press, where he was asked if his nominee would review the facts on the issue. He said he was "open to anything."
"When you look at some of the problems, when you look at what's going on with disease and sickness in our country, something's wrong," Trump said. "I think somebody has to find out. If you go back 25 years ago, you had very little autism. Now you have it."
John Leake wrote at the Substack page for Peter McCullough, who long has pursued the medical evidence about shots, especially those for COVID-19, that, "As readers of this Substack are aware, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has long been concerned about the possible link between childhood vaccines and autism. He found it especially notable that the incidence of autism began to rise rapidly in the late 1980s, shortly after the passage of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which granted vaccine manufacturers immunity from all civil and criminal liability for injuries or deaths caused by their products."
The report noted "children may receive up to 24 immunizations by age 2 years and up to 5 injections in a single visit."
"Might all of these antigens injected into the bodies of small children result in an inflammatory response that could—in some way that is not yet fully understood— injure their developing brains?"
Leake wrote, "In my experience as a true crime writer, whenever individuals or groups object to a suspicious incident being merely investigated, one can be virtually certain that such individuals or groups are concealing something. It seems to me that all Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. proposes to do is commission unbiased researchers to conduct a proper investigation. What reasonable person who cares about kids would object to such an investigation?"
WND long has reported on the charges that a vaccine-autism link should be investigated.
In fact, in a column published on WND nearly a decade ago, Kennedy himself explained some of the questions that need to be addressed.
There, he cited the case of a defendant in a criminal indictment, for wire fraud and money laundering, that happened "in connection with more than $1 million in research grants he allegedly pilfered from CDC as he was ginning up fraudulent studies to 'prove' that vaccines don't cause autism."
He noted that fugitive, Poul Thorsen, "is one of the co-authors and data manager for two leading foreign studies offered by CDC as the foundation of its claims that vaccines do not cause autism."
One of the suspected factors is thimerosol, a mercury-based preservative used in vaccines, and a study in Denmark showed that when thimerosol was banned, autism reports increased – but that was linked to new reporting requirements that massively enhanced the population suffering from autism.
Further, he charged that CDC scientists "deliberately manipulated the final dataset [of a study] to prevent public disclosure of the decrease in autism since it did not support the study's conclusion that there was no association between thimerosal and autism."
Kennedy explained, "It would be difficult to overstate the cataclysmic impacts of Thorsen's mischief on global health. The study he is accused of fabricating was an instrumental piece of evidence cited by The Institute of Medicine to justify its infamous 2004 conclusion that thimerosal was not causing autism. IOM's declaration laid the foundation for dismissal of some 5,000 autism cases by the United States Court of Claims (The Vaccine Court). The Madsen et al. 2003 study has been repeatedly cited by public health agencies to justify the inclusion by CDC of thimerosal in 50 million flu shots given to Americans, including pregnant women, and the World Health Organization's (WHO) decision to inoculate 100 million children in developing nations annually with thimerosal preserved vaccines."
The scandal spread worldwide, with Australia banning a film documenting the link between vaccines and autism.
Three years later, WND reported on a video in which two parents tearfully told the story of their tragedy – triplets all becoming autistic within hours of getting a vaccination at the age of nine months.
That came to light just as Mark Green, then elected to the U.S. House but not yet seated, publicly raised the issue of a vaccine-autism link to the national level.
At the time Green, a medical doctor, questioned data from the CDC and other institutions that purport to disprove the vaccine link.
"Let me say this about autism," Green said at the time. "I have committed to people in my community, up in Montgomery County, to stand on the CDC's desk and get the real data on vaccines. Because there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines.
"As a physician, I can make that argument and I can look at it academically and make the argument against the CDC, if they really want to engage me on it," Green said.
Jane Orient, M.D., at the time a former president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, said the real problems are a lack of adequate research and the medical industry's apparent effort to conceal any link between vaccines and autism.
"We just really don't know [the causes] and we're not doing the research" that is needed, she told WND then.
It was the McDowell family of Michigan on video on Brighteon.com that got tens of thousands of views in just days.
Natural News reported, "The video shows below, healthy triplets all became autistic within hours of vaccination, once again demonstrating that vaccines cause autism. The parents, the McDowell family in Detroit, Michigan, have spoken out publicly against the horrific medical violence being committed against children every day across America through toxic vaccines."
The parents, David and Brenda McDowell, explain in the video:
On June 25th, 2007, we brought them in for the [vaccine] shot… we went in at 10 am. All three. My daughter still has the mark on her leg from the shot… we did the boys as well. By noon, Claire shut completely off. It was as if she was blind, and deaf, and complete failure to thrive, from super super happy, smiley girl to… she had full blown eye contact, and she shut right down. All she did was stare at the ceiling.
At 2:00 we watched Richie shut off. All his mama, dadda, and the furniture walking and everything just shut of. All the giggles, all the smiles, again failure to thrive. They lost all their reflexes… they stopped blinking, yawning, coughing, sneezing, they lost their startle reflex… that was 2:00.
The worst was when we saw the final one shut down. We lost Robbie, he looked like he was hit by a bus. He had a stunned look on his face… he acted deaf, he lost his happiness. They were no longer engaged in anything or anyone. They lost their smiles. They never held hands again, never looked at each other again."
The McDowells explained that they later were informed the vaccine their children got was contaminated and was recalled after it killed a two-year-old.
But they said they were told there was no legal recourse for them.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Hamas submits names of hostages and their condition ahead of potential prisoner swap, including U.S. citizens
The Hamas terrorist group has submitted a list of hostages it proposes to free in the first stage of a ceasefire deal with Israel in addition to a list of Palestinian security prisoners held by Israel that it wants released, the London-based pan-Arab news site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.
Citing a source close to the talks, the report claims Israel is evaluating the list and could send a delegation to Cairo later today (Monday).
Saar: IAF hit Syrian chemical weapons, missile production sites
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar confirms Israel struck suspected chemical weapons sites and long-range rockets in Syria in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile actors.
Sa'ar says that "the only interest we have is the security of Israel and its citizens."
"That's why we attacked strategic weapons systems, like, for example, remaining chemical weapons, or long-range missiles and rockets, in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists.
U.S.-Israeli intelligence services surprised at speed of Assad's fall
Israeli and U.S. intelligence arrays failed to predict Assad's downfall. Even after the rebel offensive started two weeks ago, the assumption in Washington and Jerusalem was that even if the opposition forces managed to advance, Assad would somehow manage to cling to power.
But on Thursday, the tide began to turn. "We are seeing early signs of the collapse of the Syrian army," Israeli officials told JNS. These signs intensified over the weekend, until the fall of Damascus.
UAV fired from Yemen strikes residential building in central Israel
Residents in the central city of Yavne reported a loud explosion Monday morning followed by smoke rising from a building in the city.
Witnesses in the affected building, where a fire had broken out, claimed they saw a drone in the sky before the explosion.
"I heard a strange buzzing sound and then a loud noise," one neighbor recounted. Authorities are investigating the incident, especially as incoming warning alerts did not sound.
IDF special forces seize Syrian side of Mt. Hermon, secure key southern Syria border area
Following the fall of Syria's long-standing dictator Bashar al-Assad, and a lightning advance from Turkish and Qatari-backed Islamist insurgents, the Israel Defense Force moved to quickly secure – without opposition – the Syrian side of Mt. Hermon. The part that is in Israel is the highest point in the entire country and provides excellent visibility to the fertile valleys in the Galilee below, providing it with a crucial strategic importance.
Reports of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's demise in a supposedly mysterious plane crash proved premature, as it was revealed Sunday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin granted him, and his family, political asylum. Assad was due to have given a televised address acknowledging his resignation as president, but events quickly overtook that plan, and now stateless, he fled the country.
An Israeli civilian from the northern city of Nof Hagalil was arrested for carrying out missions on behalf of Iran, the Shin Bet security agency and police say, the latest in a series of espionage cases.
The suspect, Artyom Zolotarev, 33, was detained in November over suspicions he was "committing security offenses related to contact with Iranian intelligence officials and carrying out security missions in Israel under their direction, for financial gain," according to the Shin Bet.
The IDF on Monday named four reservists of the 226th Brigade's 9263rd Battalion killed when an underground compound collapsed during operational activity in southern Lebanon.
They were named as Maj. (res.) Evgeny Zinershain, 43, from Zichron Yaakov, a company commander; Capt. (res.) Sagi Ya'akov Rubinshtein, 31, from Lavie, a platoon commander; Master Sgt. (res.) Binyamin Destaw Negose, 28, from Beit Shemesh; and Sgt. 1st Class (res.) Erez Ben Efraim, 25, from Ramat Gan.
Sheikh Loai, the commander of the Syrian Druze force that liberated Sweida, a province with a considerable Druze population, spoke with Ynet on Sunday amid celebrations following the fall of President Bashar Assad's regime.
"As soon as the rebels began liberating northern Syria, we realized we had to act and remove all symbols of the tyrant Assad's rule, from police stations to military bases," he recounted.
Sweida, located in southern Syria, is the largest Druze stronghold in the Middle East, covering 5,550 square kilometers (2,142 square miles) and home to around 300,000 residents. Assad made significant efforts to limit the independence of the Druze community within his territory.
Australian police said on Monday they are hunting for three suspects over an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue, which has been designated as a terrorist act. Mask-wearing attackers set the Adass Israel Synagogue ablaze before dawn on Friday, police said, gutting much of the building. Some congregants were inside the single-story building at the time but no serious injuries were reported.
Recent excavations at the Church of St. Nicholas in Demre, Antalya, Turkey, have revealed a limestone sarcophagus that may be the burial site of Saint Nicholas, the Greek bishop whose life and deeds inspired the legend of Santa Claus.
This discovery is part of the ongoing "Legacy for the Future Project," led by Associate Professor Ebru Fatma Findik from Hatay Mustafa Kemal University and initiated by Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The sarcophagus, found within the church's two-story annex, is believed to be the original burial site of Saint Nicholas, who lived in the ancient city of Myra during the 4th century A.D. Measuring approximately two meters in length and buried at a depth of 1.5 to 2 meters, the sarcophagus features a raised lid and a pitched roof consistent with burial styles of the region. Its proximity to the church – constructed in the 5th century by order of Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II – adds credibility to the theory that this was the saint's original resting place.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Yelp, the online social media operation that lists and reviews various business operations, is insisting it deserves an exemption from a federal court standard that precludes review there when the same people and their issues are being addressed in state court.
The fight is over Yelp's decision to attach negative information to listings for crisis pregnancy centers, those locations that offer counseling but not abortions.
Yelp created those warnings specifically for those centers after 2022 when Texas adopted abortion limits following the demise, in the U.S. Supreme Court, of the faulty Roe v. Wade opinion that created out of thin air a federal "right" to abortion.
Courthouse News explains that Yelp's fight now is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where judges heard arguments this week.
The company sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, claiming a First Amendment dispute, when he threatened, and later did, take Yelp to state court over its warnings.
Yelp has claimed that it watches for when "consumers may be deceived" and then attaches warnings, claiming that the pregnancy counseling centers "were leading users seeking abortion care away from medical providers to anti-abortion counseling services."
A federal judge previously dismissed Yelp's complaint, citing a 1971 precedent that found federal courts can't hear civil rights tort claims when the same players and issues are in state court.
Paxton had sued Yelp about the same time Yelp sued him, and while that case was dismissed it is pending at an appeals court.
Yelp lawyer James Sigel told the judges that Yelp deserves an exemption to that precedent, claiming Paxton's case was "meritless."
He said Yelp would look for "bad faith" on the part of Paxton if the case is allowed to continue.
The report, however, said the judges appeared to doubt Yelp's claims.
"You want the federal court to enjoin the attorney general from prosecuting that case or pursuing that case," said U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, a Donald Trump appointee. "That's a difficult one. It seems to me if you win on this, we're gonna have cases filed every week in federal court saying, 'I don't like what that the attorney general is doing in that state.'"
Two other judges expressed similar doubts.
A lawyer for the state of Texas said the fight should be handled in Texas courts.
The state had charged that the Yelp "warning labels" were misleading and overbroad in that they didn't apply the same to all centers.
Paxton had said Yelp cannot lie about the centers.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Political analyst Bill Maher says he "may quit" his "Real Time" show due to the return of Donald Trump to the presidency.
The celebrity pundit recently hosted leftist actress Jane Fonda on his "Club Random" podcast and explained it would be impossible to avoid talking about Trump because politics are central to the HBO broadcast.
MAHER: I'm sh***ing my pants.
FONDA: It's hard to believe.
MAHER: I mean, I may quit because I don't want to do another … I did all the Trump stuff before anybody.
I called him a con man before anyone else; he's a mafia boss. I said he wasn't going to concede the election.
I've seen this f***ing …
FONDA: Then how come he's so hostile to Jimmy Kimmel and not to you?
MAHER: He's very hostile to me! He tweets about me every week! I mean, I'm bored with it.
FONDA: So, find a new thing to do.
MAHER: The show is the politics; there's no other thing, and he's going to dominate the news like he always does!
Cullen Linebarger at the Gateway Pundit noted: "If Maher does follow through and quit, this may prove the start of other far-left late-night hosts, such as Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, throwing in the towel. The only things America would miss are the tears."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
There are multiple ways the nation could get relief from the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris extremism of electric vehicles.
The Democrat regime in Washington has insisted on destroying what it can of America's fossil fuels industry and instead pushes consumers to rely on electricity for everything, despite the fact Americans simply don't want and don't trust electric vehicles – and the nation's grid never could support widespread demand those cars would impose.
Experts recently told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump could make one change that would negate Biden's work: To determine that regulatory agencies do not have the legal authority to push the electrification of vehicles.
"The Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could decide that the EPA has no authority under the Clean Air Act to mandate – to force – the electrification of the U.S. automobile fleet," Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF.
The EVs come with their problems for consumers: Heavy vehicles that can be dangerous in minor crashes, intense fires from burning batteries when accidents happen, poor travel range, especially in cold weather, and stupendous battery replacement costs after a few years.
But now a report in the Washington Examiner confirms that automobile companies are "revving up" to ask the Trump administration to hang on to Biden's rules and regulations.
"According to a report from the New York Times, the Biden administration's actions to boost domestic EV manufacturing may have already set the auto industry past the point of no return," the report said. "Following Biden's initiatives, automakers have already invested billions of dollars in transitioning to electric vehicles. If Trump were to scrap the initiative, major automakers fear they could be undercut by smaller manufacturers producing cheaper, internal combustion engine cars."
So, the report said, "Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis are lobbying to keep the mandates."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The U.S. temporarily shutters Kyiv embassy over airstrike fears, which turned out to be a Russian psyop
The U.S. embassy in Kyiv has received information of a potential significant air attack on Wednesday and will be closed, the U.S. Department of State Consular Affairs said in a statement.
"Out of an abundance of caution, the embassy will be closed, and embassy employees are being instructed to shelter in place," the department said in a statement published on the website of the US embassy in Kyiv.
Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels in defiance of international demands, according to a confidential report by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.
Sgt. First Class (res.) Roi Sasson, 21, from Mevaseret Zion, a soldier in the Nachshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade fell Tuesday in an encounter with terrorists in Jabaliya, the IDF announced on Wednesday morning. Since the outbreak of the war, 800 IDF soldiers have died in battles, 28 of them in the current operation in Jabaliya.
Turkish strikes on Syrian Kurds cuts off water supply for 1 million people
According to the BBC investigation, accompanied by a full-length documentary, Turkey has conducted over 100 attacks on Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria between October 2019 and January 2024. These strikes targeted oil and gas facilities and power stations vital to civilians in the region.
Hezbollah rocket strikes UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon, four Ghanaian peacekeepers wounded
The Israel Defense Forces said that two UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) posts were hit by Hezbollah attacks, which wounded peacekeepers and did damage to the posts.
The first rocket attack was launched at 9:50 a.m. from Deir Aames, which hit the UNIFIL base near Ramyeh in southern Lebanon. Later, at 1:30 p.m., another barrage of rockets hit and damaged a post in the area of Chamaa, which Hezbollah launched from Maaliyeh in southern Lebanon.
Argentina removes troops from UNIFIL 'peacekeeping' force
Buenos Aires announced it would be pulling its troops out of the 10,000-strong UNIFIL peacekeeping force, which is supposed to enforce U.N. Resolution 1701. The move by Argentina appeared to represent the first sign of cracks in the unity of the mission, which has been caught in the crossfire as Israel battles against the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
Iran warns Western states over imposing IAEA sanctions on its nuclear program
Western countries on Wednesday formally submitted a new resolution critical of Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency ahead of its board meeting, diplomatic sources said, pushing ahead despite Iran's warnings against the move.
Is Israel about to attack Iranian-backed militias in Iraq?
Some two weeks ago, the U.S. warned Iraq that permitting Iranian-backed militias to use its territory to attack Israel, could lead Jerusalem to decide to retaliate militarily. There has been no let up in the interim, and several missiles and drones have been fired from Iraqi territory at the Jewish state, and Israel might be preparing air strikes at various targets.
U.N. Security Council to vote on no-strings Gaza ceasefire
The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on Wednesday on a draft resolution that demands an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in Gaza neither tying it to the release of the hostages nor mentioning Hamas as the war's architect, according to Israeli media.
The ceasefire proposal was developed by 10 non-permanent council members, with the U.S. at the center of the decision, and it is uncertain whether it will exercise its veto power. Not doing so would be reminiscent of one of the final acts of the Obama administration, which backed a resolution criticizing Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria.
Jerusalem court orders P.A. to pay $12 million in damages to second intifada victims
In a precedent-setting decision, the Jerusalem District Court has ordered the Palestinian Authority to pay approximately 46 million shekels ($12.3 million) in compensation to three siblings whose family members were killed in the 2001 Sbarro restaurant bombing in Jerusalem. The ruling marks the first implementation of a new Israeli law mandating punitive damages for terrorism victims.
Former Hamas hostage confronts UCLA protest leader in campus debate
A survivor of Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel delivered powerful testimony about her 54 days in captivity as she faced off with a student protest leader at a campus debate in Southern California.
The confrontation, captured in a video segment released Monday by The Gr8 Debate and filmed by Trusted Confidential Coverage (TCC), brought together former hostage Moran Stella Yanai, UCLA encampment leader Aidan Doyle, and Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A lawsuit has been filed against the University of Maine for a plan that ultimately granted a Christian church the right to negotiate for the purchase of an unused school building before officials reneged on their deal.
The state officials broke their agreement because "local curmudgeons" including a state senator who was on the board of one of the losing bidders coordinated to create a campaign of "religious animosity and religious hostility" against the Christian faith and demand the agreement be voided.
"These purportedly 'inclusive' and 'tolerant' community members, along with the two disappointed bidders, unlawfully conspired together to pressure UMS's officials to rescind the church's award because of the church's Christian beliefs," the filing in federal court in Maine by Liberty Counsel on behalf of Calvary Chapel Belfast, charges.
Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver said, "The University of Maine System violated the First Amendment by discrimination against a church because of its Christian beliefs. Such discrimination is unlawful. Calvary Chapel Belfast participated in the bidding processes in good faith, but the university unlawfully discriminated against the church's religious beliefs. It is a sad day when government officials violate the constitutional rights of its citizens. This is a costly mistake for the University of Maine System."
Named as defendants are the university system and a list of its officials, including Ryan Low, Rachel Piper, Robin Cyr, and Derek Houtman.
"The conspirators and disappointed bidders did not hide their animus towards the Christian church receiving the bid award, going so far as to say that the church must not receive the property because its 'very design' as a Christian church with biblical views was discriminatory and had no place in the community. Some disappointed bidders went so far as to assert that a church cannot even operate in 'good faith' concerning alleged nondiscrimination because the church's website espoused biblical teachings and quoted Scripture. And, to make matters worse, the disappointed bidders and their co-conspirators were joined in their religious animosity and hostility towards the church and its efforts to purchase the Hutchinson Center by elected officials in Maine. Specifically, Senator Chip Curry—the elected state senator in Belfast where the Hutchinson Center is located—said it was completely inappropriate to have a religious organization own the Hutchinson Center," the filing charges.
Liberty Counsel said its legal action charges religious discrimination.
It is seeking a preliminary injunction to preserve the status quo until the lawsuit can be resolved.
The background is that Calvary Chapel Belfast outscored two other competitors and "rightfully earned" the winning bid to solely negotiate the purchase of UMS's Hutchinson Center, a building no longer in use by the university.
However, the legal team charged, "UMS officials conspired with one of the competing, secular bidders, Waldo Community Action Partners (WCAP), to rescind the award over the church's scriptural beliefs on marriage and sexuality, and subsequently rigged a second bidding process awarding WCAP with the winning bid."
The filing points out, "The Supreme Court has declared that excluding a religious organization 'from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution.'"
That, the filing contends, prevents state officials from acting "in hostile ways" to churches.
"This action therefore seeks to vindicate the church's constitutional rights and restore the church's rightfully earned opportunity to negotiate the purchase of the Hutchinson Center," the filing states.
Last August, "Calvary Chapel Belfast submitted its bid to UMS for the Hutchinson Center, a building where it had previously rented space, to expand its congregation and community outreach. In addition to WCAP, the other competing bidder was Future of the Hutchinson Center Steering Committee and Waterfall Arts (FHC-WA). Once UMS announced the church as the winning bidder, both competing bidders sent a series of protest letters to the university attacking the church's religious beliefs," the federal court was told.
It was Low, being paid to be the school's executive for finance and administration, who "summarily" canceled the church's opportunity.
The report said the pretext used was that the university had an internet hub in the building, an issue the church already had addressed with the university. The church had offered the university free space for the machinery.
This time, however, the school accepted a bid from WCAP, which nearly tripled its financial offer.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
During President-elect Donald Trump's first term in the White house, Iran was reduced to a shell of its old terror power because his sanctions decimated the cash available for those agendas, and more.
During Joe Biden's four years in office, the rogue terror regime regained access to billions in cash and the result was events like the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocity on Israel by terrorists in Hamas, who killed some 1,200 civilians and kidnapped hundreds more.
Now that Trump is returning to office, even though his campaign has made no point of calling for a regime change there, that move soon may become evident.
That's according to Con Coughlin, the Telegraph's defense and foreign affairs editor, who also is a distinguished fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
"Trump may not be thinking about regime change in Iran as he prepares to take office, but it may become an option he simply cannot ignore if the dramatic collapse in the Islamic Republic's fortunes means that its survival can no longer be guaranteed," he explained.
"Trump may come to see as well that, unfortunately, due to the deep-seated commitment of Iran's regime in exporting its brand of Islam, as enshrined in its constitution, there can be no real long-term peace in the Middle East without regime change, especially if Iran has nuclear weapons – not to mention the global arms race that would follow such an event."
Coughlin explained that it was Trump's "no-nonsense approach to confronting the ayatollahs' malign influence in the region" that was "one of the defining characteristics during his first term in the White House."
Citing its major defects, Trump said at that time, too, he was applying "maximum pressure" on Tehran.
"Trump also demonstrated during his first term that he was not afraid of a direct confrontation with Tehran. His decision to authorize the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the master terrorist who headed the elite Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in a drone strike in January 2020 dealt a devastating blow to Tehran's terrorist infrastructure," he explained.
It was, he reported, because of Trump that Iran had to scale down its terrorism.
"It was only after Joe Biden replaced Trump in the White House in 2021 that Tehran revived its terrorist network, a development that was greatly facilitated by Biden's policy of appeasement towards Tehran, which saw the ayatollahs gifted billions of dollars in a misguided attempt by the Biden administration to revive Obama's nuclear deal," he explained.
That also prompted Iran to respond with renewed attempts to gain nuclear weaponry.
But now, as Israel's military is on the offense against two of Iran's proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran is facing a point of collapse.
Iran's inability to protect its terror allies "reflects Tehran's own fundamental weakness, which was graphically laid bare when Israeli warplanes launched their massive air assault against the Islamic Republic last month, which succeeded in destroying a number of key Iranian military installations," Coughlin reported.
And, just now, there are reports of a deep split in Tehran between Islamist factions.
He added that such a change would relieve Iran's neighbors and free "captive citizens," but also renew interest in Trump's Abraham Accords, negotiated agreements between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors.