It’s almost like Hamas is choosing the coverage angles for the New York Times, say some critics.
The biggest newspaper in the country is being accused of anti-Israel bias in its coverage of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and the Israel defense.
Hamas demanded journalists only post photos of civilians in Gaza and never show pictures of the terrorists launching their attacks or using civilians as human shields. So far, the Times appears to be lining up with Hamas’ instructions by not showing any of the attacks on Israel or of the terrorists, their tunnels, weapons or using civilian locations to hide weapons and launch rockets.
A recent survey by the Weekly Standard showed that almost every photograph of Israelis involved tanks, soldiers or attack helicopters. There was an intense focus on the Israeli Defense Forces responding to the terrorist offensive.
The pictures from Gaza? The photo essay in today’s Times shows three Gaza civilians in various forms of distress, a smoke plume over Gaza and three of the IDF using tanks and helicopters.
There are no images of the rocket attacks on Israel nor the two terrorist incursions into Israeli territory through tunnels by Hamas terrorists. It’s almost as if the New York Times does not want to provide truthful coverage of the situation that Israel’s actions are in defense of being attacked by a terrorist organization.
Some critics are saying that the New York Times is showing terrorist sympathies by not reporting the truth about Hamas which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.
The massive supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park is melting roads throughout the national park.
The National Park Service is banning visitors from entering some parts of the park because the roads and the ground has become too dangerous for human passage.
“It basically turned the asphalt into soup. It turned the gravel road into oatmeal,” Yellowstone spokesman Dan Hottle said.
Park officials are telling visitors not to hike into the area because what appears to be solid ground could actually be dirt on top of boiling hot water. They characterized the risk of stepping into potentially fatal pools of water as “high.”
“There are plenty of other great places to see thermal features in the park,” park spokesman Al Nash told The Weather Channel. “I wouldn’t risk personal injury to see these during this temporary closure.”
Scientists last year determined the supervolcano under Yellowstone was twice the size as previously believed by researchers.
The polar vortex is back…but many Americans are happy to see it arrive this time.
The vortex is bringing cool summer temperatures into the Midwest and south that remind many residents of early September rather than the middle of June. In some areas, record low temperatures are being set and the daily highs are the lowest in history.
Mobile, Alabama, on the Gulf of Mexico, reported a low temperature of 64 degrees Thursday morning, breaking a 128-year-old temperature record. Huntsville, Alabama tied a record low of 59 degrees set in 1945.
Nashville, Tennessee tied a record set in 1886 of 57 degrees. Other cities setting temperature low records included Kansas City, Missouri and Omaha, Nebraska.
Forecasters say the cool air from the vortex is going to expand eastward through the rest of the week and into the weekend, bringing down temperatures from Michigan to southern Louisiana.
The temperature shifts have also caused unusual weather incidents. Waterspouts formed over Lake Erie on Sunday and meteorologists say the other Great Lakes are at risk for waterspouts because of warmer waters mixing with colder air.
A new map released by the federal government is showing that over half the U.S. is at greater risk for experiencing earthquakes.
The U.S. Geological Survey has updated the national seismic hazard maps for the first time since 2008. The new maps use research from the massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami off the Japanese coast along with the 2011 earthquake that shook Virginia and caused significant damage to national monuments in Washington, D.C.
Parts of Washington, Oregon, Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming and Tennessee have moved into the top two hazard zones in the new map according to project chief Mark Petersen.
Sixteen states have all or part of their territory in the highest risk category: Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky and South Carolina.
Most of the major regions are in the western part of the country, however, there is a major hazard area comprising of southeast Missouri, western Kentucky & Tennessee and eastern Arkansas.
A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate by a pair of anti-life Senators to overrule the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case has failed.
Washington Senator Patty Murray and Utah Senator Mark Udall introduced what they called the “Protect Women’s Health From Corporate Interference Act” that would have stripped people of faith in the United States from owning and operating their own business unless they provided abortion causing drugs to their employees.
The bill failed in the Senate because the Democrats could not obtain 60 votes to bring debate to cloture and move to a full vote. The bill failed 56-43 along mostly party lines to keep the bill from advancing.
Christian organizations celebrated the fact 43 Senators still believe Americans have the right to religious freedom.
“While the Senate rightfully rejected this unjust bill, today is a reminder of the need to stand vigilant in defense of our God-given freedoms against those who would take them away,” Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer Casey Mattox said.
A woman wearing a Burger King uniform shirt verbally and physically assaulted members of the pro-life organization Created Equal who were conducting an awareness event in Columbus, Ohio.
Victoria Duran was caught on video physically attacking a teenage boy who was an intern of the Created Equal group. She also used profanity filled rants and kicked down signs that were erected showing the development of a baby at 12 weeks.
“We understand the risk we take each time we go into the marketplace of ideas with a message as counter-cultural as showing the victims of abortion,” Created Equal Executive Director Mark Harrington told LifeNews, adding that “despite the threat we will not shrink back from representing the victims.”
Police arrived on the scene and removed Duran from a public bus to talk; she held out her arms telling the police “take me.”
Duran was questioned by a reporter from KSYX-TV who said she assaulted the pro-life group members and Duran responded by saying shoving them was not assault.
Police disagree and have charged Duran with assault and criminal damaging.
A California school district is being defiant in its refusal to apologize for infringing on the First Amendment rights of students by censoring God or Jesus from student led functions.
Attorneys representing the Brawley Union High School District wrote a 10 page letter defending the school’s right to silence students from mentioning God or Jesus at graduation.
“It is well established in the Ninth Circuit and California that a public school salutatorian has no constitutional right to lead a prayer or include sectarian or proselytizing content in his/her graduation speech,” the document reads.
The district is the place where 18-year-old Brooks Hamby made national headlines by standing up for his Christians beliefs and his right under the First Amendment to say the name of Jesus during a graduation ceremony speech. His lawyers have been demanding the school apologize for their infringement on his religious freedom.
“The district was legally obligated to ensure prayers and other sectarian, proseltyzing content were omitted from Mr. Hamby’s speech,” the school’s attorneys wrote. “Censorship of the speech was necessary to avoid an Establishment Clause violation.”
“I was really surprised the school would deny my speech not once, twice, but three times,” Hamby told Fox News Todd Starnes. “I just wanted to say a few nice words and allow people to see the good news – which is the Gospel.”
The Israeli ambassador to the United States says that his country cannot sit by and be passive while Hamas rains down rockets upon its citizens.
Ambassador Ido Aharoni told Fox News that his country will remain on high alert and that air strikes will continue because of the increased hostility toward Israel from the terrorist group Hamas.
“Hamas’ decision to escalate the situation puts us in a very difficult and unpleasant position,” said Aharoni. “We have to respond in a swift and comprehensive fashion because we are looking at a century-old Arab onslaught on Jewish national sovereignty in the land of Israel – that didn’t start yesterday.”
Aharoni said that Israel’s cabinet is currently debating a plan to send troops into the Gaza Strip to root out Hamas’ leadership and networks.
“One thing for sure we understand: We are in it for the long run, the goal of Operation Protective Edge, named for the offensive [against Hamas], is to bring about stability, calm and quiet to Israel’s southern and central region,” he said.
He said that Hamas has about 12,000 rockets in the Gaza Strip.
A new Rasmussen survey says that the number of registered voters who identify themselves as pro-life has reached a new high.
The new survey showed 44 percent of voters identify themselves as pro-life versus 48 percent that identify themselves as pro-choice. The pro-life total is one percent higher than 2013 and five percent higher than 2012.
“When it comes to the issue of abortion, the number of voters who consider themselves pro-life is at an all-time high,” the press release read.
“This particular poll confirms a growing trend in the U.S. of people coming to understand the value of each human being’s life from creation to death,” Jim Sedlak of the American Life League told the Christian Post.
Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life Committee, said the poll is similar to the results of other polls she has read.
“The pro-life movement is growing for a number of reasons,” Tobias said. “Protecting unborn children is a compelling civil rights movement that attracts a large variety of people.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling that a Massachusetts law declaring a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics was unconstitutional is having reach far beyond the Bay State.
A number of cities around the country are now halting enforcement of buffer zone laws because they do not believe the laws will stand up to the new standard set by the Court.
Burlington, Vermont, which has a similar 35-foot buffer zone law on the books, is suspending enforcement of the law. The city’s attorney said that she will work with the city council to eliminate the prohibition from the law while still protecting the entrances and exits of the clinics.
Other cities suspending buffer zone laws include Portland, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin.
“The government cannot gag speech just because it doesn’t reflect the government’s views or the views of abortionists,” Alliance Defending Freedom’s Matt Bowman stated. “The Supreme Court has now made it even more clear that public streets and sidewalks are places where free speech is highly protected.”