Pax Americana has hollowed out our sense of duty
The year I was born, one of the most famous New Wave songs of all time was released: Elvis Costello’s “Oliver’s Army”. It was written after Costello visited Northern Ireland during the Troubles. There, he described seeing “mere boys walking around in battle dress with automatic weapons” — the soldiers, often recruited from Britain’s working class, that make up the United Kingdom’s standing army.
There’s a funny clip from the TV series The Young Pope, in which Pius XII, a brash, cynical American played by Jude Law, hosts in his office the Vatican’s new marketing chief. She tells the pontiff that she was educated at Harvard.
“The word ‘Harvard’ may impress people around here,” the pope sneers, “but to an American, it means one thing only: decline.”
A millionaire conwoman has been accused of swindling the US Army out of $100million over six years by putting cash into her fake military youth business and splurging it on 31 homes and more than 70 supercars and motorcycles.
Janet Yamanaka Mello, 57, allegedly took military funds and spent millions of dollars on jewelry, clothing, luxury vehicles and real estate in one of the biggest fraud cases the military has ever dealt with.
Mello worked for the US Army at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas as a CYS Financial Program Manager.
Marvel Studios, the superhero-movie behemoth, endured its worst year ever at the box office in 2023.
A few explanations have already been offered for Marvel’s ailing fortunes. Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, Marvel Studios’ parent company, has said that fans are tired of so many sequels. One pundit has blamed a lack of quality control. Another feels that 15 long years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has resulted in an ‘ennui de superheroes’ among the cinema-going public.
An Israeli judge who survived the Holocaust has been sent to represent his country in a UN court against claims it is committing genocide against Palestinians in the war in Gaza.
Aharon Barak, 87, who was smuggled out of a ghetto in a potato sack in 1944 and went on to lead Israel’s supreme court, is heading a delegation that will arrive to begin court proceedings on Thursday morning.
The UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ), is being asked to rule on whether to open a full case on South Africa’s claim that the country intends to commit genocide in Gaza.
The cops delivering the coffee was the image that went ‘round the world. But long before members of the Toronto Police Department handed over the Tim Hortons goodies to pro-Palestinian protesters who have been targeting a highway overpass adjacent to a neighbourhood with a significant Jewish population, many Canadian Jews have felt unsettled, even unsafe.
To be clear, the officers did not purchase the coffee, but dropped it off on behalf of protest supporters who were not allowed on the overpass. Still, it felt like a scalding metaphor.
When Ben Baird purchased a fully electric truck, he expected to install the Level 2 charger it came with at his Yellowknife home.
Ford’s F150 Lightning comes with an 80 amp charger. It would have required Baird to upgrade the 100 amp panel in his home to a 200 amp panel — an expense he was prepared to pay.
But in order to provide that level of power to his home, Baird said, power distributor Northland Utilities told him he’d have to pay $12,000 to upgrade the transformer in his neighbourhood as well.
OTTAWA—At the dawn of a new year that could see the federal Conservatives continue to outpace the slumping Liberals, fresh polling suggests Justin Trudeau and his government are entering 2024 with some of its worst-ever levels of support.
The newest numbers from Abacus Data, shared exclusively with the Star, show that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives reversed their five percentage point drop in the polls from December by gaining four points during the research firm’s latest round of polling.
But the findings offer the grimmest outlook yet for the Trudeau Liberals since they ascended to power, with the survey showing that 58 per cent of Canadians disapprove of the current federal government.
Another victim of the word, “bro.”
When does it end? pic.twitter.com/VnKrldryXE— Dr. Jebra Faushay (@JebraFaushay) January 10, 2024
OTTAWA — A Liberal MP is calling on her colleagues in the Trudeau government to officially support the prosecution of Israel for genocide by backing a controversial action brought by South Africa at the top United Nations court.
“I call on Canada to support South Africa’s application to the International Court of Justice regarding the current conflict between Israel and Hamas and the impact this conflict is having on the people of Palestine,” Toronto-area MP Salma Zahid wrote in a statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday.
This person is going to be a child psychologist. She thinks it’s ok to discuss gender identity with young kids in school because kids know by age 4 if they’re trans or nonbinary.
Colleges are teaching this woke trash to our future workforce. It’s going to get a lot worse. pic.twitter.com/jQg8XZtwJi
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 10, 2024
“Last spring, I published a whistleblower report on the secret sex-change program at Texas Children’s Hospital. The hospital had promised to stop such procedures, which included the administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones—but in fact, it continued to perform transgender medical interventions on children as young as 11.
Following the story’s publication, Texas legislators passed Senate Bill 14, banning all child sex-change procedures statewide, angering left-wing activists and officials at TCH, who had opposed any restriction on transgender medicine.”
OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s latest vacation trip to Jamaica may have been cleared by the ethics commissioner, but Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s party is now asking why.
In a lengthy letter to interim commissioner Konrad Von Finckenstein, Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett raises a question in the wake of reporting that Trudeau’s family went to the same luxury resort as they did last year, with a free stay at a high-end villa belonging to a friend: how is the prime minister able to accept such an expensive gift?
The vast business empire upon which Donald Trump made his name is on the line in a civil fraud trial in New York.
The former president, his two adult sons and the wider Trump Organization are accused of massively inflating the value of their properties by over $2bn (£1.65bn) in order to secure favourable loans.
Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing, calling the case a sham.
A week after the horrors of October 7, when the Biden administration first convinced Israel to open up the siege of Gaza and allow in international aid, it promised Hamas would not get it.
“If Hamas in any way blocks humanitarian assistance from reaching civilians, including by seizing the aid itself, we’ll be the first to condemn it. And we will work to prevent it from happening again,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged.
The problem with such a promise was obvious once Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer struggled to explain to CNN how it would stop Hamas from taking the aid.
