Jewish organisations have defended JK Rowling after a US comedian claimed that the depiction of goblins in her Harry Potter books was anti-Semitic.
Jon Stewart slammed the author over the goblins that run Gringotts bank in her Harry Potter series on his podcast, The Problem with Jon Stewart.
Stewart, who is Jewish, questioned why Rowling chose to ‘throw Jews in there to run the f***ing underground bank’ in a fictional world where people ‘can ride dragons and have pet owls’.
Stewart is an ass.
Meghan Markle and her husband Prince Harry’s charitable foundations spent more in legal fees than they actually raised in 2020, according to uncovered financial filings.
A prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for two people charged with shooting dead a veteran Illinois police officer with her own weapon as she pleaded for her life on the ground and critically wounding her partner, who is now fighting for his life.
Although Illinois isn’t a death penalty state, the U.S. Attorney General can authorize the filing of a petition to seek out the punishment in certain federal murder cases.
In court on Monday, Kankakee County State’s Attorney Jim Rowe painted the picture of a cold-blooded killing that deserved that designation during a bond hearing for Xandria Harris, 26, of Bradley in the county’s Circuit Court.
I can’t wait to read the CBC’s headlines on the latest poll from Maru Public Opinion.
I would bet solid money, though, we won’t see: “More than three-quarters of Canadians turn up noses at thought of moving to Quebec.” Nor: “Quebec dead last among desired provinces for relocating Canadians.”
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Seven children are among at least 13 people found dead after a fire at Philadelphia Housing Authority apartments in Philadelphia’s Fairmount neighborhood on Wednesday morning. The Philadelphia Fire Department arrived to heavy flames at the building on the 800 block of North 23rd Street just after 6:30 a.m.
“It was terrible, most of, I’ve been around for 35 years now and this is probably one of the worst firsts I’ve ever been to,” Philadelphia Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy said during a press conference.
WATCH LIVE: The Phila. Fire Dept. provides an update on fire on this morning’s deadly fire https://t.co/i0zad3IGZO pic.twitter.com/Ay0aB1E7El
— Matt Petrillo (@MattPetrillo) January 5, 2022
A booze-fueled charter flight out of Canada has sparked an official investigation after a wild video circulated of the selfie-obsessed passengers flouting aviation and coronavirus regulations.
The footage shows an unruly, unmasked group on a Sunwing Airlines charter flight from Montreal to Cancun on Dec. 30, dancing in the aisles, vaping, using the public address system and posing for selfies with a bottle of Grey Goose vodka.
Ontario reports 14 new COVID-19 deaths; hospitalizations up 62 per cent in one day
Ontario reported 14 new COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, as the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 jumped by 62 per cent in a single day.
There are now 2,081 people admitted to hospitals across Ontario testing positive for COVID-19, up from at least 1,290 one day earlier and 965 one week ago.
There are 11,582 new cases of #COVID19.
Today’s numbers will be available at 10:30 a.m. at https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) January 5, 2022
COVID-19 testing capacity is overwhelmed. Here’s how Canadians can still measure risk
Canada has lost sight of the true size of its pandemic, with the number of people infected with COVID-19 now a mystery, as the highly infectious Omicron variant overwhelms testing capacity across the country.
Omicron is causing a never-before-seen surge in COVID-19 that has prompted provinces to reinstate curfews and gathering restrictions, shutter bars and restaurants and move schooling back online in a desperate attempt to mitigate the impact on hospitals.
New Ontario COVID-19 restrictions take effect today amid ‘explosive’ growth in hospitalizations
Ontario residents and business across the province will face a new set of restrictions Wednesday meant to curb the rampant spread of COVID-19.
The measures were announced by Premier Doug Ford on Monday and went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 5.
The restrictions, a return to Step Two of the province’s reopening plan, include the closure of indoor dining, food courts, gyms and theatres, as well as lower capacity limits in most other settings.
Following in the footsteps of Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden has declared war on meat. Democrats have this thing against meat, see, and it manifests itself in multiple ways.
Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a day when people would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. That day has not yet dawned in New York, at least when it comes to Covid testing and treatment. On December 27, the New York State Department of Health issued a memo to health care providers and facilities on the authorization and “severe shortage” of oral antiviral and monoclonal antibody treatments for Covid, directing that non-white people be given priority for such treatments. Meanwhile, white people are also being passed over for Covid testing in New York City.
China shows just how dangerous public-health fanaticism can become.
Imagine a nation in such a state of distress that its citizens were reduced to bartering for food. A nation where women were so desperate for something to cook and eat that they started swapping sanitary towels for vegetables. A nation where families were so hungry that they would trade their cigarettes for a cabbage. This country actually exists. And it isn’t one of the poor, sometimes famished nations of the global South. It’s China. More accurately, it’s China under the policy of ‘Zero Covid’. If you want to witness the hell of Zero Covid, the dystopian derangement of subordinating every facet of life to the crusade against coronavirus, look no further than the country where this virus first emerged.
We are falling back into history, by which I don’t mean the history of the West or of any particular nation but the history of the political world and human settlements from time immemorial, that is, for as long as we have records, monuments, artifacts, cave art, primitive tools and other memorabilia. (I use the term “history” to incorporate what we call “prehistory,” which is pre-literary but discoverable.) Whether we consider Thomas Hobbes’ description of the state of nature as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” or the erection of a harshly authoritarian governing Leviathan to ensure self-preservation, the picture is one of endemic inequality, poverty, famine, perpetual conflict, and despotic control of a laboring and subject population.
Multiple fronts of resistance are taking shape
Over the past several decades, the progressive Left has successfully fulfilled Antonio Gramsci’s famed admonition of a “long march through the institutions”. In almost every Western country, its adherents now dominate the education system, media, cultural institutions, and financial behemoths.
But what do they have to show for it?
French prosecutors have opened a terrorism investigation after a car participating in the Dakar rally was hit by an explosion in Saudi Arabia last week that badly wounded its driver.
After the 30 December attack in the city of Jeddah, the driver, Philippe Boutron, underwent surgery in Saudi Arabia for serious leg injuries before returning to France.
“A preliminary investigation has been opened into multiple attempted killings in connection with a terrorist group,” national anti-terror prosecutors said in a statement on Tuesday.
There are even questions as to whether merchandise was fashioned with forced labor
The international community has failed regarding China and the 2022 Olympics. It’s a moral failing above all, but it’s also an administrative and symbolic failing.
Beijing’s worldwide abuses of human rights, international trade, military aggression toward neighbors and, of course, the unleashing of the Covid-19 pandemic has been allowed to fester, and gone unpunished. In return, China has been granted an international nod of approval by getting to host the 2022 International Olympic Games in Beijing, with the blessing of the International Olympic Committee and European and Western democracies.
The corrupt January 6 Committee ignores it.
Riots? What riots? Insurrection in American cities in 2020? Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
Thus it is with the Stalinesque show trial that is the January 6 Committee. As my colleague Melissa Mackenzie illustrated yesterday, “the Democrats are running their committee like a criminal trial.” It is indeed blatantly unconstitutional and no one is attempting to stop them. Why?
