More than 100 Community members packed a small church in Taunton, Massachusetts, to honor a veteran who died without family November 22.
Saturday, every pew in the West Congregational Church was filled with neighbors, first responders, and military veterans who wanted to remember the life of 99-year-old U.S. Army veteran Arthur Schroeder, according to Military.com.
“I may not have known Arthur, but the outpouring of support for him here today speaks volumes to his character,” Acting Mayor Donald Cleary said during the service.
Thanks to Micaila Britto and Jeff Riccitelli of the Raynham and Taunton Veteran’s Departments, groups across the city and state were alerted to his passing and wanted to make sure he received the honor he deserved at his funeral.
“So many veterans organizations reached out and I’m so grateful that we’re here to represent him as he goes on,” Britto commented.
YouTube has removed more than 300 video adverts for President Trump but the company has refused to say why.
The removal of the video clips promoting Donald Trump are revealed in a transparency report but CEO Susan Wojcicki remained tight-lipped about why the ads were yanked.
When Wojcicki responded: 'There are ads of President Trump that were not approved to run on Google or YouTube, ' she told 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl when asked by if the video sharing platform had yanked any Trump ads.
Wojcicki added about the clips on the user generated site, 'Well, they're available in our transparency report.'
ELLICOTT CITY, MD – Howard County Executive Calvin Ball has released the following statement on Columbia being named the “Safest City in America” for the second year in a row by WalletHub.
“As we commemorate our first year in office this week, it is an incredible honor for Howard County and Columbia to be named “Safest City in America” by WalletHub for the second consecutive year. I want to thank our police officers, firefighters and paramedics, social workers, community advocates, and engaged residents for working together to achieve this honor for our community once again.
My vision for Howard County is to innovatively expand opportunity and foster the best quality of life for all who live, work, or visit Howard County while ensuring we efficiently, effectively, and respectfully serves our residents, businesses, and visitors. For every resident of our county to live their best life, they must not only be safe, but also feel safe in their homes, their neighborhoods and throughout all of Howard County.
This accolade is a testament to the excellent quality of life we cherish in Howard County. However, we must and we will continue to do better and make sure every community in Howard County is the safest it can be.”
Dogs and cats have always been a great source of comfort for soldiers.
Sgt. Stubby, the terrier mutt, alerted soldiers to poison gas and incoming artillery shells in World War I. Tiddles the cat was on several British ships, logging over 30,000 miles at sea during his career. Both animals retired to a home with a soldier.
Nowadays, it’s more common than ever for soldiers to bring home pets adopted while deployed. In fact, a Delawarean in Afghanistan is raising money to bring home his buddy, Sully the cat.
When Dan met Sully
Dan Brissey is on his fourth overseas tour as part of the National Guard. He started in the military later in life than most. When he joined in 2000, at age 31, he was one of the oldest in his basic training class. He spent a year working at the Pentagon as military police immediately following 9/11.
Now 50, all of Brissey’s children are grown and he’s coming up on retirement. Following deployment, in January, he’ll return to his wife and home in Seaford.
(PIKESVILLE, MD) – Maryland State Police are investigating numerous incidents from the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend, including 3 fatal crashes. Overall, troopers responded to 2,943 calls for service, including 409 crashes from Wednesday through Sunday. In addition, state police recorded 119 arrests for impaired driving, and 124 criminal arrests, while also issuing 4,442 citations and 4,894 warnings.
Troopers also responded to 2 separate multi-vehicle crashes, one in western Maryland, and one on the Eastern Shore. A 58-vehicle incident in Garrett County Sunday around noon sent at least 10 people to the hospital and remains under investigation. Another multi-vehicle crash Sunday night on the Eastern Shore along Route 50 near Memory Gardens Lane in Hebron also remains under investigation.
State Police are investigating fatal crashes across Maryland including one late Saturday night in St. Mary’s County, one Sunday in Caroline County, and one this morning in Beltsville, Prince George’s County. Starting last Wednesday, November 27, troopers conducted targeted impaired-driving enforcement efforts at locations around the state based on historic trends of having a high volume of impaired driving incidents. One of those initiatives in Worcester County resulted in 92 traffic stops with 9 drivers arrested for driving under the influence.
Friday afternoon, the Maryland State Police Aviation Command was called in to hoist an injured hiker from a ravine in Allegany County to transport the injured person to the Western Maryland Regional Medical Center in Cumberland, Maryland.
As we move into the holiday season, troopers urge travelers not to drive distracted, impaired, or aggressively, and to make traffic safety their priority when they get behind the wheel. Drivers should plan for a designated driver, or choose a sober ride home, to help keep Maryland highways safe throughout the holiday season.
WASHINGTON – Over the course of a week from Nov. 12 to 20, officers with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) targeted and arrested 56 individuals on criminal and civil violations including violent offenders, gang members, sex offenders, fugitives from justice, and those who otherwise pose a significant public safety threat. Arrestees include members of several different notoriously violent transnational criminal organizations such as MS-13 and 18th Street gangs. The arrests were made as part of Operation Eagle’s Shield, an enforcement operation targeting notable threats to public safety throughout Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Arrests took place in the following cities: Fredericksburg (14), Washington, D.C. (9), Fairfax (6), Falls Church (6), Alexandria (5), Leesburg (5), Manassas (5), Herndon (2), Woodbridge (2), District Heights (1) and Sterling (1). ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office all assisted ICE officers during the week.
RICHMOND, Va. – Over the course of a week from Nov. 12 to 20, officers with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) targeted and arrested 23 individuals on criminal and civil violations in central Virginia, including those with convictions for indecent exposure, making felony threats to damage buildings or transportation, assault and battery, identity theft and driving under the influence. The arrests were made as part of Operation Eagle’s Shield, an enforcement operation targeting notable threats to public safety throughout Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Arrests took place in the following cities: Richmond (13), Henrico (3), Chester (2), North Chesterfield (2), Chesterfield (1), Petersburg (1), and Hanover (1). ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office all assisted ICE officers during the week.
**Click on the titles to read more on each article**
House Republicans have continually pushed back against Democrats and their impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. One of the biggest issues the GOP had with this entire saga – besides the fact that the saga is entirely partisan and a witch hunt based on emotions, not fact – is the lack of due process. Democrats started this impeachment process without allowing Republicans to have any say in what was taking place. Republicans couldn't call witnesses or issue subpoenas.
The Democrats finally decided to allow Republicans to issue subpoenas and interrogatories, although House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NJ) has to approve them. And we know how that will work.
According to House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA) told Fox News' Chris Wallace that they will definitely call witnesses. And the very first person will be Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) raised the alarm last week that President Donald Trump still has not released U.S. aid to Lebanon — in the same way that he refused to release aid to Ukraine earlier this year. But the Connecticut Democrat may have highlighted one of the strengths of Trump’s argument against impeachment.
One of the most overlooked moments during the impeachment inquiry in the House Intelligence Committee last month was when senior State Department official David Hale testified behind closed doors that the president held up aid to Lebanon at the same time as, and in the same manner as, aid to Ukraine. Though both aid packages had been approved by Congress, Trump blocked both of them — and, in both cases, did so without explanation.
However, there may be a very good reason to withhold aid to Lebanon — a reason the public has not been told. More
Forbes magazine has appealed for recognition of the phenomenon of Christian persecution around the globe as a crisis demanding focused attention.
Report after report “has been raising the issues that relate to the persecution of Christians globally,” notes Forbes contributor Ewelina U. Ochab, which includes “atrocities that amount to genocide and crimes against humanity.”
Faith-based persecution affects Christians more than any other religious group on the planet, Ms. Ochab observes, and therefore anti-Christian persecution deserves to be addressed as a critical issue in its own right.
Despite the worrisome growth of the often violent persecution of Christians worldwide, “the extent of the crisis facing Christians persecuted for their faith remains little known and understood,” Ochab laments, citing a report titled “Persecuted and Forgotten,” produced by the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need. More
Jihadists from the Boko Haram terror group hacked to death a 12-year-old boy with machetes for his refusal to become a “child soldier” of the group.
Although news of the slaughter has only just reached the west, the militants are believed to have abducted the Christian schoolboy in a raid on the northern Cameroon district of Tourou on or around November 19.
The boy and his mother reportedly escaped from their home as the militants began their raid on the village, going door to door looting homes of anything of value, including clothes and bedding. The jihadists eventually caught up with the boy, killing him after hearing of his unwillingness to join their army. Members of the jihadist group frequently abduct male children and oblige them to train as soldiers.
Police say violence erupted on Thanksgiving Day in a North Carolina apartment when a mother shot and killed her daughter.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said in a news release that officers were called to the apartment shortly before 10pm on Thursday.
There they found a woman with a gunshot wound who was transported to the hospital.
The woman, identified as 37-year-old Chante Lavarche Alexander, was pronounced dead at the hospital.
A police news release said the woman's mother, 56-year-old Elvira Elizabeth Alexander, has been charged with murder and possession of a stolen firearm.
Orlando police detective Michael Fields was sure he had the break he needed right in front of him to close in on a serial rapist: a list of people whose DNA partially matched the man he hunted.
Then the list disappeared.
After a year of criticism from privacy advocates and genealogy experts, the owner of a popular DNA-sharing website had decided law enforcement had no right to consumer data unless those consumers agreed.
“It was devastating to know that there’s information out there,” Fields said. “It wasn’t fair.”
So he persuaded a judge to grant him access to the entire database, the genetic records of more than 1 million people who never agreed to a police search. It was the first court order in the nation for a blanket consumer DNA search, kept secret from those whose genetic code was involuntarily canvassed.
Genealogical databases are a potential gold mine for police detectives trying to solve difficult cases.
But law enforcement has plunged into this new world with little to no rules or oversight, intense secrecy and by forming unusual alliances with private companies that collect the DNA, often from people interested not in helping close cold cases but learning their ethnic origins and ancestry.
Jeremy Corbyn said convicted terrorists should 'not necessarily' have to serve the entirety of their prison sentences as Boris Johnson vowed to toughen up terror laws.
The Labour leader said when convicted terrorists are let out of prison 'depends on the circumstances' as he was grilled in the aftermath of the London Bridge attack.
Usman Khan stabbed a man and a woman to death on Friday before he was shot dead by police following his release halfway through a 16-year prison sentence for terror offences.
Mr Johnson said scrapping early release from prison for terrorists would have stopped the attack from happening.
It's often said that our federal system of government allows states wide latitude to experiment with ways to make government more efficient or just work better. There are numerous examples where pilot programs begun at the state level end up being adopted by Washington.
But such experimentation has never been tried on Medicaid reforms. Medicaid is run by the states but every state is reimbursed a certain amount by Washington for every program beneficiary. It's a program that cries out for drastic reforms.
The Medicaid program is racked with incompetence and corruption. Just last year, it was discovered in an audit that the state of Illinois spent $4.6 million on paying Medicaid benefits to dead people. Back in 2013, the state in another audit discovered that nearly half of all Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled were actually ineligible to receive benefits.
Now the Trump administration wants to reform Medicaid not be tweaking the program here and there, but by radical surgery.
English authorities placed the man who fended off terrorists during the 2017 attack on London Bridge on an anti-extremist watchlist out of concern over Islamophobia.
Roy Larner, 49, was deemed a hero after he ran out of a pub to stop three Islamic terrorists after they rammed a van through a crowd of people on London Bridge in 2017, killing seven. Larner was stabbed several times while fighting the men off.
Larner, who was dubbed the Lion of London Bridge for his actions, recalled the attack at the time saying, “They had these long knives and started shouting about Allah. Then it was, ‘Islam, Islam, Islam,’” Larner said. “Like an idiot I shouted back at them … I took a few steps towards them and said, ‘F--- you, I’m Millwall.'”
Construction to make Route 113 a four-lane highway remains on schedule, though with an ambitious timeline, according to Bob Rager, the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) liaison. By the end of December, the administration hopes to have all four lanes from Berlin to Snow Hill open for traffic.
Contractor Allan Myers is currently working on paving the final road surface on the four-mile section from north of MD 365 Public Landing Road to the north of Five-Mile-Branch. How quickly that goes is largely dependent on weather, Rager said.
“It’s a tall order, as surface asphalt mixes generally require a minimum temperature of 40 degrees for proper compaction and good ride quality,” Rager said. “As long as the weather is favorable, we plan on paving seven days a week during daylight hours.”
WHALEYVILLE – Cars lined the shoulder of Old Ocean City Road this week as volunteers from Blessing House Ministries distributed Thanksgiving meals to those in need.
On Tuesday, Blessing House Ministries volunteers donated 150 boxes of food to area families. While the boxes of food were provided through the help of Mountaire’s Thanksgiving for Thousands initiative, the turkeys that were given out were provided by Stephen Decatur High School student Abigail Blankenship.
“It’s nice to help out,” said Blankenship, 17. “I just feel like it’s the holiday season and everybody’s stressing out enough. If they can get food and not have to worry about it, that’s what they really need.”
Blankenship, a senior at Decatur, said her father has been a volunteer at Blessing House Ministries for decades. She decided to get involved with the group this year and has been helping out with its food pantry operation in Whaleyville.
EASTON, Pa. — It was a few minutes after the polls closed here on Election Day when panic began to spread through the county election offices.
Vote totals in a Northampton County judge’s race showed one candidate, Abe Kassis, a Democrat, had just 164 votes out of 55,000 ballots across more than 100 precincts. Some machines reported zero votes for him. In a county with the ability to vote for a straight-party ticket, one candidate’s zero votes was a near statistical impossibility. Something had gone quite wrong.
Lee Snover, the chairwoman of the county Republicans, said her anxiety began to pick up at 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 5. She had trouble getting someone from the election office on the phone. When she eventually got through, she said: “I’m coming down there and you better let me in.”
With clearly faulty results in at least the judge’s election, officials began counting the paper backup ballots generated by the same machines. The paper ballots showed Mr. Kassis winning narrowly, 26,142 to 25,137, over his opponent, the Republican Victor Scomillio.
“People were questioning, and even I questioned, that if some of the numbers are wrong, how do we know that there aren’t mistakes with anything else?” said Matthew Munsey, the chairman of the Northampton County Democrats, who, along with Ms. Snover, was among the observers as county officials worked through the night to count the paper ballots by hand.
The snafu in Northampton County did not just expose flaws in both the election machine testing and procurement process. It also highlighted the fears, frustrations and mistrust over election security that many voters are feeling ahead of the 2020 presidential contest, given how faith in American elections has never been more fragile. The problematic machines were also used in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs — areas of Pennsylvania that could prove decisive next year in one of the most critical presidential swing states in the country.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that 74 additional criminals with terrorist ties were released from prison under the system that freed the man responsible for the attack on London Bridge.
Usman Khan, the 28-year-old terrorist who killed two people before being thwarted by bystanders with a narwhal tusk and a fire extinguisher, had been in prison prior to the attack for terror-related offenses. He had been released from prison “on license” as part of an early release program. Khan had plotted an attack on the London Stock Exchange in 2012 when he was imprisoned the first time. He was only halfway through his prison sentence and was not referred to a parole board.
Johnson claimed that Khan’s release was the fault of the left-leaning Labour Party because they had overhauled a statute, the Extended Sentence for Public Protection, allowing terrorists to be held for an extended sentence until a parole board reviewed the case and agreed to release the individual. The Labour Party had overturned part of the EPP that required a parole board review, meaning Khan was freed after 8 years without any type of formal review by the board.
Assessments of Donald Trump’s presidency vary widely depending on who is doing the assessing. But if future generations of historians aren’t total social justice warriors — as is likely given the fact that the socialist bubble bursts almost immediately every time socialism is implemented — Trump will almost certainly be judged as one of America’s greatest presidents, barring economic or other disaster while he is in the White House. One key reason for this is his departure from what had been standard “Israeli/Palestinian peace process” procedure.
Ever since since the British incited riots against Jews in Palestine in 1920, the standard approach has been this: Western powers demand substantive concessions from the Israelis and promises from the Palestinian Arabs, and continue to do so even as Palestinians flout all agreements and promises they made, never holding Palestinians accountable for their actions or attaching any consequences to them.
After nearly a century of this, Trump began to reward the Israelis for their commitment to peace and penalize the Palestinians for their commitment to war. As the new book The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process details, Trump fulfilled a campaign promise and shocked the world on December 6, 2017 by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announcing that the U.S. embassy would move there. “When I came into office,” Trump said, “I promised to look at the world’s challenges with open eyes and very fresh thinking. We cannot solve our problems by making the same failed assumptions and repeating the same failed strategies of the past. Old challenges demand new approaches.” If that were true of anything, it was true of the “peace process.”
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden began his "No Malarkey!" series of campaign stops in Iowa with a strange, awkward gesture toward his wife, Dr. Jill Biden.
On stage in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Saturday, attempting to regain steam in his deflated campaign momentum, Biden, 77, caught the attention of the internet when he suddenly bit his wife's fingertips as she was introducing him on stage. As Biden excitedly gestured toward her husband, he leaned over and playfully nibbled the tips of her fingers. Onlookers and press quickly shared images and videos of the event on social media, eliciting 100s of responses across the political spectrum, many wondering just what Biden was thinking.
"'You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t.' Barack Obama," joked the Independent Women's Voice after tweeting, "But why though, Joe?"
One of the men who helped stop the Islamic terrorist who went on a stabbing spree yesterday on the London Bridge is a convicted murderer who was out of prison for the day on a release.
“Convicted murderer James Ford, 42, was on day release from prison Friday when he saw the attack unfolding and rushed to help during the chaos,” The Washington Post reported. “According to British media reports, Ford had attended the same prisoner rehabilitation event as [the 28-year-old attacker], a convicted Islamist terrorist, who killed two people before being shot dead by police.”
Ford was convicted of murdering 21-year-old Amanda Champion, who struggled with learning disabilities, in 2004 and was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in prison.
On Friday, an Oklahoma police officer's Starbucks cup with "pig" printed on it went viral on social media, causing justifiable outrage not only at the barista who created the cup label but at the manager of the store who didn't adequately respond to a complaint from the local police chief. The barista has since been suspended, but many are still outraged at the coffee giant.
Black Rifle Coffee, a premium, small-batch, roast-to-order, veteran-owned coffee company based out of Utah, is trying to do right in this situation. After expressing outrage about the story, Black Rifle Coffee decided to make a grand gesture and offered to "hook up" the Kiefer Police Department with free coffee. "Can someone get us the name and location of the precinct of the officer that had PIG written on his Thanksgiving order for coffee so we can hook them up," the company tweeted. "They won’t be needing to go anywhere for coffee for a while."
Black Rifle Coffee✔@blckriflecoffee Can someone get us the name and location of the precinct of the officer that had PIG written on his Thanksgiving order for coffee so we can hook them up. They won’t be needing to go anywhere for coffee for a while. #brcc#thinblueline#backtheblue
For veterans who think they were exposed to toxic substances during their service, the Department of Veterans Affairs has a mobile application that will help them answer questions about what this potential exposure means for their long-term health.
Originally designed for VA providers, Exposure Ed now lets anyone view a list of service-related exposures -- broken down by type, conflict and date or location of service. It also has a map veterans can use to find the closest VA facilities and exposure-related programs.
For example, veterans thinking they came into contact with the Vietnam-era herbicide Agent Orange can use the "Exposures" button on the home page for immediate access to a list of illnesses related to exposure. Or, veterans can input in the time and location they served to view everything they might have been exposed to.
FROSTBURG, Maryland — Ten people were injured Sunday afternoon in a series of collisions involving 58 vehicles on Interstate 68 in northeastern Garrett County, Md.
The westbound lanes were shut down for more than four hours as State Police investigated 29 separate crashes in a one-mile stretch near Finzel. The lanes reopened shortly before 5 p.m., troopers said.
The McHenry barrack was alerted to the report of multiple vehicles crashing on I-68 at 12:37 p.m. Sunday.
Until today, Jessica Kwong was a political reporter for Newsweek. More specifically, it was her job to keep an eye on the Trump administration, the Trump family, and the 2020 race for president. This week, however, she was fired. The reason? On Thanksgiving Day, she published an article in which she claimed that the president and first lady planned to spend the holiday golfing, tweeting, "and more" some such. Sadly for her, President Trump secretly flew to Afghanistan, where he met the troops (and served them turkey).
After President Trump had landed, pro-Trump Twitter users rightfully went after her. One of her fiercest critics was First Son Donald Trump Jr. "The President spends his Thanksgiving with American troops deployed in Afghanistan, including serving them lunch," he wrote on Twitter. "Meanwhile, over at the Fake News..."
That tweet was retweeted over 8,000 times, which was a sure sign that the story about the Newsweek hoax had gone viral.
Republican Georgia Rep. Doug Collins listed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff as the top witness he wanted to question as impeachment moves before the Judiciary Committee.
Collins, 53, discussed whom he would like to question as part of the impeachment hearings when the House Judiciary Committee takes over the proceedings from the House Intelligence Committee as soon as next week. As ranking member, Collins can request testimony from witnesses, but Chairman Jerrold Nadler will have final say over who testifies.
During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Collins said his number one request will be that Schiff testifies about his knowledge of the whistleblower whose complaint laid the foundation for the House’s impeachment investigation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats' tunnel-vision focus on impeaching President Trump puts all of us, as Americans, at risk.
Since the day Trump was elected president, Democrats have been formulating and executing the plot we have been watching unfold. After Trump won a massive electoral majority, Democrats started digging.
They have been determined to find something – anything – they can use to attack him. The central focus of all of this is to describe and define Trump as a corrupt president so often that people being to accept the narrative. It’s not only the elected Democrats. Much of the intelligence community has been equally determined to “uncover” something on President Trump from the beginning.
In my judgment, the liberal national news media is mindlessly repeating this narrative. Many in the media are implicitly biased against President Trump – but even those who are not are helping the Democrats by giving their message airtime, print real estate and attention.
As this plot against Trump has continued, the American system has been bypassed, ignored, or misused to the point where it has been put it in jeopardy. Democrats, political operatives, American intelligence officials and the media have been forcing a manufactured narrative on the American people. Specifically, a group of these intelligence officials are breaking the law by leaking secrets to the media (whose members gladly overlook these crimes so long as it lets them accuse the president of something new).
Make no mistake: This is not politics as usual. It’s a concerted effort by one political party, the Washington bureaucracy, and the media to overrule the American people.
Douglas Brinkley is a fine historian. But sort of like children, historians should be read, not heard.
Brinkley said on CNN on Friday that once Trump is impeached, public support for him will disappear. Aside from a complete misreading of the mood of at least half the electorate, Brinkley shows he's better at interpreting history than at predicting political outcomes.
“It just tells you what deep trouble Donald Trump is in. I mean, when you have 50 percent of the country wanting you not just impeached but removed from office, and the game hasn’t even gotten fast yet,” Brinkley said Friday morning on CNN, where he serves as a contributor.
“I think once the vote is taken by Congress to impeach him and he’s wearing the ‘I’ on his chest, you’re going to see that movement grow even more,” Brinkley predicted.
He added of Trump, “It tells you he doesn’t have a lot of friends. He’s a base politician. He doesn’t know how to turn this around."
