Oscar the Grouch. (Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images); Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

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“Fox NFL Sunday” analyst Michael Strahan has apologized following the volcanic outrage he unleashed by appearing to disrespect the national anthem during a ceremony honoring veterans, saying it was an […]

The post 'So Far From the Truth': Michael Strahan Addresses National Anthem Controversy That Left Many Viewers Furious appeared first on The Western Journal.

Donald Trump was elected with a mandate last week. He's now using it to challenge Republican senators to confirm his Cabinet picks.

The notice claims that The Great Indian Kapil Show allegedly disrespects Rabindranath Tagore's legacy and risks offending cultural and religious sentiments

In this report, Peter Dada writes on the forthcoming Ondo governorship election, highlighting the controversy that has trailed INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner for the poll On Saturday, over two million registered voters would go to the polling centres to cast their votes for the governorship candidates of their choice, to decide who will steer the

The Delhi High Court has ordered the Bureau of Immigration to cancel a Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against BharatPe's former Managing Director Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover.

EP Jayarajan autobiography controversy: ആത്മകഥയുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ട് പുറത്ത് വന്ന വിഷയങ്ങളിൽ അന്വേഷണം വേണമെന്ന ് ഡിജിപിക്ക് നൽകിയ പരാതിയിൽ ആവശ്യപ്പെടുന്നു.

Govindan says CPI(M) does not require members to seek prior permission to write a book, though he emphasised that consultation with the party should occur before publication

1. "Met een laptop vanuit de keuken": Magnumfotograaf Carl De Keyzer maakt met AI controversiële fotoreeks over Rusland  VRT.be
2. Magnumfotograaf Carl De Keyzer krijgt haatreacties voor zijn virtuele beelden  De Standaard
3. “Dit is geen lui project, ik heb zes maanden tot zes uur per dag aan mijn computer gezeten”: topfotograaf Carl De Keyzer maakt nieuw boek met AI  Het Nieuwsblad
4. ‘Op Instagram brak de hel los’: Carl De Keyzer gebruikt AI voor nieuwe fotoreeks over Rusland en daar is niet iedereen gelukkig mee  De Morgen

Imsha Rehman, a TikTok star from Pakistan, has become embroiled in controversy after an explicit video of her surfaced online. This incident mirrors the backlash faced by Minahil Malik, another Pakistani TikTok personality, whose private video went viral earlier. Many have

Naresh Meena, an independent candidate and former Congress member, slapped Sub-Divisional Magistrate Amit Choudhary after a heated argument at a polling booth in Rajasthan's Deoli Uniara. The incident was recorded on camera by a local, and now, the video is going

Remember! All the modern versions are based on the Westcott and Hort text, compiled by two men who both believed that the sacred text of Holy Scripture was to be approached and treated like any secular text of history. The English people, who felt secure in their trust that these two Cambridge scholars would take care of attacks on the Scripture, unknowingly accepted the public utterances and writings of men who boasted between themselves that they held doctrines that would be considered dangerous heresy. Nowhere in all literature can we find a more perfectly clear self-revelation of Fenton John Anthony Hort than in the Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort published in 1896 by his son, Author Fenton Hort. Hort was brought up by a well taught Bible-believing evangelical mother. She recognized the fact that her son had departed from the faith "once delivered to the saints" and was saddened thereby. -- Hort acknowledged his departure from the Evangelical faith when he wrote, "Further I agree with those who condemn many leading specific doctrines of the popular theology, as to say the least, containing much superstition and immorality of a very pernicious king... The positive doctrines even of the Evangelicals seem to me perverted rather than untrue. There are I fear, still more serious differences between us on the subject of authority, and especially the authority of the Bible," Life and Letters, Vol. I, p.400. Again Dr. Hort states, "Another idea has lately occurred to me: is not Mariolatry displacing much worship of scattered saints and so becoming a tendency towards unity of worship? I have been persuaded for many years that Mary-worship and Jesus worship have very much in common in their causes and their results" Vol. I, p.50-51 "Life and Letters." -- Hort was completely deceived by Darwin Vol. I, p.374 "Life and Letters." "Have you read Darwin?...in spite of difficulties, I am inclined to think it is unanswerable (page 416). "...another last word on Darwin...I shall not let the matter drop in a hurry, or, to speak more correctly, it will not let me drop...there is no getting rid of it any more than a part of oneself." Vol. I, pages 433-434. On the atonement Hort writes, "Certainly nothing can be more unscriptural than the modern limiting of Christ's bearing our sins and sufferings to His death; but indeed that is only one aspect of an almost universal heresy." Vol. I, page 430 "Life and Letters." -- Hort in writing to a friend, John Ellerton, Dec. 20, 1851 said: "I had no idea till the last few weeks of the importance of texts, having read so little Greek Testament, and dragged on the villainous Textus Receptus... Think of that vile Textus Receptus leaning entirely on late manuscripts. It is a blessing there are such early ones." Hort refers of course to the very corrupt Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Alexandrius in which its finder, Tischendorf, noted 12,000 alterations, Codex Sinaiticus. We ask, "From where did Hort get this great antipathy and hatred for the Textus Receptus so early in his career? How did he conceive his ingenious theories to do away with the fact that the Textus Receptus (the Greek text underlying the King James Version) and that which is representative of a very, very high percentage of all Greek Manuscripts?" -- Look at the hidden background for the modern spreading rejection of the King James Version. The followers of Westcott and Hort are following the lead of men who have departed from the faith and have given themselves over to a strictly forbidden prying into the occult. They had received from the world of spirits a hatred for the true Word of God. After we learn that Hort describes the sacred text as "being that vile Textus Receptus," we read Hort's words, "Westcott, Gorham, C.B. Scott, Benson, Bradshaw, Luard, and I have started a society for the investigation of ghosts, and all supernatural appearances, and effects, being all disposed to believe that such things really exist, and ought to be discriminated from hoaxes and mere subjective delusions; we shall be happy to obtain any good accounts well authenticated with names. Our own temporary name is the [occult] Ghostly Guild." Vol. I, page 211.

Acacius' proposed creed: -- Preface: "We having yesterday assembled by the emperor's command at Seleucia, a city of Isauria, on the 27th day of September, exerted ourselves to the utmost, with all moderation, to preserve the peace of the church, and to determine doctrinal questions on prophetic and evangelical authority, so as to sanction nothing in the ecclesiastic confession of faith at variance with the sacred Scriptures, as our Emperor Constantius most beloved of God has ordered. But inasmuch as certain individuals in the Synod have acted injuriously toward several of us, preventing some from expressing their sentiments, and excluding others from the council against their wills; and at the same time have introduced such as have been deposed, and persons who were ordained contrary to the ecclesiastical canon, so that the Synod has presented a scene of tumult and disorder, of which the most illustrious Leonas, the Comes, and the most eminent Lauricius, governor of the province, have been eye-witnesses, we are therefore under the necessity of making this declaration. That we do not repudiate the faith which was ratified at the consecration of the church at Antioch; for we give it our decided preference, because it received the concurrence of our fathers who were assembled there to consider some controverted points. Since, however, the terms homoousion and homoiousion have in time past troubled the minds of many, and still continue to disquiet them; and moreover that a new term has recently been coined by some who assert the anomoion of the Son to the Father: we reject the first two, as expressions which are not found in the Scriptures; but we utterly anathematize the last, and regard such as countenance its use, as alienated from the church. We distinctly acknowledge the homoion of the Son to the Father, in accordance with what the apostle has declared concerning him, "Who is the image of the invisible God." -- Creed: "We confess then, and believe in one God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and of things visible and invisible. We believe also in his Son our Lord Jesus Christ, who was begotten of him without passion before all ages, God the Word, the only-begotten of God, the Light, the Life, the Truth, the Wisdom: through whom all things were made which are in the heavens and upon the earth, whether visible or invisible. We believe that he took flesh of the holy Virgin Mary, at the end of the ages, in order to abolish sin; that he was made man, suffered for our sin, and rose again, and was taken up into the heavens, to sit at the right hand of the Father, whence he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. We believe also in the Holy Spirit, whom our Lord and Saviour has denominated the Comforter, and whom he sent to his disciples after his departure, according to his promise: by whom also he sanctifies all believers in the church, who are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Those who preach anything contrary to this creed, we regard as aliens from the catholic church."

Generally speaking, it allows small business owners to write off up to $500,000 worth of qualified expenses in the year they are made, up to $2 million, rather than amortizing them over a period of years. In addition to spurring immediate spending, which benefits the economy, the deduction theoretically frees up cash that business owners can use to grow their businesses.

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Perhaps it is time to embrace some new first principles.

Making a first impression is not easy. People are just so sensitive these days. Sensitive about themselves, that is.

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Well, it turns out that, according to decades of academic research, introverts are more likely than extroverts to have those characteristics:

1. Introverts are generally more creative.
Introverts are famously more creative than extroverts. According to the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills, Creativity is a problem-solving response by intelligent, very active, highly emotional, and extremely introverted persons.

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Dale Crover

[Nile Post] The Nyege Nyege Festival is offering discounted tickets to Jinja City residents, lowering the price to UGX 120,000 from the standard UGX 250,000.

NASA's Perseverance rover, on Mars for the past three years, has found potential signs that the planet may once have supported life.

De grootste smartphonefabrikanten waren vorige week allemaal in het nieuws, met kwartaalcijfers van Apple en Samsung en nieuwe toptelefoons van Xiaomi en Honor. De grote Amerikaanse techbedrijven presenteerden ook hun derdekwartaalresultaten, zonder tekenen van een vertraging in hun wereldwijde groei...

I currently drive a BMW X5, and I’m looking to upgrade to the Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV or the Range Rover Sport. What would you recommend?

Suraj M, Gurugram

Autocar India says: If you mainly drive within the city with the odd weekend outing, the EQS SUV is a good choice. It’s smoother and faster, has a futuristic interior and is far more refined than the Range Rover Sport. If you are planning to do a lot of highway driving, then the RR Sport is better. It also has a better back seat and more legroom than the EQS SUV. 

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Personality. You’ve got one; your friends have one—everyone has one! But what does it say about you and your social tendencies? In the early 1900s, Carl Jung coined the terms “introvert” and “extrovert” to describe personality traits and behaviors. Introverts tend to be more reserved, whereas extroverts thrive on social interaction. So, where do you fall? Are you an introvert, extrovert, or something in between? Answer these questions about what you would do in any given situation to find out.

The 5th century brought much controversy, schism, and anathemas but the Church survived. Some of these divisions exist even today.

The start of Great Lent begins with preparation. We prepare our refrigerators, freezers and pantry for the fast, emptying it of meat and dairy. But we prepare our hearts as well, emptying it of resentments or grudges, wrongs we have done or wrongs done to us in our community. On navigating Forgiveness Vespers as an introvert.

Fr. John Oliver reflects on the importance of keeping justice, mercy, and faithfulness preeminent, as opposed to foolish controversies, genealogies, and dissension.

In this episode, Fr. John discusses an important and fateful development in the history of Russian Christendom before modern times, the Possessor Controversy.

Fr. Harry Pappas, priest at Archangel Orthodox Church in Stanford, Connecticut, and an adjunct professor at St. Vladimir's, leads the seminary's second annual Public Lenten Retreat. Titled "Back to Basics: Old Testament and Life," his presentation is divided into three parts, the second of which, "How Life Works," can be heard here.

Dr. Albert Rossi discusses the difference between introverts and extroverts.

There is variety in Orthodox theology, but there is no plurality in dogma—and that is where the unity of the Orthodox faith lies. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick explains.

Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick shares his thoughts on the controversial situation of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Are we looking at the situation through worldly eyes or through spiritual eyes?

Have you ever felt pressured to be the perfect wife, mom, and Christian? We don't have to be Martha Stewart, but we can give God what we have.

A review of the front page stories from the daily newspapers in Scotland.

The plans to bring in charges led to protests in some areas and outside council meetings.

Watch highlights as a Kyle Wootton goal in extra time gives League One Stockport County a narrow victory over National League high-fliers Forest Green Rovers in the first round of the FA Cup.

Indigenous Australians says the book is damaging and stereotypes first nation people.

All about the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is moored in Portland, Dorset.

Bristol Rovers boss Matt Taylor says it will be a moment of "togetherness" as fans plan support for players who have suffered racist abuse.

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Previous academic and popular literature has raised important debates concerning the contradictory incentives of international firms to reduce their environmental impacts and offer transparent environmental information about their operations. As an exhaustive review of this literature reveals mixed and partial evidence, we compared the individual corporate environmental performance and disclosure of the 100 most international non-financial firms in the world to those of 16,023 firms in their industries and a group of matched pairs of firms for three different years. Our results show that although the top international firms have a much better record of environmental disclosure than the firms within their industries and the matched pairs, the top international firms also show worse environmental performance than their peers. The results suggest that the top international firms seek legitimation for their environmental activities by means of voluntary disclosure.

Alberto Fujimori leaves behind a mixed legacy of growth and controversy after battling cancer

More than 400 years after her death, the truth about "the Blood Countess," a Hungarian noblewoman alleged to have been the most prolific female serial killer of all time, remains elusive.

Ryan Blaney celebrated his victory at Martinsville Speedway, a win that launched NASCAR's defending champion into the title-deciding season finale.

Washington — Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency are renewing their call for a complete ban on asbestos after the agency’s release of Part 1 of a final risk evaluation that concludes that the substance – a known human carcinogen – presents an unreasonable health risk to workers under certain conditions.

If you’ve been following this controversy surrounding erythritol, don’t panic yet. Check in first with David Feder, Executive Editor—Technical for Prepared Foods as he provides some reasoned opinion on the matter.

Citing ethical issues and potential conflicts of interest, advocates want the city to halt a no-bid contract renewal that would funnel millions to the Portland Metro Chamber. by Courtney Vaughn

For years, Portland has collected fees from property owners in enhanced service districts to pay for added cleaning and security services in designated areas. The districts are typically concentrated around businesses, offering private security, extra policing, janitorial services, and more recently, removal of homeless camps. 

Some stakeholders say the city has yet to confront the unique and outsized role of Portland’s most powerful business lobbying group at one enhanced service district (ESD) in particular—Downtown Portland Clean & Safe.

This week, Portland City Council is scheduled to vote on a 116-acre expansion of the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe district, as well as a fee hike and a five-year management contract renewal for the district. 

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, more than 100 Portlanders and over a dozen community groups are urging City Council to postpone the contract renewal that would funnel a hefty portion of a $58 million, no-bid contract to the Portland Metro Chamber.

An open letter to city commissioners outlines a number of transparency and ethics issues surrounding the Clean & Safe contract, asking the Council vote to be tabled until a new Council is sworn in this January.

Currently, the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe district is overseen by an organization of the same name, whose management has significant overlap with the executive leadership of the Portland Metro Chamber (formerly the Portland Business Alliance).

A large chunk of funding for the Metro Chamber’s leadership staff comes from a lucrative contract to oversee the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe ESD.

That means a private group that lobbies the city on behalf of private business interests is being paid millions in public money to oversee a service district that includes a large swath of its own dues-paying members. The downtown district also includes several government agencies and properties that pay into the ESD—including Portland City Hall. Moreover, community groups say the contract and service delivery model are convoluted at best, with next to no oversight from the city.

The letter’s signatories say the petition for district expansion, and the accompanying contract renewal “raises serious concerns related to affordability, efficient use of public resources, accountability, and transparency.”

“The City contracts with Clean & Safe, which subcontracts with other organizations to carry out cleaning and safety services. Yet the executive director of Clean & Safe is simultaneously an employee of the Portland Business Alliance, which is also a subcontractor of Clean & Safe,” the open letter to Council states. “Unclear lines of oversight make it difficult for ratepayers or the public to hold anyone accountable. Even more concerning, the contract allocates significant overhead to the Portland Business Alliance, the city’s most active lobbying organization.”

It's a contract that mystifies everyone from accountants, to ratepayers, and even auditors. 

A 2020 city audit of Portland's ESDs found "little oversight" of the privately funded public service districts and noted "complicated governance and management systems" that obfuscate public access to basic information such as budgets and subcontracts.

Not long after the city audit, a local business executive spoke out about the questionable business arrangement baked into the Clean & Safe contract. When she did, she was allegedly threatened with a lawsuit from the Portland Business Alliance.

Since then, other local government watchdogs have taken note, but gotten little traction with city leadership.

“I think this council has an ethical responsibility to answer all these questions for the voters, or wait,” Diane Goodwin, a member of local political advocacy group Portland For All, says.

It's unclear what Clean & Safe's latest budget includes. A 2021 budget calculated total expenses at around $5 million, including about $858,000 in salaries. Exactly what portion of staff is covered in those salary expenses is murky. Both the Metro Chamber and Downtown Clean & Safe share staff. In fact, the Chamber's CEO and president, Andrew Hoan, is also the CEO and president of Downtown Clean & Safe. The 2021 budget shows $243,000 in "shared administration" salary costs. 

Tax documents from 2022 show Hoan drew a $333,000 salary from the Chamber that year. The two organizations also share an executive assistant and an advocacy coordinator. Clean & Safe's operations director and executive director are also listed as part of the Chamber's staff. The Clean & Safe executive director drew a $154,000 salary from the Chamber that same year.

Businesses and commercial property owners in the district overwhelmingly support the expansion, saying the frequent cleaning and beefed up security have improved downtown Portland and made it safer for workers and visitors.

“We want our associates to feel safe coming into work,” Kelly Mullen, president of Portland’s Safeway and Albertsons division, told the Council on October 31 during its initial consideration of the contract and ESD expansion. Mullen said recently, the Safeway location at 10th and Jefferson has had to reduce store hours and close off an entrance, to improve safety at the grocery store.

“We want to be part of the solution and really make our community thrive,” Mullen said.

The council also heard from the principal of a private school advocating for the district expansion so her students and staff could receive extra security and clean-up around the campus.

One element of Downtown Clean & Safe that’s lauded by nearly every district member, even critics, is the Clean Start program, run by Central City Concern. The program offers janitorial jobs cleaning city streets to people transitioning out of homelessness. For many, it offers a fresh start and a path toward self-sufficiency. 

City staff and Clean & Safe reps say the expanded district and new proposed rate structures will offer more transparency, reasonable fee calculations, inflation adjustments, and a cap on rates for condo owners. Several residential ratepayers say the whole Clean & Safe arrangement leaves them with more questions than services received. 

John Pumphrey owns a condominium in the downtown district. He and other condo owners say the services they pay for are often duplicative of private security and janitorial services they already pay for through their homeowners association. They also say the services serve mainly to benefit businesses, not residents.

“I’m a condo owner in downtown Portland and our building pays $24,000 a year to Clean & Safe and for this, [we] receive next to nothing,” Pumphrey told the Council, asking them to vote against the contract renewal. “What’s really irritating to some of us about Clean & Safe is that 50 percent of what we contribute … is skimmed off the top by the Portland Metro Chamber.”

Pumphrey isn’t the only one critical of the unusually high compensation provided to Portland Metro Chamber staff from the Downtown Clean & Safe contract.

The open letter to City Council also makes mention of the compensation arrangement, asserting the Clean & Safe contract “pays nearly 50 percent of Business Alliance executive salaries in addition to up to 30% in administrative overhead.”

“Many of these executives appear in City lobbying records and in state filings for PACs that advocate for private business interests, often directly in conflict with the will of the voting public,” the letter reads. “It is inappropriate to use public resources to offset the cost of business lobbying.”

Devin Reynolds, the city's ESD coordinator, said the arrangement between the Metro Chamber and Dowtown Clean & Safe isn't an anomaly.

“Having an ESD contract with a third party to fulfill some, or all their service areas is indeed common across business improvement districts, business improvement areas, and enhanced services districts,” Reynolds told the Mercury earlier this year.

Commonplace or not, some downtown ESD ratepayers say they’ve been cut off from any meaningful participation in their district’s oversight or decisions.

Anita Davidson, a condo owner in the downtown district, told the Mercury that for years, condo owners have had no representation in district leadership, and there is little to no transparency around operational decisions.

“As residential people, we don’t feel we belong there. We don't have a vote in who runs Clean & Safe,” she said. “We can’t even join Portland Metro Chamber, because it's for businesses. I’d like to see Clean & Safe become a public nonprofit. That would solve a lot of things. I still have to make a public records request [just] to see their budget.”

In an effort to appease homeowners, the new contract includes a fee cap on residential units. It’s a nice accommodation, but homeowners in the industry-dominated district say what they really want is a way to opt out.

There currently is no mechanism to do that, and the process for annexing additional property into an ESD doesn’t require a vote from affected property owners. It’s left up to City Council to approve. Current standards only require the city to notify affected property owners by mail and hold public hearings where they can chime in. 

“Unfortunately for ratepayers, the city has not yet, after 30 years, adopted standards for formation, renewal, or expansion of the ESDs,” Davidson told Council. “At some point, we hope and expect that this will happen, although listening tonight, it sounds like it's an all-in-one thing.”

Other district members say they disagree with their tax revenue being used to initiate homeless sweeps, and pay for increased police presence.

That’s especially true in the case of Sisters of the Road, a homeless services nonprofit and member of the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe district.

“From 2016-2020, unhoused residents accounted for over half of arrests made in Portland. Their charges were primarily nonviolent, survival crimes. That same data showed that people are 20 times more likely to experience criminalization in Downtown Clean & Safe versus other areas of the city,” Lauren Armony, program director at Sisters of the Road, told the city in written testimony earlier this year. “Hyper-surveillance has not made our neighborhood any healthier or safer, but further entrenched vulnerable individuals in the cycle of incarceration and poverty.”

Organizations like Sisters of the Road say they're irked that the ESD funnels its members’ taxes into the Metro Chamber, which has powerful influence over city politics and often advocates against the city’s vulnerable, unhoused residents–the same population Sisters of the Road is trying to help. 

The Clean & Safe contract and district expansion are currently scheduled for a second reading and vote by Portland City Council on Wednesday.