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In a shocking development that has left many Christians asking questions about the Holy Land, one of Christianity's holiest sites received an almost unprecedented disruption at the beginning of Holy Week.In a press release on Sunday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem announced that Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, and the Most Reverend Fr. Francesco Ielpo, the official guardian of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, were prevented by Israeli authorities from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass. 'For the first time in centuries, the Heads of the Church were prevented from celebrating the Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.'The press release explained that the two, who were traveling privately to the church "without any characteristics of a procession or ceremonial act," were stopped by Israeli police and were "compelled to turn back." "As a result, and for the first time in centuries, the Heads of the Church were prevented from celebrating the Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre."RELATED: Iran war's latest casualty: Christian celebrations of Holy Week in the Holy Land ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty ImagesThe press release criticized the action, calling it "a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure." The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem added: "This hasty and fundamentally flawed decision, tainted by improper considerations, represents an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship, and respect for the Status Quo."Such strict measures have rarely, if ever, been taken against the faithful at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. While the church was closed to visitors in March 2020 under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to the COVID pandemic, it does not appear that the celebration of the Mass was ever prevented. Barring two other brief closures in 1998 and 2018, also under Netanyahu, the last time the Mass was prevented from being celebrated in its entirety was due to the Black Death in 1349. "The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land express their profound sorrow to the Christian faithful in the Holy Land and throughout the world that prayer on one of the most sacred days of the Christian calendar has thus been prevented," the patriarchate concluded. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee issued a statement confirming the news and criticizing the decision as an "unfortunate overreach.""While all Holy sites in the Old City are closed due to safety concerns for mass gatherings including the Western Wall, Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Al Aqsa Mosque, the action today by the Israel Nat'l Police to deny Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and 3 other priests from entering the Church to offer a blessing on Palm Sunday is an unfortunate overreach already having major repercussions around the world," Huckabee said."For the Patriarch to be barred from entry to the Church on Palm Sunday for a private ceremony is difficult to understand or justify. Israel has indicated it will work with the Patriarch to accommodate a safe means of carrying out Holy Week activities," the ambassador to Israel continued. The Israeli prime minister's office delivered a statement on social media regarding the decision to prevent the Mass, insisting that there was "no malicious intent whatsoever" and that it was done "out of special concern for [Pizzaballa's] safety." The statement explained: "Over the past several days, Iran has repeatedly targeted the holy sites of all three monotheistic religions in Jerusalem with ballistic missiles. In one strike, missile fragments crashed meters from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre."The prime minister's office also indicated that it understood the special circumstances of Holy Week that made this closure especially disappointing: "However, given the holiness of the week leading up to Easter for the world’s Christians, Israel’s security arms are putting together a plan to enable church leaders to worship at the holy site in the coming days."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!...Read More

 
Avi Lewis, a former Al Jazeera reporter, accuses Israel of genocide as he takes helm of New Democratic Party; has said he seeks to 'unlearn' the 'Zionist myths' he was raised with The post Canada’s main progressive party taps anti-Zionist Jewish ex-journalist as new leader appeared first on The Times of Israel. ...Read More

 
Governments around the world have introduced measures to limit the impact of price increases....Read More

 
President Donald Trump on Monday said he is making progress in negotiations with Iran’s leaders, but he threatened further attacks if they do not agree... Read More The post Trump: Talks Underway With ‘MORE REASONABLE’ Iran Regime appeared first on The Daily Signal. ...Read More

 
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) suspended an entire battalion from West Bank operations on Monday after soldiers allegedly assaulted a CNN crew....Read More

 
The man who may have been the most prolific mass murderer in American history died in prison last week at age 85. Kermit Gosnell, a Pennsylvania abortionist, was convicted in 2013 of murdering three babies.Now, if your first thought is, “Yes, that’s what abortionists do. They kill babies. Others have probably killed more than he did,” I understand your point. But Gosnell’s case carried an added horror: infanticide. He killed babies who had already been born. That means everyone in the abortion debate should agree that these were human beings with rights.Gosnell’s crimes reveal something ugly about American culture — something many would rather not face. They also reveal the providence of God.Even the most ardent abortion-rights advocate usually stops short of openly defending infanticide. Most draw the line at first breath. When Peter Singer made the case for infanticide, the argument was so grotesque that many assumed he was merely pushing abortion logic to the edge to expose its absurdity.A grand jury concluded that Gosnell likely killed hundreds of babies this way, though their bodies were destroyed and will never be recovered. The details remain horrific. Witnesses reported that if babies were breathing or showing signs of life, Gosnell would cut their spinal cords with scissors. The grand jury described his clinic, the Women’s Medical Society, as a “house of horrors.” Investigators found fetal remains stored in plastic bags, milk jugs, cat-food containers, and specimen cups. They found blood on the floor and furniture, cat feces, dust, and bags of biohazard waste piling up in the basement and freezer.As a philosopher, I find myself asking two questions: How can a human being do such things to babies? And what does that say about our world?In “The Brothers Karamazov,” Ivan Karamazov wonders whether God can exist if children suffer. He is less troubled by the suffering of adults, who may deserve some of what they endure. But when children suffer, his doubts explode. Gosnell’s crimes would have pushed Ivan past outrage and into open metaphysical revolt. Where was God when this happened?But I would reframe the question. Where were we?RELATED: ‘House of horrors’: America's most infamous abortionist who murdered babies born alive faces his creator at 85 Mark Makela/Corbis/Getty ImagesGosnell’s story broke through — barely — only because of the infanticide. Had he confined himself to killing babies in the womb, countless people would have walked past his clinic every day and thought nothing of it. That is part of the indictment. The same culture that teaches young Ivan Karamazovs to doubt God often teaches them to defend abortion. Many of the professors who train students to sneer at divine justice also promote the practice that made Gosnell possible.Could anything be more demonic?It is almost as if they are saying, “If God existed, then I could not exist, because God would not permit evil like me.”Some Democrats have defended late-term abortion and even flirted with arguments that edge toward Singer’s position. Such people cannot turn around and blame God for Gosnell. They are implicated in the same moral disorder. But the question presses beyond them. What sort of world should we expect when large numbers of people accept the killing of babies in the womb as normal?Gosnell’s crimes reveal something ugly about American culture — something many would rather not face. They also reveal the providence of God, both in judging sin and in calling a nation to repent. That pattern runs throughout the Old Testament prophets.America failed to learn the lesson of human dignity from the evil of slavery. Now many of the same arguments once used to justify slavery reappear in defense of abortion: They are not persons with legal rights; they are inferior; their lives depend on the will of another. The language changes. The moral logic does not.And the logic has grown uglier over time.Roe v. Wade was framed as a matter of medical privacy. The public, we were told, had no right to know what passed between a woman and her doctor. Supporters appealed to pity. An unwanted child, they argued, would face a hard life anyway. But the debate has since shifted. Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous essay “A Defense of Abortion” compared pregnancy to having an unwanted violinist attached to your body. That argument now gets invoked to justify abortion at any stage on the grounds that “it is the mother’s body.”Ivan would answer: Yes, but you are dismembering the baby’s body.What happens to a culture that treats pregnancy and babies this way? Population decline follows. So does a dehumanization that spills into the rest of life. But providential consequences follow, too. Gosnell is one of them. America has tolerated the horror of baby-killing for decades, and Gosnell forced the country to look directly at what that horror becomes when pursued to its logical end: deny the unborn legal rights, then deny personhood to infants, then empower abortionists to decide that a baby becomes human only when the mother says so.RELATED: Paul Ehrlich died. His contempt for human life didn’t. Gene Arias/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty ImagesWe cannot keep one foot inside this evil and one foot outside it. Either human beings possess rights no matter where they are, from the womb to hospice care, or they do not.It is time to repent.I am also a pastor, and one of the most sobering truths in this entire story is that Gosnell did not cease to exist when he died. He stood before the throne of God to answer for those innocent lives. The babies he killed did not cease to exist either. They stand as witnesses to his crimes. Their blood cries out.And those who have participated in abortion will one day face those they helped destroy.That truth should drive every one of us to the cross of Christ, confessing our sin and looking to Him for mercy and redemption....Read More

 
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Anti-abortion activist Lila Rose is sounding the alarm after a vote in the House of Lords moved to decriminalize abortion up to birth in the United Kingdom — a shift she says does not reflect public opinion.According to Rose, the provision was inserted into a broader criminal justice bill, allowing it to pass with less scrutiny while dramatically expanding abortion access."So how did this happen?” Rose says to BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”“There was a big bill that had to do with the police and had to do with criminalization and crimes, and the pro-abort activists in Parliament stuck in a decriminalization statute that would legalize abortion through all nine months in the U.K.,” she tells Stuckey.Rose explains that the provision “means you can end the life of your baby up until the moment of birth and there’s no criminal penalties for you.”“You can order an abortion pill via the mail. You can take it at home. You can kill your 32-week-old baby. … And there is zero liability. There is zero criminal penalty for that. So it’s a very dark day in the U.K., and of course the pro-life movement is galvanized now, saying we have to put a stop to this,” she says.“Is it even possible for pro-lifers in the U.K. to put a stop to this? Or is it just the deal is done?” Stuckey asks.“If they get enough members of Parliament, they can reverse this. So it’s a matter of rallying the political power and support,” Rose explains, pointing out that everyone who plans to fight for the pro-life cause in the U.K. is already facing an uphill battle — but they’re not alone.“I do think there’s a growing unrest in the U.K. about how the government is, quite frankly, handling governance. This has to do in part with the protection of women and girls in the countries from rape and from attacks. It has to do with the lack of freedom of speech in the U.K., where people are praying outside abortion clinics or hospitals where abortions are happening and they’re thrown into jail for that,” she tells Stuckey.“I think people of good faith and goodwill — pro-life people, pro-family people — need to build a fighting force like we have here in the United States and believe that it’s possible, and with the right political will, make the change happen that needs to happen,” she adds.Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream....Read More

 
Donald Trump has indicated he could send troops to take control of Iran's key oil export terminal....Read More

 
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Buck Matthews, who for years was a household name as a WOOD TV8 weatherman and host of his own show, has died. ...Read More

 
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President Donald Trump is publicly weighing his options to pressure Iran's new regime into making a deal to end hostilities. As the conflict enters the fourth week, Trump reassured the America people that the United States is in the midst of "serious discussions" with Iran's new, "more reasonable" regime to end the war. Although Trump said great progress has been made, he also threatened to obliterate key Iranian infrastructure if the conflict is not resolved in the near future. 'This will be in retribution for our many soldiers.'"The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran," Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday. "Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately 'Open for Business,' we will conclude our lovely 'stay' in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet 'touched.'"RELATED: 'TOTAL RESOLUTION': Trump orders temporary suspension amid Iran peace talks Nathan Howard/Getty ImagesAs Trump noted, the United States has refrained from striking these facilities after the president first announced the negotiations last week. Trump originally gave the Iranians a five-day window to strike a deal but later extended it by an additional 10 days.If the strikes were to take place, Trump said they would be in "retribution" for the hundreds of Americans who have died at the hands of the Iranian regime. "This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime's 47 year 'Reign of Terror,'" Trump said. RELATED: Trump offers unique insight into Iran's 'strange' negotiations: 'It won't be pretty!' Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesSecretary of State Marco Rubio came short of naming these new negotiators, saying it would probably "get them in trouble." "I'm not going to disclose to you who those people are because it would probably get them in trouble with some other groups of people inside Iran," Rubio told ABC News. "Look, there's some fractures going on there internally. And at the end of the day, I think that if there are people in Iran who now, given everything that's happened, are willing to move in a different direction for their country, that would be great." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!...Read More

 
Israeli officials say Iran's internet blackout is hiding war damage, jamming Starlink, and stopping civilians from organizing amid mounting regime pressure....Read More

 
The new executive director of ArtPrize says he's looking to focus on the "magic" of the citywide art competition....Read More

 
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There was a time when Louis Theroux was the best documentary-maker alive. Not the most famous, not the flashiest — the best. He had a gift for making dangerous people feel comfortable enough to hang themselves with their own words.His technique was deceptively simple: show up, look confused, ask the obvious question nobody else dared ask, and let the awkward silences do the heavy lifting.Theroux spends much of the film asking genuinely dangerous, profit-driven men why they do not try being nicer.The results were extraordinary. He immersed himself in the Westboro Baptist Church and revealed something more than fire-and-brimstone rhetoric — that hatred has a morning routine, eats cereal, and goes to bed at a reasonable hour.He walked into San Quentin and found the prison’s strict social architecture more fascinating than horrifying. He sat with alcoholics dying in a hospital liver ward and captured something devastating without once reaching for a violin. He starred in a porn film fully clothed, somehow maintaining both his dignity and his curiosity.His early work was morally serious without being moralistic — an almost impossible balance that he struck repeatedly.That Theroux is gone.Concern trollIn his place stands something considerably less interesting: a concerned therapist in training with a camera crew, packaging society’s oddballs for an audience that already knows what it thinks of them.His latest Netflix outing, "Inside the Manosphere," is the clearest evidence yet. Theroux plunges into the world of online alpha-male influencers — Harrison Sullivan, Justin Waller, Myron Gaines, Sneako — tracking their revenue streams, their rhetoric, and their relentless contempt for women.Miami apartments. Spanish nightclubs. Podcast sets where female guests are humiliated for content.Sullivan funnels Telegram followers to OnlyFans accounts for kickbacks while publicly mocking the creators. Waller hawks Andrew Tate’s $49-a-month “university.” Gaines, a man of genuine venom, performs dominance for the camera like someone who has mistaken cruelty for confidence.The material is genuinely ripe. These men are running sophisticated grift operations dressed up as philosophy, monetizing male loneliness and directing the resulting rage at all women. They deserve scrutiny.The problem is that Theroux no longer scrutinizes. He pathologizes.Practiced horrorEvery interaction becomes a therapeutic probe. Every exchange is framed as evidence of something “disturbing.” The wide-eyed incredulity — once a genuine performance of curiosity — now reads as practiced horror for a largely left-leaning platform.When Sullivan admits bluntly that he would never have found an audience doing wholesome content — “If I’d just done good things, I would never have blown up” — it is the most honest moment in the film.Theroux treats it as a tragedy. It is simply capitalism.Sullivan knows exactly what he is doing.The real story is not that these men are broken. It is that they have correctly identified a lucrative market of young men who feel abandoned by mainstream culture — and are bleeding them dry. That is the documentary.Theroux keeps making a different one — a morality play in which he is cast as the bewildered voice of reason.RELATED: Muscular Christianity: Debunking the manosphere’s lies Ian Maule/Getty ImagesPrepackaged panderingThe irony is that his presence amplifies the very thing he deplores. Sullivan’s mother, in a sharp moment the film almost buries, asks the obvious question: If you find this so reprehensible, why are you publicizing it?Theroux spends much of the film asking genuinely dangerous, profit-driven men why they do not try being nicer — roughly as effective as asking Putin to send Zelenskyy a fruit basket.He is outmatched by people who have spent years controlling their image, and he does not seem to notice. These are seasoned sharks who have fielded far worse and treat the beanpole Brit like a speed bump on the way to their next revenue stream.What made the early work so extraordinary was Theroux’s apparent absence of agenda. He let meth addicts, dementia patients, Scientologists, and porn stars speak for themselves and trusted audiences to draw their own conclusions. He did not editorialize.The manosphere documentary editorializes constantly — each segment arriving labeled, prejudged, prepackaged for viewers who tuned in already convinced.This is what woke documentary-making looks like at its most comfortable: confirming what the audience believes in a way that seems like investigation.It is virtuous voyeurism — and painfully dull television.The manosphere — equal parts genuine grievance and cynical exploitation — is a real and fascinating phenomenon. The young men being farmed for subscription fees and manufactured resentment deserve actual examination, not a wagging finger and a worried look.Theroux was once the person who could have done that.Watch "Drinking to Oblivion." Watch "The Most Hated Family in America." Watch a man doing the hardest thing in journalism — entering without a verdict and finding something real on the other side.Sadly, that man traded his instincts for a Netflix brief and never looked back.He got paid. The audience got a lecture....Read More

 
Thousands of Grandville residents will have their water meters replaced this year as part of a communitywide initiative to modernize the water system....Read More

 
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Donna Rotunno, a legal expert and Fox News podcast host, talked to Fox News Digital about the situation Tiger Woods is facing after his arrest in Florida....Read More

 
A threatened US ground operation to seize control of the energy hub would put troops just 21 miles off Iran's coast, within range of missiles and drones The post Kharg Island is key to Iran’s oil exports, but targeting it would carry major risks appeared first on The Times of Israel. ...Read More

 
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A watchdog group alleges Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez misused nearly $19,000 in campaign funds to pay a psychiatrist, filing a federal FEC complaint....Read More

 
The UK will not come to the aid of its allies in Iran, no matter who asks, PM Starmer said at a local election event. The post Starmer on Iran: ‘Not Our War and We’re Not Going to Get Dragged In’ appeared first on Breitbart. ...Read More

 
The UK will not come to the aid of its allies in Iran, no matter who asks, PM Starmer said at a local election event. The post Starmer on Iran: ‘Not Our War and We’re Not Going to Get Dragged In’ appeared first on Breitbart. ...Read More

 
Mike Rowe called out Jimmy Kimmel for his “tone deaf" comments mocking new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin for being a former plumber, admitting he is a “tad butt hurt" by the dig....Read More

 
Members of the outlawed MEK group hanged at Gehzel Hesar prison outside of Tehran; rights organizations fear a surge in executions during war The post Iran hangs two political prisoners from opposition group, activists say appeared first on The Times of Israel. ...Read More

 
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