June 25, 2023 - The Virginia Star

Trump Says Liberals Are ‘Waging War on Faith and Freedom’ as 2024 Hopefuls Woo Evangelicals

June 25, 2023 Just the News

The annual Faith and Freedom forum – considered the country’s largest public policy gathering of Christian conservative activists – concluded Saturday evening with a keynote speech from front-running GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in which he spoke passionately to a key part of a coalition he must rebuild to win the GOP nomination.

But Trump, like the other top-tier 2024 GOP presidential candidates who spoke during the three-day event in Washington, D.C., faces a long road to Election Day in which the nominee will also have to win over independents, the undecideds and other voters for Republicans to retake the White House.

‘Gone with the Wind’ Features Trigger Warning About ‘Harmful Phrases’ and Racism in New Edition

June 25, 2023 Just the News

The publisher of “Gone with the Wind” added a warning in the front of a new edition to advise readers that author Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War epic contains “racist” elements and “hurtful or indeed harmful phrases.”

“Gone with the Wind is a novel which includes problematic elements including the romanticisation of a shocking era in our history and the horrors of slavery,” the book’s publisher, Pan Macmillian, wrote in the opening page of the 2022 edition, The Telegraph reported Saturday.

Commentary: Religious Conviction in Woke Sports

June 25, 2023 RealClearWire

When the University of Oklahoma softball team showed up for the College World Series last week, reporters expected to hear pride and camaraderie from a squad on the way to winning its third consecutive national championship.

But several star Sooners players startled the press and went viral online by declaring that their joy in Christianity trumped their considerable athletic accomplishments.

Feds Built Case Hunter Biden Evaded $2.2 Million in Taxes Dating to 2014 Before Being Thwarted

June 25, 2023June 24, 2023 Just the News

If Hunter Biden pleads guilty next month as expected to two misdemeanor tax evasion charges, he’ll be admitting he shorted the U.S. government of about $100,000 in taxes he owed in 2017-18.

But it’s a far cry from the evidence the IRS and FBI developed showing a pattern of tax evasion and avoidance that stretched back to his father’s term as vice president a decade ago, according to newly released documents and testimony.

3M Settles Water Contamination Lawsuits with $10.3 Billion Payout

June 25, 2023 Just the News

Chemical manufacturing company 3M agreed to settle multiple lawsuits with a $10.3 billion payout over the U.S. water supply being allegedly contaminated with “forever chemicals” contained in firefighting foam and other products, the company announced in a press release on Thursday.

Under the settlement, 3M will provide the payout over a 13-year period to both public water suppliers that have found traces of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other suppliers that “may detect PFAS at any level in the future.” The company did not admit liability in the settlement.

Judge Blocks Wyoming Abortion Pill Ban, Pending Lawsuit

June 25, 2023 Just the News

A Wyoming judge has temporarily blocked the state’s ban on abortion pills, pending legal arguments.

The state is the only one to have specifically banned abortion pills, though numerous others have effectively done so by banning abortion almost entirely, the Associated Press reported. Wyoming law generally bans the procedure, though that law is also the subject of a judicial block from the same judge.

Disney’s First Movie with a Non-Binary Character Becomes Pixar’s Worst-Ever Opening Weekend

June 25, 2023 Just the News

Disney’s film “Elemental,” which features Pixar’s first “non-binary character,” had the worst box office opening weekend in the studio’s history, bringing in just $29.5 million in domestic ticket sales over the three-day Juneteenth weekend.

With a $200 million budget, “Elemental” is set in a fictional town known as Element City, where fire, water, land and air live and work together. The younger sibling of the water element is known as Lake, who is non-binary and voiced by Kai Ava Hauser, who is also non-binary.

Virginia Looking to Spend COVID Relief Child Care Funds

June 25, 2023June 24, 2023 The Center Square

Virginia has received more than $1 billion in COVID-19 relief funding for its child care sector since the beginning of the pandemic, and it continues to appropriate those funds as the deadline to disburse more than $763 million approaches.

The federal government apportioned $52.5 billion to the child care industry in three pandemic relief packages, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Commentary: No God, No Culture

June 25, 2023 Virginia Star Staff

What was the inflection point for Western civilization in general, and American culture in particular, after which teachers took it upon themselves to ignore their cultural heritage, or to instruct their students either to despise it or to twist it ’round in support of the political cause of the passing hour?

SCOTUS Holds Law Making It Illegal to ‘Encourage or Induce’ Illegal Immigration Does Not Violate First Amendment

June 25, 2023 Virginia Star Staff

The Supreme Court upheld a law that makes it a crime to “encourage or induce” illegal immigration, rejecting the argument that it violates the First Amendment.

The case, United States v. Hansen, stems from Helaman Hansen’s 2017 conviction for running a program advertising a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants through “adult adoption,” which earned him more $1.8 million between 2012 and 2016. Though it affirmed Hansen’s convictions on mail and wire fraud charges, the Ninth Circuit held that the law behind his two counts of encouraging or inducing non-citizens to reside in the United States for financial gain was “overbroad and unconstitutional,” covering “a substantial amount of speech protected by the First Amendment.”

Commentary: For the Love of English, Stop Changing Definitions

June 25, 2023June 24, 2023 Virginia Star Staff

There has long been a debate in linguistics about how to approach language and how language should be used by native speakers. The two traditional schools of thought are prescriptivists and descriptivists. The former are concerned with establishing norms for language and formulating rules and proper ways of using said language. On the other hand, the latter believe that a given language should be understood by how it is used, without establishing certain rules and parameters.

It seems that the English language today, at least in America, is in the throes of taking the descriptivist position to the extreme. We are now seeing a concerted effort to overturn the traditional definitions of words and terms in order to push certain political and social agendas.

JPMorgan Accused of Deleting Millions of Emails in the Midst of Ongoing Investigations

June 25, 2023 Just the News

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials earlier this week fined JPMorgan Chase $4 million after the company allegedly deleted roughly 47 million emails while in the midst of security investigations.

The settlement order states that the messages were allegedly deleted from about 8,700 mailboxes that belonged to about 7,500 employees who had regular contact with Chase customers.

Illegal Border Crossers Since 2021 Total More than Individual Populations of 38 States

June 25, 2023 The Center Square

The number of illegal border crossings at the northern and southern borders and all ports of entry since January 2021 totals more than 8 million people, greater than the individual populations of 38 U.S. states.

Put another way, the number of foreign nationals from all over the world believed to be primarily illegally entering the U.S. is comparable to the populations of eight Delawares, four New Mexicos, two Oklahomas or more than 13 Wyomings.