Lee Ardis

Death Toll From Earthquake Nears 5,000 In Turkey And Syria

Nearly 5,000 people have died and many others remained trapped under debris after a powerful earthquake jolted southern Turkey and northern Syria early on Monday, with tremors also reported in Egypt, Cyprus, Lebanon and Israel, making it the region’s deadliest quake in over a decade.

KEY FACTS

According to the United States Geological Survey, the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck at 4:17 a.m. local time, followed by a 6.7 magnitude aftershock just 11 minutes later.

The quake had a shallow depth of only 17.9 kilometers (11.1 miles) with the epicenter located just 20 miles from the major Turkish city of Gaziantep.

The death toll from the quake is at least 4,983 according to reporting from the Associated Press—and could rise, as hundreds were hospitalized with injuries and more people are believed to be trapped under collapsed buildings.

Church of England considers using gender-neutral terms for God

The Church of England is considering no longer referring to God as “He,” but using gender-neutral terms instead.

The Right Rev. Dr. Michael Ipgrave, Bishop of Lichfield, will lead a commission overseeing the potential change this spring. He said the church had been “exploring the use of gendered language in relation to God for several years,” The Times of London reported.

Many priests are already starting the Lord’s Prayer with “Our Father and Mother,” instead of simply “Our Father,” and refer to God as “they” instead.

“God is not male. Certainly not the white cis male with a beard, sitting on a cloud we seem to reduce and limit God to so often. God is far bigger than a binary sense of gender allows,” The Rev. Chantal Noppen said.

The Rev. Ian Paul, a conservative Church of England leader, warned that changing God’s pronouns would “move the doctrine of the church” away from the Bible. “The fact that God is called ‘Father’ can’t be substituted by ‘Mother’ without changing meaning, nor can it be gender neutralized to ‘Parent’ without loss of meaning,” he said.

Iran displays ballistic missile with ‘Death to Israel’ written in Hebrew

Revolutionary Guards showcase apparent projectile at weapons exhibition in Isfahan, days after an attack on military site in the city blamed on Israel

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps on Wednesday displayed an apparent ballistic missile with the words “Death to Israel” emblazoned in Hebrew down the side, at an exhibition in the central city of Isfahan.

Pictures posted by the Tasnim news agency show what appears to be a surface-to-surface missile in a launcher with elaborate Hebrew script running down its side.

It was not clear if it was an actual missile or a mockup.

The display comes days after a significant drone attack on a key Iranian defense facility in the same city. The site hit in the strike was reportedly a weapons production facility for Iran’s killer Shahed-136 drones.

The attack was one of a number widely attributed to Israel, which has a policy of not commenting on such operations.

Iran officially blamed Israel for the strike, filing a complaint with the United Nations Security Council about the “terrorist attack” launched by the Jewish state and saying it reserves its “legitimate and inherent right” to retaliate.

Following the publication of the pictures of the missile, a senior Foreign Ministry official told the Ynet news site that “the message is very clear — if anyone had any doubts.”

Archbishop of Canterbury Promises LGBT Activists to ‘Root Out’ Certain People From the Church of England

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the head of the Church of England, promised LGBT activists that he would “take action” against clergy and lay members of the church’s General Synod who condemn homosexual activity.

The leader of Christian Concern, a group representing a General Synod member whom Welby has threatened to remove, condemned the remarks as “giving a green light for a witch hunt of any Church of England clergy who believe in the traditional view that marriage is between one man and one woman for life.”

Welby responded to an LGBT activist who mischaracterized a quote from an African Anglican bishop, pledging to launch a “disciplinary process” against clergy and lay leaders who utter similar words.

“Here’s a promise: you send me details of a church that is saying something like that and I will ensure that there is a disciplinary process against the clergy who said that,” the archbishop promised. “We’ll root ‘em out! We’ll root them out. Send me the details with that bit of paper and their names at the bottom of it, and I will take action.”

He promised to take action against members of the General Synod, as well as members of the clergy. (An elected body, the General Synod considers and approves legislation affecting the Church of England when it comes to worship and the annual budget.)

San Francisco Mulls Creating a Red-Light District

I moved to San Francisco almost right out of college for a sort of internship. I lived there for as long as my wallet could stand it. For a fresh-faced college boy, San Francisco even then was a bit of an eye-opener. Of course, that was before the jump in homelessness and crime. I’m sure it’s much more interesting if less enjoyable now than it was back then.

In California’s race to establish itself as America’s first third-world state, it passed a law repealing the ban on loitering for prostitution. The bill, Senate Bill 357, was the brainchild of state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-11th district), who held that cops were disproportionately targeting women of color and trans people. Now, according to a report in Fox News, prostitution and with it, human trafficking is running rampant in cities in California. Cops say that they can do nothing to help women and children who may be victims of trafficking since they no longer have probable cause to stop and talk with someone, and possibly intervene.

Supporters of the bill say that the previous law criminalized sex workers and created distrust. In Oakland, pimps had women outside of a Catholic school, and prostitutes can be seen walking the streets in various stages of undress day and night. Some appear to be underage. L.A.’s Figueroa Street is now awash with prostitutes. According to the article:

Police said with the emboldened prostitution rings come robberies, shootings, aggravated assaults and other crimes. Many of the pimps are gang-affiliated and take no issue with beating women or going after rival pimps who try to poach one of the workers, they said. Some even record the beatdowns because they “think it’s funny,” police said.

23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math, per state test results

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Baltimore City is facing a devastating reality as the latest round of state test scores are released.

Project Baltimore analyzed the results and found a shocking number of Baltimore City schools where not a single student is doing math at grade level.

“We’re not living up to our potential,” said Jovani Patterson, a Baltimore resident who made headlines in January 2022, when he filed a lawsuit against Baltimore City Schools. The suit claims the district is failing to educate students and, in the process, misusing taxpayer funds.

“We, the taxpayer, are funding our own demise,” Patterson said at the time.

Patterson was born in Baltimore. He has seen the failures firsthand. But when Project Baltimore showed him the latest test results for the city, he was momentarily rendered speechless.

“My immediate reaction is, take your kids out of these schools,” said Patterson.

Same-Sex Marriages to Receive Blessings in the Church of England

Same-sex marriages will receive “prayers for God’s blessing” for the first time in the Church of England following a vote at the General Synod, the legislative body of the established church of England.

On Thursday, the three houses of the Synod voted in favour of officially recognising gay marriages for the first time, with priests now being empowered to give their blessings to such unions.

The vote was overwhelmingly approved by the House of Bishops, which supported the measure by a margin of 36 to four, with two members of the house abstaining from the vote. However, the issue was far more contested amongst the lower houses of the Synod, with the House of Clergy backing the measure by a vote of 111 to 85, with three abstentions, and by the House of Laity which supported the move by a margin of 103 to 92, with five abstaining members.

In a joint statement, the two most senior bishops in the Church, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York said: “It has been a long road to get us to this point.

“For the first time, the Church of England will publicly, unreservedly and joyfully welcome same-sex couples in church.”

Buffalo, New York, area is hit with the strongest earthquake in 40 years

“It felt like a car hit my house in Buffalo. I jumped out of bed,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said of Monday’s 3.8-magnitude quake.

A 3.8-magnitude earthquake struck Monday morning near Buffalo, New York, the strongest recorded in the area in 40 years.

The quake hit 1.24 miles east-northeast of West Seneca, New York, with a depth of 1.86 miles, around 6:15 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said no damage had been reported so far in West Seneca, a suburb of Buffalo near the U.S.-Canada border.

He said he had spoken with the deputy commissioner of the Erie County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, Gregory J. Butcher, who said a “confirmed quake was felt as far north as Niagara Falls and south to Orchard Park.”

“It felt like a car hit my house in Buffalo. I jumped out of bed,” Poloncarz said.

Yaareb Altaweel, a seismologist at the National Earthquake Information Center, said Northeast earthquakes “happen all the time” and quakes can strike anywhere at any time.

Evil Walks Among Us: Child Trafficking Has Become Big Business in America

“Children are being targeted and sold for sex in America every day.”—John Ryan, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

It takes a special kind of evil to prostitute and traffick a child for sex, and yet this evil walks among us every minute of every day.

Consider this: every two minutes, a child is bought and sold for sex.

Hundreds of young girls and boys—some as young as 9 years old—are being bought and sold for sex, as many as 20 times per day.

Adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States alone.

In Georgia alone, it is estimated that 7,200 men (half of them in their 30s) seek to purchase sex with adolescent girls each month, averaging roughly 300 a day.

On average, a child might be raped by 6,000 men during a five-year period.

It is estimated that at least 100,000 to 500,000 children—girls and boys—are bought and sold for sex in the U.S. every year, with as many as 300,000 children in danger of being trafficked each year. Some of these children are forcefully abducted, others are runaways, and still others are sold into the system by relatives and acquaintances.

Child rape has become Big Business in America.

This is not a problem found only in big cities.

It’s happening everywhere, right under our noses, in suburbs, cities and towns across the nation.

As Ernie Allen of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children points out, “The only way not to find this in any American city is simply not to look for it.”

Minnesota Legislature Passes Bill to Legalize Abortions Up to Birth By 1 Vote

The Minnesota Senate today passed a bill to enshrine in Minnesota law a right to abortion without limits at any time during pregnancy. Senators approved the bill, H.F. 1, by just a one-vote margin, 34-33. Gov. Tim Walz is expected to sign the sweeping measure into law.

“Minnesotans don’t support elective third-trimester abortion. They just don’t. But that’s what this extreme bill entrenches in our state law: the right to abort any baby for any reason at any time up to birth,” said MCCL Co-Executive Director Cathy Blaeser. “Under this bill, even babies who are old enough to live outside the womb and to feel excruciating pain have no protection from lethal violence. The extremism of H.F. 1 puts Minnesota in the same category as just a handful of countries around the world, including North Korea and China.”

H.F. 1, authored by Sen. Jennifer McEwen (DFL-Duluth), would create a “fundamental right” to abortion and require that abortion be allowed for any reason even late in pregnancy, when unborn children are developed enough to feel pain and when the risks of abortion to women increase. The bill would also deny parents the right to know when their minor daughter is subjected to abortion.