After a viral photo showed an Israeli soldier severely damaging a Christian icon in Lebanon, Israel Defense Forces immediately investigated the incident, and finding the story factual, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the action in harsh terms, while reminding others that Israel always welcomes Christians and makes a home for them. The Israel Defense Forces issued this statement: Following the completion of an initial examination regarding a photograph published earlier today of an IDF soldier harming a Christian symbol, it was determined that the photograph depicts an IDF soldier operating in southern Lebanon. The IDF views the incident with great severity and emphasizes that the soldier’s conduct is wholly inconsistent with the values expected of its troops. The incident is being investigated by the Northern Command and is currently being addressed through the chain of command. Appropriate measures will be taken against those involved in accordance with the findings. Furthermore, the IDF is working to assist the community in restoring the statue to its place. The IDF is operating to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure established by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and has no intention of harming civilian infrastructure, including religious buildings or religious symbols. Following the completion of an initial examination regarding a photograph published earlier today of an IDF soldier harming a Christian symbol, it was determined that the photograph depicts an IDF soldier operating in southern Lebanon. The IDF views the incident with great… https://t.co/U6P3x8KWBb — Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 19, 2026   Netanyahu declared: As the Jewish state, Israel cherishes and upholds the Jewish values of tolerance and mutual respect between Jews and worshippers of all faiths. All religions flourish in our land and we view members of all faiths as equals in building our society and region. Yesterday, like the overwhelming majority of Israelis, I was stunned and saddened to learn that an IDF soldier damaged a Catholic religious icon in southern Lebanon. I condemn the act in the strongest terms. Military authorities are conducting a criminal probe of the matter and will take appropriately harsh disciplinary action against the offender. While Christians are being slaughtered in Syria and Lebanon by Muslims, the Christian population in Israel thrives unlike elsewhere in the Middle East. Israel is the only country in the region that the Christian population and standard of living is growing. Israel is the only place in the Middle East that adheres to freedom of worship for all. We express regret for the incident and for any hurt this has caused to believers in Lebanon and around the world. As the Jewish state, Israel cherishes and upholds the Jewish values of tolerance and mutual respect between Jews and worshippers of all faiths. All religions flourish in our land and we view members of all faiths as equals in building our society and region. Yesterday, like the… — Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) April 20, 2026   Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar added: The damaging of a Christian religious symbol by an IDF soldier in southern Lebanon is grave and disgraceful. I commend the IDF for its statement, for condemning the incident, and for conducting an investigation into the matter. I’m confident that the necessary strict measures will be taken against whoever carried out this ugly act. This shameful action is completely contrary to our values. Israel is a country that respects the different religions and their sacred symbols, and upholds tolerance and respect among faiths. We apologize for this incident and to every Christian whose feelings were hurt. The damaging of a Christian religious symbol by an IDF soldier in southern Lebanon is grave and disgraceful. I commend the IDF for its statement, for condemning the incident, and for conducting an investigation into the matter. I’m confident that the necessary strict measures… — Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 20, 2026   Unlike the Arab countries that surround it, in Israel, the Christian population is growing. In March 2025, Joseph Puder, the founder and director of the Interfaith Taskforce for America and Israel, noted, “In 1950, two years after Israel’s independence, there were 36,000 Christians in Israel. Today, there are 187,900 Christians in Israel, making it, as of 2021, the only country in the Middle East with a growing Christian population.” He added: While the number of Christians in the Jewish state grows, a different story is occurring in areas controlled by the Palestinian Arabs, including Gaza. The Greek Orthodox Church recently said that “Terrorist attacks against Christians, assaults on churches, cemeteries, and Christian properties in the Palestinian Authority … have become daily occurrences, and their severity clearly intensifies during Christian holidays.” In January, Open Doors International released its annual World Watch List of the 50 most dangerous countries for Christians, with Muslim countries dominating the list. They reported: North Korea maintains its top spot on the list for the 24th year, with a persecution score of 97; followed by Somalia, second on the list with a persecution score of 94; Yemen, third at 93; Sudan, fourth at 92; Eritrea, fifth at 90; Syria, sixth at 90; Nigeria, seventh at 89; Pakistan, eighth at 87; Libya, ninth at 87, and Iran, 10th at 87. Rankings continue respectively with Afghanistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Mali, Burkina Faso, China, Iraq, Maldives, Algeria, Mauritania, CAR, Morocco, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Niger, Tajikistan, Laos, DRC, Mexico, Tunisia, Nicaragua, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Turkmenistan, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Oman, Mozambique, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Egypt, Comoros, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Colombia, Chad, Jordan and Brunei. Israel was nowhere on the list.

Virginia voters will head to the polls this week to decide whether to make their Commonwealth the laughingstock of the nation when it comes to clumsy partisan gerrymanders. The Old Dominion should loudly reject Democrats’ attempt to carve the face of the mother of presidents out of mere spite for the persistence of Donald Trump. For months, Virginia voters have been subjected to a deluge of television ads and direct mail flak backed by national Democrats who hew to an established narrative: the gerrymander, while it may seem extreme, is a necessary, temporary response to Republican agitation across the country to hold the House of Representatives despite the will of the people. It casts the gerrymander as not an obviously unrepresentative scrawl of a map, turning a competitive purple state into a hard blue stone, but as a desperate move motivated by GOP extremism. In this story, they are the heroes defending Democracy. It’s an audacious claim for a map that allows five members representing the bulk of Virginia’s population to live within easy driving distance of lunch at the Army Navy Country Club. But one trait of Democrats in the Trump era has been to adopt every argument while doing the polar opposite. You can only stop Trump’s disrespect of the Constitution by packing the Supreme Court; bureaucrats are justified in ignoring orders to block Trump’s anti-government policies; and it is Trump Republicans who have no respect for law and order, which is why we should identify and harass members of ICE and their families. By now, you know the drill. One of the most recent mailers promoting the gerrymander — Virginians by now have received enough to fill the back of a Karen’s Subaru — emphasized that democracy can only be defended if you vote for the measure. The message that you can only defend democracy by wrecking it is an instant classic for today’s national Democrats, and one they are more than happy to embrace in the interests of partisan gain. The map itself is notably not included in any of the mailers, nor in any of the television ads, nor is it even displayed in polling places at the behest of Virginia’s board of elections. That should be enough to indicate how much it resembles the scrawls of an irate toddler. It is even too extreme in the mind of the Commonwealth’s viciously partisan and historically unpopular governor, Abigail Spanberger, who thought a 9-2 map would at least allow a modicum of self-respect. She was overruled by Richmond Democrats, who insisted that only a 10-1 majority Democrat redraw would do, in a state which Kamala Harris won with less than 52% of the vote. Perhaps the greatest lie advanced by Barack Obama, who has personally endorsed the move, and other Democratic influencers and fundraisers is that this new arrangement will be “temporary”. Should Virginia upend its current representation — which is still majority Democrat, mind you — it will do so thanks to the backing of well-moneyed national interests who seek a permanent advantage in the narrowly divided House, a cheat code for getting a leg up on their GOP opponents in future elections. No one on the Democratic side of the aisle will ever want to give that up. If Virginia voters decide to endorse this unrepresentative move under the false belief that it will be adjusted in the future, they just don’t know how politics works. These maps were drawn specifically to include the home addresses of aspiring Democratic candidates. There’s no bottom to this well. There is another path. If Virginians reject this offensive gerrymander, even after a metric ton of flyers and ads backed by a shockingly large amount of out of state cash, they will send a very different message, one that respects order and rejects extreme partisanship — one that national Democrats will be forced, all too reluctantly, to learn from. The Virginia Way used to mean something. It can mean something again. Vote against this partisan Democrat gerrymander.

New York City has paid almost $100 million to rent empty preschool classrooms, according to a shocking new report. The New York Post reported Monday that the city has paid $99.3 million over the last five years for rent and utilities on 28 buildings for preschool classrooms acquired through part of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “universal” preschool push. The spending on the empty classrooms has both former officials and NYC residents upset about the Big Apple’s latest use of taxpayer dollars. “I don’t think it’s corruption. It’s incompetence,” a former city Department of Education official told the Post. The official added that despite “such a significant need for pre-K seats,” many of the classrooms were empty because they were made available in areas without verifying demand. Meanwhile, other parts of the city have long wait lists for preschool seats. The Post reported that de Blasio’s push for the“3-K For All” program, which provides full-day early childhood education for 3-year-olds, led to a mad dash for renting buildings that have yet to be used. De Blasio blamed the empty classrooms on his successor, former Mayor Eric Adams, saying that “during my administration, we never had a problem filling Pre-K and 3-K seats because we did lots of parent-friendly outreach.” “Sadly, the Adams administration ended those efforts and took a step backwards on early childhood education,” he told the Post. For his part, Adams said that he “inherited a system with thousands of empty early childhood seats,” and he focused on “stabilizing providers and increasing enrollment, rather than simply expanding capacity.” Six of the vacant sites are expected to be opened up in the fall by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. New York City’s Department of Education said that it was “continuously evaluating all vacant sites for the most responsible use based on site readiness and community need” and that “all plans will be shared publicly once timelines and approvals are confirmed.” One of the empty sites is at Union Turnpike in Queens and has cost the city $10.8 million, according to the report. “They realized [afterward that] it wasn’t a good location. … If they didn’t think the need was there, why did they pick the site in the first place?” the former Education Department official said. Nearby business owner Larry Mottola told the Post that it was troubling that the government would waste money on unused buildings. “They had beautiful classrooms, a stainless steel kitchen [and] there’s a beautiful playground around back,” he said. “It’s bothersome, [that] they would waste that kind of money for four years.” Another parent said that it was frustrating that the government selected sites where there was no demand. “It feels like a real misstep that we’re not even utilizing the space that’s being paid for,” said Jessica Setton. “De Blasio had good intention, terrible execution.”

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) said Sunday that “something sinister” might be happening as officials probe a rash of disappearances and deaths of former top scientists who reportedly worked with classified information. Comer said he would bring in leaders of the agencies where the scientists worked for questioning about the matter. His comments come after the White House said last week it would be probing the strange cases and President Donald Trump said he hoped the disappearances were “random.” “We’ve put a notice out to the Department of War, to the FBI, to NASA, to the Department of Energy, that we want to know everything that they know about what happened with these scientists because those four agencies were predominantly the agencies that those 11 individuals were affiliated with. And we want to try to piece this together,” Comer told Fox News on Sunday. “We know there are many countries around the world that would love to have our knowledge and nuclear capabilities. And these are the people that were at the forefront of it, and they’re either dead or missing,” he added. A few of the strange cases include the disappearance of NASA scientist Monica Jacinto Reza, who went missing during a hike in June 2025; astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, who was shot on his front porch in February; Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Nuno Loureiro, who was shot and killed in his home in December 2025; and Air Force Maj. Gen. William McCasland, who went missing from his Albuquerque, New Mexico, home in March. The investigation into the deaths and disappearances is being led by the FBI. “These missing and killed scientists and former professional members of the Department of Energy vary [widely], and we’re working most importantly with our state and local partners who have the jurisdiction on each of these cases, whether they be a homicide or a missing person’s case, they have the evidence. What we’re going to do is collectively pull it all into one place,” FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News on Sunday. Patel said that the investigation was focusing on whether there were any connections to classified information or foreign actors. Other examples of strange circumstances involving the scientists include the disappearance of Kansas City National Security Campus government contractor Steven Garcia in Albuquerque in 2025, allegedly with a handgun, and the discovery of pharmaceutical scientist Jason Thomas at the bottom of a Massachusetts pond after he went missing three months ago.

A truly heartwarming moment at a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game reminded Americans why baseball has always been America’s game, no matter the numbers. Jake Mangum of the Pirates saw a young girl in the outfield bleachers wearing his jersey, and tossed the ball into the upper deck where her older brother caught it with his mitt. The young boy then turned and handed it to his sister, hugging her as he did so. Their father, behind them, was as excited as they were. Jake Mangum threw this baseball to a young fan … The moment that unfolded after will melt your heart