To mark this week’s United Nations General Assembly, Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared Wednesday morning on ABC, CBS, and NBC to discuss the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East with Israel facing attacks from nearly every direction from Hamas in the south to Lebanon’s Hezbollah in the north. Of course, the liberal media — specifically NBC’s Today and some on CBS Mornings — chose to frame their questions as a problem created by Israel. NBC co-host Savannah Guthrie has had a welcome streak of sorts of holding the feet of Biden administration officials to the fire with challenging questions from the right, but this case was from the left.     After a lead-off question about the ongoing threats from Iran to assassinate former President Trump and ending with Joe Biden being a lame duck President, everything in between was brutally adversarial toward Israel. On Israel’s fight against Lebanon, she first wondered whether the U.S. “support[s] this escalation strategy by Israel” on Hezbollah. Blinken gave a sensible answer about Israel wanting to eliminate the threat the Islamist group has posed to roughly 70,000 Israelis being forced from their homes since October 8, but that wasn’t enough for her. “Israel is not listening to [calls for diplomacy]...[O]n Monday, this Israeli bombardment was the most serious — deadliest day in Lebanon since 2006. So Israel is not listening to the U.S. Why not,” she huffed. A few minutes later, Guthrie pushed harder: “Why does the U.S. not have or use more leverage over Israel, its ally. We are the supplier of the bulk of its weapons of war, and yet, there are countless examples and you probably know them better than I that Israel seems to flout what the U.S. is asking or suggesting. Why is that?” The two then went around and around on this crazy notion that the exploding pager operation last week was terrorism (click “expand”): GUTHRIE: Shouldn’t the U.S. have been given a heads up, for example, that Israel was going to assassinate a political leader in Iran, in Tehran or this pagers attack of last week? Shouldn’t the U.S., the Israeli ally, have gotten a heads up at that at minimum? BLINKEN: Look, it’s always nice not to be surprised by the action someone takes. Certainly that’s better, but since October 7, besides trying to make sure that October 7 never happens again, besides trying to make sure that civilians in Gaza, men, women, and children who are caught in this horrific crossfire of Hamas’s making are better protected and get the assistance they need, we’ve also been working to prevent this war from spreading, from escalating, from going to other places. That’s what we’re focused on now, making sure what you’re seeing in northern Israel, southern Lebanon now doesn’t become a full-scale war, and on the contrary that we resolve the problem Israel has. GUTHRIE: Can I ask you about that pager attack where Hezbollah members were the targets and they’re — literally in their hands. their pagers exploded. Some see this as a technological coup and a genius move by Israel. Others, including John Brennan, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who you know well saying it’s a form of terrorism and it went too far. Where do you come down on it? BLINKEN: Look, you’ve got to start with the proposition that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization — GUTHRIE: No question. BLINKEN: — so designated by the United States. And the reality is Israel left southern Lebanon. It had been occupying southern Lebanon for 15 years. It left in 2000, and all these militia that existed there were supposed to put down their weapons. Hezbollah didn’t do it and then repeatedly in the time after that, it attacked and posed a threat to people living in Israel, so it’s very legitimate Israel do something about Hezbollah. GUTHRIE: No question about it. I mean — yeah. BLINKEN: The only question is what’s the best way to do? GUTHRIE: And the tactic. BLINKEN: And — and what are the best tactics? And those are things we’re always discussing with them, but right now our main challenge is preventing a broader war, one that actually won’t solve the challenge that Israel has and, by the way, the Lebanese have because they want to get their people back to their homes in southern Lebanon, too. We want that, too. GUTHRIE: In fairness, you didn’t answer whether or not you approve this particular tactic. BLINKEN: Look, you’re always looking what someone is doing, trying to figure out what the second or third consequences might be? Does it open up a whole new Pandora’s box. It is something we’re looking at. Guthrie began winding down with two question on ceasefire talks. While she conceded “it is Hamas that broke the cease-fire that existed” with the events of October 7, Hamas and Israel equally “do not seem very interested in a deal.”     Unlike Guthrie (and, as well see, on ABC), the CBS Mornings interview with Dokoupil involved each of the day’s co-hosts. Tony Dokoupil had most of the questions, which were actually productive and showed he’s personally familiar with the region. This allowed Blinken room to explain why Israel has taken such strong actions against Hezbollah and the reality often ignored in the liberal media that Hamas is the major impediment to a ceasefire (click “expand”): DOKOUPIL: Boy, there’s only so many times you can mention escalating tensions and risks of an all-out war before it becomes cliche but things are definitely not going in the right direction, and I think there’s a philosophy question here for the US to answer. Do you end all of this violence in the Middle East by putting pressure on Israel to stop on both fronts? Or do you empower Israel to finish the job? BLINKEN: Look, what we’ve seen since the horrific attacks on October 7 are periods wherein we’ve had a real risk of escalation, a real risk of something turning into a full-blown war, including in Lebanon, between Israel and Hezbollah and through diplomacy, through deterrence, we’ve managed to avert that in the days immediately following October 7, more recently in April. We’re focused right now on making sure that we can deescalate, avoid a full scale war. But Tony, Israel has got a legitimate problem here. Starting on October 8, Hezbollah in the north, from Southern Lebanon, started lobbing rockets and missiles into Israel. People living in Northern Israel had to flee their homes, about 70,000, and Israel understandably, legitimately wants a secure environment so people can return home. The best way to get that is through diplomacy, an agreement to pull back forces, allow people to return home in Northern Israel; also many Lebanese in Southern Lebanon forced from their homes. We want to get people back home. The best way to do that is not war, it’s diplomacy. DOKOUPIL: So Hezbollah went to their weapons systems. Hezbollah began firing into Israel after October 7. BLINKEN: That’s right. DOKOUPIL: In allyship with Hamas and the people in Gaza. BLINKEN: Exactly. DOKOUPIL: Where does ceasefire talks stand, because that — if that is their motivation there on the Hezbollah side, that’s the key to making them pull back and stop. BLINKEN: That would certainly be one of the keys. It would be an ideal key, because it would end the horrific situation in Gaza — horrific for the hostages, horrific for so many men, women and children who have been caught in this crossfire that Hamas is making. We’ve been working on this ceasefire deal for a while. We have an agreement, a piece of paper that’s got 18 paragraphs, 15 of them are agreed. The last three continue to need some work. The problem we have right now is that Hamas hasn’t been engaging on it for the last couple of weeks, and Sinwar, its leader, has been talking about an endless war of attrition. Now, if he really cares about the Palestinian people, he’d bring this agreement over the finish line. Co-host and former NFL player Nate Burleson took this detailed discussion and tried to seem in tune by blaming....Benjamin Netanyahu. “Mr. Secretary, do you believe that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu truly wants a ceasefire,” he wondered before asking again moments later (and after Blinken explained Hamas’s rigidity): “So, on that part, do you put blame on the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu?” Fill-in co-host Adriana Diaz had the last question and cited the fear-left, dark money-funded site ProPublica, which presumably found time to do something other than falsely claiming Georgia Republicans are killing pregnant women: ProPublica has determined that two agencies found that Israel is deliberately stopping humanitarian aid from getting to civilians, and as you well know, the U.S. government says that it has to restrict supplying weapons to a country that does this type of thing.Why have we not done so? ABC’s Good Morning America was the newscast that was able to have Blinken’s interview conducted live and co-host/former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos used more than half the time to talk about Russia’s war on Ukraine. Stephanopoulos still led off with the Middle East, but only two measly questions: Do you think this can be contained?  (....) Do you have objections to the way Israel is prosecuting the war right now? To see the relevant transcripts from September 25, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

America is in a spiritual crisis. A nation that was founded on Christian principles, a nation that invoked God in its origins, a nation that has turned to the same God for nearly a quarter-millennium has nearly overnight rebuked Him and has largely abandoned His truth. Case in point, the newest polling from renowned pollster George Barna finds that only 59% of practicing Christians say they will vote in the November 5 election. If churchgoing Christians make up 80 million of America’s 333 million people, that means only 48 million practicing Christians are headed to the polls. It’s not surprising that America’s moral decline barely registers as an issue this election, as only 23% of churched Christians consider moral decline a 'defining issue.' This number is concerning. Voting is our civic duty, a practice that America’s founders enshrined in the Constitution to ensure that all Americans can share in the process of creating a more perfect union. How often are we at a church service or backyard barbecue when we hear Christians of good faith lament on the state of our union? Yet as Barna’s polling shows, only about six in 10 of these people will make the effort to facilitate change. Even worse, one out of every 10 of these Christians refuse to vote at all. As discouraging as these numbers are, they get worse the more one digs into Barna’s polling. Take, for instance, the startingly high number (42%) of Christians who support abortion on demand — that is the right to an “abortion under any circumstance.” That's an alarmingly high number of proclaimed Christians willing to accept the killing of an innocent baby, no matter the reason. If Christian-backed abortion isn’t disturbing enough, nearly one-third (29%) of American Christians say they prefer socialism to capitalism. Yes, they accept the secular ideology responsible for tens, if not hundreds, of millions of deaths over the past century, rather than a system that incentivizes accountability. It is also alarming that more than half (56%) of Christians reject absolute moral truth despite it being conveyed through scripture — claiming that “identifying moral truth is up to each individual; there are no moral absolutes that apply to everyone, all the time.” Although these numbers are shocking, it’s not surprising that America’s moral decline barely registers as an issue this election, as only 23% of churched Christians consider moral decline a “defining issue.” Where is church leadership? Where are the shepherds who were called by Christ to lead His flock? Are they informing their congregations of God’s truth as it relates to our nation’s sad current state of affairs? Is weak church leadership to blame for the 40% of Christians who are at this point likely sitting out the election? No. But we shouldn’t be surprised, either, that the number of Christians who claim to have heard sermons or teachings about the Bible’s stand on specific issues (61%) or who were encouraged to vote by their churches (56%) is nearly identical to the number of Christians planning to vote. Church leaders have a duty to guide their congregations into a closer relationship with Christ. Part of that relationship includes participating in voting efforts and encouraging civic action. In fact, another Barna poll found that 17% of Christians who don’t plan to vote would participate on Election Day if they were told that voting is a “biblical responsibility of every Christian.” Another 10% say they could justify voting if a religious person they highly respected endorsed a candidate. This doesn’t mean pastors need to endorse candidates during sermons, nor should they guilt their congregations into voting. However, since there seems to be a correlation between voting Christians and those who have heard sermons about the importance of voting, church leaders must do more. As Americans, we have a duty not only to leave future generations better off but also to honor our founders and ultimately God by preserving the republic and upholding the unalienable rights He has granted us. Casting your ballot is the perfect start.

The Democratic governor of Washington state says he is so afraid that former President Donald Trump might win the election that he is stockpiling tens of thousands of abortion pills. Gov. Jay Inslee said in an interview with Reuters that the state would go to extraordinary lengths to make sure women could obtain abortion pills if Trump wins in November. Washington will order 30,000 doses of the mifepristone pill, enough to last about three years for Washington state residents. 'Chemical abortions should have more medical oversight not less.' “This is a long-term threat. Those who want to take away reproductive health for women, they’re not going to stop last week, this week or next week. It is a multi-decade effort," said Inslee. He was referring to a Supreme Court decision in June that rejected a lawsuit seeking to ban mifepristone based on the argument that the Federal Drug Administration had improperly relaxed regulations to allow the pill to be mailed across the country. The court did not rule on the merit of a ban on mifepristone but rather that the plaintiffs did not have the proper standing to sue in court. "A plaintiff’s desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue," the ruling read. Inslee said the state needed to take action in case the court decided against the drug later. “The supreme court decision was not definitive in protecting mifepristone,” he explained. Trump said previously that he would be open to asking the FDA to shut down approval of the pill, but his campaign later walked back the comments. He has proudly touted his role in assigning judges to the Supreme Court that led to the revocation of national abortion rights in the Roe v. Wade decision but does not support a national ban on abortion. “You just can’t trust him when it comes to women’s reproductive health,” Inslee said of Trump. Critics of the expanded availability of the pill say it is a threat to women's health without the supervision of medical professionals. "Allowing unsupervised chemical abortions via telemedicine, without requiring timely access to medical care, will put women in grave danger," read a 2021 statement from March for Life, a pro-life group. "Data released in 2018 by the FDA shows thousands of adverse events caused by abortion pills, including 768 hospitalizations and 24 deaths since 2000. Chemical abortions should have more medical oversight not less."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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With the iPhone 16 out in the wild, we've finally learned all the secrets of Apple's 2024 lineup. We already have real-life battery tests that show how amazing the iPhone 16 battery life is and why the 16 Pro Max won't necessarily win duels with its main Android rivals. The first drops hinted that the ultra-slim iPhone 16 Pro bezels need protection; otherwise, they'll need repairs. Speaking of fixing the new handsets, the professional iPhone 16 teardown from iFixit revealed they're a lot easier to repair. The teardown also showed us the electric adhesive Apple is using to glue the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus batteries. The same disassembly session also revealed that the iPhone 16 Pros have batteries enclosed in metallic cases. But there's a brand new clip that shares more information about this technology. Apple has indeed equipped the iPhone 16 Pro with a metal battery, but that's it. The iPhone 16 Pro Max doesn't have one. Moreover, neither Pro model features that new electric glue tech we've seen in iFixit's videos. Continue reading... The post iPhone 16 Pro teardown gives us a look at the metal battery case appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: First AirPods 4 discount, $6 smart bulbs, $110 off Dyson V8, $6 MagSafe chargers, more Today’s deals: $199 iPad 9, $99 TP-Link WiFi 7 router, $400 off Narwal Freo X Ultra robot vacuum, more Today’s deals: First Apple Watch Series 10 discount, $20 waterproof speaker, $17 myQ garage controller, more Best Apple deals for September 2024

By Corey J. A. Bradshaw et al./The Conversation Imagine growing up beside the eastern Mediterranean Sea 14,000 years ago. You’re an accomplished sailor of the small watercraft you and your fellow villagers make, and you live off both the sea and the land. But times have been difficult — there just isn’t the same amount of game or fish around as when you were a child. Maybe it’s time to look elsewhere for food. Now imagine going farther than ever before in your little boat, accompanied maybe by a few others, when suddenly you spot something on the horizon. Is that an island? Of Bunyips and Other Beasts: Evidence of Extinct Megafauna Displayed in Art and Stories Short Lived Clovis Tools May Have Killed Off North American Megafauna The western coast of Cyprus. (CJA Bradshaw / Flinders University) Read moreSection: NewsHistory & ArchaeologyRead Later 

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