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Editorial: Universities selective when it comes to free speech

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

Apologists for the three college presidents who embarrassed themselves at a congressional hearing earlier this month on antisemitism are now attempting to portray them as brave defenders of free speech. That’s utter garbage.The leaders of Harvard, Penn and MIT appeared before a congressional committee and couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge that “calling for the genocide of Jews” amounts to bullying and harassment on campus and would be a violation of their codes of student conduct. “It depends on the context,” one of them said.In the ensuing firestorm, two of the presidents apologized. The third, Penn’s Elizabeth Magill, resigned.Since then, some leftist defenders of these academics have said that, while their testimony was unfortunate, they were simply trying to acknowledge First Amendment concerns regarding the regulation of offensive speech. If so, that would be entirely out of character. These university presidents — and others across the country — have a track record of s...

Russell: Why is everyone expecting a tip these days?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

If you’ve ordered a coffee and been asked to tip your barista at Starbucks and hesitated, you’re not alone: If you don’t tip, will your chipper barista be let down? What does everyone else do?This was the subject of a fascinating new study by the Pew Research Center, which created an interactive fictional American town, “Tipping Point,” that asks users how they’d tip in various situations and then lets you see how your answers compare to others.The survey is timely: Establishments requiring or asking for tips has increased. If I’m at a business and an employee hands me an iPad, I know I’m about to be asked to tip them on something that I’ve probably never paid a tip for before.According to Pew, 72% of U.S. adults say that tipping is expected in more places today than it was five years ago. Some have dubbed this new era “tipflation” because it seems so excessive.High-tech electronics are not the only cause. It seems like a trickle-down effect of participation trophies, the trend that...

T.3 tenors ride viral TikTok wave to fame

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

If you haven’t heard of the vocal group T.3, you probably didn’t spend a lot of time sharing TikTok videos of Disney songs during the pandemic.Tenors Jim Hogan, Brendan Jacob Smith and Liam Fennecken started posting a cappella versions of favorite tunes online just a few weeks before the pandemic hit. Once it did, the viral videos became a full-time occupation and a runaway hit, earning them hundreds of thousands of TikTok subscribers. They even got some thumbs-up from artists they covered, including CSN’s Stephen Stills and R&B star Ginuwine.“People told us it was their lifeline, but I can honestly say it was ours,” Fennecken said in a group interview this week. “The truth is that all three of us have been performers our entire lives, we are all musical theater professionals — so there we were with no work whatsoever,” Adds Hogan, “We basically asked Brendan to shoot us one video on his parents stairwell. That was the only plan.” And Smith adds, “We definitely got creativ...

Dear Abby: ‘For better, for worse’ – but not this

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

Dear Abby: Is it normal to be disgusted by your wife’s lack of concern about her appearance and her belongings? My wife drives a $50,000 car that never gets washed and is so filled with “stuff” that seldom can she take even one passenger.Her side of the bedroom is just as bad. She never makes the bed and can no longer get to her dresser because there are so many clothes piled in front of it. It’s the same down the hall. In addition to plowing things aside or piling them in a spare room, her messes take over the house.She also doesn’t take care of herself. She often doesn’t shower for days. Her clothes are frumpy, and I can no longer count how many pounds she keeps adding. It is embarrassing for me, especially when she proclaims she “will never be concerned about her weight again.” I feel it’s disrespectful to me when she says those things, and I can’t let this continue. I am supposed to get used to it? It doesn’t seem...

‘Insurance godmothers’ sign up Latinos for Obamacare in pro-Trump areas as he threatens to repeal it

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — Salsa music blares from the food court in a rundown Miami shopping center as Latinos head to a kiosk and an office showing signs for “Obamacare,” where they hope to renew their health coverage plans before the year ends.It’s areas near this mall where former President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul is more popular than anywhere in the country, according to federal data. The region has also shifted away from Democrats to Republicans in recent years, with former President Donald Trump hosting several rallies here as part of his outreach to Latino voters. Trump has vowed to renew efforts to repeal and replace the 2010 law — something that would be felt heavily in the region and could possibly reverse some of the GOP shift among South Florida’s Latinos, experts here say. President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has already seized on Trump’s statements about “Obamacare,” enacted when Biden was vice president, as part of its broader efforts...

A cardinal and 9 others will learn their fate in a Vatican financial trial after 2 years of hearings

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A once-powerful cardinal and nine other people are to learn their fate Saturday when a Vatican tribunal hands down verdicts in a complicated financial trial that has aired the tiny city state’s dirty laundry and tested its justice system.Judge Giuseppe Pignatone will read out the verdicts of the three-judge panel in the converted courtroom in the Vatican Museums, where prosecutors and defense attorneys have sparred for 2 1/2 years over the details of a money-losing investment in a luxury London property.Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the first-ever cardinal to be prosecuted in the Vatican’s criminal court, is accused of embezzlement-related charges in two tangents of the London deal and faces up to seven years in prison if convicted. He has denied any wrongdoing.Unlike most defendants, Becciu attended nearly all of the 86 hearings, saying Pope Francis clearly wanted him to face court judgment after Francis himself forced his resignation and removed his privi...

Latino Democrats in the Senate decry Biden’s concessions in border and Ukraine talks

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Prominent Latinos in Congress looked on quietly, at first, privately raising concerns with the Biden administration over the direction of border security talks.Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California was on the phone constantly with administration officials questioning why the Senate negotiations did not include any meaningful consideration of providing pathways to citizenship for longtime undocumented immigrants.New Mexico Democrat Sen. Ben Ray Luján made similar arguments as he tried to get meetings with top-level White House officials.But when the talks didn’t seem to make enough difference, the influential lawmakers started leading the open opposition.“A return to Trump-era policies is not the fix,” Padilla said. “In fact, it will make the problem worse.”Padilla even pulled President Joe Biden aside at a fundraiser last weekend in California to warn him “to be careful” of being dragged into “harmful policy.”The Latino senators have found themselves on ...

Women and children first? Experts say that in most crises, it’s more like everyone for themselves

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

LONDON (AP) — So much for women and children first.The phrase and its grave implications about who to save first in a catastrophe are rooted in the shipwrecks of centuries past and popularized by Hollywood’s treatment of the Titanic disaster. It is getting another airing at a time when, in many societies, women are expected to do most everything men do. Experts say the unwritten law of the sea is a Hollywood-fed myth and a relic of Victorian-era chivalry.At the center of this round of questions is the prisoners-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas in November that prioritized releasing women and children after negotiators agreed that mothers and their children should not be separated. Israelis are overwhelmingly supportive of this approach. But it leaves behind elderly and injured men, a result that has angered some families. “To say ‘women and children’ in the 21st century — as if families can be whole without the fathers, as if children that have come back with their f...

Federal Reserve on cusp of what some thought impossible: Defeating inflation without steep recession

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was the most painful inflation Americans had experienced since 1981, when “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Jeffersons” were topping the TV charts. Yet the Federal Reserve now seems on the verge of defeating it — and without the surge in unemployment and the deep recession that many economists had predicted would accompany it.Inflation has been falling more or less steadily since peaking in June of last year at 9.1%. And when the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge for November is reported next week, it’s likely to show that in the past six months, annual inflation actually dipped just below the Fed’s target of 2%, economists at UBS estimate.The cost of goods — such as used cars, furniture and appliances — has fallen for six straight months. Compared with a year ago, goods prices are unchanged, held down by improved global supply chains.Housing and rental costs, a major driver of inflation, are growing more slowly. Wage growth has cooled, too, though...

Riverside man dressed as clown arrested for armed robberies

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:24:17 GMT

A suspect dressed as a clown was arrested in connection with a string of robberies targeting convenience stores in Riverside.The suspect was identified as Jesse James Swanson, 23, by the Riverside Police Department. On Aug. 26 at around 4 a.m., Swanson robbed a Circle K store on the 1600 block of Main Street.He was wearing a clown mask and armed with a handgun during the incident, police said.A week later on Sept. 2, Swanson entered the same Circle K store and robbed the employees at gunpoint, authorities said.Jesse James Swanson, 23, in photos from the Riverside Police Department. Suspected getaway driver, Daniel William Clark, 56, in a photo from the Riverside Police Department. Jesse James Swanson, 23, in photos from the Riverside Police Department. Five days later, he targeted a 7-Eleven store on the 1100 block of West La Cadena Drive, according to police. It's unclear how much money the suspect escaped with or the type of merchandise he may have taken.  SoCal street vend...