PGA Tour player Sam Burns took the sole lead today in the 125th U.S. Open golf tournament by one stroke at the famed Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He shot rounds of 72, 65, and 69 for a total of 206, four under par. His nearest rivals to win this coveted, major championship are Adam Scott and J. J. Spaun, tied at three under par, and Viktor Hoviland at one under par. Only one of these players has won... Read more
On Sunday, June 8th, Roman Catholic Pope Leo XIV led a Mass at St. Peter’s Square asking God to “open borders, break down walls (and) dispel hatred.” He further denounced “prejudice … we now see emerging also in political nationalisms.” It was obvious that he implied what is called “Christian nationalism” advocated by some evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Charismatics in the U.S. who are strong supporters of Republican President Donald Trump. His spiritual advisor Paula White-Cain is a Charismatic televangelist, church... Read more
Scottie Scheffler Continues to Dominate the PGA Tour Scottie Scheffler won The Memorial Tournament yesterday in Columbus, Ohio, by four strokes over Ben Griffin as a repeat of last year. It was Scheffler’s third win in his last four starts, and Griffin had won The Colonial last week in Fort Worth, Texas. The Memorial is played at Muirfield Village Golf Club. It is called Jack’s Place because Jack Nicklaus—the guy with the most major wins in golf, with eighteen—designed it,... Read more
Mennonite Anabaptists Celebrate Their 500th Anniversary Christian Mennonites are gathering in Zurich, Switzerland, to celebrate the 500th year of their origin, which occurred in that city. Although they number less than 2 million people, Mennonites are the largest church denomination among the Anabaptist movement that they started. Anabaptist means to be baptized “again” (ana) or “re-baptized,” although they did not accept either of those terms. These terms refer to Christians who had been baptized as infants in especially state church... Read more
Israel Is Making Life Difficult for West Bank Palestinians According to Forensic Architecture—a research group at Goldsmith’s, University of London—the IDF forces of Israel are using some of the same tactics in the West Bank in a military campaign called Operation Iron Wall that it uses in the ongoing Gaza war. According to some of Israel’s foremost political leaders, its purpose is to seize control of Palestinian territory in the West Bank and eventually include it with Jewish settlements in... Read more
The present Gaza war started in October 2023 because Hamas—the Muslim terrorist organization that governs the Gaza Strip—foolishly attacked the western flank of Israel on October 7 that year, killing about 1,200 Jews. The Israel Defense Force then invaded Gaza to wage a war in an effort to root out Hamas which was dug into an intricate system of tunnels. The result has been that the IDF has now killed over 53,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Most of them... Read more
There’ve Been Fourteen Pope Leos On May 8th, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of Chicago was chosen as the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the first American pope as well. In accordance with the tradition of popes taking the name of a previous honored saint, he chose to be called Pope Leo XIV. Thus, the Church has had fourteen popes who have called themselves Leo. What does Leo mean? And why did this pope choose Leo? Leo is... Read more
Yesterday, Scottie Scheffler shot an even-par 71 to win the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Country Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, by five strokes over second place finishers Harris English, Bryson DeChambeau, and Davis Riley. It was Scheffler’s 15th win on the PGA Tour and his third major title alongside his two Masters wins in 2022 and 2024. The PGA Tour announced that 28-year-old Scheffler has now reached rarefied territory by joining Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only... Read more
The war in Gaza continues despite a temporary cease-fire that failed. Donald Trump, the former real estate mogul and now U.S. president, last month called for an outlandish proposal for solving the Gaza war if not the larger conflict between Palestinians and the State of Israel—to remove Palestinians from Gaza and turn the place into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” And this week he has called for them to be removed to Libya. Uprising in Beit Layiha The Wall... Read more
Just Published—Mark Twain Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow has written a 1,200-page biography of the famous novelist, satirist, essayist, and humorist who built his famed literary career by using the pen name Mark Twain. Chernow’s Mark Twain was published Monday, two day ago, in hardcover by Penguin Press. Mark Twain lived in Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River. My book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, entitled Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia, (269 pp.) was published in 1990 as... Read more
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