Latest news with #EndTimes
The Onion
19-05-2025
- The Onion
Jesus Circles Earth Few Times So He Not First To Arrive To Judgment Day
LOW EARTH ORBIT—Dreading a scenario in which He showed up early and was forced to make awkward small talk with mankind, Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, circled the earth a few times so He wouldn't be the first to arrive for Judgment Day, heavenly sources confirmed Tuesday. 'It's still looking pretty quiet down there, so I'm just gonna take a couple laps around the planet until the End Times get into full swing,' the Son of God said as He anxiously hovered high above South America, adding that almost everyone He was looking forward to seeing wouldn't show up until the resurrection of the dead anyway. 'Man, I really should have made plans to head over with the Four Horsemen. It's way less stressful to arrive for the Day of Wrath as part of a group. I could text Abaddon, the king of the locusts, to see when he's getting there, but that guy never checks his phone. If I'd been smarter about it, I'd just be leaving heaven now. Oh well. I'll give it one or two more trumpets, and then I should be good to head down.' After arriving upon the earth in the divine glory of His Second Coming, Christ was reportedly dismayed to find that everyone had already judged the souls of the living and the dead without Him.
Boston Globe
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Public broadcasting, RIP?
At my public middle school in Arizona, I was taught Intelligent Design, which is a pseudoscientific alternative to evolution more akin to creationism. I was told that humans did not 'come from monkeys,' and that to think so was insulting. An entrance to the Arizona PBS offices in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix. Katie Oyan/Associated Press PBS was the only educational channel I could watch at home, and while I was mostly interested in the kids' shows, I also tuned in to the National Geographic specials, where I watched experts discuss things like animal biology and evolutionary theory. I realized that PBS was making a better case than my teachers. Advertisement At the end of the school year, I moved to a rural ranch in the Pacific Northwest. At 13, I was fully in charge of my own education. I had one American history textbook and access to a shared desktop where I visited Khan Academy — and where I watched PBS. Without these resources, I would have resorted to scrounging for answers on Google or various social media sites. I had no digital media literacy, and doubt I would have been able to distinguish science and analysis from conspiracy and misinformation. I had few adults to guide me. My brother was listening to Joe Rogan. I lived with relatives who were climate-change deniers, one of whom was a state representative. They owned every National Geographic going back to the '60s, but told me to disregard most of what was written inside them. Advertisement The other reading material was the 'Left Behind' series about the biblical End Times and 'Hank the Cowdog.' Without PBS, I probably wouldn't have found trustworthy, or easily digestible, educational materials at all. The Trump Administration's latest efforts to cut federal funding for broadcasters like PBS and NPR would have jeopardized my ability to learn on my own, and for free. My story isn't unique. Sixty percent of all PBS viewers are in rural America, and roughly the same portion are low-income. When I was a child with limited resources, PBS was the only reliable education I had, especially as the adults around me failed. Good riddance, CPB By There have been plenty of loud protests about the Trump administration's efforts to cut spending on health care, scientific research, and public schools, and some of these are legitimate. But the outcry over its attempts to Public broadcasters like NPR and PBS are no longer the kind of necessary public goods President Lyndon Baines Johnson Moreover, public funding makes up only a fraction of NPR and PBS's budgets. Federal funding makes up Advertisement The headquarters for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. Charles Dharapak/Associated Press If they're so essential, people are likely to pay for them through memberships or donations, allowing them to survive on their own. Trump's executive order directed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and all executive agencies to cease funding NPR and PBS. Congress has already allocated $535 million to CPB for this fiscal year. These cuts are fundamentally different from the Trump administration's attacks on basic scientific research, which And why should the government fund highly politicized media, anyway? Johnson promised a public broadcasting that would be 'free, and it will be independent and it will belong to all of our people.' But outlets like NPR belong to liberals. Don't take my word for it — take NPR's. The outlet's former senior editor Uri Berliner If NPR wants to be a liberal outlet, better do so on its own dime. So don't let the other misguided Trump cuts mislead you about this one. It's a win on many fronts. Less government spending. Less taxpayer-supported news poorly masked as unbiased public broadcasting. And a step toward restoring trust in the media. This column first appeared in , Globe Opinion's free weekly newsletter about local and national politics. If you'd like to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up . Advertisement Rebecca Spiess can be reached at
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Yahoo
Lori Vallow's Brother Testifies He Has "No Doubt" Siblings Conspired to Kill Charles Vallow
The brother of Lori Vallow Daybell took the stand in an Arizona court, claiming there was 'no doubt' in his mind that the defendant conspired to kill her fourth husband. On Thursday, April 10, 2025, Adam Cox, 56, was called to testify in the Maricopa County Superior Court to speak against Vallow Daybell, 51, the woman serving life for the separate 2019 murders of her children and romantic rival, according to NBC News. Adam Cox said he traveled from his home in Kansas to Arizona to aid in an intervention following Vallow Daybell's increasingly bizarre statements about her then-estranged husband, Charles Vallow. "Lori had told people that Charles was no longer living,' the brother testified. 'That some guy named 'Ned' was inside of his body, that there was a zombie living inside of him.' The statements matched what Vallow Daybell claimed about her children, Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua J.J. Vallow, 7, before she and her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, murdered them and hid the remains for months on the latter's Idaho property. Many close to the said they shared shared fanatical beliefs, a stray from their Mormon faith and into End Times and apocalyptic rhetoric. The woman dubbed "Doomsday Mom" now stands accused of plotting Charles Vallow's July 11, 2019, murder with her late brother, Alex Cox and continues to represent herself in court. Mother of 3 and Boyfriend Shot to Death in Quiet Colorado Town: "Unheard Of" Lori Vallow Daybell Represents Herself in Fourth Husband's Murder Trial: "It's a Tragedy" A Jealous Romance Leads to Pastor's Murder: "Wanted to Be Her Knight in Shining Armor' Alex Cox told police he shot and killed his brother-in-law in self-defense at the estranged couple's Chandler, Arizona home. During opening statements earlier this week, Vallow Daybell doubled down on self-defense claims, stating Charles Vallow allegedly raised a baseball bat to harm the then-living teen Tylee Ryan. The admitted triggerman was never charged with the homicide and died in December 2019 of an apparent pulmonary embolism. According to what the surviving brother said in court on Thursday, he flew to Arizona not long before the shooting in hopes of staging an intervention. Alex Cox was due to pick him up from the airport, but never arrived, as reported by NBC News. 'Alex didn't respond to any of my text messages when I was supposed to be with him, and he was at that house that morning," Adam Cox told the court. "Lori talking crazy about how she's a translated being — all these things all added up into that moment and that morning, once I found out on Saturday that Charles was shot and killed, no doubt in my mind that they killed him. That's a feeling that I got." On the day of the shooting, Charles Vallow went to the Chandler home to take his and Vallow Daybell's adopted son, J.J., to school before a heated exchange broke out, as previously reported by Adam Cox told the court he knew "something was really off" when Charles Vallow texted him that day and reported Alex Cox was at the residence. Prosecutors allege Lori Vallow Daybell and Alex Cox conspired to kill Charles Vallow to cash out on a life insurance policy. Adam Cox, who said in 2022 that 'death [wasn't] good enough' for Vallow Daybell, gave more insight into his sister's line of thinking and what prompted him to intervene in the first place, NBC News reported. The brother testified that Vallow Daybell believed 'she was in the process of translating from a mortal human being to an immortal human being. Becoming a celestial being." Adam Cox noted his sister's beliefs were 'off the wall' and in no way aligned with their faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, according to Arizona's KTVK-TV. On January 31, 2019, months before his death, Charles Vallow contacted local authorities and reported his wife was 'mentally unstable' and had 'lost her mind.' By then, she'd already spent several years engrossed in the teachings of Chad Daybell, an author and self-proclaimed prophet. In March of that year, Charles Vallow texted friends to say, 'something snapped' in his wife and that it was 'so unbelievable and scary.' "It seemed like Charles was just desperate, and he wanted to do anything he could to this last ditch effort to try to shake Lori loose of whatever she was under, some spell, that he said," Adam Cox said on Thursday, according to ABC News. Vallow Daybell was indicted in 2021 on charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder for Charles Vallow's death, though charges were later upgraded to first-degree murder, according to NBC News. She has pleaded not guilty in that case, as well as the conspiracy murder charges she'll have to answer for in May regarding the attempted shooting of Brandon Boudreaux. Learn more about Lori Vallow Daybell from her recent explosive interview with Dateline's Keith Morrison.
The Guardian
04-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The Guide #185: How The Phantom Menace's trade wars can help you understand our political moment
There are many scary things to come out of Trump's tariffs. The world economy being thrown into chaos; spiralling prices; furious economic experts showing charts with big down arrows, using phrases like 'gilt markets' and 'share index undergrowth', which I definitely understand. But the most terrifying thing – the thing that has made me truly believe that we are living in the End Times – is a panic-inducing realisation: The Phantom Menace just might have been right all along. For those who haven't seen the first Star Wars prequel, GOD I envy you. The dialogue is wooden and the structure inexplicable (sure, let's just have a pod-race instead of an Act II) – and that's even before we get onto the Jar Jar Binks of it all (the answer to the question 'what if we shaved Paddington and spliced his DNA with the most unlikeable newt in the world?'). But the biggest complaint is the subject matter. Focusing on a blockade of the distant planet Naboo by the increasingly rapacious Trade Federation, it's less a Star Wars film and more a two hour trade negotiation with a minimal bit of Jedi fighting thrown in. Picture the Brexit talks, except David Davis and Michel Barnier had lightsabers that they only used right at the end. Just imagine being a Star Wars fan watching it for the first time – after years of anticipation, you read the opening crawl to discover that the film is effectively about the taxation of trade routes in outposts of the Galactic Republic. Were there reviews of Return of the Jedi that said 'I liked it but I really wanted to find out more about Endor's marginal tax rate'? For 26 years, The Phantom Menace has been held up as the hubris of creator George Lucas. The idea that Darth Vader, arguably the most iconic villain of all time, could be birthed from something as mundane as a trade dispute on Planet Naboo seemed ridiculous. And then, as with so many things that seemed ridiculous, along came Donald Trump. This week's tariff madness and the effect it will surely have on the American Republic and the rest of of the world has made many (myself included) reappraise the film, and recognise that it is perhaps quite prescient. Lucas's obsession with the taxation of the Republic can be seen less as a creator losing themselves in the minutiae of their own creation, and more as a warning of how trading systems can be weaponised. The stranglehold that the Trade Federation places on Naboo is similar to the one the current American government is threatening over the economies of developing countries like Lesotho and Vietnam. In this context, previously weak lines take on new meaning. Early on, before the negotiations turn violent, Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn murmurs, 'I sense an unusual amount of fear for something as trivial as a trade dispute' – deftly pointing out that when trade disputes are used to impoverish and starve one's enemies as a proxy for war, there's nothing trivial about them. The more you ignore the terrible parts of the film (and believe me, there are lots of terrible parts), the more parallels with our own terrible time become apparent. The Trade Federation's own rapacious desire for profit over all else – and the deal that they do with the Dark Side, despite their own unease – feels worryingly similar to how the CEOs of Amazon, Meta and Google have all bent the knee to the Trump Administration. The increasing political power of the Trade Federation, and the way that they have stymied the Galactic Senate, brings to mind the way that the legislative arm of the United States has been hollowed out by lobbying and neutered by the richest and most online man in the world. The fact Princess Amidala thinks the Senate will save Naboo, despite all evidence to the contrary, reflects the unfounded belief of many Americans that Republican senators will grow a spine, and the checks and balances will suddenly revive themselves to constrain Trump. There's even something in the way that Senator Palpatine (who will later become the evil emperor, complete with lightning hands and bathrobe) is treated by everyone as a stand-up guy despite the fact that he is very obviously evil – I was half expecting Keir Starmer to turn up and offer him a state visit. So is George Lucas some kind of modern day Cassandra? One who envisioned the horrible rise of Elon Musk through the creation of Viceroy Gunray, a small grey alien who sounds a bit like my impression of Jose Mourinho after four pints? Should we be combing through the prequels to work out how to deal with the current rise of the far right? Well … no, obviously. Most of George's solutions involve getting space wizards to blow up conveniently placed air vents - which, as wildly fantastical plans for combatting authoritarianism go, is about as good as Chuck Schumer's. Sign up to The Guide Get our weekly pop culture email, free in your inbox every Friday after newsletter promotion Ultimately though, there was something that The Phantom Menace's trade war premonition missed – just how stupid all of this is. There isn't a scene where Darth Sidious starts talking about how he invented the idea of grocery bags, or another where the Trade Federation tried to tax an uninhabited planet filled with penguins. Lucas filled the script with tense technical jargon and slick politicians engineering crises to justify a collapse into totalitarianism. It turns out he didn't need to bother. He could have just had a crawl at the start that said 'the Emperor has lost his mind, Viceroy Gunray's son is wiping snot on the walls of a Coruscant palace, and everyone is basically fine with it. Now get ready for two hours of pod racing!' The good news, in the end, is that The Phantom Menace wasn't right all along. The bad news? It's because our world is too wrong for The Phantom Menace to have predicted. And that's much worse. If you want to read the complete version of this newsletter please subscribe to receive The Guide in your inbox every Friday
Shafaq News
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Shafaq News
Iraq arrests senior leader of Al-Yamani Movement in Najaf
Shafaq News/ Iraqi security forces arrested a senior leader of the Al-Yamani Movement in Najaf province, a security source said on Thursday. An intelligence unit in Kufa, within Najaf, detained a "high-value target" believed to be the chief strategist behind the group, which has called for attacks on top religious figures, the source told Shafaq News. The suspect had evaded capture for years before being transferred to a specialized detention facility for further investigation, he added. Ahmed bin Hasan al-Yamani, leader of the group, is a Shiite religious figure who claims to be the messianic "Al-Yamani." In Twelver Shi'ism, the dominant sect in Iraq, Al-Yamani is believed to be the deputy of the Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam, and a precursor to his Reappearance and the End Times. Al-Yamani publicly launched his movement in Iraq in 2002, positioning himself as the first of twelve Mahdis who follow the twelve Imams. Iraqi authorities continue to monitor and dismantle networks linked to the movement, viewing its activities as a destabilizing force in the country's religious and security landscape.
