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Apple CEO Tim Cook will host a fundraiser with House Speaker Paul Ryan next week as the iPhone maker tries to strengthen its relationships with key Republicans — despite its decision to pull support for the GOP convention because of its distaste for Donald Trump. Cook will help generate cash for Ryan at a private breakfast on June 28 in Menlo Park, Calif., along with Gary Wipfler, the company’s treasurer, according to an invite obtained by POLITICO on Monday. The money benefits not only the speaker but a joint fundraising committee aimed at helping to elect other House Republicans.

FAIRFAX, Va., June 21 (UPI) -- About 20 protesters were arrested Tuesday morning after an all-night vigil outside the National Rifle Association's Virginia headquarters. The arrests came after an overnight demonstration attended by about 100 people outside the Fairfax, Va., headquarters of the NRA. The group said they were there in mourning for the Orlando, Fla., shooting victims. Those arrested sprawled on the pavement, surrounded by chalk lines indicative of dead bodies, as a tribute to the 49 shooting deaths last week at an Orlando nightspot. Other protesters held signs and used red paint to indicate blood. The action was...

Michael Jackson’s Neverland estate in Santa Barbara County, Calif., was filled with child pornography, bloody animal torture and S&M pictures, according to police reports obtained by Radar Online. The reports stem from multiple raids by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department on the compound connected to the 2003 child sex abuse investigation of the pop icon. An investigator on the case told Radar that the seized items, which include dozens of videos, photos and personal notes, “paint a dark and frightening picture of Jackson.” “The documents exposed Jackson as a manipulative, drug- and sex-crazed predator who used blood, gore, sexually...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Then there's this Secret Service agent who has written this tell-all book about Bill and Hillary and so forth. This is dynamite. Well, the Secret Service is mad; some former agents are mad. But, you know, who is this guy? I can't remember his name? O'Neill. Robert O'Neill. He's the Special Forces guy who claims to have pulled the trigger, shot the bullet that killed Osama. Well, he came out and identified himself, and a bunch of people in the Special Forces community, the SEAL community, said, "You just don't do that. We don't do that." It's...

A jury has convicted veteran U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah in a racketeering case that largely centered on various efforts to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan. Fattah was found guilty of all 22 counts against him, including racketeering, fraud and money laundering. His lawyers had argued that schemes were engineered without Fattah's knowledge by two political consultants who pleaded guilty in the case. Fattah's jovial and calm demeanor didn't change much as the verdict was read....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: A columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. This is so good. This guy is a columnist, and he was assigned the task of showing "how easy it is to get a gun." We had the Morning Update today about this CBS reporterette who wanted to do the same thing. They're all going into gun shops and trying to show how easy it is. "They'll sell a gun to anybody! You don't need to get a background check." It's all a bunch of BS. "You walk in, you fork over the money, and they'll give you a machine gun...

AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File During election season, major companies often donate to both parties' national conventions. This year, however, one big player is opting out. Last week, Apple announced it would refrain from donating materials and support to the 2016 Republican convention, "citing Donald Trump's controversial comments about women, immigrants, and minorities."As a conservative, I detest Trump, his pomp, and his works. His campaign looks more and more like a trainwreck as Trump focuses away from battleground states, doesn't raise money, and doesn't fill out his staff. More importantly, the predicted "pivot" to a general election populist theme has never...

In March, a white award-winning broadcast news anchor in Pittsburgh posted on her professional Facebook page what she claimed was a heartfelt call to action on the perceived black-on-black crime epidemic in the United States, particularly in the city she’d covered for almost 20 years. The post came two weeks after she covered a mass shooting at a backyard barbecue that left four people injured and six dead, including a pregnant woman, in Wilkinsburg, a majority black borough. The district attorney called the heinous crime calculated, planned and one of the “most brutal” he had seen in his 18-year tenure....

Sources now indicate Paul Ryan wants Hillary Clinton to be America’s next president, and is doing everything in his power to secure that very outcome. If that allows Hillary to nominate up to three more Supreme Court Justices and thus tilt the balance of power of the Court so it represents far-left, progressive views, so be it. The forty-six-year-old Paul Ryan doesn’t care because he has already been promised, and wishes to make certain, that he is the GOP’s 2020 nominee for president. And it’s not just the 2020 election cycle that is currently on the table. Powerful Republican insiders...

While the production will almost certainly improve this summer, “SolarReserve’s Crescent Dunes Project in Tonopah, Nevada [isn’t even] quietly providing clean, green solar energy to 75,000 homes in the Silver State even when the sun [is] shining”… The average U.S. residential utility customer uses about 900 kWh per month. 75,000 homes * 900 KWh/month = 67,500,000 kWh/month = 67,500 MWh/month In its best month so far, Crescent Dunes generated 9,095 MWh… About 3 hours of electricity per day for 75,000 homes. This is the Venezuela version of 24/7 /SARC.

In the aftermath of the Orlando massacre, the Democrats applied a law that serves them well: "Never let a good crisis go to waste." So they used the bodies of the dead as leverage for their politics and framed the national debate in terms of gun control rather than terrorism inspired by the radical jihadists of Islamic State. It was all about protecting their presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. They had to protect her. So they shouted about the guns. All that emotion about gun control, much of it sincere and thoughtfully offered, was nevertheless used by party...

(DATELINE: April 1, 2017) Two million Muslims are thought to have died, and over a million are injured in a huge earthquake that has devastated the predominantly Wahhabist Muslim Middle East. Iraq , Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria are totally ruined and the governments there don't know where to start with providing help to rebuild. The rest of the world is in shock. Britain is sending troops to help keep the peace. Egypt is sending oil money & other monetary assistance Israel is sending medical teams of of highly skilled trauma surgeons. Latin American countries are sending clothing. New Zealand...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jury convicts Pennsylvania US Rep. Chaka Fattah in racketeering trial involving donor's secret $1M campaign loan.

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) - Two sisters have been arrested after a Saturday night brawl at IHOP in Whitehaven. The fight happened at the IHOP near Southland Mall in Whitehaven. The General Manager told police that employee Janika Nellums and her sister Shanika Strickland got into a fight with other restaurant employees with a baby sitting just a few feet away. A video of the fight has been circulating around social media. You can watch it in the post below, but be warned the video does contain adult language.

BALTIMORE — A Baltimore judge on Monday questioned prosecutors’ theory that a police officer charged with murder in the death of Freddie Gray intentionally gave him a “rough ride” in a police van that caused the 25-year-old black man’s mortal injuries more than a year ago. Prosecutors had used the phrase “rough ride” in their opening arguments of Officer Caesar Goodson’s trial earlier this month, but Deputy State’s Attorney Janice Bledsoe did not utter the term during closing arguments Monday. Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams grilled Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow to clarify how he thought Officer Goodson had...

It’s no surprise to us that the “monster” El Niño of 2015/2016 created a very large global temperature spike, after all, that’s what the natural process that creates the phenomenon results in due to the Pacific ocean near the Equator not being able to dissipate heat to space as effectively as it usually does. NOAA says that “ENSO is one of the most important climate phenomena on Earth due to its ability to change the global atmospheric circulation, which in turn, influences temperature and precipitation across the globe. ” But, as they say, “what goes up, must come down”. NOAA...

In the aftermath of the Islamic terrorist attack on the gay night club in Orlando, some basic facts about gay-on-gay hate crimes are once again coming to light. Not long ago, the Center for Disease Control published a study documenting that individuals in the LGBT community experience far more violence from one another than individuals involved in heterosexual relationships. In fact, the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming will always be a gruesome reminder of the gay-on-gay hate and violence that has long plagued the LGBT community. After nearly two decades, most Americans still remain totally clueless that Shepard...

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Geomorphology provides multiple evidences for the global flood by Michael J. Oard Geomorphology is a subfield of geology which specializes in studying and explaining the shape of the earth’s surface—its mountain ranges, plateaus, and plains. It includes study of small-scale features such as hills, valleys, slopes, and canyons. The individual features of the landscape within the field of geomorphology are called landforms. Geomorphology is a ‘gold mine’ of evidence for the Genesis Flood.

And they're off and running! Duh-duh-dump-duh-duh-dump ... and so on: The presidential horse race so beloved by media types. Who's ahead? Who's behind? What do the polls say? Which polls? Hey -- Donald Trump fired his campaign manager! How will the gun control debate affect things? None of which is irrelevant to general concerns, but very little of which suggests the nature of the stakes in the campaign, such as the future and durability of Social Security. Credit The New York Times with trying at least to engage public attention as to what might happen, depending on the election outcome,...