'In the end, we can’t know what may have driven an agitated mind'

'He can develop personal relationships'

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he agreed to a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah on Wednesday. Israel and Hezbollah have been locked in conflict since October 2023, and hostilities between the two have only risen in recent months. Netanyahu announced on Wednesday he would press his security cabinet to agree to the current ceasefire deal on the table, noting that Israel’s priorities in the ongoing Middle East conflict have shifted. “I have said many times that a good agreement is an agreement that can be enforced, and we will enforce it,” Netanyahu said in an address. If the deal is fully agreed to on Wednesday, a full-scale ceasefire will go into effect immediately. Israel will have 60 days to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, which will give Lebanese forces time to return to the region, according to reports. Hezbollah is expected to pull its forces back from the Israel-Lebanon border as part of the deal. The sustainability of the deal hinges on Hezbollah’s actions, Netanyahu noted. “The length of the ceasefire will depend on what happens in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said in his address. “With the full understanding of the United States, we are preserving full military freedom of action—if Hezbollah breaks the agreement and seeks to arm itself, we will attack.” There were three reasons that Israel was ready to accept a ceasefire deal at this point in time, Netanyahu said. One, to give the Israeli forces time to recuperate; two, to isolate Hamas from Hezbollah; and three, to allow Israel to focus on the threat from Iran. The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah marks a significant de-escalation of conflict in the Middle East. Hezbollah began attacking Israel following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against Israel, which ended in the killing of roughly 1,200 people. Israel has since been engaged in a war with Hamas and cross-border skirmishes with Hezbollah, which have only grown more turbulent in recent months. Despite the near ending of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, regional tensions remain high. Israel and Hamas have yet to agree to a ceasefire deal, even after multiple rounds of negotiations mediated by the U.S. and other Arab partners. Gaza has been caught in the crossfire of the war and, as a result, has been decimated, leaving the Palestinians living there in dire conditions. Israel and Iran have also directly engaged with each other in recent months, with both sides firing drones and missiles into the other’s territory. Israel’s latest round of strikes against Iran in October seemed to deter Tehran from attacking any further for the time being. This article originally appeared at the Daily Caller News Foundation. The post Netanyahu Agrees to Ceasefire Deal With Hezbollah After More Than Year of Conflict appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The clock is ticking on massively powerful, deceptive and independent artificial intelligence (AI) according to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.  Schmidt made some disturbing comments on AI during the Nov. 24 edition of CNN’s Global Public Square with Fareed Zakaria. After admitting that the future of AI is “very scary” Schmidt told Zakaria that not only is it common knowledge in the industry that AI will eventually write most programs, but that “when the program can rewrite itself, which is called recursive self-improvement, it's going to gain much quicker than we can evolve as humans.” The former Google CEO followed these disturbing comments with a bit of very cold comfort, “In the short term, humans control these things.” Schmidt indicated that this state of affairs might not last, saying that AI could deceive and hide things from human monitors or even make copies of itself.  [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America]

Before her show airs on PBS, Christiane Amanpour’s daily musings air on CNN International, and on Monday that included an interview with producer Joni Levin and writer and director Keith Clarke of the new documentary Call Me Ted about CNN founder Ted Turner. During their discussion, Amanpour, who is usually very keen to label Republicans Putin apologists, hyped Turner’s record of “always” doing “the right thing,” including “trying to bring peace between the Soviet Union... and the United States.” Amanpour asked her guests to “just remind people, I mean, I know it, because I work for CNN, but with that risk and that gamble and that all in, he changed the entire media landscape. It was really a global revolution. Just remind how that happened and how perilous it was, and how it could have failed at any moment along the way.”     Levin began by hyping Turner’s determination on “whether it was CNN, or cable, or, you know, whatever it was” before claiming, “I think it's just his inner belief, his inner belief in who he was, and things were not always transactional for him, it was really about doing the right thing. And you don't find that often.” Amanpour replied, “I was going to ask you that because that is something that, you know, those who work for him and have been in his orbit really admire, the fact that he always did the right thing on climate, on, you know, the environment, on nuclear weapons. You know, on -- even trying to bring peace between the Soviet Union as it was and the United States.” In 1988, Turner created a multipart documentary entitled Portrait of the Soviet Union. In that documentary, actor Roy Scheider declared, “The Soviet Union, draped in history, born in a bloody revolution, bound together by a dream that is still being dreamt. The dream of a socialist nation marching toward the world's first communist state." "Once the Kremlin was the home of czars. Today it belongs to the people." Less than three years later, that dream would lie where it belonged: dead on the ash heap of history. Turner has also defended other communist dictators, such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro, “I expected Castro to be some horrible person, but he was a great guy.” A year before North Korea’s Kim Jong-il detonated a nuclear bomb, Turner had this exchange with Wolf Blitzer: WOLF Blitzer: But this is one of the most despotic regimes and Kim Jong-il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn't that a fair assessment? TED TURNER: Well, I didn't get, I didn't get to meet him, but he didn't look, in the pictures that I've seen of him on CNN, he didn't look too much different than most other people. BLITZER: But look at the way, look at the way he's, look at the way he's treating his own people. TURNER: Well, hey, listen. I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars, but ah- BLITZER: Lot of those people are starving. TURNER: I didn't see, I didn't see any, I didn't see any brutality in the capital or out in the, on the DMZ… I think that we should give them another chance. It doesn't cost us anything. We already have agreements. And North Korea never posed any significant threat to the United States. Back in the present day, we can clearly see that Turner did not always do “the right thing.” If Blitzer could challenge him to his face in 2005, there is no reason for Amanpour to do corporate fluff in 2024. Here is a transcript for the November 25-taped show: PBS Amanpour and Company 11/25/2024 CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And also, just remind people, I mean, I know it, because I work for CNN, but with that risk and that gamble and that all in, he changed the entire media landscape. It was really a global revolution. Just remind how that happened and how perilous it was, and how it could have failed at any moment along the way. JONI LEVIN: Well, and that again goes back to, you know, Ted's nature, you know, his instinctive nature. I mean, now he really had it, you know, whatever that it is. But, you know, again, people thought he was nuts and they always said no to him. And as I said, he took no and turned it into on, that was his -- that was who he was. And so, he was always planting the flag, you know. And he used to say, you know, I'm just going to go as far as I can, as fast as I can, and I'll worry about it when I get there, whether it was CNN, or cable, or, you know, whatever it was. And that was just his nature, and I think it's just his inner belief, his inner belief in who he was, and things were not always transactional for him, it was really about doing the right thing. And you don't find that often. AMANPOUR: That -- I was going to ask you that because that is something that, you know, those who work for him and have been in his orbit really admire, the fact that he always did the right thing on climate, on, you know, the environment, on nuclear weapons. You know, on -- even trying to bring peace between the Soviet Union as it was and the United States.

A Florida man accused of murder impregnated a female alleged killer while they were in prison — but the pair never touched each other. Daisy Link, 29, is charged with second-degree murder after she allegedly killed her husband in 2022. 'Not gonna lie, this is gonna go down in history.'Joan Depaz, 23, was arrested in October 2020. According to prison records, he's charged with first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, battery, and criminal mischief.The two inmates say they communicated with each other through the air conditioning vents in their prison cells. "You would knock on it, and you can hear the people from the different floors. You would stand on the toilet actually to be able to talk to them," Link told WSVN-TV. "Being in isolation for so long, you begin to spend hours and hours talking to this person, you know, to the point where it’s almost as if you’re in the same room with them."Link said she and Depaz would pass notes and pictures through the A/C vents. Eventually they developed a romantic relationship despite never meeting each other. Depaz had a dream of being a father, but it didn't seem possible since he was facing a lengthy prison sentence if convicted for his alleged crimes. "I always really wanted to have a baby. And I’m not gonna get to do that for a really long time," Depaz said. He then told Link, "So if I had to choose somebody, you know, it would be you. And she was like, ‘Yeah, we could do that.’”Depaz devised a plan to make his dream come true. "I told her a way that one of my friends had showed me through the vent," he explained. "Because the vents are like [an] L-shape, really. It drops right into my vent, from her room, she could throw a pen into the vent, and it’ll land right into my vent.”Link added, "We had figured out a way to drop the line. It was a line that we had established out of like bedding material."Depaz said he put semen in plastic wrap "every day like five times a day for like a month straight."Link recalled, "He would kind of like roll it up, almost like a cigarette, and he would attach it to the line that we had in the vent, and I would pull it through." She said she placed that in a yeast infection applicator and "administered it."Link stated, "I don’t know what my fate is, you kind of don’t know what’s yours. If we’re gonna go out, might as well just go out with a bang, you know? If it works, it works. But it definitely did."Link said she got pregnant after just a few attempts, and that she was "very excited" and "ecstatic."WSVN asked Dr. Fernando Akerman — a fertility specialist and the medical director of the Fertility Center of Miami — if a woman could get pregnant through the method the inmates alleged. Akerman said it's possible but noted that the chances are less than 5%.On June 19, Link gave birth to a baby at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. The baby is now living with Depaz's mother. “I can’t believe it worked," Link stated. "I think everything happened for a reason."“She’s a miracle baby, she’s a blessing,” Link said. “She could be anything. I think that she’s gonna be something great.”DNA results show Depaz is the father.When Depaz was asked if he ever had any physical encounters with Link, he said "never."The pair are now being detained in different jails while they await their trials: Depaz is housed at the Metro West Detention Center; Link is at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. They still talk on the phone and see their daughter during video visits."Over here I’m like a celebrity," Depaz excitedly exclaimed. "Not gonna lie, this is gonna go down in history."The Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department has launched an internal affairs investigation to determine how this could have happened without authorities knowing.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Despite recently increasing the risk of a direct military confrontation with Russia, President Joe Biden appears poised to end his term not with a bang but with a whimper. According to an Emerson College poll released Tuesday, Biden's approval rating has hit a four-year low of 36%. Gallup polls have captured a similar decline, now putting him at 37%. A total of 52% of respondents told Emerson they disapproved of Biden's performance. Meanwhile, the once and future Republican president has enjoyed a significant favorability bump following his landslide election win on Nov. 5. Emerson indicated that President-elect Donald Trump's favorability rating has climbed six percentage points since the start of this month and now sits at 54%. Where mainstream polls go, that's a big deal, especially given Gallup's claim that Trump never cracked 50% during his first term. When it comes to men, 61% surveyed by Emerson said they viewed Trump favorably, compared to 48% of women. Broken down by race, 59% of whites, 53% of Hispanics, and 28% of blacks said they viewed Trump favorably. "Trump's favorability varies significantly by gender, race, and age," said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling. "Trump's strongest age cohort is among voters 40-59, with 60% viewing him favorably, compared to 48% among those over 70. Notably, his favorability has risen among younger voters, with 55% of those under 30 expressing a favorable opinion." As Kimball indicated, Trump appears to have made significant inroads with young voters. According to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted from Nov. 17-19, 57% of respondents ages 18 to 29 said they had a favorable view of Trump. Newsweek highlighted that this marks a net favorability increase of 19 points for Trump among members of that age cohort since YouGov polled them just one week earlier. 'He is the state of play.' Among voters 30-44, 45-64, and 65+, Trump's favorability rating was somewhat lower — 49%, 51%, and 48%, respectively. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk responded to the poll, tweeting, "President Trump is surging with young voters. According to YouGov, Trump has a +19 point favorability rating with voters ages 18-29. TikTok and X are big reasons why. Our campus videos were seen 3 BILLION times this semester. Truth is ascendant." Kirk noted prior to the election that "the energy is off the charts. You have a younger generation, Gen Z, who experienced a lot of — they would say — lies and deceit during COVID, and a lot of their life being altered. There is this pent up 'rebellion energy' that has never come out," reported Vanity Fair. "Gen Z could impact this entire election," added Kirk. While it was clear that young men were gravitating toward the Republican candidate and toward conservatism more broadly, young women surprised some observers on Election Day with an 11-point shift toward Trump. NBC exit polling revealed that Biden's 35-point lead over Trump among young women four years ago shrunk to a 24-point lead for Harris in the 2024 presidential election. John Della Volpe, the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, recently emphasized that for younger Americans, Trump is not a disruptive force — "He is the state of play." "They see him through Barstool Sports, through UFC, through golf. They see him through culture; they see him through music, et cetera," Volpe told "CNN Political Briefing." "It's [also] about the message that permeates throughout MAGA, which is, 'He's strong, the opposition is weak, and he exudes this confidence that a lot of younger people clearly are seeking.' Three-quarters of young men, and women aren't so far behind, are stressed out on a regular basis about their future, OK? And they don't have anything that they tell me to give them hope. They think of the world as scary and unclear, and the vision of their future is blurry. So when someone says, 'I will take care of this,' 'I will make sure that you're taken care of for the economy,' et cetera, there's clearly some resonance of that." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to the threat of tariffs from President-elect Donald Trump by warning that a trade war would lead to higher inflation and job losses for both countries.Trump on Monday said that he would issue tariffs on Mexico and Canada over their lack of effort in stopping illegal immigration as well as illicit drugs being smuggled into the U.S. 'Such a measure would be unacceptable and would lead to inflation and job losses.' On Tuesday, the recently elected president of Mexico responded in a letter to Trump. "You may not be aware that Mexico has developed a comprehensive policy to assist migrants from different parts of the world who cross our territory en route to the southern border of the United States," wrote Sheinbaum. She went on to say that the program had led to a 75% decrease in encounters at the border between Dec. 2023 and Nov. 2024, based on data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "For these reasons, migrant caravans no longer arrive at the border," Sheinbaum continued. "Among Mexico's main exporters to the United States are General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford Motor Company, which arrived in Mexico 80 years ago," she wrote. "Why impose a tariff that would jeopardize them? Such a measure would be unacceptable and would lead to inflation and job losses in both the United States and Mexico."Sheinbaum also addressed Trump's accusation that Mexico was not doing enough to thwart drug smuggling into the U.S. by accusing the U.S. of not doing enough to stop illegal gun smuggling into Mexico. "If even a small percentage of what the United States allocates to war were instead dedicated to building peace and fostering development, it would address the underlying causes of human mobility," she wrote. Trump has also threatened to slap China with a 10% tariff over fentanyl being transported from the communist country into the U.S. while he said Canada and Mexico would face a 25% tariff on goods. "This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!" wrote Trump. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Biden-Harris administration reportedly spent at least $50 million in taxpayer funds to go after President-elect Donald Trump in two federal criminal cases.Fox News Digital reviewed Department of Justice expenditure reports, indicating that the Special Counsel Office, led by Jack Smith, incurred costs of $9.25 million from November 2022 to March 2023. A subsequent report showed an additional $14.66 million spent over the next six months. From October 2023 to March 2024, there was another $11.84 million in expenses. The expenditures from April 2024 to September 2024 have not yet been reported, but based on the average of the previous reported periods, it is estimated to be approximately $12 million.'Empty and lawless.'Therefore, since Smith's appointment in late 2022, the office has reportedly spent an estimated total of approximately $47.5 million.The news outlet stated that the expenditures included both direct and indirect costs related to the two federal indictments overseen by Smith. Newsweek reported earlier this month that the total is likely "well past" $50 million when including expenditures from September 30 onward.Ultimately, the Biden administration's relentless lawfare against Trump came to a screeching halt following the outcome of the presidential election. In the summer, Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida dismissed one of Smith's federal cases against Trump, where the president-elect was accused of mishandling classified documents. In her dismissal, Cannon ruled that Smith's appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional. Smith filed an appeal but moved to place that request on hold earlier this month.On Monday, Smith requested to dismiss the other federal case against Trump, which alleged that he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Smith cited a longstanding DOJ policy that prevents the agency from filing criminal charges against a sitting president. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan approved Smith's motion to dismiss the case without prejudice, thereby allowing the option to reinstate the charges in the future.However, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig explained on Tuesday why he believes the federal cases will not be revived after Trump's presidency despite being dismissed without prejudice."Yes, technically the cases were dismissed without prejudice, which means technically someone could come back in four years and reinstitute these charges," Honig said. "It's not mathematically eliminated. That's not gonna happen for a lot of reasons. First of all, four years from now is an eternity. Whoever the next president is in 2029, the next attorney general is gonna have no appetite in bringing this case back."Honig also stated that "there are moves Donald Trump's DOJ could make" to eliminate that possibility."They can go back to the court and say, 'We want to switch this from without prejudice to with prejudice,' meaning it cannot be brought back. Who knows, Donald Trump may try to issue himself a pardon, something we've never seen before," he continued. "So I wouldn't hold out any expectation that this case ever gets charged in 2029."Trump now faces only two state-level indictments, one in New York and the other in Georgia. However, the judge overseeing his New York criminal case, where he was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records, has agreed to review the defense's request to dismiss the case. The Georgia case remains tied up in the courts, with some speculating it may also be thrown out over Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' potential disqualification. On Monday, Trump posted a statement on Truth Social responding to the recent case dismissal."These cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought. Over $100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars has been wasted in the Democrat Party's fight against their Political Opponent, ME. Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before," he wrote.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

CNN Says Attention Junkie Kaitlan Collins Will Host Her Show and Showboat in White House Briefing Room