The panic is palpable. Democrat controlled cities across the nation are experiencing something they might never have experienced before: Consequences for their terrible criminal prosecution policies. And, they don't like. Not one bit.

Democrats have argued for the past couple years that crime rates are actually falling in the US compared to previous decades, but this does not seem to be represented on the streets as retailers in numerous metro areas are closing up shop after many years of operations due to increasing theft. If crime rates are falling, why are so many businesses leaving blue areas?

Boston, for example, has been bleeding retailers in recent months, with companies like Walgreens closing down four stores in the area in a single year. Residents and officials are "outraged", arguing that these companies have a civic duty to stay and service communities in need. It's estimated that Massachusetts retailers are losing more than $2 billion per year to criminal theft. Maybe if the community stopped robbing them on a daily basis, these companies wouldn't feel the need to shut down.

Should academic freedom of speech be replaced with "justice"? Are elections a danger to our democracy? Some people think so!

The author of the above, Sandra Korn, explains that we need to give up on academic freedom in favor of academic justice:

Instead, I would like to propose a more rigorous standard: one of 'academic justice'. When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.

An Atlanta pole dancing studio has sparked controversy after introducing a "Mommy and Me" workshop - with critics accusing it of sexualizing children.

Pink Poles Studios announced on social media that it would offer a new class for kids to earn "tricks" and "spins" through "pole fitness" beginning in February.

"We are here to break stigmas and set the bar," the studio said on Instagram, where it posted video of children, some very young, gripping a pole, spinning and performing elaborate moves.

A Quebec man has admitted to setting a series of fires that burned hundreds of hectares of forest last year and forced hundreds of people from their homes.

Brian Pare, 38, pleaded guilty today to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life at the courthouse in Chibougamau, Que.

Prosecutor Marie-Philippe Charron told the court that two of the fires set by Pare forced the June 1 evacuation of around 500 homes in Chapais, Que., a small community located around 425 kilometres northwest of Quebec City.

Charron read an agreed statement of facts detailing that the first fires were set on May 31, three days after the Quebec government banned open fires in or around forests due to dry weather conditions.

Posts on Pare's Facebook page — where he regularly posted about the wildfires, including claims that the fires had been deliberately set by the government to trick people into believing in climate change — were among the evidence that led police to him.

A pre-sentencing report has been ordered that will consider both Pare's mental state and the risk he poses to public safety.

Last week, the United States Department of Justice announced that it will be suing Texas to stop enforcement of Texas Senate Bill 4, a law intended to allow Texas law enforcement to help enforce federal immigration law. You can read the complaint here.

If I were advising Governor Abbott, here's what I would tell him: You are uniquely situated to be a hero by acting to stop the long-standing immigration crisis. The State and much of the nation are standing ready to support you in this effort. Here is what you must do: pose a credible threat of noncompliance with any federal order, whether administrative or judicial, that would stop you from doing what is necessary to protect Texas, and more than that, the American nation. You could call this the Old Hickory Option: "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!"

Allow me to explain.

Insults to State Sovereignty

We should start by taking a trip down memory lane, to a similar case resolved late in President Obama's first term (i.e., before he undertook those powers to rewrite immigration law via executive order, an action which he himself had previously described as imperial in nature). My concern here is the political calculus rather than the legal merits, but the arguments from Arizona are a necessary predicate to have on the table.

It was supposed to be a place where displaced Palestinians gathered for desperately needed supplies of food in northern Gaza.

But eyewitnesses have told Middle East Eye how on 11 January a large crowd waiting for a food truck on al-Rasheed Street came under fire from the Israeli military, with dozens killed and wounded in the attack.

The Israeli military shelled the crowd with tank fire and quadcopters. Muhammad Al-Salim, 27, witnessed the massacre, telling Middle East Eye that he saw scores of bodies strewn across the street.

The British oil company Shell reportedly has suspended all shipments through the Red Sea indefinitely amid the ongoing Houthi attacks from Yemen on commercial vessels on the key global trade route.

The suspension was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.

FOX Business reached out to Shell's office for the Americas on Tuesday but did not immediately hear back, and the Journal report says the company declined to comment on the matter.

OpenAI is working with the Pentagon on software projects, including ones related to cybersecurity, the company said Tuesday, in a dramatic change from its previous ban on providing its artificial intelligence technology to militaries.

The ChatGPT creator is also in discussions with the U.S. government about developing tools to reduce veteran suicides, Anna Makanju, the company's vice president of global affairs, said at the World Economic Forum — but added that it will retain its ban on developing weapons.

Last week, OpenAI removed language in its usage policy that would ban its AI from being used in "military and warfare" applications, sparking alarm among AI safety advocates.

In November 2022, the administrative board that regulates the conduct of psychologists (and much more than that, it turns out) decided that my political views were a disgrace to my profession, that of clinical psychologist. I was therefore sentenced by that board, the Ontario College of Psychologists, to a bout of mandatory re-education, of indeterminate duration, at my expense, with my learning not evaluated by any standard method but subject to the opinion of those charged with, profiting by and exploiting my forced studentship. I took those decision-makers forthwith to court, and lost. The decision of the Ontario College of Psychologists was upheld. I then appealed, to a higher court. On January 16, 2024, that appeal was rejected. There were no reasons provided.

This means that my legal options have been exhausted. Thus, I face two choices. I can comply, when the College goes ahead with its determination to require my re-education, dutifully attend whatever bloody classes their DEI-enthusiast "social media experts" (whatever those are) determine to inflict upon, confess the sins of my classic liberal/conservative or even Judeo-Christian political, philosophical and theological commitments, repent and silence myself — or even become a standard-bearer for the faux-compassionate woke cause, at least publicly. Alternatively, I can tell my would-be masters to go directly to the hell they are so rapidly gathering around themselves and everyone else, lose my right to practice or even to describe myself as a psychologist, and suffer the consequences on the reputation front:

"Canadian psychologist Jordan B Peterson, disgrace to his profession, forfeits his formal licence, in consequence of his crimes."

And what exactly were those crimes? — because there's the rub or, at least, one of them. This is where the reader should pay careful attention, Canadian or otherwise, because this is what lies ahead in the West, given the course our leaders and their still-blind and deaf followers are charting. It should be hard for anyone considering this situation to believe that I am playing straight with the facts, if they have any of their own opinions or values whatsoever — because if what I have done and said constitutes the equivalent of a professional crime, you can be sure that your own head is full of like transgressions, regardless of your political stance, and your own tongue therefore likely to spill the beans.

An Ontario court has dismissed Jordan Peterson's appeal of an earlier decision that sided with the College of Psychologists of Ontario

Jordan Peterson says "the war has barely started" after losing his bid to have the courts bar the College of Psychologists of Ontario from ordering him to undergo remedial social media training.

On Tuesday, a panel of three judges with the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed Peterson's motion for leave to appeal an earlier decision by the Ontario Divisional Court. No reasons were given, which is normal for the appeal court.

"A higher court in Canada has ruled that the Ontario College of Psychologists indeed has the right to sentence me to re-education camp. There are no other legal avenues open to me now," Peterson wrote on X. "It's capitulate to the petty bureaucrats and the addle-pated woke mob or lose my professional licence."

Peterson said that the college had "won this round," but the war is not over.