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Do we need a red line?

President Trump has acted as no other president has by unleashing a war on Iran whose objective is not only preventing the ayatollahs from ever building a nuclear weapon but ideally (though unmentioned) replacing the fanatics with leaders more friendly to Israel and the West and delivering freedom and prosperity to the Iranian people. With two more terrorist attacks last week — one at Old Dominion University in Virginia and the other at a synagogue and Jewish school in Dearborn, Michigan, is it time to talk of terrorists crossing a red line in this country? How many more terrorist ...

Our civilian-military bond is cracked

On Tuesday, TMZ published a story with a dramatic all-caps headline, “PETE HEGSETH BLEW BILLION$ ON FRUIT BASKETS, LOBSTER,” that was accompanied by a manufactured photo of the secretary of war surrounded by a bunch of plastic lobsters. The initial story was followed by several other “news” organizations repeating the claims. If you’ve never covered the military, or served in the military, or if you don’t have any family or friends in the military, this would appear to be a shocking story. But it’s not — not even remotely. It is a common practice for the Pentagon to ...

Selling a war

Here we go again. What else can one say to the stream of misinformation and disinformation flowing out of the White House and Pentagon since the war with Iran broke out? We have grown wearily familiar with President Trump’s cavalier relationship with the facts. Combine that with his tendency to snatch words out of the air, appropriately or not, and you come up with a jumble of head-scratchers. A leading example is his repeated oddball description of the Iran war as an “excursion,” which caused brows to furrow and eyeballs to roll in newsrooms around the planet. Excursion? ...

Horoscope

The ocean surrenders to the moon, the moon surrenders to the dark, and the dark surrenders to the great quiet — where there is nothing to fear and nothing to defend. The darkest hour is just before dawn. Light will flicker again. Hope will shimmer across the water. The new season is gathering in the swell. ARIES (March 21-April 19). Just as you can’t tell what kind of charge is in a battery until you hook it up to something that uses the power, you don’t know what capabilities are inside you until you’re in a position to use them. The challenge teaches you what you’re made ...

Balancing respect in an interfaith relationship

Dear Annie: I never thought I would be writing to an advice column, but here I am, because my heart is full and my mind is spinning. I am a Catholic woman in my early 30s, and I have fallen deeply in love with a wonderful man who is Jewish. He is kind, thoughtful, funny and steady in a way that makes me feel safe. He remembers the little things, calls my mother “ma’am” and once drove two hours to help my brother when his car broke down. In every way that matters day to day, he is the kind of partner I always hoped to find. The problem is that what matters “day to day” is ...

Muskets crack, drums echo as Boston marks 250 years since British evacuation

BOSTON (AP) — Reenactors in 18th-century military coats and tricorn hats filled the pews of one of the nation’s oldest Catholic Churches on Tuesday before firing muskets outside and marching through neighborhood streets, marking the 250th anniversary of the day British forces evacuated the city. Men, horses and even cattle moved through South Boston’s hills in the morning wind as residents watched from stoops — some in pajamas and wrapped in blankets, appearing to have been awakened by the sound of drums and bagpipes. Evacuation Day commemorates March 17, 1776, when British ...