Domestic Glance
Charlie Kirk rejected an offer earlier this year from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to arrange a massive new infusion of Zionist money into his Turning Point USA (TPUSA) organization, America’s largest conservative youth association, according to a longtime friend of the slain commentator speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The source told The Grayzone that the late pro-Trump influencer believed Netanyahu was trying to cow him into silence as he began to publicly question Israel’s overwhelming influence in Washington and demanded more space to criticize it.
In the weeks leading up to his September 10 assassination, Kirk had come to loathe the Israeli leader, regarding him as a “bully,” the source said. Kirk was disgusted by what he witnessed inside the Trump administration, where Netanyahu sought to personally dictate the president’s personnel decisions, and weaponized Israeli assets like billionaire donor Miriam Adelson to keep the White House firmly under its thumb.
According to Kirk’s friend, who also enjoyed access to President Donald Trump and his inner circle, Kirk strongly warned Trump last June against bombing Iran on Israel’s behalf. “Charlie was the only person who did that,” they said, recalling how Trump “barked at him” in response and angrily shut down the conversation. The source believes the incident confirmed in Kirk’s mind that the president of the United States had fallen under the control of a malign foreign power, and was leading his own country into a series of disastrous conflicts.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has fired another staffer: Kevin Struthers, a senior director of music programming who had been at the D.C. arts institution for 30 years. Struthers confirmed his termination to NPR on Thursday.
One student has died and three others were injured in a shooting at Evergreen High School on Wednesday afternoon.
New Mexico will become the first state to offer free universal childcare, the governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced this week, an expansion of an existing program that has helped lift tens of thousands of people out of poverty.
On a sunny day in Grapevine, Texas, three drones are buzzing around the head of a test dummy balanced on a pedestal. It's part of a demonstration outside the National School Safety Conference.
Just as the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans was beginning to ask victims of clergy sexual abuse to approve a settlement plan assuring them of $180m, the church has now guaranteed $230m – enough to persuade certain attorneys who were opposed to striking a deal to instead favor settling.
Davey Johnson, an All-Star second baseman who won the World Series twice with the Baltimore Orioles as a player and managed the New York Mets to the title in 1986, has died. He was 82.
