All Eyes On Arkansas: Religious Freedom Debate Heads South

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance. The extraordinary order, which includes confiscating broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites, is believed to be the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in the country. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Al Jazeera went off Israel’s main cable and satellite providers in the hours after the order.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who has come under fire in recent days for her admission to killing her misbehaving 14-month-old dog Cricket, has suggested that President Joe Biden’s dog Commander should meet the same fate. In an interview on Sunday on Face the Nation, Noem, who is reportedly a contender to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate in 2024, was asked about a passage in her forthcoming memoir in which she wrote that one of her first priorities if she were at the White House would be to make sure that Commander, Biden’s bite-prone German shepherd, was nowhere on the grounds—and that Commander should “say hello to Cricket.” “Are you doing this to try to look tough?” moderator Margaret Brennan asked Noem. “Joe Biden’s dog has attacked 24 Secret Service people,” Noem explained.

RIO DE JANEIRO — Massive floods in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state have killed at least 75 people over the last seven days, and another 103 were reported missing, local authorities said Sunday. At least 155 people were injured, while damage from the rains forced more than 88,000 people from their homes.

RIO DE JANEIRO — Madonna put on a free concert on Copacabana beach Saturday night, turning Rio de Janeiro’s vast stretch of sand into an enormous dance floor teeming with a multitude of her fans. It was the last show of The Celebration Tour, her first retrospective, which kicked off in October in London. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The “Queen of Pop” began the show with her 1998 hit “Nothing Really Matters.” Huge cheers rose from the buzzing, tightly packed crowd, pressed up against the barriers.

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