Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge noticed it from across the room. For eight years, he had watched Washington and learned to read the small signals: the set of the jaw, the economy of movement, the way the general’s silence could crowd out other men’s noise. He had never seen the hand shake — not at Long Island, where the army nearly dissolved into the East River; not at Valley Forge, where it nearly froze to death; not at Yorktown, where it won.
AS A child, I was the sort of clever-clogs who examined his pennies before spending them on sweets. So I learned early on that Fid Def – or simply F D – imprinted around the head of the monarch on our coinage is Latin, short for Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith).
The title was conferred on the devoutly Catholic Henry VIII by Pope Leo X in 1521 in recognition of the king’s book A Defence of the Seven Sacraments, a counter-blast to the Protestant Reformation being preached by Martin Luther. Henry of course went on to blot his prayer book by declaring himself head of the Church in England. England became a Protestant nation, but subsequent monarchs were still called Defender of the Faith. Now, however, King Charles III seems to be watering down that 500-year-old legacy.
He defends Islam near as I can tell, certainly not his own people.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey celebrated Somali Independence Day.
Sister city St. Paul, the state’s capital, raised the Somali flag over its City Hall in honor of Somali independence, a flag that looks suspiciously like the newly adopted Minnesota state flag.
Odd. Surely a coincidence.
Somalians in Minnesota announces they are celebrating Somali Independence Day all week
The actual holiday was July 1st, but they are going to celebrate Somali Independence Day all week which will overshadow America’s 4th of July celebration
What are we even doing in America….… pic.twitter.com/w5S0cfTjAD
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) July 2, 2026
Yesterday, Andy Burnham made an important intervention when he demanded that ministers do everything possible to deport Shabir Ahmed, the ringleader of a Pakistani grooming gang. Reports earlier this week suggested that Ahmed, who has been convicted of 30 child rape offenses, could not be deported due to a legal loophole in the 1971 Immigration Act.
There’s nothing like a heatwave to shine a light on the medieval lunacy of eco-alarmism. The minute the thermometer spikes, all the bourgeois doomsayers are on their soapboxes haranguing humankind. This is ‘hell on Earth’, they cry. It’s ‘global boiling’, they wail. A ‘hound from hell’ is dragging the heat of the ‘Underworld’ into our world, say media scribes, like absolute nutters, blissfully unaware of what faux-priestly, pre-modern fools they sound to the rest of us.
As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary of declaring independence of our common mother country, Canadians remain uneasy siblings with Americans, a new poll suggests.
A new Postmedia-Leger poll shows 64 per cent of us think we’re nicer than Americans; another 54 per cent think we’re more cultured. Two-thirds find Americans more arrogant, while 82 per cent think we’re more admired in the world.
This is the extraordinary moment two Met police officers tracked down a photographer to a pub over his critical tweets about a local Green councillor – despite admitting he had committed no crime.
Alastair Hilton was having a drink with a friend in Chiswick, west London, on Thursday night when uniformed officers grilled him about his social media posts.
Mr Hilton feared being arrested when he was asked to step outside by two policemen as he celebrated a victory for his community over the Labour-run council and saved outdoor seating outside three much-loved pubs on the Thames.
I am having a drink this evening with a friend in a Chiswick pub. Two policemen have just come into the pub and asked me to step outside. I have stepped outside and they have threatened me because I tweeted about a councillor banning seating outside pubs in Chiswick. They admit… pic.twitter.com/r7MDIIdgvc
— Alastair Hilton (@London_W4) July 2, 2026
A Turkish man denied refugee status in Canada a decade back because he shot two bystanders at a restaurant 18 years ago when he was aiming at his former brother-in-law has won a chance to stay in this country.
Nevzat Etik took his case to Federal Court looking for a judicial review after Canada’s Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) determined that the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) concluded correctly that “there are serious reasons to believe that he committed a serious crime and dismissed his appeal.”
Iran’s entire regime made a red carpet entrance to the first of three funeral ceremonies for late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — except the dead ayatollah’s own son and successor.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen or heard from since the Feb. 28 strike that killed his father, wife and child — with reports indicating that the younger Khamenei was seriously injured or even disfigured.
The federal government often makes decisions that negatively affect the well-being of Albertans. Since the Liberals’ election in 2015, many of these decisions have been harmful to Alberta by design. The Liberals want to fight climate change, and they think Alberta’s oil and gas industry is the main contributor. Therefore, imposing heavy-handed policies to restrict Alberta’s major source of wealth will achieve their goals.
(Incognito)
Once upon a time, there was a magic word that conjured up the liberal dream of passport-free open borders: Schengen.
It is actually the name of a village in Luxembourg where the agreements were signed four decades ago that created an area of free movement for 450 million people across 29 countries. Today, however, the dream has become a nightmare. Illegal migration on a vast scale from outside the EU has forced 10 governments to adopt emergency measures to control their borders with other member states. They include France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands.
OTTAWA — It wasn’t a political speech or a visionary manifesto that galvanized Canadian nationalism near the start of this century, just a few years after a close-call separation referendum in Quebec and during a period of endless debate about national identity.
It was a 60-second television beer commercial that captured the Canadian soul, or at least the English-speaking part of it. The Molson Canadian ad, officially called “The Rant,” offered a new, updated and self-effacing version of how Canadians view themselves.
You thought Elliot Page's boxing with pool noodles was just for fun?
No, it's (allegedly) for the new Rocky film, Testosterone Creed. pic.twitter.com/rXajY5BxPY
— Dr. Jebra Faushay (@JebraFaushay) July 1, 2026
Slavery was neither central to America’s founding nor the primary source of the country’s subsequent prosperity. Yet both ideas have gained currency in recent years, making it likely that the nation’s slaveholding past will figure prominently in commemorations of the 250th anniversary of American independence.
Nobody is telling you the actual reason a man just set himself on fire outside the UN.
Everyone's calling it "madness." "Psycho." "Stop doing this."
Nobody is reading the note he left behind.
"China Out of Tibet."
💀 He was 52. Lived in the US for 20 years. Drove for Uber.
💀… pic.twitter.com/JyDE2ng0xA— Whale Scan (@WhaleScan) July 3, 2026
h/t Patti Jo
