Israel on Tuesday gave specific justification for carrying out an airstrike that destroyed Jala Tower, a Gaza high-rise building which housed the Associated Press (AP) news agency and Al Jazeera, a Qatari television network. Israel had warned people in the building to vacate their offices, and destroyed the building after it was empty. The building housed several offices of Hamas, but Israel now says that the building was destroyed because Hamas operatives were using it to try and jam Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system.

Individuals and groups adhering to militant Islamism, a political ideology underpinned by a strict and literalist interpretation of religion, have claimed tens of thousands of lives around the world. They have provoked the response of the most powerful military alliance in history. In recent years, the appeal of their utopian ideal has convinced thousands to abandon their lives and travel to join the brutal Islamic State experiment in Iraq and Syria. What narratives have Islamist propagandists used to persuade thousands of Westerners to follow go to the Caliphate, or carry out terrorist acts at home.

The “racial disparity” of the deaths from Covid should raise alarms.  Not the relatively small differences between white, black and Hispanic death rates in America, but the massive disparity between death rates of East Asian countries, and everyone else on earth. On a per capita basis, non-East Asians are dying at rates 20 times higher that of East Asians. That is not a statistical “blip.” It screams that the virus has massively unequal kill rates - and kills people of different races very differently. That is the signature of a bio-weapon.

Over the last few years, TikTok—the social media app that allows users to create and share short videos—has gained immense popularity. While much of the content on TikTok is lighthearted and fun, extremists have exploited the platform to share hateful content and recruit new adherents.

In response to the recent conflict in Israel and Gaza, prominent voices, including among NGOs and activists, have engaged in problematic rhetoric about Israel. Such harsh criticism, especially when it goes beyond criticizing Israel’s policies to a denunciation of the entire entity of Israel and its guiding ideology of Zionism, may not always cross the line into antisemitism, but it enables an environment in which hateful actions against Jews and supporters of Israel are accepted more freely, and in which anti-Jewish tropes may be normalized. We are already seeing too many examples of Jews and Jewish institutions being targeted in the guise of opposition to Israel and its policies.

A bill that President Joe Biden signed into law Thursday gives local and federal officials new tools and resources to combat hate crimes, while putting the spotlight on a surge in anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic. The impetus for the new law was a dramatic increase in attacks on Asian Americans since the start of the pandemic in Wuhan, China, more than a year ago.

The House Homeland Security Committee announced a bipartisan agreement Friday to form a panel to conduct an investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. A bill will be introduced for House consideration as early as next week. The measure will call for an investigative commission similar to the one that probed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. 

Nearly 200 jihadists imprisoned in France are due to be released over the next two years and French security officials are pressing French lawmakers to approve fresh antiterrorist measures to impose enhanced restrictions on those freed and to give police new legal powers to fight terrorism.

Disquiet is growing within France’s military ranks, with the publication of a second open letter — this time by serving soldiers — warning growing Islamism, delinquency and violence threaten the country’s very survival.