Opinion

Israel launched an airstrike on a densely populated Palestinian refugee camp Ain al-Hilweh in southern Lebanon late Tuesday, killing at least 13 people and wounding nearly 70 more, according to Lebanese Health Ministry.

Paramedics and people rushed to the site of an Israeli strike located in a crowded area between mosque and football pitch in the refugee camp, for a search and rescue efforts.

The Israeli military said, without providing any evidence, that the strike targeted a Hamas "military compound" allegedly used for training fighters.

Names of the martyrs of the Ain al-Hilweh massacre. Date, November 18, 2025:

1- Martyr Muhammad Khalil

2- Martyr Ahmad Othman

3- Martyr Jihad al-Sidawi

4- Martyr Amjad Khashan

5- Martyr Bilal al-Natour

6-Martyr Youssef Shamma

7- Martyr Ali Ibrahim

8- Martyr Hussein al-Shouli

9- Martyr Obaida Ghoutani

10- Martyr Mustafa Ghoutani

11- Martyr Daniel Ghoutani

12- Martyr Mahmoud Muhammad

12- Martyr Ali Hamad

Local Columbus politics has officially “jumped the shark” and become a performance for the cameras. Like any blockbuster movie you need an endless budget (provided by the taxpayers), a script (distraction from mistakes and secrecy of purpose) and a master director: Shannon Hardin.

In any other sane world Emanuel Remy would have already stepped down from office, but the director wants to keep him in the cast to pretend to govern. Remy is just good enough to follow directions and not ask questions. The director will allow abusive behavior because he has unlimited money to pay off the victims and continue his reign. And that’s what it has all become. To Director Hardin we are just one of his movies.

Our local government is a stage performance riddled with dozens of positive and happy Facebook posts about how the Mayor and City Council love you. All cream and sugar; 24 hours a day paid for by your taxes.

Just because patients don’t understand the opaque layers/players behind the drug procurement affordability crisis, doesn’t mean that lawmakers do, say experts--which is part of the problem.

The bigger problem, though, is that “Big Pharma” (increasingly “BioPharma”) is a silent funder of two thirds of Congress members, 57 percent of US doctors, hospitals, medical schools and medical practices and notably almost all news outlets thanks to “ask your doctor” ads. (See: “Chronic” diseases requiring large molecule biologic$.) No wonder some call drugmakers the fourth branch of government.

The government/medical/news capture is why many don’t know about prescription drug alternative funding programs that work directly with employer-sponsored health plans outside traditional channels to bring down costs.

Imam Ayman Soliman – the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital chaplain wrongly arrested by ICE earlier this year – spoke at an event in Columbus on November 15, telling an audience that even during the ordeal’s worst moments, there were activists who offered glimmers of hope that led to his release.

It was midnight on the day of his arrest when he was processed into the infamous ICE-contracted detention center in Butler County – a jail run by Sheriff Richard Jones, known as Ohio’s “mini-Trump.” From there, he may have been deported to his home country of Egypt. In 2014, he fled Egypt where he covered the Arab Spring as a journalist, and for that he was jailed and tortured. 

“There was an officer who had a child that had been treated at St. Ann’s Children’s Hospital, and they remembered my face,” he said. “He looked at me during this terrible time and said, ‘I am sorry you are here. I just wanted you to know I watched the news at 11 pm and everyone is protesting on your behalf.’

“You have no idea what that meant to me.”

Imagine your kitchen fridge is completely packed with ice, and the room is slowly warming up due to the heat from the fridge's motor and coils running continuously. The kitchen gets gradually warmer.

Now someone opens the fridge door and leaves it open.

What happens?

For a while, the kitchen actually gets cooler - even though the fridge motor is working harder than ever, pumping out more heat. The melting ice absorbs enormous amounts of energy, and cold air spills out into the room.

But here's the crucial point: this cooling is temporary. Once the ice melts away, the kitchen will become much hotter than it ever was before, because now there's no ice left to absorb energy, and the overworked motor is dumping even more heat into the room.

This is exactly what's happening with Earth's climate right now.

In response to the district’s ongoing budget shortfall and the possibility of additional school closures, the Columbus Education Justice Coalition (CEJC) and a broad coalition of parents, educators, students, and community members are demanding that the Columbus Board of Education adopt a new budget shortfall policy that centers transparency, equity, and community voice in all major financial and facility decisions.

Letters have been individually sent by educators, parents, students, and community members to Board members, urging the district to publicly discuss and consider the proposed Budget Shortfall Policy submitted by CEJC on September 8, 2025, and move toward formal adoption without delay.

The proposed policy calls for:

• A robust and transparent analysis of all projected costs and savings for any proposed school closure.

• Consideration of the full impact on students, families, educators, and communities, including staff and resource access.

• Creation of a representative decision-making committee with students, parents, educators, staff, and community organizers from each school region and high school feeder pattern.

Canada has launched a criminal investigation into Israeli-Canadian IDF veterans for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict according to report by ynetnews.com last June. The story said, "The RCMP began the investigation in early 2024 and confirmed it in June 2025.

"The probe targets Canadian citizens with dual Israeli-Canadian citizenship who served in the IDF as well as lone soldiers and Israeli citizens residing in Canada who traveled to Israel to enlist."  The RCMP described the investigation as a "structural investigation" under Canada's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program, which aims to prevent Canada from becoming a haven for individuals accused of committing atrocities abroad. The investigation has caused concern and controversy within Canada's Jewish and Israeli communities, with many fearing a wave of arrests or summons. 

Bill Pulte is the administrator of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge mortgage guarantors that are critical to the housing market and the ability of Americans to own and remain in their homes. Of course, he’s a Trump diehard, and that’s not the problem, exactly. Trump has the right to appoint a supporter to this position. Nonetheless, there have to some limits, and this guy is an embarrassment and doesn’t seem to have a clue about the job he should be doing, because he seems to believe his only real job is to be subservient to every whim of the president no matter what it might do to these agencies or all of our mortgages.

The scandals surrounding this guy are compounding faster and more furiously than interest rates on a mortgage.

I actually thought there might be some good news coming out of the Donald Trump White House but it turns out that I was likely mistaken. Trump treated the American public and a worldwide audience to an extended harangue targeting Nigeria for its alleged mistreatment and even killing of Christians. He threatened something like a military intervention similar to his aggressive posturing in Latin America and the Middle East complete with US soldiers “boots on the ground” to address the situation.