WATCH: Epic National Anthem Before AFC Championship Game Where Chiefs Beat Titans, Advance to Super Bowl, While CFO Says His Identity Remains in Christ

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By Sports Illustrated. Sunday marked the second consecutive year that the Lamar Hunt Trophy, named after the late Chiefs founder and given to the winner of the AFC, was in Arrowhead Stadium for the conference championship. Last year against the Patriots, it was supposed to come home with head coach Andy Reid, league MVP Patrick Mahomes and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs. Up to that point in time, last year’s title game was the biggest home game in team history. But the Chiefs came up just short as Mahomes could only watch as Patriots QB Tom Brady orchestrated an overtime drive to send New England to Super Bowl LIII. . .

For the first time since 1970, the Kansas City Chiefs are headed to the Super Bowl, ending the fourth-longest drought in league history. For two generations, Chiefs fans have watched in agony as one of the league’s marquee franchises failed to play in the sport’s biggest game. But in their 35-24 win over the Tennessee Titans, Mahomes made sure that Sunday’s outcome would be the opposite of what occurred one year earlier.

“To be here, to be in Chiefs kingdom, to be able to do it in Arrowhead, these people deserve it,” Mahomes told CBS’ Tracy Wolfson after the win.

An early 10-point deficit proved to be no barrier. And instead, with 7:33 to go in the fourth quarter, Mahomes raised both of his arms to the sky and faced the home crowd. Seconds earlier, he had completed a 60-yard TD pass to WR Sammy Watkins giving his team a 34–17 lead. A Super Bowl berth was in reach. (Read more from “Chiefs Beat Titans, Advance to Super Bowl vs 49ers” HERE)

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Video: Epic National Anthem Before AFC Championship Game

By The Spun. The national anthem is an often overlooked element element of any sports game, but there are times when it is performed so incredibly well that it’s on everyone’s mind. That’s exactly what we got today prior to the start of the AFC Championship Game.

Performing the national anthem in the pregame was former Navy officer Generald Wilson. While he may not have starpower of such legendary anthem performers as Whitney Houston or Gladys Knight, Wilson’s rendition was about as moving as powerful as any of his predecessors.

He hit the high note on “was still there” with such power that all of Arrowhead Stadium started cheering.

(Read more from “Video: Epic National Anthem Before AFC Championship Game” HERE)
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Christ is Central to Chief’s Owner and Quarterback

By Joshua Pease. Hunt, who became a Christian at 10 years old, has built a culture around his Christian faith, saying he makes it a top priority for his staff.

“We want our employees to develop spiritually,” Hunt said in October at the CityFest East Texas Men’s Luncheon, according to the Tyler Morning Telegraph. “In the National Football League, Christ is really glorified. My identity is my faith in Christ.”

In the same speech, Hunt also praised star QB Patrick Mahomes, the reigning NFL MVP who has led the Chiefs to the AFC championship game in each of his first two seasons as a starter. Hunt said the Chiefs were in search of a young quarterback to take the team to the next level, and Mahomes has turned out to be that guy.

“Watching Patrick last year was an unbelievable revelation,” Hunt said. “You would have thought he was a 10-year veteran.” (Read more from this story HERE)

Mahomes has also talked publicly about the role his faith plays in his life.


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Humans’ Body Temperatures Are Mysteriously Getting Colder, Study Finds

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The average human body temperature has dropped over the past 150 years, according to a new study, though it remains unclear what is behind this decrease.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have established that people’s bodies are now typically cooler than the textbook figure of 37C, first established by German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich in 1868.

The study shows that modern-day men have a body temperature 0.58C lower than their 19th century counterparts, while women’s are 0.32C lower.

This decrease has been attributed to “changes in our environment over the past 200 years, which have in turn driven physiological changes”. However, the study acknowledges that establishing cause and effect remains “inherently unprovable”.

Senior author Julie Parsonnet, a professor of medicine and of health research and policy at Stanford University, says: “Our temperature is not what people think it is. (Read more from “Humans’ Body Temperatures Are Mysteriously Getting Colder, Study Finds” HERE)

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Just 162 Billionaires Have the Same Wealth as Half of Humanity

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In a stark reminder of gaping global inequality, a report published Sunday reveals that 162 billionaires, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, have the same wealth as the poorest half of the world.

There are 2,153 billionaires globally, and, in 2019, they held more wealth combined than 4.6 billion people, according to the report, which uses data from the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report and Forbes’ billionaire rankings.

The report uses a striking analogy to put these amounts of wealth in context. If everyone sat on their wealth piled up in $100 bills, most people would be sitting on the floor, a middle-class person from a rich country would be the height of a chair, and the world’s two richest men would be sitting in space.

Oxfam’s report is published annually to coincide with the start of the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, where high-profile policymakers, business leaders and the wealthy take their private jets to a Swiss ski town to discuss how to “improve the state of the world.”

Once someone is very wealthy, the report points out, it’s easy to just watch the money accumulate because the rich can afford the best investment advice. Billionaire wealth has increased by an average of 7.4% a year since 2009, according to the report published by Oxfam, an international development nongovernmental organization. And 2019 was a good year for the ultrarich. Despite their wealth levels dipping at the start of the year, they quickly rebounded, and the world’s 500 richest people managed to add $1.2 trillion to their wealth over the course of the year, according to a Bloomberg analysis. (Read more from “Just 162 Billionaires Have the Same Wealth as Half of Humanity” HERE)

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Family Sues TSA After Man’s $82,000 Life Savings Were Seized at an Airport

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A Pennsylvania man who kept his entire life savings in a Tupperware container is suing the federal government after the money – $82,373 in cash – was seized at an airport after DEA agents deemed it ‘suspicious’.

Terrence Rolin, 79, and his daughter Rebecca Brown are the lead plaintiffs in a federal class action lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Institute for Justice which accuses the Drug Enforcement Administration and Transportation Security Administration of ‘treating American citizens like criminals’ by seizing large amounts of cash from airline passengers without evidence of an underlying crime. . .

She was flying back home to Boston to do that when TSA and DEA agents at Pittsburgh International Airport noticed the large sum of cash and began questioning her.

Brown said she had checked the TSA website beforehand to confirm that she could fly with that amount of money, and the site didn’t say that anything would prohibit her from doing so.

A DEA agent asked Brown to put her father on the phone so he could verify her story about where the cash came from, but Rolin, who is suffering mental decline, was unable to verify some of the details, she said. (Read more from “Family Sues TSA After Man’s $82,000 Life Savings Were Seized at an Airport” HERE)

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Top Trump Russia-Europe Official Yanked Pending Mysterious Security Concerns

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By NBC News. The top White House official responsible for Russia and Europe has been put on indefinite administrative leave amid a security-related investigation, two U.S. officials and a former U.S. official said.

The official, Andrew Peek, who took over the Russia portfolio at the National Security Council in November, had been scheduled to join President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week before he was abruptly put on leave, one of the officials said. The officials declined to specify the nature of the investigation. . .

Peek’s absence, at least temporarily, creates a void in a key position responsible for pushing back on Russian aggression and coordinating U.S. policy toward Moscow. It adds another jolt of uncertainty to an office that has experienced significant turnover during the past year.

Peek, whose background is in Middle East affairs, took over the Russia and Europe portfolio from Tim Morrison, who was a key witness in House hearings on Trump’s impeachment. The Russia and Europe role is the same one that was previously occupied by Fiona Hill, another key impeachment witness during last year’s hearings. (Read more from “Top Trump Russia-Europe Official Yanked Pending Mysterious Security Concerns” HERE)

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Trump Loses Another Russia Adviser, Adding to NSC Turnover

By Bloomberg. The top Russia expert on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council has left his post after about three months, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Andrew Peek, the NSC’s senior director for European and Russian affairs, was escorted from the White House grounds on Friday, two of the people said, asking not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to discuss personnel matters. A spokesman for the NSC declined to comment, citing the same reason. Peek also declined to comment.

Axios reported earlier Saturday that Peek was placed on administrative leave pending a security-related investigation.

Peek is the third departure from the position in less than a year. The NSC has been marked by turbulence and turnover over Trump’s three years in office, as the president has repeatedly sought national security advisers more in-line with his own ideology. (Read more from “Trump Loses Another Russia Adviser, Adding to NSC Turnover” HERE)

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Goodbye, Privacy, Forever: New Government-Licensed Software Identifies You Anywhere

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New facial recognition technology could be used to identify anyone who steps foot in a public place, and it’s already in use by police in the U.S., according to a report by the New York Times.

A tiny company called Clearview developed an app that can use an existing photo of a person to search for other photos of them online, along with links to where those photos are hosted. The company says the app accesses a database of more than three billion images, collected from social media sites like Facebook and YouTube.

The app has been provided to “hundreds of law enforcement agencies, ranging from local cops in Florida to the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security,” according to the NYT, and could be in use across the U.S. and beyond. Law enforcement officers have confirmed they have used the app to investigate a range of crimes, from the serious to the petty. (Read more from “Goodbye, Privacy, Forever: New Government-Licensed Software Identifies You Anywhere” HERE)

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Churchwide Sunday School Manual Revives Mormon Racial Concerns

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A recent blunder with a Sunday school manual for use by all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could set back progress the Utah-based faith has made on the issue of racism in the past few years — and alienate people of color.

Last year, the church produced a new manual for its 2020 curriculum, which will be a study of the faith’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon, which Latter-day Saints believe tells the religious history of peoples in the ancient Americas.

Several passages describe a “dark skin” descending on one of the clans, and for much of the faith’s history that has been seen as a racial “curse.” These days, though, that interpretation is no longer part of church teaching.

That is why several early readers of the 2020 “Come, Follow Me” manual were troubled to see a note in one lesson that is a throwback to previous thinking.

“The dark skin was placed upon the Lamanites so that they could be distinguished from the Nephites and to keep the two peoples from mixing,” the book explains, citing a statement made some 60 years ago by then-apostle and future church President Joseph Fielding Smith. “The dark skin was the sign of the curse. The curse was the withdrawal of the Spirit of the Lord. … Dark skin … is no longer to be considered a sign of the curse.” (Read more from “Churchwide Sunday School Manual Revives Mormon Racial Concerns” HERE)

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A Third of Israeli Males Are Mentally Unfit for Service

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Nearly half of Israeli youth do not start or finish their military service, with at least a third of males getting exemptions for mental health reasons.

The alarming figure based on IDF data, first published by Yediot Aharonot, shows that 32.9% of men will receive an exemption from the army. With an average of 15% dropping out during their service, nearly half of men (47.9%) do not complete their military service. . .

According to the report in Yediot, the figures show a clear downward trend in IDF enlistment among both sexes. For example, in 2007 a quarter of males did not enlist in the IDF, and in 2015 the figure rose to 26.9% for men and 30% last year.

In addition to the skyrocketing increase in medical exemptions for mental health reasons, the general recruitment figures for combat units have also seen a general decline over the past decade, to less than two-thirds (65%) in 2018 from four-fifths (81%) in 2011. (Read more from “A Third of Israeli Males Are Mentally Unfit for Service” HERE)

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WATCH: Schiff Says It’s Urgent to Remove Trump From Office; Schiff and Dershowitz Spar Over Whether Abuse of Power Is Impeachable Offense

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By Daily Caller. Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday that removing President Donald Trump from office remains urgent and that’s why Democrats did not force witnesses to testify during the impeachment inquiry through court orders.

“We subpoenaed many of these witnesses and because of the president’s obstruction, they ignore those lawful subpoenas,” Schiff told ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “If you argue that, well, the House needed to go through endless months or even years of litigation before bringing about an impeachment, you effectively nullify the impeachment clause.” . . .

He raised the issue of enforcing subpoenas when told that Democrats have not been able to shake lose any Republican senators who might vote against party lines or are even willing to introduce witnesses to the Senate impeachment trial. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stated that he has the votes to proceed with a trial on his own terms.

“The reality is, because what the president is threatening to do is cheat in the next election, you cannot wait months and years to be able to remove that threat from office,” Schiff said, even though for the past month Pelosi was not indicating any urgency in delivering the articles of impeachment to the Senate. McConnell has said that Pelsoi’s “one-woman blockade” of the impeachment process “produced absolutely nothing.” (Read more from “WATCH: Schiff Says It’s Urgent to Remove Trump From Office” HERE)

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Schiff and Dershowitz Spar Over Whether Abuse of Power Is Impeachable Offense

By Fox News. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the lead impeachment manager, and Alan Dershowitz, a member of President Trump’s legal team, clashed in opposing interviews on Sunday over whether the president can be impeached for abuse of power.

Dershowitz, a retired professor at Harvard Law School who was a late arrival to Trump’s legal team, said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that there is a “strong” argument to be made that a president cannot be impeached for abuse of power.

To support his argument, Dershowitz referenced the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, where Justice Benjamin Curtis – who defended the president – said that proof of a crime was necessary to remove a sitting president from office. Johnson was eventually acquitted during his Senate trial.

“I am making an argument much like the argument made by the great Justice Curtis,” Dershowitz said. “The argument is a strong one. The Senate should hear it.”

Dershowitz went on to argue that the Founding Fathers were concerned about giving Congress too much power and that impeachment could be used as a political tool in the partisan infighting of politics. (Read more from “Schiff and Dershowitz Spar Over Whether Abuse of Power Is Impeachable Offense” HERE)

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Here’s the Ex-Green Beret Who Allegedly Smuggled an Imprisoned Auto Exec out of Japan in a Box

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A security operative and ex-Green Beret was reportedly part of an audacious plan to smuggle auto executive Carlos Ghosn out of Japan where prosecutors charged him with numerous financial crimes.

Michael Taylor, a former Green Beret who has etched out a long career arranging high-risk rescue missions, took part in the caper, which entailed Ghosn hiding in a box transported into a private jet before being flown to Turkey, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

Taylor’s decision to help Ghosn was borne out of his own experiences in the U.S. judicial system. He pleaded guilty in 2015 on charges that he bribed a Pentagon official to obtain bidding information that helped him fraudulently win $54 million in government contracts, WSJ noted. Taylor said his 14-month stint in a Utah county jail awaiting trial was torturous. . .

The flight took the corporate titan to Istanbul, where Ghosn boarded another private jet for a flight to Lebanon — he arrived in Beirut in December, just before New Year’s Day. Ghosn is a citizen of Brazil, France and Lebanon, none of which have extradition treaty agreements with Japan.

Japanese authorities believe that Taylor, who speaks some Arabic, and an associate wheeled Ghosn in the chest through the lobby of the Osaka airport. Taylor, 59, has worked in the past freeing other people stuck in tight spots. He once helped rescue a New York Times reporter from the Taliban and freed children who were kidnapped overseas, WSJ reported, citing a memo Taylor’s lawyers produced. (Read more from “Here’s the Ex-Green Beret Who Allegedly Smuggled an Imprisoned Auto Exec out of Japan in a Box” HERE)

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