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The United States has depleted its annual supply of EB-5 immigrant investor visas for the second year in a row after a huge wave of applications from rich Chinese. The State Department has announced that starting in May, no more spots will be available to Chinese for the rest of the U.S. government's fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Known as EB-5, the immigration program hands out green cards to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 and create 10 jobs in the U.S. The program, which caps the number of visas issued annually at 10,000, hit its annual limit for...

Queen of Denmark Outraged by Persecution of Jews, Calls for Opposition to IslamPosted By Daniel Greenfield On April 16, 2015 @ 11:29 am In The Point | No Comments During WW2, King Christian X of Denmark reportedly replied to a German order for Jews to wear the yellow Star of David by suggesting to his Prime Minister that all Danes wear it. The truth of the story remains unknown, but these are certainly some powerful and significant remarks by Queen Margrethe II [1]transcribed by Nicolai Sennels. (via Religion of Peace [2]) The terrorist attack (February 14-15 2015 against a free...

A paratrooper who was preparing to leave the US army decided that he would make his last parachute jump more memorable by taking along a fish. The day before his final jump on April 11, Spc. Matthew Tattersall went out and purchased a Siamese fighter, which he called 'Willy Makeit'. He placed the fish in a water bottle and poked a few holes into it to allow air to get in. Then he hid the bottle in his pocket as he knew he wouldn't be allowed to jump from the plane with the fish. "That's my pet fish named Willy...

What Ever Happened to the Spiritual Works of Mercy? By: Msgr. Charles PopeDuring daily masses at this time we are beginning to read through John Chapter 6. There of course is a glorious focus and teaching of the Lords true presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.However, there is also another important teaching given at a critical moment in chapter 6 that is important for us to lay hold of today. It is a call to recover a greater awareness of the importance of the spiritual works of mercy. We will list what they are in the moment, but for now, consider that, despite living in rather...

The three male victims were brothers from Morocco and the fourth victim was their mother. The final victim was the wife of one of the men, police said. Four other people fled the home during the standoff, police said. Police used a megaphone to try to communicate with the occupants of the home, addressing the family in Arabic. The Arizona Republic reported that one neighbour said the family owned a transportation service, but another referred to them as "invisible" until Thursday. The standoff in the residential neighbourhood was shown live on TV with SWAT teams and other police agencies converging...

A moat around the White House was actually under consideration but was quickly ruled out. You may recall in November 2014, a few months after a man jumped the White House fence, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) suggested to then-acting Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy that one solution to secure the grounds was a barricade of water. But when a federal agency voted unanimously Wednesday morning on a temporary fence plan, a moat wasn’t an option. The agency approved adding steel spikes to the existing fence to fend off jumpers.

Your Holiness: I recall with pleasure and gratitude my visit to the Vatican in November and your moving address to our Colloquium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage. There, gathered with leaders of the world’s great religious traditions, East and West, you reaffirmed the Church’s doctrine of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife and spoke movingly of the right of every child “to grow up in a family with a father and mother.” Here in the United States we are blessed with many bishops who join you in bearing witness to these profound and...

Moscow, April 16, Interfax - Russian President Vladimir Putin said the situation in the Middle East for Christians is terrible and the international community is not taking enough steps to protect them. "As to the Middle East and Christians, the situation is terrible. We have spoken about it many times and we believe that the international community is not doing enough to protect the Christian population of the Middle East," Putin told reporters. He reiterated that Christians have lived in the Middle East for centuries and the place is the birthplace of Christianity. "It is sad that the international community...

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – Major League Baseball maintained its grades for its racial and gender hiring practices, while its percentage of African-American players remained only slightly above a study's low set in the 2007 season. The annual report issued Wednesday by Richard Lapchick's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida gave MLB an A grade in racial hiring and C in gender hiring.

Word For The Day, April 17, 2015 — badinage ; In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". badinagehear it pronounced Noun, Verb1. Noun - light, playful banter or raillery. 2. Verb - (used with object), badinaged, badinaging. to banter with or tease (someone) playfully. Origin:1650-60; < French, equivalent to badin (er) to joke, trifle (verbal derivative of badin joker, banterer < Old Provençal: fool; bad (ar) to gape (< Vulgar Latin batāre; cf. bay2) + -in < Latin -īnus -ine1) +...

Francis considering visit to island during America tripPope Francis is considering a trip to Cuba in September to tie in with his visit to the United States, a move that could further improve diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba. The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said that Francis “is considering the idea of a Cuba leg” but that discussions about the visit are at a preliminary stage. According to Associated Press, he added that it was too early to say that a decision has been taken or that operational planning was underway. In what will be the Pope’s...

Oxytocin is that feel good hormone that bonds a child to his or her mother. But never mind that. Researchers in Hawaii are recruiting girls as young as 14 to participate in second trimester abortions, where the preborn baby is 18-24 weeks gestation, in order to test whether or not oxytocin can reduce bleeding in mothers during and after abortion. The study is being conducted by the University of Hawaii and the University of Washington in Seattle – both public universities, which leads to the obvious question: is the government funding this study? A second trimester abortion is at least...

DENVER — The burgeoning “convention of states” movement wants to save the republic, and the Independence Institute is pitching in to help. The Institute’s new “Article V Information Center” website provides journalists, state lawmakers and other citizens with up-to-date, accurate and unbiased information on a little-known part of the U.S. Constitution that could be triggered in the next year or two. Article V of the Constitution empowers state legislatures to force reforms on the federal government. If 34 state legislatures demand a particular kind of constitutional amendment, the result is a meeting of state legislatures that the Constitution calls a...

Snoring Airline Passenger Stabbed with Pen at Midway Airport A woman lost her temper, grabbed a pen, and took the noisy matter into her own hands aboard a Southwest Airlines plane. By Lauren Traut (Patch Staff) April 16, 2015 A woman aboard a Southwest Airlines flight Thursday afternoon couldn’t stand the snoring of a man sitting nearby, so she stabbed him with a pen. Passengers aboard the already delayed Flight 577 out of Midway Airport were perturbed when the pilot was forced to circle back to the gate where Chicago Police escorted the woman off the plane. Other passengers tweeted...

The Supreme Court issued an order today preventing the Obama administration from forcing religious groups in Pennsylvania to obey the HHS mandate that requires them to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees. This is the fifth time the Supreme Court has rebuked the Obama administration and prevented it from making such a mandate. In an order issued last night, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito prevented the federal government from enforcing its contraceptive mandate against a range of Pennsylvania-based religious organizations including Catholic Charities and other Catholic schools and social service organizations connected with the Diocese of Erie and the...

SALT LAKE CITY, UT, April 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- The Girl Scouts are once again kicking up controversy with their “progressive” approach to sexuality, this time by starting a brand new troop aimed at gay and lesbian families and boys who consider themselves “transgender” – in other words, boys who believe they are girls trapped in biologically male bodies."As long as a youth identifies as a girl or with girls, even if they are genderfluid on the day that they registered, then they can become a Girl Scout," said Shari Solomon-Klebba, the Utah Girl Scout outreach coordinator responsible for Salt...

LANSING, MI - Freshman state Rep. Cindy Gamrat, R-Plainwell, has been indefinitely removed from the Michigan House Republican caucus. Gamrat, a tea party favorite, allegedly broke caucus confidentiality rules by posting a comment on Facebook during an off-campus budget workshop on Wednesday afternoon. A source familiar with the situation said Gamrat was not aware that caucus rules were in effect during the workshop but was confronted by House Speaker Kevin Cotter, who later told her she was no longer welcome in GOP caucus meetings. "In no way did I reveal anything confidential from the meeting, and I have never violated...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Samuel New International Version (NIV) 12 Samuel said to all Israel, “I have listened to everything you said to me and have set a king over you. 2 Now you have a king as your leader. As for me, I am old and gray, and my sons are here with you. I have been your leader from my youth until this day. 3 Here I stand. Testify against me in the presence of the Lord and his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I...

Italian police arrested 15 African men suspected of throwing about a dozen Christians from a migrant boat in the Mediterranean on Thursday, as the crisis off southern Italy intensified. Forty-one more deaths were reported in a separate incident. Police in the Sicilian capital Palermo said they had arrested the men, from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal, after survivors reported they had thrown 12 people from Nigeria and Ghana to their deaths and threatened other Christians. The 15 were arrested on charges of multiple homicide motivated by religious hatred.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has joined Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid in calling for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to abandon his pre-election promise to fight President Obama’s executive amnesty by holding a vote to confirm U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch as Attorney General. “I think that presidents have the right to pick their team,” Bush said in New Hampshire at an event with about 95 voters and “a horde of media,” according to Time Magazine’s Zeke Miller. “The longer it takes to confirm her, the longer Eric Holder stays as Attorney General,” Bush said, echoing a talking point that...