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[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Pell: ‘Amazon Or No Amazon, The Church Cannot Allow Any Confusion’ MELBOURNE, Australia — Cardinal George Pell has written a letter thanking supporters for their prayers, and saying he is “disturbed” by the preparations for the forthcoming synod on the Amazon. The text of the two-page, handwritten letter - images of which were shared with CNA and confirmed by sources close to Pell - has been circulated amongst a group of Pell’s closest supporters in Australia. In the letter, dated from Melbourne Assessment Prison on August 1, the cardinal also says that he has been sustained in his incarceration...

<p>A woman in Florida got a rude awakening on Monday when she went to go check on a fire alarm and ended up in a fight for her life.</p> <p>Alice Coleman said she woke up to a fire alarm going off and opened the front door of her Fort Lauderdale apartment to see what was happening. But that's when Fort Lauderdale police said 34-year-old Fitzroy Morton confronted her.</p>

OTAY MESA (KUSI) – Crews at the US-Mexico border placed the final panel in the primary border wall project Friday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reversed course late Friday, agreeing to key union demands as nearly two-thirds of its research staff will leave the agency rather than move to new headquarters in the Kansas City area. The announcement follows a tumultuous few weeks at the USDA where employees were given a month to decide if they would uproot from D.C. by Sept. 30 or lose their jobs that same day. Employees at both the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) — two of the major research wings within USDA — unionized in...

Navy Considering More Advanced Burke Destroyers as Large Surface Combatant Timeline Slips By: Megan Eckstein August 8, 2019 5:34 PM The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) launches a Standard Missile (SM) 2 Block IIIA on Nov. 18, 2018. Bainbridge is underway with Norfolk-based cruiser-destroyer (CRUDES) units from Carrier Strike Group 12 conducting a Live Fire With a Purpose (LFWAP) event. US Navy photo. SAN DIEGO – The Navy is looking at “something beyond even a Flight III” combat capability for its new-build destroyers, as its plans for transitioning from building the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer to the future...

Russian Missile Test Site Explosion Kills 2, Injures 8. By: Ben Werner August 8, 2019 12:49 PM An explosion at a Russian Arctic missile test site killed two and injured at least six others Thursday, according to Russian government officials. The first reports of an incident which occurred at a base in the northwestern Arkhangelsk region started appearing on the Russian news service Interfax just before noon local time. Initial reports were sketchy, but the incident reportedly occurred during the test of a liquid jet engine typically used on rockets, according to an account posted by the BBC. TASS news...

30 Killed in Yemen's Aden During Clashes in Presidential Palace Security Forces Camp MOSCOW (Sputnik) - At least 30 people were killed during clashes inside a camp of security forces of the presidential palace in Yemen's city of Aden, Al Arabiya reported, citing sources, on Saturday amid fighting between separatist and government forces there. The clashes erupted in the fourth brigade of the security forces, the reports added. The sources told Al Arabiya that the separatist Southern Transitional Council had taken control of the camp. Earlier, a source said that three people were killed and 13 others injured in artillery...

The count bangs away at making a crystal palace. This is a piece dedicated to that endeavor. If you like the music please subscribe to the channel.

The largest U.S. Lutheran denomination announced this week that it would become a "sanctuary church." The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) said in a statement Wednesday that it is "committed to work toward just and humane policies affecting migrants in and outside the U.S." The ELCA is the first North American denomination to become a sanctuary church body, according to the statement. According to CNN, besides sheltering undocumented immigrants, the church will also respond to raids, fight deportation cases and give "radical hospitality" to immigrants. The ELCA will also work on resources for the denomination's more than 9,000 congregations...

A tweet that lists "companies supporting Trump's re-election" went viral on Thursday, causing chatter among the anti-President Donald Trump crowd on the internet. The list includes fast food stalwarts such as McDonald's, Wendy's, In-N-Out and Chick-fil-A, as well as chain restaurants like Olive Garden. The call to shun restaurants came after talk of a mass boycott of SoulCycle and Equinox after it was revealed their owner, billionaire Stephen Ross, was hosting a fundraising event for Trump on Friday.

**SNIP** Iowans treasure the national attention that shines on them every four years when presidential candidates descend on the state, whose caucuses mark the beginning of an election year. But as virtually every Democratic contender swings through Iowa this weekend to participate in the famed state fair, even some die-hard Democratic activists are getting restless. They're worried the historically massive field isn't shrinking fast enough and the debate stages - plural - are too crowded. The concern isn't limited to Iowa. Recent interviews with dozens of Democrats in other early-voting states registered a fresh anxiety among the most diligent deciders:...

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of three California taxpayers to prevent the State from implementing Senate Bill 826. The 2018 law requires publicly-held corporations headquartered in California to have at least one director “who self-identifies her gender as a woman” on their boards by December 31, 2019 (Robin Crest et al. v. Alex Padilla (No.19ST-CV-27561)).Up to three such persons are required by December 31, 2021, depending on the size of the board. The lawsuit alleges that the mandate is an unconstitutional gender-based quota. There are currently 761 publicly-traded...

We want to express our deepest sympathies to the families and victims in El Paso and Dayton. As always, the NRA will work in good faith to pursue real solutions to the violence we witnessed this past weekend. Real solutions save lives – televised, choreographed spectacles don’t. In support of this goal, we appreciate the need for honest and open dialogue on how to stop these horrific murders. As a group that has advocated for Second Amendment freedoms for almost 150 years, we stand for only the safe and lawful use of firearms. Sadly, El Paso and Dayton were not...

The FBI is having trouble unlocking Dayton mass murderer Connor Betts’ primary smartphone — and it may take years before they crack it. Agency officials said during a congressional hearing this week that if Betts was using a six- to eight-digit PIN, it could take months or even years to crack the code, The Hill reported Friday. “We don’t know when we are going to get into the phone,” FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich told House Democrats during one of several briefings on the mass shooting this week, the report said. Agents unlocked one Samsung phone belonging to Betts, CBS...

Police in Missouri identified the armed suspect that entered a Springfield Walmart on Thursday as 20-year-old Dmitriy Nickolayvich Andreychenko,...charge of making a terroristic threat in the first degree...intent was "to cause chaos."...According to a Facebook page that appeared to be Andreychenko’s, he is originally from Portland, Oregon but lives with his wife in Springfield. He studied EMS/EMT at Ozarks Technical Community College.

The FDNY admitted Friday that an employee’s personal hard drive was ripped off and thousands of EMS patients may have had their information compromised — five months after learning of the theft. The theft affected 10,253 people who were treated or taken to the hospital by FDNY EMS ambulance between 2011 and 2018 — including 2,988 whose social security numbers might have been exposed, the FDNY said. “This was not a hacking, but a loss of data caused by one employee’s failure to follow the department’s data security policies,” said fire department spokesman Myles Miller. The department learned on March...

The FBI formally documented the apparent anti-Trump bias of British ex-spy Christopher Steele shortly after the November 2016 presidential election — yet despite the red flags, continued to use his unverified dossier in multiple Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant application renewals, records obtained by Fox News show. The partially redacted documents, first obtained by Judicial Watch, also revealed that top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr maintained contact with Steele for at least six months after Steele was fired by the FBI for unauthorized media contacts in November 2016. The records further confirmed that Ohr knew of Steele’s anti-Trump...

Seventy-seven percent of Americans identify as members of a religious tradition, and most of the rest call themselves spiritual or say they believe in God. When politicians start talking about “reaching out to people of faith,” they might be talking about almost everybody. But the Rev. Shawna Foster thinks a lot of people are being left out. “The conversation about religion and politics has been dominated by one particular type of religion. ... It can be so much more,” she said. “I want to make sure the campaign is really reaching out to faiths that typically haven’t had much say...

NEW YORK — Hillary Clinton said the “catastrophe of the 2016 election” highlighted the importance of supporting local Democratic candidates from City Council to district attorney. The former secretary of State delivered brief remarks to roughly 100 people at Arena’s New York City Academy, described as a three-day boot camp for progressive campaigns. Arena, a political action group, was created by veterans of the Clinton and 2008 Barack Obama campaigns in the wake of the 2016 presidential election to train the next generation of Democratic candidates and campaign staff. Clinton said her 2016 presidential bid unveiled the “structural challenges” Democrats...

WASHINGTON — Moving ahead despite objections, the Trump administration on Friday set a timetable for federally funded family clinics to comply with a new rule that bars them from referring women for abortions. The move is part of a series of efforts to remake government policy on reproductive health to please conservatives who are a key part of President Donald Trump’s political base. Religious conservatives see the family planning program as providing an indirect subsidy to Planned Parenthood, a major abortion provider.