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Amid Italy’s political fracas, speculation abounds on a papal ‘white coup’ ROME - For Italians who are heirs to the legacy of centuries of theocracy, and for whom clerical involvement in politics is so natural they even have a specific word for it (ingerenza, roughly meaning “interference” or “meddling”), it’s axiomatic that if something is happening on their local political scene, the Vatican must be involved.Thus it is that amid the crisis triggered in mid-August by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s announcement that his “League” party would abandon a left/right populist coalition government and press for new elections, the Italian...

on a humor thread today, I raised the subject of how the number of comments and the number of views were recorded for each thread. I miss that. Does anyone remember when that change was made and why? Thanks

Aug 20 (Reuters) - Walmart Inc sued Tesla Inc , saying solar panels supplied by the electric car maker were responsible for fires at about seven of its stores, according to a lawsuit filed in a New York court on Tuesday. The fires destroyed significant amounts of store merchandise and required substantial repairs, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket losses, Walmart said in the lawsuit.

A Nebraska teen who was just a kid when her father died from an IED explosion in Afghanistan more than a decade ago found a way to honor him in her high school graduation pictures. Aurora High School senior Julia Yllescas sent her pictures to a photographer on Saturday to create an "angel picture" of her and her father, Army Capt. Robert Yllescas. The photos showed Yllescas with a faint shadow version of her father. One showed them sitting down on a bench. In another, Yllescas held a folded American flag while standing next to him in uniform. Julia Yllescas...

On the eve of World War II, the Republican Party was a shell of the one that had dominated presidential politics from the Civil War through the onset of the Great Depression. Two individuals saved the GOP and made it relevant again. Dwight Eisenhower ran on an internationalist platform in 1952, favoring foreign aid to Europe, the new military alliance called NATO and an aggressive stance against Soviet Communism, thereby asserting U.S. world leadership. He vanquished his isolationist foe, Sen. Robert Taft, for the GOP nomination in 1952 and then won the first Republican presidential victory in 20 years. In...

PORTLAND ANTIFA ATTACK MAN AND HIS YOUNG CHILD large antifa mob chase & attack a man & a young girl who got separated from the others. No police. #PortlandProtests https://t.co/erceCRVnad

Louisiana State University Reports Armed Intruder, Police on the Scene © Sputnik / 00:22 21.08.2019 No shots have been fired, and there are no injuries, as Louisiana State University advised to avoid the area or remain in a safe place. Louisiana State University has reported an armed intruder, saying that there is the police on the scene and advising people to "Run, Hide or Fight".

Coca Cola billionaire Alki David is making an unusual offer to disgraced comedian Bill Cosby. The Greek heir to the soda fortune said in a video to Cosby that he would pay $10million for the 81-year-old's hologram rights in order to 'remove [Cosby's] penis and turn it into a vagina' and then 'see how the hologram feels.' 'Bill - my name is Alki David, I'm known as the eccentric billionaire,' David says in the selfie video. 'I would like to offer you $10million to buy your digital likeness rights so I can remove your penis and turn it into a...

Boris Johnson faced embarrassment last night after his girlfriend was barred from visiting the United States. Carrie Symonds, 31, applied for a visa to go to America in the next few days as part of her job with a US-based environmental group, but the American authorities have blocked the request. It is believed the decision stems from a five-day visit made last year by Miss Symonds to East Africa, a region riven by civil war.

President Trump said Tuesday that a decision on whether to try to suspend certain foreign aid funds would likely be coming within a week. "We’re looking at it, and we’re looking at it in different ways," Trump told reporters during a meeting with the Romanian president in the Oval Office. "We’re talking to Republicans and Democrats about it, and certain things we could save." "We have some things on the table very much and we’ll let you know over the next, probably sooner than a week," he added. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been working...

RUSH: You know what I think it’s fascinating to do? Both parties, political professionals think they’re on the verge of screwing up. Both party political professionals have people that are talking to people in media, feeding them narratives and stories. Republicans are worried that they’re losing suburbia. The Democrats are paranoid they are losing rural America. I’m going to compare some of these stories today. I’m gonna share with you what the Democrat panic oriented stories are, what the Republican panic related stories are. And you can decide with, of course, a little assistance from me, which of these two...

Jeffrey Epstein’s former Manhattan cellmate says guards at the lockup have been threatening him since the financier’s death, according to a legal filing by his attorneys Tuesday asking a judge to move him to a new prison. Hulking ex-cop Nicholas Tartaglione — who briefly bunked with Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center — has been told by various guards there to “shut up,” “stop talking” and “stop complaining,” as questions swirled about how the accused sex trafficker was able to commit suicide in federal custody, Tartaglione attorney Bruce Barket says in a letter to White Plains federal Judge Kenneth Karas.

Humans ruined everything. They bred too much and choked the life out of the land, air and sea. And so they must be vaporized by half, or attacked by towering monsters, or vanquished by irate dwellers from the oceans’ polluted depths. Barring that, they face hardscrabble, desperate lives on a once verdant Earth now consumed by ice or drought. That is how many recent superhero and sci-fi movies — among them the latest Avengers and Godzilla pictures as well as “Aquaman,” “Snowpiercer,” “Blade Runner 2049,” “Interstellar” and “Mad Max: Fury Road” — have invoked the climate crisis. They imagine postapocalyptic...

Enough with the worrying, former Vice President Joe Biden's brain surgeon says.As some voters murmur that the gaffe-prone Democratic presidential candidate's age is cause for extra concern this campaign cycle, Dr. Neal Kassell — the man who performed surgery on Biden three decades ago following two brain aneurysms — came out swinging for his former patient.Kassell dismissed fears about the 76-year-old Biden's mental faculties, noting that he's "as sharp as he was 31 years ago" and assuring people that the hemorrhage and subsequent operations did not result in any brain damage. "I am going to vote for the candidate who...

Full Title: Set Your Air Conditioning to 78 Degrees During the Day, 82 Degrees at Night, Federal Agencies Recommend Looking to beat the heat without breaking the bank? Energy Star, the federal program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy, has some tips — but you might not like them.Energy Star recommends that, in order to reduce costs and energy usage, you should set your thermostat as high as comfortably possible through the summer.Specifically, they say you should set your thermostat to 78 degrees while you’re home.Spending the day out? Turn that thermostat up 7 degrees to 85.Then,...

(Apologies for my tardiness. Emergency meeting on website-related issues.)Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Sam Greenfeld. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Sam Greenfeld, though not an overt conservative nor libertarian, has written several articles for The American Thinker. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the...

EXCLUSIVE DETAILS TMZ.com 1:51 PM PT -- Sources connected to the couple tell TMZ ... they have been having marital trouble for several years now. Larry has accused Shawn of infidelity. We're told that has created tension for a while now, but the breaking point was when Larry was in the hospital a couple months ago. Sources say Shawn presented him with legal documents that would have given her certain rights to their property that would adversely affect the couple's 2 sons. We're told they felt she was trying to screw them out of their inheritance. We're told the boys...

RUSH: I have people asking… It’s not very many, I’ve gotta tell you, but some people are asking me, “What do you think of this Tlaib business in Israel?” Folks, I’m so worn out on The Squad, and when I heard today that Michael Moore thinks The Squad is the vehicle for the Democrats winning the presidential election? Okay. Further confirming that we are surrounded by genuine insanity. I don’t care. This is one of those things there are some things in the news (even though I fake it) that I actually don’t care about. I’m worn out. I’m worn...

The Trump administration will officially launch a new combatant command dedicated to space next week. Vice President Pence and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford announced at Tuesday’s National Space Council meeting in Virginia that U.S. Space Command will officially be up and running Aug. 29. Space Command, which will be responsible for planning and executing space operations, will have 87 units at launch next week, Dunford said. Their capabilities will include missile warning, satellite operations, space control and space support, Dunford said. “This step will put us on a path to maintain a competitive advantage...

(Newser) – A California man's 2016 decision to get a vanity license plate set him on a path into a "Kafkaesque loop," reports Wired in a look at Joseph Tartaro's predicament. The computer security researcher began brainstorming possibilities that related to his industry, including "null pointer." He liked the NULL, and thought it would be humorous to additionally replace his wife's plate with VOID. Better still, he thought he might be "invisible" and be able to skirt a couple tickets. "I was like, 'I'm the s---,'" he told the crowd while recounting his story at DEF CON, per Mashable. The...