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Despite writing in dissent, judge Mark Weinberg dominated yesterday’s decision in George Pell’s appeal with a 204-page argument that can be summed up in one line: the cardinal’s conviction is unsafe. The majority disagreed but Weinberg’s detailed compelling dissent almost guarantees that the High Court will be asked to re-examine this case. This massive dissent is expected to become a guide for any special­ leave application. Even if special leave is refused by the High Court, Weinberg’s rejection of much of the prosecution’s case is set to ensure the community’s deep divisions over this cleric are unlikely to be healed....

Interview with the "black pope" Father Arturo Sosa Abascal, superior general of the Jesuits: "The XXI century will be that of the lay vocation for the witness of the Gospel. No one has the right to reject migrants " ... Cultural variety is a richness that must be preserved as an essential dimension of human life. The great challenge is intercultural dialogue: cultures, if they are alive, change to adapt to new circumstances by meeting other cultures. In dialogue with other cultures they give rise to changes that characterize the current world and bring about interculturality. But we must understand...

Physicists have known since 1911 that electricity can flow without resistance in materials called superconductors. And in 1957, they figured out why: Under specific conditions, including typically very cold temperatures, electrons join together in pairs—something that's normally forbidden due to their mutual repulsion—and as pairs, they can flow freely. Electron pairs are named for Leon Cooper, the physicist who first described them. In addition to explaining classical superconductivity, physicists believe Cooper pairs bring about high-temperature superconductivity, an unconventional variant discovered in the 1980s. It was dubbed "high-temperature" because it occurs at temperatures that, although still very cold, are considerably higher...

The mouth that roared made yet another competence-questioning gaffe recently when he said survivors of the Parkland school shooting visited him in the White House while he was Vice-President. As Breitbart reported: Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) made another gaffe Saturday, telling reporters in Iowa that Parkland students visited him – while he was vice president – in the aftermath of the school shooting, even though the incident occurred in 2018– over a year after he left office. Biden brought up the ongoing conversation on gun violence in the U.S. Saturday and told a group of reporters in Iowa...

When Amanda Berg heard reports that President Donald Trump mocked the accents of the leaders of South Korea and Japan at a recent fundraiser, it brought back painful memories from her childhood. Berg, a Korean American who grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, recalled kids doing the “stereotypical pulling at the eyes and the mocking accent.” It made her feel like she was a foreigner in her own community. Berg, a registered Democrat, is among a growing and crucial bloc of Asian American voters leaning further to the left in the age of Trump, and his stunt, reported by the...

The Trump administration’s change, announced Wednesday, to end “catch-and-release” immigration is the 17th initiative announced this year alone — moves that are leading to a decrease in illegal crossings. “We’re hitting it in the target zone,” acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services Director Ken Cuccinelli told Secrets from the Texas border. “Absence of congressional action, the Department of Homeland Security is taking steps,” he added... They include expanding border wall funding, sending troops to the border, deals with Mexico and Guatemala to hold those seeking asylum in the U.S., and the recent “public charge” rule requiring that migrants not be...

A few really nice photos i ran across on a click bait site. Yes, this is her fresh out of Yugoslavia and traveling Italy and France: DAAAAA! She didnt want a big wedding. Donald wouldnt hear any of that...

The United States has removed nearly 2.7 million barrels (per day) of Iranian oil from global markets as a result of Washington’s decision to reimpose sanctions on all purchases of Iran’s crude, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday. In an interview with MSNBC, Pompeo said the US government was confident it could continue with its strategy. “We have managed to take almost 2.7 million barrels of crude oil off of the market, denying Iran the wealth to create their terror campaign around the world, and we have managed to keep the oil markets fully supplied,” Pompeo said....

My Mom, who is. FR member needs help. Free Republic site all-of-a-sudden will not load on her PC. She is 91 and enjoys coming here everyday to keep up with news. I have tried everything I know to do.... googled it and there was a lot of help for solutions, and I have now tried them all with no luck and cannot find the problem. I called the service provider and they have tried everything they know to do. Still no solution. They say this is not an unusual problem, it happens but now they are saying to take the...

DENVER — A U.S. appeals court in Denver said Electoral College members can vote for the presidential candidate of their choice and aren’t bound by the popular vote in their states. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the Colorado secretary of state violated the Constitution in 2016 when he removed an elector and nullified his vote when the elector refused to cast his ballot for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote. It was not immediately clear what effect the ruling might have on the Electoral College system, which is established in the Constitution. Voters...

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Wednesday to cancel the student loan debt of disabled veterans. “Today I’m proud to announce that I am taking executive action to ensure that our wounded warriors are not saddled with mountains of student debt,” Trump said in a speech at the AMVETS National Convention in Kentucky. More than 25,000 disabled veterans will have their student debt forgiven, the president said.

(CNN)Fires are raging at a record rate in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, and scientists warn that it could strike a devastating blow to the fight against climate change. The fires are burning at the highest rate since the country's space research center, the National Institute for Space Research (known by the abbreviation INPE), began tracking them in 2013, the center said Tuesday. There have been 72,843 fires in Brazil this year, with more than half in the Amazon region, INPE said. That's more than an 80% increase compared with the same period last year. The Amazon is often referred to as...

People in the education policy and funding worlds don’t like Sandra Stotsky. For years she has been a robust critic of too many things educators, ed school professors, school administrators, and philanthropists have hailed and implemented. She doesn’t spare people’s feelings and she won’t relax her standards. Stotsky’s new book, The Roots of Low Achievement: Where to Begin Altering Them, is certain to arouse education establishment ire. For example: Starting in the 1970s and continuing here and there today, self-esteem has been identified as a key to academic improvement, especially for poor and minority students. Stotsky’s judgment is, “Not only...

Following these rules will show respect for the office of the president. Address the president as “Mr President” or “Madam President.” Should you have the opportunity to speak directly with the president, do not call them by their first or last name. The title of “Mr.” or “Madam” will show your respect for the office while you carry on a conversation with the president.

Despite putting Africa at the bottom of his foreign policy priorities, US President Donald Trump remains widely popular on the continent Every year, a leader of public opinion polls, Gallup Poll asks the world to judge America’s foreign policy. In 135 countries, they ask, “Do you agree or disagree with the way the United States is exercising its leadership?” Most reacted poorly to US President Donald Trump taking over the 76 square metre Oval Office. The global approval rating for US foreign policy stands at 31% — 3% points below China, and on a par with Russia. This has never...

Even before The New York Times launched its "All Slavery, All the Time" project, no one could accuse that paper of skimping on its race coverage, particularly stories about black males killed by white(ish) police officers.Here's one you haven't heard about. I happened upon it by sheer accident.Antwon Rose II was a 17-year-old boy shot by an East Pittsburgh police officer in June 2018 after he bolted from a jitney car that had been stopped by the officer. The Times published about a half-dozen stories on Antwon Rose -- or as the Times calls him, "Antwon, who was unarmed."After the officer was...

We’ve touched on this subject a few times recently, but there’s another layer to the upcoming Supreme Court case of R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that’s worth considering. It has to do with the battle over the chosen use of pronouns in court filings. The Associated Press picked up on this yesterday and the story highlights the different approaches being taken by the two sides. As you may recall, the case revolves around Aimee Stephens, a male funeral director employed at the funeral home who came in one day and announced to...

A 15-year-old gamer who makes threats on the Internet. A 38-year-old schizophrenic with a pistol. These two are among several people arrested in the wake of two mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, thanks to heightened scrutiny by citizens who want to prevent the next tragedy. But is it also a product of the prior shootings and the media coverage they receive?CBS News reports on the former, but not so much on the latter: It’s tough not to sympathize with both sides of the arrest shown in this clip. The mother protests that her 15-year-old is “just a...

The race to find a Democratic challenger to President Donald Trump is under way. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are contenders in a ring with a little more than 20 contenders. The US Presidential elections are more than a year away and Africa will be looking keenly at who is inaugurated in 2021. The emergence of Donald Trump raised fundamental questions about likely changes in America’s role in the world, including Africa. Fears over Republican Trump were heightened by his silence throughout the campaign on matters relating to the continent, focusing heavily on China and Russia. Policy...

The new international docking adapter, or IDA, was launched to the station last month aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship. The lab's robot arm pulled the docking mechanism out of the Dragon's trunk section earlier this week and positioned it directly atop a tunnel-like pressurized mating adaptor extending from Harmony's upper port. Working with electrical cables that were routed three years ago during two earlier spacewalks, Hague and Morgan connected the IDA to station power, allowing astronaut Christina Koch, working inside Harmony, to send commands driving internal hooks to close. After flight controllers confirmed the $22.5 million IDA was firmly...