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There is one teaching that most Protestants readily recognize as Catholic, and it is usually received with derision: the prohibition of artificial means of birth control. The Protestants in my circles often disparage this teaching with little knowledge of Humanae Vitae, perhaps the most significant document to address birth control over the last one hundred years. Our distaste for things Roman Catholic, dating back to the sixteenth century, has deprived us of a wealth of theological wisdom...Our acceptance of most forms of birth control is not helping us teach the next generation about sex and sexuality. It is time for...

Country music has been having an identity crisis since it crawled out of the cradle. Call it diffuse or call it elastic, but it has always run on two tracks: one was rough and one was slick, one rooted in tradition, the other more modern. Think about that serendipitous August in 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee, when, two days apart, both Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family auditioned for the Victor Talking Machine Company (which would ultimately become RCA Records). Ralph Peer, the record company’s producer and talent scout, immediately signed both acts. That was a big week for country...

Republican House leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-CA., told Fox New’s Sunday Future’s host Maria Bartiromo that the origination of the FBI probe into President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 and what followed ‘was the closest thing to a coup that anyone has ever seen." Moreover, he noted that the actions and evidence gathered regarding many former Obama Administration officials and bureaucrats like former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, former FBI Attorney Lisa Page, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reveal that they were attempting to frame Trump. Last week, the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu recommended moving...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is preparing to go all Hulk on Brexit. “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets,” ​Johnson told the Sunday Mail. “Hulk always escaped, no matter how tightly bound in he seemed to be – and that is the case for this country. We will come out on October 31 and we will get it done.” ​Johnson’s comments were published a day before he is scheduled to meet with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Luxembourg.

13 hrs ago Brown scores in Pats debut, almost wrecks himself after Dem candidates call for Kavanaugh's impeachment KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban on Sunday revoked their ban on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Afghanistan and gave a guarantee of security for its staff doing humanitarian work in areas under their control. Taliban leaders imposed a ban on the ICRC and the World Health Organization (WHO) in April saying the organizations were carrying out "suspicious" activities during vaccinations campaigns and not sticking to their declared missions. "The Islamic Emirate restores the former security guarantees to ICRC...

“Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael said to Him, ‘How do You know me?’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’ Nathanael answered Him, ‘Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel’” (John 1:47–49). Of all the apostles, Nathanael had one of the more interesting first encounters with Jesus. After Philip told him he had found the Messiah—“Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”—Nathanael was skeptical. His...

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters marched in front of Frankfurt's IAA car show on Saturday to demand a swift end to combustion engines and a shift to environmentally friendly vehicles as Chancellor Angela Merkel's government prepares to unveil climate protection measures. Police in Frankfurt said some 15,000, including many cyclists, took part in the march. Organizers put the number at 25,000 and said that around 18,000 cyclists had descended on the city. Protesters took aim at SUVs, seen by environmentalists as a highly polluting status symbol that has no place in cities. "STOP SUV," "SUV not cool," and "We...

An SAS officer armed with a shotgun has killed five jihadis during a dawn raid, it has been reported. The intense fire fight was over in just seven seconds, and quickly led to the militant group's surrender of the stronghold. The covert operation took place on an Islamic State outpost in Baghdad, Iraq. Several other terrorists emerged from the building but immediately surrendered and began panicking as two of the bodies didn’t have heads – they thought they were about to be executed.'

Government and tech platforms each say the other should be doing more, raising questions about 2020 preparedness U.S. national-security officials traveled to Silicon Valley last week to forge deeper ties with big tech companies in hopes of better protecting the 2020 election from foreign intervention. It didn’t go entirely as planned.At the meeting organized by Facebook Inc. at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Shelby Pierson—named over the summer to lead the U.S. intelligence community’s new election-threats group—delivered a blunt message to the assembled executives: You need to share more data with us about your users.The executives and other U.S. officials in...

Democrats advanced a new measure this week to encourage states to pass “red flag” laws. These so-called extreme risk protection orders authorize removing guns and ammunition from individuals deemed as dangerous by some anonymous, unaccountable person, but it would not include the ready-made lists of gang members. Republicans tried to add an amendment including known gang members, but the Democrats will not permit the inclusion of gang databases. It’s odd since gangs are the ones causing most of the so-called gun violence. They would agree to include the names of white supremacists, but not other terror groups.

Brace opened the Newsboys Lodging House at 9 Duane St., in the building then owned by the New York Sun. At this location, he would do much more than provide a clean bed. He opened savings accounts for the kids, gave them books and healthy food — all part of a larger vision. “Those who have much to do with plans of human improvement,” he wrote, “see how superficial and comparatively useless all assistance or organization is which does not touch . . . the inner forces which form character.” Many of his charges (including girls, housed in their own “industrial school”)...

Poor abused refugees. See the video.

WSJ: Saudi Aramco (state oil company) "has determined that its facilities were hit by missiles", and up to 15 structures at Abqaiq plant were damaged (according to a US official)

A Florida man who dragged a shark to its death from a high-speed boat has been jailed for 10 days. Robert Benac III will pay a $2,500 fine, perform 250 hours of service at an animal shelter and lose his fishing licence for three years after pleading guilty to misdemeanour of animal cruelty. Benac accepted the plea deal just as he was about to go on trial on Thursday for a more severe felony charge of aggravated cruelty to animals, according to The Bradenton Herald. A second man, Michael Wenzel, accepted a similar plea deal over the incident in February...

ABC host George Stephanopoulos mentioned Cruz's warning that Texas could be a potential background state in the 2020 presidential election and noted that five Republican House members from the state have come forward saying they would not seek reelection next year. Cruz claimed that the third Democratic presidential debate in Houston on Thursday was a "very bad night" for Democrats because the candidates did not mention the economy's relative strength through the third quarter of this year. "If you look at Thursday night, the entire night of the debate, not a single Democrat talked about jobs, not a single Democrat...

...‘The closest we’ve ever seen to a coup’ House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., promised that guilty parties will be held accountable after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz releases his report on the FBI's alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the Russia investigation, and predicted that former bureau leaders James Comey and Andrew McCabe will face criminal charges after what he described as an attempted "coup" to take down President Trump.[snip]"We came the closest ever to this country having a coup, and now we need accountability," McCarthy told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures." "I respect...

Though millions around the world continue to enjoy the James Bond films, some believe that Ian Fleming's famous, womanizing MI6 agent has not aged well. A number of people, including former Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, believe that it is time for the franchise to introduce a female James Bond to reflect the fact that times have changed. Of course, not everyone agrees. Valerie Leon starred as a Bond girl twice: once in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me with Roger Moore and again in 1983's Never Say Never Again with Sean Connery. She recently appeared on Good Morning Britain to...

New research shows crime rates dropped substantially in areas with marijuana dispensaries, running counter to fears that pot shops drum up crime. The study, published this month in the journal of Regional Science and Urban Economics, analyzed crime data from Denver between January 2013 and December 2016. Colorado, which legalized medical marijuana nearly two decades ago, kicked off sales of recreational pot in 2014. ”The results imply that an additional dispensary in a neighborhood leads to a reduction of 17 crimes per month per 10,000 residents, which corresponds to roughly a 19 percent decline relative to the average crime rate...

    DALLAS — A Dallas man was charged Wednesday with operating a large-scale human trafficking organization.Tremont Blakemore, 40, was charged by criminal complaint with sex trafficking through force, fraud and coercion; he made his initial appearance before Magistrate Judge Rutherford Sept. 11.  According to victim statements detailed in the complaint, Blakemore — who goes by the street name “Macknificent” — may have trafficked hundreds of women across the United States between 2011 and 2018.Blakemore allegedly cultivated an “environment of paranoia,” demanding near constant updates from the victims he forced into commercial sex and doling out severe physical punishment from...

Top 2020 Democratic contenders Kamala Harris and Julian Castro announced on Sunday that Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh "must be impeached," after a new, uncorroborated and disputed allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh surfaced in a New York Times piece. ~snip~ Nevertheless, Democrats announced a new effort to topple Kavanaugh. Impeaching Kavanaugh would require a majority vote in the Democratic-controlled House, and a highly unlikely two-thirds vote in the GOP-majority Senate would then be needed to remove him from the bench. "I sat through those hearings," Harris wrote on Twitter. "Brett Kavanaugh lied to the U.S. Senate and most...