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South Deering shootout An hour prior, a man was shot in South Deering on the South Side. They were sitting in a parked vehicle about 10 p.m. in the 2500 block of East 109th Street when two people walked up to them and fired shots, police said. A 25-year-old man was struck in the face and grazed in the neck area. He pulled out his own gun and returned fire but did not strike anyone. He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in fair condition. Police said a handgun was recovered at the scene, and the man...

In their respective narratives of our Lord’s Passion, all four Gospels mention the crowd’s election of Barabbas over Jesus. That choice comes at the end of Pontius Pilate’s half-hearted attempt to free Christ. It is the moment of the crowd’s definitive rejection of Christ and embrace of evil. The whole account captures human sinfulness in just a few verses. Pilate puts before the crowd first “Jesus Barabbas” (Mt 27:17) – that is, “Jesus, son of the father” – and then Jesus, the eternal Son of the Father. The crowd must choose either the real Son of the Father or His...

WASHINGTON, Wednesday, March 27. EVACUATION OF FORT SUMPTER. Col. LAMON, who has been on a visit to Fort Sumpter, has returned to this city, and the exact condition of affairs at the Fort is now known to the Government. A dispatch from Charleston says that the impression prevails there that the immediate evacuation has been fully decided upon, and that Col. LAMON will return there with the order. DISPATCHES ABOUT FORT SUMPTER. The "Washington" dispatches relative to Fort Sumpter, published daily by the harlequin Herald, are entire fabrications, -- the product of random guesses, and unbridled romance. They are the...

MAKASSAR, Indonesia – Two attackers blew themselves up outside a packed Roman Catholic cathedral during a Palm Sunday Mass on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, wounding at least 14 people, police said. A video obtained by The Associated Press showed body parts scattered near a burning motorbike at the gates of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province. Rev. Wilhelmus Tulak, a priest at the church, said he had just finished celebrating Palm Sunday Mass when a loud bang shocked his congregation. He said the blast went off at about 10:30 a.m. as a first...

Artificial intelligence will create so much wealth that every adult in the United States could be paid $13,500 per year from its windfall as soon as 10 years from now. So says Sam Altman, co-founder and president of San Francisco-headquartered, artificial intelligence-focused nonprofit OpenAI. "My work at OpenAI reminds me every day about the magnitude of the socioeconomic change that is coming sooner than most people believe," Altman, who posted Tuesday. "Software that can think and learn will do more and more of the work that people now do." Altman calls it an "AI revolution," and compares it in magnitude...

Every crisis becomes a religion if it lasts long enough. One factor in that transformation is the Beautiful Theory phenomenon: the power elite insists its remedies are logical and politically correct so they MUST work, even if the actual evidence shows they obviously don't. When Beautiful Theories crash into hard, cold reality and shatter, faith is the glue used by the elites to put their precious ideas back together. They need MILITANT faith to get the job done: true believers eager to crush doubt and compel obedience by making war on the infidels. Some are swept into the faith because...

"Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered that the shipping containers should be removed from the huge Ever Given ship currently trapped in the Suez Canal." "Now al-Sissi has been left with no choice but to order preparations to unload the ship’s cargo in an attempt to help refloat the boat, according to a statement from the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), as per Reuters." "The rudder was not moving and it is now moving, the propeller is working now, there was no water underneath the bow, and now there is water under it, and yesterday there was a 4-metre deviation...

NEW YORK — As I warned last fall, Democrats are pushing to make Washington, D.C. America’s 51st state. Republicans are resisting this idea, as well they should. Democrats, in turn, blame the GOP’s reluctance on—what else?—"Racism!" "Now today the state of D.C. would be 46 percent black, which would make it the state with the highest percentage of black people in the entire country," U.S. Rep. Ayanna Presley told a House hearing Tuesday. "I’m gonna make it plain: D.C. statehood is a racial justice issue, and racism kills."

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It was relatively warm yesterday so I took the opportunity to prune the Quickfire and Little Limelight hydrangeas scattered around the front of the house. They were all still wearing their tan winter mopheads from last season that needed to be snipped in anticipation of a new season’s growth.Against the backdrop of muffled kids’ voices playing basketball down the street the quietude allowed me to reflect on how perfect these hydrangea varieties are. They bloom early, provide numerous large flowers well into the fall. Starting out pure white they first turn a light blush growing into a deeper pink until...

A Minnesota woman pleaded guilty today to one count of delivering national defense information to aid a foreign government. According to court documents, Mariam Taha Thompson, 63, formerly of Rochester, Minnesota, worked as a contract linguist at an overseas U.S. military facility where she was entrusted with a top secret government security clearance. ***** In December 2019, while Thompson was assigned to a special operations task force facility in Iraq, the United States launched a series of airstrikes in Iraq targeting Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iranian-backed foreign terrorist organization. These airstrikes culminated in a Jan. 3, 2020, strike that resulted in...

Video on YouTube Edward Snowden discusses our loss of agency and the 'click' to OK glass screens.

Pasta makes everything better. This we know. But in the ancient villages of Sardinia, where the art of handmade pasta is practically a sacred ritual, there are ancestral, mouth-watering secrets that even the finest fettuccine can’t hold a candle to. We’re talking about the most beautiful and intricate shapes you’ve never seen; braided, stretched, twisted and crocheted using mesmerising bygone techniques. Did you know there’s only three women who still make one of the rarest pasta on earth? These are the disappearing recipes of Italian elders, passed down for generations by Sardinian and Italian women (and maybe a few men...

In a surprising move this week, the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee chose to not endorse Larry Krasner’s reelection campaign effort. This came amid criticism over his handling of the city’s growing violence.The Democratic district attorney has faced harsh criticism for his left-leaning stance on social justice issues like gun control and police violence, despite the city being a hotspot for left-wing activism. ...He is also being blamed for the sharp rise in crime throughout the city and for cutting deals with Philly attorneys to lessen sentences for high profile criminals.

Photo: Shawn Rocco/Duke Health via AP. In this Wednesday, March 24, 2021 image from video provided by Duke Health, Alejandra Gerardo, 9, looks up to her mom, Dr. Susanna Naggie, as she gets the first of two Pfizer COVID-19 vaccinations during a clinical trial for children at Duke Health in Durham, N.C. In the U.S. and abroad, researchers are beginning to test younger and younger kids, to make sure the shots are safe and work for each age. Associated Press Created: March 26, 2021 10:20 AM The 9-year-old twins didn’t flinch as each received test doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine...

It’s just the flu, bro. I assume that the future of Coronavirus will fall somewhere between these two extremes: 1. It will be endemic due to mutations and it will appear primarily in the winter months, and 2. It will slowly fizzle out as herd immunity is approached due to previous infections and vaccinations. Regardless of which one of the above scenarios happens, the media response will be just as intense. Infrequent cases and deaths just means the media can do a more in depth analysis of each person who catch the virus - each story will be painted as...

A pandemic experiment in criminal justice reform takes hold in one of America's most violent cities.A year ago, as the coronavirus began to spread across Maryland, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby stopped prosecuting drug possession, prostitution, minor traffic violations and other low-level offenses, a move aimed at curbing Covid-19's spread behind bars.That shift — repeated by prosecutors in many other cities — didn’t just reduce jail populations. In Baltimore, nearly all categories of crime have since declined, confirming to Mosby what she and criminal justice experts have argued for years: Crackdowns on quality-of-life crimes are not necessary for stopping more...

Biden sacrificing Harris on border.

Passover began last night. Jews have celebrated this holiday annually since the Biblical Exodus when Moses, with God’s help, liberated the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. For American Jews, last year was a Passover unlike any other and this year’s Passover is beginning to carry ominous overtones of past Passovers in times and places very threatening both to Jews and to all craving individual liberty. In 2020, for the first time ever in America, Jews were unable to gather for Passover – but they coped. They gathered with family and friends via Zoom, coming together to repeat the ancient...

Sunday 28 March 2021 Palm Sunday Catedral Basílica Notre-Dame – Ottawa, Canada This gospel is read at the procession with palms before Mass:EITHER:GospelMark 11:1-10 ©Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord.When they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, and said to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat; untie it and bring it. If any one says to you, “Why are you doing this?”...