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Explanation: What's happening in the sky? The pre-dawn sky first seemed relatively serene yesterday morning over Indian Harbor Beach in Florida, USA. But then it lit up with a rocket launch. Just to the north, NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 Mission blasted into space aboard a powerful Falcon 9 rocket. The featured time-lapse video -- compressing 12-minutes into 8-seconds -- shows the bright launch plume starting on the far left. The rocket rises into an increasingly thin atmosphere, causing its plume to spread out just as it is lit by the rising Sun. As the Crew-2 capsule disappears over the horizon, the...

‘Baptisms should be discouraged until the lock-down ends, but may be celebrated in danger of death,’ said Bishop FabbroLONDON, Ontario, April 23, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Following the recently announced lockdowns in the province of Ontario, Bishop Ronald Fabbro has once again decided to impose a near-complete ban on baptisms and confessions, with exceptions only being granted in “danger of death,” and if a priest decides that there is “a serious need.” Bishop Fabbro, of the Diocese of London, made the announcement in a press release issued April 17, curtailing nearly the entire public life of the Church in his diocese....

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed a bill banning government-ordered church closures during the pandemic.MADISON, Wisconsin — For the second time this year, Democrat Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed a ban on closing churches due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a prohibition on mandatory COVID vaccines. Both measures had been approved twice by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature. Assembly Bill 24, which passed the Assembly and Senate in March and mid-April, would have banned the state Department of Health Services from closing churches or preventing religious gatherings in an effort to control the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Evers vetoed a...

The Australian Diocese of Parramatta has split with other Catholic leaders in responding to a new bill that would ban the discussion of “gender fluidity” in classrooms. The bill - Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 - is sponsored by Mark Latham, a member of the legislative council of New South Wales (NSW). Latham is also affiliated with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, a nationalist political party. The legislation would remove “gender fluidity” as part of education curricula, and would mandate that schools inform parents about all discussions of gender and sexuality, as well as discussions on other matters. Latham...

Republicans await chance to checkmate Kelly on eight vetoed bills.. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed two bundles of election reform measures Friday that would have restricted advance voting, eliminated emergency powers to alter voting procedures, added a new crime for turning in others’ ballots, and strengthened penalties for existing election crimes. Kelly also vetoed a bill allowing teenagers to carry concealed firearms after obtaining a state permit. It also would have automatically enabled people with conceal-carry permits issued by other states to take hidden handguns into public throughout Kansas, even residents of the 10 states that allow certain convicted stalkers...

People living with HIV in Canada had eight times the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other non-AIDS-related dementia as their HIV-negative counterparts, and they were diagnosed 12.5 years earlier, according to an analysis published in BMJ Open. They also had higher rates of several other age-related chronic conditions. That rates of age-related illnesses were higher among people living with HIV wasn’t a surprise, as that’s been seen in other studies. Antiretroviral treatment has been associated with kidney damage and cardiovascular disease, and viral hepatitis and alcohol use—both common among HIV-positive people—can cause liver disease.

Facing an income shortage from the loss of tourism due to COVID-19, Zimbabwe has announced it will soon start selling rights to shoot 500 endangered elephants this year. “We eat what we kill. We have a budget of about $25 million for our operations which is raised — partly — through sports hunting, but you know tourism is as good as dead at the moment due to the coronavirus pandemic,” Tinashe Farawo, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, told CNN. The African forest elephant is now on the critically endangered species list and the savannah elephant...

Schismatic Stratagems SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2021 The present attempt by liberal clerics and laity to compel the Catholic Church to get rid of what they deem unacceptable doctrines on sexual morality necessarily includes efforts to change the language used by the Church in setting out those doctrines in official teaching documents such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church. One strategy employed uses a self-contradictory form of attack: a teaching is dismissed as being unintelligible to modern people because of the use of obscure philosophical language. At the same time the teaching is condemned as cruel and hurtful because those...

A former Oklahoma resident got married and while trying to change her last name on her Texas driver’s license, found out she was a wanted woman in her old state. “I went to change my driver’s license, during this COVID thing you had to make an appointment, and so, I sent them an email (and) they sent me an email and they told me… that I had an issue in Oklahoma and this was the reference number for me to call this number and I did,” Caron McBride told the local Norman, Oklahoma Fox station. McBride was bowled over when...

Major League Baseball (MLB) is now questioning fans about political affiliation in their new post-game survey about the ballpark experience. MLB is under new scrutiny as a new survey shows fans are being about political affiliation in a ballpark experience in a post-game survey. In a report from National Review, MLB claims the questions asked regarding political affiliations are “part of the extensive fan surveys MLB is conducting this year around the ballpark experience.” The league claims the surveys are for are to try trying to “gain knowledge about fan perceptions, preferences, and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Of course,...

Vice President Kamala Harris's children's book Superheroes are Everywhere is being included in WELCOME PACKS for unaccompanied migrant children entering America at the Mexico border. Images taken at a California shelter for migrants this week show Harris' book sitting on a cot along with a backpack, some clothes and other basic supplies like body wash and toothpaste. These form the welcome kits for unaccompanied migrant children arriving the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, which has recently been converted to deal with an influx of illegal immigration. Migrant children found at the border without a parent will be temporarily housed...

WHO ARE YOU CALLING A HYPOCRITE? I always chuckle a little when I must sit through someone's "sermon" on why he/she doesn't ever darken the door of a church. Invariably at the top of the list of reasons given for not attending is something about the church being so full of hypocrites. You know, those people who affect virtues and qualities they don't have ... religious fakes. The humor in this line of argument rests not so much in the fact that I never hear anything original, but rather in the facts surrounding the genesis of the word hypocrite....

The black-owned businesses near the intersection where George Floyd died last May are pleading for help after suffering from plummeting revenue and skyrocketing crime. Black-owned establishments near the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, which once thrived, have had to resort to a GoFundMe page after police have abandoned the area, which has since become “a dangerous autonomous zone that has seen crime spike and business evaporate,” according to the New York Post. “38th and Chicago, recently renamed George Floyd Square, has always been home to some of Minnesota’s most burgeoning Black businesses,” the GoFundMe page reads. “This intersection...

Joe Biden mumbled through remarks during a climate summit on Friday. Things got super awkward after Dementia Joe veered off script. At one point Joe Biden pointed at the leader of the Navajo Nation and demanded they give his wife back. Jill Biden visited the Navajo Nation on Friday and Joe Biden pointed at their delegation and demanded they let Jill come home. “Let my wife come home! She likes the Navajo Nation too much! She keeps being out there! She’s been out there for two days. She was out there before – I don’t know! You know what I...

At least 19 people died in a hospital fire in Baghdad Saturday night after oxygen tanks exploded, two health officials at the hospital told CNN. Officials are still trying to figure out how many were wounded in the explosion at Ibn al-Khatib Hospital, but they say there are "many." Social media videos show a chaotic scene as firefighters scramble to put out the blaze and health workers try to help evacuate patients.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) is asking the FBI to reassess their decision to classify the June 14, 2017 baseball field shooting outside of Washington as “suicide by cop” rather than a domestic terrorism case.Wenstrup was present when the Republican legislators were targeted by left-wing extremist James Hodgkinson, who fired over 100 rounds at them and other staff, severely injuring House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was hit on the hip and recovered after many surgeries.The letter, (pdf) which protests and asks for a reassessment, was addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray last week and made available to reporters on...

After 1:00 am on the 25th, an explosive eruption occurred at the Minamidake summit crater in Sakurajima, Kagoshima City, and it was confirmed that the pyroclastic flow flowed down about 1.8 km from the crater. The Japan Meteorological Agency has issued a new warning around the crater, maintaining eruption alert level 3 and calling for alerts to large volcanic bombs and pyroclastic flows within a range of approximately 2.4 km from the crater near the residential area.

A railroad conductor working at the Long Island Rail Road, a commuter train system in New York, found a bag containing two jewelry portfolios storing a total of 36 diamond ring settings worth about $100,000. Jonathan Yellowday made the discovery on Thursday after a jeweler riding the train left the valuable bag behind. Yellowday turned the bag full of jewelry over to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department, where the jeweler later retrieved his belongings. The jeweler realized he lost the valuable bag after arriving home.

Inflation is coming. Look no further than Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble sharing plans this week to raise prices to offset rising commodity costs. The costs of raw materials, ranging from lumber to resin, are surging, so companies are taking steps to protect profits. ING Chief International Economist James Knightley is forecasting consumer prices will continue to rise in the near term and could gain almost 4% by May, compared with the same time a year ago. The consumer price index, which tracks how much U.S. consumers pay for a basket of goods, rose 2.6% in March from the year-ago...