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The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday night for the state of Alabama to execute an inmate who contended that an intellectual disability combined with the state's inattention cost him a chance to avoid lethal injection and choose a new method. The nation's highest court upheld a state request to lift a lower court order that had blocked prison workers from executing Matthew Reeves. The state said earlier that it was prepared to execute Reeves, 43, by lethal injection at Holman Prison if notified to proceed. The execution was originally scheduled at 6 p.m. CST.

Places with highest daily reported cases per capita Seven-day average of daily new reported cases per 100,000 residents

Chambersburg area residents rallied in support of the LGBTQ+ community Thursday night at the opening of the borough’s largest annual event, IceFest. The rally was to show support following the repeal of the LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance by Chambersburg Borough Council. “Our LGBTQ+ neighbors are deeply hurt after losing their rights and equal protections - protections they fought so hard to get in the first place. They need a visual show of support right now, and what better opportunity than at our community’s largest festival,” said Noel Purdy, president of Franklin County Coalition for Progress. Chambersburg on Monday became the first...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis urged parents on Wednesday not to condemn their children if they are gay, in his latest gesture of outreach to the LGBTQ community which has long been marginalized by the Catholic hierarchy. Francis spoke off the cuff during his weekly Wednesday general audience dedicated to the figure of St. Joseph, the father of Jesus. Francis said he was thinking in particular about parents who are confronted with “sad” situations in their children’s lives. Citing parents who have to cope with children who are sick, imprisoned or who get killed in car accidents, Francis added:...

In a turn of events described as a “direct attack” on the Order of Malta’s sovereignty, Pope Francis’ delegate refused to permit a representative of one of the order’s highest-ranking officials to attend a meeting discussing sweeping changes to the 1,000-year-old institution. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, as it is officially known, is both a lay religious order of the Catholic Church and a subject of international law. In 2017, Pope Francis ordered reforms of both the order’s religious life and its constitution. That reform was supposed to enter a decisive stage at a Jan. 25-26 meeting in Rome,...

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson blasted President Biden on Thursday for making identity politics a factor in his choice for a Supreme Court justice. Biden said Thursday that he will announce his nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer before the end of February, and that the candidate will be a Black woman. "You know, this is America," Carson said during an interview on WMAL's "The Vince Coglianese Show," a local radio show in Washington, D.C. "Many people fought and gave their lives to bring equality. And now we're reverting back to identity politics....

Well, Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement — or, to be more accurate, someone leaked that he was going to announce his retirement in a few months. That someone was probably at the White House, which has been desperate for a storyline that would distract from the failing economy and our disastrous foreign-policy failure in Ukraine, which came after our disastrous foreign-policy failures with Afghanistan and China. Breyer is reportedly miffed about the leak but not so miffed that he’ll scrub his plans. His retirement is just another example, like the ongoing wave of Democratic congressional retirements, that Democrats expect...

MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace said Thursday on her show “Deadline” that Fox News host Tucker Carlson is has his “arms and legs wrapped around an American adversary,” Russian President Vladimir Putin. On his Fox News show, Carlson said, “So at this point, NATO exists to torment Vladimir Putin. Who, whatever his many faults, has no intention of invading Western Europe. Vladimir Putin does not want Belgium He just wants to keep the western border secure. That’s why he doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO, makes sense.”

The group says at least 3,000 service members have submitted requests.A Christian legal group has filed a class-action lawsuit with the goal of blocking the Navy’s COVID vaccine mandate for all U.S. Navy personnel who have requested religious accommodation. First Liberty Institute, a Christian legal group, had filed a federal lawsuit and motion for preliminary injunction earlier this month on behalf of “dozens” of U.S. Navy SEALs and other Naval Special Warfare personnel, who represent Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant Christianity. As a result of the initial lawsuit, Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District...

The libertarian movement in America has Donald Trump. The rest of the world is not so lucky. But the passion of those of us who do care is too strong to be beaten. The cowards of modern tyrannies will go down. They will crash. Freedom always wins in the end.

A Los Angeles County judge on Thursday ordered Hannah Tubbs, a transgender California woman, to serve two years in a juvenile facility after she pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl in 2014 — but not before excoriating far-left District Attorney George Gascon, whose office declined to prosecute the repeat offender as an adult. Tubbs, 26, just recently pleaded guilty to molesting the girl in a woman's bathroom eight years ago when she was two weeks away from turning 18. At the time of the crime, she identified as male and went by James Tubbs. She did not identify...

St. Alphonsus parish in Fresno was broken into overnight earlier this month. Both the tabernacle and a Marian shrine were vandalized. Father Carlos Serrano, the pastor of St. Alphonsus, first discovered damage to the tabernacle the morning of Jan. 15. “When going through the church, he saw the other damage,” Chandler Marquez, communications director for the Diocese of Fresno, told CNA. The parish has a Marian statue behind glass, where people often come to pray. Beside the statue is a box with monetary donations for the parish made in thanksgiving. Marquez said the vandal took the box with the donations....

[Catholic Caucus] The ‘buck’ starts hereConsider a few points, in no particular order.Traditionis custodes and the Dubious Dubia (TC&DD) are an incoherent mess.TC&DD are founded on faulty theological grounds: that Vatican II is the lens through which all doctrine and discipline of the past must be reinterpreted.TC&DD are excused with a lie: that the bishops of the world thought that Summorum Pontificum had created problems of unity.A law that cannot be enforced in no law at all.This is not 1982, when there was no alternatives in Catholic media. Now we have the internet, etc.Even though conservative priests have a strong...

President Joe Biden reportedly told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday to brace his country for a certain Russian invasion. Biden told Zelensky that an invasion is virtually certain and to 'prepare for impact,' CNN reported. He said Kiev could be 'sacked' by Russian forces. He reportedly said Ukraine would not be getting significantly more military help, including reiterating that no U.S. troops would be deployed there, nor would there be preemptive sanctions on Russia or any progress with NATO.

Despite a mountain of evidence showing the 2020 presidential contest wasn’t rigged against Donald Trump, nearly 6 in 10 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (57 percent) now say they will not vote in upcoming elections for any candidate who admits that Joe Biden won the presidency "fair and square." Only 17 percent say they would consider voting for a candidate who accurately characterizes Biden’s victory as legitimate. These numbers underscore the degree to which Trump’s “big lie” claiming Biden cheated his way into the White House — a falsehood that three-quarters of Trump voters (74 percent) now believe — has become...

Former Rep. Mark Walker announced Thursday that he will stay in the North Carolina Senate race, bucking pressure to drop out and run for the House instead. “The last 45 days have been a whirlwind,” Walker said, according to The News & Observer. “When we stepped away from Congress, it was in our hearts to run across North Carolina to be able to take what we’ve been able to do in central North Carolina, and take it across the state for the U.S. Senate.”

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal in Key Synod on Synodality Post: ‘Reforms Need a Stable Foundation’The event, commonly known as the Synod on Synodality, has been described as the most important Church event since the Second Vatican Council in 1962-65. VATICAN CITY — A Jesuit cardinal who will play a central role in the 2023 Synod on Synodality has said that reforms in the Catholic Church require “a stable foundation.” In a wide-ranging interview in the February edition of the German magazine Herder Korrespondenz, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich was asked whether he could envisage the introduction of women deacons. He said: “I would...

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii is urging her Republican colleagues to be "open-minded" when it comes to President Biden's Supreme Court nominee. Following the official announcement of Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement on Thursday, Hirono appeared on CNN and praised Biden's vow to nominate a Black woman to the highest court in the land, calling the pick "so important" since she will "reflect the diversity of the court," which she suggested did not reflect the "diversity" of the country in various 6-3 rulings.

Thursday, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) appeared on FNC’s “Your World” to tout possible Supreme Court pick Michelle Childs, who he is promoting to be appointed by President Joe Biden to fill the vacancy to be left by Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. Clyburn revealed he had gotten a favorable response from his fellow South Carolina congressional colleagues Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) when he suggested Childs.