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St Peter's Basilica Converted into a Debate HallCardinal Ravasi organised a panel discussion ("Lectio Petri") on 22 November inside Saint Peter's.The four participants sat behind a desk in the basilica's sanctuary, in front of the communion table. Each of them had a bottle and a glass in front of them.The Novus Ordo regards churches as secularised meeting rooms. Among the participants was the Protestant pastor and theologian Paolo Ricca, 86.He spoke about Mt 16, where Christ calls Peter a rock ("on this rock I will build my church"), and suggested that "one Peter is not enough", that "we too are...

ndiana Senator Mike Braun is running for governor. Our CBS/FOX partners in Indianapolis report he filed the paperwork to run as the state's leader this morning with the Secretary of State's office. Braun was elected to the Senate in 2018 with this first term expiring in 2024. That's when current Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb's final term in office ends due to term limits. Braun has consistently said he would make a decision on running for governor by December 1.

Cristiano Ronaldo has a lucrative offer to move to Saudi Arabia on the table after his departure from Manchester United, but the Portugal forward is set to wait until after the World Cup before deciding on his next move, sources have told ESPN. Al-Nassr are willing to offer him a 3½-year contract worth more than $119 million (£100m) a year. Sources have also told ESPN that as part of the agreement, Al-Nassr have indicated they would be willing to compensate Ronaldo for the wages he would have earned had he seen out the last six months of his contract at...

A 41-year-old woman was found decapitated in the kitchen of her Philadelphia home Tuesday afternoon. Police arrested 34-year-old Ahmad Shareef who was found hiding in bushes several blocks away and charged him with murder and abuse of a corpse. Shareef is being held without bail. The victim was identified as Leila Al Raheel. Both are reported to be Syrian immigrants. Reports state the murder was domestic violence. Neighbors said multiple children and adults lived in the house and that it was the scene of “constant drama” with police called there many times. One said it was a “house of horrors.”...

Efforts to promote Muay Thai as a global sport have been met with resistance from some corners, with fears that international exposure will dilute its tradition and heritage.Thailand’s national martial art Muay Thai could soon make its debut on the world’s biggest sporting stage, the Olympics. The combat sport already has an increasingly global audience, with many would-be fighters making trips to its birthplace to immerse themselves in the culture. After the inclusion in numerous multi-sport events such as the World Games earlier this year, the next step is for Muay Thai to be featured at the Olympics. But efforts...

"They brought this upon themselves." Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t going to let the Walt Disney Company come in from the cold anytime soon if comments Tuesday evening are any indication. Presented with regretful comments from Disney CEO Bob Iger about consequences for the company’s opposition to the state’s Parental Rights in Education law, DeSantis did not back down from previous critiques of the “Burbank-based” corporation. “We didn’t drag them in, Tucker, they went in on their own,” DeSantis said on Fox News. “And not only opposed the bill. They threatened to get it repealed. These are parents’ rights … important...

Spotify's (SPOT.N) CEO Daniel Ek renewed his attack on Apple (AAPL.O) on Wednesday in a series of tweets alleging the iPhone maker "gives itself every advantage while at the same time stifling innovation and hurting consumers". Ek tagged a number of sympathetic business leaders in his 21-tweet thread, including Musk, Microsoft president Brad Smith, and Proton founder Andy Yen. On Monday, the world's richest person Elon Musk criticized the fee Apple charges software developers - including his Twitter business - for in-app purchases, and posted a meme suggesting he was willing to "go to war" rather than pay it.

The former head of trust and safety at Twitter recently admitted that the social media company’s decision to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 was a "mistake." During a sit down with journalist Kara Swisher, ex-Twitter safety chief Yoel Roth said that despite concerns about the authenticity of the laptop story, it still did not reach a point where he wanted to remove the content — which was later censored anyway. Initial reporting suggested that Roth blocked user access from the October 2020 story, but the former Twitter division lead said the decision was not up to him.

An experimental Alzheimer's disease drug from Eisai and Biogen slowed cognitive decline in a closely watched trial but may carry a risk of dangerous side effects for certain patients, according to new data presented on Tuesday (Nov 29). The drug, lecanemab, was associated with a type of brain swelling in 12.6 per cent of trial patients, a side effect previously seen with similar drugs. Fourteen per cent of patients had microhemorrhages in the brain - a symptom linked to two recent deaths of people receiving lecanemab in a follow-on study - and five patients suffered macrohemorrhages. The companies said in...

Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and advocate for the "Great Reset" transformation of the entire world into a collectivist anthill society, is recommending China as the model for other countries to emulate. "They have a great idea for the perfect society and the ruthless courage required to impose it on their own citizens," Schwab said. "Just take a look at what they have done in just the last few years. They have invented a new disease that has the potential to significantly reduce the planet's overpopulation problem. At the same time they have taken the extreme...

As a child, Dr Shao Huilin witnessed her grandmother’s long struggle with dementia. Today, the university professor, scientist and biotech start-up founder of Sunbird Bio spearheads the development of groundbreaking tests for earlier detection of the disease, as well as more personalised treatment.any of our lives have been touched by dementia, whether directly via the diagnosis of a loved one or indirectly through the experience of someone we know of. Scientist Dr Shao Huilin first encountered the neurodegenerative disease as a child. “My grandma had dementia and passed away from it when I was five or six years old though...

Sheetal Deo was shocked when she got a letter from her Queens apartment building’s co-op board calling her Diwali decoration “offensive” and demanding she take it down. “My decoration said ‘Happy Diwali’ and had a swastika on it,” said Deo, a physician, who was celebrating the Hindu festival of lights. The equilateral cross with its legs bent at right angles is a millennia-old sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism that represents peace and good fortune, and was also used widely by (i)ndigenous people worldwide in a similar vein. But in the West, this symbol is often equated to Adolf...

Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle Matthew 4:18–22Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls his first disciples. What is it about this scene that is so peaceful and right? Somehow it gets at the very heart of Jesus’ life and work, revealing what he is about. He comes into the world as the second person of the Blessed Trinity, a representative from the community which is God— and thus his basic purpose is to draw the world into community around him.Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men." This tells us something about...

For the past month the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, has been ruffling a lot of feathers, especially for folks on the Left. He’s been doing this by basically gutting the censorship regimen that existed prior to his acquisition of the social media company. For those not familiar with the Twitter experience, beginning with Gamergate in 2014 (which more or less initiated the current “Woke Wars” in American culture), the platform became an increasingly repressive environment for people on the Right. Over the years, a greater and greater number of cultural and political touchstones were enforced to discourage criticism...

These aren’t the most interesting cases, but they’re essential, nonetheless. The latest case heading to the Supreme Court isn’t grounded in abortion rights, which was the main attraction for the high court this past summer after a draft of the Dobbs opinion was leaked to the press. It set off a flurry of protests, demonstrations outside the homes of the justices, and even assassination attempts. Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade, which led to a litany of hyperbolic segments from the liberal media and left-wing activists about how this decision will kill scores of women. The post-apocalyptic anecdotes about young women...

Marine archaeologists have located a "unique" ancient temple lost beneath the seabed close to the site of what has been dubbed the "Las Vegas" of the Roman Empire.The temple, thought to date to around 2,000 years ago, is positioned on the opposite side of the Gulf of Pozzuoli to Rome's "Sin City."This ancient city, known as Baiae, was the playground of the Roman elite in its heyday. A fashionable coastal resort, Rome's rich and powerful built luxurious villas at the site—including the emperors Julius Caesar, Nero, and Hadrian—attracted by its beautiful setting and healing natural hot springs, not to mention...

Five cars rented by President Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail for his Thanksgiving weekend trip to Nantucket mysteriously burst into flames a day after he left, according to reports. Footage of the burned out rental vehicles in a car park at Nantucket Memorial Airport was obtained by the Nantucket Current. The local news site reported that the cause of the fire was under investigation. No one was injured in the blaze. Footage showed firefighters dampening down the smouldering remains of several vehicles including a Chevy Suburban, a Ford Explorer, an Infiniti QX80, a Ford Expedition, and a Jeep Gladiator. In...

Visitors to Russia's first museum of LGBT culture, which opened in St. Petersburg on November 27, are greeted by a portrait of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.Tchaikovsky – the 19th century composer of the Nutcracker, among other works – is arguably one of the most famous gay Russians.Pyotr Voskresensky – a more contemporary gay Russian – got the idea to open the museum after a visit to Tchaikovsky's house in Klin. "The estate and the house interiors were completely scrubbed," Voskresensky told Radio Free Europe. "There was no hint of the composer's personal life.""The context of the opening of this museum is...

The vast majority of catacombs represent the final resting places of Christians, but there are also several of Jewish origin. One of these is situated in the gardens of the Villa Torlonia in the northeast of Rome. This villa was built in the first half of the 19th century for the wealthy banking Torlonia family. In 1929 it was taken over by the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. After his death in 1945, the villa and the gardens remained unused for many years, but have now been restored and are open to the public.In 1918, while conducting alterations in the very...

The end of France’s coal era seemed so certain last year that the operator of one of the country’s last coal-burning plants posted an upbeat educational video on YouTube titled “Let’s visit a coal plant that’s going to be destroyed!” The plant in the northeastern town of Saint-Avold indeed halted coal production as scheduled earlier this year — but not for long. This week, its workers were back at the controls, transporting coal from storage heaps and refiring furnaces, as part of emergency efforts to keep the heat and electricity on this winter. The energy crisis across Europe unleashed by...