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A Texas elementary school teacher who was found dead in her backyard reportedly met her alleged killer on a dating app just a week before she was shot to death, it was revealed on Friday. Wendy Duan’s boyfriend Charvas Thompson was arrested Wednesday in Louisiana, over 260 miles from where he allegedly shot her multiple times in her Sugar Land backyard last week. The two had only been dating for a week before Thompson took Duan’s life, the victim’s mother, who did want to be identified, told KHOU 11. They had met on the “MeetMe” dating app, which made Duan’s...

(Daily readings from the USCCB)As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed Jesus. Mark 2:14How do you know the will of God for your life? In his spiritual classic, The Spiritual Exercises, Saint Ignatius of Loyola presented three ways in which we come to know the will of God. (See https://mycatholic.life/ignatius for more.) The first way is the clearest and most definitive way. It is a time in which the person experiences a “clarity beyond doubting” as a result of a...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide a property rights dispute on whether government entities violate the Constitution when they seize homes for failure to pay taxes and then keep all the proceeds or allow private investors to profit. The justices will decide whether such seizures violate the takings clause of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which requires that the government pay compensation when property is taken. They will also weigh whether government action could be viewed as an excessive fine under the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. The justices will weigh a claim brought by Geraldine Tyler, a 93-year-old...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemMatthew 26Gethsemane 36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may...

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Scripture says of Israel, “Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 78:41 NKJV).Israel turned away from God in unbelief. Likewise, I believe we limit God today with our doubts and unbelief. We trust God in most areas of our lives, but our faith always has boundaries and limits. We all have at least one small area that we block off where we don’t really believe God will take care of us. For example, many people will pray for the healing of a well-known person who is a perfect stranger to them. But...

resident Joe Biden faces being squeezed on all sides as investigations ramp up both from the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives and the Department of Justice (DOJ). House Republicans have long promised to probe the Biden administration on a variety of matters, including the business dealings of the president's son Hunter Biden. That investigation has already begun after Republican Representative James Comer, chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen seeking information about the Biden family's financial affairs. More House investigations are expected into matters including the...

"In all wisdom and insight [God] made known to us the mystery of His will" (Eph. 1:8-9). Even if you haven’t obtained academic degrees, you have wisdom that far surpasses the most educated unbeliever. When God redeemed you, He not only forgave your trespasses and removed the guilt and penalty of sin, but He also gave you spiritual wisdom and insight—two essential elements for godly living. Together they speak of the ability to understand God's will and apply it to your life in practical ways. As a believer you understand the most sublime truths of all. For example, you know...

CNET reporter Jackson Ryan published an article last month describing how ChatGPT, an AI that can generate human-sounding text, would affect journalists and the news industry: “ChatGPT Is a Stunning AI, but Human Jobs Are Safe (for Now).” “It definitely can’t do the job of a journalist,” Ryan wrote of ChatGPT. “To say so diminishes the act of journalism itself.” The article said ChatGPT isn’t coming for journalists’ jobs just yet, but the very publication that ran Ryan’s article has been quietly publishing articles written by AI since November, according to Futurism and online marketer Gael Breton. The AI-written CNET...

Hundreds of American politicians, businessmen and public figures plan to attend the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, next week, including the FBI director, as well as several sitting governors, senators, and representatives, according to two lists of attendees obtained by investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel (here and here). The forum, led by WEF Chairman Klaus Schwab, will take place January 16-23 to discuss “Cooperation in a Fragmented World.” The world today is at a critical inflection point. The sheer number of ongoing crises calls for bold collective action. The Annual Meeting will convene leaders from government, business,...

SPECIAL DISPATCH FROM NASHVILLE. NASHVILLE, Tuesday, Jan. 13. CHEATHAM's and MCCOUN's rebel Divisions are at Shelbyville, expecting to be reinforced by Longstreet's corps, 30,000 men, from Virginia. FORREST, WHEELER and STEARNS, with 4,000 men, and two full batteries, are marching toward Charlotte, forty miles west, their object being to destroy our transports with provisions for Gen. ROSECRANS' army. One boat was destroyed last night, 16 miles down the river, laden with Commissary and Quartermaster's stores. Twenty men were captured and paroled. The boat and freight were burnt. Eight regiments -- four cavalry and four infantry -- have been sent after...

While the Department of Defense has outlined China as its "pacing challenge" and Russia as an "acute threat," the threat from Iran is "increasing" as well, according to one DOD official. -excerpt- Stroul described four aspects of the threats from Iran... "continuing support, arming, training, equipping, and funding terrorists and proxy groups across the region," their aggression at sea, cyberattacks, and the proliferation of their UAVs not only to regional proxies, but to Russian forces as well. A day before the round table, U.S. Central Command announced that, days earlier, it "intercepted a stateless dhow in the Gulf of Oman...

As a former commercial pilot and aviation CEO, I'm not inherently drawn to political explanations for industrial disruptions. However the nature of the nation's airline meltdown that continues from the recent holiday period may cause one to pause and consider how this may stem, at least in part, from government interests and policy. It is important to appreciate the extent of intentions and objectives that flow from extremist White House ideology, directed at industrial operations believed to be causal to global warming. This includes aspects of food production (fertilizer, for example), all fossil fuel consumption, and general human mobility (much...

Prince Harry has demanded the Royal Family apologise to Meghan Markle after he made a series of explosive claims in his new book, claiming his family were treating him as if he were 'delusional and paranoid'. The prince said: 'You know what you did, and I now know why you did it. And you've been caught out, so just come clean.' It is not clear what Harry wants his family to apologise to his wife for but he claimed he was fighting the 'good fight' by siding with Meghan. He claimed that 'if people had listened' to his concerns earlier,...

I was surprised to learn something recently about the topic of this thread.A friend of mine reported that he tried some locally bought (at a smoke shop) delta 8 gummies. Though delta 8 is a supposedly milder form with delta 9 being the regular, stronger stuff, my friend reported to me that, after 1 gummie (100mg), he was too stoned to drive (he was at home though). This guy also said he hasn't smoked a joint in many years and never takes even over-the-counter drugs unless his doctor insists. He said he ate this gummie more as a lark than...

A Pittsburgh children's hospital is under fire after its gender program navigator advocated for helping transgender women get pregnant by giving reproductive organs to them from live donors. In a presentation on "Fertility in the LGBTQIA+ community" last May that went viral this week, the community navigator for a youth gender program at the University of Pittsburgh Children's Hospital discussed the criteria the medical community uses for gender transition in adolescents, as well as a 2018 study on uterine transplants for transgender patients. "One area that had not been looked at before in any serious way was could the donors...

Since the inflation debate began raising toward the “end” of the pandemic, I have made the case that inflation, as the Federal Reserve first suggested, would be transitory. Transitory never was intended to suggest that a burst of inflation would last only a couple months. Historically, notwithstanding the 1970s and ’80s, post war/pandemic inflations lasted a couple years before turning substantially lower and sometimes careening back into a bout of deflation. There is a gathering amount of data to support that position despite the Fed, and many other economists, persistently worrying about an emergent wage/price spiral instead. The data, to...

SNIP... I make no bones about it: I have a guttural revulsion to one-world-government types who seek to rule the world by turning domestic populations against themselves. "Divide and conquer" is the only strategy they know, and oppression disguised as altruism is the only outcome they bring. They speak obsessively about racism not because they seek racial peace, but rather because the exploitation of such petty, ancient hatreds distracts people from the real problems those with power continue to create. They preach about "climate change" not because they fear that our planet is coming to an end, but because scaring...

NARA (Kyodo) -- A man was indicted on charges of murder and violating the firearms control law for fatally shooting former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during an election campaign speech in July, prosecutors said Friday after months of a psychiatric evaluation. The prosecutors concluded that Tetsuya Yamagami, 42, is competent to stand trial following mental examinations undertaken since late July. His detention period for the examination expired on Tuesday. Yamagami has told investigators that he held a grudge against the Unification Church and targeted Abe because he was a grandson of former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, who helped the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held wide-ranging talks at the White House on Friday as Japan looks to build security cooperation with allies in a time of provocative Chinese and North Korean military action. [snip] The leaders discussed Japan's push to step up defense spending and coordination that comes as concerns grow that China could take military action to seize Taiwan and that North Korea's spike in missile testing could augur the isolated nation's achieving its nuclear ambitions. Biden and Kishida also discussed intrusions by China's military vessels into Japanese territorial waters around...