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A First for World Youth Day: Interreligious Dialogue a Focal Point in LisbonNEWS ANALYSIS: Behind Cardinal-elect Américo Aguiar’s controversial comments on conversion and WYD is a new emphasis on interreligious dialogue at the global Catholic event — including visits to a mosque, synagogue and Hindu temple.A few days after headlines announced that Cardinal-elect Américo Aguiar had said that World Youth Day (WYD) does not aim “to convert young people to Christ or the Catholic Church or anything like that at all,” the Portuguese prelate and chief organizer of the upcoming Lisbon gathering sought to quell the controversy that had ensued.In...

GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Saturday that he'd consider Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds as a potential running mate if he wins the Republican nomination. She appears to have other plans. But Reynolds demurred when asked in an interview Monday morning on Fox News if she'd accept the offer. "I am so focused," she told Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt. "I'm busy working on being the governor of the great state of Iowa."

Matthew 10:34-42, Matthew 11:1 Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Lord explains what it means to become a disciple. Once we make the decision to follow Jesus, then every other claimant to supremacy must fall away. Every one of us has something that we consider greatest. Perhaps it is money, material things, power, the esteem of others, your country, your political party, or your ethnic identity. Or perhaps it is your family, your kids, your wife, your husband. Now mind you, all of these are good things. However, when you place any of them in the absolute center of gravity, things...

Cincinnati Reds legend Johnny Bench apologized Sunday for an antisemitic comment he had made a day earlier during a team event. Bench was in attendance Saturday at a news conference to honor former Reds general manager Gabe Paul, who was Jewish, and former pitchers Danny Graves and Bronson Arroyo. The trio was being inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame. Paul, who died in 1998, was represented at the event by his daughter, Jennie Paul. Near the end of the news conference, Pete Rose recalled his first contract negotiation with Gabe Paul, saying: "When I got out of high school...

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The most expensive home for sale in Atlantic Beach, Long Island, has just listed for $11.5 million. Indeed, this marks the biggest number seen for the chiefly laid-back area, though probably not for long. As Wall Street is set to return to a full five-day work week, the Hamptons is starting to seem pretty far away. This part of the island, with a lowly population of about 1,800, comes with all the perks of the Hamptons — right on the water, for starters — and it’s just a breezy hour away from the city and away from the crowds. Rarely...

As a child, Corrie Wallace would recite the same prayer every night: “Dear God, please let me wake up as a girl.” During adolescence, Corrie sank into depression and lethargy, coming to life only when playing video games with a female avatar. Nothing could relieve her gender dysphoria—the intense distress of feeling like a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

Elise Finch, the beloved and well-known meteorologist at CBS New York, has died. She was 51. Finch died at a local hospital on Sunday, according to the network’s announcement Monday morning. Her cause of death was not announced. “This is a very difficult morning for our CBS 2 family,” morning news anchor Cindy Hsu said on Monday’s broadcast, fighting back tears. […] Prior to joining CBS New York, Finch worked on NBC’s “Early Today Show” and MSNBC. …

Behind bars, his most famous accomplice – and the only one that has faced any repercussions – is so afraid to be targeted, she can’t even brave taking showers. Disgraced socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is constantly in hot water with FCI Tallahassee prison administration, ever since she used the prison’s video visit system to give an interview claiming that the infamous photograph of Prince Andrew with Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was a fake. After lodging over 400 complaints, she has earned the nickname ‘prison Karen’ in the low-security federal prison where she’s serving a 20-year sentence. In her lastest episode, Maxwell...

The Brevard County Republican Executive Committee (BREC) has passed a resolution in a landslide vote to ban the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, deeming it and the virus a “biological and technological weapon.” The committee is now soliciting support from registered Republicans in the county, state lawmakers, Florida’s Congressional delegation, and Governor Ron DeSantis. CBS12 News obtained a copy of the letter, which was sent to hundreds of registered Republicans in Brevard County for their consideration. The committee will mail the letter to all state lawmakers representing the region, Brevard’s Congressional delegation, including Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, Florida Attorney General...

Changes to a popular 401(K) tax deduction are set to hit millions of high-earning Americans from next year. Workers over the aged of 50 are entitled to make catch-up contributions to their 401(K)s worth up to $7,500 this year. The annual cap on all contributions is $30,000. But from 2024, those earning over $145,000 will no longer be able to put these catch-up payments into a traditional 401(K). Instead, the money will be only funneled into a Roth IRA account, according to new rules passed through Congress in December. The main difference between a Roth account and a 401(K) pot...

Lia Thomas is a very disturbing — and disturbed — individual on a few levels. The most obvious one is that he was a mediocre swimmer at best until he decided to become a she and dominate in women's swimming to the detriment of actual women. William Thomas was not allowed to compete directly against women swimmers, but Lia Thomas was. And Lia has been unapologetic about not only hurting actual women with his cheating, but also by the inherently predatory nature of his presence in women's changing rooms. Then, of course, there's his deeply disturbing social media activity and...

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison last week compared Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to a house slave played by Samuel L. Jackson in the 2012 film “Django Unchained.” In Quentin Tarantino’s violent black comedy about slavery in the antebellum South, Jackson portrays a character named Stephen Warren, who is loyal to the white landowner at a Mississippi plantation despite the cruelty he inflicts upon the other slaves. “Well, Clarence Thomas, anybody who’s watched the movie ‘Django,’ just watch Stephen and you see Clarence Thomas,” Ellison said in an interview last Thursday with the Detroit-based Michigan Chronicle.

Semiconductor lasers, unlike bulky gas lasers and fiber lasers, are tiny, energy efficient, and highly controllable. The one thing they can’t do is deliver their competitor’s steel-slicing brightness. In results reported last week in Nature, a group of researchers at Kyoto University, in Japan, led by IEEE Fellow Susumu Noda, has taken a big step in overcoming the limitations of semiconductor laser brightness by changing the structure of photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs). A photonic crystal is composed of a semiconductor sheet punched through with regular, nanometer-scale air-filled holes. Photonic crystal lasers are attractive candidates for high-brightness lasers, but until now...

Prior to the bombshell arrest on Thursday of Rex Heuermann over several of the Gilgo Beach murders, the case had been hampered by a series of scandals inside the police department leading the investigation. The disgraced former chief of Suffolk County Police Department, James Burke, was at the center of the storm, which culminated in his imprisonment in 2016 for 46 months for battering a thief who stole a bag from his police car which contained porn and sex toys. Shocking details emerged about Burke's alleged fondness for drugs and prostitutes. He has also been described by colleagues as a...

Australian Space Agency @AusSpaceAgency · Follow We are currently making enquiries related to this object located on a beach near Jurien Bay in Western Australia. The object could be from a foreign space launch vehicle and we are liaising with global counterparts who may be able to provide more information. [More in comments] July 17 (UPI) -- Officials in Australia are trying to identify a mysterious cylinder that washed up on a beach, and the country's space agency said it could be from "a foreign space launch vehicle." The unidentified object washed up on a beach in Green Head, Western...

"One of the most interesting things I did was to have a private audience with President Trump. We met, just one on one, and it was, frankly, great to see him. You know, all that nonsense between us is under the bridge."

Two drivers, one high and one drunk, slammed into each other on a Virginia road, wrecking their cars while miraculously suffering no injuries themselves, police said. Stafford County deputies arrived at the 1800 block of Mountain View Road Thursday night after receiving a call of two vehicles colliding when one swerved into the wrong lane. Deputies said one car, a silver Honda Civic, crossed the center double-yellow line and struck an oncoming blue Honda Civic, which was knocked off the road. Police found that the driver of the silver Civic, an 18-year-old man, was driving while in possession of a...

The majority of Americans want even higher amounts of food aid for struggling families, according to a new poll from the Save the Children Action Network. The survey, shared exclusively to The Hill, could be a warning sign for conservatives seeking to cut payments under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as part of the discussion on a new farm bill this year. “It’s important to note: If anything, most people would opt to increase benefits. Only 4 percent wanted to decrease them,” said Lori Weigel, who runs the Republican polling firm New Bridge Strategy, one of the firms that...

President @JoeBiden spending virtually no money for his re-election campaign. In the second quarter of this year, according to fresh data, his campaign had only four people on the payroll, spent less than $1,500 on travel, accommodations, and airfare. In all, Biden’s campaign spent $1.1 million in the second quarter of this year. His former boss @BarackObama spent more than $11 million in the second quarter of 2011 when he was running for re-election, and he barely won re-election. So the question is, how does Biden intend to win?