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[Catholic Caucus] Communist China intensifies persecution against Underground Catholics in key dioceseUnderground Catholics in the Diocese of Wenzhou have once again faced renewed persecution from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in recent weeks.As Chinese authorities continue to persecute Underground Catholics, the regime has now turned against a priest in the state-sponsored church who has reportedly failed in his required loyalty.Underground Catholics in the Diocese of Wenzhou have once again faced renewed persecution from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in recent weeks, as the regime has continued its push to enact control over the Church in the region.For the CCP it...

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has always tiptoed close to the line when it comes to allegations of defamation against President Trump, but this time she might have finally crossed it. Critics of AOC are calling on President Donald Trump to sue the “Squad” Democrat after she called him a “rapist” in a blustery social media post over the weekend in reference to a civil judgment in the case brought by E. Jean Carroll. “Wow who would have thought that electing a rapist would have complicated the release of the Epstein Files?” Ocasio-Cortez posted to X on Friday. The 2023 case...

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — More than 20 states sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for after-school care, summer programs and more.Some of the withheld money funds after-school and summer programming at Boys & Girls Clubs, the YMCA or public schools, attended by 1.4 million children and teenagers nationwide. Congress set aside money for the programs to provide academic support, enrichment and child care to mostly low-income families. But Trump’s administration recently froze the funding, saying it wants to ensure recipients’ programs align with the Republican president’s priorities.Led by California, the...

Explanation: What is going on with this galaxy? NGC 2685 is a confirmed polar ring galaxy - a rare type of galaxy with stars, gas and dust orbiting in rings perpendicular to the plane of a flat galactic disk. The bizarre configuration could be caused by the chance capture of material from another galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris strung out in a rotating ring. Still, observed properties of NGC 2685 suggest that the rotating helix structure is remarkably old and stable. In this sharp view of the peculiar system also known as Arp 336 or the...

Arachnophobes beware: Customs officials on Monday released photos from a seizure of roughly 1,500 young tarantulas found inside plastic containers that had been hidden in chocolate spongecake boxes shipped to an airport in western Germany. Customs officials found the shipment at Cologne Bonn airport in a package that had arrived from Vietnam, tipped off by a “noticeable smell” that didn't resemble the expected aroma of the 7 kilograms (about 15 pounds) of the confectionery treats, Cologne customs office spokesman Jens Ahland said. "My colleagues at the airport are regularly surprised by the contents of prohibited packages from all over the...

One year after Secret Service security failures led to an assassination attempt against President Trump… Project Veritas on Monday released text messages from a Secret Service Agent inviting a stranger to the White House, disclosing operational details, and disparaging President Trump. Without knowing her identity, Secret Service Agent Marc Hendrickson invited a female Project Veritas journalist to the White House. The undercover journalist expressed her hatred for President Trump to which Hendrickson replied, “Yeah, he’s doing a lot of whacky shit right now.” Via Project Veritas: Text messages with Hendrickson reveal this agent engaging in egregious violations of Secret Service...

SummaryFederal Programs Branch loses nearly two-thirds of staff since Trump's election Exodus strains unit defending Trump's policies amid legal challenges Political appointees fill vacancies WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies - such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University - has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters. Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump's election in November or have announced plans to...

The trump administration has a new plan for the state of California, and it involves blocking any and all federal flights of illegal immigrant fugitives to the State. Activists say criminals wanted in California should return and face justice, but border patrol says thats not what happens and may times, criminals walk free. ICE protesters using homemade spike strips to stop feds from taking away illegals. One protestor attacked a fed during an arrest. Mayor Bass shooting off her mouth again.

Château de Brézé isn't just a castle – it's a medieval survival masterpiece hiding 3 kilometers of underground tunnels, rooms, and an entire troglodyte city carved into limestone. While most châteaux had cellars, Brézé went full underground with bakeries, stables, silk farms, and escape routes dating back to the 11th century. French Château Hides an Underground City - 3km of Secret Tunnels | Château de Brézé | 12:07 Saving Castles | 27.4K subscribers | 3,143 views | July 13, 2025 Chapters: 00:00 - The Castle With a Secret 02:30 - Inside the Grand Salons 05:45 - Descending Into the Underground...

SACRAMENTO, CA — A piece of the Golden State's heritage was lost today, as the iconic grizzly bear that had adorned the California state flag announced that he had officially moved to Texas. Monarch, the revered bear that has represented the state on its flag since it was officially adopted in 1911, revealed that he was leaving California for the Lone Star State after giving up hope that things at home would ever improve. "I want to live in a state where my bear family has a better future," he said. "California has perfect weather and amazing food options, but...

The controversy surrounding Joe Biden’s last-minute “autopen” pardons is heating up fast and furious style. What began as little whispers here and there about his mental decline and shady late-night decisions has exploded into a full-blown scandal, with evidence now piling up that reveals an autopen was used to issue sweeping pardons for high-profile political figures like Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, and the J6 Committee. These “preemptive pardons” raised a lot of eyebrows from the start. They were issued in the dead of night, under a cloud of suspicion, and signed not by Biden himself but by a machine....

Several parents sued Character.ai last year, alleging its chatbots abused their children. One Florida mother wants to hold the company liable for her 14-year-old son’s suicide. Megan Garcia argued in October 2024 court filings that the company wrongly marketed the app as safe for children—while harboring characters that led her son into hypersexualized role-play, encouraged him to spend all his time chatting with them, and talked with him about suicide. A Character.ai bot asked the teen to “come home” to her seconds before his death.STRANGE HUMAN-LIKE RELATIONSHIPS are just one of many ethical concerns posed by generative AI. The technology...

An Oklahoma farmer was attacked and killed by two water buffaloes he had just bought the day before. Brad McMichael, 45, died Friday when he was attacked at his farm in the small town of Jones, around 15 miles northeast of downtown Oklahoma City, by the animals he had just bought at auction, his family said. “He loved his livestock and as tragic as this, as he died doing something that he loved,” his girlfriend, Jennifer Green, told KOCO. McMichael was an experienced handler of exotic animals, and saw the water buffaloes as “an opportunity” for the meat, Green said....

A very irate Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif) strenuously objected to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on the Glass House Farms in Camarillo. saying "this invasion by an uninvited federal agency is wrong in so many ways. First, California is a sanctuary state. We love our immigrants and don't want them taken away. Second, California was once a part of Mexico before it was stolen in 1848. Third, Graham Farrar, the co-founder, president, and board director of Glass House Farms, has donated thousands to Democrats in California. He deserves better treatment. Fourth, this raid forced me to cut my...

Jay Cutler is facing some serious backlash on social media after posing with a Sable antelope he killed on a hunting trip in South Africa. The retired NFL quarterback, best known for his eight seasons with the Bears, posted the photos of himself with the wild animal on Instagram over the weekend. “Kicked off the Africa hunt with a beauty,” Cutler captioned his post. “Sable down.” The comments section lit up the 42-year-old Cutler, who has spent much of his free time hunting since retiring from the NFL in 2017. “I went to Africa on a safari and saw the...

Gravitational waves from massive black holes challenge current astrophysical models The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration has detected the merger of the most massive black holes ever observed with gravitational waves using the US National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded LIGO observatories. The powerful merger produced a final black hole approximately 225 times the mass of our Sun. The signal, designated GW231123, was detected during the fourth observing run of the LVK network on November 23, 2023. LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, made history in 2015 when it made the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves, ripples in space-time. In that case, the...

A mysterious fever gripped the nation in 2020. Some called it mass formation psychosis. Others called it hysteria. It was a result of three distinct events, as well as institutional responses designed to exploit existing societal tensions. Those three events were the Covid-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd, and the impending re-election of Donald Trump. So much of what we were told by the authorities and the experts at that time has now been debunked. But those who work in academia know that, as crazy as life was out in the “real world,” it was even crazier in the...

President Trump announced Monday the US will send “billions of dollars” worth of weapons to Ukraine via Washington’s NATO allies — and threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Moscow in 50 days if no peace is struck to end the 40-month-old war. During his press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the President mentioned that when he would tell his wife about his positive calls with Vladimir Putin, she would react skeptically. "I go home, I tell the first lady, you know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation." She said, "Oh, really? another city was...

For nearly a year, 29-year-old Yessica Arrua was living like a high-earning veterinarian despite working as a receptionist at a Florida horse clinic. Thanks to a payroll mix-up, Arrua, who is originally from Argentina, allegedly pocketed more than $400,000 of another employee’s salary between February 2022 and January 2023, according to the Daily Mail. During this time, Arrua’s paychecks were nearly seven times her actual salary, according to a police report from the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office. The error went unnoticed until the Palm Beach Equine Clinic’s CFO discovered the issue and flagged it with their payroll provider, Harbor America....

The U.S. government posted a surplus in June as tariffs gave an extra bump to a sharp increase in receipts, the Treasury Department said Friday. With government red ink swelling throughout the year, last month saw a surplus of just over $27 billion, following a $316 billion deficit in May. That brought the fiscal year-to-date deficit to $1.34 trillion, up 5% from a year ago. However, with calendar adjustment, the deficit actually edged lower by 1%. There are three months left in the current fiscal year. A 13% increase in receipts from the same month a year ago helped bridge...