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Msgr. Charles Pope • Community in Mission The Second Sunday of Advent usually features the Ministry of St. John the Baptist. He was the Prophet who fulfilled the Office of Elijah of whom it was said: See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction (Mal 4:4-6). Therefore St. John is a prophet who prepared the people of...

As you walk down a particular hallway on the seventh floor of the Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C., you'll find a line of photographic portraits of all the people from years past who have led the Public Health Corps at the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Only one of those portraits is of a transgender person: Adm. Rachel Levine, who served for four years as President Biden's assistant secretary for health. She was the first transgender person to win Senate confirmation, and her portrait has been displayed in the hallway since soon after she was confirmed in 2021....

In October 2021, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that his social media empire was officially rebranding itself as “Meta” as part of a sweeping company-wide doubling down on virtual reality tech.The head-scratching pivot has been nothing short of a disaster ever since, from blocky “Horizon Worlds” online environments filled with screeching children to never-ending rounds of layoffs and exorbitant losses.All told, the company has lost more than $70 billion since the beginning of 2021 on its enormous long-term VR bet, a staggering sum that has left investors itchy and unimpressed as Zuckerberg has failed to convince the public of the...

Specifically, income producing property? If one has rental units that sold, does that person pay a higher Medicare premium for a year? Any adverse consequence other than a capital gain tax?

By Dr, John BergsmaEvery year on this, the Second Sunday of Advent and thus the second Sunday of the new liturgical year, the brash and burly figure of the Baptist bursts onto the liturgical stage, bellowing his characteristic charge, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” As we know, the First Sunday of Advent is always given to reflection on the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world whereas the Second and Third Sundays always focuses on John the Baptist, one of the most pivotal yet underappreciated figures in salvation history. In the context of...

“I think that’s a hard line for me now"Hayley Williams has declared that racist, sexist and anti-trans people are “not welcome” at her upcoming solo tour. Read More: Hayley Williams’ surprise 17-song release is a bold choose-your-own-adventure through hope and heartache The Paramore frontwoman announced a run of dates earlier this month, and within days she extended the tour due to “overwhelming demand”. The shows kick off in Atlanta on March 27 and include dates in London, Manchester, Glasgow and Dublin in June. See all the info here and find any remaining tickets here. Now, she has given an interview...

Gary Ridgway, one of the country’s most notorious serial killers, is reportedly dying in a Washington prison. Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, is now 76 years old and is receiving end-of-life care in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, according to several sources with “knowledge of his condition” who spoke with Washington-based radio station KIRO. He’s been in prison since 2003, when he pleaded guilty to killing 48 women in the ’80s and ’90s. Ridgway has maintained over the decades that he is responsible for killing somewhere between 75 and 80 women during his reign of terror....

I was subpoenaed before the grand jury in the Adam Schiff case. That investigation is still open. When I showed up in Maryland, the DOJ made a very deliberate choice: pull me out of the grand jury room, question me privately, and tell me I would be called back later. And here is the red flag. They did not ask about a single detail of the evidence against Adam Schiff. Not one. They were focused on the "investigators", not the crimes. That is the strange behavior we are now seeing with Letitia James. And here is the part that should...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has approved Boeing’s long-planned acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems two decades after it was spun off, according to The Seattle Times. The decision was issued on Wednesday and allows the $4.7 billion all-stock merger to proceed under conditions designed to preserve competition in both the commercial and defense aviation sectors. In a July 2024 news release, Boeing emphasized that the transaction is intended to improve manufacturing consistency and support the company’s engineering workforce. Boeing’s total assumption of Spirit’s debt brings the transaction value to about $8.3 billion. In its complaint released earlier this month, the FTC...

A grandfather and his 3-month-old granddaughter were found dead in their Tennessee home — apparently mauled to death by the family’s pack of pit bulls that were known to terrorize the neighborhood. The lifeless body of James Alexander Smith, 50, was found inside the Tullahoma home Wednesday afternoon while the tiny tot was still being attacked by their 7 dogs, all of which police had to gun down to reach the bloodied victims, according to the 14th Judicial District Attorney General. The infant had tragically died by the time cops fought their way to her. Authorities are now investigating whether...

The numbers out of Minnesota are staggering: Three separate plots to bilk welfare programs. Fifty-nine federal convictions. More than $1 billion stolen from taxpayers. Of 86 people charged so far, all but eight are of Somali descent. The scandal has seized headlines and put Gov. Tim Walz, seeking a third term, on the defensive. It’s huge, brazen and entangled with the seamy politics of migration and assimilation. President Trump has weighed in with characteristic subtlety: “We don’t want them in our country,” he said of Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar and “her friends” during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting. “Let them go back...

Free days at the U.S. National Parks have been changed to no longer include Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, just weeks after the Trump administration announced it would be raising fees for visitors who are not American citizens or permanent residents. June 14, which is both Flag Day and President Trump's birthday, will be included, according to a list shared by the NPS. Previously, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth were deemed fee-free days by the Biden administration. Most of the free days are patriotic in nature, including Presidents' Day (February 16), Memorial Day (May 25), Independence...

Pope Leo just wrapped his tour of oppressed Christian communities in Islamist dominated nations like Turkey and Lebanon. Rather than directly address the persecution of Christians, he praised the local regimes, met with Muslim leaders, took off his shoes at a mosque and took refuge in vague generalities. In Lebanon, Pope Leo offered no direct criticism of Hezbollah or Islam. He visited and prayed at the Port of Beirut, where a Hezbollah weapons explosion killed over 200 people, many of them Christians, and the blast damaged churches and devastated families. Pope Leo avoided placing blame, claiming instead that it’s natural...

A total of 32 individuals who were working with Boeing had complained to regulatory authorities that there had been retaliations against those who raised safety concerns against the company. Two of them have died recently. Joshua Dean, who was a quality auditor for Spirit AeroSystems, a supplier of Boeing, passed away. Despite his healthy lifestyle, Dean went to a hospital a couple of weeks before his death as he was having trouble breathing…He developed pneumonia and a bacterial infection. Dean had complained to the FAA on “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line…” Before...

Explanation: What electrifies the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula on the left, catalogued as IC 1805, looks somewhat like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element, hydrogen, but this long-exposure image was also blended with light emitted by sulfur (yellow) and oxygen (blue). In the center of the Heart Nebula are young stars from the open star cluster Melotte 15 that are eroding away several picturesque dust pillars with their atom-exciting energetic light and winds. The Heart Nebula is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation of...

The reason is that free speech on X, particularly around mass migration, has exposed Europe’s civilizational suicide. Today, the European Commission fined Elon Musk’s X €140 million for, it says, breaking laws requiring social media transparency. Specifically, said the Commission, which is the executive branch of the European Union, X broke the law by making its blue checkmarks available to anyone, failing to make its advertising repository transparent, and failing to provide researchers with special access to its data. “Today’s decision has nothing to do with content moderation,” insisted the Commission’s spokesperson. In truth, the Commission’s fine has everything to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — After the arrest of a man charged with placing two pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national parties on Jan. 5, 2021, the warning from the Trump administration was clear: If you come to the nation’s capital to attack citizens and institutions of democracy, you will be held accountable. Yet Justice Department leaders who announced the arrest were silent about the violence that had taken place when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol and clashed with police one day after those bombs were discovered. It was the latest example of the...

Sir Keir Starmer will host Volodymyr Zelensky at Downing Street on Monday in a hastily arranged summit on the progress of peace talks. The Prime Minister will be joined in London by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor. The trio of European leaders are attempting to ensure Ukraine is not “betrayed” during the US-led peace process with Russia, a possibility Mr Macron alluded to in a leaked phone call earlier this week. The meeting comes as top Ukrainian officials have been holding talks in Miami with Mr Trump’s chief envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner....

The balloons, which in some cases are reported to have weighed up to 50–60 kilograms and can fly just over a mile, have repeatedly forced the airport in the capital Vilnius to close during the autumn. Lithuania claims that the balloons are deliberately sent to disrupt Lithuanian airspace and thus constitute an attack on civil aviation, and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen threatened this week to target Belarus with sanctions after what she calls “hybrid attacks.” At the end of October, Lithuania closed the border with Belarus. Ruginiene said at the time that intruding balloons would be shot down....

Pickup truck enthusiasts rejoiced this week after President Donald Trump moved to roll back auto regulations, paving the way for smaller, cheaper cars and trucks, including the storied Toyota Hilux Champ.“We’re officially terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome, horrible actually, CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards that impose expensive restrictions and all sorts of problems,” Trump said at an Oval Office press conference Wednesday. Addressing the ease of restrictions, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy affirmed, “He gave me the directive to clear the regulations on this, which we have, and so if Toyota or any other company wants to make smaller, more...