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[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Strickland confronts US bishops on their silence over trafficked childrenBishop Joseph Strickland exhorted not only the bishops but lay Catholics to confront their own complacency over the children being trafficked in the U.S.Bishop Joseph Strickland confronted U.S. bishops about their silence over children trafficked upon crossing the border illegally.During a Catholics for Catholics award ceremony for U.S. border czar Tom Homan in honor of his work saving over 62,000 children from human trafficking, Strickland highlighted the approximately 250,000 children still lost from border crossings under Joe Biden’s administration. The bishop stressed that if the unborn are not...

Most in the GOP are silent or backing the Trump administration, but a conspicuous few are speaking out. A small but growing number of Republicans are raising public concerns about the killing Saturday of a 37-year-old Minnesota man by federal agents.Hours after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street, one House GOP chair called for the top ICE leader and other Trump administration officials to publicly answer lawmakers’ questions. GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina called for independent probes into the shooting, with Cassidy arguing the integrity...

Gold is now officially above $5000. High thus far is $5028.40. Silver continues above $100. High thus far is $106.58

I am good at this sort of thing.

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[Catholic Caucus] TLM Sunday 2026: "Introibo ad altare Dei"The author preparing to offer private Mass during the snow and ice storm of January 25, 2026.The priest when he is alone, with angels and saints surrounding and united with him, to pray the Mass will naturally choose that worship which he holds most dear in this age commonly described as one of options, if nothing else. And the option of the Tradition, as Pope Benedict made so clear in Summorum Pontificum, remains as sacred today for all of us it was for the Catholics of the two millennia that preceded our...

Andy Burnham has said he is "disappointed" after being blocked from standing as a candidate for the upcoming parliamentary by-election in Gorton and Denton by Labour's ruling body. As a directly elected mayor, Burnham had to get approval from Labour's national executive committee (NEC), after he applied to be a candidate on Saturday. But Labour said the party had decided to deny him permission to stand to "avoid an unnecessary mayoral election, which would use substantial amounts of taxpayers' money and resources". Burnham, a former minister, is widely seen as a potential leadership challenger to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer...

“Barack Obama has made a rare political statement to condemn Donald Trump's administration over the fatal shootings of two US citizens by immigration officers in Minnesota. 'The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy,' the former president wrote on X in the wake of the most recent horror on Sunday. 'It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.'”

Why do we suffer? It's complicated. It amounts to some issues about the nature of generosity and gratitude. A first principle is that you should never do for others what they can do for themselves, because they will be ungrateful and, moreover, despise the gifts given to them. Then the ingrates will criticize you and, ultimately, turn on you, and maybe even attack you. Why do we never get an answer, when we're knocking at the door, With a thousand million questions, about hate and death and war?, 'Cause when we stop and look around us, there is nothing that...

Beet juice is being used across West Virginia, including Cabell County, to pretreat roads ahead of icy weather conditions. It’s a fairly new practice, and the state Division of Highways, which is under the Department of Transportation, started using the substance on an experimental basis last winter. While salt brine is effective at melting ice at temperatures in the 15- to 20-degree range, salt brine blended with beet juice can be effective at near-zero temperatures, according to state Highway Engineer Jacob Bumgarner. “It’s not a magic pill,” Bumgarner said. “But it’s another tool in our toolbox.” District garages across the...

Over the past 5,000 years, East Africa has dried out. Now, new research finds that this change may be making the continent pull apart faster. Faults in the East African Rift Zone have sped up since the levels of large lakes have dropped, according to research published in November in the journal Scientific Reports. The findings highlight the two-way relationship between the climate and plate tectonics, said study senior author Christopher Scholz, a geologist, physicist and professor emeritus at Columbia University.

The Pentagon on Friday night released a long-awaited strategy that prioritizes the U.S. homeland and Western Hemisphere — a stunning reversal from previous administrations that aligns with President Donald Trump’s military strikes in Venezuela and efforts to acquire Greenland. The National Defense Strategy — a dramatic shift from even the first Trump administration — no longer focuses primarily on countering China. Instead, it blames past administrations for ignoring American interests and jeopardizing the U.S. military’s access to the Panama Canal and Greenland. The strategy calls for attention to the “practical interests” of the U.S. public and an abandonment of “grandiose...

Two years ago, Zakia Khan and her son Ahsan Ijaz hosted an NYPD promotion ceremony for the first Pakistani inspector in the New York City police department. After an Imam recited a prayer and everyone, including NYPD personnel, rose and put their hands on their hearts for the Pakistani national anthem, hailing Pakistan as the ‘citadel of Islam’ in the “shadow of Allah.” Last year, Khan pleaded guilty to a $68 million Medicaid fraud scheme involving her adult day care centers, which had been the sponsors of the NYPD event, and earlier this year more members of the Muslim fraud...

Former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya has filed paperwork to run for Minnesota’s Senate seat in the 2026 election, joining a crowded field of Republican hopefuls in the 2026 election. Tafoya, 61, a resident of the Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth, has been eyed as a possible candidate by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and met with the Senate Leadership Fund and other stakeholders in Washington, DC, in December, The Post previously reported. She has not publicly addressed the “Tafoya for Senate” campaign since it was filed with the FEC on Tuesday. The four-time Emmy Award-winning sports journalist is entering the...

These tragedies happen due to bad choices made by local politicians with propaganda and incitement, and those who physically and violently interfere with law enforcement.

When Renee Good drove her car into an ICE agent earlier this month, the left tried to gaslight us into believing she was just some innocent bystander who was just at the wrong place, that she’d just dropped her son off at school and wasn’t supposed to be there. That narrative fell apart fast. Good, we soon learned, was a trained anti-ICE agitator who was absolutely there to obstruct law enforcement. Now we're watching the same playbook unfold with 37-year-old Alex Pretti, the armed agitator shot dead by Border Patrol agents on Saturday in Minneapolis while confronting agents. The talking...

...the United States Military and Secret Service. This is a GIFT (ZERO taxpayer funding!) to the United States of America, of 300 to 400 Million Dollars (depending on the scope and quality of interior finishes!), for a desperately needed space, sought for over 150 years by previous Presidents and Administrations, so that the White House would no longer be forced to use a cheap and unsafe “tent,” for big and important STATE EVENTS, Dinners, Meetings, Conferences, and already scheduled future INAUGURATIONS (for safety, security, and capacity purposes!), on a very wet, and subject to weather, White House lawn. Making such...

More than 36,500 killed in deadliest two days in Iran protest crackdown: report. More than 36,500 Iranians were allegedly killed during a brutal, two-day crackdown against anti-regime protesters, the deadliest in the history of the Islamic Republic, according to a new report. The latest estimates paint a horrific image of the violence that fell across Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 when Tehran’s security forces opened fire on thousands of civilians protesting the government’s rule and failure to fix the nation’s ailing economy. Despite downplaying the death toll in recent weeks, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ own records allegedly acknowledge...

Steep terrain has turned elevation into a fact of everyday life in Chongqing. Beyond the viral images of its dizzying cityscape, CNA traces a quieter human story of adaptation, loss and resilience across generations.SNIP The sprawling metropolis in southwest China is dubbed an "8D city" - an exaggeration of 3D - for its maze-like streets and viral visuals of roads stacked atop buildings. Mountains account for 76 per cent of Chongqing’s land areas, followed by hills at 22 per cent, and flat land at just 2 per cent, according to academic reports. SNIP "When you enter a building from the...

These days, Republicans are pursuing a seamless garment of big government, from police-state immigration tactics to their interventionist economic policies. With both parties now hostile to limited government, Americans can only expect civic life to get worse rather than better.