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Daily Readings from the USCCBJesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” Matthew 13:36Today’s Gospel begins with a subtle yet significant detail: “Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house.” This transition from the public to the private reflects a recurring pattern in the Gospels: Our Lord teaches the crowds in parables, veiling the mysteries of the Kingdom, while reserving their fuller explanation for the disciples in the quiet intimacy of the house. In this context, the house becomes a symbol...

Leading climate scientists who created Greater Manchester’s carbon neutral by 2038 commitment are urging Andy Burnham to unequivocally reject new drilling in the North Sea. In a letter to the prime minister they said he, as mayor of Greater Manchester, had unveiled one of the UK’s most ambitious local climate programmes that tackled housing, green growth and public transport. Reports over the weekend continued to suggest Burnham was set to give the green light to controversial new drilling in the North Sea by approving the Jackdaw and Rosebank oilfields, which were given approval under the Conservatives but put on hold...

President Trump on Monday responded to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for criticizing his plan to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, saying, “Nobody tells me what we should be selling or not.”Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with Trump on Tuesday at the White House during a visit to the United States, where he will also attend the wake for late Senator Lindsey Graham. Trump told reporters that he and Netanyahu are “pretty close” to the same page. “We have a little difference, but pretty close,” Trump said.The Common Kitchen Item Older Women Are Using to Thicken HairDermatologists: The 1...

Blackout fears are growing for 20 million Americans as extreme heat pushes the power grid toward its limits. The US Department of Energy (DOE) on Sunday authorized the operator serving parts of 17 states to activate idle power sources in an effort to keep the lights on. The move allows backup plants that are normally switched off to generate extra electricity if surging demand threatens to overwhelm the grid. The emergency order covers Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri and Montana. It also includes Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The move...

California is taking the Trump administration to court a third time over its attempts to tie crucial emergency preparedness funding to the president’s preferences on immigration enforcement and election administration. In a coalition with 24 Democratic-led states, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit over new conditions on U.S. Department of Homeland Security grants. Most of these new rules relate to elections, including mandating states to employ a federal system to verify the citizenship of all their voters; using hand-marked paper voting ballots; and carrying out post-election audits, according to the lawsuit in Rhode Island’s federal court. The conditions also...

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a 27-year-old Ecuadorian woman as she prepared to board a flight from Denver to Oakland on July 20, according to ICE and a friend who witnessed the arrest. Chantal Morales Rojas had been living in Oakland and was returning from a visit to Denver with her former host family, according to Bay Area resident Alycia Dantzker. Dantzker said Rojas previously worked for the family as an au pair when they lived in Santa Cruz County. The family has since moved to Denver. Dantzker said she has known Rojas for three...

James Talarico, the radical Democrat nominee for the U.S. Senate race in Texas, once credited Islamic teachings and authors as an inspiration for his Christian faith. 🚨UNEARTHEDJames Talarico — who said he "hates Christianity" — praised Islam for inspiring his religious beliefs:"I’ve learned as much about my faith from Salman’s tradition, from the Islamic mystics, from poets like Rumi, as much as I have from Christian authors..." pic.twitter.com/2UeksY9Hko— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 27, 2026“I’ve learned as much about my faith from Salman’s tradition, from the Islamic mystics, from poets like Rumi, as much as I have from Christian authors,” Talarico...

Nearly 150,000 California voters had their mail-in ballots rejected for the state’s June primary, a spike from recent elections even as the state attempts to make voting easier with the goal of boosting participation and counting every ballot. California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years that were intended to increase turnout but have done little to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still...

In Nolan's new adaptation of the Odyssey, Homer's epic poem about Odysseus's struggle to return to his kingdom in Ithaca after the Trojan War, the "People of the Sea" hang over the plot like a dark cloud -- a rumor of coming destroyers and harbingers of a dark age mentioned by multiple characters along the way... Let's clear up one thing first: No ancient text refers to this group by the name "Sea Peoples." This is a scholarly term popularized by the 18th-century Egyptologist Gaston Maspero to refer to a collection of groups that threatened New Kingdom Egypt... It was...

Semiconductor capital equipment stocks took a brutal U-turn on Monday. Heading into the opening bell, the sector was riding a pre-market high. The optimism was fueled by easing geopolitical tensions in Iran and a blockbuster Wall Street Journal report revealing that Nvidia is in talks to guarantee a massive $250 billion in financing for an OpenAI data center project. But that AI-driven euphoria evaporated instantly. ASML erased early gains of over 2%—and dragged U.S. peers Applied Materials (AMAT), Lam Research (LRCX), and KLA Corp (KLAC) down with it—following a breaking report by The Information. According to the report, a Shanghai-based,...

Another church is preparing to disappear from the American landscape. Not because it was burned by an angry mob. Not because Christians were driven out by soldiers. Not because the government outlawed the Gospel. The former Richfield Christian Reformed Church in Clifton, New Jersey, was purchased by the Islamic Center of Passaic County. Now plans call for the existing building to be demolished and replaced with a mosque measuring approximately 40,000 square feet--more than six times the size of the current structure. The cross has already given way to the crescent. Soon the former church itself may be gone. It...

Christopher Nolan cited Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of “The Odyssey” as an influence on his own interpretation of Homer’s epic poem while on the press tour for his latest blockbuster. Wilson is not returning the favor. In a negative review of Nolan’s “The Odyssey” for the London Review of Books (via The Guardian), Wilson criticized Nolan’s adaptation for lacking “psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth.” The author, who is also a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, added that Nolan’s “The Odyssey” has “nothing convincing to say.” “I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity with these Homeric themes...

Concern is growing in Irish universities over a high rate of refusal of study visas to students in Gaza who are due to take up college scholarships in Ireland this September. RTÉ News understands that upwards of 20 Gazan students, who have all been accepted onto fully funded scholarships for third-level courses, have had their visa applications turned down by Irish immigration authorities. Others are awaiting outcomes. Sources within the universities say the refusal rate this year is in marked contrast to last year, when more than 80 Gazan students were granted visas and left Gaza in an evacuation organized...

🚨 JUST IN: Ugandan Mayor Mamdani is facing outrage for PUBLICLY POSTING a SEARCHABLE database of "wealthy" property owners in NYC "The city just posted a searchable list of every homeowner on the hook for his new tax. Names, addresses, 30,000 of them." 🤯 "A socialist mayor handing out a rolodex of the rich in a city that just watched a CEO get gunned down on a sidewalk. Sounds like a HIT LIST." This communist wants more violence, MAKE NO MISTAKE.

Each year, millions more graduates are thrust into China’s already saturated jobs market. The situation for this year’s cohort, flooding into an increasingly crowded pool of applicants fighting for an insufficient number of positions, is arguably the bleakest yet. The competition is intense, especially for jobs that offer weekends off and proper social insurance With more than 10 million Chinese students graduating each year since 2022, a figure that is only growing, it is the scale of the situation that is an exacerbating factor, with authorities tasked with finding meaningful work for the equivalent of a medium-sized European nation each...

Restaurant chain Cracker Barrel announced Monday that its current chief executive officer, Julie Masino, will step down as CEO and board member, effective Aug. 10. Cracker Barrel shared the news in a press release announcing David Deno as the company's new CEO and board member, effective the same date. According to the release, Masino will remain with the company until Oct. 9 "in an advisory capacity." Deno previously served as the CEO of Bloomin' Brands, the company behind Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and more. "Cracker Barrel is a truly iconic American brand, defined by its unique combination...

ringleader in Minnesota’s massive Feeding Our Future scandal has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to purchase a not-guilty verdict with a staggering $120,000 cash bribe. Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 37, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud for his role in the brazen plot to bribe a federal juror during his 2024 fraud trial, the Justice Department announced Friday. Farah had already been sentenced to 28 years in prison for helping steal tens of millions of dollars from a taxpayer-funded program intended to feed needy children during the COVID pandemic. But stealing from hungry...

Amid Cuba’s months-long fuel and electricity crisis, one of the island’s most iconic exports is feeling the pinch: cigars. Retailers say the industry is facing one of the worst supply squeeze in history as blackouts, fuel shortages and shipping disruptions make it nearly impossible to produce luxury cigars and get them off the island in the temperature controlled conditions they require. “I’ve been telling clients, ‘Listen, it’s been months since I can get them,’” said Manu Harit, a London-based cigar specialist whose business is almost entirely built on Cuban cigars. Over the last year, he said, orders have been filled...

I went into Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey expecting a cinematic event. Instead, I saw one of the worst movies ever made. I made it to the 90-minute mark before walking out, but I really should have bailed a half-hour in. We have been utterly bamboozled. As someone who appreciates a script that actually works, I can tell you this screenplay is nonsensical. Combine that with unwatchable lighting and completely incomprehensible audio, and the whole production just falls apart on screen. Matt Damon is completely miscast and entirely too soft to play Odysseus. Honestly, the campy old Steve Reeves movies or Sinbad...

[Catholic Caucus] Lawyer for Rupnik’s alleged abuse victims decries ‘total secrecy’ of trialA lawyer representing five accusers of disgraced Fr. Marko Rupnik said that the women have ‘not been summoned’ and don’t even know the names of the judges in the trial.A lawyer representing five of the women who have accused Father Marko Ivan Rupnik of physical and psychological abuse has decried the proceedings of his trial for neglecting the “minimum” needed for “justice.”Reports emerged earlier this month from MessainLatino and AdVaticanum that Rupnik was acquitted in his Vatican canonical criminal trial of all charges of “violence” related to his...