1. National Catholic Register: Catholic Nun Begs Police Not to Shoot Protesters During Burma Unrest
The nun and other witnesses said that at least two protesters were killed and several injured in clashes with police.
The religious sister tried to bring some of the victims to a clinic she runs in the town but was blinded by tear gas.
“Our clinic floor became a sea of blood,” she said. “We need to value life. It made me feel so sad.”
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3. Washington Examiner: Cuomo created disabled group home deathtraps, whistleblower says
Some 552 developmentally disabled individuals died from COVID-19 in the past year living in small residential group homes, while an additional 6,382 residents and workers were infected, according to the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. No comprehensive protocol existed to combat the disease as infected individuals were purposely mixed with clean households, said care worker Jeff Monsour.
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These recent infections were discovered with COVID-19 tests done at the residence. When they came back positive, the facility was locked down with the infected residents remaining inside. The sick mingled with the healthy as residents used the same restroom and ate in the kitchen because of a monitoring standard against choking, Monsour said. His recollections are similar to the statements of another whistleblower who talked to CBS6 last year.
4. Rachael Larimore: Schooling in the Time of COVID
In major urban and suburban districts around the country, teachers unions have resisted attempts to return to school, and some blue-state governors have issued guidance making reopening schools full time all but impossible. But while those polarizing fights garnered headlines, administrators and education leaders elsewhere plunged ahead, using creativity and flexibility to welcome students back to school—safely. As vaccination campaigns and dwindling case numbers make a return to school more likely for those who have been home all year, it’s worth looking at how these districts have succeeded.
5. Shadi Hamid: America Without God
No wonder the newly ascendant American ideologies, having to fill the vacuum where religion once was, are so divisive. They are meant to be divisive. On the left, the “woke” take religious notions such as original sin, atonement, ritual, and excommunication and repurpose them for secular ends. Adherents of wokeism see themselves as challenging the long-dominant narrative that emphasized the exceptionalism of the nation’s founding. Whereas religion sees the promised land as being above, in God’s kingdom, the utopian left sees it as being ahead, in the realization of a just society here on Earth. After Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September, droves of mourners gathered outside the Supreme Court—some kneeling, some holding candles—as though they were at the Western Wall.
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Though the United States wasn’t founded as a Christian nation, Christianity was always intertwined with America’s self-definition. Without it, Americans—conservatives and liberals alike—no longer have a common culture upon which to fall back.
6. ISIS’s Worst Nightmare: The Daughters of Kobani
In 2014, The Islamic State had swept across much of Syria, overtaking cities and spreading terror as civil war raged all around it. As ISIS approached a town called Kobani, a group of Kurdish female fighters, armed with AK-47s and a lot of courage, were determined not to let ISIS take their town, homes, or their families. And although they had braided hair and painted fingernails, when it came to fighting ISIS they were as fierce as any male army.
“And they weren’t just fighting ISIS, they were leading in battle, leading men and women in the fight against the extremists of the Islamic State,” said Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of The Daughters of Kobani.
7. Ruth Graham & Elizabeth Dias: Beth Moore, a Prominent Evangelical, Splits With Southern Baptists
. . . Ms. Moore has described the election of 2016 as a turning point. She began speaking out after the “Access Hollywood” tape, released just weeks before the election, captured Mr. Trump bragging about forcing himself on women.
Since then, she has become increasingly outspoken online and has exerted her authority and power in new ways that have challenged the male-dominated culture of evangelicalism.
8. Ben Shapiro: Why Are We Banning Books? Blame Worship of Our Self-Identity
When individual self-creation becomes the chief goal of a society, institutions must be torn down — institutions, after all, foster a set of rules that may not be conducive to individual self-creation.
Informational flow must be dammed — after all, information may allow others to take a different, objectively-based opinion about you than you take subjectively about yourself. Books must be burned — after all, books carry with them implicit messages that may threaten your sense of yourself.
Iconoclasm becomes the order of the day.
9. Americans’ mental health needs grow dramatically amid pandemic
Nationwide, Catholic Charities clinicians report higher numbers of people reaching out for help across all age groups. The trend largely began in late summer, several months into the pandemic’s run. Notably, adolescents, teenagers and young adults are seeking help at higher levels than other age groups.
“It has to do with isolation,” said Amy Shipman, director of counseling at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Children are feeling lonely because they are not interacting as closely with friends and classmates, leading to increased anxiety and more stress, she explained.
“A lot of parents are concerned about the isolation piece, the regression of their child being isolated, staying in their room more, not eating, not sleeping properly,” Shipman said.
10. Ines San Martin: Iraqi refugees pleased with Pope’s visit, but say they still won’t go back
For many of those who fled, the mistrust is hard to shake, and despite the joy they felt from watching the pope visit their town, fear is engraved in their hearts
“I felt goose bumps when I heard the women of my town, Qaraqosh, cheering,” Karmen told Crux. “I wished to be there and be happy with the people of my town and my people whom I love.”
Francis’s visit, she said, was a blessing for a country that has suffered for too many years. She said hopes for peace, safety and reassurance.
“But for us, for my family, we will not return because we lost a lot, got hurt and lost too much of our life . . . if we return to Iraq one day, know that we will return against our will,” she said.
11. Detroit-area Chaldean Catholics call pope’s Iraq trip ‘beautiful to see’
Images of Pope Francis greeting the local Christian populations in Iraq, coupled with media coverage of the often-forgotten Christian communities there, bring a sense of pride and hope to the Chaldean community in Detroit, particularly to those who remember what Iraq was like before it was torn asunder with sectarian violence and terrorism.
“Chaldeans are so excited our pope is in Iraq, visiting our Christian brothers and sisters, many of whom continue to suffer and be persecuted,” said Vanessa Denha-Garmo in an interview during the papal trip.
“Our father abbot jokes that we used to have 15, enough for a rugby team, but now we only have 12—a soccer team plus one reserve,” says Fabrice Bordon, brand ambassador for Chimay, the label for beers and cheese from Scourmont Abbey, in Chimay, Belgium. Chimay, like many of the Trappist breweries, has a staff of laypeople to operate much of the business, although the monks have the final say on big decisions
In 2002, Chris, now aged 47, claimed on-air that he would take the virginity of Charlotte when she reached 16. He was aged 28 when he made the remark.
He told listeners on his afternoon show that he wanted to ‘lead her through the forest of sexuality now that she had reached 16’.
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15. Ellen Mady: What is truth? A lesson on honesty and integrity for children and parents
It is essential for children to learn that it is not acceptable to use wording that, while not directly a lie, intentionally projects a false image. Accustoming themselves to the notion that such a response qualifies as an honest one sets a standard that allows them to deceive those to whom they speak and, ultimately, to deceive themselves. Once we stray from the path of truth, it gets harder and harder to work our way back. Telling the truth simplifies things.
16. 10,000th Victim Comes Forward To Accuse Cuomo Of Inappropriately Killing Her Grandma
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