Representatives of a group of nations working together to investigate war crimes in Russia's invasion of Ukraine are meeting in The Hague amid ongoing calls for those responsible for atrocities to be brought to justice, the Newsmax website reports today (May 31, 2022).
Today's meeting at the European Union's judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, comes as Russian forces continue to pound Ukrainian towns.
Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has been widely condemned as an illegal act of aggression.
A top Texas official said police responding to a gunman at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex.made the terrible choice not to pursue him into a classroom where students were trapped, some officers even waiting outside in a hallway while panicked children inside repeatedly called 911 pleading for help, the Washington Post website reports today (May 29, 2022).
The commander of the law enforcement response during the May 24 maassacre at Robb Elementary Scdhool had incorectly determined that the giunman was no longer an active shooter and that no more children were at risk, said Steven . McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
"It was the wrong decision," McCraw said . "Period."
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Uvalde, Texas on Sunday (May 29) to console families and honor victims of Tuesday's mass school shooting in which 19 children and two teachers were killed, the Newsy website reports today (May 28, 2022).
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president would meet with the community and religious leaders and victims' families.
Jean-Pierre, the parent of an elementary school student, delivered an impassioned plea at the White House for lawmakers to come together to address gun violence. "These were elementary school kids; they should be losing their first teeth, not losing their lives," she said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said today (May 27, 2022) that the West will fail in its attempts to isolate Russia and face growing economic problems, according to the Euro News website.
Speaking via video link to members of the Eurasian Economic Forum, Putin said Russia wasn't going to shut itself off from international cooperation.
He added that trying to isolate Russia is "impossible, utterly unrealistic in the modern world," and "those who try to do it primarily hurt themselves."
Speaking about the need to welcome and integrate migrants when they arrive in a new country, Pope Francis said that when it comes to the U.S., "a people of migrants," the Irish brought the whiskey and the Italians brought the mafia, the Crux website reports today (May 26, 2022).
To understand migrants today, the pope said, the only thing most people have to do is look to their own roots because "most of us are children or grandchildren of migrants."
The pope's remarks came yesterday as he spoke in a private audience with members of the International Solidarity Fund, a unique alliance catalyzing partnership for the most vulnerable across the private sector.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said today (May 25, 2022) that schools should train employees in defense skills to help thwart mass shooting attempts, according to the Newsmax website.
Paxton spoke a day after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
"Look, we just spent $40 billion on Ukraine to help protect another nation," Paxton said. "It seems like the least we could do is to fund a police officer or at least a program...."
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) released a 288-page report on May 22 that outlined two decades of "resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility" toward people who came forward with allegations of sexual abuse in the largest U. S. Protestant denomination, the Yahoo News website reports today (May 24, 2022).
The report was compiled by Guidepost Solutions, an independent organization contracted by the SBC's executive committee.
The seven-month investigation found that a few executive committee leaders and the SBC's law firm "largely controlled the executive committee's response to these reports of abuse."
President Biden says "everybody should be concerned" about the recent monkeypox outbreak, the Need 2 Know website reports today (May 23, 2022).
"It is a concern in that if it were to spread, it would be consequential," the president said in his first comments on the disease.
So far, there have been 80 confirmed cases worldwide, including at least two in the U.S.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco has formally barred House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from receiving Holy Communion "until such time as you publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance," the National Catholic Register website reports today (May 22, 2022).
His decision was communicated not only with a direct letter to Speaker Pelosi, who resides in the archdiocese, but also in separate correspondence to the priests and laity of San Francisco.
Having discussed the matter with Speaker Pelosi several times, Archbishop Cordileone concluded that "there is nothing more that can be done at this point to help the Speaker understand the seriousness of the evil her advocacy for abortion is perpetrating and the scandal she is causing."
Nearly all abortions will now be illegal in Oklahoma, under a bill passed by the Oklahoma Legislature on May 18, the New American website reports today (May 21, 2022).
Called the most restrictive abortion ban of any state, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt is expected to quickly sign the bill, as he has signed every pro-life bill that has come to him since his election in 2018.
Oklahoma's law, after it is signed by the governor, bans abortion from the moment of fertilization -- the moment when the sperm unites with the egg.
U2 frontman Bono and Pope Francis were in harmony about their concern for the planet and the power of women when they met yesterday in Rome, the Reuters website reports today (May 20, 2022).
Bono, 62, and the 85-year-old pope shared star billing at an event organized by Scholas Occurrentes, a worldwide network of schools that promotes virtual and in-person encounters and aims to boost educational opportunities.
"Women know more about harmony than men," said the pope, when asked by Bono if women play the same role as men in tackling the climate crisis.
The U.S. economy could be heading for a recession in the next year, according to growing warnings from banks and economists, as a sudden bout of pessimism hammers financial markets, the Washington Post website reports today (May 19, 2022).
Although major swaths of the economy -- including the job market and consumer spending -- remain robust, there are mounting worries that rising borrowing costs for consumers and businesses , after years of near-zero interest rates, could cause a sudden retrenchment.
Continued uncertainty from the coronavirus pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine are adding to the uneasiness.
President Biden today (May 18,2022) invoked the Defense Production Act to address a nationwide shortage in baby formula, marking a major attempt to ramp up domestic production rapidly as parents are scrambling and store shelves are running empty, according to the Washington Post website.
The White House said the directive requires the suppliers of key formula ingredients to prioritize the delivery of those resources to formula manufacturers, adding that it would simultaneously launch a new operation to ensure faster flights of imports using Defense Department air cargo contacts.
The two moves reflected the magnitude of the shortage, which has some parents driving for miles on end to locate formula, including specialty products that are critical to infants' health.
Road deaths soared more than 10 percent last year compared to a year earlier, reaching 42,915, according to estimates released today (May 17, 2022) by federal transportation officials, the Washington Post website reports.
It was the highest number of fatalities nationwide since 2005.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also reported that it was the largest annual percentage increase in the history of its Fatality Analysis Reporting System which began in 1975.
Sweden today (May16, 2022) decided to join neighboring Finland in seeking NATO membership, ending more than two centuries of military nonalignment in a historic shift prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to the AP website.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Anderson warned that the Nordic country would be in a "vulnerable position" during the application period and urged her fellow citizens to brace themselves for a Russian response.
"Russia has said that it will take countermeasures if we join NATO," she stated.
The British military intelligence said today (May 15, 2022) that Russia has probably lost around a third of the ground forces it deployed to Ukraine and its offensive in the Donbas region "has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule," according to the Newsmax website.
"Russia has likely suffered losses of one-third of the ground combat forces it committed in February."
It said Russia was unlikely to accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days,
A new study publisheed in the American Sociological Review, finds that girls with a Jewish upbringing are 23% more likely to graduate college than girls with a Christian upbringing, the Religion News website reports today (May 14, 2022).
The Jewish girls, the study found, have ambitious career goals and prioritize their professional success over marriage and motherhood.
The girls in the study were all reared in liberal Jewish movements that make up the vast majority of American Jewish life; none was Jewish Orthodox.
A Ukrainian official, citing discovered documents, said Russian President Vladimir Putin intended to seize all of Ukraine after beginning his invasion, the Newsmax website reports today (May 13, 2022).
The director of Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation -- basing his assertions on documents left behind by fleeing Russian soldiers -- used the Telegram to convey the message.
"Found were important documents of soldiers of the Russian Federation's Armed Forces that give a clear understanding that Russia was preparing to seize all the territory of Ukraine," Oleksiy Sukhachev said in the statement.
President Joe Biden will appeal for a renewed international commitment to attacking COVID-19 as he convenes a second virtual summit on the pandemic and marks one million deaths in the U.S., the Yahoo News website reports today (May 12, 2022).
"As a nation, we must not grow numb to such sorrow,"President Biden said in a statement today.
"To heal, we must remember. We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible."
The U.S. believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for a long conflict in Ukraine, U.S. DIrector of National Intelligence Avril Haines told lawmakers on May 10, 2022, according to the CBS News website.
"We assess President Putin is preparing for a prolonged conflict in Ukraine during which he still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas," Haines told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Haines said Putin likely believes his own country has a "greater ability and willingness to endure challenges and is "probably counting on U.S. and EU resolve to weaken as food shortages, inflation, and energy prices get worse "
In the hopes that the world can be freed from the "specter of loneliness and the demon of war," Pope Francis is calling on the elderly to lead a "revolution of tenderness," the Crux website reports today (May 10, 2022).
Old age, he said, is not a time to "give up and lower the sails," but a season of fruitfulness,with a new mission to accomplish, bringing particular sensibility the elderly have for the concerns and affections "that make us human."
Reminding younger generations of their humanity, Francis said, is what his own generation can contribute to the "revolution of tenderness, a spiritual and non-violent revolution in which I encourage you, dear grandparents and elderly persons, to take an active role."
Pope Francis on May 7 blasted Catholics who support old-school versions of liturgy like the Latin Mass, resulting in an ideological battleground of the issue, decrying what he described as devil-inspired divisiveness in the church, the Religious News website reports today (May 9, 2022).
Francis said traditionalists have resisted restrictions, imposed last year by the Vatican, on celebrations of the old Mass in Latin in St. Peter's Basilica.
Speaking at the Vatican to instructors and students of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, Francis said it's not possible to worship God while using the liturgy as a "battleground" for nonessential questions that divide the church,
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said today (May 8, 2022) that the U.S. is leading the charge on global sanctions against Russia, while EU nations have sometimes shown a lack of unity on the matter, according to the RT website.
"So far I think that the United States of America is the accelerator of the sanction policies and I think they do more than an other country," Zelensky said.
Zelensky argued that the West should continue ramping up the pressure on Moscow and carefully assess which measures are working and which are not.
A former pastor at a church in Pennsylvania has been charged with stealing over $357,000 from the congregation he served for 40 years, the Christian Post website reports today (May 7, 2022).
The Rev. Wayne Peck, who retired as pastor of Community House Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh in 2017, turned himself in to authorities on May 3.
Peck was charged with receiving stolen property and theft, with the former pastor having stolen $357,478 from the church.
Security Service of Ukraine intercepted that Russian fighters have been sharing tips with one another about how to deliberately damage their own equipment and hamper Russian President Vladimir Putin's war plans in Ukraine, the Daily Beast website reports today (May 6, 2022).
In one call, a Russian soldier said that they have been pouring sand into the tanks' fuel systems to clog them up.
"I don't follow stupid orders, I simply refuse," another fighter can be heard telling a fellow Russian soldier.
Pope Francis said in an interview published May 3 that he asked for a meting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to stop the war in Ukraine, the Reuters website reports today (May 5, 2022).
The pope also told Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper that Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has given the war his complete backing, "cannot become Putin's altar boy."
Francis said that about three weeks into the war, he sent a message to Putin saying he was willing to go to Moscow. However, Francis has not yet heard from Putin, indicating that Putin does not want a meeting with the pope.
A reported draft of a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Mississippi abortion case (Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization) suggest the Supreme Court voted to strike down Roe v. Wade, which made abortion a federally protected right, the New American website reports today (May 4, 2022).
The alleged leak to the media of the Supreme Court vote is seen by some conservative observers as a crude attempt by a justice to pressure the pro-life justices to change their vote in favor of abortion.
The text of the draft was published by "Politico" journal on May 2. "Politico" described the decision as a "full-throated unflinching repudiation" of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which established abortion as a constitutionally protected right.
More than 120,000 Russians have moved to Armenia since the war began in Ukraine, with more arriving every day, the CBN News website reports today (May 3, 20222).
The former Soviet satellite state is one of the few places where Russians can travel, and up to 40 flights arrive in Armenia from Russia every day.
Many of the passengers don't plan to go back to Russia anytime soon, as they are opposed to Russia's aggression in Ukraine.
Pope Francis has asked the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to produce an annual report on what the Church is doing around the world to prevent the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults, the Catholic News website reports today (May 2, 2022).
In an audience at the Vatican on April 29, the pope called on the commission to produce the annual audit to promote "transparency and accountability."
"This might be difficult at the beginning, but I ask you to begin when necessary, in order to furnish a reliable account on what is presently being done and what needs to change, so that the competent authorities can act," he said.
In an apparent retort to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill's recent use of scripture to justify Russia's aggression in Ukraine, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin has stressed the Holy See's willingness to assist in negotiations in the war in Ukraine and has condemned any justification of the conflict on the basis of Christian values, the Crux website reports today (May 1, 2022).
"Every war, as an act of aggression, is an action against human life and is therefore a sacrilegious act, Parolin said. in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa yesterday.
"Consequently, no justification can be found in the word of God, which is always the word of life, not of death," he added.
