https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-pope-relic/relic-of-pope-john-paul-iis-blood-stolen-from-italian-cathedral-idUSKCN26F2W1?il=0
>ROME (Reuters) - A gold and crystal casing holding drops of the blood of Saint Pope John Paul II was stolen from the cathedral of the central Italian city of Spoleto, its bishop said on Thursday.
The casing, known as a reliquary, was snatched on Wednesday from an altar dedicated to the Polish pope, who died in 2005 after a 27-year reign.
A sacristan who was closing the cathedral for the night discovered the theft of the reliquary, which encased a vial holding a few drops of blood.

Relics, which Catholics venerate as they pray to the saint, are usually pieces of a saint’s body or clothing.
The relic was in the Spoleto cathedral temporarily and was due to be moved next month to a new church in the Umbria region named after the late pope.

“Give the reliquary back to the cathedral and the faithful,” said Archbishop Renato Boccardo, who was a close aide to the late pope for years at the Vatican. “It would be the serious thing to do”.
Boccardo said it was not clear if the reliquary had been stolen for ransom, which has happened in the past with other relics in Italy. Police were reviewing footage of security cameras inside and outside the cathedral.

Well ain't that something special.
>Who Is Amy Coney Barrett? The Judge On The Shortlist To Replace RBG

>In the wake of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, President Donald Trump has reportedly placed a federal appellate judge well known for her conservative religious views at the top of his list of nominees to fill RBG's vacated seat. But who is Amy Coney Barrett? The judge reportedly belongs to a religious group that inspired Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

>Members of a "charismatic Christian" group known as People of Praise have identified Barrett and her husband Jesse Barrett as members, according to a report from Reuters. Founded in South Bend, Indiana, in 1971, the group reportedly used to use the term "handmaid" to describe the female personal adviser assigned to female members and "head" for the male personal adviser assigned to male members. In fact, Atwood, whose dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale was published in 1985, told The New York Times Book Review she'd taken inspiration for the book from People of Praise.

>"There is a sect now, a Catholic charismatic spinoff sect, which calls the women handmaids," Atwood told The Times. "They don't go in for polygamy of this kind but they do threaten the handmaids according to the biblical verse I use in the book - sit down and shut up."

>According to Reuters, men in People of Praise are able to receive and seek spiritual and personal advice from other male members but married women must depend on their husbands to advise them.
https://www.romper.com/p/who-is-amy-coney-barrett-the-judge-on-the-shortlist-to-replace-rbg-34489800

Two people were seriously injured in a knife attack Friday near the former offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the site of a 2015 terrorist attack, the Paris police told CNN.

The two victims are in a serious condition but their lives are not in danger, according to the police spokesperson. Police had previously said there were four people wounded in the attack

Not long after the attack, a suspect was arrested near Place de la Bastille, in Paris's 11th district, but the person was not immediately identified by police. French prosecutors have opened up a terror investigation.

Two suspects are being held by police, Jean-François Ricard, the national anti-terror prosecutor, said on Friday afternoon.

"The main perpetrator has been arrested and is currently in police custody, the second individual was placed in custody for his relations with the main perpetrator," Ricard said.

The two victims were on a cigarette break at the time when they were attacked, he added. The victims are employees of French documentary production company Premières Lignes, the firm's founder Paul Moreira told BFM TV.

Moreira said it "all happened very quickly" and that "a few blows were given to the two people in front of the office." Moreira said the victims were attacked with a "sort of cleaver."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/09/25/europe/paris-knife-attack-charlie-hebdo-intl/index.html

A California fire sparked by a gender reveal party has grown to more than 10,000 acres

(CNN)A fire sparked by a pyrotechnic device used during a gender reveal party has burned more than 10,000 acres since Saturday.

The El Dorado Fire in Southern California's San Bernardino County has scorched 10,574 acres and was 16% contained as of Tuesday, according to fire officials, who say it's "one of the most dangerous fires" they've seen in the area.
The fire was caused by a "smoke-generating pyrotechnic device" used at a party on Saturday morning in El Dorado Ranch Park in Yucaipa, about 70 miles east of Los Angeles, Cal Fire investigators determined.

Evacuations have been ordered in the area as homes have been threatened. About 87 large wildfires are burning across the United States, with California hit hardest.
"In my 30 years as a citizen in Yucaipa, I have never seen such a large fire," Yucaipa Mayor David Avila said during a Monday news conference. "As a retired firefighter with 32 years of experience, I can assure you I witnessed one of the most dangerous fires that we can have in this area."
No injuries have been reported and no structures have been damaged in the blaze, Cal Fire spokeswoman Cathey Mattingly said.

Firefighters made good progress on the fire Monday, as there was no major wind event, according to a news release from the San Bernardino National Forest.
"The hard work of crews on the ground, dozers and aircraft have enabled a lot of great work to be accomplished as fire lines continue to be constructed around the fire in preparation for the upcoming Red Flag Santa Ana Wind event starting at noon tomorrow and lasting through Wednesday," they added.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/08/us/el-dorado-fire-gender-reveal-update-trnd/index.html

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/517008-biden-calls-for-trump-to-step-down-over-coronavirus-response

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said President Trump should step down over his coronavirus response during a town hall just outside of Scranton, Pa., on Thursday evening.

"This is all about one thing, the stock market. He doesn't want to see anything happen," Biden said, answering a question about how he would get the right messaging out to Americans on how to protect themselves amid the pandemic.

"It's all about his reelection. It should be about the American people, and they're in trouble," he continued, before citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield's recent comments urging Americans to wear masks in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.
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“You’ve got to level with the American people — shoot from the shoulder. There’s not been a time they’ve not been able to step up. The president should step down,” Biden said.

Biden's remarks come after Trump contradicted remarks Redfield made this week about a vaccine timeline, distribution and the effectiveness of masks.

Redfield told Congress on Wednesday that a vaccine will not likely be available to the general public until the “second or third quarter” of next year, although he said it’s possible one will be available for first responders as early as November.

-->>

MENLO PARK (CBS SF): Facebook fired a senior engineer this week who collected evidence showing the social media company giving preferential treatment to right wing accounts, according to a report from Buzzfeed News.

The engineer, who Buzzfeed did not name, recently posted internal information on Workplace showing that “Facebook was giving preferential treatment to prominent conservative accounts to help them remove fact-checks from their content.” Facebook later deleted the post and on Wednesday, the company fired the poster.

The firing comes after Facebook employees confronted CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg over preferential treatment for right wing sites during an all-hands meeting last Friday. The employees pushed Zuckerberg on how “Breitbart News could remain a Facebook News partner after sharing a video that promoted unproven treatments and said masks were unnecessary to combat the novel coronavirus,” according to Buzzfeed.

Facebook deleted the video six hours after Breitbart posted it to its page, but it had already racked up 14 million views and other sites continued to share it.

“This was certainly one strike against them for misinformation, but they don’t have others in the last 90 days,” Zuckerberg reportedly said. “So by the policies that we have, which by the way I think are generally pretty reasonable on this, it doesn’t make sense to remove them.”

Facebook’s fact-checking rules stipulate that the site can limit the reach of pages that repeatedly share misinformation. But NBC News obtained evidence that Facebook relaxed its rules for Right Wing accounts such as “Breitbart, former Fox News personalities Diamond and Silk, the nonprofit media outlet PragerU and the pundit Charlie Kirk.”

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/08/07/reports-facebook-fires-employee-who-shared-proof-of-right-wing-favoritism/

Picture "PEACE OFFicers" raving. In the most absolutely hilarious way. Why are these people paid to break The Law Unbroken? WE SHALL NOT FOLLLOW "BROKEN LAW". Cop = thief. PEACE OFFICER = BODY. I want nothing but mercy & grace on my enemies, but next time someone on this MATER TERRA ASSAULTS anyone I MIGHT be in a mood to summon something. SCP-999, or perhaps conjure a Sarlacc Pit. Your choice. Seriously, it is so easy to take out a standing army besieging a "Walled City", in other words THE MOST RIDICULOUS BANAL STRATEGY KNOWN IN THE ART OF WAR. OR, the martial art. I love police officers, but so do WE ARE VENOM. Gosh that looks delicious. NO MARIO THAT'S NOT A MUSHROOM!
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/