The Vatican, the spiritual and administrative heart of the Catholic Church, faces an unprecedented financial crisis, with reports suggesting it is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. A combination of plummeting revenues, disillusioned donors, and mismanagement under Pope Francis has left the institution struggling to meet its pension obligations, Daily Express reported. In 2023, the Vatican reported an operating deficit of $87 million, an increase of $5.3 million from the previous year. The shortfall stems largely from a dramatic decline in global donations from the Catholic faithful and the broader public. Donations, historically a cornerstone of the Vatican’s revenue, have dwindled as many Catholics express discontent with Pope Francis’ progressive reforms. Several people are injured after a driver plowed through a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany in a suspected terror attack on Friday. Unconfirmed reports say at least 11 people are dead and more than 40 are injured. The unidentified driver has been arrested. Recall that in December 2016, an Islamic terrorist plowed through a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, leaving 13 people dead and many more injured. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/shock-video-several-people-injured-after-driver-plows/ San Jose State University has finally acknowledged that it has lost a significant number of women from its volleyball team amid the ongoing controversy over the school’s decision to include a transgender player. The mass exodus comprises at least seven players who have entered the college transfer portal and will leave the team after this 2024 school year. SJSU’s volleyball season was beset with protests against the school for allowing transgender player Blaire Fleming to play as a female on the team. There was also a whole host of other pressures, including police officers detailed to make sure the angry opposition did not harm SJSU’s players, eight forfeited games—including one playoff game—not to mention the turmoil between the players who opposed Fleming’s participation on one hand and coach Todd Kress and the school for forcing Fleming upon the players. The only reason SJSU ended up in the Mountain West Conference championships is that it “won” so many games because so many opponents forfeited. But ultimately, SJSU lost its NCAA tournament game to Colorado State and left the championships empty-handed. Fleming won’t be back next year because he graduates this year to end his college career. But that hasn’t stopped many girls from leaving the school over the controversial year. Radiation levels have spiked in New York City, fueling conspiracy theories that the drones terrorizing the Northeast are searching for a missing nuclear warhead. The emissions, clocked by GQ Electronics' Geiger Counter World Map, were detected near the Bronx and Upper West Side Wednesday. The application shows a radiation reading of 1048 counts-per-minute (CPM), i.e. how many particles were detected, in the Bronx: higher than normal background radiation. The average person is typically exposed to background radiation that measures around five to 60 CPM, though CPM varies with sensor devices, according to NASA. And, on the the Upper West Side, the app's reading measured a still high 175 CPM. Now, an attorney and long-time critic of China claims that the spikes are a clue that the northeast's mystery drones might be a secret US government effort to identify 'an implanted nuclear weapon' hidden somewhere in the city by America's enemies. 'This is not something which is just wild speculation,' that lawyer and author, Gordon G. Chang, told reporters Monday. 'For more than a decade,' Chang explained, 'US officials have been worried about the North Koreans taking apart a [nuclear] device, smuggling the parts into the United States and reassembling it in the location of their choice.' 'When you talk about radiation, clearly this could be one of the things that the drones are doing,' Chang told Forbes Newsroom, 'and that would explain why they're over residential areas because the device could be planted in one of those places' Crucially, more current reports from the Geiger Counter World Map do not show the radiation spikes at this time. Some former Pentagon officials and military vets have also reported that their own current sources within the government have denied these 'nuke hunt' claims. 'They assured me that's not the case,' Navy veteran and former fighter pilot Lt Ryan Graves told podcaster Joe Rogan in a recent episode. 'There is not a "loose nuke" or any other type of weapon of mass destruction that these objects — whatever they are — are pursuing right now,' Lt Graves stated. 'Having hundreds of drones trying to identify these isn't necessarily the best way,' Lt Graves explained. 'Gamma radiation is typically well-shielded in weapons.' 'And, at high altitudes — or even moderate altitudes, like we are seeing these drones — it would be pretty difficult to detect them [gamma rays],' he continued, echoing comments by nuclear emergency experts with the Department of Energy. 'The Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration's Nuclear Emergency Support Team does not employ drones for nuclear/radiological detection missions,' a department spokesperson told ABC News. But, regardless of the purpose of the drones, Chang emphasized to Forbes that the US government's vague assurances of safety were insufficient, a point also echoed by Mellon, Lt Graves and others. 'At this point we really need the president of the United States to actually address the American people,' Chang told the business publication, 'and tell us what the federal government knows and what it doesn't know.' @rickjones427 Hi Rick, The reason they put for that feature being on sounded innocent, but I turned it off. I turned off other features, including "find my device" @heidi I agree, seeing google app requests popping up on my devices bothered me too. I sometimes use google maps when driving, but turn google off when I'm done. @rickjones427 I use Google maps when driving. I hope turning off a lot of setting won't affect anything. @heidi if you are not accustomed to turning off google, you may be surprised by what is disabled. But, remember, google is watching and maybe the function you lose, isn't needed after all. The good news is after we're back in Heaven, it won't matter what google does with our apps. @rickjones427 I am just hoping to end up at the office tomorrow instead of Honolulu I do know the route, but use Google maps because there sometimes are detours because of constructions. The fact that economic conditions are getting worse is certainly not good news, but it is better to know in advance what is coming. After four years under Joe Biden, the U.S. economy is a giant mess. We have been witnessing a slow-motion collapse right in front of our eyes, and those at the bottom levels of the economic food chain have been experiencing more pain than anyone else. Of course this is one of the biggest reasons why Donald Trump won the election. #1 When the economy is in good shape, holiday spending increases each year. In 2024, only 16 percent of Americans say that they are going to spend more than last year and 35 percent of Americans say that they are going to spend less… #2 The number of job openings in the U.S. is now the lowest it has been since January 2021, but unlike January 2021 we don’t have a pandemic to blame our poor performance on… #3 The manufacturing numbers that we are getting are extremely dismal. For example, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Manufacturing Index just experienced an extremely sharp decline… #4 Thanks to rapidly rising mortgage rates, the average U.S. homebuyer just lost $33,250 in purchasing power in just six weeks… #5 Our cost of living crisis is officially out of control. According to Bank of America, almost a third of all households “spend more than 95% of their disposable income on necessities such as housing costs, groceries and utility bills”… #6 A recent Lending Tree survey discovered that nearly a quarter of all households couldn’t pay their entire power bill at some point within the past year… #7 The same Lending Tree survey found that about a third of all households had to reduce spending “on necessary things” within the past year in order to pay utility costs… #8 As I discussed last week, demand is at record levels at food banks all over the nation… Why is demand at food banks all over the country higher than it has ever been before? The media keeps insisting that economic conditions are just fine, but it has become quite obvious to everyone that this is not true. In particular, the rising cost of living has been absolutely crushing households from coast to coast. In the old days, most of the people that would show up at food banks were unemployed. But now food banks are serving large numbers of people that actually do have jobs but that don’t make enough to pay for all of the basics. The ranks of the “working poor” are growing very rapidly, and this is creating an unprecedented crisis all over America. #9 During normal times, troubled retailers would at least wait until after the holiday season to throw in the towel. But we haven’t even reached Christmas and Party City has already announced that it will be closing all stores… #10 Not to be outdone, Big Lots has announced that all 936 of their remaining stores will be shutting down on a permanent basis… #11 As of the end of November, more than 7,000 store closings had been announced in the United States. That is a 69 percent increase from last year… This is what a failing economy looks like. Last week, a prominent mall in downtown San Francisco was empty of shoppers in the middle of the afternoon… Look at all of these beautiful Christmas decorations at the Crocker Galleria mall in San Francisco. It’s 4:47 PM and everybody should be shopping and buying Christmas presents for their family, but nobody is in this mall. There are only three stores left that are open here. The escalators hum on inside this beautiful but empty decorated mall. Outside on Market Street the fentanyl addicts lay folded over while a street performer sings Last Christmas to an empty Street. Yes, the study is almost five years old now, but its findings should be timeless.... Well, would you look at that. And here the left is telling us that race and status provide unconquerable barriers of entry to success without government-mandated DEI initiatives. “This meta-analysis yielded results that will surprise many: The variables that most reliably reduce the achievement gap are family and faith,” Jeynes explained in his study. “The data are clear: Parental family structure and parental involvement were major explanatory factors and solutions with respect to the achievement gap,” Jeynes continued, explaining that having two involved parents was a major advantage, regardless of class or race. Jeynes further explained: “In addition to family structure, a student’s faith also has a significant impact on his or her academic performance." “Regularly attending church, or another house of worship, and defining oneself as being a very religious person yielded the most significant reductions in the achievement gap." ...it’s now time to embrace family and faith — the literal intelligence levels of this country depends on it. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/faith-family-matter-race-status-comes-children-study/ Sources within the government of Azerbaijan told Euronews on Thursday they believe a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the deadly crash of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243, which killed over 30 of the plane’s passengers on Wednesday. The Embraer-190 passenger jet was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, with 67 people aboard on Christmas Day when it veered hundreds of miles off-course and went down near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan. Russian officials suggested the plane attempted an emergency landing because of a bird strike, while Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev pointed to bad weather in the region. However, Ukrainian officials quickly blamed the crash on Russian missile fire, and some aviation experts backed Ukraine’s claims on Wednesday evening. Aviation experts noted Flight J2-8243 passed through an area where heavy Russian anti-aircraft fire was directed at Ukrainian drones. Russian aviation officials claimed this course change was necessary due to heavy fog on the ground in Grozny, but analysts said this did not explain why the plane flew to the opposite side of the Caspian Sea before coming down in Kazakhstan. Andriy Kovalenko, head of counter-disinformation for Ukrainian military intelligence, said on Wednesday the plane was clearly brought down by Russian fire, but “admitting this is inconvenient for everyone, so efforts will be made to cover it up, even the holes in the remaining parts of the aircraft.” “During the flight, the fuselage was pierced, and the aircraft systems were damaged by the explosion of an air defense missile with shrapnel. Everything is well-documented and clearly captured,” he said. Flightradar24, which tracks air traffic around the world in real time, said the changes in course and altitude by Flight J2-8243 before it crashed indicated the plane was “exposed to GPS jamming and spoofing near Grozny.” Germany will elect a new government seven months early after the last collapsed in acrimony in November, the nation’s President confirmed in dissolving its Bundestag on Friday morning. The dissolution of the Bundestag today confirms in law the February 23rd date agreed weeks ago between the main parties for the next Federal elections. Since, President Steinmeier had been investigating whether another government could possibly be built out of the Bundestag as it was, but concluded this would not be possible and that early elections were therefore inevitable. As things stand in national polling, right-wing parties enjoy a commanding lead in the race to replace the outgoing left-green-centrist coalition. Yet a desire to keep right-wing-sovereigntists the Alternative for Germany (AfD) out of power could yet see them frozen out of power by the legacy-establishment right-centrist Christian Democratic Union (CDU), even at the cost of ushering in years more of left-wing government ministries. As expressed then, an ineffective and bickering German ‘progressive coalition’ of parties struggling to agree on basic matters of policy was seen as hopelessly out of its depth in a world where it could be dominated by a newly invigorated President Trump. A cross country survey in Europe has found that support for a forever war in Ukraine is falling, perhaps not coincidentally given President-Elect Donald Trump telegraphing he expects Europeans to pay a greater share of the bill for their own defence. Total Ukrainian victory at any cost feeling appears to be waning in Europe, with a YouGov survey this month finding that support for Kyiv “until it wins” against Moscow has steeply declined throughout western Europe, the Guardian reports. Amid growing realisation that they may soon be on the hook to foot the bill, support for standing by Ukraine until victory, including by extending the war, fell in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. Meanwhile, the polling agency found that support for a peace settlement, including one in which Russia is granted previous Ukrainian territory — seen as totally unacceptable in Kyiv — rose in every country surveyed. The decline in support for the war comes amid growing recognition that the incoming Trump administration will demand that Europeans pay for their own defence, rather than relying on the American taxpayer to foot the bill. According to the survey, 62 per cent of Germans, 60 per cent of Spaniards, 56 per cent of Britons, 52 per cent of French, and 48 per cent of Italians believe that Trump would cut American aid to Ukraine, meaning that Europeans would have to pay up if they wish to keep Kyiv in the fight.
Vatican on the Brink of Bankruptcy Due to Dramatic Decline in Global Donations Under Pope Francis’ Leadership: Report
SHOCK VIDEO: At Least One Dead, Several Injured After Driver Plows Through Christmas Market in Germany in Suspected Terror Attack… DEVELOPING:
Women Flee San Jose State Volleyball Team After Scandal-Plagued Season Involving Trans Player:
Radiation levels in New York spike as mysterious drones terrorize the Northeast:
11 Signs That The Slow-Motion Collapse Of The US Economy Is Far More Advanced Than Most People Think:
Faith and Family Matter More Than Race and Status When It Comes to Children: Study
Azerbaijan Officials Say Russian Missile Caused Fatal Jetliner Crash:
German Parliament Dissolved, Setting Date For February 23rd Snap Elections After Government Collapse:
Support for Backing Ukraine at All Costs Falls in Europe Amid Realisation Trump Will Make Them Pay the Bill:
