Did Alexander the Great meet a Jewish priest, and was this meeting enshrined in a mosaic floor?  It’s probably just a legend, but the mosaic is also the first non-biblical one ever to be found in an ancient synagogue, at a site called Huqoq. Since 2011, Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at UNC Chapel Hill, has been leading excavations at Huqoq, near Galilee in Israel.  And for the last three summers, she has uncovered fantastic mosaics unlike anything that has been seen before. MORE

L. A. is breaking records for rain in July, ha.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A second day of showers and thunderstorms in southern and central California was expected to bring heavy rain and set more rainfall records in what is usually a dry month.

Rain fell Sunday afternoon in parts of Los Angeles County’s mountains, the valley north and inland urban areas to the east. The city also was expected to get a late repeat of Saturday’s scattered showers and occasional downpours as remnants of tropical storm Dolores brought warm, muggy conditions northward. MORE

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.  — A dangerous, fast-moving wildfire spread through the Cajon Pass on Friday afternoon, jumping the 15 Freeway, destroying 20 vehicles and damaging 10 others, San Bernardino National Forest said.  There were no injuries. MORE

Heavy storms have caused flooding in Arizona, which has seen cars swept away and buildings destroyed. A severe thunderstorm warning was issued by the National Weather Service on Saturday, and flooding began shortly after. More than 1,000 people lost power, and several major roads were closed, though there were no reports of injuries or fatalities.

It’s shaping up to be the biggest political scandal in Britain’s history. There is new evidence that some of the country’s most respected men were in fact depraved paedophiles. Leaders that were preying on children as young as eight and nine. Many of the kids were trafficked from state-run homes and other institutions to be abused by MPs, Lords, and spies.

A key part of President Obama’s legacy will be the fed’s unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.”

Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites. MORE

Vol 8 Issue 29 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
July 18, 2015 ~ St Camillis de Lellis

1, Baptism: Means of Salvation (25)
2. Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
3. St. Vincent de Paul
4. Marriage and Parenthood (29)
5. Articles and notices Continue reading →

Many people have had their computer or smartphone possessed by an evil demon — or at least that’s what it can feel like when some mysterious bug keeps causing an app to crash, or your phone keeps shutting off for no reason.

But if you truly think your electronics have been invaded by an evil spirit, there’s someone who will take your call — Reverend Joey Talley — a Wiccan witch from the San Francisco Bay Area who claims to solve supernatural issues for techies. MORE

Hassan Rouhani said Iranian negotiators came away from the talks in Vienna with “achievements beyond the nuclear” agreement and succeeded in having “aviation sanctions removed.” His remarks were carried by the official IRNA news agency late Wednesday. MORE

How many of them go to church?

More than 40,000 French have signed a rousing “Hands off my church” petition in recent days denouncing a Muslim leader’s casual remark that some of France’s many empty or underused churches could be turned into much-needed mosques. MORE

Nearly one-fifth of the raw groundwater used for public drinking water systems in California contains excessive levels of potentially toxic contaminants, according to a decade-long U.S. Geological Survey study that provides one of the first comprehensive looks at the health of California’s public water supply and groundwater.

One of the surprises in the study of 11,000 public supply wells statewide is the extent to which high levels of arsenic, uranium and other naturally occurring but worrisome trace elements is present, authors of the study said. MORE

Muslim-American group has been putting up billboards in Seattle as part of a national campaign to educate Americans about the Prophet Muhammad, the most well-known prophet of the Islamic religion.

The Islamic Circle of North America has paid for four billboards around the Seattle area, with such messages as “Muhammad – peace be upon him –believed in peace, social justice, women’s rights.” Billboards also include a phone number and a website for passers-by who want more information. MORE

It seems like Puerto Rico can’t catch a break – from its debt-burdened economy to losing a dramatic portion of its population to the mainland U.S. – and now it’s facing a challenge with potentially catastrophic consequences. MORE

Some 100 North African Muslim potential jihadis whose presence in a small town near Treviso sparked two days of protests from local residents and anti-Islam activists were bused Friday to a former barracks located between Treviso and Casier. MORE