Hundreds of Roman Catholic churches have been attacked since the violence that erupted nationwide following George Floyd’s death in May 2020, according to a Catholic nonprofit.
Since May 2020, there have been nearly 300 attacks against U.S. Catholic churches as far afield as Emmonak, Alaska, with the most recent tally at 275 as of Sunday, according to a tracker from CatholicVote.
The religious nonprofit organization noted that “while the riots and looting mostly died down in the summer of 2020, the attacks on Catholic churches have continued and escalated.”
The attacks against churches include arson, broken windows, decapitated statues and satanic graffiti. Some 118 incidents were logged since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade’s federal abortion protections.
While some of the attacks involved theft, the “vast majority” of recorded incidents were simply destruction of property, which the group said indicates “that the primary motive is not material gain,” the report said.
A report from the Family Research Council released in December also found that church attacks spiked following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The council’s report, titled “Hostility Against Churches Is on the Rise in the United States,” found there were 420 acts of hostility against 397 churches between January 2018 and September 2022. The attacks took place across 45 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., according to the report.
That report’s authors attributed the rise in attacks to “a collapse in societal reverence and respect for houses of worship and religion — in this case, churches and Christianity.”
“Americans appear increasingly comfortable lashing out against church buildings, pointing to a larger societal problem of marginalizing core Christian beliefs, including those that touch on hot-button political issues related to human dignity and sexuality,” the report said.
The Virgin Mary statue is pictured during a vigil at St. Peter’s Parish-Dorchester after it was burned in Dorchester, Boston.Boston Globe via Getty Images
CatholicVote noted that only 25% of the church attacks it has recorded have led to an arrest.
In December 2021, CatholicVote President Brian Burch sent a letter to the Department of Justice, citing at least 114 instances since May 2020 and criticizing its leadership for making “no meaningful effort to raise awareness or address the disturbing rise in hate-filled attacks on Catholic religious symbols, shrines, statues and churches.”
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta responded to Burch’s letter on Jan. 28, 2022, promising a “15-day review to ensure that all appropriate resources are being deployed to protect houses of worship.”
An image of Jesus splashed with green paint on the doors of the damaged Resurrection Catholic Church after an arson and vandalism attack in Los Angeles, Calif.AFP via Getty Images
“The FBI works closely with our law enforcement partners to investigate threats and attacks against houses of worship,” the FBI told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Frequently, these investigations are conducted jointly by the FBI and state and local law enforcement and are prosecuted under state statutes.”
“If an investigation determines that a suspect violated one of the federal hate crime statutes, then the FBI will coordinate our investigation with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, which will make the final determination about whether or not the suspect would be charged and prosecuted with a federal hate crime,” the FBI continued.
The Justice Department is considering additional searches for classified documents at other locations connected to President Biden — as the commander-in-chief escaped to his beach house over the weekend, according to a report.
On Friday, federal agents found more classified materials stashed away at the 80-year-old president’s Wilmington, Del., home — including some dating back to his time as a senator.
Now, DOJ officials are considering extending the search for the sensitive documents to other places, CBS reported Saturday, citing a source familiar with the investigation.
One of those sites would likely be the president’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., roughly 90 miles from the Wilmington residence.
President Biden has found himself entangled in an investigation into his handling of classified documents.AFP via Getty ImagesClassified documents were discovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC, in November.AP
Biden’s personal attorney conducted an earlier search of the Rehoboth Beach property but found no classified documents.
The president spent the weekend in Rehoboth as the FBI carried out the search of his Wilmington home.
Biden’s attorneys found classified documents at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC, in November and more sensitive records were found in December and earlier this month at the Wilmington home.
President Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home, where classified documents were found.AP
Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel, Robert Hur, to investigate Biden’s handling of the classified documents.
In November, Garland named veteran prosecutorJack Smith to investigate former President Donald Trump after boxes of classified documents were uncovered at his Mar-a-Lagoresort in Florida in an FBI raid in August.
An astonishing fifth trove of classified documents was discovered in the president’s Delaware mansion Friday, not by his own lawyers this time, but during a more thorough, 13-hour search by the Department of Justice while he holed up in his beach house in Rehoboth, which ought to be next on the DOJ search list.
His long-term trusted factotum Ron Klain is bailing out.
And someone at the White House is throwing his trusted longtime executive assistant Kathy Chung under the bus. The Washington Post quoted an anonymous insider last week saying that Chung “has confided to associates that she is distressed that she might have inadvertently been involved in moving or storing classified material at the center, planting the seeds of the current uproar.” The fact that the loyal Chung was personally poached by Hunter Biden in 2012 to work for his father in the VP’s office apparently counts for nothing when it comes to offloading blame from the president.
That’s why Biden looked like a cornered rat in California last week (with aspiring heir Gavin Newsom leering over his shoulder) and lied through his teeth.
First, he snapped at a reporter who asked about the scandal and then dismissed the question as “a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place.”
Then he effectively issued a warning to Garland.
President Biden claimed he has “no regrets” over his handling of classified documents.Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty ImagesAttorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Robert Hur to lead the investigation into Biden.AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
“I think you’re gonna find there’s nothing there,” he told reporters. “I have no regrets … There’s no there there.”
No there there? What a joke.
The no-there-there defense may have worked for Biden back in the 2020 campaign, when he repeatedly claimed to know nothing about his son’s overseas business dealings, and when the mythology of “Honest Joe” hadn’t collapsed, but no more. Too much evidence has emerged from Hunter’s laptop, from Hunter’s former business partners,from the “Twitter files” and from FBI whistleblowers alleging a cover-up of staggering proportions.
The first tranche of at least 10 classified documents reportedly was found in the fall at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania, and were kept secret by the White House until after the midterm elections. They were dated between 2013 and 2016 and included US intelligence memos and briefing materials on Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to CNN.
Ties to Hunter portfolio
This is the thread that links the president to the long-running Delaware federal investigation into his son’s foreign business dealings.
That three-year period corresponds to the most frenetic influence-peddling activity overseas by his son Hunter and brother Jim Biden, who made millions of dollars from shady interests in Ukraine, China, Russia and elsewhere.
How much more valuable their product would be if they had access to classified documents?
Classified documents were found in Biden’s garage near his Corvette.Joe Biden/YouTubeHunter Biden had access to the house and the garage with the documents.The Washington Free Beacon
Their activity is documented in the Hunter laptop, in financial documents held by the Treasury, and in testimony from Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski, who said Joe was the “big guy” slated to get 10% from a particularly lucrative Chinese deal.
Hunter traveled on Air Force 2 with his father to do private business during that period, including to China in December 2013. He organized the infamous Cafe Milano dinner for Joe to meet his business partners from Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan in April 2015.
After his separation from his wife in July 2015, Hunter lived off and on at his father’s Delaware mansion and listed it as his residence on official documents. He was photographed in 2017 driving his father’s Corvette, which was housed in the very garage where classified documents have been found.
Hunter also had free rein in his dad’s White House office, and his privileged access meant his name never showed up on visitor logs. For instance, he took the infamous photo of his then-“best friend in business,” Devon Archer, with his father in the VP’s office in April 2014, shortly before the pair joined the board of the corrupt Ukrainian oil company Burisma, which paid Hunter $83,000 a month. That photo ended up briefly on the Burisma website before being taken down on the instructions of a White House lawyer.
Hunter Biden emailed his business partner Devon Archer in 2014 about Ukrainian politics and “my guys upcoming travels” — shortly before his father made a trip to Ukraine as vice president.Alec Tabak
One striking email during this period stands out. It was from Hunter to Archer on April 13, 2014, a week before Joe Biden visited Ukraine to meet then-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and refers to “my guys upcoming travels.”
For Hunter, it was an uncharacteristically lengthy email, listing 22 points about Ukraine’s political situation, with detailed information about the upcoming election and predicting an escalation of Russia’s “destabilization campaign, which could lead to a full-scale takeover of the eastern region, most critically Donetsk.
“The strategic value is to create a land bridge for RU to Crimea. That won’t directly affect Burisma holdings but it will limit future UK exploration and utilization of offshore opportunities in particular,” Hunter wrote.
“It will also result in further destabilization of UK nationally and for whatever govt is in power. And the US will respond with even stronger sanctions. Those sanctions will threaten the tenuous support of the EU which does not have the political will to incur steep energy price increases.”
In point 22, Hunter instructed Archer to buy a “burner phone,” presumably to keep their conversations private. “Buy a cell phone from a 7/11 or CVS tmrw and ill do the same.”
It’s a prescient and very well-informed email, unlike anything else Hunter wrote in the nine years covered in the laptop, and it has the distinct flavor of an official briefing, perhaps even a classified one.
The four latest batches
The last four tranches of classified documents were discovered in President Biden’s Delaware mansion during four separate searches — between Dec. 20 and Friday.
While there is no indication of the subject matter, Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer issued a statement Saturday evening saying the DOJ search the previous day had discovered “six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President. DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years.”
A photograph of a box in Biden’s Delaware home labeled “Important Docs” was found in Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Now the country faces the historic spectacle of a sitting president and a former president, Donald Trump, both facing special counsel investigations over alleged improper retention of classified records.
Biden hasn’t faced the FBI raid and leaking abuses that his predecessor endured, but it’s the same crime and, in Biden’s case, there is a hell of a lot of there there.
If special counsel Robert Hur does his job properly, he will be comparing notes with Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, who has been investigating Hunter since 2018.
Accountability is coming for Joe Biden, and no amount of dark money groups leaking false narratives to the media will save him.
Patients with celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) had a tough time sticking with a gluten-free diet, a researcher reported.
Only one out of 36 people with celiac disease and IBD maintained a gluten-free diet long term in a retrospective, health records-based study, according Jonathan Montrose, DO, of the the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.
"Overall, our study showed that there was suboptimal adherence to gluten-free diets," Montrose confirmed to MedPage Today.
The lack of formal gluten-free diet education, "is something we are working on," he added. One possibility to address this issue would be the "establishment of celiac disease centers at tertiary hospitals for adequate clinical guidance," according to Montrose and colleagues.
The majority of patients in the current study were white women (94% and 64%, respectively) with celiac disease plus IBD. Montrose explained that 18 patients had celiac disease plus Crohn's disease, while 18 had celiac disease and ulcerative colitis.
Perseus Patel, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, concurred that getting adults to stay on gluten-free diets is a challenge. "Unlike with children, there is no one around to say 'No, you can't have that. It doesn't fit in your diet,'" he told MedPage Today
"I agree that we need more education in this area," added Patel, who was not involved in the study. "We spend a lot of time educating people on celiac disease, which can be successfully treated with diet. Incumbent upon that is really an understanding of what you can and cannot eat. If you go out to eat, you often don't have many choices, so it is not always the easiest thing to do."
Montrose and colleagues looked at ICD-10 hospital codes from 2017 through 2022. On average, the diagnosis of IBD occurred about 3.6 years before the patients were also diagnosed with celiac disease.
At the first assessment of gluten-free diet education, done at about 8 months after celiac disease diagnosis, 86% of the 36 patients said they were self-taught, reporting that they learned about gluten-free diets via the internet (14%) or from books (14%). Five of 36 said they consulted a dietitian (14%) and six (17%) of 36 said they consulted with a dietitian who specialized in gluten-free diets for celiac disease.
At a second assessment of celiac disease education 3 years later, none of the patients said they had consulted with a celiac dietitian, and the same was true at the third assessment about 5 years after first diagnosis.
Montrose noted that over the course of long-term follow-up, 50% of the patients with both celiac disease and IBD needed escalation of the IBD medication to biologics and or steroid/rescue drugs, despite initiation of a gluten-free diet, Montrose reported.
"We need to further substantiate these findings with exclusive inflammatory bowel disease and celiac disease controls," he said.
Disclosures
Montrose and Patel discosed no relationships with industry.
Primary Source
Crohn's and Colitis Congress
Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowMontrose J, et al "Which is important? Gluten free diet or inflammatory bowel disease medications in subjects with overlap celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease" CCC 2023; Abstract P087.
Stopping enteral nutrition hours before an attempt at extubation didn't reduce risk of failure of extubation, a randomized trial showed.
Continued enteral nutrition until extubation carried a similar risk for the composite of reintubation or death within 7 days after extubation compared with a strategy of fasting for 6 hours and gastric suctioning before extubation.
No subgroup failed to meet noninferiority between the two strategies, nor were there any differences in incidence of nosocomial pneumonia up to 14 days after extubation (1.6% nonfasting vs 2.5% fasting, rate ratio [RR] 0.77, 95% CI 0.22-2.69).
These unique, high-quality intervention trial findings "should prompt an immediate radical change in clinical practice," argued Elisabeth Lobmeyr, MD, of the Medical University of Vienna, and Karin Amrein, MD, MSc, of the Medical University of Graz in Austria, in an accompanying editorialopens in a new tab or window.
According to one surveyopens in a new tab or window from the U.K., 93% of intensive care units (ICUs) have patients fast before extubation, although with a wide range of durations from 1-2 hours to 8-12 hours.
For patients, eliminating the fasting improves their caloric intake, Lobmeyr and Amrein noted. "Patients receiving mechanical ventilation are often underfed, and interruptions are one of the main causes that energy prescriptions are not met."
In the study, calories actually delivered to the non-fasted group on the day of extubation dropped to about one-third of what they got the day prior (637 vs 1,775 kcal), whereas it dropped to about 20% in the fasting group (311 vs 1,505 kcal).
For hospital staff, it might mean less work for nurses, the editorialists emphasized: "Spontaneous breathing trials, preparation for extubation, and post-extubation phase are extremely busy periods for nurses. In times of post-pandemic staff shortages, any practice change resulting in less work for nursing staff is very welcome and should be embraced as soon as possible."
The pragmatic, open-label trial included 1,130 adults treated at 22 ICUs in France from April 2018 through October 2019, randomized by ICU as a cluster. Patients were included in the trial if they had received invasive mechanical ventilation for at least 48 hours in the ICU and received prepyloric enteral nutrition for at least 24 hours at the time of the decision to extubate.
More than 80% of the cohort were medical ICU patients, with an average of four comorbidities and a relatively low ICU mortality of 5% overall.
The 1,008 out of 1,130 patients enrolled who were in the per-protocol population had similar outcomes as the intention-to-treat population, with extubation failure in 17.0% of the continued enteral nutrition group versus 17.9% in the fasting group (absolute difference -0.9%, 95% CI -5.6 to 3.7).
Among the secondary endpoints, the non-fasting group had a significantly shorter median duration from the first successful spontaneous breathing trial to extubation (2.0 vs 17.6 hours) and from that trial to discharge alive from the ICU (4.0 vs 6.6 days; HR 1.45, 95% CI 1.19-1.77). Death in the ICU was significantly less common with continued enteral nutrition (3.9% vs 6.8%; RR 0.56, 95% CI 0.32-0.99).
Notably, while the presumed goal of fasting before extubation is to avoid aspiration, these events prompting reintubation were uncommon in both groups (8 vs 15 cases, respectively).
Clinicians are "probably right to perceive this risk," Ehrmann said at the session, citing studies showing that some 20% of patients have clinical dysphagia after extubation and that half of aspiration is silent.
Furthermore, along with being frequent, a retrospective study showed that significant dysphagia after extubation is associated with extubation failure, pneumonia, and mortality, he pointed out. "So that's not something to neglect."
However, fasting does not appear to be the proper response, he concluded, based on his group's findings. "The whole issue here is it's a very infrequent reason for reintubation, so it's not a good rationale."
His group acknowledged limitations of the study, including the open-label design (although nosocomial pneumonia diagnosis was adjudicated by a centralized masked committee) and cluster randomization without a crossover design. "The heterogeneity of units and enrolling physicians cannot be ignored," the editorialists wrote, although the multivariate-adjusted analysis affirmed the findings.
isclosures
The study was funded by the French Ministry of Health.
Ehrmann disclosed relationships with Aerogen and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare. Co-authors reported relationships with Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, the French Ministry of Health, Sigher & Paykel and Philips, GE Healthcare, and Sedana.
The editorialists reported no competing interests.
Primary Source
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine
Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowLandais M, et al "Continued enteral nutrition until extubation compared with fasting before extubation in patients in the intensive care unit: an open-label, cluster-randomised, parallel-group, non-inferiority trial" Lancet Resp Med 2023; DOI: 10.1016/S2213-2600(22)00413-1.
Secondary Source
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine
Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowLobmeyr E, Amrein K "Continuation of enteral nutrition until extubation in critically ill patients" Lancet Resp Med 2023; DOI: 10.1016/S2213-2600(22)00481-7.
Congenital heart surgeons are trying to revamp their profession by stiffening the rules for training and competency, with the goal being to better control the talent joining their ranks every year.
During the annual meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeonsopens in a new tab or window (STS), they confronted the hard questions of whether they are training too many people, and if the community as a whole is not providing trainees and early-career surgeons with good mentoring.
Some congenital heart graduates said they have not found satisfying employment despite a long training path, and people who reported being dissatisfied tended to cite low case volumes as one factor.
A recent STS survey, published in Annals of Thoracic Surgeryopens in a new tab or window, showed that of 201 practicing congenital heart surgeons who responded, nearly one in three had 100-149 cases annually, and a quarter of respondents reported performing fewer than 50 pediatric cases per year.
Half of working surgeons said their volume was "just right," whereas over 40% said theirs was "too small"; many people pegged the minimum number of operations to maintain competence at 100 per year, reported Stephanie Fuller, MD, of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues.
Thus, Fuller and other speakers at the STS discussion suggested there are too many surgeons in the workforce spreading the pediatric congenital heart cases too thin.
The American Board of Thoracic Surgery (ABTS) currently requires surgeons to log 50 congenital cardiac surgeries a year for maintenance of certification -- already down from the 75 a year stipulated in the past.
he concern is how that can be maintained given the current workforce numbers. The survey by Fuller's group showed 30 people, or nearly 15% of respondents, reporting that they plan to retire in the next 5 years, or roughly six people per year. Meanwhile, there are more and more training spots each year, which currently sit at approximately 17.
Jennifer Romano, MD, MS, an ABTS director and a program director at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, argued for fewer congenital heart surgeons in the workforce.
This may be achieved with the upcoming change from the current training model. Beginning on July 1, the ABTS is mandating that all candidates for congenital cardiac surgery fellows will be required to complete 2 consecutive years in a single accredited program and complete 150 major cases (with a minimum of 50 major cases in the first year of training).
The new regulation stems from concern that trainees needed more cases and longer fellowships before entering the workforce. Until now, 1-year fellowships have required candidates to perform a minimum of 75 major pediatric congenital cardiac surgeries as primary surgeons. Many graduated just barely exceeding that threshold.
Yet regulation of training may be short-sighted, argued Paul Chai, MD, of Emory University and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, who said the rules don't fix the issues inherent to the profession of congenital heart surgery (e.g., unchanging birth rates and a limited need for working surgeons).
Chai said it's not straightforward to answer the question of whether congenital fellowships should be limited, but it is critical to ensure consistent entry of high-quality surgeons for the future of the field and the benefit of patients.
He noted the deficit of applicants in recent years relative to the number of congenital heart programs approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. With potential waning interest in the field, it doesn't help to limit the fellowships if the quality of the applicants isn't high, he said.
Fuller said it's unclear how congenital cardiac fellowship programs would handle the new training schedule: they have the option of enrolling fellows on an annual vs biennial basis -- perhaps splitting cohorts between odd and even years.
One way to organize centers would be with two tiers of centers with different requirements for staffing and case volumes, as proposed by new multisocietal consensus standards for pediatric heart surgery. The plan to divide institutions into essential care centers and comprehensive care centers has been approved by the Congenital Heart Surgeons' Society and is out for comment from professional society partners, Romano told the audience at the STS meeting.
"We should think about how to attract people in creative ways rather than how to limit them," Chai maintained.
Among his suggestions for the field is to rethink the paradigm that congenital heart surgeons should only do congenital cases early in their career; there may be sense in joining adult and pediatric surgery for some positions.
"Adult congenital is the only potential growing field that we have," Chai said. "We should think how we can use that -- [such as] an early career transition for these graduates."
The U.S. does not track the number of adults surviving with congenital heart disease, but this is believed to be a growing population due to neonatal and childhood treatment.
Disclosures
Fuller reported financial relationships with Edwards Lifesciences and W.L. Gore & Associates.
Romano reported no financial conflicts.
Chai reported a financial relationship with Edwards Lifesciences.
Primary Source
Annals of Thoracic Surgery
Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowStephens EH, et al "Report of the 2022 Society of Thoracic Surgeons congenital heart surgery practice survey" Ann Thorac Surg 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.athoracsur.2022.12.044.
Elon Musk’s father says he is afraid “something might happen” to his son, asserting that the billionaire is “a bit naïve about the enemies he’s making” in relation to the release of the Twitter files.
Over the past several weeks, Musk has spearheaded the release of innumerable internal communications proving the White House, the federal government and giant pharmaceutical corporations worked directly with the old guard at Twitter to censor information and ban prominent users.
Although the legacy media has done its best to ignore the bombshell revelations, the Twitter files have nonetheless embarrassed many powerful individuals.
“I’m really afraid that something might happen to Elon, even though he has about 100 security guards around him,” Errol warned, noting that his son was being “a bit naïve about the enemies he’s making, especially with the Twitter Files.”
It appears that the feeling is very much mutual, with Elon Musk fearing that someone may try to harm or kidnap his father as revenge for his political stances.
The younger Musk “decided, after the recent threats against him, that I need protection as well,” Errol told the Sun, revealing that his home has undergone a “first class” security system upgrade.
Having had his home broken into four times in the last year alone, the property is now “completely secure,” with an electric fence, nine security cameras rolling 24/7 that Musk can access from his phone, as well as “around-the-clock monitoring by guards who are armed to the teeth.”
“If they kidnap one of us, it will be the quickest $20 million anybody’s ever made in their life,” said the 76-year-old, who previously shot three armed home invaders in 1998.
“The risk of something bad happening or literally even being shot is quite significant,” said Errol, adding, “It’s not that hard to kill me if somebody wanted to, so hopefully they don’t.”
As we previously highlighted, last month Musk revealed that he has increased his personal security in response to concerns over his safety following the release of the first dump of ‘Twitter files’.
“The risk of something happening to me is quite significant,” said the billionaire.
