Pope Leo XIV’s University Holds Second International Sustainability Conference Despite His Absence

 Pope Leo XIV’s University Holds Second International Sustainability Conference Despite His Absence

ROME REPORTS in English

Oct 16, 2026 

For Pope Leo XIV, sustainability is a moral responsibility. Building on Pope Francis’ mission to protect our “common home,” Pope Leo XIV has continued to emphasize the connection between environmental care, human dignity, and the protection of the most vulnerable. 

Rome Reports is an international news agency covering the Pope, the Vatican, Rome and the Catholic Church, as well as major social, cultural and religious debates.

Highlights from the 81st annual Al Smith Dinner in NYC

 Highlights from the 81st annual Al Smith Dinner in NYC

FOX 5 New York

Oct 16, 2026
The star-studded gala at the Waldorf Astoria raised millions for Catholic Charities and featured some of NYC's most powerful and influential figures, including Mayor Mamdani, NYPD Commissioner Tisch, Archbishop Hicks, and Cardinal Dolan. FOX 5 NY's Sharon Crowley reports.

Chris Cuomo Just Made the Christa Pike Case About Race

 

The Shadow Pact: CIA, Vatican & the Mafia in the Cold War

Navroop Singh and Himja Parekh

Apr 19, 2025




The end of World War II in 1945 didn’t usher in peace so much as it ignited a new, frigid conflict i.e. the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union squared off in a global chess match, each seeking to outmanoeuvre the other through ideology, espionage, and proxy wars. In this shadowy arena, an alleged alliance emerged one so improbable yet chillingly plausible that it has fueled decades of debate. According to some historians and theorists, the Vatican, the CIA (born from the wartime OSS), the Sicilian Mafia, and even former Nazis joined forces to combat the Soviet threat. This covert network, they argue, orchestrated everything from bombings and coups to drug trafficking and assassinations, leaving a trail of intrigue that stretches from Europe to Latin America. While parts of this narrative rest on declassified documents and firsthand accounts, others teeter on the edge of conspiracy, blurred by the secrecy that defined the era. What follows is an exploration of this supposed pact, delving into its origins, its operations like Italy’s Operation Gladio and Latin America’s Operation Condor and its murky ties to organized crime.

The Postwar Crucible: A Convergence of Interests

The seeds of this alliance were sown in the chaotic aftermath of World War II. As Nazi Germany collapsed, the United States, through the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), sought to repurpose the Third Reich’s remnants against a new foe: the Soviet Union. Allen Dulles, a Swiss-based OSS operative who later became CIA director, was a pivotal figure. In 1945, he negotiated Operation Sunrise with SS General Karl Wolff in Bern, securing a partial German surrender in Italy. Some claim this was more than a pragmatic deal that ex-Nazis, via Vatican intermediaries, pitched a broader alliance to the U.S., offering peace in exchange for a joint fight against communism. The Vatican, fiercely anti-communist under Pope Pius XII, had its own postwar role i.e. the "Ratlines," escape routes that funneled Nazi officials like Adolf Eichmann to safety in South America. While often framed as humanitarian aid gone awry, these channels hint at deeper collaboration, aligning the Holy See with Western intelligence goals.

Meanwhile, the U.S. turned to an unlikely partner, the Sicilian Mafia. During the 1943 invasion of Sicily, the OSS enlisted Charles "Lucky" Luciano, a jailed mobster, to secure the island and protect New York docks from sabotage. His reward came in 1946 early release and deportation to Italy sparking speculation of a quid pro quo that outlasted the war. Paul Helliwell, another OSS officer, added a financial twist. Operating in China, he allegedly tapped opium networks to fund anti-communist forces, a model some say foreshadowed later CIA-Mafia ties. This convergence of ex-Nazis with intelligence, the Vatican with moral cover, and the Mafia with street-level muscle set the stage for a Cold War partnership that, operated in the shadows of official policy.

Why would such disparate groups unite? For the U.S., the Soviet Union posed an existential threat, justifying any means however unsavory to counter it. Operation Paperclip, which recruited Nazi scientists, exemplified this pragmatism; extending it to spies or soldiers wasn’t a stretch. The Vatican saw communism as a godless scourge, a view Pope Pius XII articulated in his 1949 decree excommunicating Catholics who joined communist parties. The Mafia, reborn in postwar Italy, sought profit and protection, leveraging wartime favors into a lasting arrangement. Ex-Nazis, desperate for redemption or survival, offered skills honed in Europe’s darkest hours. Together, they formed a coalition of convenience, each bringing something the others lacked: ideology, resources, networks, and ruthlessness.

School Blockades Continue Across France as Protesters Are Called to the Bastille

Image: Srpske Novine from Euronews



Pastor Hal MayerSpeaker / Director

School Blockades Continue Across France as Protesters Are Called to the Bastille

Thursday October 15th, 2026

The Epoch Times, by Etienne Fauchaire: Blockades at high schools and universities continued across France on Oct. 7, a day before students and teachers were expected to return to the streets for another nationwide protest.

The Student Union called on high school and university students to resume blockades on the morning of Oct. 8 before “converging on Bastille” in Paris at 3 p.m., a call seen as a reference to the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, during the French Revolution.

Several education unions, including SNES-FSU, France’s largest secondary school teachers’ union, also called for strikes and demonstrations in support of the students.

The number of disrupted high schools fell significantly on Oct. 7. Classes were fully or partially suspended at 459 schools, compared with 891 the previous day, according to the Education Ministry, which described the movement as being in sharp decline.

The Oct. 8 demonstrations will mark the fourth nationwide day of action in a protest movement led largely by far-left student organizations and initially fueled by grievances over school conditions.

Ilhan Omar Ignites Firestorm After Referring to U.S. as the “Goxxamn States” at Bogus ICE Hearing

Jewish Breaking News 

Jan 19, 2026

The comments were made  at a St. Paul event billed as a Democratic “field hearing,” titled “Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Deadly Assault on Minnesota.”  Omar condemned the Trump administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement and accused federal agents of spreading fear through immigrant communities.

READ MORE: https://jewishbreakingnews.com/ilhan-...

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Christian Persecution Rising as Jihad Infiltrates U.S.

 Christian Persecution Rising as Jihad Infiltrates U.S.

Liberty Sentinel by Alex Newman  

Oct 15, 2026

In a new episode of the Stand Up For The Truth Podcast, host Mary welcomes back journalist and author Alex Newman to discuss mounting legal and cultural pressures on Christian faith and parental rights. The conversation centers on a high-profile Maine custody case in which the state’s highest court upheld an order giving an atheist father sole authority over his 13-year-old daughter’s religious upbringing. The ruling effectively bars the Christian mother from taking her daughter to Calvary Chapel Greater Portland, reading the Bible with her, or exposing her to related teachings—citing alleged psychological harm from church messages (including end-times topics)—while framing the decision as necessary for successful co-parenting.

Newman and the host also examine a proposed California mandate that would require churches to provide “anti-hate speech training” for employees, viewing it as further government encroachment on religious institutions. They address a September Lifeway Research poll showing that while many Christians feel able to defend a Biblical worldview, roughly one-third (and about half of Zoomers) say portions of the Bible can be considered obsolete as culture shifts—prompting discussion of Romans 12:2 and the call not to conform to the world but to be transformed by the renewing of the mind.

The episode closes with election-year notes on a Michigan U.S. Senate candidate who has labeled efforts to ban Sharia law as “white supremacy,” raising questions of inconsistent standards: would similar restrictions apply if the Maine daughter were Muslim and attending a mosque? The discussion underscores Newman’s broader theme of keeping the faith amid selective legal and cultural double standards.

Crusaders VS Puritans - Chris J. Pinto

Christian J. Pinto: Crusaders VS Puritans

The Real Reveal

Oct 9, 2026

Chris examines the history of the Crusades and the fight against Islam, versus the strength of the Puritans and Reformed armies that appeared as a result of the Protestant Reformation. Which were greater or more effective? Did the Protestant movement weaken Christianity in the West? Or strengthen it? How is it that Islam was completely subdued by the end of World War II so that John F. Kennedy remarked that the entire Middle East was in a subjugated condition during the 1960’s?  Furthermore, we look at the history of how the Crusades ended and the possible reasons why the Holy Land was lost in the Middle Ages.

An Era of Spiritual Darkness | The Great Controversy - Chapter 3

Words Like Apples of Gold | Our High Calling - October 16

 

God’s Spooks: Religion, Spying, and the Cold War

by Matthew Avery Sutton

January 15, 2026

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

—John 8:32, inscribed on the wall at CIA headquarters, Langley, VA

In the early years of World War II, the U.S. State Department asked all American personnel living near enemy lines in China to return home. Baptist missionary John Birch refused to leave. God, he believed, wanted him in Asia. For years Birch had worked with local Chinese communities. He knew their language, their customs, and the layout of their land. He soon put this knowledge to work—not just for God but for Uncle Sam. In 1942 his life took a dramatic turn when a squadron of bombers led by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle crashed in the Chinese countryside. The American airmen had taken off from a carrier in the Pacific, dropped bombs on Tokyo, and then flown toward safety in China, where they parachuted from their planes as their fuel supplies ran out. When Birch received word of the raid and subsequent crash, he rendezvoused with the soldiers and helped them navigate through enemy lines and to freedom.

Birch’s performance impressed the Army and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They saw in Birch a loyal foot soldier who knew the Chinese language and understood the geography and politics of the region. They put him to work, baptizing him in the waters of covert operations. During and immediately after the war Birch provided the OSS with intelligence on Chinese communism while still fronting as a missionary. He was eventually captured by communists and killed, becoming the first “martyr” of the Cold War. He later became the inspiration for Robert Welch’s extreme right-wing, anti-communist John Birch Society. Birch’s work for the government revealed that religious activists could make extremely valuable contributions to American intelligence services. But his death also demonstrated the potential consequences of mixing faith with work for the U.S. government.

What follows investigates the complicated relationship between the CIA and religion. Since its inception, the CIA has used missionaries and other religious activists for intelligence and espionage work; it has used religion as an effective propaganda tool, and its agents have even posed as clergy. CIA agents and religious activists managed to keep their partnerships mostly hidden until the 1970s. But in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, numerous journalists and then Congress began scrutinizing the agency more closely. They revealed to the world that the CIA had been employing missionaries to further its agenda and that some religious activists were receiving substantial rewards for their work on the government’s behalf. In fact, the CIA and religious activists have long collaborated to achieve numerous policy goals.

In recent years, historians of religion have worked to better embed their narratives in the rich and complex historical contexts in which their subjects acted, linking issues of faith and belief to the ebbs and flows of particular environments. Historians Jon Butler, Paul Harvey, and Kevin Schultz have called for better integration of religion into more “mainstream” American history. The case of missionary-CIA collaboration answers that call by demonstrating how important it is for scholars to understand the many ways that religion functions in ostensibly nonreligious spheres. In the specific case of intelligence and espionage, religion had tangible impacts on American covert activities abroad. CIA-missionary relationships highlight underexplored intersections between religion and foreign policy; they expose in new ways the complicated nature of church-state collaboration; and they offer fresh insights into the many ways in which religion functions in nontraditional spheres.

At the same time, historians have much to learn by probing how and in what ways individuals and religious groups have benefited from their cooperation with the government. The State Department has often helped missionary groups expedite visas and gain entry into new regions of the world in return for their collaboration. Some government agencies have also provided humanitarian ministries with cash, food, and other supplies, subsidizing and supporting their work. Missionaries have received equally valuable, even if less tangible, benefits as well: many have found satisfaction in the conviction that in serving Uncle Sam, they were serving God. Despite the official disestablishment of religion, these partnerships illustrate how the state can serve as a historical actor, substantially aiding, or substantially undermining, a wide variety of missionary ventures.

Alex Newman Rally - "Exposing the Globalist Agenda"

 Alex Newman Rally - "Exposing the Globalist Agenda"

VCY TV

Oct 14, 2026  Crosstalk America

What is globalism? According to Alex: "In short, it's the idea that we should get rid of nations and all merge into a one-world system." On that note, this broadcast looks at people like John Foster Dulles, Alger Hiss, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Richard Haass, and more, as well as organizations like the Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones, the Illuminati, and the Council on Foreign Relations. These are just some of the people and organizations that have been tied to the idea that global problems require global solutions. The problem with that philosophy is what lies just beneath the surface. It's the reality that in order to accomplish this you must establish global governance and that involves the abolishing of sovereign nations, family and private property. You'll hear that this is hardly a conspiracy theory. As Alex notes, the people pushing this today are talking about it more openly than ever and doing it through that which is central to all of this: the climate crisis and its related sustainable development goals.

The Overton Window: How Ideas Become Acceptable Without Anyone Noticing

blac

Oct 8, 2026

There's an idea that, right now, would end a career if you said it out loud. 

Nobody proposes it. Nobody defends it. But ideas like this don't always stay 

that way.

The Overton Window is the range of ideas a society considers acceptable to 

say in public. It doesn't move because someone wins an argument. It moves 

because the furthest edge keeps shifting outward, and everything behind it 

gets pulled along, one small step at a time.

Part of an ongoing series on the psychology of belief, compliance, and 

manipulation.

European Council, 15-16 October 2026

Agenda highlights


EU leaders are meeting in Brussels for a two-day summit.

In the face of increasing geopolitical uncertainty, the leaders will focus on issues relating to the economy and on delivering answers to challenges to European competitiveness, including energy prices.

The leaders will also discuss the EU's long-term budget 2028-2034, continued support for Ukraine, hybrid attacks in Europe linked to Russia, migration, enlargement and reforms and the situation in the Middle East.

Invitation letter by President António Costa to the members of the European Council (press release, 8 October 2026)

Competitiveness and global economic challenges

On energy prices, EU leaders will provide guidance to the Commission on targeted and temporary short-term measures to alleviate the impact of high energy prices, protecting EU citizens and businesses. They will also discuss Europe's long-term strategy to reduce its dependency on fossil fuels.

The leaders will also review progress on the 'One Europe, One Market’ agenda, including its implementation in 2026 and 2027.

We need to ensure that additional progress is made, so that the ambition at leaders' level – and the expectations that have been raised – are matched by concrete outcomes.

President Costa

They will further discuss ways to reduce global macroeconomic imbalances that are affecting European industry.

What the EU is doing to boost its competitiveness (background information)

"Close Borders, Save Europe": Afroditi Latinopoulou’s Vision for Europe

 "Close Borders, Save Europe": Afroditi Latinopoulou’s Vision for Europe

The Financial Express

Oct 13, 2026 

At a political gathering in Italy, Greek politician Afroditi Latinopoulou delivers a forceful critique of the European Union, accusing Brussels’ institutions of undermining national sovereignty, traditional values and democratic accountability. Aligning herself with right-wing European figures including Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orbán, she calls for tighter borders, mass deportations and a rejection of policies she associates with the EU establishment. Her speech also attacks what she describes as excessive bureaucracy, state intervention and the political left, while emphasising the themes of nation, religion and family. Latinopoulou presents the debate as a struggle over who should shape Europe’s future: national governments and their citizens, or institutions based in Brussels. This report examines the arguments and political rhetoric behind her challenge to the European project.

The Vatican's 'unusual' transparency about Pope Leo's cancer

The Vatican's 'unusual' transparency about Pope Leo's cancer

Reuters  

Oct 14, 2026  

'Communication about Pope Leo's health has shown a kind of level of unusual transparency for the Vatican,' says Joshua McElwee, as the pontiff recovers from a surgery that removed a cancerous lung nodule and one lobe of his lower right lung.

These common infections can cause cancer...

These common infections can cause cancer. Here’s what can lower your risk.

Recent research indicates that infectious diseases cause about 12 percent of new cancer cases.

October 14, 2026 at 5:00 a.m. EDT

Yesterday at 5:00 a.m. EDT

Helicobacter pylori bacteria. (Steve Gschmeissner/Science Source)

By Daniel Wu

About 12 percent of new cancer cases worldwide in 2024 were caused by infectious agents such as viruses and bacteria, according to a recent study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

That means a sizable share of the cancer burden around the world is preventable with tools we already have, including vaccines and other preventative measures, researchers said.

“We have very actionable targets,” said Gary Clifford, a cancer epidemiologist and one of the authors of the study that published in the Lancet Oncology. “We have very many tools against these viruses already.”

Several infectious diseases, like the human papillomavirus and Epstein-Barr viruses, have known links to cancer. Viruses and other infectious diseases can cause cancer several ways: by causing mutations in cells’ ability to reproduce, inducing chronic inflammation and weakening the immune system.

“Viruses are not designed or evolved to cause cancer,” Clifford said. “But it can be a side effect.”

What infections were most often connected with cancer?

Recent research has expanded the range of cancers associated with some infectious diseases and microorganisms, experts said. The recent study incorporated cancers associated with HIV, which has been linked to a rare eye cancer and heightens the cancer risk from other infections. The Epstein-Barr virus, once mostly linked to a rare type of head and neck cancer, has also been associated with stomach cancer.

Top U.S. banks dropped customers over political and religious views, regulator says

By  Aimee Picchi
October 14, 2026 / 4:42 PM EDT / CBS News


Top U.S. banks have "debanked" customers because of their political or religious views, as well as their business activities, according to a report from the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The report, released on Wednesday, examines a practice that President Trump has claimed discriminates against conservatives over their views. Debanking has also been highlighted by some cryptocurrency investors, who claim their accounts have been closed because banks are uncomfortable working with crypto industry clients.

The OCC said the report was in accordance with Mr. Trump's 2025 executive order requiring federal banking regulators to review complaints to identify financial institutions that had declined business with clients because of their views.

Some conservatives have argued that they've been unfairly targeted by financial institutions, although the OCC found that some banks had also refused to do business with Democratic-leaning organizations. Debanking can also occur for legal and regulatory reasons, such as if a bank detects potentially fraudulent activity or an account is overdrawn.

The OCC, which reviewed 100,000 complaints and hundreds of bank decisions between 2020 and September 2025, found that the nine largest national banks it supervises had policies that swayed their decisions based on political, religious or business activities.

"Americans should have access to financial services regardless of their beliefs, affiliations or political views. Fair access to financial services is not a mantra — it is a mandate," said Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould in a statement on Wednesday.

The incidents cited in the report include the payment processor WePay, which is now defunct and was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2017. WePay closed the accounts of several merchants selling MAGA- or Trump-related items, the OCC said.

"Our policies prohibit discrimination against customers based on political or religious views," a JPMorgan spokesperson said. WePay's processes "did not meet our expectations. We identified it, corrected it, and the business no longer operates."

The OCC also found that some banks turned away customers due to their industries. For instance, businesses involved in oil and gas exploration, coal mining or firearms were restricted from some financial services, the agency concluded.

Other banks cited in the report, including Citibank and Wells Fargo, declined to comment and pointed to a statement from the Bank Policy Institute, a trade group for the banking industry.

"The banking industry supports fair access to banking services and has been working to ensure that government regulations and policies enable banks to serve law-abiding customers," the Bank Policy Institute said in response to the OCC's findings.

The group added, "We support efforts to establish clear and consistent standards that promote access while maintaining sound risk management, including the administration's recent efforts to prioritize supervisory attention on material financial risk and rather than reputational risk."

Edited by Alain Sherter


Source 

We Trekked The World's Deadliest Migration Route - FULL DOCUMENTARY

Greta Thunberg joins French students protesting school conditions

 

“Children are God’s Property,” October 15 - The Upward Look

Fort Wayne Seventh-day Adventist Church

Oct 15, 2022

Source:

https://www.spreaker.com/user/1591877...

Parents are called to lovingly instruct their children in the ways of heaven. Reference: E.G. White, "The Upward Look," p. 302.

Full text of the devotional: “Children are God’s Property,” October 15

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruits of the womb is his reward. Psalm 127:3.

I have a special message to parents. I am charged to bring to parents the strict requirement of God in each family. Fathers and mothers need to be daily reconverted in the line of bringing light into their own families. Cultivate Christian politeness in your training of your children. Guard yourselves. Never allow your hand to strike a child in anger. Your children are the Lord’s property and they must be treated kindly, but not vindicated in their disrespect of righteousness and truth by your own careless irreverence. Give them righteousness. Christ is truth, the complete perfect sample of what every soul must be if he enters the heavenly courts. All the great facts are set forth. You can never cure an evil spirit by doing irreligious work...

Be kind in your speech to your children. No loud, tempestuous scolding will cure your children of any evil action. No taking your children in a passion and shaking them will convert them from the error of their ways to do God’s will. They are God’s property. As a people professing to be reformers the very best lesson that you can give your children in this age of corruption is not to indulge them to become fashionable after the worldly style. Sons and daughters are to be instructed as to what it means to be obedient to God’s requirements, what will fit you and them for a position in the heavenly kingdom.

Watch and pray, fathers and mothers, lest ye enter into temptation. Give your hearts and minds and souls to God’s service. You are not to be severe, but kneel before the Lord with your own hearts softened by the grace of God. Be converted that you may have the earnest of the Holy Spirit. What a comfort to know that the Lord will help you in every emergency, for you are laborers together with God...

Fathers and mothers, you take the responsibility of bringing children into the world. Will you consider it is not for you to work in vain? “We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.” ... Now this takes in Christian experience. Here is large encouragement. Here are the graces we are to receive, if we comply with the conditions. Fathers, mothers, if you are not converted, will you measure your advantages if you will comply with the conditions? ... Your children are the Lord’s property with which you have been entrusted, to bring up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.—Manuscript 61, October 15, 1911, “Individual Responsibility of Fathers and Mothers.”

The Feds Are Uncovering What Ilhan Omar Did… It’s WAY Worse Than You Think

 

Ilhan Omar’s dad ‘misrepresented himself as a refugee’ and was ‘loyal’ to brutal Somali dictator: source

By Chadwick Moore and Kamal Sultan

Published Oct. 13, 2026
Updated Oct. 13, 2026, 11:08 p.m. ET

Lefty Rep. Ilhan Omar’s DC home raided by DHS as part of ongoing criminal fraud investigation

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, wasn’t who he purported to be, a source told The Post.

The Minnesota congresswoman — whose home was raided by the feds on Monday as part of an ongoing criminal fraud investigation — has long described her father as an “educator” who fled his country’s devastating civil war alongside millions of others and arrived in America with his family as a refugee in 1995.

But, an expert scholar exclusively told The Post that Nur “misrepresented himself as a refugee” to US authorities when he was really a prominent military commander in the Somalia dictatorship that killed as many as 200,000 people.

Rep. Omar pictured with her late father, who went by many aliases.

ilhanmn/Instagram

“He was a full colonel in Siad Barre’s military regime,” historian and Oxford University doctoral researcher Mohamed Haji Ingiriis told The Post. “Ilhan’s father was never an educator.

He added, “Nur Said was a military officer who was loyal to the regime until the end. He was part and parcel of those who caused and created the mayhem they ‘fled’ to live comfortably in the United States.”

Nur, born in the Somali coastal town of Bandarbeyla in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, joined Somalia’s military in the late 60s, with conflicting reports suggesting he trained in the Soviet Union or Egypt.

He allegedly played a key role in Siad Barre’s army after the bloodthirsty dictator seized power in a Soviet-backed coup in 1969.

Nur, who died from COVID-19 complications in June 2020 at age 67, lived a life worlds away from the civilian teacher portrayed in Omar’s 2020 memoir titled “This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman,” Ingiriis claimed.

 

A portrait shows President Siad Barre, the architect of Somalia’s Scientific Socialism, circa 1970.

Getty Images

Inside the Bavarian Illuminati: Weishaupt, the Owl of Minerva, 1785 Ban

▶️https://youtu.be/XzifXCX62oU?si=v5MhUL7aboI5UZMJ

Inside the Bavarian Illuminati: Weishaupt, the Owl of Minerva, 1785 Ban

Dark Tales of History

Aug 28, 2026  

In 1785, Duke Charles Theodore moved against a secret order that had quietly spread across Europe. But what was the Bavarian Illuminati really doing in the shadows?

Travel from Ingolstadt’s Jesuit halls to candlelit Minerval “churches,” where initiates faced the owl of Minerva and whispered passwords under a full moon. Hear how Adam Weishaupt’s war on church and state collided with Freemasonry, drew in names like Goethe and Mozart, and sparked open conflict with the Rosicrucians. Police raids exposed startling papers, rival pamphlets flew, and Bavaria’s repeated bans only deepened the mystery. Did the Order truly vanish, or did its ideas echo from Paris to Naples and beyond?

Unpack symbols, rituals, and the pivotal 1780s power struggle between Weishaupt and Knigge without spoilers. This episode separates conspiracy culture from the documented network that grew from five men to thousands in under a decade. Watch to see how a real society’s ambitions for a “new world order” shaped revolutions, music, and modern myth.

Watch the full episode to uncover the evidence and decide what survived the crackdown.

House Democrat introduces bill seeking to cut ICE, CBP, replace DHS

House Democrat introduces bill seeking to cut ICE, CBP, replace DHS


by Ford McCracken 10/13/26 05:12 PM ET


Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) introduced a bill Tuesday to overhaul U.S. immigration agencies, including replacing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a new “community-centered” department.

The “Reimagining Safety Act” would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as well as dismantle DHS, replacing it with a new agency called the “Department of Community Safety.” The bill would preserve non-immigration functions of DHS, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration.

“Every person dead in detention, shot or killed by ICE and CBP, every neighbor deported to a third country, every family separated … is a reason DHS must be dismantled and something new must take its place,” Ramirez said in a statement.

Ramirez, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and a frequent ICE critic, has repeatedly called to abolish ICE and dismantle DHS in the past. After federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens as part of an immigration operation in Minneapolis in January, Ramirez marched alongside protesters in the city.

President Trump’s immigration agenda has become unpopular with voters, despite it being one of his strongest issues in the 2024 campaign. An AP-NORC poll released Oct. 1 found that just 39 percent of Americans approve of the president’s handling of immigration.

Trump allies have suggested Trump’s efforts to end illegal immigration to the country were successful, and that voters are not giving him credit for those wins. His critics argue his strict policies going after legal and illegal immigrants in the U.S. have turned off voters.

Some Democrats have avoided calls to abolish ICE entirely, though the idea did gain traction following those fatal shootings. A January Economist/YouGov poll found that more Americans supported abolishing ICE than opposed it, 46 percent to 43 percent.

Source