U.S. Ambassador to Israel to inspect Gaza food centers amid starvation reports; Detroit archbishop scrutinized for firing seminary professors; ‘Mass of the Americas’ coming to Wisconsin’s Guadalupe Shrine; Trump bringing back Presidential Fitness Test to schools; Poland commemorates 81st anniversary of Warsaw Uprising; Film about Maximilian Kolbe to hit theaters September 12; and more —
Another Major Document Release: The long-awaited classified annex to Special Counsel John Durham’s report is out
The long-awaited classified annex to John Durham’s report is a large, significant, upsetting document. It’s not the final word on this mess, but it establishes definitively that the public version of the Trump-Russia story, which officially began in July of 2016, was a thin tissue of fiction, concealing a larger and more sordid tale dating to at least January of 2016. Just one sample involves a memorandum Russian analysts wrote in March of 2016, saying:
[The Democratic Party’s] opposition is focused on discrediting Trump…. [a]mong other things, the Clinton staff, with support from special services, is preparing scandalous revelations of business relations between Trump and the ‘Russian Mafia.’
Read more at Racket News
How The Propaganda Press Jumped On The Russia Hoax And Tried To Save Hillary’s Floundering Campaign
The clues for how the propaganda machine was set in motion to benefit Hillary Clinton’s scandal-ridden 2016 campaign are found in the declassified “Durham Annex,” released to the public Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. …
The formula for selling the public on a campaign lie — in this case, that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to harm Clinton’s campaign — is simple. First, there must be a reason to change the current narrative; second, the messaging must generate interest; and third, the media and the candidate must repeat it with conviction. …
The press that lied about Russia is not backing off after seeing the Durham Annex. Instead is in denial or looking for a new spin.
Read more at The Federalist
Huckabee and Witkoff to inspect Gaza food centers amid starvation reports
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee will join U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff to inspect the food distribution centers operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a joint venture between the United States and Israel.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced at a Thursday press conference that the diplomats will enter the Gaza Strip on Friday and report back to President Donald Trump on how to improve the woefully inadequate aid efforts.
Read more at The Washington Examiner
Trump: Best Way to End Gaza Crisis Is for Hamas to Release Hostages
President Donald Trump said Thursday that the best and fastest way to solve the humanitarian problems facing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is for Hamas to surrender and to release its remaining Israeli hostages.
He posted on Truth Social: “The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!”
Read more at Breitbart
Vatican Rebuffs Meloni, Backs Macron in Endorsing Palestinian State
When Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier this week blasted France’s decision to recognize Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly as “counterproductive,” the Catholic Church’s second-highest authority responded by calling for the Vatican to follow in France’s footsteps.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s statement to reporters on July 28 is being seen as an attack on Meloni and an endorsement of French President Emmanuel Macron’s support for Palestine. It comes amid rising antisemitism in traditionally Catholic Italy.
“We’ve already recognized [the State of Palestine] … for us it’s the solution,” said Parolin, the brains behind the Vatican’s secret deal with the Chinese Communist Party, in response to Macron’s July 24 announcement that France will officially recognize the State of Palestine in September.
Read more at The Stream
Trump to bring back Presidential Fitness Test in schools
President Trump will host several professional athletes at the White House on Thursday, including golfer Bryson DeChambeau, for an executive order signing that will reestablish the Presidential Fitness Test.
DeChambeau, who is friendly with Trump, will chair the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, the White House confirmed.
The order will direct the council to develop school-based programs that reward achievements in physical education.
Read more at The Hill; see also @The White House on X
The White House Announces White House Ballroom Construction to Begin
The White House State Ballroom will be a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people — a significant increase from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House.
President Trump has chosen McCrery Architects as lead architect … well-known for their classical architectural design [including many traditional Catholic Churches].
CEO Jim McCrery said: “Presidents in the modern era have faced challenges hosting major events at the White House because it has been untouched since President Harry Truman. I am honored that President Trump has entrusted me to help bring this beautiful and necessary renovation to The People’s House …
Read more at WhiteHouse.gov; see also The National Pulse
Can Trump Break the Back of Anti-Western Academia? By John Zmirak
When a nation’s elites declare war against its people, the struggle is never pretty. Nor is the outcome certain. History shows us many sad examples of small, haughty ruling classes successfully oppressing the populace — sometimes for centuries. The Mongols conquered and milked their subject peoples for many generations. The tiny fringe sect of Bolsheviks bled mighty Russia almost to death for 70 years.
And now ex-Christian white elites who hate and fear their own people dominate most Western countries from Great Britain to Australia — and on our own shores, Canada. In American blue states and cities, such alienated aristocrats wield power, bolstered by hordes of docile foreigners they have imported.
Perhaps the rankest cesspool of civilizational treason festers in academia. Not just Harvard and Georgetown, or blue state universities, either. Countless “Christian” and “Catholic” schools have traded in their birthrights for pats on the head from Caesar — and ample federal funds — and for “respectability” among the powerful pagans. …
Read more at The Stream
The Sydney Sweeney Ads Aren’t the Epitome of Conservatism
The newly released American Eagle commercials with Sydney Sweeney are, without a doubt, not the kind of thing a major U.S. brand would have even dreamed of releasing five years ago.
Sydney Sweeney is everything the diversity, equity, and inclusion crowd hates. She’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed, stays at something approximating a healthy weight, and has no known weird sexual preferences. …
[But] many of the clips either feature Sweeney in revealing clothing or utilize suggestive camera movements. Some shots are little more than pornographic. …
The problem with the Sydney Sweeney ads isn’t that Sweeney is promoting racism and eugenics, but that the ads objectify her for her good looks and encourage young women (American Eagle’s primary audience) to do the same.
Read more at The American Spectator
37 Planned Parenthood Abortion Centers Have Closed in 2025
So far this year, the Planned Parenthood abortion business has closed 37 centers. Despite what the abortion giant and the media would have Americans think, they all participated in abortions.
Some would kill babies directly with surgical abortions. Others would kill babies by selling the dangerous abortion pill that also kills and injures women. Still others would make abortion referrals – with Planned Parenthood locations in pro-life states arranging abortions in other states or using telehealth to sell abortion pills to women in violation of state pro-life laws.
Read more at LifeNews
22 Democrat states sue to stop Congress from defunding Planned Parenthood
Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia filed their own lawsuit joining the effort to protect Planned Parenthood’s federal funding led by Democrat Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
In July, President Donald Trump signed into law his controversial “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (BBB), a wide-ranging policy package that includes a one-year ban on federal tax dollars going through Medicaid to entities that provide abortions for reasons other than rape, incest, or supposed threats to the mother’s life.
Read more at Lifesite
Senate leader files cloture on nomination of Brian Burch to serve as Vatican Ambassador
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, filed cloture Thursday evening on the nomination of Brian Burch to serve as US Ambassador to the Vatican. …
Thune’s decision to file cloture on Burch’s nomination comes as the Senate sits on a backlog of over 150 nominees tapped to serve in the Trump administration. The move initiates a “ripening” period of two session days, after which the Senate can vote on cloture.
Read more at Catholic Vote
Following bankruptcy filing, Fresno diocese could be resolving sex abuse lawsuits for years
The more than 150 sex abuse lawsuits filed against the Diocese of Fresno, California, could take years to be resolved while the diocese undergoes reorganization following its recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, a local NPR affiliate reported.
In a July 1, 2025, open letter, Fresno Bishop Joseph Brennan stated that the diocese finally filed for bankruptcy and expressed confidence that “this path is the only path that will allow us to handle claims of sexual abuse with fair, equitable compassion while simultaneously ensuring the continuation of ministry within our Diocese.”
Read more at Catholic Vote
Crisis Magazine: 3 fired Sacred Heart Professors had created ‘culture of faithful orthodoxy at the seminary’
Crisis Magazine has published two op-eds this week calling attention to the recent firings of three high-profile professors at Sacred Heart Seminary, who, in the words of one of the writers, “have each provided more than twenty years of exemplary service at the seminary.”
News broke last week that Archbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit had fired Eduardo Echeverria, professor of philosophy and systematic theology, and Ralph Martin, professor of theology and director of graduate programs in the new evangelization, as CatholicVote previously reported. On July 25, prominent canon lawyer Ed Peters, professor and Edmund Cardinal Szoka Chair of Faculty Development, revealed that he too had been relieved of duties.
Read more at Catholic Vote
Censorship and Constitutional Breakdown Is New Polish Reality
In recent days, Poland has been electrified by continued reports of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s attempts to unlawfully prevent President-elect Karol Nawrocki from taking office. These actions bear all the hallmarks of a constitutional coup. …
Since December 2023, Poland under Tusk’s so-called “militant democracy” has become a testing ground for globalist lawlessness and a campaign of systemic, unprecedented erosion of the rule of law. One of its explicit targets has also been the National Broadcasting Council, a body standing in the way of imposing liberal censorship in Poland.
Read more at the European Conservative
81st Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising: Honoring Poland’s Legacy of Resistance
On 1 August 2025, Poland commemorates the 81st anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising – a defining moment in its modern history and a powerful symbol of national resistance against totalitarian occupation. …
The Warsaw Uprising, launched on 1 August 1944, was the largest single military effort undertaken by any European resistance movement during the Second World War. Orchestrated by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa)— the underground armed forces loyal to the Polish government-in-exile — the operation aimed to liberate Warsaw from German occupation before the arrival of Soviet forces advancing from the east. …
Despite its tragic outcome, the Warsaw Uprising remains a cornerstone of Poland’s national memory. Each year, commemorations are held throughout the country, with the epicenter in Warsaw, where at precisely 5:00 p.m. — ”W” Hour — the city comes to a standstill. Sirens wail, traffic stops, and people stand in silence to honor the fallen.
Read more at Defence24.com
‘Mass of the Americas’ Coming to Wisconsin’s Guadalupe Shrine
The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin, [marked] a milestone week beginning on July 31, with the celebration of the 17th anniversary of its dedication. Cardinal Raymond Burke founded the shrine in 2008 when he was bishop of the diocese. …
Then, on Aug. 5, Cardinal Burke and Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco will celebrate the Mass of the Americas as a solemn pontifical Mass in the traditional Latin rite as part of Project Guadalupe 2031, an effort by the Benedict XVI Institute to foster greater devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe ahead of the 500th anniversary of her appearance to St. Juan Diego.
Read more at the National Catholic Register
Start of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate brings surge of interest in papal blessings
The Vatican has seen a boom in requests for blessings from the new pope, with at least a 30% increase during Leo XIV’s first month reflecting enthusiasm over the start of a new pontificate — and highlighting a traditional practice that combines devotion with fundraising for charitable works.
In June, the Vatican granted 20,000 papal blessing requests — up from the 12,000 to 15,000 parchments distributed in a typical month — something that “has never happened in history,” Cardinal Konrad Krajewski told CNA in an interview this week.
Read more at the Catholic News Agency
St. John Henry Newman’s Elevation as Doctor of the Church Seen as a Gift for Our Times
Pope Leo XIV’s decision to proclaim St. John Henry Newman the 38th Doctor of the Universal Church will help bring the 19th-century English saint’s teachings to a world in great need of them and at a time when England appears to be at the beginning of a Catholic revival, say those close to the saint’s cause.
“This is going to do so much good, dare I say, in the modern world of today because of Newman’s ideas,” Oratorian Father Ignatius Harrison — a co-actor, or official promoter, of the Newman cause — told the Register July 31. “I think this has come at just the right time. I see it as providential.”
Read more at the National Catholic Register
Trailer Drops for ‘Triumph of the Heart’ – New Film on Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s Final Days in Auschwitz
Writer and director Anthony D’Ambrosio provides ChurchPOP an exclusive first look at his new, grassroots-driven film, “Triumph of the Heart.”
He explains the film “covers the final 14 days of Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s life in Auschwitz [as] Kolbe enters the starvation bunker alongside nine condemned men and fights to forge a brotherhood of hope from their suffering and despair” …
D’Ambrosio says, “On set, the cast and crew felt an unmistakable presence of the Holy Spirit.” They “felt what you feel when you’re watching the movie — the Holy Spirit descending; we felt that in such a thick and heavy and profound way that … God had shown up.”
Read more at ChurchPOP; see trailer and interview with D’Ambrosio here.
