White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt LEAVING her role at White House to focus on family; Reports emerging of planned attack on President Trump’s life last month while he was in Turkey; Feds bust NYC fraud scheme that engineered hundreds of sham marriages between Americans, Chinese nationals; Pediatricians condemn Massachusetts law expanding abortion until birth signed by Catholic governor, Boston Archdiocese calls law ‘grave offense’; University of Michigan ‘eases grading’ for first-year students; Texas teacher breaks down in tears after his senior students struggle to read, write; France’s Interior Minister orders heightened security for Feast of the Assumption on August 15; Israel’s military protection fails as remaining Christians in West Bank face new attacks; First total solar eclipse across Europe in decades: ‘Light flipped to darkness in seconds as the Moon swallowed the Sun whole’; and more —
Karoline Leavitt departs White House to focus on family
See @WhiteHouse
President Trump expresses gratitude for Karoline Leavitt’s service
‘Karoline has been one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office‘
Watch @nicksortor
Karoline Leavitt does not suffer fools gladly
Watch @LanieeUSA; watch also ’10 epic moments of Karoline Leavitt owning the press’ @AlecLace
Reports emerging of planned attack on President Trump’s life last month while he was in Turkey
‘Any consequential president has a lot of threats. Non-consequential presidents don’t get threats.‘ — President Trump
Watch @FoxNews
Feds bust NYC fraud scheme that engineered hundreds of sham marriages between Americans, Chinese nationals
The feds nabbed 11 suspects accused of operating a decade-long, multimillion-dollar marriage fraud scheme that resulted in around 1,000 sham weddings between primarily Chinese nationals and US citizens for the purpose of getting the Asians green cards.
The “cottage industry” uncovered Wednesday charged foreign nationals up to $100,000 for each fake union, including submitting fraudulent applications to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on behalf of those seeking lawful permanent residency.
The sham wedding ring used advertisements on social media platforms, held phony marraige ceremonies and even had both parties to the fake unions sign bizarre pre-nuptial agreements, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York alleged.
One of those agreements expressly stated that “except in the name of husband and wife, both parties live independently and must not interfere with each other,” according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday.
Each defendant faces charges of conspiring to commit marriage fraud and immigration document fraud as well as conspiracy to encourage the unlawful residence of aliens in the US.
Read more at the New York Post; watch @TheJusticeDept; read Read ‘11 Defendants Charged in Dismantling of Decade-Long Nationwide Marriage Fraud Scheme’ at U.S. Department of Justice
Minnesota bishop calls out MA governor for laughing as she signs babies’ death warrants
See @PhilLawler; read ‘Pediatricians Condemn Massachusetts Law Expanding Abortion Until Birth’ at National Right to Life
Archdiocese of Boston calls law allowing abortion-through-birth ‘a grave offense’
See @bostoncatholic
BLM: Babies Lives Matter – Fr. Chris Alar calls out to Massachusetts governor Maura Healey
Massachusetts, Protect the Unborn: No State Has the Authority to Deny Human Dignity In today’s homily by Fr. Chris Alar, MIC was a courageous and uncompromising call to defend the dignity of every human life. “Human dignity is not given by the state.” “Humanity is not determined by location—whether a baby is inside or outside the womb—nor by time, whether minutes before or after birth.” “Every human person is created in the image and likeness of God.” These words are not merely a religious opinion—they are a moral challenge to every society that claims to defend human rights. …
To the elected leaders of Massachusetts, Michigan, and our nation: laws that fail to protect the most vulnerable fail in their first duty of justice. The measure of a civilization is not how it protects the powerful, but how it protects those who have no voice. The unborn child is not invisible, disposable, or without dignity. As Fr. Alar reminded us today, Catholics cannot determine what is right simply because civil law permits it. God’s law calls us to defend both mother and child, to reject the intentional taking of innocent life, and to build a culture where every human being is welcomed and protected from conception to natural death. …
Watch at Divine Mercy (16 minutes)
University of Michigan ‘eases grading’ for first-year students to help their mental health
See @people; read ‘To Improve Student Mental Health, University of Michigan Eases Grading’ at The New York Times (behind a paywall)
Texas teacher breaks down in tears during class after his senior students struggled to read, write
A Texas high school teacher was reduced to tears and broke down in front of his class when he realized the seniors he was teaching couldn’t complete a writing exercise.
Darius Williams, a teacher for Houston Independent School District’s Wheatley High School, said he couldn’t get through the first class of the second day of school before his students’ poor literacy skills were too much for him.
“I just finished a three-hour class, and I literally broke down in the middle of class,” Williams said in an Instagram video during his lunch break on Tuesday.
Williams, a New Education System (NES) Career and Technical Education (CTE) staffer, said he gave his class full of seniors two paragraphs to read and asked them to complete another sentence he had practically filled out for them, but was left stunned when they couldn’t finish the task.
Read more at the New York Post; see heartbreaking video of the teacher @mymixtapez
[UK] Labour Doubles Down on Putting 1,250 Migrants in a Village of 400
The Labour government’s plans to distribute asylum seekers more evenly across the United Kingdom have sparked controversy after a former military base near the village of Piddington, home to just 400 people, was selected to house 1,250 migrants. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said wealthier communities must ‘play their part’, while residents fear the impact on their small village.
Newly elected Prime Minister Andy Burnham of the United Kingdom has vowed to have wealthier areas also ‘play their part’ in housing migrants in the country, not just the lower-income neighbourhoods. As part of that plan, 1,250 male migrants are set to be placed in an old military base near Piddington, a village of just 400 people in Oxfordshire County in South East England.
The proposal has caused anger in the small village. Residents have even voted in a symbolic referendum to leave the United Kingdom as part of their protest against the migrant placement plans. The scale of the proposed accommodation means that the number of asylum seekers housed near the village could be more than three times its population.
Defending the plans on the talk radio station LBC on the morning of Wednesday, 12 August, Home Office minister Anna Turley argued that asylum seekers needed to be distributed more evenly across Britain.
‘This is about fairness,’ she said, stressing the need for a ‘fair and equitable system’ that spreads asylum seekers across the country while limiting the impact on individual communities.
Read more at the Hungarian Conservative
Austin Powers-style video goes viral after Babylon Bee’s satirical article about Elon Musk ‘buying’ UK to save free speech
Watch @elonmusk
Large crowd of mostly young Moroccan men gathering again near Ceuta’s border with Spain
Watch @Proudofthisland
Total solar eclipse over Spain
Watch @Mario_Nawfal
Church collapsing during Columbia’s earthquake
Watch @usanewshq
Assumption: Laurent Nuñez [France’s Minister of the Interior] calls for “extreme vigilance” for August 15
The Minister of the Interior called for “a strengthening of security measures regarding Christian places of worship and gatherings” in connection with this religious holiday.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called on prefects and security officials on Thursday to maintain “extreme vigilance” for the Christian feast of the Assumption on August 15, according to a telegram consulted by AFP.
“The high level of the terrorist threat that continues to weigh on our country as well as the persistence of international tensions require the maintenance of extreme vigilance, especially with regard to demonstrations, buildings and religious places,” explains the Minister of the Interior in his letter.
This is why Laurent Nuñez called for “a strengthening of security measures regarding Christian places of worship and gatherings” in connection with this religious holiday.
He recalls that in 2025, “843 anti-Christian acts were recorded, an increase of 9% compared to 2024”. “They represent 34% of the total of anti-religious acts,” he notes, highlighting “458 anti-Christian facts” in the first half of 2026, “an increase of 6%” compared to last year at the same time.
Read more Le Figaro (translation is available)
Remaining Christians in the West Bank continue to be attacked
Watch @IhabHassane; see more here
Today is the Feast of Saints Pontian and Hippolytus
See @FriarMario; Read more at My Catholic Life!
