Zendaya’s everlasting slays are the product of her go-to stylist, Law. The former celebrity designer proudly showcased the actress’ look via Instagram, writing, “HER…..US…..” Unsurprisingly, fans virtually applauded the pair’s joint efforts in bringing the archived look to life. “Proud to be a fellow Virgo. Zendaya is the muse of all muses. Iconic work, Law!” one of a plethora of impressed fans wrote in the comments section.
Getty
Zendaya not only dresses to impress, but she dresses on theme – and that’s exactly what the A-lister did when she walked the red carpet at the Dune: Part Two premiere in London. The Oakland native rocked a futuristic Mugler robot suit from the designer’s 1995 collection, which exposed her bare butt and breasts at the Thursday, February 15, event.
The fashionista – who was recently named one of the 2024 Met Gala’s co-chairs – was dressed by designer Law Roach, who paired the chrome outfit with a statement diamond necklace.
Keep scrolling to see Zendaya’s strikingly sexy outfit at the Dune: Part Two premiere!
Biden has said he needs to get more sleep and stop holding events after 8 p.m., reports say.
Joe Biden's argument that his disastrous debate performance last week was a one-off is seemingly falling apart.
In his latest verbal slipup, the president said he was "proud" to be the "first Black woman to serve with a Black president."
The 81-year-old president mixed up his words during an interview with Philadelphia's Wurd radio station when referring to his vice president, Kamala Harris, and former President Barack Obama.
"By the way, I'm proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first Black woman, to serve with a Black president," he said.
Biden likely jumbled the sentence because he'd earlier spoken about being the first vice president to serve under a Black president.
Earlier in the interview, he also spoke about how he was the first president to have a Black woman as vice president and had appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
It comes just days after Biden's debate with former US president Donald Trump, which was marked by verbal gaffes and confusing statements.
The Biden camp has offered multiple explanations for the president's slurred words, nonsensical phrases, and vacant stares, including jet lag, a cold, and incompetent aides.
But donors have publicly voiced their concerns with what they say are Biden's age-related problems.
On Thursday, the millionaire heiress Abigail Disney announced she'd stop donations to the Democratic Party until they "replace Biden at the top of the ticket."
Her statement echoed that of the Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings, who told The New York Times, "Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous."
Biden has told supporters he doesn't speak as "smoothly" or "debate as well" as he used to but has publicly vowed to fight on.
Axios, citing people close to the president, said Biden worked best between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and struggled to function outside that window.
His press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said to reporters that "he's a little slower than he used to be."
Biden told governors he needed to get more sleep and stop holding events after 8 p.m., CNN and The New York Times reported.
Biden's campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about the reports.
On Friday, Biden's mental acuity is set to be scrutinized when he sits for an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, who used to be head of communications at the White House during Bill Clinton's presidency.
Biden's previous interactions with Stephanopoulos include a rare sit-down appearance in 2021, during which he defended the US's decision to pull its troops from Afghanistan.
Deep inside Earth is a solid metal ball that rotates independently of our spinning planet, like a top whirling around inside a bigger top, shrouded in mystery.
This inner core has intrigued researchers since its discovery by Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann
Get info without leaving the page.
in 1936, and how it moves — its rotation speed and direction — has been at the center of a decades-long debate. A growing body of evidence suggests the core’s spin has changed dramatically in recent years, but scientists have remained divided over what exactly is happening — and what it means.
Part of the trouble is that Earth’s deep interior is impossible to observe or sample directly. Seismologists have gleaned information about the inner core’s motion by examining how waves from large earthquakes that ping this area behave. Variations between waves of similar strengths that passed through the core at different times enabled scientists to measure changes in the inner core’s position and calculate its spin.
“Differential rotation of the inner core was proposed as a phenomenon in the 1970s and ’80s, but it wasn’t until the ‘90s that seismological evidence was published,” said Dr. Lauren Waszek, a senior lecturer of physical sciences at James Cook University in Australia.
But researchers argued over how to interpret these findings, “primarily due to the challenge of making detailed observations of the inner core, due to its remoteness and limited available data,” Waszek said. As a result, “studies which followed over the next years and decades disagree on the rate of rotation, and also its direction with respect to the mantle,” she added. Some analyses even proposed that the core didn’t rotate at all.
One promising model proposed in 2023 described an inner core that in the past had spun faster than Earth itself, but was now spinning slower. For a while, the scientists reported, the core’s rotation matched Earth’s spin. Then it slowed even more, until the core was moving backward relative to the fluid layers around it.
At the time, some experts cautioned that more data was needed to bolster this conclusion, and now another team of scientists has delivered compelling new evidence for this hypothesis about the inner core’s rotation rate. Research published June 12 in the journal Nature not only confirms the core slowdown, it supports the 2023 proposal that this core deceleration is part of a decades-long pattern of slowing down and speeding up.
Scientists study the inner core to learn how Earth’s deep interior formed and how activity connects across all the planet’s subsurface layers. - forplayday/iStockphoto/Getty Images
The new findings also confirm that the changes in rotational speed follow a 70-year cycle, said study coauthor Dr. John Vidale, Dean’s Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
“We’ve been arguing about this for 20 years, and I think this nails it,” Vidale said. “I think we’ve ended the debate on whether the inner core moves, and what’s been its pattern for the last couple of decades.”
But not all are convinced that the matter is settled, and how a slowdown of the inner core might affect our planet is still an open question — though some experts say Earth’s magnetic field could come into play.
Magnetic attraction
Buried about 3,220 miles (5,180 kilometers) deep inside Earth, the solid metal inner core is surrounded by a liquid metal outer core. The inner core is made mostly of iron and nickel, and it is estimated to be as hot as the surface of the sun — about 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit (5,400 degrees Celsius).
Earth’s magnetic field yanks at this solid ball of hot metal, making it spin. At the same time, the gravity and flow of the fluid outer core and mantle drag at the core. Over many decades, the push and pull of these forces cause variations in the core’s rotational speed, Vidale said.
The sloshing of metal-rich fluid in the outer core generates electrical currents that power Earth’s magnetic field, which protects our planet from deadly solar radiation. Though the inner core’s direct influence on the magnetic field is unknown, scientists had previously reported in 2023 that a slower-spinning core could potentially affect it and also fractionally shorten the length of a day.
When scientists attempt to “see” all the way through the planet, they are generally tracking two types of seismic waves: pressure waves, or P waves, and shear waves, or S waves. P waves move through all types of matter; S waves only move through solids or extremely viscous liquids, according to the US Geological Survey.
Seismologists noted in the 1880s that S waves generated by earthquakes didn’t pass all the way through Earth, and so they concluded that Earth’s core was molten. But some P waves, after passing through Earth’s core, emerged in unexpected places — a “shadow zone,” as Lehmann called it — creating anomalies that were impossible to explain. Lehmann was the first to suggest that wayward P waves might be interacting with a solid inner core within the liquid outer core, based on data from a massive earthquake in New Zealand in 1929.
By tracking seismic waves from earthquakes that have passed through the Earth’s inner core along similar paths since 1964, the authors of the 2023 study found that the spin followed a 70-year cycle. By the 1970s, the inner core was spinning a little faster than the planet. It slowed around 2008, and from 2008 to 2023 began moving slightly in reverse, relative to the mantle.
Future core spin
For the new study, Vidale and his coauthors observed seismic waves produced by earthquakes in the same locations at different times. They found 121 examples of such earthquakes occurring between 1991 and 2023 in the South Sandwich Islands, an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Atlantic Ocean to the east of South America’s southernmost tip. The researchers also looked at core-penetrating shock waves from Soviet nuclear tests conducted between 1971 and 1974.
When the core turns, Vidale said, that affects the arrival time of the wave. Comparing the timing of seismic signals as they touched the core revealed changes in core rotation over time, confirming the 70-year rotation cycle. According to the researchers’ calculations, the core is just about ready to start speeding up again.
Compared with other seismographic studies of the core that measure individual earthquakes as they pass through the core — regardless of when they occur — using only paired earthquakes reduces the amount of usable data, “making the method more challenging,” Waszek said. However, doing so also enabled scientists to measure changes in the core rotation with greater precision, according to Vidale. If his team’s model is correct, core rotation will start speeding up again in about five to 10 years.
The seismographs also revealed that, during its 70-year cycle, the core’s spin slows and accelerates at different rates, “which is going to need an explanation,” Vidale said. One possibility is that the metal inner core isn’t as solid as expected. If it deforms as it rotates, that could affect the symmetry of its rotational speed, he said.
The team’s calculations also suggest that the core has different rotation rates for forward and backward motion, which adds “an interesting contribution to the discourse,” Waszek said.
But the depth and inaccessibility of the inner core mean that uncertainties remain, she added. As for whether or not the debate about core rotation has truly ended, “we need more data and improved interdisciplinary tools to investigate this further,” Waszek said.
‘Filled with potential’
Changes in core spin — though they can be tracked and measured — are all but imperceptible to people on Earth’s surface, Vidale said. When the core spins more slowly, the mantle speeds up. This shift makes Earth rotate faster, and the length of a day shortens. But such rotational shifts translate to mere thousandths of a second in day length, he said.
“In terms of that effect in a person’s lifetime?” he said. “I can’t imagine it means much.”
Scientists study the inner core to learn how Earth’s deep interior formed and how activity connects across all the planet’s subsurface layers. The mysterious region where the liquid outer core envelops the solid inner core is especially interesting, Vidale added. As a place where liquid and solid meet, this boundary is “filled with potential for activity,” as are the core-mantle boundary and the boundary between mantle and crust.
“We might have volcanoes on the inner core boundary, for example, where solid and fluid are meeting and moving,” he said.
Because the spinning of the inner core affects movement in the outer core, inner core rotation is thought to help power Earth’s magnetic field, though more research is required to unravel its precise role. And there is still much to be learned about the inner core’s overall structure, Waszek said.
“Novel and upcoming methodologies will be central to answering the ongoing questions about Earth’s inner core, including that of rotation.”
Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Rebecca Joynes was jailed for six-and-a-half years [GMP]
A teacher who had sex with two schoolboys and became pregnant by one of them has been jailed.
Rebecca Joynes groomed both boys from the age of 15, first exchanging messages on social media, Manchester Crown Court heard.
The 30-year-old was previously convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a child and two counts of sexual activity with another child.
Joynes cried and shook in the dock as she was sentenced to six-and-a-half years.
The trial heard that Joynes was 28 when she had come out of a nine-year relationship and was "flattered" by the attention of teenage schoolboys.
Neither teenager - known as Boy A and Boy B throughout the trial - can be identified due to their age.
'Flirtatious'
Joynes gave birth to Boy B's baby in early 2024, with the child being taken away from her within 24 hours.
In a victim impact statement, Boy B said "one of the hardest things" was not being told anything about the baby.
He added: "I struggled to come to terms with my abuse, I was completely in denial."
During the trial, he said he felt he had "betrayed someone I love and done wrong by giving evidence" but had since realised "the full extent" of the abuse and "tactics used".
He said he was "coerced, controlled, manipulated, sexually abused, and mentally abused", adding: "I will forever be Rebecca‘s victim and forever linked to her through our child."
At the sentencing hearing, the judge, Kate Cornell, told Joynes: "You were the adult, the person in control.
"You should have known better. You failed to enforce the boundaries of proper conduct but deliberately transgressed them."
The trial heard Joynes would "laugh off" inappropriate comments instead of shutting down the behaviour.
She gave Boy A all but one of the digits of her mobile phone number as a maths problem-solving exercise in which he had to work out the final digit.
They then connected on Snapchat and he sent her flirtatious texts, with the pair agreeing to meet in secret.
Joynes hid under a coat as she arrived at Manchester Crown Court to be sentenced [PA/Peter Byrne]
Boy A lied to his mother that he was staying at a friend's house after school but instead Joynes picked him up and took him to the Trafford Centre, where she bought him a £350 Gucci belt.
Judge Cornell said CCTV footage of Joynes buying the belt showed that "your flirtatious body language and eye contact could hardly be a clearer indication of grooming behaviour".
Back at her flat Joynes had sex twice with Boy A.
The next day the boy's mother noticed a love-bite on her son's neck, which he dismissed as "nothing".
The court heard she stormed into school reception as police were called in about the case.
Joynes was then bailed on condition she would have no unsupervised contact with anyone under 18.
She told the trial she then moved back to her parents in Wirral after having a "breakdown" and she was at a low point when Boy B messaged her on Snapchat.
He later told police they regularly had unprotected sex at her Salford Quays flat and that Joynes had told him she could not become pregnant.
Joynes was arrested for breaking bail conditions and spent five months in custody until she was bailed in November last year.
Joynes was found guilty at an earlier court hearing [PA Media]
Boy B said in his statement there had been a "massive mental toll" on him and his family.
He said he had been told by social services that Joynes had refused to let them update him about the baby's due date, gender or health.
"The thought of not being able to see my child was heartbreaking,” he added.
Judge Cornell said Joynes was a "high achiever" who had thrown her career away and had her baby taken away from her through her own actions.
"You felt buoyed and boosted by their attention," she added.
"There's no real insight from you, you continue to deny the offences and have been silent on the distressing impact on these boys."
'Damaging and dangerous'
Det Con Beth Alexander, from Greater Manchester Police, said: "School should be a place of safety for children.
"It’s clear from some of the public commentary when Joynes was convicted that there is still a lack of understanding when it comes to men and boys being the victims of sexual offences.
"They have had to read comments stating others are 'jealous' of them, and that they 'should be happy a young female teacher was interested in them', and this rhetoric is very damaging and dangerous.
"Women can still be paedophiles; this term is not reserved only for men. Men and boys can still be victims of sexual abuse.”
, facing a sink-or-swim predicament for his campaign and presidency, could only bob along Friday on the waves of controversy that threaten to overwhelm his candidacy.
Biden didn't freeze up or rhetorically stumble in his make-or-break interview on ABC News, as he did in the presidential debate on June 27. But he also didn't offer a strong showing to alleviate the concerns of his supporters or undecided voters or likely calm his critics. Instead, he leaned hard on an established campaign narrative about how things went so very wrong for him.
Biden was also unclear at times, answering a question about what he experienced during the debate, starting with an explanation of how he prepared, only to pivot to The New York Times polling in the race, and then shifting to complaints about former President Donald Trump lying "28 times" on stage before drifting off into how the debate was run, while emphasizing that he was not blaming anyone else.
Biden needed a game changer. This wasn't it. He needed to sound in command of his messaging. This was no time for meandering.
'It's not going to happen': Biden didn't come across the way he hoped
President Biden says he faces cognitive tests every day as America's leader, in an exclusive interview with ABC News George Stephanopoulos.
Biden's political skills are still attuned enough to let him dodge a question. Stephanopoulos pressed him repeatedly on whether he'd be willing to take an independently administered cognitive test and then release the results.
That's not the resounding defense Biden seemed to think it was. When voters wonder if you're up to the test, after a serious failure, telling them every day is a test is likely to spark as much apprehension as assuagement.
It takes a tremendous amount of confidence and competence to run for and win the presidency. But what if confidence keeps flowing after competence runs dry? Stephanopoulos tried to explore that. This is what he got:
"I don't think anyone's more qualified to be president or win this race than me," Biden said.
How confident? Biden was asked if he'd reconsider staying in the race if close allies told him that might cost the Democratic Party control of the House and Senate.
"I'm not going to answer that question," Biden said. "It's not going to happen."
Biden's campaign needs to get more aggressive
Social media has been abuzz all week with ardent Biden supporters who blame his problems on overactive imaginations among the news media. That sounded familiar, an echo of the fury Trump's fans hurl about when he faces criticism that they don't want to hear.
Whining like Trump fans won't change the situation for Democrats and does not alter the facts of how we got here. Only Biden can work his way back from the political precipice.
President Joe Biden speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at Sherman Middle School in Madison, Wis., on July 05, 2024.
Sure, he looked fired up Friday afternoon during a speech to a cheering crowd at a middle school in Madison, Wisconsin. But he spoke for less than 20 minutes with a teleprompter. He insisted that nobody would "push me out of the race."
"I'm not letting one 90-minute debate wipe out three and a half years of work," Biden said at his afternoon rally as his campaign announced an "aggressive travel schedule" to battleground states for the rest of July.
A less-than-20 minute speech and a 22-minute interview during a week of intense risk don't smack of aggressiveness.
But Trump, being Trump, could not stay out of the way. He bragged inaccurately while lounging in a golf cart about forcing Biden out of the race, according to video obtained and published Wednesday by The Daily Beast.
He also whined on his social media site that Stephanopoulos is "the meanest and most vicious Interviewer out there."
By Friday, Trump was sending fundraising emails proclaiming that "Biden could be dropping out tomorrow" while his campaign issued a memo declaring Biden's "reset mission" was already a failure.
Biden has a tough road ahead to November
Biden's margin of error here is vanishingly small. A New York Times/Sienna College Poll this week found Trump ahead of Biden 49% to 43%, showing a swing of 3 percentage points to the former president from before and after the debate.
The poll also found that 74% of voters thought Biden is too old to be president.
Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.
Friday's time on the campaign trail and the ABC News interview, at best, may slow down calls from Democratic officials for him to step down, perhaps to be replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris. But it may not.
This is the state of Biden's campaign now, always one slip away from a fatal fall. Staying politically alive next week will probably buy him another week under close scrutiny. Picture four straight months of that between now and Election Day if Biden stays in the race.
Biden attempts to project the façade of a man going nowhere. That may well become the theme of his campaign.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – A South Carolina man was killed after trying to “show off” with fireworks at a Fourth of July party Thursday night.
When deputies with the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office arrived at a neighborhood block party in Summerville at 10:23 p.m., they found a man lying in the roadway suffering from major head injuries.
Witnesses told deputies the injuries were from a fireworks accident.
The coroner later said the victim, 41-year-old Allen Ray McGrew, had ignited a large firework on top of his head. Witnesses told investigators he was wearing a large top hat, and put the firework on top of the hat before lighting it. The device exploded, causing “massive head injuries.”
The neighborhood in Summerville, South Carolina, where the fatal firework incident occurred. (Photo: WCBD)
McGrew was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to a report from the sheriff’s office, the victim’s wife told deputies she believed he placed the firework on his head to “show off” at the block party. Family members tried to get him to stop, but the firework went off, and McGrew collapsed.
The Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office and Dorchester County Coroner’s Office are investigating the incident.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Former President Trump is rolling out new nicknames for Vice President Kamala Harris as part of a new focus on the VP, just as she is being touted as a potential replacement for President Biden on the 2024 ticket after Biden suffered a disastrous debate performance.
Trump regularly coins nicknames for his political opponents, from "Low Energy Jeb" [Bush] to "Crooked Hillary" [Clinton]. For Biden, Trump has called him "Slow Joe," "Sleepy Joe" and "Crooked Joe," among others.
Now, after a debate performance from Biden that has sparked panic among some Democrats and media figures and seen him slump in the polls, Trump turned his attention this week to Harris.
Vice President Kamala Harris has been touted as a potential replacement for President Biden.
As vice president, Harris would succeed Biden if he resigned from office, and she would also be a top contender for the 2024 Democratic nomination if Biden announced that he does not intend to serve a second term.
Trump, in a Truth Social post, accused Biden of having "choked like a dog" during the debate and offered his "congratulations" to the vice president as he dubbed her "Laffin’ Kamala Harris."
"Also, respects to our potentially new Democrat Challenger, Laffin’ Kamala Harris," he said. "She did poorly in the Democrat Nominating process, starting out at Number Two, and ending up defeated and dropping out, even before getting to Iowa, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a ‘highly talented’ politician!"
Former President Trump walks on stage to deliver the keynote address at the Faith & Freedom Coalitions Road to Majority Policy Conference at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C., on June 22.
A day earlier, the Trump campaign had put out a statement slamming Democrats and the media for an alleged cover-up to hide Biden’s alleged mental acuity.
"Every one of them has lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive state and supported his disastrous policies over the past four years, especially Cackling Copilot Kamala Harris," the statement said.
A national poll released Tuesday by CNN suggests Harris performs slightly better than Biden in a matchup with Trump.
"Harris’ slightly stronger showing against Trump rests at least in part on broader support from women (50% of female voters back Harris over Trump vs. 44% for Biden against Trump) and independents (43% Harris vs. 34% Biden)," the poll notes in a release.
Biden, who at age 81 is the oldest president in the nation's history, is facing the roughest stretch of his bid for a second term in the White House. Biden's campaign has repeatedly insisted that the president has no intention of dropping out of the race.
On Thursday, he told supporters that he is not leaving the race. A supporter called out at an Independence Day event, saying, "Keep up the fight. We need you!"
Biden responded, "You got me, man. I'm not going anywhere."
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser and Timothy Nerozzi contributed to this report.
FILE - Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., listens to remarks at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' annual fall meeting in Baltimore, Nov. 16, 2015. The Vatican has excommunicated its former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, after finding him guilty of schism, an inevitable end for the firebrand conservative who became one of Pope Francis' most ardent critics. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oops!
Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Oops!
Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
ROME (AP) — The Vatican on Friday excommunicated its former ambassador to Washington after finding him guilty of schism, an inevitable outcome for Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. The conservative had became one of Pope Francis ' most ardent critics and a symbol of the polarized Catholic Church in the United States and beyond.
While once enjoying support in the Vatican and U.S. church hierarchies, the Italian archbishop alienated many as he developed a fringe following while delving deeper into conspiracy theories on everything — from the coronavirus pandemic to what he called the “Great Reset” and Russia's war in Ukraine.
The Vatican's doctrine office announced the penalty after a meeting of its members on Thursday and informed Vigano of its decision on Friday.
It cited Vigano's public “refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council.”
The excommunication, which Vigano incurred automatically with his positions, means he is formally outside communion with the church, and cannot celebrate or receive its sacraments. The crime of schism occurs when someone withdraws submission to the pope or from the communion of Catholics who are subject to him.
Unlike defrocking, a punitive measure that makes a priest a layman again, excommunication is considered a “medicinal” penalty and is declared in hope those who incurred it would repent and come back into communion. If that happens, the Holy See can lift the penalty.
Schisms, which have been regular in the church's 2,000-year history, are considered particularly dangerous as they threaten the unity of the church.
Vigano’s dire pronunciations about the current state of the church, amplified on Catholic social media and by ideologically friendly bloggers on both sides of the Atlantic, were an exaggerated version of the chasm between U.S. ultra-conservatives and Francis. And while Vigano enjoyed mainstream support among bishops early in his career, many quietly distanced themselves as his ideas became more extreme.
The Italian prelate, who has not been seen publicly since before 2018, knew the schism declaration was coming after the Vatican informed him of the penal process launched against him last month. He defiantly called it “an honor,” and refused to appear in person or defend himself or submit a written defense.
On June 20, Vigano issued a lengthy public statement refusing to recognize the authority of the Vatican's doctrinal office “that claims to judge me, nor of its prefect, nor of the one who appointed him.”
He did not directly respond to the schism declaration on Friday on X, his usual forum. Shortly before the Vatican decree was made public, he announced he would be celebrating a Mass on Friday for those who have been supporting him and asked for donations.
Vigano burst onto the public scene in 2012, during the first so-called Vatileaks scandal, when Pope Benedict XVI’s butler leaked the pontiff’s private papers to an Italian journalist to try to draw attention to corruption in the Holy See.
In some of the leaked letters, Vigano, then the No. 2 in the Vatican City State administration, begged the pope not to be transferred after exposing corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts that cost the Holy See millions of euros (dollars).
The entreaties did not work. By the time the letters were published, Vigano was appointed the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. — a prestigious post but one that took him far from Rome and out of the running to one day be a cardinal.
Vigano reappeared on the scene during Francis’ 2015 visit to the U.S., which as nuncio he helped organize. Everything was going fine until Vigano arranged for Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk at the center of the U.S. gay marriage debate, to be present at the Vatican residence to greet Francis, along with many other people.
After the visit, Davis and her lawyers claimed the encounter with Francis amounted to an affirmation of her cause denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Vatican later turned the tables on Davis' claim, saying she had merely been among a group of well-wishers but that the “only” private audience Francis had in Washington was with a small group of people that included a gay couple.
But Vigano’s deception in inviting Davis to meet the pope put the prelate and the pontiff on a collision course that exploded in August 2018.
At the time, the U.S. church was reeling from a new chapter in its clergy sex abuse scandal: One of the most senior U.S. churchmen, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, was accused of molesting a minor and a Pennsylvania grand jury issued a devastating investigation into decades of abuse and cover-up.
As Francis was wrapping up a tense visit to Ireland, Vigano published an 11-page screed accusing him and a long string of U.S. and Vatican officials of covering for McCarrick. Specifically, Vigano accused Francis of rehabilitating McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict, and called on him to resign — accusations that created the greatest crisis of Francis’ then-young pontificate.
Francis quickly authorized an in-house investigation into McCarrick. The report, released in 2020, confirmed that a generation of church officials, including Pope John Paul II, had turned a blind eye to McCarrick’s misconduct. It largely spared Francis, who eventually defrocked the churchman.
But the report also faulted Vigano for not looking into new claims against McCarrick or enforcing Vatican restrictions on him when specifically ordered to do so by the Vatican.
At that point, Vigano’s claims against Francis became more unhinged, endorsing conspiracy theories about the coronavirus vaccines, appearing at far-right U.S. political rallies via video, backing Russia in its war on Ukraine, and eventually, refusing to recognize Francis as pope.
Massimo Faggioli, a theologian at Villanova University, said while a good number of U.S. bishops vouched for Vigano's integrity when he first made his claims about McCarrick in 2018, his declarations in the ensuing years “led some of them to more prudent positions.”
In an essay in the French daily La Croix, Faggioli also noted that Vigano had had a seeming unintended effect of mainstreaming another schismatic group, the Society of St. Pius X, which also rejects the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized the church.
However, the society known as SSPX founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1969, distanced itself from Vigano and his rejection of the legitimacy of Francis' pontificate, saying they “have not ventured down that perilous road.”
Vigano's positions make Lefebvre and the SSPX "look like right-of-center Catholics, and not like the extreme traditionalists they actually are," Faggioli wrote. "This says something about the ground shifting under the feet of Vatican II Catholics.”
The British royal family has been operating with a fairly limited team, as of late. With Kate Middleton currently taking a break from the public eye (with minimal exceptions like Trooping the Colour), Princess Anne recovering from an injury and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle over in America, the royal roster is certainly smaller than it once was. In fact, the fam has even had to call in the reserves, Prince Edward and Duchess Sophie, for a number of recent events. But big team or not, the royals
If there’s one thing that American voters overwhelmingly agree on, it’s that this year’s presidential election presents a stark choice. In the latest CNN poll by SSRS, 91% of registered voters say they see important differences between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, dwarfing even the 77% of voters who said last fall that there were significant divides between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even among the so-called “double haters” – those with unfavorable views of
Paula Deen is barely recognizable after losing a radical amount of weight as she grapples with diabetes, and sources exclusively tell Closer she's a very different person from how she was in the days she was looking to find peace after all the blunders. The 77-year-old chef and cookbook author was sued by a former...
