From YouTuber Mark Rober’s CrunchLabs...

Timing is everything. Just as Apple’s adoption of RCS had seemed to signal a return to text messaging versus the unstoppable growth of WhatsApp, then along comes a surprising new hurdle to stop that in its tracks. While messaging Android to Android or iPhone to iPhone is secure, messaging from one to the other is not.

The US president-elect has announced plans to travel to Paris this weekend to attend the reopening ceremony of Notre-Dame Cathedral, in what would be his first foreign visit since winning the presidential election at the start of November.

Is anyone out there looking for a timely Christmas present for a reader — young adults and up — who can handle hard questions? In this case, we are talking a prophetic masterpiece by one of the great British writers of the 20th Century, the late P.D. James. She kept writing into her 90s, releasing “Death Comes to Pemberley” in 2011. But the book that people need to read...

In the Gospel, we hear about the appearance of John the Baptist and his message — “Prepare the way of the Lord” — could not have found a more ill-suited time. John appears in “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,” an emperor who the ancient historian Pliny the Elder called him “the gloomiest of men” and who the historian Tacitus painted as a merciless tyrant who killed those accused of disloyalty and forbad their families from mourning them...

As Pope Francis approaches his 88th birthday, the past week has brought a mix of minor injuries, unexpected protests, and moments of quiet reflection for the pontiff.

Notre-Dame de Paris is about to open its doors to visitors again on Dec. 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. It’s been five years since the terrible fire that ravaged its roof, roof frame and spire, causing shock throughout the world, far beyond the Catholic faithful. This medieval Gothic jewel — which, until its closure, was France’s most visited site, with some 13 million visitors a year, far ahead of the Eiffel Tower — is inextricably linked to the grand and epic history of France and to the soul of its people.

It was the feast of Christ the King — Sunday, Nov. 24 — and excited yet hushed murmurs of expectation rippled through the worshippers assembled for vespers at Christendom College’s Christ the King Chapel in Front Royal.

Pope Francis dedicated his reflection at the General Audience to the theme of “The Holy Spirit and the Bride: the Holy Spirit guides the People of God towards Jesus our hope”, the title of the cycle of catechesis that concluded on Wednesday.

In the morning twilight of Dec. 9, 1531, a breathtaking chorus of birdsong stopped the Aztec Indian Juan Diego in his tracks as he was rounding the foot of a hill called Tepeyac. The birds’ music so enthralled the fervent convert that he asked himself whether he was in a dream or, perhaps, even in Heaven, for the hill itself seemed to be singing responses to the birds each time their chorus quieted, a miraculous symphony of nature greeting the dawn...