Pope Francis issues warning against hypocrisy during Floriana Mass

Apr 3 2022

Addressing his long-awaited mass at the Granaries in Floriana, which was attended by 12,000 people, Pope Francis urged people to not discard those ‘despised by society’ and warned against hypocrisy.

Thanking the Maltese for their warm and affectionate welcome during his two day visit to the island, the 85-year-old pontiff recalled the welcome of the Apostle Paul and urged people give better treatment of modern day arrivals on the island.

The pope also recalled a Biblical story about a woman caught in adultery and urged people to have mercy and to warn those who act as God’s defenders not to judge others.

Those who accused others of sin, he said, were merely disregarding their own faults and are overly concerned about the sins of others. ‘How can we prove whether or not we are true disciples of the Master’ he asked.

He said that we do so by the way we regard our neighbour and the way we regard ourselves. He said that we are to treat outsiders with mercy and not judgement as those who acted as God’s defenders in the Gospel story did so through judgement.

‘Those who believe they are upholding the faith by pointing their finger at others may have a certain ‘religiosity’, but they have not embraced the spirit of the Gospel, for they disregard mercy, which is the heart of God.’

Archbishop Charles Scicluna thanked the Pope for the visit at the end of the Mass, going on to present him with a painting by John Martin Borg depicting the woman mentioned in the gospel.

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Teen makes $1.7 million by reselling PS5 consoles for double the price

Apr 3 2022

It seems as though the reselling of Playstation 5 consoles has become quite the trend for those looking to make a quick buck.

Back in March of this year, a 37-year-old woman from Zabbar was released from custody after she was charged with committing fraud on multiple false online Playstation 5 sales.

Now, a New Jersey teenager by the name of Max Hayden, has managed to make a whopping $1.7 million at just 16-years-old through the same practice.

The teen spent his COVID-19 lockdown creating a money establishing system of purchasing brand new PlayStation, and even Xbox, consoles and selling them for more than double their retail price.

Also selling scarce items due to the pandemic, such as Pokemon trading cards and outdoor heaters, the teen sold the consoles for around $1,100. He ended his 2020 with a profit of more than $110,000 on $1.7 million in revenue.

The teen now operates under the name MH Book Store, a website which describes itself as the most convenient solution for all high demand e-commerce needs.

Unfortunately, such success stories aren’t always replicable as the Maltese version of this story ended with the woman being accused of fraud on 46 individuals. The ‘customers’ were paying hundreds in deposits to no avail as no PS5s were delivered to them.

The woman was released from arrest but was handed a personal guarantee of €10,000 and a regular signing at the police station. Guess not all such ventures end up success stories after all.

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Pope Francis indirectly criticises Putin and says Ukraine visit is possible

Apr 3 2022

During his visit to Malta, Pope Francis has revealed that he is considering visiting Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, going on to implicitly criticise Vladimir Putin for his invasion.

The Catholic Church leader was invited by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the city mayor Vitali Klitschko on the 8th of March.

At the time of the invitation, the Vatican had confirmed receipt of the letter and said that the Pope, despite praying for Ukrainians, made no mention of any travel plans to the war-torn country.

Asked by a reporter on the plane which took the Pope from Rome to Malta, Francis said that, yes, a plan is on the table. He later addressed the topic in the presidential palace.

‘From the east of Europe, from the land of the sunrise, the dark shadows of war have now spread. We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past.’

Without mentioning Putin by name, the Pope said that ‘once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, whereas ordinary people sense the need to build a future that will either be shared or not be at all.’

The Pope wanted to make migration the focus of the Malta visit, given the island’s current geo-political climate on how to handle immigration. This coincides with the fact that almost 10.5 million people have been displaced from Ukraine.

The possible journey to Ukraine would follow the visit by EP President Roberta Metsola who met Zelenskyy in Kyiv to give a message of hope and peace. US President Joe Biden visited Polish borders as well but was prevented from entering Ukraine.

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Spiders can ‘hear’ using their webs new study suggests

Apr 3 2022

Spider-Man’s ‘Spidey Sense’ just got kicked up a notch as a newly released scientific study suggests that spiders can ‘hear’ through their web designs.

Spiders have been found to effectively hear predators and prey thanks to intricate ‘tuning’ systems using web strings.

Orb-weaving spiders can use the minute vibrations felt through the web and thus help them detect sounds and react accordingly. And these sounds, the New York Binghampton University study suggests, are picked up by hairs on the arachnid’s legs.

Insects are literally deaf due to them lacking eardrums, but spiders instead use highly sensitive hairs to pick up local vibrations such as sound from their webs.

As part of the research, orb-spiders were collected from windows on the campus of the university and they were each given time to build a web within a soundproof room.

The team would then play sounds into the room, to which the spiders reacted accordingly. The spiders were also found to detect where the sound is coming from. Four of twelve spiders even responded to the extremely weak signal through web detection.

The spiders would change body positions in order to alternate the tension of the web. This ‘tuned’ the web so the spider was able to hear specific sounds, in a way humans would tune a radio.

#MaltaDaily