Podcasts about Plenary

The closing plenary of the 2025 AJC Global Forum features remarks from CEO Ted Deutch, a celebration of the resilience of the Israeli people, Rabbis Noam Marans and David Rosen reflecting on 60 years since Nostra Aetate, and more.

In this episode, OncLive On Air® partnered with Two Onc Docs to bring discussion of data from the phase 3 SERENA-6 trial (NCT04964934), which were presented at the 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting. SERENA-6 evaluated switching to camizestrant plus a CDK4/6 inhibitor vs continuing with a standard-of-care aromatase inhibitor plus a CDK4/6 inhibitor in the frontline setting in patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer whose tumors harbor an emergent ESR1 mutation. Drs Armstrong and Tawagi highlighted key efficacy, safety, and patient-reported outcomes from the study. They also noted the clinical implications of these findings, including how they might be currently applicable to clinical practice, as well as limitations of the research that warrant further investigation. 

Dr. Shaalan Beg and Dr. Kristen Ciombor discuss practice-changing studies in GI cancers and other novel treatment approaches that were presented at the 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting. Transcript Dr. Shaalan Beg: Hello, I'm Dr. Shaalan Beg, welcoming you to the ASCO Daily News Podcast. I'm a medical oncologist and an adjunct associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. There were some remarkable advances in gastrointestinal cancers that were presented at the 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting, and I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Kristen Ciombor to discuss some exciting GI data. Dr. Ciombor is the Ingram Associate Professor of Cancer Research and a co-leader of Translational Research and the Interventional Oncology Research Program at the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. Our full disclosures are available in the transcript of this episode. Dr. Ciombor, it's great to have you on the podcast today. Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Thanks, Dr Beg. It's great to be here. Dr. Shaalan Beg: Alright, let's kick it off. Big year for GI cancers. We'll start off with LBA1. This was the ATOMIC study sponsored by NCI and the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) and the Alliance group. This is a randomized study of standard chemotherapy alone or combined with atezolizumab as adjuvant therapy for stage III mismatch repair deficient colorectal cancer. Dr. Kristen Ciombor: I think this study was really definitely practice-changing, as you can tell because it was a Plenary. But I do have some concerns in terms of how we're actually going to implement this and whether this is the final answer in this disease subtype. So, as you said, the patients were enrolled with stage III resected mismatch repair deficient colon cancer, and then they were randomized to either modified FOLFOX6 with or without atezolizumab. And that's where it starts to become interesting because not many of us give FOLFOX for 6 months like was done in this study. Obviously, the study was done over many years, so that was part of that answer, but also the patients received atezolizumab for a total of 12 months. So the question, I think, that comes from this abstract is, is this practical and is this the final answer? I do think that this is practice-changing, and I will be talking to my patients with resected mismatch repair deficient colon cancer about FOLFOX plus atezolizumab. I think the big question is, do these patients need chemotherapy? And can we do a neoadjuvant approach instead? And that's where we don't have all the answers yet. Dr. Shaalan Beg: Yeah, but it has been great to see immunotherapy make its way into the adjuvant space after having made such a big impact in the metastatic space, but still some unanswered questions in terms of the need for chemotherapy and then the duration of therapy, which I guess we'll have to stay tuned in for the next couple of years to to get a lot of those questions answered. Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Yeah, but a big congratulations to the study team, to the NCTN, the NCI. I mean, this is really a great example of federally funded research that needs to continue. So, great job by the study team. The DFS 10% difference is really very large and certainly a practice-changing study. Dr. Shaalan Beg: Yeah, and and sticking with colon cancer, and and this another federally funded study, but this time funded by a Canadian cancer clinical trials group was LBA3510. This is the CHALLENGE study. It's a randomized phase 3 trial of the impact of a structured exercise program on disease-free survival for stage III or high-risk stage II colon cancer. This study got a lot of buzz, a lot of mainstream press coverage, and a lot of discussions on what that means for us for the patients who we're going to be seeing next week in our clinic. What was your takeaway? Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Yeah, this is a really interesting study, and I was so glad to see it presented because this partially answers one of the questions that patients always have for us in clinic, right? You know, once they've completed their standard chemotherapy and surgery, what else can they do to help prevent recurrence? And so we've always known and sort of extrapolated that healthy lifestyle habits are good, but now we have data, particularly in these patients. Most of them were stage III colon cancer patients, those had high-risk stage II cancer. And basically, the goal was to increase their physical activity by at least 10 MET hours per week. So, my big question, of course, as I came into this presentation was, “Okay, what does that mean exactly? How does that translate to real life?” And really what the author presented and explained was that basically most patients could hit their target by adding a 45- to 60-minute brisk walk 3 to 4 times a week. So I think this is very approachable.  Now, in the confines of the study, this was a structured exercise program, so it wasn't just patients doing this on their own. But I do think kind of extrapolating from that, that this is very achievable for most patients. And not only did this prevent recurrence of their prior cancer, but actually the rate of new primary cancer diagnoses, was less, which is really interesting, especially in the breast and prostate cancer. So this was a really interesting, and I think practice-changing study as well, especially given that this is something that most patients can do. Dr. Shaalan Beg: Yeah, and there was a lot of discussion in the hallways after the presentation in terms of how this really changes our existing practice because most folks already recommend exercise as a way for improving outcomes in cancer patients. So we've already been doing that. Now we have some data on how much it can impact the benefit. But there was some discussion about what the actual degree of impact was. There was a drop-off rate in terms of how long folks were able to stick with this exercise regimen. But you've seen this in clinic when someone have their surgery, they have their chemotherapy, they've been so intimately involved with the oncology world, with the oncology practice, and they somehow feel that they're being let loose into this mean, angry world without any guidance and they're looking for something to do. “What more can I do in terms of my lifestyle?” And then here we have very solid data, as solid as can be for an intervention like exercise, showing that there is an impact and you can give a prescription for exercise when someone wraps up their chemotherapy for colon cancer, thanks to the study. Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Yeah. It was a great study. Dr. Shaalan Beg: Moving to gastroesophageal cancer, another late-breaking abstract. This is LBA5. The MATTERHORN trial was a phase 3 trial of durvalumab plus FLOT for resectable GE junction and gastric cancer. And again, another area where immunotherapy has made an impact, and here we're seeing it move closer for earlier-stage disease. What was your take-home for the MATTERHORN trial? Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Yeah, so this study looked at neoadjuvant perioperative durvalumab plus our current standard chemotherapy of FLOT versus placebo plus FLOT. And this was a large study, almost 1,000 patients were randomized. And the primary endpoint was event-free survival, and it was definitely met in favor of the D + FLOT arm, as Dr. Klempner discussed after Dr Janjigian's presentation. I do think there are still some unanswered questions here. Overall survival is not yet mature, so we do have to wait and see how that shakes out. But it's very interesting and kind of is reflective of what, as you said, we're looking at earlier and earlier lines of therapy, particularly with immunotherapy, in these GI cancer spaces. So it makes a lot of sense to test this and and to look at this. So the toxicity was pretty similar to what we would expect. Primary endpoint was met, but again, we'll have to wait and see what the survival data looks like. Dr. Shaalan Beg: Yeah, and in oncology, we know, especially for treatment that does add additional cost, it does add additional potential toxicity that we want to see that overall survival nudged. I did see some polls on social media asking folks whether their practices changed from this, and I think the results were favoring adding durvalumab for this group of patients but understanding that there are caveats to the addition of treatments and the eventual FDA approval in that indication as well. Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Exactly. I completely agree with that. Dr. Shaalan Beg: All right. How about we stick with gastroesophageal cancer? LBA4002 was trastuzumab deruxtecan versus ramucirumab plus paclitaxel for second-line treatment in HER2-positive unresectable or metastatic gastric cancer or GE junction cancer. This was the DESTINY-Gastric04 study. And again, antibody-drug conjugates making a big impact across different diseases. And here we have more data in the HER2-positive gastric cancer space. Your thoughts on this study? Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Yeah, so this is a really important space in gastroesophageal cancer because the HER2 positivity rate is fairly high as compared to some of our other tumor types. So, I do think one of the important things was that patients did have biopsy confirmation of HER2 status, which was very important, and then they were randomized to either T-DXd versus the kind of second-line standard of ramucirumab-paclitaxel. So this was a great practical study and really answers a question that we had for a while in terms of does anti-HER2 therapy in the second-line really impact and improve survival. So we did see a statistically significant improvement favoring T-DXd. I do think it's always important to look at toxicity, though, too. And there was about almost 14% rate of interstitial lung disease, which of course is the most feared toxicity from some of these antibody-drug conjugates, especially T-DXd. So I do think it's important to keep that in mind, but this is definitely a great addition to the armamentarium for these HER2-positive patients. Dr. Shaalan Beg: And pancreas cancer was on the stage after a very long time with a positive clinical trial. This is Abstract 4006. These were preliminary results from a phase 2 study of elraglusib in combination with gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel versus gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel alone for previously untreated metastatic pancreas cancer. This is a frontline clinical trial of gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel plus/minus the study drug. There were other cohorts in this study as well, but they reported the results of their part 3B arm. And great to see some activity in the pancreas space. And your thoughts? Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Yeah, we definitely need better treatments in pancreas cancer. This was a very welcome presentation to see. The elraglusib is an inhibitor of GSK-3beta, and it's thought that that mediates drug resistance and EMT. And so this is, I think, a perfect setting to test this drug. So patients basically were randomized. Patients with metastatic pancreas cancer were randomized 2: 1 to gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel plus or minus this elraglusib. So, what we saw was that overall survival was better with the addition of this new drug. And overall, not only the 1-year overall survival, but also median overall survival.  The thing that was interesting, though, was that we saw that the overall survival rates were 9.3 months with the combination versus 7.2 months with just gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel. And that's a little bit lower than we've seen in other studies. So, not sure what was going on there. Was it the patients that were a bit sicker? Was it a patient selection, you know, thing? I'm not really sure how to explain that so much. Also, the toxicity profile was much higher in terms of visual impairment, with over 60% of patients being treated with the combination versus 9% with gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel. So these were mild, grade 1 and 2, but still something to be cautious about. Dr. Shaalan Beg: And especially with this being a phase 2 trial, making sure that in a larger study we're able to better evaluate the toxicity and see if the control arm in the larger confirmatory study performs differently will be really important before this compound makes it to the clinic in our space. But very exciting to see these kinds of results for pancreas adenocarcinoma. Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Yeah. Dr. Shaalan Beg: We've talked, it seems, a couple of times on this podcast about the BREAKWATER clinical trial. We did hear PFS and updated OS data, updated overall survival data on first-line encorafenib plus cetuximab plus modified FOLFOX6 for BRAF-mutated colorectal cancer. This was LBA3500. And eagerly anticipated results – we have all previously heard the progression-free survival results – but here we heard updated overall survival results, and very well-received study it seemed from the audience that time. So what are your takeaways on the updated results for BREAKWATER? Dr. Kristen Ciombor: In my opinion, this was one of the most practice-confirming studies. As you mentioned, we've already seen some of the preliminary data of BREAKWATER at prior meetings. But really what was particularly impactful for me was the median overall survival with the BREAKWATER regimen. So, again, patients received FOLFOX, encorafenib cetuximab in the first line if they had BRAF-mutated V600E-mutated colorectal cancer. And the median PFS was 12.8 months, which was actually really remarkable in this traditionally very aggressive, poor prognosis subtype of tumors. So, by seeing a median overall survival of 30.3 months was just incredible, in my opinion. Just a few years ago, that was considered the median overall survival for all comers for metastatic colorectal cancer. And we know the median overall survival was more in the less than 12 months range for BRAF. So this was incredibly impactful, and I think should be absolutely practice-changing for anyone who is eligible for this regimen.  I think again, where the practice meets the study is what's kind of important to think about too, how long did patients get FOLFOX, and certainly it adds toxicity to add a BRAF-targeted regimen on top of FOLFOX already. So, one of the other interesting things about the study, though, was that even though it didn't complete treatment, they actually did look at encorafenib/cetuximab alone and in the first line without chemotherapy. And those preliminary results actually looked okay, especially for patients who might not be able to tolerate chemotherapy, which we certainly see in practice. So, overall, definitely more data. And I agree that it's certainly practice-changing. Dr. Shaalan Beg: And it completely, as you mentioned, changes the outlook for a person who's diagnosed with BRAF-mutated metastatic colon cancer today versus even 7 or 8 years ago. Dr. Kristen Ciombor: And we're seeing this over and over in other subtypes too, but how you choose to treat the patient up front really matters. So really giving the right regimen up front is the key here. Dr. Shaalan Beg: And along the same lines, Abstract 3501 wanted to answer the question on whether people with MSI-high metastatic colorectal cancer need double checkpoint inhibitor therapy or is single therapy enough. So this [CheckMate-8HW] study compared nivo plus ipi with nivo alone, nivo monotherapy for MSI-high metastatic colorectal cancer. And we've known that both of these are fairly active regimens, but we also know the chance of immune-related adverse events is significantly higher with combination therapy. So this was a much-needed study for this group of patients. And what were your takeaways here? Dr. Kristen Ciombor: This, of course, has been really nivo-ipi in the first-line MSI-high metastatic colorectal cancer is now a standard of care. And not everybody is eligible for it, and there could be reasons, toxicity reasons, and other things too. But as we've been seeing for the last couple of years, immunotherapy clearly beats chemo in this space. And now looking at doublet versus single immunotherapy treatment in the first line, I think really nivo-ipi does beat out monotherapy. I will say, however, there is a caveat in that we still haven't seen the nivo-ipi versus nivo in the first line. So what has been presented thus far has been across all lines of therapy, and that does muddy the waters a little bit. So definitely looking forward and and we've asked this many times and based on the statistical plan and and what not, you know, we just haven't seen that data yet. But I do think it's becoming increasingly important to consider doublet immunotherapy for these patients as long as there are no contraindications. With the again, with the caveat that we have to have these toxicity discussions in the clinic with patients because many patients can tolerate it, you know, this regimen fairly well, but there can be very severe toxicities. So, I think an informed discussion should really be had with each patient before moving forward. Dr. Shaalan Beg: Yeah, informed decision, making them aware of the potential of real significant toxicities, immune-related toxicities with double therapy. But I am curious in your practice, how often do you see people choosing doublet therapy as frontline? Dr. Kristen Ciombor: So patients are really savvy, and a lot of times they've heard this data before or have come across it in patient advocacy groups and other things, and it's really nice to be able to have that conversation of the risk versus benefit. So I will say not all of my patients choose doublet, and many of them are still cured with immunotherapy monotherapy. So the big question there is, will we ever understand who actually needs the doublet versus who can still be cured or have very good long-term outcomes with just the single agent? And that has not been answered yet. Dr. Shaalan Beg: What a great point. So the last abstract I was hoping we could talk about is POD1UM-303 or the INTERAACT2 subgroup analysis and impact of delayed retifanlimab treatment for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal. What were your thoughts here? Dr. Kristen Ciombor: This was a study, actually we saw at ESMO, we saw the primary data at ESMO last year, and this was an update with some exploratory analyses. But this was really an important study because once again, we're looking at immunotherapy in later lines of therapy. That's how we started looking at and investigating immunotherapy, and now we're moving it up and up in the treatment course. So this was a study of carboplatin/paclitaxel plus or minus retifanlimab. Actually it was retifanlimab versus placebo. And it was a positive study, as we heard last year. This actually led to FDA approval of this regimen last month, just before ASCO, and it has now been incorporated in the NCCN guidelines as the preferred first-line option.  So what I thought was important from the additional data presented at ASCO was looking at the different subgroups, it did not appear that patients with liver mets or not had different outcomes. So that was really good to see because sometimes in colon cancer we see that immunotherapy doesn't work as well when patients have liver mets. And interestingly, because we use immunotherapy in anal cancer without any biomarkers, unlike with colon cancer or some of the other tumor types, also the authors looked at PD-L1 status, and it did look like maybe patients did a little bit better if they had higher PD-L1 expression, but patients still could benefit even if they were PD-L1 negative. So that was important, I think, and we will continue to see further data come out from this study. I want to mention also that EA2176 just completed accrual, so that was carbo-taxol plus or minus nivolumab. And so we should be seeing that data sometime soon, which will hopefully also confirm the ongoing role for immunotherapy in the first-line setting for anal cancer. Dr. Shaalan Beg: That was a fantastic review. Thank you, Dr Ciombor. Thanks for sharing your valuable insights with us today on the ASCO Daily News Podcast. Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Thanks for having me here. Dr. Shaalan Beg: And thank you to our listeners for your time today. You will find links to the abstracts discussed today in the transcript of this episode. And if you value the insights that you hear on the podcast, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. Disclaimer: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. More on today's speakers:   Dr. Shaalan Beg  @ShaalanBeg  Dr. Kristen Ciombor @KristenCiombor Follow ASCO on social media:    @ASCO on Twitter   @ASCO on BlueSky  ASCO on Facebook    ASCO on LinkedIn    Disclosures:   Dr. Shaalan Beg:   Consulting or Advisory Role: Ipsen, Cancer Commons, Foundation Medicine, Science37, Nant Health, Lindus Health Speakers' Bureau: Sirtex Research Funding (Inst.): Delfi Diagnostics, Universal Diagnostics, Freenome Dr. Kristen Ciombor: Consulting or Advisory Role: Pfizer, Incyte, Exelixis, Bayer, ALX Oncology, Tempus, Agenus, Taiho Oncology, Merck, BeiGene Research Funding (Inst.): Pfizer, Boston Biomedical, MedImmune, Onyx, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Novartis, Incyte, Amgen, Sanofi, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Array BioPharma, Incyte, Daiichi Sankyo, Nucana, Abbvie, Merck, Pfizer/Calthera, Genentech, Seagen, Syndax Travel, Accommodations, Expenses: Incyte, Tempus

This week's episode will be focusing on one of the 2025 plenary sessions: SERENA-6, Camizestrant, a novel selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) + CDK 4/6i for tx of emergent ESR1 during 1L endocrine-based therapy + ahead of progression in stage 4 HR+/Her-2 negative breast cancer.We discuss the trial design, endpoints, results, safety concerns, and how it fits into current practice.

This week, John and Elliot discuss key outcomes from the June FATF Plenary, OFAC enforcement actions, the DOJ's evolving stance on white collar crime, the ABA's lawsuit challenging executive orders targeting law firms, a request for comment from the US bank regulators on payment and check fraud, and other issues affecting the financial crime prevention community.

What are plenary indulgences? How does one gain a plenary indulgence? Fr. Chris Alar, MIC, discusses these “extra credit” of graces and the requirements that will help us gain the graces from the “Treasury of the Church.”Become a Marian Helper!Discover more about the Catholic faith on Divine Mercy Plus! 

AJC honors Paraguayan President Santiago Peña and student groups; university leaders discuss protecting Jewish life in education; and urban warfare expert John Spencer addresses countering misinformation about Israel in another plenary session from this year's Global Forum.

In our second plenary episode, we're spotlighting two pivotal phase 3 trials: SERENA-6, which explores ctDNA-guided treatment with camizestrant to delay progression in HR-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer with ESR1 mutations, and NIVOPOSTOP, a landmark study showing improved disease-free survival with adjuvant nivolumab in high-risk, resected head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Join us as we unpack these practice-changing findings with expert insight and a couple of dad jokes along the way.Studies discussed in the episode:SERENA-6NIVOPOSTOPFor more episodes, resources and blog posts, visit www.inquisitiveonc.comPlease find us on Twitter @InquisitiveOnc!If you want us to look at a specific trial or subject, email us at inquisitiveonc@gmail.comArt courtesy of Taryn SilverMusic courtesy of AlisiaBeats: https://pixabay.com/users/alisiabeats-39461785/Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. If you are unwell, seek medical advice.Oncology for the Inquisitive Mind is recorded with the support of education grants from our foundation partners Pfizer, Gilead Pharmaceuticals and Merck Pharmaceuticals. Our partners have access to the episode at the same time you do and have no editorial control over the content. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This year, Michael and Josh bring you the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2025. To keep it fresh, we're doing things a little differently, but rest assured, we'll bring along a global host of experts to deliver the very best from the practice-changing, thought-provoking, design-defining trials you know and love from this podcast.This episode focuses on adjuvant atezolizumab in the colon cancer space and the use of perioperative durvalumab in the gastric cancer space. Both are exciting spaces and have the potential to be practice-changing.Don't forget to like and subscribe if you love what we do!Studies discussed in the episode:ATOMICMATTERHORNFor more episodes, resources and blog posts, visit www.inquisitiveonc.comPlease find us on Twitter @InquisitiveOnc!If you want us to look at a specific trial or subject, email us at inquisitiveonc@gmail.comArt courtesy of Taryn SilverMusic courtesy of AlisiaBeats: https://pixabay.com/users/alisiabeats-39461785/Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. If you are unwell, seek medical advice.Oncology for the Inquisitive Mind is recorded with the support of education grants from our foundation partners Pfizer, Gilead Pharmaceuticals and Merck Pharmaceuticals. Our partners have access to the episode at the same time you do and have no editorial control over the content. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

(5:22) Bible Study: Acts 18:9-18 God picks the wrong person for the job? (18:16) Break 1 (20:07) Letters: Father answers a question about the Cistercian witnesses and explains the origin of the Sistine Chapel, Father talks about these and other questions. Send him a letter at simon@relevantradio.cm (35:47) Break 2 (38:28) Word of the Day Vow (40:28) Phones: John - why is Elijah conserved a minor prophet instead of a major prophet? Rosemarie - Plenary Indulgence. Site of Plenary Indulgence. if I go there what do I do? how does indulgence work? Greg - we can go to Communion when we have venial sin. how can Jesus say we can receive him from venial sin yet at end of life we still have to go to Purgatory?

What happens when a papal constitution seems to contradict a past ecumenical council? We explore Church authority, plus questions on circumcision, plenary indulgences, the Holy Spirit, and why Jesus wept for Lazarus even knowing the resurrection was near. Join The CA Live Club Newsletter: Click Here Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 04:02 – Is it possible for an ecumenical council’s constitution to be overridden by a subsequent papal constitution or declaration? 11:45 – I have a son on the way. Is it still licit for Catholics to be circumcised? 17:31 – How didn't God save Adam and Eve’s first children from the wound of original sin? 20:24 – I’ve always heard that the Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and Son. Most recently I've heard that it’s a person. What’s correct? 29:30 – Is a faithful Catholic committing a grave act when seeking a divorce when domestic abuse is involved? 33:51 – Does our modern dual definitions of ‘prodigal' come from the parable? 38:52 – After the resurrection of the dead and we are living here on earth, what will happen to us when our sun explodes? 41:39 – If we apply a Plenary indulgence to a soul in purgatory, do we need to continue to pray for them? 47:09 – Why did Easter happen to land after two full moons? 49:13 – Is it okay for me to attend a non-Catholic wedding that won't even be at a church? 50:25 – In 2020 I died in the hospital 3 times. Who can I talk to about what I saw to help explain and understand it? 52:07 – Why did Jesus weep when Lazarus died when he knew he was going to resurrect him?

Pastor Alan R. Knapp discusses the topic of "The Plenary Manifestation of Love" in his series entitled "Hebrews 2020: We See Jesus (2X)" This is Increment 152 and it focuses on the following verses: Hebrews 6:10, 10:32-34

(5:53) Bible Study: Acts 3:11-26 Father Explains this Passage and he very important words of St Peter. Luke 24:35-48 The purpose of the Gospels which you probably haven’t thought of. (22:15) Break 1 (24:20) Letters: What does it mean to be incredulous for joy? What will happen to the canonization of Carlo Acutis? Father answers these and other questions. Send him a letter at simon@relevantradio.com (34:09) Break 2 (37:10) Word of the Day More than these (42:44) Phones: Gene - How do you properly assign plenary indulgences to other people? Therese - What is the meaning behind the word 'Easter'? Tim - On Mother's Day, my family is going to Rome. Do you know how the conclave will impact access to the Vatican?

Listener Karen from Illinois wrote in asking what a plenary indulgence is, and Patrick did not disappoint. So, what is an indulgence anyway? Patrick breaks it down like this: Sin is forgiven in confession, but its effects still linger (like spiritual scars). Jesus paid the penalty for sin once and for all, but we still need to heal the damage done (to us, others, and the world). Imagine sin is like breaking a window. Confession = forgiveness. But... someone still has to fix the window. The indulgence. The Church, using the authority Jesus gave her ("whatever you bind on Earth..."), can apply the spiritual riches of Jesus and the saints to help wipe away the lingering effects of sin. This is what indulgences are all about. Partial Indulgence = Some of that damage is repaired. Plenary Indulgence = All the effects of sin are wiped clean. How to learn more? Patrick recommends: The Handbook of Indulgences: Norms and Grants Why does this even matter? Because... nothing unclean can enter Heaven (Revelation 21:27). Indulgences help clean you up now, so you don’t have to get purified later in Purgatory. Patrick says it's totally doable to gain a plenary indulgence every single day (!!!) if you meet the conditions (like Confession, Mass, prayer for the Pope, detachment from sin, etc.).

Proximo talks to Jeff Barr, a senior vice president at Plenary Americas, about the I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge project financing and the broader US P3 landscape.

Dr. Ebony Hoskins and Dr. Andreas Obermair discuss the surgical management of gynecologic cancers, including the role of minimally invasive surgery, approaches in fertility preservation, and the nuances of surgical debulking. TRANSCRIPT Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Hello and welcome to the ASCO Daily News Podcast, I'm Dr. Ebony Hoskins. I'm a gynecologic oncologist at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC, and your guest host of the ASCO Daily News Podcast. Today we'll be discussing the surgical management of gynecologic cancer, including the role of minimally invasive surgery (MIS), approaches in fertility preservation, and the nuances of surgical debulking, timing, and its impact on outcomes. I am delighted to welcome Dr. Andreas Obermair for today's discussion. Dr. Obermair is an internationally renowned gynecologic oncologist, a professor of gynecologic oncology at the University of Queensland, and the head of the Queensland Center for Gynecologic Cancer Research. Our full disclosures are available in the transcript of this episode. Dr. Obermair, it's great speaking with you today. Dr. Andreas Obermair: Thank you so much for inviting me to this podcast. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: I am very excited.  I looked at your paper and I thought, gosh, is everything surgical? This is everything that I deal with daily in terms of cancer in counseling patients. What prompted this review regarding GYN cancer management? Dr. Andreas Obermair: Yes, our article was published in the ASCO Educational Book; it is volume 44 in 2024. And this article covers some key aspects of targeted precision surgical management principles in endometrial cancer, cervical cancer, and ovarian cancer. While surgery is considered the cornerstone of gynecologic cancer treatment, sometimes research doesn't necessarily reflect that. And so I think ASCO asked us to; so it was not just me, there was a team of colleagues from different parts of the United States and Australia to reflect on surgical aspects of gynecologic cancer care and I feel super passionate about that because I do believe that surgery has a lot to offer. Surgical interventions need to be defined and overall, I see the research that I'm doing as part of my daily job to go towards precision surgery. And I think that is, well, that is something that I'm increasingly passionate for. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Well, I think we should get into it. One thing that comes to mind is the innovation of minimally invasive surgery in endometrial cancer. I always reflect on when I started my fellowship, I guess it's been about 15 years ago, all of our endometrial cancer patients had a midline vertical incision, increased risk of abscess, infections and a long hospital stay. Do you mind commenting on how you see management of endometrial cancer today? Dr. Andreas Obermair: Thank you very much for giving the historical perspective because the generation of gynecologic oncologists today, they may not even know what we dealt with, what problems we had to solve. So like you, when I was a fellow in gynecologic oncology, we did midline or lower crosswise incisions, the length of stay was, five days, seven days, but we had patients in hospital because of complications for 28 days. We took them back to the operating theaters because those are patients with a BMI of 40 plus, 45, 50 and so forth. So we really needed to solve problems. And then I was exposed to a mentor who taught minimal invasive surgery. And in Australia he was one of the first ones who embarked on that. And I can remember, I was mesmerized by this operation, like not only how logical this procedure was, but also we did rounds afterwards. And I saw these women after surgery and I saw them sitting upright, lipstick on, having had a full meal at the end of the day. And I thought, wow, this is the most rewarding experience that I have to round these patients after surgery. And so I was thinking, how could I help to establish this operation as standard? Like a standard that other people would accept this is better. And so I thought we needed to do a trial on this. And then it took a long time. It took a long time to get the support for the [LACE - Laparoscopic Approach to Cancer of the Endometrium] trial. And in this context, I just also wanted to remind us all that there were concerns about minimal invasive surgery in endometrial cancer at the time. So for example, one of the concerns was when I submitted my grant funding applications, people said, “Well, even if we fund you, wouldn't be able to do this trial because there are actually no surgeons who actually do minimally invasive surgery.” And at the time, for example, in Australia, there were maybe five people, a handful of people who were able to do this operation, right? This was about 20 years ago. The other concern people had was they were saying, could minimally invasive surgery for endometrial cancer, could that cause port side metastasis because there were case reports. So there were a lot of things that we didn't know anyway. We did this trial and I'm super happy we did this trial. We started in 2005, and it took five years to enroll. At the same time, GOG LAP2 was ramping up and the LACE trial and GOG LAP2 then got published and provided the foundations for minimally invasive surgery in endometrial cancer. I'm super happy that we have randomized data about that because now when we go back and now when people have concerns about this, should we do minimally invasive surgery in P53 mutant tumors, I'm saying, well, we actually have data on that. We could go back, we could actually do more research on that if we wanted to, but our treatment recommendations are standing on solid feet. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Well, my patients are thankful. I see patients all the time and they have high risk and morbidly obese, lots of medical issues and actually I send them home most the same day. And I think, you know, I'm very appreciative of that research, because we obviously practice evidence-based and it's certainly a game changer. Let's go along the lines of MIS and cervical cancer. And this is going back to the LACC [Laparoscopic Approach to Cervical Cancer] trial.  I remember, again, one of these early adopters of use of robotic surgery and laparoscopic surgery for radical hysterectomy and thought it was so cool. You know, we can see all the anatomy well and then have the data to show that we actually had a decreased survival. And I even see that most recent updated data just showing it still continued. Can you talk a little bit about why you think there is a difference? I know there's ongoing trials, but still interested in kind of why do you think there's a survival difference? Dr. Andreas Obermair:  So Ebony, I hope you don't mind me going back a step. So the LACC study was developed from the LACE trial. So we thought we wanted to reproduce the LACE data/LAP2 data. We wanted to reproduce that in cervix cancer. And people were saying, why do you do that? Like, why would that be different in any way? We recognize that minimally invasive radical hysterectomy is not a standard. We're not going to enroll patients in a randomized trial where we open and do a laparotomy on half the patients. So I think the lesson that really needs to be learned here is that any surgical intervention that we do, we should put on good evidence footing because otherwise we're really running the risk of jeopardizing patients' outcomes. So, that was number one and LACC started two years after LACE started. So LACC started in 2007, and I just wanted to acknowledge the LACC principal investigator, Dr. Pedro Ramirez, who at the time worked at MD Anderson. And we incidentally realized that we had a common interest. The findings came totally unexpected and came as an utter shock to both of us. We did not expect this. We expected to see very similar disease-free and overall survival data as we saw in the endometrial cancer cohort. Now LACC was not designed to check why there was a difference in disease-free survival. So this is very important to understand. We did not expect it. Like, so there was no point checking why that is the case. My personal idea, and I think it is fair enough if we share personal ideas, and this is not even a hypothesis I want to say, this is just a personal idea is that in endometrial cancer, we're dealing with a tumor where most of the time the cancer is surrounded by a myometrial shell. And most of the time the cancer would not get into outside contact with the peritoneal cavity. Whereas in cervix cancer, this is very different because in cervix cancer, we need to manipulate the cervix and the tumor is right at the outside there. So I personally don't use a uterine manipulator. I believe in the United States, uterine manipulators are used all the time. My experience is not in this area, so I can't comment on that. But I would think that the manipulation of the cervix and the contact of the cervix to the free peritoneal cavity could be one of the reasons. But again, this is simply a personal opinion. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Well, I appreciate it. Dr. Andreas Obermair: Ebony at the end of the day, right, medicine is empirical science, and empirical science means that we just make observations, we make observations, we measure them, and we pass them on. And we made an observation. And, and while we're saying that, and yes, you're absolutely right, the final [LACC] reports were published in JCO recently. And I'm very grateful to the JCO editorial team that they accepted the paper, and they communicated the results because this is obviously very important. At the same time, I would like to say that there are now three or four RCTs that challenge the LACC data. These RCTs are ongoing, and a lot of people will be looking forward to having these results available. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Very good. In early-stage cervical cancer, the SHAPE trial looked at simple versus radical hysterectomy in low-risk cervical cancer patients. And as well all know, simple hysterectomy was not inferior to radical hysterectomy with respect to the pelvic recurrence rate and any complications related to surgery such as urinary incontinence and retention. My question for you is have you changed your practice in early-stage cervical cancer, say a patient with stage 1B1 adenocarcinoma with a positive margin on conization, would you still offer this patient a radical hysterectomy or would you consider a simple hysterectomy? Dr. Andreas Obermair:  I think this is a very important topic, right? Because I think the challenge of SHAPE is to understand the inclusion criteria. That's the main challenge. And most people simplify it to 2 cm, which is one of the inclusion criteria but there are two others and that includes the depth of invasion. Dr. Marie Plante has been very clear. Marie Plante is the first author of the SHAPE trial that's been published in the New England Journal of Medicine only recently and Marie has been very clear upfront that we need to consider all three inclusion criteria and only then the inclusion criteria of SHAPE apply. So at the end of the day, I think what the SHAPE trial is telling us that small tumors that would strictly fulfill the criteria of a 1B or 1B1 cancer of the cervix can be considered for a standard type 1 or PIVA type 1 or whatever classification we're trying to use will be eligible. And that makes a lot of sense. I personally not only look at the size, I also look at the location of the tumor. I would be very keen that I avoid going through tumor tissue because for example, if you have a tumor that is, you know, located very much in one corner of the cervix and then you do a standard hysterectomy and then you have a positive tumor margin that would be obviously, most people would agree it would be an unwanted outcome. So I'd be very keen checking the location, the size of the tumor, the depths of invasion and maybe then if the tumor for example is on one side of the cervix you can do a standard approach on the contralateral side but maybe do a little bit more of a margin, a parametrial margin on the other side. Or if a tumor is maybe on the posterior cervical lip, then you don't need to worry so much about the anterior cervical margin, maybe take the rectum down and maybe try to get a little bit of a vaginal margin and the margin on the uterus saccals. Just really to make sure that you do have margins because typically if we get it right, survival outcomes of clinical stage 1 early cervix cancer 1B1 1B 2 are actually really good. It is a very important thing that we get the treatment right. In my practice, I use a software to record my treatment outcomes and my margins. And I would encourage all colleagues to be cognizant and to be responsible and accountable to introduce accountable clinical practice, to check on the margins and check on the number on the percentage of patients who require postoperative radiation treatment or chemo radiation. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Very good. I have so many questions for you. I don't know the statistics in Australia, but here, there's increased rising of endometrial cancer and certainly we're seeing it in younger women. And fertility always comes up in terms of kind of what to do. And I look at the guidelines and, see if I can help some of the women if they have early-stage endometrial cancer. Your thoughts on what your practice is on use of someone who may meet criteria, if you will. The criteria I use is grade 1 endometrioid adenocarcinoma. No myometria invasion. I try to get MRI'd and make sure that there's no disease outside the endometrium. And then if they make criteria, I typically would do an IUD. Can you tell me what your practice is and where you've had success? Dr. Andreas Obermair: So, we initiated the feMMe clinical trial that was published in 2021 and it was presented in a Plenary at one of the SGO meetings. I think it was in 2021, and we've shown complete pathological response rates after levonorgestrel intrauterine device treatment. And so in brief, we enrolled patients with endometrial hyperplasia with atypia, but also patients with grade 1 endometrial adenocarcinoma. Patients with endometrial hyperplasia with atypia had, in our series, had an 85 % chance of developing a complete pathological response. And that was defined as the complete absence of any atypia or cancer. So endometrial hyperplasia with atypia responded in about 85%. In endometrial cancer, it was about half, it was about 45, 50%. In my clinical practice, like as you, I see patients, you know, five days a week. So I'm looking after many patients who are now five years down from conservative treatment of endometrial cancer. There are a lot of young women who want to get pregnant, and we had babies, and we celebrate the babies obviously because as gynecologist obstetricians it couldn't get better than that, right, if our cancer patients have babies afterwards. But we're also treating women who are really unfit for surgery and who are frail and where a laparoscopic hysterectomy would be unsafe. So this phase is concluded, and I think that was very successful. At least we're looking to validate our data. So we're having collaborations, we're having collaborations in the United States and outside the United States to validate these data. And the next phase is obviously to identify predictive factors, to identify predictors of response. Because as you can imagine, there is no point treating patients with a levonorgestrel intrauterine joint device where we know in advance that she's not going to respond. So this is a very, very fascinating story and we got our first set of data already, but now we just really need to validate this data. And then once the validation is done, my unit is keen to do a prospective validation trial. And that also needs to involve international collaborators. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Very good. Moving on to ovarian cancer, we see patients with ovarian cancer with, say, at least stage 3C or higher who started neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Now, some of these patients are hearing different things from their medical oncologist versus their gynecologic oncologist regarding the number of cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy after getting diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I know that this can be confusing for our patients coming from a medical oncologist versus a gynecologic oncologist. What do you say to a patient who is asking about the ideal number of chemotherapy cycles prior to surgery? Dr. Andreas Obermair: So this is obviously a very, very important topic to talk about. We won't be able to provide a simple off the shelf answer for that, but I think data are emerging.  The ASCO guidelines should also be worthwhile considering because there are actually new ASCO Guidelines [on neoadjuvant chemotherapy for newly diagnosed, advanced ovarian cancer] that just came out a few weeks ago and they would suggest that we should be aiming for R0 in surgery. If we can maybe take that as the pivot point and then go back and say, okay, so what do need to do to get the patient to zero?  I'm not an ovarian cancer researcher; I'm obviously a practicing gynecologic oncologist. I think about things a lot and things like that. In my practice, I would want a patient to develop a response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. So, if a patient doesn't have a response after two or three cycles, then I don't see the point for me to offer her an operation. In my circle with the medical oncologists that I work with, I have a very, very good understanding. So, they send the patient to me, I take them to the theater. I take a good chunk of tissue from the peritoneum. We have a histopathologic diagnosis, we have a genomic diagnosis, they go home the same day. So obviously there is no hospital stay involved with that. They can start the chemotherapy after a few days. There is no hold up because the chances of surgical complication in a setting like this is very, very low. So I use laparoscopy to determine whether the patient responds or not. And for many of my patients, it seems to work. It's obviously a bit of an effort and it takes operating time. But I think I'm increasing my chances to make the right decision. So, coming back to your question about whether we should give three or six cycles, I think the current recommendations are three cycles pending the patient's response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy because my aim is to get a patient to R0 or at least minimal residual disease. Surgery is really, in this case, I think surgery is the adjunct to systemic treatment. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Definitely. I think you make a great point, and I think the guideline just came out, like you mentioned, regarding neoadjuvant. And I think the biggest thing that we need to come across is the involvement of a gynecologic oncologist in patients with ovarian cancer. And we know that that survival increases with that involvement. And I think the involvement is the surgery, right? So, maybe we've gotten away from the primary tumor debulking and now using more neoadjuvant, but surgery is still needed. And so, I definitely want to have a take home that GYN oncology is involved in the care of these patients upfront. Dr. Andreas Obermair: I totally support that. This is a very important statement. So when I'm saying surgery is the adjunct to medical treatment, I don't mean that surgery is not important. Surgery is very important. And the timing is important. And that means that the surgeons and the med oncs need to be pulling on the same string. The med oncs just want to get the cytotoxic into the patients, but that's not the point, right? We want to get the cytotoxic into the patients at the right time because if we are working under this precision surgery, precision treatment mantra, it's not only important what we do, but also doing it at the right time. And ideally, I I would like to give surgery after three cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, if that makes sense. But sometimes for me as a surgeon, I talk to my med onc colleagues and I say, “Look, she doesn't have a good enough response to her treatment and I want her to receive six cycles and then we re-evaluate or change medical treatment,” because that's an alternative that we can swap out drugs and treat upfront with a different drug and then sometimes they do respond. Dr. Ebony Hoskins:  I have maybe one more topic. In the area I'm in, in the Washington D.C. area, we see lots of endometrial cancer and they're not grade 1, right? They're high-risk endometrial cancer and advanced. So a number of patients with stage 3 disease, some just kind of based off staging and then some who come in with disease based off of the CT scan, sometimes omental caking, ascites. And the real question is we have extrapolated the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy to endometrial cancer. It's similar, but not the same. So my question is in an advanced endometrial cancer, do you think there's still a role, when I say advanced, I mean, maybe stage 4, a role for surgery? Dr. Andreas Obermair: Most definitely. But the question is when do you want to give this surgery? Similar to ovarian cancer, in my experience, I want to get to R0. What am I trying to achieve here? So, I reckon we should do a trial on this. And I reckon we have, as you say, the number of patients in this setting is increasing, we could do a trial. I think if we collaborate, we would have enough patients to do a proper trial. Obviously, we would start maybe with a feasibility trial and things like that. But I reckon a trial would be needed in this setting because I find that the incidence that you described, that other people would come across, they're becoming more and more common. I totally agree with you, and we have very little data on that. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Very little and we're doing what we can. Dr. Obermair, thank you for sharing your fantastic insights with us today on the ASCO Daily News Podcast and for all the work you do to advance care for patients with gynecologic cancer. Dr. Andreas Obermair: Thank you, Dr. Hoskins, for hosting this and it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Dr. Ebony Hoskins: Definitely a pleasure and thank you to our listeners for your time today. Again, Dr. Obermair's article is titled, “Controversies in the Surgical Management of Gynecologic Cancer: Balancing the Decision to Operate or Hesitate,” and was published in the 2024 ASCO Educational Book. And you'll find a link to the article in the transcript of this episode. Finally, if you value the insights that you hear on the ASCO Daily News Podcast, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Disclaimer: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Find out more about today's speakers: Dr. Ebony Hoskins @drebonyhoskins Dr. Andreas Obermair @andreasobermair Follow ASCO on social media:       @ASCO on Twitter       ASCO on Bluesky   ASCO on Facebook       ASCO on LinkedIn       Disclosures:   Dr. Ebony Hoskins: No relationships to disclose. Dr. Andreas Obermair: Leadership: SurgicalPerformance Pty Ltd. Stock and Ownership Interests: SurgicalPerformance Pty Ltd. Honoraria: Baxter Healthcare Consulting or Advisory Role: Stryker/Novadaq Patents, Royalties, and Other Intellectual Property: Shares in SurgicalPerformance Pty Ltd. Travel, Accommodation, Expenses: Stryker    

The Minister in charge of the Government's Infrastructure Investment Summit says deals will mostly be done in the coming weeks, months and years ahead. More than a hundred companies, managing about six trillion dollars in capital, are at the Government's two day summit in Auckland. But Chris Bishop says there's already been one tangible commitment from Australian investor Plenary group. "They've promised to set up a New Zealand office here and they've promised to bid on the next five PPP opportunities that come up - that is a commitment that they have just made, I think, in the last 24 hours, on the basis of what they heard at the summit and in the leadup to it. So that's good." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Minister in charge of the Government's Infrastructure Investment Summit says deals will mostly be done in the coming weeks, months and years ahead. More than a hundred companies, managing about six trillion dollars in capital, are at the Government's two day summit in Auckland. But Chris Bishop says there's already been one tangible commitment from Australian investor Plenary group. "They've promised to set up a New Zealand office here and they've promised to bid on the next five PPP opportunities that come up - that is a commitment that they have just made, I think, in the last 24 hours, on the basis of what they heard at the summit and in the leadup to it. So that's good." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Summary In this episode of the Develop This Podcast, host Dennis Fraise is joined by contributing correspondents Joy Austin, Angee Shaker, and Sean Maguire to discuss their experiences at the recent IEDC Leadership Summit held in Washington, DC. They reflect on the conference's location, programming, and the importance of networking and collaboration among economic developers. The group shares insights on various sessions, including data utilization, personal branding, and the impact of plenary speakers. They conclude with thoughts on the overall experience and future conferences. Takeaways The conference location in DC allowed for advocacy opportunities. Networking with colleagues was a highlight of the conference. Sessions focused on collaboration rather than traditional presentations. Data utilization is crucial for effective economic development. Personal branding is important for professional growth. Plenary sessions featured inspiring speakers from various fields. The conference emphasized learning from peers and sharing experiences. The hotel location facilitated easy access to key sites in DC. Future conferences will continue to explore innovative formats. Staying hydrated and comfortable is essential during conferences. Upcoming IEDC conferences Rural Retreat June 23rd - 25th Great Falls Montana Annual Conference - September 14th - 17th Detroit, MI Leadership Summit March 1st - 3rd 2026  

A lot's riding on the Government as it opens the country up to more offshore investment. Representatives of more than 100 foreign entities are in Auckland to eye up potential opportunities at the Infrastructure Investment Summit. The Government's hoping for more project funding and public-private partnerships. Chief Executive with infrastructure investor Morrison, Paul Newfield told Mike Hosking New Zealand needs to be painted as a great place to invest. He says the Government needs to present a multi-decade pipeline, a vision for what infrastructure could be, and a commitment to maintain work over successive governments. Meanwhile, Australian investor Plenary's already confirmed to BusinessDesk it intends to bid on the first stage of the multibillion-dollar Northland Expressway. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Host Riccardo Cosentino sits down with Luigi La Corte, CEO and Co-Founder of Provision, a Toronto-based AI construction technology company. Luigi recounts his journey from working alongside his father's contracting business to a role in P3 (Public-Private Partnerships) at Plenary, where he observed firsthand the mounting costs of construction disputes and claims. Driven by a desire to create positive change, Luigi launched Provision in 2022, evolving the venture through several pivots to its current mission—helping contractors and subcontractors identify and mitigate contractual risks early and effectively. Together, Riccardo and Luigi discuss the promise of AI in reducing disputes, optimizing processes, and ultimately aiming to put more profit into contractors' pockets, thereby fueling a more innovative and rewarding construction industry for all." I do think the industry is very receptive. They want to solve problems. And I don't think AI is a lot of hype. I think what it's done, especially in construction, is it's helped people standardize. One of the biggest problems in construction is that a lot of the information is contained within PDFs and unstructured documents. But now you can create a taxonomy for each of those things and plug them into, you know, the respective workflow. That's magic. And then also, LLMs can emulate some level of human thought and exercise some discretion in a very specific sense." – Luigi La CorteKey TakeawaysWhy construction claims are costly: they consume 2–4% of project budgets, making early risk identification essential to save time and money.How AI can streamline error-prone document reviews, improving accuracy and project efficiency How market feedback drives product evolution: Iterating based on real-world pain points leads to solutions that better meet user needs.Why AI won't solve every dispute is because its strength lies in reducing errors, identifying risks, and augmenting human expertise for higher-level tasks.How contractor profitability fuels industry transformation: reinvesting gains in technology sparks innovationThe conversation doesn't stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:Follow Navigating Major ProgrammesFollow Riccardo CosentinoFollow Luigi La CorteExplore Provision, Luigi's AI-driven solution to reduce risk in construction.Read Riccardo's latest at www.riccardocosentino.com Music: "A New Tomorrow" by Chordial Music. Licensed through PremiumBeat.

This week, John and Elliot discuss the results of the February FATF Plenary, GAO reports on BOI, and Assessing Progress on Countering Criminal Activity, new sanctions issued by the UK and EU against Russia, the latest on the requirement to file BOI with FinCEN, priorities of the Acting Comptroller of the Currency, and other items impacting the financial crime prevention community.

Dr. Reeder preaches from Luke 15 on the three types of "lost" February 10 2025   To watch: click here    Lifelong Learning Code: 80890 Click here to learn about Lifelong Learning.  

This sermon was preached on February 11, 2025    To watch: click here   Lifelong Learning Code: 80890 Click here to learn about Lifelong Learning.

This sermon was preached on February 11, 2025   To watch: click here    Lifelong Learning Code: 80890 Click here to learn about Lifelong Learning.

This sermon was preached on February 12, 2025   To watch: click here    Lifelong Learning Code: 80890 Click here to learn about Lifelong Learning.

How does the Church raise up multiethnic leaders for the kingdom through catechesis? The Rev. Dr. Ely Prieto, Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Director of the Center for Hispanic Studies at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, joins Andy and Sarah to talk about the Concordia Seminary Multiethnic Symposium happening May 6-7. They discuss how catechesis is part of the Lord's command in Matthew 28:19, what is meant by "all nations" in this command, what a multiethnic church is and where we see examples of the beauty of multiethnic churches, how catechesis is a powerful tool in the context of a multiethnic church, and the exciting topics to be covered at this year's Multiethnic Symposium. Learn more and register at csl.edu/multiethnic, and read on for the official press release with more details. --------------------------------------------------- ST. LOUIS, Feb. 12, 2025— Registration is open for the 2025 Multiethnic Symposium, “Learning From Each Other: Catechesis That Raises Up Multiethnic Leaders for the Kingdom,” set for May 6-7 on the campus of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. The symposium brings together individuals from varied cultural backgrounds to share their unique perspectives and experiences to help equip future leaders with knowledge, stills and spiritual maturity to serve God's kingdom faithfully. “Raising up the next generation of multiethnic leaders within The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) presents a significant challenge, but it also represents a tremendous responsibility and a unique opportunity that the Lord has graciously bestowed upon us,” said Dr. Ely Prieto, the Lutheran Foundation Professor of Urban and Cross-Cultural Ministry. “In a multiethnic church context, catechesis serves as a vital and powerful tool for cultivating leaders who are equipped to effectively minister among diverse communities. This symposium will provide an invaluable opportunity to learn from esteemed scholars, experienced pastors and dedicated missionaries who have studied this crucial area and have played a pivotal role in raising up the next generation of immigrant leaders.” Plenary speakers include: Dr. Kent Burreson, Professor of Systematic Theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis Dr. Rhoda Schuler, Professor Emeritus, Concordia University, St. Paul, St. Paul, Minn. Rev. Jeff Cloeter, Senior Pastor, Christ Memorial Lutheran Church, St. Louis Dr. Stanish Stanley, Executive Director, Christian Friends of New Americans, St. Louis Jessica Bordeleau, Coordinator, Digital Publishing, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis The 19th Annual Lecture in Hispanic/Latino Theology and Mission also will be held during the symposium. Dr. Hosffman Ospino, professor of Hispanic Ministry and Religious Education and chair of the Department of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College, in Boston, Mass., will present, “How the Roman Catholic Church is Cultivating and Mentoring a New Generation of Hispanic-Ecclesial Leaders.” The response will be given by Rev. Stephen Heimer, manager of All Nations Ministry for the LCMS Office of National Mission (ONM) in St. Louis, Mo. The lecture, sponsored by the Seminary's Center for Hispanic Studies, is free and open to the public. Participants are encouraged to extend their stay and attend the 2025 Multi Asian Gathering, set for May 7-8 on the Seminary campus. The admission fee for the Multi Asian Gathering is $25. Registration closes April 21. The admission fee for the Multiethnic Symposium is $85, but free for Concordia Seminary students and faculty. For more information, visit csl.edu/multiethnic or contact Continuing Education at 314-505-7286 or ce@csl.edu. As you grab your morning coffee (and pastry, let's be honest), join hosts Andy Bates and Sarah Gulseth as they bring you stories of the intersection of Lutheran life and a secular world. Catch real-life stories of mercy work of the LCMS and partners, updates from missionaries across the ocean, and practical talk about how to live boldly Lutheran. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on The Coffee Hour? Contact us at: listener@kfuo.org.

In today's podcast we were delighted to be joined by the presenters of the top scientific abstracts for the Annual Assembly of the American Academy of  Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) and the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Nurses Association (HPNA).  Eric and I interviewed these presenters at the meeting on Thursday (before the pub crawl, thankfully).  On Saturday, they formally presented their abstracts during the plenary session, followed by a wonderful question and answer session with Hillary Lum doing a terrific job in the role of podcast host moderator. Our three guests were Marie Bakitas, who conducted a trial of tele/video palliative care for Black and White inpatients with serious illness hospitalized in the rural south; Yael Shenker, for a trial of patient-directed Prepare-for-your-care vs. facilitated Respecting Choices style advance care planning interventions; and, Na Ouyang, who studied the relationship between prognostic communication and prolonged grief among the parents of children who died from cancer.  From just the abstracts we had so many questions. We covered some of our questions on the podcast, others you can ponder on your own or in your journal clubs, including: Marie's tele/video palliative care intervention was tailored/refined with the help of a community advisory board. Does every institution need to get a community advisory board to tailor their rural tele-palliative care initiative (or geriatrics intervention) to the local communities served?  Who would/should be on that board? How to be sensitive to the risks of stereotyping based on recommendations from the few members of the board to the many heterogeneous patients served? Advance care planning has taken a beating. For the purposes of a thought exercise, no matter what you believe, let's assume that there are clear important benefits. Based on the results of Yael's study, should resources be allocated to resource intensive nurse facilitated sessions (Respecting Choices), which had significantly better engagement, or to low resource intensive patient-facing materials (Prepare), which had significantly less engagement but still plenty of engagement (e.g. 75% vs 61% advance directive completion)? One interpretation of Na's study is that clinicians can lean on the high levels of trust and high ratings of communication to engage with parents of children with cancer about prognosis.  Another interpretation is that clinicians avoided telling the parents prognosis in order to bolster their ratings of trust and communication quality.  Which is it? Bonus: Simon says he composed the song Sounds of Silence in a dark echoing bathroom about his concerns that people had stopped listening to each other in the 1960s (still resonates, right?).  Garfunkel says Simon was writing about Garfunklel's friend and college roomate Sandy, who was blind.  Who's got the right of it?   Enjoy! -Alex Smith   

Patrick Madrid gets into a question from Emily in Maine, who’s wondering if she has to pack her bags for Rome to receive a plenary indulgence during the Jubilee Year. Here's the Explanation: Patrick explains that while Rome’s Holy Doors are a major focus during the Jubilee Year, you don’t actually need to fly to the Eternal City to participate. Many dioceses around the world designate their own churches: usually cathedrals or significant shrines, with Holy Doors. So, you can check out your diocesan website to see which local church has been designated. Once you know where the doors are, you can receive the same plenary indulgence as if you were in St. Peter’s Basilica. So, What’s a Plenary Indulgence Anyway? Patrick gives a quick theology lesson: A plenary indulgence is the "complete remission of the punishment due to sins that have already been forgiven." It’s like hitting the reset button on your soul’s "penance odometer." To receive it, you need to: Be in a state of grace (go to Confession if needed!). Renounce all attachment to sin: even those sneaky past sins you might secretly still take pride or enjoyment in. Perform the prescribed act (in this case, passing through a Holy Door). Receive Communion and pray for the Pope’s intentions (like an Our Father and a Hail Mary). Patrick makes it clear that detachment from sin doesn’t mean you need to feel it emotionally. It’s an act of the will: a firm decision to reject sin out of true love for God. What About Rome? Emily mentions she’d love to go to Rome (don’t we all?), but it’s just not possible. Patrick assures her that the indulgence she gets at her local Holy Door is just as “full” as the one you’d get in Rome. There’s no "extra holy" indulgence for jetsetters: it’s the same grace whether you’re at St. Peter’s or in Portland, Maine. Final Thought: If you’re dreaming of Rome but stuck at home, don’t sweat it. Holy Doors are popping up all over the world, and the grace is universal. So, grab your diocesan map, check out your nearest Holy Door, and step into the incredible mercy God is offering you this Jubilee Year. Hey, maybe pray for a miracle trip to Rome while you’re at it. You never know what door God might open for you, literally!

Native American oncologist Dr. Amanda Bruegl and Dr. Noelle LoConte discuss culturally tailored interventions and the importance of community engagement to advance cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for Native communities. TRANSCRIPT   ASCO Daily News: Hello and welcome to the ASCO Daily News Podcast. I'm Geraldine Carroll, a reporter for the ASCO Daily News. On today's episode, we'll be discussing cancer care for Native American communities who face unique challenges and disparities in accessing and receiving cancer care. I'm delighted to be joined by two oncologists who will be sharing their insights on ways to advance cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment through culturally tailored interventions and community-based programs for high-risk Native Americans whose issues are chronically overlooked in the healthcare system, according to experts. Dr. Amanda Bruegl is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine. She is a gynecologic oncologist at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and a citizen of the Oneida Nation and descendant of Stockbridge-Munsee. Dr. Noelle LoConte is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin Madison Carbone Cancer Center where she also serves as a GI medical oncologist, geriatrician and leads community outreach.  Full disclosures are available in the transcript of this episode.  Dr. LoConte and Dr. Bruegl, it's great to have you on the podcast today. Dr. Noelle LoConte: Thanks so much for having me. Dr. Amanda Bruegl: Thank you for having us. ASCO Daily News: Dr. Bruegl, I'd like to start by asking you to tell us a bit about your background and how it has influenced your career and interests as a gynecologic oncologist. Dr. Amanda Bruegl: I grew up in Wisconsin and I have a Native parent and a non-Native parent. And so having an awareness of both cultural influences in my life has really shaped my interest in cancer prevention. Seeing the high rates of preventable death in cancer among Native populations in gynecologic cancers, in particular, has really driven me to dedicate my research career toward decreasing the morbidity and mortality of cervical cancer among Native women. ASCO Daily News: Well, can you tell us about your work in cancer prevention, specifically cervical cancer? The data shows that Native Americans in Oregon get cervical cancer one and a half times more than the general state population and die from it two times more often. What are the factors, the barriers, that are contributing to these high rates of cervical cancer? Dr. Amanda Bruegl: The data in Oregon is actually not just limited to Oregon.  Our group did some work in collaboration with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board Tribal Epidemiology Center, and we found that, as you stated, the rates of cervical cancer are one and a half times that of non-Hispanic Whites and the rate of death is about twice. And that's true for the Pacific Northwest. And if you dig deeper into the literature, you see that these rates are true across Indian Country, sometimes worse. When we looked at the age groups, we found that older women had three times the rate of mortality. So looking at like 45 to 65. As I was looking through the literature to figure out, well, why is this, we found that there are very, very few funded studies that even look at this. We have a known persistent disparity that is chronically understudied and underfunded. And so I'm trying to do work in this arena to explore this further.  A follow up study that we did was looking at whether we are using the prevention tools. So it's common across the United States that we have two very powerful prevention tools. So participation in cervical cancer screening doesn't necessarily prevent cervical cancer, but you can have early detection of pre-invasive disease or detection of early-stage disease, which is highly curable. And then we also have HPV vaccination, something geared towards the youth in our communities across the U.S. HPV vaccination starting at age 9 with a goal of complete vaccination by the age of 12. So we looked at: Are we using these two tools in Indian Country? And what we found was that participation in cervical cancer screening, looking at who is up-to- date among Natives, and we found that overall the population had about 60% rates of up-to- date on cervical cancer screening compared to general US rates, which are in like the high 70s or low 80s. And then when we looked at that age group that has higher rates of mortality, we actually found that there's only about a 50% rate of up-to-date screening. So we know in one arena people aren't participating in screening. And there's a variety of different contributors to that. There's access to care. How far do you have to travel to get to a provider who will provide cervical cancer screening? Among Native women, there's an over 50% rate of history of sexual trauma, sexual violence, pelvic exam trauma. It's a huge barrier to coming in for this very sensitive exam. There is also mistrust with the medical system in general. There's high turnover of providers at Indian Health Service Clinics.  The clinic that I'm currently working at now, so I do outreach at a clinic one day a month and I'm the longest standing doc at that clinic and I'm a consultant who comes one day a month. I've been there since 2016. And so when you can't develop a relationship with a provider and develop trust and there's just this churn of new people every three to six months, developing a relationship to allow someone to feel comfortable with a very personal and private examination can be a huge barrier. On the HPV vaccination side, we found that the numbers for HPV vaccination were pretty optimistic. So the numbers have been going up since our study period started in 2015. The clinics in the Pacific Northwest that are serving Native populations are doing a great job with education, outreach and increasing the numbers. The group with the greatest rates of HPV vaccination are for people assigned female at birth in the 13-18 age group. They are the only group that is approaching the Healthy People 2030 goal. But there's still work to be done in this arena. Those are some big drivers of why this persistent disparity continues. ASCO Daily News: Absolutely. You mentioned some very serious barriers. Sexual trauma, mistrust, long distance to travel to clinics. Looking ahead, can you tell us about potential screening tools that could improve screening? And I also wanted to ask you about innovations you're excited about that could be potentially incorporated into practice to increase the ability and comfort of your patients to screening and access to HPV vaccination. Dr. Amanda Bruegl: So, in terms of cervical cancer screening and how to increase the rates, there are a number of different things in the literature broadly across populations that really show that knowledge and awareness of cervical cancer and cervical cancer screening guidelines is associated with guideline concordant care. And so ensuring that our patients in our communities know and understand what the recommendations are is very important. Efforts to provide education to women in the community, community stakeholders, and culturally tailored content can all be important for increasing the rates of cervical cancer participation.  Another thing that has the potential to really help improve screening rates is HPV self-collection. The FDA just recently approved HPV self-collection which can help empower an individual to do their own testing on their own body and not have someone else place a speculum in a private personal area where they're not comfortable. Some of the tribes in our region are starting to adopt this practice. And I just gave a talk to the regional Indian Health Service medical directors and have had really positive feedback about clinics working towards bringing this into their practice. I hope that the FDA can move forward with allowing patients to do this in the comfort of their own home. Sadly, the FDA in their evaluations decided it had to be a clinic administered test. So someone still has to go through the barrier of finding time to, if they have caregiver responsibilities or work, to have these responsibilities taken care of for someone else so they can drive to a clinic. So these barriers of transportation and caregiving are not addressed by this. It addresses some of the trauma, that barrier. And so I think in the US, we can do better about bringing this like FIT testing to our patients. I really hope and challenge our country to move forward with that a bit more. Geraldine Carroll: Thanks, Dr. Bruegl. I'll come back to you in a moment, but first I'd like to switch gears and address some of the challenges faced by Native communities in Wisconsin that were featured in a fascinating study presented by our guest, Dr. Noelle LoConte, at the recent ASCO Quality Care Symposium. The study found that radon levels in Native lands in Wisconsin were much higher than anticipated and may explain higher rates of lung cancer among Native communities in the state. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. So, Dr. LoConte, can you tell us more about this study and your incredible partnership with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation Health Center in this work? Dr. Noelle LoConte: You bet. Thanks for the interest. First of all, I think it's just an incredible privilege to work with all of these communities. So, I wanted to say at the jump that this was a joint project led by the cancer center that I'm affiliated with, but also with the Stockbridge-Munsee community. They approved the project and they designed it with us, and they retain ownership of the data. Data sovereignty is an important issue when you're doing this work. But we came to them wanting to work on something around cancer. I actually thought maybe colorectal cancer screening. But in meeting with the health center and the tribal community members, it became clear that they were more concerned that they had intergenerational rates of cancer, and they felt that they were being poisoned by their land. And that brought me to the state Environmental Health Program. And we looked at some data and realized, one, their lung cancer rates were quite high, but two, their radon testing rates were quite low. And that that was a place where we thought we couldn't make some forward momentum.  So, we designed a program to educate around radon and radon testing and mitigation and then tested all the homes on the reservation. And we successfully tested all homes for radon and then successfully mitigated all the homes that tested over four picocuries per liter, which is the recommended level at which you should mitigate per the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. The statewide average for Wisconsin is 10% positive. And amongst homes that had a basement, which is thought to be the highest risk kind of dwelling in the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation community, the positive rate was 77%. And when you take all the homes together because we had some homes with crawl spaces or slab foundation, it was around, I believe, 55% positive, so much higher than 10%. ASCO Daily News: Well, that data is just striking. Your study certainly illustrates the vital role that cancer centers can play in mitigating structural determinants of health among Native communities, such as with housing quality. Do you think this will inspire a similar approach in other regions of the country?  Dr. Noelle LoConte: Yeah, I think this work was possible because of philanthropy. It is very, very hard to get grant funding for mitigation, in particular. Mitigation is usually done once in the life of the dwelling, but it is very, very expensive. A cheap mitigation is $750, and many are many thousands of dollars especially when you're looking at very rural communities where there's not really a mitigator within hundreds of miles and you have to really negotiate to get somebody to come out there. Every cancer center that's designated by the National Cancer Institute has to have a community outreach and engagement unit or program. I would argue that rather than us generating reports describing disparities, that this kind of work to actually dismantle these determinants of health and move power back into the community is an ideal role for a cancer center. But the funding was definitely a tricky piece of it. And I would hope that we could either envision funding mechanisms that allow for this kind of direct service to communities, or we can continue to work with philanthropic agencies to fund this. ASCO Daily News: Well, looking through a wider lens at the experience of Native communities navigating cancer care, I'd like to ask each of you to comment on how you think the oncology community can better support and serve high-risk Native populations. What message would you like oncologists to take away from this discussion today? Dr. Bruegl, would you like to respond first? Dr. Amanda Bruegl: There's so many layers to needs in our communities. First and foremost, it's important to understand that American Indians and Alaska Natives are sovereign people, sovereign nations. We've been written into the US Constitution as citizens of our own tribes. And it's important to remember that when working with our populations. I think it's also really important to remember that there's treaty law that promised healthcare to our communities. And you see that we are underfunded in all aspects of healthcare, and it's a driver. And people on the healthcare side of things need to remember we represent the failures of the healthcare system to care for our Native communities. Whether or not you wake up in the morning with a goal to help, you have to remember that you represent the institution and the history of this country and are going to be asked to prove yourself in a genuine fashion. And that takes time.  I think for people who are in research, it's really important to think about how do you engage and partner with tribal communities so that we're not chronically left behind and left out of study? We seldom show up in the data, and we have to find our own data. Tribal epidemiology centers have been really paramount in helping tribes get access to their data and analyze their data. But you can see in trial after trial after trial, we're sort of shoved into the other box. And so it's so difficult to understand how the cancer story relates to us and how do we improve it? ASCO Daily News: Thank you, Dr. Bruegl. Dr. LoConte, would you like to comment on this as well? Dr. Noelle LoConte: Yeah. I had jotted down a few points. Many are going to be a little bit of a repetition here, but I think the overarching theme is that the goals for academic medicine often are not the goals of the community that you may be seeking to work in, and so being able to pivot was key to the success of my project, I think.  Can't underestimate the importance of trust. And trust takes a lot of time and a lot of showing up and a lot of being consistent and delivering on what you say you're going to do. And there's a lot of turnover in academic medicine. People leave institutions, move on for promotions. None of that is going to help strengthen these relationships. So I think institutions would be wise to invest in people that stay. I think there should be things like retention bonuses for those of us that stay in places and do community work. It's certainly not the sexy stuff. It's not what gets you in the Plenary at the ASCO Annual Meeting, for example, but I was beyond delighted that I was on the podium for the ASCO Quality Care Symposium. And I think continuing to elevate this work as meaningful and important work, just as important as clinical trials and new drugs, is really important.  I would like to second the motion or the thought that we need to support full funding for the Indian Health Services. It is a promise we made that we continue to underdeliver on that continues to harm patients every day, particularly in the latter half of the year when they run out of funding pretty consistently. For those of us that are non-Native doing this work, to know the history of the community that you're working in and be really mindful of that but also know the role that your institution played in propagating some of these harms. And I think we need more Native physicians that really will help to have concordance with patients and physicians. And so as much as we can support getting more Native folks starting really early – high school, middle school, interested in medicine and biomedical research, all the way through medical school residency fellowship would be really, really impactful. We have a program here founded by Amanda's husband called the Native American Center for Health Professions, or NACHP. It's really a feather in our cap here and I would love to see all medical schools have some sort of pathway program like that. We won't get out of this hole until we start to really take that seriously. ASCO Daily News: Well, thank you so much, Dr. LoConte and Dr. Bruegl for taking the time and showing up for Native communities, and all your work to advance cancer care. We are certainly very grateful for your time today and we will embed links to all of the studies discussed in the transcript of this episode. So thank you again, Dr. LoConte and Dr. Bruegl. Dr. Noelle LoConte: You're welcome. Dr. Amanda Bruegl: Thank you for having us. ASCO Daily News: And thank you to our listeners for your time today. Again, you'll find links to the studies we discussed today in the transcript of this episode. Finally, if you value the insights that you hear on the ASCO Daily News Podcast, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Disclaimer: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Follow today's speakers:  Dr. Amanda Bruegl   Dr. Noelle LoConte @noelleloconte.bsky.social   Follow ASCO on social media:   @ASCO on Twitter   ASCO on Facebook   ASCO on LinkedIn   Disclosures:   Dr. Amanda Bruegl – No relationships to disclose Dr. Noelle LoConte: Consulting or Advisory Role: Abbvie, PDGx Research Funding: Exact Sciences  

This piece comes from Melbourne, Australia, at the World Congress of Prehabilitation and Perioperative Medicine, held alongside the Australian ERAS+ Conference. Recorded on the conference stage before an audience of guests and delegates, hear how the World Congress came to be where it is today. Presented by Mike Grocott, and Kate Leslie with Denny Levett, Professor in Perioperative Medicine and Critical Care at the University of Southampton and a Consultant in Perioperative Medicine at Southampton University Hospital NHS Foundation trust (UHS), and Gerrit Slooter, MD, PhD, Surgical Oncologist, Maxima Medical Centre, The Netherlands.

Clare PPN's Winter Plenary will take place in the new De Valera Library in Ennis on the 17th of December. For more on this, Alan Morrissey was joined by Clare PPN Coordinator,Sarah Clancy. Photo (c): https://clareppn.ie/clareppn-winter-plenary-2024/

In this podcast recorded at BEVA Congress 2024, Dean Richardson delivers the John Hickman Plenary Lecture, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They? The Past, Present, and Future of Fracture Management."

Iowa Catholic Radio Network Shows: - Be Not Afraid with Fr. PJ McManus - Catholic Women Now with Chris Magruder and Julie Nelson - Faith of Trial with Deacon Mike Manno and Gina Noll - Making It Personal with Bishop William Joensen - Man Up! with Joe Stopulus - The Catholic Morning Show - The Uncommon Good with Bo Bonner and Dr. Bud Marr - Faith and Family Finance with Gregory Waddle    

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) gathered for the 2024 Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, November 11-14. Among the speakers were Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, and President of the USCCB, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio. Watch the livestream and read related materials at www.usccb.org/plenary-assembly-november-11-14-2024 Catholic Current also spoke with Ukrainian Bishop Stepan Sus, delegates to the Synod on Synodality, and Bishop Roy Campbell, who shared the history of the National Black Catholic Congress.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) gathered for the 2024 Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, November 11-14. Among the speakers were Archbishop Borys Gudziak on the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si', Bishop Timothy Senior on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Bishop Seitz on the Church's support for migrants and refugees, and Bishop Robert Baron, Bishop Thomas Daly, and Bishop Michael Burbidge on the teaching of Dignitas Infinita .

Celebrating 50+2 years of Scholarship: Department of the History and Sociology of Science - Plenary Presentations: Past, Present, Future by Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine

This week, John and Elliot discuss the outcomes of the October FATF Plenary, a recent investigative report about former government officials giving advice on sanctions compliance, the US Treasury's National Strategy on Financial Inclusion, FINTRAC's recent bulletin on the risks of Canadian lawyers not having to comply with AML rules, and several other items impacting the financial crime prevention community.

Last time we spoke about the finale of the Northern Expedition, the reunification of China. In May the NRA advanced from the Yellow River bridgehead despite losing access to the Tianjin-Pukou railway, forcing a 60-mile march. General Chen Tiaoyuan captured Tehzhou on the 13th, as the NRA cleared northern Shandong. They then converged on Beijing, with Feng Yuxiang's 2nd Collective Army and Yan Xishan's 3rd Collective Army advancing from different directions. Yan Xishan fought the NPA, recapturing territories and capturing Nankou, which led to speculation he would enter Beijing first. Despite NPA counterattacks, the NRA forces continued their advance. By late May, the NRA's combined efforts and internal NPA issues led to a general retreat of the NPA forces. On June 6, Yan Xishan's troops entered Beijing. The NPA's Zhang Zuolin was assassinated by Japanese officers, leading to a power shift to his son Zhang Xueliang, who later aligned with Chiang Kai-Shek. By December 1928, China was unified under the KMT.   #118 The Chinese Civil War Draws First Blood Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. So I said a few times during the northern expedition that I wanted to push aside the emerging Chinese civil war. Although we loosely covered a lot of the major events, this episode is going to try and narrow and focus it down. Now please note, up until this point I have to admit I had been using sources that were either skewed towards the Chinese nationalist views or were trying to be non biased. For some of these episodes I intentionally am using some CCP aligned sources, I will try my best to balance things out. Also a large part of this is going to be a retelling of the Shanghai Massacre, but more from the point of view of the CCP. All the way back in 1926, Chiang Kai-Shek had managed to seize power over the Kuomintang. He exerted control over the party and army as he unleashed the Northern Expedition. By November 9th Chiang Kai-Shek set up a new headquarters in Nanchang. Chiang Kai-Shek was determined to purge the party of communists and began to do so here. He began by recruiting a large number of right-wing Kuomintang members such as Dai Jitao and Wu Tiecheng. Dai Jitao was a member of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee and had served as the Minister of the KMT's propaganda department. After the death of Sun Yat-Sen, Dai Jitao had actively promoted an anti-communist movement, drawing support from warlords, right wingers and those the CCP would describe as “imperialists”. In May of 1925 with the support of Chiang Kai-Shek, Dai Jitao began an anti-communist campaign in Shanghai. He ran two successful pamphlets loosely translated in English as "The Philosophical Foundation of Sun Yat-senism" and "National Revolution and the Chinese Kuomintang”. Both worked to promote the teachings of Confucius and Mencius while distorting Sun Yat-sen's thoughts. Dai Jitao was arguing that Sun Yat-Sen's ideology chiefly came from Confucianism instead of western philosophy and that in fact the man was a traditionalist. He twisted Sun Yat-Sen's three principles, castrating them of revolutionary content. All of this quickly became a "banner" for the Kuomintang right-winger to carry out anti-communist activities. After Chiang Kai-Shek arrived in Nanchang, he immediately invited him to go north to jointly plan the purge of the party and anti-communism. Wu Tiecheng joined Dai Jitao, he was the director of the Guangzhou Public security Bureau and a well known KMT right-winger. Prior to the Zhongshan ship incident, Wu Tiecheng stated he had suggested to Chiang Kai-Shek that they impose sanctions on the CCP. In his words “with the registration materials of the special household registration of our Public Security Bureau, we can immediately arrest a dozen of the main Communist Party members, and then use a ship to transport them to a small island near Zhongshan County , or send them to Shanghai. As for the minor members, they will be temporarily detained." Chiang Kai-Shek said "I will think about it first." After the Zhongshan incident, Chiang Kai-Shek pretended to dismiss him from his post, but specially invited him later to Nanchang and dispatched him to Japan as a liaison. Another large figure who was invited over was Huang Fu, who had served as the Minister of Foreign affairs and Education for the Beiyang Government and as its Prime Minister. When Chiang Kai-Shek came to Nanchang he wrote to Huang Fu twice inviting him to come south. On December 31st, Zhang Jingjiang and Chen Guofu were also invited to Nanchang. Zhang Jingjiang was a member of the KMT's Central Supervisory Committee. After the secondary Plenary session of the second central committee, he became chairman of it. He used his authority and colluded with Chen Guofu, the Minister of Organization to dissolve the Guangzhou Municipal Party committee, which at the time was being led by left winger KMT. They did this by placing confidants in various positions to steal power. Simultaneously, they suppressed worker and peasant movements in Guangdong, even dispatching gangsters to kill their leaders and burn down the provincial and Hong Kong strike committee HQ. All of these people gathered at Nanchang formed a anti-communist cabal backing Chiang Kai-Shek. In January of 1927 these men went up Mount Lushan to a famous hotel called Xianyan where they plotted. After several days of meetings, as my source argues, mostly based on the advice of Huang Fu, these following decisions were obtained. Number 1, they would enact a policy of separating from the USSR and purging the party of CCP. Number 2, the NRA must settle the southeast by forming an alliance with the gentry and merchant class there. Number 3 in their diplomatic efforts they had to abandon the USSR and ally themselves to Japan. Number 4, to increase their military power they had to unite with Feng Yuxiangs Guominjun and Yan Xishan.   Upon returning to Nanchang, Chiang Kai-Shek took action, first by attacking Borodin. He sent a telegram to Xu Qian, the chairman of the Wuhan joint conference, stating Borodin had insulted him in public at Wuhan and demanded he be removed from his advisory position. He also recomended expell Borodin back to the USSR. The source I am reading states Chiang Kai-Shek had two rationales for going after Borodin. "Chiang Kai-Shek felt that except for Borodin, the Kuomintang leaders in Wuhan were all politically incompetent. ... As long as Borodin was there, he could not gain a dominant position. Secondly, he was using Borodin like a scape goat to hide his real anti-Soviet purpose'. At this time Chiang Kai-Shek was being labeled a USSR stooge by the NPA and a Japanese stooge by the CCP. In response, Chiang Kai-Shek stated publicly "Our alliance with Russia was left by the Prime Minister. Although its representatives have been arrogant for a long time and oppressed our party leaders in many ways, I believe that this has nothing to do with the Soviet Union's spirit of treating us equally. No matter what their personal attitudes are, we will never change our relationship with the Soviet Union towards Japan. Why should we unite with the Soviet Union? It is because the Soviet Union can treat China equally. Since the Soviet Union has not given up treating us equally, how can we give up the policy of alliance with Russia. ... Not only Japan, but any country, if it can treat China equally, then we will treat them the same way as we treat the Soviet Union. It is not impossible to unite with them. We unite with the Soviet Union to seek freedom and equality for China. It is completely based on the meaning of treating our nation equally, so we must unite with the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union does not treat us equally and oppresses us in the same way, we will also oppose them in the same way. I have said for a long time." In regards to the CCP Chiang Kai-Shek stated to his close confidants “When I was in Guangzhou, I was always paying attention to the actions of the CCP. I wanted to implement my proposal to overthrow the CCP in Guangzhou, however I did not do so. I was unable to do so because it could mean the end of the Kuomintang”. After the success of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-Shek lamented to his confidants “although our army has won a great victory, I still worry the enemy is not at our front but at our rear. The CCP is causing much trouble within, we must make sure it does not split out party or even collapse our army. There are thorns everywhere”. Publically Chiang Kai-Shek stated "Now there is a rumor that I distrust and alienate my Communist comrades and have a tendency to oppose them. In fact, it cannot be said that I will not oppose the Communist Party. I has always supported the Communist Party... But that is to say, if the Communist Party becomes strong in the future and its members are arrogant and tyrannical, I will definitely correct them and punish them. ... Now many Communist Party members are actually oppressing the Kuomintang members, showing an overbearing attitude, and tend to exclude Kuomintang members, making Kuomintang members embarrassed. In this way, I can no longer treat Communist Party members with the same preferential treatment as before. If I still have the same attitude as before, then I am not in the position of a Kuomintang member, and I cannot be a Kuomintang member. Although I am not a Communist Party member, from a revolutionary perspective, I have to take some responsibility for the success or failure of the Communist Party! I am the leader of the Chinese revolution, not just the leader of the Kuomintang. The Communist Party is a part of the Chinese revolutionary forces. Therefore, if Communist Party members do something wrong or act tyrannically, I have the responsibility and power to intervene and punish them." As you can see, publicly Chiang Kai-Shek was always walking on eggshells when attacking the CCP. If you know the old boiling frog analogy, it's more or less like Chiang Kai-Shek gradually getting the public to attack the CCP. At the ceremony where Li Liejun was appointed chairman of Jiangxi, Chiang Kai-shek once again gave a speech, saying that communism was only a method of economic development, which might be applicable in some countries, but if China adopted communism, it would be a great harm and would only lead to the overthrow and revolution of China. In late January, Chiang Kai-Shek met with Momuro Keijiro, a representative sent by Japan's minister of Finance and Navy at Lushan. Chiang Kai-Shek explained to Keijiro that he understood the importance of the political and economic relationship between Manchuria and Japan. He understood the Japanese had spilt a lot of blood there during the Russo-Japanese War. He believed Manchuria required special consideration and hoped the Japanese would correctly evaluate the KMT's struggle to reunify China. Chiang Kai-Shek then met with the Japanese consul General in Jiujiang, Edo Sentaro, explaining he did not only intend to abolish the unequal treaties but would try to respect the existing conditions as much as possible, such as guaranteeing the recognition of foreign loans and repayments and respecting foreign owned enterprises.  After these meetings Chiang Kai-Shek met with representatives of the Imperial Japanese Military such as Nagami Masuki and Matsumuro Takayoshi. It was Dai Jitao who set up these meetings. Chiang Kai-Shek began the talks by making it clear the KMT would not work with the CCP and was willing to work with Japan to prevent the spread of Communism in China. Chiang Kai-Shek also met with the Japanese politician Yamamoto Jotario who would go on to say in Beijing that he believed the Generalissimo was an outstanding military leader. Needless to say, as my source would put it “Chiang Kai-Shek was closely colluding with Japanese imperialism”. He was also establishing contacts with the US. He dispatched Wang Zhengting to Shanghai to meet the American consul general there. Wang Zhengting told him the KMT had washed their hands of the communists and that there would be nor more incidents such as the one that befell Hankou. The American consul general in Guangzhou was likewise contacted through the finance minister of Guangdong, Kong Xiangxi. What the American consuls told their government was “if the powers want to drive the Soviets out of China, they should establish direct contact with Chiang Kai-Shek”. Chiang Kai-Shek also publicly expressed regret to numerous nations for incidents such as the one in Nanjing. He was gaining a reputation as being the only leader in China capable of restoring order amongst the chaos. Many of these foreign diplomats privately told Chiang Kai-Shek that if he wanted to really brush shoulders with them he had to purge the communists and soon. To truly purge the communists Chiang Kai-Shek reaches a deal with the bourgeoisie of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. They will support him economically if he helps suppress the worker movements in Shanghai. They fund Chiang Kai-Shek some 500,000 Yuan in early March, then on the 29th the Shanghai Commercial Federation pledges 5 million Yuan, with another 3 million on April 1st. Around this time Chiang Kai-Shek secretly send Wang Boling, the deputy commander of the 1st army; Yang Hu, chief of the special affairs department of the general HQ and Chen Qun the director of the political department of the eastern route army to Shanghai in disguise to meet Huang Jinrong. Huang Jinrong was a chief detective working in the French concession of Shanghai. He also happened to be one of the top three gangsters working under Du Yuesheng of the Green Gang. Huang Jinrong summoned Du Yuesheng and the other Green Gang leader Zhang Xiaolin, as they all discussed how to purge the communists. The Green Gang leaders seized the opportunity to help the KMT. They began monitoring the CCP, armed their gang members and began to attack anyone who was picketing. They formed the “China Progress Association”, which in reality was just Green Gang members. This association proceeded to attack the Shanghai General Labor Union, providing the perfect pretext for Chiang Kai-Shek to act.  On April 1st Wang Jingwei returns to Shanghai from aboard. By the 3rd Chiang Kai-Shek telegrams that Wang Jingwei is reinstated and holds secret talks with him. On the 8th Chiang Kai-Shek organizes a Shanghai Provisional Political Committee, stipulating it will decide all military, political and financial decisions and will replace the Shanghai special municipality provincial government that was established after the third Shanghai worker uprising. On the 9th he unleashes martial law prohibiting assemblies, strikes and marches, and established the Songhu Martial Law Command, with Bai Chongxi and Zhou Fengqi as the commander and deputy commander. Chiang Kai-Shek then takes his leave for Nanjing, leaving the job to Bai Chongxi who will supervise a coup in Shanghai. In a vain attempt Chen Duxiu tells the CCP to ease up on the Anti-Chiang Kai-Shek stuff. Then its announced to them that Chen Duxiu had managed to form a deal with Wang Jingwei. Chiang Kai-Shek send word from Nanjing to carry out the purge, in a very “execute order 66 fashion”.  April the 12th takes a wild turn in Shanghai. In the early morning a signal is raised over a warship anchored near the Gaochang temple. Hundreds of well armed Green Gang, Triads and some secret agents wearing blue shorts and white cloth  armbands with a black gongs on them, dispersed from the French concession in several cars. From 1 to 5am they attacked the picketing workers in Zhabei, Nanshi, Huxi, Wusong, Hongkou and other districts. The workers resisted immediately causing fierce street battles to break out. The 26th Army of the NRA, an old Sun Chuanfang unit that recently defected, came to forcibly confiscate guns while stating they were “mediating an internal strife amongst the workers”. Over 2700 armed workers in Shanghai were disarmed. More than 120 were killed with another 180 injured. The Shanghai General Labor Union club and all their associated pickets in the districts were occupied. Within the foreign concessions, foreign military and police forces arrested more than 1000 CCP members and workers who were immediately handed over to Chiang Kai-Shek's men. On the morning of the 13th, the workers from Shanghai's tobacco, silk factories, trams, municipal administration, postal services, sailors and various other industries went on strike. Over 200,000 workers took to the streets and the Shanghai General Labor Union held a mass rally in Qingyun Road Square in Zhabei with over 100,000 participants. They held a quick conference calling for resolutions. The first resolution was to hand over their weapons. Secondly those who destroyed their unions should be severely punished. Third the families of those killed needed to be compensated. Fourth protests should be made against the imperialists within the concessions. Fifth a telegram needed to be sent to the central government, then whole nation and world to demand assistance. Lastly the military authorities should be responsible for protecting the Shanghai trade unions. After the conference, the masses marched upon the headquarters of the 2nd division of the 26th army along Baoshan road to petition for the release of their comrades and for their weapons to be returned to them. They marched for a kilometer and upon reaching the Sandeli area of Baoshan road, soldiers of the 2nd division rushed out and opened fire upon them killing more than 100 on the spot. It was said Baoshan road was flooded with blood. That afternoon Chiang Kai-Sheks forces occupied the Shanghai General Labor Union and General Command of the Shanghai workers. They closed down and disbanded numerous revolutionary organizations and carried out searches and murders. Within 3 days after the Shanghai incident, more than 300 Shanghai CCP members were killed, another 500 were arrested and 5000 went “missing”. Like I said in the previous podcast on this very subject, I will leave it to you as to what missing meant. On the 15th of april the Kuomintang in Guangzhou launched their own coup. On that day more than 2000 CCP members and their supporters were arrested, 200 trade unions were closed. This all would b followed by similar activities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian and Guangxi where CCP members were purged. The NPA in the north would likewise crack down on communists. Li Dazhao had been placed on the Beiyang governments list of most wanted back in 1926 following the March 18th massacre. Since then he was hiding in the Soviet Embassy in Beijing, continuing to lead political maneuvers against the warlords. When the first united front collapsed as a result of Chiang Kai-Sheks purges, Zhang Zuolin ordered troops to raid the Soviet embassy. Li Dazhao, his wife and daughter were all arrested. Among 19 other communists, Li Dazhao was executed on April 28th of 1927 by strangulation. One of the behemoths who ushered in the New Culture Movement and was a founder of the CCP had become one of its greatest martyrs. The first united front was no more and in response to this the CCP declared "Chiang Kai-shek has become an open enemy of the national revolution, a tool of imperialism, and the culprit of the white terror of massacring workers, peasants and revolutionary masses”. This was followed by a call to mobilize, unite and form a solid front to fight the warlords and KMT. In May of 1927 the Communist International issued “the May Emergency Directive” to the CCP. (1) Without land revolution, victory is impossible; without land revolution, the Kuomintang Central Committee will become a pitiful plaything in the hands of unreliable generals. Excessive behavior must be opposed, but not by the army, but through the peasant associations. (2) It is necessary to make concessions to artisans, merchants and small landowners, and to unite with these strata. Only the land of large and medium-sized landowners should be confiscated; the land of officers and soldiers should not be touched. (3) Some old leaders of the KMT Central Committee will waver and compromise. We should recruit more new leaders of workers and peasants from below to join the KMT Central Committee and renew the KMT's upper echelons. (4) Mobilize 20,000 Communist Party members and 50,000 revolutionary workers and peasants in Hunan and Hubei to form several new armies and build our own reliable army. (5) A revolutionary military tribunal headed by prominent Kuomintang and non-Communists should be established to punish those officers who persecute workers and peasants.  Wang Jingwei obtained this document from Luo Yi, the representative of the Communist International. The high-ranking officials of the Kuomintang believed that this was the Communist International's armed seizure of power and they were determined to purge the party. Thus began the Wuhan-Nanjing war. However as we saw, Wang Jingwei would perform his own purge of the communists on May 21st as he found out the Soviets were pushing the CCP to seize control over his regime. In order to resist the KMT's massacres, or as the CCP put it “the white terror”, the CCP Central Committee reorganized itself on July 12th of 1927. Chen Duxiu and other early CCP leaders who had insisted on compromising with the KMT were dismissed from their posts and labeled right-wing capitulationists. The CCP formed an alliance with left wing KMT members forming a quasi second front where they planned an armed uprising in Nanchang hoping it would spark a large peasant uprising. They were led by He Long and Zhou Enlai. He Long a ethnic Tujia and Hunanese native was born to a poor peasant family. He received no formal education and worked as a cowherder during his youth. When he was 20 he killed a local Qing tax assessor who had killed his uncle for defaulting on his taxes. From this point he fled and became an outlaw, apparently his signature weapon was a butcher knife. In 1918 he raised a volunteer revolutionary army aligned with an emerging Hunanese warlord. By 1920 he joined the NRA and began brushing shoulders with CCP members. During the northern expedition he commanded the 1st division, 9th corps and served under Zhang Fakui. By late 1926 he joined the CCP. When the first united front collapsed he joined up with the CCP and took command of the 20th corps, 1st column of the Red Army. Zhou Enlai was born in Huai'an of Jiangsu in 1898. He was born to a scholarly family, many of them officials, but like many during the late 19th century in China suffered tremendously. Zhou Enlai was adopted by his fathers youngest brother Zhou Yigan who was also ill with tuberculosis. The adoption was more of a way to cover Zhou Yigans lack of an heir. Zhou Yigan died soon after and Zhou Enlai was raised by his widow Chen. He received a traditional literacy education. Zhou Enlai's biological mother died when he was 9 and Chen when he was 10. He then fell into the care of his uncle Zho Yigeng in Fengtian. Zhou Enlai continued his education at Nankai Middle School who were adopting an educational model used at the Philipps academy in the US. Zhou Enlai excelled at debate, acting, drama the sort of skill sets needed for public service. Like many students of his day he went to Japan in 1917 for further studies. He tried to learn Japanese to enter Japanese schools but failed to do so. He also faced a lot of racism in Japan, prompting him to become quite anti japanese. While in Japan he became very interested in news about the Russian Revolution. This led him to read works from Chen Duxiu.  In 1919 he returned to Tianjin where it is said he led student protests during the May Fourth movement, though a lot of modern scholars don't believe he did. Zhou Enlai then became a university student at Nankai and an activist. He led the Awakening Society and would find himself arrested. During this time he became familiar with Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu. Then in 1920 he went to study in Marseille. In 1921 he joined a Chinese Communist Cell while in Paris. By 1922 he helped found a European branch of the CCP. When the first United Front began he joined the KMT and in 1924 was summoned back to China. He joined the Political department of the Whampoa military academy. He was made Whampoa's chief political officer, but he also took the post as secretary of the CCP of Guangdong, Guangxi and served as a Major-General. Soon he became the secretary of the CCP's Guangdong Provincial committee. In 1925 he got his first taste of military command against Chen Jiongming, accompanying the Whampoa cadets as a political officer. When Chen Jiongming regrouped and attacked Guangzhou again that year, Chiang Kai-Shek personally appointed Zhou Enlai as director of the 1st corps political department. Soon after he was appointed a KMT party representative as chief commissar of the 1st corps. With the newfound position he began appointing communists as commissars in 4 out of the 5 corps divisions. However his work at Whampoa came to an end during the Zhongshan Warship incident as Chiang Kai-Shek began purging communists from high ranking positions. Whampoa was a significant part of his career providing him with skills and a network. Until the first united fronts collapse he worked to form numerous armed CPP groups. He was sent to Shanghai where he was part of the effort to stage an uprising there. During the massacre he was arrested and nearly killed if not for the work of Zhao Shu, a representative of the 26th army who released him. From there he fled to Hankou where he participated in the CCP's 5th national congress. When Wang Jingwei unleashed his purge, Zhou Enlai went into hiding. When the CCP called for an uprising in Nanchang, Zhou Enlai as a CCP secretary was in a unique position to lead it. The CCP designated Zhou Enlai, Li Lisan, Yun Daiying and Peng Pai to form a Front Committee. The troops available to them were the 24th and 10th divisions of the 11th army of the 2nd front army, the entire 20th army, 73rd and 75th regiment of the 25th division of the 4th army and part of the officer training corps of the 3rd army of the 5th front army led by Zhu De. He Long was the commander in chief of the 2nd front army, Ye Ting was his deputy and acting front line commander. Zhou Enlai was the chief of staff with Liu Bocheng as director of the political directorate. At this time, the main force of the 3rd Army of the 5th Front Army of the Kuomintang Wuhan Government was located in Zhangshu, Ji'an; the main force of the 9th Army was located in Jinxian and Linchuan; and the main force of the 6th Army was advancing to Nanchang via Pingxiang; the rest of the 2md Front Army was located in Jiujiang; only the 5th Front Army Guard Regiment and parts of the 3rd, 6th, and 9th Armies, totaling more than 3,000 people, were stationed in Nanchang and its suburbs. The CCP Front Committee decided to launch an uprising on August 1 before the arrival of reinforcements. At 2:00am on August 1st the Nanchang uprising began. The 1st and 2nd division of the 20th army launched attacks against the defenders of the Old Fantai Yamen, Dashiyuan street and the  Niuxing railway station. Meanwhile the 24th division of the 11th army attacked the Songbaixiang catholic church, Xinyingfang and Baihuazhou. The bloody battle lasted until dawn inflicting 3000 casualties and capturing more than 5000 small arms of various types, 700,000 rounds of ammunition and a few cannons. During the afternoon the 73rd regiment of the 25th division station at Mahuiling, 3 battalions of the 75th regiment and a machine gun company of the 74th regiment led by Nie Rongzhen and Zhou Shidi revolted and came to Nanchang by the 2nd of august.  For the moment it seemed the CCP had achieved a grand success at Nanchang. The CCP then began proclaiming Chiang Kai-Shek and Wang Jingwei had betrayed the revolution and that of Sun Yat-Sens three principles by choosing to side with the imperialists and warlords. Meanwhile the CCP aligned military units began to gather in Nanchang requiring a reorganization. It was decided the uprising army would continue to use the designation of 2nd front army of the NRA with He Long serving as its commander in chief and Ye Ting as his deputy. Ye Ting would also command the 11th army consisting of the 24th, 25th and 10th divisions, Nie Rongzhen would be his CCP party representative; He Long would command the 20th Army consisting of the 1st and 2nd divisions with Liao Qianwu as his CCP party representative. Zhou Enlai with Zhu De as his deputy would lead the 9th army with Zhu Kejing as his CCP party representative. Altogether they were 20,000 strong and now very well armed. There was to be a great celebration, it seemed this was the grand moment the CCP would take the center stage. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The Chinese Civil War had officially just begun. Chiang Kai-Shek and Wang Jingwei purged their respective regimes of communists unleashing a white terror. In a scramble to survive the CCP reorganized itself and sought revenge with their first target being Nanchang. From here until 1949, the CCP and KMT would fight for the future of China.  

Send us a textW3: We are back! We discuss all that has been happening in our lives over the past few months.Main Topic: Can the Bible be infallible but not inerrant? Does the Bible claim inerrancy? Does human  involvement mean Scripture must have errors? We discuss 6 challenges to the truthfulness of Scripture.

Drs Armstrong and Tawagi discuss the NADINA trial of neoadjuvant nivolumab/ipilimumab vs adjuvant nivolumab in resectable, macroscopic, stage III melanoma.

This week's episode will be discussing updates from ASCO 2024 next with the practice changing NADINA trial presented on the Sunday of ASCO by Dr. Christian Blank during the plenary sessions:  A multicenter, randomized, phase 3 trial comparing the efficacy of neoadjuvant ipilimumab plus nivolumab with standard adjuvant nivolumab in macroscopic resectable stage III melanoma. We discuss the staging and prior standard of treatment for locally advanced melanoma, key findings from NADINA, and how these data may impact clinical practice.

Questions Covered: 04:38 – Was the material universe always supposed to be temporary? 16:28 – What does the verse that says Jesus is first born of all creation mean? 19:35 – What qualities do women lack that disqualifies them from being priests? 22:54 – Why in some places do they stand after the consecration before the great amen. What do bishops have to do to get those changes approved? 39:57 – Does God still chastise people for their sins on this earth like He did in the old Testament? 45:47 – What’s the difference between a Plenary indulgence earned during the day and one which is earned at the moment of death? 49:51 – What is a general confession? …

This week, John and Elliot discuss several developments impacting the financial crime community. These include the results of the recent FATF Plenary, a new statement from the Wolfsberg Group on effective monitoring for suspicious activity, the proposed rule from FinCEN to strengthen and modernize AML/CFT programs, and other items.

The USCCB Spring 2024 plenary assembly gets underway with addresses from Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, as well as Archbishop Timothy Broglio, President of the USCCB. Catholic Current also spoke with Bishop Robert Barron, Chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life & Youth, about the proposed pastoral framework for youth and young adults.

The USCCB Spring 2024 plenary assembly concludes with a report on the upcoming Eucharistic Congress, discussion about religious workers' visas, an outgoing address from Suzanne Healy, the chair of the National Review Board, and approval of the new pastoral framework for Native and Indigenous people, “Keeping Christ's Sacred Promise.”

Have you ever wondered if there's a Catholic case for the history of indulgences? What are the pillars that support this profound tradition? In today's video, we're not only going to answer these questions and explain what plenary indulgences are, but we're also going to reveal how you can gain one every single day. Join us as we uncover the steps and devotions required for this extraordinary grace, deepening your faith and spiritual life in the process. Plenary Indulgence Guide: https://www.patreon.com/posts/plenary-guide-105193001?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link The Latin Prayer Podcast is on Patreon -  for those of you who are able to financially support the podcast please Click Here (https://www.patreon.com/thelatinprayerpodcast). A huge thank you to my patrons! To Support FishEaters.com Click Here (https://www.patreon.com/fisheaters) Please check out our Resources, Gift Ideas & Affiliate Links page: https://dylandrego.podbean.com/p/resources-gift-ideas-affiliate-links Join me and others in praying the Holy Rosary every day; here are the Spotify quick links to the Rosary: Joyful Mysteries https://open.spotify.com/episode/1yhnGJNSl67psg94j3si3s?si=7IjqIg2wQQaZTJTiDm-Dhw Sorrowful Mysteries https://open.spotify.com/episode/3P0nIdaLuEjesHRMklwfoj?si=6qF7JBYpRiG0ylwuOohFwA Glorious Mysteries https://open.spotify.com/episode/3t7lCF7nFQDR3py1jjTAE1?si=hBb_5Ne5Rwu-993nUUqHqg Luminous Mysteries https://open.spotify.com/episode/6vlAjEGgWPCI79K7Eylh31?si=Hue9USzkTf-L3wrXrK79MQ 15 Decade Rosary https://open.spotify.com/episode/2q33PXMrinZi6fkaV6X7vn?si=Jy_d2xLlTVihD5qa4fSH9g To follow me on other platforms Click on my LinkTree below. linktr.ee/dylandrego If you have any prayers you'd like to request, or comments and/or suggestions - please email me at latinprayerpodcast@gmail.com. Know that if you are listening to this, I am praying for you. Please continue to pray with me and for me and my family. May everything you do be Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. God Love You! Valete (Goodbye) This podcast may contain copyrighted material the use of which may not always have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advanced the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church for the promulgation of religious education. We believe this constitutes a "fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law, and section 29, 29.1 & 29.2 of the Canadian copyright act. Music Credit: https://www.ccwatershed.org/goupil/

Recently I had the pleasure of hosting a live event in Melbourne, AU. This event was part of a lecture series called The Brain Body Contract. My favorite part of the evening was the question and answer period, where I had the opportunity to answer questions from the attendees of each event. Included here is the Q&A from our event in Melbourne, AU at Plenary. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman Resources Ask Huberman Lab (AI platform) 10 Minute Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) Timestamps (00:00:00) Introduction (00:02:50) Strategies for Preventing Dementia (00:15:07) Enhancing Willpower: Is It Comparable to Muscle Training? (00:22:40) Minimizing Circadian Disruption for Shift Workers (00:29:24) Difference Between NSDR & Meditation (00:37:32) Combatting Mindless Phone Scrolling (00:42:18) Dream Clinical Trials (00:55:55) Conclusion Disclaimer