Paramedic firefighter and Realtor Troy Hansford, of RE/MAX Unlimited, sponsors the 2017 South Metro Professional Firefighters Memorial Golf Tournament.

Denver, CO (PRWEB) May 12, 2017

For the seventh consecutive year, Troy Hansford, of the Troy Hansford Real Estate Team at RE/MAX Unlimited, will be a hole sponsor for the South Metro Professional Firefighters Memorial Golf Tournament. “When the community needs help they call first responders to come to their rescue. The South Metro Professional Firefighters Memorial Golf Tournament is the 911 for first responders to call when they need help. It is a honor to support this cause,” said Hansford, who has also been a paramedic firefighter with the South Metro Fire Department since 1989.

The tournament is scheduled for Monday, June 5, at the Inverness Golf Club, 200 Inverness Drive West, Englewood, CO. There will also be a gala and silent auction on Sunday, June 4, at the Inverness Hotel and Conference Center. The event is a benefit for the South Metro Professional Firefighters Foundation, whose mission is to provide South Metro members and their families assistance in times of serious illness or injury and to assist the members of the community through humanitarian aid, financial support and general assistance to ensure quality of life.

In addition to supporting the South Metro Professional Firefighters Foundation, Hansford, the co-creator and owner of Racer Runners, supports Kids Running America, which is dedicated to preventing and reducing childhood obesity in America’s school-age children by increasing their physical activity level through its unique incremental running programs. Hansford recently donated Racer Runners, a sound and light module placed on the shoe that turns any pair of footwear into a magical adventure race, for the Denver Spring 2017 Marathon and Ultra Programs, which are both put on by Kids Running America.

About Troy Hansford, Troy Hansford Real Estate Team, RE/MAX Unlimited
Colorado Licensed Broker Troy Hansford and his stellar real estate team specialize in Saddle Rock Golf Course homes, South East Aurora real estate and homes and neighborhoods around Cherry Creek schools. Troy serves Denver, Aurora, Centennial, Parker, Littleton, Highlands Ranch and Castle Rock, CO. He is also the specialist for anyone looking for Colorado golf course homes and Denver area country club properties. For more information, please call (303) 617-0607, or visit http://www.troyhansford.com. RE/MAX Unlimited is located at 3300 S. Parker Rd., Suite 100, Denver, CO 80014.

About the NALA™
The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALA’s mission is to promote a business’ relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361. Reported by PRWeb 24 minutes ago.

Aurora police are searching for a suspect after one man was gunned down early Friday morning in a parking lot and apparently chased down, shot and injured a second man, authorities say. Reported by Denver Post 18 hours ago.

The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora will soon open an institute dedicated to traumatic brain injury and mental health of veterans, thanks to a $38 million gift from The Marcus Foundation announced today. The Atlanta-based Marcus Foundation -- created by Bernard Marcus, retired co-founder of The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) -- committed the money over the next five years. The clinic will be named the Marcus Institute for Brain Health at CU Anschutz, campus officials said. It will… Reported by bizjournals 14 hours ago.

DENVER (AP) — Two civilian initiatives are coming to Colorado to help veterans and their families deal with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress and other problems, the University of Colorado said Friday. A five-year, $38 million gift from the Marcus Foundation will create the Marcus Institute for Brain Health at the university's Anschutz Medical Campus in the Denver suburb of Aurora, helping veterans manage the lingering effects of service-related concussions. The university also announced it will work with the Cohen Veterans Network to establish a mental health clinic for Denver-area veterans and their families. "The idea would be to blend very advanced, very high-tech medical care with complementary and alternative medical methods such as acupuncture and breathing techniques and relaxation and therapeutic massage, a whole variety of things that we've found useful," he said. The center treats active-duty servicemen and women with traumatic brain injuries and psychological health conditions. Reported by SeattlePI.com 12 hours ago.

Readers are familiar with the various microwave and laser arrays located at the real New York Stock Exchange in Mahwah, New Jersey, both of which we have written about in the past.

Microwave tower located next to the NYSE in Mahwah, NJ.

This article, however, is not about the familiar antennas off Route 17 in New Jersey. Instead, demonstrating to what lengths the high frequency traders will go for just a few millisecond advantage - which makes in the HFT world makes all the different between billions in profits and losses - Bloomberg reports that a mysterious antenna has emerged in an empty field in Aurora, near Chicago, and a trading fortune depends on it.

Strange? Of course: as BBG's Brian Louis admits "*it was an odd transaction from the outset*: $14 million, double the going rate, for a 31-acre plot of flat, undeveloped land just west of Chicago. In the nine months since, the curious use of the space has only added to the intrigue. A single, nondescript pole with two antennas was erected by a row of shrubs. Some supporting equipment was rolled in. That’s it."

As it turns out, those antennas - as readers may imagine - were anything but ordinary. Same goes for the buyer of the property: anything but your typical land investor, although the name will be all too familiar to those who have followed our reporting on HFT over the years: it was Jump Trading LLC, "a legendary and secretive trading firm that’s a major player in some of the most important financial markets."Equipment on land purchased by an affiliate of Jump Trading

Jump Trading affiliate World Class Wireless purchased the 31-acre lot for $14 million, according to county records. “*They paid probably twice as much as it’s worth*,” said David Friedlandof Cushman & Wakefield. “I don’t see anyone else paying close to that price.”

There was a reason why Jump overpaid so much: it was an investment into guaranteed future returns.

Because ultimately the purchase was all about the location: just across the street lies the data center for CME Group, the world’s biggest futures exchange. By placing its antennas so close to CME’s servers, Jump hopes to shave maybe a microsecond off its reaction time, enough to separate a winning from a losing bid in trading that takes place at almost the speed of light. Enough to make billions in profits if done successfully millions of times every minute for year.

As Bloomberg describes the land grab, "it was the latest, and perhaps boldest, salvo in an escalating war that’s being waged to stay competitive in the high-speed trading business."



The war is one of proximity -- to see who can get data in and out of CME the quickest. *A company called McKay Brothers LLC recently won approval to build the tallest microwave tower in the area while another, Webline Holdings LLC, has installed microwave dishes on a utility pole just outside the data center*.



“It tells you how valuable being just a little bit faster is,” said Michael Goldstein, a finance professor at Babson College in Babson Park, Massachusetts. “People say seconds matter. This is microseconds matter.”

It also tells you something else: at its core, modern trading is simply about being faster than your competition: no thinking goes into the trade, only reaction times matter. That, and frontrunning your competition. Some more details about this literal land grab:



In October 2015, McKay Brothers, a company that sells access to its microwave network to high-speed traders, leased land diagonal to the CME data center, under the name Pierce Broadband LLC, according to DuPage County property records.

 

Last month, the county gave McKay approval to erect a 350-foot high microwave tower that could be 600 feet closer to the data center than its current location, records show. Two trading firms, IMC BV and Tower Research Capital LLC, own minority stakes in McKay. Co-founder Stephane Tyc said his firm may never build the tower but it would be part of the firm’s continual efforts to speed transmission time.

 

Then there’s Webline Holdings. In November 2015, it was granted a license to operate microwave equipment on a utility pole just outside the data center, according to Federal Communications Commission records. Webline has licenses for a microwave network stretching from Aurora to Carteret, New Jersey, where Nasdaq Inc.’s data center is located. Messages left for Webline were not returned.



Back to the mysterious antenna: according to Bloomberg, the license for the transmission dishes is held by a joint venture between World Class and a unit of KCG Holdings, another HFT trading firm that was recently acquired by Virtu Financial. In other words, the "who is who" of HFT has been unleashed on an empty field near Chicago, and to the builder will go the spoils.

It could be billions in revenues.

* * *

After all this frentic building of microwave tower, who is closest to the CME servers? It is unclear. Trading data first leaves CME computers via fiber cable, and then to nearby antennas that send it by microwave to other towers until it reaches New Jersey, where all the major U.S. stock exchanges house their computers. The moves in Aurora are intended to reduce the time that the data is conveyed through cable; the practical impact is shaving off a millisecond or maybe even a few nanoseconds.

At its core, the race is about latency arbitrage, and not being the slowest firm on the block - a recipe for financial ruin. Sending data back and forth between the U.S. Midwest and East Coast allows high-frequency traders to profit from price differences for related assets, including S&P 500 Index futures in Illinois and stock prices in New Jersey. Those arbitrage opportunities often last only tiny fractions of a second.

Ironically, all the land grab and overpriced land purchases could be made obsolete with one simple decision: a microwave tower could be installed on the roof of the CME data center to eliminate the need for jockeying around the site, the same way the NYSE has a microwave tower next to its NJ headquarters. The exchange is indeed looking at allowing roof access, along with CyrusOne, the company that bought the data center last year, CME said in a statement. Traders being traders, however, they may continue to battle, this time for the most advantageous position on the microwave tower itself.

“We are confident the CME can provide an alternate and better solution which offers a level playing field to all participants," said McKay’s Tyc.

Which is ironic because at its core, modern High Frequency Trade is about *everything *but a level playing field: after all there are millions of traders to be frontrun, take that away, and the HFT parasites of the world have no advantage whatsoever. Reported by Zero Hedge 9 hours ago.

Aurora police arrested a man Friday who they believe killed a 20-year-old woman and then dumped her body in a remote part of Clear Creek County earlier this year. Reported by Denver Post 8 hours ago.

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Mother's Day is right around the corner, and for many, that means celebrating Mom over mimosas and eggs Benedicts. 

In honor of that, reservation-booking platform OpenTable has put together a list of the 100 best restaurants for brunch in America, taking into consideration more than 10 million reviews in all 50 states and Washington, DC. The restaurants had to hit a minimum overall score and have a number of qualifying reviews to be considered. Those that were chosen earned the highest ratings in the "great for brunch" category.

*Here they are in alphabetical order:*

187 Rue Principale - Emmaus, Pennsylvania

ACQUA - Forest Lake, Minnesota

Aksum - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Baker House - Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

Beachcomber Cafe - Crystal Cove - Newport Coast, California

Biltmore Brunch - Coral Gables, Florida

The Bistro at Childress Vineyards - Lexington, North Carolina

Blue Ridge - Asheville, North Carolina

Boulevard Bistro- New York, New York

Bravo! Restaurant and Cafe - Kalamazoo, Michigan

Brennan's - New Orleans, Louisiana

Café 43 - Dallas, Texas

Cafe Benedicte - Houston, Texas

Cafe Modern - Fort Worth, Texas

Cafe Monte - Charlotte, North Carolina 

Cafe Pacific – Palos Verdes, CA

Café Sebastienne - Kansas City, Missouri

Camp Verde General Store and Restaurant - Camp Verde, Texas

Canyon Cafe at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort - Tucson, Arizona

Chateau Morrisette - Floyd, Virginia

Chez Zee - Austin, Texas

Chicken and the Egg - Marietta, Georgia

Circle Brunch - The Breakers - Palm Beach, Florida

Claire's at the Depot - Warrenton, Virginia

The Comus Inn at Sugarloaf Mountain - Dickerson, Maryland

Cooperage Inn Restaurant - Baiting Hollow (Calverton), New York

Dante Next Door - Cleveland, Ohio

The Davenport Signature Buffet - Spokane, Washington

Deerpark Restaurant-Biltmore Estate - Asheville, North Carolina

The Dining Room at Salish Lodge & Spa - Snoqualmie, Washington

El Techo - San Francisco, California

Eleven at Crystal Bridges - Bentonville, Arkansas

Ellyngton's at the Brown Palace - Denver, Colorado

Farm & Table - Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Fieldhouse - Billings, Montana

Freddie's Beach Bar & Restaurant - Arlington, Virginia

The Frog and Turtle - Westbrook, Maine

Galvez Bar & Grill - Galveston, Texas

Garden Terrace at The Inverness Hotel - Englewood, Colorado

Gertrude's - Baltimore - Baltimore, Maryland

Golden Mast - Okauchee, Wisconsin

Grand Cafe at Omni Los Angeles - Los Angeles, California

Grand Dining Room at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel - Jekyll Island, Georgia

Grand Finale Restaurant - Cincinnati, Ohio

The Greenhouse Bistro & Market - Homosassa, Florida

Harding House - Nashville, Tennessee

Home Restaurant - Silver Lake - Los Angeles, California

Hotel Del - Crown Room - San Diego, California

The Hunt Room at the Desmond Hotel - Malvern, Pennsylvania

Inn at Barley Sheaf Farm - Holicong, Pennsylvania

Iron Rooster - Annapolis, Maryland

Italia Trattoria - Spokane, Washington

J Graham's Cafe - Louisville, Kentucky

Lake Elmo Inn - Lake Elmo, Minnesota

Lake Terrace - The Broadmoor - Colorado Springs, Colorado

The Lakehouse - Mandeville - Mandeville, Louisiana

Lilac - Billings, Montana

Lucille at Drury Lane - Oak Brook, Illinois

LuLu's - Richmond, Virginia

M ST. Cafe - Saint Paul, Minneapolis

The Magnolia Thomas Restaurant - Woodstock, Georgia

Market Street Grille - Harrison, Ohio

Michele's - Dover, Delaware

Museum Cafe - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Nasher Cafe - Durham, North Carolina

Oasis Cafe - Salt Lake City - Salt Lake City, Utah

Old Mill Room at The Boar's Head - Charlottesville, Virginia

The Old School Farm To Table - Nashville, TN

Oxford Exchange - Tampa, FL

Palace Bar - Miami Beach, FL

The Palmetto Cafe - Charleston, SC

Porch Cafe - Galveston, TX

Post & Beam - Los Angeles, CA

Provence - Carrboro - Carrboro, NC

The Pump House - Fairbanks, AK

Queen Mary Tea Room - Seattle, WA

The Rainbow Room - New York, NY

Red Gravy - New Orleans, LA

The Regency Room - The Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center - Roanoke, VA

Regi's American Bistro - Baltimore, MD

Region's 117 - Lake Frederick, VA

The Restaurant at Burdicks - Walpole, NH

Restaurant Pomme - Gordonsville, VA

Restaurant506 at The Sanford House - Arlington, TX

River Crab - St. Clair - St. Clair, MI

The Roycroft Inn - East Aurora, NY

Salty's on Alki Beach - Seattle, WA

Seasons At The Ocean House - Westerly, RI

Seaview's Main Dining Room - Galloway, NJ

SpringHouse - Alexander City, AL

Sterling Brunch Buffet - Bally's Las Vegas - Las Vegas, NV

Sundy House - Delray Beach, FL

Taste of Belgium - Clifton - Cincinnati, OH

Terrain Garden Cafe - Glen Mills, PA

Timmer's Resort - West Bend, WI

TJ's at The Jefferson Hotel - Richmond, VA

V's Italiano Ristorante - Independence, MO

The Veranda Restaurant - Fallbrook, CA

West Cafe - Portland, OR

The Westgate Hotel - Sunday Brunch & Le Fontainebleau Room - San Diego, CA

*SEE ALSO: The 14 best bars in America*

Join the conversation about this story »

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Fatima, Portugal, May 9, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- This is part two of a two-part series. *Part one* covered the historical context, contents of the apparitions, and Miracle of the Sun.
 
*The secrets of Fatima*

While Mary revealed what came to be known as The Great Secret of Fatima during her third apparition to the shepherd children, it was kept from the public for quite some time, according to instructions from Mary. Sr. Lucia revealed the first two secrets in a memoir in 1941, which had been written at the request of the local bishop at the time. Lucia wrote six memoirs during her lifetime – the first four were written between 1935 and 1941; the English translation was published under the name Fatima in Lucia's Own Words.

The first secret was the vision of hell that Mary had allowed the children to see.

As Sr. Lucia wrote in her memoir: “Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.”

The second secret was a statement that World War I would end, and a prediction of another war that would start during the reign of Pius XI, if people continued to offend God and if Russia were not consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.

As Sr. Lucia recalled in her memoirs, Our Lady said: “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pope Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”

Sr. Lucia believed that an aurora borealis, which appeared in the sky on January 25, 1938, was the “unknown light” to which Mary had referred. The celestial phenomenon could be seen throughout Europe and as far south as Australia, and across the Atlantic to Bermuda and parts of the United States.

Shortly thereafter, Germany annexed Austria, and Japan had already invaded China in 1937. While the European portion of World War II is generally held by Western scholars to have officially started on September 1, 1939, under the reign of Venerable Pius XII, in many ways it was already begun under the reign of Pius XI, as Mary predicted.

Sr. Lucia did not record the third part of the secret in her 1941 memoirs, because she said that Mary had not yet permitted her to reveal it to the world.

However, Sr. Lucia fell seriously ill in 1943. Fearing her death before the third part of the secret was ever revealed, the local bishop asked that she write it down, which she did out of obedience. Sr. Lucia wrote the secret in January 1944, put it in an envelope and sealed it, asking that it not be opened until 1960, at which time she believed the meaning of the message would be clearer, or until she died, whichever came first.

The envelope remained at the bishop’s office until 1957, at which time it was delivered to the Vatican, despite Lucia’s requests that it remain with the bishop.

The secret was not revealed until the year 2000 – 40 years after Sr. Lucia thought it might be released – under the direction of the Holy See.  

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, then the Vatican Secretary of State, announced that on May 13, 2000, 83 years after the first apparition, the Third Secret would finally be published. He said the secret referred to the 20th century persecution of Christians and the failed assassination attempt on St. John Paul II on May 13, 1981, the 64th anniversary of the first apparition.

The text of the third secret was *published by the Vatican* on June 26, 2000:

“After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God: 'something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White 'we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.”

*The controversial third secret*

A century after the Fatima apparitions, controversies remain. The two biggest involve whether or not the full and authentic text of the third secret has been revealed, and whether or not Russia has been adequately consecrated to Mary.

In 1960, the year Sr. Lucia intended the third secret to be published, the Vatican issued a press release stating that it was “most probable the Secret would remain, forever, under absolute seal.” Widespread speculation ensued about what this meant for the content of the secret, ranging from “worldwide nuclear annihilation to deep rifts in the Roman Catholic Church that lead to rival papacies,” according to the New York Times.

St. John XXIII and Bl. Paul VI both reportedly read the secret, but decided not to release it to the public.

During the papacy of St. John Paul II, the questions regarding the third Fatima secret intensified. In an interview with German magazine Stimme des Glaubens, published in October 1981, John Paul II was pressed explicitly about the third secret.

He said: “Because of the seriousness of its contents, in order not to encourage the world wide power of Communism to carry out certain coups, my predecessors in the chair of Peter have diplomatically preferred to withhold its publication.”

He added that it would be unhelpful to publish the secret if it led Christians to believe that there were a predicted catastrophe against which they were helpless.

Holding up his rosary, the Pope declared: “Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray, pray and ask for nothing else. Put everything in the hands of the Mother of God.”

On May 2, 1981, an Australian named Laurence James Downey, who claimed to be a defrocked French Trappist monk, hijacked an airplane and demanded that St. John Paul II reveal the Third Secret of Fatima. The man was believed to be armed with a bomb, but the incident was resolved without any injuries to passengers onboard.

In 1984, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that “if [the Third Secret] is not published … it is to avoid confusing religious prophecy with sensationalism. But the things contained in the Third Secret correspond to what has been announced in Scripture and are confirmed by many other Marian apparitions.”

Widespread speculation and concern led to the secret’s publishing in 2000 by the Vatican. The late release angered many who read the secret and didn’t understand what was so controversial about it that delayed publication by decades.

Conspirators questioned whether the authentic secret, or the secret in full, had actually been revealed. The Vatican version, which is claimed to be a photocopy of the original handwritten note from Sr. Lucia, took up four pages, while some allege that Sr. Lucia had actually written the third secret on just one page.

Some skeptics are also suspicious about the third secret because it does not contain any words directly from Mary, unlike the other secrets.

Some also question the content of the secret, because it does not directly speak of the apocalypse, as was expected from interviews of Sr. Lucia.

Others are also suspicious of Sr. Lucia’s transfer from the Dorothean Sisters, where she initially entered, to a cloistered Carmelite convent, the order she transferred to with permission in 1948. The move to the Carmelite order, which has strict rules about communication with the outside world, is seen by some as part of a larger conspiracy effort to censor her visions and the third secret.

On the other hand, Sr. Lucia herself confirmed several times that the third secret as published by the Vatican is in full and correct. Specifically in a November 17, 2001 statement to the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, she confirmed that the Fatima secret has been totally revealed by the Vatican, and Russia has already been consecrated as Mary requested.

Those who affirm that the secret has been fully revealed say that to question the secret’s authenticity is to question the original visionary’s credibility.

The authenticity of the third secret has also been confirmed by the Popes and other Vatican officials.

When the secret was published, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said that “The events to which the third part of the ‘secret’ of Fatima refers now seem part of the past. […] Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed.”

In 2016, an article on Catholic blog One Peter Five included an interview with a German priest who claimed to recall a conversation in which Pope Benedict XVI told him that the third secret had not been fully revealed. In a response on May 21, 2016, the *Vatican released a statement* from Pope Benedict XVI declaring that any claims that the third secret had not been fully revealed were “pure inventions, absolutely untrue.”

*The other controversy: The consecration of Russia*

As Mary promised in the second secret, she came back to ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. On June 13, 1929, Mary reappeared to Sr. Lucia, who was with the Sisters of St. Dorothy at the time, asking for the consecration of Russia, “promising its conversion through this means the hindering of the propagation of its errors.”

There were three “conditions” of the consecration, explained by Mary in the second part of the secret: The Pope must consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a special mention of Russia, in union with the bishops of the whole world.

At an unknown date after this apparition, Sr. Lucia made the request for consecration known to Pius XI. In 1938, the Portuguese bishops asked Pius XI to make the consecration, but no action was taken. Upon the election of Venerable Pius XII in 1939, several clergy repeated the request to the Pope.

In December 1940, with World War II well underway in Europe, Sr. Lucia wrote a letter to Pius XII, requesting the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary “with a special mention for Russia, and order that all the bishops of the world do the same in union with Your Holiness.”  

More than a year later, on October 31, 1942, Venerable Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, though without the involvement of the bishops of the world. War made communications difficult, and many bishops had been imprisoned or even killed. Sr. Lucia said that though this consecration was imperfect, Jesus revealed to her that it was enough to bring a quicker end to World War II, sparing many lives.

In July 1952, Venerable Pius XII consecrated the people of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but again, because it was done privately and not in conjunction with the bishops of the world, the consecration was incomplete. At least once during his papacy, Blessed Paul VI renewed the Russia consecration, although it did not fulfill the requirements of being in union with the bishops of the world.

Ongoing, dedication political relations with Russia made a consecration that specifically called out the country difficult.

“It’s not that the Church forgot about what the Madonna said about Russia, it’s not that Russia was forgotten, absolutely no,” said Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

“For what regards the consecration of Russia to the heart of Mary, the Church did this, but with an extraordinarily unique diplomatic skill. But she did it.”

According to Sr. Lucia, the consecration was complete during the pontificate of St. John Paul II, who several times attempted to fulfill the requirements of the Russia consecration.

It was finally considered fully complete after the consecration he made on March 25, 1984, as confirmed by Sr. Lucia.

St. John Paul II, “united with all the pastors of the Church in a particular bond whereby we constitute a body and a college,” consecrates “the whole world, especially the peoples for which by reason of their situation you have particular love and solicitude,” he said in the consecration.

“Because the Church...if she would have consecrated Russia to the heart of Mary and nothing else, it would have provoked a terrible reaction on the part of Russia,” Cardinal Martins explained.

“The Pope realized this. It was something, from the standpoint of Russia, completely unacceptable...It certainly would have had extraordinary consequences...But the Church fulfilled what the Madonna asked by consecrating not Russia in particular, but the world; I underline the world, and Russia is part of the world. So was Russia also consecrated to Our Lady’s heart or not? Russia was consecrated. If I consecrate the world to Russia, I also consecrate Italy, the United States, to the heart of Mary. They are part of the world consecrated to the heart of Mary.”

Both St. John Paul II and Sr. Lucia initially seemed uncertain that the consecration has been fulfilled in 1984, but shortly thereafter Sr. Lucia told the papal nuncio to Portugal that the Consecration had been fulfilled. She also confirmed this in a letter to one of her sisters in 1989, and again in a letter to a priest in 1990, as well as in her statement to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in 2001.

*A warning against “sensationalism”*

Despite Vatican attempts to quell rumors and hearsay, the Fatima conspiracy theories still persist.

But Benedict XVI several times warned against this “sensationalism” that he says Mary would not have intended as the fruit of her apparitions.

Four years before the third secret’s release, in a 1996 interview with Portugal's main Catholic radio station, Cardinal Ratzinger, who had already read the secret, issued this warning: “To all curious people, I would say I am certain that the Virgin does not engage in sensationalism; she does not act in order to instigate fear. She does not present apocalyptic visions, but guides people to her Son. And this is what is essential.”

Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, and visited the apparition site as Pope in 2010.

During a press conference for the visit, he reminded the faithful that the message of Fatima is not about conspiracy theories regarding the end of the world, but about the faithful’s response in “ongoing conversion, penance, prayer, and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity.”

“This is our response, we are realists in expecting that evil always attacks, attacks from within and without, yet that the forces of good are also ever present and that, in the end, the Lord is more powerful than evil and Our Lady is for us the visible, motherly guarantee of God’s goodness, which is always the last word in history,” he said.

*Vatican recognition and papal trips to Fatima*

In 1930, Bishop Dom Jose Aleves Correia da Silva of the Diocese of Leiria (now Leiria-Fatima) declared that, based on the results of the investigative commission, the apparitions at Fatima were “worthy of belief.”

Since then, the Fatima apparitions have received significant recognition on the part of the Vatican, and Pius XI granted a special indulgence to those who visited the newly-built Fatima shrine.

Venerable Pius XII encouraged devotion to Our Lady of Fatima so much so that he became known as “the Pope of Fatima.”

He is reported to have said: “The time for doubting Fatima has passed, the time for action is now.” He was the first Pope to consecrate the world, and then Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Moreover, it was during his papacy, in 1944, that the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was extended to the entire Roman rite, to be celebrated on Aug. 22, the octave day of the Assumption.

Bl. Paul VI visited the shrine of Fatima, on May 13, 1967, as did Cardinal Albino Luciani, Patriarch of Venice – who was elected Pope in 1978.

St. John Paul II visited the Fatima shrine three times – in 1982, 1991 and 2000. During his 2000 visit, he beatified the two deceased visionaries, Jacinta and Francisco. He also added the feast of Our Lady of Fatima to the General Roman Calendar, to be celebrated May 13.

The Polish Pope had a particularly strong devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. After a close shave with death during an assassination attempt on his life on the 64th anniversary of the first apparitions – May 13, 1981 – the Pope credited his survival to Our Lady of Fatima’s miraculous intervention. As a sign of his gratitude, he placed the bullet from the failed assassination in her crown.

As a cardinal, Benedict XVI had a devotion to Our Lady of Fatima which extended to his papacy, when he visited the Fatima shrine from May 11-14, 2010. In 2008, he waived the typical five-year waiting period in order to open Sr. Lucia’s cause for canonization. The local Church in February 2017 finished collecting documents to examine her heroic virtue.

Pope Francis as well has a strong devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, and consecrated his papacy to her on May 13, 2013.

*What happened to the visionaries after the apparitions?*

As foretold in the apparitions, the sibling pair of Francisco and Jacinta would only live a short while after the apparitions were completed.

Convicted by Mary’s requests and the vision of hell, both children lived lives of prayer and penance after the apparitions, offering themselves for sinners as Mary had asked. Francisco was known for his devotion to the Eucharist and his strict physical mortifications, while Jacinta was especially known for having a heart for the poor and the suffering.

Both children fell victim to the influenza epidemic of 1918 that swept through Europe. In October 1918, Mary again appeared to the sick siblings and promised to take them to heaven soon. On April 3, 1919, Francisco declined hospital treatment for influenza and died the next day, at the age of 11.

Jacinta was given hospital treatment in hopes of prolonging her life, but she knew that she would soon join Francisco in heaven. On February 19, 1920, Jacinta asked the hospital chaplain who heard her confession to bring her Holy Communion and administer the last rites, because she was going to die “the next night.” But the priest said that her condition was not that serious and that he would return the next day. The next day Jacinta was found dead – she had died in her sleep at 10 years old.

As for Lucia, she outlived her cousins by many years, as Mary had predicted. Shortly after the deaths of her cousins, at 14 years old, she was sent to the Dorothean Sisters of Villar for school, and in 1928 became a sister of St. Dorothy. In 1946, she transferred to the convent of the Carmelite Sisters of Coimbra, Portugal and took the name Sister Maria Lucia of the Immaculate Heart.

She received visions and messages from Mary and Jesus on several more occasions throughout her life, including the visions in 1925 that led to the Five First Saturday devotions, which include saying the rosary, receiving communion and confession, and meditation during the first Saturday of five consecutive months.

Besides the four memoirs she wrote between 1935 and 1941, Sr. Lucia had an additional book published in 2001, known as Calls from the Message of Fatima or Appeals of the Fatima Message. She visited the Fatima shrine during Bl. Paul VI’s visit in 1967, and during all three of St. John Paul II’s visits.

Aside from her memoirs and letters to clergy regarding Fatima, she had limited communication with the outside world, per her Carmelite vows.

Sr. Lucia died in 2005 at the age of 97, at the Carmelite convent of Santa Teresa in Coimbra, where she had lived since 1948.

*The canonization of Francisco and Jacinta*

Popularity of the Fatima apparitions spread, and the cause for canonization of Francisco and Jacinta was opened in 1946. Much of what is known about their life and holiness is known through Lucia’s memoirs.

“People may ask: ‘These children died so young, what do we know about them and their lives of faith?’ But a lot was related by Sr. Lucia and the witnesses of the apparitions. Francisco had a devotion to the Eucharist, and Jacinta wanted to help those who were suffering, that was her charism or focus after the apparition. Those are details most of us don’t really know about,” O’Neill said.

Francisco and Jacinta became the youngest non-martyr children to be beatified, on May 13, 2000, the 83rd anniversary of the first apparition. St. John Paul II presided over the Mass.

Pope Francis will canonize Francisco and Jacinta during his trip to Fatima on May 13, 2017 during a Mass at the shrine.

  Reported by CNA 1 week ago.

On the heels of Aurora Health Care CEO Nick Turkal publishing his view that the nation’s health care reform debate falls short of real solutions, the top executive with Wisconsin’s second-largest health care system — Ascension — is weighing in with a call for a bipartisan consensus. Bernie Sherry, senior vice president of Glendale-based Ascension Wisconsin, says the current effort by Republicans in Washington, D.C., to rewrite health care law with no Democratic support will not deliver fundamental… Reported by bizjournals 7 hours ago.

Arapahoe County prosecutors have released the name of a man arrested in a fatal Aurora motel shooting on East Colfax Avenue earlier this month. Reported by Denver Post 5 hours ago.

City Council in Aurora passed a resolution Monday night declaring that Colorado's third-largest city is not a so-called sanctuary city, a label it has been given along with Denver for what is a perceived as an overly tolerant treatment by city officials and police of people living in the country illegally. Reported by Denver Post 20 hours ago.

Autism Learning Partners expands services in Aurora and the Greater Denver Metro Area in Colorado!

Aurora, Colorado (PRWEB) May 16, 2017

Autism Learning Partners (“ALP”), a national provider of therapy to children with autism spectrum disorders, headquartered in Glendale, CA has expanded its imprint in the United States! ALP has announced that they are now serving families in Aurora and the Greater Denver Metro Area in Colorado. Autism Learning Partners began offering services to children with autism and other developmental disabilities in 1988 and serves a leader in the special needs field and continues to rapidly grow as a provider throughout the United States.

ALP has offices in six states, including, California, New Mexico, Texas, Massachusetts, New York and Colorado.

The Colorado ALP office will operate under ALP’s Chief Executive Officer leadership, Jeffrey Winter. Mr. Winter leads this expansion with the goal of “ensuring that all families affected with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Aurora and the greater Denver Metro area and neighboring cities, have access to quality clinical services to make progress possible for the families served. It’s an honor to partner with this great city to bring needed services to this region.”

The local office will be led by Emily White, MA, BCBA-LBA, Associate Clinical Director. Emily’s experience includes working with a wide range of disabilities including Autism Spectrum Disorders, Down Syndrome, PTSD, OCD, Anxiety Disorder, and multiple genetic disorders and has worked with individuals across the age spectrum. Emily looks forward to empowering families impacted with ASD, “I’m excited to be leading the expansion of ALP in Colorado. Colorado is an underserved state, in regards to services for those with developmental disabilities. I believe the resources Autism Learning Partners can bring to the state will result in positive changes for so many individuals who may have gone un-served or underserved.”

ALP continues its momentum of creating one of the largest autism therapy providers in the U.S.! ALP serves as one off the few scaled providers in the country serving children with autism leading the field with its key core company values of excellence, respect, accountability, honesty, compassion and stewardship. ALP continues to serve as a national leader in autism services providing care for over 2,500 clients nationwide.”

About Autism Learning Partners:

Autism Learning Partners (ALP) is a full service provider that specializes in the treatment of autism and other developmental disabilities and has been a national leader in the special needs field for close to 30 years. ALP’s broad thinking approach addresses the whole child by collaborating with school administrators, doctors, therapists, and specialists with the goal of working together to make progress possible. Headquartered in Glendale, CA, ALP employs over 250 Board Certified Analysts (“BCBAs”) and Master level supervisors, and has a total workforce of 1,600 direct service providers providing in-home and in-clinic ABA-based care across the country. ALP’s services include applied behavioral analysis, speech, occupational, and physical therapies. Autism Learning Partners now offers treatment services in six states, California, New Mexico, Texas, Massachusetts, New York and Colorado with the majority of its revenue in California.

Interested in partnering with Autism Learning Partners?

Contact Jeffrey Winter, CEO at jwinter(at)autismlearningpartners.com or (818) 241-6780, or contact Dr. Gina Chang, Chief of Clinical Operations at gchang(at)autismlearningpartners.com to discuss collaboration opportunities. For more information on Autism Learning Partners visit, http://www.autismlearningpartners.com.
### Reported by PRWeb 15 hours ago.

12th Annual Confirmit ACE Awards Recognize Outstanding Dedication to Improving Customer Experiences

New York, NY (PRWEB) May 16, 2017

LexisNexis Legal & Professional, a leading global provider of legal, regulatory and business information and analytics has been awarded a 2017 Confirmit ACE (Achievement in Customer Excellence) Award in the Voice of Customer, Innovation in Customer or Employee Engagement, and Overall Business Impact categories. This recognition celebrates the implementation and rollout of the LexisNexis NPS Explorer Program, an internal tool and system that’s driving deep customer understanding across the organization.

Established in 2005, Confirmit’s ACE Awards program honors a client’s outstanding work and meaningful contributions to the achievement of universal customer excellence. Receiving a Confirmit ACE Award demonstrates stand-out application by LexisNexis of Voice of the Customer processes and its ongoing commitment to enhancing the customer experience and driving business and cultural change. LexisNexis earned the Confirmit ACE Award based on its NPS Explorer Program, which provides each employee real-time visibility into relevant NPS feedback and targets, creating alignment and empowering the team to meet critical customer experience goals.

“We’re proud to be a recipient of a 2017 Confirmit ACE Award, as it reflects our dedication to the customer experience and our customer-focused culture,” said Steve Carroll, VP, Customer Insights at LexisNexis Legal & Professional. “We understand that customer experience determines our future success and believe in total visibility of all customer feedback – good or bad – for employees. It drives our product development, our support, and our culture. We would like to thank Confirmit for this recognition of our customer programs, and most of all, we would like to thank our customers for taking the time to share their experiences with us.”

“We’re delighted to honor LexisNexis as a 2017 Confirmit ACE Award winner for their proven innovation and excellence in their Voice of the Customer Program,” said Ken Østreng, President and CEO of Confirmit. “The customer experience is a critical component of the business, and LexisNexis continues to show their commitment to listening to their customers to better understand their needs, drive business change and deliver an exceptional experience.”

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About the Confirmit ACE Awards
The ACE (Achievement in Customer Excellence) Awards program was established in 2005 to recognize outstanding achievement in customer excellence. Receiving a Confirmit ACE Award is a distinct honor that demonstrates both rigorous application of customer experience processes and outstanding performance as measured by those processes. All Confirmit customers are eligible for Confirmit ACE Awards for their company, business units, or segments of a business. To be eligible for a 2017 Confirmit ACE Award, organizations must have conducted one or more Voice of the Customer surveys between January 1 and December 31, 2016. For more information on awards criteria, visit http://www.confirmit.com/ace-awards.

About LexisNexis Legal & Professional
LexisNexis Legal & Professional is a leading global provider of legal, regulatory and business information and analytics that help professional customers make more informed decisions, increase productivity and serve their clients better. As a digital pioneer, the company was the first to bring legal and business information online with its Lexis® and Nexis® services. Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional harnesses leading-edge technology and world-class content to help professionals work in faster, easier and more effective ways. Through close collaboration with its customers, the company ensures organizations can leverage its solutions to reduce risk, improve productivity, increase profitability and grow their business. LexisNexis Legal & Professional, which serves customers in more than 175 countries with 10,000 employees worldwide, is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries.

About Confirmit
Confirmit is the world’s leading SaaS vendor for multi-channel Voice of the Customer, Voice of the Employee, and Market Research solutions. The company has offices in Oslo (headquarters), Chengdu, Grimstad, London, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, Sydney, Vancouver, and Yaroslavl. Confirmit’s software is also distributed through partner resellers in Madrid, Milan, Salvador, and Tokyo.

Confirmit powers Global 5000 companies and Market Research agencies worldwide with a wide range of software products for feedback / data collection, panel management, data processing, analysis, and reporting. Customers include Aurora, British Airways, British Standards Institution, Copart, Cross-Tab, Dow Chemical, GfK, GlaxoSmithKline, GMO Research, KeepFactor, Morehead Associates, Nielsen, Research Now, RS Components, QRS, Sony Mobile Communications, and Swisscom. Visit http://www.confirmit.com for more information.

Net Promoter® is a trademark owned by Satmetrix Systems, Inc., F. Reichheld, and Bain & Company Reported by PRWeb 14 hours ago.

The Wettstein Agencies, a privately managed insurance management and financial consulting company serving residents of the greater Denver metropolitan region, is announcing a charity drive to raise local support and donations for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver

Aurora, CO (PRWEB) May 16, 2017

The Wettstein Agencies, a Denver area firm that offers insurance assistance and personal financial planning services to families and business owners throughout central Colorado, is launching a charity drive to help raise community support for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver works with the local Denver community to encourage children to stay in school and graduate, and to refrain from unsafe, harmful, or unlawful behavior like juvenile crime or drug use. Programs provided by BGCMD also include workshops that promote positive health habits and foster the desire for civic leadership.

“The Boys and Girls Club is an excellent resource in our community that helps shape the next generation, and this charity event will help make sure they can continue their mission of improving outcomes for our children,” says Mitchell Wettstein, founder and principal agent of Wettstein Agencies.

Wettstein and his team are actively working to promote the charity event benefitting the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver by building connections with regional community leaders and families over email channels and social media platforms. Further efforts to publicize the event will include a lead story on the Boys & Girls Clubs scheduled for release in the Wettstein Agencies online magazine “Our Hometown”: http://wettsteinagencies.com/magazines/.

Wettstein Agencies is an active participant in a national charity support network called “Agents of Change.” Going forward, Wettstein and his team have committed to working with at least one new charitable organization or nonprofit in the Denver area every sixty days.

Additional information on how to be part of the charity event to assist the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver has been made available by the Wettstein Agencies team on the following page: http://wettsteinagencies.com/causes/guiding-kids-towards-brighter-future/. For details on previous charity drives sponsored by Wettstein Agencies, readers are invited to review the firm’s Community Causes page: http://wettsteinagencies.com/community/.

About Wettstein Agencies    

As a Personal Finance Representative in Aurora, Colorado, agency owner Mitchell Wettstein knows many local families. His knowledge and understanding of the people in his community ensures that clients of Wettstein Agencies are provided with an outstanding level of service. Mitchell and his team look forward to helping families protect the things that are most important - family, home, car and more. Wettstein Agencies also offers clients a preparation strategy for achieving their financial goals. To contact an expert at Wettstein Agencies, visit http://wettsteinagencies.com/ or call (720) 263-6821 in Aurora or (303) 750-5959 in Castle Rock. Reported by PRWeb 13 hours ago.

New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter is expanding, thanks in part to surplus housing units from Aurora. The Albuquerque nonprofit Joy Junction broke ground Monday on a $2.2 million housing expansion project that will add 52 units to the complex. The units will be like studio apartments, each with 250 square feet of living area and a personal bathroom. The 52 units were transported to Albuquerque from Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, where they were previously officers' quarters before… Reported by bizjournals 9 hours ago.