Police target bloodthirsty Venezuelan gang as it sets up operations in major US city
The New York Police Department (NYPD) says it is targeting the bloodthirsty Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), which has set up operations in the Big Apple amid a surge of migration into the sanctuary city and as the gang establishes a presence throughout the U.S.
The TdA is a violent street gang believed to have originated in Venezuelan prisons and moved north over the last decade. However, its reputation within the U.S. has grown this year, in part, due to a number of high-profile crimes linked to the gang, with many believed to have arrived by coming across the southern border as part of the sharp increase in migration in recent years.
Now, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell says TdA is actively recruiting gang members in migrant shelters where guns and drugs have been smuggled inside via food cartons.
BLOODTHIRSTY VENEZUELAN STREET GANG SPARKS FEAR IN US AMID MIGRANT SURGE: WHAT TO KNOW
“Do we believe there’s guns in the shelters that have a gang affiliation? Absolutely. Do we believe that they were being smuggled in? Absolutely,” he told Fox News.
The NYPD says there are hundreds of gang associates citywide, and they are not afraid to shoot at police. Earlier this year, a suspected gang member shot and wounded two police officers while another fired at an officer while shoplifting.
“They’re a big threat to the city. We’re not new to gangs or crews in the city. So this is our newest crew. And what’s alarming about this crew is that their conspiracy to commit crimes touches a lot of areas, from retail theft to extortion to robberies to human trafficking, and the worst of the worst, they’ve shot two of our cops,” he said.
New York City is also a sanctuary city, which restricts police from co-operation with federal law enforcement. The city is one of a number of sanctuary cities that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bussed migrants in response to the surge at the border in 2022, sparking a war of words between Abbott and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The gang has established a presence in Aurora, Colorado, where there have been a number of arrests and reports that the gang has taken over entire apartment buildings — something local authorities have pushed back against. Fox News Digital reported in July that TdA members have been given a “green light” to fire on or attack law enforcement in Denver.
AFTER VIDEO OF ARMED VENEZUELAN GANG SHARED BY LOCAL OFFICIAL GOES VIRAL, COLORADO CITY TAKES ACTION
The head of U.S. Border Patrol said recently that they have apprehended dozens of gang members attempting to enter the U.S. at the southern border.
A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bulletin in March alerted agents to tattoos and other identifiers of the gang. Federal authorities had previously warned that the gang was trying to establish itself in the U.S. and could potentially team up with the violent MS-13 gang.
The Biden administration announced significant action against the gang in July, when the Treasury designated TdA a “significant transnational criminal organization.” That move blocks all property and assets owned by the gang in the U.S.
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Meanwhile, the State Department offered up to $12 million for information leading to the arrest of three of the gang’s leaders. The administration also stressed that it is working to disrupt the gang and has increased vetting.
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However, it taps into ongoing concerns about immigration, which is a top issue for the election, with both presidential candidates claiming that they are the right person to secure the border.
Why Biden’s speech at UNGA should set off alarm bells across the globe
President Biden’s swan song on the world stage Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly was a sad demonstration of American weakness and the failed foreign policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
Knowing full well that Iran is the leading state sponsor of terror, responsible for the escalation of instability and hatred on a global scale, the president spent two sentences of his lengthy speech on Iran. He repeated the mantra that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon, despite the fact that even the UN’s Atomic Energy Agency and everybody listening, knows that under his watch Iran has already become a threshold nuclear power.
President Biden spent more time talking about Gaza than any other specific conflict, notwithstanding the hundreds of millions of people in horrific conditions in conflicts and in countries that the U.N. routinely ignores because the Jewish state is their favorite whipping boy.
And how did Biden talk about “the Middle East”? Adopting the U.N. narrative, he demanded: “ease the suffering in Gaza” and made no mention of the suffering .
BIDEN ADDRESSES UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY FOR LAST TIME AS DICTATORS, DESPOTS COME TO NEW YORK
While he noted that the families of the hostages are going through hell – alongside “the innocent civilians in Gaza” – what about the suffering of all the families of the members of the Israeli Defense Forces killed by Palestinian terrorists or serving on the front lines every day to defend the nation from fiendish adversaries? What about the suffering of millions of Israelis forced to cower in bomb shelters over and over again from the incessant rocket fire?
President Biden then lost his moral compass entirely. He addressed the immediate situation in Lebanon and said: “too many on each side of the Israeli-Lebanon border remain displaced.” Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from their homes in northern Israel for because of unprovoked Hezbollah-Iranian attacks. And within one week of Israel finally saying “enough” to those attacks and to the imminent catastrophic danger posed by Iran and its proxy, Biden points to displaced Lebanese.
Displaced why? Because Hezbollah has been operating from their homes and neighborhoods and using them as cannon fodder. The moral relativism from the Democratic president of the United States should set off alarm bells.
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Adopting yet another U.N. storyline, Biden then told the world to “address the rise of violence against innocent Palestinians on the West Bank” – as if there were no rise of violence in the form of Palestinian terror attacks against innocent Israeli Jews for the alleged crime of being Jews in the West Bank, and no Palestinian Authority egging on the terrorists in the West Bank with financial rewards.
In an ominous sign for a President Harris, here’s what President Biden didn’t take his last opportunity to mention: the global spread of antisemitism. Antisemitism that is promoted and incited by the United Nations and those in his General Assembly audience. Antisemitism that is now doing enormous damage to a tolerant and peaceful America. Antisemitism that fuels the Iranian threat to world peace.
Instead, the Biden-Harris administration issued platitudes about “common hope” and “cooperation” that are not only commonplace at every U.N. General Assembly gathering but enthusiastically espoused by America’s enemies from that same podium.
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President Biden’s final speech was an opportunity to be honest and chastise the United Nations itself as an impediment to tolerance, equality and world peace.
He squandered it.
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President dubbed ‘Argentine Trump’ rips United Nations in fiery speech
Argentinian President Javier Milei, in his first address before the United Nations General Assembly, blasted the organization, saying it “has transformed into a Leviathan with multiple tentacles that intends to decide not only what each nation-state should do but also how all the citizens of the world should live.”
He added, “This is how we moved from an organization that pursued peace to an organization that imposes an ideological agenda on its members,” according to a Reuters translation.
He then took aim at the world body’s latest offering, calling its “Pact for the Future” “twisted,” saying the policy was the “wrong course” to follow.
“The adoption of this agenda is fully in line with these privileged interests, and, looks beyond the principles that were set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it is therefore twisted the role of this organization and set it on the wrong course,” Milei said during his impassioned speech.
Milei accused the U.N. of turning into “one of the main proponents of systemic violations of freedom,” citing the organization’s support for the COVID pandemic lockdowns and allowing “bloody dictatorships” such as Venezuela to sit on the Human Rights Council “without reproach.”
“For this reason, I’d like to officially express our dissent on the pact for the future that was signed on Sunday, and I invite all nations of the free world to support us, not only in the U.N. in relation to this pact, but also in the establishment of a new agenda for this noble institution that is the agenda for freedom,” Milei declared.
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“As the ‘Pact for the Future’ purports to dictate, this long list of errors and contradictions has led to a loss of credibility for the United Nations before the citizens of the free world,” Milei said. “I’d like to issue a warning here we are coming to the end of a cycle: Collectivism and moral posturing and the woke agenda is coming up against reality. There are no further credible solutions to the real problems of the world.”
The “Pact for the Future” was the centerpiece of the Summit for the Future, which kicked off the high-level week for the U.N. General Assembly this week. The pact serves as the culmination of policies and mission statements issued by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres over the past few years.
The pact aims to expand the scope and focus of the U.N. and its members to handle “global shocks,” such as “disruptions to global flows of goods, people or finance.”
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Milei compared these new policies, which he alleged amounted to overreach by the organizations, to the original mission and achievements of the U.N., going on to blast the celebration of countries who “punish their women just for showing their skin in this same house that have voted against the State of Israel, which is the only country in the Middle East to defend a liberal democracy.”
Israel’s returning Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon applauded Milei’s challenge to the General Assembly and Guterres’ pact, calling Milei “a true friend of the State of Israel.”
“In this hall where they slandered Israel all day, you expressed courage and supported Israel!”
IRAN’S LEADER TO ADDRESS UN AMID THREATS OF ASSASSINATIONS AGAINST US POLITICIANS, ELECTION INTERFERENCE
Milei insisted that if the current agenda should fail, the U.N. members must ask “whether or not this was an ill-conceived program from the outset.”
“We should accept this reality and change what we’re doing,” he argued. “The same thing always happens with ideas that come from the Left … When individuals freely decide to act otherwise, they have no better solution than to restrict, repress or cut off their freedom.”
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“In Argentina, we’ve seen with our own eyes what they have done at the end of this path of envy and sad passion: Poverty, anarchy and a total lack of liberty,” Milei said. “We still have time to choose another direction.”
Milei ended with his often said slogan, “”Long live freedom, damn it! Thank you very much.”
Secret Service agent called toll-free number for help in Trump assassination bid
A preliminary report on the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Trump from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ripped into newly revealed missteps that went into the Secret Service’s planning and execution of security at the event during which a spectator was killed, two others were seriously wounded and the GOP candidate was struck on the ear.
Among the key failures, an agent inexperienced with drone equipment called a toll-free tech support hotline for help after a request ahead of time for additional unmanned assets was denied, according to a preliminary summary of findings made public Wednesday. According to the committee, he had just an hour of informal training with the device.
“Multiple foreseeable and preventable planning and operational failures by USSS contributed to [Thomas] Crooks’ ability to carry out the assassination attempt of former President Trump on July 13,” the preliminary report read. “These included unclear roles and responsibilities, insufficient coordination with state and local law enforcement, the lack of effective communications, and inoperable C-UAS systems, among many others.”
“We have reviewed the interim report on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The weight of our mission is not lost on us and in this hyperdynamic threat environment, the U.S. Secret Service cannot fail. Many of the insights gained from the Senate report align with the findings from our mission assurance review and are essential to ensuring that what happened on July 13 never happens again,” U.S. Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi responded Wednesday.
According to testimony from agents from Trump’s detail and the Pittsburgh field office, neither of them were aware at the time when, 27 minutes before the shooting, the Secret Service’s security room and counter-sniper team was informed that a suspicious person had been spotted near the AGR building with a range finder; the shooter eventually took position on the roof of that building.
SECRET SERVICE BOSS SAYS VITAL INFO NOT RELAYED OVER RADIO, DELAYING RESPONSE TO WOULD-BE RALLY ASSASSIN
“Shortly before shots were fired, a USSS counter sniper saw local law enforcement running toward the AGR building with their guns drawn, but he did not alert former President Trump’s protective detail to remove him from the stage,” the committee revealed in the 94-page report. “The USSS counter sniper told the Committee that while seeing officers with their guns drawn ‘elevated’ the threat level, the thought to notify someone to get Trump off the stage ‘did not cross [his] mind.’”
The fact that Secret Service counter snipers had been deployed at all was unique, according to the report. Their addition to the rally’s security plans had come in response to “credible intelligence” of a potential threat. Typically, an out-of-office candidate would not have a counter-sniper team before the party’s nominating convention, and the RNC did not begin until two days after the shooting.
Local law enforcement raised concerns ahead of the rally about the AGR building across the field from where Trump would take the stage days before the rally, but its rooftop remained unsecured.
TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: WHISTLEBLOWERS CLAIM THAT THEY WERE ‘WOEFULLY UNPREPARED’ TO PROVIDE SECURITY
Advance agents on Trump’s detail had also requested additional resources ahead of time, including additional drone equipment and additional counter-assault agents to act as liaisons with local SWAT teams.
“These requests were denied, at times without explanation,” the committee found.
Additionally, the agent in charge of drone equipment available on scene ran into technical difficulty that prevented them from flying the drone until after Crooks flew his own near the rally site.
‘Key Failures’ identified in Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs report
- No clearly defined individual responsible for planning and security
- AGR building not “effectively covered”
- Ineffective communication, coordination with state and local law enforcement
- Secret Service denied requests for additional assets ahead of time
- Failures to prevent Trump from taking stage, relay info on “suspicious person”
TOP SENATE DEMOCRAT ‘ANGRY’ OVER BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN ‘STONEWALLING’ AFTER TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS
The report delved deeper into Acting Director Ronald Rowe’s admission last week that communications shortcomings delayed vital information in the moments before the shooting. Secret Service members apparently faced a number of technical problems with their radios, and the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office did not have a radio at all because he handed it to the lead advance agent on Trump’s detail.
Another key failure the committee criticized was the lack of a clear chain of command. Officials involved in scouting and planning for the rally “denied that they were individually responsible for planning or security failures and deflected blame,” according to the committee.
TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT SUSPECT WROTE CHILLING LETTER MONTHS BEFORE GOLF COURSE PLOT
“I don’t approve anything,” the lead advance agent was quoted as telling senators. “I clearly just take the information that they [the USSS site agent and USSS site counterpart] have recommended and put together with the other information that’s put together from the other advance entities, and those are all submitted to the field office and then submitted to the Trump detail, the candidate nominations operations, and then they go further to headquarters.”
The committee is recommending better coordination and clearer leadership, including the designation of a single person to approve security plans, functional communication between federal agents and their local counterparts, additional intelligence assets and other resources.
Local law enforcement assets stationed inside the AGR building were not tasked with securing its roof but rather with protecting the crowd, according to the committee. Local sharpshooters inside could have seen the area of the roof from where Crooks opened fire, but they would have needed to go into a different room without a clear view of the crowd.
Additionally, the local officers inside were designated as “snipers,” whose role was to look over the crowd from a concealed position as supposed to “counter snipers” scanning potential vantage points for threats from assailants like Crooks, according to the committee.
Guglielmi continued, “The U.S. Secret Service has implemented changes to our protective operations including elevating the protective posture for our protectees and bolstering our protective details as appropriate in order to ensure the highest levels of safety and security for those we protect. As Acting Director Ronald L. Rowe said during press conferences on Sept. 16 and Sept. 20, former President Donald Trump is receiving the highest level of protection that the U.S. Secret Service can provide, and we will continue to evaluate and adjust our specific protective measures and methodology based on each location and situation. We are also diligently examining long-term solutions to challenges such as enhancing communications and interoperability with our federal, state and local partners to make sure our coordinated efforts during protective events are seamless.”
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The July 13 attack on a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was the first of two attempts on Trump’s life over the summer. A counter sniper returned fire and killed suspect Matthew Thomas Crooks, 20.
In the second attempt, 58-year-old suspect Ryan Routh was arrested on Sept. 15 after a Secret Service agent saw someone pointing a rifle out of the tree line at the edge of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, as the former president was golfing there.
Diddy’s kids speak out for the first time since fallen music mogul’s indictment bombshells
Four of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ children are speaking out for the first time since their father was arrested and charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges, refuting “horrific conspiracy theories” involving their late mother, Kim Porter and a book claiming to be her own testimony.
Sons Quincy, 33 (whom Porter had with Al B Sure! and whom Combs later adopted) and Christian, 26, as well as the couple’s twin daughters, Jessie and D’Lila, 17, wrote in a joint statement that they had “seen so many hurtful and false rumors circulating” about their parents’ relationship and their mother’s death in 2018.
“Claims that our mom wrote a book are simply untrue. She did not. And anyone claiming to have a manuscript is misrepresenting themselves,” they wrote. “Please understand that any so-called ‘friend’ speaking on behalf of our mom or her family is not a friend. Nor do they have her best interests at heart.”
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“Our lives were shattered when we lost our mother. She was our world. And nothing has been the same since she passed. While it has been incredibly difficult to reconcile how she could be taken from us too soon. The cause of her death has long been established,” they wrote. “There was no foul play. Grief is a lifelong process. And we ask that everyone respect our request for peace as we continue to cope with her loss every day.”
Porter, who had been separated from Combs for several years at the time of her passing, was found dead in her home in November 2018. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office later confirmed that she had died from lobar pneumonia.
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“We are deeply saddened that the world has made a spectacle of what has been the most tragic event of our lives,” her children continued. “Our mother should be remembered for the beautiful. strong. and loving woman she was. Her memory should not be tainted by horrific conspiracy theories.”
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Earlier this month, a book, “KIM’S LOST WORDS: A journey for justice, from the other side…” was released by publisher Chris Todd. The 59-page manuscript, allegedly written by Porter before her death, included claims of abuse and detailed depictions of her sexual encounters with Combs.
“The Kim Porter ‘memoir’ is fake,” Combs’ attorney, Erica Wolf, told Fox News Digital. “It is also offensive – a shameless attempt to profit from tragedy. Chris Todd has no respect for Ms. Porter or her family, who deserve better. Unlike the fabrications in his sickening ‘memoir,’ it is an established fact that Ms. Porter died of natural causes. May she rest in peace.”
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Al B Sure! spoke about Porter in a lengthy Instagram post of his own on Monday, alleging that her death was a “tragic murder.” Al B Sure!, who was married to Porter for a year, called for an investigation into her death.
Reps for Al B Sure!, as well as “Kim’s Lost Words” publisher Todd, did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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Combs is also father to son Justin, 30, whom he shares with ex-girlfriend Misa Hylton, Chance, 18, whom he shares with his friend and businesswoman Sarah Chapman, as well as Love, 1, whom he shares with model Dana Tran.
The disgraced media mogul continues to be held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he awaits a federal trial. He was initially denied bail by the court, only to be denied a second time during an appeal.
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Video shows police encounter at Laundrie house after Gabby Petito reported missing
FIRST ON FOX: When Florida police visited the home of Brian Laundrie in 2021 after the disappearance of his fiancee Gabby Petito on the other side of the country, his parents dodged their questions before officers ultimately left with her van – and more questions than answers, newly released bodycam video shows.
“I’m not talking to anybody,” Laundrie’s father, Christopher Laundrie, tells a North Port police officer after answering the door in a sleeveless shirt as his wife, Roberta, looks on over his shoulder.
The officer, who has a New York detective on the phone who was looking for Petito, asks, “You don’t want to talk to us?”
GABBY PETITO’S PARENTS REACH SETTLEMENT WITH LAUNDRIE FAMILY AND ATTORNEY STEVE BERTOLINO IN FLORIDA LAWSUIT
WATCH: Florida police bodycam shows Brian Laundrie’s parents on the day Gabby Petito was reported missing
“No,” Christopher Laundrie replies, shaking his head.
The officer explains he has a detective on the phone and asks when the last time the parents saw their son or Petito.
“Well, Brian is here, and that’s all we’re saying,” his father replies. “We have an attorney… That’s all I want to say.”
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He agrees to share the attorney’s phone number with police.
North Port police recorded the encounter on Sept. 11, 2021, the day Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, reported her missing in her New York hometown. The video was just made public through public records requests.
“This nightmare never ends,” Schmidt told Fox News Digital Wednesday, just over three years after her daughter’s remains were found at a campsite north of Jackson, Wyoming. Petito had last been seen alive at a grocery store in town there on Aug. 28, 2021.
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After authorities say Laundrie bludgeoned and strangled Petito, he left her body in the Bridger-Teton National Forest and drove home to his parents’ house in North Port – using her van and debit card.
“Is this her vehicle, her van?” the officer asked Laundrie’s parents, pointing at her white Ford parked in their driveway.
“It’s both of theirs,” Christopher Laundrie replied.
The officer returned to his patrol vehicle and put the Suffolk County detective on speakerphone, as they discuss what to do. She revealed that Petito hadn’t been in contact with her parents since Aug. 27.
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“His sister told me another story that he left her out there and flew home, and yet you’re seeing the van in their driveway, and they won’t say where she is,” she says. She notes that the vehicle is registered to Petito and says her family considers it hers.
By then, Petito’s phone had been off for 10 days.
“I don’t know if that van’s a crime scene,” the detective says.
A North Port sergeant later approached the door and tried to ask the Laundries for help reassuring Petito’s parents that she was OK. They refused and said their son wouldn’t talk to investigators either. He told them the van was registered to her only, that it shouldn’t be there, and that police would tow it.
“If that’s what you’re saying you gotta do, you gotta do it,” the father replies. “Right now, I’m not speaking to you anymore.”
The family’s lawyer, Steve Bertolino, previously told Fox News Digital he advised them to invoke their constitutional right to remain silent as the investigation played out.
Brian Laundrie himself also declined to ever speak with police and eventually snuck out and shot himself in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park about 10 minutes away, where his remains went undiscovered for weeks until floodwater receded.
GABBY PETITO’S MOM AND STEPMOM SEND NOT-SO-SUBTLE MESSAGE TO ROBERTA LAUNDRIE
Fox News Digital was present when his parents discovered a drybag at the scene, which they handed to police.
The FBI eventually revealed it contained a handwritten confession as well as personal effects belonging to both Laundrie and Peitito.
“I ended her life,” reads the note, recovered on Oct. 20, 2021. “I thought it was merciful, that it is what she wanted, but I see now all the mistakes I made. I panicked. I was in shock.”
He claimed he did it after she injured herself in a fall.
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The slaying inspired Petito’s parents to found a nonprofit foundation in her honor, assisting other families of missing persons and advocating against domestic violence.
They have lobbied for federal legislation, some of which became law with bipartisan support, as well as lethality assessment laws in Florida, Utah and New York designed to give police grounds and authority to separate victims from their abusers.
The foundation donated $100,000 to the National Domestic Violence Hotline last year.
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Earliest evidence of Christianity called greatest discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls
The Museum of the Bible in the nation’s capital has opened a new exhibit in partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), giving visitors a deeper understanding of the spread of early Christianity in the Holy Land.
Titled “The Megiddo Mosaic: Foundations of Faith,” the exhibit showcases IAA’s archaeological find, dating back to the third century, on display for the first time since it was found.
The mosaic formed part of the floor of the oldest site of Christian worship ever to be discovered, according to officials with the Museum of the Bible (MOTB).
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The Megiddo Mosaic was unearthed 20 years ago during a pre-construction archaeological dig in the Megiddo prison in Israel while planning for a new wing in the prison was underway, says the MOTB’s press release.
“The mosaic presents groundbreaking physical evidence of the practices and beliefs of early Christians, including the first archaeological instance of the phrase, ‘God Jesus Christ,’” Alegre Savariego, curator of the exhibition on behalf of the IAA, said in the release.
Footage shows an animation of what the ancient site would have looked like with the mosaics pieced together, the mosaic’s inscriptions and a rendering of the building in which the mosaics would have been in the 3rd century. (See the video at the top of this article.)
The tiles illustrate one of the earliest examples of a fish being used as a Christian symbol and the names of several of the church’s patrons.
Bobby Duke, MOTB interim chief curator and scholars initiative director, said the mosaic is one of the most important archaeological discoveries for understanding the early Christian church.
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“The mosaic underscores the crucial role of women in the early church by the fact that 5 women are mentioned in it by name. Truly, the mosaic presents a wealth of new data for church historians, like the Dead Sea Scrolls did for Bible scholars,” Duke said, according to the release.
The exhibit opened to the public on Sept. 15 and will be on display for nine months and travel to additional venues before returning to Israel for a permanent exhibition at the exact site where it was discovered.
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Learn more at museumofthebible.org.