Human trafficking continues to expand and evolve, often hiding in plain sight. This harsh reality is laid bare in the UNODC’s (United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime’s) Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2024, published at the end of last year. Reports such as this should wake us up to the brutal realities faced by too many and lead us to ask what can be done to stop this crime.

The report says that there was a 25-per-cent increase in detected trafficking victims globally in 2022, surpassing pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Alarmingly, this includes a 31-per-cent rise in child victims. At International Justice Mission (IJM), a global NGO working to combat trafficking, we witness these harsh realities daily. These are not just statistics, but individuals: sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers who deserve to live in freedom and safety.

The report identifies how climate change, conflict, and displacement are exacerbating trafficking risks. Loss of livelihoods, safety, shelter, and financial security leave vulnerable communities exposed to exploitation. Traffickers prey on those most at risk, taking advantage of crises to further their profits.

A significant shift in trafficking patterns is also evident. For the first time, victims of forced labour now outnumber those trafficked for sexual exploitation — which remains a significant issue, particularly for women and girls, who account for 61 per cent of detected victims.

Read it all.

A UN report identifies factors that are exacerbating the problem, writes Mary Sebastian @IJMhttps://t.co/4gvcqnU8mB

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 21, 2025

Since….[2023], stories like the ones we found in Levittown have become far more widespread. With federal law remaining largely silent on the legality of creating nonconsensual deepfake pornographic images, state prosecutors have scrambled to find charges that fit a new kind of harassment.

AI-based deepfaking services are hitting a peak. Traffic to the 10 most popular “nudifying” apps soared by more than 600% year over year, from 3 million views in April 2023 to 23 million in April 2024, according to figures provided to Bloomberg by a research company that asked not to be identified in connection with its data on online pornography. In January this year alone, the websites received 18 million views, the research shows.

With a stamp of approval from first lady Melania Trump, lawmakers this year are expected to pass a bill criminalizing the posting of nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes on the internet. It will penalize the posters with prison time and the platforms with fines if they don’t remove the fake pictures quickly enough.

The proposed Take It Down Act, which passed in the Senate in the last Congress with bipartisan support, wouldn’t outlaw the apps themselves. So San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu last year tried to tackle the root cause. He brought a first-of-its-kind lawsuit charging the deepfake app creators, arguing they broke federal and state revenge and child pornography rules and broke California’s competition law. The apps named in the lawsuit have either closed or appear to be operating under different names. Some have geofenced their services so they can’t be accessed in the state. Out of 16 apps named, representatives of only one of them have responded to Chiu’s complaint.

Read it all (and consider listening to the accompanying podcast).

A new podcast tries to understand exactly who was behind a global clearinghouse of nonconsensual deepfake pornography https://t.co/ERCR6WvrLm

— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) March 21, 2025

A Christian street preacher prosecuted after criticising Islam is celebrating a win for free speech after his case was thrown out by a judge this week. 

At a hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court, Mr Recorder G Kelly dismissed the case against Karandeep Mamman, 33, on the grounds that the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to provide any evidence for the charges brought against him.

Mr Mamman was charged under section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm and distress after preaching in Walsall town centre on 14 January 2023.

Read it all

Mr Mamman said he was surrounded by a group of Muslims who threatened to take him away, beat him up and "cut his throat".https://t.co/t3B6oclWPI

— Christian Concern (@CConcern) March 11, 2025

The question of which view of religious freedom—the Puritans’ or the Quakers’—was the more Christian one is a debate for theology; it seems plain to me at least that the Quaker view is more that of contemporary Christianity, especially as articulated in the Catholic Church’s Dignitatis Humanae. What the social science behind the Pew Religious Landscape Survey can suggest is that, at least in the long run, Quakers’ respect for freedom of conscience might be more effective than Puritans’ integration of church and state in maintaining a Christian society. Although the differences in Christian identification between New England and the Delaware Valley today are not so large in the case of certain states, the Delaware Valley still comes out on top; and its metropolis, Philadelphia, easily outdoes New England’s preeminent city, Boston. Moreover, the one outlier state in New England that does better than much of the Delaware Valley in Christian religiosity—Rhode Island—was precisely founded on the principle of religious freedom, in protest of Puritan rigidity. 

How might New England’s and the Delaware Valley’s different religious attitudes have accounted for their long-term religiosity? Although many New England Puritans were surely sincere, their harsh public policing of orthodoxy led many other Christians (like Roger Williams) to leave New England. Many who stayed perhaps conformed outwardly without interior sincerity. Some came to see Christianity cynically—as a tool of hypocritical political rulers who only wanted to control others—and they made little effort to pass on belief to their children. Others conformed out of fear and came to see Christianity as rules by which to live in order to survive, not a truth that sets one free; such religiosity was probably not very attractive to potential converts. Many later New Englanders, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, saw the society of their Puritan ancestors this way—as shown in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Speculations aside, both historical data and scholarship (such as Kevin Vallier’s book All the Kingdoms of the World) show how religiously authoritarian regimes tend to harm both religious and political culture in the long run.

In the Delaware Valley, on the other hand, religion and politics were clearly distinguished: people were given the freedom to open themselves genuinely to religious truth, without fear of political reprisal. Thus, as Dignitatis Humanae says, truth was allowed to enter their minds “by virtue of its own truth, . . . quietly,” and therefore permanently, “with power.” If religious truth is to take possession of a person, he has to make it his own, in love, until he says with the poet in the Song of Songs: “I have got him, and I will not let him go.”

Read it all.

Society Stays Christian Longer If It Respects Religious Freedom: New Evidence from Pew https://t.co/6XZtA79pwL

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) March 7, 2025

Sandra, a teenage girl who wears her curly brown hair tied back in braids, awaited the instant message on her mobile phone. The instructions were matter of fact: Wear makeup and a short skirt. If possible, don a crop top.

Like other girls in her neighborhood outside Medellín, Colombia, Sandra said she didn’t always have food for dinner, let alone trendy clothes and electronics. But a friend tipped her off to a sure-fire way to make money fast. This amiguita, she said, told her about the plentiful meals she could afford, the iPhone she uses, the motorcycle she’d soon be sitting astride. Sandra could enjoy this life too, her friend said. The cost? Her virginity. To a foreigner.

Sandra agreed. Her friend connected then-14-year-old Sandra and her younger sister Verónica (both of whose names Bloomberg changed to protect the siblings against reprisal), with a woman, who, on social media projected a youthful, fun-loving air. Known as la patrona, the woman posed in one photo in a white bikini, hand on hip, on a poolside lounge chair surrounded by palm trees.

The woman expeditiously gathered up the girls’ identity numbers and nude photos. She offered them an advance of 8.6 million pesos ($1,990) for jobs well done. The interchanges were carried out through Meta Platforms Inc.’s social media apps Facebook and Messenger, according to Sandra.

Recruitment and grooming of children are but the first in a multi-step process…

Read it all.

Sex trafficking in Colombia runs through a web of US apps like Facebook, Tinder and Airbnb https://t.co/0tD6KNvVJB

— Bloomberg (@business) March 3, 2025

Independent safeguarding was once unthinkable, but today few observers think the Synod can afford to vote down the proposals. Given the revelations of the past few months, it would be approaching institutional suicide for the Church to reject the opportunity to rebuild trust and demonstrate its determination to stop abusers and keep vulnerable people safe.

But in the desperate rush to be seen to be doing something to stop the relentlessly critical headlines, few have considered what independence will not fix. The same people who investigated Perumbalath and concluded there was no evidence he was a safeguarding risk will still constitute the safeguarding team; they will just work for a different employer. Safeguarding cases will still be based on the often-conflicting accounts of the only two people in the room at the time of the alleged incident. There will still be cases that cannot be resolved in the way survivors and their increasingly vocal advocates would like. Who will listen to and support dissatisfied and wounded survivors, if not the Church? And what happens when the independent safeguarding authority clears someone the CofE hierarchy believes to be guilty?

Safeguarding independence will not be an end the Church’s state of permacrisis. In fact, the Synod vote will probably create as many new problems as it solves old ones. The weary vicars wondering when they can stop bracing for the next scandal cannot relax yet.

Read it all.

"If the Church of England was not in crisis before, it certainly is now."

Tim Wyatt: There is no solution to the Church of England permacrisis https://t.co/T7bXLQP72Y

— The New Statesman (@NewStatesman) February 6, 2025

Edgar met Rita on LinkedIn. He worked for a Canadian software company, she was from Singapore and was with a large consultancy. They were just friends, but they chatted online all the time. One day Rita offered to teach him how to trade crypto. With her help, he made good money. So he raised his stake. However, after Edgar tried to cash out, it became clear that the crypto-trading site was a fake and that he had lost $78,000. Rita, it turned out, was a trafficked Filipina held prisoner in a compound in Myanmar.

In their different ways, Edgar and Rita were both victims of “pig-butchering”, the most lucrative scam in a global industry that steals over $500bn a year from victims all around the world. In “Scam Inc”, our eight-part podcast, The Economist investigates the crime, the criminals and the untold suffering they cause. “Scam Inc” is about the most significant change in transnational organised crime in decades.

Pig-butchering, or sha zhu pan, is Chinese criminal slang. First the scammers build a sty, with fake social-media profiles. Then they pick the pig, by identifying a target; raise the pig, by spending weeks or months building trust; cut the pig, by tempting them to invest; and butcher the pig by squeezing “every last drop of juice” from them, their family and friends.

The industry is growing fast….

Read it all.

Online scamming is a vast, sophisticated and fast-growing global enterprise that compares in size and scope to the illegal drug industry. Except that in many ways it is worse. As our investigation finds, nobody is safe from Scam Inc https://t.co/MMKm0TeOIW pic.twitter.com/QIUMvOCjDW

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 6, 2025

“The Makin Review already made clear that information about Smyth’s abuse was reported to the police (on a number of occasions) and to ACSA. ACSA’s own review confirms today that they did receive this information from the Diocese of Ely in 2013. While they state that they have not found any evidence of abuse by Smyth within their churches, they do admit that the Diocese of Cape Town’s communication of the danger which Smyth posed between when they were informed of that danger (2013) and when he died (2018) fell short of what the circumstances demanded.

“This is sobering to read. I am glad both that ACSA rapidly commissioned their own review in response to the Makin Review, and that they are now transparent about its findings. We join them in penitence for the failings of our Churches and in redoubling our efforts to care for and listen to victims and survivors, and to take all necessary and possible steps to respond well to all allegations of abuse.”

Read it all.

The Panel of Inquiry into the Anglican Church of Southern Africa's handling of serial abuser John Smyth’s presence in South Africa has noted a disturbing delay in fully implementing measures evolved over decades to grapple with abuse within the church

https://t.co/mHIeJRMche

— Cape Times (@CapeTimesSA) February 4, 2025

In his own inimitable style, President Donald Trump has identified something he dislikes and approached it with a wrecking-ball. Deprived of American funding by an executive order, aid programmes around the world are on the brink of collapse. But for the intervention of a judge at the 11th hour on January 28th, large parts of America’s federal government might have suffered a similar fate.

However, when it comes to another kind of cutting—of rules, rather than spending—Mr Trump is part of a global trend. From Buenos Aires and Delhi to Brussels and London, politicians have pledged to slash the red tape that entangles the economy. Javier Milei has wielded a chainsaw against Argentine regulations. Narendra Modi’s advisers are quietly confronting India’s triplicate-loving babus. Rachel Reeves, Britain’s chancellor, plans to overhaul planning rules and expand London’s Heathrow Airport. Even Vietnam’s Communists have a plan to shrink the bureaucracy.

Done right, the anti-red-tape revolution could usher in greater freedom, faster economic growth, lower prices and new technology. For years excessive rules have choked housebuilding, investment and innovation. But Mr Trump risks giving deregulation a bad name. His impulse to start by demolishing essential functions of government before reinstating the ones he likes is a formula for human misery and economic harm. The question is how to make reform bold enough to count, but coherent enough to succeed.

Read it all.

Around the world, an anti-red-tape revolution is taking hold. Done right, it could kick-start economic growth. In the wrong hands, it risks giving deregulation a bad name https://t.co/pxJS1MAXDP pic.twitter.com/PhAZtAt7Nq

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 30, 2025

While few modern proponents of doctor-assisted death would argue that sick people should “make way” when their lives become a draw on others’ resources, they don’t appear to believe this—inevitable—outcome should prevent the practice from being legalized. This troubling attitude goes against the U.K.’s historically Christian approach to dying people, including the belief that every person has intrinsic value, and every life ought to be equally cherished and protected.

Every single one of us has been or will be a “burden” on others. When we are young, we depend upon the care and provision of our parents. When we grow ill, or elderly, we require support from our family and friends. This is not a bad thing; to be human is to be dependent. When it comes to helping those with terminal illness, properly resourced palliative care is highly effective at mitigating suffering and ensures that every patient hears a loving message: “It’s good that you’re alive.”

U.K. politicians must ask themselves what kind of society they want to create: One where an individualistic “right to die” sees vulnerable and marginalized Britons confronted with the option of suicide and pressured to pursue it; or a society where suicide is never viewed as a fitting response to suffering, where every citizen is recognized to have intrinsic and equal value, safeguarded from harm, and offered compassionate, life-affirming support.

As the Canadian ethicist Ewan Goligher noted: “A nation’s laws are a teacher.” Legalizing assisted suicide teaches society to doubt human value and to see it as merely extrinsic and conditional. Prohibiting it reflects the true depth of human dignity.

Read it all.

It’s Good That You’re Alive https://t.co/n78pfTOVXG “As the Canadian ethicist Ewan Goligher noted: ‘A nation’s laws are a teacher.’ Legalizing assisted suicide teaches society to doubt human value and to see it as merely extrinsic and conditional”

— David Mulroney (@David_Mulroney) January 17, 2025

Homeowners in places most exposed to climate disasters are increasingly giving up on paying their insurance premiums, leaving them exposed to financial ruin, according to sweeping new government data.

The numbers show how climate change is eroding the underpinnings of American life by making home insurance costlier and harder to hang on to, even as wildfires, hurricanes and other calamities increasingly threaten what is, for many people, their most valuable asset.

“Homeowners’ insurance is where many Americans are now feeling the financial effect of climate change directly, in their pocketbook,” said Ethan Zindler, climate counselor at the Treasury Department. “Nature doesn’t really care whether people are living in a blue state or a red state or another state, or whether you do or don’t believe in climate change.”

The rising cancellation rates are part of a broader trend captured by the Treasury Department, which analyzed information for 246 million insurance policies issued by 330 insurers nationwide from 2018 through 2022. The result is the most comprehensive look yet at the effect of climate change on the American home insurance market.

Read it all.

More Americans, Risking Ruin, Drop Their Home Insurance https://t.co/kZjPynDbIU

— Heather Croshaw (@HeatherCroshaw) January 17, 2025

In a time of instability and uncertainty, what does God say to his people? I created you (bara), formed you (yatsar), and called you (qara). This is the very same language we read in Genesis when, in the beginning, God creates (bara) the heavens and the earth (1:1), forms (yatsar) the human from the dust of the ground (2:7), and calls (qara) the light “day” and the darkness “night” (1:5). In other words, God reminds Israel that they have quite literally been made for such a time as this.

And what kind of time is this exactly? According to Isaiah 43, it’s a time in which the people of Israel will be passing through flood waters and traversing rising rivers and navigating uncontrolled fires—each of which threatens to overwhelm them at every turn. One would think that the prophet would bring a more reassuring message, especially to a people who longed for nothing more than to go back to the stability and security they knew prior to the Exile.

But that’s not what they get. Instead, God speaks through the prophet Isaiah with this message: There is no going back to a time of stability or security or certainty. There are only cataclysmic waters and catastrophic fires ahead. In fact, for Israel, it is not a matter of if they will encounter these scenarios. It is only a matter of when.

It is therefore all the more significant that, having painted this harrowing picture of what’s to come, God still has the audacity to say, “Don’t be afraid.”

Read it all.

"All we can do is mourn with those who mourn, open our homes to those who have lost everything, and hold on to the hope that God will be with us as we walk through these fires…" – Brehm's Kutter Callawayhttps://t.co/bzEuH8Wym3 pic.twitter.com/kgkLtKBOeQ

— Brehm Center (@brehmcenter) January 15, 2025

O Sovereign Lord, Creator of heaven and earth, whose mighty hand holds back the waters and commands the elements according to Your will; look with mercy upon our land now threatened by devastating fires, and stretch forth Your hand to protect Your people. Shield the brave firefighters and first responders who risk their lives in service to others, grant them wisdom and strength in their labors, and surround them with Your divine protection. Send Your refreshing rains to quench these flames, calm the winds that drive them, and preserve both life and property from destruction; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with You and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Fire Chief Stephen Freeman has lived in Bat Cave, North Carolina, for more than six decades. He’s seen severe and deadly weather events. But he’d never seen anything like the force of water that swept through the southern Appalachians in September of last year. He said he’s also experienced God’s presence and the love of God’s people in amazing ways.

“What’s happened is catastrophic,” he said. “But you can see God’s love coming in. It is so good to see God in action. Actions speak louder than words. And the love of Christ has shown through Samaritan’s Purse. They’re in it for the long haul.

“You see God’s beauty in all this instead of seeing all this destruction. Taking something that’s real bad and turning it into something good. Everything is getting better every day.”

Read it all and please take the time to watch the powerful video.

Referring to the prevalence of suicide and how “huge efforts” are being made “to try to prevent people feeling despair and feeling that they have no other choice but to take their own lives”, Archbishop Martin said, “I find a profound contradiction between that and the idea of assisting somebody to take their own life at any stage during their life.”

He noted that fears and concerns regarding the introduction of assisted suicide were voiced to some extent during the lead up period to the Westminster vote.

“In Ireland we need a very careful reflection on this.” He expressed disappointment that the Dáil “seemed to be rushing to adopt what we [the Irish bishops] believe was a flawed report of the Oireachtas Committee just before it broke up for the election.”

“It gave me some consolation to see that none of the parties appeared to be making the introduction of assisted dying in Ireland a manifesto issue and therefore I feel that none of the parties have actually a mandate now to proceed on this issue.”

“I really do feel that our concerns about the slippery slope, how this issue invariably gets expanded and increased as time goes on, which we see from other countries, is something we should reflect long and hard about.”

Read it all.

Archbishop ‘very disappointed’ over assisted dying vote https://t.co/2kBwTtpM9A

— Eamon Martin (@ArchbishopEamon) December 23, 2024

Americans’ confidence in their nation’s judicial system and courts dropped to a record-low 35% in 2024.

The result further sets the U.S. apart from other wealthy nations, where a majority, on average, still expresses trust in an institution that relies largely on the public’s confidence to protect its authority and independence.

Between 2006 and 2020, Americans’ perceptions of their courts were most often in line with the median for OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, with a majority in each typically expressing confidence.

Since 2020, confidence in the courts across the other OECD countries has been stable, while the U.S. has seen a sharp decline — 24 percentage points — in the past four years. The resulting 20-point gap in confidence between the U.S. and the median of OECD nations in 2024 is the largest in the Gallup trend, which dates to 2006.

Read it all.

Americans' confidence in the nation's courts and judicial systems has plummeted 24 percentage points in the past four years, sagging to a record low, per a new Gallup poll.

https://t.co/qAklPE19Su

— Mike Walker (@New_Narrative) December 17, 2024

Some time ago, I found myself sitting at a dinner opposite a Labour peer. We chatted over various things as the evening proceeded. Just before we were getting up to leave a new topic came up. “I am a convinced campaigner for assisted dying,” she said. “As a bishop, I suspect you’re not. Why don’t you think we should do it?” Put on the spot, struggling to know what to say, and knowing I probably had one line to deliver as we stood up to leave, I said something like this: “Life is a gift from God. It’s not up to us to decide when it ends.” She looked across at me with a pitying look and walked away, clearly unconvinced.

I’ve often wondered what I should have said. Lord Falconer suggests that only secular people like him are ‘objective’ and religious people like me or Shabana Mahmood are biased and therefore our views are to be discounted. The idea that his secular perspective is not colouring his views, but that our religious ones are, or that he is not imposing his beliefs on others whereas we are, is of course, as Isabel Hardman has argued, philosophical nonsense.

Our religious beliefs shape our views, as his secular views shape his. The question is which perspective gives us a better, healthier and more coherent way of living together. I spoke recently to a key figure in the Church of England’s response to Assisted Dying who told me in no uncertain terms that religious arguments simply don’t wash in this debate. We have to use pragmatic and political ones that appeal to a wide audience. And so, the main arguments we have heard from church leaders and others against assisted suicide refer to the slippery slope argument: that legislation will inevitably in time become looser to include more candidates; care for the vulnerable, such as the elderly or the disabled who will feel pressurised into taking their own life, or, as the Health Secretary Wes Streeting has argued, the fact that palliative care is not yet robust enough in our health system to enable a proper choice.

Read it all.

My thoughts on why religion matters in the assisted dying debate https://t.co/SJBK4fUI3B

— Graham Tomlin (@gtomlin) November 27, 2024

He called himself a simple onion farmer, a Mayan Indian with four kids and a fourth-grade education.

U.S. prosecutors knew better.

By his late 30s, Felipe Diego Alonzo had built a crime route stretching from Central America to Texas, allegedly paying off Mexican drug cartels along the way. He tooled around Guatemala’s western highlands in a loaded silver Ford Ranger pickup. When the police finally raided his ranch, they found a study in rural narco-chic: wooden chalets, a swimming pool, a show horse valued at $100,000.

What they didn’t find was a narco. Alonzo’s business “was more profitable than drug trafficking,” said one of the Guatemalan officials who detained him.

Alonzo was moving people.

Read it all.

As smuggling rings made billions from migrants, the U.S. was sidelined https://t.co/QKiCwSIpZx

— Mary Beth Sheridan (@marybsheridan) November 1, 2024

Lisa slides a Hellcat pistol into her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder. She jumps out of the driver’s seat of her massive Ford F-250 as we head into a barbecue joint for lunch. Steel brass knuckles glint in the console beside a pencil-shaped, pronged object. She sees me looking at it. 

“That’s my stabby-stick,” Lisa says before I even ask. “In case I can’t bring my gun somewhere. These guys are dangerous.”

“These guys” are sex traffickers, and dangerous doesn’t begin to describe them. 

Many traffickers are members of Mexican or Salvadorian gangs, part of Cuban rings or the vicious Venezuelan group Tren de Aragua. Their modus operandi is luring migrant women and girls across the southern border, promising them good jobs once they get to America, and then forcing them into prostitution once they’re here, ostensibly to pay off the debt they incurred to get into the U.S. Hunting down sex traffickers is not for the faint of heart, and Lisa is not about to take any chances. 

An athletic, no-nonsense blonde in her 50s, Lisa runs a small nonprofit foundation called Shepherd’s Watch, dedicated to bringing down sex-trafficking rings. Prior to starting Shepherd’s Watch in 2016, Lisa had been a telecom engineer and an expert at analyzing cell phone data used in court cases. In that job, she says, she saw a “disturbing” amount of child exploitation. “I couldn’t ignore it anymore.”

Read it all.

NEW Migrant crime story: I shadowed a private investigator in Dallas and saw firsthand how easy it is to “order” a migrant girl off one of dozens of sex solicitation websites. @ShepherdsWatchF is doing great work trying to stop this kind of crime. https://t.co/RJ29TzMKtv

— Maddie Rowley (@Maddie_Rowley_) October 14, 2024

Don’t turn our doctors into killers, says the Star. Like several of the opposing factions to the bill, it cites Canada as exemplifying the slippery slope, with one in twenty deaths there being by assisted dying.

This argument that the bill will open up unforeseen consequences for the disabled, and indeed for the unfortunate residents of bad care homes, is common, Archbishop Welby, facing down former Archbishop Carey, said that assisted dying was in effect a sword of Damocles over the disabled and aged. We should add that many Canadians choosing state sponsored suicide cite feeling a burden on family and caregivers as their motive. Canada surely vindicates Welby.

This argument really is cogent and necessary, but is it sufficient for a Christian view which sees humanity made in the image and likeness of God, leading to the doctrine of the sanctity of life? As Frost says this a doctrine that has permeated and grounded western civilization. Is it not simply wrong to kill people even those begging to die? Hospices and care giving was the Christian answer, but Christianity is fading fast with its practical altruistic legacy of looking after the sick and dying.

Lord Frost has pointed to our society’s reliance on Judaeo Christian ethics for all its institutions and to the perilous situation of breaking with this tradition of the sanctity of life for a callous utilitarianism. So far his is the deepest theological apologia for the classical Christian ethic of life  on offer, we trust Christian leaders will step up to the challenge soon.

Read it all.

Ask MPs to oppose assisted suicide

Some helpful tips here https://t.co/wr1LYSQylr

— Better Way (@betterwayUK) October 24, 2024

“It’s very important that we discuss it here in the Senedd today because although the private member’s bill is going forwards in Westminster, if it were passed the implication would be very important in Wales because we have responsibility for health and social care.”

Ms Morgan said it is important to have safeguards to ensure people meet specific criteria, with medical people present when the decision is made….

Carys Moseley, a public policy researcher and analyst for Christian Concern based in Cardiff, said the group was “concerned” about the motion.

She said: “We’ve got a visual display of the actual cases that have been happening in different jurisdictions in the western world.

“These are tragic cases – diabetes being treated as a long-term illness in Oregon, assisted suicide the fifth leading cause of death in Canada – these are very grave issues.”

She said the public question the issue more when they hear about other countries.

“Once you introduce this choice – dying – there is a pressure then which eventually becomes a duty to die,” she said.

“There isn’t such a thing as (going on) ‘your own terms’, because it affects all the doctors that become responsible for killing patients or assisted killing rather than preserving life.

Read it all.

The Welsh Senedd, which has a progressive majority, has overwhelmingly voted down a motion to legalise assisted suicide. The more people learn about assisted suicide the less they like it. pic.twitter.com/fww05M1fLi

— Yuan Yi Zhu (@yuanyi_z) October 23, 2024

… legalising assisted suicide would disproportionately impact many millions of vulnerable people, who might perceive themselves as a burden on those around them and the health service. My concern is that once you can ask for assisted suicide, it soon becomes something that you feel that you ought to do. Permission slips into being duty. This does not represent true choice for all, and I worry that no amount of safeguards will ensure everyone’s safety at the most vulnerable point of their lives.

A good death and compassionate care should be available to everyone, but the Bill being introduced today will not achieve that.”

Read it all.

Not half.

Assisted Dying Legislation is 'Dangerous' says Archbishop Welby – BBC News https://t.co/NhK26S8S9c

— Erica Wooff (@ericauk) October 16, 2024

As this debate unfolds there are three points I would like to put before you. I hope that you will take part in the debate, whenever and wherever you can, and that you will write to your Member of Parliament.

The first point is this: Be careful what you wish for.

No doubt the bill put before Parliament will be carefully framed, providing clear and very limited circumstances in which it would become lawful to assist, directly and deliberately, in the ending of a person’s life. But please remember, the evidence from every single country in which such a law has been passed is clear: that the circumstances in which the taking of a life is permitted are widened and widened, making assisted suicide and medical killing, or euthanasia, more and more available and accepted. In this country, assurances will be given that the proposed safeguards are firm and reliable. Rarely has this been the case. This proposed change in the law may be a source of relief to some. But it will bring great fear and trepidation to many, especially those who have vulnerabilities and those living with disabilities. What is now proposed will not be the end of the story. It is a story better not begun.

The second point is this: a right to die can become a duty to die.

A law which prohibits an action is a clear deterrent. A law which permits an action changes attitudes: that which is permitted is often and easily encouraged. Once assisted suicide is approved by the law, a key protection of human life falls away. Pressure mounts on those who are nearing death, from others or even from themselves, to end their life in order to take away a perceived burden of care from their family, for the avoidance of pain, or for the sake of an inheritance.

Read it all.

This Wednesday a bill will be introduced to Parliament proposing a change in the law to permit assisted suicide. As this debate unfolds, I ask you to play your part in it. Write to your MP. Have discussions with family, friends and colleagues. And pray.https://t.co/mgjUOwehms

— Cardinal Nichols (@CardinalNichols) October 10, 2024

Mexico’s new President Claudia Sheinbaum is using her first 100 days in office to try to lower homicides and loosen the grip of organized crime groups that control swaths of the country, extort businesses, smuggle drugs and kill with impunity.

Among Sheinbaum’s top efforts to “pacify the country” will be a push to slash killings in the country’s 10 deadliest cities, including Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez on the U.S. border, according to a presentation of the strategy seen by The Wall Street Journal. She is also planning new efforts to combat the smuggling of the deadly drug fentanyl, which kills tens of thousands of Americans a year, the presentation says. 

In a graphic display of the violence that Sheinbaum must deal with, the mayor of Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, one of Mexico’s most violent states, was assassinated Sunday, officials said. The newly elected mayor, Alejandro Arcos, was the second Chilpancingo official to be killed in the last three days, the probable victim of one of two violent gangs that control the city. “It is a state totally dominated by organized crime,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City security expert. “It’s a jungle. What the criminals are saying to authorities is: We rule here.” 

Read it all.

Inside Mexico’s New Plan to Take On Cartel Violence https://t.co/KTlyIIZqZK

— Alicia A. Caldwell (@aacaldwellLA) October 7, 2024

Earlier this month, a detective knocked on Shavon Harvey’s door, in suburban Ohio, to ask about her son. The son had sent a Snapchat message from her phone to his friends, saying there would be shootings at several schools nearby.

She rushed to the police station, where her son was already in custody, but the police did not release him. He was charged with inducing panic, a second-degree felony, and officials kept him in detention for 10 nights.

He is 10.

Ms. Harvey’s son is far from the only child arrested this month after similar behavior. And he’s not even the youngest.

Read it all.

We need to find a non-law-enforcement solution to students who make threats on social media. This @nytimes piece explains why.

As School Threats Proliferate, More Than 700 Students Are Arrested https://t.co/dnTc2hQ1MG

— Tom Warrick (@TomWarrickAC) September 26, 2024

You may

sense that governments are not as competent as they once were. Upon entering the White House in 2021, President Joe Biden promised to revitalise American infrastructure. In fact, spending on things like roads and rail has fallen. A flagship plan to expand access to fast broadband for rural Americans has so far helped precisely no one. Britain’s National Health Service soaks up ever more money, and provides ever worse care. Germany mothballed its last three nuclear plants last year, despite uncertain energy supplies. The country’s trains, once a source of national pride, are now always late.

You may also have noticed that governments are bigger than they once were. Whereas in 1960 state spending across the rich world was equal to 30% of GDP, now it is above 40%. In some countries growth in the state’s economic power has been still more dramatic. Since the mid-1990s Britain’s government spending has risen by six percentage points of gdp, while South Korea’s has risen by ten points. All of which raises a paradox: if governments are so big, why are they so ineffective?

The answer is that they have turned into what can be called “Lumbering Leviathans”. In recent decades governments have overseen an enormous expansion in spending on entitlements. Because there has not been a commensurate increase in taxes, redistribution is crowding out spending on other functions of government, which, in turn, is damaging the quality of public services and bureaucracies. The phenomenon may help explain why people across the rich world have such little faith in politicians. It may also help explain why economic growth across the rich world is weak by historical standards.

Read it all.

Governments are bigger than ever. They are also more useless https://t.co/kt5sIZ1OqF

— Igor Wortel (@itwortel) September 23, 2024

How messy will it get? There are three possible outcomes. Start with the extremely unlikely one, which is a vote so close that Kamala Harris and Mr Trump tie in the electoral college. Were this to happen, the next president would be picked by the House of Representatives, with each state wielding one vote. Even if Ms Harris won the popular vote on November 5th, Mr Trump would almost certainly become president. That would be fair in the sense that it would follow the rules, but Democrats would be furious.

The second outcome is a Trump win. Democrats could bring legal challenges in close states where Ms Harris lost. Some of these might end up at the Supreme Court, where three justices appointed by Mr Trump would have to adjudicate their merits. Three of the conservative justices worked on George W. Bush’s legal team back in 2000 on Bush v Gore. That would make it hard to persuade Ms Harris’s supporters that decisions favouring the Trump campaign were impartial. After the court’s rulings on abortion and presidential immunity, Democrats have come to view the justices as Republican politicians in robes. Nevertheless, most elected Democrats would probably accept the rulings, if more grudgingly than in 2000.

However, if enough Democratic lawmakers were really convinced the courts had acted unfairly, they could try to block certification of the result in Congress, following the precedent set by Republicans in 2021. Then, 139 House members and eight senators (all Republicans) voted to reject the results. A reform of the Electoral Count Act, passed two years ago, raises the threshold, so that 20 senators and 87 members of the House would have to object. In the unlikely scenario that those preliminary votes passed, Democrats would probably lose the subsequent full votes of both chambers. All this is possible, but the most probable outcome, if Mr Trump were to win the election, is that Ms Harris would concede, taking the wind out of any Democratic challenge to the result.

If Ms Harris wins, Mr Trump will not be so gracious. In that third scenario, the complexity of America’s voting system collides with the MAGA conspiracy machine.

Read it all.

How ugly will it get?
America’s election is mired in conflict
Donald Trump’s conspiracy machine is already gearing up for election night https://t.co/wBPTd73SzQ

— Pablo Secada (@psecadae) September 12, 2024

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

The Man Behind the Red Bandana from Drew Gallagher on Vimeo.

Every weekday in New York City, close to one million bus riders — roughly one out of every two passengers — board without paying. The skipped fares are a crucial and growing loss of revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is under severe financial pressure.

New York’s long-running fare evasion problem, among the worst of any major city in the world, has intensified recently; before the pandemic, only about one in five bus riders skipped the fare.

Yet public officials have done relatively little to collect the lost revenue from bus riders. Instead, they have focused almost exclusively on the subway system, where waves of police officers and private security guards have been deployed to enforce payment, even as fare evasion rates on trains are dwarfed by those on buses.

During the first three months of this year, 48 percent of bus riders did not pay, according to the latest available statistics from the transit authority, while 14 percent of subway riders evaded fares. Roughly twice the number of people ride the city’s subways as ride its buses.

Read it all.

Fare Evasion Surges on N.Y.C. Buses, Where 48% of Riders Fail to Pay – The New York Times https://t.co/VLrgiS8i7o

— Bernadette Hogan (@bern_hogan) August 27, 2024

The 6th Street Bridge in Los Angeles is wired to glow with colorful lights celebrating the city’s spirit. But the bridge, known as the “Ribbon of Light,” goes dark at night now. So do stretches of the busy 405 freeway and dozens of street blocks across the city.

In St. Paul, Minn., a man was recently hit by a car and killed while crossing a street near his home where streetlights had gone out.

And in Las Vegas and surrounding communities, more than 970,000 feet of electrical wiring, the equivalent of 184 miles, have gone missing from streetlights over the past two years.

The lights are going out across American cities, as a result of a brazen and opportunistic type of crime. 

Read it all.

Metal Thieves Are Stripping America’s Cities
Across the country, copper and other valuable materials have been stolen from streetlights, statues and even gravesites, costing millions to repair. https://t.co/vJh8sUvbzp

— Stuart Falk (@stufalk) July 10, 2024