Funding set aside to regenerate 20 towns and cities outlined in the Government White Paper Levelling Up, “barely begins to address the chronic under-investment of recent decades”, the Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, has warned.

The White Paper, published on Wednesday, consists of 12 “national missions” to be achieved by 2030, including missions to close gaps in wealth, employment, education, training, 5G broadband, homeownership, and life expectancy in the UK — particularly between the north and south of England. It also pledges to reduce homicide and serious violence in the worst-affected areas, and offer a “London-style” devolution deal to every part of England which requests one, supported by the £2.6-billion UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which is to be decentralised to local leaders.

One of the central proposals is to “restore local pride” in 20 towns and cities, beginning with Wolverhampton and Sheffield, with “King’s Cross-style” regeneration projects. To fund this, from April, £1.5 billion of the £1.8 million announced in the October Budget to bring 1500 hectares of brownfield land into use will be redirected towards the north and the Midlands.

In November, Wolverhampton and Sheffield were respectively promised £20 million and £37 million towards the scheme; a further £28 million was allocated to the West Midlands Combined Authority, and £13 million for the South Yorkshire Combined Authority on Sunday.

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“While it is obviously great news for the people of South Yorkshire that Sheffield will benefit from ‘levelling up’ funding, the initially promised funding barely begins to address the chronic under-investment of recent decades" – @PeteWilcox1564https://t.co/WiUJPBEfFT

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 2, 2022

America’s gross national debt topped $30 trillion for the first time on Tuesday, an ominous fiscal milestone that underscores the fragile nature of the country’s long-term economic health as it grapples with soaring prices and the prospect of higher interest rates.

The breach of that threshold, which was revealed in new Treasury Department figures, arrived years earlier than previously projected as a result of trillions in federal spending that the United States has deployed to combat the pandemic. That $5 trillion, which funded expanded jobless benefits, financial support for small businesses and stimulus payments, was financed with borrowed money.

The borrowing binge, which many economists viewed as necessary to help the United States recover from the pandemic, has left the nation with a debt burden so large that the government would need to spend an amount larger than America’s entire annual economy in order to pay it off.

Some economists contend that the nation’s large debt load is not unhealthy given that the economy is growing, interest rates are low and investors are still willing to buy U.S. Treasury securities, which gives them safe assets to help manage their financial risk. Those securities allow the government to borrow money relatively cheaply and use it to invest in the economy.

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Breaking News: The U.S. national debt topped $30 trillion, years ahead of schedule, as pandemic spending fueled government borrowing. https://t.co/6yUwsPvi1P

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 1, 2022

In January alone, five senior officials from oil-rich Arab monarchies visited China to discuss cooperation on energy and infrastructure. Turkey’s top diplomat vowed to stamp out “media reports targeting China” in the Turkish news media, and Iran’s foreign minister pressed for progress on $400 billion of investment that China has promised his country.

As the United States, fatigued by decades of war and upheaval in the Middle East, seeks to limit its involvement there, China is deepening its ties with both friends and foes of Washington across the region.

China is nowhere near rivaling the United States’ vast involvement in the Middle East. But states there are increasingly looking to China not just to buy their oil, but to invest in their infrastructure and cooperate on technology and security, a trend that could accelerate as the United States pulls back.

For Beijing, the recent turmoil in neighboring countries like Afghanistan and Kazakhstan has reinforced its desire to cultivate stable ties in the region. The outreach follows the American military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years, as well as the official end of its combat mission in Iraq. That, along with the Biden administration’s frequent talk of China as its top national security priority, has left many of its partners in the Middle East believing that Washington’s attention lies elsewhere.

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As the US withdraws from the Middle East, China is expanding its ties in the region. It's a natural partnership in some ways: China needs oil, the Mideast wants infrastructure & tech investments & both sides are happy to overlook the other's rights abuses. https://t.co/bQcN1uqQhD

— Amy Qin (@amyyqin) February 1, 2022

The clash between socialist and liberal economics defined the late twentieth century, and this century brings a cultural version of that struggle. Today’s culture wars pit advocates of equal outcomes and special protection for identity groups against defenders of due process, equal treatment, scientific reason, and free speech. Our political map is taking shape around this new divide between what I will call cultural socialism and cultural liberalism.

Cultural socialism, which values equal results and harm prevention for identity groups over individual rights, has inspired race-based pedagogies and harsh punishments for controversial speech. Rooted in the idea that historically marginalized groups are sacred, this view is no passing fad. Letters, associations, universities, and media defending free speech notwithstanding, the young adherents of cultural socialism are steadily overturning the liberal ethos of the adult world.

Survey data from my new Manhattan Institute report, “The Politics of the Culture Wars in Contemporary America,” show the scale of the challenge. While the American public leans two-to-one in favor of cultural liberalism, a majority of Americans under 30 incline toward cultural socialism. For instance, while 65 percent of Americans over 55 oppose Google’s decision to fire James Damore for having questioned the firm’s training on gender equity, those under 30 support the firing by a 59–41 margin. Similar gaps separate young and old people on similar instances of cancel culture, such as the oustings of Gina Carano (an actor fired from Star Wars for social media posts) and Brendan Eich (the former CEO of Mozilla forced out in 2014 for opposing gay marriage in 2008). Only part of this disparity stems from the fact that young people lean left: centrist young people, for instance, support Google over Damore by a 61–39 margin, while centrists over 55 support Damore over Google 58–42.

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A Generational Threat to Free Expression: Survey data show that Americans under 30 prize cancel culture over liberty | @BirkbeckUoL Professor @epkaufm in @CityJournal on his latest @ManhattanInst research report https://t.co/RSVZ1k4tSg

— Brandon Fuller (@fuller_brandon) January 25, 2022

The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington has laid out the likely options for the Kremlin in an essay by CIA veteran Philip Wasielewski and CSIS security chief Seth Jones.

Mr Putin could peel off the Black Sea coast and link up to the Crimea, perhaps pushing beyond Odessa to deprive Ukraine of its entire coast. However, the British warning on Saturday suggests that he aims for total decapitation of the Ukrainian state.

He could seize the whole of Orthodox Eastern Ukraine as far as the Dnieper River. But this would leave a large enough rump to survive as a viable state and permanent headache.

The conquest would have to include Kiev, the great prize for Mr Putin, who harks back to Kievan Rus as the ancient cradle of the Russian nation in his mythologised ethno-nationalist version of history. His 7,000 word manifesto published last year dismisses the Ukrainian state as the invention of Soviet cartographers.

Read it all (registration).

🇺🇦 "It is a fair bet that Europe will roll over as it did over Crimea, and despairing Washington might accept a fait accompli and cut its losses" | writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
https://t.co/TurAdSniMQ

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 24, 2022

The first world war became inevitable once mobilisation orders had been issued in Berlin, argued A.J.P. Taylor, a British historian. The complexities of early-20th-century railway timetables, upon which troop movements then depended, made any alteration virtually impossible. Modern armies do not suffer the same constraints. But as Russia sends more and more units to Ukraine’s borders, a grim momentum is building.

Last week’s diplomacy yielded nothing. Some of Vladimir Putin’s demands are impossible for nato to accept, as he well knew. (Essentially, he wants nato never to admit new members, and to remove its forces from any country Russia threatens.) On January 19th President Joe Biden said that he expects Russia to “move in” on Ukraine.

On January 14th hackers sabotaged Ukrainian government websites, getting them to display a poster of the Ukrainian flag and map crossed out, and warning Ukrainians to “be afraid and expect worse”. Over 100,000 Russian troops are massed on Ukraine’s eastern border, with field hospitals and fuel dumps. “Battalion tactical groups” have arrived in Belarus, a Kremlin client state north of Ukraine, in apparent preparation for a two-front attack that would divide Ukrainian forces and menace the capital, Kyiv. Only a trigger is lacking, and America says it has evidence that a “false flag” operation is planned to allow Russia to claim its men had been attacked by Ukraine. The odds of war seem perilously high.

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War can yet be avoided, but time is running out https://t.co/PcHWVSmP1X

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 21, 2022

A bishop from the Church of England has spoken out about government plans to abolish the BBC licence fee.

Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, the Bishop of Ripon has praised the Corporation’s role in developing greater understanding of religion.

Dr Hartley is a Chair of the Sandford St Martin Trust that promotes ‘excellence in broadcasting about religion ethics and spirituality.’

She has expressed deep concern about Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries statement about possibly abolishing the licence fee after 2027.

Dr Hartley, issued a statement on the Sandford St Martin Trust website, she said: “It is with concern that we at the Trust have read reports that the BBC is to be hit by a funding freeze and that the culture secretary Nadine Dorries is anticipating the abolition of the licence fee after 2027.

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Meet the next Bishop of Ripon, Rt Revd Dr Helen-Ann Hartley https://t.co/AQ6gyxGwNY pic.twitter.com/f0nIPxP1wy

— Diocese of Leeds (@LeedsCofE) November 9, 2017

When Russia invades, Germany and other European countries might at one point run out of gas. That would depend on how energy enters into this conflict. Germany has left itself in this position because successive governments failed to develop a coherent energy policy. Three nuclear plants went offline at the beginning of 2022, as will the last three at the end of this year. With the Greens in government, I see no chance of a policy reversal. The new coalition has ambitious plans for investment in renewables, but the maths does not add up. The energy transition requires unprecedented investment in modern gas-fired power stations as an interim solution. That means Russian gas for the most part. The Greens might kick up a fuss over Nord Stream 2, but I don’t think they will have the gumption to leave the government over a pipeline, and sacrifice their investment programme for renewable energy sources. The deal is done.

When Russia invades, it will be a matter of smoke and mirrors. Russia has no interest in occupying all of Ukraine. It will never invade a Nato country, and try to occupy it. My fear is that Putin may at one point choose to close the Suwalki gap, the stretch of land along the Polish-Lithuanian border that separates the Russian province of Kalingrad from Belarus. That would give Russia direct land access to the southern Baltic Sea, and drive a wedge through the EU. The Baltic States would at this point be geographically isolated from the EU, surrounded by Russia from all sides. This is the scenario depicted in our hypothetical map above. It might also seek to extend its military control of the Black Sea, cutting through the Ukrainian lands that separate it from Transnistria, a Russian-speaking breakaway province in eastern Moldova.

When Russia invades, Germany will appease. Germany will push for minimal sanctions, and only those that don’t damage German exports. They will veto any proposal to cut Russia off from the Swift payment system, if such a proposal were ever made. Nord Stream 2 is safe because neither the EU nor the Biden administration want to upset the Germans. A Republican majority after the mid-term election this November might change the Americans’ policy, but by then the gas will have started to flow.

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When Russia invades, Europe will appease. (Wolfgang Munchau @EuroBriefing on Reaction via Euro Intelligence) https://t.co/C7kpulry5E

— Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) January 17, 2022

As Abernathy tells it—and I believe he is right—he and King were first of all Christians, then Southerners, and then blacks living under an oppressive segregationist regime. King of course came from the black bourgeoisie of Atlanta in which his father, “Daddy King,” had succeeded in establishing himself as a king. Abernathy came from much more modest circumstances, but he was proud of his heritage and, as he writes, wanted nothing more than that whites would address his father as Mr. Abernathy. He and Martin loved the South, and envisioned its coming into its own once the sin of segregation had been expunged.

“Years later,” Abernathy writes that, “after the civil rights movement had peaked and I had taken over [after Martin’s death] as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” he met with Governor George Wallace. “Governor Wallace, by then restricted to a wheel chair after having been paralyzed by a would-be assassin’s bullet, shook hands with me and welcomed me to the State of Alabama. I smiled, realizing that he had forgotten all about Montgomery and Birmingham, and particularly Selma. ‘This is not my first visit,’ I said. ‘I was born in Alabama—in Marengo County.’ ‘Good,’ said Governor Wallace, ‘then welcome back.’ I really believe he meant it. In his later years he had become one of the greatest friends the blacks had ever had in Montgomery. Where once he had stood in the doorway and barred federal marshals from entering, he now made certain that our people were first in line for jobs, new schools, and other benefits of state government.” Abernathy concludes, “It was a time for reconciliations.”

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As Americans honour the memory of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., the Bishops of the United States call on all people of goodwill to carry on his work for equality and justice in American society.https://t.co/Zaicns2gM7

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) January 17, 2022

In the days after George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, protesters took to the streets across America. They urged cities to “defund the police”, and politicians listened. Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, called for his department’s budget to be cut by up to $150m. London Breed, San Francisco’s mayor, announced that she would “redirect funding from the sfpd to support the African-American community”. City councils in Oakland and Portland, Oregon, among other cities across America, approved budgets that cut police funding.

That trend has reversed. Portland and Oakland increased police funding to hire more officers. The Los Angeles Police Department’s budget will get a 12% boost. Last month Ms Breed vowed to “take steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement” and “less tolerant of all the bullshit that has destroyed our city”. Why such a stark reversal, and what does it mean for the future of criminal-justice reform?

The first question is easy to answer. Though crime overall did not rise during the pandemic, the type people fear most—murders and shootings—did, and the surge has not abated. Over three decades from 1990, America’s homicide rate fell steeply (see chart). From 2019 to 2020, however, the rate had its highest-ever year-on-year rise, of nearly 30%, followed by a further rise in 2021. More than three-quarters of the murders were committed with guns. In Oakland, 133 people were murdered in 2021, more than in any year since 2006, and almost 600 more were shot but not killed. Portland was one of at least 16 American cities that set all-time homicide records last year.

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"No evidence suggests a relationship between the size of a police force and the number of people its officers kill; ample evidence suggests that bigger and better-funded forces tend to reduce violent crime."https://t.co/EtOB9qb5rC

— Dave Morris (@MirabilisDave) January 13, 2022

The line Neil Armstrong uttered when he stepped on the Moon — “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” — is deemed problematic by the software, which suggests changing “mankind” to “humankind” or “humanity”.

The children’s cartoon Postman Pat also fails the inclusivity test, with the software preferring “mail carrier” Pat or “postal worker” Pat.

The software also offers to tweak Billy Paul’s 1970s hit Me and Mrs Jones to a more modern Me and Ms Jones, while Barry Manilow’s infamous Lola in the song Copacabana might more appropriately be referred to as a performing artist rather than a showgirl.

Other words to change include “headmaster” (Word suggests “principal”), “master” (“expert”), “manpower” (“workforce”) and “heroine” (“hero”).

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Smart guy that George Orwellhttps://t.co/ISOyzqMsca

— David Parry (@davidparry100) January 13, 2022

The Church of England has warned that a social media advertising “loophole” could leave children exposed to “aggressive” gambling adverts.

Rt Revd Alan Smith, the Bishop of St Albans, said a ruling this week by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), set a concerning “precedent” for promotions on social media.

The watchdog’s ruling dismissed complaints about poker adverts on a popular YouTube channel, as the owner supplied analytics from the site showing that most of his audience were over 18.

However, the Bishop warned that the analytics were an “incredibly dubious metric” as YouTube, which has a minimum age of 13, does not have any age verification and many viewers watch it without signing into an account.’

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📱The Church of England has warned that a social media advertising “loophole” could leave children exposed to “aggressive” gambling adverts https://t.co/VQZa6Qyoyw

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 8, 2022