Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, which has the second-most Covid-19 deaths, said the resumption of economic activity would be “slow and careful, because the last thing we’re going to need is going too quickly.… That’s the equivalent, I think, of throwing gasoline on the fire.”

San Miguel County in Colorado, using a test from United Biomedical, has plans to check all its residents for immunity. Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker last week announced a coronavirus tracking initiative that will involve 1,000 people working at a virtual call center to trace people exposed or infected with the virus.

GOP Texas Lieut. Gov. Dan Patrick announced Tuesday he is forming a task force on how to reopen the economy, and GOP Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has created a response team to discuss measures that must be in place for opening the state back up.

Some governors talked Tuesday with Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, about ways to work together or launch their own surveillance plans that would trace the disease should it resurface and spread. One idea is to galvanize congressional lawmakers to pass legislation setting a U.S. surveillance system for coronavirus in place.

Dr. Gottlieb, who ran the FDA from 2017 to 2019, released a report on the “roadmap to reopening” Tuesday with Mark McClellan, a physician and economist who ran the FDA under President George W. Bush.

“I’m worried we don’t have the systems in place to carefully reopen the economy,” Dr. Gottieb said in an interview. “You need to be able to identify people who are sick and have the tools to enforce their isolation and [tracing of people they contact]. You have to have it at a scale we’ve never done before. We need leadership.”

Read it all.

“The federal government has yet to put in place the kind of nationwide testing, tracing and surveillance system that public health experts say is needed to prevent another surge..” https://t.co/lYYo77DwCP

— Bob Grip (@Bob_Grip) April 8, 2020

More than a million Americans have now been tested for the novel coronavirus, but access varies widely from state to state and often even between hospitals in the same region. New York State has tested more than 340,000 people, while California, with double the population, had tested just 143,800 as of Monday. That’s nearly five times as many tests when counted per capita.

And that’s just tests performed. With many facilities relying on third parties to process tests, that step in the testing process often becomes another bottleneck resulting in lengthy delays. After aggressive efforts to cut down a backlog of more than 59,000 tests, the state of California was still waiting Monday for results on more than 14,000 tests.

In New Jersey, results have frequently been delayed by up to two weeks. That’s led Governor Phil Murphy to caution that each day’s numbers include stale data.

“We are getting only a very fuzzy picture of the scope of the problem, and it is very slow to develop,” said Eric Blank, the chief program officer for the Association of Public Health Laboratories. “There are all of these questions about the virus that have been swirling around, and we are only starting to get some sense of the issue.”

Read it all.

Coronavirus testing has become a massive logistical failure — one that has made it impossible to know how much the virus has truly spread and how many it has sickened https://t.co/5ueFJ320Ex

— Bloomberg (@business) April 7, 2020

South Carolina health officials identified 187 new cases of the coronavirus Tuesday, bringing the statewide total of known cases to 2,417.

Three additional South Carolinians have died as a result of the disease, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. All three were 60 years old or older, and had underlying health conditions. Two were from Lexington County and one was from Greenville County, according to DHEC.

Statewide, the death toll is now 51.

The actual number of S.C. cases is likely higher than what is being reported. As of Sunday evening, DHEC estimated the state had more than 15,000 cases of COVID-19, meaning about 85% of cases have not been tested or identified.

Read it all.

Identified coronavirus cases in SC reaches 2,417. Three more deaths reported Tuesdayhttps://t.co/KYNWZt9Tle

— WatchYourRepsSC (@WatchYourRepsSC) April 7, 2020

A senior Nigerian army officer has been relieved of command after a leaked video showed him saying that his forces were outgunned by Islamist fighters.

Major-General Olusegun Adeniyi was removed as head of the operation in the northeast of the country after he was recorded describing an ambush by Boko Haram, who fired hundreds of mortar bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, killing scores of Nigerian soldiers. Many of his colleagues believe that they are losing the wider battle against the militants.

The military claimed that 47 troops died in the attack near the village of Gorgi last month, but sources on the ground said the death toll was nearly twice that.

Read it all (requires subscription).

General who said #BokoHaram are winning is sackedhttps://t.co/UyU3KmnxzY #nigeria #military #terrorism #islamism #africa

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 7, 2020

Gregg Gonsalves, a professor of epidemiology and law at Yale, said: “I’d feel better if we had serological testing, and could preferentially allow those who are antibody positive and no longer infectious to return to work first. The point is, though, that we are nowhere even near accomplishing any of these criteria. Opening up before then will be met with a resurgence of the virus.”
He added, “That’s the thing that keeps me up every night.”

Until we get a vaccine or effective drug treatments, focusing on these major criteria, and directing efforts toward them, should help us determine how we are progressing locally, and how we might achieve each goal.

Read it all.

Everyone wants to know when we are going to be able to leave our homes and reopen the United States. The better question is: “How will we know when to reopen the country?” Experts offer four benchmarks that can serve as a guide. https://t.co/BG0Kt5wp8r

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 6, 2020

Seeking to further minimize movement across the state, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster issued a more pointed executive order Monday telling people to stay at home if they are not at work or out tending to essential needs.

The executive order takes effect Tuesday, and follows a number of other mandates McMaster already has issued prohibiting large gatherings, closing access to beaches and lakes and closing many nonessential businesses to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, a potentially severe upper respiratory disease.

It also comes after days of McMaster urging South Carolina residents to use “common sense” and stay home if they can.

Read it all.

Gov. McMaster toughens South Carolina #coronavirus stance with ‘go to work or stay home’ order https://t.co/9OSckrd6V1

— Brian Murphy (@MurphinDC) April 6, 2020

Across the Commonwealth and around the world, we have seen heart-warming stories of people coming together to help others, be it through delivering food parcels and medicines, checking on neighbours, or converting businesses to help the relief effort.

And though self-isolating may at times be hard, many people of all faiths, and of none, are discovering that it presents an opportunity to slow down, pause and reflect, in prayer or meditation.

It reminds me of the very first broadcast I made, in 1940, helped by my sister.

We, as children, spoke from here at Windsor to children who had been evacuated from their homes and sent away for their own safety.

Today, once again, many will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones. But now, as then, we know, deep down, that it is the right thing to do.

Read it all.

“We will meet again.”

I have to be honest. I love the Queen right now 💙https://t.co/TH87KM5QeD

— Rachel Clarke (@doctor_oxford) April 5, 2020

A stretch of Interstate 40, which runs from downtown Memphis across the Mississippi River into Arkansas, has come to illustrate the patchwork of rules restricting movement in the United States. On the Arkansas side of the river, where the governor has resisted a statewide mandate, some “nonessential” businesses remain open. On the Tennessee side, a stay-at-home order went into effect this week, closing stores.

Now, the owner of a chain of clothing stores called Deep South located on both sides of the Mississippi is operating under two different sets of rules. The company’s owner, Munther Awad, a 47-year-old immigrant from the Middle East, said he owned two stores in Arkansas, which are open, one in West Memphis and another in Little Rock. And he owns a third store in Memphis, which is now closed because of a local mandate last week.

“I feel like if you would have just went ahead and put the whole nation at the same time on a lockdown, we could have got some control over it,” said Lavanda Mayfield, 33, who was waiting to serve takeout to customers at the Iron Skillet restaurant at a truck stop near I-40 in West Memphis on Friday.

“But now it’s just out of control,” she said, “because you did state-to-state.”

Read it all.

For a small number of states in the South and Midwest, pressure is growing for governors to issue stay-at-home orders. “What are you waiting for?” said Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who issued the first statewide order last month. https://t.co/mUoN83OWyr

— NYT National News (@NYTNational) April 4, 2020

Gov. Henry McMaster continued to resist the idea of issuing a stay-at-home order after he was peppered with questions at a Friday news conference about why he chooses to issue incremental orders closing businesses and restricting residents’ movement while refusing a broader rule.

The questions came as more than 40 other states have issued broader shelter-in-place orders.

South Carolina is the only state in the southeast that has not issued one yet.

“The measures we have taken are both mandatory and voluntary about staying home,” McMaster said on Friday. “We are taking a deliberate approach. Our state is not like everyone else’s state.”

Read it all.

Gov. McMaster said Friday he has repeatedly urged South Carolinians to stay home, making an order unnecessary. https://t.co/IMYGWQLT75

— The State Newspaper (@thestate) April 3, 2020

#CoronaLockdown: 95% of the US Population is now under #coronavirus shelter-in-place orders in 45 states

Nearly 315 million Americans are statewide stay-at-home orders, including statewide lockdowns in 40 states, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico, and city/county level orders in states pic.twitter.com/c0QLHQbykt

— Coronavirus Updates – Alexander Higgins (@kr3at) April 2, 2020

As cases of the coronavirus continue to grow in South Carolina, local officials have gone back and forth on how much they should restrict their communities.

Beach town communities closed, reopened, then closed their again as they tried to interpret state guidance, while cities like Charleston and Columbia stood firm on their stay-at-home ordinances.

South Carolina health officials announced 113 new cases of the coronavirus and one new death Sunday afternoon, bringing the state’s total to 774 cases in 40 counties.

Read it all.

With more than 770 #southcarolina #coronavirus cases, cities and towns enacting stay-in ordinances https://t.co/LtY0GJ0AIw #localgovernment #publichealth #covid19 #pandemic #lowcountrylife

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 29, 2020

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Stay home, protect the NHS and save lives

We are writing further to you given the rapidly changing nature of the situation in our country at present. We want to thank you for the ministry you are exercising and for the creative and imaginative ways in which you are responding to the crisis and showing the love and care of Christ to the communities we serve, particularly to the most vulnerable in our society.

As we move towards Passiontide, focussing on what Jesus did for us on the cross, more than ever this is brought into stark focus. We want to reiterate the advice we have already sent. The government is asking us to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives. We call upon all our churches and church leaders, clergy and lay, to follow this advice.

Read it all.

A generation ago, the essayist and novelist Wendell Berry told us that the great challenge of our time would be whether we would see life as a machine or as a miracle. The same is true now. The value of a human life is not determined on a balance sheet. We cannot coldly make decisions as to how many people we are willing to lose since “we are all going to die of something.”

A life in a nursing home is a life worth living. A life in a hospital quarantine ward is a life worth living. The lives of our grandparents, the lives of the disabled, the lives of the terminally ill, these are all lives worth living. We will not be able to save every life. Many will die, not only of the obviously vulnerable but also of those who are seemingly young and strong. But every life lost must grip us with a sense of lament, that death itself is not natural but is, as the Bible tells us, an enemy to be withstood and, ultimately, undone.

That means we must listen to medical experts, and do everything possible to avoid the catastrophe we see right now in Italy and elsewhere. We must get back to work, get the economy back on its feet, but we can only do that when doing so will not kill the vulnerable and overwhelm our hospitals, our doctors, our nurses, and our communities.

And along the way we must guard our consciences. We cannot pass by on the side of the road when the elderly, the disabled, the poor, and the vulnerable are in peril before our eyes. We want to hear the sound of cash registers again, but we cannot afford to hear them over the cries of those made in the image of God….

Read it all.

“A life in a nursing home is a life worth living. A life in a hospital quarantine ward is a life worth living. The lives of our grandparents, the lives of the disabled, the lives of the terminally ill, these are all lives worth living,” writes @drmoore. https://t.co/a47CB8Ki2x

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) March 26, 2020

Watch and listen to it all.

Charleston and Mount Pleasant, two of South Carolina’s four largest cities, are soon expected to require residents to stay home, essentially closing all businesses deemed nonessential, in yet another effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. These are painful, controversial, steps, but they ultimately are justified and needed to save lives.

The decisions mean that businesses such as nail salons, barbershops and clothing stores will join public schools and colleges that already have been ordered closed. Restaurants and bars were closed last week except for take-out and delivery.

Many other businesses deemed essential, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, utilities, banks, hardware stores, construction companies, liquor stores and the news media, may remain open. People still can walk their dog or go for a jog but should make a point to stay at least 6 feet away from others.

Read it all.

Editorial: Charleston’s stay-at-home order a painful but needed step @postandcourier https://t.co/aRdDqABsBS

— Megan *Flatten the Curve* (@MeganStifel) March 25, 2020

Read it all.

In his Tuesday afternoon briefing with the coronavirus task force, President Trump couched earlier comments about the need to reopen the U.S. economy within weeks, emphasizing the decision would ultimately be data-driven and made in consultation with public health experts.

The president said he still wants Americans working again by Easter Sunday, something he first said during a virtual town hall with Fox earlier in the day. But he was much more circumspect over whether that would be possible from a medical standpoint.

His previous comments about reopening the economy prompted alarm among public health experts across the country, who said it’s far too early. Trump seemed to much more carefully toe the line during his briefing as he talked about “carefully and responsibly reopening the country.”

“I want to assure Americans that we have a team of public health experts … also economists and other professionals working to develop a sophisticated plan to reopen the economy as soon as the time is right, one based on the best science, the best modeling and the best medical research there is anywhere on earth,” he said.

Trump stressed that this is a “medical crisis, this isn’t a financial crisis.”

Read it all.

President Trump on Tuesday afternoon couched earlier comments about the need to reopen the U.S. economy within weeks, emphasizing the decision would be data-driven and made in consultation with public health experts.https://t.co/r3mjI0Kf7S

— NPR (@NPR) March 24, 2020

South Carolina announced 44 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 342 cases spread across 36 counties.

The new cases include eight in Greenville County and five in Charleston County, as well as four cases each in Kershaw, Richland, Sumter and York counties.

Gov. Henry McMaster and Education Superintendent Molly Spearman jointly announced Tuesday the state’s schools would not reopen in April. Nine days ago, McMaster ordered all schools and colleges to close through March 31. The extension hasn’t officially been ordered yet, but officials wanted to give a heads up that it’s coming.

Read it all.

South Carolina announced 44 new coronavirus cases Tuesday afternoon, bringing the state to a total of 342 cases spread across 36 counties.https://t.co/HEzuMMhAEF

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) March 24, 2020

Q: I’m curious about some things that aren’t happening on a national scale. One is, why are shelter in place orders happening state by state? Why are we doing this sequentially? Is that a mistake?

A: No, I don’t think we could say it’s a mistake or not a mistake. There is a discussion and a delicate balance about what’s the overall impact of shutting everything down completely for an indefinite period of time. So, there’s a compromise. If you knock down the economy completely and disrupt infrastructure, you may be causing health issues, unintended consequences, for people who need to be able to get to places and can’t. You do the best you can. I’ve emphasized very emphatically at every press conference, that everybody in the country, at a minimum, should be following the fundamental guidelines. Elderly, stay out of society in self isolation. Don’t go to work if you don’t have to. Yada, yada, yada. No bars, no restaurants, no nothing. Only essential services. When you get a place like New York or Washington or California, you have got to ratchet it up. But it is felt—and it isn’t me only speaking, it’s a bunch of people who make the decisions—that if you lock down everything now, you’re going to crash the whole society. So, you do what you can do, as best as you can. Do as much physical separation as you can and ratchet it up at the places you know are at highest risk.

Q: But I heard a guy say, if you think you’re doing too much, you’re probably doing the right amount.

A: That’s me.

Q: I know it’s you. The “15 Days to Slow the Spread” campaign doesn’t mention religious gatherings. I know Pence mentioned them yesterday. But why aren’t they on the 15 days recommendations? All these other places are mentioned.

A: It was implied in no crowds of more than 10 people. But you’re right, crowds in church are important and every time I get a chance to say it, I mention it. I can’t really criticize them strongly for that at all. When you say less than 10, it makes common sense that it involves the church. I say it publicly and even the vice president has said it publicly.

Read it all.

Listen to facts of the pandemic!!! https://t.co/kRxMaPIYhR

— Larry (@Larry75982917) March 24, 2020

Gov. Henry McMaster’s office is being inundated with notices from businesses that say they want to continue operating if a shelter-in-place order is issued in response to the coronavirus, even though McMaster said he is not yet considering such an order at this time.

The notices are in response to a federal memo that broadly outlines the types of businesses considered essential to “ensuring continuity of functions critical to public health and safety, as well as economic and national security” during a crisis, such as the current outbreak of coronavirus, known as the COVID-19 pandemic. The memo was issued Thursday by Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security office.

Those essential businesses include sectors such as healthcare, energy and law enforcement as well as transportation, public works and critical manufacturing.

Read it all.

Update: “In his most recent press briefing, Governor Henry McMaster issued an executive order authorizing law enforcement officers in the state to prohibit or disperse any gatherings of people in groups of 3 or more outside of your own home, focusing in on spontaneous gatherings and leaving the decision up to the discretion of the law enforcement officer.”

‘Essential’ businesses making their case with SC governor to remain open https://t.co/MnG6MnuEW7 via @postandcourier

— David Wren (@David_Wren_) March 23, 2020

County and city officials around the Charleston area are urging residents to stay home if at all possible, saying the new coronavirus could spread exponentially in South Carolina if strict preventive measures aren’t taken immediately.

South Carolina officials announced 22 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, including four in Charleston County. This brings the total number of cases in the state to 195 in 33 counties.

There are two new cases each in Beaufort, Greenville, Horry, Lancaster and York counties. Berkeley, Colleton, Darlington, Hampton and Kershaw counties each have one new case, while Richland County has three new cases.

Additionally, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control is investigating a potential exposure to the virus and its related disease, COVID-19, at Wando High School.

Read it all.

Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said at a news conference Sunday that businesses that aren’t truly essential should consider closing or having employees work from home, as difficult as the choice may be.https://t.co/I2SAPWF2X0

— Charleston Scene (@chasscene) March 23, 2020

Gov. Henry McMaster ordered Tuesday that restaurants and bars stop dine-in service starting Wednesday. He is prohibiting gatherings of 50 people or more in order to slow community spread of the coronavirus. South Carolina had 47 reported cases in 13 counties as of Tuesday afternoon.

McMaster also ordered that state tax deadlines, both to file and pay, be delayed until June 1.

The new cases announced Tuesday include one case in Beaufort County, two cases in Charleston County, one case in Calhoun County, five cases in Kershaw County, one new case in Lexington County, one case in Richland County, one case in York County, one case in Greenville County and one case in Horry County.

A case previously identified as a case from Kershaw County was actually a Fairfield County case, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control officials said.

Read it all.

New: Gov. Henry McMaster ordered Tuesday that restaurants and bars stop dine-in service starting Wednesday.https://t.co/bdIYfXn2Wf

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) March 17, 2020

Setting out the stall for democracy, Bishop Williams said it was not quite as straightforward as may be imagined. We need to question why it should work and understand what it is as well as what it is not. He suggested democracy is often defined by what it is not – it is not autocracy, oligarchy or dictatorship. Democracy raises the question of what is lawful in human society and what kind of system has a proper claim on our loyalty and obedience. It also asks what it is that we can recognise that represents our voice and our interests. “Democracy may be a mess but it’s our mess. It may have strange ideas but it reflects our ideas,” he stated.

The Bishop pointed out that democracy does not happen automatically when other systems disappear, citing Iraq and Libya as examples. He said that the advance of democracy went hand in hand with certain advances in secularism but did not agree that democracy is secular. “The fundamental of democracy is that it represents who we are, what we want and what we care about. But there is a risk of populism. Is something made right by the majority vote?’ he asked.

The paradox of democracy, he contended, is that it believes that every human agent is worth listening to. But if every human agent is worth listening to, then that includes minorities as well as the majority. “Democracy is a system in which every voice has a claim to be heard. But that can be a challenge. The voices that have not prevailed are still worth listening to… We go on arguing and that is a sign that democracy is working because the minority voice is still being taken seriously,” he said. “The majority decision may be lawful but it is still up for debate… It is crucial for a democracy to be liberated from the idea that majority votes end arguments.” He added that freedom of speech must be safeguarded (with certain limits) if democracy is to be a means of change in society.

However, he said public debate does not mean that we allow our neighbour to shout for a while before taking our own turn to shout. We must recognise that the person who opposes us in an argument has goals which we can recognise as intelligible.

Read it all.

Two patients in the Charleston area were recently screened for a potentially deadly strain of coronavirus, a hospital official confirmed Tuesday.

Lab results determined both patients at the Medical University of South Carolina tested negative for the potentially deadly virus, said MUSC spokeswoman Heather Woolwine.

No patients at Trident Health or Roper St. Francis have been tested for the disease. Other area hospitals did not immediately respond to inquires from The Post and Courier or deferred questions to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, which has so far refused to disclose how many patients statewide have been tested.

Dr. Jonathan Kanoche, a DHEC medical consultant, couldn’t confirm the exact number of coronavirus tests that have been conducted in South Carolina at an information session on Monday at North Charleston City Hall, but he said the department had completed a handful of tests with no positive cases.

On Thursday, the S.C. Senate Medical Affairs Committee will huddle with DHEC officials for a briefing on the illness. On Monday, DHEC Director Rick Toomey called the spread of coronavirus “a rapidly evolving situation” and assured members of the press that his agency takes “every new infectious disease seriously.”

Read it all.

Local paper front page #coronavirus #COVID19 #health #southcarolina #lowcountrylife pic.twitter.com/ft6Ww5J3N5

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 4, 2020

Indeed, Douthat employs decadence as a diagnosis of “economic stagnation, institutional decay, and cultural and intellectual exhaustion at a high level of material prosperity and technological development.”

As expected, Douthat lays out his case with skill and nuance. The age of economic expansion that began with the Industrial Revolution and ended sometime before the end of the 20th century is over. We should have seen it coming, Douthat writes: “At some point, every advanced-for-its-time society has ceased advancing; there is no reason to assume that the modern world is inherently immune from the torpor that claimed the Ottomans and imperial China in the not-so-distant past.”

But decadence also comes with sterility, and Douthat’s chapter on falling birthrates around the world is the most authentically dystopian part of his argument and analysis. This dystopia comes with two fundamental facts—there will be fewer babies, and there will be many more old people. The problem for society is that babies use up a lot of resources for a time, but then they become net producers for a much longer time. When it comes to the aged, the costs may well be even higher at the end of life, but without the promise of future contributions. An aging society is a society winding down, and this entropy is spreading nation by nation. It is a spiritual crisis.

The fact that human beings are making fewer babies is a far deeper problem, spiritually speaking, than the fact that Hollywood is stuck in a cycle of sequels.

Beyond stagnation (mostly economic) and sterility and repetition, Douthat also points to sclerosis (mostly political). His commentary is both perceptive and also sobering. He sees our “once-effective political order becoming impervious to constructive change.” That is a hard argument to refute, and Douthat wisely refuses to argue that it’s a truly recent development. This sclerosis was a long time in the making, and few significant political forces are even interested in reversing the process.

Read it all.

The Decadent and the Damned? Ross Douthat’s Timely Vision of Western Civilization @TGC @DouthatNYT @albertmohler https://t.co/xUWv1KmWby

— Thomas S. Kidd (@ThomasSKidd) February 21, 2020

…Modi’s record on religious freedom since becoming the leader of India has not been something to be proud of. His silence when minorities in India have been targeted and lynched by right-wing mobs has been telling. The worst sufferers of the wrath of extreme Hindu nationalists have been India’s Muslims—the targets of cow vigilantes and much hate speech—but Christians have not been far behind. The fundamental freedoms promised by the constitution of India to religious minorities are being constantly eroded, and persecution is a daily reality for many Christians in India.

Radicals affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) movement and its family of organizations—including Modi’s BJP—have been making concerted efforts to attack Christians both physically and socially. Groups such as Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which believe in the ideology of Hindutva as promoted by the RSS, have disrupted worship services in churches, beat up pastors and other Christians, engaged in vandalism and destruction of property, and have pressured many Christians to recant their faith and forcibly convert to Hinduism.

The lack of police action, and in too many cases the cooperation of the police with the radicals, has resulted in a culture of impunity, emboldening the oppressors to attack without fear of any consequence. This has resulted in a sense of insecurity felt by many Indian Christians. It does not help that responsible leaders of Modi’s party, including state and union ministers, routinely engage in hate speech against Christians and other minorities. This only bolsters the radicals, who view this as open encouragement to target minorities.

According to the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), which has been documenting incidents of persecution against Christians since 1998, incidents targeting Indian Christians have risen steeply since 2014, when Modi came to power. The commission recorded 147 verified cases of persecution in 2014; 252 cases in 2016; 351 in 2017; and 325 in 2018. The EFI commission will soon release the data for 2019.

Read it all.

This week, President Trump said that Indian prime minister Modi was “incredible” on religious freedom and that he wants “the people to have religious freedom and very strongly.”

Why these words were so disappointing to this Indian Christian leaderhttps://t.co/QlXuIE1OwS

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) February 29, 2020

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

The Treasury has been at the centre of the resistance to demands for change highlighted by our War Widows’ Pensions Crusade.

In 2015 the Government ruled war widows could keep the £7,500-a-year “killed in active service” pension if they remarried.

But around 300 widows missed out as they’d remarried before then and the law was not backdated.

The Bishop of Peterborough, the Rt Rev Donald Allister, said the “particular scandal of this situation is that it only applies to those where the incident causing the death occurred between April 1973 and April 2005”.

Those widowed before or after didn’t lose their benefit if they remarried, he said. “This is complete nonsense and is shameful. It must be put right.”

Read it all.

Pension fury as Boris told excuses over war widows scandal ‘will not wash’ anymore | UK | News | https://t.co/tK7ClQXCvk https://t.co/wwe51vkNf9

— Deirdre Walsh (@magicdmw) February 26, 2020

Exhausted medical workers with faces lined from hours of wearing goggles and surgical masks. Women with shaved heads, a gesture of devotion. Retirees who donate their life savings anonymously in government offices.

Beijing is tapping its old propaganda playbook as it battles the relentless coronavirus outbreak, the biggest challenge to its legitimacy in decades. State media is filling smartphones and airwaves with images and tales of unity and sacrifice aimed at uniting the people behind Beijing’s rule. It even briefly offered up cartoon mascots named Jiangshan Jiao and Hongqi Man, characters meant to stir patriotic feelings among the young during the crisis.

The problem for China’s leaders: This time, it isn’t working so well.

Online, people are openly criticizing state media. They have harshly condemned stories of individual sacrifice when front-line medical personnel still lack basic supplies like masks. They shouted down Jiangshan Jiao and Hongqi Man. They have heaped scorn on images of the women with shaved heads, asking whether the women were pressured to do it and wondering why similar images of men weren’t appearing.

One critical blog post was titled “News Coverage Should Stop Turning a Funeral Into a Wedding.”

Read it all.

Beijing is tapping its old propaganda playbook as it battles the relentless coronavirus outbreak, the biggest challenge to its legitimacy in decades. The problem for China’s leaders: This time, it isn’t working so well. https://t.co/35OVxf3H51

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 26, 2020

The Utah State Senate has voted to decriminalize polygamy between consenting adults, making bigamy and polygamy an infraction rather than a felony. Fines and community service would be the extent of legal enforcement, akin to a traffic ticket. Of course, Utah has for the past several decades largely declined to arrest anyone for polygamy, unless additional charges such as underage marriage or welfare fraud could be brought. Maybe decriminalization is “better than doing nothing,” to use the words of state Sen. Daniel Thatcher?

I suggest that position is untenable. Where polygyny is involved — and the vast majority of polygamy cases are in fact cases of polygyny (the union of one man to multiple wives) — the harm has been found to be inherent in the practice. In 2011, the Supreme Court of British Columbia was asked to rule on the constitutionality of Canada’s ban on polygamy. One of the star witnesses was Professor Rose McDermott of Brown University, who has penned an entire volume called “The Evils of Polygyny” summarizing her extensive research.

McDermott finds a statistically significant relationship between the legality and prevalence of polygyny within a country, on the one hand, and what they call “an entire downstream suite of negative consequences for men, women, children and the nation-state,” on the other. Their data analysis points to a significant relationship between polygyny and poor outcomes, including higher levels of sex trafficking and higher levels of domestic violence.

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At Carnegie Hall in 1952, Buber gave a lecture titled “Hope for this Hour.” His goal was to give an honest assessment of life during the escalating Cold War. He announced, “The human world is today, as never before, split into two camps, each of which understand the other as the embodiment of falsehood and itself as the embodiment of truth.” Buber does not advocate a centrist position between these two camps, nor does he here weigh in on the disputed points between them. Rather, Buber analyzes how this disagreement over economic philosophies is a site of polarization. He makes three points that are relevant for “this hour” in our social landscape.

First, we need to be critical of the way disagreements are framed. In polarization, Buber says, a person is “more than ever inclined to see his own principle in its original purity and the opposing one in its present deterioration, especially if the forces of propaganda confirm his instincts in order to make better use of them.” He continues, “Expressed in modern terminology, he believes that he has ideas, his opponent only ideologies. This obsession feeds the mistrust that incites the two camps.” Put differently, polarization attenuates critical thinking, making us all too easily satisfied that our commitments are right because they are superior to those of our opponents. We also become less sensitive to distinctions and concerns of the other side, since we think we already know what really motivates their political behavior. Mistrust snowballs, then, as each side believes the other side is intentionally misrepresenting reality. The first thing we need in polarized times, Buber writes, is “criticism of our criticism.” Unless we hold ourselves to a high standard when inferring the motives and concerns of the other side, suspicion will get the better of truth.

Second, we need “individuation,” which means not treating the other side as a monolith but recognizing that each person has unique convictions. This idea is central to Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. One effect of polarization, he argues in “Hope for this Hour,” is the transformation of ordinary mistrust into “massive mistrust.” It is normal and even necessary to treat with suspicion the claims of a person who has shown themselves to be untrustworthy. We should be leery of an individual who has made a pattern of playing fast and loose with the truth. However, any transition from distrusting an unreliable individual to distrusting an opposing camp is not a change of degree but of kind. The other side’s speech becomes guilty until proven innocent. “One no longer merely fears that the other will voluntarily dissemble, but one simply takes it for granted that he cannot do otherwise.” Polarization is not extreme disagreement, but the erosion of the conditions—like trust—necessary for working through disagreement.

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The two rivals are under increasing international pressure to meet a deadline of 22 February to implement a power-sharing deal.

The US last year warned that it would impose sanctions on anyone working against the peace process.

Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, spiritual leader of the Anglican Church, have said they will visit South Sudan once a national unity government is formed.

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