The U.S. has fallen out of the top 20 happiest countries for the first time since a global ranking began in 2012, due in large part to a drop in happiness among younger adults.

Americans fell to 23rd place in happiness, down from 15th a year ago, according to data collected in the Gallup World Poll for the World Happiness Report 2024. Costa Rica and Lithuania were among the countries that reported being happier than Americans, according to the annual survey, which asks respondents to rate their current lives on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the best possible life for them. Nordic countries dominate the top 10, with Finland at the top.

In the U.S., self-reported happiness has decreased in all age groups, but especially for young adults. Americans 30 years and younger ranked 62nd globally in terms of well-being, trailing the Dominican Republic, Brazil and Guatemala. Older Americans ranked 10th.

Read it all.

Those 30 and under are the U.S.’s least happy age group, a decline attributed to their feeling worse about their lives https://t.co/tJGFb317Z5 https://t.co/tJGFb317Z5

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 20, 2024

Researchers have used generative artificial intelligence (AI) to help them make completely new antibodies for the first time. The proof-of-principle work, reported this week in a preprint on bioRxiv, raises the possibility of bringing AI-guided protein design to the therapeutic antibody market, which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Antibodies — immune molecules that strongly attach to proteins implicated in disease — have conventionally been made using brute-force approaches that involve immunizing animals or screening vast numbers of molecules. AI tools that can shortcut those costly efforts have the potential to “democratize the ability to design antibodies”, says study co-author Nathaniel Bennett, a computational biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Ten years from now, this is how we’re going to be designing antibodies.”

Read it all.

Researchers have used generative artificial intelligence to help them make completely new antibodies for the first time https://t.co/pcb5is20jF

— nature (@Nature) March 19, 2024

The tendency to downplay the value of toddler groups has been challenged in a new booklet that highlights the vital part that they play in preparing children for school.

The booklet, It’s not ‘just’ a parent and toddler group, has been compiled by a number of organisations brought together by Dave King, the strategic director for Gather Movement, an organisation that works with churches seeking to transform communities. The group including Kids Matter, Daniel’s Den, Care for the Family, 1277, 5 Minus, and Love and Joy Ministries.

It encourages those running groups to stop prefacing references to their work with “just” (“I’m just putting out some toys”), and sets out 12 aspects of school-readiness to which the groups can contribute.

Read it all.

Really enjoyed looking at a new booklet, "It’s not ‘just’ a parent and toddler group", about how they can contribute to school-readiness, & a chat with Jo Gordon of @DanielsDenUK. "The primary thing of a toddler group is that unconditional welcome to all" https://t.co/Gq1Wvx9xnE

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) March 19, 2024

We must transfer our collective faculty for care and compassion from thwarted or struggling adults to those children who need us. This need not be a matter of cruelty or stigma, but rather of reordering our priorities to what we know to be true. This is urgent: If we can’t even mount a normophilic defense of a baby’s need for his or her mother, we will have few resources left to defend our own organismic fundamentals in the face of the seemingly endless ambitions of biotech. Some are already preselecting IVF embryos based on genome analysis. Others propose the accelerated “evolution” of humans by means of in vitro gametogenesis. Others again propose gene-editing embryos. Just recently a breakthrough was announced in the synthetic creation of human embryos: in theory, children wholly without ancestors.

No one is coming to save us. We cannot wait for the “silent majority” to rise up and demand a return to common sense, or mumble about postponing action until we’ve re-Christianized the West, or until we’ve devised a fully worked-out post-Christian metaphysics of human nature. We may lament the Christianity-shaped hole in our discourse, but just because much of modern culture is post-Christian doesn’t mean we no longer have a nature. All we’ve lost is our common framework for naming that nature. We must speak the truth anyway. And wherever possible, we must redirect law and policy from the abolition of human nature to its flourishing.

Should this project be accused of oppressing or stigmatizing “the vulnerable,” we must recall that in reasserting the necessity of norms we are not attacking the most vulnerable. We are defending them. Normophobia imposed on babies and children an obligation to sacrifice their needs for the sake of our wayward desires. We must lift this burden from their little shoulders.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Of Note: "Children’s needs have not changed just because adult desires have grown more unruly." https://t.co/awSIeT6jFW @moveincircles

— Inst. Family Studies (@FamStudies) March 13, 2024

Oceans marked 365 straight days of record-breaking global sea surface temperatures this week, fuelling concerns among international scientists that climate change could push marine ecosystems beyond a tipping point.

The consistent climb in temperatures reached a peak on Wednesday when the new all-time high was set for the past 12 months, at 21.2C.

The world’s seas have yet to show any signs of dropping to typical, seasonal temperatures, with daily records consecutively broken since they first went off the charts in mid-March last year, according to data from the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration and the Climate Reanalyzer research collaboration.

Driven by human-caused climate change and amplified by the cyclical El Niño weather phenomenon that warms the Pacific Ocean, this exceptional heat has bleak implications.

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„Climate graphic of the week: Oceans set heat records for more than 365 days in a row“ https://t.co/utI21M9PFM

— Özden Terli (@TerliWetter) March 18, 2024

O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Dream of St. Joseph by Rembrandt. pic.twitter.com/81VD0IUFXO

— Christian Culture (@Christian8Pics) October 7, 2019

“The challenge we are having is a lack of interest by federal prosecutors to charge illicit marijuana cases,” said Ray Donovan, the former chief of operations of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “They don’t realize all the implications. Marijuana causes so much crime at the local level, gun violence in particular. The same groups selling thousands of pounds of marijuana are also laundering millions of dollars of fentanyl money. It’s not just one-dimensional.”

The expansion into the cannabis market is propelling the rise of Chinese organized crime as a global powerhouse, current and former national security officials say. During the past decade, Chinese mafias became the dominant money launderers for Latin American cartels dealing narcotics including fentanyl, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The huge revenue stream from marijuana fuels that laundering apparatus, which is “the most extensive network of underground banking in the world,” said a former senior DEA official, Donald Im.

“The profits from the marijuana trade allow the Chinese organized criminal networks to expand their underground global banking system for cartels and other criminal organizations,” said Im, who was an architect of the DEA’s fight against Chinese organized crime.

U.S. law enforcement struggles to respond to this multifaceted threat. State and federal agencies suffer from a lack of personnel who know Chinese language and culture well enough to investigate complex cases, infiltrate networks or translate intercepts, current and former officials say. A federal shift of priorities to counterterrorism after 2001 meant resources dedicated to Chinese organized crime dwindled — while the power of the underworld grew.

And the shadow of the Chinese state hovers over it all….

Read it all.

Officials estimate the value of the illegal marijuana market grown in Oklahoma at somewhere between $18 billion and $44 billion a year.

Investigators have found links to foreign mafias and say that more than 80% of the groups are of Chinese origin. https://t.co/A4WKYfaCet

— ProPublica (@propublica) March 16, 2024

Silence. Last September, when I visited a makeshift hospital in Adré, Chad, where young Sudanese refugees were being treated for acute malnutrition, that was all I heard: an eerie silence.

I had tried to prepare myself for the wails of children who were sick and emaciated, but these patients were too weak to even cry. That day, I saw a 6-month-old baby who was the size of a newborn and a child whose ankles were swollen, and whose body was blistered, from severe malnourishment.

It was equal parts newly horrific and tragically familiar.

Twenty years earlier I had visited the same town and met with Sudanese refugees who fled violence in Darfur, where the janjaweed militia, with backing from Omar al-Bashir’s brutal authoritarian regime, carried out a genocidal campaign of mass killing, rape and pillage.

Read it all.

Even after aid groups designated Sudan's humanitarian crisis to be among the world's worst, little attention or help has gone to the Sudanese people.

The world’s silence and inaction need to end, and end now.

My piece in the @nytimes ⬇️https://t.co/ie90VMmIzX

— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) March 18, 2024

A new study highlights the psychological and neurological benefits of interacting with dogs, revealing that activities such as playing and walking with dogs enhance brain wave strengths linked to relaxation and concentration. This research moves beyond general observations by using EEG technology to quantify the brain’s electrical activity during eight distinct dog-related activities, including grooming, playing, and feeding.

The findings indicate significant reductions in stress, depression, and fatigue following these interactions. This nuanced understanding of how different activities impact well-being could inform more effective animal-assisted therapies.

Read it all.

Paws for Thought: Dog Interaction Boosts Brainwaves and Relaxation – https://t.co/bs1iMfM8mc via @neurosciencenew <– Most dog owners know this when they interact with their canine family and friends

— Bob Choat (@BobChoat) March 15, 2024

Increasing the number of stipendiary priests in the diocese of Truro is the “top operational priority”, the Acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, who is the Bishop of St Germans, said this week.

His comments followed claims by the campaign group Save the Parish Cornwall (STP) that the number of stipendiary priests in the diocese had fallen to 38, and that there were 19 vacancies to be filled. The group says that the diocese is “struggling to recruit new priests to undertake the unrealistic roles proposed by the restructuring plans — in particular ‘oversight ministers’ . . . in giant benefices”.

A diocesan spokeswoman said this week that there were 58 stipendiary clergy in post at the end of last month, including incumbent-status clergy, assistant curates, and archdeacons. In addition, eight new appointments had been made in the past three months. The plan was to increase the number of stipendiary clergy to about 85, “dependent on clergy being attracted to our posts”.

Read it all.

Increasing the number of stipendiary priests in the diocese of Truro is the “top operational priority”, the Acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, who is the Bishop of St Germans, said this week https://t.co/Xg8Zz5KOH7

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 15, 2024

Two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is restructuring and expanding the country’s military in anticipation of a conflict with NATO within the next 10 years, Estonia’s foreign and military intelligence chiefs said in an interview on Wednesday.

Contrary to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expectation of seizing the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in a matter of days, the first months of the invasion revealed profound shortcomings in Russian military planning as poorly equipped troops foundered in the face of fierce resistance by the Ukrainian armed forces. Experts as well as U.S. and foreign officials were quick to declare the Russian army a paper tiger.

“The Kremlin often claimed it had the second-strongest military in the world,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech last June. “Today, many see Russia’s military as the second-strongest in Ukraine.”

But as the war enters its third year, Putin is looking increasingly confident. His main political rival, Alexei Navalny, is dead; vital U.S. military aid to Ukraine is stalled in Congress; and Russia has shifted its economy to a war footing, fueling defense production and economic growth in defiance of international sanctions.

Read it all.

Moscow is rebuilding its military in anticipation of a conflict with NATO in the next decade, Estonian officials warn. https://t.co/Xun0nsVFtd

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) March 15, 2024

Kali Gaddie was a college senior when the pandemic abruptly upended her life plans—and made her part of a big and deeply unhappy political force that figures to play a huge role in the 2024 election season.

Her graduation was postponed, she was let go from her college job and her summer internship got canceled. She spent the final months of school taking online classes from her parents’ house. “You would think that there’s a plan B or a safety net,” she said. “But there’s actually not.”

Today, Gaddie, 25, works as an office manager in Atlanta earning less than $35,000 a year. In her spare time, she uploads videos to TikTok, where she’s amassed thousands of followers. Now, that’s at risk of being taken away too. All of this has left her dejected and increasingly skeptical of politicians.

Young adults in Generation Z—those born in 1997 or after—have emerged from the pandemic feeling more disillusioned than any living generation before them, according to long-running surveys and interviews with dozens of young people around the country. They worry they’ll never make enough money to attain the security previous generations have achieved, citing their delayed launch into adulthood, an impenetrable housing market and loads of student debt.

Read it all.

Young adult Gen Z voters are more disillusioned and pessimistic than any before. More here, including charts from *Generations*:https://t.co/bU8xNjCd9j

— Jean Twenge (author of GENERATIONS, iGEN) (@jean_twenge) March 15, 2024

Ezekiel lays much blame for the Israelites’ deserving punishment on the moral failings of their leaders. More directly, however, it was the political failings of their leaders that sealed the fate of all their people. The Judean kings could have heeded the call of the prophet Jeremiah and surrendered to King Nebuchadnezzar; they decided otherwise, and everyone endured the consequences. The political solidarity of a nation compels them to share the same fate. Even when only soldiers are targeted, noncombatants will die alongside them.

None of this means that one should target enemy noncombatants. The realities and obligations of our shared collective fate, however, dictate that one prioritize one’s own soldiers and citizens while worrying less about those who share another people’s destiny.

These two primary factors—our obligation to protect our own citizens and our filial duties to our brethren—come together when addressing the dilemma of involuntary human shields. If, at the end of the day, an army won’t attack certain legitimate targets because of collateral damage, then the terrorist group will use human shields to prevent their defeat. It’s hard to achieve a decisive victory when you cannot—or will not allow yourself—to destroy the enemy. Yes, guided missiles and other advanced technologies allow for greater precise targeting. Nonetheless, in the fog of war, it is impossible to achieve “immaculate warfare,” especially when the defenders are daring you to kill their human shields.

Ultimately, the defeat of these terrorist groups is the primary ethical imperative. This will benefit not only Israel but also the Gazan civilians who suffer longer under their terrorist leaders and the continuous warfare that they breed. There is a moral cost to not acting decisively, and a strategic cost to forgetting the moral justification for killing in war.

Read it all.

The West Has Forgotten Why Collateral Damage Is Morally Justified https://t.co/wfD6JfYre8

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) March 15, 2024

Robinson’s reading is full of telling details and keenly observed parallels. This enables her to show that what Jews term the binding of Isaac is not a test of Abraham’s faith, but a prohibition of the child sacrifice that occurred in some other cultures, for example in Carthage. Although she is familiar with biblical scholarship and makes use of it where necessary, this work is best seen as a close, attentive reading from a literary point of view. In her approach there is something of the sense of astonishment and marvel that is present in her novels. About the first words of Genesis she writes, “When I think there was a day when a human hand first wrote those words, I am filled with awe. This sentence is a masterpiece of compression.”

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,” Hamlet said to Horatio. That is the conviction that controls the narrative of Genesis, culminating in its closing, when Joseph says to the brothers who tried to murder him, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

Robinson makes few concessions to the reader. There is no introduction or conclusion; there are no chapter headings or signposts. She just wants her audience to look again at Genesis and see what they make of it.

Read it all.

Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson review – rich literary reading of the first book of the Bible https://t.co/oBAzmJviaq

— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) March 13, 2024

…there is one reason why America’s crackdown is justified. TikTok has evolved into a broad media platform with 170m users in America alone. A third of American adults under 30 consider TikTok a source not just of entertainment but of news. It is therefore a real concern that it has links to China, whose government is in deep ideological conflict with the West and sees the media as a tool of propaganda.

Most countries place some restrictions on foreign ownership of old media (ask Rupert Murdoch, who became an American citizen before taking over Fox). A bid by Abu Dhabi’s ruling family for the Telegraph newspaper prompted Britain to announce this week that it will ban foreign governments from owning British publications. Yet TikTok is fast becoming more influential.

It is time for governments to apply the same logic to new media as they do to old. If anything, the new platforms require greater vigilance. A newspaper’s editorial line can be seen in black and white; by contrast, every TikTok user gets a different feed, and the company does not provide adequate tools to examine its output in aggregate. Even if studies suggest bias—some allege a skew in TikTok’s Gaza coverage, for instance—it is impossible to know whether TikTok’s algorithm is responding to users’ preferences, or to manipulation from Beijing.

Read it all.

The best outcome is one in which TikTok survives. But that requires separating such a prominent platform from the influence of a country as manipulative and ideological as China https://t.co/GfNCoDEGZm 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 13, 2024

Scientists have used artificial intelligence to illuminate the human body’s so-called dark genome and develop a potentially powerful new approach to cancer detection, monitoring and treatment.  

Investigators at Johns Hopkins University in the US have revealed how previously little-studied repeats of genetic code sequences — known as “junk DNA” or dark matter — are associated with tumours.

The research, published in Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday, shows how AI and other advanced computing technologies are deepening understanding of diseases and how to deal with them.    

“It’s like a grand unveiling of what’s behind the curtain,” said Victor Velculescu, co-author of the paper and an oncology professor at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel cancer centre, adding that it will “lead to new therapies, new diagnostics and new screening approaches for cancer”.

Read it all.

AI explores ‘dark genome’ to shed light on cancer growth https://t.co/4OVG0SmlY7

— Financial Times (@FT) March 13, 2024

Jessie Thompson, a 36-year-old mother of two in Chicago, is reminded of the Covid-19 pandemic every day.

Sometimes it happens when she picks up her children from day care and then lets them romp around at a neighborhood park on the way home. Other times, it’s when she gets out the shower at 7 a.m. after a weekday workout.

“I always think: In my past life, I’d have to be on the train in 15 minutes,” said Ms. Thompson, a manager at United Airlines.

A hybrid work schedule has replaced her daily commute to the company headquarters in downtown Chicago, giving Ms. Thompson more time with her children and a deeper connection to her neighbors. “The pandemic is such a negative memory,” she said. “But I have this bright spot of goodness from it.”

Read it all.

"I see it in people’s anger, in people’s aggressive driving,” he said. “It just seems that there’s a lot of unhappiness and rage in the world right now. And I think a lot of that goes back to the lockdown." (via @nytimes) https://t.co/zM1Ov3GECc

— John Gramlich (@johngramlich) March 13, 2024

Bishop Chip Edgar called the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina to exercise hospitality in his address to the 2024 Convention. The event, which drew more than 300 clergy, delegates and guests to the Cross Schools in Bluffton, was held March 8-9.

“If we are true to our nature as the people God has called to himself, keeping our blessings to ourselves is not an option,” he said.

He urged those present to be ready to welcome the stranger.  “People by the thousands continue to move to South Carolina… Many are unchurched, and study after study suggests that unchurched folks are more likely to visit a church plant than an established church,” he said. “But many are churched, too, and churched folks are more likely to look for churches. To be hospitable, we have to both strengthen our existing churches and plant new ones.”

He made three proposals: “One, that we continue to encourage deaneries to work together to strategize church planting, and we set the goal for ourselves to add a new congregation to our diocese each year going forward; two, we reestablish our Congregational Development Committee to help our existing congregations; and three, that we, as a diocese, continue to raise up and emphasize the ministry and work of deacons in our diocese.”

Read it all.

Join us this Sunday, July 23, 2023 as we, in The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, pray for Bishop Chip Edgar and Bishop Emeritus Mark Lawrence as they begin their summer respites. #ACNA #ADOSC pic.twitter.com/ipSeFrsA13

— Anglican Diocese of SC (@anglican_sc) July 21, 2023

Commercial nuclear fusion has gone from science fiction to science fact in less than a decade. Even well-informed members of the West’s political class are mostly unaware of the quantum leap in superconductors, lasers, and advanced materials suddenly changing the economics of fusion power.

Britain’s First Light Fusion announced last week that it had broken the world record for pressure at the Sandia National Laboratories in the US, pushing the boundary to 1.85 terapascal, five times the pressure at the core of the Earth.

Days earlier, a clutch of peer-reviewed papers confirmed that Commonwealth Fusion Systems near Boston had broken the world record for a large-scale magnet with a field strength of 20 tesla using the latest high-temperature superconducting technology. This exceeds the threshold necessary for producing net energy, or a “Q factor”, above 1.0.

“Overnight, it basically changed the cost per watt of a fusion reactor by a factor of almost 40,” said Professor Dennis Whyte, plasma doyen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Read it all.

Nuclear fusion for the grid is coming much sooner than you think https://t.co/P26xF1Q4mT

— Dr. Daniel Stelter (@thinkBTO) March 13, 2024

During the next year, the United States faces an increasingly fragile global order strained by accelerating strategic competition among major powers, more intense and unpredictable transnational challenges, and multiple regional conflicts with far-reaching implications. An ambitious but anxious China, a confrontational Russia, some regional powers, such as Iran, and more capable non-state actors are challenging longstanding rules of the international system as well as U.S. primacy within it. Simultaneously, new technologies, fragilities in the public health sector, and environmental changes are more frequent, often have global impact and are harder to forecast…The world that emerges from this tumultuous period will be shaped by whoever offers the most persuasive arguments for how the world should be governed, how societies should be organized, and which systems are most effective at advancing economic growth and providing benefits for more people.

—Read it all.

The Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community notes that the Chinese state-owned media targeted American political candidates on TikTok in the 2022 Midterms. Here's our investigation on how these accounts generated tens of million views https://t.co/yqNJHItzE7 pic.twitter.com/QIEhtnFzvQ

— Iain Martin (@_IainMartin) March 12, 2024

Russia appears on track to produce nearly three times more artillery munitions than the US and Europe, a key advantage ahead of what is expected to be another Russian offensive in Ukraine later this year.

Russia is producing about 250,000 artillery munitions per month, or about 3 million a year, according to NATO intelligence estimates of Russian defense production shared with CNN, as well as sources familiar with Western efforts to arm Ukraine. Collectively, the US and Europe have the capacity to generate only about 1.2 million munitions annually to send to Kyiv, a senior European intelligence official told CNN.

The US military set a goal to produce 100,000 rounds of artillery a month by the end of 2025 — less than half of the Russian monthly output — and even that number is now out of reach with $60 billion in Ukraine funding stalled in Congress, a senior Army official told reporters last week.

Read it all.

Exclusive: Russia producing three times more artillery shells than US and Europe for Ukraine https://t.co/7Q2OG8b0V3

— Harmine Pak M.D (@PakHarmine) March 12, 2024

The Government’s new definition of extremism is likely to “vilify the wrong people” by threatening freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have warned.

In a joint statement published on Tuesday afternoon, Archbishops Welby and Cottrell said that the plan also “risks disproportionately targeting Muslim communities, who are already experiencing rising levels of hate and abuse”.

Their statement pre-empts an announcement, expected on Thursday, in which the Communities Secretary, Michael Gove, plans to broaden the official definition of extremism to include individuals and groups who “undermine the UK’s system of liberal democracy” — and ban them from public life.

Read it all.

The Government’s new definition of extremism is likely to “vilify the wrong people” by threatening freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have warned https://t.co/T87MOTD9eg

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 12, 2024

A novel therapy designed to clear toxic clumps of a protein thought to be responsible for Parkinson’s disease has shown promise in early clinical trials.

Produced by the US biotechnology company Vaxxinity, the immunotherapy candidate codenamed UB-312 is the first treatment shown to be capable of reducing concentrations of alpha-synuclein (α-syn) in cerebrospinal fluid, marking a significant step forward in slowing – or even halting – the disorder’s progress.

Though the results of the trial are yet to be published and peer reviewed, reports from company officials are optimistic, suggesting they’re onto something big.

Read it all.

"Analysis of the spinal fluid of those given UB-312 revealed a 20 percent drop in their usual α-syn aggregate levels, compared with a 3 percent decline in those who received a placebo."#Parkinsons#longcovid https://t.co/BAdtKw2Dj8

— Troy Roach (@Canal1point5) March 12, 2024

Feelings of financial insecurity among Americans have reached their highest point in at least a decade.

A third of American adults in Northwestern Mutual’s 2024 Planning & Progress survey said they don’t feel financially secure. That’s up from 27% in 2023 and the highest measure going back to 2012.

“Despite the growing economy, Americans have had to endure one financial disruption after another over the last several years, and it’s hard to feel positive when you don’t know what’s around the corner,” said Christian Mitchell, the company’s chief customer officer, in a press release.

Read it all.

Feeling financially insecure is becoming way too common an emotion/a reality. After so many fin'l twists and turns since Covid, stability doesn't sound boring, it sounds like a luxury.https://t.co/52Hk65ETV1

— Suzanne Woolley (@WealthWatch) March 11, 2024

The Church of England in Lancashire has achieved an important milestone in developing its environmental credentials.

The Diocese of Blackburn has been awarded the Bronze status of the national A Rocha Eco Church programme, which encourages churches, schools and dioceses throughout the UK to take practical action in ‘caring for God’s Creation’.

The collective award follows individual bronze awards for Blackburn Cathedral; the Diocesan Offices in Blackburn and the Centre for Christian Discipleship and Prayer at Whalley Abbey, along with 15 parishes in their own right across Lancashire. A further three churches in the Diocese have already achieved silver status; while another 36 have registered and are working towards their bronze status.

Read it all.

Congratulations to @cofelancs on their Bronze Eco Diocese! #Ecochurchhttps://t.co/pECAWKNI6y

— Church of England Environment Programme (@CofEEnvironment) March 11, 2024

“In the past 10 years we have seen more than 17 mass kidnappings. It’s a bad record for any country and government, a total breakdown of the social contract,” regional security expert David Otto told CBS News over the weekend about the situation in Nigeria. “Most of the victims are women in these attacks, and when you attack women you have attacked society. The attacks of the last week — when 200-plus people are just taken — show after two decades of fighting insurgency, the government is still unable to protect society from terrorist groups.”

Otto spoke as the parents of more than 280 children voiced their anger over a mass abduction in Nigeria’s northern Kaduna state. The students, boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 15, were seized by armed men from the elementary and secondary schools in the town of Kuriga on Thursday.

The parents told local media outlets that bandits, as kidnap gangs in the region are commonly called, had taken their children and they implored Nigeria’s government to pay any ransom being demanded to secure their safe return.

Read it all.

The death certificate for Ryan Bagwell, a 19-year-old from Mission, Texas, states that he died from a fentanyl overdose.

His mother, Sandra Bagwell, says that is wrong.

On an April night in 2022, he swallowed one pill from a bottle of Percocet, a prescription painkiller that he and a friend bought earlier that day at a Mexican pharmacy just over the border. The next morning, his mother found him dead in his bedroom.

A federal law enforcement lab found that none of the pills from the bottle tested positive for Percocet. But they all tested positive for lethal quantities of fentanyl.

“Ryan was poisoned,” Mrs. Bagwell, an elementary-school reading specialist, said.

Read it all.

Overdose or Poisoning? A New Debate Over What to Call a Drug Death.: Grieving families want official records and popular discourse to move away from reflexive use of “overdose,” which they believe blames victims for their deaths. https://t.co/EE9BNjgr23

— Sophia Devetzi (@SophiaDevetzi) March 11, 2024

Scientists have identified a key protein in the development of Alzheimer’s disease which could prove critical in slowing or even halting the condition’s progress.

In tests on mice, a research team led by University of Colorado pharmacologist Tyler Martinez found that blocking a protein called murine double-minute 2 (Mdm2) stopped the destruction of the protrusions or ‘dendritic spines’ and junctions (synapses) that aid communication between brain cells.

This degeneration is triggered by the build-up of a substance called amyloid-beta, which has long been linked to clogging up the brain in people with Alzheimer’s. When Mdm2 was deactivated, amyloid-beta no longer had the same effect.

Read it all.

Blocking a Single Protein Could Prevent Nerve Damage Responsible For Alzheimer's https://t.co/k4zF5jT2Ly

— ScienceAlert (@ScienceAlert) March 7, 2024

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.

In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction. Texas, where electricity shortages are already routine on hot summer days, faces the same dilemma.

Read it all.

Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power: "Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned & under construction" https://t.co/3xMbdmO7om pic.twitter.com/NbZFwDGgVB

— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) March 8, 2024

War broke out in August and in September 1914 Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy wrote these words in his parish magazine:

“I cannot say too strongly that I believe every able-bodied man ought to volunteer for service anywhere. Here ought to be no shirking of that duty.”

This from the man who would, before long be writing this, “Waste”:

“Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste of Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the Saints have trod,
Waste of glory, Waste of God–War!”

Read it all.

The Church of England also commemorates Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy, Priest, Poet, 1929

Photo of a memorial to Rev Studdert-Kennedy in the Church of St Edmund-the-King, Lombard Street, City of London via https://t.co/NhBvBSw9Hf pic.twitter.com/OjfwZe4pWI

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 8, 2024