This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for mee.
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?
It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes?
Could I behold that endlesse height which is
Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood which is
The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,
Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne
By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne?

Read it all.

Mikhail Nesterov – Crucifixion, 1908 pic.twitter.com/9WOnc8qcBW

— Fr. David Abernethy ☦️ (@philokalia_min) June 25, 2021

Il Guercino's dramatic "Capturing Christ" (1621) @FitzMuseum_UK #art #twitart #Baroque pic.twitter.com/8LoBr5ptCs

— Paul Wadey (@pwadey) October 26, 2016

St. Peter once: ‘Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?’-
Much more I say: Lord, dost Thou stand and knock
At my closed heart more rugged than a rock,
Bolted and barred, for Thy soft touch unmeet,
Nor garnished nor in any wise made sweet?
Owls roost within and dancing satyrs mock.
Lord, I have heard the crowing of the cock
And have not wept: ah, Lord, thou knowest it.
Yet still I hear Thee knocking, still I hear:
‘Open to Me, look on Me eye to eye,
That I may wring thy heart and make it whole;
And teach thee love because I hold thee dear
And sup with thee in gladness soul with soul
And sup with thee in glory by and by.’

–Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Portrait of a bearded man as an Apostle (Saint Peter) Pier Francesco Mola. @zigut @sofia_pinzi @45lefia @silvia_nader pic.twitter.com/Hi41L2vdNX

— 🎨 Bel Art – Orlando Fernández — 🎨🎼 (@ofervi) February 9, 2014

The Kiss of Judas. Christ is betrayed, and arrested. Painted panel wood, probably from an East Anglian rood screen, of c1470 now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. On the right, Peter draws his sword to cut off the high priest's servant's ear. pic.twitter.com/a3q7A3KRbm

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) March 28, 2024

The artificial-intelligence boom is sending Silicon Valley’s talent wars to new extremes.

Tech companies are serving up million-dollar-a-year compensation packages, accelerated stock-vesting schedules and offers to poach entire engineering teams to draw people with expertise and experience in the kind of generative AI that is powering ChatGPT and other humanlike bots. They are competing against each other and against startups vying to be the next big thing to unseat the giants.

The offers stand out even by the industry’s relatively lavish past standards of outsize pay and perks. And the current AI talent shortage stands out for another reason: It is happening as layoffs are continuing in other areas of tech and as companies have been reallocating resources to invest more in covering the enormous cost of developing AI technology.

“There is a secular shift in what talents we’re going after,” says Naveen Rao, head of Generative AI at Databricks. “We have a glut of people on one side and a shortage on the other.”

Read it all.

“There is a secular shift in what talents we’re going after,” says Naveen Rao, head of Generative AI at Databricks. “We have a glut of people on one side [in tech] & a shortage on the other” https://t.co/yfHihwU937

— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) March 27, 2024

When LaVonne Collette’s adult daughter, Tamra, needed a place to stay during the pandemic after being evicted, Ms. Collette let her live in a rental property she owns in Los Angeles not far from Venice Beach. That didn’t go well.

Tamra began hoarding, stuffing the house with clothing and other items collected from charities. Ms. Collette saw signs of drug use and growing paranoia, and Tamra said she believed she was living among ghosts.

“She was telling me that my house was haunted and showing me pictures, and I would hear her screaming,” said Ms. Collette, who recounted her daughter’s behavior in documents filed in court.

Sensing in 2022 that the situation would only worsen, Ms. Collette asked her daughter to leave the house and bought her an R.V., in which she lived for a time near a creek on the west side of Los Angeles. That was better, Ms. Collette figured, than her daughter living in a tent or cardboard box. But the troubles continued. Last year, Tamra carjacked her mother outside a convenience store, her mother said in the court documents.

Read it all.

New California Court for the Mentally Ill Tests State’s Liberal Values. To confront the crises of #homelessness and mental illness, state has passed laws that could violate the civil liberties of those suffering on the streets, by @tarangoNYT https://t.co/DQvVniIZDb @nytimes

— André Picard (@picardonhealth) March 21, 2024

Degrees in philosophy and religious studies are to be “phased out” at the University of Kent, it was announced last week.

Courses in anthropology, art history, health and social care, journalism, music, and audio technology are also to be dropped, in part because the university believes that it can no longer compete in these specialisms, but more generally because of recent “financial challenges including the fixed tuition fee, rising costs, and changes in student behaviour”.

The changes are part of its Kent 2030 plan, “which brings together a range of improvements based on suggestions from our students”, a press release circulated last week says. Students on the courses to be phased out will be taught and supervised until the end of their degrees.

Read it all.

Degrees in philosophy and religious studies are to be “phased out” at the University of Kent, it was announced last week https://t.co/pHmnywcy8G

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 28, 2024

Less than a year after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan following the US’s chaotic 2021 withdrawal, President Joe Biden vowed the country that once harboured Osama bin Laden would “never again . . . become a terrorist safe haven”.

Yet a surge in international terrorist threats linked to Afghanistan is raising alarm among governments that the country that once sheltered the masterminds of the September 11, 2001 attacks is again becoming a hotspot for jihadi groups with global ambitions.

Western officials blamed Islamic State-Khorasan Province, the Afghan-based affiliate of the Middle Eastern extremist group and bitter enemy of the Taliban, for last week’s attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed at least 137 people.

The Taliban has fought a bloody counterinsurgency campaign against Isis-K since coming to power, but analysts said the jihadist group gained substantial strength following the US withdrawal and more recently has ramped up its international activity. Isis-K was also linked to bombings in Iran in January that killed nearly 100 people, an attack on a church in Turkey the same month, and a foiled plot last week to attack Sweden’s parliament that authorities said may have been directed from Afghanistan.

Read it all.

Recent terrorist attacks by Isis-K are raising alarm that Afghanistan is again becoming a hotspot for jihadi groups with global ambitions.

https://t.co/4J2IqZWKrC

— Mike Walker (@New_Narrative) March 27, 2024

Mark Kelly of Recorded Future, a cyber-security firm, says his company is aware of about 50 hacking groups in China, including private firms working for the mss or People’s Liberation Army. There are undoubtedly many more. Mr Kelly describes China’s cyber-espionage efforts as “orders of magnitude” greater in scale than those mounted by Russia or North Korea.

As the indictment shows, they are surprisingly devolved. Some of them specialise in spying on different parts of the world, says Nigel Inkster, a former deputy head of Britain’s spy agency, mi6. They have considerable leeway to do as they wish, he says: “I’m not even sure that there is any kind of formal political clearance mechanism.” Much of their work is subcontracted to private firms. Last month a huge online dump of documents from one such company, i-Soon, showed its involvement in large-scale cyber-snooping on behalf of a variety of government agencies.

The West’s anxieties, not least about the hackers’ theft of corporate data, are becoming increasingly manifest. In January the head of the fbi, Christopher Wray, said that China’s state-sponsored hackers outnumbered his agency’s cyber-personnel by “at least 50 to one”. He added that China’s hackers are laying the groundwork for a possible Chinese strike, “positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities.”

Read it all.

The West’s anxieties about Chinese cyber-espionage are becoming increasingly manifest. But if it hopes that naming, shaming and sanctions will dissuade the spooks, it is likely to be disappointed https://t.co/MnQGij3lds 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 27, 2024

Daniel Kahneman, an Israeli American psychologist and best-selling author whose Nobel Prize-winning research upended economics — as well as fields ranging from sports to public health — by demonstrating the extent to which people abandon logic and leap to conclusions, died March 27. He was 90.

His death was confirmed by his stepdaughter Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker. She did not say where or how he died.

Dr. Kahneman’s research was best known for debunking the notion of “homo economicus,” the “economic man” who since the epoch of Adam Smith was considered a rational being who acts out of self-interest. Instead, Dr. Kahneman found, people rely on intellectual shortcuts that often lead to wrongheaded decisions that go against their own best interest.

These misguided decisions occur because humans “are much too influenced by recent events,” Dr. Kahneman once said. “They are much too quick to jump to conclusions under some conditions and, under other conditions, they are much too slow to change.”

Read it all.

Daniel Kahneman, who changed psychology and economics forever, dies at 90.

Thanks for everything.

We remember him in 10 great quotes: pic.twitter.com/kiyhC2kCo3

— Wisdom Theory (@wisdom_theory) March 27, 2024

You may listen directly here
or you may download it on spotify there.

An early 16th century representation of Christ on the back of a donkey. Part of the collections at the Bode Museum in Berlin. #PalmSunday 📸 My own. pic.twitter.com/AauiId9Lpf

— Kevin Wilbraham (@KPW1453) March 24, 2024

I had not read Thielicke for many years until I recently discovered a book of his that I had never heard of: Nihilism: Its Origin and Nature, with a Christian Answer. This work is stunning, for it identifies the problem at the center of our contemporary culture: a collapse in the cultural consensus about what it means to be human. The book’s context is the anthropological challenges posed by Nazism and Marxism in the twentieth century, but its argument offers insights for today.

At the heart of the problems of his day Thielicke saw the rejection of two basic principles: the idea that human beings had an end, a telos; and the notion that limits were good. In short, what it meant to be human was up for grabs. In practice, this made human beings anything that their will could achieve, given the technological possibilities available in any given time or place. And that was a key component of nihilism.

We have witnessed amazing technological advances since the 1940s. The transformation of humanity from a given, limited, teleological essence to a potency whose limits and ends are merely technical problems to be overcome is now complete (at least in the cultural imagination). Ironically, human technical brilliance has served to make human beings into nothing of any great significance. We are the only creatures on the planet who are intelligent and intentional enough to have abolished ourselves.

Read it all.

This is fantastic from @firstthingsmag https://t.co/IS26rEGPG6

— Scott Howard (@ConservaMuse) March 18, 2024

As perhaps the ultimate job with purpose, careers in the church are enjoying a second coming.

In a world of zero-hours contracts and corporate greed, doing God’s work is an increasingly attractive option for those seeking a meaningful role making a difference to communities locally and worldwide. Two factors have combined to resurrect interest in church employment.

Firstly, ageing congregations and the rapid rise in female employment means there are fewer volunteers to take on local roles. A recent study suggested the average age of the church’s worshipping community was 61, but many congregations’ members are still in employment and unable to volunteer….

Secondly, modernising moves such as the Church of England’s £30 million net-zero carbon programme and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have aligned the church to corporate workplaces, making it simpler for those with transferable skills to make the move into ministry.

Read it all (subscription).

'ageing congregations & the rapid rise in female employment means there are fewer volunteers to take on local roles

…With one in five churches missing people in key positions, some parishes are moving certain roles… to paid support staff'@thetimes https://t.co/x9dldFTerM

— Rebecca (Bex) Chapman (@bexchapman3boys) March 22, 2024

The Princess of Wales says she is in the early stages of treatment after a cancer diagnosis.

In a video statement, Catherine says it was a “huge shock” after an “incredibly tough couple of months”.

But she sent a positive message, saying: “I am well and getting stronger every day.”

Details of the cancer have not been disclosed, but Kensington Palace says it is confident the princess will make a full recovery.

Read it all.

Everyone at Westminster Abbey wishes The Princess of Wales well following the news of her cancer diagnosis.

The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, said: 'In the face of this news, it is our hope that Her Royal Highness will feel sustained by the love that… pic.twitter.com/mtBkNyF5tx

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) March 22, 2024

Gunmen in Nigeria opened the New Year 2024 by killing 14 Christians on their way home from a midnight church service. The attack rocked the country’s Christian community, still reeling from a Christmas Eve massacre that claimed the lives of 130 believers. These attacks are just the latest in a disturbing trend of increasing violence against Christians in Nigeria, which some are calling a genocide.

Since the year 2000, 62,000 Christians have been murdered in Nigeria, prompting President Trump to place Nigeria on its list of violators of religious freedom. Biden removed Nigeria from the list, and last year alone, more than 8,000 Christians were killed.

In a report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, between January 2022 and January 2023, 8,400 Christians were abducted, 840 of whom never returned alive from captivity. Many of these abductions have been attributed to the military and the police, some to Islamic Terror Jihadists, while others have been attributed to Fulani militias, who are also accused of having killed 600 captives. Priests and seminarians have been abducted, churches destroyed, Christian communities have been sacked, and millions of Christians and targeted Muslims have been displaced, either becoming internally displaced people (IDPs) or crossing international borders to become refugees.

Read it all.

Violence in Nigeria against Christians by groups like Boko Haram is continuing unabated. @Brooklynmonk https://t.co/hoRvPzBTcg

— Providence (@ProvMagazine) March 21, 2024

A team led by Google scientists has developed a machine-learning tool that can help to detect and monitor health conditions by evaluating noises such as coughing and breathing. The artificial intelligence (AI) system, trained on millions of audio clips of human sounds, might one day be used by physicians to diagnose diseases including COVID-19 and tuberculosis and to assess how well a person’s lungs are functioning.

This is not the first time a research group has explored using sound as a biomarker for disease. The concept gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, when scientists discovered that it was possible to detect the respiratory disease through a person’s cough.

What’s new about the Google system — called Health Acoustic Representations (HeAR) — is the massive data set that it was trained on, and the fact that it can be fine-tuned to perform multiple tasks.

Read it all.

Google AI could soon use a person’s cough to diagnose disease

Machine-learning system trained on millions of human audio clips shows promise for detecting COVID-19 and tuberculosis. @marilenharo https://t.co/SyYt96CPk1

— Ashis Basu 🇨🇦 (@BasuAshis) March 22, 2024

To maintain and expand military families as an asset for the sustainment of the All-Volunteer Force, it is critical to address declining likelihood to recommend military service. The proportion of active-duty family respondents who were likely to recommend military service has dropped by nearly half from 2016, when
it was 55% to just 32% in 2023.

Furthermore, the proportion who were unlikely to recommend military service has more than doubled from 15% in 2016 to 31% in 2023.

Read it all.

The results of the 2023 Military Family Lifestyle Survey are here! Join the #BlueStarFamilies researchers in our virtual Data Deep Dive event on March 21st from 1 — 2 PM ET. Our team will break down this year’s findings. https://t.co/9jDWLo0n7e

— craig newmark (@craignewmark) March 14, 2024

First the cartel cut its teeth with drug trafficking. Then avocados, real estate and construction companies. Now, a Mexican criminal group known for its brutality is moving in on seniors and their timeshares.

The operation is relatively simple. Cartel employees posing as sales representatives call up timeshare owners, offering to buy their investments back for generous sums. They then demand upfront fees for anything from listing advertisements to paying government fines. The representatives persuade their victims to wire large amounts of money to Mexico — sometimes as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars — and then they disappear.

The scheme has netted the cartel, Jalisco New Generation, hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly, via dozens of call centers in Mexico that relentlessly target American and Canadian timeshare owners. They even bribe employees at Mexican resorts to leak guest information, the U.S. officials say.

Read it all.

“Over 5 years, American timeshare owners were bilked out of $288 million. The real number is most likely $350 million, as about 20% never register a complaint.”

A Mexican Drug Cartel’s New Target? Seniors and Their Timeshares https://t.co/DAKwfJwE37

— Dan Beucke (@DanBeucke) March 21, 2024

Debi Lucas had a tremor in her arm. Her feet froze when she tried to walk and she fell into her coffee table, busting her lip.

She went to a neurologist who thought she had Parkinson’s disease. Doctors normally diagnose the neurodegenerative condition by symptoms. Lucas, 59, had them.

But the neurologist, Dr. Jason Crowell, couldn’t be sure. The symptoms might be related to a traumatic brain injury Lucas suffered in a car accident decades earlier, he thought. Or they might be from her medications.

To find an answer, Crowell turned to a new test: a skin biopsy that can detect an abnormal protein people with Parkinson’s have inside their nerves. He took samples of skin near her ankle, knee and shoulder and sent them to a lab.

Read it all.

Parkinson’s disease can now be diagnosed with a skin biopsy that can detect an abnormal protein people with Parkinson’s have inside their nerves.

“The skin test basically is a window into the brain." https://t.co/rxT0u9XL6A https://t.co/rxT0u9XL6A

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 21, 2024

Wright takes us through Romans 8 as a summary of the whole letter and of Paul’s theology more widely, and finds it to be about a call to become genuine human beings by being filled with God’s own life.

The chapter is read as a recapitulation of the schema of Creation, Passover, Exodus, and Covenant. Not all scholars of Romans have been persuaded by the tidiness of this reading, but it is, none the less, compelling when set out in detail, and chimes with elements of patristic exegesis. Wright uses “platonism” as a shorthand for an earth/heaven dualism, but he would find allies in Christian Platonist writers who would also foreground recapitulation, the corporate dimension of salvation, and Paul’s synergism. Indeed, as Wright shows, Romans 8 is one of those passages that show that God does not like to do anything for us without us. Rather, what he does for us he does as one of us, with us, and through us.

Read it all.

"Wright takes us through Romans 8 as a summary of the whole letter and of Paul’s theology more widely, and finds it to be about a call to become genuine human beings by being filled with God’s own life." https://t.co/SSjOSFgzso

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 17, 2024

Pastors of Hispanic Protestant churches in the United States maintain immense gratitude for their role, but many face financial struggles. Their congregations reflect diverse worship styles, but they have a unified desire to reach and serve their communities.

Lifeway Research partnered with numerous denominations and church networks to survey Hispanic Protestant pastors in the United States for a study sponsored by Lifeway Recursos, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse. This study follows a Lifeway Research study of U.S. Hispanic Protestant pastors last year focused on the congregations and their evangelistic outreach.

“The response from pastors and leaders about the first study we did last year was overwhelming,” said Giancarlo Montemayor, director of global publishing for Lifeway Recursos. “The goal with this second study is to dig deeper into some of the nuances of the Hispanic church in the U.S., such as worship and outreach. We also wanted to pay close attention to the particular needs of the pastors serving in these communities who often struggle with cultural and political issues that are not present in an English-speaking church.”

Read it all.

More than 20 denominations and networks invited pastors of Hispanic congregations in the U.S. to participate in a survey describing their ministries https://t.co/v3TaHPRWcC

— Scott McConnell (@smcconn) March 20, 2024

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.

Read it all.

„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