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

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

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

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

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

Read it all.

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

— Bloomberg (@business) March 3, 2025

He was born in 1930, in San Bernardino, California. Money troubles drove the family to Illinois, where his dad ran the printing press for a local newspaper; when Gene was 13, his father walked out and didn’t come back. As a kid, Gene moved around a lot. He was rebellious, usually in trouble; he once spent a night in lockup for stealing a bottle of soda and some candy. At 16 he ran away from home and joined the Marines, lying to the recruiter about his age. He wound up in China, while still a teenager, during the last throes of the Communist revolution, and was later stationed in Japan as a field radio operator. He got discharged after a motorcycle accident, studied journalism for a while, and then—remembering the James Cagney movies his mom had taken him to see when he was a kid—decided he might like acting. How hard could it be, right? 

It took him a decade to make it. In the meantime, he crashed out of auditions, struggled to make ends meet, and got thrown out of acting school at the Pasadena Playhouse, where his classmates voted him Least Likely to Succeed. He shared the award with his buddy, a kid called Dustin Hoffman.

Hackman gets called an everyman, I suspect, partly because he didn’t have classic movie star looks, but also because his charisma, as intense as it was, was essentially the opposite of what you normally get from movie stars. He held your attention by contracting, rather than by expanding, his ego. Compare him to Cruise, his costar in The Firm. Cruise is one of the most natural movie stars the world has ever seen, and his charisma is so expansive it’s almost imperial. When he’s onscreen, he’s always striving to be the most of whatever it is he’s being: the most fighter pilot, the most superspy, the most lawyer who knows you ordered the Code Red, the most sports agent, whatever. The role, whatever it is, is like a vast space he has to fill, or like an accelerant poured over the flame of his persona. He’s always projecting Tom Cruise-ness to the outer reaches of the universe.

Hackman, by contrast, drew you in by holding back. Even when he was playing a loudmouth or a bully, he always held something in reserve, and because he was so naturally gifted, this felt like an act of generosity rather than stinginess. He didn’t have to overpower you or cow you into submission, the way Cruise or Jack Nicholson or even Humphrey Bogart might. He had a trick of making room: for you, for the story, for the world outside. There was something almost restful about watching him, because he never approached a movie like it was a battle he needed to win. 

Read it all.

Gene Hackman was a colossus who knew how to shrink into a role. The revered actor, who was found dead on Wednesday at the age of 95, was a master at drawing viewers in by holding himself back.@brianphillips: https://t.co/vmxwpPabfH

— The Ringer (@ringer) February 28, 2025

Donald Trump, seeing “a big, beautiful Ocean” between his country and the world’s problems, wants to curtail America’s responsibilities abroad. His party is also broadly keen on increasing military spending, and the Trump administration, working with Congress, has new priorities for the Pentagon.

In February several media outlets reported that Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, had ordered a $50bn cut to Pentagon spending. Yet the reported memorandum’s vague language and fuzzy maths belied the reality that Mr Hegseth was seeking cuts merely to offset new spending on “America First” programmes. The Pentagon chief vowed that the changes would make the American “military once again into the most lethal, badass force on the planet”.

Defence spending is poised to rise above levels in the Biden era, when the former president consistently requested after-inflation reductions to outlays. On February 21st the Senate approved $150bn in new defence spending, on top of the department’s existing annual budget that approaches $900bn. The following week a House bill approved $100bn. Some Hill appropriators wonder whether these big numbers will survive the give-and-take of complex spending negotiations, but it is clear that if Mr Trump is pulling back from the world, he isn’t yet pulling back on defence spending. 

Read it all.

America is set to spend more—and differently https://t.co/MY9pqNzJyp #economy #usa #governmentspending #Trumpadministration #military #technology #21stc

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 3, 2025

Martin Emil Marty, a notable former Riverside resident, religious historian and retired University of Chicago Divinity School professor, died in his Minneapolis care community on Feb. 25, 2025. He was 97. The family noted the cause of death as “old age,” though his trademark sparkle-in-the-eye and generosity of spirit remained with him to the end. 

In a 2014 column in the Landmark, JoAnne Kosey noted that Marty was returning to Riverside that January to for a Taize Prayer service at St. Mary Parish. He was to offer a personal reflection after the service. 

Kosey wrote, “Those who remember Dr. Marty from his time in Riverside might recall him walking around town, a man with a warm smile greeting those he encountered. Music was also a part of the Marty household with his wife, Harriet, being a musician.” 

Read it all.

Martin E. Marty, an eminent church historian, prolific chronicler and interpreter of religion and its role in public life, died at the age of 97 on Feb. 25 in a Minneapolis care facility where he spent his final years. https://t.co/V0X86fSuGY pic.twitter.com/tE55asTdJx

— MinistryWatch.com (@MinistryWatch) February 28, 2025

From there:

To my brothers and sisters in the Gafcon family,

The recommendations of the December 2024 Report of IASCUFO (the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order) will fail to bring about renewal in the Anglican Communion.

There is merit in the leadership of the Primates’ Council and the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) being handed over from the Archbishop of Canterbury to a rotating, international chair.

But their proposed restructure of the ‘Instruments of Communion’ fails to bring genuine renewal to our Anglican Church.

The IASCUFO recommendations weaken the foundations of our common doctrine by sanctifying the revisionist theologies of provinces and dioceses that have wandered from the truth.

They call on us to embrace the diverse theology of locally-authorised prayer books throughout the Anglican world, including those that have departed from the biblical doctrine of human sexuality expressed in our foundational 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

This only repeats and reaffirms the errors of successive Archbishops of Canterbury who failed to prevent the tearing of the fabric of the Anglican Communion by continuing to endorse those bishops and dioceses who had wandered from the truth.

To renew our Communion, we must submit to Holy Scripture.

The Bible is very clear: those who embrace immoral behaviour will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9), and if we will not trust the Bible’s teaching about sin, we cannot trust the Bible’s teaching about salvation.

Gafcon represents 85% of the world’s 85 million Anglicans, and we believe that the only ‘Instrument of Communion’ that ultimately matters is the word of God.

In two weeks’ time at our Gafcon G25 conference in Plano, Texas, we are gathering our senior leadership from around the world, along with some of our newest bishops, to consult together about how we will continue to lead the renewal of the Anglican Communion.

True unity can only be found in the faith once for all delivered to the saints, which alone can bring order to our beloved Anglican Communion, within which we steadfastly remain.

We give thanks for our brothers and sisters within the GSFA who desire that Anglicans everywhere would speak the truth in love, so that the people of all nations might believe in the Lord Jesus and be assured of their salvation.

The Most Rev’d Dr Laurent Mbanda
Chairman, Gafcon Primates Council
27th February 2025

Science fiction has long been full of robots that look, move and even think like we do. In the real world humanoid forms have, until very recently, been a nonstarter. Hard to build, expensive, slow and lumbering, they have never made sense compared with the countless other varieties of purpose-built—and vastly more affordable—robots that have multiplied rapidly in the past decade. 

That’s changing. As global demand for new kinds of robots has shot up, mass manufacturing and falling costs for components are making them cheaper to produce. Just as important, new kinds of AI—some close kin to the kind that has upended the priorities of tech companies and governments since the debut of ChatGPT—are animating robot bodies in ways that simply weren’t possible even a few years ago.

While purpose-built robots continue to proliferate, be they wheeled conveyances or dog-shaped machines carrying guns, the advantages of a body plan like ours are beginning to carve out a niche for humanoid robots. The world, after all, is built for things that look and move like we do. It’s full of stairs, gangways, shelves at shoulder height and sightlines at eye level, so hewing to the humanoid form makes it easier to slot robots into existing roles. Then there are the more subtle advantages of the human form—we can pick up heavy loads by cantilevering them over bent legs. By contrast, a robot with wheels and arms would have to have a much wider and heavier base to keep from tipping over.

More than a dozen startups worldwide are now offering humanoid robots….

Read it all.

Humanoid Robots Finally Get Real Jobs https://t.co/VIHt9364Il #myfcsi #robots #ai pic.twitter.com/0h3YUWx4jF

— William Bender, FCSI (@WmBender) February 27, 2025

The rupture of the post-1945 order is gaining pace. In extraordinary scenes at the UN this week, America sided with Russia and North Korea against Ukraine and Europe. Germany’s probable new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, warns that by June NATO may be dead. Fast approaching is a might-is-right world in which big powers cut deals and bully small ones. Team Trump claims that its dealmaking will bring peace and that, after 80 years of being taken for a ride, America will turn its superpower status into profit. Instead it will make the world more dangerous, and America weaker and poorer.

You may not be interested in the world order—but it is interested in you. America’s Don Corleone approach has been on display in Ukraine. Having initially demanded $500bn, American officials settled for a hazy deal for a joint state fund to develop Ukrainian minerals. It is unclear if America will offer security guarantees in return.

The administration is a swirl of ideas and egos but its people agree on one thing: under the post-1945 framework of rules and alliances, Americans have been suckered into unfair trade and paying for foreign wars. Mr Trump thinks he can pursue the national interest more effectively through hyperactive transactions. Everything is up for grabs: territory, technology, minerals and more. “My whole life is deals,” he explained on February 24th, after talks on Ukraine with Emmanuel Macron, the French president. Trump confidants with business skills, such as Steve Witkoff, are jetting between capitals to explore deals that link up goals, from getting Saudi Arabia to recognise Israel to rehabilitating the Kremlin.

Read it all.

A mafia-like struggle for global power has begun, with rules that do not suit America. Other countries are already planning for a lawless era https://t.co/DOIFBsgW0A pic.twitter.com/n36hVsuZir

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 27, 2025

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back 
                           Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack 
                           From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                           If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                           Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                           I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                           Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                           Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                           My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                           So I did sit and eat.

Today, the calendar in Common Worship (CofE) commemorates the Welsh-born English poet, orator and priest, George Herbert (1593-1633) with a Lesser Festival. #GeorgeHerbert pic.twitter.com/FnyhernyJY

— Mark Coughlan (@mjc0ughl4n) February 27, 2025

Our God and King, who didst call thy servant George Herbert from the pursuit of worldly honors to be a pastor of souls, a poet, and a priest in thy temple: Give unto us the grace, we beseech thee, joyfully to perform the tasks thou givest us to do, knowing that nothing is menial or common that is done for thy sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today we remember George Herbert (1593-1633), a poet and priest of the Church of England. ‘The Temple’ is a book of poems written by Herbert. His poems explore religion and spirituality, and make interesting use of the book as a form.#LambethPalaceLibrary #EasterWings #Printed pic.twitter.com/50RnN9ebza

— LambethPalaceLibrary (@lampallib) February 27, 2025

Churches such as Holy Trinity, Brompton (HTB), are better at connecting with younger generations on social media. I would much rather repost HTB’s beautifully curated content, with thought-provoking questions and soothing low-fi beats, than the C of E’s reels about Anglican history or what has been going on as the Synod sits. Recent content has highlighted the goings-on in the House of Laity, which, I think, most of my friends would assume was a new reality-TV show.

Before even getting into debates over the place of liturgy or the finer details of Anglican theology, this is a generation who still struggle with the concept of “sin” and “salvation”. The rhetoric that they remember from religious-studies lessons at school (for many, the only time when they have encountered Christianity) is that of judgement and wrath. In conversations with my friends, church has become synonymous with guilt. It is not seen as a place of community or inclusion, but of ostracism and hypocrisy. As a generation who have come of age during a pandemic and a crippling cost-of-living crisis, we are all too acquainted with the reality of a fallen world. What Gen Z are looking for is a Church that will offer them leaders with integrity and a better plan for the world.

Looking to the Gospels, both Jesus’s leadership and the hope that he offers the world seem very far from the reality of organised Christianity which my generation see in the media. The Church’s reputation in the media is so important because Gen Z church attendance is staggeringly low. They are not sitting in churches or opening the Bible: they are opening Instagram and having their views formed by the snippets of news which they see on their feeds.

Read it all.

Gen Z are open to faith — but not to the Church of England

When it comes to connecting with younger people, the Church has a communication problem, argues Abigail Kinghttps://t.co/Jj0uukXrGQ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 23, 2025

Taiwan detained a cargo ship and its eight Chinese crew members after an undersea fiber-optic cable was severed, in a stepped-up effort to police such incidents, which are often seen as part of China’s pressure campaign targeting the self-ruled island.

Taiwan’s coast guard said the incident was being handled as a national security matter and that deliberate sabotage hadn’t been ruled out. A string of such episodes has called attention to Taiwan’s vulnerability as it works to ensure that it has secure internet services to keep the island online in the event of an invasion or blockade by China.

Similar incidents elsewhere, including the cutting of data cables beneath the Baltic Sea, have brought global attention to security concerns surrounding the critical infrastructure. 

Taiwan’s coast guard said it spotted the Togo-flagged cargo vessel in the area on Saturday evening. When it dropped anchor around 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the coast guard directed the ship to move away.

Read it all.

Taiwan detained a ship and its Chinese crew after an undersea fiber-optic cable was severed https://t.co/KuiViC3ePV

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 25, 2025

The pandemic response wasn’t perfect. But the pandemic itself was real, and punishing. Above all, it revealed our vulnerability — biological, social and political. And in the aftermath of the emergency, Americans have largely looked away, choosing to see the experience less in terms of death and illness than in terms of social hysteria and even public health overreach. For many, the main lesson was that in the world of humans, as in the world of microbes, it’s dog-eat-dog out there.

But the consequences and aftershocks were also more subtle and diffuse: it isn’t easy to live in isolation and in fear, often largely online and surrounded by exceptional illness and mortality, as we watched aspects of the world and our own lives we’d long taken for granted be withdrawn or torn apart. And it isn’t easy to get over all that, however eager we thought we were to “return to normal.” We lived through as many deaths as some of the worst-case scenarios predicted, and without an initial spasm of inspiring solidarity and miraculous biomedical intervention, it could have been worse. But when we came out the other side — 1.5 million fewer of us — we were, as a country, exhausted, resentful, deluded and distrustful. A huge amount of the world in which we now reside was formed in that crucible. I will write more about that next week.

Read it all.

The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else https://t.co/431zklvB2r

— judy gitlin (@heyjudenyc) February 26, 2025

After many years of steady decline, the share of Americans who identify as Christians shows signs of leveling off – at least temporarily – at slightly above six-in-ten, according to a massive new Pew Research Center survey of 36,908 U.S. adults.

The Religious Landscape Study (RLS) is the largest single survey the Center conducts, aiming to provide authoritative figures on the size of U.S. religious groups because the U.S. census does not collect that information.

We have conducted three of these landscape surveys over the past 17 years, with more than 35,000 randomly sampled respondents each time. That’s enough to paint a statistical portrait of religion not only nationally, but also in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as in 34 large metro areas.

Read it all.

Whoa, new @pewresearch provides more evidence that the secular trajectory of American life has leveled off: "Decline of Christianity in the U.S… May Have Leveled Off" pic.twitter.com/MDsXc4zQd9

— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) February 26, 2025

Ten members of the clergy, including two bishops, could be subject to disciplinary proceedings in connection with the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, if the President of the Tribunals permits the National Safeguarding Team (NST) to bring complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) out of time.

They include a former Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, and Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury.

The announcement, made by the NST on Tuesday, concludes a four-stage process considering the actions of clergy named in the Makin review of Smyth’s abuse (News, 5 December 2024). The review culminated in recommendations by a panel; and these were reviewed by an independent barrister.

The Church House statement said that the panel had “considered the safeguarding policies and guidance which were in force at the relevant time, the facts of the particular case, the relevant legal considerations and whether there is sufficient evidence to justify proceedings”. The barrister had concurred with all of the panel’s decisions.

Read it all.

NEW: Ten members of the clergy, incl Lord Carey and Bishop Paul Butler, could be subject to disciplinary proceedings in connection with the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth. I've had a look at the ten, & context for bringing such complaints under the CDMhttps://t.co/6xdMFl6x9v

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) February 25, 2025

[Right now there are]…16 million people — that’s 6 percent ofAmerican adults — taking GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, and their collective purchasing power has the potential to profoundly reshape the economy in the coming years.

There’s evidence that the demographic of people on the drugs overlaps with those who like to spend, a group some analysts have dubbed “over consumers.” Cutting their daily calorie counts in half — or more — is resulting in all sorts of interesting consequences still coming to light.

Ozempic, and its GLP-1 cousins Mounjaro, Wegovy and Zepbound, may not be the lightbulb, jet airplane or internet, but their impact is expected to be so significant that Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, predicts that if 60 million people take the medications by 2028, GDP would be boosted by 1 percent — or several trillion dollars. Hatzius’s analysis was based primarily on the idea that healthier people mean a healthier workforce and, in turn, lower health-care costs.

But there’s a lot more to it.

Read it all.

Weight-loss drugs aren’t just slimming waists. They’re shifting the economy. https://t.co/y9Ikk6SLxr

— Nick Baumann (@NickBaumann) February 23, 2025

One in three people displaced by the war in Ukraine remain in urgent need of humanitarian aid, charities have warned on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion, on Monday.

An estimated 3.6 million people have been internally displaced in Ukraine, while 6.5 million people have fled the country to find safety elsewhere: 90 per cent of the refugees are women and children. Vital infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, has been destroyed in parts of the country. Conditions are worst along the eastern and southern frontlines.

Children are traumatised, and suffering from a lack of food and disrupted education, World Vision reports. An estimated 659 children have been killed in three years, and 1747 injured. “The emotional burden faced by Ukrainian children cannot be overlooked,” its Operations Director, Arman Grigoryan, said.

Read it all.

One in three people displaced by the war in Ukraine remain in urgent need of humanitarian aid, charities have warned on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion, on Monday https://t.co/L1wPcXQsZh pic.twitter.com/7WIc1MLm89

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 24, 2025

Christian doctors practice on the frontlines of tensions over gender dysphoria and transition. CT agreed not to use the name of one—call him Dr. J—because he doesn’t want protesters filling his northeastern US waiting room. What’s key: Dr. J resists a busy doctor’s pressure to rush through an appointment. Instead, he begins with mundane but essential questions about the patient’s social and familial history.

He’ll say, “Talk to me about what’s happened. What brought you to this place in life?” When patients express dissatisfaction with their status as men or women, Dr. J doesn’t suggest transitioning. Instead, he asks questions: “Who lives at home? How are your relationships? What do you do for a living? Have you experienced past abuse?”

Dr. J said it’s “about loving patients well, caring for them well, seeing them with God’s eyes.” Good questions help patients open up about their reasons for detaching from their male or female identity. They can form a bridge to help patients move beyond seeing medical transition as the answer to past trauma.

Dr. J. lives out what the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA) call “winsome advocacy.” CMDA senior vice president Jeff Barrows calls for encouraging “meaningful dialogue” that could lead to changed opinions. Dr. J offers medical and scriptural arguments: He explains to patients requesting gender transition hormones that up to 85 percent of youth experiencing gender dysphoria later move beyond it and also encourages them to consider God’s design for their lives.

Read it all.

God whose strength bears us up as on mighty wings: We rejoice in remembering thy athlete and missionary, Eric Liddell, to whom thou didst bestow courage and resolution in contest and in captivity; and we pray that we also may run with endurance the race that is set before us and persevere in patient witness, until we wear that crown of victory won for us by Jesus our Savior; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

21 February 1945. Eric Liddell died (aged 43). As a committed Christian, he refused to run in heats of the 100 metres at the 1924 Paris Olympics because they were held on a Sunday, but he won the 400 metres. His inspirational story featured in the film Chariots of Fire. pic.twitter.com/8ZSlZCQZHy

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) February 21, 2025

Paul’s understanding of sin as a community problem demands that, in the words of Esau McCaulley, we go “beyond naming.” McCaulley adds, “There has to be some vision of the righting of wrongs and the restoration of relationships. The call to be peacemakers is the call for the church to enter the messy world of politics and point toward a better way of being human.”

For this reason, Paul warns that we as individuals can become weapons of injustice, so even those individuals who are not actively participating in a particular sin can be guilty of passivity toward it. Notice Paul’s words in Romans 6: He does not say to simply refrain from sin but says that we must not allow sin to reign in our bodies or allow any part of ourselves to be controlled by sin (vv. 12–13). This implies a need for active resistance to sin, not just avoidance of it. For instance, Paul directly calls out Peter, who had been an early advocate of Gentile inclusion, for remaining silent on this issue (Gal. 2:11–14). Paul’s command for churches to be holy is not just a call not to sin but a call to oppose sin in their midst. To be passive to sins in our communities is to be used by the Enemy for injustice.

Another example is when Paul admonishes a man who slept with his stepmother. Paul calls out the Corinthian church and not just the individuals involved (1 Cor. 5:1­–2), making it the responsibility of the entire congregation to deal with the sinner in their midst.

In Galatians 6, Paul advises the church to gently restore fellow members in sin by leading them to repentance while cautioning them against being tempted in the process. He makes a profound statement: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (v. 2). Likewise, in Romans 14 Paul argues that reconciliation requires certain rights and freedoms be laid down by all for the sake of some weaker brothers and sisters.

Read it all.

Scripture is full of examples of communities and institutions being held accountable for their sinfulness.

D. T. Everhart on systemic sin in the Bible:https://t.co/NkvfX6GqCf

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) February 21, 2025

“We want to show people what can be done in a small place,” said Priest-in-Charge, the Rev Kay Jones. “So, we started with the church environment being different.”

Inside the building, a legacy provided for LED lighting and thermal boards, helping the church lower its carbon emissions, as well as providing a warm space for the community. “It’s not freezing anymore,” said Kay. “We can have warm-space activities. People like being here.”

And people are connecting with it. An open day to launch the potting shed brought 17 adults and 27 children together. “It was hard to get rid of them at the end,” Kay joked. “It is changing things for small numbers of people,” she added.

“What I’m seeing is people wanting to be part of what we do,” she said. “People are trying different foods grown in the garden, learning how – and what – to recycle in the church’s recycling bins, and crucially, learning where food comes from, helping to reduce their food bills.”

Read it all.

"We want to show people what can be done in a small place."

A church in one of the country’s most deprived areas is bringing people together and helping them with their wellbeing – thanks to the launch of a series of environmental projects.

Read more at https://t.co/Joa7q8MizC.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) February 21, 2025

Holy Week can sit strangely in the church year. It is the most solemn and significant of times in the church calendar, and yet, to all intents and purposes, ordinary life carries on undisturbed by it. Unlike Christmas, which bursts upon the scene in a riot of tinsel and fairy lights, demanding attention and pulling people in from the streets to enjoy carolling and mince pies, for most of the population, Holy Week passes unnoticed. Only the promise of hot cross buns and free childcare when schools are closed or a few eccentrics walking mournfully round the community on Good Friday may have any impact at all.

How, then, to engage with the non-churchgoing public? How to share the message of sacrificial love — an unpopular theme in today’s “Because I’m worth it”, “Go on, treat yourself” society? Perhaps by using the week to experiment and challenge, to offer services and events that are different from the norm, and to think carefully about all sectors of the community and explore ways in which they might become engaged, even briefly, with the drama of Holy Week and the life-changing effect of its events.

Your community might well be happily settled into a regular rhythm of services. It is to be hoped that the schedule is one that all can manage — ministry team, musicians, volunteers working within their capacity and capability, able to maintain the level of effort and energy required without collapsing with burnout. Nevertheless, we all know the dangers of complacency, of falling into a routine that becomes almost mindless in its familiarity. Holy Week offers an opportunity to try out new things in a way that is manageable (because it is only one week), understandable (it’s a special week), and unrepeatable, if necessary. If something completely new is too challenging or demanding, try and ring the changes with the established patterns, enabling your community to look with fresh eyes on familiar events.

Read it all.

How to engage with the non-churchgoing public

Sally Welch continues her series exploring practical ideas for Lent and Easterhttps://t.co/hUxKr4235W

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 18, 2025

The “relevance to the 2020s” of Kindleberger’s [1973] book is greater and gloomier. We have two competing superpowers, the US and China. Both fancy themselves as hegemons; neither is willing to accept the responsibilities of the role. The US vows vengeance on anybody who threatens the primacy of the dollar even as its own actions put that primacy in doubt. China rails against its lack of status in the current economic system, even as it plays a prime role in destabilising it.

With luck, there will be no crisis on a scale that needs leadership and global co-ordination to resolve — but luck always runs out in the end. It makes sense to bolster the international institutions as much as possible. It makes sense, too, to run sensible domestic policies and not end up dependent on the kindness of strangers, an unhelpful truism, like advice not to let your house catch fire.

“If leadership is thought of as the provision of the public good of responsibility, rather than the exploitation of followers or the private good of prestige, it remains a positive idea,” wrote Kindleberger. The US, for all its failings, provided that kind of leadership. The world awaits, with trepidation, the experience of an economic or financial crisis without it.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Who will now stabilise the world economy? https://t.co/gAb7tUq1jd | opinion

— Financial Times (@FT) February 19, 2025

Imagine being able to speed up evolution – hypothetically – to learn which genes might have a harmful or beneficial effect on human health. Imagine, further, being able to rapidly generate new genetic sequences that could help cure disease or solve environmental challenges. Now, scientists have developed a generative AI tool that can predict the form and function of proteins coded in the DNA of all domains of life, identify molecules that could be useful for bioengineering and medicine, and allow labs to run dozens of other standard experiments with a virtual query – in minutes or hours instead of years (or millennia).

The open-source, all-access tool, known as Evo 2, was developed by a multi-institutional team co-led by Stanford’s Brian Hie, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and a faculty fellow in Stanford Data Science. Evo 2 was trained on a dataset that includes all known living species, including humans, plants, bacteria, amoebas, and even a few extinct species. Stanford Report talked to Hie about Evo 2’s advanced capabilities, why the scientific world is so eager to get its hands on this new tool, and how Evo 2 could reshape the biological sciences.

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Just now: @arcinstitute and @nvidia release Evo 2, the largest AI model for biology. It is fully open-source.

Evo 2 can predict which mutations in a gene are likely to be pathogenic, or even design entire eukaryotic genomes.

We covered it in @AsimovPress! Check it out pic.twitter.com/hBJkrtNVr0

— Niko McCarty (@NikoMcCarty) February 19, 2025

Every few weeks, it seems, another AI achievement sets the world abuzz. It speaks! It paints! It digests a whole book and spits out a 10-
minute podcast! 

This is generative AI, the large computing models that dazzle and worry us with their humanlike output. We’ve become accustomed to hearing about AI, but have we considered what it really offers us? Most simply: a promise of ease and justice. 

With the proper application of AI, its enthusiasts tell us, we won’t have to work so hard. Our economy will be more equitable, our laws and their enforcement closer to impartial, the slow and faulty human element bypassed altogether. We will achieve a painless and mechanistic fairness. 

Here, rather than dwell on any individual technological feat, I want to examine those two tempting offers. Long before generative AI became a reality, these temptations were offered elsewhere: by science fiction villains and by the Devil when he came to Jesus in the wilderness. 

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“If we follow in Jesus’ steps—if we live slowly, do good things however inefficiently, and share the extravagant grace we’ve been given—the temptations of AI, like all false promises, will grow dim and unconvincing,” writes @jeff_bilbro.https://t.co/B2EDLsbPEo

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) February 17, 2025

What Ilyich faces in the final moment is grace. He is graced with the realization that he needs to offer care. Knowing that the real is compassion is not his accomplishment but is the gift of his son’s presence. We, who would so quickly assist him out of this life, would do so because we can bear with neither grace nor compassion. They ask too much of us for another. 

Because death is not taken from him by “assistance” that offers no real help, Ilyich is graced with realization that death is no more. “Instead of death there was light.” He sees this light and realizes that “death is over . . . there is no more death.” Ilyich’s realization echoes Revelation 21:4 that “death will be no more.” Only a culture that can see death and care for those who are dying can be a culture open to the One who bore all our burdens. Christ’s dying offers us abundant life even in our deaths if we are willing to face them. In his Good Death, death itself dies. Euthanasia denies us a good death because it is the denial of care, the denial of facing death authentically, and the denial of the goodness of life. It is thus the denial of the Author of Life—or of any possible spiritual breakthrough at all.

Each fall for many more years, my students and I will read a novella about a dying, loveless lawyer from Tsarist Russia. We will ask what the real life is and wonder if we are living it. We will consider what love and care look like and whether we live in a culture in which we bear each other’s burdens. To bear those burdens is to face our deaths together. The direction of our culture is increasingly toward “death pods” where we will die alone, because we, like Ivan, have refused to really live together. Resisting such a culture of solitary and uncared for assisted dying will take legislation, but it will also require that we spend some time with Ilyich and try to recover the goodness of a good life and of a good death. Someday I will face death. Someday my students will face it as well. Will we do so in a world detached from reality or attached to it? A culture that dispatches the burdensome or bears their burdens? A culture that offers care or that offers death? The euthanasia of Ilyich would have made impossible his eu thanatos. Our society’s growing practice of euthanasia may well prove to be the denial not only of our good deaths but also of the only real thing, a good life.

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Resisting the march of euthanasia will require numerous approaches. I hope this reflection on the good death of Ivan Ilyich contributes in some small way. https://t.co/wOO6VTKdnF

— Terence Sweeney (@TerenceJSweeney) February 19, 2025

Deep under the sea, pipelines and cables carrying fuel, power and communications are strewn on the ocean floor like a central nervous system for the global economy. 

Huge stretches of these critical connectors lie unprotected in the murky depths—and vulnerable to attacks such as the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines that carry Russian natural gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea.

Now, in the way that the use of drones has changed the conduct of land wars, artificial intelligence is about to change everything about how the deep sea is navigated and how critical underwater infrastructure is protected in wartime and against threats of terrorism.

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AI is about to change everything about how the deep sea is navigated and how critical underwater infrastructure is protected
https://t.co/JCmJcgtNe0 via @WSJ

— Martijn Rasser (@MartijnRasser) February 17, 2025

Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.

The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv.

The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”.

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Revealed: Trump’s confidential plan to put Ukraine in a stranglehold

Panic in Kyiv as US president demands higher share of GDP than Germany’s First World War reparations.https://t.co/3rFDHydtCd

— Ruchir Sharma (@ruchirsharma_1) February 18, 2025

Every February, Americans take a day off of work to celebrate the presidents — the chief executives whose ideas, policies and foibles have helped to shape our history. So it’s only fitting that you take a moment to test your knowledge about these 44 prominent Americans with a 20-question quiz from “Presidential,” the Washington Post podcast that explores the presidents’ lives and legacies.

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By the article establishing the executive department it is made the duty of the President “to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

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Washington’s Birthday was celebrated on February 22nd until well into the 20th Century. However, in 1968 Congress passed the Monday Holiday Law to “provide uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays.” By creating more 3-day weekends, Congress hoped to “bring substantial benefits to both the spiritual and economic life of the Nation.”

One of the provisions of this act changed the observance of Washington’s Birthday from February 22nd to the third Monday in February. Ironically, this guaranteed that the holiday would never be celebrated on Washington’s actual birthday, as the third Monday in February cannot fall any later than February 21.

Contrary to popular belief, neither Congress nor the President has ever stipulated that the name of the holiday observed as Washington’s Birthday be changed to “President’s Day.”

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2/2 George Washington at the Battle of Princeton, 1779. Again painted by Charles Wilson Peale, who portrayed Washington often. And it's his day. pic.twitter.com/rVYMfXoYmB

— Dr. Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) July 4, 2018