“When you look back at the history of Premier, you can see the various times in which Peter’s energy and his drive were the defining things that either kept Premier going or helped it go to the next level,” said Premier’s deputy CEO Kevin Bennett, who has been acting as CEO since Peter went on sick leave. Bennett led the tributes that have poured in from Premier’s friends, supporters, readers and listeners. 

“I hope Peter will be remembered as a man who was utterly committed to the task that God set before him; a man who never looked back for one moment after putting his hands to the plough and pressed on continuously, relentlessly, with the singular goal to reach as many people as possible with the good news of Jesus. For all the things he’s done; for all the things he’s achieved, I hope he’s remembered for his heart, his mission and his ministry above all else.” 

“Peter has been a brave and outspoken advocate for many, and his legacy is one that will continue to impact the life of the Church across Britain and farther afield for many years to come,” said His Eminence Archbishop Angaelos OBE, Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London and Papal Legate to the UK. “His infectious enthusiasm and uncontrollable energy have been an inspiration to many and he will continue to live in our hearts and in our memories.” 

Peter Kerridge transformed a small start-up radio station into one of the most significant Christian media networks in the world. He will be remembered as a vis…

Source: Premier Christianity https://t.co/WvInFSBgC1

— Paul Bakibinga (@PabloBach) June 9, 2024

Scientists have developed a glowing dye that sticks to cancer cells and gives surgeons a “second pair of eyes” to remove them in real time and permanently eradicate the disease. Experts say the breakthrough could reduce the risk of cancer coming back and prevent debilitating side-effects.

The fluorescent dye spotlights tiny cancerous tissue that cannot be seen by the naked eye, enabling surgeons to remove every last cancer cell while preserving healthy tissue. That could mean fewer life-changing side effects after surgery.

The technique was developed by scientists and surgeons at the University of Oxford in collaboration with the California biotech company ImaginAb Inc and was funded by Cancer Research UK.

“We are giving the surgeon a second pair of eyes to see where the cancer cells are and if they have spread,” said Freddie Hamdy, professor of surgery at the University of Oxford. “With this technique, we can strip all the cancer away, including the cells that have spread from the tumour, which could give it the chance to come back later.”

Scientists develop glowing dye that sticks to cancer cells in breakthrough study https://t.co/FBYjCa8nYp

— The Guardian (@guardian) June 10, 2024

I’ve been thinking lately of that party, those women, the husbands they jettisoned like so much dead weight in a mimetic frenzy of best-life-living. Maybe the men were bad and deserved it, but it strikes me that nobody ever said so. My friends didn’t talk about being unhappily married; they just thought they’d be happier divorced, and no wonder. Even as divorce has retreated from the oft-cited peak rate of 50 percent, its place in the culture has all the urgency and incandescence of a current thing.

This year, we’ve already had a glut of divorce memoirs from authors celebrity and non; a much-hyped “divorce album” from Ariana Grande; a buzzy debut novel called The Divorcées, which is set on a ’50s “divorce ranch” in Reno; a piece in The Cut, on Valentine’s Day no less, entitled “The Lure of Divorce”; and a New York Times feature about how Emily Ratajkowski has set off a booming new market for “divorce rings,” refashioned from the wearer’s old wedding band. One of them is engraved with the word badass, a detail I would have found absolutely impossible to believe had it not been accompanied by photographic evidence.

Is it ^%$%$# to get divorced? Perhaps it was in the ’50s, when women had to schlep to Nevada to free themselves of their abusive husbands—or the ’70s, when women fought for the liberatory institution of no-fault divorce. And perhaps this history explains the current narrative, epitomized by a recent Guardian piece that portrays divorce as not just a path to empowerment but an exclusive sisterhood (the one I glimpsed among my newly single friends as they downed Jell-O shots and mimed intercourse on the kitchen countertop with a life-size plastic skeleton). Learning of the writer’s divorce, her hairdresser said, “all the coolest women she knew were divorced and sighed almost wistfully at the thought of it.”

Of course, these stories suffer from selection bias, in that they are created by and for the type of woman who sighs wistfully at the thought of divorce—as opposed to those of us who sometimes wake up sweating from nightmares in which we have inexplicably dumped our very good husbands. But they’re also a product of a popular “woman empowered by everything woman does” paradigm, where all choices made by women are a product of liberation, hence feminist, hence good. There is no error or disappointment that can’t be ^%$%$#@# away.

“Is it badass to get divorced? Perhaps it was in the ’50s, when women had to schlep to Nevada to free themselves of their abusive husbands.”@KatRosenfield on why glamorizing a trendy marital split in 2024 is merely “narcissism disguised as feminism.” https://t.co/THigCS8x59

— The Free Press (@TheFP) June 1, 2024

By now it’s a cliché that liberalism in the Anglosphere has become a religion, whether or not its adherents know it. But less often remarked is a fact somewhat in tension with this claim: namely, that its worshippers get to be minor gods too, making up the moral rules themselves. The past few weeks have offered up two new case studies for us to contemplate. The first involves a married couple from the US, Malcolm and Simone Collins, described as the “poster children of the pronatalist movement”, now thrust into an even wider media spotlight courtesy of a viral Guardian interview about their lifestyle. The second is a book by political philosopher Alexandre Lefebvre, Liberalism as a Way of Life, published on Tuesday.

Since the article about the Collins family first emerged a fortnight ago, most scandalised public reactions have been about the fact that father-of-four Malcolm was observed slapping his toddler’s cheek in a restaurant — albeit that the reporter noted it was “not a heavy blow”. Collins said the practice was agreed with his wife beforehand and modelled on their having watched “tigers in the wild” disciplining their offspring with the swipe of a paw. (Let us hope they didn’t also see the part where an adult tiger sometimes kills a cub for food.) This week, he wrote a further defence, blaming “much of the media” for being “hell-bent on presenting pronatalists as evil and backward”. To my mind, though, Malcolm and Simone could do with being a bit more backward; for even leaving their disciplinary habits aside, they seem to constitute the reductio ad absurdum of attempts to freestyle the moral universe.

In the Collins’s world, every stage of the childrearing process is approached as if to be redesigned from scratch. For instance: the couple have given their two little girls “gender-neutral names” — Titan Invictus and Industry Americus — apparently on the grounds that this will make the girls “more likely to have higher paying careers and get Stem degrees”. The fact that future employers are bound to presume such names could only have come from a terrifyingly crazy bloodline seems to have been discounted. A further justification offered by Malcolm is that such “strong names” will predispose their owners to “a strong internal locus of control”: that is, to that inner feeling, identified by psychologists, of being fully in command of whatever happens to you in life, as opposed to a helpless passive drifter. Clearly, he hasn’t imagined having to spell “Titan Invictus” out over the phone.

Wrote for @unherd about the pronatalist Collinses, and the claim that liberalism could be a satisfying atheist religion if only we were devoted enough https://t.co/OzX9Nhzr83

— Kathleen Stock (@Docstockk) June 7, 2024

A proud city of gleaming high rises, oil wealth and five-star hotels lies in ruins. Millions have fled. A famine threatens. The gold market is a graveyard of rubble and dog-eaten corpses. The state TV station became a torture chamber. The national film archive was blown open in battle, its treasures now yellowing in the sun. Artillery shells soar over the Nile, smashing into hospitals and houses. Residents bury their dead outside their front doors. Others march in formation, joining civilian militias. In a hushed famine ward, starving babies fight for life. Every few days, one of them dies.

Khartoum, the capital of Sudan and one of the largest cities in Africa, has been reduced to a charred battleground.

A feud between two generals fighting for power has dragged the country into civil war and turned the city into ground zero for one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.

As many as 150,000 people have died since the conflict erupted last year, by American estimates. Another nine million have been forced from their homes, making Sudan home to the largest displacement crisis on earth, the United Nations says. A famine looms that officials warn could kill hundreds of thousands of children in the coming months and, if unchecked, rival the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.

Fueling the chaos, Sudan has become a playground for foreign players like the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Russia and its Wagner mercenaries, and even a few Ukrainian special forces.

Great reporting and photographs by @declanwalsh and @ivorprickett : A War on the Nile Pushes #Sudan Toward the Abyss
https://t.co/8oyxZrUptC

— Paulo Nunes dos Santos (@pdossantos) June 5, 2024

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

Read it all (audio link also available).

6th June 1944

The U.S. Airborne assaults by the 101st Airborne Division – the 'Screaming Eagles' in Operation Albany – and the 82nd Airborne Division – the 'All American' in. A thick bank of fog meant that many missed their drop zones. #DDay #DDay80 #WW2 #OTD #history pic.twitter.com/OTOZUezVvP

— World War II Today #OTD #WW2 (@WW2Today) June 6, 2024

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Read it all.

D-Day, exactly 80 […] years ago. The fight for freedom and democracy was brought to North-West Europe. (#OTD in 1944, Utah Beach. Two medics from American 4 Infantry Division, administering a saline drip. #WW2 #HISTORY) pic.twitter.com/CLy4QA1tpw

— RG Poulussen (@rgpoulussen) June 6, 2024

I have also to announce to the House that during the night and the early hours of this morning the first of the series of landings in force upon the European Continent has taken place. In this case the liberating assault fell upon the coast of France. An immense armada of upwards of 4,000 ships, together with several thousand smaller craft, crossed the Channel. Massed airborne landings have been successfully effected behind the enemy lines, and landings on the beaches are proceeding at various points at the present time. The fire of the shore batteries has been largely quelled. The obstacles that were constructed in the sea have not proved so difficult as was apprehended. The Anglo-American Allies are sustained by about 11,000 firstline aircraft, which can be drawn upon as may be needed for the purposes of the battle. I cannot, of course, commit myself to any particular details. Reports are coming in in rapid succession. So far the Commanders who are engaged report that everything is proceeding according to plan. And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place. It involves tides, wind, waves, visibility, both from the air and the sea standpoint, and the combined employment of land, air and sea forces in the highest degree of intimacy and in contact with conditions which could not and cannot be fully foreseen.

There are already hopes that actual tactical surprise has been attained, and we hope to furnish the enemy with a succession of surprises during the course of the fighting. The battle that has now begun will grow constantly in scale and in intensity for many weeks to come, and I shall not attempt to speculate upon its course. This I may say, however. Complete unity prevails throughout the Allied Armies. There is a brotherhood in arms between us and our friends of the United States. There is complete confidence in the supreme commander, General Eisenhower, and his lieutenants, and also in the commander of the Expeditionary Force, General Montgomery. The ardour and spirit of the troops, as I saw myself, embarking in these last few days was splendid to witness. Nothing that equipment, science or forethought could do has been neglected, and the whole process of opening this great new front will be pursued with the utmost resolution both by the commanders and by the United States and British Governments whom they serve. I have been at the centres where the latest information is received, and I can state to the House that this operation is proceeding in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. Many dangers and difficulties which at this time last night appeared extremely formidable are behind us. The passage of the sea has been made with far less loss than we apprehended. The resistance of the batteries has been greatly weakened by the bombing of the Air Force, and the superior bombardment of our ships quickly reduced their fire to dimensions which did not affect the problem. The landings of the troops on a broad front, both British and American- -Allied troops, I will not give lists of all the different nationalities they represent-but the landings along the whole front have been effective, and our troops have penetrated, in some cases, several miles inland. Lodgments exist on a broad front.

Read it all.

A picture really can speak a thousand words. pic.twitter.com/6xTl3GE26J

— Paul Embery (@PaulEmbery) June 5, 2024

“My Fellow Americans:

“Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

“And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

“Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
“They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest — until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

“For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

“Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

“And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them — help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

“Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

“Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

“And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

“And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment — let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

“With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

“Thy will be done, Almighty God.

“Amen.”

You can listen to the actual audio if you want here and today of all days is the day to do that. Also, there is more on background and another audio link there.–KSH.

Take a moment, and remember you don't need to face this at 6am tomorrow, but they did… on the longest day #dday80 #dday #rememberandhonor pic.twitter.com/5lZc4ufFWk

— Tom Rogers (@RogersHistory) June 5, 2024

God our refuge and strength, as we remember those
who faced danger and death in Normandy, eighty years ago,
grant us courage to pursue what is right, the will to work with others,
and strength to overcome tyranny and oppression,
through Jesus Christ, to whom belong dominion and glory,
now and for ever. Amen.

Today, we remember the sacrifices made by all those involved in the D-Day landings.

On this day 80 years ago, more than 5,000 ships and landing craft delivered 150,000 troops to five beaches in Normandy. 4,440 Allied soldiers lost their lives on D-Day – the first day of… pic.twitter.com/e34nehRUza

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) June 6, 2024

We analyzed every building across Ukraine that has been damaged or destroyed since Russia attacked two years ago. A vast area with some 210,000 buildings leveled across a jagged, 800-mile frontline and beyond. Even if the war ends tomorrow, in many places there will be nothing to go back to.

Few countries since World War II have experienced this level of devastation. But it’s been impossible for anybody to see more than glimpses of it. It’s too vast. Every battle, every bombing, every missile strike, every house burned down, has left its mark across multiple front lines, back and forth over more than two years.

This is the first comprehensive picture of where the Ukraine war has been fought and the totality of the destruction. Using detailed analysis of years of satellite data, we developed a record of each town, each street, each building that has been blown apart.

The scale is hard to comprehend. More buildings have been destroyed in Ukraine than if every building in Manhattan were to be leveled four times over. Parts of Ukraine hundreds of miles apart look like Dresden or London after World War II, or Gaza after half a year of bombardment.

"What Ukraine Has Lost" – @nytimes uses frontline data from @TheStudyofWar and years of satellite imagery to develop the "first comprehensive picture of where the Ukraine war has been fought and the totality of the destruction." (1/2) pic.twitter.com/cSMfF6P2pj

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) June 4, 2024

Israel and Hezbollah are moving closer to a full-scale war after months of escalating hostilities with the Lebanese militant group, adding pressure on Israel’s government to secure its northern border.

Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization closely aligned with Iran, opened a battle front with Israel on Oct. 8, a day after the deadly Hamas-led raid inside Israel sparked the current war in Gaza.

Hezbollah says that its attacks are in support of the Palestinians and that it won’t stop until Israel ceases its war in Gaza. Reluctant to open a second front, Israel initially responded to Hezbollah with tit-for-tat attacks, trying to calibrate its actions to avoid sparking a full-scale war.

But in recent weeks, both sides say there has been a sharp rise in hostilities. Hezbollah has increased its drone and rocket attacks, hitting important Israeli military installations. Israel, too, has stepped up attacks, targeting Hezbollah sites deep into southern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley as well as senior military officials in the group.

BREAKING

Risk of War Between Israel and Hezbollah Builds up as Clashes Escalate. pic.twitter.com/CcXRcPdqQ7

— World Affairs Eye (@WorldAffairsEye) June 5, 2024

I, too, had dismissed No Country as another affected, self-consciously “cinematic” Coen brothers’ dead end, but Holloway’s careful reading converted me. The mistake is to see No Country as being about the bad guy. Instead, it’s about a traditional Hollywood good guy, the local sheriff, Bell (Tommy Lee Jones): “a kind of traditionalist conservative, … a lifetime lawman, a proud member of a line of lawmen.” But when this old-fashioned guy is confronted with radical evil in the person of Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who possesses not “an inordinate attachment to some real good” but a sadistic need to show everyone who crosses his path the utter worthlessness of their existence, Bell is lost.

Why? The lawman is unable to contend with Chigurh’s perverse brand of lawbreaking because he fears God has abandoned him and that “he may somehow be drawn into this evil.” In the end, Bell “quits” the fight because a “low estimate of himself arises from a vain aspiration to self-sufficiency.” When you believe you’re in a fight against the odds all by yourself, that you’ve lost God as your backup, what else is there to do but turn tail and run? (Contrast this with Franz Jäggerstätter’s exemplary fortitude, ably explicated in Thomistic turns by Jennifer Frey in her essay on A Hidden Life, a more-or-less true-life story of an Austrian farmer’s steadfast resistance to pledging allegiance to Adolf Hitler.)

As I hope I’ve conveyed, Film and Faith is smart but never obtuse, entertaining but never frivolous, and thorough but never overstuffed. It will leave the reader, religious or not, with an enhanced critical vocabulary, better able to espy the spiritual depths even of those films that on first viewing appear to be thoroughly secular.

Hollywood's shift from classic religious portrayals to exploring deeper, sometimes critical themes of faith reflects a changing societal engagement with spirituality in cinema.

On the harrowing of Hollywood with @amsacramonehttps://t.co/llwRGVIEb5

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) May 31, 2024

The American worker is making peace with a longer ride.

Big shifts in the way people live and work are making commutes of over an hour into the office more common—and even more palatable. Rising housing costs have prompted many to move farther away from city centers, while the staying power of hybrid work means they don’t have to drive into work every day. 

The share of super commutes—those 75 miles or longer—have grown the most and are up by nearly a third since 2020, according to new research from Stanford University. 

Craig Allender’s family of four felt they had outgrown their three-bedroom home in Novato, Calif., and wanted to upgrade. They found a five-bedroom one 30 miles north in Sonoma County where lower housing costs put a 3,000-square-foot house in reach. 

America’s Commute to Work Is Getting Longer & Longer: "The share of super commutes—those 75 miles or longer—have grown the most & are up by nearly a third since 2020, according to new research from Stanford University" https://t.co/dfQsXWei1x

— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) June 4, 2024

Never has it been so cheap to inflict a world of economic pain.

That stark point was underscored last week by Maximilian Hess, a principal at London-based Enmetena Advisory, a political risk consultancy. Speaking to a webinar of supply-chain managers, he showed a slide of a canoe-size naval drone and said such jury-rigged weapons have the ability to redirect world trade.

“Nowhere is this more clear than in the conflict in the Red Sea,” Hess said, referring to attacks launched from Yemen toward commercial ships trying to use the Suez Canal.

Nearly six months into the Houthis’ relentless campaign to protest Israel’s war in Gaza, the economic fallout is widening. As ships sail around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, their unpredictable schedules are clogging major Asian ports, creating shortages of empty containers in some places and pileups in others. Delivery times to the US and Europe are getting longer, and freight rates are surging.

🌎 Ships Diverted From Red Sea Send Ripple Effects Across the Globe – Bloomberghttps://t.co/1A8HVOJVKX pic.twitter.com/6fFCf9asLJ

— Christophe Barraud🛢🐳 (@C_Barraud) June 3, 2024

Coastal areas up and down the East Coast are sinking at the same time sea levels are rising. Parts of Beaufort, Colleton and Charleston counties sank more than 2 inches since 2007, and some areas on St. Helena Island sank more than 3 inches, The Post and Courier previously reported.

Sinking land — a problem also called subsidence and settlement — can make flooding worse, cause septic tanks to fail, damage underground infrastructure, and cause buildings and bridges to crack.

So can we slow it down? Here’s what we found out.

Parts of South Carolina are sinking, and quickly. Can we slow it down? https://t.co/xVQX3VRcFk

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) June 3, 2024

[Henry] Sacheverell’s analysis was clear: the Church had taken into its bosom, or — worse — given positions of power to, people who were totally inimical to the worship, doctrine, and position of the Church of England itself. It had got into bed with a governing class that, in fact, hated it and sought its destruction. A misplaced attempt to broaden the Church’s appeal meant giving place and precedence to those who in their practice were antithetical to how the Church had always acted.

They were now calling the shots, and were dismantling from the inside all that had, “in living memory” — a reference to the horrors of the Civil War — been fought for so painfully. She had taken “into her bowels” those who “neither believe her faith, own her mission, submit to her discipline, or comply with her liturgy”. As he put it, “if the Church can’t be pulled down, it may be blown up.”

What Sacheverell found particularly repugnant was the dishonesty of those who sought to do this. While there was a certain grim integrity to Roman Catholic or Presbyterian attempts to do down the Church of England, Sacheverell viewed the “religious Trojan Horse” that he discerned at the heart of early-18th-century Anglicanism as wicked first and foremost because of its dishonesty: “What they could not do by open violence, they will not fail by secret treachery to accomplish.” Nobody could accuse him of not being plain-speaking, and it was the verbal dissembling of the powers that were which so riled him.

I wrote a piece about the most important celebrity Vicar you’ve never heard of, who died 300 years ago this week. https://t.co/diESz7aRS2

— Fergus Butler-Gallie (@_F_B_G_) May 31, 2024

For more than a year, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray has warned about a wave of election interference that could make 2016 look cute. No respectable foreign adversary needs an army of human trolls in 2024. AI can belch out literally billions of pieces of realistic-looking and sounding misinformation about when, where and how to vote. It can just as easily customize political propaganda for any individual target. In 2016, Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s digital campaign director, spent endless hours customizing tiny thumbnail campaign ads for groups of 20 to 50 people on Facebook. It was miserable work but an incredibly effective way to make people feel seen by a campaign. In 2024, Brad Parscale is software, available to any chaos agent for pennies. There are more legal restrictions on ads, but AI can create fake social profiles and aim squarely for your individual feed. Deepfakes of candidates have been here for months, and the AI companies keep releasing tools that make all of this material faster and more convincing.

Almost 80 percent of Americans think some form of AI abuse is likely to affect the outcome of November’s presidential election. Wray has staffed each of the FBI’s 56 field offices with at least two election-crime coordinators. He has urged people to be more discerning with their media sources. In public, he’s the face of chill. “Americans can and should have confidence in our election system,” he said at the International Conference on Cyber Security in January. Privately, an elected official familiar with Wray’s thinking told me the director is in a middle manager’s paradox: loads of responsibility, limited authority. “[Wray] keeps highlighting the issue, but he won’t play politics, and he doesn’t make policy,” that official said. “The FBI enforces laws. The director is like, ‘Please ask Congress where the laws are.’”

Gift Article
Why this year’s election interference could make 2016 look cute
The first big AI crisis isn’t some hypothetical far off in the future. It’s coming on Election Day.
Opinion By Josh @Tyrangiel
May 30, 2024 at 7:30 a.m. EDT https://t.co/tVtkR6qJMe

— K_Conner (@kvconner) May 30, 2024

Prior to joining T. Rowe Price, Poppy Allonby spent more than twenty years at Blackrock, predominately in equity investment roles and latterly as Managing Director, Head of Global Product Group, EMEA & APAC. Between 2014 and 2022, she was on the Church Commissioners’ Board of Trustees and a member of its Assets Committee.

“I am delighted and honoured to join the Church Commissioners as its CIO, an organisation globally recognised as a leader in sustainable investment,” said Poppy Allonby. “My focus will be on delivering strong, consistent returns to meet the Commissioners’ core purpose, which is to support the mission and ministry of the Church of England – and to do so in an ethical, sustainable way.”

The Church Commissioners has provided the Church with over £3.5bn in funding since 2009, with £1.2bn to be distributed during the current 2023-2025 triennium – a 30% increase on the previous triennium, thanks in large part to the excellent investment returns generated by the Commissioners’ Investment team. The fund has delivered 14 years of positive returns, while building a reputation as a global leader in responsible investment.

Exciting news @ccsforengland! Poppy Allonby is their new #endowment CIO. Poppy brings +21 years of expertise to the #CIO role. @Matttoledo1 @ChiefInvOfficerhttps://t.co/XCcQDVITtG#alts #privatemarkets #energytransition #duediligence #compliance #ESG #Vidriofinancial

— Vidrio Financial (@VidrioFinancial) May 31, 2024

Twenty-two percent of Americans describe current U.S. economic conditions as “excellent” or “good,” down slightly from the prior month, marking the lowest figure recorded since December’s 22%.

Since early 2022, Americans have consistently been most likely to describe the economy’s current conditions as “poor.” The latest measure finds 46% of Americans viewing the economy this way, only slightly higher than the April reading but the highest since November.

The net effect of these changes is that the index’s current conditions component dipped to -24 from -20 in April and is the lowest score for this component since November (-31).

GALLUP POLL: Right now, do you think that economic conditions in the country are getting better or getting worse?

May 2024
Getting better: 26% [-7]
Getting worse: 70% [+7]

October 2020
Getting better: 42%
Getting worse: 53%

[+/- change vs March]
—
% who described the… pic.twitter.com/q8YoBY1L9C

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 31, 2024

To keep Ukraine’s artillery crews supplied, the Pentagon set a production target last year of 100,000 shells per month by the end of 2025. Factories in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pa., together make about 36,000 shells per month. The new General Dynamics facility in Mesquite, Texas, will make 30,000 each month once it reaches its full capacity.

The 100,000-per-month goal represents a nearly tenfold increase in production from a few years ago.

An Ohio-based defense firm called IMT is expected to make up the difference.

Less than a year ago, the surrounding area here in North Texas was just a dirt field. But with millions of dollars from Congress and help from Repkon, the American defense firm General Dynamics was able to open the factory about 10 months after breaking ground.

Read it all.

U.S. to build plant in Texas to produce 155mm shells for Ukraine – NYT

This will be the first plant the Pentagon has built from scratch since the war in Ukraine began. The plant will produce 30,000 artillery shells per month, about twice the current US production capacity.… pic.twitter.com/HLb19xfKS1

— Jürgen Nauditt 🇩🇪🇺🇦 (@jurgen_nauditt) May 30, 2024

Reviewing the development of Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) reveals that it demonstrates an even more serious ‘PLF’ problem, one that is evident in other areas of church life as well: Persistent Leadership Failure. It first traces this failure back to the rushed origins of PLF in late 2022 and early 2023.

These resulted in further failures leading to an instability and incoherence which is traced from early 2023 to the present in relation to repeated changes in:

• For whom the prayers are being proposed;
• The theological and legal basis of the prayers;
• The relationship to the church’s supposedly unchanged doctrine where, contrary to the February 2023 Synod motion and the bishops’ original plan, PLF are now acknowledged to be “indicative of a departure from the Church’s doctrine”; and
• The canonical route by which the original proposed PLF are to be introduced. Here nine different stages favouring multiple different paths are summarised culminating in the latest reported “emerging proposal” to introduce standalone services by commending them for use for an experimental period under Canon B5.

This latest proposal has a certain logic as the prohibition on standalone services was an abuse of the House’s power and did not make canonical sense once the substance of the prayers were commended by the bishops for use under Canon B5.

However, there are ten problems with this route, some new but some previously recognised and given as reasons to reject commendation….

Read it all.

In the Church of England's 'Prayers of Love and Faith', does PLF actually stand for Persistent Leadership Failure? Where did the process go so badly wrong, and what are the numerous problems with the current proposals? @simonsarmiento @theologyethics1 https://t.co/P6uq2M6mEF

— Dr Ian Paul (@Psephizo) May 29, 2024

As birth rates plunge, many politicians want to pour money into policies that might lead women to have more babies. Donald Trump has vowed to dish out bonuses if he returns to the White House. In France, where the state already spends 3.5-4% of gdp on family policies each year, Emmanuel Macron wants to “demographically rearm” his country. South Korea is contemplating handouts worth a staggering $70,000 for each baby. Yet all these attempts are likely to fail, because they are built on a misapprehension.

Governments’ concern is understandable. Fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere and the rich world faces a severe shortage of babies. At prevailing birth rates, the average woman in a high-income country today will have just 1.6 children over her lifetime. Every rich country except Israel has a fertility rate beneath the replacement level of 2.1, at which a population is stable without immigration. The decline over the past decade has been faster than demographers expected.

Doomsayers such as Elon Musk warn that these shifts threaten civilisation itself. That is ridiculous, but they will bring profound social and economic changes. A fertility rate of 1.6 means that, without immigration, each generation will be a quarter smaller than the one before it. In 2000 rich countries had 26 over-65-year-olds for every 100 people aged 25-64. By 2050 that is likely to have doubled. The worst-affected places will see even more dramatic change. In South Korea, where the fertility rate is 0.7, the population is projected to fall by 60% by the end of the century.

Paying women to have more babies is a costly and socially retrograde mistake. Governments should focus on adapting economies to baby busts instead https://t.co/KFHKaaY3oz pic.twitter.com/m6x2QApSdg

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 23, 2024

Sudan’s army said it’s poised to get weapons from Russia in return for letting Moscow establish a military fueling station on the Red Sea coast, a blow for the US as its opponents gain influence in the African country torn apart by civil war.

A military delegation will travel to Russia within a few days to conclude the deal, assistant commander-in-chief Yasser Al-Atta told the Gulf-based Al-Hadath TV channel on Saturday. Authorities will get “vital weapons and munitions,” he said, describing the planned Russian outpost as “not exactly a military base.”

Moscow has long coveted a foothold on Sudan’s 530-mile (853 kilometer) coastline, and a final agreement would stoke Western concerns over the country’s growing influence in Africa.

The announcement comes as Sudan’s army strives to regain swathes of territory lost to the Rapid Support Forces militia in a war that erupted in April 2023 and may have killed as many as 150,000 people.

Sudan’s army said it’s poised to get weapons from Russia in return for letting Moscow establish a military fueling station on the Red Sea coast, a blow for the US as its opponents gain influence in the African country torn apart by civil war. https://t.co/7XhPQwcD5G

— Simon Marks (@MarksSimon) May 26, 2024

Raquel Campos’ water issues started in January, when her condo building’s manager sent residents a message saying that the city hadn’t delivered water to its cistern. Four days later, taps in the upscale residence went dry.

Campos has lived in the wealthy Polanco neighborhood for 18 years and said she has never experienced water issues like this. Her husband paid to shower at a nearby hotel and she called water delivery companies that were overwhelmed with a sudden deluge of requests from the neighborhood. The water in Campos’ building came back within a few days, but with much lower pressure. Water is now delivered about every two weeks. Each unit has paid to cover the cost, increasing their monthly condo expenses by 30 percent.

Water scarcity has long been an issue in Mexico City, with the brunt of the shortages happening in lower-income neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city center. But recently, residents in some of the city’s wealthier neighborhoods have also been running out of water as hot temperatures, low rainfall and poor infrastructure have converged to create a crisis across the sprawling metropolis.

We’ll always have water, just not enough of it.

Mexico City and millions of its residents could run out of water in weeks

– metropolitan area of 22 million gets @ 1/4 of water from system that’s running dry….
could be unable to provide water by 6/26https://t.co/PXeC4OT0kY

— Jan SMH Harper (@SmhJan) May 29, 2024

An independent agency, Race Equality First, has been commissioned to investigate racist incidents in the Church of England.

The C of E’s director of racial justice, the Revd Guy Hewitt, said on Thursday: “Sadly, anecdotal evidence suggested that such occurrences are more common than appreciated.”

“For our GMH/UKME communities [Global Majority Heritage/UK Minoritised Ethnic], being stereotyped, overlooked, or excluded, or facing harassment, hostile comments or microaggression are an all-too-common experience. Leaving such behaviours unchallenged or brushed under the carpet is seriously damaging both to individuals and our faith community.”

The report of the Archbishops’ anti-racism task force From Lament To Action (News, 22 April 2021) recommended the setting up of a robust, independent system for handling complaints.

An independent agency, Race Equality First, has been commissioned to investigate racist incidents in the Church of England https://t.co/8ffLuvlLSd

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) May 25, 2024

‘For many people, the doctrine of the trinity is one of the most baffling areas of Christian theology. How can we think of God as “three persons”? There are many who suspect that this is simply an attempt by theologians to make their subject in accessible to outsiders. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of United States of America was severely critical of what he termed, the “incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic.” Why on earth do we need to speak of God in this convoluted and puzzling way? Might it suggest that theology is thoroughly irrational?

More recently, Christians have become aware of the Islamic critique of the doctrine, which holds that it compromises the unity of God. Many Christians neglected the notion, partly because it was seen as obscure. Karl Rahner remarked that the modern Christians were “almost mere monotheists,” paying lip service to the Trinity in theory, but ignoring it in practice. “We must be willing to admit,” he remarked, “that, should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged.”

—-Alister McGrath, Theology: The Basics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2012), p.116, quoted by yours truly in the later Sunday sermon

We in the #UMC wish you a blessed #TrinitySunday. 🎵 Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty. Early in the morning my song shall rise to thee… 🎵 pic.twitter.com/weTbz71apF

— United Methodist News (@UMNS) May 26, 2024

OpenAI said on Tuesday that it had begun training a new flagship artificial intelligence model that would succeed the GPT-4 technology that drives its popular online chatbot, ChatGPT.

The San Francisco start-up, which is one of the world’s leading A.I. companies, said in a blog post that it expected the new model to bring “the next level of capabilities” as it strove to build “artificial general intelligence,” or A.G.I., a machine that can do anything the human brain can do. The new model would be an engine for A.I. products including chatbots, digital assistants akin to Apple’s Siri, search engines and image generators.

OpenAI also said it was creating a new Safety and Security Committee to explore how it should handle the risks posed by the new model and future technologies.

“While we are proud to build and release models that are industry-leading on both capabilities and safety, we welcome a robust debate at this important moment,” the company said.

OpenAI Says It Has Begun Training a New Flagship A.I. Model#LLM
via @NYTimes https://t.co/bWJHhNNbB5

— ronfriedmann (@ronfriedmann) May 28, 2024

Better is a little with the fear of the Lord
than great treasure and trouble with it.

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is
than a fatted ox and hatred with it.

–Proverbs 15:16-17

Genieten van besneeuwde bergtoppen in #Banff. Fijne dinsdag😀 #natuur #landschap #lente #mountains #Canada #Alberta pic.twitter.com/7dSeu6z3tG

— Tjark Dieterman (@DietermanTjark) May 28, 2024