In a television event unlike anything “Jeopardy!” has staged before, three of the game show’s record-breaking players — James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter — will compete against each other for the sweeping title of “greatest of all time.”

The show’s announcement on Monday came shortly after Holzhauer, the most recent player to become a household name, won the Tournament of Champions after facing Emma Boettcher, the contestant who ended his 32-game streak earlier this year. Holzhauer’s dominant strategy and high-value bets made him into a national celebrity and set the stage for a matchup of this magnitude. “Jeopardy!” is milking the combined stardom for all it’s worth.

All three players hold records on the game show’s hall of fame. Jennings captivated “Jeopardy!” fans with a 74-game winning streak in 2004 during which he made $2.52 million, which remains the highest total winnings during regular-season play.

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The top three contestants in JEOPARDY! history will face off in an epic primetime special event: “JEOPARDY! The Greatest of All Time,” starting January 7 at 8|7c on ABC. #JeopardyGOAT pic.twitter.com/7PJUi57206

— ABC (@ABCNetwork) November 18, 2019

Fr. Botros Roshdy, a priest who serves there, tucks an iPhone into his black cassock. He has a social media presence and is known across the country. He is more willing than most to discuss the persecution faced by the zabbaleen and Egypt’s other Christians. “Neither the church leaders you have met, nor those you are going to meet, are speaking freely,” he says after we sit down. “If they could speak freely, they would discuss the discriminatory laws, the infiltration of the judicial system by the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Roshdy notes that little has changed for the Copts over the last decade, despite the hollow promises of freedom that came with the Arab Spring and current president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s self-presentation as a defender of Christians. “We are still being used as a playing card in political games. When the government wants to win the support of Copts during the elections, they offer to let us build a church.” But these overtures have not changed the landscape. “Take the blasphemy law,” ­Roshdy says. “It has been applied only against Christians.”

Roshdy mentions some typical incidents of persecution. One involved an elderly Coptic woman in Minya who was attacked, stripped naked, and dragged through the streets. “Everyone knows who did this crime, but there has been no punishment.” A group of Coptic students in Bani ­Mazar filmed a video in which they mocked ISIS. “People in their town accused them of blasphemy for mocking Islam. So these young children were arrested and jailed. . . . They were finally freed and received asylum in ­Europe.”

Despite the persecution, Egypt’s Christians are winning converts. The number and names of converts must be carefully guarded, however, because conversion from Islam carries a high price. “Some of them are kicked out of their houses, some of them are fired, some of them have their kids taken away,” Roshdy says. “But they consider all of these troubles nothing for the sake of Christ. Their faith is so strong, they see him.” Cast out by their families, these men and women are adopted into the household of God.

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In 2015, ISIS beheaded 21 Christians on a beach in Libya. Last month I met their families. It was inspiring to see how they—along with all Egypt’s Christians—seek to bring good out of evil amid suffering.https://t.co/K8WauAxNHI

— Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) November 11, 2019

Cuban Communist Party official Caridad Diego comes to the U.S. regularly to shop and visit relatives. When she returns to Cuba, she resumes her 9-to-5 job as director of Havana’s Office of Religious Affairs. The title sounds bland, but Ms. Diego oversees the repression of independent Cuban religious leaders. Like many bureaucrats in corrupt regimes, Ms. Diego arbitrarily enforces the law against her political enemies while flouting the same rules as she pleases.

Officials like this operate around the world, often in relative anonymity. But a small U.S. government organization, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, helps change that. When a Cuban Methodist pastor was detained in Havana last month, USCIRF called on the U.S. Embassy in Havana to ban Ms. Diego from visiting the U.S. until Cuban religious leaders can travel abroad to attend conferences. Pastors on the island tell me she was so rattled by USCIRF’s call for a visa ban that change may soon come.

This kind of direct action has been at the core of USCIRF’s mission since its creation in 1998. Its architects knew that the enemies of religious freedom aren’t only tyrants. They include simple bureaucrats who share their rulers’ desire for control. Believing that a bureaucracy can’t be defeated by creating another bureaucracy, Congress ensured the nine USCIRF commissioners were unpaid, independent volunteer voices selected from both political parties. They were to answer to no one, apart from the American people whose principles of liberty they represent abroad. This is part of why I accepted House Speaker Paul Ryan’s appointment to the commission in 2016.

But now USCIRF may be changing. In September the Senate introduced a bill that would shift its stated purpose and burden commissioners with new bureaucratic hurdles. The bill was introduced by Sens. Marco Rubio, Bob Menendez, Cory Gardner, Dick Durbin and Chris Coons, who say the reforms are necessary for transparency and accountability. Whatever their intentions, the damage would be real.

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Foodbank demand has rocketed by 3,772% under a decade of Tory rule, the Mirror can reveal.

Bombshell figures show a surge in need from hungry families after nine years of gruelling austerity.

Britain’s biggest foodbank network had 57 outlets open in the final year of the Labour government in 2009/10.

They provided 40,898 aid packages – the equivalent of 368,082 meals. Of those parcels, 13,959 went to children.

By the end of March the network had 425 foodbanks – a 646% increase.

Their volunteers gave away 1,583,668 packages – 14,253,012 meals – in 2018/19. Some 577,618 parcels went to children.

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Today, he’s sitting in the Drawing Room at Bishopthorpe Palace, the Archbishop of York’s official residence, to discuss his new book – Wake Up to Advent! It’s the first time he’s written his own Advent book having endorsed others previously. “I reached the stage where I said ‘this is going to be my last advent’ (as archbishop) and thought it’s high time I put pen to paper,” he says.

The book is characterised by readings and personal stories from his own remarkable life. “Whether someone is a churchgoer or not I hope there is still a message that they need to wake up to the world as we’ve got it. There’s a lot of mess, not only in the world but in our own lives, and there’s a possibility to feed on things that will help us to be truly human. We need to grow our friendships and relationships and our inter-dependence, so the message of the book I hope is for everybody.”

And Dr Sentamu believes this message still has relevance in the modern world. “When we see tragedies happening all over the world the first thing people do, particularly in this country, is go to church and light a candle. And I love that statement that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

For the archbishop, the chief role of religion is to be “a signpost to the love of God”. “If you saw every person as your brother or your sister you would treat them very differently. It’s treating people as totally different that causes all the trouble we bring into our world.”

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Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu on faith, Advent and his love for the people of Yorkshire https://t.co/fkNTD740rX

— The Yorkshire Post (@yorkshirepost) November 17, 2019

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

#NG365 Duccio’s “The Healing of the Man Born Blind” @NationalGallery #art #twitart pic.twitter.com/wmq7ntOcqC

— Paul Wadey (@pwadey) June 14, 2015

In the same general period in which Stalin was starving millions, the Rev. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury, described him as “leading his people down new and unfamiliar avenues of democracy.”

.–Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties, (New York: Harper and Row, 1983), p.276, used yesterday in the sermon as an illustration of blindness

O God of peace, by whose grace the abbess Hilda was endowed with gifts of justice, prudence, and strength to rule as a wise mother over the nuns and monks of her household, and to become a trusted and reconciling friend to leaders of the Church: Give us the grace to respect and love our fellow Christians with whom we disagree, that our common life may be enriched and thy gracious will be done, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Nov 17: Feast of Hilda (†680), abbess of Streanæshalch (Whitby). Served as abbess of Herterpol (Hartlepool) before founding, or refounding, Whitby, a double monastery like Gaulish examples. Championed the Irish dating of Easter at the synod there in 664. ©Chris Kirk pic.twitter.com/5qNxyiU0aw

— North Ages (@NorthAges) November 17, 2019

Grant, O Lord, that as thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ prayed for his enemies on the cross, so we may have grace to forgive those that wrongfully or scornfully use us; that we ourselves may be able to receive thy forgiveness; though the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Eli′jah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Eli′jah.” He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces, and were filled with awe. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead.” And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first Eli′jah must come?” He replied, “Eli′jah does come, and he is to restore all things; but I tell you that Eli′jah has already come, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of man will suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.

–Matthew 17:1-13