Key decisions, including whether priests are permitted to enter same-sex civil marriages, and how to provide for those who oppose the introduction of blessings for same-sex couples, can be made only after “further work” by the House of Bishops, it was announced on Friday.

At a press conference looking at the papers for the upcoming meeting of the General Synod (13-15 November), the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, insisted that neither item was being put off.

“It’s not deferring, but it’s recognising that in terms of moving both those forward, not just more work but — certainly in terms of the formal structural pastoral reassurance — more listening needs to be done,” she said.

The agenda for the upcoming November meeting of the General Synod is dominated by LLF, with a day-and-a-half of the two-and-a-half-day schedule allotted for discussion.

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Same-sex provision needs more work, General Synod will be told https://t.co/Jlx6JII3Eu

— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) October 20, 2023

Since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas, Germany has seen a large uptick in the number of recorded antisemitism incidents, including the attempted firebombing of a Berlin synagogue and an anti-Israel riot in the German capital that led to 20 police being injured.

The Federal Association of Research and Information Centres on Anti-Semitism (Rias), has recorded 202 antisemitic incidents since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on October 7th. The newspaper Die Welt reported that the figure is a 240% increase compared to the same period last year.

The vast majority of the incidents are anti-Israel in nature—nine in ten of those reported. Rias claimed that Israel is largely being blamed for the massacres carried out by Hamas.

In fifteen cases, residences of Jews were marked with a Star of David, evoking scenes from the 1930s when the German Nazi party’s Stormtroopers, the Sturmabteilung, painted Stars of David on businesses that were later targeted for attacks and boycotts.

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🔴German Jews: ‘Berlin Synagogues Are Burning Again’

Over 200 #antisemitic incidents recorded since October 7th. #Germany https://t.co/40fMjt1eTt

— The European Conservative (@EuroConOfficial) October 19, 2023

US borrowers who took on new debt in the middle of the pandemic are falling behind on repayments at unusually high rates, after lenders extended more credit to households helped by government stimulus. 

Federal programmes sent cash and froze certain loan repayment requirements for US consumers strapped by the economic shock of Covid-19. 

One effect was to drive up the median consumer credit score by 20 per cent to a peak of 676 in the first quarter of 2021, according to a report by TransUnion, a credit reporting agency. Credit scores above 670 are considered “good”. 

Lenders became more willing to provide consumer credit. Credit card and unsecured loan originations rose by more than half between 2020 and 2022, TransUnion said.

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Shocking news: the borrowers whose credit scores were inflated due to pandemic handouts are defaulting on after effects of binge borrowing.@FT: Late payments rise on US loans tied to inflated pandemic credit scoreshttps://t.co/hhppqjLfih

— Axel Merk (@AxelMerk) October 19, 2023

The 32% of Americans who say they trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to report the news in a full, fair and accurate way ties Gallup’s lowest historical reading, previously recorded in 2016. Although trust in media currently matches the historical low, it was statistically similar in 2021 (36%) and 2022 (34%).

Another 29% of U.S. adults have “not very much” trust, while a record-high 39% register “none at all.” This nearly four in 10 Americans who completely lack confidence in the media is the highest on record by one percentage point. It is 12 points higher than the 2016 reading, which came amid sharp criticism of the media from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump — making the current assessment of the media the grimmest in Gallup’s history. In 2016, U.S. adults were most likely to say they had “not very much” trust (41%).

The latest poll, conducted Sept. 1-23, marks just the second time, along with last year, that the share of Americans who have no confidence at all in the media has surpassed the percentage with a great deal or fair amount of trust.

Gallup first asked this question in 1972 and has tracked it nearly every year since 1997. Trust ranged from 68% to 72% in three readings in the 1970s, and though it had declined by the late 1990s, it remained at the majority level until 2004, when it fell to 44%. After rebounding slightly to 50% in 2005, it has not risen above 47% since.

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The 32% of Americans who say they trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to report the news in a full, fair and accurate way ties Gallup’s lowest historical reading, previously recorded in 2016. https://t.co/2QYhLCqFJN

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) October 19, 2023

The ocean floor is shaping up to be the world’s next theater of global resource competition — and China is set to dominate it. The sea is believed to hold several times what land does of these rare metals, which are critical for almost all of today’s electronics, clean-energy products and advanced computer chips. As countries race to cut greenhouse gas emissions, demand for these minerals is expected to skyrocket.

When deep-sea mining begins, China — which already controls 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare-earth metals and produces three-quarters of all lithium-ion batteries — will extend its chokehold over emerging industries like clean energy. Mining will also give Beijing a potent new tool in its escalating rivalry with the United States. As a sign of how these resources could be weaponized, China in August started restricting exports of two metals that are key to U.S. defense systems.

“If China can take the lead in seabed mining, it really has the lock on access to all the key minerals for the 21st-century green economy,” said Carla Freeman, senior expert for China at the United States Institute of Peace.

In the case of polymetallic nodules, that means sending robotic vehicles as deep as 18,000 feet to the vast, dark seafloor, where they will slowly vacuum up about four inches of seabed, then pump it up to a ship.

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The ocean floor is shaping up to be the next theater of global resource competition, and China’s diplomatic efforts are positioning it to lead in deep-sea mining. https://t.co/Aa1X8xDKP8

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 20, 2023

O Lord God, in whom we live and move and have our being, open our eyes that we may behold thy Fatherly presence ever about us. Teach us to be anxious for nothing, and when we have done what thou hast given us to do, help us, O God our Saviour, to leave the issue to thy wisdom, knowing that all things are possible to us through thy Son our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

–1 Corinthians 15:1-11