Christians around the world have marked the death in a remote prison camp of the Russian opposi­tion leader Alexei Navalny. Armed po­­­lice dispersed citizens trying to do so publicly in Russia last Friday.

Speaking in Rome, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said that news of the death of Mr Navalny, at the age of 47, had caused “astonishment and sadness”. The Cardinal had hoped that the dissident’s plight could be “resolved differently”.

Members of Finland’s Orthodox Church attended a memorial service for Mr Navalny in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Helsinki, led by Archbishop Leo (Makkonen). Dr Markus Dröge, the former Evangelical Bishop of Berlin, where Mr Navalny was treated for Novichok nerve-agent poisoning in August 2020, called for a street or square to be named after him in recognition of his “indomitable and fearless commitment to freedom and democracy”.

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Christians worldwide have marked the death in a remote prison camp of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Armed police in Russia dispersed citizens attempting to do so publicly last Friday https://t.co/N0Z71GuddX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 21, 2024

Sunday church attendance is just 80 per cent of what it was in 2019, Telegraph analysis has revealed, despite the Church of England claiming that it has “bounced back” after the pandemic.‌

The figures reveal that church attendance has more than halved since 1987, prompting clergy to warn: “This is a doom spiral of the church’s own choosing.”

‌In 2023, The Telegraph published an investigation which revealed that parishes are closing at a record rate, prompting fears that the Church had been “dealt a death knell”.

‌The investigation found that almost 300 parishes have disappeared in the past five years alone – the fastest rate since records began in 1960.

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Sunday church attendance is just 80 per cent of what it was in 2019, Telegraph analysis has revealed, despite the Church of England claiming that it has “bounced back” after the pandemic https://t.co/ayVxbZnqEs

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 17, 2024

Jordan Howlett, a 26-year-old with 24 million followers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, is very careful about the brands he works with. He’s signed deals with Domino’s Pizza, Google and WingStop and makes his living creating videos on subjects such as how to “open jars like a pro” or the best way to “properly eat Chipotle bowls.” So he was spooked when he began receiving messages asking him why he was advertising a supposed cure for blindness on Facebook and Instagram.

Howlett clicked on one of the links to the videos in question and listened in horror as a voice that sounded just like his described how “top researchers from Cambridge” had discovered a seven-second ritual that could give anyone perfect vision. The video, which consisted of stock images of brain X-rays and middle-aged people squinting into their cellphones, was poorly edited. But the audio was utterly convincing, according to Howlett. “When I heard my voice, I was terrified,” he says. “They could theoretically get me to say anything.”

Cybersecurity experts have spent years warning about deepfakes—artificially generated or manipulated media that can pass as authentic. While much of the concern has centered on images and video, it’s become clear over the past year that audio deepfakes, sometimes called voice clones, pose the most immediate threat. Vijay Balasubramaniyan, founder of the fraud detection agency Pindrop, says his company has already begun to see attacks on banking customers in which fraudsters use synthetic audio to impersonate account holders in customer support calls.

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#Deepfakes already being put to some scammy uses https://t.co/veTkTtvzFD The video, which consisted of stock images of brain X-rays and middle-aged people squinting into their cellphones, was poorly edited. But the audio was utterly convincing, according to Howlett. “When I heard…

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 21, 2024

For decades, privacy experts have been wary of snooping from space. They feared satellites powerful enough to zoom in on individuals, capturing close-ups that might differentiate adults from children or suited sunbathers from those in a state of nature.

Now, quite suddenly, analysts say, a startup is building a new class of satellite whose cameras would, for the first time, do just that.

“We’re acutely aware of the privacy implications,” Topher Haddad, head of Albedo Space, the company making the new satellites, said in an interview. His company’s technology will image people but not be able to identify them, he said. Albedo, Mr. Haddad added, was nonetheless taking administrative steps to address a wide range of privacy concerns.

Anyone living in the modern world has grown familiar with diminishing privacy amid a surge security cameras, trackers built into smartphones, facial recognition systems, drones and other forms of digital monitoring. But what makes the overhead surveillance potentially scary, experts say, is its ability to invade areas once seen as intrinsically off limits.

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For decades, privacy experts have been wary of snooping from space. They feared satellites powerful enough to zoom in on individuals, capturing close-ups. Now, analysts say, a startup is building a new class of satellite whose cameras would do just that. https://t.co/fDxPpUWTZZ

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 21, 2024

God of all wisdom, we offer thanks for John Henry Newman, whose eloquence bore witness that thy Church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic, and who didst make of his own life a pilgrimage towards thy truth. Grant that, inspired by his words and example, we may ever follow thy kindly light till we rest in thy bosom, with your dear Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, where heart speaks to heart eternally; for thou livest and reignest, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates John Henry Newman, Priest and Theologian, 1890, who was born #OnThisDay in 1801

Image: Newman Window (Vivienne Haig 2001), Oriel College, Oxford, Photo by Fr. Gaurav Shroff, CC BY-SA 2.0 pic.twitter.com/PRqlusyUeo

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) February 21, 2024

O Heavenly Father, subdue in us whatever is contrary to thy holy will, that we may know how to please thee. Grant, O God, that we may never run into those temptations which in our prayers we desire to avoid. Lord, never permit our trials to be above our strength; through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

It's #WaterfallWednesday! #HullPot in #Ribblesdale is a collapsed cavern measuring 91 metres (300 ft) long by 18 metres (60 ft) wide by 18 metres (60 ft) deep.

In wet weather, the stream runs over the edge 💚 Just be careful standing close to the edge!

📸 Chris Wicks pic.twitter.com/kii7xo71VT

— Yorkshire Dales National Park (@yorkshire_dales) February 21, 2024

When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him,”

God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

–1 Corinthians 2:1-10

"Daybreak in the Highlands"#AlmostHeaven #WestVirginia #Highlands pic.twitter.com/jAYp1NVMXl

— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) February 21, 2024