Againat a background of running costs of £30,000 a day, and an income down by £1 million a year since the pandemic, the Dean of Canterbury, the Very Revd David Monteith, has defended the decision to hold silent discos this month.

Dean Monteith also suggested that there was a “gentle evangelistic dimension” to such events….

A 1990s silent disco was held in the cathedral for two nights this month, eliciting criticism from some quarters after footage was shared online. An online petition (“Anglican Deans, stop turning our great cathedrals into nightclubs”) has collected more than 2600 signatures. It was organised by a Roman Catholic layman, Dr Cajetan Skowronski.

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I looked at the scale of the financial challenge facing cathedrals, as highlighted by @liturgicalben in a recent article.

‘Our commercial activities utterly subsidise our worship.’https://t.co/eo1NXJ0fj9

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) February 26, 2024

The US used artificial intelligence to identify targets hit by air strikes in the Middle East this month, a defense official said, revealing growing military use of the technology for combat.

Machine learning algorithms that can teach themselves to identify objects helped to narrow down targets for more than 85 US air strikes on Feb. 2, according to Schuyler Moore, chief technology officer for US Central Command, which runs US military operations in the Middle East. The Pentagon said those strikes were conducted by US bombers and fighter aircraft against seven facilities in Iraq and Syria.

“We’ve been using computer vision to identify where there might be threats,” Moore said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We’ve certainly had more opportunities to target in the last 60 to 90 days,” she said, adding the US is currently looking for “an awful lot” of rocket launchers from hostile forces in the region.

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The US used AI to identify targets hit by air strikes in the Middle East this month, a defense official says, revealing growing military use of the technology for combat https://t.co/UmIJrNz5Or via @technology

— Rosalind Mathieson (@RosMathieson) February 26, 2024

Medicaid payments are “the lifeblood of our health centers and their ability to serve,” said Dr. Kyu Rhee, the president and chief executive of the National Association of Community Health Centers, which treat roughly one in 11 people in the United States and rely on Medicaid and federal grants to provide a financial cushion for the uncompensated care they give uninsured patients.

Since last spring, Medicaid enrollment has dropped by almost ten million, including around four million children, according to researchers at Georgetown University. States have removed people for a variety of reasons, including for changes in income and age. Some people have been dropped because they did not return paperwork. Others have lost coverage because of technical errors, including computer glitches.

The loss of reimbursements for millions of patients has contributed to an already difficult financial picture for facilities that treat the poor: Unless Congress reaches a funding agreement, nearly $6 billion for federally financed health clinics, which serve over 30 million people, most of them low-income, could lapse in early March.

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“Jessica Tucker, a single mother, broke into tears after receiving a $90 bill for her 3-year-old son Raylan’s primary care visit and tetanus vaccine at Bethesda, pleading with her mother by phone for help paying it.” https://t.co/M3r48C3Voy

— Leah Libresco Sargeant (@LeahLibresco) February 26, 2024

Pharmacies warned of long waits for customers and U.S. military clinics worldwide have been affected after a cyberattack against one of the country’s largest prescription processors rolled into a third day of downtime.

Health industry experts said that a cyberattack against Change Healthcare, part of insurer UnitedHealth Group’s Optum business, could have severe and lasting consequences should outages continue past the weekend.

“It’s a mess, and I believe it’s our Colonial Pipeline moment in healthcare,” said Carter Groome, chief executive of healthcare-focused consulting firm First Health Advisory, referring to a 2021 cyberattack that forced the major fuel artery for the U.S. East Coast to shut down for six days, causing long lines at gas stations.

Change Healthcare was merged with Optum, a healthcare provider, in 2022 by UnitedHealth. Change Healthcare provides prescription processing services through Optum, which supplies technology services for more than 67,000 pharmacies and care to 129 million individual customers.

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📰via @WSJ:
Pharmacies warned of long waits for customers and U.S. military clinics worldwide have been affected after a cyberattack against one of the country’s largest prescription processors rolled into a third day of downtime. https://t.co/vc337OVkmS

— FDD's Center on Cyber & Technology Innovation (@FDD_CCTI) February 26, 2024

O Almighty God, whose most blessed Son didst reveal to the Samaritan woman that He is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the World; grant us to drink of the well that springeth up to everlasting life that we may worship Thee in spirit and in truth through thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Photini, the Samaritan Woman, c. 67

The Samaritan woman at the well appears in John 4.4–26 and in Eastern Orthodox & Eastern Catholic traditions is venerated as a saint with the name Photini ("the luminous one")

Image: Met Museum (OA) pic.twitter.com/4DPW820Uzh

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) February 26, 2024

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities that may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Good Morning pic.twitter.com/X1DebsJ86e

— philip jackson (@pajacksonartist) February 26, 2024

Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went through all the land of Egypt. During the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth abundantly, and he gathered up all the food of the seven years when there was plenty in the land of Egypt, and stored up food in the cities; he stored up in every city the food from the fields around it. And Joseph stored up grain in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured.

Before the year of famine came, Joseph had two sons, whom As′enath, the daughter of Poti′phera priest of On, bore to him. Joseph called the name of the first-born Manas′seh, “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.” The name of the second he called E′phraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

The seven years of plenty that prevailed in the land of Egypt came to an end; and the seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do.” So when the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth.

–Genesis 41:46-57

On The Hillside. 6°C and a chilly Northerly breeze. Sheep aplenty. pic.twitter.com/ItKYpfUQSy

— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) February 26, 2024