After losing at the appellate level, state officials turned to the U.S. Supreme Court. They asked the justices to consider the dismissals and determine whether they amounted to religious discrimination.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to get involved, but Justice Samuel Alito published a statement emphasizing the importance of the issues involved.

Whether jurors can be dismissed based on their religious beliefs about sexuality is a “very serious and important question,” he wrote, one that he anticipated when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

“In this case, the court below reasoned that a person who still holds traditional religious views on questions of sexual morality is presumptively unfit to serve on a jury in a case involving a party who is a lesbian. That holding exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges, namely, that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government,” Alito said.

Read it all.

The Supreme Court won’t yet consider whether potential jurors can be dismissed based on their religious beliefs. | By @kelsey_dallas https://t.co/8yVvoH8BE8

— Deseret News (@Deseret) February 28, 2024

So extensive is Moscow’s network of informants and agents that it is impossible to eradicate Russian interference, Danilov said. “Students, wives, tourists ― all of them are used by Russia to do their bidding abroad.”

The FSB, Russia’s security service, was also issuing contracts to European criminal gangs, a relationship that had been made easier by the advent of cryptocurrencies, he said.

“It was the modus operandi of the KGB, and it is the case again today where they are using a combination of European criminal gangs to do their work in conjunction with trained officers.

“There are criminals sitting in the Kremlin and they use criminals to do their work for them. The country is run on criminality.”

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Russian spies have developed an artificial intelligence tool that Moscow is using to meddle in elections in Britain and the United States on a scale “exponentially greater” than ever before, Ukraine’s national security adviser has warned ⬇️https://t.co/sOHGAOpU7a

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) February 27, 2024

Six days before Christmas, the US Department of Justice loudly announced a win in the ongoing fight against the scourge of ransomware: An FBI-led, international operation had targeted the notorious hacking group known as BlackCat or AlphV, releasing decryption keys to foil its ransom attempts against hundreds of victims and seizing the dark web sites it had used to threaten and extort them. “In disrupting the BlackCat ransomware group, the Justice Department has once again hacked the hackers,” deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco declared in a statement.

Two months and one week later, however, those hackers don’t appear particularly “disrupted.” For the last seven days and counting, BlackCat has held hostage the medical firm Change Healthcare, crippling its software in hospitals and pharmacies across the United States, leading to delays in drug prescriptions for an untold number of patients.

The ongoing outage at Change Healthcare, first reported to be a BlackCat attack by Reuters, represents a particularly grim incident in the ransomware epidemic not just due to its severity, its length, and the potential toll on victims’ health. Ransomware-tracking analysts say it also illustrates how even law enforcement’s wins against ransomware groups appear to be increasingly short-lived, as the hackers that law enforcement target in carefully coordinated busts simply rebuild and restart their attacks with impunity.

“Because we can’t arrest the core operators that are in Russia or in areas that are uncooperative with law enforcement, we can’t stop them,” says Allan Liska, a ransomware-focused researcher for cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

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Two months ago, the FBI “disrupted” the BlackCat ransomware group. They're already back—and their latest attack is causing delays at pharmacies across the US. https://t.co/iowdfRdtXY

— WIRED (@WIRED) February 28, 2024

The data published by a report published by the Evangelical Alliance in Northern Ireland has “surprised” even those who were aware of the strong presence of Christianity in the region.

The survey, conducted by polling agency Savanta ComRes in spring 2023, shows that 50% of people in Northern Ireland identify themselves as “practising Christians”. 17% of the surveyed said they had no religion, and another 31.3% identified as a non-practising Christian.

The study revealed that “23% go to church each week”, 35% pray on a weekly basis and 13% “personally read the Bible”.

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A new survey shows that younger Christians are more committed to their faith. Experts are “surprised at high rates of religious practice” as 65% say faith has a role in general society. https://t.co/yiRLcTrghT

— Evangelical Focus (@Evan_Focus) February 27, 2024

Almighty God, who didst inspire thy servant Anna Julia Haywood Cooper with the love of learning and the skill of teaching: Enlighten us more and more through the discipline of learning, and deepen our commitment to the education of all thy children; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, Educator, 1964 https://t.co/mfbLG91bys

A distinguished scholar and educator, she championed education for African Americans and women, and completed her PhD at the Sorbonne, aged 66

Photo: Library of Congress OA pic.twitter.com/hMgPgfTfDF

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) February 28, 2024

O Eternal God, who hast taught us by thy holy Word that our bodies are temples of thy Spirit: Keep us, we most humbly beseech thee, temperate and holy in thought, word and deed, that at the last we, with all the pure in heart, may see thee and be made like unto thee in thy heavenly kingdom; through Christ our Lord.

Morning pic.twitter.com/R50FqOF6na

— Veritatis Cupitor (@English1Maiden) February 28, 2024

Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea; and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it had not much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil; and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

And when he was alone, those who were about him with the twelve asked him concerning the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again, and be forgiven.” And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown; when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word which is sown in them. And these in like manner are the ones sown upon rocky ground, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns; they are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things, enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown upon the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”

–Mark 4:1-20

Amanhecer em Novo Hamburgo … @metsul @CeuProfundo #sun #ThePhotoHour @jornalnh @CeuProfundo @Havenlust pic.twitter.com/9WFOeQSoFO

— Daniel Fleck (@djcapella) February 28, 2024