In September, a wave of 19 Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace. The Gerbera-type drones cost as little as $10,000—so cheap that they are often used as decoys to misdirect and overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. NATO countered with a half-billion-dollar response force of F-35s, F-16s, AWACS radar planes, and helicopters, which shot down four of the drones with $1.6-million AMRAAM missiles.

This is a bargain compared to how challenging U.S. forces have found it to defend against Houthi forces using this same cheap tech. Our naval forces have fired a reported 120 SM-2, 80 SM-6, and 20 SM-3 missiles, costing about $2.1 million, $3.9 million, and over $9.6 million each. And this is to defend against a group operating out of the 187th-largest economy in the world, able to fire mere hundreds of drones and missiles. Our supposed pacing challenge, China, has an economy that will soon be the largest in the world and a combined national industrial and military acquisition plan to be able to fire munitions by the millions.

Even in America’s best-laid plans for future battlefields, there is a harsh reality that is too often ignored. The math of current battlefields remains literally orders of magnitude beyond what our budget plans to spend, our industry plans to build, our acquisitions system is able to contract, and thus what our military will deploy.

Read it all.

"When you spend orders of magnitude more than your foe, you are in what is known as a “losing equation.” https://t.co/hUVfR4sw66 pic.twitter.com/OW3w9kuGhM

— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) December 3, 2025

Putin knows he can’t defeat NATO in a head-on fight, especially given how badly the war in Ukraine has gone for Russian forces. His only hope is to defeat it politically by undermining its cohesiveness, which he tries to do all the time, said Ed Arnold, a former British army infantry officer who specializes in European security analysis for the RUSI think tank.

The U.S.’s latest peace plan would go a long way toward dividing NATO, by proposing what would amount to an amnesty for Russia for the invasion, allowing it to re-enter the G-8 club of rich countries and pursue joint economic development plans with the U.S. in areas like the Arctic.

“That would create huge divisions within the trans-Atlantic partnership,” Arnold said. “Politically, Russia is on the cusp of winning.”

Read it all.

Trump’s Push to End the Ukraine War Is Sowing Fresh Fear About NATO’s Future

Washington’s latest peace efforts have jolted the trans-Atlantic alliance https://t.co/C3FLsf5mXm via @WSJ

— Nino Brodin (@Orgetorix) December 2, 2025

“Holiday” has become just a secularized term for a day when many break from their routines. However, Thanksgiving is one holiday that truly is a holy day — or at least it was to the Pilgrims who held the first one. To them, Thanksgiving was utterly religious. 

That Thanksgiving was a religious expression to the Pilgrims is hardly surprising. After all, they came to the New World for religious purposes (“Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith” as the Mayflower Compact stated): freedom of religion — not freedom from religion, as so many today seek to recast it. 

The Pilgrims suffered greatly on their ocean voyage over and had to turn back twice. Then, they landed at the wrong place. Next, they faced a mutiny as they waited to come ashore; the response to this impending revolt was the Mayflower Compact, America’s first act of independent governance. They suffered no less once ashore, with barely half surviving the first year: 52 of the 102 who had set sail on the Mayflower. 

However, despite their suffering, like Job, they did not forsake God. And like Job, those who survived saw themselves blessed; for their survival they gave thanks — hence, thanksgiving. 

The Pilgrims had no doubt as to whom they were giving thanks: God. Their action of thanks was to them as obvious as their longed-for connection. The two were inseparable, just as they themselves sought to be to God.

Read it all.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here at CBL, we are so thankful for all of you.

And did you know that Thanksgiving is a deeply Christian holiday?

In 1623, William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, made the first formal Thanksgiving declaration. In his declaration, Bradford… pic.twitter.com/l75g1ifSIj

— Center for Baptist Leadership (@BaptistLeaders) November 27, 2025

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

Happy Thanksgiving! #DYK the White House’s holiday celebration dates back to President Abraham Lincoln?

In October 1863, Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be celebrated as a holiday.

His #Thanksgiving proclamation implored the nation to reflect and heal in the… pic.twitter.com/Dxbs1oGnTq

— White House History (@WhiteHouseHstry) November 27, 2025

[New York, 3 October 1789]

By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor — and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be — That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks — for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation — for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war — for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed — for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted — for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions — to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually — to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed — to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord — To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us — and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

The FBI wishes you and your family a Happy #Thanksgiving. pic.twitter.com/Z4QEIbsSFT

— FBI (@FBI) November 27, 2025

The percentage of U.S. adults who report ever being diagnosed with cancer has now reached 9.7% in 2024-2025, a significant increase from the 7.0% Gallup recorded in 2008-2009. The share of adults with a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime registered just over 7% from 2010 to 2015, before starting to climb. It has increased at a greater pace over the past decade.

Gallup’s measurement of cancer prevalence rates is part of its ongoing National Health and Well-Being Index. Shown in two-year averages, the most recent results are based on 16,946 U.S. adults surveyed by web during the first three quarters of 2025 and another 23,969 adults surveyed in 2024 as part of the Gallup Panel. For the rate of lifetime diagnoses, Gallup asks, “Has a doctor or nurse ever told you that you have cancer?”

The rise in reported lifetime cancer diagnoses over the past 18 years has occurred amid slightly lower rates of new incidences of cancer over much of this time. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that, per capita, new cancer cases eased by 4% over a 10-year period, from 460.5 per 100,000 persons in 2013 to 442.3 per 100,000 in 2022.

Read it all.

A record high of nearly one in 10 Americans (9.7%) report having been diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetime, even as new incidences of cancer are slowly falling. pic.twitter.com/ENNSnBo4Kb

— Gallup (@Gallup) November 24, 2025

When describing the health of the US economy, there is a temptation among economists, market analysts, and politicians to argue that the only true picture of our current situation is a sweeping portrait — only by looking at the broadest of aggregate statistics can you determine the state of play, they argue. But the wide view can ignore important developments unfolding under the surface. Sometimes, even the healthiest-looking person might have high cholesterol.

Right now, the economy seems OK on the surface. GDP growth has been running north of 3% for the last two quarters. In the labor market, the boilerplate appears to be that conditions are gradually cooling, but nothing more, nothing less. For example, despite the slowdown in new hiring, the unemployment rate of 4.4% is still low by historical standards. But there are serious dangers lurking beneath the surface of our economy, and it is better to clearly identify them than to ignore them in favor of broad aggregate measures.

Major employers in industries like homebuilding and restaurants are looking shaky, and they offer ominous signs about the direction of the overall economy. By getting a sense of what sectors and industries are struggling, you can get a forward-looking sense of the economy’s trajectory and a clearer-eyed view of the possibility of recession.

Read it all.

Read of the Weekend. Once more, Dutta with devastating Charts. @RenMacLLC https://t.co/o5t4kotvIL

— tom keene (@tomkeene) November 24, 2025

 America’s huge mortgage market is slowly dying. In America’s foundation myths, the humble mortgage rarely features. There are no stirring ballads about the heroism of 30-year rates or credit-scoring. Yet mortgages have fueled the American dream, which centers on home ownership, ever since the federal government began subsidizing property loans a century ago. Now that fuel is running low. At $13.5 trillion, America’s current stock of mortgage debt is equivalent to 44% of the country’s GDP. That marks a drop of almost 30 percentage points since the global financial crisis of 2007-09, which was sparked by a binge on dicey housing debt, and the lowest level since 1999, before that property bubble got started. More striking still, mortgage debt has shrunk to just 27% of the value of American household property—a 65-year low. A great de-mortgaging is under way, with worrying consequences for the property market.

With Wall Street fretting about other corners of American finance, such as booming private lending to shaky mid-size firms, the tranquility of the mortgage market might seem like a sign of healthy restraint. In fact, it masks an insidious crisis. The median monthly principal-and-interest payment on an American home has surged from just above $1,000 to $2,100 in five years.

Read it all.

"Mortgage debt has shrunk to just 27% of the value of American household property—a 65-year low. A great demortgaging is under way, with worrying consequences for the property market" https://t.co/dJcHA6ehZQ pic.twitter.com/IGSoQOrQIH

— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) November 20, 2025

Recent Barna research reveals that only one in four single moms attends church weekly, the steepest drop among women in recent years. The finding raises an uncomfortable question: Are churches truly heeding the biblical command to care for the vulnerable in their midst?

When Joie Van Holstyn became a single mom of two boys through foster care and adoption in 2019, her church attendance quickly spiraled. 

“It was really hard at first,” she said. “We had pretty rough attendance the first two years—it was so much work to get out of the house. And I just felt out of place as a single mom.”

For women like Van Holstyn, the barriers start with logistics—juggling work hours, transportation, and the chaos of getting kids ready alone. But the emotional weight can be heavier still. Many feel judged, pitied, or simply invisible in congregations that assume families include a husband.

A friend eventually confronted Van Holstyn about her sporadic attendance. Convicted, she committed to going every week, even when her children squirmed through the small rural church’s service.

Read it all.

'“It was really hard at first,” she said. “We had pretty rough attendance the first two years—it was so much work to get out of the house. And I just felt out of place as a single mom.”

For women like Van Holstyn, the barriers start with logistics—juggling work hours,…

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 19, 2025

Chinese financial institutions have lent more than $200 billion to the United States over the past 25 years — more than they have advanced to any other country — as part of a vast global spending spree to take control of Western companies working on sensitive technologies, according to new research released Tuesday.

China discloses very little about the operations of its state-owned banks and asset managers.

But AidData, a research lab at William & Mary University in Williamsburg, Virginia, reported what it called an “unexpected and counterintuitive” finding: Between 2000 and 2023, Chinese financial institutions backed 2,500 projects — including gas pipelines and airport terminals — in almost every U.S. state.

Read it all.

Chinese lenders have extended more than $200 billion to the U.S. over the past 25 years as part of a vast global spending spree to take control of Western companies working on sensitive technologies, according to new research. https://t.co/b6eB9c2Oix

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 18, 2025

In the United States, 12% of married couples with at least one spouse in their 30s or 40s have two incomes and no kids, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of federal data.

This group, often referred to as “DINKs,” has grown slightly over the past decade. In 2013, 8% of married couples in the same age range were DINKs.

The share of dual-income couples with kids has also inched up slightly since 2013, while the share of single-income couples with kids has decreased from 34% to 27%.

Read it all.

Dual income, no kids: What we know about ‘DINKs’ in the U.S. https://t.co/4X1NRQ8vqE

— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) November 3, 2025

Tucker Carlson’s platforming of antisemitic social influencer Nick Fuentes, who proclaims “Christ is King,” evinces the reemergence of antisemitism in American Christianity. For the last 85 years, World War II and the Holocaust have made antisemitism publicly unacceptable in American Christianity, prior to which it was often acceptable.

For example, at the 1924 Methodist governing General Conference, the church’s prominent Prohibition chief, Clarence True Wilson, blamed the “filth” of films and theater on Jewish “degenerates, all of one race but of no religion, who have corrupted everything their filthy hands have touched for 2,000 years.” He warned: “No nation that has let them control its finances but has had to vomit them up, sometimes with bitter persecutions, to get the poison out of their system.” Wilson faulted German Jews for their “controlling interest in our liquor traffic.”

The audience for Wilson’s remarks included hundreds of Methodist leaders plus the church’s bishops. Yet there’s no record that his speech was controversial. Wilson continued as head of the denomination’s Washington, D.C. office on Capitol Hill for another 11 years. Methodism was then America’s biggest Protestant denomination. And its political influence was such that it was the main force responsible for persuading America to adopt Prohibition, with Wilson its chief advocate. So his anti-Jewish speech did not come from a marginal figure and likely represented the views of millions of Protestants, many of whom joined in the 1920s Ku Klux Klan resurgence, which made Jews, along with Catholics and Blacks, its chief targets.

American Christianity, and America, have been blessed that antisemitism across 85 years has mostly been taboo. But the memories of World War II and the Holocaust are fast fading. And revisionism about both, promoted by Carlson and Fuentes, among many others, is increasingly common. Human nature being what it is, demons once expelled often return and must again be exorcised.

Read it all.

Antisemitism, in subtle & blatant forms, likely will grow in American Christianity. Discerning American Christians must prepare to counter it. The argument against it is not complex & comes directly from our Savior: Love thy neighbor as thyself, without exceptions.…

— @markdtooley (@markdtooley) November 3, 2025

On March 23, 2023, an N.B.A. player left a game in New Orleans after playing just 10 minutes. His team said the player, Terry Rozier, was experiencing “foot discomfort.”

But according to federal prosecutors, Mr. Rozier’s departure was a key moment in an insider-trading scheme. Before the game, they say, Mr. Rozier had informed his childhood friend Deniro Laster that he would be exiting the game early, so that Mr. Laster and others could bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on his underperformance for the Charlotte Hornets.

On Thursday morning, Mr. Rozier was arrested in Orlando, Fla., and charged with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. He was one of dozens of people — including Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers — named in two indictments aimed at illegal gambling.

The charges spanned the worlds of professional sports, Mafia families and online betting, pairing traditional smoky-room card cheating with corruption enabled by today’s ubiquitous betting apps and smartphones. Each indictment described schemes that the authorities said had defrauded gamblers; one cast doubt on the integrity of N.B.A. games.

Read it all.

(NYT front page) More than 30 people were indicted on Thursday in a case involving insider bets on basketball games and poker games rigged by Mafia families https://t.co/vBLHICaKhb #sports #gambling #basketball #culturewatch #usa #law #ethics #scandal #corruption #money #greed

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 24, 2025

Americans’ views about religion in public life are shifting. From February 2024 to February 2025, there was a sharp rise in the share of U.S. adults who say religion is gaining influence in American life.

While this remains a minority view, it is increasingly held by adults across several demographic groups – with gains of at least 10 percentage points among Democrats and Republicans, adults in every age category and in most large religious groups.

The new survey also finds that in recent years, a growing share of the public takes a positive view of religion’s role in society.

In a February 2024 Pew Research Center poll, 18% of U.S. adults said religion was gaining influence in American life. That was the lowest level we had seen in more than two decades.

Read it all.

Most Americans (59%) say religion has a positive role in people's lives.

Only 20% say it has a negative role.

👉🏻 https://t.co/IA8ckO6srL pic.twitter.com/2YwvAwf14E

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) October 20, 2025

The American stockmarket has see-sawed lately amid a flare-up in trade tensions, but remains near its all-time high. The surge, fuelled by enthusiasm around artificial intelligence, has drawn comparisons to the exuberance of the late 1990s that culminated in the dotcom crash of 2000. Though technological innovation is undeniably reshaping industries and increasing productivity, there are good reasons to worry that the current rally may be setting the stage for another painful market correction. The consequences of such a crash, however, could be far more severe and global in scope than those felt a quarter of a century ago.

At the heart of this concern is the sheer scale of exposure, both domestic and international, to American equities. Over the past decade and a half, American households have significantly increased their holdings in the stockmarket, encouraged by strong returns and the dominance of American tech firms. Foreign investors, particularly from Europe, have for the same reasons poured capital into American stocks, while simultaneously benefiting from the dollar’s strength. This growing interconnectedness means that any sharp downturn in American markets will reverberate around the world.

To put the potential impact in perspective, I calculate that a market correction of the same magnitude as the dotcom crash could wipe out over $20trn in wealth for American households, equivalent to roughly 70% of American GDP in 2024. This is several times larger than the losses incurred during the crash of the early 2000s. The implications for consumption would be grave. Consumption growth is already weaker than it was preceding the dotcom crash. A shock of this magnitude could cut it by 3.5 percentage points, translating into a two-percentage-point hit to overall GDP growth, even before accounting for declines in investment.

Read it all.

The exposure of the world to US equities is at record levels. A stock market correction would have more severe and global consequences as compared to what followed the dot-com crash. The tariff wars and lack of fiscal space compounds the problem. The underlying problem is not… pic.twitter.com/LFaN4mNgqn

— Gita Gopinath (@GitaGopinath) October 15, 2025

To fully understand this ongoing debate, one must consider the historical role of Christianity in America, the legal protections for religious freedom (despite the spread of secularism) amid a decades-old culture war highlighted by societal shifts starting in the 1960s.

As a result, Christianity in the United States is certainly undergoing a transition. It is moving from a position of cultural centrality to one of pluralistic coexistence, especially since new waves of immigrants over the last 30 years who are Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists move to the United States.

In a 2022 post, veteran journalist Richard Ostling, a regular Religion Unplugged contributor, observed:

“Christian nationalism” became common coinage in the U.S. fairly recently, usually raised by cultural liberals who view it with alarm, and often with “White” as an added adjective. The term is not generally embraced by those considered to be participants.

As journalist Samuel Goldman remarks, to describe something as Christian nationalism “is inevitably to reject it.”

The Merriam-Webster definition of plain “nationalism” is “loyalty and devotion to a nation” but adds this important wording, “especially a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.”

“Nationalism” is not the same as “patriotism,” the natural and benign love and loyalty toward one’s homeland that characterizes all peoples and countries, including huge numbers of non-nationalists on America’s religious left as well as the right. Nor is it the same thing as either political or religious conservatism but is instead a narrow faction within those broad populations.

Read it all.

The question of whether #Christianity is under attack, especially in the United States, is a complex and deeply polarizing one https://t.co/REqRKWg2aY

— Clemente Lisi (@ClementeLisi) October 8, 2025

Big Pharma has a big headache: Donald Trump. Lately drugmakers have had to contend with the American president’s pronouncements on everything from vaccines to paracetamol. In the coming days the pain is set to intensify. Intent on lowering prices, Mr Trump has given leading pharma firms until September 29th to comply with an executive order to peg their prices to the lowest charged in other rich countries—a rule he calls “most favoured nation” (MFN) pricing. If they do not, he thundered, they will face “every tool in our arsenal” against “abusive drug pricing”.

At the same time, the president wants to encourage homegrown manufacturing. He plans to impose a 100% tariff on branded drugs from October 1st, unless their makers are building factories in America. His administration is also pondering additional duties under a law allowing imports to be restricted on national-security grounds.

As is often the case, the Trumpian diagnosis contains a kernel of truth. Drug prices are indeed higher in America than elsewhere in the rich world. But the president’s two-point prescription upends a model that has long underpinned the highly globalised pharma industry, which could have unintended effects. It could leave Americans with fewer medicines but not cheaper ones, while in other countries drugs could be fewer and dearer. David Ricks of Eli Lilly, the world’s most valuable drugmaker, has warned that MFN pricing risks “the worst of two worlds”, importing Europe’s sluggish innovation while keeping American prices high.

Read it all.

America’s drug prices were more than three times the average in other rich countries in 2022. As a consequence, it coughs up around 70% of global pharmaceutical profits from about half of global sales. This is partly because of how the market is organised https://t.co/eyJHSfPEB3

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) September 29, 2025

“I thought I was heading into oblivion,” he said. “It was scary—and exciting.” 

Huffman thrived in Florida, though, getting an opportunity to minister not only to the president but also to an island of young professionals who wanted to grow in their faith and a rotating cast of powerful people spending time on Florida’s beaches and golf courses.

He was careful to “just preach the gospel,” he said, regardless of who was in church, and to remember he was preaching to everyone, not just the most powerful person in the room. 

“There may have been someone else in the congregation who needed to hear what I said more than the president,” he said. “You’re there to serve the Lord. That’s the important part. Let the chips fall where they may.”

The year after Huffman told Nixon to confess, he accepted a call to be pastor at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Pittsburgh, a prestigious pulpit at a respected and historic congregation. Decision magazine did a photo essay on the church while Huffman was there, naming it “one of the great churches in America.” 

Read it all.

We mourn the loss of Rev. Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr., beloved friend, supporter, and former board chair. His life and legacy shaped Gordon-Conwell from its earliest days. Please join us in prayer for his family.

Read more: https://t.co/B5s9yM8dRw
#GordonConwell pic.twitter.com/mc9Aj8LGtk

— Gordon-Conwell (@GordonConwell) September 29, 2025

US debt investors have raised the alarm over lax lending standards in credit markets after the unravelling of two companies that just weeks ago were deemed to be in strong health.

The failure of subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings at the start of this month followed by the exploration of bankruptcy proceedings by car parts supplier First Brands Group have wrongfooted investors. Tricolor had won pristine triple-A ratings as it borrowed in credit markets, while First Brands may have amassed as much as $10bn in debt and off-balance sheet financing and was close to raising even more last month.

Investors were ready to dismiss each as one-off incidents, but taken together, the two offer signs of cracks within credit markets, which have become a critical source of funding for consumers and businesses as traditional banks have retreated since the financial crisis.

Read it all.

US debt investors have raised the alarm over lax lending standards in credit markets after the unravelling of subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings and car parts supplier First Brands Group that just weeks ago were deemed to be in strong health. https://t.co/42lt425W6Y pic.twitter.com/MIgeF7QhsF

— Financial Times (@FT) September 24, 2025

But today conservative Christians are eager to tell a different story, and Charlie Kirk’s memorial service on Sunday — a gathering of political figures where politics was subordinated to preaching, culminating in Erika Kirk’s extraordinarily moving message of forgiveness for her husband’s killer — was a stage for a narrative of revival, recovery, conversion, Christian strength.

Trump was there, of course, and still very much his un-Christian self. (His off-script comments about his inability to feel anything but hatred for his own enemies were funny in the Trumpian way, but also plainly true.) But the idea that the future belongs to a post-Christian right, a subject we’ve considered in this newsletter, seemed not just absent but almost absurd, as the leaders of the Republican Party lined up for a memorial that doubled as an evangelical revival, complete with altar calls.

Religious history invites us to expect the unexpected, and there’s no reason to rule out a future where Kirk’s martyrdom provides the impetus for a genuine revival. The story of the last five years, at least in my reading of the religious tea leaves, is one of secularization arrested, and a culture reconsidering religion — but not yet becoming notably more religious. That’s an equilibrium that could be tipped by dramatic events or examples, and to the extent that Kirk is remembered and emulated primarily for his faith, maybe we’ve just seen a tipping point.

Read it all.

Christianity After Charlie Kirk:https://t.co/BDyr2lTfW0

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) September 23, 2025

The research is sprawling and interdisciplinary, but it is beginning to align around a provocative hypothesis: Shifts in everyday exposures may be accelerating biological aging, priming the body for disease earlier than expected.

“We’ve changed what we’re exposed to considerably in the past few decades,” said Patti, a professor of chemistry, genetics and medicine at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The sheer complexity of modern life makes it difficult to pinpoint specific culprits. But advances in rapid, high-volume chemical screening, machine learning, and vast population datasets have made it possible to look with unparalleled depth and detail into the human body and the world around it. These methods test thousands of variables at once, revealing some never-before-seen patterns.

Last year, researchers released findings from a 150,000-person study at the annual American Association for Cancer Research meeting that took the cancer community by surprise. They found that millennials — born between 1981 and 1996 — appear to be aging biologically faster than previous generations, based on biomarkers in blood that indicate the health of various organs. That acceleration was associated with a significantly increased risk — up to 42 percent — for certain cancers, especially those of the lung, gastrointestinal tract and uterus.

Read it all.

NEW: The rates of cancer among millennials are rising, and researchers now think it can't be explained by genetics and lifestyle choices alone. Check out the latest in our young cancer series, by @arianaeunjung @alvarovalino and @dtkeating https://t.co/YUosFbFpgq

— Juliet Eilperin (@eilperin) September 23, 2025

You graduate from a college, I think you should get, automatically as part of your diploma, a green card [permanent residence in the United States],” promised Donald Trump on the campaign trail last year. As president, on September 19th, Mr Trump headed in the opposite direction. He proposed a charge of $100,000 on new applications for H-1B visas, a favourite of technology firms hiring foreign graduates. Each year 85,000 are issued by lottery (demand far outstrips that quota). Hitherto the cost of securing one has been about $2,500 in legal and filing fees.

Big tech firms dominate the visas (see chart 1). Amazon alone received more than 14,000 approvals in 2025 (renewals do not count against the 85,000 quota). Indian IT-services giants such as Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), also routinely rank among the top sponsors. And Indian citizens scoop most of the visas—about three-quarters of them in 2023. Apart from China (12%), no other country secures more than 2%. Many of Mr Trump’s supporters complain that this means jobs that could go to talented Americans go to Indian graduates instead. But the effects of the new charge may be more complicated than they expect.

Over the weekend many of America’s tech giants scrambled to advise employees on H-1B visas not to leave the country until the rules are clarified; whether exemptions will be made for some groups remains uncertain. The announcement has been most keenly felt, though, in India. In August Mr Trump imposed a 50% tariff on Indian goods, sparing only essentials such as electronics and pharmaceuticals. Now he has hit the country’s most successful sector. According to Goldman Sachs, services exports grew from $53bn to $338bn between 2005 and 2023, almost twice the global rate. That growth was driven by a boom in India’s population of engineers, particularly in computer science. The IT firms relied on sending engineers to America under the H-1B programme to serve clients, a cornerstone of their business model. For decades H-1Bs offered Indian techies a route to better-paid jobs in America. That path now looks far less certain.

Read it all.

The perverse consequence of America’s $100,000 visa fees https://t.co/AbOuOhgZi6 via @TheEconomist

— Adi Gaskell (@AdiGaskell) September 23, 2025

We may be standing at the edge of a season of renewal in America. But it won’t just happen. Pastors, vestries, members—we all have to pick up the tools God has already given us and use them.

If we do, then this isn’t just a spike in attendance. People will stay. They’ll grow. They’ll become part of the household of God.

One X user said it best: “God always brings good out of evil. The light shines in the darkness.”

That light is shining now. The question is whether we’ll lift it high for all to see.

Read it all.

Young people are going back to church:

"After years of stagnant church attendance, a surprising shift is underway. Millennials and Generation Z are emerging as the new “backbone of church attendance,” driving a resurgence in spiritual engagement, according to recent findings…

— Nancy Pearcey (@NancyRPearcey) September 17, 2025

“Now let me say a word to all of us about the importance of Christians being Christians. I want to speak to you from my heart and tell you that you matter not just to God, not just to me not just this Parish, but to this country and the most important thing for the country right now is for Christians to be Christians and to be salt and light.

There’s no question that the last week has been unspeakably difficult for our country. We had a man who was speaking publicly at a university in Utah senselessly murdered in cold blood. It caused terror and shock to the students, to the university, to the state of Utah, to the country and indeed to the world.

Whatever else you can say about this terrible event it represents the symptom of a country that is not well. We need Christians to pray for this country but we need more than that. We need Christians to be Christians in the public sphere in this country and behave in the public Square in a manner that conforms with the person and the teachings of Christ.

This means two things specifically for us. First of all, it means speaking against political violence from any point of view as ever being justified in the public square. Christians need to be people who defend free speech, but also who defend the importance of good disagreement in public and who do everything in their power to pray and speak against any political violence.

There is also something philosophical at stake and it matters. One of the very alarming things that’s happened in the last few decades is that a perspective has emerged, which has moved from arguing that words are bad to arguing that words in and of themselves are violence.

We need to be careful here. There is no justification for using free speech to deliberately incite violence from others or ourselves, but this is different.

What is now being argued is that words of a certain type from a certain vantage point are inherently violent and therefore people who use those kind of words and those kind of arguments are able to be responded to with violence in certain circumstances.

Do not fool yourself that this idea that political violence is justified is somehow hiding anymore in the dark subways or smaller parts of our country. What is so deeply disturbing about what this week represents is how many people in public from various viewpoints are more and more justifying political violence as a means of somehow being a solution to our problems Political violence has never been good. It will never be justified. It can never be condoned. It must always be condemned.

This is true for everyone, but especially for us as Christians. Let us renew our commitment to pray for this country and let us renew our commitment to seek the common good, to defend the importance of the public square and to defend the need to behave properly in the public square. And let us all work for the common good of our country.

Several people have argued that this week could be a turning point—let us pray that it is, in all sorts of ways, a turning point for the better, but let us, especially as Christians, respond by making sure that it deepens our resolve to be people of salt and light who speak the truth in love and who declare to all that speaking the truth in love matters. And let us pray that the God who brought his light into the darkness of this world, somehow brings his light out of this very dark week in Utah and in America.”

U.S. population growth will slow to a crawl over the next few decades as fertility rates decline and net immigration shrinks because of stricter enforcement, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

Deaths are now projected to exceed births in 2031. Just eight months ago, CBO had projected that threshold wouldn’t be crossed until 2033.  

By 2055, the U.S. population will be about 367 million, up from 350 million today. In January, CBO had projected a 2055 population of 372 million. From 1975 through 2024, U.S. population growth averaged 0.9% annually. By the early 2050s, according to the latest projections, population growth will effectively be zero. 

Read it all.

U.S. population growth will slow to a crawl over the next few decades as fertility rates decline and net immigration shrinks because of stricter enforcement, the Congressional Budget Office said https://t.co/Et12WqCfnk

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 10, 2025

From there:

I got up and turned on the TV, and there was just this big black hole in the World Trade Center. And there was just smoke billowing out of it. I called my sister Cathy I said, “You might wanna wake up, turn in your TV and take a look at what they’re showing.” The commentator’s saying that it’s an American Airlines plane. And I casually asked Cathy, I said, “Do you know where Betty is?” And she says, “Betty’s supposed to be flying out of Boston.” And I said, “Do you think Betty is on that plane?” We just didn’t know. So I left a phone call on her cellphone, just asking her when she’s landed or anywhere you’re on the ground, to just give us a call and tell us you’re okay. And there was no call from Betty. I called American Airlines, and it was only then that it was confirmed that Betty was on the flight.

I just want to add, through your passing, Betty, our family’s gotten very very close. Dad, who’s quite stoic, doesn’t really say a whole lot, man of the family, one day told us that he cries himself to sleep. Even to this day, he just keeps staying up watching TV, hoping somehow that you’ll reappear. And we’re all still waiting for that phone call from you to tell us that you’re okay. We just miss you a whole lot.

You may find the transcript of Betty Ong’s conversation reporting the hijacking from the American airlines plane here.

On September 11, 2001, New York — and the nation — faced the unimaginable. Now, 24 years later, the spirit of unity that helped us recover and rebuild can inspire a whole new generation.

Each anniversary offers an opportunity to reflect and affirm our promise to never forget.… pic.twitter.com/RyxScc5MLu

— 9/11 Memorial & Museum (@Sept11Memorial) September 10, 2025

“The cloudless sky filled with coiling black smoke and a blizzard of paper—memos, photographs, stock transactions, insurance policies—which fluttered for miles on a gentle southeasterly breeze, across the East River into Brooklyn. Debris spewed onto the streets of lower Manhattan, which were already covered with bodies. Some of them had been exploded out of the building when the planes hit. A man walked out of the towers carrying someone else’s leg. Jumpers landed on several firemen, killing them instantly.

“The air pulsed with sirens as firehouses and police stations all over the city emptied, sending the rescuers, many of them to their deaths. [FBI agent] Steve Bongardt was running toward the towers, against a stream of people racing in the opposite direction. He heard the boom of the second collision. “There’s a second plane,” someone cried.”

–Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Random House [Vintage Books], 2006), pp.404-405

Moments from this morning's 24th anniversary commemoration pic.twitter.com/IQ0uE31Bua

— 9/11 Memorial & Museum (@Sept11Memorial) September 11, 2025

Almighty God and Father who wills that all people may flourish and have abundance of life, be with us especially on this day when we remember such destruction, darkness, devastation, death and terror; help us to honor the memory of those whose lives were utterly cut short, and to believe that you can make all things new, even the most horrible things. Redeem and heal, O Holy Spirit, grant us perspective, humility, light, trust and grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today we will lead the world in commemorating the 24th anniversary of 9/11. Twenty-four years after the day that changed our world forever, we will come together to read aloud the names of those lost. Join us live: https://t.co/XXLaBbugOb pic.twitter.com/J5cJDK1lla

— 9/11 Memorial & Museum (@Sept11Memorial) September 11, 2025

The percentage of U.S. adults who report currently having or being treated for depression has exceeded 18% in both 2024 and 2025, up about eight percentage points since the initial measurement in 2015.

The current rate of 18.3% measured so far in 2025 projects to an estimated 47.8 million Americans suffering from depression. Most of the increase has occurred since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Gallup obtained the most recent results for 2025 Feb. 18-26 and May 27-June 4, 2025, with 11,288 U.S. adults surveyed by web as part of the probability-based Gallup Panel. Respondents were asked, “Has a doctor or nurse ever told you that you have depression?” and if yes, “Do you currently have or are you currently being treated for depression?”

Both metrics are part of the ongoing Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index. The percentage of adults who report having been diagnosed with depression in their lifetime stands at 28.5%, hovering near the record high of 29.0% measured in the first quarter of 2023.

Read it all.

U.S. Depression Rate Remains Historically High https://t.co/P24MAawQa4

— Rasha B Basha (@basharabasha_ra) September 9, 2025