Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith We give thee heartfelt thanks for the pioneering spirit of thy servant Philander Chase, and for his zeal in opening new frontiers for the ministry of thy Church. Grant us grace to minister in Christ’s name in every place, led by bold witnesses to the Gospel of the Prince of Peace, even Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Lord, who hast warned us that without thee we can do nothing; and by thy holy apostle hast taught us that in thy strength we can do all things: So take and possess us, that our weakness may be transformed by thy power; that we be no longer our own, but thine; that it be not we who live, but thou who livest in us; who now reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, world without end.

—Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

Finally, we will ask what went wrong.

The postmortem will be this. Many people panicked about the possibility of strong AI models killing us all. That fear was not based on peer-reviewed scientific research showing a high chance of doom, nor was doom indicated in any market prices of the time, including measures of risk. It was a story, just like this is a story, and it was spread on social media. The key point of the doom story was that, if America keeps the No. 1 spot in AI models, the models will be so strong they will do us all in, or lead to unimaginable catastrophes. We were too afraid to have America keep the lead, forgetting that if truly destructive AI is our fate, the doomer scenario can come from Chinese AI as well.

Today, we cannot say for sure that the AI doom scenario is false. But is it a story we wish to live by? Is belief in it a good way to protect and extend life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Will it help us much, or for long, if it is Chinese AI that turns on us and does us in?

In my view, successful societies accept challenges and meet them. Solving problems, bit by bit, is the best way to ensure that we have the capabilities to meet big and truly existential risks, should those risks come along. Debating the chances of our doom, ex ante, on a highly speculative basis, is unlikely to provide the same kind of expertise and talent cultivation. It is instead more likely to demoralize and immobilize us.

So which America are we going to choose?

Read it all.

Tyler Cowen: A Doomsday Scenario for American AI https://t.co/3qm0eVwQ3I

— Mark Semonian (@msemonian) September 21, 2026

Iran, China and groups in Israel used artificial intelligence in novel ways in recent months to create first-of-their-kind influence campaigns on social media, ratcheting up concerns among U.S. officials and security researchers about the fast-evolving technology.

The countries and groups combined A.I. tactics to ramp up the speed and scale of online campaigns beyond what people could easily achieve and with minimal human interaction, U.S. officials and security researchers with knowledge of the efforts said.

First, the countries and groups turned to Chinese “open-source” A.I. models, which are increasingly powerful systems that are freely available to download and modify. Then they used those A.I. models to create “agents,” which are bots that can operate software and complete tasks on their own.

Once hundreds of those A.I. agents were let loose, they autonomously opened networks of fake accounts on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok, the officials and security researchers said. The agents then rapidly seeded the fake accounts with false posts about politics and current events to sway opinions and inflame issues.

Read it all.

there’s more to the effect of our modern screen life on our reading habits than merely the choice between glass and paper. The personal computers of the 1980s gave us word processing, making the typewriter obsolete; the early internet of the 1990s gave us email (I remember thinking that this was reviving the lost art of letter writing that had been killed by the telephone); and by the turn of the century the bounty promised by the web looked truly impressive: digitized books and primary sources for research, online journals, a proliferation of news and commentary. (Yes, also the logorrhea of early blog culture, now reappearing on Substack.) Then came the smartphone, the jazziest (though not the first) being the iPhone, debuting in 2007. Now in the hands of billons worldwide, these devices have fundamentally changed our daily lives, for good and for ill. They are designed to seize and keep our attention, to amuse us endlessly with ever-changing stimuli, and to lure us into an in-the-cloud world that contains much of the human race’s knowledge yet also makes us dumber. As Wolf writes: 

No self-respecting internal review board at any university would allow a researcher to do what our culture has already done with no adjudication or previous evidence: introduce a complete, quasi-addictive set of attention-compelling devices without knowing the possible side effects and ramifications for the subjects (our kids). 

What we are all experiencing—and Wolf confesses her personal struggle to return to deep reading of books—are “decreasing attention spans, pushed beyond their cognitive limits by a flotsam of distractions and information that will never become knowledge.” 

Convinced that consistent, attentive reading is essential for the development of both our reason and our compassion, Wolf is worried about the effects of our contemporary screens on our capacity for self-government. This is even more explicitly the concern of British writer James Marriott, a journalist at The Times. Marriott’s The New Dark Ages: The Death of Reading and the Dawn of the Post-Literate Society has been out for a few weeks in the UK, and is soon to be published here in the U.S. (This one, dear reader, I acquired on paper from the publisher.) 

Marriott is a worried man, and he works hard not to be too alarmist—to use his indoor voice, as it were. But The New Dark Ages, which I hope will be widely read, is a brief, brisk, and persuasive book about the damage our screen life is doing to our social and political life. He puts the matter starkly in his introduction: “As reading fades I believe that we may find ourselves facing a post-literate future that resembles the pre-literate past: mystical, tribal, and autocratic.” We fill our eyes (and now increasingly our ears, too) not with the pages of books or even with the extended narratives and arguments to be found in newspapers and magazines, but instead with TikTok and YouTube videos, podcasts, X memes, Instagram posts, and Reddit rants.  

Read it all.

“As reading fades I believe that we may find ourselves facing a post-literate future that resembles the pre-literate past: mystical, tribal, and autocratic.”https://t.co/1igjBHxPox

— Jordan J. Ballor (@JordanBallor) September 21, 2026

We thank thee, heavenly Father, for the witness of thine apostle and evangelist Matthew to the Gospel of thy Son our Savior; and we pray that, after his example, we may with ready wills and hearts obey the calling of our Lord to follow him; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today is the Feast of St. Matthew. Jesus called him from life as a tax collector to be an Apostle.

(The Call of St. Matthew, by Caravaggio) pic.twitter.com/vUuiB7BcVs

— Christian Culture (@Christian8Pics) September 21, 2017

O Lord, you have taught us that without love, all our deeds are worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the true bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whoever lives is counted dead before you; grant this for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Good morning Monday Marvels!😊 It's the start of another new week!🤩 I hope everyone has had a great weekend 🥳 Now to put on those smiles and have ourselves a fab day, folks!😘#MondayVibes pic.twitter.com/1VZDsSwNjs

— Kate 🏄‍♀️🌊🤙〓〓🏴‍☠️🤿🪼⛵️⚓️🌅 (@CornwallK8) September 21, 2026

O Spirit of the living God, who dost sanctify the lives of thy people, and dost build them up into a holy temple for thy habitation: Grant us so to know thy indwelling presence that we may be set free from lesser desires, and by thy grace may be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord.

—New Every Morning (The Prayer Book Of The Daily Broadcast Service) [BBC, 1900]

People kept walking up to me asking me what I saw. They assumed I was taking a picture of a bull moose or something. Nope, just a stunning long exposure sunrise. pic.twitter.com/t4z0TI59H6

— Kristin Mae Photography (@Kristin_Mae) September 20, 2026

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who dost feed the birds and clothe the flowers, and who carest for us as a father for his children: We beseech thee of thy tender goodness to save us from distrust and vain self-concern; that with unwavering faith we may cast our every care on thee, and live in daily obedience to thy will; through thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

This morning’s Sunrise at (1) Norah Head lighthouse and at (2) Gosford City waterfront 🇦🇺

Happy Monday & new week greetings to you – enjoy 😊🌸🦘🤗
(📸J.Picot) pic.twitter.com/5eOejnIVXG

— Anthony Sider (@BudgetDude) September 14, 2026

Lambeth Palace said on Thursday that it had withdrawn an interfaith award given to a Muslim cleric by the Archbishop of Canterbury last week (News,18 September).

Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi was given the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation last Friday — 11 September — for his “outstanding work as an ambassador of interfaith harmony in Pakistan”. He was described in the citation as a “prominent Muslim scholar and religious leader in Pakistan, known for his unwavering commitment to promoting religious tolerance and interfaith harmony”.

The Church Times understands that Mr Ashrafi’s nomination was made before Archbishop Mullally’s time in office.

Photos of Mr Ashrafi receiving the award from the Archbishop next to his wife wearing the niqab attracted attention after being published on social media on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, began publishing links to previous comments made by Mr Ashrafi.

Read it all.

Lambeth Palace said on Thursday that it had withdrawn an interfaith award given to a Muslim cleric by the Archbishop of Canterbury last weekhttps://t.co/GYqfoUtH6o

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 18, 2026

Today, Trinity Anglican Seminary announced the launch of Holy Order, a new podcast exploring how Scripture and the Anglican tradition—in all its richness and depth, both catholic and reformed—forms Christians for faithful living in a disordered age. Though produced by the seminary, the show is not about Trinity itself. Rather, it extends the seminary’s teaching ministry beyond the classroom, making the formative riches of Scripture and the Anglican tradition more accesible to the wider Church and the world at a time when many are seeking a deeper, more rooted faith.

Hosted by the Very Rev. Dr. Bryan Hollon, Dean and President of Trinity Anglican Seminary, and Cooper Nye, Director of Executive and Academic Communications, Holy Order offers thoughtful conversations on theology, culture, history, and the Christian life through the lens of the Anglican tradition. Each episode stays true to the name of the show by connecting timeless Christian wisdom with the questions and challenges of the present day, bringing listeners from a problem–a point of confusion or disorder–toward clarity and order. 

“Holy Order reflects Trinity’s deepest commitments: to forming leaders for mission, being rooted in scripture, serving the Church, and creating lifelong learners,” Hollon said. “We see it as a teaching ministry, and our hope is that these conversations serve not only clergy and seminary students, nor Anglicans alone, but anyone seeking to deepen their faith and follow Christ.”

Hollon added: “I am convinced that Anglicanism is a really good way to be a Christian. I love the riches of our tradition, and I believe they are precisely what so many are searching for today. My hope is that Holy Order will introduce some to the Christian faith and help others go deeper in it.” 

Read it all.

Trinity Anglican Seminary’s new podcast extends our teaching ministry beyond the classroom, exploring how Scripture and the Anglican tradition can bring clarity and order to the questions and challenges of our disordered age.

Listen and subscribe: https://t.co/79I9NEm3tw

— Trinity Anglican Seminary (@TASeminary) September 9, 2026

Mr. Kramer doesn’t shy away from pointing the finger at Germany’s newer demographic sources of antisemitism, even as he cites the latest official figures, which show right-wing extremism as the single largest identifiable source of antisemitic crime. In 2024, he says, 48.4% of antisemitic offenses were classified as right-wing, compared with 31.1% as fueled by “foreign ideology” and 11% by “religious ideology.” He stresses that “antisemitism linked to Islamist and anti-Israel milieus has risen sharply since Oct. 7 and is now a major part of the threat picture.”

And so, 25 years after it opened, Berlin’s Jewish Museum must face up to an existential challenge. It’s no longer enough to “explain Jewish culture to Germans from a Jewish perspective,” as Ms. Berg describes the institution’s founding mission. It must adapt to—and push back against—a spate of ugliness and violence in Germany that flows from sources old and new, from a resurgent right that many believe is nostalgic for a Nazi past and from an arriviste cohort of Islamist Jew-haters who teem in Germany’s cities.

“We cannot ever be complacent,” Ms. Berg says, as she navigates the barriers outside her buildings, each bollard proof of how hard it is for a German Jew to live in peace.

Read it all.

Fun Fact: Daniel Libeskind, who designed the Jewish Museum Berlin, and the National Holocaust Momument in Ottawa, is the uncle of Canada's NDP leader, @avilewis. https://t.co/edrdD9AwDz

— Phil Pothen 🇨🇦 he/him (@pothen) September 9, 2026

One of the most persistent news stories about religion in recent years has been the decline of Christianity and the rise of the “nones,” or people who have no religion in particular. The nones narrative suggests that American Christianity is in free fall. One headline in recent weeks announced that even young Latinos, part of what is often regarded as one of the most religious ethnic groups, are “abandoning churches to be ‘nones.’”

Look closer, however, and you can find data suggesting that Christianity is flourishing. Some signs indicate that young American men are attending church more than they did in previous generations. High-profile intellectuals such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was one of the leading figures of the New Atheist movement, have publicly announced their conversion to Christianity. And even the Pew Research Center, a chief promoter of the nones story, has admitted that the nones have plateaued at less than 30 percent of respondents.

What is really happening? Rather than experiencing simple growth or decline, American religion is in a state of churn. Some sectors are falling fast, while others show phenomenal growth.

Throughout history, Americans have routinely misinterpreted religious change as decline. Headlines about the demise of faith may be attention-grabbing, but they conceal a more complicated and interesting reality….

Read it all.

“Drawing on a dazzling range of disciplines and data, Byron Johnson and Thomas Kidd's The Death of Religion demonstrates that much of what we’ve heard about religion's demise is unfounded. There are causes for worry, but there are also strong reasons to think that religion… pic.twitter.com/IIAcJypgp4

— Thomas S. Kidd (@ThomasSKidd) September 14, 2026

Grant unto us, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know thy presence and obey thy will; that, following the example of thy servant Edward Bouverie Pusey, we may with integrity and courage accomplish what thou givest us to do, and endure what thou givest us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Church of England also commemorates Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, Tractarian, 1882

Image: Dr Pusey in a detail of the East window (Ninian Comper, c.1935–9) of the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament at Pusey House, Oxford. Photo via https://t.co/kdBn9nXyLO pic.twitter.com/vyQzgAJs8a

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) September 16, 2024

Almighty God, who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking: Set free thy servants from all anxious thoughts for the morrow; give us contentment with thy good gifts; and confirm our faith that according as we seek thy kingdom, thou wilt not suffer us to lack any good thing; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Intense colour in the sky this morning before sunrise here in Glastonbury. It happened very quickly and didn't last very long. pic.twitter.com/KGVZGx8vmg

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) September 18, 2026

Did it not trouble her conscience that, as the beneficiary of several generations’ work invested in female emancipation, which have culminated with her being the very first woman to hold the Archbishopric of Canterbury, she gave a tacit endorsement to those who would be contemptuous of women holding any such exalted office in church or state?

Did she not think, being the beneficiary of these hard-won liberties, that she should be at pains to advocate for them fearlessly, rather than turning a blind eye when others are denied them?

Perhaps she forgot the Christian insistence on the inalienable dignity of all humans, made as they are in the image of God, which runs so strongly through scripture that – for the modern Church of England – it outdoes even St Paul’s demand that women should remain covered and silent in church. Or the dignity of women in the Christian story – the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, the women who first discovered the Resurrection. How could she appear at such ease when other women around her are denied the respect due to their dignity?

This whole affair leaves serious questions for Lambeth Palace to answer. If none of these questions came to the Archbishop’s mind, then she must answer for her naïveté, and her advisers must explain why she was put in this position.

Read it all.

New @Telegraph I've written on the fiasco of Sarah Mullally and the award to bin Laden supporter Tahir Ashrafi. Gift access in next post… pic.twitter.com/UWjNYmEBNv

— BijanOmrani (@BijanOmrani) September 17, 2026

In December, Edward Hughes and Louis Kirsch, two of the world’s leading artificial intelligence researchers, left Google. Their goal: to build an A.I. system smart enough to build a better A.I. system.

At their new London start-up, Inherent, they now spend their days working alongside a prototype called Faraday. Named for the 19th-century English physicist Michael Faraday, it gathers mountains of data capturing the daily activities of Dr. Hughes, Dr. Kirsch and Inherent’s other researchers: emails, instant messages, meeting transcripts and their ongoing chats with Faraday itself. The company then uses this data to build a better version of Faraday.

“Faraday has access to everything that goes on at the company,” Dr. Hughes said. “We want to give it data describing the process we go through, to discover something.”

Though Inherent pledges to keep humans involved in this elaborate process, many other companies are building similar technology, and some leading researchers believe A.I. systems will eventually be powerful enough to improve themselves with little or no help from human developers — a mind-bending goal that computer scientists call recursive self-improvement, or R.S.I.

Two Silicon Valley start-ups — each valued at $4 billion — are proudly pursuing this dream, and leading labs like OpenAI and Anthropic are chasing it too. They hope to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence that discovers drugs, creates new materials, speeds other forms of scientific discovery and, one day, surpasses human intelligence in practically every way.

Read it all.

The Liftoff Scenario That Terrifies A.I. Doomsayers: “Recursive self-improvement” is the idea that artificial intelligence could learn to build & train itself, creating exponential new progress — & risk (NYT) https://t.co/y5RXO0VbEu

— Candice Rose (@CandiceRose) September 16, 2026

Two things should make you consider what artificial intelligence could mean for humanity. One is that those working with the technology are warning about it leading to a catastrophe—human extinction, even. The other is how technological innovation is aggravating the destruction of Ukraine. These things offer conflicting lessons for whether AI’s rapid progress can or should be slowed down.

For years, leading AI bosses have signalled that their technology could become lethal. Bots may become brainy enough to outwit their creators before they are “aligned” with humanity’s goals and ethics. Bad people could use AI to wreak havoc. These warnings have become more credible as AI agents have escaped their sandboxes during testing, co-ordinated with one another and hacked organisations, including an AI lab itself. Anthropic, one model-maker, has caught people using its models for malign ends, from Mali’s intelligence services getting a mass-surveillance system built, to Houthi rebels in Yemen thought to be writing software for ballistic missiles.

Following the recent resignation of a researcher at Anthropic, public fear of AI doom has spread. In a post viewed more than 170m times, he said that it and OpenAI were “gambling with our lives”. AI is rapidly growing more potent, for good and ill. In May prediction markets priced a less-than-one-third chance of AI solving any millennium prize maths problem before 2030; on September 8th OpenAI said it had solved one of them, causing angst among mathematicians. On September 12th Sam Altman and Elon Musk, two AI titans, endorsed a call by Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, to “pace the frontier”, ie, to slow AI’s progress. Those in favour of a slowdown include Bernie Sanders, a left-wing senator, and Steve Bannon, a right-wing populist.

Read it all.

Can the AI arms race be stopped?https://t.co/iuG0rZA8CW

— Héctor Dedrick Guerrero (@hectordguerrero) September 17, 2026

The sight of London’s Muslim mayor celebrating the transformation of a crown jewel of the Anglican estate into a semi-secular setting, and doing so while reducing a venerated place of English Christian worship to the status of a landmark, felt like a provocation to some. Taking up Khan’s challenge, the journalist Tom Harwood proposed: “Heaven nightclub. Baitul Futuh Mosque,” referencing a prominent gay nightspot and a south London masjid.

The mayor’s disregard for England’s Christian heritage notwithstanding, the Fabric collaboration comes at a time of profound tribulation for Anglicanism. The denomination has been the established church in England continuously since the seventeenth century, but its origins stretch back to the Reformation. Its (temporal) head is King Charles III, and its bishops sit in the House of Lords, but its nominal flock, the English, are a thoroughly irreligious lot. Just 5 percent of British adults attend church weekly, a figure that rises to a mere 13 percent for professed Christians. The collapse in formal worship in the United States in recent years might leave American clergy despairing, but their English brethren would consider such numbers a gift from the Almighty. The sunset of English religiosity is by no means only an Anglican phenomenon, as a glimpse at a typical Sunday Mass in England’s Catholic churches will attest. Only Islam is experiencing growth in Blighty.

The emptying of the pews has coincided with a hollowing out of the church in other senses. Between 2010 and 2019, 423 Anglican churches closed their doors permanently. The Church of England’s website advertises shuttered churches for lease or sale. There are currently forty-one listed. Amid widespread reports of overstretched and underpaid vicars, forced by a decline in vocations to minister to an ever-growing number of parishes, our friend Rev. Walker recently warned the church was “on a path to annihilation,” noting a 20 percent drop in paid clergy since the turn of the century. The Labour government hardly eased the financial pressure when it announced that grants from a £23 million per annum church restoration fund would now be liable for 20 percent value-added tax.

The Church of England benefits from an £11.6 billion endowment fund, but parishes see precious little of it. Commercial ventures like concert-hosting might seem benign enough as money-spinning schemes go, but whether it’s raves in the naves or Fiona Apple by the lady chapel, there is a risk that by welcoming in the secular, England’s cathedrals and churches are letting some of the sacred escape. A Christian house of worship offers the pilgrim something no secular space can: the chance to encounter the Divine within a monument to his majesty. Step over the threshold to a church, and you are instantly aware of having left behind the worldly and ventured into the spiritual. Nothing that diminishes this experience is worth any financial reward.

Read it all.

What happens when the Church tries to fill its empty pews by making room for the secular world?

Stephen Daisley examines the Church of England’s struggle to preserve the sacred and what is lost when churches begin to look more like cultural venues than houses of worship.

Read… pic.twitter.com/zPh1rppxtv

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) September 15, 2026

O God, by whose grace thy servant Hildegard, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became a burning and shining light in thy Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and may ever walk before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever.

St. Hildegard of Bingen (1179)

Born in Germany, she became a Benedictine nun and Abbess. She received visions since the age of three, and was ordered to write them down. She composed short works on medicine and physiology, and sought advice from St. Bernard of Clairvaux. pic.twitter.com/a5a3HFpMf0

— Memento Mori (@TempusFugit4016) September 17, 2026

Lord Jesus Christ, who for our sake didst endure the cross, and hast bidden us to follow thee: Take away from us all fear, all coldness of heart, all unwillingness to suffer; that we, glorying in thy cross, may glory also that thou hast called us to bear it with thee; for thy name’s sake.

—Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

Autumn sunrise through the trees – Armadale, Isle of Skye #Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @ThePhotoHour @StormHour @VisitScotland @BBCHighlands @krobertsonitv pic.twitter.com/H1yrI81UZA

— James MacInnes (@Macinnesplant) September 17, 2026

Julian Atkins, the Church of England’s Net Zero Carbon Programme Director, said: “As Christians, we believe we have a responsibility to care for God’s creation and to bear witness to the love we have for our neighbours, particularly those who are most vulnerable to the devastating effects of climate change. That is not about politics, but about living out our faith in a practical and demonstrable way. 

 “Across the country, parishes are taking action in ways that make sense for their own buildings and communities – raising money locally, making buildings more energy efficient and finding other practical solutions to reduce carbon emissions. 

“We are deeply grateful to all our many committed volunteers who make this possible. Our role through the national Net Zero Carbon Programme is to create the conditions and provide the funding and expertise to help them do that. 

“For many churches, this is about much more than reducing carbon.

“It is about creating warmer, more welcoming buildings that can serve their communities well, while using resources wisely and, where possible, reducing energy costs so that more can be invested in mission and ministry. 

“That is why this work matters. 

Read it all.

As energy prices surge, I spoke to churches that have got rid of oil fired boilers in favour of 'green' heating alternatives and energy efficiency measures, backed by the @churchofengland Net Zero carbon programme. https://t.co/aYXtN5nTsp via @churchofengland

— Martha Linden (@MarthaJLinden) September 16, 2026

Roman Catholic or Jewish prime ministers from being involved in the process of making Church of England appointments.

It was among the first pieces of legislation to be introduced to Parliament under Prime Minister Andy Burnham, himself a Catholic, who has called the current laws “unacceptable”.

When appointing bishops and archbishops, the Church presents a candidate to the prime minister who then advises the monarch on who to install in the role.

Although the involvement of the prime minister in this process has become more of a formality in recent years, legislation still exists that specifically bars Roman Catholics and Jews from exercising this responsibility.

That is why earlier this month Burnham, the first Catholic prime minister, transferred the responsibility of advising the King on Church appointments to the Lord Chancellor.

Read it all.

Government to end ban on Catholic and Jewish PMs' involvement in Church appointments https://t.co/2p9sAwzXeZ

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 16, 2026

Teddy Wojtowicz hasn’t gambled in about three years, after his betting habit cost him his career and enough money to have bought a house, and left him with a criminal record.

He says his addiction escalated from spending $20-$40 on a night out, to wasting his paycheque every two weeks, to getting payday loans — and writing $22,000 in cheques to himself from his workplace.

“When you’re gambling and you see that you keep losing and you know that you’re losing, there’s some part of you saying, ‘Well, the next time I’m gonna win,'” Wojtowicz said.

The former accountant, who also had an alcohol addiction, admitted himself to a hospital in Dauphin, Man., in April 2023, after he began to think about suicide, and went through weeks of treatment to deal with his gambling. It was the second time he had sought help in the past decade.

Wojtowich is one of a rising number of men and boys who are turning to hospital emergency departments after reaching rock bottom with gambling and related addictions and disorders, according to a new study published Wednesday in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Researchers in Ontario found a dramatic increase in emergency department visits in just the past few years, following the rapid growth of online gambling in that province and the legalization of betting on single sports events.

Read it all.

‘Tip of the iceberg:’ More Ontarians with gambling disorders are showing up in emergency departments, study finds https://t.co/3yqZYzzvip

— CTV News Northern Ontario (@CTVNewsNorthern) September 16, 2026

“It’s like the countries don’t trust the U.S.,” said Daniel Tannebaum, a partner in Oliver Wyman’s finance and risk practice who served at the Treasury Department as the Office of Foreign Assets Control compliance coordinator for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “I do think that there is a fear factor.”

That fear factor is also creating blowback for American companies that are trying to do business abroad.

Mr. Tannebaum, who is a partner in Oliver Wyman’s risk and public policy practice, said that the aggressive use of tariffs and export controls by the United States has made European countries and companies wary of adopting American technology for sensitive industries such as artificial intelligence. They worry that if they are dependent on the United States for such infrastructure it could be used against them if Washington decides to ban or disable the technology, as it has done during disputes with China and Russia.

All of this has contributed to an erosion of America’s status as a safe haven.

Read it all.

The World Economy Is Becoming Wary of the U.S. https://t.co/BkvAF43pOj via @NYTimes

— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) September 16, 2026

O God, who by the preaching of thy blessed servant and bishop Ninian didst cause the light of the Gospel to shine in the land of Britain: Grant, we beseech thee, that, having his life and labors in remembrance, we may show forth our thankfulness by following the example of his zeal and patience; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Church of England celebrates Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle of the Picts, c.432

Image: Detail of the St Ninian window (D. Marion Grant, 1954) in @GlasgowHighKirk. Photo by Lawrence OP, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, via flickr pic.twitter.com/9wUH1tmf93

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) September 16, 2024

 Almighty God, Lord of the storm and of the calm, the vexed sea and the quiet haven, of day and of night, of life and of death, – grant unto us so to have our hearts stayed upon Thy faithfulness, Thine unchangingness and love, that, whatsoever betide us, however black the cloud or dark the night, with quiet faith trusting in Thee we may look upon Thee with untroubled eye, and walking in lowliness towards Thee, and in lovingness towards one another, abide all storms and troubles of this mortal life, beseeching Thee that they may turn to the soul’s true good.  We ask it for Thy mercy’s sake, shown in Jesus Christ our Lord.

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

Wednesday Wonder!🌅⛵️⚓️ Good morning world! 🌎#Cornwall #StormHour #WednesdayVibes #Sunrise pic.twitter.com/mc4FZWCR33

— Kate 🏄‍♀️🌊🤙〓〓🏴‍☠️🤿🪼⛵️⚓️🌅 (@CornwallK8) September 16, 2026

Parish-church and cathedral choirs are among the beneficiaries of the £438,955 awarded by the Cathedral Music Trust this year.

Among the 27 grants is a Church Choir Award of £8,655 to establish a junior training choir at Lancaster Priory as an “inclusive, high-quality pathway to choristership”; £4,000 to provide singing tuition to choristers at Kendal Parish Church; £3,800 to launch a new junior choir at Holy Trinity, Stratford upon Avon; and £3,700 to enable Halifax Minster to launch a schools singing programme.

Twelve Anglican cathedrals in England and Wales have received awards, several of which will support the salaries of musicians; these include assistant directors of music at Truro, Chelmsford, and Wakefield, and lay clerks at Bradford, Newcastle, and Coventry. Llandaff Cathedral was awarded £22,350 to provide vocal coaching and theory tuition for cathedral choristers, and targeted vocal development for back row singers.

Read it all.

Parish-church choirs are among the beneficiaries of the £438,955 awarded by the Cathedral Music Trust this year. #ChurchNews #ChurchTimes @_cathedralmusic https://t.co/NULMuRHxLp

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 15, 2026

In its latest (fourth) report on AI “misuse”—more essential reading—Anthropic revealed that its most popular models (Claude Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus) are being, or have recently been, misused by a variety of Generative Threat Groups (GTGs) in “seven harm areas: cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development, and distillation.” In each case, AI was making bad human behavior much more effective, until Anthropic spotted what was going on.

The interesting thing is who out there is up to no good. GTG-20006 (Anthropic gives each case a number) was the inevitable Russians, “attacking military intelligence targets in Ukrainian and European governments as well as diplomatic and defense organizations and individuals connected to U.S. foreign policy.” Putin and his little green men have been doing this kind of thing for years, of course. But AI makes the mobile exploitation kit, the credential-stealing tool, and the phishing platform all work better and faster as well as helping evade detection.

I have long shared the view articulated by Gregory Conti, a professor of politics at Princeton, that “even if AI does not end life on Earth, it will destroy our way of life”.…..To understand why Conti is right, you need to grasp the four forces inexorably driving p(Doom) upward above 10 percent: Recursive self-improvement, The unscrupulousness of Sam Altman, The complete confusion in Washington, The utter cynicism in Beijing.

Read it all.

Niall Ferguson: AIpocalypse Now
It’s not just the next 9/11, enabled by AI, that is coming. It’s the next global financial crisis. It’s the next pandemic. It might even be the next world war. What, if anything, can we do about it? https://t.co/DRLqpVxqKF

— Juan Carlos Zapata S. (@jczapata_s) September 14, 2026