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.

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

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

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

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

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

For most of modern history, the household was a bundle. Under one roof, families pooled rent and meals, raised children, cared for parents, kept each other company and insured one another against bad luck. Nobody itemized it, and national accounts barely noticed.

Across East Asia, that arrangement is coming apart, and one line item after another has turned into something you pay for. The loneliness economy is the usual name for the result; the unbundling of the family household is the more accurate one.

In South Korea, single-person households are now 36% of the total, the largest category. Japan was at 38% in 2020 and is expected to reach 44% by 2050; Tokyo is already past half.

China’s 2020 census found 125 million people living alone, equal to one in four households. Fertility has fallen in step. South Korea’s rate is 0.80, Hong Kong’s is 0.84 and Taiwan’s births fell 20% in 2025 alone.

The money has followed. Discovery Reports, a Chinese research firm, puts spending by singles in China at more than US$1 trillion in 2025, up about 50% in two years. The “silver economy” serving the elderly is expected to reach 30 trillion yuan, about $4 trillion, by 2035. Pop Mart, the toymaker behind Labubu, reported $5.4 billion in revenue last year, up 185%.

Read it all.

#Asia’s $1 trillion singles economy is not simply a demographic crisis or a retail boom. Much of it reflects family functions becoming paid services, while care, emergency support and social insurance remain stubbornly hard to unbundle. #LonelinessEconomyhttps://t.co/ufYz5N1MdD

— Asia Times (@asiatimesonline) September 14, 2026

The Prime Minister has pledged to change what he calls the “unacceptable” law that prohibits Roman Catholic and Jewish Prime Ministers from advising the Crown on ecclesiastical appointments.

In a statement to the House of Commons on Thursday of last week, Andy Burnham, who is the first Prime Minister to be a Roman Catholic on taking office (News, 4 September), said that the restrictions were an “antiquated and archaic anomaly”.

The “restrictions set out in the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 and the Jews Relief Act 1858 prevent persons professing the Roman Catholic and Jewish faiths only from advising the Sovereign on appointments to the Church of England and Church of Scotland”, he said.

As such, Mr Burnham had transferred his constitutional responsibility for advising the Sovereign on church appointments to the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Alex Norris.

Read it all.

EXC: Legislation to remove the constitutional bar on Catholics advising the King on Church of England appointments being introduced in the Commons tomorrow

It’s our first Catholic prime minister’s first billhttps://t.co/ojXo0L6Yuv

— Patrick Maguire (@patrickkmaguire) September 14, 2026

MPs have voted against proposals to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales, bringing the latest effort to change the law to an end.

Following a debate in which both sides made emotional speeches, the House of Commons voted 286 to 270 – a majority of 16 – against the proposed legislation.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would have allowed adults with fewer than six months to live to apply to be given help to end their own life, subject to certain safeguards.

A similar bill in the last parliamentary session was supported by MPs before stalling in the House of Lords. The decision from MPs on Friday rules out the prospect of changes to the law on assisted dying in the short term.

Read it all.

The assisted suicide Bill is dead. After two years of debate, MPs have rejected it by 286 votes to 270.

A victory for vulnerable people — and a reminder that bad legislation becomes harder to defend the more closely it is scrutinised, writes @AdamPollockhttps://t.co/d7JZTQ5iiU

— The Critic (@TheCriticMag) September 12, 2026

The Man Behind the Red Bandana from Drew Gallagher on Vimeo.

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.

Every year on 9/11 I take the kids to ground zero to write down names engraved in the memorial. Then we go home and look them up to talk about their stories. Today, my youngest was writing a name when a woman walked up and asked her what she was doing. When she explained, the… pic.twitter.com/Xd8ZknmOX1

— Samantha Steele Ponder (@samponder) September 12, 2026

This site is intended as a place to remember and celebrate the lives of those lost on September 11, 2001. It includes Guest Books and profiles for each of those lost.

It is well worth your time to explore it thoroughly today.

September 11, 2001, as reported the next day by the New York Times: pic.twitter.com/DH6QUFnDgo

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) September 11, 2026

“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

11 Sept 2001: Al-Qaeda conducts #terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York City and the #Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia by flying planes into the buildings. A fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania. The White House or #Capitol was the likely target of that… pic.twitter.com/GxvhseKBbL

— Today In History (@URDailyHistory) September 11, 2026

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.

Please note the following changes to our hours of operation as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Thursday, September 10: The #911Museum will close at 3 p.m.

Friday, September 11: The #911Museum will remain closed to the public all day so that 9/11… pic.twitter.com/VigSzHl6WS

— 9/11 Memorial & Museum (@Sept11Memorial) September 10, 2026

Almighty and everlasting God, we thank thee for thy servant Alexander Crummell, whom thou didst call to preach the Gospel to those who were far off and to those who were near. Raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land evangelists and heralds of thy kingdom, that thy Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Alexander Crummel (Queens’, 1848) is notable as Cambridge’s first black graduate. Find out more https://t.co/9zYHm9N8ji pic.twitter.com/56KUu0BNLG

— St Edmund's College, Cambridge (@StEdmundsCam) May 28, 2019

 The United States and Israel are planning what would be one of the harshest bombing campaigns to date against energy infrastructure targets in Iran, multiple sources told CBS News, with strikes possible throughout the weekend. 

There was some discussion about trying to conclude by the time financial markets open Monday because of concern about how the bombings will affect the U.S. and global economy, but an end point wasn’t locked in.

The Israelis have been notified and are coordinating with the United States, according to multiple U.S. sources. The president has yet to give the final ‘go’ orders for the strikes, the sources said.

A joint operation would mark Israel’s return to combat operations which it had halted during the U.S.-brokered truce. Iran has not hit Israel since the memorandum of understanding fell apart and the U.S. restarted combat operations in early July.

Read it all.

BREAKING: The U.S. and Israel are preparing to bombard energy-related targets in Iran as soon as this weekend, sources say. https://t.co/6bfNrS93ta

— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 31, 2026

Cathedral attendance figures rose for the fifth year in succession in 2025 and rebounded consistently after the Covid pandemic.

Attendance overall remained lower than in 2019, but Easter attendance drew level with pre-pandemic figures for the first time.

A total of 32,600 people attended weekly services at Church of England cathedrals in 2025, as opposed to 36,800 in 2019. Sunday attendance was up among adults in 2025 — eight per cent higher than in 2024, when weekly attendance had risen by one tenth (News, 5 September, 2025).

Christmas attendance in 2025 was up by six per cent, and there was a five-per-cent rise in Easter attendance. But child mid-week attendance was still 38 per cent lower in 2025 than in 2019.

Read it all.

⛪️ Attendance overall remained lower than in 2019, but Easter attendance drew level with pre-pandemic figures for the first time. #Cathedrals #ChurchTimes #ChurchNews https://t.co/JYVoteZgi8

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 31, 2026

The idea that the United States is becoming more religious has come to be widely accepted, particularly in conservative media. But the statistical measures of American religiosity don’t actually point toward a significant uptick in religious belief and practice. Instead, a number of data points seem to support the notion that what the U.S. is experiencing is a vibes revival. The public’s sense that religion is roaring back is completely disconnected from what’s actually happening in America’s pews….

In April, Gallup released new polling data about the religiosity of America’s young adults. One finding dominated headlines: Among young men, the share who said that religion was very important in their lives was 28 percent in 2022-23 but rose to 42 percent in 2024-25. That’s a 50 percent increase in two years. (Among young women, there was a modest decline, with the share saying that religion is very important in their lives falling from 32 percent to 29 percent.)

But the report’s other findings received less attention, even as they undermined the conclusions being drawn from the most widely discussed finding. According to that Gallup survey, the share of young men who identified with any religious group in 2022-23 was 61 percent. In the most recent data, it was 63 percent. That shift is statistically insignificant. Data about monthly religious attendance shows a seven-point gain among young men, compared with a 14-point jump in religious importance — twice the size.

When social scientists measure American religion, they often talk about it in three dimensions: behavior, belief and belonging. The most widely regarded datasets that track American religion do not point to a significant increase in the religiosity of young adults — in fact, it’s just the opposite. 

Read it all.

Don't make the mistake of equating a mere "vibes revival" with America becoming more religious. https://t.co/NqKt0zxom4

— wyclif ⚓ (@wyclif) July 31, 2026

What we have realised, over the last five years, as Save the Parish has got off the ground and started to ask the questions that should have been asked decades ago, is that what we are in danger of losing is not just some old buildings, or the clerical stipend, or one mode of training over another, but the essence of the Church of England itself.

Who are we? What is the unique ecology of the Church of England, which we love so dearly that we have got up and come here on a Saturday morning?

“If the Church of England were to fail,” said John Keble, “it should be found in my parish.”

Or, listen to Justin Welby, who, I concede isn’t often quoted by Save the Parish: “you could lose the House of Bishops tonight…[and] it’d be a couple of years before there was any noticeable impact on the Church of England. Whereas if you got rid of all the parishes and the churchwardens and the laypeople it would be noticeable in about one second.”

Well, we are here for the parishes and the churchwardens and the laypeople today. And for the priests. (I do declare an interest…)

Read it all.

Last night people from across the country – lay and clergy; Evangelical, High Church, Solidly Middle, Anglo Catholic; Tory, LibDem, Labour – gathered to pledge to Save the Parish.

Alison Milbank, @revstrott, and I all shared our thoughts – have a watch!https://t.co/nV43HmzWee pic.twitter.com/DuCnbEYNkt

— Marcus Walker (@WalkerMarcus) August 4, 2021

Investigators believe a cyberattack this week on dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota was probably the work of Iranian hackers, according to U.S. and state officials and others familiar with the matter, a potential act of aggression that comes at a precarious moment in the U.S. war against Iran.

Officials cautioned that they had not definitively determined who was responsible for the attack and that the preliminary assessment could change as the authorities collected more technical data.

They also warned that the hackers could be attempting to pose as Iran-based in an effort to ratchet up tensions between the two countries, though former intelligence officials said such a scenario was unlikely.

Local officials reported that the well and treatment plant in at least one city was temporarily offline on Monday, while other cities in the state had to use manual workarounds to cope with attempted attacks on automated operations.

Read it all.

New: Investigators believe a cyberattack this week on dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota was probably the work of Iranian hackers, a potential act of aggression that comes at a precarious moment in the U.S. war against Iran. https://t.co/Huut3WBM34

— Dustin Volz (@dnvolz) July 30, 2026

Iran is expected to receive within weeks a first shipment out of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers, three sources familiar with the deal told ​Reuters, as it rebuilds its defenses amid war with the United States.

The purchase, valued at $60-70 million, is one of Tehran’s largest-known efforts to strengthen its short-range air ‌defenses since the outbreak of its war with the U.S. and Israel, which exposed gaps in Iran’s ability to protect military sites and strategic infrastructure. The contract covers the purchase of between 300 and 400 man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), including Chinese-made QW-12 and FN-16 missiles, the sources said. The deal was signed with Zhongqing Baoshang International Investment, a Hong Kong-based company that the sources said was acting as an intermediary between the Iranian ​side and the Chinese supplier.

Read it all.

Iran to get Chinese shoulder-launched missile systems in weeks – https://t.co/FYda7NBCmH

— Reuters Iran (@ReutersIran) July 29, 2026

Church of England bishops have urged Ed Miliband to intervene to halt the executions and torture of Christians in Saudi Arabian jails.

Three bishops for Southwark, Chelmsford and Winchester have written to Mohammed bin Salman, the ruler of Saudi Arabia, urging him to call an immediate halt to the executions of more than 50 Ethiopian Christians currently on death row in the state.

They have also submitted their appeal to the Foreign Office seeking an intervention from Mr Miliband, the new Foreign Secretary, to save the lives of the Christian captives.

The bishops claimed there was evidence that the Ethiopians – who fled conflict in their own country – had been mistreated, with several of them tortured and forced to sign documents they could not read or understand.

Read it all.

Good to see several English bishops calling on the Foreign Secretary to use British influence in Riyadh on behalf of 50 Ethiopian Christians facing execution. The Saudi regime remains brutally repressive.
Also good to read it all reported in the Telegraph.https://t.co/xmI8bFAmKW

— Philip Anderson (@P_G_Anderson) July 28, 2026

There’s a lot of talk about socialism these days, despite it’s inherently flawed premise and repeated failures, resulting in millions dying, mass starvation, widespread human suffering, readers here already know the history. Unfortunately, it’s rising again due to new promotion from people who hate America, combined to create the perfect storm since we also recently stopped promoting the story of prosperity and our information ecosystems are deeply propagandized. Also, our biased education system simply ignores past examples that might challenge some of the ideals they’re so keen to promote, which I find both annoying and civilizationally suicidal. Perhaps this is cyclical, and every civilization has to re-learn forgotten mistakes (even though we have parables that try to help, but ofc they’re unhelpful if no one reads them). So all we can do is share stories which are more instructive than dry statistics.

Today we have a fun one which takes us back to the year 1825. Here, a wealthy Welsh industrialist named Robert Owen acquired a complete American town, a plot with 20,000 acres, 160-plus buildings, working mills, workshops, barns, farmland already producing food. He renamed it New Harmony, and 1,000 people showed up in year 1, most convinced they were present at the birth of a new way of running civilization. It’s also notable that Owen wasn’t some kind of crank, before ever setting foot in Indiana he’d already made his name running textile mills in New Lanark, Scotland with shorter hours, real schools, better housing, and the mills still turned a profit. For the early 1800s that’s really impressive and illustrative of his operator skills.

Although, his prior success is exactly what made him dangerous. Owen had convinced himself that people are basically a product of their environment, where you could rearrange the environment and you rearrange the person. Kill private property, kill competition, split the rewards evenly, and cooperation just… happens, naturally, without anyone having to be talked into it, which is of course idealist and ignorant of human nature. As is always the case, a very intelligent person is unable to model the behavior of others, many of whom simply operate differently.

The experiment pulled in serious people. Real optimism, real brainpower, real $ behind it. In January 1826 William Maclure floated an entire boat of scientists and educators down the Ohio River, historians still call it the “Boatload of Knowledge.” Thomas Say, the father of American entomology, was on it, so was naturalist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur along with Geologists, artists, educators, people like this. So this wasn’t some kind of backwoods commune of true believers with no credentials interested in getting high. It was, arguably, one of the highest concentrations of talent in America at that moment. If intelligence and good intentions were sufficient conditions for a new economic system to work, New Harmony had every box checked.

Unfortunately, it fell apart almost immediately.

Read it all.

This week's longform idea, we're talking about the (failed) socialist utopian experiment in America that lasted two years https://t.co/395RsSU4Vp

— Adam Singer (@AdamSinger) July 28, 2026

When Fernando and Patricia Escobedo moved to the Willows, an affluent neighborhood in El Paso, Texas, 25 years ago, kids were everywhere.

About half of the homes on their cul-de-sac had children. Growing up, the couple’s twin daughters used to ride their scooters outside with other neighborhood kids. At an annual block party, they jumped around in a bouncy house and climbed into the local firetruck.

The twins are now in college—and the neighborhood feels a lot different. The Escobedos also have a 12-year-old at home, and Fernando said she is one of a few children under 18 on the block. The local elementary school has noticeably fewer kids. And Fernando said he’s more likely to see a retired neighbor gardening than a child on a bicycle.

“It’s not the vibe it was 10 years ago when there were still kids here,” he said. 

With the nation’s fertility rate at record lows, the number of children under 18 is falling across the U.S. The decline is especially pronounced in big cities, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

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WSJ: America’s Big Cities Are Rapidly Losing Kids – The number of children is falling across the U.S., but the decline is especially pronounced in big metros https://t.co/A2MzU94Cjm

— Aaron M. Renn 🇺🇸 (@aaron_renn) July 27, 2026

The campaigning group Save the Parish (STP) has launched its manifesto for the elections to the next General Synod. It is calling for financial resources to be decentralised and redirected towards parish ministry to save “the essence of the Church of England itself”.

Six commitments are outlined in the manifesto, which was launched at St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, in London, on Saturday, by the Rector, the Revd Marcus Walker. He warned of an “existential crisis” facing the Church.

The commitments, based on the group’s “founding priorities of ‘parish’, ‘priest’ and ‘people’”, are to: restore Church Commissioners’ funds to stipendiary parish ministry; direct the parish share to mission and “the cure of souls”; adopt a “charter of care that values our clergy and guards them from mental and physical exhaustion”; renew theological resourcing for theological education “which is ordinand-centred not budget-centred”; adopt a “churchgoers’ charter” that honours the volunteers who hold the parishes together; and reform the Mission and Pastoral Measure.

Fr Walker, who chairs the STP network, said: “If we want there to be a thriving parish system in a generation’s time, we have to get up and do something.

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Good point from @WalkerMarcus. It’s the poorer parishes that suffer most from Church funds being diverted into highly paid woke diocesan posts to be Engagement Officers, Diversity Officers, Policy Officers, Media Officers, etc, etc… pic.twitter.com/gZHtv4UCrl

— Harry Phibbs (@harryph) July 25, 2026