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.

Read it all.

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.

Read it all.

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

A zombie is haunting America, the zombie of communism. Pronounced dead and discredited after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is back. Former Senate candidate Graham Platner and influencer Hasan Piker did not lose, and probably gained, adherents by having called themselves communists. Meanwhile, as Stu Smith recently wrote in The Free Press, a majority of the Democratic Socialists of America governing board “openly identifies with communist ideology.”

As a Russian specialist, I cannot help wondering: How is this possible? Do these people really have no problem with the history of the ideology they’re claiming? With Joseph Stalin’s Gulag that took the lives of millions, his artificially induced famine that deliberately starved several million peasants, and the secret police’s form of interrogation that routinely included torture? Do they actually want to revive Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution and the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror that claimed the lives of a quarter of Cambodia’s population?

Three quarters of a century ago, questions like these led to one of the most important volumes to emerge during the Cold War. Now largely forgotten, The God That Failed (1949) was once so widely read that the volume’s title became a catchphrase for any movement that attracted intellectuals to a quasi-religious ideology claiming infallibility.

The God That Failed brought together several prominent European and American writers who had once either been members of the Communist Party or sympathetic to the Soviet Union, but had eventually grown disillusioned. Each writer explained what initially attracted him to, and what eventually repelled him from, communism. The star-studded cast included Arthur Koestler, an Hungarian-born British writer now best known for his brilliant novel about communism, Darkness at Noon; French novelist André Gide; the Italian Ignazio Silone, author of Bread and Wine; British poet Stephen Spender; and two Americans, journalist and author Louis Fischer, and African American writer Richard Wright.

Read it all.

The Return of the God That Failed https://t.co/Z9aUNSWmTy

— Collin Hansen (@collinhansen) July 27, 2026

Holy Father, who hast nourished and strengthened thy Church by the writings of thy servant Thomas a Kempis: Grant that we may learn from him to know what we ought to know, to love what we ought to love, to praise what highly pleaseth thee, and always to seek to know and follow thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Thomas von Kempen

Prior in St. Agnetenberg, Priester

* Ende 1379 bis Mitte 1380 in Kempen am Niederrhein in Nordrhein-Westfalen
† 1. Mai oder 25. Juli 1471 in St. Agnetenberg bei Zwolle in den Niederlanden – https://t.co/84miqGYxnT pic.twitter.com/d55DDp1GCX

— Lucas Benedikt (@LucasBenedikt) July 25, 2025

Speaking of the grit which forms the pearl is an unusual way of interpreting the parable of the pearl, which is more often assumed to focus on its value and the response of the merchant, who, “went away and sold everything he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:46). Some may say that Jesus did not speak about the grit because of his lack of scientific understanding, and that the Archbishop’s interpretation is just a case of proclaiming the faith “afresh to every generation”. Others would disagree, pointing out that Jesus used the parable of the sower to explain how the Kingdom of God grows, and would suggest that the Archbishop should have turned to the earlier verses of Matthew 13 to make her point. But that might have been awkward, because Jesus is clear that it is the word of God that is the seed that is sown and that the Kingdom of God grows as each individual, “hears the word and understands it.” (Matthew 13:23)

Despite references to the, “Gospel of Jesus Christ” and a plea that the Church would continue with, “our hope rooted in the Gospel, and our confidence rooted in God,” there was no expectation in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s first presidential address that she expected the Church to hear God’s word and understand it.

Sadly, it seems, that just like Justin Welby before her, Sarah Mullally will lead the Church of England further into the mire, the only difference being that she will be “calm, consistent and compassionate” as she does it.

Read it all.

NEW: The Prince and Princess of Wales are visiting the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, at Lambeth Palace this afternoon for the first time! 💒 pic.twitter.com/5mnTChcaMu

— Belle (@RoyallyBelle_) February 5, 2026

The United States may only have nine to 12 months to protect its critical infrastructure from AI-powered attacks. Currently, two American companies, Anthropic (for which I consult) and OpenAI, have publicly demonstrated AI models advanced enough to detect flaws in software far beyond the human capacity to find, and they are restricting the use of these models to defensive cybersecurity work.

But the United States’ adversaries, and the criminals in their orbit, will soon wield the same offensive tools. China, in particular, is already racing to build and acquire these AI capabilities and may be closer to developing its own Mythos than many U.S. policymakers hope. Advanced AI will sharpen an instrument that Beijing already prizes: the credible threat to deter a fight over Taiwan before it begins by disrupting the island’s critical infrastructure and that of any nation that seeks to defend it….

The United States has a window to bolster its critical infrastructure’s defenses, but that window is short, and those defenses are weak to begin with. In a campaign called Volt Typhoon, Chinese state-linked hackers already demonstrated how deeply they can burrow into U.S. critical infrastructure, including organizations in the water, power, and transportation sectors. Now is the time to put policy options on the table that were previously considered out of bounds: taking dramatic steps to preempt would-be attacks, making once-in-a-generation investments in cyberdefense, and helping U.S. AI labs protect themselves against the most advanced threats.

Read it all.

“As firms use Mythos to hunt and fix flaws in their products, a more urgent question looms: how to defend the United States and its allies from AI-powered cyberwarfare,” writes Michael Sulmeyer.https://t.co/uskGVY48uZ

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) July 22, 2026

The price of crude oil is a broken barometer. Acute pain in the world energy market has switched to the trio of refined products that we actually consume: diesel, petrol and jet fuel.

The IATA jet fuel index for global airlines has hit $154 a barrel in Europe and $149 in North America, almost double the cost of underlying crude. In trade parlance, the “crack spread” has gone mad. It is arguably worse for diesel. The spread over crude has reached $80 in Rotterdam and $88 in New York, the highest since records began. The whole global market is seizing up.

“I’ve never seen an energy environment this stretched,” said Jeff Currie, perhaps the world’s best-known oil guru. We have been lulled into complacency by deceptively moderate oil headlines and by assumptions that the Iran war has settled into a low-intensity management problem. It is nothing of the sort.

Read it all.

Beware the rising energy dangers of Trump’s Gulf war (£) https://t.co/C5vRYPohmC

— Wolfgang Schremser (@WSchremser) July 22, 2026

Proposals to cut the Theology and Religious Studies (TRS) department at Exeter University by more than one quarter in a matter of months would have “irreversible consequences”, a letter from theologians and others has warned.

The letter has been signed by more than 600 people, including the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams; the Bishops of Newcastle and Winchester; and academics including Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford.

The Vice-Chancellor of Exeter, Professor Lisa Roberts, announced the proposals to staff last month. Of the proposed 153 full-time-equivalent academic redundancies, 114 fall within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. The TRS department could lose up to five members of staff.

“The University is not removing poorly performing units but dismantling areas of established excellence and international renown,” the letter warns. The department was ranked first nationally for world-leading research in the Research Excellence Framework, in 2021. Among the staff raising the alarm is the Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, whose public scholarship includes a recent documentary for the BBC.

Read it all.

"The University is not removing poorly performing units but dismantling areas of established excellence and international renown." I had a look to potential cuts to Theology & Religion at Exeter – part of a wider trend across the country https://t.co/rN152K8qwm

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) July 22, 2026

…The Government stresses that the “permanence” of marriage will be strengthened by enabling more questioning of candidates ahead of their weddings.

“Many couples have a religious-only wedding that reflects their faith and traditions, followed by a separate legal ceremony — or no legal ceremony at all. Research shows around two thirds of women who had a religious-only Muslim wedding did not also have a separate legal ceremony,” the consultation document says.

“To protect against forced, predatory and sham marriages, couples must complete a two-stage process, including in-person interview, to verify their identity and demonstrate eligibility to marry.”

Anglican banns of marriage would continue “as an important part of the established Church”, the document says.

Read it all.

Couples will be able to marry almost anywhere, including forests, beaches, cruise ships at sea, canal boats, and at home, under Government proposals that “shift the focus from bricks and mortar to people and promises”. https://t.co/1C2vRDXkpE

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 17, 2026

In 2025, Chinese leader Xi Jinping tried to capitalize on U.S. belligerence toward Europe by promoting China as the responsible great-power alternative. In a message sent to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and the European Union, Xi invited Brussels to join forces with Beijing, to “uphold multilateralism, safeguard fairness and justice,” and “oppose unilateralism and bullying.” Despite the lofty rhetoric, Beijing offered nothing of substance to Europeans, and did nothing to address their concerns about unfair trade practices that are threatening large swaths of European industry. Indeed, rather than seeking to conciliate, Chinese premier Li Qiang recently dismissed the concerns of Europeans worried about a “China Shock 2.0,” telling them to focus instead on “China Opportunity 2.0.”

Key EU leaders, as well as the Brussels bureaucracy, are not buying it. They have concluded that the very survival of Europe’s core industries is threatened by China. The first “China shock” describes the devastation of U.S. industry in sectors including furniture, textiles, and metals that came in the early 2000s, after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization. The new China shock will be different. It will happen mainly in Europe, and it will be more severe, devastating advanced industrial sectors—including automotive, machinery, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and green energy—and leading to immense job losses.

Increasingly, European leaders are arguing that the EU needs to take action to protect its industries. So severe is the threat that measures that were unthinkable a few years ago are now gaining momentum. Earlier this year, for example, the French government proposed “establishing a level of protection equivalent to a general tariff of around 30 percent vis-à-vis China.” And although Germany was initially hesitant, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has signaled that he is ready to act to deal with China’s unfair trade practices. Last month, every EU leader, with the exception of Spain, tasked the European Commission with coming up with options for action. An all-out trade war with China is becoming a real possibility.

Read it all.

Sharing this piece by @thorstenbenner on the stakes of China-EU trade tensions and why Europe shouldn't submit to acceptance of the status quo.
https://t.co/ClED070DRZ via @ForeignAffairs

— Ryan Hass (@ryanl_hass) July 20, 2026

In the midst of Nazi-occupied Paris, an independent-minded Russian Orthodox nun lamented that Christians were not equipped to meet the challenges of the moment. “I look everywhere and nowhere do I find anything that would point to the possibility of a breakthrough from material life to eternity,” wrote Maria Skobtsova in an essay titled “Insight in Wartime.” She did not see around her any forms of Christian life that had the “right voice, the right pathos, the kind of wings” to stand against the terrors of the era.

Skobtsova herself was perhaps the exception. Born in 1891 under the czar, she had by the 1940s been a Bolshevik, a poet, and a refugee. She was almost killed by both White and Red armies during the Russian Revolution of 1917. She fled Russia after briefly serving as the deputy mayor of Anapa, a city near the Black Sea. In exile she returned to the Orthodox faith, and in 1932 she became a nun.

She refused, however, to take up residence in a convent or traditional religious community. Issuing a thoroughgoing critique of monasticism, she insisted that she would seek instead “to share the life of paupers and tramps.”

Read it all.

Today in the Orthodox Church we celebrate perhaps my favorite saint of the last hundred years, Mother Maria Skobtsova (St Mary of Paris). In earlier life she was a radical intellectual and poet, and even served as deputy mayor after the Russian Revolution. Changing political… pic.twitter.com/nhzqWd6z1n

— Jeremiah (@OnAncientPaths) July 20, 2026

O Creator and Giver of Life, who didst crown thy martyr Maria Skobtsova with glory and didst give her as an example of service to the suffering and poor even unto death: Teach us to love Christ in our neighbors, and thereby battle injustice and evil with the light of the Resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God in glory everlasting. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Maria Skobtsova, Monastic & Martyr, 1945

Riga-born; modernist poet in Petersburg; émigrée, intellectual, theologian, nun, social worker & Resistance member in Paris; martyr in Ravensbrück. For more on her life, see: https://t.co/MVr7ERd5ah pic.twitter.com/88DdY2lVVO

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) July 21, 2023

The United Kingdom on Monday installed Andy Burnham as its 59th prime minister, the seventh person to hold that position in a little more than a decade.

Burnham, a stalwart of the progressive Labour Party, is expected to bring his center-left perspective as a champion of the working class to address crises of social welfare spending, housing affordability and a sluggish economy. His election marks a major win against the rising tide of Reform UK – a right-wing populist party that has been compared to the MAGA movement in the U.S.

In remarks Monday, he said he was “acutely conscious” of the instability at the top of the British government in recent years and he pledged to provide an alternative.

“I know people at home are fed up with politics,” he said. “I hear you and I want to be honest with you: We have not been good enough and we need to be better.”

Read it all.

The Times
New Prime Minister Andy Burnham purges Starmer loyalists from cabinet on his first day, naming John Healey as chancellor and promising a fully funded package to cut energy bills.
Tuesday 21 July 2026
A look at #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Xqo6H9CKBa

— Andrew Clifford (@newcastlejourno) July 20, 2026

Total civilizational collapse is unusual. In the West, ­continuity exists between the Roman past and our contemporary states, despite the invasions of “barbarian” groups. The Franks, that ancient people who settled Roman Gaul, were shaped by Roman culture into the people we now know as the French. But what about instances in which there is no continuity—in which a civilization vanishes, and all that is left is a layer of ash? This is what happened to Roman North Africa, a high civilization, distinctive but immersed in the broader Roman world. The heartbeat of this civilization, the African Church, has no living ­descendant.

The African Church was among the most intellectually formidable of early Christianity. Carthage is said to have had Christians in its streets during the Apostolic age. And no wonder: Carthage was a hub of the Western empire, perhaps second only to Rome in its cosmopolitanism. The early Church found it fertile soil. Carthage gave us Tertullian and St. Cyprian, intellectual giants who helped define the orthodoxy of the emerging Church.

Unlike much of the Latin-­speaking Roman empire, North Africa blended conflicting cultural influences. The dominant Roman culture was always present, but so was the older Punic civilization ­upon which Rome had built some centuries before St. Augustine of Hippo exemplified this cultural split, with his Roman father, Patricius, and his Punic mother, St. Monica.

Read it all.

The Sudden Death of the African Church – First Things https://t.co/aMx4pi30SB

— Allen Mendenhall (@allenmendenhall) July 20, 2026

The United States hosted the World Cup final on Sunday with the world watching — though perhaps nowhere more intensely than in Spain and Argentina, whose teams faced off at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Emotions ran high from Rosario, Argentina — the hometown of the superstar Lionel Messi — to Madrid, where white knuckles turned to fist pumps as the game wound down and Spain prevailed, dethroning the 2022 champions, 1-0, in extra time.

Read it all.

In the 2026 World Cup final, Spain stood for Europe, and Argentina represented the rest of the world. The Argentinean team, which won in Qatar, in 2022, is a great but flawed side, well into its autumn, inspired by providential causes. The Spanish team, by contrast, is obdurate… pic.twitter.com/w6udv7CWWZ

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) July 20, 2026

Eternal God, we offer thanks for the witness of Bartolomé de las Casas, whose deep love for thy people caused him to refuse absolution to those who would not free their Indian slaves. Help us, inspired by his example, to work and pray for the freeing of all enslaved people of our world, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

#TalDíaComoHoy de 1566 falleció Bartolomé de las Casas, religioso dominico español. Hoy destacamos esta biografía, disponible en #Simurg, para saber más sobre su vida y su obra, ‘ Oeuvres de Don Barthélemi de las Casas, évéque de Chiapa…’
▶️https://t.co/pILcTitFPb pic.twitter.com/oExXQ5tO9m

— Red de Bibliotecas y Archivos del CSIC (@bibliotecasCSIC) July 17, 2023

Gordon S. Wood, the great historian of the American founding, died at ninety-two on June 7, just weeks shy of the 250th anniversary of American independence. This coincidence does not quite possess the providential aura of Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’s deaths on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration. But Wood’s death offers an important opportunity to reflect on his brilliant contributions to American history, and to lament the passing of a great generation of historians, including Wood, who came of age during and after World War II. We’re not likely to see a generation of scholars like Wood’s again, nor would the elite academy welcome them if we did. 

In the mid-1990s, I was admitted to Brown University to work with Wood for a Ph.D. Alas, Brown had no stipend for an iffy candidate from a southern public school, so I went elsewhere. But Wood’s works, especially The Creation of the American Republic (1969) and The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992), seeped into my bones anyway. As I have returned to my yellowed copies of his books in the days since his passing, I find myself regularly reminded of ideas about the Revolution and the Founders that I first learned from him. Now I just teach them as historical givens. 

Wood’s professional genealogy helps explain his trajectory as a scholar. His career was connected to three other major figures of American historical scholarship. The first was Bernard Bailyn, Wood’s doctoral adviser and longtime Harvard historian who died in 2020 at age ninety-seven. Then there was Edmund Morgan, Bailyn’s contemporary who taught at Brown for a decade before moving to Yale in the mid-1950s. Bailyn and Morgan both studied at Harvard with the legendary Perry Miller, one of the most influential American historians of the twentieth century. 

In this essay there’s no space to summarize the works of these four titans. But if you pick up a book by any of them, you’ll be treated to an intellectual feast. And Gordon Wood was part of a historiographical tradition that began with Miller.  

Read it all.

"Though America’s ideals were riddled with ironies and inconsistencies, the nation still emerged as a global beacon of ordered liberty. No one better explained the history and significance of that American nation than Gordon Wood." My essay at @PublicDiscourse…

— Thomas S. Kidd (@ThomasSKidd) July 17, 2026

An investigation into why the public have lost confidence in the Church of England is required, the General Synod heard on Monday afternoon.

The Rector of St Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, Fr Marcus Walker (London), speaking during a debate on the report Trust and Trustworthiness in the Church of England, observed that all 16 members of the laity interviewed for the report were involved in the Church’s structures (News, 3 July). They comprised six diocesan secretaries, and ten lay chairs or members of General Synod.

“The elephant in the room — the elephant herd harrumphing around the report — is all of those who are outside, alongside, walking with the household of faith,” he said.

“The people who have not lost faith from within the institution of the Church, but who have lost trust in the institution of the Church. Who have lost trust in the Church and its mission. . .

Read it all.

An investigation into why the public have lost confidence in the Church of England is required, the General #Synod heard on Monday afternoon#trust #churchnews #churchtimeshttps://t.co/mJy7udBTA3

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 14, 2026

When Donald Trump proposed peace with Iran, he could hardly have offered better terms. In return for Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz and forswearing all ambitions for a nuclear bomb, America held out the prospect of hundreds of billions of dollars of income and investment in an economy ravaged by sanctions and war. The horrified reaction of Iran hawks in America and Israel tells you that no other American leader would have surrendered so much.

The bleak message from the upsurge in fighting over the past week is that, for Iran, money alone is not enough. The hardliners are in charge. They want something more, and it cannot be good—be it revenge, control over the strait, regional dominance or a nuclear programme. America must not yield.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU), signed a month ago, allows 60 days to bring peace. Halfway through, it has itself become the focus of conflict. It asks Iran to “make arrangements to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels free of charge for 60 days”. Iran takes that to imply it is in charge; for America it means that Iran must not restrict sea traffic.

The two sides are exchanging missile and drone strikes, and tankers are wary of sailing even with American offers of protection. Thankfully, these military exchanges have so far stopped short of a return to war. But the oil price is creeping back up. Meanwhile, there has been no progress in talks on tricky matters, including nuclear materials and Iranian efforts to enrich uranium.

Read it all.

America’s president looks bereft of good options for solving the stand-off in the Gulf https://t.co/ZqV1eOixNT

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 15, 2026

As was the case against Switzerland in the quarter-final, Messi’s name was not up in lights. After scoring in nine consecutive World Cup games, he is, by his standards, in the midst of a drought. And yet he continues to leave a mark. In the absence of Angel Di Maria, who is retired from international duty, Messi drifts to the right, the space his old teammate used to occupy, the space Messi first played in as a kid coming through La Masia. He may no longer have the same ability to go at defenders over-and-over again. Not after playing extra-time in two of Argentina’s three knockout games before this. And yet it doesn’t matter. His aura still attracts defenders who, in turn, then leave his teammates wide open just as Fernandez was for his sensationally-hit equaliser.

Fernandez has stepped up just as he did four years ago. He headed in the clincher in Argentina’s comeback against Egypt. Then, in stoppage time, Messi crossed for Lautaro Martinez’s winner against England. Lautaro deserves to be more than an impact sub for the Albiceleste. Nevertheless he has performed the role brilliantly for Argentina since the knockouts began. He was the one who placed the ball on Fernandez’s head against Egypt. He was the one who wrapped things up in extra-time against Switzerland and, after the England game, he could barely get his words out. Each one tripping up over the emotion.

As happened four years ago, Argentina look into the abyss and see what no one else sees. They find light instead of darkness. Qualification rather than elimination. The English fans dressed as knights who threw up their swords when Anthony Gordon gave their team the lead vaporised like those in Raiders of the Lost Ark at full-time. Victoria Beckham comforted Sir David, her husband, the Inter Miami co-owner, the man who brought Messi to America. In the same area, Mick Jagger also looked on as Argentina’s street fighting men moved on.

How do Argentina keep doing it? They continue to go to the well and it is never empty. How long they’ve played this summer never seems to matter. How far they’ve travelled always, inexplicably, counts for little. They draw on reserves most oil-rich countries must envy. Energy is always found in one place deep down inside; it’s derived from giving Messi one more game. Another 90 minutes.

When every game feels like it might be his last the Argentina players make a sacrifice for their football god. They commit bodies to the cause. “We are unique,” Scaloni said. “And it’s not arrogance, it’s heart.”

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🫵🏼🇦🇷 Leo Messi: “It’s crazy what this group has been doing: five finals!”.

“We’re coming off winning the World Cup, we’ve been the best team over the last four years, and today we’re among the two best teams in the world, another final”. pic.twitter.com/93xlF7Xg3x

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 16, 2026

Today is St Swithun’s Day, when the weather-gods obey the saint of Winchester – ‘St Swithun’s day if thou dost rain / For forty days it will remain’, and all that. So let’s look at a few extracts from an Old English homily for St Swithun’s Day, written by Ælfric in the last decade of the tenth century.

Ælfric had a personal connection to Swithun’s story, and in this homily he adds in one or two comments to remind us of it. Swithun was an obscure ninth-century Bishop of Winchester whose fame is almost entirely the work of Æthelwold, his successor at Winchester more than a century later. Winchester was the royal city of Wessex but it was surprisingly short on saints, so Æthelwold did his best to elevate some of his predecessors to that status, including Swithun and St Birinus (a better-attested saint, though his popularity never caught on as Swithun’s did). On 15 July 971, Æthelwold had Swithun’s remains translated to a new shrine inside the Old Minster, Winchester. Ælfric, who was educated at Winchester under Æthelwold and had a great respect for his bishop, would have witnessed much of this, and by the time he wrote about it, around 25 years later, he had come to see Æthelwold’s time – his own youth – as a kind of golden age for the English church, when the king and holy bishops worked together and religion and peace flourished in the land. By the 990s, with the Vikings suddenly once more a pressing threat, this seemed to him like a bright but vanished world.

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It's the feast of St Swithun, 9th-century Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester. Since the Middle Ages, his day has been linked to weather-lore: it's said that in mid-July weather patterns shift, and if it rains on St Swithun's Day it will rain for 40 days.https://t.co/FfgcvohJU2 pic.twitter.com/ALo8iNupoY

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) July 15, 2026

Almighty God,
by whose grace we celebrate again
the feast of your servant Swithun:
grant that, as he governed with gentleness
the people committed to his care,
so we, rejoicing in our Christian inheritance,
may always seek to build up your Church in unity and love;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.

2/2 St Swithin on the village sign at Ashmanhaugh, Norfolk, where the church, which has the narrowest round tower in England, is also dedicated to him, two of the four in the county. More on these two:

Frettenham: https://t.co/C1pJ38sGp8
Ashmanhaugh: https://t.co/4INAxVAHTP pic.twitter.com/lcQAPJayXO

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) July 15, 2026

 Americans’ confidence in U.S. institutions remains historically low, as reflected in their average view of 14 institutions measured each year since 1993. Currently, 27% of Americans express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in these core institutions, one percentage point above the record-low average in 2023.

When limited to the nine institutions measured about annually since 1979, average confidence is also 27%, reflecting the broader similarity of the two trends. Both lists include a mix of government and private sector institutions, making either version appropriate for use as a barometer of national confidence.

Americans’ average confidence in institutions has been trending downward since 1979 — not gradually, but rather driven by several steep drops. Confidence fell sharply in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s, each time quickly followed by partial recoveries. An even sharper decline in the mid-2000s associated with the onset of the Great Recession proved more resistant, with confidence remaining at the 2007 low point and sinking even further over the next nine years. Confidence finally showed significant improvement in 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to heightened public trust in several institutions most affected by that crisis — particularly the medical system and public schools. However, average confidence quickly reverted and sunk further to 27% in 2022.

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Americans’ confidence in U.S. institutions remains historically low, as reflected in their average view of 14 institutions measured each year since 1993.

Currently, 27% of Americans express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in these core institutions, one percentage… pic.twitter.com/cTDUcocYoa

— Gallup (@Gallup) July 14, 2026

American families are increasingly being pushed past their financial limits at the grocery checkout counter, turning to credit card debt just to keep food on the table, according to a new study.

Data released Monday from the Urban Institute found that a cumulative 32% increase in food costs over the last five years has pushed more than one in four working-age Americans into credit card debt just to cover their regular grocery bills.

“Groceries are one of the largest household budget items for families. Over the past five years, food costs have increased substantially,” the report said. “This means that families today face persistently higher prices when they go to the grocery store, and food affordability remains a key concern for many.”

The report also found, “Between 2023 and 2025, the share of working-age adults who paid for groceries with a credit card and did not make the minimum payment increased, signaling worsening financial distress among families.”

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More Americans are relying on credit cards to buy groceries, new study finds https://t.co/QLesWIlwnV

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) July 13, 2026

Adroit, acerbic, and dry in his selective use of examples, Norman instanced Dr Robert McAfee Brown, Professor of World Christianity at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Addressing the World Council of Churches in 1975, in the guise of a penitent who now realised that he was a sinner, the Professor confessed his embodiment of “racism, sexism, classism, and imperialism”, and spoke of Jesus as a “liberator”, to be “identified with the demands of oppressed people”.

Another instance nearer to home was that of a sincere Anglican cleric interviewed on the radio, extolling the Sex Pistols’ song to change the world order as a model of true “Christian prophecy”.

Unconvinced by this unlikely juxtaposition, Norman highlighted the lacunae in the punk-rock gospel: nothing about the Christ who was the Lord of history or the sin that affects liberator and oppressor alike; silence concerning the need for the repentance and forgiveness, which are fundamental to prayer and spiritual maturity, or any acknowledgement of the final judgement of all human actions. Absent, too, was the unique Christian teaching concerning the place and ultimate end of humanity, along with any serious critique of secular visions of the future for the forsaken of this world.

The lecture series was praised for its clarity, intellectual depth, and the way in which it had facilitated a serious discussion of the relationship between Christianity, politics, and contemporary society.

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Edward Norman, who died in April, deplored the politicisation of Christianity, writes Rod Garner https://t.co/Bs176KKzH4

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 10, 2026

The church has been an indispensable part of these United States, not least by advocating for abolition, civil rights, and the sanctity of life. The American literary canon is full of biblical allusions, and our legal system’s conception of rights rests on the reality that they are an inalienable gift from God.

For those searching for meaning in America today, however, I want to offer a framework from a congressional address by the African Methodist Episcopal reverend and US congressman Richard H. Cain from January 24, 1874. Cain artfully detailed the role of a free and diverse citizenry in the American experiment:

I believe Almighty God has placed both [Black and white] races on this broad theater of activity, where thoughts and opinions are freely expressed, where we may grasp every idea of manhood, where we may take hold of every truth and develop every art and science that can advance the prosperity of the nation. I believe God designed us to live here together on this continent, and in no other place, to develop this great idea that all men are the children of one Father. We are here to work out the grand experiment…by the development in us of the rights that belong to us, and the performance of the duties that we owe each other. Our interests are bound up in this country. Here we intend to stay and work out the problem of progress and education and civilization.

Cain understood that none of us were placed here by chance. God has filled our every step on this land with purpose (Acts 17:26). In Christ, he has removed “the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:14), and as Christians, we should work tirelessly to ensure, in Cain’s words, that there’s “no antagonism between the races, no friction that should destroy their peace and prosperity.” That kingdom unity is an imperative for us, and the sins of other Christians don’t relieve us from this duty.

But as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States, the American church is in grave danger of negligently missing the moment. Christians should be leading in social innovation to address the opportunities and dangers of artificial intelligence, to remedy the devastating childhood literacy crisis, and to make peace in a war of the sexes that’s exacerbating our loneliness epidemic. Instead, the church is stuck relitigating questions settled long ago. We’re still debating whether social justice can be biblically sound, long after the abolition and Civil Rights movements unequivocally answered in the affirmative. We’re still imagining that a political party or the right president can save us, pretending government can fix communities full of broken families. 

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At our country’s 250th anniversary, Christians can—and must—model charitable unity amid diversity, @JustinEGiboney writes.https://t.co/ocE9pvUofw

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) July 4, 2026

Heavenly Father who called blessed Everild to found a new abbey lead many souls to Christ in monastic peace, grant that we, like her, may through your Holy Spirit seek with steadfast hearts the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at your right hand, and from where he lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen (moved from yesterday).

July 9: Feast of Everild (†c.700). Wessex noblewoman who went north to become a nun with her companions Bega and Wulfreda. They settled on land owned by St Wilfrid called Bishop’s Farm, which he gave them. There they founded a convent. St Everilda's Church 📸Frederick Weeks pic.twitter.com/t00fnYh9Xy

— North Ages (@NorthAges) July 9, 2026

The Church of England this week welcomed an announcement of a government consultation in the autumn on the potential for including religious education (RE) in the National Curriculum.

Earlier this year, the National Society praised the Government’s announcement of a £4-billion investment in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision, which, it said, chimed with its “core mission” (News, 23 February).

The Church says that it will respond to the consultation on RE in the autumn, and that the National Society, which is the education office for the C of E and the Church in Wales, will work closely with its diocesan partners in the mean time.

RE currently sits outside the national curriculum, and decisions about what is taught are taken locally. But the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has now announced that consensus has been reached among those “representing the full spectrum of religion in this country”, including the Church.

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The Church of England this week welcomed an announcement of a government consultation in the autumn on the potential for including religious education (RE) in the National Curriculum 🍎✏️#RE #Curriculum #churchnews #churchtimes https://t.co/4AiKVtHW6o

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 8, 2026

‘Our cover this week features the most stunning such warning [for Russia] so far.

It comes from Andrey Melnichenko, the world’s fertiliser king and Russia’s biggest industrialist. Mr Melnichenko is hardly a member of the anti-Putin opposition. Far from criticising the invasion, he is an insider whose factories have supported the war economy.Nor is he being high-minded. Having run his companies outside Russia, Mr Melnichenko returned in 2023 as the scope for global business shrank. Like most oligarchs, he has lived by Mr Putin’s rules—make money, but keep your nose out of politics. He is talking now because he and his fellow tycoons can no longer afford to ignore the rot in a country they watched descend into tyranny.

Mr Melnichenko issued his warning over nearly 60 hours of interviews with The Economist and more guardedly in an essay we are publishing online. It is the first time an oligarch in Russia has spoken out at such length. We are giving him space not because we agree with all his views or because he is a champion of democracy and human rights. Instead, he is a pragmatist who wants his firms to thrive. That is why his call could resonate in a country where wars gone wrong, including the defeat to Japan in 1905, have led to campaigns by industrialists for political change.

Mr Melnichenko’s words go far beyond the war, to the bleak outlook for Russia and its neighbours. 

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A leading oligarch speaks out, warning of the looming disaster facing his country https://t.co/C3SKtbT1L4

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 9, 2026