Religious

Pakistan has long had some of the harshest blasphemy laws in the world. In addition to state-sanctioned execution, Pakistani Christians and other religious minorities face abductions, indentured servitude and all manner of discrimination. The laws are rampantly exploited to systematically oppress Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and anyone who doesn’t follow the teachings of Islam. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List, more than 50 Pakistani Christians and religious minorities are currently detained or imprisoned on charges of blasphemy, with a number facing execution. — RNS, 6/9/2024

Rwanda has shut down almost 10,000 places of worship. Its president has proposed making churches pay taxes on their income. The country’s crackdown comes as part of an ongoing push to protect Rwandans from church corruption and fraud and to ensure that their buildings meet certain physical standards. Just weeks after winning his fourth term, President Paul Kagame condemned “mushrooming churches” that “squeeze even the last penny from poor Rwandans.” The Rwanda Governance Board (RGB), which oversees the country’s places of worship, found that thousands of churches — many of them rural, Pentecostal congregations — failed to meet legal requirements around theological education, building codes, and sanitation regulations. — Christianity Today, 8/29/2024

Over the past decade, the Christian population in Syria has plummeted from 1.5 million to 300,000. In areas controlled by Islamic militants, Church leaders in the public eye are regularly attacked, and many churches have been destroyed. Although Iraq has seen some improvement due to a post-ISIS stabilization program, it is now home to only around 150,000 Christians. — Aid to the Church in Need, 9/2/2024

A series of policies recently enacted by the Nicaraguan government will significantly impact the activities of churches and ministries operating in the country. Viewed by religious freedom specialists as an effort to increase the state’s control over religious institutions, the measures impose taxes on tithes and offerings while mandating that organizations create formal partnerships with the Nicaraguan government to carry out in-country projects. Local newspaper La Prensa estimates that taxes on tithes may reach 30 percent. — Christianity Today, 8/23/2024

Social

At Georgia Tech, an incredible piece of biotechnology has developed a groundbreaking new treatment for a rare birth defect of the windpipe. Partnering with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the invention is a 3D-printed tracheal splint, which allows normal breathing. About 1 in 2,100 children are born with tracheomalacia (TM), the most common inherited birth defect of the windpipe, according to the Cleveland Clinic. TM occurs when cartilage in the trachea, or windpipe, is weak or floppy, causing the windpipe’s walls to collapse and restrict breathing. Much of a child’s early life with TM involves labored breathing and being put on a ventilator. The Georgia Tech splints are made of bioabsorbable material, and hold the trachea in place like a medic would splint a bone. The cartilage eventually develops, and the splints are ultimately absorbed. — Good News Network, 8/5/2024

A super Jupiter has been spotted around a neighboring star by the Webb Space Telescope — and it has a super orbit. The planet is roughly the same diameter as Jupiter, but with six times the mass. Its atmosphere is also rich in hydrogen like Jupiter’s. One big difference: It takes this planet more than a century, possibly as long as 250 years, to go around its star. It’s 15 times the distance from its star than Earth is to the sun. Scientists had long suspected a big planet circled this star 12 light-years away, but not this massive or far from its star. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. The findings appeared in the journal Nature. — AP, 7/24/2024

Research suggests that 70% of Americans want to die at home. More seem to be doing so, at least partly owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. In a study of where people died in 32 countries between 2012 and 2021, published in Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine in January, the authors found a rise in home deaths in most countries, including the U.S. — Wall Street Journal, 7/11/2024

A global research team has developed a new light source that emits exceptionally bright, entangled photons, crucial for quantum communication. The innovative device integrates a quantum dot with a specialized light-trapping cavity, enabling on-demand production of bright, entangled photons. Quantum communication promises unbreakable encryption by using the unique properties of photons. Traditional methods of generating these photons often face limitations, particularly in brightness, which slows down communication. — The Quantum Insider, 8/22/2024

A new study by Stanford Medicine researchers tracked the levels of more than 135,000 different molecules and microbes in 108 people, aged 25 to 75, for one to nearly seven years. The results published in the journal Nature Aging, revealed that the number of molecules and microbes in the body don’t change steadily or chronologically. Rather, humans go through two periods in which these dramatically change in abundance, first at around age 44 and the next at age 60. — Nature Aging, 8/15/2024

More than 75,000-strong homeless reside in Los Angeles County, a place that has the second-highest homelessness rate in the country, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. All five of the major cities and counties with the highest rates nationally are in California. — Scripps News, 8/15/2024

Medicare Advantage, the $450-billion-a-year system in which private insurers oversee Medicare benefits, grew out of the idea that the private sector could provide healthcare more economically. It has swelled over the last two decades to cover more than half of the 67 million seniors and disabled people on Medicare. Analysis of billions of Medicare records found private insurers involved in the government’s Medicare Advantage program made hundreds of thousands of questionable diagnoses that triggered extra taxpayer-funded payments from 2018 to 2021, including some for potentially deadly illnesses, such as AIDS, for which patients received no subsequent care, and for conditions people couldn’t possibly have. — Wall Street Journal, 7/9/2024

Mars may be drenched beneath its surface, with enough water hiding in the cracks of underground rocks to form a global ocean, new research suggests. The findings are based on seismic measurements from NASA’s Mars InSight lander, which detected more than 1,300 Mars quakes before shutting down two years ago. This water — believed to be seven miles to 12 miles (11.5 kilometers to 20 kilometers) down in the Martian crust — most likely would have seeped from the surface when Mars harbored rivers, lakes, and possibly oceans, according to the lead scientist of the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. However, just because water may be sloshing around inside Mars does not mean it holds life, the scientist said. — AP, 8/12/2024

Political

Violent extremist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are growing in size and influence across Africa, fueling worries that as they improve their tactics, they could attack the U.S. or Western allies. U.S. defense and military officials described the threats and their concerns about growing instability in Africa, where a number of coups have put ruling juntas in control, leading to the ouster of American troops and a decline in U.S. intelligence gathering. “Threats like Wagner, terrorist groups and transnational criminal organizations continue to sow instability in multiple regions,” Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. “What happens in one part of the world, does not stay in one part of the world.” — AP, 6/25/2024

The Russian military reportedly continues to forcibly send Russian military personnel, including those with serious medical issues, to fight in Ukraine. Russian opposition outlet Astra reported on June 4 that Russian military authorities recently forcibly transported mobilized personnel and contract personnel (kontraktniki) who refused or were unable to serve due to medical reasons, such as cancer, tuberculosis, mental disorders, and severe wounds, to the front in Donetsk Oblast. Russian opposition outlet Verstka similarly reported on June 3 that Russian military authorities are forcibly sending hundreds of Russian service members who refuse to fight to the front in Ukraine from Russia instead of standing trial for their refusal to participate in combat. — ISW, 6/4/24

Thailand’s parliament elected political neophyte Paetongtarn Shinawatra as its youngest prime minister. At stake for Paetongtarn could be the legacy and political future of the billionaire Shinawatra family, whose once unstoppable populist juggernaut suffered its first election defeat in over two decades last year, and had to do a deal with its bitter enemies in the military to form a government. She will immediately face challenges on multiple fronts, with the economy floundering, competition from a rival party growing, and Pheu Thai’s popularity dwindling, having yet to deliver on its flagship cash handout program worth 500 billion baht ($14.25 billion). — Reuters, 8/16/2024

China will impose export limits on antimony (a metalloid element primarily used in alloys like solder, lead batteries, and pewter, and as a flame retardant in textiles and plastics) in the name of national security. China accounted last year for 48% of global mined output of antimony, a strategic metal used in military applications such as ammunition, infrared missiles, nuclear weapons and night vision goggles. Everyone needs it for armaments. “This will put a real squeeze on the U.S. and European militaries” said a military spokesman. — Reuters, 8/15/24

Financial

According to a complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida, the background-check company National Public Data exposed the information of billions of individuals as early as April, 2024. That information, according to the lawsuit, later showed up on a dark web hacker forum, with cybercriminal group USDoD claiming to have taken the personal information of 2.9 billion people, including full names, addresses, Social Security numbers and information about relatives. — Scripps News, 8/15/2024

Marlene Engelhorn, a Millennial member of one of the richest families in Austria — founders of the BSAF pharmaceutical company and acquirers of Boehringer Mannheim — allowed 50 members of the Austrian public to determine how her inheritance money of $27.7 million (25 million Euros) would be divided and donated to various charitable and non-profit organizations. It was portioned out to 77 such groups by 50 randomly chosen citizens of Salzburg, who formed a working group designated as the Good Council for Redistribution. They were offered “a series of lectures including from philosophers and economics professors.” — Good News Network, 6/6/2024

More than 95% of American wealth has been concentrated among the wealthiest half of American households for decades. In 1990, the top 50% by net worth held 96.6% of wealth, less than one percentage point lower than that group’s share in 2023. In 2023, 97.5% of all net worth — totaling $139.4 trillion — was owned by the 50% of Americans with above-average net worth. The total net worth of the top 1% in 2023 was $43.0 trillion. — USAFacts.org, 8/16/2024

China will no longer send children overseas for adoption, the government said, overturning a more than three-decade rule that was rooted in its once strict one-child policy. More than 160,000 Chinese children have been adopted by families across the world since 1992, when China first opened its doors to international adoption. Around 82,000 of these children, mostly girls, have been adopted in the United States, according to China’s Children International (CCI). — Reuters, 9/6/2024

Israel and the Middle East

Military service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women in Israel. But politically powerful ultra- Orthodox parties have won draft exemptions for their followers that allow them instead to study in religious seminaries. This long-standing arrangement has bred widespread resentment among the broader public — a sentiment that has grown stronger during the eight-month war against Hamas in Gaza. In late July 2024, the Israeli military sent out the first 1,000 conscription notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men. Over 600 soldiers have been killed, and tens of thousands of reservists have been activated, straining careers, businesses and family lives. — AP, 6/27/2024

Fatah, the leading PLO faction, and Hamas signed the “Beijing Declaration” in which they agreed on the establishment of a temporary Palestinian government. The declaration was signed by 14 terrorist factions in the Chinese capital following a two-day summit, hosted by Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister. — Jewish Press, 7/23/2024

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara might invade Israel, drawing a harsh rebuke from the Jewish state’s foreign minister. “Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them,” Erdogan said, per Reuters. Turkey has denied any direct role in Azerbaijan’s military operations in Nagorno-Karabakh, but said last year it was using “all means,” including military training and modernization, to support its close ally. Abraham Foxman, Anti-Defamation League director emeritus, wrote that “Erdogan of Turkey, a member of NATO, is threatening the State of Israel with a military attack! Where is the outrage and condemnation from the United States — and all our NATO allies?” — JNS, 7/28/2024

The practice of crucifixion in antiquity was brought to life as never before when the heel bones of a young man named Yehohanan were found in a Jerusalem tomb, pierced by an iron nail. The discovery shed new light on Roman crucifixion methods and began to rewrite the history of crucifixion in antiquity. Examination of Yehohanan’s bones showed one of the many Roman crucifixion methods. Both of his feet had been nailed together to the cross with a wooden plaque while his legs were bent to one side. His arm bones revealed scratches where the nails had passed between. Both legs were badly fractured, most likely from a crushing blow meant to end his suffering and bring about a faster death. This discovery has helped fill in gaps in the history of crucifixion. — Bible History Daily, 8/7/2024

The secrets of the Jewish kitchen dating back two millennia to the time of the biblical Second Temple are being uncovered in Jerusalem’s ancient drainage channel, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced. Items such as expensive oils, grape seeds and 2,000-year-old eggshells were unearthed during an excavation outside the Old City walls in the drainage channel that ran under Jerusalem’s main street during the Second Temple period. The ancient drainage channel passed under the colorful markets of Jerusalem at the foot of the Temple Mount and along the entire length of the City of David. — JNS,
8/11/2024

While surveying the floor of the Mediterranean 55 miles off Israel’s coast, the international energy company Energean made a startling find: the oldest deep-sea shipwreck ever discovered. Located over a mile below the waves, this deep-sea shipwreck showed that Mediterranean sailors left the safety of the coastline much earlier than previously thought. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) was able to identify through the pots on board as Late Bronze Age Canaanite amphorae from the 14th or 13th centuries BCE. The Late Bronze Age was a period of immense trade and advancement in maritime technology, which allowed large volumes of goods to be shipped by boat. This led to a flourishing of port cities well known from ancient texts such as the Amarna Letters. — Bible History Daily, 6/24/2024