Religious

In 2017 scholars Eshbal Ratson and Jonathan Ben-Dov of the Department of Bible Studies at the University of Haifa published one of the last two remaining Dead Sea Scrolls in their article “A Newly Reconstructed Calendrical Scroll from Qumran in Cryptic Script” in the Journal of Biblical Literature (Winter 2017). For more than a year, the scholars diligently pieced together 62 Dead Sea Scroll fragments, on which there was writing in code. Ratson and Ben-Dov deciphered the code on the reconstructed scroll, called Scroll 4Q324d, and revealed that the scroll describes a 364-day calendar used by the Qumran community that lived in the Judean Desert. This Qumran calendar gives us insight into how the community organized the seasons and religious festivals, and it sheds light on scribal customs. — Bible History Daily, 1/1/2025

The earliest known evidence of Christianity north of Italy was recently unveiled by archaeologists, who call the discovery one of the “most important testimonies of early Christianity.” The artifact, publicized by the Frankfurt Archaeological Museum last week, is called the Frankfurt silver inscription. Discovered in 2018, the inscription was analyzed and studied for years before being released to the public. The Frankfurt silver inscription is an engraving on silver foil of 18 lines written in Latin. It dates to between 230 and 260 AD and was discovered wrapped in a small silver amulet. In a press release translated from German, the museum explained that the artifact was found in a third-century grave in Hesse, Germany, in what was once the former Roman city of Nida. — Fox News, 12/17/2024

The oldest known stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments sold for more than $5 million at auction on December 18, 2024. Sotheby’s said the 155-pound (52-kilogram) marble slab was acquired by an anonymous buyer who plans to donate it to an Israeli institution. The tablet dates from 300 to 800 AD and is inscribed with the commandments in Paleo-Hebrew script — the only complete example of its kind from antiquity, according to Sotheby’s. It was unearthed during railroad excavations along the southern coast of Israel in 1913 and was not recognized as historically significant at first. — AP, 12/18/2024

More than 400 Christian leaders in India ended 2024 with a strongly-worded appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put an end to a surge in violence against Christians that was especially heightened during the Christmas season. Modi is a member of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which has instigated much of the violence against Christians and whose activity has increased under his government. In the Dec. 31 appeal to the government of Modi and President Smt. Draupadi Murmu, the Christian leaders stated there were more than 720 cases of violence against Christians reported to the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFIRLC) between January and mid-December 2024, and 760 cases recorded by United Christian Forum (UCF) through the end of November. — The Christian Post, 1/2/2025

Social

Some of the world’s safest cities might surprise you. Tokyo, with a massive population of over 37 million, consistently reports low violent crime rates. Strict gun laws, effective law enforcement, and solid social cohesion contribute to this safety. In 2023, Tokyo reported only 0.3 homicides per 100,000 people. — Truthfully.com, 12/10/2024

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe successfully made the closest approach to the sun. The spacecraft passed within a record-breaking 3.8 million miles (6 million kilometers) of the scorching star. Launched in 2018 to get a close-up look at the sun, Parker has since flown straight through its crown like outer atmosphere, or corona. With its close brush complete, the craft is expected to circle the sun at this distance through at least September 2025. It’s the fastest spacecraft built by humans, and hit 430,000 mph (690,000 kph) at closest approach. It is outfitted with a heat shield that can withstand scorching temperatures up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius). Scientists hope the data from Parker will help them better understand why the sun’s outer atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface and what drives the solar wind, the supersonic stream of charged particles constantly blasting away from the sun. — AP, 12/27/2024

The U.S. Census Bureau projects the U.S. population will be 341,145,670 on New Year’s Day, 2025, an annual increase of 2,640,171 or 0.78%. By comparison, just before the nation’s independence nearly 250 years ago, the 13 colonies had about 2.5 million residents. The projected world population on January 1, 2025, is 8,092,034,511, up 71,178,087 (0.89%) from New Year’s Day 2024. During January 2025, 4.2 births and 2.0 deaths are expected worldwide every second. — U.S. Census Bureau,
1/1/2025

A new study in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal revealed that we live inside a hot and low-density region with a cosmic channel that stretches across our solar system toward distant constellations. The research was conducted by astronomers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany led by Dr. L. L. Sala. The team relied on data gathered by the eRosita Xray instrument that belongs to a Russian-German observatory. Scientists have known that our solar system exists in a region of space called the Local Hot Bubble. It is believed to be formed as a result of supernovas and is estimated to be around 300 lightyears across. The eRosita was designed to make more discoveries about the space region as part of the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma mission. Using old and new X-rays, the researchers were able to make new observations about the space region. — MSN.
com, 12/19/2024

They can walk, hover and the males can even sing love songs to woo mates — all this with a brain that’s tinier than a pinhead. But it wasn’t until October that scientists studying the brain of a fruit fly mapped the position, shape and connections of every single one of its 130,000 cells and 50 million connections. It was the most detailed analysis of the brain of an adult animal ever produced, and one leading brain specialist described the breakthrough as a “huge leap” in our understanding of our own brains. One of the research leaders said it would shed new light into “the mechanism of thought.” — BBC News, 12/28/2024

Thirty-five Florida buildings surveyed along an almost 12-mile stretch from Miami Beach to Sunny Isles Beach have sunk or settled by 0.8 to 3.1 inches. About half of the buildings are less than a decade old, according to scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. It’s not uncommon for buildings to sink a little during and soon after construction, but the scientists called their discovery surprising because some of the changes took place several years later. Limestone under the South Florida beach is interspersed with layers of sand, which can shift under the weight of high-rises and as a result of vibrations from foundation construction. Tidal flows and construction projects as far away as 1,050 feet (320 meters) have contributed to settling, the researchers found. — AP, 12/17/2024

Political

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to expand Russia’s network of military-patriotic education programs for youth in Russia and occupied Ukraine ahead of the Kremlin’s “Year of the Defender of the Fatherland” in 2025. The Kremlin’s “Roads of Victory” program is aimed at “fostering patriotic feelings in modern children and youth” and offers free excursions to Russian cultural and historical sites of “military glory” for Russian children and youth. The Kremlin likely intends to leverage these military-political organizations to encourage and elevate the prestige of military service among Russian youth and society as the Kremlin continues to plan for its long-term war effort in Ukraine and possible future armed conflicts with Western countries. — ISW, 12/21/2024

Global security leaders are warning nuclear threats are growing as weapons spending surged to $91.4 billion last year. At the same time, private bunker sales are on the rise globally, from small metal boxes to crawl inside of to extravagant underground mansions. Critics warn these bunkers create a false perception that a nuclear war is survivable. — AP, 12/17/2024

The European Union imposed fresh sanctions on dozens of officials linked to Russia’s war on Ukraine, including two top North Korean defense officials, a military unit blamed for an attack on a Kyiv children’s hospital and the heads of companies in the energy sector. Russia’s vast shadow fleet of ships that Moscow is exploiting to skirt restrictions on transporting oil and gas, or carrying stolen Ukrainian grain, was also targeted. — AP, 12/17/2024

Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached the U.S. Treasury Department’s computer security guardrails this month and stole documents in what Treasury called a “major incident,” according to a letter to lawmakers. The hackers compromised third-party cybersecurity service provider BeyondTrust and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said. According to the letter, hackers “gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users. With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able to override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury DO user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users.” — Reuters, 12/31/2024

Financial

U.S. officials have added a ninth telecommunications company to the list of entities compromised by a sweeping Chinese-linked cyberespionage operation known as Salt Typhoon. Officials have previously alleged that the attackers targeted Verizon, AT&T, Lumen and others. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Dec. 18 urged senior government and political figures to move mobile communications to end-to-end encrypted apps as a result of the Salt Typhoon campaign. Officials have said “a large number of Americans’ metadata was taken” as part of the campaign. — Reuters, 12/27/2024

There were approximately 7,300 public companies in the U.S. in 1996 compared to approximately 4,300 in 2024. Two of the biggest factors in this decline are the number of companies backed by private equity and the increasing cost and burden of regulations. The number of private firms in the United States backed by private equity firms has grown from 1,900 to 11,200 in the past two decades, according to data from JP Morgan. — IR Update, Fall 2024

Soaring costs for home insurance and property taxes are busting homeowners’ budgets. Insurers have pushed big rate increases because of losses from natural disasters and rising costs to repair homes. Meanwhile, surging home values in recent years have lifted property taxes for many homeowners. These ballooning expenses are rewriting the math of homeownership. In September, 32% of the average single-family mortgage payment went to property taxes and home insurance, the highest rate ever for data going back to 2014, according to Intercontinental Exchange. — Wall Street Journal, 12/23/2024

Israel and the Middle East

An international war crimes prosecutor said that evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run “machinery of death” under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad in which he estimated more than 100,000 people were tortured and murdered since 2013. “From the secret police who disappeared people from their streets and homes to the jailers and interrogators who starved and tortured them to death, to the truck drivers and bulldozer drivers who hid their bodies, thousands of people were working in this system of killing,” the spokesman said. “We are talking about a system of state terror, which became a machinery of death.” Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad’s crackdown on protests against him spiraled into a full-scale war. — AP, 12/18/2024

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have tightened their grip on the country’s oil industry and control up to half the exports that generate most of Tehran’s revenue and fund its proxies across the Middle East, according to Western officials, security sources and Iranian insiders. All aspects of the oil business have come under the growing influence of the Guards, from the shadow fleet of tankers that secretively ship sanctioned crude, to logistics and the front companies selling the oil, mostly to China. Despite tough Western sanctions designed to choke Iran’s energy industry, reimposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018, Iran generates more than $50 billion a year in oil revenue, by far its largest source of foreign currency and its principal connection to the global economy. — Reuters, 12/18/2024

There was a notable Jewish gathering at the most iconic landmark in Berlin. At the Brandenburg Gate, some 500 young Jews from all over Europe gathered for a youth conference organized by Chabad. Their slogan in German was “Wir schämen uns nicht,” or “We are not ashamed.” Perhaps paradoxically, given the country’s history with its Jewish community, German Jews — and Israel — have stronger political support than in virtually any other state in Western Europe. Most notably in France, Spain and the Netherlands, left-wing and even center-left parties have made a radical swing against the State of Israel, and especially since the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, many have embraced outright anti-Zionism. — Times of Israel, 12/26/2024

Israel will close its embassy in Dublin over “the extreme anti-Israel policies of the Irish government” its foreign minister has said. Gideon Saar said the Republic of Ireland had crossed “every red line.” In a statement, he said Israel’s ambassador to Dublin had been recalled in the past following what it called Ireland’s “unilateral decision to recognize a Palestinian state”. He added that the decision followed Ireland’s announcement of its support for South Africa’s legal action against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the country of “genocide”. Mr. Saar said: “The actions and anti-Semitic rhetoric used by Ireland against Israel are rooted in the de-legitimization and demonization of the Jewish state, along with double standards.” — BBC News, 12/15/2024

A disturbing wave of disinformation about Israel and the Jewish people is spreading unchecked. Whether on social media, in the media, or even within educational institutions, biased narratives are presented as undeniable truths. This has profound consequences, misinforming the public, fueling confusion, and perpetuating harmful myths about Israel’s history and the Middle East conflict. One of the most concerning platforms fueling this disinformation is Wikipedia. With millions of people turning to it as their first source of information, Wikipedia’s entries have become a breeding ground for anti-Israel narratives. Unbeknownst to its consumers, dozens of anti-Israel contributors are engaged in a secret coordinated effort to edit entries to rewrite Middle East history and smear Israel. — Times of Israel, 12/31/2024

For hundreds of years, a mosaic lay hidden in Megiddo in northern Israel until, in 2005, it was found and preserved as a local prison sought to expand. The mosaic recently made the trip — in nearly a dozen pieces — across the ocean to Washington, D.C., where it is on exhibit at the Museum of the Bible. At an opening reception for the exhibit on Sunday afternoon, Carlos Campo, CEO of the museum, said that the mosaic dates to around the year 230. The mosaic, which contains a very early mention of the name of Jesus and includes an illustration of two fish, as well as a variety of geometric patterns, is “the greatest discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Campo said. Gil Lin, the head of the Megiddo Regional Council, agreed in his address at the reception. — JNS, 9/15/2024