An ongoing wave of disasters, along with skyrocketing construction costs post-COVID have left the insurance industry reeling. a result, companies such as Church Mutual, GuideOne and Brotherhood Mutual, which specialize in insuring churches, have seen their reserves shrink. That’s led them to drop churches they consider high risk in order to cut their losses. (Smietana, Religion News Service)
Read MoreIn an era of deep divisions in the American Catholic Church, and ongoing pain over the continuing revelations of sexual abuse by priests over decades, there is increasing unity among the men joining the priesthood: They are overwhelmingly conservative in their theology, their liturgical tastes and their politics. (Graham, The New York Times)
Read MoreIn the case of “gender-affirming care,” those who suffer the consequences of the lie are children. To even speak of “gender-affirming care” without qualification betrays a Christian’s fundamental convictions about the dignity of human life. Medicine heals the body; gender reassignment surgery disfigures it. (Hough, Christianity Today)
Read MoreThe mix of stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamines with fentanyl – a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin – is driving what experts call the opioid epidemic’s “fourth wave.” The mixture presents powerful challenges to efforts to reduce overdoses, because many users of stimulants don’t know they are at risk of ingesting opioids and so don’t take overdose precautions. (Arditi, NPR)
Read MoreThe spate of new political and legal initiatives against Israel is unprecedented, said Eran Shamir-Borer, former head of the international law department in the Israeli military. They include moves against Israel and its leaders at the United Nations’ top court and the International Criminal Court. (Peled & Keller-Lynn, The Wall Street Journal)
Read MoreOn TikTok, many fitness fanatics amass followers by sharing their tough-to-achieve physiques and details of their gym journeys. But among the inspiring videos there's no shortage of clips that promote "clean eating" to an extreme, skipping meals and over-exercising. Experts say this is contributing to a culture of orthorexia, a lesser-known eating disorder that's quietly plaguing the fitness community. (Goldberg, USA Today)
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