As more Americans lose trust in mainstream institutions and turn to partisan commentators and influencers for information, experts say they are seeing a big uptick in the manufacture and spread of BlueAnon conspiracy theories, a sign that the communal warping of reality is spreading well beyond the right. (Lorenz, The Washington Post)
Read MoreFertility rates around the world are dropping quicker than expected, putting the world on track to see a population decline before the end of the century, according to a report from the United Nations. (Chow, Murphy & Wu, NBC News)
Read MoreThis summer, tattoo regret reentered popular conversation on TikTok after young women expressed concern over how their tattoos would look in their wedding gowns. These videos often spotlight patchwork tattoos, a style that’s become increasingly trendy in the past five years and consists of clusters of uncoordinated flash tattoos rather than a cohesive sleeve. (Goldberg, USA Today)
Read MoreAs it continues its mind-blowing trajectory, and with Tuesday’s receipts now included, Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 has become the highest-grossing Pixar movie of all time at the worldwide box office. (Tartaglione, Deadline)
Read MoreAn 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)
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