Around half of adults across the world hold antisemitic beliefs and deny the historic facts of the Holocaust, according to the latest edition of the largest global study of anti-Jewish attitudes by the Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based advocacy group. (Pancevski, The Wall Street Journal)
Read MoreTens of thousands of naked Hindu ascetics and millions of pilgrims took dips in freezing water at the confluence of sacred rivers in northern India on Tuesday, in the first of a series of major baths in the Maha Kumbh festival, the largest religious congregation on Earth. (Saaliq, AP News)
Read MoreThe government has been warned by the equalities watchdog that rules could “disproportionately curtail” freedom of expression and be applied to “overheard conversations”. Ministers have proposed that employers must protect workers from being harassed at work by “third parties” such as customers or clients. If they fail to do so they could be sued. (Scott, The Times)
Read MoreThe new Syrian government’s consistent rhetoric of tolerance has some analysts asking: Is the talk merely an attempt to assuage a nervous international audience? (Casper, Christianity Today)
Read MoreAfter rising for about 20 years, the share of U.S. adults who are not living with a spouse or partner has modestly declined since 2019. In 2023, 42% of adults were unpartnered, down from 44% in 2019, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. (Fry, Pew Research)
Read MoreRight now we need Saint Francis. Now that kindness is countercultural, we need his extremes of wild charity to pull us back toward it. And we need his asceticism: His self-denial, his merry disdain of health and comfort and security, is a rebuke to our self-care. There are no safe spaces, and no guarantees—the only stability is the bottomlessness of divine love. (Parker, The Atlantic)
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