Religious persecution is one of the many reasons individuals can claim asylum or apply to be a refugee. But the Trump administration's overhaul of the U.S. asylum and refugee systems has taken a toll on people fleeing religious persecution — many of whom saw the U.S. as a symbol of religious freedom. (Bustillo & Kim, NPR)
Read MoreBehold: Magisterium AI. Think of it as ChatGPT for Catholicism, an opportunity to ask a chatbot questions about the faith instead of a human. But the only sources in this large language model are 27,000 documents connected to the church, which has been reckoning with the effects of artificial intelligence on humanity. (Brasch, The Washington Post)
Read MoreA conservative Christian legal group asked the United States Supreme Court to review a decade-old case involving a former Kentucky county clerk who cited her faith when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — a long-shot effort activists hope will result in justices ending nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage. (Jenkins, Religion News Service)
Read MoreMost countries have Christian majorities – that is, more than half of all people in those places identify as Christian, according to a recent Pew Research Center report. However, the Christian share of the population has dropped in many countries. And some countries lost their Christian majority between 2010 and 2020, largely because millions of Christians around the world left the religion. (Fahmy, Pew Research)
Read MoreTitled “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,” the campaign sparked a debate about race, Western beauty standards, and the backlash to “woke” American politics and culture. Most of the negative reception focused on videos that used the word “genes” instead of “jeans” when discussing the blonde-haired, blue-eyed actor known for the HBO series “Euphoria” and “White Lotus.” (D’Innocenzio, AP News)
Read MoreThe looming danger is an emerging wave of highly potent synthetic opioids called nitazenes, which often pack a far stronger punch than fentanyl. Nitazenes have already killed hundreds of people in Europe and left law enforcement and scientists scrambling to detect them in the drug supply and curb their spread. (Rasmussen & Li, The Wall Street Journal)
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