Tens 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)
Read MoreThe 2025 GCR Red List, released Jan. 7, is marketed as a “first-ever quantifiable and verifiable index” of incidents in five key areas, namely killings, building attacks, arrests, displacements and abductions & assaults from 2022-2024. The five countries deemed the top aggressors in each category drive the list: (Chandler, Baptist Press)
Read More