Category: News

Community-built tech solutions are helping Palestinians navigate blockades and risks in the Israel-occupied territory.

Source: Palestinians in the West Bank use local digital maps to navigate Israeli blockades and checkpoints – Rest of World

PRINCETON, N.J. (RNS) — ‘Desperation is a spiritual gift, and so it gives you a chance to experiment with things that, you know, 10 years ago were off the table,’ said the Rev. Kenda Creasy Dean, a Princeton Theological Seminary professor.

Source: With fewer ordinations, seminaries find ways to serve young professionals in other fields

They’re trying to boil the ocean which is not how the open web evolves, it happens in short steps each of which is ridiculously simple, just enough to get the job done.

— Dave Winer (@scripting.com) 2025-04-26T01:17:21.238Z

St. Luke’s, Idaho’s largest health system, was outspoken in defending its staff during a backlash against masks and vaccines. It also sued right-wing figure Ammon Bundy — and won. Now it’s backing its doctors on the abortion front.

Source: Idaho’s Largest Health System Is Taking on the State’s Abortion Ban — ProPublica

 

“They will be at their best if they can defend the accomplishments of the past 250 years of American history — the Constitution, the postwar alliances, Medicare and Medicaid.” -David Brooks

• Nonprofit organizations form the bedrock of civil society, representing a longstanding tradition of voluntary associations that operate independently from government control to meet community needs.
• A constitutionally protected right to associate is part of the fabric of our society. The tax-exempt status of nonprofit organizations allows charities to operate with a degree of independence from government control.
• Recent proposals to tax nonprofits like for-profit businesses overlook fundamental differences between the sectors, such as nonprofits’ mission-driven focus and reinvestment requirements and could harm smaller organizations providing vital services.
• Nonprofits use their net income to build reserves, reinvest in programs, upgrade infrastructure, develop staff, repay debt, plan for future growth and comply with donor restrictions, all of which support their charitable missions.
• Rather than imposing broad tax reforms on nonprofits, a more nuanced approach should focus on reviewing federal funding for large nonprofits with substantial endowments and reviewing existing community benefit standards for nonprofit hospitals.

Source: From Insight to Impact: Examining Proposed Tax Changes for Nonprofits

• By the end of the fifty-year simulation period, a foundation consistently paying out 5% would be granting $840 million more to charity than a foundation paying out 12%. Over the entire fifty-year, a twenty-two-fold difference. Over the entire fifty-year period, a foundation operating under the 5% rule would have donated almost $21 billion more to charity than a foundation operating under 12% payout rules.
• By the end of the fifty-year simulation period, a foundation under the 5% rule would still be able to provide enough support to cover two-thirds (66%) of current operating costs, while a foundation subject to 12% rules would only be able to cover about 3% of St. Jude’s current operating expenses.

Source: What Higher Foundation Payout Rules Would Mean for Charities

On this day, a white mob lynched a Black man and forced every Black person out of Joplin, Missouri.

Source: On Apr 15, 1903: White Mob Lynches Black Man and Attacks Black Neighborhoods, Forcing Every Black Person Out of Joplin, Missouri

 

About: Our organization collects and warehouses furniture for clients referred to us by community partners. As families and individuals progress through programs and transitional housing to rebuild their lives, they often find themselves with little or no possessions. Affording housing and food is a struggle for many, making basic furniture an unattainable luxury, including essentials like a bed or a table.

Furniture is not just a convenience; it is a fundamental need that profoundly influences how people perceive themselves and their performance in the workplace or at school.

Source: Home – NW Furniture Bank

Welcome to Open House Ministries. We’re a family shelter in Vancouver, Washington, housing 100-plus residents a night. More than half of our residents are homeless children. More than a shelter, we walk alongside homeless families as they rebuild their lives. Watch this video and learn more about our program and families who have undergone the difficult work of transforming their lives, reclaiming their independence and finding home again.

Source: Homeless Shelter For Families – Open House Ministries

Carole Cadwalladr speaking at TED in April 2025: “We are watching the collapse of the international order in real time, and this is just the start,” says investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr. In a searing talk, she details a fast-moving technological coup and the rise of the “broligarchy”: an unprecedentedly powerful class of tech executives (like Elon Musk) who are complicit in dismantling democracy and enabling authoritarian control across the world. She shares a guide on how to digitally disobey in this age of runaway corporate power, data harvesting and mass surveillance — and reminds you that you have more power than you think.”

Hairdressers and aestheticians report clients are opting for less expensive services and stretching out the time between appointments—signs that US consumers are retrenching.

Source: Recession Indicator? US Hairstylists Report Clients Cut Spending – Bloomberg

In a world promoting greed and selfish ambition, the next generation needs a vision for success and significance.

And here’s the cool part: there’s a growing movement of Christian entrepreneurs who are flipping the script on traditional business. They’re using their ideas and skills not just to make money, but to solve real problems, help people, and do it all in a way that points back to God.

Source: Faith Driven Entrepreneur for Teens |

The Verge // by Hanan Zaffar and Danish Pandit

Across India, in metro markets from Delhi’s Nehru Place to Mumbai’s Lamington Road, technicians like Prasad are repurposing broken and outdated laptops that many see as junk. These “Frankenstein” machines — hybrids of salvaged parts from multiple brands — are sold to students, gig workers, and small businesses, offering a lifeline to those priced out of India’s growing digital economy.

“We take usable components from different older or discarded systems to create a new functioning unit. For instance, we salvage parts from old laptop motherboards, such as capacitors, mouse pads, transistors, diodes, and certain ICs and use them in the newly refurbished ones,” says Prasad…

Across India, in metro markets from Delhi’s Nehru Place to Mumbai’s Lamington Road, technicians like Prasad are repurposing broken and outdated laptops that many see as junk. These “Frankenstein” machines — hybrids of salvaged parts from multiple brands — are sold to students, gig workers, and small businesses, offering a lifeline to those priced out of India’s growing digital economy.

“We take usable components from different older or discarded systems to create a new functioning unit. For instance, we salvage parts from old laptop motherboards, such as capacitors, mouse pads, transistors, diodes, and certain ICs and use them in the newly refurbished ones,” says Prasad.

Source: The rise of ‘Frankenstein’ laptops in New Delhi’s repair markets | The Verge

The Matthew 5:9 Fellowship supports evangelical Christian leaders and pastors in shepherding their communities to live out the Gospel and place their identity in Jesus Christ above partisanship and societal divisions.

Source: email : Webview : A Polarized Country Needs a Peacemaking Church

(RNS) — Gelsinger, a former tech CEO and advocate for ethical uses of AI, has long been involved with Gloo, a tech platform that provides cloud-based services for churches.

Source: Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger hopes Gloo can make AI a force for good — and for God

Shocking before-and-after images of NASA’s stranded astronauts show the terrifying damage that months spent in the harsh conditions in space will do to you.

Source: The shocking things 286 days in space does to a human body: As rescued NASA astronauts stun the world with their frail and gaunt appearance, how their bodies have been ravaged by the void | Daily Mail Online

The Trump administration’s Federal Trade Commission has removed four years’ worth of business guidance blogs as of Tuesday morning, including important consumer protection information related to artificial intelligence and the agency’s landmark privacy lawsuits under former chair Lina Khan against companies like Amazon and Microsoft. More than 300 blogs were removed.

Source: FTC Removes Posts Critical of Amazon, Microsoft, and AI Companies | WIRED

The auditors say they aren’t necessarily against bringing in people from outside the government to help streamline government processes—something that the government was already doing before Trump was sworn in for his second term. For instance, 18F, the digital services agency within the GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, was explicitly designed to serve as an in-house consultancy that would allow federal agencies to leverage private sector expertise. As part of DOGE’s sweep of the government, however, it has gutted the group, putting a pause on several ongoing projects to make government services more efficient for users.

And it’s these actions, the second auditor says, that best show that DOGE’s intentions may not be geared toward “efficiency” at all. “It’s a con,” they allege.

Source: ‘It’s a Heist’: Real Federal Auditors Are Horrified by DOGE | WIRED

Inefficient decision-making wastes time, money and productivity. As leaders respond to today’s paradigm shift, companies can pursue four actions to adopt and sustain high-velocity decision making.

Focus on the game-changing decisions

Convene necessary meetings only, declare war on lengthy reports

Clarify the roles of decision makers and other voices

Push decision-making authority to the ‘edge’—and tolerate mistakes

Source: Reimagine decision making to improve speed and quality

When Julie Zhuo, Facebook’s vice president of design, first began managing a team, it consisted of just a handful of people.

And then it doubled. Every few years, it doubled again.

At each of these points, Zhuo felt like she had an entirely different job.

While the core principles of management stayed the same, the day-to-day changed significantly.

People often ask her what’s different about her job now than when she started.

Looking back, she describes the five most striking contrasts between managing small and large teams:

1. You Shift from Direct to Indirect Management
2. People Treat You Differently
3. You Context Shift All Day Long
4. You Learn to Pick Your Battles
5. People-Centric Skills Matter Most

Source: As Your Team Gets Bigger, Your Leadership Style Has to Adapt

(RNS) — In California, a church had worked for years to help an Iranian family in their congregation bring their son to the US. He had all but boarded a flight when the freeze came.

Source: For one Iranian family and their church, Trump’s refugee freeze leaves son in exile

The architects of projects like Próspera are drafting legislation to create US cities that would be free from federal regulations.

Several groups representing “startup nations”—tech hubs exempt from the taxes and regulations that apply to the countries where they are located—are drafting Congressional legislation to create “freedom cities” in the US that would be similarly free from certain federal laws, WIRED has learned.

According to interviews and presentations viewed by WIRED, the goal of these cities would be to have places where anti-aging clinical trials, nuclear reactor startups, and building construction can proceed without having to get prior approval from agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Trey Goff, the chief of staff of the startup nation known as Próspera, tells WIRED that he and other Próspera representatives working under an advocacy group called the Freedom Cities Coalition have been meeting with the Trump administration about the idea in recent weeks. He claims the administration has been very receptive. In 2023, Trump floated the idea of creating 10 freedom cities. Now, Goff says that Próspera’s vision is to create “not just 10, but as many as the market can handle.” They hope to have drafted legislation ready by the end of the year….

Freedom Cities Coalition was created by an entity called NeWay Capital LLC, which owns several trademarks for Próspera. Since opening on the Honduran island of Roatán in 2020, Próspera has been attracting tech workers and startups by promising low taxes, few regulations, and a businesslike government that considers its citizens to be akin to customers. Its financiers include Pronomos Capital, a venture capital firm backed by Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, and Coinbase.

Startup nations outside the US have largely relied on the creation of special economic zones (SEZs), where the regular rules governing businesses are waived, often in order to attract foreign investment. The hope, it appears, is to bring a similar model to the US….

Notably, the current government of Honduras considers Próspera and its special economic status to be illegal.

The country’s previous president, Juan Orlando Hernández, gave Próspera a permanent charter to operate on its own terms.

However, many Honduran citizens opposed Próspera, arguing that it has increased poverty and worsened biodiversity in the area.

The Honduran Congress passed a law in 2022 repealing the allowance of SEZs, and Próspera sued the Honduran government shortly after. The lawsuit is ongoing….

Frontier Foundation president Nick Allen tells WIRED that using federal land would lower the cost of development for startup cities. The Frontier Foundation suggests that federally owned land outside western cities like Boise, Idaho; Grand Junction, Colorado; and Redmond, Oregon would be suitable candidates.

Source: ‘Startup Nation’ Groups Say They’re Meeting Trump Officials to Push for Deregulated ‘Freedom Cities’ | WIRED

The 119th Congress was sworn in Jan. 3, marking several milestones for women of color. In the Senate, two Black women are serving concurrently for the first time. And in the House, two states and one U.S. territory elected their first Black, Hispanic or Pacific Islander woman lawmaker.

Overall, there are 61 women of color in the 119th Congress. Together they represent 24 states as voting members, as well as three territories and the District of Columbia as nonvoting delegates. This total includes five senators – the highest number in history – according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Senate and House records.

Source: 119th Congress: A look at lawmakers who are women of color | Pew Research Center

(RNS) — In a status report sought by a federal judge, the Trump administration’s lawyers argued the State Department is not required by law to provide reception and placement benefits to refugees when they arrive in the U.S….

The administration signaled it planned to move forward with identifying a single service provider for refugee resettlement in the status report, a drastic change in how refugees would receive services when they arrive in the United States. It was “preparing a request for proposals for a new resettlement agency” and expected a solicitation process to take three months, according to the status report.

Source: Faith-based refugee resettlement groups concerned about Trump administration’s new plans

The CEO of a social-service nonprofit and two of its major donors discuss how private support funded a key program — and helped win other grants.

Source: Pivoting to Private Donors When Government Funding Isn’t There – Chronicle of Philanthropy

For Rick Steves, travel offers an antidote to the false allure of nationalism, an opportunity to engage with world politics with humility, and for people of faith, a vital connection to our global brothers and sisters.

Rick Steves has been the go-to guide for hundreds of thousands of travelers who pack their bags every year for Europe and beyond.

In this episode, Clarissa Moll sits down with Rick to talk about his years on the road, how faith informs his travels, and how a posture of pilgrimage forms better global citizens.

Source: Faith and Pilgrimage with Rick Steves – Christianity Today

Recent changes in government funding for international aid, coupled with public criticism of some faith-based organizations, have raised important questions. What responsibility does the government have in saving lives, especially those of non-citizens? Is it acceptable for Christian groups to receive government funding to further the public good?

Michael Cerna, CEO of Accord Network, joins Today’s Conversation podcast, hosted by NAE President Walter Kim, to delve into these issues and more. In this episode, they also discuss:

How the foreign aid freeze impacts Christian nonprofits that do not receive federal funding;

What responsibilities governments have in caring for vulnerable people and enacting justice;

Examples of faith and government collaboration in the Bible; and

How Jesus’ perseverance in the face of adversity inspires hope.

Source: Michael Cerna | Faith, Funding and Foreign Aid – National Association of Evangelicals | National Association of Evangelicals

The latest islandwide grid collapse in Cuba follows a string of nationwide blackouts late last year that plunged the country’s frail power generating system into near-total disarray, stressed by fuel shortages, natural disaster and economic crises.

Most Cubans outside Havana have already been living for months with rolling blackouts that peaked at 20 hours a day in recent weeks.

In Havana, a handful of hotels used generators to keep the lights on late on Saturday for tourists. But street and stop lights on even major boulevards were blacked out, residential areas were largely dark and most restaurants and bars were closed.

The country’s transportation ministry said bus travel, as well as flights in and out of the country’s various airports, continued unfettered by the grid collapse.

Source: Cuba struggles to restore power to millions as night falls

The broadcasters’ reporting has angered some powerful figures abroad, including those who have close links to Trump.

The reporting of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, for example, has vexed autocratic-minded leaders in Russia and Hungary, as well as their allies. The network’s journalists have been imprisoned or detained in Russian-controlled Crimea, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Russia itself.

Trump has struck warm relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Premier Viktor Orbán.

Source: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and Radio Free Asia : NPR

Nordic countries were early adopters of digital payments. Now, electronic banking is seen as a potential threat to national security

Source: Back to cash: life without money in your pocket is not the utopia Sweden hoped | E-commerce | The Guardian

A SpaceX capsule has arrived at the International Space Station, delivering the replacements for NASA’s two stuck astronauts.

Source: NASA’s stuck astronauts welcome their newly arrived replacements to the space station | AP News

By retracting foreign aid, President Trump could make tuberculosis untreatable again

Source: Trump Is Ceding Ground to Tuberculosis – The Atlantic

Andy McCarthy — a conservative legal analyst who serves as a Fox News contributor — denounced President Donald Trump and his new Attorney General Pam Bondi for weaponizing the Department of Justice.

Christianity Today Has Not Received USAID Funds

Templeton Foundation: “These projects, awarded through the Cultivating Character in the Digital Age funding call, promise to create tools and resources to support character development, advance our understanding of how youth use technology, and spark conversations on how technology can be used for good.”

Dave Winer wrote on 1.24.25: “BTW, Bluesky, for me, is already a greater flow generator than Twitter ever was. My post about never forgetting Trump’s coup attempt has already been RT’d 2.8K times, about three hours after it was posted. In all my years of using the social web I’ve never gotten that much attention. I have 11.7K followers, far fewer than I have on Twitter. By 5PM it had been RT’d 10K times.”

Discovered this feature by accident: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102430:

• Use Universal Clipboard with any Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Vision Pro that meets the Continuity system requirements. It works when your devices are near each other and set up as follows:

  • Each device is signed in with the same Apple Account.

  • Each device has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on.

  • Each device has Handoff turned on (it’s turned on by default)

Lillian Perlmutter writes at Rest of World: MeMind has connected 10,000 at-risk people with mental health treatment, contributing to a 9% drop in suicides.

Alexandra Moe / The Washington Post:

When Emma Hayes, the U.S. women’s national soccer team coach, kept the starters in the lineup over a grueling stretch of successive 90-minute Olympic soccer games in France, murmurs rose that the team was on its way to an exit, ousted by exhaustion.

Yet the team won the gold medal, the latest recipients of Hayes’s successful coaching methodology — one embracing “positive discomfort,” as she put it in interviews. The idea is that full potential lies on the other side of being challenged, yet it’s different from “no pain, no gain.” The team also boasts epic fun, goofiness, humanity and cohesion. When asked what propelled their trophy, Hayes, who is considered one of the world’s best coaches, replied, “Love.”

Thirty years ago, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck pioneered the concept of the growth mindset, the idea that intelligence — and ability — can be developed. Those with this mindset tend to welcome challenges rather than see them as threats, Dweck said.

Today, leadership models lean on the science of motivation. And a slew of research confirms the importance of discomfort in motivating growth; in developing psychological well-being; and among adolescents, reappraising stress responses to learn how to engage positively with stressors in their lives.

Our biological inclination is to avoid discomfort, yet improving at anything requires action, practice, feedback and mistakes.

What if we could reframe our attitude and see discomfort as a sign of progress? Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Chicago instructed 557 improv students to embrace discomfort as an indicator of learning and skill development.

Students who were told to seek discomfort took more risks, persisted longer in the exercises and reported a greater sense of achievement. Comfort might be fine for keeping warm, but when we feel comfortable, “we’re often not advancing,” says Kaitlin Woolley, a marketing professor at Cornell and one of the study’s researchers.

One dilemma facing managers, teachers, coaches and parents — anyone leading others, particularly younger people — is how to provide critical feedback without crushing their confidence, David Yeager, a developmental psychologist at University of Texas at Austin and one of the world’s leading researchers into mindsets, writes in his book “10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People.”

One effective method is the mentor-mindset, or high standards mixed with high support.

“A coach can’t tell a player, ‘You’re the worst and you have to change,’ and then say, ‘Go do it on your own,’” says Yeager, who writes in his book that young people crave authentic respect. “The player needs to first feel like the coach is on their side, before they’re going to put in the work to change all of their technique or performance,” he adds. When that happens, criticism becomes a compliment.

In an interview, when asked about Hayes’s influence over many years as her coach at Chelsea, star forward Lauren James described intense support. “She understands me as a person, on and off the pitch. She knows how to get the best out of me. She put time into me.”

Hayes could not be reached for an interview for this article. But in her book on leadership, Hayes describes leaders as more akin to social workers. Over 12 years coaching English soccer power Chelsea, she won 16 trophies, before departing to lead the U.S. women’s team.

Middle school students also respond positively to high support in classrooms. In an experiment published by Yeager and Stanford psychologist Geoffrey Cohen, teachers covered students’ essays with critical comments.

Half the students received a note from the teacher: I’m giving you these comments because I have very high standards and I know that you can reach them. The other half received a different note: I’m giving you these comments so you’ll have feedback on your essay.

The first note contained “wise feedback,” a clear statement describing the reason for the critique: the belief that the student could meet the high standard with the right support. Those students were twice as likely to revise their essays, and they improved the quality of their final drafts. Black students benefited more than White students in the experiment, and nearly 90 percent of their scores improved from the first to the second draft, the researchers said.

How we perceive discomfort and negative emotions affects our experience of them. Emotions, whether pleasant or unpleasant, typically last seconds to minutes, says Emily Willroth, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. But when we judge uncomfortable emotions negatively, that leads to more negative emotions — shame, worry, rumination, she says, generating “a spiral of ‘meta emotions.’”

An emotion is a signal, like a horn. Sadness may indicate that more support is needed. Anger: an injustice. But negatively judging the emotion — essentially bemoaning the horn — extends it, according to Willroth.

In her research, Willroth has found that those who accept negative emotions like sadness and anger have better psychological health, less depression and greater life satisfaction. Accepting unpleasant emotions doesn’t mean inaction, she says. It means interpreting them as a normal response to what’s happening in your life, rather than prolonging them with negative judgment.

Intense stressors are a normal part of performing well, of learning, growing and developing new skills, Yeager says. Our stress response — what’s happening in our bodies and minds when we experience a stressful situation — prepares us to take action. Professional athletes tend to appraise stressful competitions as a challenge.

In mindset research, people respond to how their minds appraise a stressor, as either a challenge or a threat.

When the mind expects to meet the challenge, breathing increases to send more oxygen to the blood, the heart pumps faster and blood vasculature dilates to spread the blood to the muscles and brain. Motivation and performance go up, Yeager writes. The opposite happens when a threat is viewed as insurmountable and the body moves to protect itself. In such cases, the heart may pump fast, but blood vasculature constricts, keeping blood central in the chest cavity, essentially preparing for upcoming defeat and tissue damage.

A thousand factors must converge to create a championship team — years of preparation, skill development, mindset, support, nutrition, game analysis and micro programs that chisel away to gain every advantage.

On a practice field in France last summer, a final hurdle loomed between the team, its new coach and an Olympic gold medal: Brazil. From the sidelines, Hayes shouted her ethos to her players. “We bring the energy and the positivity and the joy! Boom!” She was euphoric, fully supportive.

Then she repeated her high standard: “We are not going home without gold tomorrow.”

For the first time in 12 years, the U.S. team came home with the gold.