A healing evangelist from Australia recently had one of his meetings covered by Australian TV’s “A Current Affair” programme; they had covered him before, but seemed unconvinced by the healings that had taken place in the first meeting. A member of the Australian Sceptic Association was secretly present in the audience. The meeting resulted in a number of people being healed, including the sceptic. He is now in trouble with members of his Association for saying that evangelist’s claims may be true after all.
British MPs have voted in favour of allowing “three parent babies”, where genetic material from a third individual is spliced into an embryo in an attempt to avoid the baby having inherited disorders. The UK is the first country in the world to legalise this technique. There have been numerous objections to the technique, centering around two themes; the fears that the technique is not yet well enough understood to ensure the health of resulting babies, and criticisms largely from Christians groups that the scientists are playing God (and with permanent effect, on the children and their descendants).
More details have emerged about the Christian school in Durham that is being closed down following a negative OFSTED report. Durham Free School, a school with 94 pupils aged 11-13, was a flagship for the ‘free school’ policy instituted by previous Education Secretary Michael Gove, and therefore was funded directly by the Department of Education rather than by the local authority. The school had been rated ‘successful’ following a DoE review in June last year, but was rated “inadequate” by OFSTED under the controversial new criteria in November. The school accepts some of OFSTED’s criticisms – there was a change of head teacher in October — but says others “bear no resemblance to reality”. The process by which the school is being shut down can best be described as “railroading”: the head teacher was given two weeks’ notice of the withdrawal of funding on Monday January 19, a few minutes before it was announced in Parliament (giving the school no chance to inform parents before they heard through the media); the local authority (who had presumably been informed well in advance) sent out letters on Tuesday inviting parents to choose an alternative school by the following Wednesday (even though the free school theoretically had two weeks to appeal); and parents who had not made their choice by Wednesday 28th January were phoned by the authority on Thursday and “aggressively” pursued to choose another school. One parent said, “The local authority are desperate to get their hands on these children.” The free school is attempting to have the full OFSTED documentation, including instructions given to inspectors, released.
The Croatian government has decided to cancel the debts of thousands of its citizens. Citizens who earn less than 40% of the average wage, rent their homes, and cannot pay their debts will have debts cancelled up to a limit of roughly one year’s average wage. About 60,000 out of the country’s 4.4 million people are likely to be affected. The aim is to kick-start the economy out of recession by getting bank accounts unfrozen.
Another Bible-based film is to be released in April. “David and Goliath” is described as a big-budget film with a script that is Bible-based. It lacks well-known stars but, judging from the trailer, does have music similar to that of “Lord of the Rings.” Meanwhile, Oscar-nominated “Selma” about the life of Martin Luther King opens in the UK this week.
In sport, Andy Murray reached the final of the Australian Open tennis and faced Novak Djokovic. Murray often gives his fans a nail-biting performance, but in this game he uncharacteristically collapsed. He managed to break Djokovic’s serve in the third set to lead 2-0, after the pair had shared the first two sets, but Murray then lost twelve of the next thirteen games. Murray’s reaction at the end of the match was to throw his racquet down so hard that he broke it – and then he repeated the action with two more racquets.
And finally, a man from Detroit who commutes 23 miles each way to work has to walk 21 of those miles after cutbacks to the city’s bus services – and he has never missed a day of work. James Robertson’s job in an injection moulding factory pays more than minimum wage, but it’s not enough to purchase, fuel and insure a car in Detroit. He says he gets his determination from his family, and speaks with pride of his father’s military service. His boss uses him as an example to other workers who say they’re having trouble getting to work, and the boss’ wife makes him a hearty dinner halfway through his 2-10pm shift.
There is a heartwarming postscript to this story. Following the recent publicising of Robertson’s commute, he has been offered a brand new car for free by a local dealer. Also, someone created a “justgiving” page aiming to collect a few hundred dollars for him, and the total pledged so far is over $42,000.
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