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What began as a compassionate arrangement has turned into a legally murky marketplace, where women rent their wombs, babies arrive dangerously early, and “not your baby” becomes a coping mantra.The real cost of commercial surrogacy isn’t always in dollars—though sometimes, it’s that too. It starts the way so many American horror stories do: with a handshake, a contract, and a check. Surrogacy, once framed as a benevolent arrangement between desperate would-be parents and altruistic women, has metastasized into something far more unsettling—a largely unregulated marketplace where human life is the ultimate commodity. Jennifer Lahl, a former pediatric nurse and now…

Good Friday 2025: Christians from all over the world are taking placeChristians around the world marched in processions and observed one of Christianity’s most gloomy days, Good Friday.Christians around the world observe Good Friday, one of the most gloomy days of religion just days before Easter celebrations begin.The Holy Day commemorating the pain of the cross of Jesus Christ is one of several Christian celebrations on Easter Sunday, paying homage to the events leading up to the crucifixion and the miraculous resurrection of Christ. The period is known as Holy Week.”Good Friday has been the heart of the Christian message…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain By now, you’ve probably heard the whispers—no, the emails—about Dr. Anthony Fauci and his colleagues coordinating a tightly controlled narrative on the origins of COVID-19. The goal? Quash the lab leak theory, prop up the natural origin angle, and do it all through peer-reviewed journals wearing the cloak of scientific neutrality. But let’s be clear: this isn’t just about Fauci or one bad take in Nature Medicine. This is a symptom of a much bigger, uglier problem—academic publishing is broken. Not “needs a little fixing” broken. It’s full-on, incentives-gone-sideways, house-of-cards-built-on-tenure broken. And the bill is coming…

Murray Bridge, South Australia — In the early morning hours of March 25, 2025, police responded to an unusual call from a local church. Security footage had captured a man entering the building around 3:30 a.m. Authorities soon arrested a 25-year-old man who was found with a sacred book believed to belong to the church. But what truly caught national attention was the charge that followed: sacrilege—a seldom-used offense in Australian law with roots in ancient Christian tradition. In South Australia, it carries the same maximum penalty as murder: life in prison. The charge, applied so rarely that many Australians…

A new book by sociologists explains why organized religions have lost their relevance to streaming new agers and DIY spirituality Traditional religion in America, once a cornerstone of public life, may be heading the way of butter churns, lace antimacassars, and wind-up Victrolas—nostalgic artifacts tucked away on the walls of a Cracker Barrel, remembered fondly but no longer functional. So says Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame, whose new book, The Sacred Project of American Sociology, published by Oxford University Press, maps the quiet unraveling of institutional faith in the United States. But Smith’s study is…

Illegal migrant crossings at European borders fell 30% in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period last year. This has resulted in a decline in rights groups, partly due to EU policies that emphasize deterrence while appearing to be turning a blind eye to the risks of rights abuse. EU border agency FrontX said in a statement that all major migration routes to Europe had seen decline, saying that nearly 33,600 people had arrived in the first three months of the year. The biggest 64% decline was along routes across Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia,…

St. George’s Cathedral, Lviv. Credit: Fed4ev/Wikimedia. CC with SA 4.0The US International Religious Freedom Committee raised concerns last month in a report on a new Ukrainian law designed to regulate religious groups with ties to foreign forces. However, while critics of the law say it limits religious freedom, voices within the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine have said they believe that the law is necessary to monitor the situation carefully and fight Ukraine’s dangerous ideology.Leave a comment-Ukrainian President Voldy Meezelensky signed a legislation granting state authorities restricting religious groups affiliated with foreign companies operating in countries engaged in war against…

“It’s not good for Europe to become a permanent security vassal in the United States.” JD Vance says in a phone conversation with Unherd on Monday, it is his first major interview with European outlets since taking office as vice president. The background is a week of financial market disruption caused by Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs. The decision to apply (and partially withdraw) large tariffs to European allies, combined with a barrage of harsh statements about Europe from Vance, is both a public and a leaked private message, which makes me wonder if America is still considered a friend. Vance’s…

Quebec’s Bill 94 represents a legislative assault on religious expression, impacting Christians and Muslims alike, under the guise of promoting state neutrality. Premier François Legault’s administration, through expanding prohibitions initially set forth by Bill 21 in 2019, has now included not only teachers and government employees but janitors, cafeteria workers, and volunteers within public schools. Far from achieving neutrality, the bill actively undermines religious liberty by forbidding religious symbols such as Christian crosses and Islamic head coverings in public educational spaces. While superficially framed as an attempt to maintain fairness, Bill 94 unmistakably targets visible expressions of faith. Christians who…

The pain was “ten out of ten,” according to Takeuchi Shuntaro. But he wasn’t describing the performance of the portfolio of Japanese stocks he manages from San Francisco, California—he was talking about his appendix. It had to come out, just as a colleague from Matthews Asia called to discuss navigating the turmoil engulfing their $7 billion asset management business. “I was on a conference call two minutes before surgery,” Takeuchi said. “The nurse asked me, ‘Do you really have to attend this?’” Meanwhile, in Tokyo, the Nikkei was plunging towards a 4% loss by Wednesday, with trillions of dollars wiped…