News and Prophecy Staff

Due to an unusually hot and dry summer, Portugal has requested help from Europe to combat forest fires on a scale not seen in recent memory. Thousands of firefighters are battling hundreds of blazes around the nation (Reuters, August 13, 2017).

U.S. public health officials have discovered fleas infected with the bubonic plague—sometimes called the “Black Death”—in the state of Arizona. This is the same bacterium that killed millions of people in Europe in the fourteenth century.

On September 24, Germans will participate in a federal election to select their chancellor. Many wonder if Chancellor Angela Merkel will be able to retain the office she has held since 2005. Her critics abound.

The meaning of extremism is changing daily and is beginning to mean the opposite of its original intent. In a recent homily, the Bishop of Shrewsbury in the UK, Mark Davies, shared his concerns that, if British law continues in its current direction, belief in Jesus Christ and the Bible may one day be viewed as “extremist” ideology (Catholic Herald, August 1, 2017).

Researchers from the Oregon Health and Science University have successfully “edited” a gene mutation in human embryos that they created (National Geographic, August 2, 2017). “The team used ‘genetic scissors’ called CRISPR-Cas9 to target and remove a mutation associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a common inherited heart disease, in 42 embryos.” While many scientists are hailing the research as revolutionary, many bioethicists are labeling it as “scientists...