The Department of Homeland Security Investigations, a directorate of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, announced they recently arrested 46 individuals as part of a multiagency sex sting operation in North Texas. Cecil Tim Morrison, a former teacher and football coach at Marcus High School in Lewisville Independent School District, and Fort Worth youth pastor Lamarcus Strickland were among those arrested. "By targeting those involved in this crime, we hope to disrupt this activity and provide assistance to human trafficking victims by getting them connected to the advocates and resources they need," stated Lester R. Hayes Jr., HSI Dallas special agent in charge. National Human Trafficking Prevention Month is observed every January to raise awareness and educate about the crime of human trafficking. Read more.

Dylan Gartenmayer, a 22-year-old spear fisherman from Key West, Fla., got lost at sea last Thursday after he was pulled away from the coast by the Gulf Stream. After his family realized he had not been seen for two hours, they took a boat ride together out to his last known coordinates, where they immediately located him. A video posted to TikTok shows the dramatic rescue. In a subsequent series of videos, Gartenmayer explained that he was drift diving while his friends followed along with their boat. "The Gulf Stream was coming in a little along the east. I’d made a dive a little bit longer than the ones I had been making and the current had picked up considerably I’d notice whenever I was on the bottom," he said. Eventually, he got dragged so far from the boat that he could no longer see it. In the harrowing hours that followed, Gartenmayer saw a reef shark and knew by the bait and mackerel around him that there was a "bunch of activity" in the water; he also saw the Coast Guard searching for him where he had originally been located. "But by some miracle, my parents and everybody else on board my grandfather’s boat had ended up driving and basically landed right on top of me," he said. Read more.

Emergency room doctors have been advised to be on the lookout for patients who took abortion pills without first receiving a screening for an ectopic pregnancy, a concern some pro-life groups have also raised after the Food and Drug Administration loosened restrictions on the use of abortion-inducing drugs. Dr. Ingrid Skop, an OB-GYN and senior fellow at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, says this has been a concern since the FDA's removal of the in-person requirements for abortion pills in December 2021. Skop believes an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine "seemed to miss the point by saying emergency room physicians be aware that this could happen," maintaining, "If we're going to provide chemical abortion pills, let's make sure we do it in the safest way for women by requiring the woman to have in-person medical supervision, where she receives an ultrasound before her abortion, so that we know for sure that we are not treating a woman with a chemical abortion who, in fact, has an ectopic pregnancy." Skop warned that a woman might think the pain and bleeding she experiences after taking the chemical abortion drugs are a sign that they are working but could actually be a sign that her life is in danger; when a tube ruptures in an ectopic pregnancy, it cannot contract and cut off the flow of blood, and a woman can bleed to death. Read more.

Nathanael Blake, a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, discusses The New York Times publishing a story about schools that hide children's gender transitions from their parents, illustrating "how ideologues in the education system, along with their political enablers, are operating in bad faith." The report is the latest in a string of NYT pieces that have questioned transgender dogmas, writes Blake. "Even though the paper is just now waking up to issues that conservatives have sounded the alarm on for years, this is still important because it shows that the coalition of the concerned now can include the left. The Times is establishing a permission structure through which its readers can dissent from gender ideology while still thinking of themselves as good liberals," he asserts, adding that Christians must work with those who are awakening to the reality that society must resist gender ideology. "The transgender moment might be the breaking point at which the absurdities and cruelties of the sexual revolution become so evident that people begin to look for something better," Blake concludes. Read more.

For more than 75 years, the Doomsday Clock has quantified how close the world is to total disaster according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. On Thursday, the Science and Security Board at The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists released their annual Doomsday Clock report, shifting the time to an "unprecedented" 90 seconds from midnight, citing "largely (though not exclusively)" the dangers brought by the war in Ukraine. In this editorial, Joshua Arnold shares why Christians should not be alarmed by what the clock's keepers say. "'You will hear of wars and rumors of wars,' Jesus told his disciples. 'See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet' (Matthew 24:6)," Arnold writes, explaining, "When we hear of wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and other tragedies, our first reaction should be, 'Jesus said this would happen. These circumstances are not out of His control.'" Read more.

Is earning your master’s or doctoral degree the next step to grow your ministry? At Lancaster Bible College | Capital Seminary & Graduate School, we’d love to connect with you about our biblical, accessible and accredited online and hybrid degrees in Divinity, Biblical Studies, Formational Leadership, Ministry, Christian Apologetics and more—all taught from a biblical worldview by professors who are invested in your journey.

Explore the No. 1 Online Bible College in America at lbc.edu/seminary.

In an interview with The Associated Press this week, Pope Francis said that while homosexuality is a sin, countries should not criminalize homosexual practices. "Being homosexual is not a crime," the pontiff said. In addressing the distinction between sin and crime, he asked, "It’s also a sin to lack charity with one another, so what about that?" Francis also called laws that penalize homosexual behavior and classify homosexual practices as a death penalty offense "unfair" and argued that the Catholic Church must advocate against such laws. In 2020, Francis expressed support for a "civil union law," stating in a documentary that "Homosexual people have a right to be in a family." Read more.

Celebration Church founder Stovall Weems alleged in a local news interview this week that his former church reneged on a deal to pay his nonprofit $48 million over 15 years and then cut him out of the church’s power structure. During an interview with New4Jax about the way Weems and his wife, Kerri, were forced out of leadership, Weems asserted, "It took me 23 years to build these things. I think about this. It's like ... how does this happen? Let me ask you a question. How does this happen? How does a man and his wife that have built and founded an organization in a city they have plenary power according to the bylaws—it means basically that I have the authority." While Weems alleged in a February 2022 lawsuit that the church's board of trustees illegally ousted him from his role as senior pastor following a financial dispute with a church trustee, Celebration Church told News4Jax that its leaders are "confident the legal system will produce the correct result." Read more.

Country music icon Dolly Parton took to Instagram to announce the release of a new song she says she received from God in a dream. "I got up, I started writing this song over a period of weeks, months," Parton shared. The song's release coincided with the icon's 77th birthday, with Parton saying, "I finished it as things would come to me, and I just felt like I should drop it on my birthday. Parton said that "Don't Make Me Have to Come Down There" was meant as a gift of song to others. "Last night I had a dream about God/ He was standing on a mountain top/ Looking down, around in such dismay," she sang. "And in my dream, I heard Him say/ Don’t make me have to come down there/ My children, you had best beware/ If you don’t pay attention, consequences will be dire/ Don’t make me have to come down there." Listen to the song here.