Officials warn of the scam before Hurricane Milton, and after

The scam before the storm comes in the form of price gouging, illegally jacking up the cost of goods and services at the time they’re needed most. Once the storm has passed, the scammers move on to a new tactic: Pretending they’ve come to help. Federal, state and local officials wants consumers to know it’s against the law. But price gougers and scammers are counting on their customers to be too busy or worried to notice or do something about it. Water, food staples such as rice,... Read More

In Appalachia, Helene’s Water Crisis Taps a Global Christian Response

International Christian engineering nonprofit Water Mission usually responds to clean water crises overseas, like flooding in East Africa this year or the earthquake in Turkey last year. But when the South Carolina–based organization saw the extensive damage to Western North Carolina’s water infrastructure after the historic storm Helene, it decided to activate a rare disaster response in the US. “We’re able to take our systems and plug them in here,” said Brock Kreitzburg, the... Read More

Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to 3 scientists for work on proteins, building blocks of life

By DANIEL NIEMANN, MIKE CORDER and CHRISTINA LARSON STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to predict and even design novel proteins — the building blocks of life — were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. Their work used advanced technologies, including machine learning, and holds the potential to transform how new drugs are made. The prize was awarded to David Baker, who works at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to Demis... Read More

Hurricane Milton spawns ‘tornadic supercell’ in South Florida as effects begin rolling into region

Hurricane Milton’s long reach was already extending into South Florida, prompting multiple tornado warnings and six tornadoes in South Florida on Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, the National Hurricane Center reported that Milton, which was still 190 miles southwest of Tampa, spawned a “tornadic supercell” at least one tornado on the ground near Alligator Alley in the Everglades. A supercell thunderstorm is one that generates rotating updrafts that can grow into tornadoes. The National... Read More

The Bible Doesn’t Fit an Information Age

This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here. I recommended the Gospel of Mark to an unbeliever. He read it and found it “creepy.” That’s exactly the response I wanted. This young man is probably an atheist or an agnostic but has lived in such a secular environment that he doesn’t seem to think of himself in such terms, any more than you would introduce yourself as “non-cannibalistic” or “anti-horse-theft.” He wanted, though, to try to... Read More

Evangelicals for Harris Asked to ‘Cease and Desist’ Billy Graham Ad

The ad begins with a clip of Billy Graham, wearing glasses, a gray suit and tie, leaning in toward a pulpit. “But you must realize that in the last days, the times will be full of danger,” Graham declares. “Men will become utterly self-centered and greedy for money.” Suddenly, a clip of former president Donald Trump is spliced in. Standing before a row of American flags at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Trump says: “My whole life I’ve been greedy, greedy, greedy. I’ve... Read More

Tracking map: Will Hurricane Milton hit Palm Beach County?

All of Palm Beach County — including West Palm Beach, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach and Boca Raton — is south of the forecast cone for Hurricane Milton as of Tuesday morning, but forecasters warned that the exact track, intensity and timing of the storm remain uncertain and likely to change. After days of shifting forecast tracks, models have settled on a region within 40 miles north ofr south Sarasota. Tampa Bay, where a direct hit would bring catastrophic storm surge, is not out of the... Read More

5 Lessons Christians Can Learn from the Barmen Declaration

In recent weeks, a group of evangelicals crafted a Confession of Evangelical Conviction in response to the “social conflict and political division” plaguing the American church, especially amid another contentious presidential election season. Few know, however, that this confession was conspicuously modeled on another: the Barmen Declaration of 1934, a framed copy of which hangs in my office. It was penned during Nazi-era Germany by Christians who opposed indirect state interference in... Read More

Facing My Limits in a Flood Zone

When we moved to the small town of Canton, North Carolina, last fall, we heard stories about flooding. Living in the mountains spells unpredictability. In 2021, Tropical Storm Fred flooded the river that runs through our city, destroying significant portions of the downtown area. Some homes and businesses were lost. So when we heard that Hurricane Helene had headed our way, people took it seriously. It seemed our little city was on guard and prepared for the storm. But on Friday morning, we... Read More