It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23 (KJV)
When news arrives of children buried in rubble, of entire communities upended by water, of the vulnerable targeted and hiding in fear, we are reminded that our sufferings are real and our losses genuine—and that these moments call for something other than explanations. The writer of Lamentations knew this truth: that in the presence of devastation, what sustains is not an argument but a mercy that is renewed each day, that meets us not with distant comfort but with the ancient testimony that faithfulness endures even when the ground beneath us does not. Today’s scattered stories of loss and harm invite us not to resolve them but to sit with them, and to notice how people continue to build—families documenting their ordinary love, writers telling stories of loyalty amid betrayal—as if saying that meaning and care persist even in a world where roofs collapse and waters rise.
What prompted this
Today's news carries the weight of sudden loss and suffering: a school collapse claiming dozens of children, floods claiming lives, and various forms of harm befalling the vulnerable—alongside quieter stories of ordinary people building lives of meaning and love.
- Trump calls off livestream for Fort Hood shooter's execution by firing squad BBC World
- Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking oil refinery after Zelensky says strikes to resume BBC World
- At least 33 pupils and teacher killed after school roof collapses in Pakistan BBC World
- Two dead in Istanbul after heaviest rainfall in 84 years, governor says BBC World
- Social Security benefits to get a boost. And, Hasan Piker defends his rhetoric NPR News
- After booting 760K off ACA health plans, the Trump administration adds some people back NPR News
- Ukraine resumes attacks on Russian oil refineries, officials say, after brief truce NPR News
- Greetings from Mexico City, where a bullfighting ban doesn't stop this matador training NPR News
- LGBTQ+ people go into hiding in Senegal as hundreds are arrested The Guardian
- Zimbabwean author Simbarashe Kundizeza denies using AI to write prize-winning story The Guardian