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A book on Greek antiquities has been returned to an Australian public library about 150 years late, with water damage from years bricked into a fireplace.

Another Historic UK Church Torched; Cause "Unknown"

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

A 164-year-old historic church in Leicester, UK "caught fire" this week, leaving its roof severely damaged while officials initially described the cause as unknown.

Firefighters battled a large blaze at St Andrew's Church on Jarrom Street through the night after multiple calls came in just after 11pm on Tuesday. A coffin containing a body prepared for a funeral service the next morning was rescued from the sanctuary. No one was injured.

The church, built in 1862 and designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, is an Anglo-Catholic parish known for its patterned red brick and historic significance. The fire started on the ground floor and spread to the roof.

164-year-old historic church "caught fire" in Leicester last night

Zero comment from Mayor Johal pic.twitter.com/UHFNPHMZm7

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 30, 2026

Lord Mayor Kulwinder Singh Johal, later posted that he was "heartbroken" by the "devastating fire," describing the landmark as cherished and extending gratitude to the fire crews while offering support to the congregation.

Firefighters battled a huge blaze at the historic St Andrews church in Leicester England??

The cause for the fire remains "unknown".

In an unrelated story, the Muslim population of Leicester has reached a new record high of 23.5%. pic.twitter.com/ulW0UqZ1iv

— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) July 30, 2026

The 23.5 percent figure matches the 2021 census data for Leicester, up from 18.6 percent a decade earlier. Christian identification in the city has declined in the same period.

Comedian and commentator John Cleese quoted a post observing that "The church in Leicester is also on fire. In Europe, only churches burn, not mosques," and replied: "I wonder what the reason is. There seems to be a pattern here."

I wonder what the reason is

There seems to be a pattern here https://t.co/ioEyOQrIiL

— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) July 30, 2026

This latest incident in the UK sits against a backdrop of repeated church fires that have drawn limited official attention compared with other religious sites.

In February, the historic Kings Hall Methodist Church in Southall, West London, burned to the ground in a massive overnight blaze that required more than ten fire engines and around 70 firefighters. Much of the over-100-year-old building was reduced to ashes. The government response was notably muted.

Days later, Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressed clear concern over a security incident at Manchester Central Mosque during Ramadan, highlighting up to £40 million in funding for additional security at mosques, Muslim schools and community centres.

He remained silent on the Southall church destruction and the broader pattern of attacks on Christian sites.

National Churches Trust data has previously recorded hundreds of attacks on churches, including arson, alongside thousands of crimes at church properties over recent years, with security funding per site far lower than for mosques or synagogues.

The UK cases form part of a wider Western pattern. In Canada, arson attacks on churches more than doubled after 2021. A Macdonald-Laurier Institute report found fewer than 4 percent of cases resulted in charges. One of the more recent examples was the 1893 church in Saint-Romain, Quebec, destroyed by fire in April and treated as arson.

France has seen a sustained wave. Nearly 50 fires or arson attempts on churches and Christian sites were recorded in one recent year.

A 19th-century church in Montenach was gutted in May, with officials blaming a nearby brush fire. Other historic sites, including a 17th-century chapel and a cloister, suffered major fire damage around the same period.

Studies have noted a Christian religious building disappearing every two weeks through fire, collapse or deliberate damage.

In the United States, New York City saw the 173-year-old South Bushwick Reformed Church in Brooklyn gutted in June. The cause was initially listed as under investigation before the FDNY confirmed it was intentionally set. A person of interest was seen fleeing on video; no arrest followed.

The city rejected a preservation plan and ordered demolition. Weeks earlier, a 138-year-old church in Astoria, Queens, suffered severe damage in a five-alarm fire, also followed by rapid moves toward demolition.

Most recently in Buffalo, the 140-year-old former St. Ann's Church and Shrine, sold in 2022 to a group affiliated with the Downtown Islamic Center for conversion into an Islamic community centre, was hit by multiple fires this year.

Two were confirmed as arson within four days in July. The site had already suffered a major fire earlier in the year. Local officials expressed frustration at the owners' failure to secure the vacant landmark.

Across these cases the official language often settles on "unknown," "accidental," or "under investigation."

Suspects are rarely identified.

Historic Christian buildings disappear while demographic shifts continue and political priorities remain selective. The Leicester fire is simply the latest entry in a lengthening record.

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Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 05:00

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Burnham Blows Up Britain's Tech Ministry, Mails The Bureaucrats To The Culture Department, And Keeps AI For Himself

While Westminster was still digesting the BritCard cancellation, Andy Burnham also abolished the department that was supposed to build it.

Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is gone, its functions split three ways across Whitehall, and AI policy has landed in the prime minister's own office. Ten days on, the civil servants who build and run the government's digital services are still working out which building they report to.

The demolition came in Burnham's day-one "rewire government" announcement on July 20, per City AM's reporting. Science policy, UK Research and Innovation and the Sovereign AI Fund go to Jonathan Reynolds' new Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. The Government Digital Service (GDS), cyber security, digital skills and telecoms go back to a renamed culture ministry that once again has "Digital" in its title. And AI policy, the AI Safety Institute and public-sector AI adoption move to the center: a new Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet under cabinet secretary Antonia Romeo, with its own AI Taskforce and a prime ministerial adviser on AI, per PublicTechnology.

Three Reorganizations In Three Years

Rishi Sunak created DSIT in 2023; Keir Starmer's government then moved GDS and the digital delivery bodies out of the Cabinet Office and into it in 2024, so the tech sector would have one department to deal with; And Burnham has now reversed the whole exercise. The House of Lords hauled ministers in less than a day after the announcement, where one peer called the reorganisation a "phenomenal waste of time" and another warned that a year lost to restructuring is a long time at the speed AI is moving, per City AM - which also reports the decision originated inside the Cabinet Office before Burnham's team signed off, and that both No 10 and DSIT declined to comment.

The reviews since have been rough even by the standards of Whitehall reshuffle coverage. The Institute for Government put it flatly: "This machinery of government change is a mistake" - one department's job now split across three, each with a far wider brief, and GDS handed back to a culture ministry after GDS already failed once to drive digital reform from outside a dedicated department. Computer Weekly's editors asked what leverage a culture ministry has over Whitehall departments that have dodged digital transformation for years. Liz Kendall, the most recent digital minister, has left government altogether.

The AI Brief Now Reports To Burnham

The taskforce, the safety institute, the prime ministerial adviser and the cross-government AI adoption mandate all sit in the new prime minister's office, which now stretches to No 10 North in Manchester, while GDS, the data plumbing and the delivery teams get posted out to departments with weaker mandates and bigger distractions. Burnham dispensed with the BritCard himself: the savings from the scrapped national digital ID programme go to cutting the tax on electricity bills, per Global Government Forum. There is an official justification for every one of these moves, and Downing Street duly supplied them, but the bottom line is that the new prime minister has killed the digital ID scheme his coalition hated, pocketed a utility-bill talking point with the savings, and taken personal custody of the one technology portfolio every government on earth currently wants...

The government's stated position is that technology and innovation belong inside the economic agenda, not fenced off in a ministry of their own. Maybe so. In the meantime Britain gets a year of desk moves in the middle of an AI buildout, run by three departments that have not yet worked out their own borders, while control of AI policy sits inside Burnham's own office.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 04:15

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Iran Warns Cyprus Not To Host Aggression From Its Territory In Phone Call

Within only the first week of Operation Epic Fury there was concern that war spillover could reach all the way into the Mediterranean, after Iranian Shahed drones believed launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon targeted UK airbases in Cyprus. On March 1-2, 2026, an Iranian-made drone struck a hangar and runway at the RAF Akrotiri military base in southern Cyprus.

This was as Iran and its regional allies accused Cyprus of allowing attacks on the Islamic Republic to be carried out from its territory. The EU member island nation is once again back in Iran-related headlines this week.

Source: NASA

The Iranian government is newly saying it has put Cyprus on notice, warning against any foreign military bases on its territory being used for acts of aggression on Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and his Cypriot counterpart Constantinos Kombos discussed the issue in a phone call wherein the warning was conveyed.

Iranian state media Tasnim said that Cyprus has pledged to comply:

He noted that allowing the territory of one country to be used to prepare and launch aggressive attacks against another country constitutes participation in an act of aggression under the UN General Assembly resolution on the Definition of Aggression.

For his part, the Cypriot foreign minister reaffirmed Cyprus' commitment to the principles of the UN Charter and international law. Kombos also said his country had been in contact with the British government and had received assurances that the foreign military bases located in Cyprus would not be used against any country, including Iran.

Cyprus has been a bystander and victim in the middle of the warring sides also given it is a significant in the tanker and energy transit industry. 

At times throughout the conflict, Cypriot-flagged tankers have come under direct Iranian attack in the Strait of Hormuz.

Back in early March, Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides stated: "I want to be clear: Our country does not participate in any way and does not intend to be part of any military operation."

Iran FM, Cypriot counterpart discuss regional tensions, UK bases

🔹Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Cypriot counterpart Constantinos Kombos held a phone call on Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and regional developments.

🔹Araghchi stressed the need to prevent any… pic.twitter.com/AEKwHSD16s

— Tehran Times (@TehranTimes79) July 30, 2026

But more Mideast conflict 'spillover' is very possible at this stage, given that Lebanon is only a short, hours-long boat ride away from Cyprus. Israel is also not very distant. The British military has two sovereign military bases which it has maintained on Cyprus since the independence of its former colony in 1960.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 02:45

Justin Herbert, Jim Harbaugh and Derwin James shared heartfelt reactions to the Chargers quarterback's engagement to singer Madison Beer.