A 75-year-old minister has been told that her auto coverage could be voided because she placed Jesus-themed stickers on her vehicle.
Rev. Wena Parry of the Independent Congregational Church of South Wales drives around with inspirational messages such as “Christ is My Lord.” Age UK Insurance claims that because she placed the stickers on the car it’s a modification that violated her policy.
“Every opportunity I have I want to tell people about Jesus. I reckon there must at least be a million people who have read the texts on my car and no one has had a problem with it before,” Parry said. “But, there might be somebody within that company that hates Christianity.”
The letter to Parry demands she explain within 10 days why she had not informed the insurance company she placed bumper stickers on her car and an additional cigarette lighter.
“The policy may be declared void,” the letter asserted. “These modifications do not fit our acceptance criteria for motor insurance and [coverage] would have been declined if we had been made aware of these at the time of purchasing your policy.”
The insurance company claims that the issue is not the content of the bumper stickers.
“Our insurers have concluded that our request to declare all modifications was not made clear enough to Rev. Parry and therefore she did not know which vehicle enhancements should have been declared,” the spokesman said.
A British doctor is claiming that he has created the ability to edit DNA at the moment of conception in mice that makes human DNA editing a realistic possibility.
He says this discovery along with others in the last two years mean that scientists can seriously began to pursue creation of “designer babies” which specific hair color, eye color and other features.
“We used a pair of molecular scissors and a molecular sat-nav that tells the scissors where to cut,” Dr. Tony Perry told the BBC. “It is approaching 100% efficiency already, it’s a case of ‘you shoot you score’.”
He says that science fiction is no longer necessarily fiction.
“There’s much speculation here, but it’s not completely fanciful, this is not HG Wells, you can imagine people doing this soon [in animals],” Dr. Perry said. “At that time the HFEA [the UK’s fertility regulator] will need to be prepared because they’re going to have to deal with this issue.”
Dr. Perry says that his science exists in a wider scientific community and that society as a whole should decide what is acceptable when it comes to DNA mutation.
The office of Youth With A Mission in England and Wales could lose 350 missionary families in April because British immigration officials have suspended the ministry’s visa sponsor status.
The UK Visas & Immigration office claims that YWAM committed mistakes in two of seven areas that were being audited. The UK is working to lower the number of immigrants in the nation. YWAM immediate submitted corrected paperwork to the UKVI.
“Whilst we recognize and support the [UK Visas & Immigration (UKVI) office’s] legitimate right to concern over compliance to the rules, we do not feel that the issues raised in the letter from the UKVI justify such a draconian outcome as losing our license would produce,” wrote YWAM Harpenden in an “urgent request” sent Friday and highlighted by the Evangelical Alliance UK (EAUK).
YWAM has been working to resolve concerns, but if they cannot by January 20th the UKVI may revoke their license and require all missionaries to leave the country within 60 days.
“The British government has said they want to reduce immigration by one third. So they are going to have to find organizations that currently have licenses and potentially take them away in order to meet that target,” said Mark Vening of YWAM to Christianity Today. “We wonder whether or not faith-based organizations are providing perhaps a soft target for that.”
The UK is going to seize the passports of any citizen who joined jihadists in the Middle East to prevent them from returning home.
Prime Minister David Cameron outlined the government’s new regulations to seize regulations that would include landing bans on airlines that fail to comply with no-fly lists.
UK intelligence officials say that at least 500 radicalized Britons are fighting in Iraq and Syria.
“We will shortly be introducing our own new Counter-Terrorism Bill in the UK,” Cameron said. “New powers for police at ports to seize passports, to stop suspects traveling and to stop British nationals returning to the UK unless they do so on our terms. New rules to prevent airlines that don’t comply with our no-fly lists or security screening measures from landing in the UK.”
Leaks to British media say the new rules could include admission back into the country if they agree to face charges related to their jihadist actions or de-radicalization courses.
“The root cause of the challenge we face is the extremist narrative. So we must confront this extremism in all its forms,” Cameron said. “We must ban extremist preachers from our countries. We must root out extremism from our schools, universities and prisons.”
An Irish couple are speaking out after the birth of their healthy baby boy that doctors had pressured them to abort, claiming that he had abnormalities.
Melanie and Damien Sheehan told the Christian Institute in the UK about the ordeal that began with a 20-week scan of the baby. The doctors said that the baby had “severe abnormalities” such as the brain and the spinal cord not being formed.
“They felt that the child wouldn’t survive birth and if it did, it would be so profoundly disabled that, their words were, ‘it would have no quality of life,’” Melanie recalled. “I was put under immense pressure to go ahead with the abortion.”
“I had phone calls to my mobile and my house phone to tell me how many days, weeks that I had left till my 24-week cut-off [to have an abortion],” she continued. “Whenever we went to appointments, the nurse in charge of the consultant would introduce us as ‘the couple who was continuing with the pregnancy against medical advice.’ We were made to feel that we were doing something terribly wrong by wanting to keep our baby.”
Their baby Joshua was born completely healthy.
“The doctors said that Joshua would be incompatible with life, and now he is sixteen weeks old and he’s brilliant,” Damien said. “He’s doing everything that he should be doing. He’s the best thing that’s happened to our family. We couldn’t imagine our family without him now. Just to see the joy and the love that he brings to the house.”
Senior British diplomatic sources revealed to a Kuwaiti newspaper that U.S. officials are conducting indirect discussions with terrorist group Hezbollah by receiving information through British negotiations and communications with the group.
Great Britain does not formally identify Hezbollah as a terrorist group and thus can conduct face-to-face meetings with the group. Because the United States classifies the group as terrorists, U.S. officials cannot meet directly with them.
A diplomatic source in Washington characterized the talks as keeping tabs on the region and the world and preparation for Iran to return to the international community.
Hezbollah is backed by the Iranian government and according to people connected to a meeting last week between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and British Prime Minister David Cameron the move by the U.S. is seen as a way to show Washington’s willingness for diplomacy with Tehran.
The U.S. reportedly said through the British they would “warm up to a direct relationship in the future” with Hezbollah.
In a week where the highest temperature of the year was recorded at Heathrow Airport in London, the U.K. Is facing a serious heat crisis.
London’s Waterloo train station was facing delays after a rail buckled due to the heat. The station’s platforms one through four are closed pending repairs to the warped rail. Network Rail had issued restrictions to trains last week because of the high temperatures trackside. Continue reading →
The UK is using the latest meeting of leaders from the G8 countries to sound the alarm over “superbugs” that are increasingly resistant to the use of antibiotics.
Scientists have stated action is necessary because of the rise worldwide of drug-resistant strains of bacteria including those that cause tuberculosis and pneumonia. Officials say the soaring rates of previously treatable diseases could turn into a public health crisis. Continue reading →
UK Prime Minister David Cameron will be hosting a conference aimed at bringing peace to Somalia and driving the Islamic terrorist group al-Shabab from the country.
The conference will focus on rebuilding the security forces, stopping violence against women and ending the Islamic insurgency that has plagued the country for years. The insurgency and piracy connected to the Islamists contributed to the problems of a famine in Somalia from 2010-2012. Continue reading →
Unemployment in the UK rose to 2.52 million between November and January. Despite the rise in numbers, the overall unemployment rate held at 7.8%. Continue reading →
