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Marriage is collapsing in Britain, a new report reveals. Among young adults, marriage has “nearly vanished.” In 1970, 62 percent of men were married by age 25. Now it’s 2 percent.

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Other key findings from the Center for Social Justice (csj) report, titled “I Do?”:

• Marriage rates have dropped 77 percent for men and 73 percent for women since the 1970s.
• Today, more men marry after age 66 than in their early 20s. As recently as 1997, young men’s marriage rate was five times higher than that of old men.
• Despite Britain’s population growing from 56 million in 1973 to 67 million in 2023, the number of marriages fell from around 400,000 to just 224,402.
• Before the 1980s, the marriage rate had never fallen below 47.7 per 1,000 (the rate during World War I). Now it is 18.1.

The trend is wreaking terrible social problems. Unmarried couples have higher rates of domestic abuse, relationship breakdown, and troubles with children, which all create broader destabilizing effects. Single-parent households are more than 10 times likelier to be long-term jobless households. And declining marriage is fueling a demographic collapse: plummeting fertility rates, declining birth numbers, and potential long-term population decline.

“This is devastating news,” says Dan Lilley of the csj. “Marriage is one of the most important foundations of society with clear benefits across our country.” Data show that marriage is foundational for better child outcomes, reduced loneliness, higher prosperity, and stronger birth rates. “This is without mentioning the productivity and other economic benefits,” Lilley says.

Yet secularist education and anti-Bible government policy are hostile to marriage and family, to the point of ignoring facts and hurting millions of people. No-fault divorce obliterates the stability of the marriage institution. The tax code favors cohabitation over marriage. Welfare actively encourages single-parenthood. The fruits are bad all around. But it is far easier to destroy family through government policy than to encourage and build it.

In “When Family Falls, Society Falls,” Gerald Flurry wrote, “History shows that the strength of any nation depends on the strength of its families. Family is the rock-solid foundation on which a country’s superstructure is erected.”

Whenever we depart from God’s laws and God’s design, we suffer. Marriage and family are central to God’s purpose for humanity. Marriage is one of the most transcendent and inspiring gifts our Creator has given us! Learn about it in Herbert W. Armstrong’s free booklet Why Marriage—Soon Obsolete?

Australians Protest Israel’s ‘War Criminal’ President

Yesterday’s memorial for Jews massacred at Bondi Beach became an anti-Israel forum as thousands of demonstrators protested the presence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

• Herzog placed a wreath and two stones at the site, a popular beach near Sydney, where two Islamist terrorists murdered 15 men, women and children at a December 14 celebration of Hanukkah.
• Israel’s presidency is a mostly ceremonial role. Unlike Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Herzog comes from Israel’s center-left, and his role is apolitical. For everybody in the international community who hates Netanyahu, Herzog is supposed to represent the “acceptable side of Israel’s politics.”

No empathy: Herzog’s Sydney visit had nothing to do with government policy. It was about showing support after a national tragedy. Nevertheless, thousands of Palestinian supporters protested in Sydney, as well as in Melbourne and other communities.

• They carried signs with messages such as “War criminals not welcome here” and “From the river to the sea, Herzog to the icc.”
• Several protesters scuffled with Sydney police officers, who used pepper spray against the mob. Hundreds more reportedly surrounded a Sydney police station.

The Bondi massacre was terrible, but from our Australian leadership there’s been no acknowledgement of the Palestinian people and the Gazans. Herzog has dodged all the questions about the occupation and says this visit is about Australia and Israeli relations but he is complicit.
—Jackson Elliot, Sydney protester

Australia’s protests show that the world’s animosity toward Israel has nothing to do with Israeli government policy. The mob even wants the head of a moderate ceremonial figure like Herzog. In such people’s eyes, being a war criminal isn’t about deadly and illegal actions such as firing rockets into cities, massacring families on October 7, or using human shields in Gaza—nor is it about the actual response by Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. It’s about being Israeli—and being Jewish. The anti-Israel movement hates Israel for existing—“from the river to the sea.”

Learn more in Trumpet contributor Callum Wood’s recent article “Australia’s Undercurrent of Anti-Semitism.”

On Trial: Social Media Pushers

Did social media companies deliberately get kids addicted to screens? And if so, are they liable for the harm? That’s the question the Los Angeles County Superior Court began considering yesterday in the first major American jury trial of its kind.

• A 19-year-old identified as kgm claims that social media companies deliberately designed their platforms to addict young users.

“They don’t only build apps; they build traps.”
—Mark Lanier, plaintiff attorney

“Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the civil complaint alleges.

The makers of TikTok and Snapchat settled out of court, but the makers of Instagram and YouTube are on trial. Expected to testify is Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta, the parent company of Instagram.

The case will likely be the first of hundreds and will set a vital precedent in what these companies are liable for.

• The first trial of a case against social media brought by school districts is set to begin in Oakland, California, in June.
• In another case, 40 state attorneys general have sued Meta, alleging it has created a youth mental health crisis through its deliberate efforts to addict kids.

There’s no doubt social media is addictive and has proved harmful for kids and adults alike. Read our article “How to Crush Screen Addiction” for more on this attack and how to beat it.

IN OTHER NEWS

Modi is more popular than Macron, Merz and Starmer: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys an approval rating of 67 percent among his people. This surpasses the combined approval ratings of France’s Emmanuel Macron (16 percent), Germany’s Friedrich Merz (21 percent) and the UK’s Keir Starmer (23 percent) in their respective countries. According to a Morning Consult survey of adults in 43 countries from February 2-8, Modi was the most popular leader overall, followed by Andrej Babiš of the Czech Republic. These results suggest that a leader’s approval rating doesn’t depend on ruling democratically but rather on accomplishments. Bible prophecy reveals that Europe’s unpopular democratic system is about to be replaced by strongman rule.

Hong Kong sentences journalist to prison: Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the city’s high court on Monday, a sober conclusion to the city’s pro-democracy history. Lai, publisher of the Apple Daily newspaper, was ostensibly suspected of “collusion with foreign forces,” “endangering national security,” and “conspiracy to publish seditious materials,” CNBC reported, but the case is recognized by many as an attack on free speech and dissent against the regime, which has a conviction rate of 99.98 percent. Communists gaining control of the courts was the very reason millions of citizens participated in protests in 2019 and 2020, but the regime’s conviction and sentencing of Lai, who is also a British citizen, punctuates the termination of freedom in Hong Kong and signals the oncoming “times of the gentiles.”

China directs banks to sell American treasuries: Chinese Communist Party officials have told banks to reduce holdings of U.S. treasuries, Bloomberg reported on Monday, even advising those with larger holdings to begin selling. This reveals not only weaker trust in the U.S. dollar but a financial war warning shot. The Chinese government controls roughly $680 billion in U.S. bonds. Selling a significant portion of these assets would decrease their value and harm China and other nations, but it would devastate the already shaky American financial system.

Iran offers to un-enrich uranium for sanctions relief: Atomic Energy Organization of Iran leader Mohammed Eslami said Monday that Iran could dilute its highest-enriched uranium in exchange for complete sanctions relief from the United States. But Iran has ruled out dismantling its nuclear infrastructure, so even if Iran follows through with this latest tactic, it could re-enrich the material at will. U.S. President Donald Trump wants Iran to completely dismantle its nuclear program. Iran will not settle for any deal that doesn’t leave it an option to restart the program. These two premises are mutually exclusive. Bible prophecy shows that one way or another, Iran will win out.

UN representative: Israel is the ‘common enemy’ of all humanity: Francesca Albanese, a special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories for the United Nations, stated that “[h]umanity now has a common enemy” in remarks about Israel at a forum hosted by Al Jazeera on February 7. She accused Israel of “the planning and making of a genocide” and said the “global community” is facing unprecedented challenges from those who “control large amounts of financial [capital], algorithms and weapons.” Such blatantly anti-Semitic comments from a UN representative may seem shocking, but it’s only the tip of the UN anti-Semitism iceberg.