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To the list of public health threats—smoking, obesity, junk food—British health officials want to add the “manosphere.”

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• In a report published today in the Lancet, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, British public-health researchers argue that the government should restrict and regulate the online world of influencers and communities centered on masculinity and male grievance the way it restricts and regulates tobacco and ultra-processed food. They call for a coordinated campaign involving governments, schools, health services and community organizations.

True, the manosphere has its ugly bits. Some influencers peddle crude contempt for women and a brutal, selfish notion of manhood. These are counterfeits of actual masculinity.

These experts are admitting, however, that the manosphere thrives because young men are adrift.

• The report’s lead author pointed to the conditions that leave young men isolated and without a secure future. Millions are falling behind in school, dropping out of work, unmarried and lonely. They are hungry for someone to tell them what it means to be a man.
• “The manosphere offers boys and young men belonging, identity and an explanation for why life feels hard,” the report’s second author rightly said. “Those needs are real. A response that only removes the manosphere, without offering something credible in its place, will fail. We need to offer boys something better, not just tell them what to avoid.”
• Trouble is, the establishment doesn’t have a better offer, because it rejects the Bible and views masculinity as a problem to be managed.

This reflects a broader trend, the “Great Feminization,” which our next issue of the Philadelphia Trumpet covers in detail (subscribe for free here). Women have become the majority in the institutions that shape our culture—universities, newsrooms, health services, law. Society has absorbed effeminate priorities: safety over risk, protection from harm, consensus over conflict.

• Those priorities are important. But a culture governed by them alone will naturally view assertive male energy as a hazard and a threat.
• It will try to fix it through programs in schools and health services that steer boys toward approved attitudes.

Young men don’t need to be managed like a disease. They need to be shown what true manhood is: strong, responsible, protective and self-sacrificing.

• That standard rejects both the establishment’s suspicion of masculinity and the manosphere’s misogyny.

God designed men to lead, provide and protect. A society that rejects that design will produce young men who are lost—then blame masculinity for the wreckage. Read our free book Biblical Manhood, and order a free copy for a young man in your life, to receive sound, satisfying instruction on how to become a real man as God intends.

The Wheels Are Off Germany’s Car Industry

Germany’s Volkswagen Group posted its worst quarterly results in a decade yesterday—an operating loss of $6.5 billion. The last time the company did this badly was during the 2015 “Dieselgate” emissions scandal. It is already trying to cut around 100,000 jobs.

• At the same time, operating profit at Mercedes-Benz’s core car division has fallen by half from a year earlier, largely due to slumping sales in China.

The future looks bleak for German carmakers. Their production setup is designed around making petrol and diesel cars—not electric. Investors worry that they are about to be left behind.

• The Iran war has sent fuel prices in Europe sky-high. In Germany, diesel costs about €2.30 per liter (almost $10 per gallon). Petrol is slightly cheaper, at about $9 per gallon.
• This has turbocharged demand for electric vehicles. In the first half of 2026, battery-electric car sales in the European Union rose 40 percent compared to the same period last year. In the second half of the year, they’re expected to rise even further.
• Companies like VW make electric vehicles, but investors fear that these cars earn smaller profit margins than petrol cars and that, in the long run, the German firms won’t be able to compete with cut-price Chinese rivals.

Tesla is now worth 10 times more than all the major German carmakers combined. This includes Volkswagen AG, Porsche AG, bmw and the Mercedes-Benz Group, and the brands owned by these companies: Mini, Rolls-Royce, Audi, Škoda, seat, Cupra, Bentley, Lamborghini, man and more.

• These companies still make many times more cars than Tesla, but investors believe these companies are the past while Tesla is the future.

The industry’s decline is not only making Germans poorer, it is also stripping them of the one thing they are permitted to be proud of. Pre-1945 history is off limits. So national pride rests on the postwar economic miracle and the factories that built it—in particular the automakers, whose cars are prized worldwide.

Germany’s defense industry offers some relief: The decline in car manufacturing adds motivation to keep people in jobs and firms profitable by building military machines instead. But people buy tens of millions of cars per year, and governments buy only a few dozen new tanks. It can’t fully make up the difference.

This is just one of the economic pressures behind Europe’s unrest. Its industries are failing, and unlike China and the U.S., it has failed to create the dynamic start-ups that can take advantage of new technology. Young Germans are planning to take to the streets this weekend, inspired by the French protests.

Europe needs strong leadership to turn these long-standing problems around. This economic crisis is part of a wider leadership crisis that will prompt Europe to demand a strongman. The next issue of the Trumpet magazine addresses this in more detail. Look for the link in a Morning Brief next week.

Hackers Snatch $6.3 Billion in Biggest Heist in History

Yesterday, North Korean hackers carried out the largest theft in history, stealing roughly $6.3 billion from Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange.

• The funds were held in 10 blockchains and left Binance’s digital wallets in about 20 minutes.
• Blockchain analysis firms trm Labs and Chainalysis attribute the attack with high confidence to TraderTraitor, an elite North Korean hacking unit linked to the broader Lazarus Group.
• The same group is believed to have stolen $1.5 billion from the Bybit exchange in February 2025.

China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are the biggest state-sponsored hacking threats to the United States, according to the U.S. Intelligence Community’s 2026 Annual Threat Assessment. China in particular has spent years infiltrating U.S. critical infrastructure networks to allow it to threaten disruption or actually disrupt them during a future conflict.

Gerald Flurry reported on the threat of cyberwarfare in 1995 when the public was only dimly aware of how vulnerable a computer-run society could be. He emphasized a statement by intelligence analyst Joseph De Courcy: “Computer dependence is the Western world’s Achilles’ heel.”

• An end-time Bible prophecy in Ezekiel 7:14 says, “They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.” This verse says that the alarm of war will sound in the nations descended from ancient Israel (primarily America and Britain), but the military will fail to mobilize.

The recent hack on Binance highlights the vulnerability of America’s financial system and its society as a whole to digital disruption.

IN OTHER NEWS

Chinese ruler carries out unprecedented purge of senior officials: Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping expelled a record 33 senior officials from the Chinese Communist Party this week, authorities announced yesterday. The purges came during a closed-door meeting by the party’s Central Committee that ran from October 26 to 29. The expulsions include a former top military commander, a former Politburo member who led Xinjiang, the previous head of the military’s joint staff and a one-time close aide to Xi. Since taking power in 2012, Xi has removed scores of senior officials, but never has he purged so many in a single sweep. Whether driven by corruption or questions of loyalty to Xi, these repeated purges point to instability at the highest levels of the Chinese government, and they come as China faces serious headwinds in both economics and demographics. All these factors could help diminish the power of Xi and China compared to Vladimir Putin and Russia—and shift the power balance in accordance with the Bible’s prophecies.

U.S. to build missiles in Japan: On Wednesday, the United States announced an agreement to build a new advanced medium-range air-to-air missile factory in Japan. The U.S. and Japan also agreed to share information to increase production of SM-3 sea-to-air missiles. The U.S. is working to replace missiles expended in the Iran war, but sharing such sensitive technology also enhances the ongoing remilitarization of a formidable nation with a history of aggression.

ECB leader to step down: Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, announced yesterday that she will resign on February 7, nine months before her eight-year term ends. This comes as France, the European Union’s second-largest economy, is experiencing high yields and the euro has fallen to a 17-month low against the dollar. Euronews speculates she is resigning so French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz can help appoint her successor before French elections in April.