Happy New year - welcome to 2026!

 

Question: What sort of New Year’s resolution should a Christian make?

Answer: The practice of making New Year’s resolutions goes back over 3,000 years to the ancient Babylonians. There is just something about the start of a new year that gives us the feeling of a fresh start and a new beginning. In reality, there is no difference between December 31 and January 1. Nothing mystical occurs at midnight on December 31. The Bible does not speak for or against the concept of New Year’s resolutions. However, if a Christian determines to make a New Year’s resolution, what kind of resolution should he or she make? READ MORE HERE...

Heavenly Father,

On this New Year’s morning, we rest in gratitude for your presence, dear Lord, and how you guided us through the old year. Thank You for the blessings of loved ones, the joy of Christmas, and the gift of a new day as we step into a new season.

Strengthen our hearts by your Holy Spirit, renewing us with hope and peace. Help us reflect on the past with humility and embrace the future with faith, trusting in your plans for the year ahead. May we carry Your light into each moment, sharing your love with those around us.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

With Love & Blessings for 2026:
Don, Kim & Theo x

Christmas Blessings from Donline!

The fabulous Child of Hope - Christmas Nativity is here! This year, the children are bringing you a selection of their favourite Christmas carols to tell the Christmas story.

We hope you enjoy the children's singing. They would love it if you could donate towards their Christmas party and food parcels, helping to ensure families have food on the table this Christmas. Most of these children live in the slums of Uganda, where daily life is a struggle, and these parcels mean so much to them.

Wishing you and your loved ones health, peace, happiness and prosperity; over this Christmas, the New Year and throughout 2026.

With Blessings,

Don & Kim Tocher x

Why nearly half the UK is turning to church this Christmas. Come - join us!

 

This Advent, as the UK lights up for Christmas, a hopeful trend is emerging. New data reveals that the church plays a vital role in national life, offering both the good news of Jesus Christ and crucial support in communities.

According to a nationwide poll by Savanta for Tearfund, nearly one in two UK adults (45 per cent) are planning to attend a church service or event this Christmas. This is a rise from how many said they attended last year, and it signals something wonderful: the local church is providing comfort, hope, and compassion for all.

Contrary to the depressing narratives you’ve likely heard about how Christianity in the UK has been on a downward trajectory, hope is rising. God is at work. And he’s working through people in communities in the UK and around the world, including in candle-lit churches this Christmas. READ MORE - COME & JOIN US!

www.tearfund.org

Microsoft Copilot is now being automatically installed on TVs!

 

LG smart TV owners are reporting that a recent webOS software update has added Microsoft Copilot to their TVs, with no apparent way to remove it. Reports first surfaced over the weekend on Reddit, where a post showing a Copilot tile pinned to an LG TV home screen climbed to more than 35,000 upvotes on r/mildlyinfuriating, accompanied by hundreds of comments from users describing the same behaviour.

According to affected users, Copilot appears automatically after installing the latest webOS update on certain LG TV models. The feature shows up on the home screen alongside streaming apps, but unlike Netflix or YouTube, it cannot be uninstalled.

www.tomshardware.com

KiddiMoto Ducati Desmo GP25 Balance Bike - ready for grandson Leo's birthday!

 

As ridden by Marc Márquez. Turn their first ride into something unforgettable. The officially licensed Ducati Desmo GP25 balance bike is lightweight, durable and designed to help children develop balance, coordination and confidence – while feeling like real racers.

Fully safety tested to UK & EU standards

Offically licensed

Endorsed by Carl Fogarty

Ideal starter bike

Limited Stock. We expect to sell out before Christmas

Not sold anywhere else

Extended 5 year warranty available

In 2023 we got Oliver the LCR Honda Alex Marquez Replica KiddiMoto balance bike & he loves it! I got a chance to catch up again with Simon from KiddiMoto at Motorcycle Live last month - had a good chat & looked at his latest models... Oliver's brother Leo has his birthday is coming up soon - so this seemed like the perfect present. Arrived today, easily assembled in minutes - and looks fabulous! Can't wait to see Leo's face when he get's his new bike! I can see a grandson race coming up!

www.kiddimoto.co.uk

Your pet dog, even the chihuahua, may still carry wolf genes

Most pet dogs carry a little wolf inside them; tiny snippets of wolf DNA that slipped into dog genomes after domestication. A new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that almost two-thirds of dog breeds have a small amount of wolf genes, which may have provided them with unique advantages to survive in diverse human environments.

“Our findings definitely show how low levels of gene flow between dogs and wolves have contributed to what dogs are today, regardless of where the dogs are from,” the lead author of the study, Audrey Lin, told New Atlas via email.

Previous studies have shown that modern dogs evolved through the interaction between the now extinct gray wolves and humans during the Late Pleistocene. Since this ancestral split, the genetic flow between the two is rare, even though wolves and dogs can interbreed and produce fertile offspring.

Well as you can clearly see - those wolf genes are really to the fore in little Theodore 😜. The "hunter killer instinct" does come out when Theo sees pigeons or squirrels - not that he's ever gotten close to one LOL!

www.newatlas.com

More than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacenters

A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new datacentres in the US, the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.

The green groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch and dozens of local organizations, have urged members of Congress to halt the proliferation of energy-hungry datacentres, accusing them of causing planet-heating emissions, sucking up vast amounts of water and exacerbating electricity bill increases that have hit Americans this year.

“The rapid, largely unregulated rise of datacentres to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans’ economic, environmental, climate and water security,” the letter states, adding that approval of new datacentres should be paused until new regulations are put in place.

www.theguardian.com

The John 10:10 Project - One Solitary Life

 

On July 11, 1926, James Allan Francis – a pastor and author – delivered a sermon to the Baptist Young People’s Union in Los Angeles. His stirring message ended with an unforgettable description of the life of Jesus. Francis’s words soon took on a life of their own. They were published and circulated widely, and today, nearly a century later, the impact of this short essay still resounds throughout the world. We are honoured to share this short film adaptation of ONE SOLITARY LIFE.

www.thejohn1010project.com

Child of Hope Uganda - Christmas Appeal 2025

 

This Christmas and throughout the year, help us provide food for all our pupils and their families from the slums of Namatala and Karamoja, Uganda.

Hunger and malnutrition are harsh daily realities for many of our pupils and their families, who are living in extreme poverty in the poorest regions of Uganda. Christmas is simply another day with too little food and a rumbly tummy. No special meal, no treats, and often no food at all.

Here at Child of Hope, we want to change that – not just at Christmas, but into the New Year and beyond.

With your help, we can provide an amazing Christmas for our pupils and their families, and also boost the funds available for our food programme into the New Year. This programme supports our foster children, those pupils with health conditions (like sickle cell, TB and HIV), child-headed families, and the most vulnerable. READ MORE HERE...

Please click HERE to make a donation - to bring joy into children's hearts this Christmas. Thank you!

www.justgiving.com

The Christian Aid Christmas Appeal 2025: no crib for a bed... when you’re fleeing violence.

 

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, let's not forget communities affected by conflict.

While many of us share a joyful and peaceful Christmas in our homes and churches, we invite you to consider families like Chance’s — facing unimaginable hardship after fleeing violence.

When fighting reached her village (Minova, on the shores of Lake Kivu, East Democratic Republic of Congo), Chance made an impossible choice: stay and risk her children’s lives, or flee everything they've known.

She set out on foot with her children — her baby strapped to her back — walking for days to reach safety.

The family’s treacherous trek took its toll on everyone. But for a mother determined to protect her family, stopping wasn’t an option.

While fleeing, my baby and other children all fell ill, even myself, because I had given birth by caesarean section. The wound opened because I was carrying luggage.’ - Chance.

Help mothers who’ve lost everything protect their families: Your donation this Christmas could make an immediate difference by funding cash grants that save lives. Help mothers like Chance buy nutritious food, vital medicines and hygiene products.

www.christianaid.org.uk

Bank of England warns of dotcom bubble moment for AI

 

The Bank of England has warned that stock valuations in the US are close to being the most stretched since the “dotcom bubble” as fears of a shock in Artificial Intelligence shares linger.

The central bank said in its latest Financial Stability Report (FSR) that there was a heightened “risk of a sharp correction” a day after stocks started December with a downturn on Wall Street.

The Bank said stocks were also most stretched in Britain since the 2008 financial crisis, as it said that risks to stability have increased in 2025.

It comes as tech stocks have surged this year, with AI chipmaker Nvidia briefly becoming the world’s first $5 trillion company last month. READ MORE...

www.telegraph.co.uk

Windows 11 needs an XP SP2 moment, says ex-Microsoft engineer

The Windows operating system is buckling under AI features that seem designed more for shareholders than users, and retired Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer says it's time to hit pause.

"It's time for Microsoft to have another XP SP2 moment," said Plummer, who worked on Windows XP during a pivotal period more than two decades ago.

When the Blaster worm hit in 2003, Microsoft made a decisive switch. "We set aside all feature work," he recalled.

"For several months, all we did was improve security. We didn't add security features. We fixed bugs. Lots of bugs, until there weren't any security bugs to fix anymore. And then we fixed the ones we didn't know about yet."

The work on XP was one of Plummer's last hurrahs at Microsoft, but the experience of Service Pack 2 shaped his opinion on what Microsoft needs to do in order to get Windows 11 back on track.

"Put simply," he said, "we stopped trying to add value to the product through features that PMs [Project Managers] thought users would like and instead we focused on things that had been important for a long time but overlooked."

Fast forward two decades and Microsoft is stuffing Windows with AI features while seemingly ignoring user complaints about performance and reliability. READ MORE...

www.theregister.com

The Bible In One Year - that's 365 days well spent!

The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel is a daily Bible reading plan which takes you through the whole Bible in 365 days.  It is ideal for anyone who is looking for an easy and accessible way to read and understand the Bible. 

Each day includes passages from a Psalm or Proverb, the New Testament and the Old Testament along with a daily commentary from Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, former leaders of  Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) Church in London and pioneers of Alpha. The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel will encourage you to engage more closely with the Bible, to apply its teachings to everyday life and to grow in your relationship with Jesus. 

You can follow along by reading the text or listening to the audio commentary and you can choose the version that best suits your lifestyle; the Classic version (25 minutes), or a shorter Express or Youth version (both around 15 minutes). 

Over 4.5 million people from 160 countries have experienced The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel. Why not join them, find your own rhythm and draw closer to God.

Download The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel app for iOS or Android devices and read along each day:
Download for iOS from the App Store
Download for Android on Google Play

bible.alpha.org

Nigerian president declares emergency amid Christian genocide claims

Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, has declared a national state of emergency, following a spate of kidnappings and attacks on Christians.

Up to 20,000 police officers are to be hired under Tinubu’s plans, which include authorising the use of National Youth Service Corps training camps as military facilities.

Guards will be redeployed from across the West African nation to seek out any would-be attackers hiding in forests.

“There will be no more hiding places for agents of evil,” Tinubu declared.

Nigerian security forces have so far managed to rescue 24 of the 300 schoolgirls taken from a boarding school in Kebbi state, and 38 Christians kidnapped from a church in Kwara.

“I sympathise with families who lost loved ones and pay tribute to our brave soldiers,” the President said. Although from a Muslim background, he has never publicly stated a religious affiliation. As a child, Tinubu attended a Catholic school, before studying in the United States. 

US President Donald Trump has claimed that there is a “Christian genocide” taking place in the country. It ranks seventh on Open Doors’ World Watch List of the most dangerous places to follow Jesus.

www.premierchristian.news