Part of our “News That Matters“ Series, “Friday Update” is a weekly feature that offers brief overviews of important news that might have been overlooked in the course of a busy week. Here’s what you may have missed in the period January 8 through January 10, 2025.
@PASSINGS
Dr. Peter Fenwick, Who Unlocked Near-Death Experiences, Dies at 89
Dr Peter Fenwick, as a British neuropsychiatrist and neurophysiologist who was known for his studies of epilepsy and end-of-life phenomena. Also referred to as near-death experiences or NDEs, died on November 22, 2024.
Near-death experiences are when people on an operating table or in a critical condition following an accident experience the sensation of leaving their body, floating down a dark tunnel towards a bright light that exudes a feeling of warmth and peace. The person typically reports being greeted by a welcoming deceased relatives or friends, and sees their life pass before their eyes, before they are returned abruptly to their bodies.
Dr. Fenwick was born in Nairobi in 1935, where his family was living at the time. He served as president of the Horizon Research Foundation, an organization that supports research into end-of-life experiences. In addition, he was the president of the British branch of the International Association for Near-Death Studies.
Fenwick told biographers that his interest in near-death experiences had been piqued upon discovering Raymond Moody’s book “Life After Life,” and remained skeptical until speaking with one of his patients, who related an experience similar to that of Moody’s subjects.
The plain fact is that none of us understands these phenomena,” he was quoted as having said in an article by Peter Roennfeldt entitled “Near Death Experiences.”
“As for the soul and life after death, they are still open questions, though I myself suspect that NDEs are part of the same continuum as mystical experiences,” he continued..
The chapel at Vienna’s Zentralfriedhof, or Central Cemetery, Tor IV or Gate IV, under the aegis of the Israelitische Kutusgemeine
@IN DEPTH
AT FUNERAL FOR THE LATE PRESIDENT CARTER, A RARE IMAGE OF PRESIDENTIAL UNITY
January 9 was a national day of mourning for the late former president Jimmy Carter, who died on December at the age of 100, with the pomp of a state funeral for a president who had often flouted ceremony.
There was the Air Force ride back to the Beltway, a military honor guard carrying a flag-draped casket up the Capitol steps, the Lincoln catafalque in the Rotunda, and, to honor Carter as the lone .S. Naval Academy graduate to become commander in chief, a stop at the U.S. Navy Memorial, where his remains were transferred to a horse-drawn caisson for rest of his trip to the Capitol.
At the state funeral, the contrast could not have been great. Just three days after the anniversary of the January 6, 2021 riots, which some refer to as an insurrection, the memorial service in Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral presented a completely different image, one steeped in the type of image historians 25, 50, and even 100 years later will continue to analyze.
It was a picture, unofficial but nevertheless sure to be memorialized and parsed for years, both because of its occasion and its rarity, In the front row were President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris and First Gentleman Doug Emhoff. Behind them were President-elect Donald J. Trump and his wife, Melania, seated next to President Barack Obama, who was seated next to George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, who were next to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
All were remarkably similarly attired in dark suits, ties in shades of gray to bluie, and black overcoats for the cold winter day.
The iPhone 12 Pro Max, frontal view, with a rear view displayed on an accompanying iPad screen
@DEADLINE
Apple iPhone Turns 18
January 9 marked 18 years since Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the original Apple iPhone at Macworld Expo 2007 in San Francisco. Jobs told the world he was introducing three products. “An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator. Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices,” Jobs said at the time. “This is one device.”
Supreme Court Rejects Plea from Trump
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s plea to halt the sentencing proceeding in his New York hush money case. Trump was convicted last year on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Judge Juan Merchan handed down an “unconditional discharge, which means the conviction stands without any further penalties, making Trump the first president to also be a convicted felon.
Apple iPhone iOS 18 Blocks Law Enforcement
A new security feature added to Apple iOS 18 makes it harder for members of law enforcement to unlock iPhones, tech publication 404 Media reported. Apple, it turns out, has added an inactivity timer that reboots iPhones after 72 hours of not being unlocked. This thwarts law enforcement personnel when it tries to use tools such as Cellebrite to unlock an iPhone.
Hupen Verboten
New York City may need some of Germany’s “Hupen verboten,” or no-honking signs depicting a red circle with a diagonal red line over a horn with a squeeze bulb: A new study from transportation data and analytics company Inrix found that the Big Apple is the e most congested city in the country, and the second-most traffic-heavy in the world, this after Istanbul.
Jesse Sokolow, Timothy Perry, Jonathan Spira, Kurt Stolz, and Paul Riegler contributed to this issue of Midweek Update.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
