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Most Pastors Feel Ill-Equipped to Talk Politics: New Research From State of the Church

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Research focused on trends in church leadership reveals importance of trust, training and succession planning for pastors

BOULDER, Colo., Nov. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — As part of the State of the Church initiative, the largest Church-wide initiative for 2025, Gloo and Barna Group have released the latest batch of research focused on trends in leadership, aimed at equipping pastors with valuable insights to be able to better lead and navigate in the future.

The State of the Church initiative is aimed at helping faith leaders get monthly research that helps them see trends in culture and the Church as well as use free assessments and dashboards to understand the sentiments of their own communities. The latest research release explored a range of topics to help church leaders better navigate the current cultural landscape. Themes included: 

Politics and pastoringHow pastors define successAvoiding burnout, plus training needed by future pastorsSuccession planning and the impending shortage of church leadersPerceived trustworthiness in church leadership

“Today’s polarized cultural climate and the ongoing strain of political division place unprecedented pressure on pastors striving to lead effectively in a changing world,” said David Kinnaman, CEO of Barna Group. “These cultural headwinds drive burnout, underscoring the urgent need for tools like State of the Church to help pastors — and especially young leaders — navigate complex issues, maintain credibility, and foster unity to help ensure a thriving Church of the future.”

Highlights from the latest research:

Only one in five pastors (20%) say they are equipped to lead on “politics and civic engagement,” with 45% of pastors saying this is the realm they are least equipped to lead.Only 8% of pastors say they view church size as a good measure of success. The vast majority (92%) focus instead on depth of engagement and commitment.Pastors aged 44 and younger are feeling more pressure to perform and more mentally exhausted than those 45 and older.Half of pastors (49%) don’t think their church puts enough priority on developing the next generation of leaders.Of churched adults, 54% gave a score of 9 or 10 (out of 10) for the trustworthiness of their church leadership.

“As faith leaders navigate the issues of today, from cultural division and politics to succession planning and new paradigms of measuring success, it’s crucial to support them well,” said Brad Hill, chief solutions officer at Gloo. “This latest research from State of the Church highlights important insights to help leaders recognize that they can support whole-life flourishing in their people, without feeling the need to weigh in on each cultural topic of the moment.”

In December, Barna and Gloo will release new research focused on key trends in how Christians approach relationships and discipleship in their communities. A preview of this release will be made available with the full release only on Barna Access Plus, Barna’s subscription-based research library. Leaders can get early exclusive access to the report and full library through stateofthechurch.com.

Gloo is the trusted tech platform that releases the collective might of the faith ecosystem. Gloo connects ministry leaders to resources, people, insights, and funding so their people and communities flourish and their organizations thrive. Gloo does this with the highest standards of trust and scalable economic models. Gloo serves over 75,000 churches and more than 1,000 resource partners. 

Barna Group is a leading research organization focused on the intersection of faith and culture. Since 1984, Barna has conducted more than two million interviews over the course of thousands of studies and has become a go-to source for insights about religion, leadership, vocation and generations. Barna is an independent, privately-held, nonpartisan organization based in Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas.

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SOURCE Gloo

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Trip.com Group Sincerely Accepts Administrative Penalty Decision Issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation of the People’s Republic of China

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SINGAPORE, July 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Trip.com Group Limited (Nasdaq: TCOM; HKEX: 9961) today announced that it has received the administrative penalty decision issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation of the People’s Republic of China.

Trip.com Group sincerely accepts the decision and will adopt rectification measures in accordance with applicable laws and regulations to implement the decision’s requirements. The Company will strengthen its long-term governance mechanisms and strive to contribute to the sustainable development of the travel industry.

Trip.com Group’s management team will host a conference call at 8:00 AM U.S. Eastern Time on July 27, 2026 (or 8:00 PM Hong Kong Time on July 27, 2026).

The conference call will be available on Webcast live at: http://investors.trip.com.

All participants must pre-register to join this conference call using the participant registration link below:
https://register-conf.media-server.com/register/BIb78e08d8f18340c4882a7e4ab961906b.

Upon registration, each participant will receive details for this conference call, including dial-in numbers and a unique access PIN. To join the conference, please dial the number provided, enter your PIN, and you will join the conference instantly.

For further information, please contact:
Investor Relations
Trip.com Group Limited
Email: iremail@trip.com

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tripcom-group-sincerely-accepts-administrative-penalty-decision-issued-by-the-state-administration-for-market-regulation-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-302834599.html

SOURCE Trip.com Group Limited

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NAVER Partners with Brookfield and NVIDIA to Expand Korea’s National AI Factory Infrastructure Buildout

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SAN FRANCISCO, July 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — NAVER, Brookfield and NVIDIA announced an expansion of Korea’s sovereign AI factory infrastructure. New investments will increase the initial NVIDIA DSX™ AI factory deployment from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts.

Announced during Korea President Jae Myung Lee’s AI Summit visit to San Francisco, the planned 200-megawatt expansion will be built with the NVIDIA DSX platform at NAVER’s GAK Sejong hyperscale data center in Sejong, South Korea. The expanded infrastructure will provide Korea- and U.S.- based AI innovators with access to production-scale AI compute for building next-generation models, agents and AI-powered services.

Under the terms of the agreements, Brookfield will fund up to $9 billion as the exclusive capital partner, NVIDIA will invest $1 billion and NAVER will fund the remaining amount to finance the $10 billion project.

This builds on NAVER’s June announcement to extend its GAK Sejong data center with NVIDIA DSX, with a long-term path to gigawatt-scale sovereign AI infrastructure serving Korea’s enterprises, industries, government organizations and global AI cloud customers. Combining Brookfield’s capital with NVIDIA’s computing platform, the investment supports NAVER’s AI factory deployment.

“NVIDIA’s strategic investment and our infrastructure supply agreement with Brookfield have propelled NAVER’s vision for the AI Factory business into a robust execution phase,” said Haejin Lee, Founder and Chairman of NAVER. “Leveraging the solid partnerships with our global partners, we will drive technological innovation, foster a sovereign AI ecosystem, and spearhead efforts to strengthen South Korea’s AI competitiveness.” 

AI Factory Expansion and Open Model Collaboration to Fuel AI Innovators

NAVER, as an NVIDIA Cloud Partner, provides deep expertise in operating hyperscale infrastructure powered by the full-stack NVIDIA AI platform. The 200-megawatt AI factory, featuring NVIDIA Vera Rubin and Blackwell platforms, will establish a dedicated resource pool for emerging AI companies, providing the compute, software and support needed to develop and deploy competitive AI models and applications at scale.

This expanded infrastructure also builds on NAVER and NVIDIA’s collaboration on open model development for agentic and physical AI. NAVER is advancing its HyperCLOVA X models to be based on NVIDIA Nemotron™ 3 Ultra open models with its proprietary data and training expertise. NAVER is also the first Korean company to join the NVIDIA Nemotron Coalition, contributing to open model development across pretraining, post-training and reinforcement learning.

NAVER plans to launch an AI agent platform in Korea in the second half of the year, powered by NVIDIA Agent Toolkit software including NVIDIA NemoClaw™ blueprints. NAVER is also developing a Seoul World Model using proprietary urban street-view and spatial modeling data, built on NVIDIA Cosmos™ world foundation models.

About NAVER

Founded in 1999, NAVER is Korea’s largest Internet company and one of the world’s top tech companies. Leading cutting-edge technologies, NAVER operates the No.1 search engine in Korea and holds various business portfolios encompassing commerce, fintech, cloud, AI and robotics.

NAVER recorded sales of KRW 12.04 trillion (USD 8.18 billion) in 2025. TEAM NAVER continues to enhance its business portfolio and expand its global presence across Japan, North America, and Europe, while pursuing innovation through continuous research and development in future technologies.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/naver-partners-with-brookfield-and-nvidia-to-expand-koreas-national-ai-factory-infrastructure-buildout-302834577.html

SOURCE NAVER

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Beijing Review: Walking Through Time: China and U.S. Youths Explore Dali’s Past and Future

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BEIJING, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On July 17, a China-U.S. youth delegation came to Dali of Yunnan Province. By examining how Dali’s rich history intersects with modern development, the delegates explored new pathways for rural development.

They visited Dali Old Town, tried their hand at making the Bai people’s Three-Course Tea and also explored the ancient town of Xizhou, where they learned how modern tourism and indigenous life coexist.

In Yunnanyi Village, they explored its history as a stop along the Tea Horse Road and learned about the role it played during the Second World War (WWII).

Tyler James Smith

“I think it’s a very underappreciated part of World War II history. Hearing these stories of different countries working together despite cultural differences is incredibly inspiring.

I also think there are many stories like these that haven’t been widely told, simply because World War II is such a complex period in history. That’s why I think it’s so meaningful to visit museums like this and experience these stories firsthand.”

At Xiangyun Economic and Technological Development Zone, they visited a local new energy company to see how green, low-carbon development is driving regional growth.

Valerie Marie

“I recently started studying energy transitions. I know China has been really big in the renewable energy sector. So actually getting to hear more about [China’s] 2060 [pledge], learning more about carbon neutrality [goals], as well as other zero-carbon goals, was cool.”

During their stay in Dali, they also strolled along the Erhai Lake Ecological Corridor.

Bai Yiwen

“I’d describe this journey as “to be continued,” because my own connection with Yunnan is far from over. For the U.S. delegates, this was only their first visit, so they’ve only had a glimpse of what Yunnan has to offer. I hope they will have more opportunities to come back to China, explore other cities in Yunnan, and discover even more of its people, culture and traditions.”

After Dali, the delegates will visit Beijing for more tours and exchanges. The event was co-hosted by China International Communications Group (CICG) Center for the Americas and the U.S.-based International Student Conferences.

https://x.com/beijingreview/status/2080104404552663067?s=46&t=yfVMVdMyE2zKAFrYaLoV-g

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EtGCCKzy4/?mibextid=wwXIfr

https://www.tiktok.com/@cachinachic/video/7665536913532587294?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7227134149436605995

https://youtu.be/jGONWTqwduc?is=KfL-Zn3HyVYE-KEm

Contact: Jiaweibellapeng@163.com

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/beijing-review-walking-through-time-china-and-us-youths-explore-dalis-past-and-future-302834587.html

SOURCE Beijing Review

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