The United Nations migration agency will send home an additional 15,000 migrants from detention camps in Libya before the year ends, the agency announced Dec. 1.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said it registered more than 400,000 migrants in Libya, though it estimates the total number ranges between 700,000 and 1 million. The group’s voluntary repatriation program already returned more than 14,000 migrants to their homes this year. The voluntary program includes migrants from Nigeria, Guinea, and Gambia, among other countries.

Increasing reports of migrant abuse prompted the extra repatriation efforts. CNN in November released a video from a property outside Libya’s capital city, Tripoli, where a salesman auctioned off a dozen people in six minutes for about $400 each. Several migrants who started off with plans to arrive in Europe narrated how smugglers sold them off for daily labor and how they were beaten and held in deplorable conditions.

“Scaling up our return program may not serve to fully address the plight of migrants in Libya, but it is our duty to take migrants out of detention centers as a matter of absolute priority,” said William Lacy Swing, the IOM director general.

More than 160,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean Sea and arrived in Europe this year, with 3,038 migrants dying en route, according to the IOM. The number of migrant arrivals…

New research shows the sense of smell has even more complexity than previously thought.

“Codes, information, efficient strategies—this is intelligent design territory,” Discovery Institute experts wrote of the findings on the organization’s blog.

Researchers from Peking University in China built on what scientists already knew about the olfactory system. As molecules of odorants—substances that give off a smell—flow into the nasal cavity, they bump into receptor cells on tiny hair-like projections called cilia. An odorant molecule must have a specific shape and composition to bind to a specific receptor and trigger electrical impulses that instantly flow along nerves to the brain.

In a study published last month by Nature Communications, researchers reported new findings from fruit flies about how the olfactory system works. Until now, scientists assumed olfactory receptors worked by sending a simple yes-or-no response to the brain. But, much to the researchers’ surprise, they discovered that when a receptor cell fires, it can generate either an excitatory or inhibitory signal. In the nervous system, excitatory signals trigger certain behaviors that might involve something like moving away from a bad odor or toward a pleasant aroma. Inhibitory signals generally decrease behavioral responses.

The new research shows the olfactory bulb in the brain not only needs to process information about…

Besides Islamic extremist Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen, occult groups are also terrorizing Christians in Nigeria.

 

Pastor Victor Kanayo of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) was killed in a town in Lagos state on Nov. 26 by an occult group known as Badoo, a week after suspected Badoo members killed Iyabo Alaba and her two children, 4 and 8, at Celestial Church of Christ in Lagos city, according to local reports.

 

Originating last year with a sole killer who called himself Badoo before authorities apprehended him, the Badoo group carries out serial, ritual killings rooted in the founder’s methods.

 

Pastor Kanayo was killed in Offin, Igbogbo, a suburb of Ikorodu town in Lagos state, and his wife, Gloria, and their 10-month-old child, Goodness, were seriously wounded, sources said; both were being treated at Ikorodu General Hospital.

 

Head of the RCCG Fingers of God Parish in the Igbogbo area of Ikorodu, Pastor Kanayo and his family were reportedly attacked early in the morning as they slept. Police confirmed the killing of the pastor and the hospitalization of his wife and child due to injuries sustained in the attack.

 

“Around 7 a.m., at Offin, Igbogbo, Lagos, a suburb of Ikorodu town, one Victor Kanayo, a male person and a pastor, was murdered,” said Lagos State Police spokesman Chike Oti at a press conference on Nov. 29. “The command has made a couple…

This year has not gone the way pro-lifers planned.

January started with ushering in a new administration—one that made firm commitments to pro-life groups—and Republican majorities in the House and Senate. Newly sworn-in Vice President Mike Pence stood before the 2017 March for Life and declared hope for a new era in the pro-life movement: “Life is winning again in America.”

Nearly a year later, March for Life is finishing preparations for its next big event but not much has changed.

“We’re definitely moving in the right direction, slowly,” March for Life president Jeanne Mancini told me. “Cultural change takes a really long time, and so we can’t give up.”

Mancini and other pro-life advocates had high hopes for 2017: defunding Planned Parenthood, repealing Obamacare, passing legislation to limit late-term abortion. The Republican-controlled Congress did not deliver on any of those initiatives, despite promises made to voters.

But ahead of the 45th annual March for Life next month, pro-lifers remain hopeful. Mancini insists public opinion is shifting in the pro-life direction. More Americans are uncomfortable with late-term abortions, and the number of abortion centers and procedures performed each year are on the decline.

“If you’re not optimistic, you’re not pro-life,” said Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action.

Personnel is…