Federal student loan defaults have hit an astounding $121 billion, with about 40 percent of all borrowers not currently making any payments, according to a government report.

"This is a slow-moving disaster," Jason Delisle, director of the Federal Education Budget Project at New America, told the Detroit Free Press. "Why no hearings on Capitol Hill? Why isn't the administration talking about it more?"

The U.S. Department of Education highlighted the report in a self-congratulatory news release about an increase in the number of students who are enrolling in income-based repayment programs. In December 2015, there were 4.6 million borrowers using income-based repayment plans, which represents a 48 percent increase from the year prior, and a 140 percent increase from two years ago, according to the news site.

"Today's analysis suggests that the administration's efforts to help struggling borrowers are having a positive impact," U.S. Education Secretary John King Jr. said. "While we see promising signs of progress, we know we have to work to do to ensure that every borrower in distress has a clear path to avoid default. And I will continue to fight to ensure that students have access to an affordable education that helps them get ahead, rather than drowning in debt."

Many folks, however, simply don't have the money to make their payments, the Free Press reports.

Detroit 26-year-old Gail Menesko told the news site a divorce forced her to quit cosmetology school to care for her two children, and it's been nearly a year since she made a payment on her student loans. "I want to pay, but other things are a priority now," she said. Menesko is now in default, a category reserved for borrowers who don't make a payment in more than 270 days.

Since 1980, the number of Americans who believe in God has decreased by half and the number who pray has declined five-fold. Has America lost its faith?

The United States formally separates Church and State, but it's hard to deny that America is inundated with religious innuendo, from its controversial pledge of allegiance all the way down to its Judeo-Christian courthouse displays and faith-espousing legal tender. Yet fewer Americans pray or believe in God than ever before, according to a new study in the journal Sage Open.

Researchers found that the percentage of Americans who claim they never pray reached an all-time high in 2014, up five-fold since the 1980s. Over the same time period, belief in God and interest in spirituality appears to have similarly declined, especially among young adults.

The findings suggest that, "millennials are the least religious generation in memory, and possibly in American history," says Jean M. Twenge, psychology professor at San Diego State University and coauthor on the study, in a press statement. "Most previous studies concluded that fewer Americans were publicly affiliating with a religion, but that Americans were just as religious in private ways. That's no longer the case, especially in the last few years."

Nearly 700 convicted sex offenders in the UK have been removed from a national register over the past four years, including 170 rapists and 157 child abusers.

Some 27 offenders who raped children under 16 years of age and three who committed incest with children under the age of 13 were among those who no longer have to register with police, the BBC reports.

A freedom of information (FoI) request made by the BBC has revealed that more than half of all applications made by offenders to be taken off the register since 2012 were approved by police.

However, request approval rates vary across the country. North Wales Police, for example, approved 90 percent of requests, while North Yorkshire Police granted just 7 percent of requests. Of the 44 police forces that can grant these requests, 40 responded to the BBC's FoI request.

The removals follow a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that allowed sex offenders to appeal against being held on the register for life after two sex offenders argued that lifetime registration without a right to review was a violation of privacy rights.

But Peter Saunders, founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said that victims and survivors are "extremely concerned" about the removal of offenders from the register.

"Where somebody has become an adult offender, and has committed these kind of vile and serious crimes against children, then our view is that there isn't really a case for removing them from a register even though the law says that that can happen."

The arrest of a Maine youth pastor on child sex abuse charges has shocked some congregants — but at least one neighbor suspected he "seemed a little different."

Lucas Savage was arrested Friday evening and charged with unlawful sexual contact after investigators said he sexually abused a girl younger than 5 years old at his own home in Clinton, reported WCHS-TV.

The 37-year-old Savage is co-director of Youth Haven Ministry and a member of Canaan Calvary Church, which has in the past financially supported his youth ministry but maintains a separate board of directors.

Savage and his wife were deeply involved in the church, where they helped organize events and coached youth soccer.

"I trusted him with my daughter," said Kristine Rice, whose 11-year-old daughter participated in Youth Haven programs and played soccer for Savage's team through the Canaan Community Sports program.

Anti-Russian sanctions and Russian counter-sanctions need to be gradually removed to rebuild trust, the Russian- German Chamber of Commerce told German press agency DPA.

German business exports to Russia decreased by 25 percent in 2015 and business representatives expect the dry spell to continue, German television channel Pro Sieben reported on Sunday, two years after the EU first imposed sanctions against Russia.

Michael Harms, Chairman of the Russian- German Chamber of Commerce, told German press agency dpa that the current frosty relationship between the Russian and German economies is being referred to in Germany as "hibernation," but that both economies need to redouble their efforts to find new sources of growth.

The total value of trade between the two countries decreased from almost 53 billion euros ($60 billion) in 2014 to 41 billion euros in 2015, including an 18 billion euro decrease in German exports to Russia.

The overwhelming majority of Russians are positive about Crimea's accession to the Russian Federation two years ago. An equally large part of the public thinks ordinary people in Crimea have benefited from this historic step.

According to the latest research conducted by Russian state owned polling agency VTSIOM, 95 percent of Russians currently describe their attitude to the reunification with Crimea as positive. Three percent of respondents said their attitude to the event was negative and two percent said they couldn't give a direct answer to the question.

The researchers noted that two years ago the share of Russians who considered the Crimean Peninsula should be a part of their country was slightly lower at 86 percent.

Also, 79 percent of respondents told researchers they think that the Crimeans benefited from the reunification. Three percent concluded the lives of Crimean residents had become worse, while six percent think the lives of people in Crimea remain the same as before reunification. Twelve percent of respondents found the question too complicated to answer.

Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian Air Force officer detained in Russia in 2014, is guilty of murdering two Russian journalists near Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, and of illegally crossing the Russian border, a court in the southern Russian town of Donetsk ruled.

"Savchenko committed murder in collusion with a group of persons motivated by hatred and enmity," the judge's ruling said. The court is due to read its verdict over two days on Monday and Tuesday.

Savchenko committed crimes motivated by hatred towards the Russian-speaking population, the court stated.

"The motive for the crimes committed by the accused were hatred and hostility towards the Lugansk Region inhabitants, and towards Russian-speaking people as a whole," the ruling stated.

The organizer of the Russian journalists' murder is Aidar Battalion Commander Melnichuk, the Russian court ruled.

A Baptist pastor from Missouri has been sentenced to 50 years in prison last week for hiring his mistress and her husband to burn his house down with his wife inside of it, reports the Riverfront Times.

Donald Lafferty, 71, who was sentenced to 50 years in prison after a jury convicted him on charges of attempted murder, arson, armed criminal action and financial exploitation of the elderly after investigators discovered he had embezzled $87,000 from his 89-year-old mother.

The January 12, 2013 fire at Lafferty's home had become a cold case despite investigators finding evidence of arson.

The case was reopened in April of 2014, after investigators uncovered evidence that Lafferty had forged power-of-attorney documents and transferred his mother's life saving into an account controlled by him.

According to investigators, Lafferty had been involved in an affair with Brandy Lee Hicks, 33, who was a member of Beech Grove Church along with her husband, Christopher Hicks, 34.

Anonymous just pulled a fast one on Donald Trump, his campaign staff, the Secret Service, and the FBI — in one brilliant and telling fell swoop.

To support the White Rose Society and the White Rose Revolt, which began as a response to fascist leanings by Trump and his supporters, Anonymous launched #OpWhiteRose — and the billionaire presidential hopeful fell right into the 'trap.'

On Friday, Anonymous announced it had released Trump's personal information online — including such details as his cell phone number and Social Security number. Backlash from the Trump front promptly followed, as well as an announcement from the Secret Service and FBI that an investigation had begun.

However, the information had not been hacked or leaked. In fact, everything Anonymous posted had been online — and available for anyone to see — for years.

Hey world. For the first time in the history of our history, adult diapers are about to outsell baby diapers.

By far.

Just take a minute and let what that means sink in...

Birth rates are falling all over the world, and especially in First World nations where many are sitting below replacement rate.