Here are the top stories you need to know about today.
According to Morning Star News, Muslim Fulani herdsmen continued a campaign of seizing land for their cattle and territory for their religion this week, killing 11 Christians in eastern Nigeria’s Taraba state. The herdsmen entered villages on motorcyles, shooting firearms after attacks in the same area in early May that reportedly also killed 11 people in predominantly Christian villages. John Eibner, chairman of international management at Christian Solidarity International, said, “The violence of these Muslim Fulani militias tends to be conducted with impunity. The American and British-backed Nigerian Army – the largest in Africa and a major participant in many international peacekeeping missions – is unable or unwilling to confront Fulani militias.”
According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Rev. Thomas Howard Peoples Jr., who championed civil rights and spent 41 years as pastor of one of the oldest African-American churches in Kentucky, died June 7 at 79 years old. Peoples, who went by the initials T.H., was pastor of Historic Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church, which has occupied its current property in Lexington since 1820. He would have celebrated his 80th birthday June 17. Peoples was married for 56 years to Delma L. Peoples. They have five children, several of whom followed in their father’s footsteps and became pastors.
According to Christian Post, Renee Bach, an American missionary from Bedford, Virginia, who served in Uganda, has been accused in a lawsuit of illegally operating a medical facility where hundreds of children died. The lawsuit was filed in January by Women’s Probono Initiative on behalf of two mothers whose children died after receiving treatment at the ministry Bach founded called Serving His Children. The case is just now receiving international attention due to activism. In their case documents, the mothers allege that they were led to believe that Ms. Renee Bach was a ‘medical doctor.’ When their children died however, they were told that Ms. Renee has no training at all in medicine and that in 2015, the District Health Officer had closed her facility and ordered her to not offer any treatment to any child.
According to the AP, historians say a Bible given to Abraham Lincoln in the final months of the Civil War ties together the 16th president’s budding views on spirituality and his belief that God was calling him to end slavery as well as his widow’s labors to solidify his religious standing. The King James Bible was eventually given by Mary Lincoln to Noyes W. Miner, a beloved Springfield neighbor and a Baptist minister whose descendants donated it to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which unveiled it to the public on Thursday. State historian Samuel Wheeler said the Bible binds Lincoln’s developing spiritual outlook and reliance on scripture to answer the ghastly questions posed by war with his widow’s efforts after his April 1865 assassination to have him remembered as spiritual rather than as the religious skeptic he had been earlier in life.
According to the AP, Lawmakers on Friday were calling for swift change after reports this week of more than 250 infants, children and teens being held inside a windowless Border Patrol station, struggling to care for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation. It’s a scene that is being repeated at other immigration facilities overwhelmed with too many migrant children and nowhere to put them. State and federal elected officials demanded change about conditions at Clint, McAllen and other Texas Border Patrol stations. But federal officials have said they have hit a breaking point. That’s in part because over the last year, migrant children have been staying longer in federal custody than in the past, leading to a shortage of beds in facilities designed for longer-term stays.
According to The Post & Courier, Four years after a self-avowed white supremacist gunned down nine black worshippers who welcomed him into their Bible study, Charleston area churches are striving to strike a balance between ramped-up security and open-door accessibility. Though a handful of churches were employing off-duty police officers prior to the Emanuel AME Church attack, several have since hired off-duty law enforcement for Sunday morning worship and nighttime Bible studies, along with updating security surveillance systems and active-shooter training to protect themselves in places of worship. Those affected mainly have been minority groups assembling in synagogues, mosques and historically African-American churches, whose personal safety and property have been targeted by far-right white extremists. For many congregations, it has been a challenge to take necessary precautions while maintaining a hospitable environment.
According to the New York Post, two more Americans — a man from Kansas and a woman from Pennsylvania — died during vacations in the Dominican Republic, amid a recent spate of tourist deaths in the country. The families of Chris Palmer — a 41-year-old Army veteran from Kansas who died on April 18, 2018, and Barbara Diane Maser-Mitchell, a 69-year-old retired nurse from Pennsylvania who died on Sept. 17, 2016 — came forward to report their deaths. The State Department confirmed the deaths to the network. Dominican authorities said both Palmer and Maser-Mitchell died of heart attacks.
According to Christian Post, the U.S. State Department released its annual report on international religious freedom on Friday and announced that it will strengthen its office that oversees international religious freedom issues. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a brief address at a press conference unveiling the report, which serves as a “report card” tracking countries’ progress on religious freedom in 2018. Pompeo called out countries such as Iran, Russia, Myanmar, and China for their abuses of religious freedom and praised positive steps taken in nations such as Uzbekistan and Pakistan.
According to Yahoo News, On Thursday evening, U.S. Cyber Command launched a retaliatory digital strike against an Iranian spy group that supported last week’s limpet mine attacks on commercial ships, according to two former intelligence officials. The group, which has ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, has over the past several years digitally tracked and targeted military and civilian ships passing through the economically important Strait of Hormuz. Though sources declined to provide any further details of the retaliatory cyber operation, the response highlights how the Persian Gulf has become a staging ground for escalating digital — as well as conventional — conflict, with both the United States and Iran trying to get the upper hand with cyber capabilities.
According to the AP, a judge decided to appoint a special prosecutor Friday to investigate the decision by Cook County prosecutors to dismiss all charges against actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of lying to the police by claiming he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack in downtown Chicago in January. In a ruling that leaves open the possibility that Smollett could be charged again, Cook County Judge Michael Toomin suggested that the county’s state’s attorney, Kim Foxx, mishandled the Smollett case by appointing a top aide to oversee it after she recused herself.
You can read these stories and more at BCNN1.com
In closing, remember, God loves you. He always has and He always will. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you don’t know Jesus as your Saviour, today is a good day to get to know Him. Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose from the dead for you. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart and He will. Romans 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Thanks for listening and may God bless your day!
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