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USA (MNN) ― Both free speech and religious freedom could be curtailed if legislation prohibiting so called "hate speech" is approved in the U. S. Congress. According to reports, the House Judiciary Committee is considering hate crimes legislation. The bill, known as the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, would amend present hate crimes laws to include violence motivated by a victim’s sexual orientation, gender identity, gender or disability. Read more of this story. Miss California Unfairly Judged? – The Washington PostUPDATE – LEGISLATION APPROVED IN COMMITTEECQ POLITICS.COM
WASHINGTON—Every year between 2001 and 2008, former President Bush’s calendar was cleared on the first Thursday in May to mark the National Day of Prayer in the White House East Room with prominent evangelicals. Now the Obama White House is facing questions of inside-the-Beltway etiquette: Should Obama maintain the open door to conservative critics like James and Shirley Dobson, and if so, should they accept? Or, will the White House have an official observance at all? Read more of this story.
Dalton – Here, the economic news travels slowly, by word of mouth and horse and buggy.It filters through Mishler’s Country Store, where bills are totaled on battered manual adding machines and kerosene lamps light the aisles when the sun goes down. It circulates through the Salemville Cheese Cooperative, where families cart in fresh milk, straight from the farm.And it spreads to Raymond Bontrager’s Maple Lane Woodshop, where a wood fire warms craftsmen who turn planks of oak, maple, cherry and pine into exquisite pieces of furniture. "We hear about it all the time from the customers," Bontrager says.The Old Order…
HONG KONG — This city’s three billionaire Kwok brothers have just the answer for the rising waters threatening the global economy: the world’s first life-size replica of Noah’s ark, built to biblical specifications off the coast of this recession-struck Chinese financial center.The message in its 450-foot-long hull, its rooftop luxury hotel and 67 pairs of fiberglass animals: "The financial tsunami will be over," says Spencer Lu, the Kwoks’ project director at Noah’s Ark, which is opening soon.Read more of this story.
COMMENTARYAre we witnessing this Easter season the decline of Christianity in America, or is this a moment of reform and renewal, a time when the deterioration that has been underway is arrested? Read more of this commentary.
It was early in the morning on Oct. 15, 1988 that people driving along Lacy Road saw an unusual sight. A crane was lifting a steeple to the top of the frame structure that was emerging as a new church building at the edge of the developed area of the city. It was rising on a terminal moraine of rocky land formed by the last glacier to push its way into Wisconsin.Read more of this story.
The hottest video out there in YouTube land is the amazing performance by one Susan Boyle on the Britain’s Got Talent show, which is kind of American Idol with a wider spectrum of amateurs attempting to show off their alleged talents.As you know, some of the most popular moments in these "reality" talent shows are provided by ordinary people who are allowed to display their lack of talent, thus earning the snarky wrath of superstar judge Simon Cowell.So when dowdy, spinster Susan walks out on stage, you can see people reacting out in the audience (and the judges too, of…
Africa is the world’s fastest-growing continent, and Daniel Ajayi-Adeniran belongs to one of its most vigorously expansionary religious movements, a homegrown Pentecostal denomination that is crusading to become a global faith. In the course of just a few decades, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, founded in a Lagos shantytown, has won millions of adherents in Nigeria while building a vast missionary network that stretches into more than 100 nations.Read more of this story.
2008 was another year of significant expansion for The River Food Pantry. Pantry usage almost doubled from 2007. Several sizeable donations allowed an expansion of pantry hours. The River continues to be a very significant resource for the north side of Madison and for all of Dane County. The pantry has established itself as one of the largest in the county. The River Food Pantry is still almost 100% volunteer driven, unusual for an organization of our size.
Pilate’s wife remains an enigma. She’s consigned to an off-stage role in the Bible, neither described nor named. But early Christians dubbed her Claudia Procula, called her the first gentile follower of Jesus, and canonized her for trying to save him. Read more of this story.