For just the fourth time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives has launched a formal impeachment inquiry against a sitting president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the probe Tuesday evening, saying President Donald Trump must be held accountable for reportedly using a foreign leader to try to influence an election.

“The actions of the Trump presidency revealed the dishonorable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections,” Pelosi said.

Less than 36 hours later, the House Intelligence Committee was grilling Joseph Maguire, the acting Director of National Intelligence, about the whistleblower complaint that prompted Pelosi to issue the green light after years of impeachment threats.

What does the impeachment process involve?

The steps for the impeachment of a president are outlined in the U.S. Constitution, which gives each chamber of Congress a clear role in the two-part process: impeachment and removal. It starts, as we saw on Tuesday, with a formal inquiry filed by the Speaker of the House. In order to proceed beyond an inquiry, a House committee must determine that the president has committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The charges are called “articles of impeachment.”

According to NBC News, the speaker has decided that all…

Mattel launched a line of gender-neutral dolls Wednesday it says includes 100-plus combinations in each kit, allowing children to dress a doll up as a boy, a girl – or a little bit of both.

The Creatable World line consists of six doll kits, each one including two hairstyle options (long and short) and multiple clothing options (women’s and men’s clothes, as well as gender-neutral options).  

Mattel is marketing it under the tagline, “All Welcome.”

The company said it worked alongside a “dedicated team of experts, parents, physicians and most importantly, kids.” Among the children who provided feedback were 15 who identify as transgender, gender-fluid or gender-nonbinary, according to NBC News.

“Toys are a reflection of culture and as the world continues to celebrate the positive impact of inclusivity, we felt it was time to create a doll line free of labels,” said Kim Culmone, senior vice president of Mattel Fashion Doll Design, according to Bussiness Wire. “Through research, we heard that kids don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms. This line allows all kids to express themselves freely which is why it resonates so strongly with them. We’re hopeful Creatable World will encourage people to think more broadly about how all kids can benefit from doll play.”

A television ad for the dolls shows children playing with the dolls as the voiceover…

It was reported earlier this week by the Christian Post that the Trump administration has threatened to withdraw funding for a Duke University-University of North Carolina Middle East studies program, due to concerns that the program, which receives funding from the Department of Education as a National Resource Center under Title VI, has promoted a pro-Islam bias, failed to highlight the history of persecution faced by adherents of minority religions in the region and lacks a proper emphasis on language study.

Department of Education Assistant Secretary Robert King, in a letter to Duke-UNC CMES gave the consortium until September 22nd to explain how it would alter its program to comply with the requirements of Title VI grants. In King’s letter to the university, he cited a lack of balance and failure to “provide a full understanding of the areas, regions, or countries” focused on by the consortium.

Wrote King, “The Duke-UNC CMES appears to lack balance as it offers very few, if any, programs focused on the historic discrimination faced by, and current circumstances of, religious minorities in the Middle East, including Christians, Jews, Baha’is, Yadizis, Kurds, Druze, and others.”

King’s letter, sent August 29th, went on to state, “Also, in your activities for elementary and secondary students and teachers,…

HYDERABAD, India, September 25, 2019 (Morning Star News) – Hindu extremists and police in eastern India this month ordered jailed Christians to stop gathering for worship, with the extremists threatening to bring a venomous snake to bite a pastor’s wife, sources said. 

The house-church pastor, his family and other Christians had been arrested in Jharkhand state after the hardline Hindus disrupted their worship, beat the pastor and live-streamed hostile commentary on Facebook, with one passerby telling the Hindu extremist leader the Christians “should be sacrificed alive.” 

Following the Sept. 8 attack on the house church in Domchanch village, Koderma District, police temporarily locked up and threatened pastor Manohar Prasad Varnwal – whose ability to walk is impaired by polio – along with his wife, children and some church members. Tensions have been high in Jharkhand state since the murder of a 23-year-old Christian mother in the suburbs of capital Ranchi last month. 

“The Bajrang Dal, youth militant wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad [Hindu extremist World Hindu Council] have become active in the state,” area pastor Rajesh Kumar Pandit told Morning Star News. “They are in talks with prominent Hindu leaders and police administration to stop Christian prayers.” 

Church leaders have received warnings that scores of Bajrang…

A former international student who moved from China to the United States nearly 20 years ago is testifying how she grew up as an atheist who mocked Jesus – until she heard a message about God’s love.

Today, Hongyi Yang serves as an assistant professor of systematic theology in the women’s studies program at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. But in 2000, she was an international student who had grown up in southwest China believing God was a myth.

When she moved to Texas that year, she had “never seen a copy of the Bible” and had known only “one Christian in all my life,” she wrote in a new column for Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention. 

“I was an atheist at that time. I believed that there was no God who could save us and that we must strive for success by our own ability, diligence and luck,” she wrote. 

In Texas, she was surrounded by Christians who invited her to church. Yet she refused their invitation “without hesitation.”  

“I had an attitude of contempt toward Christianity,” she wrote. “… I also mocked Christianity. I thought it is so humiliating to worship a God who was crucified on a cross. This is exactly what 1 Corinthians says, that ‘a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to…