LOS ANGELES (RNS) — Catholic schools in Los Angeles county must now resume the fall year using distance learning, delaying previous plans to reopen their doors for in-person classes.

The Department of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles made this announcement on July 18, a day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom laid out new statewide rules for resuming in-person teaching.

Under these new requirements, private and public schools alike will not be allowed to reopen their campuses if they are located in counties that remain on the state’s monitoring list.

Currently, more than 30 counties in California remain on the monitoring list as COVID-19 cases have surged across the state.

This includes the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara where 265 Catholic schools are located.

“Though our return to our beloved campuses will be delayed for now, we will return,” said Paul M. Escala, superintendent of Catholic schools for the archdiocese, in a July 17 letter to families and educators.

“Until then, our schools will open at a distance and our community will once again rise to the occasion,” Escala said.

Schools will not be able to reopen until their county has been off the monitoring list for 14 consecutive days, according to the state guidelines.

“Learning is non-negotiable,” Newsom said in a July 17 statement. “The virus will be with us for a…

Police in Virginia’s Fairfax County identified the suspect who stabbed two persons, including a church pastor while he was leading a Bible study. The county police chief, who was attending the church event, took down the suspect.

Chance Harrison, 32, of South Riding was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated malicious wounding, one count of felony assault on a police officer and one count of misdemeanor assault after stabbing Associate Pastor Sean Clemons and another man who intervened at Grace Covenant Church in Chantilly. Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler was also injured while subduing the suspect.

Before his sermon on Sunday, Senior Pastor Brett Fuller, who also serves as a chaplain to Washington, D.C.’s NFL franchise, called it a “horrific event” and said he was “grateful for the courage exhibited that prevented worse from happening.”

“Two church members came to the pastor’s aid and valiantly risked their own lives to defend him. In the process, one of our…

Antonio Sabato Jr., a conservative Christian actor best known for his role in “General Hospital” in the ‘90s, is launching his own production company aimed to help creative professionals who have been blacklisted by Hollywood for their religious or political beliefs, according to the Christian Post.

“We are putting together a plan to create a conservative movie studio for all patriots to do projects that Hollywood would never do,” Sabato tweeted. “No more blacklisting and no more injustice from the socialist’s elites.”

The first project, called “Trial Blazers,” will feature other conservative actors, including Kevin Sorbo, Stacey Dash, Scott Baio, Kaya Jones, Kristy Swanson, and Dean Cain. Co-written and directed by Sabato, the movie tells the story of “the ultimate battle between good and evil, between darkness and light, between God and Satan himself,” according to the movie’s IMDb page.

In an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, Sabato explained that the studio would produce moves “that are uplifting and where God is the center of attention.”

Sabato’s passion for the production company came after he lost everything in 2016 for supporting President Donald Trump.

“All my representatives left me, from agents to managers to commercial agents. I literally had to move, find a new job to survive and take care of my…

Hank Hanegraaff, also known as the “Bible Answer Man,” weighed in on whether or not a COVID-19 vaccine could be the mark of the beast as referenced in Revelation 13:18 in response to comments made by Kanye West.

In a July 15 episode of his Bible Answer Man broadcast, Hanegraaff shared his thoughts on the issue after West told Forbes Magazine he was “extremely cautious” about the idea of a coronavirus vaccination. 

“It’s so many of our children that are being vaccinated and paralyzed. … So when they say the way we’re going to fix COVID is with a vaccine, I’m extremely cautious,” West said. “That’s the mark of the beast. They want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things, to make it where we can’t cross the gates of Heaven. I’m sorry when I say they, the humans that have the devil inside them. And the sad thing is that, the saddest thing is…

A man who formerly worked in Hollywood as a set designer with such stars as Katy Perry and Paris Hilton says Christ freed him from homosexuality and he hopes to encourage others who are walking a similar path.

Becket Cook, author of the 2019 book A Change of Affection: A Gay Man’s Incredible Story of Redemption, shared his testimony this month on The 700 Club. Francis Chan wrote the foreword for the book, which Thomas Nelson published.

“At a very young age, I knew that I was attracted to the same sex,” Cook told CBN. “I had to keep it to myself. I dated girls. In elementary school, I went steady with girls. In high school, I dated girls. But it was all a facade. After college, I ended up moving to L.A. to pursue acting and writing and … a creative field. I just came out to everyone. That’s when I fully embraced homosexuality as my identity.

“… I was very successful in my career as a set designer, production designer. I was doing covers for Vogue and for Harper’s Bazaar,” Cook said. “And I worked with a lot of pop stars like Katy Perry and Paris Hilton and Oprah … everyone you can imagine, I worked with them. And I also started my own men’s fashion line.”

Cook’s clothes were sold in Los Angeles, New York City and Paris.

“I went to all the shows, I went to all the after-parties,” he said.

But God began working on his life at one specific…

Russell Moore and other prominent Christian figures expressed heartbreak after John Powell, a church planter and pastor, was killed in a highway accident as he was helping a driver who had stopped in the traffic lanes. 

On Sunday, Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, shared the news of Powell’s death on social media.

“I am shocked and shaken and grieving this morning, beyond what I can say,” Moore wrote on Twitter. “My former student John Powell was killed last night, hit by an eighteen wheeler while helping stranded motorists off of a highway.”

According to a local news report, Powell, senior pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in New Caney, Texas, and another man stopped to help a truck that had been rear-ended by another car and caught fire around 11:30 Saturday night.

While the men were assisting the truck, a semi-truck came toward them on the highway. According to…

HYDERABAD, India, July 20, 2020 (Morning Star News) – A Christian couple and their children were asleep in their beds in central India at 11 p.m. recently when villagers who follow the local tribal religion broke into their home and began beating them with wooden batons.

The family of Bhima and Devi Markham fled from their home in Devkupli Para, Chhattisgarh state that night, May 20, to save their lives, an area pastor said.

“They ran into the wilderness to hide while the assailants vandalized their belongings, throwing away the food grains in their homes,” pastor Ramdhar Kashyap told Morning Star News.

The mob of 15 furious villagers went on to beat Christians Chenna Markham and Joga Kunjam and their families, along with an unidentified elderly Christian woman, driving them from their homes.

“The three families including their children and the elderly sister, a total of 14 injured Christians, fled from Devkupli Para in different directions fearing for their lives,” Pastor Kahyap said.

They journeyed about two miles on foot before reaching his church premises in Burdi village at about 3 a.m., he said.

“They were profusely bleeding,” the pastor said. “I called 108 ambulance service in the wee hours and took them to the hospital.”

Though villagers had persecuted the Christians for months, they attacked that night because the Christians had refused to…