President Donald Trump attended two Memorial Day events on Monday as the nation continues to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump first attended a ceremony at the Arlington National Cemetery. Unlike in previous years, where presidents have spoken at the site, Trump gave no remarks to attendees, most of who were in masks. Trump, himself, did not wear a mask.

Trump then attended an event at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry. There he spoke, talking about the coronavirus pandemic. He also thanked those on “the front lines of our war against this terrible virus.”

“Together we will vanquish the virus and America will rise from this crisis to new and even greater heights. No obstacle, no challenge and no threat is a match for the sheer determination of the American people.”

Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young had asked Trump to not visit the Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine and set a “positive example” about stay-at-home orders. White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an emailed statement before Monday’s event that Trump would still visit the shrine.

“The brave men and women who have preserved our freedoms for generations did not stay home and the president will not either as he honors their sacrifice by visiting such a historic landmark in our nation’s history,” he said.

On Monday, Trump also tweeted to North Carolina’s governor, saying…

The lead singer of the Christian contemporary group Hawk Nelson said in an Instagram post last week he doesn’t believe in God and “can no longer stand on stage” and sing the band’s songs because of his new stance.

“After growing up in a Christian home, being a pastor’s kid, playing and singing in a Christian band, and having the word ‘Christian’ in front of most of the things in my life – I am now finding that I no longer believe in God,” Jon Steingard wrote in a lengthy Instagram post.

Hawk Nelson, formed in 2000, is known for hits such as Drops in the Ocean, Diamonds, Words and Live Like You’re Loved. The group released its most recent album in 2018.

Steingard, 36, said in his post he joined the band at age 20 and has been the lead singer and main songwriter since 2012.

He said he “agonized over whether to say this publicly.”

“[I]t didn’t happen overnight or all of a sudden. It’s been more like pulling on the threads of a sweater, and one day discovering that there was no more sweater left,” he wrote. “… I am stunned by the number of people in visible positions within Christian circles that feel the same way as I do. Like me, they fear losing everything if they’re open about it.”

Addressing those who might question his sincerity over the years, Steingard wrote, “The short answer is that I was not lying. I did believe those things at the…

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 26, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Unable to return to her home in western Uganda due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, Rehema Kyomuhendo was in the eastern part of the country when she first heard about Christ.

In March, Kyomuhendo – who is 24 but slight in stature and looks much younger – had accompanied her father, a sheikh (Muslim teacher) on a business trip from Mbarara District to Mbale District, 492 kilometers (305 miles) away. She began listening to Christian programing aired on an FM radio station.

They were still at her aunt’s house in Nawuyo village, Mbale District, on May 4 when at 10 p.m. she called a business friend of her father’s whom she knew to be a Roman Catholic.

“She explained to me about Christ and the way of salvation, and I got convicted and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior,” Kyomuhendo told Morning Star News by phone. “As she was sharing Christ with me, I was so overjoyed, and my father heard my joy and woke up, came from his bedroom furiously and started beating me up with blows, slaps and kicks.”

Her father, Sheikh Hussein Byaruhanga Husain of Mbarara District, shouted at his 45-year-old sister who was sleeping in another room, telling her that his daughter had converted to Christianity and that therefore he was going to kill her, Kyomuhendo said.

He quickly broke a jerrican, lit the pieces with its remaining fuel and began burning…

Churches in California are being permitted to reopen for the first time since closing its doors back in March because of stay at home orders over the coronavirus pandemic.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced new guidelines on Memorial Day in which California churches are able to have in-person services.

As CBN News reports, the new guidelines require places of worship to “limit attendance to 25% of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees, whichever is lower.”

Houses of worship, however, must first receive approval from the county public health department 21 days prior to conducting its first in-person services.

Prior to Newsom’s announcement of the new guidelines, on Friday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against The South Bay Pentecostal Church’s appeal to end Newson’s church ban.

“We’re dealing with a highly contagious and often fatal disease for which there presently is no known cure. In the words of Justice Robert Jackson, if a ‘court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact,” Judges Barry Silverman and Jacqueline Nguyen wrote in a statement according to Politico reports.

On the contrary, Judge Daniel Collins commented in an 18-page dissent that Newsom’s ban violates the First Amendment protection of religious freedom.

“I do not…

NEW DELHI, May 26, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Tribal mobs armed with clubs went to the homes of 16 families of a church in Jharkhand state, India every night for nearly three weeks, threatening to kill them if they didn’t return to their animistic Sarna religion, a pastor said.

“The persecutors were going with batons and wooden sticks, not giving the Christians any chance to say no, but emphasising that either they reconvert to the Sarna fold or they would kill them right then and there,” Pastor Sarabjit Bharati of Kirpa Bhavan Salom Church, outside Banjari Patan village in Palamu District, told Morning Star News. “They went to the extent of saying, ‘If these Christians do not accede, leave Christianity and return to our Sarna fold, we will kill them and consequently go to jail for it. We do not mind.’”

Of 16 church families (about 130 people) threatened in one area, Pastor Bharati said two families were terrorized into returning to their ancestral Sarna religion, which involves worship of a creator god called Dharmes and a goddess identified with nature. Including Christian worshippers from surrounding villages, about 250 to 300 people attend Pastor Bharati’s independent church.

The mobs ignored all social distancing and shelter-in norms in place to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, the 33-year-old pastor said.

“They purposely went in the dark so…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Tranquil on its surface, as COVID-19 has shut down nearly all activity in its churches, museums and offices, the Vatican has nonetheless been quietly dealing with its troubled finances during the pandemic. 

The world’s smallest state relies for revenue on a mix of donations, the sale of souvenirs and tickets to see its sites, along with investments. With the Vatican museums closed and donations down as its faithful face fears of a global recession, news reports continue to bubble up describing the Vatican’s financial health as “opaque,” “murky,” “scandalous” and, more recently, “at risk of default.”

A large portion of donations are made through Peter’s Pence, a worldwide collection that sustains the Church’s charitable works as well as supporting the offices and departments that make up the bureaucracy known as the Curia. Normally collected at the end of June, contributions to Peter’s Pence will be postponed until October this year.

But recession isn’t the only threat to its charitable donations. For months Italian newspapers have been reporting a scandal concerning a dubious $200 million real estate investment in London that was paid for with funds from Peter’s Pence. Though it’s unclear how much the Vatican benefited from the investment, if at all, there is growing certainty that several middlemen pocketed significant proceeds from…

JOS, Nigeria, May 22, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Armed Muslim Fulanis killed two Christians in Kaduna state, Nigeria on Saturday (May 16), days after two others were kidnapped, sources said.

Christians Isa Dauda and John Zaman were killed in the 8 p.m. attack on the predominantly Christian village of Ungwan Anjo, near Godogodo town in Jema’a County, area resident Aku Joshua Shai told Morning Star News in a text message. He said four churches in the village were closed as all Christians had fled.

“Almost all houses in Ungwan Anjo were burnt down,” Shai said. “Churches affected in Ungwan Anjo include the ECWA [Evangelical Church Winning All], Anglican, ERCC [Evangelical Reformed Church of Christ], and the Redeemed Christian Church of God [RCCG].”

Two days earlier, leaders of the Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU) described attacks in the state as genocidal.

“The ongoing attacks on our communities points to the fact that there is a deliberate ethnic cleansing ripping across southern Kaduna which the authorities have turned a blind eye to,” SOKAPU President Jonathan Asake said at a May 14 press conference in the city of Kaduna.

Asake said that Fulani herdsmen attacked Gonar Rogo, Kajuru County on May 11, the next day set fire to homes in Bakin Kogi, displacing residents, and also struck Idanu village.

“In the early hours of Wednesday (May 13), the murderous…