内容摘要：The North African activists do not expect their convoy to be allowed into Gaza. Regardless, it provides “a message of challenge and will,” said Saher al-Masri, a Tunis-based Palestinian activist.

The North African activists do not expect their convoy to be allowed into Gaza. Regardless, it provides “a message of challenge and will,” said Saher al-Masri, a Tunis-based Palestinian activist.

Some preconvention talk has focused on defunding the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, which has been accused of being ineffective. Ten former Southern Baptist presidents endorsed its continued funding, though one other called for the opposite.A staunchly conservative group, the Center for Baptist Leadership, has posted online articles critical of the commission, which is adamantly anti-abortion but has opposed state laws criminalizing women seeking abortions.

The commission has appealed to Southern Baptists for support, citing its advocacy for religious liberty and against abortion and transgender identity.“Without the ERLC, you will send the message to our nation’s lawmakers and the public at large that the SBC has chosen to abandon the public square at a time when the Southern Baptist voice is most needed,” said a video statement from the commission president, Brent Leatherwood.A group of Southern Baptist ethnic groups and leaders signed a statement in April citing concern over Trump’s immigration crackdown, saying it has hurt church attendance and raised fears. “Law and order are necessary, but enforcement must be accompanied with compassion that doesn’t demonize those fleeing oppression, violence, and persecution,” the statement said.

The Center for Baptist Leadership, however, denounced the denominational Baptist Press for working to “weaponize empathy” in its reporting on the statement and Leatherwood for supporting it.Texas pastor Dwight McKissic, a Black pastor who shares many of the Southern Baptist Convention’s conservative stances, criticized what he sees as a backlash against the commission, “the most racially progressive entity in the SBC.”

“The SBC is transitioning from an evangelical organization to a fundamentalist organization,” he posted on the social media site X. “Fewer and fewer Black churches will make the transition with them.”

An amendment to ban churches with women pastors failed in 2024 after narrowly failing to gain a two-thirds supermajority for two consecutive years. It is expected to be reintroduced.There is a long history to disputes over border territory, leaving Thailand especially bitter.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, awarded to Cambodia the disputed territory on which stands the historic Preah Vihear temple. The ruling, which became a major irritant in bilateral relations, was reaffirmed in 2013. There had been serious though sporadic clashes there in 2011.Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet last week vowed to take the cases of the four currently disputed areas to the court to determine ownership, even if Thailand didn’t join in the appeal, in order “to end this problem and extinguish it once and for all so that there is no further confusion.”

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) —’s president on Monday set Oct. 12 as the date for municipal elections, while the country remains in a legislative impasse without a functioning parliament and a new Cabinet since its Feb. 9 parliamentary vote.