A Syrian woman recently shared the heartwrenching story of the death of her 18-year-old son, who was shot and killed by ISIS-aligned militants after he refused to deny his faith in Christ.
Alice Assaf of Adra al-Ummaliya near Damascus told her story to Dr. Yvette Elbayadi Isaac of the American human rights group Roads of Success, which posted the interview online.
Over two years ago, Assaf was informed by a neighbor that the militants had entered the city and were killing Christians. She sought a way of escape, but never felt safe enough to do so, since “passersby were systematically killed.”
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Virginia school board’s appeal of a ruling siding with the Obama administration’s demand that it allow a female student who identifies as male to use the boys’ restroom. The decision will affect public schools nationwide.
The eight justices said on Friday that the case will be heard and decided in 2017. It will be one of the most major decisions of the year.
The appeal will be limited to the following two questions from the school board’s petition to the court: “[S]hould deference extend to an unpublished agency letter that, among other things, does not carry the force of law and was adopted in the context of the very dispute in which deference is sought?” and “With or without deference to the agency, should the Department’s specific interpretation of Title IX and 34 C.F.R. § 106.33 be given effect?”
Photo Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority
(The Times of Israel) — Israeli archaeologists found the site of a fierce battle where the Roman army bombarded and breached the walls of Jerusalem before conquering the city and destroying the Second Temple almost 2,000 years ago, officials said Thursday.
They said that the discovery, made last winter during an excavation of a construction site for the new campus of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design outside the Old City, also finally confirmed the description of the wall that was breached provided by the historian Josephus Flavius.
During the dig, the archaeologists found the remains of a tower surrounded by scores of stones and boulders fired by Roman catapults at the Jewish forces guarding the wall, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement.
WHEATON, Ill. — The Board of Trustees at Wheaton College in Illinois has released a report on a situation that resulted in the parting of ways with a professor who declared on social media earlier this year that Christians and Muslims “worship the same God.”
“Placing Dr. Hawkins on administrative leave at the conclusion of their first face-to-face meeting was an error in judgment, especially since she agreed to prepare a written response to [Provost Stan Jones’] concerns,” it wrote in the report, released on Tuesday. “Publicly announcing the imposition of administrative leave exacerbated the conflict and was distressing to Dr. Hawkins.”
“She should have been informed that the administration believed a public response to the situation was necessary and given adequate notice of the public announcement that she was being placed on administrative leave,” the board stated.
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