Video gambling’s big in Illinois
Add up all the video gambling machines scattered in small venues across Illinois — there are more than 24,000 machines, the equivalent of 20 casinos — and you’re talking real money. The amount of money left over after paying video gambling winners for the first time exceeded $1 billion in fiscal 2016. That’s a 27% increase, making video gambling the hot hand in Illinois’ gaming industry.
Liberty students rebel
Now, Liberty students are opposing their leader’s presidential endorsement, writing in a Washington Post opinion piece, “In January, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Donald Trump for president of the United States. As Liberty students, we watched as the leader of our school loudly and proudly advocated for a man many of us felt compelled to oppose. Trump’s flagrant dishonesty, consistent misogyny and boastful unrepentance made many of us feel the need to publicly express disagreement with President Falwell’s endorsement.
Refugees resettled at record rate
Last month, World Relief nearly doubled the number of refugees it resettles in the United States in a typical month. In the past 12 months, the evangelical agency handled a caseload of 9,759 refugees—its largest total since 1999. The milestone comes at the same time as major setbacks to the effort to ban Syrian refugee resettlement in Indiana and Texas.
State must fund Planned Parenthood
A federal judge Thursday blocked a Mississippi law that prohibited Medicaid payments to any healthcare provider that offers abortions. Two Planned Parenthood affiliates filed suit against the law, which blocked all Medicaid funding, including payments for non-abortion services such as birth control, to any facility affiliated with an abortion provider.
U.N. to appoint LGBT advocate
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender agenda is gaining traction at the United Nations, as it organization prepares to vote on appointing an “independent expert” to “assess the implementation of existing international human rights instruments with regard to ways to overcome violence and discrimination against persons on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and to identify and address the root causes of violence and discrimination.”
Sources: Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Christianity Today, World Magazine, Baptist Press
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