1. According to the AP, The dark hall inside Christianity’s holiest shrine was illuminated with the flames from thousands of candles on Saturday as worshippers participated in the holy fire ceremony, a momentous spiritual event in Orthodox Easter rites. Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected at the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands in the Old City of Jerusalem. While the source of the holy fire is a closely guarded secret, believers say the flame appears spontaneously from his tomb on the day before Easter to show Jesus has not forgotten his followers. The ritual dates back at least 1,200 years.
2. According to USA Today, Hillary Clinton is poised to formally launch her second presidential bid today, with a different approach from 2008 aimed at convincing voters through small-group settings that she has ideas for helping the middle class and the skills to govern. The long-awaited announcement is expected to come from a video shared via social media, before Clinton makes her pitch in Iowa and New Hampshire living rooms. Her declaration will end deafening speculation and two years of less-than-subtle preparation: giving speeches, promoting the causes of the Clinton family’s charitable foundation, and assembling a staff for the 2016 race.
3. According to the BBC, a student has died and more than 100 were hurt in a stampede which followed the explosion of an electricity transformer at a Kenyan university. Residents of Nairobi university’s Kikuyu campus mistook the blast for a terrorist attack and jumped out of hostel windows early on Sunday morning. Tensions are high among students after an Islamist attack on a Kenyan college 10 days ago which left 148 dead.
4. According to the AP, Turkey’s foreign ministry says that it has summoned the Vatican’s Ankara envoy to express its unease after Pope Francis called the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks 100 years ago genocide. On Sunday, the pope called the slaughter of Armenians around the time of World War I “the first genocide of the 20th century” and urged the international community to recognize it. Turkey has long refused to call it the event a genocide and has insisted that the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
5. According to Reuters, A U.S. drone strike killed at least four suspected Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, as al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent confirmed two of its commanders had been killed in similar attacks this year. The strike in North Waziristan, a mountainous border region, came after the army pushed the Taliban out of the major towns and cities there in an offensive that began last June. On Sunday, two missiles slammed into a house in the steep, heavily forested Shawal valley. Four Taliban fighters were killed in the strike.
6. According to Reuters, Egypt’s military said a bomb detonated by militants killed six soldiers and wounded two others in Egypt’s North Sinai on Sunday, a region beset by Islamist insurgents. The army said in a statement that “terrorist and extremist elements” were behind the roadside attack on an armored military vehicle in the town of Sheikh Zuweid. Two of those killed were officers. A Twitter feed that describes itself as the official account for Sinai Province, a militant group that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, claimed responsibility for the attack.
7. According to the NYT, President Obama fiercely defended the framework nuclear agreement with Iran on Saturday and criticized those Republicans he said were politicizing foreign policy and working to derail the deal. During a news conference at the end of a summit meeting of Latin American nations, Obama said, “I don’t understand why it is that everybody’s working so hard to anticipate failure. My simple point is let’s wait and see what the deal is.” Obama singled out Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who he said had suggested that Secretary of State John Kerry was “somehow less trustworthy” than Iran’s supreme leader in describing the deal, calling it “an indication of the degree to which partisanship has crossed all boundaries.”
8. According to the New York Daily News, a shooting put the U.S. Capitol Building under a lockdown Saturday for about two hours after a man killed himself near the visitor center. Capitol police said the unidentified man was “neutralized” after an apparent suicide at the edge of the National Mall. The man apparently had a sign taped to his hand protesting “social injustice,” in addition to a backpack and rolling suitcase which then sparked a bomb investigation.
9. According to the Associated Press, The attorney for a Southern California man who was beaten by several sheriff’s deputies following a 2½ hour-long chase involving a stolen horse said on Saturday that his client is doing fairly well while receiving medical attention in jail. Francis Pusok’s violent arrest, which was filmed by a TV news helicopter, has led to an FBI civil rights investigation and 10 deputies being placed in leave pending an internal probe. San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said the video “disturbed and troubled” him and appeared to show an excessive use of force.
10. According to the AP, Gunmen opened fire early on Sunday at the local guards of the South Korean Embassy in the Libyan capital, killing one of them as well as a civilian who was in the area. The South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement that no embassy officials were killed or wounded in the attack. It said the gunmen fired nearly 40 rounds with a machine gun.
As you go throughout this day, keep this word in mind: Luke 9:23-24 says, “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.”
As always, we want you to know that God loves you. He loves you so much that the Bible says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, why don’t you get to know Him today. Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose by the power of God for you. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will. Romans 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
