Evangelical tussling over anti-Trump editorial escalates
As the political clamor caused by a top Christian magazine’s call to remove President Donald Trump from office continues to reverberate, more than 100 conservative evangelicals closed ranks further around Trump on Sunday.
In a letter to the president of Christianity Today magazine, the group of evangelicals chided Editor-in-Chief Mark Galli for penning an anti-Trump editorial, published Thursday, that they portrayed as a dig at their characters as well as the president’s.
“Your editorial offensively questioned the spiritual integrity and Christian witness of tens-of-millions of believers who take seriously their civic and moral obligations,” the evangelicals wrote to the magazine’s president, Timothy Dalrymple.
The new offensive from the group of prominent evangelicals, including multiple members of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, signals a lingering awareness by the president’s backers that any meaningful crack in his longtime support from that segment of the Christian community could prove perilous for his reelection hopes. Though no groundswell of new anti-Trump sentiment emerged among evangelicals in the wake of Christianity Today’s editorial, the president fired off scathing tweets Friday accusing the establishment magazine – founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham in 1956 — of becoming a captive of the left.
The letter to the magazine’s president sent on Sunday also included a veiled warning that Christianity Today could lose readership or advertising revenue as a result of the editorial, which cites Trump’s impeachment last week.
Police: 69-vehicle pileup in Virginia leaves dozens injured
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A pileup involving more than 60 cars on a major interstate in Virginia on Sunday morning injured dozens of people, according to state police.
The crash happened just before 8 a.m. Sunday on westbound Interstate 64 in York County near Williamsburg, Virginia State Police Sgt. Michelle Anaya said. No fatalities were reported, but it took crews several hours to clear the roadway and reopen all lanes of traffic.
Authorities do not yet know the cause of the crash, but fog and icy road conditions were contributing factors, Anaya said.
Photos from the scene showed a tangled mass of metal, with car hoods crumpled, windows smashed and a red truck plopped on top of another vehicle.
Ivan Levy said he and his wife were both headed to Williamsburg, where they work, in separate vehicles around the time of the crash.
Police: Gunmen opened fire on crowd in Baltimore, injuring 7
BALTIMORE — Two shooters opened fire on a crowd outside a hookah lounge in Baltimore early Sunday, wounding seven people, including at least three teenagers, police said.
The unidentified suspects, one armed with a rifle and the other with a handgun, began shooting around 1:45 a.m., The Baltimore Sun reported. Police said they don’t have a motive for the attack and were searching for the suspects.
“The criminals are just brazen,” said Police Col. Richard Worley. “This guy gets out of a car with a rifle, not even a handgun, walks up the street and just opens fire on a line of people.”
Responding officers found four victims, ages 17, 18, 20 and 27, with gunshot wounds, police said. The wounded were taken to hospitals for treatment.
Another three people, including a 17-year-old, sought medical attention at area hospitals, according to police and media reports.
Croatia’s presidential contest heads to Jan. 5 runoff vote
ZAGREB, Croatia — Croatia’s conservative president will face a liberal former prime minister in a runoff election early next month after no candidate won an outright majority in a first round of voting Sunday, near-complete results showed.
The vote was held just days before Croatia takes over the European Union’s presidency for the first time. The governing conservatives are hoping to to keep their grip on power ahead of assuming the EU chairmanship.
Left-wing former Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic led the field with nearly 30% of the votes in preliminary returns. President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic had almost 27%, the state election authorities said after counting almost all ballots.
From wire sources
Right-wing singer Miroslav Skoro was in third place with around 24%.
Some 3.8 million voters in the EU’s newest member country chose from among 11 candidates in Sunday’s election, but only the top three finishers had been considered serious contenders.