Globe Trot: Obstacle in Iraq

IRAQ: Nearly 1,000 ISIS fighters have been killed as coalition forces battle to retake Mosul. In the just-released issue of WORLD Magazine, I cover the ongoing battle, and in today’s Wall Street Journal, I highlight the obstacle NATO member Turkey presents for Iraqi Christians waiting to return home.

PHILIPPINES: On a plane ride to his hometown yesterday, the expletive-spewing President Rodrigo Duterte said he heard a word from God—and he won’t spew expletives again.

ICELAND: Riding the populist wave, Iceland’s Pirate Party—founded by a poet and sporting a black pirate flag in its parliamentary office—looks poised to win or come in second in Saturday’s elections.

NORTHERN IRELAND: A gay-rights campaigner is criticizing an appeals court ruling against a Christian baker—convicted of discrimination for refusing to make a cake bearing a pro-gay marriage slogan—calling the decision a “dangerous, authoritarian precedent” that “is a defeat for freedom of expression.”

UNITED STATES: The upcoming presidential election will have an unprecedented number of international monitors.

WORTH WATCHING: Russell Moore’s 2016 Erasmus lecture, “Can the Religious Right Be Saved?”

I’M READING: Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard.