Human Race: From prison to appointee

President Donald Trump’s pick for Bureau of Prisons deputy director, Joshua J. Smith, 50, is a professing Christian who has for six years run a prison and reentry nonprofit for prison inmates. He’s also a former inmate himself—and the first ever to work as a Bureau of Prisons employee.

Smith, whom Trump pardoned during his first presidential term, previously led a multimillion-dollar company that hired former convicts. Smith says he grew up with a single mother, suffered abuse by a relative, ran away from home at around 11 years old, and collected 10 felony charges by the age of 16. At 21, he began a five-year prison sentence for marijuana and cocaine trafficking. But in prison, Smith says, he found “redemption through God” as well as a new purpose. Upon release, he and his wife lost their government housing due to his felony record, and Smith had to beg an employer for his first job making only $6 an hour. “There are a lot of Josh Smiths in prisons across our country,” Smith said in 2021 after his pardon. “And I am going to help as many as possible find a new purpose.”

Bureau of Prisons Director William K. Marshall III said in a memo to staff that Smith’s inside knowledge “makes him uniquely positioned to advocate for the resources and reforms front line staff need.”

Pastor targeted

Tanzanian authorities on June 2 deregistered a church run by ruling party lawmaker Josephat Gwajima. The registrar of societies said Gwajima’s sermons at Glory of Christ Church in Dar es Salaam violated the proper conduct expected of religious groups. Gwajima during his sermon the previous Sunday had criticized the government over alleged detentions and enforced disappearances. Police officers cordoned off the church after congregants gathered to protest its shutdown. The crackdown comes ahead of national elections in October. Tanzania’s ruling CCM party has governed the country since its independence in 1961. —Onize Oduah

New PCA clerk

The Presbyterian Church in America’s Administrative Committee on June 6 appointed Ruling Elder John Bise as its temporary stated clerk. Bise’s appointment came after the committee accepted the resignation of the denomination’s previous stated clerk, Bryan Chapell, who offered his resignation after a public backlash to comments he made during an interview on the Gospelbound podcast. During the interview, Chapell momentarily held up a sticky note with a list of people he claimed had left their faith, left their families, or committed suicide. But screenshots of the list revealed that many of the individuals named were Christians in good standing. Chapell publicly apologized, and some individuals on the list said he privately apologized to them as well. The PCA’s Adminis­trative Committee promised it would work to repair relationships damaged by Chapell’s comments. Bise will hold the stated clerk position, pending his examination by the denomination’s Theological Examining Committee, until the PCA’s 2026 General Assembly. —Josh Schumacher

Singers fined

The Latin Grammy Award–winning Mexican band Los Tucanes de Tijuana faces a $36,000 fine announced June 4 for performing songs Chihuahua authorities say glamorize drug traffickers. The five-member Los Tucanes and other bands have gained millions of Spotify followers for their narcocorridos, or “drug ballads.” But at least 10 of Mexico’s 32 states have passed restrictions on this subgenre of music as the country fights rampant cartel violence. Los Tucanes’ hometown of Tijuana previously banned the group’s performances for 15 years over the issue. In April, the United States revoked the visas of another Mexican band for projecting a picture of a wanted drug lord at a concert. —Grace Snell

Quran burner

A British court on June 2 found Hamit Coskun, 50, guilty of a “religiously aggravated public order offence.” Turkey-born Coskun, who is half Kurdish and half Armenian, set fire to a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish Consulate in London in February, shouting “Islam is a religion of terrorism!” as the Islamic book burned. Coskun was fined $325 but argued in court that he had protested peacefully. Critics of the verdict say it effectively reinstates an abolished blasphemy law. Two British nonprofits, the National Secular Society and the Free Speech Union, paid Coskun’s legal fees. The groups intend to back an appeal of the decision. —Kim Henderson

Singer confesses

Former Newsboys frontman Michael Tait admitted to drug and alcohol abuse and to touching men “in an unwanted sensual way” over the course of two decades in a June 10 statement on Instagram. The confession from Tait, a popular contemporary Christian music artist and previous member of DC Talk, came six days after former acquaintances accused Tait of cocaine use and nonconsensual groping between 2004 and 2014 in an article published in The Roys Report. “To the extent my sinful behavior has caused anyone to lose respect or faith or trust in me, I understand, deserve, and accept that,” he wrote. Tait said he had been clean and sober since spending six weeks at a Utah treatment center but acknowledged he still had “lots of hard work ahead.” Tait had stepped down from Newsboys abruptly in January. —Mary Jackson

Activist kills self

Swiss pro-suicide organization the Last Resort confirmed on June 1 that its founding president, Florian Willet, had committed suicide. Willet died in May at age 47 after spending months in police custody in Switzerland last year. Police arrested him in September after he was reportedly the only witness to a 64-year-old American woman’s death using a Sarco suicide capsule. Authorities released Willet in December, and prosecutors said they would drop the case against him. According to Philip Nitschke, the founder of assisted suicide group Exit International, stress from his time in custody caused Willet to have a mental health breakdown and led him to take his life. —Lauren Canterberry