Tuesday morning news - April 26, 2022

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kristen Flavin. 

U.S. diplomats head back to Ukraine » U.S. diplomats are headed back to Ukraine. Washington evacuated its embassy in Kyiv shortly before Russia’s invasion two months ago.

But during a visit to the city late Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the embassy would soon reopen.

BLINKEN: We don’t know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin’s on the scene. And our support for Ukraine going forward will continue. It will continue to see final success.

Blinken also announced President Biden’s intent to nominate a new ambassador for Ukraine. Bridget Brink currently serves as the ambassador to neighboring Slovakia. President Trump nominated her to that post in 2019.

Shortly after the visit by Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Russia launched a string of attacks against five train stations in the center and east of the country. Russia also destroyed an oil refinery and fuel depots in central Ukraine.

But several Russian oil depots also suffered damage, possibly from Ukrainian missiles.

Coach Kennedy at the Supreme Court » A Christian football coach fired for praying on the field after games took his case to the Supreme Court on Monday. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has that story.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Lawyers for Coach Joe Kennedy argued the Constitution protects his practice of kneeling at the 50-yard line to pray after games. But school officials in Bremerton, Washington, say Kennedy’s prayers could interfere with students’ religious freedom if they felt pressured to join in.

Justices questioned lawyers on both sides for nearly two hours, twice as long as the oral arguments were scheduled to take.

They posed hypotheticals involving coaches who cross themselves before games or host after-school Bible studies in their homes. They also pondered the rights of school district employees to wear ashes on Ash Wednesday or kneel during the national anthem to oppose racism.

Kennedy began praying publicly after games when he started coaching for Bremerton in 2008. Students eventually joined him, and that caught the attention of school officials. They asked him to stop in 2015. He did, but filed suit soon after.

The high court declined to intervene in the case in 2019 after lower courts ruled in favor of the school district. But four justices criticized those decisions, saying they demonstrated a troubling view of public school teachers’ free speech rights.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Elon Musk reaches deal to buy Twitter » Elon Musk has reached a deal to buy Twitter. On Monday the company announced the purchase, worth roughly $44 billion.

Musk revealed earlier this month that he’d bought a 9 percent stake in Twitter. After initially saying he would take a seat on the board, Musk announced his intention to buy the company outright and take it private.

Twitter tried to block the attempt with a so-called “poison pill” measure but eventually decided to negotiate after Musk revealed he’d secured financing for the purchase.

The Tesla CEO has described himself as a “free-speech absolutist” and says Twitter should stop censoring content and banning people who say unpopular things.

On Monday he tweeted, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”

Texas appeals court issues death row stay » A Texas appeals court issued a stay of execution Monday for a woman convicted of killing her 2-year-old daughter in 2007. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has more.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: Melissa Lucio was set to die by lethal injection on Wednesday.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued the stay so a lower court can review claims that new evidence would exonerate her. Lucio has maintained her daughter, Mariah, died from medical complications of a severe fall.

Her lawyers say her conviction was based on an unreliable and coerced confession. They also say unscientific and false evidence misled jurors into believing Mariah’s injuries only could have been caused by physical abuse.

More than half the members of the Texas Legislature asked for the stay of execution. A bipartisan group of lawmakers visited Lucio in prison earlier this month to pray with her.

Five of the 12 jurors who sentenced her to death also asked Texas courts to grant her request for a new trial.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

Israel fires rockets into Lebanon amid ongoing violence » AUDIO: [Tanks firing]

Israeli tanks fired into southern Lebanon on Monday after a rocket launched from the area landed in northern Israel. The Israeli military said the rocket caused no damage or injuries.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. But an Israeli military spokesman blamed it on Palestinian militants operating in Lebanon.

Violence between Israel and Palestinian militants has increased in recent weeks, sparked in part by the Muslim holy month of Ramadan coinciding with Passover. Muslims are angry over an increase in Jewish visits to the Temple Mount … also home to the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Gilad Erdan is Israel’s representative to the United Nations. He addressed those concerns Sunday.

ERDAN: Israel is and continues to be committed to the status quo on the Temple Mount. To the international community, I say: enough. Stop putting Israel and radical Islamic terror groups on equal moral footing.

Israel blames the Hamas militant group of inciting young Palestinian men to violence at Jerusalem’s contested holy site. The unrest in Jerusalem comes amid a string of deadly attacks in Israel and Israeli raids in the West Bank.

It is the worst violence in the region since last year’s 11-day war.

I'm Kristen Flavin. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.