A week of remembrances begins

BRITAIN: Pomp was the order of the day as U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in London Monday to begin a state visit coinciding with Thursday’s 75th anniversary of D-Day. Low-brow controversy quickly overtook the visit as Trump responded with insults to an op-ed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan questioning the visit. Trump’s U.K. tour comes at a powerful moment for potential reassessment of the U.S. relationship with its strongest ally, as Britain is without a prime minister amid its overheated effort to leave the European Union.

FRANCE: On Thursday President Trump will honor the 10,000 American servicemen and women buried at Normandy’s Omaha Beach, where the grief lives on.

SUDAN: At least 13 people have died after the military opened fire on protesters in Khartoum, as talks following the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir between pro-democracy leaders and a transitional military government collapsed.

CHINA: The 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre finds many of its leaders now laboring for Christ. Post-Tiananmen state regulations to rein in church growth have not dampened phenomenal increases—perhaps well over 100 million mainland Chinese are Christians today—and the current crackdown on believers could ultimately further strengthen their faith.

SYRIA: Here is an overview of the time bomb that is Idlib, where impending conflict among Turkey, Russia, Iran, and Syria could begin a fiercer war.

VENEZUELA: Thousands of lawful asylum seekers are held in criminal detention facilities in the United States, many in private facilities generating $4 billion in revenue. Many are like Ysabel from Venezuela, whose petition was approved by an immigration judge but denied release.

NORTH KOREA reportedly has executed its special envoy to the United States along with four others over failed talks. Kim Hyok Chol, a former ambassador to Spain, was among the young confidantes of leader Kim Jong Un picked earlier this year to spearhead talks after Kim purged members of his father’s circle of advisers. North Korea’s nuclear envoy, Kim Yong Chol, showed up in a photo with Kim Jong Un on Sunday after he reportedly was sentenced to forced labor and “ideological education.”

I’M WATCHING Defiant Requiem, a moving 2012 documentary (available on Amazon Prime), after a friend performed in a concert honoring the remarkable choir assembled inside the Nazi work camp at Terezín: “We have to tell the people of the unmarked graves that we’ve heard them.”

MAN KNOWS NOT HIS TIME: We received word Monday morning that Christian historian and author Herb Schlossberg (Idols for Destruction, A Fragrance of Oppression), a beloved friend to many of us at WORLD, has died.

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