Traffic jam at U.S.-Mexico border

MEXICO: Republican leaders in Congress and leading trade groups are urging President Donald Trump not to close the U.S.-Mexico border, as he threatens to do, saying it would be economically devastating.

Trucks may be racing to get across the border today ahead of a potential shutdown, but Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said there were no “serious problems” as commercial traffic slowed at several crossings.

RUSSIA: Authorities forced flagship seminaries of the Baptist Union and the Pentecostal Union in Moscow to suspend operations, saying they are violating educational rules. But a lawyer for the Pentecostal Union says the crackdown is a “systemic, intentional” way of exerting pressure on non-Orthodox confessions—aimed at reducing academic and religious freedom for Protestant institutions.

MOZAMBIQUE: American missionary Robert Koehn, who rescued dozens from Cyclone Idai using empty fuel containers and a rope, now has housed hundreds in his own home as residents and aid groups begin a long disaster relief operation.

RWANDA: Twenty-five years after the Rwandan genocide, the international community “is better at wringing its hands than at stopping crimes against humanity,” writes Walter Russell Mead.

SYRIA: Islamic State (ISIS)–laid explosives and assassinations are adding to “escalating security lawlessness” in areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. On Monday ISIS fighters engaged the Syrian Army in a firefight near Palmyra.

From Australia to Tunisia, authorities and relatives are wrestling with what to do about ISIS orphans.

SOUTH AFRICA: HIV infection is the raging epidemic no one talks about anymore.

ASIA: Covering “Asians” can be tricky business.

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