MATAGORDA, Texas – Hurricane Beryl made landfall early Monday morning near Matagorda as a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean as a Category 5 storm where it claimed the lives of at least 11 people. Southern Baptist Disaster Relief and Send Relief are already helping survivors.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Republican National Committee moved Monday to adopt a party platform that reflects former President Donald Trump’s position opposing a federal abortion ban and ceding limits to states, omitting the explicit basis for a national ban for the first time in 40 years.

MADISON, Wis . (AP) — A federal judge ruled Monday that protesters can't march through a security zone at the Republican National Convention, handing a defeat to liberals who had pushed to have closer access to where delegates will be gathering next week in Milwaukee.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Opponents of a new Louisiana law requiring that a version of the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms have asked a federal court to block implementation of the requirement while their lawsuit against it progresses and before the new school year starts.

Are you making church members or are you making disciples? Like every follower of Jesus, a pastor’s first calling is to be a disciple-maker. Although I regularly quoted the Great Commission in challenging our church toward kingdom work, I must confess that I did not really understand the difference between a good church member and a disciple. Because of that, I was not intentionally making disciples of Jesus.

The latest song on the radio, the updated body design for a car and the fashion trends are a few examples of our ever-changing society. We have refrigerators that can order groceries for you and vehicles that drive themselves. The next big thing drives our culture, from marketing to even how we do ministry.

The focal passage for this lesson picks up the theme of persecution that Luke shared earlier in the chapter. The popularity of the apostles resulted in opposition from the Sadducees. The Jewish religious leaders arrested the apostles and placed them in the public jail (v. 18). An angel of the Lord opened the doors,  led the disciples out of the jail and commanded them to “tell the people all about this life” in the temple compound.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man has regained his voice after surgeons removed his cancerous larynx and, in a pioneering move, replaced it with a donated one. Transplants of the so-called voice box are extremely rare, and normally aren't an option for people with active cancer.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Rescuers searched the rubble at a children’s hospital Tuesday for more dead and wounded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, a day after Russian missiles slammed into the facility and cities across the country in a massive daytime barrage. The death toll from the strikes rose to 42, officials said.

PARIS (AP) — Newly elected lawmakers arrived Tuesday at the National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament, for talks seeking to cobble together a government majority after a chaotic election result left the legislature split among left, center and right parties.

LONDON (AP) — Hundreds of newly elected lawmakers trooped excitedly into Parliament on Tuesday after the U.K.’s transformative election brought a Labour government to power. The halls of the labyrinthine building echoed with excited chatter as the 650 members of the House of Commons gathered — 335 of them arriving for the first time. That compares to 140 new lawmakers after the last election in 2019.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, seeking to deepen the relationship between the two nuclear powers at a time when NATO leaders gathered in Washington and Russia launched deadly missile attacks in Ukraine that hit a children's hospital.

PHOENIX (AP) — Sean Murphy hit a tying homer with two outs in the ninth inning and Marcell Ozuna drove in the decisive run with a sacrifice fly in the 11th as the Atlanta Braves rallied past the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-4 on Monday night for their third straight victory.

PHOENIX (AP) — Chris Sale was scratched from his scheduled start Monday night for the Atlanta Braves, who pushed him back a day to Tuesday against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Atlanta called up right-hander Bryce Elder to start Monday’s game at Arizona. Elder was an All-Star last year but has spent a big chunk of this season in Triple-A.

DEATH VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Hundreds of Europeans touring the American West and adventurers from around the U.S. were still drawn to Death Valley National Park on Monday, even though the desolate region known as one of the Earth's hottest places is being punished by a dangerous heat wave blamed for a motorcyclist's death over the weekend.

When a group from Crosspoint Church in McKinney recently traveled with Proclaim Cuba to minister in that Caribbean country, they took with them water filters provided by Texans on Mission. “I wanted to personally thank you for the donation of the filters,” Curt Neal, a member of the team, wrote to Mitch Chapman, director of Texans on Mission Water Impact.

Hurricane Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 storm along the Texas coast on Monday morning. The first storm of the Atlantic hurricane season — which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 —  to make landfall in the U.S. has already left reportedly 1 million residents in the Houston area alone without power. The storm reportedly killed at least 10 people in Caribbean islands last week.

More than 3 million people passed through U.S. airport security on Sunday, the first time that number of passengers have been screened in a single day as travel surges, according to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

I grew up knowing very little about Deaf culture. As a kid, I had interacted with a few Deaf adults, and gave myself a pat on the back when I understood one question they asked me. But I did not go out of my way to talk with them. Not that I had anything against them; I was just in my own little world, and in my world, everyone speaks my language.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, in a letter to congressional Democrats, stood firm against calls for him to drop his candidacy and called for an “end” to the intraparty drama that has torn apart Democrats since his dismal public debate performance.

I’d never heard of Grant Holmes until the 28-year-old pitcher made his Major League debut on Father’s Day at Truist Park against the Tampa Bay Rays. His appearance highlighted an 8-6 Braves loss as Holmes pitched three scoreless innings, allowing only two hits.

There is a unified community in the Midwest bound together by hope and love. In this city, you will find people who rally around its most vulnerable, full of grit and tenacity. This community is Ferguson, Missouri. While the name is frequently associated with images of national unrest and a community fractured by racial tension, Ferguson, along with the rest of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area, is more than the tragic event that occurred nearly 10 years ago. The story of Ferguson is one of healing and restoration, not division, and Send Relief, alongside a dedicated community, is helping rewrite the narrative.

MATAGORDA, Texas (AP) — Tropical Storm Beryl unleashed heavy rains and powerful winds along the Texas coast on Monday, knocking out power to more than 2 million homes and businesses and flooding streets with fast-rising waters as first responders raced to rescue stranded residents.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Several officials in the Middle East and the U.S. believe the level of devastation in the Gaza Strip caused by a nine-month Israeli offensive likely has helped push Hamas to soften its demands for a cease-fire agreement.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A landslide triggered by torrential rains crashed onto an unauthorized gold mining operation on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing at least 12 people, officials said Monday. Dozens others were reported missing.