DULUTH, Ga. – Numbers coming in for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s SPARK conference point to what could be the annual event’s largest attendance ever, the organizer said Monday. More than 1,600 Georgia Baptists attended SPARK conferences held at regional sites across the state and nearly 1,000 more logged on for the event’s digital premiere.

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (BP) – Addressing the shortage of nurses that has worsened in the U.S. since the COVID-19 pandemic is a mission and ministry of William Carey University (WCU), a Southern Baptist-supported school based in Mississippi.

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (BP) – The early morning hours of the second Monday in September have been set aside for community outreach over the last decade at Forest Park Baptist Church in Bowling Green. The Iron Men, the church’s men’s ministry, roll out of bed long before the rooster crows to prepare a feast for local first responders as well as local men and women who are distributing Bibles to students at Western Kentucky University.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana judge won’t hear arguments until next week on a lawsuit seeking to block the state’s abortion ban, leaving that new law set to take effect on Thursday. The special judge overseeing the case issued an order Monday setting a court hearing for Sept. 19, which is four days after the ban’s effective date.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Freight railroads and their unions are facing increasing pressure from business groups to settle their contract dispute. They face a looming strike deadline on Friday and business groups say a stoppage halting deliveries of raw materials and finished products that so many companies rely on would be an economic disaster.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez that grounded on Alaska’s Bligh Reef in 1989, causing one of the nation’s worst oil spills, has died. A nephew, Sam Hazelwood, confirmed to The New York Times that Joseph Hazelwood died at age 75 in July after struggling with COVID-19 and cancer.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Peiter “Mudge" Zatko, the Twitter whistleblower who is warning of security flaws, privacy threats and lax controls at the social platform, will take his case to Congress on Tuesday. Senators who will hear Zatko's testimony are alarmed by his allegations at a time of heightened concern over the safety of powerful tech platforms. Zatko, a respected cybersecurity expert, was Twitter’s head of security until he was fired in January.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Jeff Bezos' rocket company has suffered its first launch failure. No one was aboard, only science experiments. The Blue Origin rocket blasted off from West Texas on Monday. Barely a minute into the flight, bright yellow flames shot out from around the single engine.

ATLANTA – Emory University ranks as the 22nd best university in the nation, while the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech are among the top 20 public universities, U.S. News & World Report announced Monday.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Alabama firefighters had to use a ladder truck to rescue dogs from the roof of a downtown kennel after chemical fumes from work on a floor forced an evacuation. Two workers and several animals at Dog Days of Birmingham began having what appeared to be breathing difficulties after a contractor put new sealant on a concrete floor that was being refinished.

Atlanta finally passed the New York Mets this past week. Then the Braves ran into their mirror image from the American League. That would be the Seattle Mariners. They took two of three from the Braves and are now 50-22 in their last 72 games. Atlanta has played at an even better clip. The Braves are 64-26 since the start of June.

ATLANTA – Reversing learning loss stemming from the pandemic, boosting the education workforce and stepping up school safety measures will be Gov. Brian Kemp’s top education priorities if he wins a second term in November, Kemp said Monday. At an elementary school in Oconee County, the governor announced he will ask the General Assembly for a $25 million grant program in the mid-year state budget to help schools pay for additional tutoring and other steps to supplement existing learning loss services.

BEIJING (AP) — The death toll from a major earthquake in western China rose to 93 as the search for survivors continues. A magnitude 6.8 quake hit Sichuan province last week, with much of the damage concentrated in Ganze Tibetan Autonomous Region. State broadcaster CCTV cited rescuers as saying another 25 people were missing as of Sunday evening.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The Tigray forces battling Ethiopian troops say they’re willing to abide by an immediate cessation of hostilities and participate in a peace process led by the African Union. It's a significant shift to which the government has not yet responded. The conflict in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region has killed an estimated tens of thousands of people and left millions without basic services for well over a year after fighting erupted in late 2020.

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Greece's prime minister says the European Union should have a coordinated response to the challenge posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “blackmail” with the supply of natural gas. Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Saturday that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is meant to "legitimize a despotic authoritarianism and enable any local troublemaker” to do the same.

HELSINKI (AP) — Scaled-down celebrations are taking place in Denmark marking 50 years on the throne by Queen Margrethe, whose reign is now Europe’s longest following the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. Dampened celebrations were ordered Friday by the 82-year-old Margrethe out of respect for Britain's late queen. Margrethe is now the only female monarch in the world.

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — King Charles III has pledged to follow his late mother's example of “selfless duty" in an address to lawmakers in Parliament. Charles on Monday told members of the House of Commons and House of Lords that he would follow his late mother Queen Elizabeth II in upholding “the precious principles of constitutional governance” that underpin the U.K.’s political system.

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine is claiming Monday that it took several more villages, pushing Russian troops right back to the northeastern border. That's part of a lightning counteroffensive that forced Moscow to withdraw troops from some areas in recent days. After months of little discernible movement on the battlefield, Kyiv’s sudden momentum has lifted Ukrainian morale and provoked outrage in Russia and even some rare public criticism of President Vladimir Putin’s war.

ATLANTA – Georgia’s film industry took off after the General Assembly significantly strengthened the state income tax credit for movie and TV productions in 2008. The industry’s annual economic impact has soared from a relatively paltry $242 million the year before lawmakers upped the ante on the credit to $4.4 billion last year. Now, the Peach State’s musical performers and producers are urging lawmakers to give them the same boost by sweetening the incentives the state offers their industry.

DUNCANSVILLE, Pa. (BP) — Doug Pilot remembers the crater. He remembers the blackened trees and hearing that there was nothing left bigger than a phone book. Pilot, pastor of New Hope Baptist …

DULUTH, Ga. – The Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s Mission Georgia team has scheduled a series of webinars in September to provide information about options available to churches that want to help some of the state’s most vulnerable residents. The webinars are being offered in conjunction with the September emphasis on the Mission Georgia offering, which allows congregations to support efforts to spread the gospel within the state in the same way that the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon offerings are used to share Jesus in North America and around the world.

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans are remembering 9/11 with tear-choked tributes and pleas to “never forget,” 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil. Victims’ relatives and dignitaries gathered Sunday at all three places where hijacked jets crashed on Sept. 11, 2001 — the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II’s flag-draped coffin has slowly processed through the Scottish countryside on a journey from her beloved Balmoral Castle to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. Mourners in Scotland packed city streets and lined rural roads, and some tossed flowers to honor the monarch who died Thursday at Balmoral after 70 years on the throne.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Two more U.S. military planes loaded with tons of aid for Pakistanis affected by flooding from deadly monsoon rains have landed in southern Sindh province. That's one of the worst-affected regions in the impoverished country. The country’s Civil Aviation Authority says Saturday that each plane was loaded with about 35 tons of relief aid that would be distributed in the province by the World Food Program.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — At least three people are dead after a powerful earthquake hit a remote part of Papua New Guinea. Some buildings and roads were also damaged in the Sunday morning jolt that was felt across the Pacific island country. The deaths were from a landslide in the gold-mining town of Wau.