In other news
State
Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced the ALL IN VA Plan Sept. 7 to combat the learning loss and absenteeism that appeared during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a press release from the Governor of Virginia website, the Youngkin administration is “taking further, aggressive action to ensure all Virginia students get the academic support they need to recover learning loss, boost their attendance and academic performance.”
The ALL IN VA document poses three ways to combat learning loss: launch a chronic absenteeism task force, accelerate the expansion of the Virginia Literacy Act through eighth grade and invest in an intensive, statewide tutoring initiative.
“We know that high-intensity tutoring works. We know that the science of reading works,” Youngkin said. “And we know that being in the classroom for in-person learning — as opposed to being absent in a chronic fashion — works.”
National
Several Auburn University coaches, including former Liberty University football coach Hugh Freeze, are under fire after a video went viral showing them baptizing more than 200 students.
According to the local television station WSFA, 5,000 students packed a campus stadium for a worship event called Unite Auburn Sept. 12. Following the event, the students who wanted to be baptized went to a nearby lake for the service, including one football player who was baptized by Freeze.
An atheist group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, sent a letter to Auburn University expressing their disapproval of the events.
The FFRF Co-President, Annie Laurie Gaylor, said in the letter that team chaplains should be fired, as Auburn University has an inappropriate relationship with Christian evangelists.
AL.com reported that Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey wrote a two-page letter to the Wisconsin-based organization, saying they would not be intimidated by the FFRF’s claims.
The story of the revival and the opposing reaction made national news over the weekend.
National
An emotional reunion occurred Sept. 18 when five Americans arrived at Fort Belvoir, Virginia after being wrongfully imprisoned in Iran for several years. Video footage showed Americans embracing their families and friends as they stepped back onto U.S. soil. In a State Department document sent to Congress, the Biden Administration granted Iran’s capital, Tehran, access to $6 billion in oil revenue funds that were previously blocked by U.S. sanctions, according to NBC News. The White House website released a statement from Joe Biden regarding the return.
“Today, five innocent Americans who were imprisoned in Iran are finally coming home … after enduring years of agony, uncertainty, and suffering.”
The U.S. Department of State continues to advise against Americans traveling to Iran. The website states U.S. citizens are at risk of being kidnapped, arrested and detained as Iran continues to unjustly “detain and imprison U.S. nationals.”
Olivia Denny is a news reporter for the Liberty Champion