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Both Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush will not attend this summer's Republican convention, spokesmen confirmed to The Hill.

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son” (Hebrews 11:17). The main reason God allows trials in the lives of Christians is to test the strength of their faith. The memorable example in Genesis 22 of Abraham’s testing is perhaps the severest trial any human being has ever faced. When God told Abraham to offer his only son Isaac as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of Moriah (Gen. 22:1-2), Abraham no doubt was stunned. In terms of God’s nature, His plan...

"Having summoned His twelve disciples, [Jesus] gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Now the names of the twelve apostles were these" (Matt. 10:1-2). Every disciple must also be a discipler. Have you ever met someone who constantly absorbs what the church has to offer, yet never seems to plug into a ministry where he can give to others? I've met many people like that. Some have attended church for many years, and have even taken evangelism and other special training classes. But they never...

The Department of Education, under the leadership of Barack Obama, whose pro-homosexual agenda has been unparalleled, has launched a website critics say is dedicated to the “shaming” of Christian colleges that follow biblical principles rather than a leftist social agenda. “It looks like the Department of Education got a new boss: the Human Rights Campaign,” wrote Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in a Washington Update commentary this week. Perkins, referring to the leading “gay”-rights group, was spotlighting what he called a “shame list” posted online by the Department of Education of colleges that have sought exemptions to Title IX...

Donald Trump won't self-fund his general-election campaign, and will instead create a "world-class finance organization," the presumptive Republican nominee said in an interview on Wednesday. For a campaign expected to cost more than $1 billion, "I'll be putting up money, but won't be completely self-funding, as I did during the primaries," Mr. Trump said. The New York businessman, who did receive some mostly small unsolicited donations, lent his campaign $36 million of the $47 million he spent through March. That plan represents a shift for Mr. Trump, who has for months portrayed his Republican opponents as "puppets" for relying on...

The Catholic Church leader called for "building" the Christian-Islamic dialogue with patience: "The work that they do, is a work of building." The Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies, was the initiator of the letter of 138 Muslim representatives in 2007. It was written in response to the famous Regensburg speech of Benedict XVI. Pope Francis: "In a meeting like this dialogue is the operative word. And dialogue means to come out - with the word and with yourself. To say his word and hear the word of the other. Two words come together there, two thoughts. This is the first...

Ben Carson has a plan for Ted Cruz now that the Texas senator has dropped out of the GOP presidential race: attorney general, then Supreme Court justice under a Trump administration. When Fox News Radio’s John Gibson asked Carson on Wednesday whether it would be “smart” for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump to offer Cruz a position on the Supreme Court, he said yes. “I think he would be terrific on the Supreme Court, or I think he would be a terrific attorney general. Or he could be both,” Carson said. “He could be attorney general first, you know, go...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The year 2016 is still on pace to set a record for background checks for gun purchases, according to new data from the FBI. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported on Wednesday that there were 2,145,865 background checks in April. That’s the slowest month so far this year, but it’s a 25% increase from April 2015. Background checks in every month this year have made double digit gains over 2015, which had a record number of requests for background checks. If the current pace keeps up, 2016 will beat last year’s record.

The #NeverTrump team, specifically the punditry within it, are doing what the professionally republican clans do every time they lose. They pout, gnash their teeth, stomp their feet and eventually carry off their football. They are annoying insignificant gnats full of self-importance that can be cast into a pit of irrelevance. These are the same voices who rejoiced when the were granted audience with President-elect Obama in 2008. These are also the same insufferable small-minded dolts who stand up at CPAC and applaud House Speaker Omnibus Paul Ryan, while never even thinking about -let alone reconciling- the reality of the...

(AP) – The Rolling Stones have asked presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to stop playing their songs at his campaign events. In a statement Wednesday, the rock band said they have not given permission to the Trump campaign to use their songs and “have requested that they cease all use immediately.” A Trump campaign spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment or say whether they had a license to play their songs.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Wednesday that he was open to raising the federal minimum wage, breaking with the prevailing view of his party. “I’m actually looking at that because I am very different from most Republicans,” Mr. Trump said in an interview on CNN’s. “You have to have something that you can live on.” Mr. Trump has locked up the nomination despite repeatedly breaking with Republican orthodoxy on issues ranging from abortion to trade. The billionaire businessman said he was studying the minimum wage issue and did not know if the current federal minimum wage of $7.25...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Wednesday that he was open to raising the federal minimum wage, breaking with the prevailing view of his party. “I’m actually looking at that because I am very different from most Republicans,” Mr. Trump said in an interview on CNN’s. “You have to have something that you can live on.”

Why are figures at National Review and other places so easy to parody? This is the subject of my upcoming four-volume treatise on how to lose a culture war with class and décorum, so I don’t want to give away too much here, but suffice it to say I don’t think that the problem with respectable conservatism is just that they’re afraid of being called racist or sexist or homophobic. They certainly are afraid of that, yes, but I think that the deeper problem is they’ve fully internalized a whole raft of premises about race, about gender, about “sexual orientation”...

New York’s iconic Stonewall Inn, where the modern gay-rights movement took root, will become the first national monument honoring the history of gays and lesbians in the U.S. under a proposal President Obama is preparing to approve.

When the leader of Germany’s Jews spoke out against the flow of Muslim migrants to Europe, a rabbinical student denounced his views as racist — and ignited a debate over whether Jews are right to fear unprecedented levels of immigration from Muslim lands traditionally hostile to Israel. The student, Armin Langer, was kicked out of the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam after he wrote that the leader of Germany’s Central Council of Jews was wrong to seek a cap on Muslim immigration. Langer, a founder of an inter-faith group called Salaam-Shalom committed to fostering dialogue between Muslims and Jews, said...

Saudi King Salman could not hold back his emotions as he attended the graduation of one of his sons, Prince Rakan who finished high school studies in Riyadh. “I attend this graduation not only as Rakan’s father, but a father to all the students,” King Salman said during a speech he delivered. King Salman has made a habit of attending all his sons' graduation ceremonies, a sign of the importance the king places on education. Before the ardha (sword dance) ceremony, Prince Rakan presented a sword to his father, which caused the King to get emotional seeing his last son...

Presidential politics is a fickle business. On the heels of a decisive victory in Wisconsin, Ted Cruz lost his next major contest in Indiana, prompting the Texas Senator to suspend his campaign. As when any candidate drops out of the race, Cruz’s decision left thousands of Americans concerned for the future of their country. Those who believed Cruz was the election’s only true conservative (or had the best shot of beating Hillary Clinton) are now wondering what the country will look like under the next president. They see their nation slipping away, and they feel powerless to stop it. And...

“Our target date is June 7, but our goal is in the middle of May to be the presumptive nominee,” Paul Manafort, Trump’s newly installed convention manager, who has been given broad authority to shape the campaign, said in a wide-ranging interview here.

Hamas announced on Wednesday night that it had reached understandings with Israel on calming the tensions along the Gaza border and stopping the fire towards southern Israel. One of the leaders of the organization said that in return, Israel had undertaken upon itself not to conduct operations inside Gaza. Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk, commenting on Facebook on the understandings, said they had been reached with Egyptian mediation. “What happened on the Gaza border was a Zionist attempt to apply a new reality on the border. This required Hamas to rise up in order to prevent the tools of the...

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