Crosstalk: October 24, 2016

Once again, Jim took listeners around the nation and the world as he presented news stories of interest to Christians, many of which are set aside by the major media.

--Russia begins its largest surface deployment since the end of the cold war as it aims to effectively end the war in Syria on the eve of the U.S. election.

--Managers of an arena in the Moscow area received an official letter from the minister of emergency situations last week demanding that they immediately create shelters facilities for wartime.

--The Obama White House has barred the Pentagon from using a key phrase in references to China and Russia.

--Despite the uncovering of threats to U.S. weapons programs from overseas suppliers the American military is still working with foreigners on improvements to the nation's arsenal.

--The Philippine president tilts his nation away from America and toward China.

--President Obama calls for Americans to submit to a vaguely defined, presumably government run, curating function that would help discard unapproved information. In other words, he's calling for a war on the free press.

--George Soros connected company provides voting machines in 16 states.

--Islamic laws prohibiting free speech have come to Miami.

--As President Obama commutes the sentences of more criminals, his Justice Department intends to make it more difficult for landlords to deny affordable housing to ex-convicts.

--Vandal smears peanut butter on 30 vehicles at a central Wisconsin gathering that she thought was a Trump rally.

--According to a statement from Clinton at a 2002 fundraiser, Hillary said George W. Bush was selected president rather than elected after Al Gore refused to accept election results in 2000.

--Hillary Clinton heads a top 10 Islamic money and politics list of campaign Contributions for 2015-2016.

--Defense Secretary Ash Carter refused to answer a reporter's question about a possible intelligence disclosure by Hillary Clinton.

--Governor Pat McCrory responds to the fire-bombing of a North Carolina Republican headquarters.

--Florida Supreme Court strikes down the state's new death penalty statute.

--The legalization of marijuana in Colorado has increased the number of traffic deaths, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, calls to the poison control center and the youth there now rank #1 in the nation for marijuana use.

--Colorado's marijuana potency is five times higher than the national average.

--Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention reportedly has blocked a request by a law firm to allow a CDC senior vaccine safety scientist to testify in a court case in Tennessee. The case deals with the CDC recommended vaccines and autism.

--A federal judge sided with Planned Parenthood in a lawsuit attempting to block a Mississippi law that barred medical providers that perform abortions from participating in the state's Medicaid program.

--An Oakland, California, teen who was considered brain-dead is breathing on her own.

--California has promulgated a regulation to assure that the mentally ill, who have been ordered hospitalized in California, have access to assisted suicide if they are dying and deemed able to make medical decisions.

--The Dutch government has decided to expand their euthanasia law to include people who are not physically or psychologically sick but who believe that their life is 'completed'.

--A Bible was removed from the waiting room of a Veterans Affairs medical center in Ohio after a veteran complained.

--A group advocating the separation of church and state demanded that the Air Force rebuke a commander who expressed his Christian beliefs in an interview.

--A federal judge has stopped President Obama's policy forcing public schools to allow boys in the girls locker room.

--Representative Joe Pitts announced that he and 47 of his colleagues have sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell expressing a number of significant concerns with an HHS regulation that requires doctors to perform gender transition procedures or treatments on patients, including children, even if the doctor believes the procedures could be harmful.

--Cover Girl announces their first 'cover boy' model.

--The first Aboriginal and openly gay politician in Australia enters state parliament and gives his first speech.

--Decades after homosexuality was decriminalized in Britain, the government announced that it would posthumously pardon thousands of gay and bisexual men who were convicted.

--The BBC has begun examining program makers willingness to promote LGBT lifestyles when deciding on new TV shows.

--Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas indicates that as a legal and social construct, homosexual marriage was practiced only one other time in the past...in the days of Noah before the flood.

--Police investigating the defacement of a San Antonio church after vandals spray painted 'No to Wall' and 'Islam or Die' next to the entrance.

--A new report indicates that there's explosive growth in the number of U.S. residents five years of age and older who speak a language other than English in the home.

--The fastest growing language in America is Arabic.