It’s Monday, March 30th, A.D. 2020. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I’m Adam McManus.
By Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com)
Why were 5,000 urns delivered to Wuhan, China?
The reliability of China’s coronavirus numbers is under question once again in view of the staggering amount of urns being distributed in Wuhan, reports a Shanghai news source.
According to official Chinese government data, 50,006 people were infected with the COVID-19 virus in Wuhan with 2,535 dying from the disease.
However, the Chinese investigative outlet Caixin shows a truck loaded with 2,500 urns arriving at the Hankou Mortuary. The driver said that he had delivered the same amount to the mortuary the day before.
Biden faces new sexual assault charge
Former Vice President Joe Biden is facing a new sexual assault allegation, from a woman named Tara Reade, who says she has been trying to share her story since 1993 when it allegedly happened. Reade’s allegation comes in the midst of Biden’s surging presidential campaign and is consistent with other stories women have shared about their discomfort with the way Biden has touched them, reports Yahoo News.
Hebrews 13:4 warns, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”
(Reade was a staff assistant for Joe Biden in 1993, when she claims he sexually assaulted her. She told part of her story in 2019, when Lucy Flores wrote in The Cut about the inappropriate way Biden smelled her hair and kissed the top of her head. Now, she has detailed what she says is the entirety of her experience with Biden on The Katie Halper Show.)
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio: The Big Apple is COVID-19 epicenter
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio identified the Big Apple as the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.
DE BLASIO: “Every time I have to tell you about this, this human beings who are afflicted, the people who we’ve lost, it is painful and it’s shocking. 25,573 cases in the city of New York. We remain the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States of America. I look forward to the day when I can tell you that’s no longer true. But today that is true. 366 New York City residents have been lost.”
New York Governor Cuomo’s pep talk to National Guard
On Friday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave a pep talk to the National Guard deployed in the Empire State, reports WCBS Radio.
CUOMO: “This is an invisible beast. It is an insidious beast. This is not going to be a short deployment. … This is going to be weeks and weeks and weeks. This is going to be a long day. And it’s going to be a hard day. And it’s going to be an ugly day. And it’s going to be a sad day. This is a rescue mission that you’re on. The mission is to save lives. That’s what you’re doing.
“As hard as we work, we’re not going to be able to save everyone. And what’s even more cruel, is this enemy doesn’t attack the strongest of us. It attacks the weakest of us. It attacks our most vulnerable, which makes it even worse.”
As of this weekend, 124,000 Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus, leading to 2,190 deaths, according to the Coronavirus Worldwide Sick Map. That’s a doubling of America’s death toll from last Thursday.
U.S. gov’t officials glean cellphone data monitoring movement
Government officials across the U.S. are now using location data from millions of cellphones in a bid to better understand the movements of Americans during the coronavirus pandemic and how they may be affecting the spread of the disease, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The data—which is stripped of identifying information like the name of a phone’s owner—could help officials learn how coronavirus is spreading around the country and help blunt its advance. It shows which retail establishments, parks and other public spaces are still drawing crowds that could risk accelerating the transmission of the virus.
RI cops: People with NY license plates must self-quarantine
On Friday, Rhode Island police began stopping cars with New York plates. On Saturday, the National Guard helped conduct house-to-house searches to find people who traveled from New York and demand 14 days of self-quarantine, reports Bloomberg.
Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo said, “Right now we have a pinpointed risk. That risk is called New York City.”
Honolulu police issued 70 citations, made 2 arrests over COVID-19
Honolulu, Hawaii police have issued 70 citations and made two arrests for violating the stay-at-home orders put in place to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus, with most of those people cited in public parks after ignoring officers’ instructions to leave, reports the Star-Advertiser.
Violating the order is a misdemeanor offense punishable by fines of up to $5,000 and a year in jail.
MIT: Proper social distancing should be 26 feet
While we’ve been urged to practice 6-foot “social distancing”, a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that guideline is four times too short. In order to stay safely outside someone’s sneeze zone, the proper safe distance is actually 26 feet, reports The Telegraph.
The highly contagious COVID-19 droplets can spread in the air up to 26 feet away.
Ohio megachurch refuses to shut down in-person services
Solid Rock Church, a nondenominational Ohio megachurch with campuses in Lebanon and Cincinnati, has decided against canceling services, reports the Christian Post.
On its website, they say, “The First Amendment of our Constitution guarantees freedom concerning religion, expression, and assembly. It specifically forbids Congress from restricting an individual’s religious practices. Therefore, the government ban on large gatherings does not apply to religious worship.”
The move has received a great deal of negative feedback with some 3,000 negative comments, according to news station WHIO.
One online critic stated “you have a moral obligation to protect your flock … God gave us brains to use them.”
Teen Vogue & Snapchat urge teens to create porn!
And finally, Teen Vogue magazine and Snapchat, the multimedia messaging app, are actually encouraging their teen audience and users to create pornography while they’re at home during the coronavirus quarantine, reports the Christian Post.
“Like anything worth doing, sexting takes practice,” said a Teen Vogue story published Monday on the Snapchat Discover page, according to The Daily Caller. “Here are 7 things you might not have known about sexting.”
Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said, “Snapchat and Teen Vogue are playing right into sexual predators’ hands. It is socially irresponsible for Snapchat Discover to encourage minors to self-produce underage pornography, thereby increasing their vulnerability to sexual predators,” adding that sexting can also make teens vulnerable to sexual extortion, sexual abuse or trafficking.
3 John 1:11 warns, “Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.”
Close
And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Monday, March 30th in the year of our Lord 2020. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I’m Adam McManus (adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
Print stories
43 members of Pentecostal church are sick after church service
Several members of an Illinois Pentecostal church are either at the hospital or in home quarantine after at least 43 congregants fell ill following a church service two Sundays ago, and at least 10 of them have tested positive for the new coronavirus, reports the Christian Post.
In a Facebook post Wednesday night, Layna LoCascio, wife of pastor Anthony LoCascio who leads The Life Church of Glenview, said at least 43 of the approximately 80 people who attended a March 15 service at their church have fallen ill. Everyone who has been tested for the new coronavirus has come back positive for the virus.
Church leaders said the meeting was held days before the governor’s stay-at-home order.
Florida insisting that people coming from Louisiana self-quarantine
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has ordered anyone arriving from Louisiana to self-quarantine and said law enforcement officers would set up checkpoints to screen cars from the state, reports the Associated Press.
Louisiana has surpassed 3,300 infections with 137 dead from COVID-19. Gov. John Bel Edwards said the Pelican State was on track to run out of ventilators by the first week of April.
One-fifth of Detroit’s police are quarantined
More than a fifth of Detroit’s police force is quarantined; two officers have died from coronavirus and at least 39 have tested positive, including the chief of police, reports the Associated Press.
For the 2,200-person department, that has meant officers working doubles and swapping between units to fill patrols. And everyone has their temperature checked before they start work.
An increasing number of police departments around the country are watching their ranks get sick as the number of coronavirus cases explodes across the U.S. The growing tally raises questions about how laws can and should be enforced during the pandemic, and about how departments will hold up as the virus spreads among those whose work puts them at increased risk of infection.
Wild coyotes in San Francisco, Packs of rats in New Orleans
Wild coyotes are becoming an increasingly common sight in the empty streets of San Francisco, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
And rats are congregating by the dozens in the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana, reports CBS News.
One local restauranteur told CBS News, “I turn the corner, there’s about 30 rats at the corner, feasting on something in the middle of the street.”
13-year-old Pakistani Christian girl forced into Muslim marriage
On March 26, the Sessions Court located in Pakistan’s Punjab province ordered that Saima Javaid, a 13-year-old Christian girl, be returned to her family 25 days after her March 1st abduction by two Muslim men, reports International Christian Concern.
This order marks a rare victory for Pakistani Christians affected by the issue of abduction, forced conversion, and forced marriage.
After Saima’s abduction while she collecting water from a hand-pump near her home, the 13-year-old was forced to convert to Islam and forced to marry Shan Shera. Thankfully, the judge directed the police to take legal action against the Muslim man.
Saima’s father gave the back story. “We are very poor and work at a brick kiln factory. Therefore, our daughters are often sexually harassed by influential Muslims.”