The historic sanctuary of First Baptist Church of Dallas, the church led by Pastor Robert Jeffress, caught fire on Friday night. The cause remains unknown, though the fire comes less than one week after an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, of whom Jeffress has long been an impassioned supporter. “Dallas Fire-Rescue is currently battling a two-alarm fire in a building located at 1717 San Jacinto Street,” Chief Robert Borse told The Daily Signal. “The initial call was received at 6:05 p.m., and crews arrived on scene at 6:09 p.m.” “First arriving crews were confronted with heavy smoke and fire conditions involving the structure and immediately initiated fire attack operations,” he added. The department confirmed that the secondary chapel of the First Baptist Church is the structure involved. “Fire operations are defensive and a partial collapse of the structure occurred just after 7:30 p.m.,” Borse added. “At this time, no injuries have been reported.” “A little bit after 6 p.m. we got word that the church was on fire, our historic sanctuary,” Jeffress told an ABC News local affiliate. “This sanctuary has been around since 1890. It was the home for our church for a long time.” First Baptist Dallas moved to a new worship center about 12 years ago. “This historic sanctuary was the site of many personal events, including my own,” Jeffress recalled. “I was baptized there when I was six, I was ordained for the ministry when I was 21, it holds a lot of memories, but we thank God that nobody has been hurt. We had just concluded vacation bible school with over 2,000 kids. They were all gone, so God has protected us through all of this.” “I am grateful that the church is not bricks and mortar or wood, it’s people, and the people of God will endure,” he added. First Baptist Dallas has 16,000 members, according to its website. The church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, the second-largest Christian denomination behind Catholicism. The pastor said that “nothing has been ruled in or out at this point.” According to the Dallas Fire-Rescue website, 64 fire teams were working to combat the fire as of 9 p.m. Central. Purported footage of the church on fire went viral on social media. Footage of First Baptist Church Dallas, founded 1868. It’s a SBC church, currently led by Dr. Robert Jeffress. This is the historic sanctuary, the cornerstone was laid in 1891.Other reports say there was the sound of a loud explosion as well. Pray for this church. pic.twitter.com/chEpOaTufF— William Wolfe ?? (@William_E_Wolfe) July 20, 2024 The fire comes one day after the Republican National Convention ended in Milwaukee. At the convention, Republicans nominated Trump, who had barely survived an assassination attempt on Saturday. Jeffress has long praised and prayed for Trump, publicly appearing with him at events as far back as September 2015. This is a breaking story and will be updated. The post Texas Church Led by Pro-Trump Pastor Catches Fire After Assassination Attempt, Republican Convention appeared first on The Daily Signal.

National Public Radio’s Up First newsletter highlights top stories from the taxpayer-supported radio network. Wednesday’s newsletter, centered around Night Two of the Republican National Convention and its themes of crime and illegal immigration, smeared and "fact-checked" Tuesday night’s speakers while using the soft, politically pleasing phrase “undocumented immigrants” to describe those formerly known as “illegal immigrants.” NPR's Majd Al-Waheidi and Brittney Melton led with left-wing hysteria right off the bat. Somehow, talking about illegal aliens murdering women is "violent rhetoric" and an "attack." The Republican National Convention's "Make America Safe Again" night was marked by violent rhetoric and attacks on undocumented immigrants. Speakers said crime is increasing, criticized Biden's record on crime and immigration, and falsely claimed Democrats want to allow unauthorized migrants to vote. Nearly every speaker linked the fentanyl crisis to U.S. immigration and border policies… While it is true that under President Biden, the southern border saw a record high amount of people crossing into the U.S. without authorization, the number has greatly decreased since January, Martínez-Beltrán reports. He reports that studies also show migrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens. So, after months of the media ignoring or dismissing the border crisis, now it’s old news because Biden has supposedly brought his administration's incredibly high numbers down? How convenient. The supposed fact-check got not better. Excerpts from the text version of the original NPR report highlighted by Up First: A MARTÍNEZ: Here to help us sort all of this out is NPR's Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, who covers immigration, and NPR's Meg Anderson, who covers criminal justice. All right, Sergio, let's start with you. A lot of the speeches talked about migrants pouring into the country. Do a little fact check for us, if you could. SERGIO MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Yeah, so it is true that under President Biden, the southern border saw a record high in terms of people crossing into the U.S. without authorization, but that number has really gone down since January. In June, there was a 24% decrease in arrests at the border in comparison to May, so no, there has not been a, quote-unquote, "open border" or "invasion" at the southern border. A MARTÍNEZ: OK. Now, Republicans also accused Democrats of wanting to allow unauthorized migrants to vote. What about that one? SERGIO MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: So it is illegal to vote in the U.S. if you're not a citizen, but several Republicans last night repeatedly falsely said that Democrats want to allow unauthorized migrants to vote, and, you know, this is in line with the long-standing Republican rhetoric that elections in this country are rampant with voter fraud, although there's no evidence for that. In fact, it is not invariably “illegal to vote in the U.S. if you’re not a citizen,” at least not in one of the many liberal municipalities across America that allow non-citizens to vote in state and local elections, if not yet federal ones. It’s certainly not a baseless concern. A MARTÍNEZ: We heard also a lot of linking of migrants to crime. What do we know about that link? SERGIO MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: So last night, we heard from the family of Rachel Morin. She was murdered on a trail in Maryland last year, and a man from El Salvador, who is in the country without authorization, has been charged with her murder and rape. You know, this is very tragic. This is horrible, but it is not emblematic of any particular trend, even though Republicans did try to frame it that way. Multiple studies have found, A, that migrants are less likely to commit a crime than people born in the U.S. For example, Stanford University found that immigrants are 30% less likely to be imprisoned than white Americans.

The party’s over in Milwaukee, but the Democrat crisis is ongoing. This year's Republican convention drew surprisingly calm coverage compared to the hostile norm, in part due to the attempt to kill Donald Trump. Meanwhile, on some days, the GOP news was submerged to cover Democrats deep in a crisis as more politicians call on Joe Biden to end his campaign. The convention itself had a serious message discipline. Journalists seemed frustrated it wasn't more negative-sounding. We have several measurements of a double standard in convention coverage.  Tone. To the media, the Republican convention is always dark and hateful and ultraconservative. The Democrats are always inspirational. The usual objection to the tone erupted in spurts, just because it’s a habit. But there were a lot of moments of real emotional connection that they often found hard to ignore. The mothers who lost children to illegal-immigrant crime. The parents of American hostages in Gaza. The Gold Star families from Biden’s Afghanistan fiasco. Some networks tried to ignore them. MSNBC talked right over the Gold Star families as they spoke. Inclusion. The Republican convention is always narrowcasting to a fringy base, while the Democrats have a "big tent." The DNC Media or the DEI Media are always policing the minority voters to make sure they don’t cross the street to vote Republican. When Republicans try to attract black voters, liberal journalists go on the attack. On MSNBC, Joy Reid complained about black men wanting to be "white-adjacent." On CNN, Van Jones said about black Republican convention speakers: "All four of them sounded like black people who talk about black people, but don’t talk to black people.” Now imagine how these concepts would sound if we reversed them. Fact-Checking. The "fact police" always get extremely active when Republicans talk, because liberals think it's preposterous that, say, Joe Biden believes in open borders. Or that, this is weird, you can’t call Kamala Harris a border czar. PolitiFact editor-in-chief Katie Sanders appeared on PBS to claim the "border czar" thing was just a GOP nickname. But news stories at the time reported Harris was expected to help reduce the flow of immigration, which didn't happen. The "fact checkers" are docile around Democrats, even as they insist Trump and the Republicans will end democracy. Controversy. Usually, the media play up any divisions between Republicans, like in fights over platform language. That was prevented before the convention began. All week, the real controversy was the struggle to get President Biden to quit. Enjoy the podcast below. 

Major Democratic donors, including billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz, are joining the cacophony of voices calling on President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race.

Bedlam broke out in the skies after a set of toasty passengers brought in-flight entertainment of an unwelcome kind to a Wizz Air flight after allegedly getting drunk on their own hooch.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., suggested Friday that a "mini primary," facilitated by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, should be held to decide the Democratic Party's next presidential nominee.

Tool marks might represent some of the earliest known signs of human presence in southern South America. Recent findings from Argentina indicate human presence and...