Aug. 5, 2019: Porn monitoring, pastor stealing from charities, Fulani kill priest
Daily Radio Script - Monday, August 5, 2019
Here are the latest headlines, brought to you by The Christian Post.
— Revolutionary new porn monitoring system developed by Ex-NSA scientist
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The online pornography accountability service Covenant Eyes released new software that makes it nearly impossible for users to view porn undetected.
The company's new detection software uses an image-based detection system that can detect pornographic images and videos regardless of their source.
Covenant Eyes Chief Data Scientist Michael Holm was the main developer of the new system. Holm started working for Covenant Eyes in 2014 after serving three years as an applied research mathematician for the National Security Agency.
“The battleground has moved from the heavily-hampered world of network text-parsing right up to the visual input to your eye," Holm told The Christian Post.
— NYC pastor accused of stealing $631K from charities to pay for vacations, bar tabs
Bronx pastor Reginald Williams of Charity Baptist Church of Christ and two others — Bennie Hadnott and Naomi Barrera — pled not guilty to charges of grand larceny in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Williams was the CEO of a tax-payer funded nonprofit called Addicts Rehabilitation Center Fund and was chairman of the board for another tax-payer funded entity Addicts Rehabilitation Center Foundation. According to the DA's office, the organizations contracted with the city and state agencies to provide housing to New Yorkers with substance and alcohol dependency issues as well as those who live with HIV/AIDs. Williams allegedly embezzled money from the organizations.
“As alleged, these defendants shamelessly stole from publicly funded organizations dedicated to helping vulnerable New Yorkers," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement.
— Nigerian priest killed by suspected Fulani gunmen
Father Paul Offu, a priest in Southern Nigeria, was killed Thursday by suspected Fulani radicals while five pastors from a Pentecostal denomination were abducted in a separate incident just outside of Lagos.
Offu was the parish priest at St. James Greater Parish in Ugbawka.
The diocese's communications director, Benjamin Achi, said, "Fr. Offu was stopped by the murderous herdsmen while returning to his parish after a visit to priest friend along Ihe-Agbudu road in Awgu LGA. They dragged him to the bush but one of the assailants said 'kill him,' that the church would not do anything if they kidnapped him.”
In addition to Offu's killing, gunmen believed to be Fulani radicals were said to have abducted five Nigerian pastors while they were walking to a ministers conference in Lagos, a city in southeast Nigeria.
The general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Enoch Adeboye, made the announcement during the ongoing ministers' conference in Lagos on Friday.
The pastors were abducted while on their way to the conference about 65 miles outside of Lagos. Adeboye stressed that this was the first time a kidnapping of this magnitude has occurred in the denomination.
— 40 percent of white evangelicals support idea of Green New Deal, poll shows
40% of white evangelicals (who comprised about 19 percent of the sample) said they think the Green New Deal to address climate change is a "good idea." 51% said such a plan is a "bad idea."
The survey of 1,346 adults nationwide was conducted from July 15 through July 17 by The Marist Poll.
The Green New Deal is a controversial economic stimulus package proposed by progressive Democrats that hopes to address the effects of climate change. The framework for the proposal was initially posted on the website of House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez earlier this year.
— Katy Perry, Capitol Records ordered to pay $2.78M to Christian rapper for copyright infringement
Pop artist Katy Perry and Capitol Records were ordered to pay nearly $2.78 million in damages after a jury found that her hit song "Dark Horse" illegally copied Christian rap artist Marcus Gray's 2009 song "Joyful Noise."
During the proceedings musicologist Todd Decker broke down the underlying beat in both songs and testified that the ostinatos, which are short melodic phrases repeated throughout a composition, share five or six points of similarity including pitch, rhythm, texture, pattern of repetition, melodic shape and timbre.
Given the similarities, the musicologist concluded that Perry had indeed "borrowed" the underlying beat from "Joyful Noise" for "Dark Horse."
To read more stories from a Christian perspective, visit christianpost.com.
