Senior Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne of the River at Tampa Bay Church posted a photo of the signs on his church doors: “WE ARE HEAVILY ARMED — ANY ATTEMPT WILL BE DEALT WITH DEADLY FORCE — YES WE ARE A CHURCH AND WE WILL PROTECT OUR PEOPLE.”

The signs on the 21-year-old nondenominational church are about a year old, but caught national attention on social media after Howard-Browne’s post was covered by news outlets in the weeks after the Sutherland Springs shooting.

The post has received both praise and criticism.

“Very sad that it is necessary to carry and be alert for killers while worshiping. It is our right and our duty to protect self and others — even in church,” Instagram user dorothea6111 commented.

“Awesome! Had the same idea for my church,” another Instagram user, gerswhin75, commented. “For those that are shocked by this — God will protect His people, but He expects us to do our part. That’s why we use seat belts, or wear helmets . . . just like others. We do our part, let God do His.”

Some state and federal […]

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Imagine heading out to run errands at all your usual places, and your phone’s “equity app” has a better idea. Siri might say: “Buy your groceries at one of these other stores, just as close as your regular store.” Or: “There are three coffee shops within 2 miles. You haven’t tried this one before.”

We already get shopping suggestions when we bring up Google Maps, especially when our smartphones are transmitting our GPS coordinates. A similar type of computation is happening behind the scenes at Facebook and Twitter, whose targeted ads can sometimes be scarily on point.

But what if, instead of just boosting sales, those suggestions coming from your phone were designed to address social problems like inequality?

A group of researchers in France and Spain may have solved one preliminary puzzle toward getting us to that point. In the paper “Crowdsourcing the Robin Hood Effect in Cities,” published in June in the journal Applied Network Science, the researchers describe a computer algorithm they created that attempts to “rewire” the complex network of commercial transactions and shopping trips people take part in every […]

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Some 59,000 Haitians living in the U.S. under temporary status must leave within 18 months, the Trump administration announced Monday.

More than 30,000 of the Haitians affected by the order live in Florida, with another large concentration in New York City.

Haitians who entered the U.S. illegally have been protected against deportation since 2010 under a program known as Temporary Protected Status, which Congress created during the 1990s to avoid sending large numbers of people back to areas suffering from wars or natural disasters.

In Haiti’s case, the temporary status was granted in 2010, after a powerful earthquake devastated the island, which has long been among the poorest places in the Western Hemisphere.

In May, John F. Kelly, who was the secretary of Homeland Security at the time, said that conditions in Haiti had improved enough that the U.S. would be unlikely to continue extending the temporary protection. At the time, he extended Haitians’ protected status for six months, but urged them to prepare to leave the U.S.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine C. Duke reaffirmed that decision Monday, but […]

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A woman looks as her husband climbs down a ladder at a partially destroyed bridge, after Hurricane Maria hit the area in September, in Utuado, Puerto Rico November 9, 2017. Credit: Alvin Baez/ Reuters

Monday marks two months since Hurricane Maria plowed through Puerto Rico with a deadly destruction that left island residents scraping for survival or forced to flee to the U.S. mainland.

The hurricane made landfall Sept. 20, ripping through the island’s shaky infrastructure. The electrical system has been partially resuscitated, helped by mega-generators imported by the Army Corps of Engineers, but as of Monday, less than half — 46.6 percent — of Puerto Rico had power.

Getting the island back up to full power has proved daunting,stumping a recovery that can’t get going without electricity up and running.

Telecommunications is still operating at about 75 percent capacity and cellphone service at 65 percent, and one-in-10 Puerto Ricans still lack potable water.

On Monday, former President Bill Clinton was visiting the island on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, which has said […]

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Christofascist Reverend Jamie Johnson has resigned as an interfaith outreach coordinator for Homeland Security

The list of people who have resigned from the Donald Trump administration, via scandal or controversy or alleged criminal behavior or other embarrassing fashion, is so long that it’s difficult to recite it from memory. As of today, yet another Trump administration official has resigned in disgrace – and in this instance it’s a particularly hypocritical development, even by Trumpian standards.

Despite the separation of church and state mandated by the United States Constitution, there is a position in the Donald Trump administration called the “Director of the Center for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Homeland Security.” Reverend Jamie Johnson held that position until today, when he was forced to resign over inappropriate remarks he’d made before taking the job. His remarks are so over the top, they reveal that he’s not a legitimate reverend or religious leader, but a paranoid racist and a deranged lunatic.

Before taking the DHS job, Johnson would call into talk radio and attack […]

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