First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy has released its fifth annual Religious Liberty in the States (RLS) index. Arkansas reached a religious safeguard score of 89.7% and Tennessee an 85%, placing them in the “excellent” rating category. No other states in past reports have scored above the 80% “excellent” mark. Arkansas also placed first in the study for the first time. At the state capitol, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the study’s results.  “Religious liberty is America’s First Freedom, and Arkansas is leading the nation in protecting it,” Sanders said. “Our rights come from God, not government, and every American should be free to live according to their faith and conscience. We’ll continue defending that freedom and ensuring the Natural State remains the best place in the country to live, work, and worship.”

“It’s hard to believe that Finnish Member of Parliament and Christian Päivi Räsänen has been banned from flying through London’s Heathrow Airport simply for her belief on Biblical sexuality,” Graham wrote. “She has been persecuted for many years in her home country and accused of ‘hate speech’ simply for quoting what the Bible says about homosexual sin in Romans 1:24-27. Let’s pray for Päivi as she stands boldly on God’s Word and refuses to back down. God bless her.”

“In this moment,” she said, “I don’t want it to be lost on us what is going on here: that we have a president, and a staff surrounding him, that saw the importance and the need to call [on] God. Because for 250 years this nation has returned again and again to the God who created this beautiful country that we get to call home. We do this not because we’re perfect people; we’re not. But woven into the fabric of America is a deep and persistent belief that we cannot persevere on our own—that we need God.”

A West Virginia high school student—who for the past four years has fought to protect female sports from male participation—says the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding her state’s laws to keep men out of women’s athletics is evidence of God’s faithfulness after He called her to stand on Biblical truth.

“We know the YMCA has heard these concerns,” the letter stressed. “On multiple occasions, shortly after APC publicly exposed these policies, the YMCA removed or changed the webpages containing them. But the policies themselves didn’t change. In fact, our most recent investigation found that some YMCA camps have expanded these practices to allow adult biological male counselors to sleep in girls’ cabins so long as those male counselors identify as girls.”

Arguments concluded Friday in the preliminary hearing of the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk last fall. Tyler Robinson’s defense team attempted to cast doubt on video, ballistics, and DNA evidence. Meanwhile, prosecutors showcased multiple videos of what appeared to be Robinson on the Utah campus the day of the shooting, and digital messages in which Robinson seems to confess to the murder.