Friday's News & Ideas - 10/29/2021

Families in Charleston church massacre reach $88M settlement with DOJ
NPR: The families of nine people who died in a racist mass shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., have reached an $88 million settlement with the Department of Justice, after accusing federal agencies of failing to prevent convicted shooter Dylann Roof from buying a gun.

Here’s how your church can help survivors of domestic violence
Sojourners: According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.

Mark Labberton hopes his successor at Fuller will be a woman or a person of color
Religion News Service: “I think in this next chapter the president should certainly be, I hope, at least a full generation younger and different from me than we've had in the past — in either race or gender,” said Mark Labberton, president of Fuller Theological Seminary.

Nearly half of all churches and other faith institutions help people get enough to eat
The Conversation: While the government’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program was helping nearly 42 million Americans purchase groceries in mid-2021, those benefits often don’t cover the full food costs of people facing economic hardship.

Religious violence flares up in India and Bangladesh*
The Washington Post: Attacks against religious minorities are flaring up on both sides of a porous, hilly border separating India and Bangladesh, raising the prospect of swelling violence between Hindus and Muslims after Bangladesh was rocked by one of its worst bouts of communal strife in years.

The Spark

Keep or replace? The fate of the Minneapolis police is in voters’ hands.
In the city where the “defund the police” movement took off, voters will decide next week whether to replace their Police Department with a new public safety agency,* The New York Times says.

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