A New Orleans congregation called Vintage Church has been hit with two criminal summons alleging that the church's Sunday services are too noisy. The Jefferson Parish sheriff's office has repeatedly visited the tent where the church operates while their building is under construction, asking that services be quieter than 60 decibels — which is about as loud as a normal conversation or an air conditioning unit — and that Sunday set-up start only 10 minutes before services begin.
Vintage Church has launched a suit against the sheriff's office in response, noting that the sheriffs admit there is no law actually on the books dictating the 60 decibel limit. The congregation of several hundred has already pared down its worship to a few acoustic instruments in an attempt to be quieter, but Pastor Rob Hargrove says the sheriff's office has sent multiple cars to monitor the services' sound, even fingerprinting another pastor during a service while delivering the summons.
"[The sheriffs] have been very visual, unfortunately very unfriendly and intimidating to our staff and our church," Hargrove said. "I think its pretty unreasonable for you to have five, six police cars being called in to this type of a scene. Just by mere amount of cars, that's the intimidation factor." Bonnie Kristian
About 170 migrants are missing and feared dead after two shipwrecks in the Mediterranean this week.
Three survivors of one wreck rescued by an Italian naval helicopter on Friday said they'd been on a ship with about 120 people which began sinking after leaving Libya Thursday. A 2-month-old baby was among the passengers. Another 53 people who sailed from Morocco are also missing, though at least one person from that boat was rescued.
"We cannot turn a blind eye to the high numbers of people dying on Europe's doorstep," said a statement from the United Nations' refugee agency. "No effort should be spared, or prevented, from saving lives in distress at sea." Bonnie Kristian
Local authorities by Saturday evening had revised their estimate of deaths in a Friday explosion at a Mexican fuel pipeline to 73, with another 74 people injured in the blast and more still missing.
The death toll was initially put at 21 but quickly rose. Casualties are high because a crowd of hundreds of villagers had gathered in hopes of collecting free gasoline after the pipeline was punctured by fuel thieves. Gas stations in the area have been rationing gasoline because of fuel shortages, and word of the spill from the pipeline spread quickly.
"I trust in the people, and I know that with these painful, regrettable lessons, the people will also distance themselves from these practices" of fuel theft, said Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who visited the site of the tragedy Saturday. Bonnie Kristian
When BuzzFeed News approached Peter Carr, spokesman for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, for comment on Thursday's explosive report, Carr was not told the full scope of what BuzzFeed planned to publish, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
Emails from BuzzFeed reporters say they have "a story coming stating that Michael Cohen was directed by President Trump himself to lie to Congress about his negotiations related to the Trump Moscow project." The emails do not mention reporting that Mueller's office had collected document evidence and a confession from Cohen. Carr's denial of the BuzzFeed story the next day was delayed by the special counsel's office's efforts to independently verify BuzzFeed's claims, the Post reports.
BuzzFeed again stood by its reporting in a second statement Saturday. "As we've re-confirmed our reporting, we've seen no indication that any specific aspect of our story is inaccurate," the statement said. "We remain confident in what we've reported, and will share more as we are able."
Read the full Washington Post story here. Bonnie Kristian
