Good morning!

It is surreal and sobering to see your town make international headlines—for all the wrong reasons. At a campground just a few miles from the Trumpet’s offices in rural Edmond, Oklahoma, a wild party turned violent around 9 p.m. on Sunday.

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• At a large gathering of youths at nearby Lake Arcadia, a fight broke out before multiple gunshots injured at least 13 people. Thankfully, nobody was killed.
• A manhunt is underway for two gunmen who escaped and remain at large.

Videos and witness accounts of the “Sunday Funday” event, promoted via social media and flyers, show a raucous, sexualized party atmosphere, with no evident parental presence or supervision.

• Such events at public parks often bypass permits, security and crowd control. Organizers have limited ability or incentive to screen people or enforce rules.

A broader trend of “teen takeovers” (sometimes called “pop-ups” or “juvenile flash mobs”) has led to disruptions nationwide—large, loosely organized gatherings of teenagers and young adults coordinated almost entirely through social media.

• A viral post or flyer announces a time and public location, and within hours, crowds can swell to hundreds, overwhelming local authorities. Many escalate into fights, vandalism, property damage, theft or worse.
• In Chicago, teens swarmed Hyde Park and the Loop, climbing cars, setting off alarms, and damaging vehicles. Jacksonville, Florida, had several takeovers at beaches and malls that ended in fights and shootings. In Atlanta, one gathering led to 14 arrests and 10 firearms recovered. Other cities (Detroit; Washington, D.C.; Tampa; Milwaukee; Los Angeles) reported trashed businesses, stampedes and overwhelmed police.
• Such scenes often involve alcohol, drugs and minimal adult supervision. Easy access to guns elevates the risk.

This trend well illustrates the potent cocktail of influences assailing young people today and how social media easily intensifies it.

Young people need guidance. They need rules, limits and moral boundaries. They need supervision. And they need involved parents who build in them a sense of responsibility and purpose in life.

• The absence of these ingredients is having appalling effects in the lives of young people worldwide.

If you want help in bringing up your children and equipping them for a rich, abundant, purpose-driven life, request a free copy of our invaluable book Child Rearing With Vision.

Iran War Update

• The U.S. will start escorting ships out of the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump said today. In Project Freedom, he said, the U.S. Navy will deal “forcefully” with any Iranian attempts at disruption.
• Iran offered a peace deal plan Thursday, which Trump said on Saturday he was reviewing. The plan appears to cross all his red lines, calling for a resolution of all issues within 30 days, removal of U.S. forces, unfreezing Iranian assets, continuing enrichment of Iran’s uranium, and a guarantee not to attack again.
• Is Trump’s blockade working? The U.S. has intercepted at least 44 ships clandestinely sending Iranian oil to China. Over a million Iranians are unemployed, and the value of Iran’s currency has fallen sharply.
• Iran fired on a U.S. warship today, state media claimed. U.S. Central Command disputes this, but yesterday a cargo ship near the Strait of Hormuz reported being attacked by smaller boats.
• Attacking Iran was a mistake, 61 percent of American adults said in an April 24–28 Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll. This is the same level of disapproval—for a conflict with few casualties lasting only a few weeks—as that of the years-long Vietnam War in which 50,000 Americans died.

U.S. Pulls Troops From Germany

Approximately 5,000 American troops will redeploy out of Germany in the next 6 to 12 months, the U.S. Department of War announced on Friday. The next day, President Donald Trump said: “We’re going to cut way down, and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.”

• The United States has 80,000 to 100,000 troops stationed in Europe, more than 35,000 of whom are in Germany.

This is part of the ongoing prophesied break between America and Germany.

• German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told afp the decision was anticipated and used the opportunity to frame the withdrawal as yet another reason for Germany to rearm, remarking, “We Europeans must take greater responsibility for our security.”
• Trump also announced on Friday night on Truth Social that he will increase the tariff rate on cars and trucks from the European Union from 15 percent to 25 percent.

EU member states have long relied on the U.S. for protection and benefited from it as a trading partner. Germany has not considered this a permanent solution but rather an arrangement of convenience.

The nato alliance “has kept Germany’s military down,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in 2022, “but it has also helped its economy become one of the best in the world and helped it reunite and exert unquestioned political power over Europe! And German elites still feel ‘kept down’ compared to what they know their economy, politics and military could be.”

Germany knows that it can build Europe into an unprecedented superpower if it gets these nations to stop relying on the U.S. and look to its leadership. The U.S. troop withdrawal will hasten this trend.

Pope Makes Former Illegal Immigrant a Bishop

Evelio Menjivar-Ayala first arrived in the United States hidden in the trunk of a car. On May 1, Pope Leo xiv appointed him as bishop of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia.

This appointment is the latest of a series of jabs by the Vatican against President Trump. The pope has made several statements criticizing U.S. immigration enforcement as undignified, troubling and “inhuman.”

Evelio Menjivar-Ayala is an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s policies on immigration.

• Last year, he spoke out against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids against violent migrants in Washington, D.C., saying, “That could have been me.” “For weeks now, the federal government has pursued a ‘shock and awe’ campaign of aggressive threats and highly visible operations of questionable legality that go far beyond mere immigration ‘enforcement,’” he wrote at the time.
• He gave a portion of his acceptance speech in Spanish, despite the fact that only 2.4 percent of the population of his new diocese is Latino.

Many of the illegal immigrants coming into the U.S. are Catholic. In fact, 10 years ago, then Bishop of San Diego Robert McElroy estimated mass deportation of illegal immigrants could remove 10 percent of the Catholic Church’s parishioners.

In 2011, Archbishop José Horacio Gómez described immigration as a way to fundamentally change America’s character, saying, “Immigration is a key to our American renewal.”

• He described the America of men like “Washington, Jefferson and Madison” and “great documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights” as an “Anglo-Protestant” story. He wanted to embrace a different “Hispanic-Catholic” America, “centered not in New England but in Nueva España—New Spain—at opposite corners of the continent.”

When Pope Leo was elected, the Trumpet wrote:

Will it take an American pope to bring down the traditional American economic system? Flooding the U.S. with immigrants from nations where Catholic social doctrine is practiced is certainly one way to bring down America’s free-market system. … Like Francis before him, the new pope will undoubtedly use Hispanic immigration to move America away from the traditional free-market principles it was founded on and toward the neo-feudalism of the Holy Roman Empire.

Nearly a year later, he has clearly done just that.

China Opens Tariff-Free Trade to Africa

China opened tariff-free access to its market to 53 of Africa’s 54 nations, effective from May 1, another advancement of the Chinese Communist Party’s global anti-America trade network.

• The move expands a zero-tariff policy that China put in place for 33 African nations in December 2024.
• That policy helped lift China-Africa trade to a record $347 billion last year—up 17.7 percent over the previous year.
• With tariff-free access to Chinese markets now being rolled out to the entire continent except Eswatini (excluded due to its ties with Taiwan), this figure is expected to further increase.

The development will last until at least April 30, 2028, according to China’s Commerce Ministry. It is likely to boost China’s purchases of African oil, gas, copper, cobalt, iron ore, manganese, chromium, bauxite and gold, as well as agricultural, processed foods and manufactured products. China’s sales of a wide range of manufactured items to Africa will also likely increase.

The move will create “development opportunities for African countries,” the Chinese Communist Party’s Commerce Ministry wrote in a statement.

• In a thinly veiled swipe at American tariff policies, it added that the measure comes during an era when “unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise.”

China’s move is a “soft power masterstroke,” wrote Semafor Africa’s managing editor Alexis Akwagyiram:

[T]he policy marks a major market access opportunity for the continent and positions Beijing as a trusted ally in stark contrast to Washington, which has wielded tariffs punitively.

Neo-colonialism: The zero-tariff policy aligns with China’s broader push to expand its economic trade flows across all of Africa—from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. The Chinese Communist Party is accomplishing this through aggressive infrastructure financing and construction, long-term operating concessions, trade integration and, when opportune, amassing bits of partner nations’ sovereignty.

• The push is giving the Chinese Communist Party ever-greater control over decision-making in capitals across Africa, while tightening its grip on the continent’s supply chains and key maritime choke points.

Together, these maneuvers are positioning China not just as Africa’s leading economic partner but as a power broker with growing leverage across the continent.

Biblical prophecy warns that countries around the globe will build a vast trade network, with China as a major hub. This network’s primary purpose will be to block the United States and some of its allies out of global trade. To understand the details of this prophesied trade alliance, read our Trends article “Why the Trumpet Watches the Development of a Massive Anti-American Trade Bloc.”

IN OTHER NEWS

European Union-mercosur trade deal now live: The massive EU-mercosur Partnership Agreement took effect on Friday, four months after its signing and 25 years after negotiations began. That means the 27 members of the EU and the four members of mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) are now applying tariff cuts and allowing firms from across the Atlantic to bid on business and government contracts. The deal is provisional, however, because it is under review for legality by the Court of Justice of the European Union and has not been fully ratified. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is pursuing implementation, with constitutional legality and the will of European people and nations as an afterthought, and is overpowering France in its push to create a $22 trillion economic zone of 720 million people that also encroaches on the United States’ trade. Bible prophecy warns that a rising European superpower is about to cut the U.S. off from the global market.

Appeals court re-restricts mail-order abortion drugs: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals suspended a Food and Drug Administration policy from the Biden presidency that allows suppliers to mail mifepristone without prior consent from a physician. Mifepristone is the main drug used in abortion pills. In 2023, United States President Joe Biden removed the restriction on women requiring an examination by a physician before they could order the drug. This effectively allowed mail-in abortions on demand, despite mifepristone being linked to problems like sepsis. The recent verdict does not suspend the drug from being sent out, but at least it restores some barrier to women being able to kill their unborn babies on demand.

Ten Commandments win in Texas schools: A federal appeals court upheld Texas’s new law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public-school classroom. In a 9-8 decision on April 21, the Fifth Circuit ruled the law does not violate the United States Constitution. Judges overruled a lower court and said the Ten Commandments are part of America’s moral and legal history, and schools can honor that heritage. “This is a huge victory for religious liberty and Texas values,” said Jonathan Saenz, the leader of the Texas Values nonprofit. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are disappointed and plan to appeal to the Supreme Court. To learn more about what shaped America’s moral and legal history, read The Ten Commandments.