%1

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is taking a toll on Christian publishing companies. The publishing arms of the nation’s two largest Protestant denominations—the Southern Baptist Con­vention and the United Methodist Church—both announced staff cuts at the end of April as a result of the virus.

The United Methodist Publishing House will lay off about 70 of its 296 employees in June. The Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Christian Re­sources started reducing staff on May 1, in addition to implementing hiring and salary freezes and cutbacks.

While most people in the United States have been focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision to revoke the reservation status of a Native American tribe’s more than 300 acres in Massachusetts has gone relatively unnoticed, according to the Native American Inter­national Caucus of the United Methodist Church.

In a recent statement, NAIC leaders raised concerns about the secretary of the interior’s 2018 decision to disestablish tribal lands of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, located on Cape Cod.