Sebastian Gorka is the radio host of America First With Sebastian Gorka and is a non-resident scholar at the Institute of World Politics. He previously served as an associate dean at the National Defense University, among other teaching posts, and served as a deputy assistant for strategy to President Donald Trump in 2017. He’s a guest instructor for the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Pets on planes. The stories have become their own sub-genre in journalism.

Consider the 2014 story of US Airways Flight 598, which was en route from Los Angeles to Philadelphia but was diverted to Kansas City because a dog had diarrhea.

The canonization of Freddie Mercury is now complete.

Making the case for his beatification is the box-office hit Bohemian Rhapsody, a biopic released in U.S. theaters on Nov. 2 last year and on DVD today. The movie traces the early life of the lead singer of Queen, the band’s decline, and its triumphant re-emergence in a 1985 Live Aid performance. Some critics and music historians have called that 20-minute set the greatest single rock performance of all time.

J.D. Greear, 45, is the pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C.—one of the largest and fastest-growing churches in the country. He’s also an author and the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Below are edited excerpts of Warren Cole Smith’s recent interview with Greear on Listening In.

Laura Story is a worship leader at Perimeter Church, one of the largest churches in Atlanta. She received national attention as a songwriter when Chris Tomlin's version of her song “Indescribable” went to No. 2 on the Christian music charts in 2004. Laura’s 2011 album Blessings went to No. 1, and the title track from that album won a Grammy Award. Her new album is Open Hands.

Anne Paulk is the executive director of Restored Hope Network, an ex-gay ministry made up primarily of former members of Exodus International, which dissolved in 2013. For many years, Anne and her ex-husband, John Paulk, were perhaps the most visible faces of the ex-gay movement. They wrote a book together called Love Won Out: How God’s Love Helped Two People Leave Homosexuality and Find Each Other. Though John Paulk renounced his ministry, abandoned his marriage, and came out again as gay, Anne Paulk continues her work in ex-gay ministry.

When the Boy Scouts of America decided to accept gay scouts, many Christian families, some with rich histories in Scouting, became concerned. Those concerns turned to alarm as the Boy Scouts allowed gay adult leaders, and, most recently, transgender youth. Those families worked to form Trail Life USA in 2014 as a Christian alternative to Boy Scouts. I spoke with Trail Life USA CEO Mark Hancock at the group’s headquarters, Camp Aiken, in South Carolina.