Page 27 - Gary Bledsoe News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Texas' GOP lawmakers want to force protesting Democratic colleagues to come back to the state Capitol to vote on a divisive elections bill.

Trump’s fake fraud claims inspire real voting restrictions, leaving Democrats desperate Jess Bidgood © Eric Gay Some Texans supported the move by the state’s Democratic lawmakers to leave Austin and fly to Washington, D.C., in a bid to slow passage of legislation tightening voting rules. DALLAS — The Conservative Political Action Conference that unfolded in a stuffy hotel ballroom here over the weekend could be mistaken for a chaotic sideshow, as some attendees carefully considered which size QAnon T-shirt would fit them best, members of extremist groups including the...

BELTON — The 50th annual God and Country concert offered a patriotic tonic to a near-capacity crowd Sunday afternoon at the First Baptist Church of Belton. Directed by Gary Bledsoe, the church’s minister of music, the choir, with an orchestra, combined the worship choirs of the First Baptist Church in Belton, Taylor’s Valley Baptist Church in Temple, First Baptist Church in Temple and Eastside Baptist Church in Copperas Cove. The choir opened with the “Star-Spangled Banner” and brought the crowd to its feet with its closing song, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.â€...

First Baptist Church in Belton will continue its long-lasting Fourth of July tradition when it holds its 50th annual God and Country Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday — an event that also will feature worship choirs from Taylor’s Valley Baptist Church in Temple and Eastside Baptist Church in Copperas Cove. Vocalists will be accompanied by First Baptist Church’s orchestra. Gary Bledsoe, executive pastor for worship, said he expects to have as many as 100 people in the choir and 16 in the orchestra for the one-hour concert. He stressed how the event’s golden anniversary, which is fre...

View Comments AUSTIN — Senfronia Thompson was in her 20s and living in Houston when grainy black-and-white news footage flickered on televisions showing Blacks in the South seeking the right to vote being bowled over by firehoses and menaced by dogs straining at leashes held by uniformed police police officers. Those images first flashed nearly 60 years ago, but they remain seared in her memory. "Persons were killed, dogs unleashed on them, firehoses unleashed on them for the rights that we all share in this room," said Thompson, now 82 and the longest-serving Black member of the Legisla...