West
Rev. Franklin Graham begins tour of America's 'overwhelmed' southern border: 'People need hope'
FIRST ON FOX: Rev. Franklin Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association kicked off a 10-stop, 1,500-mile tour of America’s southern border this weekend, aiming to bring a “life-changing message of hope” to the struggling residents of border towns in Texas, Arizona and California.
The God Loves You Frontera Tour began in Brownsville, Texas, on Saturday, Fox News Digital was told via original statements and a press release from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association late on Saturday.
Graham is president and CEO of the group. The Spanish word frontera means border.
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“We are coming to the southern border because it is one of the neediest areas of our country at this time, and people need to hear a message of hope,” said Graham in comments to Fox News Digital.
The border area, he said, “is overwhelmed.”
Franklin Graham said the purpose of his tour of America’s southern border is to “spread hope” to these “overwhelmed” areas of the United States. He’s seen here at right along with translator David Ruiz, left. (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association)
“Everyone along the border is overwhelmed — the churches, the law enforcement agencies, the residents, those there trying to help, as well as the people coming into our country,” said Graham.
“There are a lot of hungry hearts and hurting people, so I’m coming to the border to tell everyone about God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and how He can make a difference in our lives if we put our faith and our trust in Him.”
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Steve Dorman, pastor of First Baptist Church in Brownsville, said his city is one of the poorest in the United States.
Brownsville “is quite transitory since it is located on the Texas-Mexico border,” Dorman said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.
“We want everyone in this community to know that God is always with them and loves them, and the Gospel can be a stabilizing force to help them in their lives.”
An estimated 3,800 people attended the God Loves You Frontera Tour’s first event in Brownsville, Texas, on Saturday, Feb. 24. “We want everyone in this community to know that God is always with them and loves them,” said Pastor Steve Dorman of First Baptist Church in Brownsville. (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association)
Throughout the tour, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association said it will partner with over 1,000 churches in an effort to “reach their communities with a message of God’s love.”
The planned events will feature a message from Graham, plus live music — and will serve to “offer hope to the hopeless, purpose to the lost and redemption to the broken,” said Abraham Moreno, pastor of Calvary Chapel in McAllen in comments shared with Fox News Digital.
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McAllen is the second stop on Graham’s tour.
The message of the tour is one that “heals wounds, restores broken lives and provides a way for people to experience a personal relationship with God’s Son, Jesus Christ,” said Moreno.
“Tonight I want you to know that you can have a personal relationship with God through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.”
Speaking on Saturday, Graham told the assembled crowd from the stage, “Tonight I want you to know that you can have a personal relationship with God through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.”
He also said, “If you don’t remember anything else, remember this: God loves you.”
Franklin Graham kicked off the “God Loves You Frontera Tour” on Saturday, February 24, in Brownsville, Texas. David Ruiz (left) translated the event into Spanish. (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association)
Graham also told the crowd, “The Bible says that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.”
He said, “Jesus came to save sinners. He bled and died on a cross for you. He went to the grave. He took your sins to the grave, but on the third day, He rose to life,” Graham continued.
“Your sins can be forgiven tonight, you can be set free — but you’ve got to come His way and that’s through Jesus Christ.”
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Graham addressed the hopelessness that many people feel right now.
“Maybe you feel hopeless tonight. Maybe you’ve come here hoping that something could happen that could change your life,” he said.
Marcos Witt at the Brownsville, Texas, stop of the God Loves You Frontera Tour with Rev. Franklin Graham, which just kicked off on Saturday. Witt, an American Christian music singer and pastor, was born in San Antonio, Texas. (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association)
He added, “There’s no hope except Jesus Christ.”
The tour started at the Gulf of Mexico and will go all the way to the Pacific, where it will end in Chula Vista, California, said the organization.
In exclusive comments to Fox News Digital, Rev. Graham addressed the latest incident of migrant crime in this country that has grabbed national attention.
Laken Riley, a college nursing student, was found dead several days ago on the campus of the University of Georgia.
On Friday, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra was charged with murder. Ibarra is a Venezuelan national who crossed illegally into El Paso, Texas, in Sept. 2022 and was released into the U.S. via parole, three ICE & DHS sources told Fox News.
“My heart and prayers go out to the family in Georgia who lost their daughter in this senseless killing.”
“Many tragic things are happening to the citizens of our country as well as [to] the migrants along the border because of our politicians’ failure to enforce the law,” Graham told Fox News Digital.
“My heart and prayers go out to the family in Georgia who lost their daughter in this senseless killing.”
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was founded in 1950 by evangelist Billy Graham.
It works to “share the Good News of Jesus Christ around the world,” says its website.
Franklin Graham was appointed CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 2000. He was named its president the following year.
He also runs Samaritan’s Purse, founded in 1970. It helps “meet [the] needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ,” as that group’s website notes.
Fox News Digital’s Audrey Conklin, Michael Ruiz and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed reporting.
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A man was being sought as the suspect in a double shooting in Bay Point that left one person dead and another injured early Friday morning.
The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were dispatched at about 1:30 a.m. to an unknown problem on Olivia Lane, just east of Alves Lane and south of Delta de Anza Regional Trail, which later was reported to be “shots fired.”
While arriving at the scene, deputies were flagged down by several people who were injured at the location, the Sheriff’s Office said. Deputies found one person who was unresponsive and he was taken to a hospital. The victim was later pronounced dead at the hospital, the office said.
A second person was taken to the hospital; the victim’s condition was not disclosed. The victim who died has not yet been identified.
Sheriff’s detectives identified the suspect as 35-year-old Avery Alexander Gibbs, described by the Sheriff’s Office as a transient. Gibbs was still at large as of Friday afternoon
The Sheriff’s Office said Gibbs should not be approached, and anyone seeing him should call 9-1-1. People with information on the shooting were asked to contact Sheriff’s Office investigators at (925) 313-2600 dispatcher at (925) 646-2441.
Denver, CO
Nations Cup in Colorado another showcase for Denver’s bid to host the 2031 Rugby World Cup
Think of Saturday’s rugby match at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park as a very physical audition.
The Nations Cup showdown between the USA Men’s Eagles and Portugal on the Fourth of July is another chance for Denver — long an epicenter for American growth in the sport — to showcase itself as a host city for the 2031 World Cup.
“We had that great moment at Dick’s last year where we qualified for the World Cup (by beating Samoa in the Pacific Nations Cup),” said national team captain Jason Damm. “Any opportunity to get out here, sort of in the middle of the country, feels like a connection point for the nation. It’s a good way to kick off this Nations Cup.”
Damm’s professional rugby roots are in Colorado. The Georgia native played for a team in Vail and for the Glendale Raptors, a now-defunct Major League Rugby franchise. Damm thinks Denver would be a “great fit” for hosting the 2031 Men’s and 2033 Women’s Rugby World Cups, the first time the tournaments will be held in the U.S.
“We have a lot of guys now, and I’ve had the pleasure of playing with a lot of guys who went through that American Raptors program that was here for such a long time and really wanted to look after the development of some transition players (from other sports),” Damm said. “There’s just so much great rugby out here and good competitions.”
In addition to the legacy of the Glendale/American Raptors as well as burgeoning club and youth scenes, Denver is home to “Rugbytown USA,” the city of Glendale, which boasts the first rugby-specific stadium in the U.S. at Infinity Park. That’s where Colorado’s pro women’s team, the Denver Onyx, plays. The Onyx are the reigning champions of Women’s Elite Rugby.
And the college scene is solid, too, including strong performances by local women’s squads at this spring’s sevens Collegiate Rugby Championship, where CSU and CU placed in the Division I-AA tournament, Colorado Mesa was the Division II national champion and Mines was the Division III national champion.
All of that background makes Saturday another important milestone for rugby in Colorado. The Eagles have two locals in their player pool in prop Kaleb Geiger (Castle View High School) and lock Sam Golla (Denver East High School), but both players are coming off surgery and are not on the Nations Cup roster.
Golla, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 MLR Draft and the league’s 2023 rookie of the year, sees Saturday as another chance for Colorado to prove its support of the sport amid World Rugby’s ongoing selection process for the 2031 World Cup.
“I see myself playing in the 2027 World Cup (once healthy again), and also in 2031,” Golla said. “It’s not often that your home country gets to host a World Cup, let alone you get to play in it. And then on top of that, potentially having a game in my home state in the World Cup representing my country, that would be amazing. Only one can dream of all the stars aligning in that perfect figure.”
In March 2025, the Denver Sports Commission hosted delegates from World Rugby as part of its ongoing, separate bids to host the 2031 Men’s and 2033 Women’s Rugby World Cups. While the bid for the women’s tournament is further off, the bid for the men’s tournament — one of the world’s largest sporting events — is heating up.
Last fall, World Rugby announced that 27 total cities entered the application phase. At the end of this year, World Rugby will reveal the formal candidates, and the host cities and venues will be announced following the Rugby World Cup in the fall of 2027. Eight to 10 cities are expected to be named hosts, according to Denver Sports Commission executive director Matthew Payne.
“We’ll continue to work with World Rugby on portions of the bid as they request them,” Payne said. “And so we’ll continue to give them information during this applicant phase with the whole goal of getting into the candidate phase.”
The 2023 men’s Rugby World Cup in France generated $1.95 billion in total spending, according to the Denver Sports Commission. Should Denver be named a host city, Empower Field will host matches due to its capacity, while Dick’s Sporting Goods Park and Infinity Park will serve as training venues.
The USA Men’s Eagles, which did not qualify for the 2023 Rugby World Cup, have much to prove in the year-plus leading into the sport’s biggest stage next year in Australia. The Eagles, who have never advanced past the pool stage of the tournament, are a combined 2-21 over their last six World Cup appearances. In Japan in 2019, the Eagles went 0-4 with a minus-104 scoring margin.
So beating Portugal in the 7 p.m. match on America’s semiquincentennial, and then notching wins over Zimbabwe (July 11 in Charlotte, N.C.) and Spain (July 18 in Cary, N.C.), would be a good start. None of the other three nations are rugby powerhouses, as they’ve combined for only five World Cup appearances.
The Nations Cup, which also features Tonga versus Zimbabwe on Saturday at 4:15 p.m. at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, will conclude with three additional rounds in November.
“We want to be able to compete at a Tier 1 level (which consists of the world powers, while the U.S. is Tier 2) around our set piece,” Eagles head coach Scott Lawrence said. “We feel like we have the players and the athletes to do that. We want to have a defense that stays in the fight with discipline and is physical.
“If we think about the game on Saturday and we back up from it, we’ve got to keep the end in mind, which is the World Cup. So it’s really around a new intensity, a new approach to the way that we’re building into that World Cup. And we think of Portugal as a first step along the way.”
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U.S. men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino will throw the first pitch before Friday night’s Major League Baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays, which the team was invited to attend.
Pochettino played catch with a few of his players before Friday’s practice at Husky Soccer Stadium. The U.S. plays Belgium in the World Cup round of 16 on Monday at Seattle Stadium.
Pochettino has also joined tens of thousands of fans in singing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” after the USA wins. The 54-year-old coach, who was born in Argentina and lives in Spain, has fully embraced the American experience this summer.
U.S. forward Folarin Balogun, who was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn to Nigerian parents but raised in London, marveled at the opportunities he, his teammates and the coaching staff have been afforded.
“I think that sort of stuff can only happen in America. So, I’m very, very proud,” Balogun said. “This is a unique experience for me, being in the World Cup in your home nation. And, I think you’re seeing, we’ve been able to be so focused, but, at the same time have so many things we can do to distract ourselves and to take our mind off the high-pressure environment. This evening will be another opportunity to do that.”
Reporting by the Associated Press.
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