By René Marsh, CNN

(CNN) — A “Christ is Risen” Easter message sent by the secretary of agriculture has sparked backlash inside the department, angering some of its nearly 100,000 employees and prompting a formal complaint against the secretary for the religious message.

Employees at the department’s 4,500 offices across the country received an email From Secretary Brooke Rollins on Sunday: “Happy Easter — He is Risen indeed!”

Rollins told all department staff it was a day to celebrate “the foundation of our faith.”

“From the foot of the Cross on Good Friday to the stone rolled away from the now empty tomb, sin has been destroyed. Jesus has been raised from the dead. And God has granted each of us victory and new life,” the email read.

The complaint, obtained by CNN, was filed with the Office of Special Counsel by Ethan Roberts, the president of a local union for federal employees who is also an employee at USDA. The OSC is an independent federal investigative agency that investigates whistleblower complaints from federal employees with claims of violations of laws, rules or regulations.

In his complaint, Roberts said the email was a “pro-Christianity sermon” sent to all USDA employees on Easter Day, claiming it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Roberts added that the email “eroded the separation of church and state.”

Roberts told CNN the secretary’s email speaking of “sin” and “Hell” made him “feel as if that was my fate if I did not treat Easter as holy as Secretary Rollins does.”

The complaint calls for the retraction of the Easter email and a stop to any further department emails that celebrate or endorse religious holidays.

A USDA spokesperson told CNN in a statement, “The Secretary is within her rights to send a message to employees and the public on the Easter holiday. Just like Secretaries of Agriculture and Presidents have in the past.”

The Freedom from Religion Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for the separation of church and state told CNN it fielded complaints about Rollins’ Easter message from nearly 30 USDA employees who expressed outrage, describing the message as “inappropriate and insulting.” The organization said it sent a formal letter to the secretary demanding she stop “promoting your personal religious beliefs through official communications.”

Under President Donald Trump, moments like this, rare in recent administrations, are becoming commonplace. Americans have been encouraged to pray for an hour each week. Some government agencies have opened their meetings with prayer or hosted regular faith services. Bible verses and Christian imagery now appear on official government social media accounts.

A series of faith initiatives championed by the White House have led to a systematic religious revival within the government’s operations, culture and policy.

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By Jackie Wattles, CNN

(CNN) — The Artemis II astronauts have faced down numerous dangers on their historic moon mission — including white-knuckling through liftoff on April 1 as their rocket burned through millions of gallons of fuel and braving perilous fields of radiation en route to the moon.

But perhaps the most daunting milestone lies ahead: reentry.

During this phase of flight, the astronauts’ spacecraft comes roaring toward Earth and dips back into the thick inner band of our planet’s atmosphere while still traveling more than 30 times the speed of sound. The process causes a violent compression of air molecules that can heat the capsule’s exterior to more than 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).

“I’ll be honest and say, I’ve actually been thinking about entry since April 3, 2023, when we got assigned to this mission,” Artemis II astronaut Victor Glover said of reentry during an event with media Wednesday. “One of the first press conferences, we were asked, what are we looking forward to? And I said, splashdown. And it’s kind of humorous, but it’s literal as well — that we have to get back. There’s so much data that you’ve seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us. There’s so many more pictures, so many more stories.”

Reentry is considered one of the most — if not the most — precarious steps of any flight to space. And Artemis II will be going through it with a known issue mission controllers are tracking.

The problem came to light after the uncrewed Artemis I test flight around the moon in 2022, after which mission teams found that the capsule’s heat shield had returned with concerning pockmarks and cracking. A heat shield is a crucial piece of hardware designed to protect a spacecraft and its astronauts from extreme temperatures as they’re descending back to Earth.

The Artemis I Orion spacecraft still returned home safely and in one piece, but the damage raised questions about how well engineers understood the material used to create this hardware, called Avcoat, and how it behaves during the dangerous and dynamic final phase of flight.

If the heat shield becomes damaged or cracks in a particular way, it could lead to catastrophic failure. And there is no escape mechanism that could save the astronauts during this point in the journey. If the heat shield fails, the mission and crew would be lost.

The Artemis II Orion spacecraft has a heat shield that’s nearly identical to the one that flew on Artemis I. And NASA officials have acknowledged that it is less than ideal. But the agency maintains that it can bring the astronauts — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — home safely, due to some changes made to the mission’s reentry strategy.

Mission managers say they are confident they have done their homework and understand the heat shield’s limitations and how to protect the crew, said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, during a Thursday news briefing. And “the crew is going to put their lives behind that confidence,” he said.<

MONTECITO, Calif. — “I’m a widow from the South Side of Chicago… this is something built strictly from the heart.”

That’s how Toya Banks describes the journey behind Hermanas Amigas Tequila—a brand whose name translates to “sister friends,” and whose foundation is rooted in love, loss, and resilience.

“There are sisters, there are friends, and there are sister friends,” Banks said. “This is my love letter to my sister friends who are closer than any brother.”

Banks’ path into the tequila business didn’t begin with ambition—it began with grief.

Within just three years, she lost her brother, her husband of 18 years, and her mother, all while raising her young daughter. The weight of that loss, she says, was overwhelming.

But she wasn’t alone.

Her closest friends stepped in, each supporting her in deeply personal ways. One moved in with her for two months. Another cooked dinner every Sunday. One made sure her daughter got to school, while another showed up simply to make sure Banks got out of bed and faced the day.

Together, they helped her survive.

“Do I still cry? Do I still grieve? Yes,” Banks said. “But tomorrow is a new day and the sun will shine again.”

In the midst of that pain, the women created a ritual—Friday nights spent together, sharing conversation and tequila. What started as a small way to cope became something more meaningful.

“It was our way of gathering, our way of being together, to laugh a little—to bring some normalcy back to me,” Banks said. “And when I saw that bonding over tequila brought us even closer, I said—we made it our own.”

That realization sparked an idea.

Banks began building what would become Hermanas Amigas Tequila, a brand inspired entirely by those moments and the women who carried her through them.

She calls the tequila a “love letter” to her sister friends—but the sentiment goes beyond the bottle.

After launching the brand, Banks wrote a personal letter to the women who stood by her side—one she says still brings her to tears.

“No matter how many times I read the letter, it still makes me cry,” she said. “Because it’s my life. And they loved me so much—they wanted me to win. They wanted me to come back to life.”

Now, Hermanas Amigas Tequila is reaching a major milestone. This week, the brand officially hits shelves at Pavilions in Montecito—a full-circle moment for a business born from heartbreak.

As her story continues to resonate, Banks hopes it encourages others to lean into the power of connection and community.

“This is bigger than tequila,” she said. “It’s about sisterhood. It’s about healing.”

And above all, it’s a reminder that even through grief, light can still be found—sometimes in the people who refuse to let you go.

The post ‘A Love Letter to Sister Friends’: How Toya Banks Turned Grief Into Purpose Through Tequila appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

Por Rocío Muñoz-Ledo y Michal Ruprecht, CNN en Español

Ezequiel Véliz había perdido su trabajo como médico en una zona rural de Texas con escasez de doctores hace unos cinco meses. Esta semana, mientras viajaba hacia Houston con su esposo, fue detenido por agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza, en medio de la ofensiva migratoria de Donald Trump que ha dejado a médicos extranjeros en un limbo legal.

Véliz llegó a Estados Unidos desde Venezuela años atrás, buscando continuar su formación médica. Con el tiempo logró integrarse a un programa de residencia en medicina familiar en el Valle del Río Grande, una región en la frontera sur de Texas donde los doctores son escasos.

Allí atendía a pacientes con enfermedades crónicas muy comunes en la zona, como diabetes, hipertensión y obesidad, cuyas tasas superan el 30 %. “Cada vez que veía a un paciente diabético que mejoraba gracias a mi atención, realmente me llenaba de alegría y satisfacción”, contó el médico de 32 años en una entrevista con CNN antes de ser detenido. “Sentía que estaba haciendo algo bueno por esta sociedad”.

“Todo esto ha sido una pesadilla total y absoluta”, cuenta a CNN Joseph Williams, su esposo. “De verdad desearía poder cambiarme de lugar con él porque es una persona increíble. Realmente no merece esto”, añadió Williams, quien es ciudadano estadounidense.

Williams recuerda que el viaje a Houston había sido tranquilo, incluso hicieron bromas durante el camino. “Pensamos que iba a ser una mudanza rutinaria, honestamente”, dijo previamente en una entrevista con Jake Tapper.

Pero al llegar al punto de control los agentes preguntaron por su estatus migratorio. Según Williams, Véliz explicó que su esposo era ciudadano estadounidense y que él estaba en proceso de obtener una nueva visa y presentó documentos. Sin embargo, le pidieron que bajara del coche para una revisión.

Desde el vehículo, Williams esperó sin información clara durante horas, mientras intentaba saber qué ocurría con su esposo. Finalmente, Véliz regresó para decirle que estaba siendo detenido por supuestamente haber excedido su estadía de visa, algo que él negó, según su esposo.

Le dio un abrazo y un beso antes de que los agentes lo separaran. Véliz le pidió que llamaran a su abogado y a una amiga. Luego fue escoltado por los agentes y se lo llevaron, según Williams.

La Patrulla Fronteriza (CBP, por sus siglas en inglés) dijo en un comunicado enviado a CNN que Véliz Cáceres se presentó a inspección en el punto de control Javier Vega Jr., ubicado cerca de Sarita, una comunidad al sur de Texas, donde mostró una solicitud de visa J-1. “Cuando se le preguntó si tenía una visa válida en su poder, el señor Veliz-Caceres declaró que no la tenía”, dice el comunicado.

La CBP añadió que una solicitud de J-1 “no califica como un estatus migratorio que le permita estar o permanecer en Estados Unidos” y ahora se encuentra bajo custodia de la Patrulla Fronteriza pendiente de deportación. CNN consultó a la CBP si el médico sería deportado, cuándo podría ocurrir, detalles sobre su estatus migratorio y si su detención tenía relación con la cobertura mediática, y espera respuesta.

CNN contactó al abogado de Véliz para conocer más detalles del caso y espera respuesta.

Todo cambió cuando el Gobierno de Trump suspendió el año pasado las protecciones contra la deportación para los venezolanos y amplió las restricciones migratorias a ciudadanos de 39 países considerados de “alto riesgo”, lo que dejó a Véliz sin estatus legal para trabajar.

Desde entonces, Véliz había contado a CNN que llevaba meses sin poder ejercer tras perder su trabajo como médico. En ese momento vivía con un amigo en Houston, sin poder pagar la renta y tratando de regularizar su estatus para volver a trabajar. “Perderlo ha sido muy duro, y parece que a n

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) - The countdown to the 83rd Annual Santa Maria Elks Rodeo and Parade is now officially underway with the recent announcement of this year's Queen Contest candidates.

During the annual Queen Kickoff and Auction Dinner held at the Santa Maria Elks Lodge, the candidates and their sponsoring non-profit organizations that were revealed included, Reiyna Sarin (Allan Hancock College Athletic Boosters) Savannah Salcido (Kiwanis Club of Guadalupe), Annabella Williams (Los Alamos Valley Men’s Club), and Morgan Fasse (St. Joseph High School).

"The Queen Kickoff is when they start raising funds for their organizations," said Elks Recreation President, Peter Sterling. "Each one of them has the opportunity to raise as much money as they can and the one that raises the most money is the one that wins the Queen crown." 

Over the next seven weeks, the candidates and sponsoring organizations will raise money through a variety of different fundraisers and events.

"Typically, there's a couple of auctions going on," said Sterling. "That's a lot of the main fundraisers. I have one organization that is raffling off a brand new Corvette. You can buy some tickets for that and at the end of the campaign, they have a drawing and you can be the winner. There's a lot of fun events that you can go to and a lot of creative ways that they raise money. Check out their Facebook websites and I'll bet you'll find something that'll really interests you."

The contest will culminate with the announcement of the winner and the coronation of the new Queen on Friday, May 29.

Since it was created more than 80 years ago, the Queen Contest has raised more than $18 million with all the money directly supporting local youth recreation and activities.

"Nothing goes outside of this community," said Sterling. "The City of Santa Maria and its outlying areas have all benefited from that obviously and we really appreciate it. We're one of the unique programs that I've heard of like this. I haven't heard of any other organizations in the rodeo, world, that have really tried this kind of a contest."

The 83rd Annual Santa Maria Elks Rodeo and Parade will be held May 27 through May 31.

Opening night for the second straight year will be the performance of Xtreme Bulls, followed by four consecutive days of the traditional schedule of Elk Rodeo events.

For more information, click here to visit the official Elk Rodeo website at elksrec.com.

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