A quick round up of news about Seventh-day Adventism around the world.

+ Fijian village church reduced to ashes, $15,000 in damage, no cause determined.

+ Another Press-Enterprise feature on Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center and its new CEO Richard Hart.

• Famous neurosurgeon, Ben Carson, receives the US Presidential Medal of Freedom,
• A newly opened sc
• hool in New Zealand wins several Master Builders awards,
• The director of the world church's new office of assessment and program effectiveness visits Australia, New Zealand and Fiji,
• Kids have rallied in South Australia whilst their parents learn how to pass on spirituality,
• A new pidgin language Bible will be launched in the Solomon's in July,

The Seattle Times notes high-tech workers and Seventh-day Adventist influence in the emerging vegetarian culture of the Pacific Northwest.

• A $2 million gift from a single donor goes for global mission
• Australian dieticians give the thumbs up to Sanitarium’s on-the-go breakfast products
• President’s first visit to Fiji deals with health and education issues
• Celebrations are under way for the 100th anniversary of Adventists arriving in PNG
• Women delegates encouraged to be bold and to try and change things for the better.

A recent book, published by National Geographic, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest, is getting a fair amount of media attention as it continues the meme that Loma Linda has lots of "long-lived" and very healthy folks.

ANN reports:

Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders in Northern Asia held their mid-year Executive Committee meeting in the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea last month, the first such meeting there since the country closed its borders in 1953.

• Seven prisoners freed to run a church program,
• The world wide leader of 15 million Seventh-day Adventists to visit Australia in 2009,
• More than 600 Seventh-day Adventist kids celebrated 101 years of Pathfinders,

• ADRA gets helps to cyclone devastated Burma,
• Gisborne Adventists move after 119 years and dedicate their new church,
• Cook Islands will run four new evangelistic series,

The Press-Enterprise reports:

Mike Kendall, vice president of Turner Development Corp., has tried pitching his open restaurant space at Turner Riverwalk across from La Sierra University in Riverside 25 times before and invariably received the same response:

No hard liquor? No thank you.