Maryland churches’ youth group ‘safe,’ leaving Panama amid political unrest

A youth mission group from two Maryland churches is “safe” and headed home from Panama, a spokesman said Saturday, a day after a chaperone said about two dozen people were stuck at an oceanside compound amid protests that have shut down major roads in the country. “The mission group was able to make it through the protest blockade during a brief window early this morning and are now safe at a secure location where they are making flight arrangements to travel home,” Evan Knott, director of communications for the Chesapeake Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, wrote in an email Saturday morning.