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Advocacy groups MoveOn, United We Dream, the American Friends Service Committee, and Families Belong Together collectively hosted peaceful protest gatherings across the U.S. on July 2, calling on members of Congress to defund border detention centers immediately and #CloseTheCamps. The masses who protested outside the White House were not daunted when heavy rains greeted their chants.
Pens are available at an even to mark the one-year-out launch of the 2020 census efforts in Boston, April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
In a stinging defeat for President Donald Trump, his administration ended its effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census, saying that it will begin printing forms that do not include the contentious query. But, nevertheless, Trump later indicated he would still try to get the "most vital" question included on the questionnaire.
Image via Ebony Curry and Kelly Rissman
“ICE is coming into our communities and tearing apart families and tearing apart our community on a regular basis, and they did so just again last week,” Sanctuary DMV organizer Ben Beachy said. “We need our D.C. elected officials to make D.C. a real sanctuary city, which means severing all ties with ICE.”
Image via REUTERS/Chris Keane
The ruling, authored by Chief justice John Roberts, delivered a huge setback to election reformers who had hoped the court would intervene over a growing trend in which parties that control state legislatures use the electoral district line-drawing process to cement their grip on power and dilute the voting power of people who support the rival party.
From left: Meagan O'Toole-Pitts, Ashley Cortez, Oliver Cortez, and his father, Mark Cortez, attempt to drop off diapers and toys for detained children at the immigration detention center in Clint. Photo courtesy of Armando Martinez Photography via The Texas Tribune
A Border Patrol official told a state lawmaker that the agency doesn't accept donations for facilities where children are reportedly being held in substandard conditions.
A Christian IDP camp. Image via Festus Iyorah.
In northern Nigeria, the epicenter of insurgency and ethno-religious violence, Christians are the minority and have experienced widespread persecution from terrorists who share the extremist view of creating an Islamic state across northern Nigeria.
Quebec’s ‘Secularism’ Bill, the Emanuel Nine, Democrats debate reparations, the new U.S. Poet Laureate, and more!
Image via REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Trump is fighting the battle on two fronts, trying to stop migrants from coming in the first place and deporting those who have been released into the United States.
Image via REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
"The reactions are full spectrum from shock to upset to being angry, but not angry at what I'm doing, angry at the stark fact that this could be a reality," the artist, who does not reveal his real name, said in an interview on Monday.
The bishops hope that these new policies will prove powerful and effective in nationalizing and systematizing structures already in place. Advocates don’t trust the Church, especially when there is no required lay involvement in the reporting process.
Image via Deborah Prado-Kaplan
The CAQ is using its majority status in Parliament to concretize the secularization of Quebec, a process that began in the 1960s through the “Quiet Revolution” when the Quebec government began separating its institutions from the leadership of the Catholic Church. In the last decade, various Quebec political parties, including the Liberals, have made several legislative attempts to address state neutrality that have either been delayed in the courts or have failed because of public dissent.
Roman Catholic pilgrims travel as they accompany the statue of Our Lady of Conception during an annual pilgrimage along the Caraparu River in Santa Izabel do Para. REUTERS/Paulo Santos/File Photo
The document also issues a strong defense for the protection of the environment in the Amazon, deforestation, illegal mining, and development projects that threaten native cultures and the delicate ecosystem vital for the planet.
Photo of Quinn Nystrom
Nystrom started calling out the pharma corporations by name, and the U.S. politicians that allow the companies free rein to charge prices that are unthinkable in other nations. “Let’s be honest: the companies and the U.S. government are allowing people to die,” she says. “I wasn’t going to sugar coat that message.”
A humanitarian is criminally charged, Hijabs in women’s rights, LGBTQ culture in Asia, young scientists from Colombia, and more!
Wayuú student shows the solar cell he built in a science workshop at the Ricardo Gomez School in Manaure, La Guajira, Colombia. Photo credit: Daniel López @dlopezphotography
On June 20, a rocket is scheduled to blast off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, USA, carrying a precious cargo: a solar cell science project from Nestor Epinayu, 16, and his fellow science club members from a small indigenous community in Colombia. More than just a children's science project, solar energy plays a huge role in bringing electricity to this community in La Guajira, on the border with Venezuela.
Opportunity Zone Program: Federal Investment in Low-Income Neighborhoods or a 'Trickle-Down Scheme'?
But, embedded in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Opportunity Zone program does not include mandatory reporting provisions. This means federal agencies will not know where capital flows or about the consequences of spurred development in communities.
Adoption and religious freedom, a moral budget, Muslim persecution in China, intersectionality debates, and more!
Some faith-based adoption agencies have a greater ability to adopt antidiscrimination policies than others; nondenominational agencies like Bethany can often change their policies after winning board approval, while Catholic agencies are beholden to Catholic doctrine on same-sex marriage. Due to the structure of the Catholic Church, Catholic adoption agencies would have to shed their Catholic identity to serve LGBTQ couples — something that St. Vincent would likely have had to do.
Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash
As more states pass laws to legalize commercial gestational surrogacy, which involves paying the surrogate a fee for the pregnancy on top of reimbursing her for medical and living expenses, voices from across the Christian spectrum are speaking out both for and against the practice and exposing a theological rift not just about surrogacy, but about all reproductive technologies available today.
Muslim worshipers kneel for prayer outside of Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, Xinjiang province western China. Oct. 2, 2008 / Shutterstock
Uighur leaders and experts located outside China have warned that the situation could worsen, and “mass murder” could not be ruled out. With upwards of 10 percent of the Uighurs being held against their will, it is being called the worst and the most neglected humanitarian crisis of the past 10 years. Why is this is happening, and what makes the Chinese government see Muslims as a threat?