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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in Springfield, Missouri, U.S., August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Trump received pressure from many conservatives: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and nine other state attorneys general threatened to sue the administration if he didn’t announce an end to the program by Sept. 5, next week. Trump has not been clear about a decision, but during his campaign promised to terminate the program along with all other immigration executive orders by President Obama
A protester against the Texas state law to punish "sanctuary cities" stands outside the U.S. Federal court in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., June 26, 2017. REUTERS/Jon Herskovitz/File Photo
The judge's ruling temporarily blocks part of the law that would require local law enforcement agencies in Texas to fulfill requests by U.S. immigration agents to hold immigrants in their jails until they can be picked up for deportation. It also strikes down a provision that would have prevented local officials from adopting policies that might limit immigration enforcement in the state.
While there still have been no executions in California since 2006 — largely due to a court battle over lethal injection drug protocols — that could change if the state’s proposed single-drug method for lethal injection passes legal muster. More than 15 of the state’s death row inmates have exhausted all of their appeals, so if it does, prosecutors undoubtedly will be asking judges to set immediate execution dates.
From left, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, White House chief of staff John Kelly, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Vice President Mike Pence, Aug. 28, 2017, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The State Department will retain its special envoy on anti-Semitism, a position some Jewish groups feared the Trump administration would eliminate. The envoy handling HIV/AIDS will also be retained, but many others will not survive cuts at the department, which plans to scrap 30 of the 66 current “special envoy” positions, including one that handles climate change issues.
Image via Nicole S Glass / Shutterstock.com
In past weeks — in the wake of Trump comments about white supremacy widely condemned as too late and too soft — disagreements among Jews about the president played out on a very public stage
Photo by Dhanya Addanki / Sojourners
On the 54th anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech, the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. echoed across the lower end of the National Mall as thousands of clergy gathered in Washington, D.C., to march for racial justice. The Ministers March for Justice brought together faith leaders of many traditions to speak out against racism and white supremacy, and sought to call the government to accountability.
People are rescued from flood waters from Hurricane Harvey on an air boat in Dickinson, Texas August 27, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
Jesus, when you walked on the water,
you beckoned Peter to come out of the boat, unafraid.
FILE PHOTO: Clergy and people of faith counter-protest a white supremacist rally Aug. 12 in Charlottesville. Photo by Heather Wilson (@aNomadPhotog) / Dust & Light Photo.
The “One Thousand Ministers March for Justice,” expected to proceed Monday from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial to the Justice Department, originally was planned to protest increased hate crimes, mass incarceration and discrimination and to call on the Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to address those issues.
A family walks through flood waters in Houston, Texas. Image via Adrees Latif/Reuters.
The women and children, fleeing violence in Central America, were asylum seekers and had been cleared to travel to meet families throughout the United States. Many had no money, and spoke no English.
Texas National Guard soldiers aid residents in heavily flooded areas from the storms of Hurricane Harvey in Houston. Aug. 27, 2017 Lt. Zachary West, 100th MPAD/Texas Military Department/Handout via REUTERS
Catastrophic flooding triggered by Tropical Storm Harvey inundated Houston on Sunday, forcing residents of the fourth most populous U.S. city to flee their homes in boats or hunker down in anticipation of more days of "unprecedented" rainfall.
Image via RNS / Yonat Shimron
At a time when the far right often cites the inability — or refusal — of Muslims to assimilate, these young volunteers are ready, willing, and able to do what other religious groups in this country have been doing for decades: providing emergency aid, labor, and comfort to people suffering the effects of natural disasters
Image via RNS / Catholic Diocese of Arlington
In his 20s, while a student at the University of Maryland, Aitcheson was charged with making bomb threats, manufacturing pipe bombs, and threatening to kill Coretta Scott King in a letter.
Aitcheson pleaded guilty to several cross burnings, including one in the front yard of an African-American couple in 1977.
Photo via AP Photo/Ben Curtis/ RNS
“This is a fast-growing humanitarian situation which we have never seen before,” said Benson Okabo, World Vision’s West Nile Refugee Response operations manager. “We are concerned that the donor assistance has been little.”
1. Northeast D.C. Gets a New Mural Honoring the Workers Who Built the Lincoln Memorial Statue
The mural features the African-American men who quarried the stones that built to memorial.
2. I’m a Historical Curator. Removing Confederate Statues Isn’t Erasing History.
He works to contextualize a statue of Jefferson Davis at a Southern University. Here, Ben Wright knocks down each of the arguments being made for keeping Confederate statues one by one.
Image via Nicole S Glass / Shutterstock.com
“Responsibility for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, including the death of Heather Heyer, does not lie with many sides but with one side: the Nazis, alt-right and white supremacists who brought their hate to a peaceful community. They must be roundly condemned at all levels.”
Image via Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com
Daniel Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a letter posted on his Twitter account that Trump had failed to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis, part of "a broader pattern of behavior that enables sexism and racism, and disregards the welfare of all Americans, the global community and the planet."
The logo of Exxon Mobil Corporation is shown on a monitor above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, December 30, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo
Supran and Oreskes said that while, as early as 1979, Exxon scientists acknowledged burning fossil fuels was adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and causing global temperatures to rise, the company's position in newspaper ads remained significantly different by consistently asserting doubt about climate science.
Paula White speaks at her church, New Destiny Christian Center, on Jan. 1, 2017, in Apopka, Fla. RNS photo by Sarah M. Brown
“They say about our president, ‘Well, he is not presidential.’ Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank goodness,” White said. “And I mean that with all due respect. Because in other words, he is not a polished politician. In other words, he is authentically — whether people like it or not — has been raised up by God.”
Donald Trump delivers remarks at Liberty University commencement May 13, 2017. Shealah Craighead [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
More than 100 Liberty University graduates have pledged to withdraw support and return their diplomas to the office of university president Jerry Falwell Jr., citing his continued support of President Donald Trump after Charlottesville — along with a letter expressing their concerns, copied to Liberty’s board of trustees, by Sept. 5.
Photo courtesy of European Union 2014 - European Parliament/Fred Marvaux/RNS
Francis’ politically pointed message was made on August 21 in view of the Catholic Church’s 2018 world refugee day, celebrated Jan. 14. It comes amid mounting anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and beyond after waves of migrant arrivals and Islamic extremist attacks.