Palm Desert

Family separation: Evangelicals add their voices to opposition

When Julie Frady planned to make a poster to protest the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” immigration policy last week, she wanted to find the perfect Bible verse to stand against it, she says, one nobody else would expect. Since she joined about 60 protesters who marched in front of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Delano, Kan., Thursday, more and more people across the United States, and from across its often-polarized political spectrum, have begun to express deep moral reservations at the logistical realities of the practice.

On election issues, US Supreme Court sticks to the shallows

Elections – how they’re set up, how they’re carried out – have been an important theme in the current Supreme Court term. Justices considered cases on everything from appropriate voting booth attire to methods of drawing election district lines. The gerrymander issue, dealing with partisan manipulation in the drawing of districts, was notable in this regard.

The high court’s hint on partisan gerrymandering

In a unanimous ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court hinted at how it may someday decide on partisan gerrymandering, or the drawing of electoral districts by state legislators to keep one party in power. Individual voters, the justices concluded, must first show whether they were harmed by the boundaries of their particular voting district. For the courts, the effect of gerrymandering on political or social groups is not a matter of justice.

Islamist and feminist: A new generation stakes its claim

Alaa Khaled finds nothing unusual about being both a devout Muslim and a women’s activist, insisting she is an activist because she is a Muslim. “As a Muslim it is incumbent on me to fight for social justice for my country, my citizens, and my gender,” Ms. Khaled says while protesting austerity measures and taxes in Jordan in recent demonstrations that brought down the prime minister. “Fighting against injustice and inequality, fighting for human rights and women’s rights – these are not just my political causes,” Khaled says.