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Every dispatch, brief and reflection, newest first. The Watchman, The Advocate and The Discerner in one place.

An engraving of a courtroom gavel.

Everyone Will Call This the Homeschool Bible Case. Read What the Ninth Circuit Actually Held: Your Kitchen Table Is a Public School.

Three California families asked the Supreme Court last week to look at Woolard v. Thurmond. The Ninth Circuit did not hold that religious curriculum is dangerous. It held that a kitchen table is sufficiently public.

An engraving of a closed iron prison door, an empty bench with a small cloth bundle left on it, and a single crimson lamp burning in a niche in the stone wall.

He Kept the Islamic State Out of His Town. Syria's New Government Has Held Him Eighteen Months Without a Charge.

Suleiman Khalil twice kept his Syriac Orthodox town out of jihadist hands. Since February 8, 2025 the new Syrian government has held him with no charge, no lawyer and no evidence anyone outside the prison has seen.

There Is a Sign on the Door of a Church in Minneapolis Naming a Federal Court Order. It Did Not Work.

There Is a Sign on the Door of a Church in Minneapolis Naming a Federal Court Order. It Did Not Work.

They printed the order and hung it on the door. The government says watching is not enforcing.

He Was Arrested in Borneo. Two Days Later He Was on a Plane to the Only Province in Indonesia That Runs on Islamic Law.

He Was Arrested in Borneo. Two Days Later He Was on a Plane to the Only Province in Indonesia That Runs on Islamic Law.

He was buying supplies for his church when they came. The charge was not the one everybody assumes.

Stone v. Graham Has Been the Law Since 1980. On Monday, Two Dozen Texas Families Asked the Supreme Court Whether Anyone Still Means It.

Stone v. Graham Has Been the Law Since 1980. On Monday, Two Dozen Texas Families Asked the Supreme Court Whether Anyone Still Means It.

A 1980 precedent striking down a nearly identical Kentucky law is still on the books. The Fifth Circuit upheld the Texas posters anyway.

A Muslim Shopkeeper in Karachi Opened the Envelope and Decided It Was a Trap. I Would Have Read It as Evidence.

A Muslim Shopkeeper in Karachi Opened the Envelope and Decided It Was a Trap. I Would Have Read It as Evidence.

An envelope meant to start a mob in Baldia Town reached a Muslim shopkeeper first. He read it as a frame, not as evidence.

In Kohima They Stayed in Their Seats for One Song and Stood for the Next. I Have Never Once Asked What I Was Standing For.

In Kohima They Stayed in Their Seats for One Song and Stood for the Next. I Have Never Once Asked What I Was Standing For.

India made its national song compulsory. In Nagaland a crowd worked out what it could and could not do with its body in public.