Some interesting news stories from around the web this week:

• Women and girls as young as fourteen years old are leaving their homes in western countries to join Islamic fighters in the Middle East.
• The Supreme Court will hear an EEOC suit alleging that Abercrombie & Fitch discriminated against a Muslim job applicant because she wears a hijab, which does not comply with the retailer’s “look policy.”
  • See here for a discussion of a similar case against Abercrombie in California last year.
• India prime minister Narendra Modi’s trip to the U.S. and visit with President Obama falls in the middle of a nine-day strict fast for Navratri, a Hindu festival.
• Britain’s leading interfaith organization, the Council of Christians and Jews, backed a statement by the two Chief Rabbis of Israel condemning a Christian-Jewish prayer vigil due to take place at Temple Mount and urging Jews not to participate because of the event’s “messianic” content.
• The head of an Orthodox Jewish organization in Brooklyn that cares for people with special needs has filed a court challenge to prevent medical authorities from taking one of his clients off of life support, claiming such a move would be contrary to the woman’s religious convictions. The woman’s brother claims that she did not have the mental capacity to hold religious beliefs and that the decision is rightfully his.
• Israel’s national airline, El Al, has been criticized for allowing ultra-orthodox Jewish men to disrupt flights by refusing to be seated next to women, in accordance with religious custom. A petition suggests the airline should make the accommodations necessary for religious observers to fly comfortably without pressuring women to move.
• The NFL’s official position is that Husain Abdullah should not have received a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty after dropping to his knees and bowing in prayer following a touchdown during Monday night’s game.
• The Freedom From Religious Foundation and the American Humanist Association have asked a school district in Madison County, Georgia, to remove a monument with a religious inscription from a new high school football field based on what they claim is “the constitutional call for a separation between church and state.”
• The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of a Muslim Arkansas inmate who claims his religious rights are being violated by the prison’s refusal to allow him to grow a beard.
• The Episcopal Church will elect a new presiding bishop after the first female Episcopal leader announced she would not seek a second term.
• Biblical land-use laws deem this an agricultural sabbatical year, in which the land of Israel is supposed to lie fallow. This will present various challenges for Jews in Israel.
• Figures show that hate crimes against Muslims in London have increased by sixty-five per cent in one year.