Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- Follow up from last Monday’s AtW: Emanuel Kidega Samson, who was found guilty of first-degree murder for the shooting at a Nashville (TN) church in 2017 that left one dead and seven others injured, was sentenced by a jury to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
- Christopher Lee Price, an Alabama inmate convicted of stabbing a minister nearly three decades ago, was executed by lethal injection.
- John T. Earnest, the sole suspect in the fatal shooting at a California synagogue in April, pleaded not guilty to federal hate crimes and other charges.
- The Northshore School District (WA) officially withdrew its Ramadan policy, which provided accommodations for Muslim students, in response to a cease and desist letter filed by the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund.
- Muslim worshippers on the Temple Mount rioted on Sunday after it was announced that Jewish pilgrims would be permitted the visit the holy site on Jerusalem Day, which coincides with the last days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
- A court in Myanmar issued an arrest warrant for a Buddhist monk known for incendiary comments about the country’s Muslim minority and for criticism of the government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
- Police executed a search warrant and arrested two men at Lion of Judah House of Rastafari in Madison (WI) on counts of delivery of marijuana and maintaining a drug dwelling, conduct members of the church maintain is a sacrament.
- The Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging a Pennsylvania school district’s bathroom policy allowing transgender students to use bathrooms of their choice.
- The ACLU and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration and the state of South Carolina on behalf of a same-sex, married couple after a Christian ministry allegedly denied them from participating in its federally funded foster care program.
- Betty Rendón, a Lutheran student pastor who fled with her family from Colombia during the country’s civil war, was deported this past week after being arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in early May.
- The Lyceum, a Catholic classical school in Ohio, dropped its federal lawsuit after the city of South Euclid clarified that the school was not affected by a new ordinance on sexual orientation, gender expression, and gender expression.
- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he will travel to Israel “in solidarity” with the Jewish people amid an increase in anti-Semitic attacks in New York and around the country.
- An anti-Semitic note found on a billboard at the Brooklyn Jewish Children’s Museum (NY) is being investigated by police as a hate crime.
- Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) signed into law a fetal heartbeat bill, which bars abortion once a fetus’s heartbeat is detected.
- A federal judge in St. Louis (MO) issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the state from allowing Planned Parenthood’s license to lapse.
- Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, who was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment after being convicted of five counts of sexual abuse of minors, will not seek a shorter sentence if his appeal to overturn his conviction fails.
- West Virginia’s only Roman Catholic diocese released the names of two additional priests—both of whom are deceased—who it says have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse in the state.
- Father Bruce Neylon, pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Fall River (MA), has been removed from active ministry due to a “credible allegation” that he had sexual contact with a minor on numerous occasions in the early 1980s.
- Pope Francis said a preliminary investigation against Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta regarding alleged sexual abuse of seminarians and other sexual misconduct has concluded and the case will now proceed to trial.