Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- The Sixth Circuit held that Sterling Heights residents’ rights were not violated when officials cleared the city council’s chambers of all spectators during a public meeting where the city council voted to ratify a consent agreement that allowed for the construction of a mosque.
- A mistrial was declared in the federal prosecution of an Oregon man accused of willfully failing to file income tax returns who claims he withheld his taxes on religious grounds.
- The Nazareth District Court ruled to allow the Afula municipality to hold a gender-segregated concert that was aimed at the local ultra-Orthodox population.
- The Trump administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court in the case R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC, arguing that transgender workers are not protected under Title VII and can be fired because of their gender identity.
- After an eight-day trial and two days of jury deliberations, Father Urbano Vazquez was found guilty on four counts of child sexual abuse stemming from when he served as a parochial vicar at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Washington, D.C.
- A Texas judge has ordered the former head imam of the Islamic Center of Irving (TX) to pay $2.55 million to a Muslim woman who claims he coerced her into having sex with him after years of counseling her when she was a teenager.
- A bomb exploded inside a mosque on the outskirts of Quetta, Pakistan, during Friday prayers, killing at least four worshippers, including the prayer leader.
- Two men who pleaded guilty to conspiring to attack the Muslim community of Islamberg in Delaware County (NY) were sentenced to four to twelve years’ imprisonment.
- Dr. Qanta Ahmed, a Muslim scholar and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, commented that President Trump has been “extremely aggressive” in his commitment to protecting religious freedom around the world, doing more than former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.