Free Republic

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take the case of a public school teacher who required her students to recite the Islamic "conversion prayer" or receive a failing grade. The Thomas More Law Center is defending Caleigh Wood, a Christian student in 11th grade at La Plata High School in La Plata, Maryland. Wood refused to deny her faith "by making a written profession of the Muslim conversion prayer known as the shahada – 'There is no god by allah and Muhammad is the messenger of allah,'" Thomas More said. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled...

WASHINGTON, DC — Work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline has come to a halt after a Friday order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The agency issued the stop work order a week after the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pulled a permit needed for construction in the National Forest. The 300 miles pipeline is under construction to carry natural gas from Wetzel County, West Virginia to Pittsylvania County, Virginia. FERC ordered a halt to all work with the exception of what it considered measures necessary to land management and stabilization of the right of way and work areas....

A divided 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday held as unconstitutional President Donald Trump's anti-terrorist travel ban from eight countries, six of them majority-Muslim with a total population of 150 million. In a 9-4 vote, the Richmond-based court upheld a Maryland district judge's preliminary injunction against the ban taking full effect and ruled that the travel restrictions violate the Constitution's Establishment Clause, which bars the government establishment of a religion. “In sum, the face of the Proclamation, read in the context of President Trump’s official statements, fails to demonstrate a primarily secular purpose. To the objective observer, the...