Religious liberty scores

Vindicated

The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision on June 27 that former coach Joseph Kennedy has the right to pray on the football field after games as a personal religious expression. After repeatedly asking him to pray privately, Bremerton School District fired Kennedy in 2015 for kneeling on the 50-yard line at the end of games. Some students voluntarily joined him. Administrators said his actions as a school employee amounted to government speech endorsing a religious point of view that could have had the effect of pressuring students to join in. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the court’s opinion that Kennedy was an individual engaging in a “brief, quiet, personal religious observance” which is protected under the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. As for the establishment clause, he said the school had misinterpreted it as requiring them to ferret out religious speech, which it does not.

Died

A city worker heard a cry for help from a trailer abandoned on a remote back road in southwest San Antonio, Texas, on the evening of June 27. Responders found 46 apparent migrants dead in the trailer and hospitalized 16 others, including four children, for heat stroke and exhaustion, according to Fire Chief Charles Hood. The tragedy is one of the deadliest among the border crossings from Mexico in recent decades. They were likely part of a smuggling attempt into the United States, said Police Chief William McManus. Police detained three people, but it’s unclear if they are linked to human trafficking, McManus added. Authorities have yet to confirm the immigrants’ home countries and how long they stayed in the trailer. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is leading an investigation. South Texas has long served as the busiest location for illegal border crossings.

Attacked

At least 18 people were dead and dozens wounded after Russian missiles struck a crowded shopping mall in Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk in the afternoon on June 27. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the shopping center had hosted more than 1,000 shoppers and employees. He said the mall presented no threat to Russia and called the strike “one of the most daring terrorist attacks in European history.” At Ukraine’s request, the U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting in New York to discuss the attack.

Allowed

Turkey dropped its objections to Sweden and Finland joining NATO on June 28. Turkish leadership initially objected to the Nordic countries joining NATO because of their refusal to crack down on Kurdish militants whom Turkey considers to be terrorists. The countries have agreed to extradite many of those individuals and drop arms trade restrictions against Turkey. By joining NATO, Sweden and Finland—the latter of which shares a long border with Russia—will no longer be neutral parties between Russia and the rest of Europe. Finland and the Soviet Union were at war during World War II.