Author: Shalem John

A group of immigrant rights groups and parents are continuing their legal fight over birthright citizenship, days after the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration to limit judges’ ability to block presidential policy via nationwide injunctions. Nationwide or universal injunctions stop the government from enacting or enforcing a law or policy anywhere in the country. The Supreme Court decision did not address whether the Trump administration could end birthright citizenship, which guarantees citizenship to nearly anyone born in the United States, as the president attempted to do with an executive order issued on Inauguration Day in January. Instead, the…

Jimmy Swaggart, the Louisiana televangelist whose name became a watchword for scandal, died in Baton Rouge on July 1. He was 90.  Swaggart was one of the best-known and most successful TV preachers in the 1980s, reaching an estimated half-billion people every week with riveting sermons about the struggle against sin and the good gift of God’s redeeming grace. Then, at the peak of his popularity, Swaggart was caught at a rundown motel paying a woman for sex. In 1988, he confessed on TV that he had sinned, face contorted with tears as he apologized to his congregation, those watching…

Joseph Wachana has sat under a large fig tree in Bungoma County, Kenya, for more than ten years now. He earns a few coins from locals who bring their old shoes for repair. Every morning, he jumps on one leg from his home to the fig tree—about 500 meters—supporting himself with a short wooden stick. He returns home the same way at night. His spot at midodo (fig tree) market contains his investment—a small wooden box holding pieces of leather, different-colored strings, a pair of scissors, knives, and sharpening stones and needles. Next to him is a sack full of…