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President Trump has repeatedly said he'll restart military action against Iran, only to stop short of plunging the United States directly back into an unpopular war.
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Under pressure from President Trump, the South Carolina legislature will consider new House districts this week. Some Republicans worry changes could backfire.
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Thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Sunday for "Rededicate 250," a taxpayer-funded Christian evangelical service backed by President Trump. The eight-hour lineup featured songs, prayers and remarks by top government officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The event included religious leaders like evangelist Franklin Graham and Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
"Nothing was Christian about what we saw yesterday," says Bishop William J. Barber II. "This is idolatry. This is heresy. This is a form of religious nationalism. This is Trump worship. This is trying to make someone a messiah figure." Barber, the president of Repairers of the Breach and founding director of the Yale Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, took part in a counter-event on Sunday called Redirect 250.
"This is really a battle for the soul of America," says Sarah Posner, author of Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind. The Supreme Court has eroded the separation of church and state in recent decades, particularly under President Trump, adds Posner. She also notes that "evangelicals, for decades, have been marinating in Christian Zionist theology and ideology, which holds that, in their view, America has a biblical duty to defend Israel, and in particular defend Israel from aggression, both nuclear and otherwise, from Iran."
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Police fired tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets at hundreds of animal rights activists in Wisconsin on Saturday as they attempted to rescue about 2,000 dogs from a facility that breeds beagles for medical experimentation. The crackdown by Dane County sheriff's deputies left scores of activists injured; 25 people were arrested. Protesters were attempting to enter a property owned by Ridglan Farms, which agreed last fall to surrender its state breeding license and stop selling dogs to other laboratories by July 1 as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges. A state judge found Ridglan Farms likely broke Wisconsin animal cruelty laws by housing beagles in brutal conditions, performing surgeries without anesthesia, and leaving wounds untreated, along with other violations.
The protesters who participated in Saturday's action were "teachers, veterinarians, students, software engineers," says Rebekah Robinson, a Wisconsin resident and longtime animal rights activist who was arrested during the action. "These were ordinary citizens who were trying to help these Ridglan dogs, to go in and take them to safety, get them the veterinary care that they needed. And what we were met with was overwhelming police brutality."
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