The last conversation Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova had with their son Maxim Naumov was about making the Olympics.
Days later, the two died when an American Airlines plane collided with an Army helicopter above the Potomac River. https://wapo.st/4aPWF1F
Thank you @bostonglobemag for publishing my Perspective piece on attempts to return prayer to schools. Read the article in today's Globe, online here: www.bostonglobe.com/2026/01/08/m... or in this post. #religionandpublicschools #schoolprayer #FirstAmendment
www.instagram.com/p/DTYWe2FicL...
On the eve of the U.S. Championships, Maxim Naumov is starting a mental wellness initiative. "My own journey — through competition, expectation, and loss — showed me how powerful support, language, and understanding can be."
Here is the GoFundMe: www.gofundme.com/f/building-s...
After tonight's pairs short program at the US Figure Skating Championships, I received a quote from MA Senator Ed Markey's spokesperson on Alisa Efimova's citizenship quest:
“Senator Markey’s office is aware of Alisa Efimova’s case and continues to explore options to resolve her citizenship status.”
Could school prayer make a real comeback? History has shown that prayer and public schools are incompatible. Read more in my latest @bostonglobe.com magazine perspective piece. Trump, school prayer, and a North End cautionary tale share.google/QW7t9QSkIYXV... @americansunited.bsky.social
NEW - The Data Doesn’t Lie: How ProPublica Reports the Truth in an Era of False Claims
As federal data becomes less available, our editor-in-chief @sengelberg.bsky.social explains how our journalists are providing readers with precise numbers.
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com
“Seeking accountability against the perpetrator of a crime is how the legal system is supposed to work,” the lawyer Elora Mukherjee says. “But punishing law-abiding immigrants, children and adults alike, for the violent acts of one man is anathema to our justice system.”
Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. Heeding years of court precedent, a federal court says no to Ten Commandments posters in Texas schools. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/u...
Two Catholic parishes asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider a lower court decision that said parish preschools participating in Colorado’s state-funded preschool program couldn’t deny admission to LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families. www.chalkbeat.org/colorado/202...
‘We have set money on fire’: Pennsylvania budget impasse costs Philadelphia school district millions: www.chalkbeat.org/philadelphia...
"Students’ scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, were essentially the same last year as in 2003. And schools are facing a crisis of chronic absenteeism, with 1 in 3 students missing at least 10% of school last year." www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...
There's no better feeling for a writer than finishing a draft chapter your been working on for a while. Now the real fun begins! Revision, massaging words, cutting. I'm taking readers back to the 50s and 60s as America splits on a big issue. #amwriting #religionandschools #churchstate
“Today’s decision should make it abundantly clear to all Arkansas public schools that pushing bible edicts on a captive audience of students will not be tolerated,” said FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.
Read more ➡️ ffrf.us/48Ybe2l
#ffrf #arkansas #tencommandments
Out now: Religion in the Classroom
An indispensable resource for understanding religion's place in American schools and in matters concerning the separation of church and state in the United States.
Read a preview: https://bit.ly/3VNld2z
Learn more: https://bit.ly/4307RDX
Has the government response to Charlie Kirk's assassination put free speech in public schools under threat? Today's Starting Point takes a look.
The remarkably swift passage of an Everett teen into the Trump administration’s deportation system underscores the reach and efficiency of the infrastructure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has managed to build even in deep-blue Massachusetts. trib.al/Q3zUiKU
Oklahoma's new public schools superintendent is rescinding a mandate from his predecessor that forced schools to incorporate the Bible into lesson plans for students.
This may close the loop on the Bible mandate controversy on Oklahoma. I wrote about it for @vanityfair.com and @hechingerreport.org .
Already feeling under attack and facing increased government scrutiny, international college students balked at a new Trump administration proposal that could limit their stays in the US to four years.
It's back-to-school time at Boston-area colleges and universities, but as political and economic challenges mount, life in the college bubble feels a little different this fall.
This beautiful harbor seal was just lounging on a rock during my recent trip to Maine. A few dozen were swimming nearby as I kayaked in Morgan Bay. Thankfully there were no sharks hunting.
Some groups argued that nonprofit newspapers and other publications have been allowed to endorse candidates without running afoul of the IRS, while IRS rules barred churches and other nonprofits from doing the same.
religionnews.com/2025/07/08/c...
The IRS ending the Johnson amendment is a big change. It could turn churches into PACs, giving GOP donors a tax break for unlimited political spending.
The good news? It could drive even more people to leave conservative churches. Millions already have.
www.salon.com/2025/07/11/t...
OPINION: One hundred years after the Scopes trial, the culture war over evolution and creationism remains intense.
religionnews.com/2025/07/01/1...
Excellent impact story by @casamuels.bsky.social of @hechingerreport.org on the SCOTUS ruling . How will giving parents the right to opt out of curriculum, books for religious reasons affect K-12 education? #MahmoudvTaylor #SCOTUS
The result will be chaos for this Nation’s public schools. Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools. The harm will not be borne by educators alone: Children will suffer too. Classroom disruptions and absences may well inflict long-lasting harm on students’ learning and development. Worse yet, the majority closes its eyes to the inevitable chilling effects of its ruling. Many school districts, and particularly the most resource strapped, cannot afford to engage in costly litigation over opt-out rights or to divert resources to tracking and managing student absences. Schools may instead censor their curricula, stripping material that risks generating religious objections. The Court’s ruling, in effect, thus hands a subset of parents the right to veto curricular choices long left to locally elected school boards. Because I cannot countenance the Court’s contortion of our precedent and the untold harms that will follow, I dissent.
Sotomayor, in dissent, correctly says that today's decision in Mahmoud will lead public schools to simply censor books featuring LGBTQ characters and themes, creating "chaos" and stigmatizing children with LGBTQ families. This decision will lead to book bans.
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...
