Supreme Court scrutinizes Maine tuition program in religious liberty case
CBSN
Washington — The Supreme Court's conservative majority on Wednesday appeared likely to side with Maine families who are seeking to use a state tuition assistance program to send their children to religious schools, a decision that could allow public benefits to flow more freely to such religious institutions.
Across nearly two hours of arguments in the case, known as Carson v. Makin, several members of the court's conservative wing indicated to lawyers defending the program that it was discriminating against schools on the basis of religion, which the parents who brought the suit argue violates their constitutional rights.
"With, say, two neighbors in Maine, in a neighborhood, and there is not a public school available, and the first neighbor says we're going to send our child, children, to secular private school, they get the benefit. The next-door neighbor says, 'Well, we want to send our children to a religious private school, and they're not going to get the benefit,'" Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. "That's just discrimination on the basis of religion right there at the neighborhood level."
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.