“We’re surrounded by fear”

Immigration, abortion rights, and anti-discrimination statutes are on the Supreme Court's docket; an offensive in Syria displaces nearly 1 million people.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters.

TOP NEWS

The Supreme Court rules on a killing at the border

David Peinado/NurPhoto via Getty Images

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision that the family of a Mexican teenager killed by a Border Patrol agent has no legal standing to sue over death. [WBUR / Vanessa Romo]
15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca was playing a game at the border when he was shot and killed. The Border Patrol agent who shot him alleges that Hernández and his friends were throwing rocks across the border, but video of the shooting doesn't support the agent's story. [AP / Mark Sherman]
A second immigration-related case also went before the Court Tuesday: The Trump administration is defending a statute that would make it a crime "to encourage or advise illegal immigrants to stay in the country." Justices, however, appeared skeptical of the law's constitutionality. [NPR / Nina Totenberg]
Abortion rights are on the Court docket starting next week. Vox's Ian Millhiser writes that with the upcoming June Medical Services v. Russo case, "the constitutional right to an abortion is most likely in its final days." [Vox / Ian Millhiser]
On Monday, the Court announced that it would hear another controversial case this fall on whether freedom of religion amounts to a license to discriminate. [Daily Pennsylvanian / Abrar Salhoba]
Partisan politics infringed on the Court more than usual this week: President Trump called for two of the Court's liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, to recuse themselves from cases involving him. [WSJ / Brent Kendall]
The president's tweet was apparently in response to a Sotomayor dissent released Friday in a ruling over whether the administration can restrict low-income immigrants from entering the US. She said the government has been seeking "extraordinary relief" from the Court and that the Court in turn has been "putting a thumb on the scale in [its] favor." [V ox / Ian Millhiser]
And as the president looks to install a cadre of loyalist administration officials, Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has become increasingly influential — an unusual turn of events for someone so close to the traditionally apolitical Court. [NYT / Maggie Haberman]

A humanitarian disaster is unfolding in Syria

One of the worst humanitarian crises in almost a decade of war is unfolding in northern Syria. As the Syrian army advances on rebel-held Idlib, nearly a million people have been displaced — but with the Turkish border closed and Assad's troops bearing down, many have nowhere to go. [NPR / Fran Kritz]
Winter weather and a dearth of shelter for refugees are making the crisis worse. Children are freezing to death as temperatures drop overnight, and aid groups have had difficulty providing relief amid ongoing violence. [NYT / Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad]
Idlib's population is disproportionately young, and as much as half of the province's 3 million people are children. Syrian forces — aided by a Russian bombing campaign — have deliberately targeted civilians, including attacking schools. [Washington Post / Kareem Fahim]
The Idlib crisis may be the final act in Syria's nine-year civil war. The province is the last stronghold for rebel forces in the country, and Assad's Russia-supported advance aims to end any organized resistance to his resurgent regime. [Vox / Jen Kirby]

MISCELLANEOUS

The 10th Democratic debate was … [crosstalk]

[Vox / Emily Stewart, Li Zhou, German Lopez, and Alex Ward]

The federal government has broad power to enforce quarantines in the case of a US coronavirus outbreak. [Washington Post / Derek Hawkins]
Why the coronavirus poses a problem for China's Communist Party propaganda machine. [NYT / Li Yuan]
What the Harvey Weinstein verdict means to his victims. [New Yorker / Ronan Farrow]
Stories of climate change from across the US. [NPR / Brooklyn Riepma]

VERBATIM

"Hindus and Muslims always lived peacefully here. We all celebrated Eid and Diwali together. Hindu women often came into the mosque with their children, so this was not just a building for Muslims but for the whole community. But whatever peace we had is now gone."

[A Muslim man in the Indian city of Delhi on the burning of a mosque by Hindus / Guardian]