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USA Today
a day ago
- USA Today
Nude Iowa woman arrested after stealing American flags, burning them: Police
A southern Iowa woman is facing charges after authorities say she took her clothes off, stole American flags and set them on fire this month. Brianna Laird, 21, is facing charges after a caller said she burned stolen American flags on June 16, per court documents obtained by USA TODAY. While burning American flags is protected under the First Amendment, Laird was charged with third-degree arson, assault on an officer, indecent exposure, interference with official acts, fifth-degree criminal mischief, possession of drug paraphernalia and fifth-degree theft, per online court records. A lawyer for Laird did not immediately respond to requests for comment on June 20. Court documents: Woman hit and kicked officer while resisting arrest On June 16, someone called dispatchers about a woman in Bussey, Iowa, about 60 miles southeast of Des Moines. The caller said a nude woman was 'lighting American flags on fire,' according to court documents obtained by USA TODAY. When Marion County deputies arrived, they allegedly found Laird, who had an American Flag tied around her head and was not wearing pants or underwear. Authorities said Laird had taken the flags, which belong to the city of Bussey, and damaged them. She gave police a fake name and when deputies tried to arrest her, she hit one of them in the face, the documents said. Deputies eventually got her into the back seat of a patrol vehicle, but before one deputy could shut the door, she kicked them. When she arrived at the jail, authorities searched Laird's bag and found drug paraphernalia inside, the court documents say. Is it legal to burn the American flag? Past cases involving flag burning Flag desecration and burning have long been a point of discussion among U.S. lawmakers. The issue has been hotly contested in past cases, such as a June 1966 incident in which a Brooklyn veteran burned an American flag on a street corner after he learned that civil rights activist James Meredith was shot, according to the Freedom Forum. When the veteran was arrested for violating a New York flag desecration law, he said, 'Yes, that is my flag; I burned it. If they let that happen to Meredith, we don't need an American flag.' The New York Court of Appeals argued that flag burning was an attempt to incite violence, posing a danger to public peace. While the Supreme Court did not rule on the flag desecration law he was accused of breaking, it did rule that he could not be punished for "verbally disrespecting the flag," per the Freedom Forum. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case because lawmakers could not come to an agreement about whether he was convicted for burning the flag or the words he said at the time. While there are some state flag desecration laws, if enforced, they are likely to be overruled. What can people be charged with in relation to American flags? According to the Freedom Forum, freedom of speech applies to more than spoken words. That means expressions such as burning the flag, books, newspaper articles, online posts, theater and dance and even video games are considered "symbolic speech." There are some instances in which citizens could be charged for desecrating the flag even if the act of burning the flag itself is protected, the Freedom Forum said. Those who burn the flag in places with high fire risks could face charges for the act of burning something, the Freedom Forum said. And like the most recent case out of Iowa, stealing someone else's flag to burn could also be criminal, the organization said. "Burning the flag to deliberately provoke a violent response from someone else or in order to incite others to imminent lawless violence is not protected either," the Freedom Forum said. Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@
Miami Herald
03-06-2025
- General
- Miami Herald
These 11 names have been banned in the US. See the list
If you are thinking about baby names you may want to make sure the names you have in mind are legal in your state. Each state has its own naming laws and at least 11 names have been previously banned in the United States, according to A list of guidelines and requirements rule out other possible names as well. The following names were ruled illegal by courts in the U.S., according to the site: King Queen Jesus Christ III Santa Claus Majesty Adolf Hitler Messiah @ 1069 In 1976, a North Dakota man named Michael Herbert Dengler tried to change his name to 1069 because of its 'philosophical and personal significance,' according to Freedom Forum. However, a state court denied his request, and after moving to Minnesota, the court system ruled against him again. The rulings were 'due to potential confusion,' and it was suggested he try spelling out the numbers. per Freedom Forum. Some states ban the use of numbers in names, while other states, like Kentucky, have no regulations at all. Some state regulations on naming can be viewed on The U.S. has 'relatively lax naming regulations' compared to some other countries, according to the site. The names below have been banned in the countries associated with them, according to Chief Maximus (New Zealand) Robocop (Mexico) Sex Fruit (New Zealand) Linda (Saudi Arabia) Snake (Malaysia) Friday (Italy) Islam (China) Sarah (Morocco) Osama bin Laden (Germany) Metallica (Sweden) Prince William (France) Devil (Japan) Blue (Italy) Circumcision (Mexico) Quran (China) BRFXXCCXXMNPCCCCLLLMMNPRXVCLMNCKSSQLBB11116 (Sweden) Harriet (Iceland) Cyanide (United Kingdom) Monkey (Denmark) Thor (Portugal) 007 (Malaysia) Griezmann Mbappe (France) Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii (New Zealand) Bridge (Norway) Anal (New Zealand) Nutella (France) Wolf (Spain) Tom (Portugal) Camilla (Iceland) Judas (Switzerland) Duke (Australia)
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why Americans won't stop debating the separation of church and state
President Donald Trump launched a new commission on religious liberty on Thursday with some polarizing comments about church-state separation. Speaking at a Rose Garden ceremony, the president questioned whether a gap between the government and religious organizations is a good thing and praised the people of faith working with his administration. 'They say separation between church and state. ... I said, 'All right, let's forget about that for one time,'' he said near the beginning of his remarks. He later added, 'Whether there's separation or not, you guys are in the White House where you should be, and you're representing our country, and we're bringing religion back to our country, and it's a big deal.' Trump's remarks were celebrated by many more conservative religious leaders, who thanked the president for making more room for religion in the public square. But more liberal people of faith criticized Trump's comments and the new commission, arguing that the president's skepticism about the separation of church and state will hurt religion in the long term. 'Make no mistake, this new commission will do more to increase bullying in schools, workplace conflict, and religious discrimination than it will protect our constitutional rights or our churches,' said the Rev. Shannon Fleck, executive director of Faithful America, in a statement. The reactions to Trump's remarks should sound familiar if you follow faith-related legal debates. Multiple times in recent years — and multiple times this week — religious freedom advocates in the United States have clashed over what the Constitution says about separating church and state and what role the concept should play in policy debates. So what does the Constitution actually say? It doesn't include the phrase 'separation of church and state,' according to the Freedom Forum. The First Amendment does include the line 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,' which bars the government from naming an official religion or otherwise privileging one faith group over another. The First Amendment also protects people of faith with its free exercise clause, which prevents Congress from passing laws that interfere with religious expression. Religious freedom experts generally agree the First Amendment's free exercise and establishment clauses work together to keep the government from disrupting religious people and organizations. Thomas Jefferson said as much in a famous letter to a religious minority group in 1802. 'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State,' Jefferson wrote. But religion experts don't agree if the government is supposed to steer clear of religion altogether — or if church-state separation is good for people of faith. That disagreement fuels ongoing conflict over issues like Ten Commandments displays on government property, school vouchers and prayers during government meetings. 'This whole area of law is really a mess,' said an attorney to the Deseret News in 2019 before the Supreme Court heard an establishment clause case. More conservative legal scholars and religious leaders say the establishment clause — and the phrase 'separation of church and state' by extension — only applies to a limited range of issues. They believe government officials can't name a state religion and also can't mandate religious participation, by, for example, forcing Americans to send part of their paychecks to a church. But these more conservative thinkers do not believe the establishment clause justifies other types of limits on church-state relationships, which is why they're typically more supportive than their more liberal colleagues of, among other things, church-state funding partnerships, Christmas displays at statehouses and Trump's approach to religious freedom. More liberal legal scholars and religious leaders, on the other hand, apply the establishment clause more broadly. They typically believe government agencies and officials must avoid even passive endorsement of religious messages, whether it comes in the form of Ten Commandments posters or a state-funded scholarship used at a religious school. The Supreme Court hasn't done much to resolve the tension between those two viewpoints over the years. In the 1970s and 1980s, some justices raised concerns about excessive entanglement between church and state and about government endorsement of religion, lending support to a broader interpretation of the establishment clause. But the related rulings created new issues, since judges across the country disagreed on how to decide if a faith-related display or public prayer had a secular purpose and what a neutral observer would say. More recently, the Supreme Court has embraced a more conservative interpretation of the establishment clause, although they've done so by putting a focus on the free exercise of religion. In three cases in the past eight years, the court has cleared the way for more public money to go to religious schools, with rulings that described policies based on the establishment clause as violations of the free exercise clause, as the Deseret News recently reported. This spring, the Supreme Court has another opportunity to clarify the relationship between church and state in a case focused on the nation's first religious charter school. Oklahoma's Republican attorney general filed the lawsuit to stop the school, which is called St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, from participating in his state's charter school program. He says such a partnership would violate Oklahoma law and the establishment clause. St. Isidore is defending itself with the free exercise clause and the three recent funding rulings. It says Oklahoma's effort to block the formation of religious charter schools amounts to religious discrimination. Religious groups have reacted to the case in much the same way they reacted to Trump's comments on Thursday. Some believe the school clearly violates the principle of church-state separation, while others say Oklahoma has erected a wall that doesn't need to exist. The Trump administration intervened in the case to offer support to the religious charter school. During oral arguments on Wednesday, the justices, for the most part, seemed to sort themselves along the familiar conservative-liberal divide. More liberal justices emphasized potential establishment clause problems, while more conservative justices raised free exercise concerns. Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to be the closest to the middle among the eight justices who took part in the arguments. His decision in the case may ultimately determine where the debate over the separation of church and state goes from here.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why the First Amendment is important it and why it's my beat
My name is Angele Latham, and I am the First Amendment reporter at The Tennessean — a first-of-its kind beat created through a partnership with The Tennessean, the Freedom Forum and the Journalism Funding Partners. I cover a wide variety of fascinating topics throughout the state, including protests, lawsuits over free speech and religious liberty, investigations, books bans and extremism, just to name a few. Anything that impacts your freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment, I'm there. The First Amendment contains five freedoms: religion, speech, press, assembly and the right to petition the government. The importance of these rights cannot be overstated. These rights transcend our work as reporters — they shape the lives of everyday Americans and how they interact with the world around them. This beat has surprised even me with how well it has been received. Since this is the first dedicated First Amendment beat in the nation, I have a consistent onslaught of story tips coming in from across the country. There is a massive untapped well of First Amendment issues that need coverage, and I am honored to be at the helm. A recent example: The fight over TikTok and how to balance the free speech rights of those who use the social media app and the national security interest of the United States and its relations with China. I also recently wrote about a nonprofit with Tennessee connections and its First Amendment rights to send aid to Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Consistent inspection of legislative bills often reveal new First Amendment issues. As do lawsuits, such as a recent one where a Smyrna man won the right to protest outside a business wearing a chicken mask. I also keep close watch on school boards for any book removals, and keep my ear to the ground on social media for brewing problems. The best way to find stories, however, is simply by talking to people. The First Amendment is inherently about the people's speech, and well, that means I need to talk to people. Making connections and listening will always be the best way to report stories that matter and make an impact. Got a First Amendment issue you want to let me know about? Don't hesitate to reach out. I'm at alatham@ This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why the First Amendment is important it and why it's my beat
