The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed on Wednesday that the government shouldn’t second guess who fills religiously significant roles in faith-based organizations. The justices ruled 7-2 in favor of two Catholic schools that fired teachers. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.

After a large group vandalized the headquarters of the Georgia Department of Public Safety in Atlanta on Sunday, breaking windows and attempting to start a fire, Gov. Brian Kemp is deploying the Georgia National Guard to protect government buildings. In response to a rise in violent crime, including shootings that left five dead and 25 wounded in the city over the weekend, including an 8-year-old girl, Kemp, a Republican, on Monday declared a weeklong state of emergency.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Monday that an X-ray showed his lungs were clean. The next day, the 65-year-old leader told reporters in Brasília he had COVID-19. “I’m well, normal,” said Bolsonaro, adding he wanted to walk around but couldn’t because of medical restrictions. Bolsonaro waited to impose lockdowns in Brazil and has shaken hands with supporters, often without a mask. The U.S.

After leaving his mother’s car to retrieve a phone charger from his aunt’s house in Washington, D.C., 11-year-old Davon McNeal was shot and killed on the Fourth of July. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. In Chicago, shootings over the weekend injured 70 people and killed 17, including two children. A shooting in Atlanta near the Wendy’s restaurant where a police officer shot and killed Rayshard Brooks last month left an 8-year-old girl dead.

After a seven-decade career that involved 10,000 hours in front of a camera, newsman Hugh Downs died on Wednesday. He was 99. His two children, Hugh Raymond Downs and Deirdre Lynn Downs, survive him, along with two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear arguments against buffer zones around abortion businesses. The plaintiffs in the two cases said rules regulating speech outside of abortion facilities violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The city of Chicago requires pro-life advocates to get verbal consent to approach someone within 50 feet of a facility like Planned Parenthood to hand out information, counsel, or protest.

Richmond, Va., Mayor Levar Stoney used his emergency powers on Wednesday to begin removing all Confederate monuments on city property. The mayor’s order, which bypassed a planned city council vote, occurred on the same day a Virginia law took effect giving local governments control of monuments and outlining a process that would take at least 60 days. “Failing to remove the statues now poses a severe, immediate and growing threat to public safety,” Stoney said. Within hours of the mayor’s announcement, work crews dismantled a statue of Confederate Gen.