Donald Trump has long evinced a live-and-let-live attitude toward gay, lesbian, and transgender people. And so when President Trump abruptly announced, via Twitter, a ban on military service by transgender people, Washington was dumbstruck.

But Mr. Trump had political reasons to play that card. Foremost, the president needs a legislative victory, and by giving House conservatives what they wanted on transgender troops, he has paved the way for passage of a key military spending bill. That bill includes funding for the wall on the US-Mexico border.

A secondary benefit, Republican analysts say, is a boost to the morale of social conservative voters. Frustration has been rising over Trump’s inability to effect much of his agenda, and there’s concern that turnout could be low in next year’s midterm elections. Lack of enthusiasm by conservative voters could cost Republicans control of the House.

“The top issue is getting the defense budget through, and getting legislative wins. You’ve got to trade,” says Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “This is a casualty of politics, not a casualty of Trump being anti-gay.”

Trump’s sudden announcement Wednesday was tempered a bit Thursday, when the nation’s top general announced that current policy would remain in effect until the secretary of Defense had received the president’s direction and had issued implementation guidance.

Short-circuiting Defense secretary’s review

The current, Obama-era policy on transgender military service has been in place only a year, and Defense Secretary James Mattis was in the middle of a six-month review of whether to allow openly transgender people to join the military when Trump made his pronouncement.

A 2016 Rand Corporation study estimates that out of 1.3 million active-duty US service members, between 1,320 and 6,630 may be transgender. Of those, an estimated 29 to 129 service members are likely to use “transition-related” health care each year, the report said.

House conservatives wanted a ban on the use of taxpayer money for sex-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy for transgender people – a minuscule share of the $790 billion defense spending package. Trump obliged, but went much further than lawmakers expected.

In his tweets, Trump said that he had consulted with “my Generals and military experts” in deciding on a transgender ban, but Secretary Mattis was reportedly given only one day’s notice.

This short-circuiting of Mattis’s review continued Trump’s pattern of taking action independently of his Cabinet secretaries – or of publicly crossing them, as in the case of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. But six months into Trump’s presidency, this has become the norm.

Trump’s move on transgender military service “is just another indication of how exposed anyone is who works for him,” says Cal Jillson, a presidential scholar at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “Every morning you wake up in Trump’s service, you run the risk of being undercut or embarrassed.”

While Trump has satisfied some hard-line social conservatives with his outright ban on transgender service, he has also sparked pushback from many Republicans on Capitol Hill – including some who supported the ban on government spending for gender-transition health care.

Leading conservatives such as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah and Sen. Joni Ernst (R) of Iowa, an Iraq War veteran, put out statements opposing Trump’s move.

“She believes what is most important is making sure service members can meet the physical training standards, and the willingness to defend our freedoms and way of life,” Senator Ernst’s spokeswoman said in a statement. “Americans who are qualified and can meet the standards to serve in the military should be afforded that opportunity.”

Ernst’s spokeswoman added that the senator does not support gender-reassignment surgery on the taxpayer dime.

‘This is the way he does policy’

One unanswered question is why Trump went for an outright ban on transgender service, instead of the narrower ban on government funding for transgender-related health-care costs.

Analysts were uniform in their explanation: It’s Trump being Trump. And it’s Trump trying to be the anti-Obama. He announces new policies because he can, leaving his subordinates to handle the process and legalities.

“This is the way he does policy,” says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a communications professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “He does have a firm belief in Twitter.”

When critics accuse Trump of not being presidential in his use of Twitter, he pushes back.

“My use of social media is not Presidential – it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL,” Trump tweeted July 1.

Ms. Jeffe sees Trump’s business background on full display in how he operates as president. “He’s a chief executive used to saying ‘Jump!’ and hearing someone say, ‘How high?” she says. “But that’s not the way policy works or should work.”

Jeffe also sees Trump flashing a “shiny object” at the media and the public in the hopes of deflecting attention from other issues. Certainly, the Senate’s struggle to pass health-care legislation is high on that list.

Staff writer Jessica Mendoza contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

Jessica Mendoza/Staff

Jon (pronounced “Joan”) Milazzo perches on one of the sofas for sale on Friday, July 21, 2017, at Retrofit Home, the furniture store in downtown Seattle she’s run and co-owned for 12 years. Soaring rental rates and property taxes, combined with the city’s minimum wage ordinance, have forced her to trim jobs and condense hours. “We just don't hire anyone at entry level anymore,” she says.

The posters on display at the entrance to her Capitol Hill store say it all: “You are safe here.” “Black Lives Matter.” “Resist Trump: keep America great.”

“I was raised on the most progressive politics,” says Jon (pronounced “Joan”) Milazzo, who co-owns Retrofit Home, a furniture shop on a busy corner of downtown Seattle. A native Vermonter who moved west about 30 years ago, Ms. Milazzo is all for the idea that employees – especially those at the bottom of the pay scale – receive a fair wage for their work.

But she is straining to reconcile her principles with what’s best for her business. Seattle’s 2015 minimum wage ordinance raises hourly pay by 50 cents to a dollar per year until all companies in the city hit $15 by 2021. Milazzo says she’d be happy to comply – if she didn’t also have to contend with soaring property taxes and rental and utility rates. Instead, she’s condensed her store hours and cut entry-level jobs.

“You can’t just say to the little people, ‘Now pay everybody more,’ ” she says. “Where does it come from?”

Seattle, among the first cities to adopt a $15-an-hour minimum wage ordinance, has been the setting for a debate over the effects of the policy so far. The dispute centers on two apparently conflicting studies, both released this year. One, from the University of Washington, found that the ordinance significantly reduced average earnings for low-wage workers throughout the city because employment opportunities declined. Another, from the University of California, Berkeley, found that job loss – specifically in the food service industry – was minimal, and that wages indeed rose for workers making the least.

The opposing results have driven a deeper wedge between advocates and opponents of the $15 wage. Each side has pointed to flaws in the offending study and used the supportive research to back their cause.

Conversations with those whom the policy affects, however, suggest the issue is not so cut-and-dried. In deeply liberal Seattle, small business owners like Milazzo acknowledge the benefits of paying workers well, both for their employees and the businesses themselves. Still, they worry that their own enterprises won’t survive the rising costs of doing business in the city. Low-wage workers, meanwhile, celebrate the march to better pay, noting that in Seattle even $15 an hour is barely enough to get by. But they recognize that not every company can easily make the change.

Everyone frets about rent.

“Public opinion polls are strongly behind [the $15 minimum wage] and small business polls show they are also in support of it,” says Paul Sonn, general counsel and program director for the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. “They think it’s fair. They’re concerned about inequality. The question is just how do you phase it in.”

Jessica Mendoza/Staff

Felix Ngoussou, who runs a café and teaches business courses to aspiring entrepreneurs, started out in full support of a $15 minimum wage. But now he worries that higher wages, combined with rising rent and property taxes, are squeezing Seattle’s small businesses out of existence.

'A big difference'

When Jerry Cole talks about his job, a note of quiet pride creeps into his voice. “I’m that person that bags your groceries,” he says, describing his duties as a courtesy clerk at Safeway. “I’m that person that keeps your restrooms clean. I’m the person that brings in the shopping carts when it’s time to get them inside so that when you come in, there’s one available for you.”

For these tasks, which he performs about 30 hours a week, Mr. Cole receives $13.50 an hour. “It’s a big difference,” he says, from the roughly $9 an hour he was making when he started at Safeway five years ago.

For workers like Cole, the policy has meant a tangible improvement in their quality of life. Their experiences support the idea that stagnant wages hurt the economy – and that raising them helps both employers and employees.

Zac Lawrence says he sighed with relief when he received his first bi-weekly paycheck after the city implemented the $13-an-hour phase of its minimum wage hike. “I’m used to hoarding my tips … because you never know if you’re going to have a bad week,” says Mr. Lawrence, who works two restaurant jobs while he tries to build a career in political consulting and outreach. “That was the first time I was getting an actual paycheck and could say, ‘This can pay for half of my rent.’ ”

Now, he says, he feels more secure. And in his neighborhood, populated by service industry workers, business is thriving, he adds. “We have more money to spend,” Lawrence says.

Jessica Mendoza/Staff

Jerry Cole strums his guitar on Sunday, July 23, 2017, in the living room of the single-family home in Seattle he shares with eight other people. Mr. Cole, a courtesy clerk at Safeway, says that the new minimum wage policy has barely kept up with the rising cost of living in the city. “We’re still underpaid, quite frankly,” he says.

Cole, at Safeway, observes that the policy isn’t perfect. He can see why some employers feel the need to cut back on hours and jobs. “Everyone can’t pay $15, particularly small businesses. I get that,” he says. But as someone who almost never takes a sick day, shares a single-family home with eight other people to save on rent, and runs a landscaping business as a side job just to get by, Cole can’t defend big business keeping wages low.

“We’re still underpaid, quite frankly,” he says, sitting among the books and bric-a-brac that imply shared habitation.

Incentives for everyone

Milazzo, of Retrofit Home, sits perched atop one of her sofas for sale. For years, she says, she and her business partner would hire teenagers at entry level, training them in both the nuts and bolts of the business and a meaningful work ethic.

But as higher rents and rising taxes converged with the new minimum wage policy, Milazzo says she was forced to trim her staff and use fewer resources on training beginners. “The water level was going up all around us,” she says. “So we made that decision. When you come in, you’ve got to have skills.”

Even the most liberal business owners express a sense of being squeezed on all sides.

Felix Ngoussou, an immigrant from Chad who teaches business courses to aspiring entrepreneurs, started out advocating the $15 minimum wage. He preached the benefits of better wages. “People have to have a decent wage so that they can make a living,” he says. 

In 2013, Mr. Ngoussou opened a café called Lake Chad in central Seattle. As the minimum wage ordinance took effect, he found himself at a loss for workers. Wage obligations under the Seattle law vary according to business size, and Ngoussou is currently required to pay about $12 an hour.

“People prefer to go drive Uber, go work at Amazon or the airport at $15 an hour, than working in a small coffee shop for $12 or $13,” Ngoussou says. “There are people standing out there saying, ‘Oh if you don’t pay me $15 an hour, I don’t take the job.’ ” Unskilled workers would start at Lake Chad and then, once trained, would hop down the street to Starbucks for its higher wages, tuition reimbursement program, and paid sick and family leave, he says.  

“I used to have four to five employees,” Ngoussou says. “Now I don’t have even one.”

Ngoussou has since revised his position: Government should raise wages – but also find ways to control rent and lower taxes for smaller businesses. “We need it to come with a package that offers some incentive to everybody, to small business owners and to employees,” he says.

'A cautionary tale'

Seattleites’ varied experiences with the city’s minimum wage ordinance reflect a key fact that researchers keep coming back to amid the economic theories, political debates, and conflicting studies: There’s still plenty the experts don’t know.

One thing researchers want to explore is how exactly the policy will play out in different cities – and who ultimately reaps the benefits. For instance, “Just because we found that on average workers lose, that doesn’t mean every worker loses,” says Bob Plotnick, one of the authors of the UW paper. If teenagers and retirees are mainly the ones losing low-wage work while heads of household are seeing a net gain in their income, “most people might be OK with that,” he says.

“We think of this as a cautionary tale,” Mr. Plotnick adds. “If a city is going to implement a minimum wage that is substantially above the federal level, it needs to think carefully about what the impacts might be.”

Battered by drought and civil wars, more than 20 million people from Yemen to Tanzania are at risk of starvation in what aid workers call the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. But over the past two decades, nations that once produced searing images of famine's toll have moved to thwart it by strengthening community resilience. Our reporters traveled to Madagascar, Ethiopia, and Somaliland to investigate the daunting challenges as well as the long-term efforts that are saving lives. 

Mohamed Abdi Madar stands at a catchment tank, pulling up a bucket of water for two of his camels. In this largely nomadic society, the animals are so vital that they’ve been woven into poetry for centuries.

They’re all the more precious today, amid the worst drought in living memory – one that has brought the region to the brink of famine. Mr. Madar has just four out of his original 15 left, and 35 sheep and goats out of 150.

Here in Carro-Yaambo, 20 miles west of Somaliland’s capital, desert gives way to more arable land, and communities both farm and keep livestock. But even so, they are struggling – fields are dotted with the carcasses of animals lost to the drought.

Still, unlike so many Somalis forced to roam in search of scarce fodder and water, Madar is staying put – a major goal for a region whose centuries-old pastoralist culture is, out of necessity, beginning to envision a more sustainable future. That means improving water and aid systems. But it could also mean deep changes to most Somalis’ traditional way of life, shifting away from the nomadic patterns of camel- and livestock-herding to more stable – and anchored – livelihoods.

Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images

Somali women fill water cans tied to a donkey at a traditional cistern for harvesting rainwater, called a berkad, made by the Irish charity Concern-Worldwide in Carro-Yaambo, a village 20 miles west of Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland.

Without this water tank, protected by a thick ring of thorn bushes, everyone nearby would have been forced to move in search of water to a dry riverbed six miles away, says Madar, a herder with several missing teeth, a graying goatee, and a red-hued head wrap.

“Even if we got to the river bed, we don’t have the power or the resources to dig out the water – so we would have gone there only with hope,” he says. “This water [catchment] saved our lives, as humans and livestock.”

Drought is a fact of life in Somaliland, a harsh, thorn-scrub desert land that declared independence from Somalia in 1991. But its hard-living pastoralists have been worn down by back-to-back droughts sweeping across the Horn of Africa, like the hot and desiccating winds that define this unforgiving landscape.

The numbers are staggering: In “pre-famine” figures for June, the UN estimated 6.7 million are in need of assistance in Somalia – among the 20 million the UN calculates are at risk in Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, and Nigeria. The drought has killed 80 percent of the livestock that nomadic rural communities depend on in Somaliland alone, and forced 739,000 to move in search of water and food throughout Somalia.

Heavy hitters like the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have scaled up their interventions, with everything from pre-positioning supplies, hygiene kits, and half a million measles vaccines to ringing alarm bells. So far, however, funding requirements of nearly $150 million are almost $50 million short.

“This humanitarian crisis is not over,” says Steven Lauwerier, the head of UNICEF in Somalia, citing soaring rates of children’s health problems, continued displacement, and gender-based violence. “This is why UNICEF must continue our emergency drought response and why this generous funding is so critical at this time.”

SCOTT PETERSON/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR/GETTY IMAGES

A mother holds her baby in a health-care center in Hargeisa, Somaliland, a self-governing break- away region of Somalia. Children there are struggling with malnutrition because of a drought.

But as vulnerable as Somalis are today, past disasters in the 1980s, '90s, and 2011 have taught lessons in building resilience. Like elsewhere in eastern Africa, that means providing clean water (like the catchment in Carro-Yaambo, built by the Irish agency Concern Worldwide), food supplements, and cash aid: all of which not only helps keep people alive and fed, but at home, rather than wandering in search of water or help. In Somalia and Somaliland in particular, where pastoralists have followed rains and pastures with their herds for centuries, it also means laying the ground for a major cultural and economic shift: programs to lessen dependence on livestock, the backbone of Somalis’ survival, with fodder and agriculture projects taking root.

Pastoralists “have no other means of making a living. They knew only one way, and that way is gone,” says Saad Ali Shire, the foreign minister of Somaliland, which remains unrecognized as an independent nation by the international community. They need aid now, and help restoring their flocks, he says. But even so, “There is the question: Do we want to go back to where we were?”

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

One day at a time

But looking that far into the future is not the top priority of the thousands of Somalis now clinging to each day of life.

The threat of famine is clear in the sunken eyes of Nabhan Ismail, an infant boy at an emergency center in Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa. Family members take turns comforting him, placing their hands on his tiny body, stroking him.

Nabhan turns restlessly, eyes wide in shock, just one of 50 infants here fighting for their lives. His family made the journey to this emergency stabilization center, run by the Somaliland Red Crescent and UNICEF, after waiting seven days to find a ride from their remote region 100 miles away, over the Ethiopian border.

“I am thinking about Nabhan’s health and praying to God that he will get better,” says his teary-eyed father, Ismail Ibrahim, as his child is fed one more time through a tube.

UNICEF has projected that 1.4 million Somali children are or will become malnourished this year – a 50 percent increase since the start of 2017. And malnourishment, in turn, makes children far more vulnerable to diseases like acute diarrhea/cholera. By mid-June more than 51,000 cases were reported in all of Somalia, claiming nearly 800 lives.

One life saved, however, was Nabhan’s. Three days after the Monitor first met the boy, he was on the way to recovery. “We think he will survive. We are so happy!” said his joyful grandmother, Ardo Mohamoud.

But Mr. Ibrahim says “countless” children perished in their distant rural area, including all six children of one family he knew.

“I have never, ever heard of a drought that claims the lives of the livestock and the lives of the people,” says Ibrahim, whose herd of 100 goats and sheep was decimated to six.

SCOTT PETERSON/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR/GETTY IMAGES

Families displaced by severe drought live in a makeshift camp on the outskirts of Burco, Somaliland. In Somaliland, part of famine prevention means keeping people at home, rather than wandering for help. It also means laying the ground for a major shift to lessen dependence on livestock, the backbone of Somalis' survival for centuries.

Communities can often sustain one drought, but “a second puts them under extreme stress,” says Jamal Abdi Sarman, of UNICEF in Hargeisa.

“When it rains and water gathers on the ground, people just drink it – right from the ground – because they are so desperate,” he says. “I’ve seen parents scooping up water for their kids and drinking it themselves.”

'Water is life'

West of Hargeisa, however, aid agencies have seen success with water programs. Today, in places like Carro-Yaambo, there has been more resilience, and less displacement of people.

The cistern the herder Madar is using, known as a berkad, measures 13 by 7 meters (roughly 43 by 22 feet), is 3-1/3 meters deep, and is covered to keep away dust and minimize evaporation. Concern has built 15 of them in this region over the past five years: the local communities dug each pit, and the aid agency provided the $15,000 worth of materials.

“We took the most vulnerable places where people exist,” says Khaled Haib, a water, sanitation, and hygiene engineer for Concern. The agency has also dug two boreholes over the years, trains local water management teams to run each water source, and provides purification tablets to make the water safe for drinking.

“We always train them to make them sustainable,” says Mr. Haib.

In other areas, however, the water supply is short-term, and contingent on outside groups – a challenge against long-term displacement.

On the fringes of Burco, 110 miles east of Hargeisa, lies “Prosperity Camp” – the name this rugged desert camp’s displaced residents chose, with great irony.

Clusters of stick-structure tents are draped with patchworks of cloth, to keep away the scalding heat and blowing sand. There are no latrines, and though trucks make daily water deliveries, the only sign of it are the grimy yellow jugs many carry when they emerge from their tents.

“Water is life, but what about food, and something to cook it with? There is no shelter, and now the wind and rain falls on our families,” says Farah Robleh, a man with gray stubble and veins on his forehead, whose herd of 200 goats and sheep has been ravaged to just 20. His wealth of 20 camels are now carcasses.

“When we first came here there were 70 families; life was good. Now there are 1,000 families and it is so, so crowded,” says Mr. Robleh. “I don’t think anyone can live here anymore. We have no options, we are only waiting for help.”

Preventing displacement

The drought has so uniformly destroyed livestock herds that many Somalis have nicknamed it “sima,” short for “similar,” because this drought made everyone similarly impoverished.

When the livestock of Basra Yusuf’s family began dying off in January, the government provided emergency food and support, which kept them in their village near Ainabo, farther to the east. But that help stopped when the rains began, as if the crisis were over.

Finally, all 300 of the family’s goats and sheep were dead, and Mrs. Yusuf and her husband were forced to move with their seven children in search of support.

“Here we get help,” says Yusuf, her second-youngest child tied to her hip with a wrap. “If [everything] goes again, we will have no choice but to look for something else.”

Preventing displacement is the aim of one cash-dispersal program run by Concern. The village of Yirowe, 15 miles southeast of Burco, does not have its own borehole – a decades-long frustration with dangerous ramifications during drought.

But the cash intervention helped the 655 families of Yirowe stay put, and even take in roughly 150 displaced families from the countryside.

As the drought gained momentum earlier this year, one-third of the poorest families in the village – about 220 – were each given $65 per month for three months, then double that in a final payment in April.

“Without this help, this situation would be worse,” says Abdirizak Ayah Awad, the head of the village committee that chose the poorest families. “We believe none of us would have died without it, but we would not even be at a basic level.”

But the Yirowe elders worry about a future dependent on rain, with 14 sub-districts under their leadership.

“Even if the drought ends, we need the water,” says Awad, making his bid for a borehole. “Now the people are so weak, we believe they can’t recover for 10 years – so we need external help.”

SCOTT PETERSON/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR/GETTY IMAGES

Somali herders care for cows beside a field of onions at a Farmer Field School organized by the Irish charity Concern Worldwide, in Gorey, an area 30 miles west of Hargeisa, the capital of the self-declared republic of Somaliland. Diversification toward agriculture to decrease dependence on pastoralism is already underway.

Forging a new path

As droughts have become more severe, unpredictable, and frequent – every year or two, instead of every decade – the trend is yielding widespread recognition that long-term survival and true resilience will require fundamental lifestyle changes.

Diversification toward agriculture is already underway: a dramatic step for a nomadic society whose ancient poets idolized the camel as a “living boulder placed by God in the wilderness,” whose beloved, sustaining existence was “as vital to life as the tendons of one’s back.”

“Most importantly, we need to diversify the economy,” says Dr. Shire. “Nomadism probably was the best way of living in this land 50 years ago, 100 years ago. Not anymore. That’s no longer tenable.”

“Somaliland is not alone in this; all the countries in Sahel region are experiencing the same situation,” says Shire, adding that the land is overburdened: Somaliland’s population has expanded almost six-fold since the 1950s, to 3.5 million, and the number of livestock has grown four-fold.

To fight the drought, the government has raised money for assistance, intervened with food and water, and is looking for ways to replenish herds. But it has been overwhelmed.

The climate, landscape, and seasons described by travelers to Somaliland in the 19th century – when the natural cycle better suited pastoral life – no longer exists, says Shire: “It’s a totally different country. I don’t think there is a future for nomadism.”

“If we want to keep camels, and sheep and goats, then we must change the way we raise them,” he says. “Otherwise there will be nothing for [them] to eat 10 years down the road – it will all be desert.”

In Carro-Yaambo, the community has taken advantage of their water to speed the transition from solely herding livestock to more farming, a shift that has been underway for 20 years.

“It’s not optional, it’s mandatory,” says Mohamed Abdi Yusuf, an elder at another water catchment tank. “Whenever people lose their livestock, they start farming.”

That process, too, is helped by aid agencies. Some 40 miles west of Hargeisa is a 13-hectare plot of land known as a Free Farmer School, where last year a lead farmer was chosen, and 40 community members have learned growing techniques.

Young citrus trees, sunflowers, onion, and garlic all wave in the breeze as clouds gather, perhaps to bring more rain. Local elders offer corn and watermelons as gifts – and totems of their need and desire to embrace a changed lifestyle.

“We gave them seeds and tools, to increase their resilience,” says Haib, the engineer from Concern. “Since the transition into farming, they need some knowledge.”

Clarence Tabb Jr. /Detroit News/AP

FBI agents leave the office of Dr. Fakhruddin Attar in Livonia, Mich., April 21. Federal investigators have charged Dr. Attar, his wife, and four others with illegally performing female genital mutilation on girls.

This fall, a United States district judge will hear a landmark case: For the first time, the federal government is pursuing a case of female genital mutilation on American soil.

Defense lawyers have said they will argue a freedom of religion defense – setting the stage for an explosive test of Americans’ religious rights that experts say could ultimately be settled by the Supreme Court.

The case began with charges related to two 7-year-old girls who were transported to Livonia, Mich., by their parents to have FGM performed on them, according to the government. Six people have been charged, and the clinic where the procedures were performed has been closed. The reach of the investigation has since expanded to cities including Los Angeles and Minneapolis. Assistant US Attorney Sarah Woodward has said in court it’s possible the doctor performed nearly 100 procedures between 2005 and 2017.

“Most religious freedoms don’t really affect other people,” says Frank Ravitch, an expert on law and religion who teaches at Michigan State University’s law school. “There are exceptions, but not in this direct a way, where we have these young girls who are having their bodies affected. It raises some really powerful questions.”

In the Michigan case, the courts will weigh a religious minority's rights against the federal government’s interest in protecting children. Experts agree that if the government proves the procedure caused substantial harm to the girls, then convictions are virtually guaranteed.

“Religious freedom does not include the freedom to do things that we all consider harmful to children,” says Robert Sedler, a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.

FGM is an umbrella term for a variety of cutting procedures intended to curb a girl’s future sexuality. The practice is typically performed for religious or cultural beliefs – most commonly in parts of Africa and the Middle East. The extent varies greatly, but any form of FGM, the World Health Organization contends, amounts to a human rights violation. The United States has explicitly banned FGM since 1995.

Jumana Nagarwala, the doctor who performed the procedure; Fakhruddin Attar, the owner of the clinic; his wife, Farida, who prosecutors allege assisted; another assistant, Tahera Shafiq; and Farida Arif and Fatema Dahodwala, the mothers of two Detroit-area girls who prosecutors allege were also victims, all face charges. The accused and the alleged victims are all members of the Dawoodi Bohras, a sect of Shiite Islam concentrated in western India.

Among the Bohras, an ethnic Gujarati community of some 1.2 million, the cutting is known as khatna, and has been practiced for centuries. After a Bohra girl turns 7, she’s typically taken by her family to see an adult woman, who has been appointed by religious clergy and is often a licensed medical practitioner. Beforehand, the girl is typically told she’s going for a fun outing, like a movie or a party; afterward, she’s told that what happened must be kept secret.

“In 99 percent of the cases it’s based on deceit. You’re never told the truth about what is going to happen to you,” says Masooma Ranalvi, a Bohra woman who is a leading anti-FGM activist. “They should be convicted. They knew what the law is and yet they did it… They had no business doing this to children.”

According to Ms. Ranalvi, around 80 percent of Bohras still practice khatna, although recently the community has become sharply divided over the custom. In 2015, an Australian court found three Bohras, including one religious leader, guilty of cutting two girls; the same year, Ranalvi and other Bohra women started a campaign to end the practice. The campaign has since amassed almost 100,000 supporters on Change.org and helped push the matter in the Indian legal system, where the Supreme Court is expected to take it up later this year.

But the increased attention has also provoked a wave of support. After the Australian ruling, Bohra clergy circulated an edict that followers around the world should comply with local laws, but the sect’s spiritual leader – the Bohras’ highest authority – has urged followers to continue the practice. Many Bohra women have also come forward to defend it.

“I have only sweet memories attached to the day when I was taken for the procedure,” one 50-year-old woman recently told the Indian newspaper The Hindu. “My mother and I bonded, the same way my daughter and I did when she was circumcised.”

A key argument for the defense is that the procedure that was done at the clinic was minor – a nick or scraping rather than an actual cutting.   

“We know there is female genital mutilation,” Mary Chartier, a lawyer for Fakhruddin Attar, told the Detroit Free Press in May. “No one is saying it doesn’t exist. But what we’re saying is this procedure does not qualify as FGM.”

Ms. Chartier and Shannon Smith, Nargarwala’s attorney, did not respond to the Monitor’s requests for interviews. An attorney for Farida Attar, Matt Newburg, declined to comment.

The trial is set for October.

Ravitch, the Michigan State University professor, says the case does raise legal questions about the extent of parents’ control, based on religious motivations, over their children’s health.

In other cases involving children and religious rights, he says, “a line has been drawn” establishing that parents’ religious rights may justify a defense against a minor harm to a child but not when she suffers significant bodily harm or death, Ravitch says.

The FGM accusations are different, though, because the adults are accused of perpetrating an injury rather than failing to give proper care. “The religious defense is really unique in this context,” says Ravitch. “It was commission versus omission.”

Still, the professor sees a theoretical way the defense could win, based on the legal principle of narrow tailoring. The defense would have to successfully argue that the federal law banning FGM is too broad, and that the procedure done at the clinic should be exempted. But the government’s interest – protecting children, including against unnecessary medical procedures – is a strong one.

“If there’s any long term damage the government wins the case. There is no question,” he says.

“Even if it was just a nick, the government theoretically could lose, but there’s still at least a 50 percent chance that they would win.”

1.  "Reading with Patrick," by Michelle Kuo
As a Teach For America volunteer, Michelle Kuo moved to Arkansas to teach English to middle school students in one of the poorest counties in America. This memoir tells the story of her experience, and how she bonded with Patrick, a sensitive and gifted teenager. Later, when Patrick is charged with murder, Kuo leaves Harvard Law School to come to his aid. You can read the Monitor's full review of "Reading with Patrick" here.

2.  "Jane Austen at Home," by Lucy Worsley
Historian Lucy Worsley dives deep into the world of Jane Austen (both historical records and Austen’s own writing) to deliver a charming meditation on what home meant to the great novelist, who lived in many different houses but owned none. The book is well researched, insightful, and pretty much guaranteed to delight Austen’s many fans. You can read the Monitor's full review of "Jane Austen at Home" here.

3. "Hannibal," by Patrick N. Hunt
Stanford archaeology professor and television personality Patrick Hunt manages to make his biography of Hannibal, the great Carthaginian general and eternal enemy of Rome, both lively and learned. Little is known of Hannibal’s personal life, but Hunt’s focus on the brilliance of Hannibal’s military strategy and the volatile politics of his time make this book a page turner. You can read the Monitor's full review of "Hannibal" here.

4.  "When the English Fall," by David Williams
When climate change causes a particularly violent storm, planes fall from the sky, appliances stop working, and computers offer no help whatsoever. But for an Amish farmer named Jacob, life goes on pretty much the same as before – except that now his non-Amish (or “English”) neighbors are all panicking. Jacob is an unlikely hero, but then, this is an unusually good post-apocalyptic novel. You can read the Monitor's full review of "When the English Fall" here.

5.  "Thoreau," by Laura Dassow Walls
This new biography of the great American writer and naturalist stands out from a crowded pack. Laura Dassow Walls offers a wonderfully researched portrait of Henry David Thoreau that humanizes the man and presents his daily life and thoughts in a compelling and sympathetic narrative. You can read the Monitor's full review of "Thoreau" here.

6.  "Ants Among Elephants," by Sujatha Gidla
This memoir by an Indian author about her mother (an “untouchable” who struggled to raise children in conditions of severe poverty) and her uncle (an activist who dedicated his life to class struggle) includes many thrilling and heartbreaking moments. These stories offer insight into the heart of modern India as well as the nature of prejudice. You can read the Monitor's full review of "Ants Among Elephants" here.

7.  "The Netanyahu Years," by Ben Caspit
Ben Caspit – a veteran journalist and columnist who has been writing about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for years – has written a passionate, impressionistic biography of the controversial politician. Netanyahu is a divisive figure and makes a riveting subject for Caspit’s book. You can read the Monitor's full review of "The Netanyahu Years" here. You can read the Monitor's full review of "The Netanyahu Years" here.

8.  "Woolly," by Ben Mezrich
This offbeat but highly compelling nonfiction narrative by bestselling author Ben Mezrich (“The Accidental Billionaires” and “The 37th Parallel”) follows Harvard University researcher George Church as he and a group of graduate students work to genetically engineer synthetically sequenced woolly mammoth genes – a project they come to see as vital to the health of the planet. You can read the Monitor's full review of "Woolly" here.

9.  "The Hidden Machinery," by Margot Livesey
In a series of lively, instructive essays, Scottish author Margot Livesey pulls the veil back on the “hidden machinery” that animates great literature. She considers the techniques of contemporaries such as Toni Morrison, Tim O’Brien, and William Trevor, as well as focusing on classic works by Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and T.S. Eliot, among others. You can read the Monitor's full review of "The Hidden Machinery" here.

10. "The Darkening Web," by Alexander Klimburg
Cybersecurity strategist Alexander Klimburg’s quietly horrifying new book opens with a sobering declaration about the kind and extent of damage that cyberwarfare could inflict. Although much of the book reads as an urgent warning to democratic societies, Klimburg concludes on a note of optimism, predicting that humanity will find solutions.

Reuters

A vendor receives Chinese banknotes after selling North Korean goods to tourists on a boat taking them from the Chinese side of the Yalu river for sightseeing close to the shores of North Korea near Dandong in China's Liaoning Province.

One shining example of bipartisan cooperation in Congress has been strong lawmaker support for a popular tool in foreign policy: sanctions on other nations or their leaders and companies. This week lawmakers are even more united as they move to approve new sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The new measures, however, deserve a close watch.

If done well, sanctions can alter the behavior of a country, as happened in white-ruled South Africa and many countries that abused their own people or another country. They might even prevent war, and for good reason. Sanctions are not so much punitive as a hopeful view that a country’s people really want peace and democracy. They signal a better path. At the least, they bolster regular diplomacy and help delay possible military action.

Most sanctions restrict the flow of money, trade, or people. Scholars debate whether past sanctions actually “worked” as intended, or even backfired. The evidence is not always clear, especially in determining if they deterred other bad behavior or set a higher moral standard in international affairs.

US sanctions on Cuba, for example, have done little to alter the Castro regime’s abuses. Yet they might have given pause in other countries to emulate Cuba. And as the Trump administration stiffens US sanctions on individuals in Venezuela’s regime, it remains to be seen if the new measures force high-level defections.

Congress will need to keep engaged on events in Russia, Iran, and North Korea because the new measures, which include specific targeting of key individuals involved in military affairs, aim to reduce the president’s ability to fine-tune many sanctions. In Russia’s case, Congress aims to must determine if Moscow is intervening in the elections of other countries as well as ending its aggression against Ukraine. For Iran, Congress must be careful in how that country reacts to new sanctions as it continues to cooperate with a 2015 agreement to curb its nuclear program. And as for North Korea, Congress must judge not only whether that country seeks negotiations but how well China restricts its support of a regime making rapid progress on nuclearized missiles.

Sanctions have usually worked for the United States if a sufficient number of other countries join in. The US cannot rely solely on its power as a large trading nation or the prominent use of the US dollar in global financial transactions to ensure sanctions have an impact. Sanctions must have moral weight that draws allies.

The fact that most US sanctions enjoy bipartisan support in Congress helps in their effectiveness. Yet Congress cannot simply pass such measures without tracking whether they are working. The mixed record for sanctions requires vigilance in using this tool for peace.