Ismail Maasawabi was 8 years old when the first stones of the intifada were thrown by Palestinians at Israeli troops. When he was 10, he was mistakenly arrested by Israeli soldiers and didn’t try to escape because “it was better to be arrested standing his ground than running away.” Up until the age of 15, he may have been part of the 1/3 of Palestinian children who still wet their beds at that age, and suffer from anxiety and depression. And as an extremely devout Muslim at age 22, he blew himself up and caused the deaths of two 19-year old Israeli soldiers.Storer H. Rowley of The Chicago Tribune profiles a suicide bomber and considers the circumstances in which “the only way you can feel empowered is to die.”

“‘I didn’t realize we’re in the Bible Belt, but I guess we are.'” A Maryland Board of Education’s controversial list of goals for Charles County schools includes handing out Bibles to students, removing science books that are “‘biased towards evolution'” and distributing videos teaching creationism, abstinence-only and pro-life sex education, and censoring reading lists of books that offer “‘a neutral or positive view of immorality and foul language.'”

“‘We’re not part of the American church anymore. We’re part of Uganda.'” The New York Times’ Neela Banerjeee surveys the Episcopal split at its most bitter, in Los Angeles, where the diocese is suing three breakaway churches and has suspended the churches’ priests. L.A. Bishop J. Jon Bruno mourned the break of communion: “The churches’ leaving is similar to, say, the U.S. making a decision on desegregation, and states that don’t like it, like Alabama or Mississippi, leaving to join South Africa.”