Youngstown

Readers write: Valuable college experience and tech opportunities

Regarding the Nov. 26 Heart of the News article “A conservative Christian university where Muslims feel welcome”: My experience at Brigham Young University was inspirational on so many levels. Through the prayer part in every class, I was given the opportunity to be connected to my faith and practice my Muslim prayer, share and explain, and be accepted. As a Muslim woman in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints community, I have an everlasting educational experience.

Global Newsstand: Thailand should not impede those who are seeking asylum, and more

“The fate of a Saudi woman on her way to Australia, where she has a visa and seeks to obtain asylum, teetered in the balance in Bangkok [on Jan. 7]...,” states an editorial. “Amid Thailand’s apparent willingness to deport [Rahaf al-Qunun] back to Saudi Arabia, rights lawyers representing her failed to get a Bangkok court to accept an injunction against her repatriation, which could have spelled her doom. “It is still unclear whether U.S. citizen Paul Whelan was indeed, as the Russian authorities allege, a spy, or whether he is the victim of mistaken identity...,” writes Mark Galeotti.

Low on gas, high on hope, many Mexicans back leader’s war on fuel thieves

Vittoria Romero and her daughter Celia were celebrating with high-fives and big smiles on a bright but chilly morning this week: They’d successfully filled their compact car’s gas tank after less than 30 minutes in line. Across Mexico, people like the Romeros have been contending with hours-long bumper-to-bumper waits at the pumps, reduced bus transportation, and other daily inconveniences for the past two weeks. The fuel distribution problems began after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered the closure of key pipelines in late December in an effort to curtail rampant fuel theft.

Employees ‘taken hostage’: the ethics of the US government shutdown

Hector Dias, one of some 400,000 federal employees who are being asked to work without pay, has a blunt message about the government’s partial shutdown. “We should not be taken hostage of the political atmosphere,” says Mr. Dias, a Department of Transportation worker in Washington, echoing the concerns of legions of employees deemed too essential to be furloughed.