Jeff Chiu/AP/File

Moina Shaiq holds a sign at a rally outside of City Hall in San Francisco in January. On April 25, a federal judge blocked a Trump administration order to withhold funding from communities that limit cooperation with US immigration authorities, saying the president has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending.

When attorneys for the Trump administration defended the president’s executive order targeting sanctuary cities this month, they urged a federal judge not to take its wide-ranging threats too seriously.  

The order was merely an example of the president’s use of the “bully pulpit, serving the purpose of highlighting President Trump’s focus on immigration enforcement,” the administration’s council told US District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco.

That argument failed to persuade. On Tuesday, Judge Orrick put a temporary halt to Mr. Trump’s executive order threatening to withhold federal funds from jurisdictions that limit local cooperation with immigration officials. It was the third time since Trump took office that a federal court put a halt to one of his executive orders – and the third time a court cited the president’s free-flowing bully pulpit to rule that an order likely overstepped the bounds of the Constitution.

As a first-time politician, Trump reveled in flouting establishment niceties and saying things few others would dare. From the start, the New York billionaire has employed a style of shoot-from-the-hip hyperbole that can be considered more rhetorical art than precise public policy.

It’s a style suited for bursts of provocative Tweets or stream-of-consciousness speeches. In the courtroom, where judges value verbal precision, the president’s hyperbole, which often runs roughshod over factual details, has often worked against him.

“In some respects, what we’re seeing is new, because courts have not used that kind of information before,” says Nancy Kassop, professor of political science at the State University of New York at New Paltz. “But they haven’t had any reason to until now. They’re beginning to create a precedent that what a president says, even if it’s off-the-cuff, if it has policy consequence to it or policy significance to it, it can’t be ignored.”

In March, federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland halted the president’s executive order suspending immigration from “countries of concern,” citing administration officials’ many statements broadly condemning Islam, as well as candidate Trump’s statements calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” – a statement still posted on the campaign site.

“Donald Trump appears to use rhetoric and words in a far different way from his predecessors,” says Mark Jones, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute of Public Policy in Houston. “He’s far more prone to exaggeration and the use of language that is more of a metaphor for broader action rather than a concrete policy proposal.”

“However, our legal system, our judges, our public are used to past presidents’ presidential behavior, where what a president says is indicative of their intent, and that’s where President Trump’s actions on the campaign trail have got him into trouble in his first 100 days,” Mr. Jones continues.

Rhetoric vs. the law

In his battle against “sanctuary cities,” Trump, as well as surrogates such as White House press secretary Sean Spicer and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have said his administration would wield federal funding as “a weapon” against states like California, where many jurisdictions limit cooperation with immigration officials.  

The problem is that the president cannot simply wield funding as a kind of stick to prod states to get in line. Many Supreme Court precedents already limit the president’s ability to cut funding already allocated by Congress, legal experts say.

The president’s lawyers seemed to know this, arguing that the executive order should be interpreted more narrowly than the president’s public statements – or even the words of the order’s text itself. They told the judge to ignore the administration’s broad language, saying the president only had the power to withhold, at most, three small grants administered by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

Trump’s lawyers also argued that the plaintiffs in the case, Santa Clara and San Francisco, should not have standing to sue, because the administration has not yet taken any action, or even defined what a sanctuary city is, exactly.

It was a curious concession that rendered the executive order “toothless,” Orrick wrote. The order, “by its plain language, attempts to reach all federal grants, not merely the three mentioned at the hearing.”

And given all the administration’s saber rattling about holding sanctuary cities to account, Orrick described the Trump administration’s arguments in court as “schizophrenic.”

'Culture clash'

“There is no doubt a culture clash going on between judges who use language precisely and a populist president who freewheels with language and often shoots from the hip,” says James Goodnow, an attorney with Fennemore Craig, headquartered in Phoenix, and a frequent legal commentator.  “Judges are in the business of ascertaining intent.... Courts then have to do their best to figure out intent from the papers in front of them or witness testimony.”

“But Trump makes it easy,” he continues. “He live tweets his every thought to the entire world. In the case of the travel ban and his sanctuary city executive order, he indicated his apparent intent behind the laws time and again. In the sanctuary city case, justice department lawyers essentially argued that Trump was simply engaging in hyperbole … and he didn’t mean his comments to be taken literally.”

“But when it comes to matters of national security or people’s livelihoods, judges are trained that words matter,” Mr. Goodnow says.

The White House, in a statement, said Orrick’s ruling was “yet one more example of egregious overreach by a single, unelected district judge” who “unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our nation.”  

The president lashed out against the ruling on Twitter. "First the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban & now it hits again on sanctuary cities – both ridiculous rulings. See you in the Supreme Court!” Orrick is a district judge in San Francisco, not a member of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Even without the rhetoric, the executive order may have faced profound constitutional hurdles, many legal scholars say.

Federalist principles at play

A number of conservative Supreme Court decisions have emphasized the concept of federalism. A concept dear to many conservatives, federalist principles may prevent the Trump administration from using funding as a weapon, scholars say.

Local governments cannot be compelled to enforce federal law, the high court has ruled. The Trump administration cannot coerce or “commandeer” state or local agencies to enforce any federal law, including immigration law. It can and does, however, enter into agreements – not requirements, legal scholars note – that deputize local officials as proxies to enforce federal immigration law.

Many “sanctuary” jurisdictions require a warrant from a judge before handing over a person to federal immigration officials. They argue that public safety is better ensured when immigrants are not afraid to cooperate with law enforcement. Besides, many say, they do not have the manpower or budget to take on the federal government's duties.  

The Trump administration has also said that local jurisdictions must certify their compliance with a section of federal immigration law in order to receive certain federal grants. Section 1373 of the federal statute requires localities to share any information they have about an individual’s immigration status. But as legal scholars note, this section of the law does not, and cannot, require local entities to collect this information in the first place. 

In addition, the Supreme Court has long ruled that any conditions attached to federal grants must be “unambiguously” stated in the text of the law “so that the States can knowingly decide whether or not to accept those funds.”

“The right way to do it is to get Congress to do it with future grants, and do it clearly and unambiguously and in a way that doesn’t, in the language of the court, doesn’t coerce state and local governments, but rather gives them choice to either take grants with conditions or decline grants entirely,” says Steven Schwinn, professor at the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago.

'Adjustment on both sides'

Courts, as well as foreign governments, have struggled with how seriously they should take Trump’s hyperbolic political style.

“There has to be adjustment on both sides,” says Jones. “President Trump needs to be more cognizant of the impact that his words, statements, and tweets have on how judges, foreign leaders and the American public views his policy proposals.”

“Both are trying to read [intent], but judges have to err on the side of caution. Foreign leaders are doing what’s in the best interests of their country, but judges have to err on side of caution.”

Rick Bowmer/AP

Native American tribes are banding together in defense of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah (shown in this June 22, 2016 photo) after President Trump ordered the Interior Department to consider revoking the region's monument designation earlier this week.

Davis Filfred wishes President Trump would take a page from General “Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf's playbook, in thinking about Bears Ears National Monument.

When Mr. Filfred served as Marine Corps combat engineer in Operation Desert Storm, General Schwarzkopf ordered troops not to target religious, archaeological, and other sensitive sites for bombing.

Filfred, a member of the Navajo Nation council representing districts in Utah, now says the Trump administration should take the same approach to Bears Ears, a 1.3 million acre swath of southern Utah that has become the latest battleground between the federal government and a burgeoning Native American movement of religion-infused environmental activism. At the heart of that battle is a conflict in worldview. To Native people, land is more than a place to build, dig, and live, it is saturated with religious meaning, and a connection to their ancestors and the spiritual realm.

“This is the place where we worship, this is our holy ground, and what Trump wants to do, and the Utah delegation, is they want to bomb our sacred place,” he says.

Earlier this week, Mr. Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of almost two-dozen sites designated as national monuments since Jan. 1, 1996. The order requires Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to submit reviews of monuments larger than 100,000 acres within 120 days, with the exception of Bears Ears, where he will submit a final review within 45 days. The investigation will center on whether the monuments could be reduced in size or perhaps eliminated.

The Bears Ears monument in particular – which President Obama designated last December, weeks before he left office – has become a political lightning rod. Members of Utah’s congressional delegation have long opposed giving the site a protected status, in part, because of the land's potential for resource extraction, and brought the issue to the Trump administration's attention. Trump said the designation “never should have happened” and called it part of a “massive federal land grab that’s got worse and worse.” 

The 1906 Antiquities Act gives presidents the power to create national monuments, and Mr. Obama created more national monuments than any president in history besides Franklin Roosevelt, with Bears Ears being one of the largest. No president has ever rescinded a national monument designation, though many have downsized monuments, and it is unclear if Trump has the legal authority to do so.

Evolving views of the 'profoundly sacred'

What is clear is that Native Americans with deep spiritual attachments to Bears Ears are prepared to fight any attempts to reduce or eliminate the area’s protected status.

The designation of Bears Ears as a national monument last year was the culmination of a years-long lobbying effort from five tribes in the region: the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Indian, Ute Mountain Ute, and the Zuni. In his proclamation, creating the monument, Obama said the area “is profoundly sacred” to the tribes, and that “the area’s cultural importance to Native American tribes continues to this day.” 

The designation was evidence of what academics say has been a steadily increasing awareness of and concern for Native American cultural and spiritual life. 

Prior to the 1970s, there was “little governmental sensitivity…[to] American Indian belief systems and ritual practices,” says Peter Nabokov, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles who has published several books on Native American culture and architecture.

“We’ve grown up a bit about that kind of delicate connection between [Native] cultures,” he adds. 

Specifically, legislation like the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 “have attempted to secure for them some sort of sense that their belief systems and life ways will be respected,” says Professor Nabokov. 

“A lot of [religious] practices were discouraged” or prohibited by federal laws, he adds, “and for many tribes in some cases they lost things they’ve never regained.”

A return to spirituality

These protections have resulted in a gradual resurgence of Native American religion and, given the nature of Native spirituality, the appearance of a new breed of faith-powered Native environmental activism.

“Native people don’t separate church and state the way [non-Native people] do in America,” says Rosalyn LaPier, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Montana who is currently a visiting professor at the Harvard Divinity School. “So when they look at places like landscapes, they’re viewing it through a religious lens.” 

“Some tribes would say that the entire landscape is saturated with both the natural and the supernatural, and [so] you have to always take that into consideration when making decisions about changing the landscape,” adds Professor LaPier, a member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana.

That worldview – and the conflicts it can create with the federal government – was on display at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in North Dakota last year, where hundreds of tribes gathered for months to block the construction of an oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

And the Northern Cheyenne tribe in Montana, for example, is suing the administration over another executive order that would lift an Obama-era moratorium on coal leasing on public lands. Coal development in and around the tribe’s lands would, among other things, adversely affect “cultural and spiritual practices” they engage in, according to their complaint. 

The Standing Rock protests made news around the world, but LaPier says such spiritual activism – encompassing a range of different Native religions – has been developing for years.

Filfred notes that the five Bears Ears tribes “came together way before Standing Rock.”

“At one time they wouldn’t sit down, they never looked at each other, they were enemies,” he adds. “But now they sit at the table.”

A united front

Not only have those tribes become united around Bears Ears, but more broadly they say Indian Country feels under attack because of Trump policies.

And it’s not simple rhetoric, experts say. Many of the Trump administration’s policy decisions so far, from the coal moratorium order to Bears Ears, remind tribes of a time when the federal government restricted their religious activities and did little to protect tribal lands from the environmental impacts of resource extraction.

“It’s easy to frame what’s happening in this administration and previous ones as more of the same, or a return to pre-1970s federal policy,” says James Allison, an assistant professor of history at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va., who has researched energy development on tribal lands in the northern Great Plains. 

And some in Indian Country fear that these policies could undermine the cultural awareness and mutual understanding that has been developing between Native Americans and the rest of the country. 

“What you see as a weed I may see as a medicinal plant,” said Shaun Chapoose, chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee, in February. “These are cultural differences, and the part of Bears Ears which was unique was it was actually for you and for me to better understand each other.”

Helena Carpio Fiasse

First responders known as "White helmets, green crosses" move through the crowds in Plaza Altamira, a square often for demonstrations against the Venezuelan government, towards the city's main highway, where the main protest was planned, on Monday, April 24 in Caracas.

An antigovernment protest was well under way on a recent afternoon in Caracas when suddenly, the chanting stopped and a hush fell over the crowd. Protesters dressed in white and carrying the Venezuelan flag slowly started clapping, and cheering, as a small group of volunteers wearing scrubs and white helmets with green crosses emerged from the crowd.

“Courageous,” yelled one person. “God bless you guys,” called another.

Meet the Primeros Auxilios UCV, or the first responders of the Central University of Venezuela, a volunteer first aid group made up of medical students and recent graduates who are working to keep Venezuelans safe as increasingly violent protests sweep the country.

It’s a key service in a country that is suffering extreme food and medical-supply shortages, and as antigovernment protests kick off once again. When the team of roughly 60 volunteers went to the frontlines earlier this month, they didn’t even have gloves, disinfectant, or bandages.

Many doctors have fled Venezuela. But Primeros Auxilios sees the current crisis as making their skills all the more needed. And beyond the present conflicts, they say, they want to be part of a more stable future. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have taken to the streets this spring, calling for the government to step down after a series of increasingly authoritarian moves, such as dissolving the legislature – a decision reversed after international outcry. But the students are there to help anyone in the protests and counter-protests, including the National Guard.

The group launched back in 2014, when a wave of mostly student protesters took to the streets to call for the government of President Nicolás Maduro to step down in a movement known as “La Salida,” or The Exit. Though not as acute as today, food shortages and the imprisonment of opposition politicians were already problems. And after one of the early marches, a group of friends from the medical school decided they wanted to do more to contribute to the future of their country than simply march.

“For us, the best way to help was doing what we do every day: provide medical assistance,” says Féderica Dávila, a medical student here.

Over the past three years, oil prices have collapsed, removing a central source of revenue for the government. Inflation is in the triple digits, and citizens stand in line for hours to enter grocery stores with increasingly bare shelves. Children are skipping school and fainting due to hunger, and looting happens regularly. Reliance on international donations and aid for medical supplies is on the rise, with Venezuelans abroad helping fund-raise even as the government denies a humanitarian emergency is under way.

Protests kicked off once again late last month after the Supreme Court moved to take over the opposition-controlled congress – the only remaining check on President Maduro’s power. Although the move was reversed amid international pressure, opponents of the government haven’t left the streets. Some 26 people have died during protests and looting this month alone, and the government isn’t showing signs of backing down, either. Under threat of a special meeting by the Organization of American States to discuss action on Venezuela, Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said this week that Venezuela would simply withdraw from the regional body.

The first aid work is risky and challenging, with the aspiring medical professionals and young doctors working under extreme pressure. They’ve witnessed deaths, panic attacks, and have had to problem-solve with limited resources amid teargas and angry government forces.

“Many people get hurt because of the teargas canisters that the military throws at them,” says Ms. Dávila. 

But their work is not limited to antigovernment protesters. As aspiring doctors and surgeons, they are guided by the Hippocratic oath, members say.

“During protests we approach the military and tell them that we’re also there for them, to help them if they get hurt,” says Daniela Liendo, another volunteer.

The health system in Venezuela has been slowly crumbling for years, reaching a point of crisis in recent months with hospitals lacking even the most basic resources to treat patients, like gauze or running water. Hospital workers report having only 3 percent of needed supplies, according to the Venezuelan Medical Federation.

And over the past 17 years, more than 2 million Venezuelans have fled the country, according to Iván de La Vega, a professor at Simón Bolívar University in Caracas. Amid that group are an estimated 16,000 medical professionals.

But Carlos Zambrano, a dentist volunteering with the Primeros Auxilios UCV, says he doesn’t see fleeing as a solution. “That’s the easy way,” he says. Yes, Venezuela is complicated and dangerous right now. But it still has potential, and Dr. Zambrano wants to be a part of that, he says.

On April 20, a group of volunteers gathered inside a home in eastern Caracas before yet another protest. Young men and women counted helmets, cleaned gas masks, and filled spray bottles with antacid, which they use to counteract the effects of teargas. 

They work across Venezuela any time there’s a rally or demonstration, but most of their time is spent in Caracas, where the majority of the group’s members are based. On this particular day, the group is visibly dragging – many have dark circles under their eyes. The day before, the team worked nine hours at the largest – and the most challenging – march to date. Protesters fled clouds of teargas by jumping into the Guaire River, a sewage-crammed river running through the middle of the city.

“We were trapped in a stampede of people,” Ms. Liendo says, nervously playing with her keys. “It was impossible to help anyone without [more] space,” she says, adding that she keeps thinking about a woman who grabbed her arm and begged for help, coughing amid a cloud of teargas. But Liendo couldn’t do much in the moment. “It’s too easy to say ‘Please, stay calm’ from under [a gas] mask,” because you don’t know how badly people are choking without one, she says.

Zambrano, the dentist, says it’s hard to tend to people in need when the National Guard continues to throw teargas, even when volunteers are clearly identified with their green crosses. Liendo says what makes her most nervous is not so much her work on the front lines, but the fact that she knows her mother is out there amid the protesters. She’s seen the way demonstrators are treated. “I’m always hoping she won’t get hurt.”

But the warm welcome protesters give them buoys their spirits. And Venezuelans who have fled the country often send donated medical supplies to make the Primeros Auxilios UCV’s work possible. “We’ve received so much help, blessings, and beautiful messages from abroad,” says Dávila. It motivates her to keep doing this work, despite the risks.

Liendo says she’s often asked when she will leave Venezuela. Even though she sometimes asks herself the same question, her reply never changes.

“I’m staying here,” Liendo says. As part of her medical training, she often travels to low-income neighborhoods as a public service. “Each time I go to [someone’s home] to provide medical care and someone offers me their last piece of food, it makes me realize this is a great country, with great people,” she says. “I want to stay here.” 

Johnny Andrews/The Seattle Times via AP

In this Jan. 11, 2017 photo, protesters in Seattle register their opposition to plans to build a new, $210 million juvenile-justice center and lockup there. For the past 20 years, it’s been up to county prosecutors across the state to decide which 16- and 17-year-olds accused of committing certain violent crimes are tried in adult court and which ones are prosecuted in the juvenile system.

When New York this month raised the age at which young criminal offenders would still be considered juveniles, it was a major change for a state that since 1824 had considered everyone 16 and older as an adult.

New York’s decision to take 16- and 17-year-olds out of the adult criminal system, the result of a bipartisan movement to rethink the get-tough-on-crime laws of the 1990s, is the most recent victory in the effort to move away from a focus on harsh prison sentences, particularly for juveniles.

Anti-crime legislation passed decades ago led the United States to incarcerate more of its residents than any other nation by far, and leaders on both sides of the aisle have looked for ways to change this fiscally challenging trend over the past decade.

Most US states, going back to the 1940s, set 18 as the minimum age to be tried as an adult. Yet in the tough-on-crime era of the 1990s, many states began to again make it easier to process young teens in the adult system.

States passed laws to exclude certain serious crimes, including drug crimes, from the juvenile system altogether. Many gave judges and prosecutors more leeway to decide whether a teen should be tried as an adult.

In the wake of New York’s move on April 10, North Carolina is now the only state that considers 16-year-old offenders as adults by default, and one of only six that include 17-year-olds in the adult system.

Jennifer March, executive director of Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, marvels at how quickly the “raise-the-age” issue has moved from a grass-roots political push to a significant change in the state’s criminal justice system.

“Four years is short in the life of an advocate,” says Dr. March, whose organization helped establish the state’s “Raise the Age” movement in 2013, when concerns over aggressive policing and calls for criminal justice reform began gaining momentum. “Now we’re hopeful that other states in the country can look to our new law as we roll it out.”

Texas takes action

On April 20 in Texas, one of the six states that considers all 17-year-old offenders as adults, the House passed by a vote of 92 to 52 a similar bill that raises the state’s age of criminal responsibility from 17 to 18. Now the bill turns to the Texas Senate.

Missouri, another of the six states, is also considering a raise-the-age bill.

According to March, a growing body of research, from studies of adolescent brain development, to the rates of recidivism for young teens convicted in the criminal system, to the emotional and physical perils of prison life for 16- and 17-year-olds, have convinced more and more lawmakers that these young offenders, as well as society as a whole, are better served by the juvenile system.

“This issue, it impacts all of us,” says Jeree Thomas, policy director at the Campaign for Youth Justice in Washington. “When you think about the costs of incarceration, when you think about the physical and emotional costs on kids and the results on society once they're released – if we’re able to better serve the needs of those young people to help them become law-abiding citizens, that will positively impact all our lives.”

New York’s new law allows local district attorneys to keep a teen in the adult system, but requires them to prove “extraordinary circumstances” justifying the move. Violent felonies will also remain in the adult system, while other felonies will be moved to a youth division, where judges have specific training in family and childhood development issues.

“The law does also ensure that no young person would be in an adult jail or an adult correction facility,” notes March, citing the research that consistently documents how teens incarcerated with adults are at greater risk of violence, including sexual violence.

Threat to public safety

Opponents of raise-the-age bills, however, worry that not punishing 17-year-old offenders could pose a threat to public safety.

“Sadly, Raise the Age will re-victimize victims by taking them out of the process and allowing defendants to go unpunished,” said Steve Cornwell, the Republican district attorney in upstate Broome County, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. “And it will lead to the exploitation of children, who drug dealers will prey upon, to sell poisonous drugs, without the threat of criminal prosecution.” 

In Texas, state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, worries that juvenile justice facilities, some of which are “out of control and dangerous,” would become even less safe with the addition of 17-year-olds, The Texas Tribune reported.

One of the reasons the raise-the-age bill gained momentum over the past few years, however, were high-profile cases of young teens beaten and abused in New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex, which officials have recently agreed to close, a process that could take a decade. Beginning Oct. 1, 2018, offenders 17 and under in New York will no longer be held in county jails. In 2019, 18-year-olds will also no longer be held in adult jails.

Teens in the adult criminal system also have a high rate of suicide, and are much more likely to commit crimes again once they are released, notes Brian Evans, the director of state campaigns at the Campaign for Youth Justice.

“I think for legislators, that fact – the fact that incarcerating kids just doesn’t work for its intended purposes – has been a real driver across party lines, showing that we shouldn’t continue a policy that harms kids and also isn’t providing any kind of benefit to public safety,” Mr. Evans says.

“So it is definitely progress,” he continues. “And it’s part of a trend in which we’re getting almost all US states to start kids under the age of 18 in the juvenile system.”

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

At the popular local eateries the Monitor visited, the fare ranged from smoky brisket and “frickles” (fried pickles) to fresh blueberry muffins and raspberry hot chocolate. The political views were not quite so varied, however. In some places, as many as 9 in 10 voters had supported Mr. Trump. Most of them remain enthusiastic about Trump because of his support of coal and conservative values that resonate in this predominantly Christian region.

Wilma's in Paintsville, Ky.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor

Wilma Eldridge has run Wilma's diner in Paintsville, Ky., for more than 50 years. On this morning in late March, she had baked 27 pies for a local farm stand – and by 10:30 a.m. only one was remaining.

By 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning, Wilma Eldridge has already made 27 pies. To be specific, 14 chocolate, six coconut, and seven apple pies.

She has owned Wilma’s Restaurant off of Paintsville’s Main Street for 54 years. “It’s regular home cooking,” says Ms. Eldridge, in her small wood-paneled dining area. “I’m known for my pies.” Making the crusts from scratch makes all the difference, she explains.

Paintsville is part of Johnson County, where 84 percent of residents voted for President Trump. A lot of the support was due to “religious reasons,” says Eldridge, who adds that people in Paintsville are strongly against abortion and want God to be a part of public education.

“‘In God We Trust’ needs to be back in our schools,” says Eldridge, who had one customer who would pray every day for Trump to get elected. “They would have taken God out of everything if Hillary had been able to appoint the Supreme Court justice.”

Money is tighter than she has ever seen it in the five decades she has owned a restaurant. Eldridge used to have three employees working at her restaurant at any one time, but now she is the only one on duty most days. She started setting up a breakfast buffet on the weekends so customers could serve themselves while she doubles as both a waitress and owner.

Paintsville locals voted for Trump because they need jobs, says Eldridge. And so far, locals feel like Trump has lived up to his word. Kathy, a woman dining with her mother Martha, says she has seen more coal trucks running through the town since the election.

After President Obama put restrictions on coal production, Kentucky’s unemployment rate spiked to double digits. “Whenever you take coal out of eastern Kentucky, we have nothing,” says Eldridge, to a nodding agreement from Kathy and Martha. Today the unemployment rate in Kentucky has fallen back down to five percent.

By 10:30 AM, Wilma’s grandson only has one of his grandmother’s pies left at his farmstand.

Fava's in Georgetown, Ky.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor

Alden Gruchow (l.) and cook Chris Caudill (r.) work at Fava's Restaurant, a popular watering hole in Georgetown, Ky. Mr. Gruchow's grandmother founded the place.

The busiest day at Fava’s is Saturday, says cook Chris Caudill, when locals line up to order bowls piled high with “frickles” (fried pickles) and hot browns, an open sandwich of Texas toast smothered in cheese, deli meat, tomatoes, and bacon.

Fava’s also has a steady flow of daily customers who keep their own mugs and plates in the back of the restaurant. “They come in every morning, and eat off the same plate and drink out of the same cup,” says Mr. Caudill. “One regular gets poached eggs, another gets two eggs with a side of biscuits. You know when they walk in the door what they get.”

Fava’s has great customer loyalty, says Alden Gruchow, a third-generation employee at the restaurant, but other small businesses in Georgetown aren’t as lucky. “There is a building right across the street, and over the last 10 years they have probably had three to four different businesses and they close within a year or two,” he says. “I feel like it’s harder for people to open a business and sustain success.”

Gruchow and Caudill say that’s one of the reasons they both voted for Trump. “I feel like he wants people to start their own businesses and [give] tax breaks for small businesses,” says Gruchow. “That’s a big thing for me, having the restaurant in our family.”

And three months into his presidency, they feel Trump is trying his best to revive local economies in Appalachia – even if that means budget cuts to major funding sources like the Appalachian Regional Commission.

“I think he’s trying to find ways to save money right now and he just doesn’t know how,” says Gruchow. “I think he didn’t realize how hard it was going to be.”

The Wild Bean in Lewisburg, W. Va.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor

Chef Chris Hinkle says blueberry muffins are one of the most popular items at Wild Bean in Lewisburg, W. Va. Lewisburg, which is home to the five-star resort The Greenbrier, was voted America's "Coolest Small Town" in 2011.

Wild Bean’s chef Chris Hinkle makes two dozen blueberry muffins a day. “If we don't have 'em, people freak out in the morning,” says Mr. Hinkle, who grew up in Lewisburg.

Washington Street offers a reprieve from the fast food chains and strip malls alongside Interstate 64. The sidewalks on either side of the 2-lane street are lined with a couple local restaurants, a post office, and a few galleries. The Greenbrier, a local five-star resort, has long drawn visitors from outside West Virginia, but the town saw a significant bump in tourism after it won Budget Travel’s award of “Coolest Small Town” in 2011. 

Despite these distinctions, Lewisburg’s resources – like those of the state – are still abused by outsiders, says Hinkle.

“West Virginia has always been kind of [dumped] on. People just want what we have and then they run off after they trash our land,” he says. “And that happens a lot.” The coal companies are a big example, he explains, but a smaller example is tourists coming to the Greenbrier river trail and leaving tons of garbage on the river bank.

Hinkle, who identifies as a Democrat, thinks West Virginia will be further degraded under the president. Rollback of Clean Water Act protections and coal mine regulations “scare me,” he says. Still, Lewisburg saw a lot of pro-Trump support before and after the election.

“I think Obama did a pretty fair job. He was diplomatic and professional and all that but things didn’t really improve a lot,” says Colby Taylor, a customer at the Wild Bean. He hopes Trump can turn things around, specifically when it comes to health care.

After caddying at the Greenbrier’s golf course for employees of big insurance companies, he looks at the industry a bit differently. “Watching them party all that money away and drink the $500 bottles of wine, [and] they’re playing golf ... makes me say, ‘Hey. They need to clean up the insurance companies,’ ” Mr. Taylor says.

Three months into Trump’s presidency, there are still some “hostile feelings” in town over the election, says Taylor. “I’ve never really seen it as bad as it is now.”

Hinkle agrees. “I don’t really like the guy,” says Hinkle, referring to Trump. “But he is the president now so I try not to fight too much with the people I know.”

Morrison's Drive Inn in Logan, W. Va.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor

Loletta Evans has worked for 34 years at Morrison’s Drive Inn, which used to get big orders of their famous hot dogs with steamed buns on Thursdays and Fridays for company meetings at the coal mines.

Loletta Evans has worked for 34 years at Morrison’s Drive Inn, where locals pull up in their pick-up trucks and sedans and waitresses come out to take their orders.

Ms. Evans says the restaurant used to get big orders of their famous hot dogs with steamed buns on Thursdays and Fridays for company meetings at the coal mines. By specially wrapping the hot dogs in both cellophane and foil, says Ms. Evans, the hot dogs can stay warm for hours.

Business isn’t what it used to be, but Evans says Morrison’s has received more large orders since the election. “It’s slow,” she says, “but it’s coming back.”

Evans says the economy in Logan – where she has lived her entire life – is hard-up, so she knew Hillary Clinton made a “bad mistake” when she said she was going to shut down the coal mines. “[E]ven if she thought it, she shouldn’t have said it,” says Evans. “You don’t just tell people you are going to take their livelihoods.”

Locals lined the streets when John F. Kennedy campaigned in Logan, says Evans. She fondly remembers meeting the president-to-be, even though she has always considered herself a Republican.

But Mrs. Clinton would have been booed if she campaigned in Logan, Evans says, adding that when Clinton sent her husband Bill instead he didn't get the “big turnout” that politicians normally get here.

Clinton’s remarks fueled support for Trump in the area, says Evans. Today locals feel he is trying to live up to his campaign promises, but that Congress is making it difficult. “They are fighting him tooth and toenail but he is trying. Of course I do pray for him every night. I would like to see him do good and I think his heart is in the right place.”

If the country went “back to God,” there would be less disagreement in Washington, says Evans. “People don’t have any moral standards about them anymore.”

Smitty's Southern BBQ in Richmond, Ky.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor

Bonnie Smith took over running Smitty's Southern Style BBQ after her husband passed on several years ago. His hat rests atop the restaurant's "Wall of Praise." The wall, which guests were invited to write on, soon filled up with favorite Bible verses.

By Saturday afternoon, Smitty’s Southern Style BBQ only has enough pulled pork for one more sandwich. They cook the meat in small batches so it stays fresh, but that also means they run out of barbecue sandwiches on busy days.

“I just told my daughter-in-law right here, I think we’re going have to start cooking more for Saturday,” says owner Bonnie Smith. Smitty’s belonged to Ms. Smith’s husband, who passed away four years ago. Now she manages the restaurant with the help of her children, her children’s spouses, and her grandchildren.

Smith, who has lived in Richmond her entire life, voted for Hillary Clinton in November because she felt Trump was “so negative.” Before November, Smith says she heard a lot of talk about the candidates’ gender: “You had [some people] saying they didn’t want a woman for president. They needed a man.”

Regardless of political differences, however, Smith says her favorite thing about Richmond is the people. “[T]here may be a lot of racism or whatever, but they are genuinely nice.”

When the restaurant first opened, Smith and her husband gave customers markers to write messages on a blackboard in front of the register. And without any prompts, “they would always put Scripture,” says Smith. Now Smith and her family call the blackboard “The Wall of Praise.”

According to Pew Research, 76 percent of Kentuckians identify as Christian, and less than 2 percent of the state identifies with a non-Christian faith. And considering that at least 43 percent of adults in Kentucky read Scripture at least once a week, the Wall of Praise’s natural evolution makes sense. Religion is important to Smith, who says it has helped her get through hard times at the restaurant.

“It’s really booming today and I thank God for it, because it can get a little slow in here,” says Smith, gesturing to two full tables of customers. “If I have just one person come in here I thank God for that one person because I know he is going to send more. That’s my philosophy with the kids. The Lord always makes a way.”

Tonya's Country Kitchen in Marietta, Ohio

Every Tuesday, Joe Kurdz visits Tonya’s Country Kitchen on Front Street for the daily special: baked steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, a dinner roll, and a choice of green beans or corn for $7.95.

Located in the heart of Marietta, Ohio, Tonya’s is two blocks away from the banks of the Ohio River – and West Virginia on the other side. Local restaurants and home accessory stores line the wide streets of Marietta’s downtown.

A city of less than 14,000 people, Marietta is the largest city in Washington County, where Republican support runs deep: more than 68 percent of the county voted for Donald Trump in November. The city was an outpost for pioneers in the 1700s, but it has fallen on hard times. More than 26 percent of Marietta is in poverty, double the national average. Kurdz volunteers at a local food pantry every week and he says the majority of visitors are young families.

“When I was in the workforce, there were a bunch of industries in Marietta. People stayed,” says Kurdz. Now, he adds, many people born in Marietta later leave to find jobs. “But I stuck around Marietta. It’s a good city.”

However, Kurdz says drug addiction in the area is a serious problem. Ohio is ranked fifth in drug overdoses among US states, including an 11 percent increase in deaths between 2014 and 2015. Drug overdoses have witnessed a long-term climb in Washington County: in 1992 there were two drug overdose deaths and in 2015 there were 73. 

“It's gotten real bad,” says Kurdz. “When I was a policeman, the worst I got was a kid sniffing glue.”

After finishing his dinner, Kurdz goes home to let his cat inside the house. He’ll be back to Tonya’s next Tuesday for the baked steak special.

34:Ate in Williamson, W.Va

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor

Co-founders Robyn Gannon and Debby Young, former schoolteachers, decided to name their popular cafe 34:Ate after Psalm 34: "O taste and see that the Lord is good..."

“Waffle Wednesdys” is big at 34:Ate, say co-owners Robyn Gannon and Debby Young: the weekly special of chicken and waffles.

Despite seeing the economy decline during their lives in Williamson, Ms. Gannon and Ms. Young decided to retire from their jobs as schoolteachers and open a restaurant together three years ago. They tossed around hundreds of name possibilities and eventually they decided on 34:Ate, a play on Psalms 34:8, which reads “O taste and see that the Lord is good…”

The local economy revolves around coal mines, says Gannon, so it inevitably influences local politics – including her own perspective. “I am a Democrat still, but I could not live in this community where coal was just everything, and vote for somebody who just said they were against it,” says Gannon, who voted for Trump in November. “I mean I wouldn’t feel like I could hold my head up in this area.”

But local politics are determined by more than the economy. Christianity is very important to locals in Williamson. “I’d say for the majority of people around here if someone was against abortion they would vote for that person,” says local diner Judy Southard, “no matter what else they thought.”

More than 70 percent of the US identifies as Christian – including 78 percent of West Virginia – but their behavior doesn't always hew to Christian principles, says Ms. Young.

“What hurts is that Christians don’t always act like Christians. We’re not always the most loving people and sometimes we… can’t see how anyone else could think or feel,” says Young. “But we should still love those who aren’t like us. They have their rights and they have the same needs that we do.”

AP Photo

Women in Bogotá hug during a rally in support of the peace deal signed last November between rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos.

Five months after ending Latin America’s longest guerrilla war, Colombia has finally set up a truth commission, a type of panel that other post-conflict countries have tried in hopes of healing social wounds. Thousands of perpetrators of violence on all sides will be invited to confess and also offer compensation to victims – 8 million of them – in return for some forgiveness. Only those who committed the most heinous crimes will be tried. If the process can find a balance between justice and mercy, it will help bring a measure of reconciliation to a country at war since the mid-1960s.

Yet the truth commission, along with other parts of a 2016 historic peace deal, could achieve another purpose. Colombia’s peace process might give hope to neighboring Venezuela. That country is quickly plunging into violence between pro-democracy protesters and the security forces of an autocratic leader, President Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuela’s rising violence has already brought some attempts at mediation and reconciliation. Much of the rest of Latin America, for example, seeks a new election in Venezuela. And in a poignant message, the son of the country’s pro-government human rights ombudsman used a YouTube video this week to call on his father, Tarek Saab, to “end the injustice that has sunk this country.”

“I ask you as your son, and in the name of Venezuela that you represent, that you reflect and do what you must do. I understand, I know this isn’t easy, but it’s right, the right thing to do,” said Yibram Saab, who has been a victim of the government crackdown on protesters.

In Colombia, victims were purposely placed at the center of the peace negotiations, which began in 2012. And as the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia hand over their weapons and reenter society from their jungle outposts, the victims will again be at the center of ensuring peace through the commission’s work in revealing the truth about past violence.

The peace deal’s post-conflict bodies will offer “a guarantee for all those thousands of victims who have spent years and decades waiting for answers,” says President Juan Manuel Santos. “What the victims most strongly demand – before reparation and justice – is the truth.”

Not many countries with truth commissions have succeeded in bringing many confessions by perpetrators to satisfy war victims. Yet Colombia’s peace deal is thoughtful and detailed, and despite initial delays, appears on track. And it has attracted attention from other post-conflict countries.

In a recent visit to Bogotá, Irish President Michael Higgins compared Colombia’s process to the one in Northern Ireland. He said a lasting peace requires an “honest engagement” in understanding and exposing the conflict’s past. A reconciliation process must recognize the hurts of the past, he added, but also help in the realization that the “future is alive with possibilities not yet born, from which no version of past conflicts should preclude us.”

That is the sort of message that Venezuela could use from Colombia.