Updated at 12:10 p.m. ET

The U.S. Supreme Court essentially punted on extreme partisan gerrymandering Monday, declining to address the central questions at the heart of whether the practice is constitutional.

The court took up two cases, one out of Wisconsin and one out of Maryland, with lines drawn by both parties.

It declared that the plaintiffs in Wisconsin don't have standing to sue, because they didn't try to prove that their vote had been diluted in their own district.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher Wray will head to Capitol Hill Monday for an expected grilling from senators about the inspector general's scathing report on the FBI's mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation in 2016.

A Trump administration policy of separating children from their parents on the U.S. border has prompted a crescendo of criticism among religious leaders.

They span different faiths, denominations and ages. Some of them have also helped the president gain support for his base.

Updated at 12:00 p.m. ET

President Trump, in a freewheeling impromptu news conference in front of the White House on Friday morning, said the Justice Department inspector general's report looking into the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server "totally exonerates me."

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) is a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and author of a novel about how a nuclear war with North Korea might begin, The 2020 Commission Report.