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RNS By Susan Finch New Orleans – The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in federal court here Monday (Aug. 13) to stop Louisiana from making taxpayer-financed donations to two churches. The gifts targeted in the case — $100,000 to the Stonewall Baptist Church in Bossier City and $20,000 to Shreveport Christian Church — are…

Associated Press WASHINGTON – A career U.S. diplomat indicted this week for sending threatening messages to an Arab political organization has retired from the foreign service, the State Department said Thursday. Patrick Syring retired last month, about a year after he allegedly left racist and intimidating phone and e-mail messages with the Arab American Institute…

Associated Press – August 16, 2007 BOSTON – An immigration judge has ordered the deportation of a 91-year-old retired factory worker because he lied about his part in the Nazi destruction of Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto in 1943, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Immigration Judge Wayne R. Iskra ordered Vladas Zajanckauskas sent to his native Lithuania, according…

Associated Press – August 16, 2007 RABAT, Morocco – U.S. State Department chiefs chose a novel way to publicize baseball legend Cal Ripken, Jr.’s recent appointment as the country’s special sports envoy. They went on YouTube. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes, who appears in the video, said it was part of…

(RNS) A church-state watchdog group is urging the Internal Revenue Service to investigate a top Southern Baptist pastor and radio personality, saying that he violated tax laws by endorsing presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Americans United for Separation of Church and State says California pastor and radio host Wiley Drake, the second vice president of the…

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald Religion News Service Now the “Mountain Meadows Massacre” is becoming more than a subject of somber reflection within tight-knit Mormon circles. Two new films and a forthcoming book aim to tell the nation what happened, why and — perhaps most important — whether the revered Mormon prophet Brigham Young ordered the…

By Chris Herlinger Religion News Service NEW YORK — When the Rev. Bob Edgar announced that he was stepping down as head of the National Council of Churches, someone suggested that he might apply for the soon-to-be-vacant pulpit across the street at the historic Riverside Church. “But Bob,” his wife told him, “you only have…

Associated Press GENEVA, Aug. 15–Evangelical groups have joined efforts spearheaded by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and mainstream Protestant churches to create a common code for religious conversions that would preserve the right of Christians to spread their religion while avoiding conflict among different faiths. The World Council of Churches, which joined the Vatican last year in…

USA Today – July 26, 2007 Some public schools and universities are granting Muslim requests for prayer times, prayer rooms and ritual foot baths, prompting a debate on whether Islam is being given preferential treatment over other religions. The University of Michigan at Dearborn is planning to build foot baths for Muslim students who wash…

Associated Press – August 14, 2007 VIENNA, Austria – They were planted to honor one pope. Now they’re being purged for another. Four stately lime trees ceremoniously planted near a popular Roman Catholic shrine in 1983 for a visit to Austria by the late Pope John Paul II are being uprooted to make way for…

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