A Houston-area midwife is the first person to be charged in Texas with violating the state’s extreme abortion ban, which outlaws the procedure under nearly all circumstances.
The psychology behind anti-trans legislation: How cognitive biases shape thoughts and policy
A state law signed Feb. 28, 2025, removes gender identity as a protected status from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, leaving transgender people vulnerable to discrimination. The rights of transgender people – those who present gender characteristics that differ from what has…
A dog on a scooter with Holi powder on its forehead shows how much Indians love their pets
On a normal day in India, this could be an ordinary picture of a dog sitting comfortably on the back of a scooter. Only it isn’t.
‘Are you a Zionist?’
Let me tell you about my colleague, Rabbi Ari Jun. He serves as a rabbi in Cincinnati — which just happens to be the birthplace of every institution in American Reform Judaism. There was to be a rally against neo-Nazism and…
The Scopes monkey trial took place 100 years ago, but the fight isn’t over
They called it the “monkey trial.” It was supposed to be a publicity stunt.
On Purim in wartime, Jews wrestle with a biblical story of retribution
The Jewish holiday of Purim is traditionally a wild and woolly festival in which costumes, noise making and drinking are encouraged — in synagogue no less — as Jews gather for a public reading of the biblical Book of Esther….
The Urgent Supreme Court Case That’s Not Getting Enough Attention
While the country holds its breath for the Supreme Court’s responses to the Trump administration’s serial depredations, it’s hard to focus on anything else. Nonetheless, a case set for argument next month before the court merits more attention than the little it has received,…
Nixed USAID Scholarship Helped Christian Students Escape War
Mang Tha Par had just left war-stricken Myanmar and was still getting used to life in Thailand last December when tensions arose between her and her family members back home. Emotional distress prompted her to seek counseling.
Breaking with recent consensus, Trump makes ‘anti-Semitism’ hyphenated again
It was supposed to be settled: Strike the hyphen from “anti-Semitism” and use “antisemitism” instead.
On Religion: Yet Another Threat To The Ancient Church In Syria
In the Triumph of Orthodoxy service on the first Sunday of Great Lent, the clergy and faithful proclaim — with many shouting — bold statements of faith from the year 787.
Pope Francis’s words air in St. Peter’s Square for first time since illness
Pope Francis’s gravelly, frail voice echoed through St. Peter’s Square on Thursday, as a recorded message from the ailing pontiff delivered his first spoken words to 1.4 billion Catholics since his admission to a Rome hospital nearly three weeks ago.
How Jesse Jackson embodied Southern politics − and changed American elections
Holding hands with other prominent Black leaders, the Rev. Jesse Jackson crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 9, 2025, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.” Like several survivors of that violent day in 1965,…