RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia lawmakers passed comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation Thursday that advocates said makes the state the first in the South to enact such protections for LGBTQ people.The measures advanced on bipartisan votes, 59-35...

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Prayer Breakfast - a Washington tradition since 1953 - is by custom a respite from partisan bickering. President Donald Trump shattered that tradition Thursday with aggressive remarks that buoyed his allies but dismayed...

NEW YORK (AP) — Even as President Donald Trump sharply challenged the faith of his political opponents this week, he was drawing new attention to a religious issue that he’s staked repeated claim to: the global freedom to worship.The day after Trump...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Exulting in his impeachment acquittal, a defiant President Donald Trump took a scorched-earth victory lap Thursday, unleashing his fury against those who tried to remove him from office and pointing ahead to his reelection campaign.Triumphantly...

In the wake of revelations that scores of Roman Catholic priests and religious workers credibly accused of child sexual abuse are living unsupervised in communities across the country, state officials face a quandary: Should they screen former clergy...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament on Thursday that Indian Muslims had nothing to fear from a new citizenship law and accused opposition parties of toeing rival Pakistan's propaganda to create fear.Modi said the Congress and other opposition...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia has used a secretive court established to try terrorism cases as "a weapon of repression" to imprison peaceful critics, activists, journalists, clerics and minority Muslim Shiites, including some who were...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Even though Mitt Romney’s status as one of few Republicans willing to publicly criticize President Donald Trump is well known is his adopted home state, his unequivocal speech before voting yes on impeachment Wednesday caught...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Almost three dozen big companies and more than 100 small businesses in Tennessee on Wednesday predicted economic backlash from a newly enacted state adoption law and other proposals that target LGBT people, with one company saying...

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:———Feb. 5The Miami Herald on Fred Guttenberg, father of a student killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, being removed from President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address:House...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican sought Wednesday to explain the absence of a key member of Pope Francis' protocol team following his role in a controversial book on priestly celibacy co-written by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI.The Vatican press office...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Another founder of a Catholic religious movement has been defrocked for sexual misconduct and abusing his power, the latest in a string of purportedly orthodox, charismatic priests who turned out to be predators.Pope Francis defrocked...