SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The federal government is asking a court to halt California’s enforcement of a rule requiring prison guards to be clean-shaven, saying it amounts to religious discrimination for Sikhs, Muslims and others who wear beards as an expression of their faith.

The civil rights complaint filed Monday by the U.S. Justice Department says the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s prohibition on facial hair denies on-the-job accommodations for officers of various religions.

It seeks a temporary court order “allowing these officers to...

Newtown Interfaith Council (NIC) discussed wanting to solidify the identity for its new “Communities of Compassion” initiative at its February 24 meeting.

Dr John Woodall, alongside Newtown Congregational Church Pastor Matt Crebbin and Love Has a Home Here Founder Bill Donaldson, led discussions with other NIC members about the initiative after its first session at Sticks and Stones Farm in February.

While they celebrated getting “Communities of Compassion” off the ground by hosting the first session, the council hopes to find a name that they feel better fits the...

C.E. Jordan High School junior Aven Schwartz can’t remember a time that she didn’t care about the environment.

Her mom works as Durham County’s sustainability manager, so she grew up learning about the climate and ways to care for it. And when she started high school, she joined a student environmental group there to try to make a difference.

Then, last year, she heard about an opportunity to advocate for climate care from a faith perspective. Despite initially being a bit...

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia lawmakers are revisiting a nearly decade-old fight over whether the state needs to protect religious rights from being trampled by state and local governments in a measure opponents say would provide a legal shield for people and groups to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people in the name of religion.

That religious protection bill resurfaced Thursday eight years after lawmakers passed a different version of the measure. Then-Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, vetoed it in 2016 under pressure from Georgia’s business community, who said they feared it would...