As Pope Francis pays a historic visit to Canada, he is encountering a country that is less Catholic, more secular and more religiously diverse than the last time it hosted a pontiff two decades ago.

And the city where he landed on Sunday — Edmonton — reflects that diversity more than outsiders might expect from a provincial capital in Canada’s prairie heartland.

Edmonton and its province of Alberta do have a large, long-settled population of Christians of European descent.

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The Sikh Coalition was born in the hours after 9/11, out of self-defense. In those raw days after the attacks, Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot outside the gas station his family ran in Mesa, Arizona. In the months following, American Sikhs were beaten and their temples, called gurdwaras, were set on fire. Less than a year after Singh Sodhi’s murder, his brother was shot while driving his cab near San Francisco.

In those early days, and as violence against Sikhs has continued — the latest wave of anti-Sikh harassment hit Queens, New York, earlier this year — coalition members were...

Sikhism is the fifth largest world religion. There are more than 500,000 Sikhs in the United States. And in the greater Milwaukee area, there are two main places of worship.

But how much do local non-Sikhs know about it? Back in 2014, the National Sikh Campaign had a survey in which 60% of Americans said they know nothing at all about Sikhs.

A new collection of books about the religion and its culture is bridging communities and educating the public.

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A practicing Sikh man filed a federal lawsuit this week against Sutter County, alleging the Sheriff’s Office deprived him of his civil rights by failing to adequately investigate a pair of racist hate crimes he says he experienced last year.

The case centers on two incidents that Rouble Claire, the plaintiff, considers so brazen he can’t believe they happened.

They stemmed from a routine trip Claire took last May to South Butte Market, a short drive from his rural Northern California home.

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