News

James Comey is sworn in prior to testifying before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing June 8. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

James Comey said on Thursday he was disturbed by President Donald Trump's bid to get him to drop a probe into the former national security advisor, but the former FBI director would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice.

Reuters 6-08-2017
James Comey testifies before the House Intelligence Committee hearing into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election March 20. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

Comey is scheduled to testify at 10 a.m. on Thursday as part of the committee's investigation into U.S. intelligence agency allegations that Russia tried to interfere with the 2016 presidential election and potential collusion by President Donald Trump's campaign. Russia has denied the allegations and Trump denies any collusion.

James Comey waits to testify to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on "Russia's intelligence activities" on Capitol Hill Jan.10. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

Former FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of a probe into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In written testimony released the day before he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said Trump told him at a meeting in the White House in February: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go."

James Briggs 6-07-2017
Image via RNS/Rima Shadid

A Virginia-based outdoor advertising seller with a history of inflammatory statements on Islam is the owner of an Indianapolis billboard that is featuring an anti-Muslim ad.

 

Naila Inayat 6-07-2017
Image via RNS/Reuters/Khuram Parvez

Masih recently filed for divorce from a husband she said “frequently beats me up” and a mother-in-law who she said burned her leg with coal.

But under the country’s laws, she must produce a witness who would testify to committing adultery with her husband. As a result, she’s now reluctantly planning to renounce her faith.

Then-Assistant U.S. Attorney General Christopher Wray pauses during a press conference at the Justice Department Nov. 4, 2003. REUTERS/Molly Riley/File Photo

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he plans to nominate Christopher Wray, a former U.S. assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush now in private practice, to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Members of Iranian forces stand guard during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7. Omid Vahabzadeh/TIMA via REUTERS

Attackers raided Iran's parliament and set off a suicide bomb at the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran on Wednesday, killing up to seven people in a twin assault at the heart of the Islamic Republic, Iranian media reported.

A 3D-printed logo for Twitter is seen in this picture illustration made in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina on Jan. 26. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

A free-speech institute on Tuesday sent a letter to President Donald Trump demanding the prolific tweeter unblock certain Twitter users on grounds the practice violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Image via RNS/Reuters/Evan Vucci/Pool

Vice President Mike Pence — a onetime altar boy who became an evangelical Protestant — proclaimed President Donald Trump a faithful supporter of Catholic values at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, an event that sought to set aside any friction between the president and the pope.

“Let me promise all of you, this administration hears you. This president stands with you,” Pence said to the 1,300 gathered.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons/Duncan Lock

The 8-0 ruling reverses lower court decisions that sided with hospital workers who argued that the exemption from pension laws should not extend to hospitals affiliated with churches.

President Donald Trump shields his eyes as he makes concluding remarks at the Ford's Theatre Gala, June 4, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Theiler

U.S. President Donald Trump urged his administration to seek a tougher version of his controversial travel ban proposal on Monday following a weekend attack in London, and pressed for an expedited judicial review by the nation's top court.

Richard Wolf 6-02-2017
Image via RNS/Reuters/David Ryder

The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to break its losing streak in lower courts and revive President Trump’s travel ban on immigrants from six predominantly Muslim nations.

The request came on June 1 in three separate petitions to courts in Richmond, Va., and San Francisco that blocked the president’s executive order barring most immigrants from countries deemed at risk for terrorism, as well as international refugees.

Image via RNS/Jerome Socolovsky

Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Muslims, and others reacted vigorously and emotionally to President Trump’s announcement that he will withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate change agreement.

While leaders of the so-called religious left were overwhelmingly critical of the move, conservatives were somewhat divided.

Image via RNS/Jehovah's Witnesses

Since the Russian Supreme Court on April 20 declared the Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist group, its members have faced increasing harassment from both authorities and suspicious neighbors.

And last week, for the first time since the decision, a Jehovah’s Witness has been not only detained by police, but jailed by a judge.

Ryan Hammill 6-01-2017
Taizè prayer at St. Louis University. Image via Katherine Blanner 

Participants joined with local religious leaders and city residents to walk through the city, stopping at various places of worship to sing and pray, in a demonstration of unity. The Walk of Trust ended on the campus of Saint Louis University, where Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis, who first conceived of the meeting, spoke alongside the Rev. Dr. Traci Blackmon, a pastor in Florissant, Mo., and a leading voice in the response to Michael Brown’s death.

Image via RNS/Alliance Defending Freedom

According to the lawsuit, Country Mill is the only business to have been prohibited under the market’s anti-discrimination policy.

In a statement, the city of East Lansing said the farmer’s refusal to host a same-sex wedding violated a “long-standing ordinance that protects sexual orientation as well as the Supreme Court’s ruling that grants the right for same-sex couples to be married.”

Richard Wolf 5-31-2017
Image via RNS/REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

While not yet final, the regulation appears intended to let employers avoid providing birth control coverage if they object for any reason — an expansion of the original effort to exempt those with religious objections. As a result, abortion rights groups warn that up to 55 million women could lose free birth control coverage — something that saves them $1.4 billion annually.

Image via RNS/David Gibson

Critical to the success of the movement is the fact that corporations are not simply tolerating activists such as Daly.

Instead, they increasingly see the socially responsible agenda as good business; and, perhaps more important, so do investment firms that are responding to the growing demand for portfolios that reflect a client’s values while also making money as effectively as any other investment.

Image via RNS/Becket

The settlement, announced by the Justice Department on May 30, was reached after the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge sued Bernards Township, about an hour’s drive west of New York City. The township, which held 39 hearings on the planned mosque — hearings which subjected mosque members to anti-Muslim tirades — had refused to issue buildings permits.

A woman sits outside a hospital after a blast in Kabul, Afghanistan May 31, 2017.REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail  

Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for city police, said the explosives were hidden in a sewage truck. He also suggested that the German embassy might not have been the target of the blast, which sent towering clouds of black smoke into the sky near the presidential palace.