Mariia Butina, a 29-year-old gun-rights activist, served as a covert Russian agent while living in Washington, gathering intelligence on American officials and political organizations and working to establish back-channel lines of communications for the Kremlin, federal prosecutors charged July 16, 2018. (AP Photo)
Need to know: Thursday, July 19, 2018
Mariia Butina and the National Prayer Breakfast
Russian connections to the National Prayer Breakfast, which a Russian national allegedly tried to exploit as a back channel to American politicians, run deep.
United Methodist court filings detail proposals for averting schism on sexuality
Court documents are giving United Methodists the first peek at proposed plans to avoid schism over beliefs on sexuality.
For American Muslims, family border separations are personal
They say it takes a village to raise a child. These Florida Muslims wants to raise all 2,300 migrant children until they're reunited with their parents.
Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook won’t remove Holocaust denial content
Those users are not “intentionally getting it wrong,” he told Recode.
Affirmation veep resigns over Mormon church donation for LGBTQ suicide prevention
The Affirmation official resigned her post in the support group for LGBT Mormons to protest a donation she finds “morally reprehensible.”
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Vatican-OK’d journal strikes out again at US evangelicals
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Two of Pope Francis' top communications advisers — an Italian Jesuit and an Argentine Protestant pastor — penned 'The Prosperity Gospel: Dangerous and Different' for the current issue of the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, published Wednesday.
Researchers find link between Trump tweets and spike in anti-Muslim hate
Their conclusions correspond with what Muslim civil rights and advocacy groups are hearing, too.
Judge: Jewish heritage can be basis for race discrimination
(AP) — Jewish people are protected by a law against racial discrimination in employment decisions, a federal magistrate judge has concluded in siding with a football coach suing a private Baptist college in Louisiana.
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It’s good for girls to have clergywomen, study shows
What effect do clergywomen have on girls? A great one, it turns out: women who grew up with female clergy as role models do better psychologically and educationally than those who did not.
The Jewish counterculture loses a founder
(RNS) — Some lives help change Jewish history. Richard Siegel's was one of them.
Priests, celibacy and sex
(RNS) — Sex between a Catholic priest and adult can be more than simply a violation of celibacy. It can also be a violation of professional ethics. The church needs to learn from the “#MeToo” movement about the danger of sex between adults who are not equal in power.
