ORANGE, Calif. – A Southern California county will allow jailed Muslim women to wear headscarves after settling a lawsuit with a woman who claims that deputies violated her religious freedom by making her remove her hijab. The settlement agreement signed by the county last week and released Monday specifies that Muslim women must be provided…

CLEVELAND — The preacher’s voice rises to a booming pitch. Near the end of his sermon, the Rev. David Cobb Jr. runs down a list of politicians in mesmerizing, rapid-fire rhythm: “You don’t really need Bush. You don’t really need Cheney. You don’t really need Palin. You don’t really need Biden,” he thunders to his…

WASHINGTON (RNS) Democrat Kay Hagan filed a defamation suit Thursday (Oct. 30) against Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s re-election campaign, saying her opponent for a Senate seat from North Carolina inaccurately accused her of having ties to an atheist political action committee. “A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan’s…

NEW ORLEANS – It’s Halloween, and Anne Rice has a new book – a memoir in fact – that’s climbing best-seller lists. Everything is normal, then. Normal if it were 1994 – the height of Rice’s megaselling fame as a queen of Southern Gothic pulp. For those who haven’t been paying attention lately to vampire…

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