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More than 100 Chinese Christians have been detained after they worshiped outdoors. One Chinese state-run newspaper called the meeting "illegal" and a "public disturbance," and accused Christians of trying to politicize religion.This comes just days after the U.S.

A law banning the face-covering Muslim veil takes effect Monday in France, where the garments are called burqa or niqab. President Nicolas Sarkozy says the veils are an assault on French values of secularism and equality of the sexes, and now they can no longer be worn in public.

The pastor of a Florida church says he does not plan to burn any more Qurans — but Terry Jones has said that before.Jones first made headlines around the world last September, when he announced — and then called off — plans to publicly burn a copy of the Quran at his church in Gainesville, Fla.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a proposed class action sex-discrimination law suit against Walmart. The plaintiffs allege company-wide policy reinforces gender stereotypes. Walmart disagrees.

A couple of years ago, the Philadelphia archdiocese heard about three priests who had allegedly raped two boys. They gave the priests' files to law enforcement, and a grand jury began to investigate. Then, the grand jury stumbled on a bombshell.

In one of the largest settlements in the Catholic church's sweeping sex abuse scandal, an order of priests agreed Friday to pay $166.1 million to hundreds of Native Americans and Alaska Natives who were abused at the order's schools around the Pacific Northwest.The settlement between more than 450 v

Five years ago, Iraqi insurgents in Samarra, north of Baghdad, detonated four bombs in a shrine that is one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.The destruction of the Askariya shrine brought the most vicious sectarian warfare that Iraq has seen.