Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- Three men charged in connection with the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris have received verdicts in their respective trials; a man accused of harboring the terrorists was acquitted, but two men accused of more direct involvement were convicted and received prison sentences.
- A worker for a Catholic charity in the UK who previously worked for Oxfam in Haiti has been dismissed after he was implicated in Oxfam’s sex scandal.
- The budget proposed by the Trump Administration would dramatically increase funding for voucher programs that pay the cost of tuition at private and religious schools.
- Lawyers for a senior cleric of the Catholic Church in Australia have claimed that charges brought against their client are motivated by the public outcry that followed a national investigation of child sex abuse.
- A bankruptcy judge in Montana will allow sex abuse claims brought against a Catholic diocese to proceed in state court while the federal bankruptcy case continues.
- A U.S. religious freedom watchdog agency has released a report that claims that anti-extremism laws in Russia are being used to target peaceful religious minorities.
- A bill that would penalize employers who refuse to provide health plan coverage for contraceptives and that is widely seen as a response to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision has advanced in the Washington state legislature.
- A Catholic school in Connecticut has reversed its decision to remove a student if she did not remove a Planned Parenthood sticker from her laptop.
- An Iowa bill that would require that courts evaluate religious freedom claims using a variant of strict scrutiny has advanced from a subcommittee of the state legislature and may be voted on soon.