Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

• Belgium’s new law banning kosher and halal ritual slaughtering methods, which took effect New Year’s Day, has prompted lawsuits from Jewish and Muslim leaders, alleging religious discrimination under the guise of animal rights protection.
• Lawyers representing the Christians in Action Student Club at Mechanicsburg Area High School (PA) are accusing the school district of abridging the students’ free speech rights after the group’s request to distribute bibles during lunch was denied.
• The Satanic Temple of Arizona is slated to give the opening invocation at the meeting of the Sahuarita Town Council on September 9, 2019, as part of the town’s rotating guest minister policy.
• The Chinese crackdown against Islam continues as the country passes a law to “implement measures to Sinicize” the religion within the next five years and make it “compatible with socialism.”
• The House of Representatives passed a spending bill that would repeal the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy, which prevents non-governmental organizations from receiving federal health assistance funds if they promote or provide abortions.
• The Vatican seeks to expedite the trial of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, which may be as early as this week, to prevent questions of his fate from overshadowing next month’s summit on sex abuse.
• A state judge ruled that a prisoner’s right to practice his Native Hawaiian religion was violated after the Hawaiian Department of Public Safety failed to respond to several of his requests, including to be allowed outside at sunrise for group worship and to build a stone altar or ahu.
• The city of Ozark (MO) has announced that it will relocate a cross displayed in a public park to a private piece of land following a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation that the cross is unconstitutional.
• The 116th Congress is one of the most religiously diverse in American history, but still predominantly Christian—more so than the country itself.
• A student at the University of Massachusetts was told by her Residence Director to remove a sign displayed from her dormitory window that read “F*** Nazis, you are not welcome here,” which was hung in response to a Happy Hanukkah being written over by a swastika.
• Pastors in Uganda have opposed Minister for Ethics and Integrity, Fr. Simon Lokodo’s proposed policy to regulate the activities of faith-based organizations, which includes requiring religious leaders to have a bachelor’s degree in theology.
• A federal judge held that Christian activists trying to stop Houston libraries from hosting “Drag Queen Storytime” lacked standing and dismissed the case.
• Argentine Archbishop Marcelo Daniel Colombo has temporarily closed the Christ at Prayer Monastery in Tupungato after two of the founding monks were arrested on sexual abuse charges, including abuse of a minor and abuse of authority.
• Police are investigating a swastika found painted on the doors of St. Augustine’s Cathedral in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
• Malaysia’s National Patriot’s Association, a group of prominent Malays who push a moderate view of Islam, lambasted Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) for the group’s petition to declare Malaysia an Islamic state.
• Police officers in Nakanong Village of the Asian country Laos arrested seven Christians, including three church leaders, for illegally gathering for a Christmas worship service not approved by the Lao government.
• Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), the only member of Congress who openly identifies as religiously unaffiliated, was sworn in as a U.S. senator holding a copy of the Constitution, rather than a Bible or other traditional religious text.
• Jesse Harvey plans to incorporate his church—the Church of Safe Injection—as a nonprofit organization and apply for a religious exemption to the Controlled Substances Act to administer safe injections to addicts not yet ready for treatment.
• To follow up from Thursday’s AtW: Camden County (MO) has moved its poster containing a Bible verse to a location not visible to the public—one of the two purportedly religious displays complained about by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.