Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- One person died and three others were injured during a shooting inside a Chabad synagogue near San Diego (CA) on Saturday, the last day of Passover.
- Muslims in Sri Lanka are facing rising backlash after ISIS claimed responsibility for the Easter Sunday bombings that killed more than 350 people.
- A thirty-one-year-old woman pleaded not guilty to nine felony and misdemeanor charges after she walked into an Easter Sunday service in San Diego (CA) carrying a handgun and a baby and threatened to blow up the church.
- A New Zealand businessman pleaded guilty to distributing video of the Christchurch mosque attacks taken by the gunman.
- Prince William visited the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and met with survivors of the mass shooting in which fifty people died.
- A thirty-eight-year-old man was arrested for calling in a false bomb threat at a mosque in Benton Township (MI).
- The Internal Revenue Service granted the Satanic Temple non-profit status, officially recognizing it as a church under federal law.
- The F.B.I. announced that a 1615 Geneva Bible stolen two decades ago from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh (PA) in a long-running theft scheme has been recovered from a museum in the Netherlands.
- Bishop Shelton Fabre of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux (LA) authored an editorial encouraging the state to abolish capital punishment.
- The Catholic bishops of Rwanda apologized for encouraging the release of old and ill prisoners convicted for crimes committed during the country’s 1994 genocide.
- A judge in China refused to permit the Catholic diocese of Hong Kong to join a lawsuit regarding whether civil union partnerships for LGBT couples should be recognized by the city.
- Catholic Charities West Michigan filed a lawsuit to stop the state of Michigan from penalizing the group if it continues its adoption and foster care policy of refusing to place children with same-sex couples.
- The Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore (MD) published the names of twenty-three dead priests and religious brothers who it says were credibly accused of child sex abuse after their deaths.
- The Catholic Church’s New York Archdiocese released a list of 115 priest and five deacons it says credibly sexually abused minors or credibly possessed child pornography.
- Pope Francis has donated half a million dollars to several dioceses in Mexico that have asked for help to continue providing housing, food, and basic necessities to migrants.
- Officials are seeking to stop two men from distributing marijuana from the Lion of Judah House of Rastafari Church in Madison (WI), which the operators of the church maintain is a sacrament.
- The Zionist Organization of America, one of the country’s oldest Jewish organizations, called for U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) to be removed from congressional committees and the Democratic Party because of her “anti-Israel record” and association with “terrorists, anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists.”
- Civil rights organizations dropped a lawsuit against the owners of a gun shooting range in Oktaha (OK) alleging a violation of federal public accommodations law after a sign declaring the business a “Muslim-free establishment” was removed.
- The Omar Islamic Center, a Connecticut mosque, filed a lawsuit claiming a First Amendment violation after the city of Meriden’s Planning Commission denied its bid to relocate.
- A grassroots organization filed a lawsuit accusing the Chestnut Ridge Board of Trustees (NY) of violating the constitutional rights of secular residents by using land-use regulations to provide for the religious needs of Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish residents.
- The mayor of Brick Township (NJ), who is being accused of anti-Semitism, says his response to a tweet complaining of Orthodox Jews invading community parks and beaches was a big “misinterpretation.”
- Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey rejected demands from the group Secular Communities of Arizona to remove posts on social media where he sent Easter greetings and cited a Bible verse.
- The United Nations Security Council removed language referencing abortion from a resolution on the care of sexual abuse survivors in wartime after the Trump administration threatened to veto the measure.
- A federal judge in Washington state issued a nationwide injunction blocking the Trump administration’s changes to the Title X family planning program, which would cut off federal funding for healthcare providers who refer patients for abortions.
- The South Carolina House passed a fetal heartbeat bill, which would ban abortion once a fetus’s heartbeat is detected.
- The Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state’s constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion.
- St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Wailuku (HI) was vandalized during the night following Easter celebrations.
- Sacred Heart Church in Ballyclare (Northern Ireland) was vandalized with white paint in the early hours of Easter Sunday morning, receiving condemnation from politicians.
- Rapper T.I. collaborated with the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta (GA) in raising $120,000 to bail out twenty-three non-violent offenders for Easter.