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

•  In Miller v. McDonald, the Second Circuit held that New York did not violate Amish parents’ Free Exercise rights under the First Amendment when it removed a religious belief exemption from its school immunization law. The court found that the public health law in itself was generally applicable and that there was no evidence that the legislature’s decision to repeal the religious belief exemption in 2019 was motivated by anti-religious sentiment.
• In CNS International Ministries, Inc. v. Bax, a Missouri federal district court held that a the ministerial exception did not cover a janitor and cafeteria worker at a religious organization that runs residential care facilities for children.
• Recently, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to address how to combat antisemitism and antireligious hate crimes in general.
• A group of Christian Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem have come together to issue a public statement denouncing foreclosure proceedings initiated against the Armenian Patriarchate. The foreclosure proceedings stem from an alleged tax debt levied against the Patriarchate, originating from a municipal tax from which Christian institutions have traditionally been exempt. Christian leaders believe that if the proceedings go unchallenged, it will only lead to more expropriation of Christian assets in Jerusalem.
• Recently, rebels from an Islamic terrorist group stormed a village in the Congo and took approximately one hundred people hostage. From those taken, seventy bodies were discovered in a Protestant church in Lubero. Sources believe that these hostages were killed when they could no longer continue to march alongside their captors.