Author: Reporter

As soon as the federal pandemic relief started arriving at America’s schools, so did the relentless calls. Tech companies by the dozens wanted a chance to prove their software was what schools needed. Best of all, they often added, it wouldn’t take a dime from district budgets: Schools could use their new federal money. They did, and at a tremendous scale. An analysis of public records found many of the largest school systems spent tens of millions of dollars in pandemic money on software and services from tech companies, including licenses for apps, games, and tutoring websites. Schools, however,...

When in-person school resumed after pandemic closures, Rousmery Negrón and her 11-year-old son both noticed a change: School seemed less welcoming. Parents were no longer allowed in the building without appointments, she said, and punishments were more severe. Everyone seemed less tolerant, more angry. Negrón’s son told her he overheard a teacher mocking his learning disabilities, calling him an ugly name. Her son did not want to go to school anymore. And she did not feel he was safe there. He would end up missing more than five months of sixth grade. Across the country, students have been absent...

For the annual fall renewal of her shaman spirit, Mee Vang Yang will soon ritually redecorate the tall altar in her living room where she keeps her father’s ring-shaped shaman bells. She carried them across the Mekong River as the family fled the Communist takeover of her native Laos four decades ago. Today, they facilitate the connection to the spiritual world she needs to help fellow refugees and their American-raised children who seek restoration of lost spirits. “Like going to church, you’re giving beyond yourself to a greater power,” said the mother of six through a translator in Hmong....

More than 6,000 United Methodist congregations, a fifth of the U.S. total, have now received permission to leave the denomination amid a schism over theology and the role of LGBTQ people in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination. Those figures emerge following the close of regular meetings in June for the denomination’s regional bodies, known as annual conferences. The departures began with a trickle in 2019 — when the church created a four-year window of opportunity for U.S. congregations to depart over LGBTQ-related issues — and cascaded to its highest level this year. Church law forbids the marriage or ordination...

A recent Saturday evening Mass at Sagrada Familia parish had all the hallmarks of a neighborhood worship service, from prayers for ill and deceased members to name-day wishes for two congregants in the pews. But it also featured security checks to get in and curious tourists peering down to take photos of the worshippers from above. The regular Mass is held in the crypt of modernist architect Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece church, one of Europe’s most visited monuments. With tourism reaching or surpassing pre-pandemic records in Barcelona and across southern Europe, iconic sacred sites are struggling to accommodate the faithful...