Author: Reporter

Wisconsin’s presidential primary on April 2 clears the way for a general election campaign that Democrats see as an opportunity unlike any in recent state history. New legislative districts adopted last month erase Republican advantages that gave the GOP dominance of the Wisconsin Assembly even as Democrats won 14 of the past 17 statewide elections. Democrats think they can now compete for a majority, but also that invigorated legislative campaigns can help turn out votes for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in November. Ben Wikler, the state Democratic Party chairman, describes the idea as “reverse coattails,”...

The resignation letter was short and direct. “I can no longer be under an oath to uphold the New Constitution of Ohio,” wrote Sabrina Warner in her letter announcing she was stepping down from the state’s Republican central committee. It was just days after Ohio voters resoundingly approved an amendment last November to the state constitution ensuring access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care. For many, the vote was a victory after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to abortion in 2022. For Warner, a staunch abortion opponent, it meant she could no longer...

Every morning, the Rev. Karna Moskalik goes through a “grounding” routine that involves prayer, Bible reading, positive affirmations, and meditations about the best outcomes for the day’s tasks, as well as lighting a perfumed candle and walking through each space of her Lutheran church. “I always feel like work never ends, but at the same time I beefed up grounding because without it, I feel absolutely ineffective,” said Moskalik, who grew up a pastor’s daughter and has led the 700-member Our Savior’s congregation for four years in this small riverside town. That level of faith-based self-care is just what...

Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy “the beauty of the morning on the beach,” he recalled. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church.” Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades. “Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals, harming “innocent human beings,” in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches....

The Vatican has been trying for years to debunk the idea that its vaunted secret archives are all that secret: It has opened up the files of controversial World War II-era Pope Pius XII to scholars and changed the official name to remove the word “Secret” from its title. But a certain aura of myth and mystery has persisted — until now. The longtime prefect of what is now named the Vatican Apostolic Archive, Archbishop Sergio Pagano, is spilling the beans for the first time, revealing some of the secrets he has uncovered in the 45 years he has...

More Americans now believe the death penalty, which is undergoing a yearslong decline of use and support, is being administered unfairly. That finding is adding to its growing isolation in the U.S., according to an annual report on capital punishment. But whether the public’s waning support for the death penalty and the declining number of executions and death sentences will ultimately result in the abolition of capital punishment in the U.S. remains uncertain, experts said. “There are some scholars who are optimistic the death penalty will be totally eradicated pretty soon,” said Eric Berger, a law professor at the...