The mayors of several Italian cities are rebelling against a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that bans the crucifix from public classrooms. The ECHR found that the display of crucifixes in state schools is a "violation of the right to education taken jointly with the freedom of thought, conscience and religion."

Children in Britain will be forced to attend at least one year of sex-education classes before their 16th birthday, according to new rules enacted in the United Kingdom. The BBC reports that parents cannot opt out children 15 or older, even if their children attend parochial or religious schools.

Between 500 and 1,000 protesters gathered last weekend at Mont-Saint-Michel in France to demonstrate against plans to build a wind farm along the Normandy coast. They say it would be a useless eyesore disfiguring the bay area.

On Saturday, September 17, our country celebrates its 224th birthday. Constitution Day commemorates the drafting of the U.S. Constitution and the 39 statesmen who signed it that day in 1787. This year, since the anniversary falls on a Saturday, the holiday is observed on Friday, September 16.

A federal judge in California is preparing to rule whether a ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Testimony began January 11 in San Francisco and could last for weeks in a case expected to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The fate of an 8-foot tall Latin Cross in the Mojave National Preserve sits in the crosshairs of a case before the United States Supreme Court, which will decide the constitutionality of this 75-year-old national monument to World War I veterans.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. — Preamble to the Constitution of the United States

A Texas man is finally free after serving 30 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Dallas County Judge Don Adams this week declared Cornelius Dupree, Jr., 51, innocent of rape and robbery because recently obtained DNA testing proves he could not have been involved.

Researchers claim to have discovered vast untapped oceans of geothermal energy they say could replace coal and other so-called fossil fuels as primary U.S. energy sources.

A Colorado landowner ignites his cigarette lighter and holds it close to tap water running from a faucet in his home. A few seconds pass, and the single flame bursts into a ball of fire that sends the man reeling backward.

This shocking scene appears in the 2010 documentary Gasland, produced and directed by filmmaker Josh Fox, which he touts as an exposé on the evils of a particular method of drilling for natural gas called hydraulic fracturing or “fracing,” pronounced “fracking.” Fox claims that nearby drilling contaminated area groundwater, causing the fireball to burst from that Colorado tap.