Equity & Justice

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced on Thursday that it was reversing its controversial 2015 policy that classified people in same-sex marriages as "apostates." The church, widely known as the Mormon church, had also barred the children of such marriages from blessing or baptism until age 18.

Updated 3:00pm E.T.

A shadow of scandal hanging over the Washington, D.C. archdiocese has been lifted with the appointment of a new archbishop, Wilton Gregory, currently leading the archdiocese of Atlanta.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte harbors a no-holds-barred hostility toward the Catholic Church and he's been hurling barbs at it as he stumps for candidates in the upcoming midterm election.

"Almost 90 percent of the priests are homosexual," he has declared. He also insinuated that others have secret relationships with women.

He cast bishops as "greedy" and urged people to "rob" and even murder them.

Hospitals and nursing homes in California and Illinois are testing a surprisingly simple strategy to stop the dangerous, antibiotic-resistant superbugs that kill thousands of people each year: washing patients with a special soap.

The efforts — funded with roughly $8 million from the federal government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — are taking place at 50 facilities in those two states.

For almost a year now, New York-based freelance writer Rhianna Jones has been signing a lot of her emails with, "insert Afro emoji here."

That's because there is no Afro hair emoji. Jones, 28, hopes to change that.

She has teamed up with designer Kerrilyn Gibson, 25, to create an Afro hair emoji prototype and started a petition on change.org to include the Afro hair emoji on the emoji keyboard.

Pope Francis issued a new decree making it mandatory for Vatican City officials or its diplomats around the globe to immediately report allegations of sexual abuse to authorities or face possible jail time.

Pope Francis clarified one church-related mystery on Thursday, explaining that it was a fear of spreading germs that provoked him to yank his hand away from the lips of devoted worshippers as they bent down to kiss the papal ring earlier this week.

Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti told reporters on Thursday that the pope did not intend to buck centuries of tradition, but was interested in preventing disease.

Updated at 2:58 p.m. ET

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is suing social media giant Facebook for allegedly violating the Fair Housing Act.

HUD says Facebook does so by "encouraging, enabling and causing housing discrimination" when it allows companies that use their platform to improperly shield who can see certain housing ads.

LifeWay Christian Stores plans to close all of its locations by end of the year and move all of the company's retailing online. Its bricks-and-mortar division has been losing money since 2013, and the company says it has tried just about everything to keep the business going, including overhauling several stores last summer and experimenting with features like coffee bars.

Some of those innovations succeeded in increasing foot traffic. But nothing increased sales, which the company says plunged by more than 10 percent again over the Christmas shopping season.

For a second time in nine months, the same federal judge has struck down the Trump administration's plan to force some Medicaid recipients to work to maintain benefits.

Facebook announced Wednesday that it intends to ban content that glorifies white nationalism and separatism, a major policy shift that will begin next week.

"It's clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place on our services," the company said in a statement.