Free Republic

Millions of Americans Tuesday beseeched God to influence the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which Tuesday heard oral arguments on the legality of same-sex weddings. But, a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute indicates the content of those prayers likely differed dramatically depending on the religious affiliations of the supplicants. Of all major religious groups, white evangelical Protestants showed the least support for same-sex marriages, with only 28 percent favoring or strongly favoring such unions. Within that group, evangelical Baptists led opposition, with 44 percent reporting they strongly disapproved.

Demonstrators are planning a series of actions around the Bay Area on Friday to mark May Day and honor the working class, while seeking to call attention to issues ranging from gentrification to police abuse of people of color.

A wanted man was arrested on a variety of charges after he fled from sheriff’s deputies earlier this week in Camino and Placerville. On Sunday, an El Dorado County Sheriff’s deputy spotted Abram Sassenberg, who had a felony warrant out for his arrest, driving in Pollock Pines. Sassenberg also had a suspended drivers’ license so he should not have been behind the wheel.

In several dozen meetings Monday at the state Capitol, lobbyists asked Bay Area lawmakers to back bills that would boost wages for women, temporarily freeze tuition for in-state college students and preserve Californians' privacy. But these were no ordinary lobbyists. They were Muslim students, business owners and community leaders who traveled to Sacramento for a "lobby day" organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Alysia Thomas, a stay-at-home mother in this working-class city, tells her children to skip a bath on days when they do not play outside; that holds down the water bill. Lillian Barrera, a housekeeper who travels 25 miles to clean homes in Beverly Hills, serves dinner to her family on paper plates for much the same reason. In the fourth year of a severe drought, conservation is a fine thing, but in this Southern California community, saving water means saving money.

On a bright and breezy Sunday, this picturesque beach town became a fantasyland for motorheads dreaming that a souped-up car, sexy motorcycle or vintage warplane can take them anywhere -- even into the past or future.

In the 25 years since queer students at UC Santa Cruz were given a space by university officials for a resource center, it has grown into a lively place with staff members, an extensive library and weekly programs. “For many of our older alums, there was never a queer center for them when they were undergrads,” said Deb Abbott, director for the center. “So this space is really meaningful.”

WATSONVILLE >> A free breakfast program in Pajaro Valley classrooms feeds hungry low-income children, but costs teachers precious instructional time with low-performing students.

Spurned at the ballot box three years ago and facing an even more uphill battle now because of California's historic drought, an environmental group has filed a lawsuit attempting to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a linchpin of the water supply for 2.6 million Bay Area residents from San Francisco to San Jose to southern Alameda County.

A Santa Cruz man filed a civil lawsuit against a raw milk company after the man drank tainted raw milk that left him in the hospital with severe stomach issues.

The divisions within the Bay Area’s Catholic community over gay rights hit Marin Catholic High School full force the other day, when a group of nuns walked out of their classes to protest the sponsors of a program intended to protect gay and lesbian teens from bullying. The five members of the Dominican Sisters of Mary order exited their classrooms Friday as students began handing out flyers at the Kentfield school promoting a nationwide Day of Silence.

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) transits through the Suez Canal in this time-lapse video filmed April 6, 2015.

As local police agencies are stressed by rising pension and other costs, they increasingly have embraced this troubling policy: Using “civil asset forfeiture” to take as much private property as possible, even from people who have never been convicted or even charged with a crime. The more they take, the bigger their budgets.

The U.N. refugee agency on Tuesday urged European leaders to put the protection of migrants at the center of debate over the crisis in the Mediterranean and to do more to help Greece and Italy cope.

The local Boy Scouts of America organization was hit with a lawsuit this week, after an adult assistant scout master was found to have sexually abused a minor Eagle Scout.

Opponents have opened up a new front in the fight against a California law allowing transgender students to use public school facilities such as bathrooms, showers and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identities. Privacy For All, the group targeting Assembly Bill 1266, on Friday submitted a proposed 2016 initiative that would mandate people in government buildings use facilities in accordance with their biological sex. It would allow people who feel their privacy was violated – or who chose not to use a facility because of a violation of the measure – to sue the government or the individual...

Income disparity – the divide between those at the top of the economic ladder and those stuck on lower rungs – is the era’s most explosive political issue. It has, however, a very ironic twist. As a recent report from the Brookings Institution reveals, income disparities are widest in the nation’s bluest – most liberal – cities and much narrower elsewhere.

Italian police arrested 15 African men suspected of throwing about a dozen Christians from a migrant boat in the Mediterranean on Thursday, as the crisis off southern Italy intensified. Forty-one more deaths were reported in a separate incident. Police in the Sicilian capital Palermo said they had arrested the men, from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal, after survivors reported they had thrown 12 people from Nigeria and Ghana to their deaths and threatened other Christians. The 15 were arrested on charges of multiple homicide motivated by religious hatred.

Christina Charles acknowledges she broke the law. Between 2011 and 2012, Charles improperly stopped at a stop sign. She drove with a missing license plate and a taillight out. Her license was suspended when she couldn’t pay for the tickets and failed to appear in court. Charles also was stopped for driving on the suspended license and without car insurance. She eventually piled up $6,000 in debt.

Companies are seeking more foreign workers than ever before to fill highly skilled jobs in technology and other industries, but the United States will grant visas to just a fraction of them in a lottery that began this week.