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For nearly two years Rosa del Carmen Ortez-Cruz took sanctuary from deportation at the Church of Reconciliation, not knowing if she would ever be able to emerge from her confinement.

On February 26, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that immigration authorities may not deport her. The unanimous ruling means Ortez-Cruz will be entitled to stay and work in the United States for the foreseeable future.

On February 24, the Supreme Court said it will hear a dispute over a Philadelphia Catholic agency that won’t place foster children with same-sex couples, a big test of religious rights under a more conservative court.

The justices will review an appeals court ruling that upheld the city’s decision to stop placing children with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s agency because it would not permit same-sex couples to serve as foster parents.

In a visit to one of North Carolina’s most prominent African American churches, Sen. Bernie Sanders scored big points talking about poverty in the United States.

The front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination spoke on February 26 with William J. Barber II at Greenleaf Christian Church, where Barber is senior pastor. The talk came ahead of Super Tuesday, when a significant segment of black voters cast their votes—including in North Carolina, where African Americans make up 22 percent of the state’s residents.

United Methodist theological colleges in East Africa now can deliver education at a distance.

A new United Methodist e-Academy was launched in December in Kenya after a week of training for leaders of four United Methodist East African theological colleges.

The goal of the program, which was funded by Cliff College in Sheffield, England, and the Endowment Fund for Theological Education in the Central Conferences, is to equip people for ordained and lay leadership in rural communities.

At least 24 people were killed and 189 injured in three days of clashes in New Delhi that coincided with President Donald Trump’s first state visit to India, with the death toll expected to rise as hospitals continue to take in the wounded, authorities said February 26.

Shops, Muslim shrines, and public vehicles were left smoldering from violence between Hindu mobs and Muslims protesting a new citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalization for foreign-born religious minorities of all major faiths in South Asia except Islam.

A respected Catholic figure who worked to improve conditions for people with developmental disabilities for more than half a century sexually abused at least six women during most of that period, according to a report released February 22 by the organization he founded, based in France.

The report produced for L’Arche International said the women’s descriptions provided enough evidence to show that Jean Vanier engaged in “manipulative sexual relationships” from 1970 to 2005, usually with a “psychological hold” over the alleged victims.