RELIGION HEADLINES – SATURDAY 4-19-25

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(SRN NEWS) – French President Emmanuel Macron says his government will recognize a Palestinian state in coming months.  In an interview with French TV Five, Macron said his decision is designed to bolster “collective security in the region”, suggesting that if Palestinians have a state they will stop attacking Israel.  At the moment, Israel is involved in a war with Hamas in Gaza, which was sparked by an attack by that Palestinian terrorist group in October of 2023.  France is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe and Macron’s announcement will likely be unwelcome to most Jews. 

The California Department of Education has ruled that teachers in Branham High School in San Jose discriminated against Jewish students enrolled in the Ethnic Studies program.  An investigation revealed that teachers were presenting high schoolers with only the Palestinian perspective in discussions of the Israeli Palestinian conflict.  The Bay Area Jewish Coalition filed a complaint about the lessons which sparked the state investigation.  Critics say there were many instances of anti-Semitic bias in the teaching at Branham High. 

An abortion in Idaho is not prohibited if pregnancy complications could cause a woman’s death, even if that death “is neither imminent nor assured”.  That is the ruling from a state judge which modifies one of the strongest pro-life laws in the U.S.  Four women, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, sued to get the courts to clarify and expand the exceptions to the ban.  Idaho’s pro-life statute currently makes performing an abortion a felony at any stage of pregnancy unless it is necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. 

The State Department has issued an appeal for its employees to report instances of anti-Christian bias that may have occurred during the Biden administration.  That includes formal or informal actions due to opposition to vaccines or personal pronoun choice.  In a cable sent to all U.S. diplomatic missions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio asked that staffers report any perceived discriminatory actions taken against Christians or employees advocating on their behalf between January 2021 and January 2025. The cable says that all reported allegations will be investigated by a government-wide task force.