Nearly a dozen religious leaders representing faiths including Christianity and Judaism gathered at a Texas abortion clinic Tuesday to “bless” it and declare their support.

The gathering inside Whole Woman’s Health of Austin included prayer, music and even poetry. The leaders – both men and women – stood in a circle and held hands to pray. They conducted a prayerful walk throughout the clinic, too.

It was sponsored by Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Texas Freedom Network and Whole Woman’s Health.

“The first and foremost goal was to say that we support you and the work that you’re doing, especially in a state where you’re constantly having to meet new regulations or deal with critics and protesters,” Amelia Fulbright, a campus minister in Austin, told HuffPost. She is the founding minister and executive director of Labyrinth Progressive Student Ministry, an ecumenical Christian community at the University of Texas.

“As people of faith, it’s not that we think we’re bringing God to this place; we believe God is already present in that space,” Fulbright said. “But it’s to ask for prayers of safety, healing and peace, to infuse the space with an energy that is life-giving for women, a lot of whom are in an anxious time.”

Katey Zeh, the interim executive director of the Religious Coalition for…

Vincent Lambert, the man who has been at the center of a years-long debate over assisted dying, has died at the age of 42.

Lambert had spent over a decade in a vegetative state after a brutal traffic accident left him completely paralyzed and unable to communicate. Since then, his deeply religious parents have been campaigning to keep him alive, while doctors continued to insist that he was not going to get any better and should be allowed to die.

Eventually, in 2013, physicians decided that treatment should start to be withdrawn from Lambert. This decision was made in agreement with Vincent’s wife, Rachel. However, the medics were forced to reinstate treatment after a court appeal was lodged by Vincent’s parents in order to keep their son alive. The parents, Pierre and Viviane sought to move him to a specialist facility.

The case was ruled upon by the French courts and even went as high as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which sided with the medical team’s decision to remove life-sustaining treatment. However, in a shock move taken by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the ECHR and the French judiciary were ordered to halt their rulings until a full investigation had been carried out into Vincent’s condition.

At that time, the UN effectively ordered doctors to continue treatment and…

Israeli officials unveiled a stairway, known as “Pilgrim’s Road,” that which provides further windows into biblical history. The road, which Jesus likely walked,” served as a pathway to ancient Jerusalem for those who traveled there three times a year to offer sacrifices.

Zeev Orenstein, Director of International Affairs at the City of David Foundation, explained the significance of the event. “The places and events and people that make Jerusalem, Jerusalem for Christians, for Jews, it all happened here. It all happened here in the City of David.” He continued, “This is where the beating heart of Jerusalem is. We’re talking about the Pool of Siloam, we’re talking about Mt. Moriah, the Temple Mount. We’re talking about the City of David. The Pilgrimage Road links them all together.”

U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman attended the June 30^thceremony, along with the Trump Administration’s Mideast negotiator Jason Greenblatt and Senator Lindsey Graham (R- SC.) Friedman gushed over the importance of the road when speaking to Pete Hegseth, who hosted a special on the road on “Fox Nation.” He said, From a sewage pipe that burst about 15 years ago came these excavations that resulted in the discovery of the Pool of Siloam, where all the Jewish pilgrims would come and cleanse themselves before ascending to the Temple and then an entire road,…

With little fanfare, the U.S. Senate in June confirmed the 125th federal court nominee of President Trump, continuing a brisk pace that is dramatically reshaping the judiciary into a more conservative bent.

That number grew to 127 this week when the Senate approved Daniel Bress to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. 

The federal judiciary is comprised of three levels: the district court, the court of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Although Trump’s confirmation pace for all judges is similar to previous presidents for their first two years, he is far ahead of recent presidents for appeals court confirmations — or as one analyst put it, “big league” confirmations, according to an analysis by The Hill.

Trump saw 30 appeals court justices confirmed in his first two years, a timeframe that ended in January. That pace was ahead of that of George H.W. Bush (22), Reagan (19), Clinton (19), George W. Bush (17), Obama (16) and Carter (12). 

Bress was the 42nd appeals court confirmation.  

“To use a baseball analogy, you can’t just look at how many players did a team sign, right? There’s such a big difference between signing a player to the big leagues and signing someone to a Single-A contract,” Mark Carl Rom, a Georgetown University government and public policy professor, told Roll Call.

“The big…