Religion_Belief

20110712-183910-pic-276026606.jpg

LAKE COUNTY (IND.) SHERIFF'S OFFICE Christian Choate was 13 years old when he died two years ago in a dog cage and was buried in a plastic bag near an Indiana trailer park.

Ronmey_Huntsman_2012.jpg

Republican presidential candidates and fellow Mormons Mitt Romney (left) and Jon Huntsman Jr., were all smiles before the start of the Fourth of July parade this year in Amherst, N.H. "It's not so much that the church is more or less accepted, it's that you have two well-qualified candidates who happen to be LDS," Quin Monson of Brigham Young University said. (Associated Press)

MORMON_01.jpg

Andrew Rannells (center) performs in "The Book of Mormon" at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York. The show won nine Tony Awards in June, including Best Musical, and remains the hottest ticket on Broadway. Between the stage and politics this year, Mormons are "becoming stronger, not necessarily in their numbers but in their visibility," said Jan Shipps, the pre-eminent non-Mormon expert on the church. (Associated Press)

20110710-193949-pic-488753822.jpg

Andy Coulson, a former British government communication chief and editor of the News of the World, was arrested Friday in the phone hacking and police corruption scandal. (Associated Press)

Mideast Lebanon Syria_Live.jpg

A Lebanese Salafist protester shout anti-Syrian regime slogans during a sit-in on July 8, 2011, in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, after the Friday prayer to support Syrian protesters. (Associated Press)

Mideast Egypt_Live.jpg

An elderly Egyptian protester chants anti-military ruling council prayers during a demonstration on July 8, 2011, following the Muslims' weekly Friday prayers, part of nationally organized protests called "The revolution first" at the main Arba'in square in Suez, Egypt. (Associated Press)

Mideast Egypt_Lea.jpg

Protesters in Martyrs Square in Suez, Egypt, on Tuesday, July 5, 2011, demonstrate with placards that read in Arabic, "Open strike there is retribution" (center); "I'm a thug" (right), which ridicules official accusations that protesters are violent thugs; and "Revolutionaries but they call us thugs." (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Teaching Gay History_Lea.jpg

California Assembly Speaker John Perez, the body's first openly gay leader, urges lawmakers to approve a measure requiring public schools to teach the historical contributions of gay Americans, on Tuesday, July 5, 2011, in Sacramento. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

20110705-174842-pic-81743011.jpg

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man writes some of the last words in a Torah scroll before it is taken from the Western Wall into the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City. Software developed by an Israeli team of scholars is giving intriguing new hints about what researchers believe to be the multiple hands that wrote the Bible. (Associated Press)

20110705-174842-pic-50020473.jpg

A piece of an ancient parchment is believed to be part of the authoritative manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, the Aleppo Codex. (Associated Press)

WEDDING.jpg

Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene of Monaco depart from the palace after their religious wedding ceremony on Saturday, July 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan, Pool)

SYRIA.jpg

Pro-Syrian President Bashar Assad protesters hold up a poster of him (shown far right) during a demonstration to show their support in Damascus, Syria, on Friday, July 1, 2011. Hundreds of thousands of protesters flooded cities around Syria on Friday in one of the largest outpourings against the regime of Assad. (AP Photo/Muzaffar Salman)