On Friday of last week, the Texas legislature passed the so-called "Merry Christmas Bill," a fusillade by conservative lawmakers in the "War on Christmas." The law is designed as a legal firewall to protect educators or other public officials who wish to openly celebrate Christmas in the state, but fear legal action from secular groups.

A bill approved by the California state senate on Monday would further restrict the state's medical marijuana industry by requiring the end of all for-profit sales of the drug to licensed patients and caregivers.

The Secular Coalition for America on Monday dubbed Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller "the most unethical news publication," after receiving what it described as "discriminatory and unethical emails" from an employee.

At a Monday afternoon ceremony, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) will sign a bill making the state the third in the nation to permit euthanasia, putting his autograph on the Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act, the first so-called "Death with Dignity" bill to be passed by state lawmakers instead of the voters themselves.

The American Humanist Association threatened to sue Missouri's Fayette School District and several school officials on Wednesday for their alleged roles in holding morning religious ceremonies with students on school grounds every week for at least the last year.

A liberal group on Wednesday said it had faced the same level of scrutiny from the IRS that was applied to tea party groups.

In a gathering with reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that the problem of rampant sexual assault in the military is something the military needs to handle but wouldn't yet endorse legislation to take reporting such crimes out of the chain of command.

A network of anti-choice pastors gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to call for congressional hearings into other abortion doctors they claim have practices as horrifying as Philadelphia abortion doctor Kurt Gosnell, who was convicted on Monday on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of involuntary manslaughter. The group alleged that the mainstream media had ignored the case, and pointed fingers at CNN's Nancy Grace in particular.

The American Association of University Women published a new report on Thursday which highlights the chief barrier that student parents at community colleges face in completing their degrees or transferring to a four-year institution: access to affordable child care. Meanwhile, the amount of federal funding devoted to federal child care grants for student parents has dropped dramatically over the last decade, even as enrollment rises.

The House of Representatives passed a Republican-sponsored bill on Wednesday evening purporting to offer greater flexibility to working families, but the bill has been vehemently opposed by women's groups and labor unions who say the only "flexibility" offered by the bill is given to the employers and not the employees. The bill passed by a vote of 223-204 along party lines.

Raw Story reported Tuesday on a new technique pioneered by researchers at Florida International University for treating HIV by acting directly on the brain, delivering medicine across the blood-brain barrier through the use of nanoparticles. Wednesday, we spoke to Florida International University researcher Sakhrat Khizroev about the breakthrough and its potential for treatment of other brain diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and brain cancers.

Supporters of the DISCLOSE Act now have empirical evidence to back up their claims, thanks to a study published April in American Politics Research.