Europe

A British court rejected an appeal Friday from two Christian hotel owners who were sued after turning away a gay couple from their establishment because of their beliefs regarding pre-marital sex.

Peter and Hazelmary Bull from Cornwall, England, were ordered in Jan. 2011 to pay nearly $6,000 in damages to Steven Preddy and Martyn Hall after the gay couple was denied a stay at the Bull's Chymorvah Private Hotel.

The Bulls said they were not discriminating against Preddy and Hall's sexual orientation, but told the court they have a longstanding policy of rejecting all unmarried couples. The hotel owners told the appellate court they believe sex outside of marriage is amoral and that renting a room with one bed to an unmarried couple would be "promoting a sin." more >>

Mount Etna erupted Wednesday, spitting hot molten rock into the air and down the side of the Sicilian volcano.

Lava was still flowing Thursday, though the spectacular show was cooling off, according to reports.

The blast sent fountains of red-hot lava spewing from the mountain and produced billowing clouds of ash and small particles that covered the Mediterranean sky. more >>

The Church of England has more than doubled its investment in hedge funds over the last two years, but a spokesperson said the church never puts money into the notorious industry without "rigorous ethical criteria."

With a nearly $8.7 billion portfolio amounting to about 10 percent of its capital, the church has become one of the U.K.'s largest investors in hedge funds, Financial Times reported Friday in the run-up to a General Synod meeting scheduled for Monday.

Investing ethically has been a contentious issue at the meetings of the church's governing body. However, a spokesperson told the business newspaper that hedge funds are "carefully selected" after rigorous ethical considerations. more >>

The Vatican announced that it will be co-hosting a major science exhibition in Pisa, Italy, the hometown of astronomer Galileo Galilei, who four centuries ago was branded a heretic by the Church.

The project, which is being organized by Italy's National Institute of Nuclear Physics, the Physics Department of Pisa University and the Vatican Observatory, is called "Stories from Another World. The Universe Inside and Outside of Us."

The "stories" will be based on scientific findings and will examine how the physical universe developed. Some of the interesting objects on display will be original copies of books by Sir Isaac Newton and rock fragments from the moon and Mars, our closest planetary neighbor, The Washington Post shared. more >>

A Christian organization in England has been asked to take down claims stating that God can heal certain illnesses after a complaint from an "unofficial adviser to the media."

The Advertising Standards Authority, a media watchdog in London, accused the Bath-based Healing on the Streets (HOTS) group of giving false hope to the sick, preventing those with specific illnesses including cancer, asthma, and other conditions from seeking medical assistance due to their prayer claims.

But the organization asserted that all they were doing was offering prayer for people, giving them the chance to encounter a Heavenly Father who loved them, the group explained to The Christian Post. more >>

Numerous stories have emerged recently about parents who have chosen to raise their children as "gender neutral." The parents have received widespread criticism with many questioning whether they have a political motive and are just using their children to enforce their own agendas.

Lorraine Candy, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine's U.K. edition, recently commented on the topic warning that using a child to make political statements is harmful to the child.

Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper kept the gender of their son Sasha a secret to the public for the first five years of his life. "I wanted to avoid all the stereotyping," said the mother Laxton to U.K.-based Cambridge News. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?" more >>