Virginia

A Fairfax County judge ruled in favor of a breakaway Anglican parish on Tuesday, giving conservative Anglicans another win in a long and bitter property battle with the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.

Circuit Judge Randy Bellows ruled that a $1.2 million parcel of property does indeed belong to Truro Church in Fairfax, Va., one of the 11 churches sued by The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia over the control of property.

The land was originally bought by Christ the Redeemer, a church plant of Truro Church, but was given to Truro after the conservative congregations voted to leave The Episcopal Church in 2006, citing the national church's departure from Christian orthodoxy and traditional Anglicanism. more >>

ROANOKE, Va. - The chancellor of Liberty University has an ambitious plan to get the 10,500 students at the evangelical Christian college registered to vote in Virginia, a swing state that could be crucial to victory in the presidential election.

The key, according to Jerry Falwell Jr., is to register Liberty students in Lynchburg, home to the conservative college his late father founded in 1971.

"If they register here, they're more likely to vote," said Falwell, who supports Republican John McCain. more >>

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The largest Christian literature ministry is taking more of a grassroots approach to fighting crime and social and moral decay in major cities.

Problems relating to marriage, drug abuse, pornography and abortion are the issues that people in most cities face. And to tackle these problems, the International Bible Society is trying to get people back to the root of joy and peace - God's Word. more >>

The Virginia chapter of Child Evangelism Fellowship has gained victory in a religious discrimination case and will now be allowed to hold after-school Good News Clubs at area schools with the same free access afforded to other organizations like Boy Scouts.

On Monday, Judge Raymond Jackson of the Virginia Eastern District Court ordered a school district in Williamsburg to repay about $1,200 in facilities usage fees charged to the Good News Club, plus $20,000 in attorney fees.

The court opinion pointed out the vague language in the Williamsburg-James City County School Board's policy that "empowers its superintendent to decide which organizations are allowed to have fee waivers without setting forth any concrete standards." more >>

LEBANON, Va. - What's the difference between the presidential campaign before and after the national political conventions? Lipstick. "You can put lipstick on a pig," Barack Obama told a rally in a reference to a line in Sarah Palin's vice presidential acceptance speech. "It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama told an audience Tuesday that GOP presidential nominee John McCain says he'll change Washington, but he's just like President Bush.

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said to an outbreak of laughter, shouts and raucous applause from his audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke even if it's not what Obama meant. more >>

ORANGE, Va. (AP) - It isn't exactly common to make a house two-thirds smaller, or to remove the indoor plumbing. But that's what's been done at Montpelier, the plantation mansion of President James Madison.

The brick Georgian home at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains has undergone a $24 million architectural restoration with a goal of returning the structure to the way it was between 1809, when Madison was elected the nation's fourth president, and 1836, the year he died. Historians view Madison as the architect of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

"We determined at the outset that it would not be a made-up restoration," said Michael C. Quinn, president of the Montpelier Foundation, which operates the 2,650-acre estate. "Every part of it would be accurate and would be authentic, and that we would restore every room in the house, the cellars where the slaves worked and lived, as well as the dining room and all the bedrooms." more >>