According to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization, 49.6 million people lived in modern slavery in 2021, with 27.6 million in forced labor (6.3 million of which were in forced commercial sexual exploitation) and 22 million in forced marriage.

Days after the federal government signaled it would allow abortion pills to be distributed through the postal service even in states that have banned or restricted the procedure, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall indicated that women who undergo medication abortions in the state could still be subject to prosecution.

The terrorism trial of Sayfullo Saipov, who is accused of fatally striking eight people with a truck in New York City in 2017, began Jan. 9 and marks the first federal death penalty case heard under President Joe Biden, who pledged as a candidate to end the practice at the federal level.

The United States’ chief advocate for religious freedom expressed his “disappointment” in the Vatican over its provisional agreement with China on the appointment of bishops in the country.

Pope Francis’ condemnations of the threat of nuclear war are “indispensable,” said the head of the U.N. nuclear energy agency.

Auxiliary Bishop Sobilo of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia said that despite worsening conditions following Christmas and the start of the new year, the people in war-torn eastern Ukraine are determined to fight on.

Catholic organizations in California, strengthened by years of responding to disasters in the Golden State, responded quickly to bring aid to those affected by the ongoing brutal winter storms.

Each year, some 3 million pilgrims — many with terminal medical conditions — visit the shrine in southwestern France, site of 18 Marian apparitions to St. Bernadette Soubirous, who was a young teenager in poverty and could neither read nor write at the time.

Catholic leaders in Illinois are hailing the state’s newly enacted ban on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and switches.

To understand the Gospel, its beauty and its power, people need to read it, Pope Francis said.