The Boy Scouts of America voted to lift a ban on gay scouts, but critics say a decision to maintain a ban on gay scout leaders sends a mixed message and leaves the issue unsettled.

WASHINGTON - First she refused to testify. Now Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the tax agency scandal, is refusing to resign, according to a top Republican senator.

Two of the headline scandals that have hit the Barack Obama administration in recent days could be about to come together – the IRS and the invasion by government of private communications.

Three days of hearings have shown that IRS scrutiny of conservative organizations extended beyond a few rogue employees in Cincinnati, that the agency staged its announcement of the bad news to try to limit the damage, and that the White House knew more, and knew it earlier, than it first admitted.

President Obama said Thursday that the United States has reached a “crossroads” in its fight against terrorism and that it is time to redefine and recalibrate a war that eventually will end.

President Obama declared an end to a fearful chapter in American history on Thursday and demanded more from the country and himself as it enters the next.

A series of fourteen photos will bring a smile to your face as you remember Sister Monson on this day of her funeral.

SALT LAKE CITY - The Mormon church said Thursday it will continue its long-time association with the Boy Scouts of America, even after the organization voted to lifts its ban on openly gay youth.

The increasing number of sister missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not only being noted in predominantly LDS communities, but others are taking notice of the change in missionary age policies as well.

Praising the program in a speech on campus in 2008, the president of Pixar, Edwin Catmull, noted: “It’s the perception not just of Pixar, but also at the other studios, that something pretty remarkable is happening here [at Brigham Young Unviersity].” The B.Y.U. program is designed to be a similar kind of ethical counterweight: it’s trying to unleash values-oriented filmmakers into the industry who can inflect its sensibility.

GOSHEN, Utah – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is about to call it a wrap on its movie-making project in Goshen. Filmmakers will complete their multi-year production of the New Testament this week, which offers a series of videos about the life of Jesus Christ. In the three summers spent making the films, the LDS church has made nearly 100 short stories about the life of Christ.

Marriage means a committed union between a man and a woman, with the likelihood or at least the possibility of procreation. Marriage has always meant that, and it has always been the glue that holds families and communities and society together.

Universal legal acceptance of same-sex marriage may be, as its advocates triumphantly insist, inevitable in the United States. Several states now recognize such marriages, the trend seems to be sweeping Western Europe, and surveys consistently show high and rising support for gay marriage among younger people.

Amen. The Book of Mormon’s run was so successful in Boston it’s coming back, according to a release. With nine Tony awards under its belt, it’s one show that seems to have endless fascination. Just remember, as the Globe wrote, these tickets go fast and sell high. Very high.

Richard Heller, an outspoken British atheist with all the attitude of the late Christopher Hitchens but, I think, little if any of Mr. Hitchens’s remarkable panache, has written an open letter to the British Minister for Faith and Communities, denouncing tax exemption for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

If it is proven that the IRS thwarted some groups from obtaini tax-exempt status in fear that their traditional or conservative messages might hurt the 2012 Obama campaign (especially if it did so under pressure from White House-affiliated operatives)… then the scandal points to the potential corruption of the electoral process itself.

This is an excerpt from "Saints at War: Inspiring Stories of Courage and Valor, published by Cedar Fort this month, which includes stories shared about members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who served in the armed forces.å

SEATTLE - A large section of a bridge on Interstate 5 north of Seattle collapsed Thursday evening, sending vehicles and people plunging into the swirling, icy waters of the Skagit River.

Bipartisan group of House lawmakers depart the capital for recess without clinching a deal on immigration reform, missing their self-imposed deadline. But members insist they aren't giving up.

GREENVILLE, California - An earthquake has struck Northern California's Plumas County with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7. Rafael Abreau, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Center, says the temblor struck at 8:47 p.m. and was centered six miles west northwest of Greenville, and 26 miles southwest of Susanville.

The White House has threatened to veto the GOP-backed student loan bill, but supporters say passage invites input from the Senate to arrive at a compromise before rates jump on July 1.

LONDON - A brave scout leader who may have prevented further violence has emerged as an unlikely hero in the apparent terror attack that left one man dead on the streets of London.

President Obama condemned the terrorist attack on a British soldier on the streets of London Wednesday, but parsed his statement on the horrific incident carefully.

ISTANBUL - Members of Syria’s main political opposition group on Thursday began three days of talks to elect a new leader and formulate their positions before an expected international conference in Geneva next month that is meant to pave the way for negotiations on a possible transitional government in Syria.

Early Monday afternoon at the Shear Perfection hair salon, a stylist named Lisa Lentz decided to outrace it. Her one o’clock, a cut-and-color, was done, but two other clients had just canceled, and the ominous tone of Gary England, the meteorological oracle on News 9, commanded attention.

The massive circular structure appears to be an archaeologist's dream: a recently discovered antiquity that could reveal secrets of ancient life in the Middle East and is just waiting to be excavated. It's thousands of years old -- a conical, manmade behemoth weighing hundreds of tons, practically begging to be explored. The problem is -- it's at the bottom of the biblical Sea of Galilee.

Warm sea-surface temperatures and the long-reaching effect of conditions in the tropical Pacific are among the factors that could mean above-normal activity during the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season.

Evolution could now favor cockroaches with an aversion to glucose, the sugary flavoring that disguises the taste of the poison in roach bait.

Even if you don’t sleep in your car, you might have to worry about bedbugs coming along for the ride this summer.

Titan, the largest of Saturn’s natural satellites and the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere, is a fascinating little place. Peering through its thick orange clouds may not be the easiest of tasks, but a team of planetary scientists using NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have created the first full topographical map of its surface - created using radar measurements.

The number of tourists coming to Japan dropped dramatically after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. But between the weak currency and fading memories of the disaster, tourism saw a record high last month.