News Briefs

Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town and legendary opponent of South African apartheid, was awarded the 2013 Templeton Prize on April 4. • In a letter on March 22, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston urged Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to support the expansion of Medicaid coverage in West Virginia. • Thirteen state attorneys general asked the federal government to expand the religious exemption under the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate to private companies, in a letter on March 26 to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. • Students with concealed carry permits and permission from campus police will now be able to carry a loaded gun into classrooms at Liberty University’s Lynchburg, Va., campus. • Meeting on April 3 with Archbishop Jean-Paul Gobel, apostolic nuncio to Egypt, the Coptic Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria, Tawadros II, expressed his desire to go to Rome to meet Pope Francis. • U.S. Christian leaders will gather in Birmingham, Ala., on April 14-15 to sign a response to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” on its 50th anniversary.