Sentencing in Wisconsin “Faith-Healing” Case
A central Wisconsin couple who prayed rather than seek medical care for their 11-year-old dying daughter were sentenced to six months in jail and 10 years probation in the girl’s death. Dale and Leilani Neumann could have received up to 25 years in prison for the March 2008 death of Madeline Neumann, who died of an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes. (Robert Imrie, Associated Press)

Is Kansas as Anti-Evolution as We Think?
The percentage of biology teachers from different states who thought that creation has a valid scientific foundation were: Kentucky teachers, 69 percent; Oklahoma, 48 percent; South Dakota, 39 percent; Ohio, 38 percent; Illinois, 30 percent; Georgia, 30 percent; Louisiana, 29 percent; and Kansas, 24 percent. (John Richard Schrock, The Wichita Eagle)

Polling for Answers
How many Americans think media coverage of religion is so important that outlets should stop dignifying questionable religion surveys and then using them as springboards for goofy stories? (Steve Rabey, GetReligion)

S&R in South Africa
In public discourse, there is no sense of U.S.-style culture wars between film stars and Bible Belt fundamentalists. Nor does there appear to be the British appetite for a Richard Dawkins or AC Grayling to do battle with the true believers in endless books, newspaper columns, and set-piece debates. Instead, science and religion seem content to maintain a truce and keep each other at arm’s length. (David Smith, guardian.co.uk)

BOOKS
Have a Little Faith
As with Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom inserts himself into Have a Little Faith, but this time he shares the pages with two characters. One is Albert Lewis, the longtime (since 1948) rabbi of Albom’s childhood synagogue in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The book opens with the Reb, as Lewis affectionately is known, asking Albom whether he’d be willing to deliver the eulogy when the rabbi dies. The other is the Rev. Henry Covington, who set aside years of drug abuse and lawbreaking to serve God and the homeless at a decaying church in Albom’s adopted hometown of Detroit. (Mike Householder, Associated Press)