In an extraordinary announcement, Pope Benedict XVI said Monday that he would step down at the end of the month, ending a papacy that has lasted less than eight years.

It is the first time in six centuries a pontiff has voluntarily stepped down.

Benedict, 85, who had appeared increasingly frail in recent months, said that his infirmity led him to the decision.

His name is Craig Douglas Fleshman, though he won’t answer to that, just as he no longer carries a driver’s license or pays taxes. Pastor Paul Revere doesn’t recognize the authority of the State of Oregon, the United States of America, or anyone else that presumes to have some command over him. He answers only to God.

From The Washington Post:

On a crowded morning train on Metro’s Orange Line, Fisher Yang, 50, of Centreville, gets his share of jeers, eye rolls and smiles.

Yang, who is the pastor of a church in Shenandoah County, sings Christmas carols two days a week during the morning rush hour on Metro’s five subway lines. 

From Huffington Post:

When Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii resident who made history this month at the first Hindu elected to Congress, attends her swearing in ceremony in January, she's poised to mark another first in American politics: Gabbard will take her oath over the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text.

While no religious ceremony is legally required for those elected to Congress and the Senate, many choose to take oaths of office over Christian and Jewish texts, and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim, took his oath over a Quran. But Gabbard's use of a non-Abrahamic text will be unique and is symbolic of the growing religious diversity of Congress. 

Sitting cross-legged on a lawn with two other students, Whitney Call, a 23-year-old creative writing major at Brigham Young University, took satisfaction in at least one aspect of the outcome of the 2012 presidential election:

Mitt Romney might not have won, but he demonstrated that being a Mormon, like her, was no barrier to winning the nation's highest office.

"His faith was not a factor in the election at all. Maybe that means that people are beginning to realize that Mormons are more mainstream than they thought," she said.