“We are supposed to be stewards of the land,” said Matthew Stoltzfus, a 34-year-old dairy farmer and father of seven whose family, like many other Amish, shuns cars in favor of horse and buggy and lives without electricity. “It is our Christian duty.”

But farmers like Mr. Stoltzfus are facing growing scrutiny for agricultural practices that the federal government sees as environmentally destructive.

At a time when some other ethnic and religious groups fear dilution through mixed marriages, the Amish have boosted their numbers by insisting on marriage within the group and providing education at Amish-only schools for 90 percent of their children.

In a sign of the spreading population, Amish numbers more than doubled in 10 states. [video]

Members of an upstate New York Amish sect cannot claim that local building codes hinder their religion or give them special standing, a town judge has ruled.

Morristown Town Judge James Phillips Jr. said the cases against eight Amish men will now proceed to trial.

Members of a small, isolated Amish community are refusing to follow state code in their handling of waste from a school’s two outhouses, citing their religious convictions.

The religious rights of 10 Old Order Amish men are being violated by an upstate New York town that is selectively prosecuting them for building homes without permits, a national public interest group charged Tuesday.

An unusual word has come to dominate TV coverage of the terrible murders of five girls in a one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania’s Amish country. Forgiveness.

Hours after news of a mass shooting of Amish schoolgirls had been flashed around the world, locals with no TVs and radios were still being informed in person of the news. Yet the ‘plain people’ do not live entirely in the past, writes Ed Pilkington. In fact it’s their willingness to adapt that has allowed them to survive, and even prosper, in the 21st century

The killer who shot dead five girls in a one-room Amish schoolhouse was haunted by guilt over his sexual assault of two young female relatives 20 years ago and dreamed he would abuse again, it emerged yesterday.

In the pickup truck he carried the plastic ties to bind the girls’ ankles, the wooden boards he would use to barricade the doors of the tiny schoolhouse — and an arsenal large enough to hold off an army of cops and carry out the children’s executions. Driven by a grudge that he had nursed for two decades, Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, brought an hour of unimaginable terror to a tiny Amish community before he callously shot 11 terrified girls, most of them in the head.

A fourth girl has died after a brutal Amish schoolhouse shooting in rural Pennsylvania, while seven others remain in critical condition.

A lone gunman walked into a one-room schoolhouse in a largely Amish community in southeastern Pennsylvania Monday and shot as many as 10 girls, killing three immediately before turning the gun on himself and dying at the scene, according to the state police.

MOUNT HOPE, Ohio - The state nabbed Arlie Stutzman in a rare sting, sending an undercover agent to his farm to buy - not drugs - but milk.

VIROQUA, Wis. -- A man charged along with three other family members with repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl as she grew up in the Amish community was sentenced to prison Wednesday.

It only took "Amish in the City" housemate Mose one morning in midtown Manhattan to size up the lay of the land.

UPN takes the concept of rudeness to new levels with the two-hour debut of ``Amish in the City,'' tonight at 8 on WSBK (Ch. 38).

« Newer — Older »