Louisiana lawmakers have for the third consecutive year rejected a bill that would have added some rape cases to the narrow list of exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.

An agenda driven by conservative priorities, schools’ financial duress and teacher needs led to an $8.5 billion boost, new discipline rules, more Christianity in classrooms and a DEI ban.

Saudi officials say they have stopped more than 269,000 Muslims without permits for the Hajj pilgrimage from entering Mecca.

Pope Leo XIV blessed the 159 cyclists competing in the Giro d’Italia as the three-week race’s final stage began with an unprecedented ride through the Vatican gardens behind St. Peter’s Basilica.

A group of young Catholics attend Mass every weekday at noon at the Princeton University Chapel.

Large numbers of Muslims converge once a year on Saudi Arabia to unite in a series of religious rituals and acts of worship as they perform the Hajj, the pilgrimage that is one of the pillars of Islam.

Authorities in Paris have launched an investigation after several Jewish sites across the capital were defaced with green paint overnight.

Hamas is seeking amendments to the latest U.S. ceasefire proposal for Gaza.

Unlike the efforts made to raise awareness of Black history in the United States, acknowledging the presence of Black people in Mexico has received little support.

James Talbot, a former Catholic priest convicted of sexually assaulting boys in Maine and Massachusetts after he was exposed by The Boston Globe, has died.

Medics in Gaza say Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 27 people, including women and kids sheltering in a tent.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for two attacks in southern Syria.

“The Sacred Harp” hymnal is beloved by those who sing it and carry on the Christian songbook’s more than 180-year-old folk music history.

“The Sacred Harp” is a pre-Civil War compilation of sacred songs that uses music notes shaped like triangles, ovals, squares and diamonds, and it is getting an update.

A new edition of “The Sacred Harp,” a Christian hymnal first published in 1844, is being released this year.

The White House says the U.S. has submitted a new Gaza ceasefire proposal that has Israeli support.

Chaos erupted again as tens of thousands of desperate Palestinians tried to collect food from distribution sites in the Gaza Strip run by a new U.S.- and Israeli-backed foundation.

A federal judge said the Trump administration’s effort to deport Mahmoud Khalil because of his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University was likely unconstitutional.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least one Palestinian was killed and 48 were wounded when gunshots were fired on a crowd that overran a new aid distribution site in the war-battered enclave that was set up by an Israeli and U.S.-backed foundation.

Texas has been the center of the nation's largest measles outbreak in decades.

Family, friends and religious figures lauded the life of one of the Israeli Embassy staffers fatally shot in Washington, D.

That Pope Leo XIV is a Chicago White Sox fan and likes to play tennis are already known.

The resurgence of Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria's northeast is raising fears about a risk of returning to the peak Boko Haram-era insecurity in the region.

Many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embrace yoga and other contemplative practices.

A couple who moved from Los Angeles to Utah about 45 years ago to run a radio station are now operating the only Hindu temple in a predominantly Mormon town.

Groups of Israeli Jews chanting “Death to Arabs” have made their way through Muslim neighborhoods of Jerusalem’s Old City.

A U.S.-backed group says it has opened a new aid system in Gaza and started delivering food to Palestinians on Monday.

A new aid system in Gaza has opened its first distribution hubs in the territory.

Thousands of young Muslim women in France are sidelined from competitive sport because of rules in several disciplines including basketball that ban uniforms and other clothing carrying a religious or political significance.

A dual U.S.-German citizen has been arrested on charges that he traveled to Israel and attempted to firebomb the U.S. Embassy branch office in Tel Aviv.

Pope Leo XIV has declared himself a Roman as he completes the final ceremonial steps cementing his role as the bishop of Rome.

Pope Leo XIV’s election as the first American to lead the Catholic Church elevated him to the rare position of being a U.S. citizen who is also a foreign head of state.

A push to put the Ten Commandments on display in all Texas public school classrooms is closer to reaching Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's desk.

Both houses have approved Senate Bill 10 even though a similar Louisiana law was deemed unconstitutional. Supporters say Christianity is core to U.S. history.

Pope Leo XIV's record handling sex abuse cases while he was an Augustinian superior and bishop in Peru has come under renewed scrutiny since his election May 8.

Speaker Mike Johnson was rushing through the halls of the Capitol during the overnight House vote on President Donald Trump's big tax bill.

A monk has been hospitalized after an altercation at a monastic community in Greece, linked to a longstanding religious dispute.

Gaza's health ministry says at least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes in a 24-hour period as Israel pressed ahead with its military offensive and let in minimal aid to the strip.

A House vote showed broad support for the measure that would let districts set aside time for prayer or religious study.

The Supreme Court has effectively ended a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, dividing 4-4.

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were colleagues, and they were a couple, days away from a marriage proposal.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans has agreed to pay nearly $180 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse under a settlement announced Wednesday.

Investigators in Tennessee say a fire that severely damaged a historic Black church that served as the headquarters for a 1968 sanitation workers’ strike which brought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis was intentionally set.

A lot of American adults — about 3 in 10 — make use of astrology, tarot cards or fortune tellers at least once a year.

The Lebanese and Palestinian presidents have agreed that Palestinian factions won't use Lebanon as a launchpad for any attacks against Israel.

During Syria’s civil war, protecting the revered Sayyida Zeinab shrine was a rallying cry for some Shiite fighters and groups from beyond the country’s borders backing then-President Bashar Assad.

Pope Leo XIV has called for humanitarian aid to reach the Gaza Strip and for an end to the “heartbreaking” toll on its people.

The U.N. says it is trying to get the desperately needed aid that has entered Gaza this week into the hands of Palestinians.

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse are amplifying calls for a global zero-tolerance policy and other reforms from the American hometown of the new pope.

Some people thought the 1925 Scopes monkey trial marked a cultural defeat for biblical fundamentalism.

The 1925 Scopes monkey trial famously put the spotlight on evolution and appeared to mark a defeat for biblical fundamentalism.

The parents of Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American soldier who was held captive in Gaza for 19 months, are overjoyed he is home and slowly absorbing their son's life in captivity.

There is a new landmark at the home of the Chicago White Sox — Section 140, Row 19, Seat 2.

Popes -- they’re just like us.

President Donald Trump's establishment of a White House Faith Office, a Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias and a Religious Liberty Commission has raised cheers from his base of conservative Christian supporters.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance has extended an invitation to Pope Leo XIV to visit the United States during a meeting at the Vatican.

Pope Leo XIV has vowed to work for unity so that the Catholic Church becomes a sign of peace in the world.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that the Vatican can be a venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks.

Beginning next school year, the curriculum standards for Oklahoma high school students will including conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

The Chicago White Sox plan to unveil a graphic installation on Monday that honors Pope Leo XIV.

The Trump administration’s suspension of the federal refugee program has upended the lives of many Afghans who worked with the United States during wartime.

Pope Leo XIV has affirmed core Catholic teaching on marriage and the unborn in his first meeting with the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.

Israel has launched dozens of airstrikes across Gaza -- attacks that local health officials say killed 108 people, mostly women and children, and which Israeli officials described as a prelude to a larger campaign to pressure Hamas to release hostages.

In his public appearance as pope, Leo called himself an Augustinian, putting an unusual spotlight on his religious order.

A woman who was nine months pregnant and on her way to the delivery room is dead after a Palestinian gunman opened fire on her car.

A hospital in southern Gaza says 54 people have been killed in overnight airstrikes on the city of Khan Younis.

Before becoming Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost presided over one of the most revolutionary reforms of Pope Francis’ pontificate by having women serve on the Vatican board that vets nominations for bishops.

Pope Leo XIV has apparently made peace with Jannik Sinner.

Pope Leo XIV is vowing to actively promote and protect the spirituality and traditions of the eastern rite churches, those Catholic communities with origins in the Middle East and North Africa that have been decimated by conflict and persecution.

Hospitals and health officials say Israeli airstrikes have pounded northern and southern Gaza and killed at least 70 people.

Pope Leo XIV has met with members of his Augustinian religious order during a visit to the congregation’s headquarters outside St. Peter’s Square.

The contrast between President Donald Trump and Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV couldn’t be more stark, politically, personally or in their world views.

Jannik Sinner says it’s “a good thing for us tennis players” that the new pope likes to play the sport.

Some conservatives and traditionalist Catholics are cautiously optimistic over the historic election of Pope Leo XIV.

The Episcopal Church’s migration service is refusing a directive from the U.S. federal government to help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status, citing the church’s longstanding commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.

A dilapidated industrial site in the Czech Republic where German businessman Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews during the World War II is coming back to life.

Food security experts say the Gaza Strip is at critical risk of famine if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military campaign.

Pope Leo XIV has called for the release of imprisoned journalists and affirmed the “precious gift of free speech and the press.”.

Hamas has freed an Israeli-American soldier who was held hostage in Gaza for more than 19 months.

Hamas says it has released an American-Israeli hostage held in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of faithful Catholics gathered in St. Peter’s Square to watch Pope Leo XIV deliver the first Sunday blessing of his pontificate exactly at noon.

News that the global Catholic church would get its first-ever U.S.-born pope was welcomed by Catholics across the ideological spectrum in Pope Leo XIV’s homeland, raising the question of whether he might be able to ease some of the deep divisions within its ranks.

Pope Leo XIV has called for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza with the release of hostages and delivery of humanitarian aid.

Hamas says the last living American hostage in Gaza will be released as part of efforts to establish a ceasefire, reopen crossings into the Israeli-blockaded territory and resume aid delivery.

As firefighters in Suriname battled to save buildings in the historic city center of Paramaribo in April, volunteers were scanning documents from the Neveh Shalom Synagogue in an effort to preserve the history of the thousands of Jews who have called the city home since the 1700s.

The new pope, Leo XIV, is scheduled to deliver his first such prayer on Sunday from the loggia where he first appeared in public after being elected three days ago.

A group of Quakers are marching more than 300 miles from New York City to Washington, D.

The election of Pope Leo XIV, who is the first U.S. pope and has Creole roots, is raising more awareness about the complexity of the Creole identity.

Pope Leo XIV, now the successor of St. Peter, leads the 1.4 billion-strong Catholic Church in a sacred role that few others will ever hold.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas says the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a federal civil rights investigation into a Muslim-centered planned community around one of the state’s largest mosques near Dallas.

Church bells rang out for hours in celebration at Villanova University in suburban Philadelphia after one of their graduates was elected the first pope from the U.S. in the history of the Catholic Church.

The new pope, Leo XIV, has something in common with many of his peers in the Catholic hierarchy.

A Chicago-born cardinal walks into a conclave.

Margot Friedländer, a German Jew who survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp and became a high-profile witness to Nazi persecution in her final years, has died.

Pope Leo XIV in 2012 made comments critical of what he called the “homosexual lifestyle” and the role of mass media in promoting acceptance of same-sex relationships that conflicted with Catholic doctrine.

Speakers blasted “Born in the U.S.A.

International aid agencies warn that plans presented by Israel to control aid distribution in Gaza will only increase suffering and death in the devastated Palestinian territory.

Pope Leo XIV has celebrated his first Mass, a day after his historic election as the first U.S.-born pope in the church’s 2,000-year history.

Details have begun to emerge of how votes swiftly coalesced to make Pope Leo XIV history’s first American pope.

When white smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel revealing that a new pope had been chosen, John Prevost turned on his television in Illinois and watched in awe as his brother’s name was announced.