Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces and drones opened fire toward hundreds of people waiting for aid trucks in central Gaza.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of a former Louisiana prison inmate whose dreadlocks were shaved by guards in violation of his religious beliefs.

A pastor says God had a hand in preventing a mass shooting at his suburban Detroit church where more than 100 people had gathered to worship.

The death toll from a suicide bomb attack on a church in Syria has risen to 25, state media say.

Muslims will soon welcome a new lunar year in what's known as the Hijri calendar.

Texas will require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments under a new state law that will make the state the nation’s largest to attempt to impose such a mandate.

Pope Leo XIV has said there should be no tolerance in the Catholic Church for any type of abuse.

A panel of three federal appellate judges has ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in each of the state’s public school classrooms is unconstitutional.

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has been released from federal immigration detention.

A week into their war, Israel and Iran have exchanged more strikes while diplomatic efforts led by the Europeans took place in Geneva.

Iranian missiles have hit a major hospital in southern Israel and struck residential buildings in Tel Aviv, wounding 240 people and causing extensive damage.

A groundbreaking is scheduled in Virginia for the rebuilding of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches.

A televangelist in Kenya who was notorious for claiming to cure infertility in women died in a car crash on Tuesday.

U.S. efforts resulted in the release of 135 Nicaraguan political prisoners including faith leaders in September 2024.

Hundreds of Jews from the United States and elsewhere have been evacuated from Israel aboard a cruise ship to Cyprus.

Explosions were heard in Iran's capital as Israeli warplanes pounded Tehran throughout the day and night.

Mother Emanuel AME church made an ecumenical gesture for the commemoration of a racist shooting that killed nine of its Black members 10 years ago on Tuesday.

In the south of Italy, Matera is known as the “City of Stones” for its architecture.

U.S. President Donald Trump has posted an ominous message on his social media site, calling for the immediate evacuation of Tehran but later denied reports that he'd rushed back to Washington to work on a ceasefire.

Residents of Iran’s capital were seen leaving the city and shops and the historic Grand Bazaar were closed Tuesday, the fifth day of the intensifying conflict started by Israel.

Intense Israeli airstrikes targeted Iran’s capital early Wednesday after it issued a warning about a new area it could target, a day after U_S_ President Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender.”.

New Jersey’s Supreme Court says the state can have a grand jury investigate allegations of clergy sexually abusing children and report findings.

Israel's opposition leader pushed just days ago to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

Officials in Ireland are starting work to excavate the site of a former church-run home for unmarried women and their babies to identify the remains of some 800 infants and young children who died there.

The Vatican has beatified a Congolese government worker who was killed for resisting corruption, giving young people in a part of the world wracked with violence a new model of holiness.

Israel and Iran have traded missile strikes for a third straight day.

A helicopter carrying Hindu pilgrims has crashed in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, killing seven people on board.

A new AP-NORC poll finds that just over a month after Pope Leo XIV became the first U.S.-born pontiff, American Catholics are feeling excited about their new religious leader.

In his first words directed specifically to Americans, Pope Leo XIV told young people on Saturday how to find hope and meaning in their lives through God and in service to others.

Iran has launched a second round of missiles against Israel as Israel’s military kept up attacks on Iran following earlier strikes that targeted nuclear and military sites.

French President Emmanuel Macron says a top-level U.N. conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians scheduled for next week has been postponed.

The Catholic Church’s first millennial-era saint Carlo Acutis will be canonized Sept. 7.

Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. says Israel’s ongoing attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, top generals and scientists killed 78 people and wounded more that 320.

Faith leaders across denominations are joining nationwide protests against immigration raids ordered by the Trump administration and making a united call on nonviolence to curb clashes with law enforcement.

Gaza's Hamas-run police force said it killed 12 members of an Israeli-backed militia after detaining them early Thursday.

Southern Baptist representatives have fended off two efforts to move the staunchly conservative body even more sharply to the right.

Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu faces the greatest test to his rule since Oct. 7, 2023.

The Gaza Health Ministry says the Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war has passed 55,000.

Pope Leo XIV has made his first appointment of a Chinese bishop.

Southern Baptist delegates at their national meeting overwhelmingly endorsed banning same-sex marriage — including a call for a reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 10-year-old precedent legalizing it nationwide.

Victor Wembanyama is in China, and it’s not all about vacation.

International pressure has increased again on Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a vote to dissolve parliament Wednesday and key coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government.

Pope Leo XIV has criticized the surge of nationalist political movements in the world as he prayed for reconciliation and dialogue.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest school dropout rates and a driving factor is that parents are being crushed by unpredictable school fees.

This year's Boulder Jewish Festival has been reimagined to focus on community healing.

The leader of al-Qaida’s Yemen branch has threatened both U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip in his first video message since taking over the group last year.

The top Taliban leader has slammed President Donald Trump’s travel ban on Afghans, calling the United States an “oppressor.”.

The Vatican doesn’t tax its residents or issue bonds, and it's got a very big budget problem.

One of the greatest challenges facing Pope Leo XIV is financial.

More than 1.6 million Muslims are completing a core element of the Hajj, the symbolic stoning of the devil.

Representation of many of the world’s faiths and spiritual traditions has been minimal to nonexistent in the mainstream comics universe.

Representation of many of the world's faiths and spiritual traditions has been minimal to nonexistent in the mainstream comics universe.

People across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip have marked the start of one of Islam’s most important holidays with prayers outside destroyed mosques and homes, with little hope the war with Israel will end soon.

Less spending, higher prices and fewer animal sacrifices subdued the usual festive mood as the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha was celebrated in many parts of the world.

A federal judge has ruled that two federal agencies cannot punish Catholic employers and health care providers if they refuse, for religious reasons, to provide gender-affirming care to transgender patients or won’t provide health insurance coverage for such care to their workers.

The Supreme Court has handed down a unanimous ruling in a religious rights case, finding a Catholic charity in Wisconsin can’t be required to pay unemployment taxes when other religious groups are exempt.

Pope Leo XIV has met with members of the Vatican’s child protection advisory commission for the first time amid questions about his past handling of abuse and demands from survivors that he enact a true zero tolerance for abuse policy across the Catholic Church.

How do you conserve an incomparable set of murals that have accumulated more than 80 years’ worth of soot, salt and other deterioration.

Workers have completed a phase of conservation work on historic murals by the late artist Maxo Vanka at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church near Pittsburgh.

Israel has recovered the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.

For the leaders of U.S. Jewish institutions, the recent attacks in Boulder, Colorado, and Washington, D.

Muslims from around the world are in the Saudi city of Mecca for this year's Hajj pilgrimage, one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

On the rural islands of Nagasaki a handful of believers practice a version of Christianity that has direct links to a time of samurai, shoguns and martyred missionaries and believers.

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.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed 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.