Crowds of Syrians have rallied to protest authorities’ efforts to limit the sale and consumption of alcohol in Damascus.

Israeli settlers have rampaged through Palestinian villages and wounded several men in the latest flare-up of violence in the occupied West Bank.

The United States and Iran threatened to target critical infrastructure as the war in the Middle East, now in its fourth week, puts lives and livelihoods at risk throughout the region.

President Donald Trump has warned that the U.S. will “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if it doesn’t fully open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, prompting Tehran to say it would respond to any such strike with attacks on U.S. and Israeli energy and infrastructure assets.

President Donald Trump on Saturday says the U.S. will “obliterate” Iranian power plants if it doesn’t fully open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.

Iran has struck two communities near Israel’s main nuclear research center, leaving buildings shattered and dozens injured, hours after Tehran’s main nuclear enrichment site was hit as the war spun into a dangerous new direction.

An Israeli strike has hit a Hezbollah-run health center in southern Lebanon and killed 12 medical workers, as Israel widens its campaign beyond fighters.

The Supreme Court is reviving a lawsuit from an evangelical Christian barred from demonstrating in Mississippi after authorities say he shouted insults at people over a loudspeaker.

Jehovah’s Witness leaders are modifying their rules on blood transfusions by letting members choose whether to store and reuse their own blood for medical care.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth brings Christian language into the Pentagon as the U.S. and Israel wage war against Iran.

More Democrats are openly running on faith, as progressive clergy and other religious candidates push back on the idea that Christianity belongs to the right.

Iranians abroad and in Tehran are approaching Persian new year with grief and fear as war and a crackdown cut them off from loved ones.

Iran is threatening recreational and tourist sites worldwide and insisting it is still building missiles three weeks into an escalating war in the Middle East.

The U.S. military is deploying three more warships and roughly 2,500 more marines to the Middle East as Iran fires on Israel and energy sites in neighboring Gulf Arab states, sending oil and gas prices soaring.

Israel hit the Iranian capital Tehran with airstrikes Friday, with activists reporting sounds of strikes around the city.

Clergy will be allowed to minister to immigrants in a holding facility at the headquarters of the Trump administration’s enforcement surge in Minnesota.

For many U.S. Jews, following current events these days can be emotionally tumultuous.

The renewed war between Israel and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group and the mass displacement because of the conflict are draining the joy from Ramadan and the run-up to the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr for many in Lebanon.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is supporting a proposal to rename César Chavez Day following stunning abuse allegations against the revered labor leader.

Israel has pounded Tehran with airstrikes as Iranians mark Nowruz, or the Persian New Year.

U.S. President Donald Trump pledged the U.S. would “massively blow up the entirety” of the world’s largest gas field if Iran attacks Qatar again.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is drawing to an end and Muslims around the world will soon start celebrating the holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

Iran has broadened its strikes on major energy facilities in the Middle East, eliciting strong warnings from Gulf Arab states that called it a dangerous escalation that threatened to draw them into direct combat with Tehran.

The Vatican appeals tribunal has declared a mistrial in the Holy See’s big “trial of the century.”.

The U.N. human rights office has expressed concerns about possible “ethnic cleansing,” warning of an acceleration of Israeli settlements and displacements of thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Israel killed two senior Iranian security officials in a major blow to the country’s leadership.

The widening U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is choking the Strait of Hormuz and sending energy and security shocks around the world.

The ex-wife of the gunman who drove a pickup truck into a Detroit-area synagogue told police that he was distraught and suicidal.

Explosions are sounding in Dubai after the United Arab Emirates reopened its airspace following a brief closure amid incoming attacks from Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump says he has pressured around seven countries to send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open as fears of a global energy crisis persist and Iranian attacks and threats have choked off shipping in the vital waterway.

Pope Leo XIV has urged a ceasefire in the Middle East and called on leaders in the Iran war to reopen talks.

President Donald Trump says he has “demanded” that about seven countries heavily reliant on Middle East oil join a coalition to police the Strait of Hormuz.

Gulf countries have reported new Iranian attacks as the war in the Middle East entered its third week.

Iran has threatened for the first time to attack civilian infrastructure in a neighboring country, urging people to evacuate three major ports in the United Arab Emirates it claimed the U.S. military was using to launch strikes on Iran.

The Michigan synagogue that came under attack this week when an armed man drove his car into the building had for months been strengthening its security apparatus.

One grew up in rural Haiti amid the poverty and violence.

President Donald Trump says the U.S. bombed military sites on an island vital to Iran’s oil network.

An official in Lebanon says a man who attacked a Michigan synagogue learned a week ago that four relatives in Lebanon were killed by an Israeli airstrike.

U.S. Marines are being deployed to the Middle East as American and Israeli strikes pound Iran.

One of the hottest tickets in Rome these days is for a four-lecture series on the Antichrist being given by Silicon Valley tech billionaire Peter Thiel.

The Michigan synagogue that was attacked is one of the largest reform congregations in the U.S. Temple Israel was founded in 1941 in the city of Detroit and relocated to West Bloomfield in the 1980s.

An attack on a major synagogue in Michigan has resurrected fears about violence at houses of worship.

The armed man who rammed his vehicle into one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues has been identified as 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a naturalized citizen born in Lebanon, according to federal officials.

Iran’s secretive new leader has issued his first public statements, resolving to keep fighting.

Utah has found itself at the forefront of a states' rights battle between itself and prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.

Iran’s new supreme leader vowed to keep attacking the country's Gulf Arab neighbors and using its threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz as leverage.

The head priest of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh is facing charges after being accused of stealing more than $1,000 in baseball cards from a Walmart.

The International Energy Agency has agreed to release the largest volume of emergency oil reserves in its history, in a bid to counter the effects on energy markets of the war in the Middle East.

Iran targeted the world’s busiest international airport Wednesday and attacked commercial ships as U.S. and Israeli strikes rocked Tehran, while the United Nations’ most powerful body demanded a halt to the Islamic Republic’s strikes on its Gulf neighbors that threaten global oil supplies.

The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has become a test of who endures longer.

A 16-foot (5-meter) Baby Jesus statue visits Mexico City’s Tepito neighborhood as part of a traveling project that brings the religious image to communities across the capital and nearby cities in central Mexico.

A federal judge is weighing whether the government can force the University of Pennsylvania to hand over detailed employee information in an antisemitism investigation.

Jihadi extremist groups including Boko Haram have targeted Nigerian military camps in intensifying attacks in the last week.

Pope Leo XIV says a Chaldean Catholic bishop has resigned after he was arrested while trying to leave the U.S. following accusations that he embezzled $270,000 from his parish near San Diego.

The U.S. says it took out more than a dozen mine-laying Iranian vessels, and the Islamic Republic vowed to block the region’s oil exports, saying it would not allow “even a single liter” to be shipped to its enemies.

U.S. President Donald Trump says the war against Iran could be short-lived.

Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, long has been considered a contender to the post of the country’s next paramount ruler — even before his father's death though he’s never being elected nor appointed to a government position.

Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran’s late supreme leader, has been named his successor.

San Francisco has rung in the Year of the Fire Horse with its annual Chinese New Year parade with thousands cheering on hometown hero and Olympic champion Eileen Gu as its grand marshal.

Authorities say a counterprotester demonstrating against a “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” event Saturday lit and threw a device at the protesting crowd after someone from that group used pepper spray on the counterprotest.

Pope Leo XIV named a veteran Vatican diplomat as his new ambassador to the United States.

Israel is renewing its assault on southern Lebanon, including targeting commanders of the Lebanese branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force in Beirut.

The travel chaos from the war in the Middle East has ensnared many of the Muslims who have converged on Saudi Arabia for the Umrah pilgrimage, leaving them stranded and scrambling to find other ways home.

A report by Rhode Island’s attorney general detailing decades of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy is giving survivors a sense of vindication while renewing calls for accountability and support.

Muslims across the United States are observing Ramadan under rising fears tied to immigration raids, anti-Muslim rhetoric, and war in the Middle East.

One Israeli family lost three of their four children when a missile hit a shelter in a Beit Shemesh synagogue.

On its own, the phrase “Christ is king” sums up a core tenet of the Christian faith, that Jesus is the divine ruler of the universe.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has opened an internal investigation into whether the one-time architect of President Donald Trump’s large-scale immigration crackdown made disparaging comments about the Jewish faith while criticizing the U.S. attorney for Minnesota.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the enforcement of an executive order issued last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that designates two Muslim groups as foreign terrorist organizations.

A new investigation into the Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, shows that an estimated 75 priests abused more than 300 children since 1950.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered to mediate for a new ceasefire between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, long has been considered a contender to the post of the country’s next paramount ruler — even before his father's death though he’s never being elected nor appointed to a government position.

A new report says Rhode Island Catholic clergy abused hundreds of children for decades, while church leaders minimized the scandal.

The killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in joint U.S.-Israeli strikes has sparked anger across Shiite communities worldwide and is raising fears of wider unrest.

Pakistan says that Afghan forces have attacked Pakistani military positions along the border, triggering intense clashes that left 67 Afghan troops and one Pakistani soldier dead.

Palestinians in Gaza are reacting to a possible shift in the world's attention from the Israel-Hamas ceasefire to a new regional conflict with Iran.

Every Lunar New Year for the past 14 years, a Southern California Buddhist temple has displayed what it calls the “10,000 Buddha Relics.”.

Nonstop Iranian missile fire has sent residents of central Israel scrambling in and out of shelters throughout the day.

Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement” is getting a facial.

Two American cardinals and the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. denounced the mass deportations in Minnesota under the federal government’s immigration crackdown.

U.S. President Donald Trump says he’s “not happy” with the latest talks over Iran’s nuclear program but has indicated he'll give the negotiators more time to reach a deal to avert another war in the Middle East.

A new Gallup poll shows that American sympathies in the Middle East have shifted dramatically toward the Palestinians after decades of overwhelming support for the Israelis.

The Vatican has announced a packed early-2026 travel schedule for Pope Leo XIV, with trips to Monaco, Spain, and four African countries.

A federal inquiry has begun into a rise in antisemitism across Australia before two gunmen allegedly killed 15 people at a Sydney Jewish festival.

The Greek seaside town of Galaxidi has exploded into a messy “flour war” as many of its 1,700 residents and many visitors pelted each other with bags of dyed flour.

Palestinian Authority officials say Israeli settlers have attacked a West Bank mosque.

Supporters of Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye have held a prayer service in a Catholic cathedral to press for his release.

There is fresh outrage over U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee's remarks in an interview that Israel could “take it all” when asked about biblical claims to Middle East land.

The bones of St. Francis of Assisi have gone on public display for the first time.

Arab and Muslim countries are sharply condemning comments by the U.S. ambassador to Israel, who said in an interview that Israel had a right to much of the Middle East.

A woman adopted as a toddler by an American war veteran, who he found in the 1970s in an Iranian orphanage and raised as a Christian, is being threatened with deportation to Iran, a country notoriously dangerous for Christians and on the brink of war with the United States.

Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia church has reached its maximum height with the placement of a cross on its central Tower of Jesus Christ.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered under heavy Israeli restrictions at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the first Friday prayers of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, including some who were allowed to enter from the occupied West Bank.

The Lenten period for penance started this week with Ash Wednesday and Catholic priests are happily bracing for long lines outside the confessional.

The Palestinian Health Ministry and a witness say that Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank shot and killed a Palestinian American in an attack on a village.

The same travertine quarries near Rome that built St. Peter’s Basilica and the Colosseum are still being dug out today, providing the distinctive pock-marked rock to build a new generation of churches, temples and mosques worldwide.

Ramadan has begun in Gaza under a fragile ceasefire deal, but many say the joyous spirit of the month has disappeared.

Pope Leo XIV has opened the church’s penitential Lenten season by presiding over Ash Wednesday.

A New Jersey Catholic diocese this week agreed to a $180 million settlement to resolve allegations of clergy sexual abuse, a figure far exceeding agreements in some large dioceses though still dwarfed by other massive settlements.

Muslim Palestinians in Gaza are preparing for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan under a fragile ceasefire deal.