Iran has named the hard-line Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his late father as supreme leader.

Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was named as his successor, had long been considered a contender to the post even before an Israeli strike killed his father and despite the fact he had never been elected or appointed to a government position.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 away 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.

Sgt. Daniel Contreras, a 31-year veteran of the San Antonio Police Department, was seen in cellphone video putting an opposing coach in a headlock and exchanging punches with parents after he was ejected from the game.

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 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.

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

Eulogies are pouring in after the death of the Rev. Jesse L.

Many people who knew and worked with the Rev. Jesse L.

As the sun rose in New Orleans, rows of parade-goers already lined the street.

A man accused of killing 15 people in a mass shooting at a Jewish festival on Sydney’s Bondi Beach has appeared in court for the first time since his release from the hospital.

Israel is beginning a land registration process in the occupied West Bank that critics say can shift large areas into state control.

Indonesia is training troops for a new peacekeeping force in Gaza, backing a key part of President Donald Trump’s postwar plan.

New Zealand's Court of Appeal has finished hearing an appeal from the Christchurch mosque gunman, in proceedings that were quiet and tightly controlled.

The Great Omari Mosque in Gaza City was hit by an Israeli strike during the war with Hamas.

The Vatican has warned a breakaway traditionalist Catholic group that it risked renewed schism if it goes ahead with plans to consecrate new bishops without papal consent.

The chairman of the federal Religious Liberty Commission ousted a member after a hearing that featured tense exchanges on the definition of antisemitism.

Activists have planned protests at more than two dozen Target stores around the United States to pressure the discount retailer into taking a public stand against the 5-week-old immigration crackdown in its home state of Minnesota.

Two Palestinian men riding bicycles were killed in an Israeli drone strike Tuesday, hospital officials said, as deadly violence continued in Gaza despite an October ceasefire.

A new wave of Christian artists from various backgrounds is drawing young audiences to faith-based rap, Afrobeats and R&B.

A group of Buddhist monks has finally reached Washington, D.C., after completing a 15-week trek from Texas that captivated the country.

Brenton Tarrant, the white supremacist who murdered 51 Muslims in New Zealand's deadliest mass shooting, wanted to be described as a terrorist and always intended to admit to his crimes, his former lawyer says.

Israeli military strikes on Monday killed three people west of Gaza City, according to the hospital where the casualties arrived.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has started a state visit to Australia, aiming to console grieving Jews and improve bilateral relations.

Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslim worshipers in New Zealand’s deadliest mass shooting, is asking an appeals court to discard his guilty pleas.

Israel's security cabinet has approved measures to strengthen control over the occupied West Bank and weaken the powers of the Palestinian Authority.

Pakistani security forces have arrested four suspects linked to a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque near the capital that killed 31 people.

In the Nigerian villages of Woro and Nuku, attackers arrived on motorbikes, going door to door, shooting and setting homes ablaze.

The Angel Meloni is no more.

Attacks on Bangladesh’s Hindu minority have surged since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in an uprising in 2024.

Palestinians have gathered at Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt, hoping to pass through after it reopened.

Defense lawyers in the Vatican’s “trial of the century” have argued that Pope Francis violated the fundamental rights of their clients by issuing four secret decrees that gave prosecutors “surreal carte blanche” to investigate.

Independent journalist Don Lemon says about a dozen federal agents came to his Los Angeles hotel to arrest him last week.

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary protections that have allowed roughly 350,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced two more arrests in the protest at a church in Minnesota against the immigration enforcement crackdown.

As a teenager in India, Susai Jesu led prayer services in his small Catholic village, helped at Mass and soon began training for the priesthood.

Rabbis and rabbinical students in the United States are more diverse than ever.

Journalist Don Lemon has been released from custody after being charged with federal civil rights crimes in connection with an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted services at a Minnesota church.

South Africa has declared Israel’s deputy ambassador persona non grata and ordered him to leave the country within 72 hours.

Two neighboring towns on the Arizona-Utah border that once served as a haven for a polygamous religious sect have entered a new era.

Israel says it will reopen Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt over the weekend.

A man has been arrested after repeatedly crashing his car into the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in New York City.

Sarah Mullally was confirmed as archbishop of Canterbury on Wednesday, becoming the first woman to lead the Church of England.

Israel is marking the end of a painful chapter after the return of the remains of the last hostage held in Gaza.

People across Europe and beyond are commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Ilana Kantorowicz Shalem was born in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, and is one of the youngest Holocaust survivors.

Israelis expressed relief as the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage taken into Gaza, were recovered Monday.

Israel says the remains of the final hostage in Gaza have been recovered, clearing the way for the next phase of the ceasefire that stopped the Israel-Hamas war.

Priests and priestesses of the Afro-Cuban religion known as Santería have offered gifts to deities and asked for peace as tensions rise between the United States and Cuba and the island braces for more economic difficulties.

Israel says its military is conducting a large-scale operation to locate the last hostage in Gaza.

Top U.S. envoys have met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging him to advance the ceasefire in Gaza.

Syria's government forces have taken control of a prison housing Islamic State group members in the country's north.

Desperate Palestinians at a garbage dump in a Gaza neighborhood are digging with their bare hands for plastic items to burn to keep warm in the cold and damp winter in the enclave, battered by two years of the Israel-Hamas war.

Iraq has asked that Islamic State group prisoners be moved from northeast Syria to its detention centers.

Divisions have emerged over U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace as its ambitions have grown beyond Gaza.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a bombing at a Chinese restaurant in Afghanistan’s capital that killed at least seven people including a Chinese national and wounded more than a dozen others.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has welcomed the Parliament passing anti-hate speech and gun laws following a deadly attack at a Jewish festival in Sydney last month.

Several faith leaders are urgently calling for protecting the rights of worshippers while also expressing compassion for migrants.

Three U.S. Catholic cardinals have urged the Trump administration to use a moral compass in foreign policy.

An Israeli official says the nation has been asked to join U.S. President Donald Trump’s new Board of Peace that will supervise the next phase of the Gaza peace plan.

At least eight more countries say the United States has invited them to join President Donald Trump’s new Board of Peace overseeing next steps for Gaza.

The Syrian government has announced a ceasefire with the Syrian Democratic Forces, taking almost full control of the country.

Business owners in a Minneapolis Somali mall are feeling the impact of an immigration crackdown.

Hundreds of people in Spain have watched horses gallop through flames as part of the centuries-old tradition called Las Luminarias.

A British police force chief has retired following criticism over a decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match against Aston Villa last year.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed nine people, including three women, following the U.S. announcement of a second phase in the fragile ceasefire.

The Department of Homeland Security is making it easier for visa-holding religious workers to serve U.S. congregations with less disruption.

The U.K.'s home secretary has urged the head of West Midlands Police to resign following a report on the banning of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match against Aston Villa.

Strong winds have caused at least four deaths in Gaza as walls collapsed onto tents in the coastal territory.

Organizers of Australia’s largest free literary festival have canceled the weeklong event after most writers withdrew over the removal of an Australian Palestinian writer.