Religion News

ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — One after the other, the opportunities vanished. Like so many other Afghan women, Sodaba could do little but watch as her country’s new Taliban government imposed a stranglehold on women’s lives.

LA CUMBRE, Bolivia (AP) — Neyza Hurtado was 3 years old when she was struck by lightning. Forty years later, sitting next to a bonfire on a 13,700-foot (4,175-meter) mountain, her scarred forehead makes her proud. “I am the lightning,” she said.

COPACABANA, Bolivia (AP) — More than 50,000 people from Bolivia and neighboring Peru make a pilgrimage every August to Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titicaca , to honor Bolivia's patron saint, Our Lady of Copacabana.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at wider military action in devastated Gaza on Tuesday, even as former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs called for an end to the nearly 22-month war.

A Purdue University student from South Korea has been freed from federal detention, tearfully reuniting with her family and religious community in Manhattan following days of outcry from faith leaders in New York and abroad.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Dozens of Palestinians were killed or wounded on Monday as desperate crowds headed toward food distribution points and airdropped parcels in the Gaza Strip , according to witnesses and local health officials.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Eight people, including an Irish missionary and a 3-year-old child, remained missing on Monday after gunmen stormed an orphanage in Haiti , the latest attack in an area controlled by a powerful collection of armed gangs.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A far-right Israeli minister visited and prayed at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site on Sunday, triggering regional condemnation and fears that the provocative move could further escalate tensions.