NEW YORK (AP) — Above a bodega in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, a mosque congregation hosts iftar, the traditional Islamic end of fast meal, for hundreds of hungry migrants every night during this holy month of Ramadan.

Up north in the Bronx, an imam has turned the two-story brick residence that houses his mosque into a makeshift overnight shelter for migrants, many of them men from his native Senegal.

Islamic institutions in the Big Apple are struggling to keep up with the needs of the city’s migrant population as an increasing number of asylum seekers come...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nearly a year after a shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville that left three adults and three children dead, the students and their families have formed tight bonds out of their shared suffering. They’ve also adopted a lot of dogs.

Among the adopters is Matthew Sullivan, who now cares for a Rhodesian ridgeback named Hank. He is the chaplain at Covenant School, which endured an all-too-common tragedy on March 27, 2023, when a former student shot through the exterior doors and kept going. Sullivan isn’t allowed to talk about...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The federal government is asking a court to halt California’s enforcement of a rule requiring prison guards to be clean-shaven, saying it amounts to religious discrimination for Sikhs, Muslims and others who wear beards as an expression of their faith.

The civil rights complaint filed Monday by the U.S. Justice Department says the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s prohibition on facial hair denies on-the-job accommodations for officers of various religions.

It seeks a temporary court order “allowing these officers to...

Ramon Nieblas fixed his tearful eyes on the small golden statue, a beloved icon of Cuba's patron saint. Whispering, he asked the Virgin of Charity of Cobre for a miracle: Please save his sick son.

"I came to pray for his health," said Nieblas, a Cuban living in Brazil who traveled thousands of miles to the basilica in eastern Cuba, a pilgrimage site nestled in the shadow of the Sierra Maestra mountains.

He sat in Mass, wrapping his arm around 26-year-old Hernando Nieblas, a physician undergoing treatment for leukemia. They were among the thousands who visit the...