NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A ninth-grade volleyball player may soon be the catalyst for change regarding religious headwear for student-athletes.

Fourteen-year-old Najah Aqeel was prepared for her second game on the volleyball team at Valor College Prep when she was told she was disqualified from the match because she was wearing a hijab.

Source:...

HARTFORD, Conn. — The U.S. Justice Department and federal prosecutors said Thursday that they have reached an agreement with Meriden, Connecticut, to resolve allegations the city illegally rejected an application for a proposed mosque.

Source:...

Five Democratic politicians made history last night by becoming the first Muslim legislators in their respective states. 

Three Muslim women won seats in state legislatures on Tuesday. Mauree Turner, who won her race for state House in Oklahoma, will be the first Muslim lawmaker elected to the...

Lord Ganesha greets visitors to the home of Jagdish and Shobha Patel in Holland.

A figurine of the deity is positioned prominently in an altar set into a wall just off the kitchen, depicted as is traditional with the body of a man and the head of an elephant. One of several such depictions that the couple displays in their home, this one in porcelain and in the characteristic style of Lladró, it serves a purpose both spiritual and artistic.

Source: ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the 2016 presidential election, Mohamed Abukar didn’t like his options, so he didn’t vote. This year the 26-year-old Michigan resident has already cast his ballot — and urged others to follow suit.

“It’s your civic duty” to vote, Abukar said as his balloting was livestreamed by Thasin Sardar, a trustee of the board at The Islamic Center of East Lansing who wanted to encourage community members to vote.

Source:...

Officials at a Kansas high school are investigating after a student was told to remove her Islamic head scarf, known as a hijab, prompting other students to stage a demonstration.

A spokeswoman for the Geary County School District said officials are still determining details of the incident, but a student reported an employee at Junction City High School told her to remove the hijab on Tuesday.

Source:...

With his Lebanese last name and his Muslim background, Mike Chehab, an attorney from Sterling Heights, Michigan, said he has heard prejudiced comments during his run this fall for a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives.

Chehab is a third-generation American — his great-grandfather came to Michigan in the early 1900s and his father built automobiles in nearby Warren — married to a Catholic. But in his Detroit suburb, parts of which are known as “Little Baghdad” for the Iraq War refugees who found work in its assembly plants, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim remarks are...

At a time when the nation feels more divided than ever, one unlikely group in Omaha, Nebraska, is trying to bring people together.

The Tri-Faith Initiative is a unique experiment in unity, sprawling across 38 acres on the edge of the city, almost smack in the center of America. There's a synagogue, a mosque and a church — and on Saturday, Tri-Faith introduced a new interfaith center, the final piece of a plan that was years in the making...

After someone went into a St. Paul mosque’s school building and spraypainted all over, leaving extensive damage, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for community support.

There have been several acts of vandalism at the Dar Uloom Islamic Center in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood in recent months, but the first caused more than $20,000 in damage to the school building over the summer, according to CAIR-Minnesota.

Source: ...

Most inmates in California jails are eligible to vote. But former inmate Christopher Jackson says few of them actually know that. Fewer still have any idea how to cast their ballots from behind bars.

During the months Jackson spent in custody at San Diego Central Jail and George Bailey Detention Facility, he registered about 200 of his fellow inmates to vote ahead of the 2018 municipal elections.

Source:...

Prince William County school officials added Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim holidays to a tentative 2021-2022 calendar for the Virginia school system, and are asking parents to weigh in.

The proposed calendar would include the following:

• Jewish new year of Rosh Hashanah;
• Jewish day of atonement Yom Kippur;
• Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights;
• Eid al-Fitr, which marks breaking of the fast at...

The Supreme Court has in recent years been quite receptive to lawsuits claiming violations of religious rights. But the justices seemed torn on Tuesday over whether to allow three Muslim men to sue federal officials for money under a law protecting religious freedom.

“Federal agents put my clients on the No-Fly List because they refused to spy on innocent coreligionists in violation of their Islamic beliefs,” Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer for the men, told the justices, who heard the case ...

A Tennessee high school athlete was disqualified from a volleyball match for wearing a hijab, prompting calls for a statewide rule change.

Najah Aqeel, a freshman at Valor Collegiate Prep in Nashville, was warming up for a match on September 15 when her coach said a referee had refused to let her play due to her headscarf.

The referee cited a casebook rule requiring athletes who wear a hijab to be granted authorization from the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA). Najah, 14, said she did not have authorization, but that it wasn't an issue for...

As the University of Miami continues to respond to pandemic, Father Philip Tran the university’s full-time chaplain at St. Augustine Parish says UM’s religious organizations are also concerned about the spiritual health of the student body.

He, along with the rest of the religious organizations at UM, say they are trying to adapt in order to make sure their members can still be a part of their religious communities.

Source:...

A 26-year-old Muslim woman is suing the Los Angeles Police Department a year after she said officers forcibly removed her hijab.

The federal lawsuit, filed Thursday (Sept. 17) in the Central District of California, names the city of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore, police Detective Corey Harmon and four officers as defendants.

Source:...