Winsome Sears, a Republican, will be sworn into office Saturday in Virginia alongside Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin. Sears ran, in part, on the idea that the country's racial reckoning has gone too far.

Francis says individuals have a responsibility to care for themselves "and this translates into respect for the health of those around us."

Tesla on Friday announced the opening of its showroom in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, where officials are accused of abuses against mostly Muslim ethnic minorities.

Israel's refusal to recognize liberal Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism has long been a point of tension with American Jews.

"Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been our moral compass and national conscience," South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a eulogy at Tutu's state funeral on Saturday.

Fifteen people were also injured in the surge at the shrine on New Year's Day, officials said. Initial reports suggested an altercation between a group of devotees led to the crush.

South Africans from all corners of retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu's "rainbow nation" filed past his pine casket in Cape Town. The viewing line at St. George's Cathedral stretched for nearly a mile.

The Indian government says it has refused to renew a permit that allows the Missionaries of Charity to use foreign funds to operate orphanages and hospices across the country.

Desmond Tutu will be remembered for helping end apartheid. But also for his memorable laugh, an infectious, cackling howl employed in the service of easing tensions in a very tense nation.

From Bethlehem and Frankfurt to Boston, the surging coronavirus put a damper on Christmas Eve for a second year, forcing churches to cancel or scale back services and disrupting travel plans.

Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass before an estimated 2,000 people in St. Peter's Basilica, going ahead with the service despite the resurgence in COVID-19 cases.

Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass before an estimated 2,000 people in St. Peter's Basilica, going ahead with the service despite the resurgence in COVID-19 cases.

A Palestinian who gives tours of Bethlehem, and the different meanings it holds for different people, reflects on another subdued Christmas in the West Bank city.

The group of 12 navigated by stars to reach safety after a two-month kidnapping ordeal, officials with Christian Aid Ministries, the Ohio-based agency that the missionaries work for, said on Monday.

The Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations fired its Executive and Legal Director Romin Iqbal after it discovered he was passing information to a "known anti-Muslim hate group."