Update on the latest religion news

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INTERFAITH SERVICE

National Cathedral service features Christianity, Islam and Judaism

WASHINGTON (AP) β€” A combined Christian, Jewish and Islamic service today at Washington’s National Cathedral is titled “Beyond Tolerance.”

The cathedral says the service will feature reflection and prayers from Washington’s Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde (BUH’-dee) and Imam Taleeb Shareef of The Nation’s Mosque, with a keynote address from Rabbi David Saperstein, the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

After the service, interfaith leaders are to gather on the cathedral steps to declare their support for religious freedom and their opposition to hatred and discrimination.

The service is co-sponsored by a group called Shoulder-to-Shoulder, which says it’s dedicated to ending anti-Muslim bigotry.

Sound:

319-v-33-(Steve Coleman, AP religion editor)–A combined Christian, Jewish and Islamic service today at Washington National Cathedral is titled “Beyond Tolerance.” AP Religion Editor Steve Coleman reports. (22 Oct 2015)

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MICHELLE OBAMA

First lady’s girls’ education effort gets Pakistani boost

WASHINGTON (AP) β€” Welcoming guests with the traditional Muslim greeting of “asalaam alaikum,” Michelle Obama has announced a U.S. pledge of $70 million to help educate 200,000 adolescent girls in Pakistan.

The first lady says the money will help build more than a dozen schools, rehabilitate hundreds of facilities, and provide training and scholarships to help Pakistani girls “fulfill their promise” to become the next generation of doctors, teachers and entrepreneurs.

Joining Mrs. Obama at Thursday’s White House event were the Pakistani prime minister’s wife and daughter, who praised the first lady’s global effort to educate girls.

The U.S. commitment follows Pakistan’s recent promise to double spending on education, enroll more girls in school and provide more female teachers in the Muslim country.

TEXAS-MUSLIM STUDENT-CLOCK

Texas imam: Muslims are freer to practice faith in US

IRVING, Texas (AP) β€” A Muslim cleric in suburban Dallas says he hopes the family of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed doesn’t come to regret their decision to move to Qatar.

The Muslim teen shot to national prominence last month after he was arrested for bringing a homemade digital clock to school that a teacher mistook for a possible bomb. On Tuesday, the family announced that they would soon leave the Dallas suburb of Irving and move to Qatar, a wealthy oil nation on the Persian Gulf.

Yaser Birjas, imam of the Valley Ranch Islamic Center in Irving, said he wishes the young man well but cautioned that people who move from America to Muslim countries are often disappointed when they discover restrictions they never experienced in the U.S.

Birjas said, “Here in America, you have much more freedom practicing the faith.”

Sound:

320-v-35-(Steve Coleman, AP religion editor)–A Muslim cleric in suburban Dallas says he hopes the family of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed doesn’t come to regret their decision to move to Qatar. AP Religion Editor Steve Coleman reports. (22 Oct 2015)

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MUSLIM WORKER-LAWSUIT

Appeals court restores Muslim worker’s discrimination suit

CHICAGO (AP) β€” A U.S. appellate court has revived a Muslim woman’s civil lawsuit alleging her superiors at an Illinois state court where she worked as a child care attendant discriminated against her for years because of her religion and national origin.

A 15-page opinion by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a district court’s 2012 decision to toss Fozyia Huri’s lawsuit.

Huri, a 49-year-old originally from Saudi Arabia, wears a headscarf that marked her as the only Muslim among workers in her department in a county court facility from 2002 to 2010, according to the ruling, which was posted late Wednesday. It says one manager spoke in her presence about other staff being “good Christians.”

The three-judge appellate panel didn’t say Huri’s claims are true, only that they are plausible enough for the litigation to proceed.

ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS

Israel braces for potential conflict near Bethlehem

JERUSALEM (AP) β€” Israeli troops have placed a concrete barrier in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, near a Jewish holy site where thousands of faithful are expected for a pilgrimage this weekend. A crane lowered the concrete blocks onto a street in Bethlehem outside Rachel’s Tomb on Thursday.

Israel’s West Bank separation barrier stands between Bethlehem and the holy site.

Thousands of Jews are expected to visit the holy site on Saturday night, amid a month-long wave of violence that has swept the region. Police say hundreds of police will be deployed around the area for the annual pilgrimage marking the death of Rachel, whose husband was the biblical patriarch Jacob, also known as Israel.

Bethlehem has been the scene of violent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops.

CHURCH FIRES-ST LOUIS

Police: 7th St. Louis church property set on fire in 2 weeks

ST. LOUIS (AP) β€” Police say another church property has been set on fire in the St. Louis area, the seventh such blaze in two weeks.

St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson says someone used an accelerant early Thursday to ignite the doors of the rectory at the downtown Shrine of St. Joseph Church.

Authorities say the church was unoccupied and that no one was injured in the blaze.

Dotson has said the churches damaged during the suspicious fires since Oct. 8 vary denominationally and until early Thursday were within a few miles of each other and in largely black neighborhoods.

The latest blaze involved a church outside the radius of the previous fires, and local media outlets say the Shrine of St. Joseph Church’s congregation is largely white.

Federal investigators are assisting in the probe.

VATICAN-FAMILIES

Pope unveils new Vatican office for families, laity at synod

VATICAN CITY (AP) β€” Pope Francis has created a new Vatican office dedicated to Catholic laity and families, merging existing departments to highlight his emphasis on the crucial role that families play in the Catholic Church and society at large.

Francis announced the new office Thursday as he and bishops from around the world wrapped up a three week meeting on how to better minister to Catholic families.

The new office has been in the works for two years. It is one of the reforms approved by Francis and his nine cardinal advisers, who are working on an overall reform of the Vatican bureaucracy. The new department will merge existing pontifical councils for laity and family and the Vatican’s bioethics think tank.

A commission is preparing the office’s legal framework.

RABBI-SEX ABUSE

Rabbi given 22-year sentence in Maryland sexual abuse case

TOWSON, Md. (AP) β€” An Ohio rabbi has been sentenced to 22 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexual abuse charges in Maryland.

The Baltimore Sun reports that 51-year-old Frederick Karp pleaded guilty in Baltimore County Circuit Court last week to sexual abuse of a minor and third-degree sex offense.

Karp was sentenced to a total of 35 years β€” with 13 of the years suspended β€” and five years of probation upon release.

He was arrested in January after police said he had sexually abused a Baltimore County girl when visiting her family. Prosecutor Lisa Dever says authorities discovered there were more victims. Some of the abuse had occurred in the Cleveland area, and prosecutors there agreed to allow Baltimore County to handle prosecution.

Rabbi Karp formerly worked as a spiritual-living director in Beachwood, Ohio.

CHARLESTON SHOOTING

Bond lowered for friend of suspect in black church shooting

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) β€” A federal magistrate has lowered the bond for a man accused of failing to tell authorities all he knew about the suspect accused of gunning down nine black people at a Charleston church last June.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Shiva Hodges on Thursday lowered the bond for Joey Meek after his attorneys urged the judge to reduce his $100,000 bond set last month. Hodges set the new bond at $25,000.

Authorities say Meek lied and failed to report to law officers all he knew about Dylann Roof’s plans to shoot parishioners at Emanuel AME Church. Roof, who’s white, is charged with killing black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church.

The judge who is hearing state murder charges against Roof has issued an order reaffirming that his trial will start next July 11.

The order appoints a third attorney to help in Roof’s defense. The state is seeking the death penalty in Roof’s case.