In the south of Italy, Matera is known as the “City of Stones” for its architecture.

Actor and comedian Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty in a London court to rape and sexual assault charges involving four women dating back more than 25 years.

Lorcan Finnegan’s “The Surfer” isn’t a film about toxic masculinity and tribalism.

Stitch by stitch, artisans have worked for months on the elaborate garments that will debut this week in Holy Week processions across Guatemala and beyond.

Jake Bates was standing on the turf in his hometown of Houston when asked to reflect on an unlikely journey from learning how to sell bricks to making game-winning kicks for the Detroit Lions.

A baby Jesus figurine snatched from a nativity scene in Colorado has been returned in time for Christmas, with an apology.

One of the Vatican's Nativity scenes raised eyebrows when it was unveiled because it featured a keffiyeh, the Palestinian headscarf.

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia is working on a children’s book centered on a generous boy and a proliferating baloney sandwich and inspired by a Biblical miracle.

The heads of major Christian denominations in Israel say that local governments across the country are demanding they pay property tax, violating a longstanding arrangement in a manner they say reflects growing intolerance for Christians in the Holy Land.

Throughout its long history, the Black Church in America has – for the most part – been a patriarchal institution, with men making up the vast majority of its ranks of clergy.

Pope Francis has rallied from respiratory problems to lead some 60,000 people in Easter celebrations and make a strong appeal for a cease-fire in Gaza and a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine.

Each Holy Week, thousands of residents of the colonial, volcano-fringed city of Antigua participate in some of Guatemala’s oldest and most popular Easter traditions.

Palm Sunday will be celebrated by Christians worldwide this Sunday.

For the second year in a row, a religious Super Bowl ad campaign promised viewers that Jesus “gets us.”.

Kenya’s director of public prosecutions has ordered that 95 people from a doomsday cult be charged with murder, manslaughter, radicalization, cruelty and child torture, among other crimes, over the deaths of 429 people believed to be members of the church.

Christians around the world will mark Epiphany on Jan. 6 with a series of celebrations.

The typically bustling biblical birthplace of Jesus looks like a ghost town on Christmas Eve, with celebrations in Bethlehem called off due to the Israel-Hamas war.

In the small town of Lamego in Portugal's Douro River Valley, where harvesting grapes for wine is in full swing in early September, one of Portugal’s largest and oldest religious festivals draws thousands.

Authorities in Kenya say the number of people who died after a pastor ordered his followers to starve to death in order to meet Jesus has surpassed 300.

In the year since the Supreme Court struck down the nationwide right to abortion, America’s religious leaders and denominations have responded in strikingly diverse ways.

The death toll linked to a doomsday cult in Kenya has hit 201 after police exhumed 22 more bodies on Saturday.

A court in Kenya has given police five more days to hold a pastor facing possible terror-related charges in the deaths of more than 100 his congregants.

Christian worshippers thronged the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to celebrate the ceremony of the “Holy Fire.”.

Pope Francis was presiding over Easter vigil Mass at the Vatican.

Roman Catholics in Nicaragua have had to hold traditional “Stations of the Cross” and other Holy Week processions on church grounds or inside the churches amid a ban on public demonstrations.

Pope Francis, hospitalized recently with bronchitis, has skipped the traditional Good Friday nighttime procession at the Colosseum because of chilly weather in Rome.

Thousands of Christian pilgrims have participated in Palm Sunday celebrations in Jerusalem at the start of the Holy Week.

Pope Francis has presided over his first ceremony in St. Peter's Square following a three-day hospitalization for bronchitis.

Many Christians around the world flock to Jerusalem each Easter to try and relive firsthand the events written about in the Bible on what is the most important week and day on the Christian calendar.

On Super Bowl Sunday, advertising’s biggest night, religion rarely makes an appearance among the much buzzed about beer and fast-food commercials.

Israeli police have arrested an American tourist after he allegedly knocked down and broke a statue of Jesus in a church in Jerusalem’s Old City.

In the splendor of St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Francis was presiding over Christmas Eve Mass.

Since Dec. 16, a joyful parade of people has wound its way through the streets of the Mexico City borough of Xochimilco.

The last victim of the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, is being laid to rest.

A Florida man is facing charges after police say he allegedly trapped a male minor in a gym locker room and kissed him against his will.

Pope Francis invoked “gestures of peace in these days marked by the horror of war” in an Easter vigil homily in St. Peter’s Basilica attended by the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol and three Ukrainian lawmakers.

Pope Francis has washed the feet of a dozen inmates at a prison near Rome in a Holy Thursday ritual.

Thousands of Christian pilgrims have taken part in Palm Sunday celebrations in Jerusalem at the start of the Holy Week.

Pope Francis opened Holy Week Sunday with a call for an Easter truce in Ukraine to make room for a negotiated peace, highlighting the need for leaders to “make some sacrifices for the good of the people.”.

A former Hialeah police officer pled guilty on Friday to three federal charges of violating the rights of victims.

Clerics and faithful from Eastern Orthodox churches are marking the annual Holy Fire ceremony inside Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulcher church.

Rapper DMX was mourned at his memorial service with family and close friends at the Barclays Center in New York.

South Korea’s daily increase in coronavirus infections exceeded 500 for the fourth straight day, a pace unseen since January, as experts raise concern about another viral surge amid a slow rollout in vaccines.

Pope Francis has celebrated a surprise Holy Thursday Mass with the cardinal he fired last year.

“For too often, you are are taken for granted and yet in situations like this, you are the ones who protect human life,” Aquila said. “No other individuals were shot or killed after these brave officers engaged the suspect,” police said in a tweet last week. AdA law enforcement official briefed last week on the shooting said Alissa's family told investigators they believed Alissa was suffering some type of mental illness, including delusions. AdTalley, who grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, took an untraditional route to becoming a police officer. A memorial service was also planned for Talley on Tuesday at a large non-denominational church, Flatirons Community Church, in Lafayette.

Polish LGBT rights activists gather outside a court which acquitted three women who faced trial on accusations of desecration, in Plock, Poland, Tuesday March 2, 2021. A Polish court has acquitted three activists who had been accused of desecration for adding the LGBT rainbow to images of a revered Roman Catholic icon. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)WARSAW – A Polish court on Tuesday acquitted three activists who had been accused of desecration and offending religious feelings for producing and distributing images of a revered Roman Catholic icon altered to include the LGBT rainbow. Their aim was to protest what they considered the hostility of Poland’s influential Catholic Church toward LGBT people. Because of all the attention the altered icon has received, it is now a very recognized image in Poland, one sometimes seen at street protests.

Mexico started deploying those vaccines Dec. 24 in Mexico City and the northern state of Coahuila. The government hopes to have 750,000 front-line health workers vaccinated by the end of January. Mexico started deploying those vaccines in December in Mexico City and the northern state of Coahuila. The government hopes to have 750,000 front-line health workers vaccinated by the end of January. The state health department said the teams are fraudulent and urged people not to give them any information.

SUNRISE, Fla. – Surveillance video from early Sunday at the Saint Bernard Catholic Church in Sunrise shows a shirtless man appearing to hurl a rock at a statue of Jesus perched outside. Minutes later, video then shows the same man clutching a can of accelerant, pouring it on the garden below, and lighting it on fire. Father Jorge Rodriguez de la Viuda said not only were the hands broken from the Jesus statue, but in another part of the church, a statue of the Virgin Mary was beheaded. “What he did is very sad, and I know it doesn’t represent who he is,” Father Rodriguez de la Viuda said. “I’d love to tell him that we love him and we’re praying for him.”The Sunrise Police Department is investigating.

(AP Photo/Denis Farrell)CHICAGO These are children of the global pandemic. This is life under lockdown, through the eyes of children. Like many children under lockdown, she misses her friends and her teachers and especially misses playing her favorite game, netball. Thats life during the coronavirus pandemic for Tresor Ndizihiwe, a 12-year-old boy who lives in Rwanda, one of seven brothers and sisters. By comparison, the coronavirus pandemic seems manageable, the 10-year-old says.

Kanye West performs at a surprise concert on Friday for inmates in the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas. HOUSTON (CNN) - Kanye West left inmates in tears when he performed a surprise concert at the Harris County jail in Houston, Texas. West performed for more than 200 male inmates before using an underground tunnel to access a separate jail to perform for a smaller crowd of women inmates, according to the Houston Chronicle. "But Kanye West and his choir brought some light to people who needed it today at the Harris County Jail." "What Kanye West does to inspire the incarcerated is transformative," Abbott said.

(CNN) - Jimmy Fallon stunned three University of Texas at Austin students with a huge surprise. The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was filming in Austin at Bass Concert Hall when he called up Texans Alma Zamora, Elizabeth Yun, and Fitzgerald Alan onto the stage. As the crowd went wild, and the students excitedly processed the news, Fallon decided to show them the camera feature and brought the students in for a selfie. "Since we're the Tonight Show and we're at UT, Samsung wanted to take it up a notch. In an announcement, Samsung said it had worked with the university to find the three students, "all academically successful student leaders."

(CNN) - Artist and designer Kanye West has thrown out a new name idea and, honestly, it's hard to tell if he's joking. In a surprise appearance at the 2019 Fast Company Innovation Festival, West suggested that he may legally change his name to "Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West" for a little bit. "When people say it's crass to call yourself a billionaire, I might legally change my name to Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West for a year until y'all understand exactly what it is," he told Fast Company senior writer Mark Wilson. West seemed to unravel in the fall of 2016, shortly after the launch of his fashion line "Yeezy Season 4." Now, West has leaped headfirst into a series of endeavors, including his latest album release, "Jesus is King" and a series of changes occurring in his design company Yeezy.

West's gospel-inspired album "Jesus is King," released October 25, has hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, his ninth consecutive album to debut at No. The new chart, where "Jesus Is King" sits at No. The new album breaks a personal record for West -- "Jesus is King" has given the rapper his biggest streaming week ever, at 196.9 million on-demand streams of its tracks, according to Billboard. The album also boasts the second largest sales week of the year for an R&B/Hip-Hop album, selling more than 100,000 copies, second only to Post Malone's album "Hollywood's Bleeding."

OCALA, Fla. - A Florida woman told her four children to unbuckle their seat belts before she crashed into a tree in an attempt to kill them. Calicia Williams was driving with her children Wednesday in Ocala when the accident occurred, WKMG reports. First responders said Williams, 36, was rambling about hexes and voodoo when they arrived at the scene. Police say Williams made no attempts to brake or slow down before driving over the median and crashing into a palm tree. After the crash, Williams said, "The devil can't hurt you, he only hurts bad people.

JERICHO, West Bank - A colorful mosaic recently found in an ancient church in Israel appears to depict a miracle Jesus is said to have performed nearby -- the feeding of the 5,000 -- archaeologists say. The discovery was made in the "Burnt Church" in Hippos, an archaeological site on a mountain a mile east of the Sea of Galilee. The tiles uncovered in the apse show two fish and five loaves, matching the New Testament story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Christian tradition holds that the miracle took place on the northwestern edge of the Sea of Galilee, where the Church of the Multiplication now stands in Tabgha. Although the mosaic in the Burnt Church is not of the finest quality, it was very well preserved, thanks to the fire that destroyed the building.

Jarrid Wilson, a popular pastor known for his work in mental health advocacy at a Southern California megachurch, dies by suicide. (CNN) - Jarrid Wilson, a popular pastor known for his work in mental health advocacy at a Southern California megachurch, has died by suicide, Senior Pastor Greg Laurie with Harvest Christian Fellowship Church said in a statement. In a post on Monday, he wrote, "Loving Jesus doesn't always cure suicidal thoughts. Loving Jesus doesn't always cure PTSD. But that doesn't mean Jesus doesn't offer us companionship and comfort.

Mike Simons/Getty Images(CNN) - A double murderer who chose to die by electrocution was executed Thursday night, the Tennessee Department of Correction said. Stephen West was convicted in 1986 of fatally stabbing a mother and her 15-year-old daughter, CNN affiliate WKRN reported. Witnesses to West's death in the electric chair said he sobbed before he died. In Tennessee, a person who was on death row before 1999 can choose electrocution or lethal injection, which is used for other capital offense inmates. In 2018, Tennessee used the electric chair for two executions.