BOSTON — Like he has most of the last 25 Labor Day weekends, Imam Taalib Mahdee will spend this one in Chicago at an annual convention organized by the Ministry of Warith Deen Mohammed. The big difference this year? Mohammed, who died a few days after last year’s convention at age 74, won’t be there.…

WASHINGTON — As members of a secretive brotherhood, Freemasons are no strangers to conspiracy theories. They’ve heard it all before: that they’re child-sacrificing cult members, or religious zealots plotting aNew World Order with the Jews, or satanic anti-religious alien spies. With Dan Brown’s newest novel, “The Lost Symbol,” hitting bookstores on Sept. 15, — much…

TRIER, Germany (RNS/ENI) A German priest who distributes condoms to help stem the spread of HIV/AIDS can continue working at his South African clinic but must give up the pulpit at a local Catholic church under a new deal with his bishop. The Rev. Stefan Hippler, who has worked in Africa for 12 years,served a…

(RNS) A meatpacking company was wrong to fire more than 200 Muslim employees who walked off the job to protest insufficient breaks during Ramadan last year, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Workers at the JBS Swift & Co. plants in Greeley, Colo., and Grand Island, Neb., had wanted their breaks rescheduled to…

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