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One person was shot dead and two injured on Thursday evening at a church in Alabama during a 'Boomers' Potluck', police in Vestavia Hills said. Captain Shane Ware of Vestavia Hills police said the gunman is in custody. The church, St Stephen's Episcopal, in a suburb of Birmingham, was hosting a 5-7pm 'Boomers Potluck'. Victims have been taken to Birmingham's UAB hospital - the only level one trauma center in the state of Alabama. 'At approximately 6:22 PM Central Time the Vestavia Hills Police Department responded to Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church located at 3775 Crosshaven Drive Vestavia Hills, AL on...

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen opened fire on worshippers and detonated explosives at a Catholic church in southwestern Nigeria on Sunday, leaving dozens feared dead, state lawmakers said. The attackers targeted the St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo state just as the worshippers gathered on Pentecost Sunday, legislator Ogunmolasuyi Oluwole said. Among the dead were many children, he said.

Ames, Iowa-Three people, including the alleged shooter, are dead following a shooting outside an Ames church. It happened at the Cornerstone Church on US 30 in Ames shortly before 7:00 p.m. The Story County Sheriff's office tells WHO 13 that two people were shot and killed by a male gunman outside the church. The gunman is dead as well, though authorities aren't saying how he was killed. The 911 call came in at 6:51 p.m. The church was hosting a Salt Company kickoff event tonight for college-age individuals to worship together...

At least four people were hurt at an Albuquerque church Sunday when a visitor jumped out of the pews and stabbed a choir member during a song, police and witnesses said. The victims did not appear to have life-threatening injuries, police said. Two parishioners told the Los Angeles Times that after communion at the St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church on Sunday morning, a man in his teens or early 20s leaped from the pews and stabbed the choir's lead singer while the choir was singing. "While that was going on, people were just panicking. It was scary, you wouldn’t think...

(CNN) -- Five people, including a church pastor, were shot inside the First Baptist Church of Maryville, Illinois, a police dispatcher told CNN on Sunday. The shooting occurred during a church service, the dispatcher said. The suspect was stabbed by parishioners who wrestled him to the ground.

Two weeks ago, somebody broke into a Woodland church and stole donation money out of a safe. Last night vandals returned and did even more damage, including spray painting statues. Holy Rosary Catholic Church has stood at the corner of Walnut and Court Streets for more than a half century. Church volunteers spent today doing what they could to remove black spray paint from statues of Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of Jesus, and Jesus on the cross. One of the helpers just happened to be driving by, saw the damage, and asked for a washcloth. "It's just very, there...

BERLIN - A thief broke into offices at a Berlin church during Sunday services and stole a valuable 300-year-old illuminated Bible, police said. Besides the richly illustrated 1704 Bible, an undisclosed amount of money also was taken from the Martin Luther church, police said Tuesday. Priest Dieter Spanknebel wrote an appeal on the church's Web site, saying the Bible would be difficult for a thief to sell. "It would be most prudent simply to somehow bring it back to the church," he said. "We ask you to do so, with all our hearts." The Bible is estimated to be worth...

Safe cracked, thousands stolen from a parish in Woodland --It isn't often that a police officer has to dust a statue of Jesus for fingerprints, but that's what Kelly York found herself doing Monday afternoon at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Woodland.She wasn't happy about it."He's pretty clean," York said after delicately, and reluctantly, brushing the figure with black fingerprint powder. York and two other Woodland officers were at Holy Rosary because overnight someone broke into the white, mission-style church at the corner of Court and Walnut streets downtown.Intruders smashed a window, used a blowtorch to cut a hole in...

Mar. 4, 2006 10:41 | Updated Mar. 4, 2006 22:16 Man behind Nazareth attack requested asylum from Arafat By YIGAL GRAYEFF, JPOST STAFF, AND AP Police remove the baby stroller which was used to hide the firecrackers. Photo: APChristians attend a mass at the Church of the Anunciation in Nazareth on Saturday. Photo: AP The man who caused a riot in Nazareth on Friday by throwing firecrackers into the Basilica of the Annunciation visited Yasser Arafat two years ago to request asylum. However, police said on Saturday it was unclear why Haim Eliyahu Habibi was seeking refuge in the Palestinian...

NAZARETH, Israel -- At least two people disguised as Christian pilgrims threw firecrackers into one of Christianity's holiest sites Friday, sparking a riot in this biblical town, police said. Police said the attackers entered the Basilica of the Annunciation and threw the firecrackers. Hundreds of residents of the Arab-Israeli town gathered outside building and began rioting. Rescue workers said at least two people were wounded in the unrest, and others suffered from tear gas inhalation. Police said the attackers remained inside the church, and the crowd prevented police from entering the building to arrest them. Two or three people were...

ISLAMABAD : A Pakistani court has sentenced three Islamic militants to death after finding them guilty of killing four women as they prayed at a church near the capital in 2003, a police official said on Friday. The three men were captured shortly after the August 9, 2003, attack on the grounds of a Presbyterian hospital in Taxila, a small town about 40 km northwest of here. The women were all nurses at a hospital adjacent to the church. They died as they were leaving the church when attackers hurled grenades at the congregation. One assailant also died in the...

MULTAN: Two suspected militants wanted for their involvement in a massacre at a Catholic church last year were killed in a fierce 18-hour gunbattle on Sunday, Pakistani police said. The two men, members of the Sunni Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, were being sought for their role in the October 28 attack on St. Dominic's Roman Catholic Church in Behawalpur, 730 km southwest of Islamabad. Sixteen people were killed in the attack. The two suspects died in a shootout on Sunday in Jhang, a remote farming area in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province, Senior Police Superintendent Tariq Masood said. Police said a...

<p>On Wednesday, gunmen entered a Christian charity in Karachi, Pakistan, separated Christian from Muslim workers and methodically shot seven Christians in the head. Although this massacre is the sixth in a series of attacks aimed at Christian targets in Pakistan, much of the media has played down religion's role in favor of a secular storyline.</p>

ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf met top US officials here Tuesday and expressed his condolences for the deaths of two Americans in a grenade attack on a church in the Pakistani capital, officials and reports said. US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Christina Rocca, the head of the US military's Central Command Major, General Tommy Franks, and US ambassador Wendy Chamberlin met Musharraf on Tuesday morning, US embassy spokesman Mark Wentworth said. The president expressed his sympathies for the killing of US diplomat Milton Green's wife Barbara and their teenage daughter in the Sunday morning attack, according to the...

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Colin Powell has discussed the church attack with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf who assured him of cooperation in bringing those behind it to justice even as investigations into the incident, which claimed the lives of five people, including two Americans, were continuing. Pakistan is investigating, with US assistance, the church bombing incident in Islamabad on Sunday and is committed to hunting down the attacker involved in the killing, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said here on Monday. He said Powell has spoken to Musharraf about the incident and so has US Ambassador to Islamabad Wendy...

President Bush pledged Sunday to find those responsible for grenade attack on a church in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, which killed five people including two Americans. The wife and daughter of a U.S. diplomat were among more than 70 worshippers trapped in Islamabad's Protestant church when two unidentified men threw grenades inside the building and closed the door behind them. The church was crowded with Sunday morning worshippers. "Five worshippers died in the blast while 45 others have been injured," Islamabad police chief Nasir Durrani told reporters outside the church. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad identified the Americans as Barbara...