The Moorish Science Temple of America has denounced a group bearing the same name that gained attention last week for announcing it was taking possession of a house being sold for $645,000 in Hampton.

The rival factions are disputing which group is the true representation of the temple established in the early 20th century as a sect of Islam that blends influences from other faiths.

• Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •

A parliamentary inquiry has heard claims the Church of Scientology leaves members to fund local charitable activities out of their own pockets, as it siphons donations to church officials overseas.

The Senate committee was formed after Independent Senator Nick Xenophon raised concerns about Scientology, and proposed changes to tax law that would require religions to pass a public benefit test in order to be exempt from income tax.

• Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •

Abram Harker Jeffs was found guilty Tuesday of assaulting a girl with whom he was in an FLDS "spiritual" or "celestial" marriage on May 12, 2006, when Jeffs was 34 and already legally married and when the girl was 15.

He was sentenced to 17 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

• Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •

A massive upcoming Islamic conference in Toronto, which was to be headlined by an Indian televangelist until he was recently banned from Canada for his inflammatory statements, features a list of speakers whose past comments against Jews, homosexuals and the West have raised red flags in other countries.

The Journey of Faith Conference -- billed as North America's largest Islamic conference -- features such personalities as Abdur Raheem Green, who has advocated "fighting jihad" and who was reportedly invited by the Christmas Day airline bomber to address British students in 2007, and Sheikh Hussein Yee, who once said Jews are the "extremists of the world" and will "go to Hell."

• Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •

Converting to Islam would have saved the life of pop legend Michael Jackson, his brother Jermaine said in an interview to be aired Thursday.

Interestingly, in 2007 and 2008 it was reported that Jackson had converted to Islam

• Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •

Many were stunned when Saudi cleric Sheik Abdel Mohsen Obeikan recently issued a fatwa, or Islamic ruling, calling on women to give breast milk to their male colleagues or men they come into regular contact with so as to avoid illicit mixing between the sexes.

But a group of Saudi women has taken the controversial decree a step further in a new campaign to gain the right to drive in the ultra-conservative kingdom, media reports say.

• Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •

Abram Harker Jeffs is the latest in a series of men from the YFZ Ranch, an FLDS community near Eldorado, to be prosecuted on child sexual assault charges since the state raided the ranch two years ago.

The state alleged that Jeffs assaulted a girl with whom he was in an FLDS "spiritual" or "celestial" marriage on May 12, 2006, when Jeffs was 34 and already legally married and when the girl was 15.

• Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •

The acting mayor of Amsterdam, Lodewijk Asscher, wants to look into the possibility of using so-called 'decoy Jews' to combat anti-Semitic violence.

The approach is in line with Asscher's intention to look for unorthodox measures in the city's fight against intolerance and violence toward gays and Jews, his spokesman said Monday.

• Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •

"The suspect told us he shaves his victims' hair after killing them. We caught him with human hair, which he confessed belonged to his latest victim," Maithya said.

He said they were not interested in ransom or blood from the victims but human hair, which they produce to their seniors to assess their progress.

• Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •