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A woman and two children wear masks at a playground, Saturday, July 11, 2020, in Los Angeles. The number of deaths per day from the coronavirus in the U.S. had been falling for months, and even remained down as some states saw explosions in cases. But now a long-expected upturn has begun, driven by fatalities in states in the South and West. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

The Latest: Heat wave brings crowds to California's beaches

Jul. 12, 2020 6:42 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES -- A heat wave has brought crowds to California’s beaches, where people mostly heeded warnings to keep a safe distance from each other as the state grappled with a spike in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations. Lifeguard Chief Jason Young said Sunday that people are spread out on Orange...

Muslims offer their evening prayers outside the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia, one of Istanbul's main tourist attractions in the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, following Turkey's Council of State's decision, Friday, July 10, 2020. Turkey's highest administrative court issued a ruling Friday that paves the way for the government to convert Hagia Sophia - a former cathedral-turned-mosque that now serves as a museum - back into a Muslim house of worship. The Council of State threw its weight behind a petition brought by a religious group and annulled a 1934 cabinet decision that changed the 6th century building into a museum.(AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

World Council of Churches "dismayed" at Hagia Sophia shift

Jul. 11, 2020 4:03 PM EDT

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The head of the World Council of Churches has written to Turkey's president expressing his “grief and dismay” over Turkey's decision to change the status of Istanbul's landmark Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque. As a World Heritage museum, “Hagia Sophia...

Muslims offer their evening prayers outside the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia, one of Istanbul's main tourist attractions in the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, following Turkey's Council of State's decision, Friday, July 10, 2020. Turkey's highest administrative court issued a ruling Friday that paves the way for the government to convert Hagia Sophia - a former cathedral-turned-mosque that now serves as a museum - back into a Muslim house of worship. The Council of State threw its weight behind a petition brought by a religious group and annulled a 1934 cabinet decision that changed the 6th century building into a museum. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

Turkey's president formally makes Hagia Sophia a mosque

Jul. 10, 2020 7:08 PM EDT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The president of Turkey on Friday formally converted Istanbul’s sixth-century Hagia Sophia back into a mosque and declared it open for Muslim worship, hours after a high court annulled a 1934 decision that had made the religious landmark a museum. The decision sparked deep...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, Wednesday, July 8, 2020. (Tom Brenner/Pool via AP)

US sanctions Chinese officials over repression of minorities

Jul. 9, 2020 4:52 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on three senior officials of the Chinese Communist Party, including a member of the ruling Politburo, for alleged human rights abuses targeting ethnic and religious minorities that China has detained in the western part of the country. The...

VIRUS DIARY: In Saudi Arabia, a photographer finds new focus

Jul. 9, 2020 9:40 AM EDT

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — I moved to Saudi Arabia from Egypt last year, eager to photograph a national awakening that was once unimaginable in a country so beholden to ultraconservative mores. Permission to have fun had been suddenly granted. It jolted this nation of 34 million — almost half of...

A Palestinian security unit mans a checkpoint at an entrance of in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Thursday, July 2, 2020. The Palestinian Authority has announced a five-day total lockdown in the West Bank starting Friday, in response to a major increase in coronavirus cases and deaths in recent days. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Wedding season brings new virus outbreak in West Bank

Jul. 8, 2020 2:57 AM EDT

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — By the end of May, the Palestinian Authority appeared to have quashed a coronavirus outbreak in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with only around 400 confirmed cases and just two fatalities in the territory, following a nearly three-month lockdown. Then the wedding invitations...

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2019, file photo, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson (10) warms up before an NFL football game against the Atlanta Falcons, in Atlanta. Jackson has apologized after backlash for sharing anti-Semitic posts on social media over the weekend. “My post was definitely not intended for anybody of any race to feel any type of way, especially the Jewish community,” Jackson said in a video he posted on Instagram on Tuesday, July 7, 2020. (AP Photo/John Amis, File)

Eagles WR DeSean Jackson apologizes for anti-Semitic post

Jul. 7, 2020 9:36 PM EDT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson has apologized after backlash for sharing anti-Semitic posts on social media over the weekend. Jackson initially posted a screenshot of a quote widely attributed to Adolf Hitler, saying in part: “Jews will blackmail...

FILE - In this March 7, 2020 file photo, workers disinfect the ground around the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, over fears of the new coronavirus, the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Guidelines were announced Monday, July 6, 2020 as Saudi Arabia gets ready for the 1,000 or so pilgrims that will be allowed to perform the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca later this month. The experience will be unlike any before which usually draws some 2.5 million people. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)

New at Saudi hajj: Bottled holy water, sterilized pebbles

Jul. 7, 2020 1:40 PM EDT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia has issued guidelines for about 1,000 pilgrims who will be allowed to perform the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca later this month, an experience that will be unlike any before because of the coronavirus pandemic. The pilgrims will only be able to drink holy water...

A cleric wearing a protective face mask to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, leads the noon prayer at a mosque in the the city of Zanjan, some 330 kilometers (205 miles) west of the capital Tehran, Iran, Sunday, July 5, 2020. Iran on Sunday instituted mandatory mask-wearing as fears mount over newly spiking reported deaths from the coronavirus, even as its public increasingly shrugs off the danger of the COVID-19 illness it causes. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iran mandates masks as public shrugs off resurgent virus

Jul. 5, 2020 12:36 PM EDT

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran on Sunday instituted mandatory mask-wearing as fears mount over newly spiking reported deaths from the coronavirus, even as its public increasingly shrugs off the danger of the COVID-19 illness it causes. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicized an image of himself in a...

People visit a mass grave for the victims of the Islamic State group in Mosul, Iraq on Thursday, July 1, 2020. A human skull, a pair of worn trousers and a shoe were among the remains unearthed from a mass grave discovered this week in northern Iraq, a remnant of the brutal rule of the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Farid Abdulwahed)

New mass grave unearthed in Iraq's north from brutal IS rule

Jul. 2, 2020 12:42 PM EDT

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — A human skull, a pair of worn trousers and a shoe were among the remains unearthed from a mass grave discovered this week in northern Iraq, a remnant of the brutal rule of the Islamic State group, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The new mass grave was discovered on Monday in the village...

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