By DAVID CRARY, PETER SMITH and TIFFANY STANLEY, Associated Press

Every week hundreds of millions of people around the world gather to worship in peace. But for some, there comes a day when deadly violence invades their sacred spaces and shatters that sense of sanctuary and safety.

It happened recently at a synagogue in England and two churches in the U.S. Before that, there were high-profile attacks at mosques in New Zealand, a synagogue in Pennsylvania and a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. This violence can intensify anxiety and outright fear among clergy and worshippers worldwide.

Security measures have been bolstered, congregants have been placed on alert, and yet the key question lingers: Can believers feel safe — and at peace — continuing to worship together?

The Oct. 2 attack on a synagogue in Manchester, England, left two congregants dead and, according to police, was carried out by a man who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. Two days later, a mosque in an English coastal town was targeted with a suspected arson attack.

Following those two attacks, “there is real fear,” said a Church of England bishop, the Right Rev. Toby Howarth. “People must feel safe in going to places of worship.”

How to instill that feeling is a constant challenge. In Germany, in response to several attacks, many synagogues have been surrounded by barriers and guarded by heavily armed police. In the United States, most synagogues — and many non-Jewish houses of worship — employ layered security strategies. These can involve guards, cameras, and various systems for controlling access to events through ticketing, registration or other forms of vetting.

Seeking security without heightening anxiety

The deadliest attack on Jews in the United States occurred in October 2018, when a gunman killed 11 worshippers from three congregations at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.

Eric Kroll, deputy director of community security at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, said synagogues there had begun systemic security trainings before the attack.

Some of the training recommendations — such as keeping a phone on hand for emergencies even on the Sabbath, when observant Jews normally wouldn’t use a phone — helped save lives during that attack, he said. The federation continues to evaluate attacks such as the one in Manchester to prepare for assailants’ evolving tactics.

“The wounds still run deep here in Pittsburgh for a lot of people,” said Kroll, adding that preparations help them to worship together confidently.

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“It’s so easy to talk about all these things and be frightened,” he said. “But if you teach ways to respond to those things, it empowers people to go and live their lives.”

A similar tone was sounded by Bishop Bonnie Perry, leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, in a letter to her congregations two days after a gunman killed four people inside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan’s Grand Blanc Township on Sept. 29.

“Many of us feel grief, fear, and deep unease,” Perry wrote. “It is natural to wonder whether the places where we pray and gather are safe.”

She proceeded to detail a balanced approach to security, rejecting suggestions to lock church doors during worship but encouraging greater vigilance and preparedness, including formation of emergency response teams at the diocese’s churches.

“We do not want our churches to feel like fortresses; they are houses of prayer for every person,” she wrote. “At the same time, love of neighbor includes readiness to act swiftly should danger appear. … Our goal is not to shut people out but to keep everyone safe while maintaining the radical hospitality of the Gospel.”

Differences over guns in church

While some Christian pastors in the U.S. encourage congregants to bring firearms to church as an extra security measure, numerous denominations and individual houses of worship forbid this. After the Grand Blanc attack, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirmed that it prohibits carrying firearms and other lethal weapons inside its meetinghouses and temples, except for current law enforcement officers.

Black churches in the U.S. have withstood a long history of violent attacks, from decades of church burnings and bombings to the murder of nine Bible study participants in 2015 at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina. The perpetrator of that attack, now on death row, posted selfies with a Confederate flag to flaunt his racist rationale for shooting Black churchgoers.

A member of Metropolitan AME in Washington, D.C., Khaleelah Harris, 29, said the threat of violence is often on her mind.

“It can be difficult to be a part of a worship service, and you look around and five police officers are in the service because somebody just walked in, and they look a little suspicious. It shifts the atmosphere,” said Harris, who is in the AME ordination process.

Her church won a lawsuit earlier this year against the Proud Boys, after the far-right group vandalized the church’s property in 2020. The congregation has increased security, at one point paying $20,000 per month.

It’s a struggle to balance being a welcoming congregation with tightened security protocols, Harris said. “How does welcoming all and not being quote-unquote judgmental prevent someone from using their discernment or engaging security measures?”

A worldwide problem

In various forms, attacks on houses of worship have occurred through history. At present, attacks on individual houses of worship in places like the United States and Western Europe tend to draw the international spotlight more than attacks that are part of broader ongoing conflicts — such as Christian churches burned by Islamic militants in parts of Africa or the destruction of many mosques in Gaza through Israeli strikes mounted in its war against Hamas.

Attacks on mosques — usually blamed on Islamic militants with rival ideologies — have taken place in other Middle Eastern countries.

Egypt reeled in 2017 from the killing of more than 300 people in a militant attack on a mosque in Sinai frequented by Sufis, followers of a mystic movement within Islam. On March 4, 2022, an Afghan suicide bomber struck inside a Shiite mosque in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at more than 60 worshippers. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

Between those attacks was a day of horror in Christchurch, New Zealand, when a white supremacist gunman killed 51 worshippers at two mosques during Friday prayers in 2019. It prompted new laws banning an array of semiautomatic firearms and high-capacity magazines. They also prompted global changes to social media protocols after the gunman livestreamed his attack on Facebook.

During a wave of antisemitic incidents in Australia, a synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed in December 2024. Australian authorities have accused Iran of directing that attack.

Australia is among several countries, including South Africa and Britain, that have engaged with the U.S.-based Secure Community Network to share information regarding possible antisemitic threats, according to SCN’s national director, Michael Masters. The network provides security advice and training to Jewish institutions across North America.

“We act more like Interpol than we’d like to,” Masters told The Associated Press. “So many of these bad actors and their ideologies cross borders. So all of us have recognized that we are stronger when we work together.”

Next steps

In the United States, religious leaders are urging Congress to expand the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. It helps nonprofits and houses of worship pay for security system upgrades and emergency planning.

In Britain, after the recent Manchester attack, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said more police resources would be deployed at synagogues.

From both the Jewish and Muslim communities in Britain, there are calls for authorities and civic leaders to curtail antisemitic or anti-Muslim vitriol that might incite future attacks.

Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust, a charity providing security to the Jewish community, told the BBC, “There is an inability to recognize antisemitism or a reluctance to deal with incitement in ways that have just allowed it to grow.”

“I think a lot of Jewish people will be saying OK, the sympathy is great, but where’s the action?” Rich added.

Wajid Akhter, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said expanded police deployment is only a partial answer.

“There must be a reckoning with the hate being stoked in our public discourse,” he said. “The safety of British Muslims, and of all faith communities, depends on it.”

AP journalists Sylvia Hui and Lydia Doye in London; Geir Moulson in Berlin; and Mariam Fam in Cairo contributed.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Two powerful offshore earthquakes struck the same region in the southern Philippines hours apart on Friday with the first 7.4 magnitude temblor killing at least seven people, setting off landslides and prompting evacuations of coastal areas nearby because of a brief tsunami scare.

The second one had a preliminary 6.8 magnitude and also sparked a local tsunami warning by authorities. It was caused by movement in the same fault line, the Philippine Trench, at a depth of 37 kilometers (23 miles) off Manay town in Davao Oriental province, Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology chief Teresito Bacolcol said.

“The second one is a separate earthquake, which we call a doublet quake,” Bacolcol told The Associated Press. “Both happened in the same area but have different strengths and epicenters.”

Bacolcol and other authorities expressed fears that the second nighttime earthquake could further weaken or collapse structures already undermined by the first one.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., facing his latest natural disaster after a recent deadly quake and back-to-back storms, said the potential damage was being assessed and rescue teams and relief operations were being prepared and would be deployed when it was safe to do so.

Quake toll

The first quake was centered at sea about 43 kilometers (27 miles) east of Manay town and was caused by movement in the Philippine Trench at a depth of 23 kilometers (14 miles), government seismologists said.

At least seven people were killed, including two patients who died of heart attacks at a hospital during the first earthquake and a resident who was hit by debris in Mati city in Davao Oriental, Ednar Dayanghirang, regional director of the government’s Office of Civil Defense, told The AP.

Three villagers died and several others were rescued with injuries by army troops and civilian volunteers in a landslide set off by the first quake in a remote gold-mining village in Pantukan town in Davao de Oro province near Davao Oriental, Dayanghirang said.

Another resident died because of the first quake in the port city of Davao, disaster mitigation officials said without providing other details. They added that a few hundred residents were injured in the city.

Damage assessment

Office of Civil Defense deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said that several buildings sustained cracks in their walls, including an international airport in Davao city, but it remained operational without any flights being canceled.

“I was driving my car when it suddenly swayed and I saw power lines swaying wildly. People darted out of houses and buildings as the ground shook and electricity came off,” Jun Saavedra, a disaster-mitigation officer of Governor Generoso town in Davao Oriental, told The AP.

Schools evacuated

“We’ve had earthquakes in the past, but this was the strongest,” Saavedra said, adding that the intense ground swaying caused cracks in several buildings, including a high school, where about 50 students were brought to a hospital by ambulance after sustaining bruises, fainting or becoming dizzy because of the first quake.

Governor Generoso is a town about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Manay, where school classes in all levels were also suspended.

Children evacuated schools in Davao city, which has about 5.4 million people and is the biggest city near the epicenter, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) west of Davao Oriental province.

Map locating a 7.4-magnitude earthquake off the southern Philippines. (AP Digital Embed)

Tsunami fears

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu said that small waves were detected on the coasts of the Philippines and Indonesia before the threat passed about two hours after the first quake. It said that small sea fluctuations may continue.

A tsunami warning that set off evacuations in six coastal provinces near Davao Oriental was later lifted without any major waves being detected, Bacolcol said.

Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said that small tsunami waves were detected in North Sulawesi province with heights ranging from 3.5 to 17 centimeters (1.3 to 6.7 inches) in Melonguane, Beo, Essang and Ganalo in Talaud Islands districts.

History of quakes and storms

The Philippines is still recovering from a Sept. 30 earthquake with a 6.9 magnitude that left at least 74 people dead and displaced thousands of people in the central province of Cebu, particularly in Bogo city and outlying towns.

The archipelago also is lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms each year, making disaster response a major task of the government and volunteer groups.

Also Friday, an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.0 struck Friday off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The U.S. Geological Survey said that it was centered in the Bismarck Sea 414 kilometers (257 miles) northeast of Lae, the South Pacific island nation’s second-most populous city.

Lae police official Mary Jane Huafilong said that no damage was reported.

Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, contributed to this report.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than two decades later, Congress is on the verge of writing a closing chapter to the war in Iraq.

The Senate voted Thursday to repeal the resolution that authorized the 2003 U.S. invasion, following a House vote last month that would return the basic war power to Congress.

The amendment by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, and Indiana Sen. Todd Young, a Republican, was approved by voice vote to an annual defense authorization bill that passed the Senate late Thursday — a unanimous endorsement for ending the war that many now view as a mistake.

Iraqi deaths were estimated in the hundreds of thousands, and nearly 5,000 U.S. troops were killed in the war after President George W. Bush’s administration falsely claimed that then-President Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

“That’s the way the war ends, not with a bang but a whimper,” Kaine said after the vote, which lasted only a few seconds with no debate and no objections. Still, he said, “America is forever changed by those wars, and the Middle East is too.”

Supporters in both the House and Senate say the repeal is crucial to prevent future abuses and to reinforce that Iraq is now a strategic partner of the United States. The House added a similar amendment to its version of the defense measure in September, meaning the repeal is likely to end up in the final bill once the two chambers reconcile the two pieces of legislation. Both bills also repeal the 1991 authorization that sanctioned the U.S.-led Gulf War.

While Congress appears poised to pass the repeal, it is unclear whether President Donald Trump will support it. During his first term, his administration cited the 2002 Iraq resolution as part of its legal justification for a 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani. It has otherwise been rarely used.

Young said after the vote that he thinks Trump should “take great pride” in signing the bill after campaigning on ending so-called “forever wars,” especially because he would be the first president in recent history to legally end a longstanding war.

He said the vote establishes an important precedent.

“Congress is now very clearly asserting that it is our prerogative and our responsibility not only to authorize but also to bring to an end military conflicts,” Young said.

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The bipartisan vote, added to the larger bipartisan defense measure, came amid a bitter partisan standoff over a weeklong government shutdown. Young said the quick vote was an “extraordinary moment” that he hopes “will help some people see that we can still do consequential things in the U.S. Congress.”

The Senate also voted to repeal the 2002 resolution two years ago on a 66-30 vote. While some Republicans privately told Kaine that they were still opposed to the measure, none objected to the unanimous vote on the floor Thursday evening.

A separate 2001 authorization for the global war on terror would remain in place under the bill. While the 2002 and 1991 resolutions are rarely used and focused on just one country, Iraq, the 2001 measure gave President George W. Bush broad authority for the invasion of Afghanistan, approving force “against those nations, organizations, or persons” that planned or aided the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Passed in September 2001, it has been used in recent years to justify U.S. military action against groups — including al-Qaida and its affiliates, such as the Islamic State group and al-Shabab — that are deemed to be a threat against America.

For generations, St. Paul has been known for its great restaurants. The chefs that put together the menus for the masses who come to visit Grand Casino Arena strive to have one of the city’s finest places to eat, with a hockey game for entertainment to boot.

In the run-up to the Minnesota Wild’s 2025-26 home opener on Saturday, members of the media were invited to sample some of the new offerings at various stands throughout the arena. Here are a quartet of bites that visitors would be wise to try this winter.

St. Paul Pierogi – Club level near section 36

Grand Casino Arena is offering three takes on the classic Eastern European pierogis during Wild games this season. The protein-loaded Kielbasa Novi includes grilled kielbasa, caramelized onions, sour cream, spicy mustard and sauerkraut for $16 (Courtesy of Grand Casino Arena)

This classic Eastern European dish is a Minnesota staple for many, and they’re offering three varieties of potato-and-cheese pierogies at the rink this season. The Ohgee ($12) features caramelized onions and sour cream. The Minnesoti ($13) goes for the local flair, with cheddar cheese, bacon bits, sour cream, green onions. The protein-loaded Kielbasa Novi ($16) version includes grilled kielbasa, caramelized onions, sour cream, spicy mustard and sauerkraut. They were the brainchild of Chef Kyle Bowles.

“We always try to lean in to Minnesota. Anything we can do to be local and be authentic,” said Chef Matt Rosson. “Chef Kyle had been pushing the pierogi idea for a while. We have these brainstorm meetings, and it came to life this year. We’re super thrilled with how it came out and the way it’s being received.”

Crunchy Commuter – Main Concourse near Section 122

Rosson lived in San Francisco for a time, where a neighborhood restaurant featured many takes on the walking taco, including the classic with taco chips, taco meat, cheese, lettuce, etc. This season they are offering five different varieties of Old Dutch chips in a bag, filled with other fixings. Options include the classic taco, a barbeque flavor with pulled pork and crispy onions, a chicken Caesar version, a dill pickle version and a jerk chicken option, each of them for $10.

“We think it’s an ode to our non-seriousness. We are professionally trained chefs, but we want to have fun and make food that people love to eat,” Rosson said. “Anytime we try and go too fancy, people don’t go there as much as we think they will. So something like a walking taco is fun, cool to show off and easy to walk as you go.”

State Fare – Main Concourse near Section 117

These pronto pups on hockey sticks will be served at Minnesota Wild home games during the 2025-26 season (Courtesy of Grand Casino Arena)

You never need to miss the culinary delights of Falcon Heights in late summer with this sampling of the Great Minnesota Get-Together. The stand features Pronto Pups ($11), Deep Fried Ranch served with hot honey ($13), O’Gara’s Shepard’s Hand Pie ($8) served with brown gravy and Dill Pickle Tater Tots ($8.29) which are a vegan offering.

“We have a full commitment to State Fair-focused items,” Rosson said. “Every summer we get together as a team to go to the State Fair and come up with ideas based on things that we love. We were able to work with the vendors to give people the authentic State Fair experience.”

J&R’s Cookie Dough – Main Concourse near Section 109

When it’s time for dessert, there are few things more classically Minnesotan among sweets as the classic Scotcheroo bars, which are a mix of chocolate and peanut butter. The Grand Casino Arena chefs have developed a Scotcheroo cookie dough, available for $6.99.

“New cookie dough concepts, specifically the Scotcheroo cookie dough, is an exciting addition,” Rosson said. “We’ve been changing it up and doing different cookie dough concepts for 10 years. Scotcheroo bars are something you get at a church potluck, and that’s an ode to our history and the people here. We’re excited about that.”

The Wild are host to Columbus on Saturday. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. Gates open to the public 90 minutes before the first faceoff.

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