AMMAN, Jordan – Aid agencies and Catholic officials are sounding the alarm on Yemen's spiraling humanitarian crisis, calling on the combatants to end the war and make badly need assistance available.

HONOLULU – Paul and Rose Utes, members of Sacred Heart Parish in Pahoa, had to leave their home when lava from the Kilauea eruptions moved into their section of the Leilani Estates subdivision in Puna on the Big Island.

Middle Eastern Christians have suffered soft, state-sponsored discrimination since the Ottomans ruled and that discrimination has been reinforced over generations by poor, underfunded education systems throughout the region. More recently this evil brew has been stirred into feverish, bigoted campaigns of hate spread by Saudi-funded Wahhabi preachers.

WASHINGTON - The displacement of people around the globe because of their religious beliefs in 2013 rose to levels unseen in years, the State Department reported.