With less fanfare and more deliberation, the developers of a proposed mosque near Ground Zero have resumed their fundraising efforts, hired staff and are trying to figure out the best way to build a version of the Muslim community center and mosque that created a firestorm of protest last summer.

Fasting in the heat is tough enough, but the beginning of Ramadan in Iraq is coinciding with a heat wave, with temperatures spiking to 120 degrees.

Non-Muslim ethnic minorities in Malaysia protested and quashed a series of television commercials that urge viewers to fast and refrain from shouting and wearing revealing clothing during Ramadan. The commercials featured a Chinese girl in a sleeveless blouse eating and shouting.

The Israeli government will permit the raising of the Altalena, which was controlled in 1948 by a group of Jews fighting for independence, but sunk by another more liberal group, that came to dominate the government of the new Jewish state.

Gospel singer Delois Barrett Cambell, whom the Chicago Tribune calls the “mightiest voice of the greatest female trio in gospel,” died at 85 in a Chicago hospital. She was the oldest of the three singing Barrett sisters.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art will soon host “Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus,” which includes several oil paintings of Jesus Christ that have not been seen together since 1656, when they left Rembrandt’s studio.

The bankrupt Crystal Cathedral has put on its website a donation button to help erase the church’s $50 million debt. This weekend, the church announced it no longer wants to sell the cathedral and its Garden Grove campus.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s upcoming prayer service at Houston’s Reliant Stadium could be a political risk for the possible presidential candidate, opines the Associated Press.

The Knights of Columbus will buy the beleaguered Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. for $22.7 million. The facility, now open only by appointment, will resume its past life as museum honoring the late pope.

To the relief of many who keep Kosher, a Washington state appellate court has ruled against animal rights activists’ attempt to strike down a law protecting religious slaughter.

A judge has ruled that the San Francisco proposal to ban the circumcision of minor males will not appear on November’s city ballot. The Superior Court judge wrote earlier this month that the ban would be illegal under state law.

Conservative rabbis are divided over gay marriage.

The New York Times explains how Mass comes before baseball for Marlin’s Manager Jack McKeon.

– Lauren Markoe