Muslim

CAIRO — Egypt’s election commission disqualified 10 presidential hopefuls, including Hosni Mubarak’s former spy chief and key Islamists, from running Saturday in a surprise decision that threatened to upend an already tumultuous race and plunge the Arab world’s most populous nation into a new political crisis.

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Protesters descended on a Lowe’s store in one of the country’s largest Arab-American communities on Saturday, calling for a boycott after the home improvement chain pulled its ads from a reality television show about five Muslim families living in Michigan.

About 100 people gathered outside the store in Allen Park, a Detroit suburb adjacent to the city where “All-American Muslim” is filmed. Lowe’s said this week that the TLC show had become a “lightning rod” for complaints, following an email campaign by a conservative Christian group.

CAIRO — Massive clashes raged Sunday in downtown Cairo, drawing Christians angry over a recent church attack, hard-line Muslims and Egyptian security forces. At least 19 people were killed and more than 150 injured in the worst sectarian violence since the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February.

SEATTLE -- A Muslim man from SeaTac, Wash., who claims he was fired from his job as a security guard after refusing to shave his beard has filed a federal lawsuit against his former employer.

Abdulkadir Omar, 22, began working in Kent, Wash., for California-based American Patriot Security in May 2009. He said no one told him when he was hired that he would have to shave his beard, which he keeps closely trimmed and said is part of his Islamic faith.

NEW BERN, N.C. -- The man accused of being the ringleader of a North Carolina terrorism ring that threatened jihad overseas pleaded guilty Wednesday afternoon in federal court.

Daniel Patrick Boyd, 40, who lived in Johnston County, told a judge he was guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism between November 2006 and July 2009. He also plead guilty to conspiracy to "murder, kidnap, maim and injure people in a foreign country."

He is scheduled to be sentenced in May and could be given a life sentence.

ST. LOUIS -- At a time when threats to burn Qurans undermine interfaith relations, the Vedanta Society of St. Louis offers an alternative to religious conflict. For the last 42 years, the scriptures of eight world religions have resided under glass in the society's chapel on Skinker Boulevard, abutting the western end of Forest Park.

NEW YORK -- The imam leading the effort to build an Islamic center and mosque near the World Trade Center site said Monday that a resolution to the raging debate over its location is being examined.