Baghdad -- With each passing year, the challenges threatening the Christian presence in Iraq continue to grow. A land that embraced Christianity in its earliest centuries has seen its Christian population subjected to persistent persecution and displacement. Since 2003, the number of Christians has fallen from more than 1.
North Iraq -- Reflecting the scientific and professional excellence of the Assyrian community, particularly in medicine, dentist Mariam Qardagh from Armota, Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), has earned a place among the world's top 100 impactful doctors, Class of 2026.
Something is happening in northern Iraq that barely registers outside the region -- yet for Assyrians, it is an existential threat. In the village of Bakhetme, more than 1,500 dunams of land have been confiscated and are being transferred to Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and public employees. For the villagers, this is not paperwork or bureaucracy. It is their homes and their future.
The emigration of Iraqi Christians is no longer a matter concerning a single community, nor merely a religious or social issue. It has become a serious indicator of the depth of the national crisis Iraq has endured for years.
Los Angeles -- Richard Dimitri, the character actor and comedian best known for playing a pair of twins in Mel Brooks's 1970s television spoof When Things Were Rotten and for memorable supporting turns in films such as Johnny Dangerously and Let It Ride, has died. He was 83.
Detroit will soon give a permanent nod to one of its long-hidden cultural engines. A new Michigan Historical Marker to be placed along Seven Mile Road will formally identify the strip as Chaldean Town, recognizing the neighborhood that, for much of the 20th century, served as the cultural and economic heart of Detroit's Chaldean community.