Criminal charges against a Virginia pastor who held a Palm Sunday service in violation of coronavirus lockdown orders were dropped on Friday. He faced a $2,500 fine and possible jail time.
The United States and six Gulf countries on Wednesday imposed sanctions on six targets Washington has accused of supporting Islamic State operations, including by funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to leaders of the group in Iraq and Syria.
Days before California churches closed due to a surge in coronavirus cases, there was a massive evangelical Christian gathering on Huntington Beach near Los Angeles.
An explosion was reported Sunday at a power station in the central Iranian province of Isfahan, the latest in a mysterious series of blasts and blazes that have occurred throughout the country.
European Union negotiations on an unprecedented nearly two trillion euro budget and coronavirus recovery fund entered the third day amid warnings the summit could end without an agreement.
Prosecutors in France say a fire that erupted in the Gothic cathedral of the western French city of Nantes started deliberately. Tourists and residents watched in horror Saturday as firefighters battled the blaze at the 15th-century St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral in the city’s historical center.
Israel’s Water Authority has confirmed that two cyber-attacks were carried out against the country’s water infrastructure in recent weeks, Ynet News reported Thursday. These attacks follow an alleged attack by Iran on Israel’s drinking water in April. In a statement, the water authority said no damage had been caused in the latest attacks.
The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) human rights group has said the murder of Christians in Nigeria has reached “genocidal” levels, Christian Today reports. According to Intersociety, more than 1,200 Nigerian Christians were murdered by Muslim Fulani and Islamist militants in the first half of 2020 alone.
A military spokesman for Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas, has confirmed that one of its commanders had been a spy for Israel and had now defected to the Jewish state, Media Line reported Thursday. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Western security services say Russian spies try to steal coronavirus research in several Western nations. Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned Friday that Russian hackers “almost certainly” operated as “part of Russian intelligence services.”
Fresh fighting erupted Thursday on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, dashing hopes of an end to the worst clashes between the neighbors in years.
Christians in eastern China were recovering of their injuries Thursday after trying to prevent the removal of crosses from churches by Chinese government forces.
Israel is drawing up a secret list of military and intelligence officials who might be subject to arrest abroad if the International Criminal Court in the Hague opens an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Thursday accused Portland politicians of enabling the ‘mob’ of protesters who have besieged the city for more than six weeks — and posted a lengthy timeline of the damage caused by ‘violent anarchists.’
Mortgage rates dropped to a new record low last week as the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, with a conforming loan balance of up to $510,400, fell from 3.26% to 3.19% to, CNBC reported Wednesday. Points fell from 0.35 to 0.33 for loans with a 20% down payment: 63 basis points lower than the recent high in late March.
As Christians around the world face increasingly intense persecution, the number of Christian refugees being allowed entry to the US has dropped by 90% since 2015, CBN News reports. This year the Trump administration set the total maximum number of Christian and non-Christian refugees to be allowed in at 18,000. Historically, the yearly average was 81,000.
In 2018 President Trump signed a secret authorization, known as a presidential finding, which granted the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sweeping freedom to conduct covert cyber operations against Iran and others, Yahoo News reports.
A pro-Western party in North Macedonia is trying to form a coalition government after it claimed victory in somewhat historic but troubled elections. The Balkan nation’s first national vote under a new state name faced a suspected hacking attack impacting the publishing of results.
US gun sales began surging in March as COVID-19 cases, lockdowns and unemployment took hold, but reached record numbers with added worries about the civil unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd on May 25, Fox News reports.
Israeli officials are anticipating the likelihood of renewing a nationwide lockdown as the country had 1,575 new cases of COVID-19 Monday, the Times of Israel reports. With a population of fewer than nine million residents, Israel has now had over 43,000 cases, including over 23,000 currently active cases and 375 coronavirus related deaths.