The Navy announced Wednesday it tested a laser weapon and destroyed a floating target in the Mideast, a system that could be used to counter bomb-laden drone boats deployed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.
The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday for a version of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, that authorizes $770 billion in defense spending — $25 billion more than requested by President Joe Biden —sending the measure to the White House for the president’s signature.
Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz are now pushing to expand the country’s COVID-19 Green Pass mandate to bar unvaccinated citizens from free access to shopping malls, Ynet News reports. Awaiting final approval from lawmakers, the policy has been recommended amid concerns about rising cases of the new Omicron variant.
A new survey by the Pew Research Center shows that 29% of US adults say they have no religious affiliation, the Washington Examiner reports. The poll defines those who are unaffiliated as “people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or ‘nothing in particular’ when asked about their religious identity.”
As Christians and their chuches in India continue to be harassed and assaulted by radical Hindu nationalists, a church in Rohtak in Haryana state came under attack on December 9, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Archaeologists excavating in Cambridgeshire, England have unearthed the skeletal remains of a person they believe may have been crucified when Britain was under the rule of the Roman Empire, Christian Headlines (CH) reports.
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog warned Tuesday that the restrictions faced by his inspectors in Iran threaten to give the world only a “very blurred image” of Tehran’s program as it enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.
The chief of the World Health Organization says the new coronavirus variant Omicron could overwhelm hospitals worldwide.
Christians were concerned Wednesday as the Hindu-led government of India’s southwestern state of Karnataka was to table a harsh anti-conversion law amid attacks against churches.
Christian doctors and others refusing COVID-19 jabs are weighing their options after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt New York’s vaccination obligation for health care workers.
The Burmese Army in Myanmar’s Chin state has now taken to planting landmines inside the ruins of churches it has destroyed, in order to deter Christians from returning to rebuild the communities the junta has driven them out from, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. Since the February 1 military coup, the Tatmadaw has been murdering and displacing Myanmar Christians in its efforts to violently impose Buddhism.
Israel’s vaccination committee announced Sunday it will not be recommending a fourth Covid-19 shot to the general population, despite concerns about the new impact of the new Omicron variant, i24 News reports. Israel was the first country to introduce a third shot, even before the US Food and Drug Administration approved the measure.
The Netherlands is finally set to have a new governing coalition made up of four Dutch parties, including incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD party, after the March general election resulted in months of gridlocked negotiations between the country’s many political parties, DW reports. Rutte, who will become Europe’s longest-serving Prime Minister, led the country in a caretaker capacity during the intervening months since the election.
A court in Belarus has sentenced an opposition leader who wanted to run against the country’s autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko in elections to 18 years imprisonment.
A Virginia court on Monday found a hospital in the state in contempt of court for failing to comply with previous orders to provide prescribed Ivermectin to a COVID-19 patient.
Israel has asked the United States to accelerate the delivery of refueling aircraft it had purchased that could be needed to attack Iranian nuclear sites, but was told by the Biden administration the first plane likely will not be delivered until 2024, according to a report Tuesday.
The Pentagon reached a tipping point Wednesday as the deadline for soldiers in the U.S. Army, the largest military service, passed to get the COVID-19 vaccination. Troops who refuse the mandatory shots or aren’t in the process of receiving an accepted exemption will find themselves in an administrative limbo until they’re out of the military.
Three European powers said on December 14 that talks with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal are “rapidly reaching the end of the road,” while Tehran accused Western powers of playing a “blame game.”
Israel is set to suffer from severe water shortages in the coming years due to less precipitation brought by global warming and a rapidly increasing population, experts warn on Tuesday.
For the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Israel will expand its Green Pass mandate to include shopping malls, restricting access to citizens who are not fully protected against the disease as fears of the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant mount.