Local authorities in separate districts of Sri Lanka recently ordered two churches to close down, on the grounds that the congregations’ Christian activities are offensive to their communities, Voice of the Martyrs Canada (VOM) reports. Sri Lanka’s constitution gives preferential status to Buddhism, and demands by the authorities for churches to close are not uncommon.
Iranian authorities announced on Monday they will hold public trials for 1,000 people in the capital, Tehran, over the protests that have convulsed the country. The mass indictments mark the government’s first major legal action aimed at quashing dissent since unrest erupted over six weeks ago.
Russia’s military conducted a wave of attacks across Ukraine on Monday, targeting critical infrastructure facilities.
Israeli politicians were making their final campaign pitches Monday before the divided country holds its fifth election in less than four years, with hawkish ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu eyeing a comeback.
The Museum of the Bible announced that a copy of Hipparchus’ map of the stars was found on the same bit of manuscript that had a later Christian treatise written upon it.
Israel and Bahrain hope to sign a free trade agreement within the next two months, officials from both nations said on Monday.
A Florida Board of Medicine panel voted Friday to ban “gender-affirming” treatment, such as hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgeries, for children and adolescents.
The United States is reportedly planning to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to an air base in northern Australia amid increased tensions with Beijing.
A pedestrian bridge collapse in India’s western Gujarat state has sent hundreds plunging into a river, killing scores of people, authorities confirmed Sunday.
Three separate final polls prior to Israel’s Nov. 1 elections showed opposition leader and Likud Party head Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing/religious bloc standing one seat shy of a parliamentary majority.
La Niña has returned for the third consecutive winter, allowing for drier-than-average conditions across America’s crop belt. Some farmers told Bloomberg that conditions are so dry that “fertilizer is evaporating from the soil, and plants are struggling to emerge from the ground.”
Parents and parental rights advocates seeking to shed light on what is being taught in schools say television stations won’t even broadcast what’s in their school curriculums because it’s too obscene.
Brazil’s electoral authority says former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the leftist Worker’s Party has defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to become the country’s next president, a setback for conservatives supporting him.
South Korean officials say at least 146 people died in a stampede among huge Halloween party crowds in a popular nightlife area of the capital Seoul.
In a move impacting world food supplies, Russia says it halts cooperating in a grain corridor deal after Ukraine carried out a “massive” drone attack on its Black Sea Fleet. Moscow’s latest announcement could undermine deliveries from one of the breadbaskets of the world.
Russian officials say they have completed an operation to move civilians out of the southern city of Kherson ahead of an expected battle with Ukrainian forces. The announcement came after Russia’s president, whose forces invaded Ukraine, warned the world is facing its most dangerous times in more than 80 years.
At least scores of people have died in the southern Philippines after floods and mudslides caused by a tropical storm, overshadowing All Saints’ Day weekend when families remember their late loved ones, government officials said Sunday.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter and fired top executives, in a move that some hope will mean a boost for free speech.
Leaders of the Bishops’ Conferences from Central and Eastern Europe gathered in Hungary’s capital Budapest to discuss a roadmap for peace as war rages in neighboring Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the world faces “probably the most dangerous” decade since the end of World War Two after U.S. President Joe Biden already spoke of “a new world order.”