Germany’s defense minister has urged a “serious national debate” about the future of the German military after warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin could attack the country and much of Europe within eight years.
According to recent documents acquired by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, terms such as “MAGA” and “Trump,” as well as the purchase of Bibles, were among the financial transactions that the federal government flagged.
Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson says he wants to meet his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán in Brussels next week to clear the remaining obstacle to Stockholm’s delayed bid to join the NATO military alliance.
Israel says it expects the Netherlands-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) to throw out “spurious” genocide allegations on Friday.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) battled Hamas in all parts of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing dozens of suspected terrorists linked to the group over 24 hours, officials and witnesses said.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has accused Israel of genocide, and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, who seeks the Jewish nation’s destruction, have agreed to tighten security cooperation.
Ohio’s Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday to override a veto by the state’s Republican governor and pass a law which prohibits minors from receiving sex-change treatments and bars transgender athletes from playing on girls’ and women’s K-12 and college sports teams. The Ohio House of Representatives voted to override DeWine’s veto two weeks ago.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has invoked the invasion clause of the U.S. Constitution and said he would defend his state. The move comes after the U.S. Supreme Court this week ruled that federal Border Patrol agents can destroy Texas concertina wire border barriers.
Thanks to Bible translators who risk their lives for the work, Christians who live under Iran’s hostile Islamic regime are now able to read the New Testament in 12 more of their nation’s 62 languages, Christianity Today reports.
Following the massacre of 160 mostly Christian civilians in Nigeria’s Plateau state at Christmas, radicalized Fulani herdsmen murdered at least 31 more Plateau Christians in coordinated attacks between Jan. 22-24, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.
While The Satanic Temple organization has made headlines by establishing After School Satan Clubs in a number of public schools in America, the US-based Child Evangelism Fellowship has announced that its Good News Clubs are flourishing to such extent the ministry hopes to reach 30.4 million more children worldwide this year alone, CBN News reports.
Jeff DeWit is resigning as the Arizona Republican Party chairman. An audio recording of a conversation from earlier in 2023 was released on Tuesday, in which DeWit was speaking with Senate candidate Kari Lake about people “back east” not wanting her to run. He said that people were willing to give her money or a job instead while waiting out for a possible 2026 comeback run for governor, according to the recording published by the Daily Mail.
Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who won two Republican primaries for the party’s presidential nomination, is also winning in courts: He has successfully challenged every decision about blocking him from the ballot at this year’s presidential elections, except at the Colorado Supreme Court.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán pledged Wednesday that he will urge the Hungarian parliament to approve Sweden’s membership of the NATO military alliance, a day after Turkish legislators made a similar move.
A Christian baker in California who has been threatened, harassed, and sued for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple is being taken back to court as state officials appeal a lower court ruling in her favor, the Christian Post reports.
As part of an effort to prevent the ongoing Israel-Hamas war from escalating into a regional conflict fueled by Iran, the United States, just after midnight on Wednesday, carried out retaliatory airstrikes against facilities in Iraq that were being used by the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia and other jihadist groups to attack US and Coalition targets in the region, Axios reports.
In further evidence of the increasing power and influence of Hindu nationalism in India, a crowd of young Hindutva activists climbed on top of four church buildings in Madhya Pradesh state, planting Hindu flags with an image of their god and chanting Hindu slogans, Newslaundry reports.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated during a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council Tuesday that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians has become “a major threat to global peace and security” and that an Israeli rejection of a two-state solution is “unacceptable.”
Russian authorities confirmed Wednesday that a Defense Ministry plane carrying scores of Ukrainian military prisoners of war plus crew and guards crashed in Russia’s Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine.
In a further display of China’s crackdown on evangelical Christianity, a court in Liaoning province has sentenced a prominent online Gospel preacher, his wife, and four house church members to lengthy prison terms for allegedly “using superstition to undermine the law” by expressing and sharing their faith in Christ, the Christian Post (CP) reports.