On Wednesday, Orthodox Christian monks accused of maintaining links with Moscow refused to leave a historic monastery in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, despite a planned government-ordered eviction.

Pope Francis is in a hospital in Rome with a respiratory infection that caused breathing difficulties, the Vatican said Wednesday.

Iran and its proxy forces have attacked U.S. service members in Iraq and Syria 83 times since President Joe Biden entered the Oval Office, but the U.S. has only responded with major strikes four times, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Loud explosions were heard in the Damascus area overnight Thursday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.

Mass protests against the Israeli government’s controversial judicial overhaul plans will likely continue unabated because Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has lost the trust of the people, analysts predict.

The United States Senate on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to end the COVID-19 emergency declaration which has been in place since the start of the pandemic.

A former special agent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says the Christian school shooting in the U.S. city of Nashville is part of a pattern of mass shooters having "sexual identity dysfunctions."

A 42-year-old pastor in eastern Uganda was dragged out of his house and brutally murdered on the street earlier this month by Muslim relatives enraged that he refused to renounce Christ, Morning Star News (MSN) reports. While Christianity is legal in Uganda, former Muslims who turn to Christ are frequently violently attacked by Islamic extremists in their communities or families.

Twenty students made professions of faith in Christ and were baptized during an annual 72-hour worship event at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, earlier this month. 

Many Christians in India face intense persecution from both their neighbors and communities and from government officials; ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party since 2014, India ranks 11th on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2023 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.