Ukrainian officials say Russia launched dozens of missiles at cities across Ukraine on Monday in an attack that killed at least 29 people and smashed into a children’s hospital in Kyiv. The rare daytime Russian barrage came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due in Warsaw before he flew to the NATO military alliance summit in Washington.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a two-day state visit to Russia starting on Monday (July 8), Reuters reports.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán arrived in Beijing on Monday as part of unprecedented efforts to reach peace in Ukraine despite anger from some European Union leaders. He came to meet China’s President Xi Jinping after talks with Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin and earlier Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Tensions remained high in the streets of Kenya’s capital Monday after dozens of activists said they were snatched from their homes or off the streets by hooded, armed men.

In an unexpected, stunning outcome, the French left managed to beat a surging far right in the second and final round of legislative elections, winning the most parliamentary seats but not a majority, polling projections showed early Monday.

Diplomatic tensions are rising between Germany and Hungary after Budapest canceled a meeting between Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, planned for Monday in the Hungarian capital. The unusual last-minute cancellation of the German minister’s visit to Budapest comes after Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other European Union leaders condemned Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday as part of a self-declared peace mission for the war in Ukraine.

Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian has been elected as Iran’s new president, beating his hardline conservative rival Saeed Jalili, but it was unclear whether hardline policies toward minority Christians would change.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, one of Europe’s most pro-Russian leaders, met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday as part of his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, despite condemnation from the European Union.

Recently elected Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said Friday that his loved ones were “astonished” after his first parliamentary debate turned into the most turbulent political session in the Netherlands’ recent political history sparked by sharp disagreements over the role of Islam in society.

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has conceded defeat in Britain’s parliamentary elections and apologized for his Conservative Party’s worst performance in its nearly 200-year history.

Early Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an operation in southern Gaza City, targeting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists at a United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) headquarters. Hamas warned on Telegram that this renewed IDF campaign threatens ceasefire talks.

Responding to a ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court last month that the Israel Defense Forces must immediately begin drafting previously exempt Yeshiva students, the IDF has submitted a plan to issue draft orders to 3,000 ultra-Orthodox men of military age, i24News reported on Monday.

Newly elected British Prime Minister Kier Starmer suggested Sunday that Britain could soon recognize Palestinian statehood despite calls from Israel’s government to wait.

Ahead of negotiations in Cairo and Doha continuing this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined non-negotiable demands for a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas. Meanwhile, on the nine-month anniversary of Hamas’ attack, thousands of Israelis protested nationwide, demanding immediate elections and the release of 120 hostages since the war broke out on October 7.

A new poll taken in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack shows that traditional leftwing support for the Palestinians has declined significantly, with a substantial majority of Israelis now identifying as right-wing on the issue.

Lebanon-based Hezbollah says it fired over 200 rockets and 20 drones on Israel’s North, both in the Galilee and the Golan area, on Thursday in one of its most intense recent attacks.

White House aides cited President Joe Biden’s sharp exchanges with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in response to Iran’s recent attack on Israel as proof of his mental fitness and effective leadership according to the New York Times. President Biden’s mental fitness has faced scrutiny since the June 27 presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, where critics questioned Biden’s mental sharpness.

Donald J. Trump vowed Friday to appeal a New York court verdict after he became the first former U.S. President to be convicted of a crime.

Twelve jurors started deliberations Wednesday morning to decide the history-making trial of former President Donald Trump, who is accused of covering up hush-money payments to women ahead of the 2016 election and falsifying business documents.

The judge overseeing the hush money trial of former President Donald Trump spent an hour telling the jury how to apply the law to the case, including that they must reach a unanimous decision but don’t have agree on the means.

The federal debt continues to climb to unprecedented levels, but the “actual, true” debt is higher if the Treasury weren’t being drained, a national economist says.

Tony Evans, the U.S. pastor and author who built one of the largest mainly African American evangelical churches in the United States, says he is stepping down due to a “sin” years ago.

An evangelical Christian in south-west China was arrested and detained earlier this month after he commemorated the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in a social media post, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. The massacre took place on Jun. 2, 1989, when the ruling Chinese Communist Party used military force to kill hundreds of pro-democracy protestors.

Terrorists with the Islamist rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) murdered nine people in a devastating attack on a village in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Saturday, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. 

While Britain struggles with the effects of secularism and its Church of England remains deeply divided over LGBTQ issues, some 70,000 people turned out in the heart of London to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ last month. The May 4 event was organized by British evangelist Daniel Chand, founder of the UK-based evangelistic organization Walking Like Jesus Ministries (WLJM).

Christians were praying Monday for a Roman Catholic Church priest who they said had been kidnapped by armed Muslim “bandits” in Nigeria’s northwestern state of Kaduna.

A devoutly Christian woman in Pakistan has been refused bail and faces a 10-year jail sentence for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.

A pastor in India’s Madhya Pradesh state spent three tortuous weeks in a harsh prison earlier this year after being falsely accused of forcing Hindus to become Christians, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.