Residents were left grieving Thursday as massive flash floods in a border area of Nepal and China-ruled Tibet killed at least 160 people and left hundreds of tourists, workers and others missing, authorities confirmed.

A rare “Blood Moon” lunar eclipse will darken the skies over much of the world this week, closing out a striking season of celestial events that began near the opening of Elul, the Hebrew month of repentance and preparation before the Biblical fall feasts.

People in southern France tried to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives Wednesday after a rare tornado ripped through a small village, injuring dozens of people and damaging hundreds of homes, including many considered potentially uninhabitable.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unannounced trip to Moscow on Tuesday for meetings with Russian officials, according to U.S. media reports, marking one of the most sensitive known contacts between Washington and Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

President Donald Trump sharply escalated his trade battle with Canada on Monday, threatening to raise tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts and steel to 50% beginning Jan. 1, 2027, after trade negotiations between Washington and Ottawa collapsed late last week.

China pushed back Tuesday against the Trump administration’s expanding sanctions campaign on Iran, signaling that Beijing will not submit to Washington’s effort to isolate Tehran through what U.S. officials have described as a sweeping economic offensive.

Evangelical Christians in Tehran fear they will become further isolated after Iran’s parliament advanced legislation that would increase punishments for Iranians who interact with foreign media outlets, organizations, or individuals.

The Trump administration on Monday launched what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called an unprecedented global economic offensive against Iran, unveiling a sweeping sanctions campaign designed to sever Tehran from the international financial system and choke off revenue flowing to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian regime.

European leaders rallied around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday as Ukraine marked 35 years of independence and its fifth Independence Day since Russia’s full-scale invasion, while senior representatives of the administration of U.S. President Donald J. Trump were notably absent.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that holding elections in wartime, as suggested by his former defense minister, would “destroy” the country.

Israel carried out an unusual airstrike deep inside northwestern Syria early Tuesday, targeting the strategic Abu al-Duhur military airfield shortly after a Turkish military delegation reportedly visited the base to assess its rehabilitation, according to Israeli and Syrian reports. The operation prompted a rare public rebuke from a senior U.S. envoy.

President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace is considering a significant overhaul of its Gaza disarmament framework after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a plan that would have linked Hamas weapons handovers to phased Israeli troop withdrawals, according to an exclusive report by The Times of Israel.

Iran-backed Hezbollah threatened to retaliate after Israel said Saturday it had killed a commander of the group in an attack that killed at least 11 people.

U.S. envoy Jared Kushner met senior Hamas leaders in Egypt on Sunday as the Trump administration intensified efforts to move Gaza toward disarmament and postwar governance, even as Israel continued targeted strikes against terrorist operatives inside the Gaza Strip.

A third red heifer has been born in Israel this season, giving rabbis three candidates now being examined as part of renewed efforts connected to the biblical purification rites required for Temple service.

A highly unusual midsummer storm swept across parts of Israel on Saturday, August 15, bringing heavy rain to Jerusalem, shattering August rainfall records near the capital, and sending floodwaters through a Judean Desert stream in what meteorologists described as an unprecedented summer event.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a second preemptive airstrike in Gaza in two days Thursday, targeting a Hamas terror cell in Khan Yunis that Israeli military officials said was preparing an attack against Israeli forces.

Democratic socialist Angie Nixon scored a surprise victory Tuesday in Florida’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary, defeating heavily funded establishment favorite Alex Vindman and adding to a growing series of socialist and far-left victories reshaping Democratic politics across the country.

The U.S. Department of Justice plans to deploy approximately 1,000 federal election monitors across the country for November’s midterm elections, marking what officials say will be a record-sized monitoring operation.

A new U.S. Census Bureau analysis has identified more than 24,000 people who voted in the 2020 general election as noncitizens at the time they cast their ballots, prompting President Donald Trump to renew his call for stricter election-integrity laws.

The Trump administration has cleared the final judicial obstacle blocking its campaign to terminate Temporary Protected Status for migrants from a series of countries, potentially ending deportation protections for roughly one million people, according to The Washington Times.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in on a growing national battle over whether states may require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public-school classrooms, potentially setting the stage for a major First Amendment ruling.

Humanoid robots capable of navigating rugged terrain, detecting people and conducting around-the-clock surveillance could eventually join U.S. Border Patrol operations along the southern border, as an American robotics company moves closer to potential national-security deployments.

Newly declassified FBI records released by the White House detail what officials describe as a years-long Chinese intelligence effort to penetrate American political circles through sexual relationships, campaign donations, and strategically placed interns.

More evidence has emerged of massacres targeting predominantly Christian communities in central Nigeria, with local officials saying at least 25 people were killed in an overnight attack on a village in Plateau State.

A prominent house church pastor and six other Christians have disappeared after being detained by police in Wenzhou, a major Christian center in eastern China often called the “Jerusalem of China.”

Kevin Rideout, an American missionary pilot kidnapped by suspected Islamist militants in Niger’s capital, Niamey, in October last year, has been released and is in U.S. custody, U.S. President Donald J. Trump confirmed Friday.

Concerns are mounting over increasing violence against Christians and churches across Europe after dozens of churches, religious symbols and worshipers were targeted in July, including cases involving bodily waste, arson and the stabbing of a woman praying in an Irish Catholic church.

An elderly Christian leader has been detained in India for allegedly offending the religious sentiments of the Asian nation’s Hindu majority on social media.

Members of Pakistan’s Christian minority were reeling Friday after numerous violent incidents over faith and what they say were false allegations of blasphemy against Islam, the majority religion in the Asian nation.

The Trump administration has announced nearly $2 billion in health and humanitarian assistance for faith-based organizations, placing several major Christian ministries at the center of a reshaped U.S. foreign-aid strategy following sweeping cuts to USAID programs.