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Pope Francis, who has been hospitalized amid mounting concerns about his health, managed to urge prayers for peace in Ukraine, where many long for an end to the war amid ongoing clashes.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday he still hopes for “constructive” talks with the United States after his made-for-tv verbal clash with U.S. President Donald J. Trump and signaled his readiness to sign a $500 billion minerals deal with Washington.

The main European Union countries and NATO military allies Canada, Norway, and Turkey will attend a historic security summit in London on Sunday without the United States amid mounting transatlantic tensions.

Ukrainians fear the United States has turned into an adversary after their President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was shown the door at the White House after U.S. President Donald J. Trump decided he had been “disrespectful.”

Germany’s top prosecutor has charged an alleged Islamic extremist with “murder, attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organization abroad” following a deadly knife attack last year at a festival in the western German city of Solingen.

The Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a management alert to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make it aware of an urgent issue: ICE is incapable of monitoring hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied children (UACs) released into the country by the Biden-Harris administration.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants to use the state’s taxpayer funded home down payment equity exchange program that would have provided up to $150,000 to qualifying illegal immigrant homebuyers. Newsom’s veto cited the program’s “finite funding,” which received no money this year and ran out of funding in 11 days last year, and the state’s budget situation, which required the cutting, shifting, and deferral of spending by $47 billion this year.

Following a recent surge in imports, the US trade deficit reached its highest level in over two years, Reuters reports. Countries incur a trade deficit when the value of their imports is higher than the value of their exports.

A Christian school in Vermont that was banned from local sporting activities for refusing to play against teams with transgender athletes on them has filed an appeal after being told by a lower court that the ban will remain in place, the Christian Post (CP) reports.

A federal appeals court sided with Elon Musk and X Corporation against a California law requiring companies to report and create definitions for a wide variety of speech violations, finding the law violates the First Amendment by unlawfully compelling companies to provide opinions on contentious matters, including defining what hate speech or misinformation is.

Israel’s Iron Beam, a high-powered laser air defense system, is set to become operational by mid-2025, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced Monday, as the government announced a 2 billion-shekel ($536 million) arms agreement.

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted Monday for legislation banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), which services Palestinian refugees in east Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank.

Egypt proposed on Sunday an initial two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four Israeli hostages of Hamas for some Palestinian prisoners amid ongoing deadly clashes.

Israel’s “National Day of Mourning” over the October 7, 2023, massacre was marred by “a terrorist attack” that reportedly killed one and injured dozens, while the army said six soldiers died after combat in Lebanon and Gaza.

Israel woke up grieving as the Jewish nation began its national day of mourning, marking the 1st anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre on Sunday, just hours after the Israeli military targeted Hamas in Gaza in deadly air strikes.

More than 300 American Christian clergy and lay leaders have publicly called on the United States government to take action in holding the government of India accountable for ongoing, chronic human rights abuses against Indian Christians at the hands of Hindu nationalists.

Christian advocates have expressed concern that the August 3 election of communist President To Lam as Vietnam’s new leader will make life more difficult for Vietnamese believers. Even before Lam’s election, Communist-ruled Buddhist-majority Vietnam ranked 35 on the Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.

Security officials in Indonesia have thwarted an Islamic terrorist plan to suicide bomb two church sites in East Java, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.

Local Hindu leaders have forced more than 100 tribal Christians in eastern India’s Odisha state to undergo a formal ceremony symbolizing a rejection of Christianity and a return to Hinduism, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.

Prominent Nigerian evangelist and politician Joan Onyemaechi Mrakpor, who was abducted from her church in Nigeria’s Delta state on July 30, was found dead in a river on August 1, her body naked and showing signs of torture, the Gist Mania news outlet reports.