Iran’s parliament speaker has issued a rare public warning that military power alone cannot preserve the Islamic Republic as hunger, inflation, and sanctions tighten around the country.

Concern was mounting Monday about a Christian in northwestern China who was detained for listening to the Bible stored on a USB memory stick plugged into his car’s audio system, amid a wider crackdown on Christian activities in the Communist-run nation, Christian sources said.

A Russian mother and son who fled to Finland after opposing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine have won a court battle against their deportation, but their future remains uncertain as Finnish authorities reconsider their asylum claim amid fears they could face imprisonment, torture and even death if returned to Russia.

Australian authorities have charged a Russian-Australian man with foreign interference after he allegedly infiltrated Ukraine’s armed forces to obtain military information for people he believed were linked to Russian intelligence.

A young Christian man was recovering from extensive injuries Saturday after he was allegedly attacked by a group of Muslims for intervening when Christian women were being harassed in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Christian representatives said.

Sudanese Christians and their supporters used the United Nations’ annual “International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief” on Saturday to condemn what they called a growing wave of killings, abductions and attacks against Christians in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains.

Mossad chief Roman Gofman reportedly met Sunday with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in a U.S.-mediated effort to calm rising tensions after Israel’s recent airstrike on the Abu al-Duhur airbase in northern Syria.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday temporarily allowed the Trump administration to continue construction on President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom, pausing a lower court order that would have halted much of the project while the legal fight continues.

The death toll from a Russian drone strike on a crowded shopping center in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown rose to at least 16 Sunday, as Kyiv pleaded for more air-defense interceptors and France promised additional missiles amid mounting concerns that the conflict is increasingly affecting security across Europe.

Iran’s president has urged an end to the war with the United States in a daring pushback against Islamic hardliners who want to continue the armed conflict, which has also left minority Christians suffering in prisons and elsewhere.