US President Donald Trump is preparing to unveil Gaza’s long-awaited “Board of Peace” and formally announce the transition to phase two of Washington’s Gaza stabilization plan within the next three weeks, Axios and additional US and regional officials said Thursday. The move would mark the most significant diplomatic step since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect nearly two months ago.

Joly “Yonyon” Germine, the former leader of Haiti’s notorious 400 Mawozo gang, was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court to life in prison without the possibility of supervised release for orchestrating the 2021 kidnapping of 16 American missionaries–five of them children–from Christian Aid Ministries.

President Donald Trump hosted the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday to sign the Washington Accords, a peace pact the three leaders say will end a 30-year conflict in eastern Congo — even as fighting continues on the ground.

Budapest, Hungary’s capital and its political, economic, and cultural heart, risks becoming insolvent — the municipal equivalent of bankruptcy — a crisis the opposition blames on the right-wing government’s tax policies.

Hungary and possibly neighboring Slovakia will challenge a European Union decision to phase out Russian energy sources at the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday handed Texas a win in a challenge to its new congressional redistricting maps, granting a stay of a lower court ruling blocking them from going into effect. The ruling allows Texas’ new congressional maps to remain in effect for the 2026 midterm election. The new maps could flip up to five seats currently held by Democrats to Republican, analysts say.

Newly released Hamas Interior Ministry documents—seized by the Israel Defense Forces and analyzed by NGO Monitor—reveal the extent to which Hamas infiltrated and controlled foreign aid organizations operating in Gaza. Spanning 2018–2022, these Arabic-language files describe an “institutionalized framework of coercion, intimidation, and surveillance” that allowed Hamas to shape humanitarian work, manipulate international NGOs, and exploit aid systems for intelligence and military gain. NGO Monitor president Gerald Steinberg said the level of penetration “was far beyond the scope of our expectations.”

The U.S. unveils sweeping visa bans targeting individuals behind anti-Christian violence in Nigeria.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio cites authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to block visas for perpetrators and family members.
Attacks on churches and schools–including mass abductions–prompted President Donald Trump to designate Nigeria a “country of particular concern.”
The policy applies globally, signaling a broader U.S. effort to confront violations of religious freedom worldwide.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that phase two of his Gaza peace plan is “moving along well” and will begin “pretty soon,” even as Hamas breached the ceasefire hours earlier in Rafah, wounding six Israeli soldiers.

Israel formally delivered its Arrow-3 long-range missile defense system to the German Air Force on Wednesday, completing a landmark $4.6 billion deal — the largest defense export agreement in Israel’s history and the first time the cutting-edge system has ever been deployed by a nation outside Israel or the United States.