Author: Reporter

When protests over the Israel-Hamas war took root on Columbia University’s campus last spring, Mahmoud Khalil became a familiar, outspoken figure in a student movement that soon spread to other U.S. colleges. The international-affairs graduate student was a fixture in and around the protest encampment on Columbia’s Manhattan campus, serving as a spokesperson and negotiator for demonstrators who deplored Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and pressed the Ivy League school to cut financial ties with Israel and companies that supported the war. “We want to be visible,” Khalil said last April. Now that visibility has helped make him the...

Christianity is by far the largest faith in America, and Christian conservatives have a strong grip on the levers of government. That dominance is leaving many to question why President Donald Trump’s new task force on eradicating anti-Christian bias is needed. Critics see the task force initiative as unnecessary and pandering to Trump’s base. But some Christian supporters said it is overdue, claiming the Biden administration had discriminated against them through actions and inactions. The two-year task force, chaired by Attorney General Pam Bondi and composed of Cabinet and other government representatives, is assigned to review and “identify any...

Bishop Ebli De La Rosa says his motto right now is “to prepare for the worst and pray for the best.” De La Rosa, who oversees Church of God of Prophecy congregations in nine southeastern states, says he has had to respond quickly to the Trump administration’s new orders, which have thrown out policies that restricted immigration enforcement in sensitive locations such as schools and houses of worship. This move has imperiled 32 of the Latino evangelical denomination’s 70 pastors who are here without legal status and serve in some of the region’s most vulnerable communities, De La Rosa...

Poland and Baltic nations welcomed a recent proposal by French President Emmanuel Macron to launch talks about using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect the continent from Russian threats, a move Moscow quickly dismissed as “extremely confrontational.” The comments came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined European Union leaders in Brussels for an emergency summit on defense and security. France is the only nuclear power in the European Union. Macron said he has decided to open a “strategic debate” on using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect European allies amid concerns over potential U.S. disengagement. The French president described Moscow as...

This tiny island on Japan’s western frontier has no chain convenience stores. Nature lovers can dive with hammerhead sharks and watch miniature horses graze on a hill. But the wooded mountain ranges now carry radar sites. A southern cattle ranch has been replaced with the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force’s Camp Yonaguni. Japan and its ally, the United States, hold joint military exercises here. Plans are underway to add a new missile unit and expand a small airport and port. All of the buildup has cemented the island as a front line in a potential clash over Taiwan, the self-governing...