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Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Amit recounted a familiar story for Christians in his region of India: pastors jailed; parishioners afraid to worship in public.

The situation, Amit said, is getting worse “day by day.”

Almost two millennia after St. Thomas the Apostle brought Christianity to the subcontinent, believers in northern India bear witness to a rise in persecution. Laws on religious conversion and physical attacks, including during the 2025 Christmas season, have driven fear into sanctuaries of love and faith.

Deepak, another Christian in northern India, said “there’s a lot of intimidation and harassment going on.”

He said Hindu radicals regularly “attack or disrupt [Christian] gatherings or go to mob violence.”

As a condition of speaking with The Epoch Times, both Amit, who has worked in Uttarakhand, and Deepak, who is based in Delhi, requested that their names and the details of their activities be anonymized out of fear of reprisal.

Statistics from the United Christian Forum, published on local website, The Wire, reflect an increase in violence against Christians in India in recent years. They documented 734 attacks targeting Christians in 2023. In 2024, that figure climbed to 834.

Genocide Watch, the Voice of the Martyrs, and other organizations have also chronicled anti-Christian trends in the country, in line with a similar pattern of growing violence against Muslims and other non-Hindu Indians.

Amit, Deepak, and others who spoke to The Epoch Times linked what is happening to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a political party that has ruled India since 2014 under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They decried the influence of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a street-level Hindu nationalist group associated with the BJP.

Much of the organized, sometimes violent opposition to Christianity is concentrated in northern India, a BJP stronghold.

Nigel Barrett of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, the episcopal conference for India’s Latin Catholic bishops, told The Epoch Times in an email that “the persecution is not confined to northern India,” citing attacks in the western state of Rajasthan after it passed a conversion law, in the southern state of Karnataka, and elsewhere across the country.

Henry Hiinii, another Indian Christian in Delhi, told The Epoch Times that “the governments are not doing much to help the Christian community” as it comes under attack.

The BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh did not respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

Some Indian Christians and close observers hope President Donald Trump—the man who has pledged to save Christians worldwide—will respond.

Commissioner Stephen Schneck of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom told The Epoch Times that the U.S. government should “issue targeted sanctions against Indian government officials and entities who participate in or tolerate egregious religious persecution of Christians, Muslims, and others.”

Escalating Hostility

Scott Bledsoe, who served as a pastor for 28 years, has visited India twice, cultivating relationships with Christians there. He said his latest visa to visit this past summer was denied.

Bledsoe told The Epoch Times he started to hear about anti-Christian persecution “in the last 10 years,” describing local mob violence against groups attempting to build churches.

Over the same period, major Christian nonprofits operating in the country faced setbacks and scrutiny, often tied to their receipt of money from abroad, including from the United States.

In 2017, Compassion International, a humanitarian organization headquartered in Colorado Springs, said it left India under pressure from the government.

The Missionaries of Charity, the group founded by Mother Teresa, sustained a serious blow in 2021, when it was barred from receiving foreign funding.

Deepak said these incidents are a bad sign for the homegrown Christian missionaries planting and nurturing small churches, including in unfriendly parts of the country.

“If you can go after them, then smaller organizations don’t have any chance,” he said.

In recent years, states across India have passed laws against forced conversion and numerous Christians, accused of coercing people into accepting their faith, have been jailed under the statutes.

Some Christians believe the opposition even extends to a kind of low-level surveillance enforced by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and similar groups. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh alone is estimated to have 4 million members nationwide.

“There are spies and people that are always watching what you’re doing,” Deepak said.

He said some believers worry that singing a religious song in their own home could draw scrutiny from neighbors, leading to arrests and prosecution under forced conversion laws.

Deepak recounted a visit to a church where that fear meant services were kept very quiet.

“I did a small devotion with them from the Bible and how the church was persecuted,” he said.

A wave of attacks on Christmas celebrations in late 2025, linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and similar groups, renewed concerns about the safety and freedom of Christians in India.

“Christians are actually afraid to celebrate Christmas openly now,” Deepak said.

Amit said Christmas services were restricted in many parts of northern India.

Schneck described “a sharp increase in targeted attacks against religious minorities” over Christmas 2025.

“Similar attacks have continued into the new year,” he said.

Amid rising tensions late last year, Modi attended a Christmas service at New Delhi’s Cathedral Church of the Redemption.

The Indian Christians who spoke with The Epoch Times, however, were skeptical of the sincerity of that gesture, attributing it to concerns over votes.

“It is disturbing to see limited official condemnation from the political authorities,” Barrett said.

However, a recent judicial decision on a conversion law drew praise from them.

In December 2025, judges on the Allahabad High Court ruled that merely preaching Christianity and distributing Bibles does not run afoul of a forced conversion statute in Uttar Pradesh, a heavily Hindu state in northern India.

Hiinii described the ruling as “good news” but said many people do not yet know about it.

American Response

The plight of Indian Christians has started to attract the attention of American political leaders.

In a Dec. 19, 2025, op-ed in The Hill, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) and U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom leaders asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern, a designation outlined in the International Religious Freedom Act. They cited its controversial conversion laws and the resultant mob violence.

A 2023 State Department report on religious freedom in India noted Christians’ concerns about those laws and their reports of harassment.

That same year, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom held a forum on religious freedom in India.

Read the rest here...

Authorities in Thailand have located three children, ages nine to 15, who are suspected of setting a homeless man on fire under a bridge in Bangkok and recording the attack.

The victim, a 51-year-old man known as Karn, lives beneath the Ban Ma Bridge in the Prawet district, where he earns money by collecting recyclable materials. He said the incident happened while he was asleep, according to SCMP.

“I was sleeping under the bridge when I felt cold liquid being poured on me before flames erupted on my body,” Karn told reporters.

Witnesses in the area said the attack appeared unprovoked, supporting Karn’s claim that he had no connection to the suspects.

SCMP writes that police confirmed Thursday that the three minors have been identified, but their identities are being kept confidential under child protection laws. Investigators said the children could face charges including attempted murder and destruction of public property, after nearby infrastructure was damaged during the fire.

Video footage of the incident quickly spread online, drawing intense backlash. Many users demanded tougher punishment, with some calling for the suspects to be tried as adults or for their parents to be held legally responsible.

The case has renewed attention on violent incidents involving young people in Thailand. In August last year, three teenagers in Lampang were arrested for killing a disabled dog by setting it on fire in an abandoned building, though authorities never revealed the outcome.

That same month, a separate attack in Bangkok made international headlines when a Malaysian tourist couple was set ablaze by an unemployed man near a major shopping center.

The government later pledged to cover their medical expenses and provide compensation.

As investigators continue their work, the latest incident has sparked wider debate about youth behavior, accountability, and public safety in Thailand.

Authored by Josiah Lippincott via American Greatness,

By the time this piece publishes, the United States military might already have launched air strikes on Iran. Indeed, planes could be launching while I write this. Nevertheless, here is a list of seven reasons why our government should not intervene in the Middle East.

1) It has never gone well. That is unlikely to change now. In 1953, the CIA overthrew the elected government of Iran to help the British more easily extract oil. We then installed the Shah, whom lots of Persians didn’t like. That problem came to a head in 1979 with the Shah being deposed and the religious fundamentalists, led by the Ayatollah, coming to power. That was not a success story for the United States.

Then there are the horrific boondoggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, the lies that drew us into the First Gulf War (babies stabbed in incubators!), the Syrian civil war, the disastrous collapse of Libya after Obama’s airstrikes, the Arab Spring nonsense, and the intervention in Lebanon that led to 200 Marines getting killed. I could go on.

The American government has a long pattern of failure in the Middle East.

2) Iran is not a military threat to America. This will cause the DC establishment types to be upset, but it is true. Iran’s anger with America stems from the coup we staged there and the meddling in Iran’s near abroad. This relationship can be easily fixed by simply stopping our current policy of hostility to the regime in Iran and adopting a policy of simply ignoring the region.

This is the right policy towards Iran because the country is not a threat to us. Iran cannot militarily attack America. The Revolutionary Guard is not going to stage an amphibious landing on the Potomac. Iranian agents of subterfuge on American soil have been hapless fools, easily foiled.

Even if Iran develops nuclear weapons, nothing changes. Iran cannot nuke America without getting obliterated in return. Therefore, there is no incentive to use those nuclear weapons in an offensive fashion.

Pakistan, North Korea, Russia, and China are all “bad” powers that have nuclear weapons. They’ve never used these weapons for a reason—the price isn’t worth the gain. Nukes are an ace in the hole for national defense, but they don’t have offensive utility in a world of atomic parity.

3) Iran’s relationship to Israel is not our problem. Iran and Israel despise each other for reasons that are complex and not worth getting into here. Needless to say, this is not a problem for Americans. Lots of people on earth don’t like each other. This isn’t new. The best thing to do in these cases is to simply stay out. We ought not borrow trouble that has no bearing on our national interests.

Israel is a big boy country. The Israelis can solve their own problems. There is no need for the American taxpayer to be involved.

Much is made of the anti-Semitism of the Iranian regime, with the implication being that the Ayatollah will use nuclear weapons against Israel if he gets the bomb. This is fearmongering with no basis in reality. Israel, like America, has nuclear weapons. If Tel Aviv gets annihilated, then so will Tehran. There is simply no gain for the Iranians in that case. Moreover, there is absolutely zero reason for the United States to get mixed up in a potential nuclear standoff between any countries anywhere on earth.

To be frank, the leadership of Iran is no more insane, moralistic, or fanatical than the Israeli or American ruling classes. In fact, they seem to be less expansionist than our own DC meddlers, mostly due to the aged character of the Iranian ruling element. The American military-industrial complex is more ferocious about spreading gay sex, feminism, and “democracy” abroad than Iran is in spreading Shia Islam.

4) The Iranian struggle for freedom is not a concern of the American government. The Declaration of Independence says that the purpose of government is to secure the rights “to life, liberty, and happiness” of the American people.

The Iranian people, however we may feel at a personal level about their cause, are not Americans. They don’t pay taxes, don’t owe us loyalty, haven’t consented to being ruled by us, and we have not agreed to rule over them in turn.

Their problems are their problems. The American government serves the American people. The Iranians are not Americans. They don’t get to ask American taxpayers to give them money, weapons, and support.

If Americans privately want to support women’s liberation or whatever in Iran, they are welcome to do so, but that isn’t what tax money is for.

5) Tax money spent on bombing Iran would be more useful here at home. Let’s take a hard-headed view of the costs at stake here: every dollar we spend monkeying with the desert drama queens is a dollar we didn’t spend on something else here at home.

War does not “boost the economy” because all of the weapons used and all of the soldiers’ paychecks have to come from taxing the economy. Everything in life comes with tradeoffs. War is no different.

Americans shouldn’t pay for weapons to be used on causes that don’t serve their interests, and our primary interest is protection. Our government is supposed to protect our bodies and our property. We have real problems with this right now here at home. Much more needs to be done to make American communities safe and peaceful.

I care far more about violence and criminal mischief in Hillsdale, Michigan, than in Tehran. Lots of bad things happen every day all over the world. Our tax dollars should be used to solve problems here.

6) Intervention backfires. Wars for human rights and far-flung geostrategic “interests” are always boondoggles. The long-term effects are bad: we stoke resentment among the natives, offend local power players, get sucked into unintelligible complex regional problems, and bear the long-term costs of dealing with the fallout.

There is, thankfully, an easy way to avoid all these issues: just stay away. If individual Americans care about the Middle East, then they can choose to spend their own money and time messing around in the region.

Surely, if Americans really thought bombing Iran was a good idea, then they would be eagerly offering up money to mercenaries and resistance fighters to go in there and spread freedom. Since most Americans are not doing this willingly, why should they be forced to support these measures unwillingly with tax dollars? It doesn’t make sense.

7) The American government should adopt the golden rule out of self-interest. Americans would not like it if a foreign government decided to meddle in our internal affairs. If China or Russia announced that they were going to launch military operations against the American homeland because of police “brutality” waged by ICE against illegal migrants, there would be an enormous backlash. Even leftists might view this as going too far.

We expect other countries to mind their own business and to stay out of ours. We should do the same abroad. Our real interests are right here on our own soil.

Instead of going abroad in search of monsters to destroy, the American government should worry about problems here. The easiest way is to simply stay out of unnecessary conflicts. The opportunities for problems abroad are simply too great. The Middle East is a mess and one the American government has done more, over its history, to create than to solve.

Time to take a step back.

Lululemon Athletica has drifted from its core strength in premium, high-quality yoga pants, chasing trends and fast product cycles. Competitors such as Alo Yoga and Vuori are quickly taking market share, while Lululemon has seen quality lapses, culminating in the botched launch of its "Get Low" tights earlier this month.

Bloomberg reports that Chief Brand and Product Activation Officer Nikki Neuburger told hundreds of employees at a meeting last week and in a video shared with staff worldwide that customers were not wearing the new $108 Get Low tights correctly.

Neuburger said that customers who bought the new controversial leggings, which some customers claim were see-through and "not squat proof," must size up and wear skin-toned underwear before putting on Get Low tights.

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying that Neuburger's memo to staff blaming customers for the see-through tights fiasco must "honestly be a joke."

"You are selling a premium product, you shouldn't have to issue instructions to women on how to wear leggings because your product is defective," Saunders said.

Earlier this month, Lululemon pulled its new tights from its North America e-commerce website just days after launch, following an uproar on social media over claims that the leggings were see-through. But it re-introduced the tights to the online store about a week ago.

In response to the epic failure, founder Chip Wilson felt compelled enough to blast the Board in a social media post:

This is a new low for lululemon. Pulling back the "Get Low" product line after three days is clearly a total operational failure. This comes just 17 months after the failed launch of the "Breezethrough" leggings, a product line also discontinued for similar product flaws. I've believed that lululemon has lost its cool for some time, but it is now evident to me that the Company has completely lost its way as a leader in technical apparel. For years, lululemon's results (particularly in North America) have shown how the Company has struggled to deliver products that are compelling and beloved; now it is unable to simply deliver products that work.

Despite any finger pointing internally following this mishap, this is not the fault of any hard-working employees. This is the fault of the Board. It is clear that persistent failures like this are born out of this Board's lack of experience in creative businesses, disinterest in product development and quality, and focus on short-term, self-interested priorities. How could anyone reach a conclusion other than the Board continues to make decisions that are destroying the brand and the stock price?

What product quality testing did the Board review? How often does the Board review the product pipeline? Are leaders empowered to make the best product decision or simply pushed to the lowest cost decision?

I believe a leading Board would have a Brand Product Committee and have asked these questions.

For memory's sake, let's take another look at the Get Low line.

And one last time.

Meanwhile, Alo Yoga and Vuori are winning influencers and younger customers; Lululemon's attempts to follow that playbook have epically backfired. Year-to-date, shares are down 17%, below Covid lows.

Saunders said, "They've gone from being the leader in the category to, honestly, a bit of a follower."

Russia's second-largest oil producer, Lukoil, has agreed to sell the bulk of its international assets - initially valued at $22 billion by analysts - to private equity heavyweight Carlyle, as Western sanctions continue to force a fire sale of Russian energy holdings abroad.

This sanctions-induced fire sale was expected, as the company had first unveiled in late October: "Lukoil informs that owing to introduction of restrictive measures against the Company and its subsidiaries by some states the Company announces its intention to sell its international assets." 

The US sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft represented the first major round of economic penalties imposed on Moscow following Trump's return to his second term in the White House.

"I just felt it was time," Trump had told reporters on Oct. 22 while hosting NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office. "These are tremendous sanctions. We hope they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled."

It was seen as a way to pressure the Kremlin to the negotiating table - something with 'teeth' - but the reality has remained that the Zelensky government and its Western backers are unwilling to give up territory, which is a Moscow main sticking point.

The oil sanctions were imposed "as a result of Russia's lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine" - and that forced Lukoil into a formal bidding process.

The Carlyle deal notably excludes Lukoil's assets in Kazakhstan, which will remain under Lukoil Group ownership and continue operating under existing licenses.

The agreement is non-exclusive and remains contingent on multiple conditions, including regulatory approvals and explicit authorization from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for the transaction with Carlyle, according to various industry reports.

Discussions and negotiations with other potential buyers are still ongoing, Lukoil has said in the meantime. 

#Lukoil agrees to sell most international assets to #Carlyle

??Deal excludes stakes in #Kazakhstan
??Sale is subject to OFAC approval

Full story ??: https://t.co/AAMGyhHBBP pic.twitter.com/EQpbDoWau2

— Oil by S&P Global Energy (@SPGEnergyOil) January 30, 2026

Previously Chevron and ExxonMobil, as well as Abu Dhabi's International Holding Company (IHC), had expressed official interest to the U.S. Treasury in acquiring Lukoil's international portfolio.

Using a search engine nowadays will inevitably render AI-generated results towards the top of the page.

This means that not only the many people going straight to ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini for their queries, but everybody else as well, is seeing the conclusions of Large Language Model in their online searches.

While most people are aware that LLM results can be wrong, tedious double-checking might be skipped when in a hurry or when the results are just what one was looking for and enthusiasm prevails.

But how trustworthy is the average American of AI search results and does trust vary by search category?

Katharina Buchholz reports that results from a Statista Consumer Insights survey show that only around one third of Americans have a high level of trust in these search results (giving eight to 10 points on a 10-point scale), while around a quarter indicated only one to three points, with one being zero trust.

You will find more infographics at Statista

This leaves close to 40 percent of Americans in the middle, trusting AI results somewhat.

Depending on the topic, there was a slight variation in trust, with Americans trusting AI a little more on health or wellness topics (35 percent showing a high level of trust and only 19 percent showing a low level of trust).

Finance and news topics elicited a little less trust, with only around 29 percent of respondents picking the upper end of the scale for finances and a high 27 percent saying the had little trust in regards to news coverage.