Globe Trot: FBI admits drones patrol U.S. skies

FBI Director Robert Mueller told a congressional committee his agency uses drones for surveillance on U.S. soil. Mueller said the drone program “is very narrowly focused on particularized cases and particularized leads.”

More than 1 million Brazilians took to the streets of at least 80 cities Thursday in the country’s largest anti-government demonstrations yet. The protests ignited over increases in bus fares but have grown to larger concerns over high taxation and fees for utilities under the socialist government of President Dilma Rousseff.

Al Shabaab militants in Somalia publicly shot and killed a young man once they learned he was a Christian. A number of Somalis exiled to Kenya, where they’ve become Christians, are targeted by Muslim groups once they return home.

Somali militants who attacked a UN compound yesterday in Mogadishu, the capital, live-tweeted the deadly strike that killed at least 13.

The election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president changes little. Supreme leader Ali [Khamenei] remains at the helm, “and he has set course for utter destruction of the Christian faith in Iran,” says Tiffany Barrans, international legal director for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Last week Iran sentenced to prison six more Christian leaders.

Half of the non-lethal aid promised to Syrian rebels has not reached them. Said a State Department source: “We can’t even take the most basic of bureaucratic steps forward with non-lethal aid. How on earth can we even manage lethal aid?”

As Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif takes office, Christians have some hope he may take steps to protect minority rights, says Barnabas Aid international director Patrick Sookhdeo.

WORLD’s annual Books issue is a great place to start your summer reading list.

NOTE: Globe Trot is going on vacation, and will return on July 3.