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Earlier in the day, Trump met Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have said they would like to make a deal to end the nearly four-year-old war.
The Big Apple’s gonna be buried!
A fast-approaching deadly winter storm is expected to dump up to 18 inches of snow on the New York City area early Sunday — bringing a bone-chilling temps and a travel nightmare across the tri-state.
“The roads are going to be horrendous from Sunday on,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tom Kines.
“There’s no travel that will be safe, it’s going to be a disaster.”
The snow is expect to start between midnight and 8 a.m. Sunday and continue into Monday — snarling roads and grounding airplane flights, Kines said.
Forecasters are predicting up to 16 inches for New York City and up to 18 inches for the Hudson Valley — potentially the most snowfall there since the Blizzard of 1996.
Don’t expect to go anywhere or get anything done Sunday, and possibly Monday, Kines said.
“If there’s a foot or more, the city is going to be at a standstill. Travel by land will be slow at best if not impossible and airports will be shut down,” he said.
Snowfall in other parts of the US such as Dallas and Charlotte will likely cause flight delays in New York City and all over the country, Kines said.
“There’ll be a huge domino effect on airport this weekend,” he said. “I’m sure there’s gonna be many, many cancelations and delays.”
Nationally, the historic winter storm is set to bring “considerable disruption” to millions of people in roughly 35 states, with areas east of the Rockies hardest hit, forecasters said.
The snowfall — which comes as the city shivers through frigid temperatures in the teens — is forecast to stop by around noon Monday at the latest, Kines said.
And it’s going to stick around, too. Temps will dip to 11 degrees Friday and aren’t expected to rise above freezing until Wednesday, Feb. 4.
“It’s going to be a dry, fluffy snow, which is good for those who have to shovel, so that’s one bright spot,” he said.
If the Big Apple gets at least a foot of snow, it would be the most in the city since February 2021, when 16.8 inches fell in Central Park over a two-day period.
The more likely scenario, Kines said the storm could move north and blanket the city with 4 to 8 inches.
Overall, 8 to 12 inches will fall around the tri-state region — including in the Hudson Valley, nearly all of New Jersey and Connecticut, according to meteorologists.
Still, despite the warnings, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the jury is still out on just how badly the city will be hit.
“We are expecting precipitation to begin late Saturday or early Sunday and to possibly last into Monday. The forecast is predicting anywhere from 3 to 12 inches of snow,” Mamdani said at a press conference Thursday.
“It is entirely possible that we get less than three inches — and it is just as possible that we get over a foot,” he said. “New Yorkers know that forecasts do not always get it right.”
He said the city will begin a “pre-snow treatment” on Friday to prepare for the storm.
“What that means is that we will brine all highways, major streets, and bike lanes to mitigate snow and ice accumulation, and we are also going to accelerate cleanup once the storm has passed,” he said.
He added that “roughly 2,000 sanitation workers” will work 12-hour shifts Saturday to “remove snow around the clock.”
“ As we speak, our sanitation fleet is being transformed into a snow-clearing fleet,” he said.
New Yorkers on Thursday scrambled to buy shovels and sidewalk salt to prepare for the storm as some Manhattan shops were nearly sold out.
“They’re out of Icemelt, so it’s a little bit of a panic,” said one Manhattan building super, who settled for a 12-pound jar of another brand. “That’s all they had. This is enough for now.”
An employee at Home Depot on West 23rd Street near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan said the store was low on rock salt because there was a big demand for it in other parts of the country.
Source : https://nypost.com/2026/01/22/us-news/monster-storm-could-dump-up-to-16-inches-of-snow-on-nyc/
Three people have been killed and another injured after a shooting in a small town in New South Wales (NSW), Australia.
Emergency services were called to a residential area in Lake Cargelligo at about 16:40 local time (05:40 GMT) on Thursday.
Police are searching for Julian Ingram, 37, in connection with the killings.
A man and woman were found shot dead in a vehicle, and a second shooting soon afterwards killed a woman and left a man in a “critical condition” in hospital, police said.
Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the incident was a suspected domestic violence attack and that one of the victims is believed to be Ingram’s former partner.
Andrew Holland, NSW police assistant commissioner, declined to comment on the relationship between the gunman and the victims.
The public was urged to remain indoors and multiple crime scenes have been established, he told reporters.
NSW police later released a photograph of Ingram and urged the public to get in contact with any information on his whereabouts.
“Any death in a small country town is confronting, but again, a scene where you have people shot by firearms is obviously going to make people very, very tense and very concerned,” Holland said.
Hollywood has revealed the nominations for this year’s Oscars, which will honour the film industry’s finest stars and movies from the past 12 months.
Sinners leads the way with a record 16 nominations, breaking the record for the most Oscar nominations, which was previously held by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997) and La La Land (2016).
One Battle After Another is next with 13 nominations, while Marty Supreme, Frankenstein and Sentimental Value are next with nine, and Hamnet has eight.
The awards will take place on 15 March, hosted by US comedian Conan O’Brien.
Best picture
Best actor
Best actress
Best supporting actress
Best supporting actor
Best director
Best adapted screenplay
Best original screenplay
Best original song
Best original score
Best international feature
Best animated feature
Best documentary feature
Best costume design
Best make-up and hairstyling
Best production design
Best sound
Best film editing
Best cinematography
Best visual effects
Best live action short
Best animated short
Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are showing closer ties than their countries have in years. Meloni is no longer seen as a right-wing outsider, taking on a role as mediator with Donald Trump.
Bilateral relations between Germany and Italy are better than they have been in a long time. “Merz and Meloni – is a new duo emerging in the EU?” asked the German daily Handelsblatt this week.
The latest escalation between the European Union and the United States over US President Donald Trump’s demand for Greenland has added significance to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to Italy this week.
For German politicians, France has long been the closest partner in Europe. When Giorgia Meloni became leader of a right-wing coalition in Rome in 2022, she was met with skepticism by Germany’s center-left government at the time.
The first woman to head an Italian government is the leader of Fratelli d’Italia party (Brothers of Italy), which is sometimes described as right-wing extremist, sometimes as post-fascist, and at the very least as right-wing nationalist. The party is — or was — regarded by German centrist politicians as roughly equivalent to the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD): a party they want nothing to do with.
Meloni, who has openly expressed admiration for Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini, initially confirmed this impression. Her slogan “God, Fatherland, and Family” is the motto of Meloni’s party, reflecting its traditionalist stance based on Christian identity, national pride and traditional family structures, and opposition to globalism. Meloni was initially critical of the EU and forged close relations with US President Donald Trump. Pictures of the two of them, smiling broadly, demonstrating how well they get along, further cemented Meloni’s outsider position in the EU.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, another of Trump’s favorites, is also an outsider in the EU. But there are crucial differences. Unlike Orban, Meloni supports Ukraine in its war of defense against the Russian invasion and has spoken out in favor of making Ukraine a candidate for EU membership. Italy’s economic weight — it is the third-largest economy in the eurozone after Germany and France — also means that other EU governments can not afford to ignore her.
Meanwhile Meloni, who previously wanted to lead Italy out of the EU, has become increasingly pragmatic and constructive at the European level. This has also been recognized by Germany’s conservative-led government, for example, when Meloni recently secured the necessary majority of votes for the free trade agreement between the EU and the South American Mercosur countries. Germany’s longtime close partner, France, opposed the agreement, but was outvoted.
Over the years, Meloni has established a strong position that is recognized by Trump, Merz and other European heads of government. Last spring, she attempted to mediate in the customs dispute between the US and the EU.
Most recently Trump threatened punitive tariffs on anyone opposed to his acquisition of the Danish island of Greenland, although he backtracked again at the World Economic Forum in Davos. While the threat was still in the air and other European politicians, including German ones, were brandishing the cudgel of counter-tariffs, both Merz and Meloni warned against a total rift with Trump.
Both fear that a trade war would cause serious economic damage to their battered, heavily indebted economies. They worry even more about losing the US as a protective power.
There is clearly a “communication problem” between Trump and the Europeans, Meloni said a few days ago. That was putting mildly what was probably the biggest crisis in transatlantic relations since the end of World War II. Now, according to Meloni, it is necessary to “resume dialogue and avoid escalation.” Merz has said much the same thing.
In the heated atmosphere, Italy had offered to mediate. German government spokesman Stefan Kornelius welcomed the offer. “The Italian prime minister has also spoken to the US president on the phone. That is always very helpful,” he said.
Unlike Germany, Italy had not contributed any soldiers to the reconnaissance mission to Greenland sent by several NATO countries. As a result, it was not affected by the US tariff threat.
The governments in Berlin and Rome both want to work together to promote competitiveness and reduce bureaucracy within the EU. In a position paper, they warn that the European Union risks falling behind the US and China if swift action is not taken.
In his speech in Davos on Thursday, Merz said that the joint German-Italian proposals would be presented at a special EU summit that he initiated, due to take place in February.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/merz-and-meloni-reshape-germany-italy-relations/a-75607617
Police in India have arrested a woman who accused a man of sexual misconduct on a bus on social media, who then took his own life soon after. His family accused the woman of engagement farming with a spurious claim.
The case has evoked strong responses on both sides and a debate on the dangers of so-called “trial by social media” or by media more generally.
Local police launched a case on Monday investigating possible abetment of suicide. The Kerala state Human Rights Commission also ordered a police probe into the incident.
The 35-year-old woman posted a video online, which attracted more than 2 million views before she removed it from public availability, in which she said the man “deliberately touched me without my consent” on a public bus. She accused him of touching her breast with his elbow.
“This was not an accident or a misunderstanding. It was a clear violation of my sexual boundaries,” she said in the video.
In a country where sexual misconduct is widespread, the post attracted considerable attention and, in some cases, led to severe criticism of the man.
Two days after the video was published, the 42-year-old’s parents found him hanging in their house. His mother said he had been deeply affected by the public attention and had not eaten for two days and that he died by suicide the day after his birthday. She filed a criminal complaint, alleging that the claims against her son were baseless and designed to gain social media attention.
His accuser later posted another video defending her actions, but subsequently also made that private. Her more recent public posts on Instagram received an array of sometimes highly critical comments, including some repeatedly calling for “justice.”
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/india-woman-arrested-over-suicide-of-man-she-accused/a-75610488
EU wants to revive trade ties with the US, but warned the bloc will stand up for its interests. It also announced after an emergency summit that it will double its investment in Greenland.
European Council President Antonio Costa has said that the EU leaders believe “it’s very important to preserve and cherish our transatlantic partnership.”
He made the comments after chairing an emergency summit in Brussels late on Thursday.
The evening meeting was called to reassess ties with United States over President Donald Trump’s treats to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory of Greenland and impose tariffs on select EU nations.
But on the eve of the summit, while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump suspended his tariff threats and said he wouldn’t use force to take the Arctic island.
The summit didn’t make any decision. But Costa said the priority now must be to implement the EU-US trade deal agreed in July, 2025.
The US is the EU’s biggest trading partner. “The goal remains the effective stability of the trade relations,” Costa told reporters.
At the same time, Costa warned that the EU “will continue to stand up for its interests and will defend itself, its member states, its citizens and its companies against any form of coercion.”
Speaking after the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has admitted that Europe has invested “too little in the Arctic and the security of the Arctic.”
In the next EU budget from 2028, the Commission also wants to double financial support for Greenland, she said.
She said her team “will soon put forward a comprehensive package of investments,” in Greenland without elaborating what these could be.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed Trump’s apparent U-turn.
“I am very grateful that President Trump has distanced himself from his original plans to take over Greenland, and I am also grateful that he has refrained from imposing additional tariffs on February 1,” Merz told reporters ahead of the summit.
Merz also said that the EU countries “will have to strengthen the resilience and robustness of the European Union” going forward.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen repeated her country’s call for an intensified NATO military presence in the Arctic region and the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland, in response to Trump’s claims of US control being necessary to fix perceived security shortfalls.
“We need a permanent presence from NATO in the Arctic region, including around Greenland,” Frederiksen told reporters. Like leaders in Greenland, she reiterated that sovereignty was a red line, but indicated a willingness to discuss further cooperation with the US.
“It’s clear for everybody that we are a sovereign state and we cannot negotiate about that. But of course we can discuss with the US how we can strengthen our common cooperation on security in the arctic region,” she said.
The US already has extensive rights to military access and construction in Greenland dating back the better part of a century. Trump has touted a “total access” deal in which the US will get “everything we wanted” at no cost, but has not gone into detail or explained how this differs from the status quo.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told the Reuters news agency that Western allies would step up their presence in the region under the deal, but did not flesh out how.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that despite Trump’s change of tack, there was plenty for European leaders to discuss.
“I think everybody’s relieved by the recent announcements,” she said. “We have also seen that in this one-year period, we are ready for a lot of unpredictability.”
“We need to still discuss our plans for different scenarios because everything could change,” she added, pointing out that neither EU members nor the United States benefited from unpredictability in transatlantic relations. “Every kind of disagreement that allies have, like Europe and America, is just benefiting our adversaries who are looking and enjoying the view.”
Johnny Depp is the latest celebrity to be dragged into the drama surrounding the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni legal drama.
Documents obtained by TMZ on Thursday revealed the name-drop in an August 2024 text exchange between Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, and his talent agent Warren Zavala, in which they discussed the ongoing case.
“It’s this guy’s incredible ego,” Zavala allegedly wrote of Baldoni. “It feels like he’s laying a trap if her truth surfaces, while promoting a narrative digitally.”
“Yeah. But honestly, someone is just gonna tell a journalist the real deal and it’s gonna blow up in his face,” the “Free Guy” star replied.
“One would think,” Zavala then responded, noting that “the truth does become muddled sometimes.”
“That’s why I’m concerned if he’s laying a trap,” the talent agent continued. “I hope this fraud s–t weasel is exposed. I just want to protect our downside. The movie working is everything. Let’s see if the noise subsides.”
Along with a link to media coverage over the “It Ends With Us” stars battling over a final cut to the movie, Zavala wrote, “This is all spin. I think we let it burn.”
Reynolds then responded, “How’d that work out for Depp??” referencing the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star’s infamous defamation court battle with Amber Heard.
Zavala wrote that the case “Cratered both of them ultimately” before reportedly slamming Baldoni as an “egotistical s–t weasel with a god complex” and Reynolds labeling the director a “human rounding error.”
Depp and Heard’s case — in which the “Edward Scissorhands” star sued his ex-wife for defamation — ended in 2022 with Depp being awarded $10.35 million in punitive damages, and Heard awarded $2 million in damages in her counterclaim.
The “Aquaman” star has since relocated to Madrid, Spain, where she’s raising her three children, and Depp has continued to forge ahead with appearances at the Cannes and San Sebastian film festivals in recent years.
Reps for Depp, Reynolds, Lively, Baldoni, and Zavala did not immediately return Page Six’s requests for comment.
Depp’s is the most recent celebrity name to show up in recently unsealed documents related to the Lively and Baldoni case.
Jameela Jamil called the “Gossip Girl” alum a “suicide bomber” and a “villain” in 2024 texts to a publicist obtained via court docs by the Daily Mail on Thursday — and a source close to the matter subsequently told Page Six that “The Good Place” star’s comments were “disappointing.”
Page Six also obtained texts between Lively and Taylor Swift — also from 2024 — that revealed the “Opalite” hitmaker star felt distanced from Lively as the legal battle intensified.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday he had secured total and permanent U.S. access to Greenland in a deal with NATO, whose head said allies would have to step up their commitment to Arctic security to ward off threats from Russia and China.
News of a framework deal came as Trump backed off tariff threats against Europe and ruled out taking Greenland by force, bringing a degree of respite in what was brewing to be the biggest rupture in transatlantic ties in decades.
Trump’s U-turn triggered a rebound in European markets and a return toward record highs for Wall Street’s main indexes, but also raised questions about how much damage had already been done to transatlantic ties and business confidence.
Details of any agreement were unclear and Denmark insisted its sovereignty over the island was not up for discussion. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc’s U.S. relations had “taken a big blow” in the past week, as EU leaders met for an emergency summit.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen welcomed Trump’s comments but said he was still in the dark on many aspects.
“I don’t know what there is in the agreement, or the deal, about my country,” he told reporters in the capital Nuuk.
“We are ready to discuss a lot of things and we are ready to negotiate a better partnership and so on. But sovereignty is a red line,” he said, when asked about reports that Trump was seeking control of areas around U.S. military bases in Greenland as part of a wider deal.
“We cannot cross the red lines. We have to respect our territorial integrity. We have to respect international law and sovereignty.”
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on his return from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said a new deal was being negotiated that would be “much more generous to the United States, so much more generous.”
He skirted questions on sovereignty, but said: “We have to have the ability to do exactly what we want to do.”
Earlier Trump told Fox Business Network the deal would essentially bring “total access” for the United States.
“There’s no end, there’s no time limit.”
A source familiar with the matter said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and Trump had agreed in Davos on further talks between the U.S., Denmark and Greenland on updating a 1951 agreement that governs U.S. military access and presence on the Arctic island.
The framework they discussed also calls for prohibiting Chinese and Russian investments in Greenland, the person said.
Another source familiar with the matter said what had been agreed was “a frame on which to build,” adding that “anything being reported on specific details is speculative.”
Rutte told Reuters in Davos it was now up to NATO’s senior commanders to work through the details of extra security requirements.
“I have no doubt we can do this quite fast. Certainly, I would hope for 2026, I hope even early in 2026,” he said.
Trump’s ambition to wrest sovereignty over Greenland from fellow NATO member Denmark has threatened to blow apart the alliance that has underpinned Western security since the end of World War Two and reignite a trade war with Europe.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said no negotiations had been held with NATO regarding the sovereignty of Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.
“It is still a difficult and serious situation, but progress has also been made in the sense that we have now got things where they need to be. Namely that we can discuss how we promote common security in the Arctic region,” she said.
Speaking later ahead of the emergency summit of EU leaders, Frederiksen called for a “permanent presence of NATO in the Arctic region, including around Greenland.”
Kallas said “disagreements that allies have between them, like Europe and America, are just benefiting our adversaries who are looking and enjoying the view.”
Finnish President Alexander Stubb said he hoped allies could put together a plan to boost Arctic security by a NATO summit in Ankara in July.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Rutte on Thursday that the UK stood ready to play its full part in ensuring security in the Arctic, a spokesperson said.
After meeting with Rutte, Trump said there could be a deal that satisfies his desire for a “Golden Dome” missile-defence system and access to critical minerals while blocking what he says are Russia and China’s ambitions in the Arctic.
Rutte said minerals exploitation was not discussed in his meeting with Trump. Specific negotiations over the Arctic island would continue between the United States, Denmark and Greenland itself, he said.
The 1951 agreement established the U.S. right to construct military bases in Greenland and move around freely in Greenlandic territory. This is still the case as long as Denmark and Greenland are informed of its actions. Washington has a base at Pituffik in northern Greenland.
“It is important to clarify that the U.S. had 17 bases during the Cold War and much greater activity. So that is already possible now under the current agreement,” said Marc Jacobsen, a professor at the Royal Danish Defence College.
“I think there will be concrete discussions about Golden Dome, and I think there will be concrete discussions about Russia and China not being welcome in Greenland.”
China’s Foreign Ministry told Reuters on Friday that claims China is a threat are “baseless”, when asked to respond to the Arctic comments.
China opposes other countries using it as “an excuse” to push their own agenda, the ministry said.
China has repeatedly said its scientific expeditions in the Arctic and commercial shipping operations in the region followed international treaties and laws, accusing the West of distorting facts and hyping up its activities as clues to military intent.
Last week, the state-backed Global Times newspaper said in an editorial that it ” firmly opposed attempts by the United States and Europe to label China with terms such as ‘military threat,’ ‘resource grabber’ or ‘rule breaker’ in Arctic affairs.”
The United States on Thursday announced plans for a “New Gaza” rebuilt from scratch to include residential towers, data centres and seaside resorts, part of President Donald Trump’s push to advance an Israel-Hamas ceasefire shaken by repeated violations.
In the Gaza Strip, health officials said Israeli airstrikes on Thursday had killed five people in the enclave. There was no immediate Israeli comment on the violence, the latest to fray the October truce accord.
Trump has parlayed the ceasefire into a broader “Board of Peace” initiative aimed at resolving conflicts globally.
After hosting a signing ceremony for the board in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Trump invited his son-in-law Jared Kushner to present development plans for Gaza, its densely populated cities and towns now in ruins from two years of war.
“In the beginning, we were toying with (building) a free zone, and then (having) a Hamas zone,” Kushner told an audience in Davos of Trump’s early plans to rebuild Gaza, where nearly the entire 2 million population is internally displaced.
“And then we said, you know what? Let’s just plan for catastrophic success.”
Kushner presented the audience with a slideshow depicting a “master plan” for what he termed a “New Gaza”, displayed on a colour-coded map with areas reserved for residential development, data centres and industrial parks.
The slides included an image of a Mediterranean coastline packed with glittering towers akin to those in Dubai or Singapore. They suggested redevelopment would begin in Rafah in the south, an area under complete Israeli military control.
But they did not address key issues such as property rights or compensation for Palestinians who lost their homes, businesses and livelihoods during the war. Nor did they address where displaced Palestinians might live during the rebuilding.
Kushner did not say who would fund the redevelopment, which would first require clearing an estimated 68 million tons of rubble and war debris.
A conference will be held in Washington in the coming weeks “where we’ll announce a lot of the contributions that will be made … from the private sector,” Kushner said, without elaborating.
The slides shown by Kushner were nearly identical to slides leaked to the Wall Street Journal in December. The newspaper reported then that the U.S. had offered to “anchor” 20% of the redevelopment project, without going into detail.
Trump has floated the idea of transforming long-impoverished and dilapidated Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, an idea that has drawn criticism from Palestinians.
Kushner’s presentation in Davos followed remarks by Ali Shaath, the Palestinian technocrat leader backed by Washington to administer the enclave under Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.
A key unfulfilled element of the ceasefire has been the reopening of Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing with Egypt for the entry and exit of Palestinians. Shaath, speaking by video link, announced the Rafah crossing would open next week.
“Opening Rafah signals that Gaza is no longer closed to the future and to the war,” Shaath said.
Israel, which controls the Gaza side of the crossing, has rejected reopening it until Hamas fulfills its ceasefire obligation of returning the remains of the last hostage held in the territory.
After Shaath’s announcement, an Israeli political source said a special effort was being made to return Ran Gvili’s remains and that Israel would discuss reopening the crossing starting next week.
The next phase of Trump’s Gaza plan would see Hamas disarm and international peacekeepers deploy in the crowded, coastal enclave as Israeli troops withdraw further. The first phase left Israel in control of well over half of Gaza, with Hamas holding a sliver of territory along the coast.
Israel has continued to carry out air and artillery strikes in Gaza, often accusing Hamas militants of preparing attacks on its troops or encroaching into areas it controls.
Health officials at Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, said four Palestinians were killed on Thursday by Israeli tank shelling in the Zeitoun suburb of eastern Gaza City. A fifth person was killed by Israeli fire in Khan Younis in the south, health officials said.
Israel’s military did not immediately provide comment.
A day earlier, Israeli fire killed 11 people including two boys and three journalists, health officials said. On Thursday, Palestinians in Gaza held funerals for the three journalists, who press advocates said had been using a drone to film tents housing displaced people.
The comments by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who saw his invitation to the World Economic Forum in Davos rescinded over the killings, came as a U.S. aircraft carrier group moved west toward the Middle East from Asia
Iranian state TV on Wednesday (January 21, 2026) issued the first official death toll from recent protests, saying 3,117 people were killed, while the Foreign Minister issued the most direct threat yet against the United States after Tehran’s bloody crackdown, warning the Islamic Republic will be “firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack.”
State television carried statements by the Interior Ministry and the Martyrs Foundation, an official body providing services to families of those killed in wars, stating the toll and saying 2,427 of the dead in the demonstrations that began Dec. 28 were civilians and security forces. It did not elaborate on the rest.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said the death toll was at least 4,560. The agency has been accurate throughout the years on demonstrations and unrest in Iran, relying on a network of activists inside the country that confirms all reported fatalities. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll.
The comments by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who saw his invitation to the World Economic Forum in Davos rescinded over the killings, came as a U.S. aircraft carrier group moved west toward the Middle East from Asia. U.S. fighter jets and other equipment appeared to be moving in the Mideast after a major U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean saw troops seize Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
Araghchi makes threat in column
Mr. Araghchi made the threat in an opinion article published by The Wall Street Journal. The Foreign Minister contended “the violent phase of the unrest lasted less than 72 hours” and sought again to blame armed demonstrators for the violence. Videos that made it out of Iran despite an internet shutdown appear to show security forces repeatedly using live fire to target apparently unarmed protesters, something unaddressed by Mr. Araghchi.
“Unlike the restraint Iran showed in June 2025, our powerful armed forces have no qualms about firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack,” Mr. Araghchi wrote, referring to the 12-day war launched by Israel on Iran in June. “This isn’t a threat, but a reality I feel I need to convey explicitly, because as a diplomat and a veteran, I abhor war.”
He added: “An all-out confrontation will certainly be ferocious and drag on far, far longer than the fantasy timelines that Israel and its proxies are trying to peddle to the White House. It will certainly engulf the wider region and have an impact on ordinary people around the globe.”
Mr. Araghchi’s comments likely refer to Iran’s short- and medium-range missiles. The Islamic Republic relied on ballistic missiles to target Israel in the war and left its stockpile of the shorter-range missiles unused, something that could be fired to target U.S. bases and interests in the Persian Gulf. Already, there have been some restrictions on U.S. diplomats travelling to bases in Kuwait and Qatar.
Mideast nations, particularly diplomats from Gulf Arab countries, had lobbied U.S. President Donald Trump not to attack Iran after he threatened to act in response to the killing of demonstrators. Last week, Iran shut its airspace, likely in anticipation of a strike.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been in the South China Sea in recent days, had passed through the Strait of Malacca, a key waterway connecting the sea and Indian Ocean, by Tuesday (January 20, 2026), ship-tracking data showed.
A U.S. Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aircraft carrier and three accompanying destroyers were heading west.
While naval and other defence officials stopped short of saying the carrier strike group was headed to the Middle East, its current heading and location in the Indian Ocean means it is only days away from moving into the region. Meanwhile, U.S. military images released in recent days showed F-15E Strike Eagles arriving in the Mideast and forces in the region moving a HIMARS missile system, the type used with great success by Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in the country in 2022.
A new US President Donald Trump’s audio has reignited fears of a US-Iran clash as American warships head toward the Middle East. While Trump says he hopes force won’t be used, military deployments suggest preparations are underway.
A new audio of US President Donald Trump speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One has triggered fresh global concern, as he openly spoke about a large US military force moving toward Iran.
In the recording, Trump is heard talking about a “big flotilla,” an “armada,” and a “massive force” moving toward Iran. He does not clearly say that the US will carry out a military strike. For now, he has not officially confirmed any decision to attack.
The comments come as US warships and an aircraft carrier strike group are set to arrive in the Middle East, according to US officials cited by Reuters.
What Did President Trump Say?
In the viral audio, Trump is heard saying the US has many ships heading toward Iran, adding that he hopes force will not be used but stressed that Washington is “watching very closely.”
He said the US has a powerful naval presence moving into position and the situation could still change, depending on Iran’s actions. The remarks were made while Trump was flying to Joint Base Andrews.
Israeli outlet N12 reported that the US is expected to complete its military deployment in the Middle East within days. According to the report, once deployment is finished, a potential strike on Iran would become a matter of timing and political decision.
The report also said Israel does not yet know if Trump has made a final call, but believes military action could happen soon. At the same time, Iran is said to be issuing threats while also attempting to open negotiations to buy time.
Why President Trump Halted Strike On Iran?
Tensions between the US and Iran are already high due to ongoing protests inside Iran and alleged mass executions of demonstrators. Just a few days back, Trump recently claimed that Iran’s reported decision to cancel the execution of hundreds of protesters played a key role in his earlier decision not to launch a military strike.
Human rights groups claimed thousands have died since unrest began in late December, though Iranian officials dispute those numbers.
US military assets, including an aircraft carrier strike group, are expected to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days. Trump has warned that future military action remains possible if Iran resumes executions or escalates its crackdown.
ByteDance retains a 19.9 per cent stake in the joint venture – keeping its ownership below the 20 per cent threshold stipulated by the law.
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, finalised a deal on Thursday (Jan 22) to set up a majority American-owned joint venture company to avoid a US ban on the popular social media app used by millions of Americans.
The deal is a milestone for the short video app after years of battles that began in August 2020, when President Donald Trump first tried unsuccessfully to ban the app over national security concerns.
The TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC will serve more than 200 million users and 7.5 million businesses while implementing strict safeguards for data protection, algorithm security and content moderation, the company said.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social account on Thursday, said that TikTok will now be owned by “a group of Great American Patriots and Investors, the Biggest in the World, and will be an important Voice”.
The US president said that he was “so happy to have helped in saving TikTok”.
“I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok.”
ByteDance retains a 19.9 per cent stake in the joint venture – keeping its ownership below the 20 per cent threshold stipulated by the law.
Three investors – Silver Lake, Oracle and Abu Dhabi-based AI investment fund MGX – each hold 15 per cent stakes. Oracle’s executive chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally.
Other investors include Dell Family Office, affiliates of Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic, and several other investment firms.
The joint venture will retain decision-making authority over trust and safety policies and content moderation for US users, while TikTok’s global entities will manage international product integration and commercial activities including e-commerce and advertising.
The joint venture will be governed by a seven-member, majority-American board including TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi and executives from major investment firms.
TikTok executive Adam Presser was appointed CEO of the new entity, with Will Farrell serving as chief security officer.
In his post, Trump also thanked Vice President JD Vance and members of his administration who helped bring the TikTok deal to a “very dramatic, final, and beautiful conclusion”.
Trump also thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for working with the US and “ultimately approving the deal”.
“He could have gone the other way, but didn’t, and is appreciated for his decision.”
The 2024 law came as US policymakers, including Trump in his first presidency, warned that China could use TikTok to mine Americans’ data or exert influence through its algorithm.
But Trump, crediting the app for his appeal with young voters, delayed enforcement through successive executive orders, most recently extending the deadline to Jan 22.
Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/tiktok-bytedance-deal-us-joint-venture-avoid-ban-china-5877811
President Donald Trump sued banking giant JPMorgan Chase and its CEO Jamie Dimon for $5 billion on Thursday over allegations that JPMorgan stopped providing banking services to him and his businesses for political reasons after he left office in January 2021.
The lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade County court in Florida, alleges that JPMorgan abruptly closed multiple accounts in February 2021 with just 60 days notice and no explanation. By doing so, Trump claims JPMorgan and Dimon cut the president and his businesses off from millions of dollars, disrupted their operations and forced Trump and the businesses to urgently open bank accounts elsewhere.
“JPMC debanked (Trump and his businesses) because it believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so,” the lawsuit alleges.
In the lawsuit, Trump alleges he tried to raise the issue personally with Dimon after the bank started to close his accounts, and that Dimon assured Trump he would figure out what was happening. The lawsuit alleges Dimon failed to follow up with Trump. Further, Trump’s lawyers allege that JPMorgan placed the president and his companies on a reputational “blacklist” that both JPMorgan and other banks use to keep clients from opening accounts with them in the future.
In a statement, JPMorgan said it believes the suit has no merit.
Trump threatened to sue JPMorgan Chase last week at a time of heightened tensions between the White House and Wall Street. The president said he wanted to cap interest rates on credit cards at 10% to help lower costs for consumers. Chase is one of the largest issuers of credit cards in the country and a bank official told reporters that it would fight any effort by the White House or Congress to implement a rate cap on credit cards. Bank industry executives have also bristled at Trump’s attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve.
Debanking occurs when a bank closes the accounts of a customer or refuses to do business with a customer in the form of loans or other services. Once a relatively obscure issue in finance, debanking has become a politically charged issue in recent years, with conservative politicians arguing that banks have discriminated against them and their affiliated interests.
Debanking first became a national issue when conservatives accused the Obama administration of pressuring banks to stop extending services to gun stores and payday lenders under “Operation Choke Point.”
Trump and other conservative figures have alleged that banks cut them off from their accounts under the umbrella term of “reputational risk” after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Since Trump came back into office, the president’s banking regulators have moved to stop any banks from using “reputational risk” as a reason for denying service to customers.
“JPMC’s conduct … is a key indicator of a systemic, subversive industry practice that aims to coerce the public to shift and re-align their political views,” Trumps lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/trump-jpmorgan-debanking-jamie-dimon-a976813384a942e5152f17659fdebd16
The Kurdish people are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world without their own country. Many are native to the region where four countries — Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey — meet and share languages and culture.
Syrian transitional government troops and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had been fighting for weeks in northern Syria. On Tuesday evening, the announcement of a four-day ceasefire restored a measure of calm.
SDF fighters were close allies of the international coalition battling the extremist “Islamic State,” or IS, group in Syria and managed to take control of strategically important areas in Syria during 14 years of civil war. Recent clashes with Syrian government troops has pushed them out of these areas.
The Syrian government accuses the SDF of disregarding a March 2025 agreement which required all Kurdish civilian and military institutions to be merged into the administration of the Syrian state and army by the end of 2025 — a plan that was never implemented. The Kurdish leadership, in turn, accuses the Syrian government of ignoring the rights of ethnic and religious minorities as it reorganizes the country after civil war.
These latest developments turn the global spotlight back onto a centuries-old issue: The fate of the Kurds, a community of over 30 million people without an independent state of their own, in one of the world’s most volatile regions.
A people without a homeland
Some 30 to 35 million Kurds live around the world. But they are not a homogenous group. Different dialects are spoken in Kurdish regions. Religiously the Kurds also vary. While the majority belong to Sunni Islam, significant Alevi, Yazidi, Shiite and Christian communities also exist.
Historically, the Kurds lived in the area between Mesopotamia’s Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Yet after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the end the World War I, France and Britain split up what would have been a Kurdish homeland. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne divided the area into four states: today’s Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran — thereby shattering the dream of an independent Kurdish state, as promised in the earlier Treaty of Sevres.
Today Europe is home to the largest Kurdish diaspora outside the Middle East, with Germany hosting the most Kurds.
Syria: Language bans, statelessness
After the partition of their homeland, many Kurdish tribes occupied areas in Syria along the Turkish border, until the Syrian government launched an Arabization campaign in the 1960s.
A 1962 census led to around 120,000 Kurds losing their Syrian citizenship. They were declared stateless and deprived of their right to property and ownership. Thousands were deported to the desert, with Arab tribes deliberately resettled in their ancestral homelands.
In the decades that followed, the Kurds experienced even further oppression, with bans on their languages, books and Kurdish names.
Today around 2.5 million Kurds live in Syria, making up around 10% of the total population.
During the Syrian civil war and the rise of the IS group in 2014 and 2015, a Kurdish paramilitary, the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, became a US ally in the fight against the IS group. It was during this period that the SDF created a self-run region in northeast Syria. The SDF maintains close ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
Turkey: Repression, armed struggle
Some 15 to 18 million Kurds live in Turkey. Yet for many decades, the country did not recognize them as a distinct ethnic group and minority. Until a few years ago the use of Kurdish language and Kurdish first names were banned.
In 1984, the PKK— designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union — began an armed struggle against the Turkish state. Its initial aim was the creation of an independent Kurdish state although the PKK eventually pivoted to demanding Kurdish rights instead. In May 2025, the PKK announced its dissolution following a public appeal by its leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999 after being convicted of treason.
Although a fresh attempt was made to start a peace process in Turkey, with the PKK signaling its willingness to disarm, talks have come to a standstill.
The Kurds want the release of imprisoned Kurdish politicians, an end to the Turkish administration of Kurdish cities, and a review of PKK founder Ocalan’s prison conditions.
The Turkish government has been accused of supporting fighters in Syria who deliberately target Syria’s Kurdish areas.
Iraq: Persecution and autonomy
The history of the 7 to 8 million Kurds in Iraq is one marked by suffering. But they are also the Kurds who have come closest to a homeland.
Under Saddam Hussein, the Kurds were subject to brutality. In March 1988 Hussein attacked the Kurdish city of Halabja with chemical weapons, killing at least 5,000 people, mostly civilians.
After the second Gulf War, the victorious US-led coalition enforced a no-fly zone over Iraq, allowing the Kurds to set up their own government in what would become a semi-autonomous region.
Since 2005, the Iraqi constitution has officially recognized this region. Politics in Iraqi Kurdistan are dominated by two families, the Barzanis and Talabanis and their respective political parties.
Source: https://www.dw.com/en/kurds-in-the-middle-east-struggle-for-a-homeland/a-75612377
The dollar was higher, gold softer and stocks on the rebound on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump dropped tariff threats and ruled out seizing Greenland from an ally by force.
Trump’s theatrics and consequent tensions have kept markets on edge this week, prompting investors to take the latest developments with a pinch of salt even as relief was palpable.
“I won’t do that,” the U.S. President said at Davos of an attack to secure Greenland.
“Okay? Now everyone’s saying ‘oh, good’ that’s probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force, I don’t want to use force, I won’t use force.”
He added on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. and NATO had a framework for a deal and that he would not impose tariffs.
European futures were 1.2% higher in the Asia afternoon and FTSE futures rose 0.75%. On Wall Street the S&P 500 (.SPX), had notched a 1.16% rise, its largest in two months, and futures were 0.3% higher through Asian trade.
A bouncing dollar has pushed the euro back under $1.17, to $1.1686, and gold has dropped about $100 an ounce to $4,790 from a record high of $4,887.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS), rose around 1% and chipmaker gains in Seoul carried the KOSPI (.KS11), above 5,000 points for the first time.
“The TACO, as they call it, is certainly real,” said Damian Rooney, director of institutional sales at Argonaut, a resources-focused broker in Perth, referring to a Wall Street acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out”.
Trump said after meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that Western Arctic allies could forge a new deal over Greenland that would satisfy his desire for a missile defence system and access to critical minerals.
There were no details. Rutte later told Fox News the issue of whether Greenland will remain with Denmark did not come up in his conversation with Trump, unsurprising since Rutte is not in charge of either Denmark or Greenland.
And investors were wary of completely unwinding some of the haven bets made this week.
“Our mood here is it’s been fabulous fun being a gold bull for the last year and a half,” said Argonaut’s Rooney, “and with gold you never throw the baby out with the bathwater because (Trump) can’t help himself doing or saying some crazy things, whether he’s going to carry through or not.”
The VIX index (.VIX), nicknamed Wall Street’s fear gauge, sharply fell back towards baseline levels and U.S. Treasuries, which had been sold through the week, caught a bid.
“The market has largely removed the tail risk of a U.S. confrontation with its NATO partners – not that conflict was ever truly priced into the distribution, but some would have hedged against the risk,” said Pepperstone analyst Chris Weston.
Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-markets-wrapup-1-pix-2026-01-22/
U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly stepped back on Wednesday from threats to impose tariffs as leverage to seize Greenland, ruled out the use of force and suggested a deal was in sight to end a dispute over the Danish territory that risked the deepest rupture in transatlantic relations in decades.
Traveling in Davos, Switzerland, Trump backed down, for now, from weeks of rhetoric that shook the NATO alliance and risked a new global trade war. Trump had threatened at the weekend to impose rising tariffs on eight European countries’ U.S.-bound exports.
But after meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the Swiss Alpine resort, Trump said Western Arctic allies could forge a new deal over the strategic island territory of 57,000 people that satisfies his desire for a “Golden Dome” missile‑defense system and access to critical minerals while blocking Russia and China’s ambitions in the Arctic.
“It’s a deal that everybody’s very happy with,” Trump told reporters. “It’s a long-term deal. It’s the ultimate long-term deal. It puts everybody in a really good position, especially as it pertains to security and to minerals.”
“It’s a deal that’s forever,” he added
Rutte later said the issue of whether Greenland will remain with Denmark did not come up in his talks with Trump.
“That issue did not come up anymore in my conversations tonight with the president,” Rutte said in an interview on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” show.
“He (Trump) is very much focused on what do we need to do to make sure that that huge Arctic region – where change is taking place at the moment, where the Chinese and the Russians are more and more active – how we can protect it.”
Trump earlier in the day had delivered more than an hour of scolding and dismissive threats aimed at countries already unnerved by his push to seize territory from a longtime U.S. NATO ally.
European diplomats said the president’s sudden shift in tone doesn’t resolve the dispute but helps defuse an open rift between allies as they work to sort out their differences in private.
It remained unclear what kind of agreement could meet Trump’s demands for outright “ownership” of a territory that its residents and leaders have said is not for sale.
“Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold – economically or militarily – in Greenland,” a NATO spokesperson said.
No date or venue was provided for such negotiations. Trump said he had tasked Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and envoy Steve Witkoff to take part in further discussions.
“What happens in Greenland is of absolutely no consequence to us,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin, quoted by Russian news agencies speaking to the country’s National Security Council.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. and NATO had “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,” and that “based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st.”
It was the latest in a series of reversals of major policies or threats by Trump ahead of deadlines he has imposed during his second term in office.
Denmark said the issue should be handled through private diplomacy rather than on social media.
“What is crucial for us is that we get to end this with respect for the integrity and sovereignty of the kingdom (of Denmark) and the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination,” Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told public broadcaster DR.
Rasmussen said he had spoken with Rutte but declined to provide details on what had been agreed.
Greenland’s government did not reply to a request for comment.
Earlier in the day, the Republican U.S. president acknowledged financial markets’ discomfort with his threats and ruled out force in a speech to global elites at the World Economic Forum annual meeting.
“People thought I would use force, but I don’t have to use force,” Trump said. “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
The change in posture sparked buying on Wall Street. The S&P 500 (.SPX), index posted its biggest one-day percentage gain in two months, adding 1.16% for the day. Trump’s more hawkish comments on Greenland on Tuesday helped deliver the sharpest equities selloff in three months.
US President Donald Trump raised eyebrows after claiming at Davos that the US effectively controlled Greenland during World War II and was “stupid” to return it to Denmark, calling Denmark “ungrateful.” He argued that only the US can defend the island.
President Donald Trump used his address at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2026 in Davos, Switzerland, to revive his long-running push for the United States to acquire Greenland from Denmark, invoking World War II history to justify his claims. During the speech, Trump argued that the US had effectively controlled Greenland during the Second World War and was “stupid” to return it afterward.
“After the war, we gave Greenland back to Denmark. How stupid were we to do that? But we did it. But we gave it back. But how ungrateful are they now?” he said.
Trump sharply criticised Denmark, branding it “ungrateful” and claiming it was unable to defend either itself or Greenland during WWII. He pointed out that Denmark fell to Nazi Germany within six hours and argued that US intervention was decisive for Europe’s survival.
“Without us, you’d be speaking German and Japanese perhaps,” he told the audience.
He also claimed the US had effectively “already had” Greenland as a trustee after defeating the Axis powers, stating that American forces defended the island and prevented enemies from taking it.
“We literally set up bases in Greenland for Denmark, we were fighting for Denmark, but we saved Greenland and prevented our enemies from getting it,” Trump said, calling Greenland “a vast, almost uninhabited piece of ice” in a “key, strategic location between the US, China, and Russia.”
A fact check of Trump’s claims shows that while the US did establish military bases in Greenland under a 1941 security agreement signed by Denmark’s ambassador to Washington, Henrik Kauffmann, the United States never held legal ownership or title to the territory.
Despite this, Trump insisted that Greenland’s security can only be guaranteed by Washington. “I have tremendous respect for the people of Greenland and Denmark, but every NATO member has the obligation to defend their own territory. Only the US can defend it [Greenland],” he said.
Doubling down on his position, Trump argued that Greenland is effectively part of North America and essential to US and international security. “We need it [Greenland] for strategic national security and international security. The island is part of North America, it is our territory. It is the US alone that can protect this great piece of ice and make it that it is safe and good for Europe,” he added.
Trump concluded by saying he was seeking talks over acquiring the territory, framing the move as consistent with historical precedent. “I am seeking immediate negotiations to discuss the acquisition of this territory, just as we have acquired many other territories throughout our history, as many of the European nations have,” he said, claiming such a move would not threaten NATO but would “greatly enhance the security of the alliance.”
Cruz Beckham “liked” a video poking fun of Victoria’s alleged “inappropriate” dancing at brother Brooklyn’s wedding.
Page Six can confirm that Cruz, 20, gave the throwback video — which features Victoria seductively dancing onstage to her 2001 track “I’m Not Such An Innocent Girl” — a “thumbs up” after gossip social media site Culture Enquirer reposted it on Tuesday.
In the video, Victoria’s energetic choreography included swinging her hips, shimmying, and caressing her thighs and backside while belting out the lyrics to the suggestive track.
She donned a black leather halter top and matching low-rise pants for the performance, which included a bevy of similarly clad backup dancers.
The reposted meme included the caption, “the wedding video in question” — referencing Brooklyn’s recent public accusation that his mother “hijacked” his first dance with wife Nicola and “danced very inappropriately” on him.
“In front of our 500 wedding guests, Marc Anthony called me to the stage, where in the schedule was planned to be my romantic dance with my wife but instead my mum was waiting to dance with me,” he wrote in a lengthy social media statement on his family on Monday — confirming Page Six’s previous reporting on the alleged “jaw-dropping” moment.
Brooklyn, 26, added in his statement, “She danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life.”
Two sources confirmed the existence of video footage of “Victoria dancing inappropriately with Brooklyn at his wedding” to Page Six on Tuesday, though Brooklyn and Peltz own and reportedly do not plan to release it.
Reps for Cruz, Brooklyn, and Victoria Beckham did not immediately return Page Six’s request for comment.
In any case, fans in the comments thread immediately picked up on the “like” from David and Victoria Beckham’s youngest son.
“@cruzbeckham liked this?
” one person wrote, while another added, “GUYS CRUZ LIKED IT 
”
Others expressed their amusement. “I would love for her to dance at my wedding!” one person gushed, while another joked, “Was it that inappropriate @brooklynpeltzbeckham ? ”
From the outside, the vacant shop on the corner of a busy avenue in central Sydney looks abandoned. Plastic sheeting is taped across all the windows and there’s a large padlock hanging on the door handle.
Step inside, though, and you’re greeted by cuddly toys, candles, trinkets and messages of hope scribbled on large sheets.
All of them come from a makeshift memorial that was created after the 14 December attack at Bondi Beach that killed 15 people.
So when the Sydney Jewish Museum and the Australian Jewish Historical Society heard that the memorial would be removed by the local council, they sprang into action to ensure everything contained within it could live on.
Many of the items now live in neat squares made out of masking tape on the shop floor.
One says “bees” – within it are dozens of knitted and cuddly insects – a nod to 10-year-old Matilda Bee, the youngest victim of the attack.
Another has a heap of deflated foil balloons – again, mostly bees.
There’s also a box of stones – Jewish mourners traditionally place a stone on a grave instead of flowers – as well as flags, books, Christmas decorations and even a Barbie cracker.
Some families who were unable to go to any of the vigils in Bondi have also paid a visit to the spaces housing the tributes.
“It was too overwhelming to be in Bondi, but in this space it was very quiet. And I think to see everything laid out and the amount, they found it really moving and meaningful,” said Shannon Biederman, the senior curator at the Sydney Jewish Museum.
Families also came to the flower space and were given flower pressing to do, while artists and community members joined in too.
For Shannon, memorialising the items is a deeply personal task.
Her family were regular attendees of Chanukah by the Sea – the festival targeted by the alleged gunmen. They had bought tickets to go but at the last minute, they changed their mind.
They also knew the family of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, one of the 15 victims.
“I do work in a Holocaust museum, so the murder of Jews isn’t something that I’m not used to, and I’ve learned to compartmentalise,” she says.
“But it’s different because I’m used to working with history and this is now, and we are a museum of memory, but we’re still very much live in [this].
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was among the first to lay a bouquet in front of the Bondi Pavilion the morning after the attack. Over the course of a week, the tributes spread like a wave across the forecourt.
The massacre at Bondi was Australia’s worst mass shooting in nearly three decades and left the country reeling. It also saw people pointing the blame at the government for letting something like this happen to a community that had been repeatedly warning authorities about a rise in antisemitism in recent years.
But the conversation is now trying to focus on bringing people together – a sentiment the community wants to see continued in a permanent memorial to the dead.
On Thursday, landmarks across the country will also be lit up and a minute’s silence held in honour of the victims. Australians are also being asked to perform a mitzvah – an everyday act of kindness such as checking in on a neighbour or a donation – a Jewish tradition and a way to bring people together after last month’s attack.
How the memorial will live on is still unclear – several artists have come forward, keen to work with some of the material but a committee will make the final decisions.
And while the toys and trinkets were catalogued – there was the greater challenge of dealing with the flowers that had been left behind.
Volunteers helped to preserve the three tonnes of bouquets and wreaths that were loaded into black bags and taken to a separate warehouse in North Sydney.
The process was confronting, says Nina Sanadze, a Jewish artist from Melbourne, whose idea it was to save all the flowers and oversaw the operation.
“When they brought them here, they looked like 100 bodies,” Nina says. “It was shocking again.”
Once at the warehouse, dozens of volunteers began the slow process of hanging them up on metal fences that had also been sourced in haste.
They also had to wear masks to protect themselves from the large amount of pollen circulating.
Shannon also feared that the sheer quantity of flowers and the gases they were emitting could create a compost fire, so volunteers had to monitor temperatures carefully and brought in fans.
“The smell and the moisture here in the warehouse was overwhelming,” says Nina. “It was like being inside a perfume shop.”
Meanwhile the flowers kept on coming.
“After the council made decision to clean up this big collection of flowers, people continued to bring them,” explains Nina. “We had volunteers to go at night and collect them otherwise they’d get thrown away.”
The stalks have been saved for compost – which Nina says she’s considering turned into some kind of furniture.
Some of the rose buds had also started to rot, but she’s dried them out and made a resin artwork scattered with the salvageable petals.
“There’s a lot of decay and sadness as well as beauty,” she says of her improvised creation. “[It] takes it straight into the storytelling of what happened – it’s not a thing of perfect beauty but it’s a story, it’s a heartbreak and love all together.”
Though a heavy task, for many of the volunteers, helping preserve the mountain of tributes left at the site is a form of therapy.
And while the concept for the memorial is still germinating, Nina has already pinned down the title.
“Petal by Petal,” she says confidently. It speaks to the way volunteers have had to methodically go about preserving the material, and symbolises her own slow processing of the attack.
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70l9531pd1o
Seven countries including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt say they will join US president Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, according to a joint statement.
They will join Israel, which also publicly confirmed its participation earlier.
On Wednesday evening Trump said Vladimir Putin had also agreed to join – but the Russian president said his country was still studying the invitation.
The board was originally thought to be aimed at helping end the two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and oversee reconstruction. But its proposed charter does not mention the Palestinian territory and appears to be designed to supplant functions of the UN.
However Saudi Arabia said that the group of Muslim-majority countries – Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Qatar – endorsed the aim of consolidating a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, supporting reconstruction and advancing what they described as a “just and lasting peace”.
At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump told reporters that Putin had accepted his invitation to join. “He was invited, he’s accepted. Many people have accepted,” Trump said.
Putin responded quickly, saying the invitation was under consideration, Reuters reported. He said Russia was prepared to provide $1bn from frozen Russian assets and that he viewed the board as primarily relevant to the Middle East.
It is not clear how many countries have been invited to join Trump’s new body – Canada and the UK are among them, but have not yet publicly responded. The UAE, Bahrain, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Vietnam have already signed up.
On Wednesday the Vatican also confirmed Pope Leo has received an invitation. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the Pope would need time to consider whether to take part.
However Slovenia’s Prime Minister Robert Golob said he had declined the invitation because the body “dangerously interferes with the broader international order”.
A leaked document says the Board of Peace’s charter will enter into force once three states formally agree to be bound by it, with member states given renewable three-year terms and permanent seats available to those contributing $1bn (£740m), it said.
The charter declared the body as an international organisation mandated to carry out peace-building functions under international law, with Trump serving as chairman – and separately as the US representative – and holding authority to appoint executive board members and create or dissolve subsidiary bodies.
Last Friday, the White House named seven members of the founding Executive Board, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former UK prime minister Tony Blair.
Former UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov was appointed as the board’s representative in Gaza during a second phase of the plan, which includes reconstruction and demilitarisation, with the board authorised by a UN Security Council resolution running until the end of 2027.
On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office said the Gaza Executive Board’s composition “was not coordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy”.
Israeli media said the decision to include representatives of Turkey and Qatar – which both helped broker the ceasefire that took effect in October, along with Egypt and the US – had happened “over Israel’s head”.
Under phase one of the peace plan, Hamas and Israel agreed to the ceasefire, an exchange of living and dead Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and a surge in deliveries of humanitarian aid.
Israel has said it can only move into the second phase after Hamas hands over the body of the last dead hostage.
Phase two faces major challenges, with Hamas having previously refused to give up its weapons without the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and Israel having not committed to fully withdrawing from Gaza.
US President Donald Trump called off looming tariffs on European countries over Greenland after he said he reached a “framework of a future deal” over the island during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
President Donald Trump delivered remarks to government officials and business elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
He made headlines when he said he would not use military force to acquire Greenland but laid out an argument to have the US have control over the Danish territory, saying US ownership would “strengthen” the NATO alliance.
Europe later said it was going to suspend the approval of a trade deal reached with Trump last year in July.
Hours after that, Trump said he was scrapping tariffs he threatened to impose on eight European countries, including Denmark and Germany, over their support for Greenland’s status to continue to be a part of the Danish Kingdom.
Trump said he was backing down after having a conversation with NATO Secretary- General Mark Rutte and that the pair had “formed the framework of a future deal” with respect to Greenland.
European leaders have reacted to the news of an emergent deal over the future of Greenland, but there’s sure to be more on the EU-US trade deal later this morning.
Here are some more reactions from Europe:
“The day is ending better than it began,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told Danish radio.
“I’m taking two things away from Davos: that Trump says he won’t attack Greenland … and that the tariff war is on standby. That’s positive.”
He posted on X that leaders still needed to “sit down and find out how we can address the American security concerns in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark.”
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she “welcomed” the suspension of tariffs scheduled for February 1.
But in a post on X, she stressed that it is “essential to continue fostering dialogue between allied nations.”
But Germany’s finance minister warned against premature optimism over the Greenland deal.
“It’s good that they [the US and NATO] are engaged in dialogue,” Lars Klingbeil said in an interview with Germany’s ZDF television.
“But we have to wait a bit and not get our hopes up too soon,” Klingbeil said.
It was important that Europe “made it clear that these are the sovereign interests of Greenland and also Denmark,” Klingbeil said. “There is state integrity and sovereignty, and that will not be shifted.”
US President Donald Trump said the broad outlines of the Greenland agreement were in place, without providing further details, but when asked about whether the US would own the island, Trump said the matter was somewhat complex.
“It’ll be forever for Greenland at this point, forever,” Trump said about the agreement.
He said the agreement would address security issues, as he has argued that the US must own Greenland for national security reasons amid concerns about threats from China and Russia.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof welcomed Donald Trump’s move to cancel threatened tariffs against European allies as a sign of “de-escalation.”
“It is positive that we are now on the path to de-escalation and that the 10-percent import tariffs are off the table,” Schoof wrote on X.
“Now it is important that the US, Canada and Europe continue to work together within NATO to strengthen security in the Arctic region and counter threats from Russia and China,” he added.
NATO spokeswoman Allison Hart said the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, had held “very productive” talks with Donald Trump on security in the Arctic region.
“Discussions among NATO Allies on the framework the president referenced will focus on ensuring Arctic security through the collective efforts of Allies, especially the seven Arctic Allies,” Hart said.
“Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold — economically or militarily — in Greenland,” she added.
Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen welcomed US President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US no longer plans to impose tariffs on European nations.
Ramussen said the day ended better than it started, seeing it as a positive sign that Trump has ended the brief trade war over Greenland.
Denmark’s top diplomat said it was a good signal that Trump won’t use force, but warned that the US president has “an ambition we can’t accomodate.”
In statements made after the post on his Truth Social network, Trump said the agreement on Greenland “gets everything we wanted,” that it is a deal “everyone is happy with,” and that he hopes the deal will “last forever.”
“It’s a deal that people jumped at, really fantastic for the USA, gets everything we wanted, including especially real national security and international security,” he said.
He added that additional details on the framework agreement would be announced later.
“Its a little bit complex,” Trump said, adding it will be explained “down the line.”
President Donald Trump said he is dropping his tariff threat on several European nations after agreeing with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on a “framework of a future deal” involving Greenland and the wider Arctic region.
The step-down comes days after Trump threatened to impose a 10% import tariff on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland until “a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland.”
On Wednesday, he wrote on Truth Social: “I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February.”
The move could ease tensions with NATO partners, though questions remain about what the Arctic deal actually includes.
Europe has been steadfast in saying Greenland is not for sale and cannot be wrested from Denmark.
Speaking at WEF earlier, Trump also ruled out using force to acquire the island from Denmark, calling instead for immediate negotiations.
Trump argues Greenland is vital for US and NATO security against Russia and China.
US President Donald Trump said he and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte “have formed the framework of a future deal” concerning Greenland.
The two met during the World Economic Forum.
Trump added that he would not impose tariffs on key European allies, including Germany, despite their opposition to his plan for the US to take control of Greenland.
“This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations,” he wrote on his Truth Social.
Greenland’s government issued new emergency preparedness guidelines for the general public on Wednesday as the vast, sparsely inhabited island suddenly monopolizes global attention.
Peter Borg, minister for fisheries, hunting, agriculture and self-sufficiency, said in a press conference in Nuuk that the document was only meant as “an insurance policy.”
“We don’t expect to have to use it,” Borg said.
According to Greenland residents online, the brochure provides advice about household preparedness in the difficult terrain and climate.
As examples, it advises citizens to ensure they have ample quantities of water, non-perishable foods, and an alternative heat source for cooking without electricity, essential medication, a first-aid kit and several days’ worth of hygiene supplies.
The European Parliament has suspended its work on the EU’s trade deal with the US brokered with the Trump administration last summer in protest at the demands to acquire Greenland and the accompanying threats of fresh tariffs.
The EU assembly has been debating various components of the agreement struck in Turnberry, Scotland, and its trade committee had been scheduled to vote on them next week.
However, the committee’s chairman, Bernd Lange, said on Wednesday that the process and the votes had been postponed.
“Given the continued and escalating threats, including tariff threats, against Greenland and Denmark, and their European allies, we have been left with no alternative but to suspend work on the two Turnberry legislative proposals until the US decides to re-engage on a path of cooperation rather than confrontation, and before any further steps are taken,” Lange said.
Lange said that by threatening the territorial integrity and sovereignty of EU member Denmark, and using tariffs as a coercive instrument, “the US is undermining the stability and predictability of EU-US trade relations.”
Despite various reservations about the deal being lopsided, with the EU required to cut most import duties while the US sticks to a broad rate of 15%, lawmakers had previously indicated a willingness to accept the agreement with caveats.
EU trade deals need approval from the European Parliament, often one of the hardest and most divided chambers for it to clear, as well as from individual member states.
The complexity of this was also on show on Wednesday as the European Parliament voted for a legal check of the recently-signed deal with four Mercosur countries in Latin America.
US President Donald Trump claims he “won’t use force” to take over Greenland and called for “immediate negotiations” to discuss the “acquisition” of the Arctic territory by the United States.
“This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America,” Trump said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, referring to the Danish territory’s geographical location off the northeastern coast of Canada.
“That’s our territory,” he continued.
“The fact is, no nation or group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States,” Trump said. “We’re a great power, much greater than people even understand. I think they found that out two weeks ago in Venezuela.”
The US president also responded to a speech by Mark Carney on Tuesday in which the Canadian Prime Minister called for “middle powers” to “act together” amid geopolitical developments he described as a “rupture.”
Trump claimed that Canada gets many “freebies” from the US and “should be grateful.”
“Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump said. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted on Wednesday that the United Kingdom would not give in to pressure from US President Donald Trump over the future of the autonomous Danish territory Greenland.
“I will not yield, Britain will not yield on our principles and values about the future of Greenland under threats of tariffs,” he told lawmakers in Parliament, adding he would host Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in London on Thursday.
Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on Britain and other European countries for opposing his claims on Greenland.
“The future of Greenland is a binary issue that is splitting the world at the moment, with material consequences,” Starmer said. “I’ve been clear and consistent in my position on the future of Greenland: the future is for Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone.”
Danish veterans who served alongside US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq say they feel “betrayed” by Washington’s threats to seize Greenland — the Arctic territory which belongs to Denmark.
Following the September 11, 2021, attacks, Denmark contributed up to 750 troops to the US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Out of that number, 44 were killed — the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces.
A further eight Danish soldiers were killed fighting alongside US forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2007.
The AP news agency spoke to two Danish veterans who said they understand Arctic security concerns but believe Denmark is committed to defending the region within NATO.
“When America needed us after 9/11 we were there,” said Martin Tamm Andersen, 46, a former Danish platoon commander whose vehicle struck an improvised explosive device (IED) in southern Afghanistan in 2010.
“As a veteran and as a Dane, you feel sad and very surprised that the US wants to take over part of the Kingdom of Denmark,” he said. “It’s a betrayal of the loyalty of our nation to the US and to our common alliance, NATO.”
Fellow Danish veteran Soren Knudsen also said that the US takeover of Greenland would mark “the final moment of my admiration and love of what has been the American experiment for 250 years.”
“I would be very sorry if it happened, because I would also see this as the final moments of the NATO alliance,” Knudsen said.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/trump-greenland-agreement-a-deal-everyone-is-happy-with/live-75588065
The US thanked Iraq for its cooperation to transfer up to 7,000 prisoners out of Syria, after the Kurdish-led SDF lost control over the territory where the prisoner camps were held.
Islamic State (IS) detainees who were being held in northeastern Syria will be transferred to secure facilities in Iraq, the US army said on Wednesday.
The US Central Command said in a statement that the operation to transfer the detainees had begun, with 150 IS fighters already on their way to Iraq.
“We are closely coordinating with regional partners, including the Iraqi government, and we sincerely appreciate their role in ensuring the enduring defeat of ISIS,” said CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper.
“Facilitating the orderly and secure transfer of ISIS detainees is critical to preventing a breakout that would pose a direct threat to the United States and regional security,” he added.
The CENTCOM statement said that up to 7,000 prisoners could be transferred to Iraq.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry said the transfer of the detainees represented “an important step to strengthen security and stability.”
Syrian government forces entered areas of northeastern Syria over the weekend, in a move to expand its territorial control over the country, driving away Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters who held the territory.
IS fighters and their families were being held in prisoner camps overseen by the SDF, but as the Syrian army advance, the SDF said it had to abandon their post at northeastern al-Hol camp, holding mostly women and children, and al-Aqtan prison for IS fighters.
At al-Hol, some 24,000 were still being held when the SDF retreated.
The IS group was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and two years later, it was defeated in Syria. The threat was not eliminated entirely; the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
According to an Iraqi intelligence general, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, the IS members who will be transferred to Iraq are of different nationalities.
He added that they included fighters from Tunisia, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan and some Syrians, among others.
The general told AP that the fighters are expected to be interrogated and then put on trial in Iraq.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/us-begins-transfer-of-is-fighters-from-syria-to-iraq/a-75598783
Rock climber Alex Honnold plans to scale the facade of what was once the world’s tallest building — live on Netflix. But not all are impressed by the idea.
“It should be within my comfort zone,” Alex Honnold said in on a recent edition of The Jay Shetty podcast. “So it’s not so much about ‘what if I die?'”
The 40-year-old American is one of the world’s best climbers, specifically rock and vertical climbing. Weather permitting, Honnold will be venturing onto unfamiliar terrain in Taiwan on Saturday morning (January 24), local time. He intends to climb the facade of the Taipei 101 skyscraper “free solo,” meaning alone and without any safety equipment.
Netflix, the world’s largest streaming service with more than 300 million subscribers, is planning to broadcast Honnold’s ascent live. In the trailer for the broadcast, Netflix plays on the life-threatening nature of the event.
“I think I’ve gotten used to fear over the years. It’s an ever-present part of climbing,” Honnold says in the trailer.
“No matter how much you prepare, occasionally things just happen. If you fall, you’re gonna die.”
The event is not without its critics, including Claudia Paganini, philosopher and theologian who lectures at the University of Innsbruck. One of her main areas of research is media ethics.
Paganini told DW that Netflix would be crossing a line with the broadcast, because of “the very concept and voyeuristic dynamics” that it promotes.
“I consider the live broadcast of a high-risk, potentially fatal event problematic because the media are no longer just documenting, commenting on, and contextualizing it, but are actively co-producing the event as a spectacle,” Paganini said.
She added that the risk is being deliberately used to increase attention and reach – and financial gain. Therefore, the responsibility “no longer lies primarily with the athlete, but with the media disseminating the information.”
Furthermore, Paganini warns that the live broadcast of Honnold’s ascent is “likely to normalize risky behavior and encourage imitation, even if one emphasizes that an exceptional athlete is involved.
“Therefore, the planned project must also be viewed very critically from the perspective of child and youth protection.”
Throughout his climbing career, Honnold has frequently walked a tightrope between life and death.
In 2017, he became the first person to climb the 900-meter-high granite wall of the legendary El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in the United States, without a rope. He completed the extremely challenging “Freerider” route in just four hours. The route had been first climbed in 1995 by Germany’s Alexander Huber.
The documentary “Free Solo” about Honnold’s ascent won an Oscar in 2019 and reached millions of viewers in cinemas and later via streaming services.
The film thrived on the thrill that the spectacular images from the wall triggered in viewers. But unlike the upcoming live broadcast from Taiwan, those viewers already knew that the climb had ended well.
The climbing community appears not to be as excited about the event as one might think.
“The ascent of Taipei 101 won’t provide any new insights into climbing, so from that perspective, the stunt isn’t relevant for us as climbers,” Alexander Huber told DW.
“But of course, it will reach a very wide audience via Netflix, and Alex is certainly entitled to do it.”
Since his 2017 feat on El Capitan, Honnold has been among the top earners in the climbing world. The climber puts a third of his earnings into his own foundation. The Honnold Foundation supports private solar energy initiatives worldwide. How much Netflix is paying the climber for his latest project has not been disclosed.
Taipei 101 – the number indicates the number of floors – was completed in 2004 and, at 508 meters, was then the tallest building in the world. Three years later, it was surpassed by the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
The landmark of Taiwan’s capital city is reminiscent of a Chinese pagoda in its shape. Eight identically shaped blocks rise above a trapezoidal first section, overhanging upwards. The uppermost, narrower section of the building is crowned by an antenna array. The facade is made primarily of glass and aluminum.
It’s not the first time someone has climbed the building. French free climber Alain Robert did it on Christmas Day 2004. Contrary to his usual practice, the “French Spiderman,” as he calls himself, was secured with a rope from above during his climb.
The Taiwanese government had hired him for this stunt to promote the then-new skyscraper. Over his career, Robert has scaled around 200 buildings worldwide via their facades, mostly free solo. While the Tapei climb was government approved, most were not and by his own account, Robert has been arrested more than 170 times for climbing buildings.
“The most important thing about Taipei 101 is not to lose concentration,” the now 63-year-old told Climbing magazine.
“What makes it complicated is to repeat the same move over and over again. But otherwise, you just take it one move at a time.”
After each of the eight blocks, Honnold can rest on a wide ledge before continuing his climb, Robert said.
“I’m sure he’ll do it very easily.”
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/free-solo-climb-on-netflix-if-you-fall-youre-gonna-die/a-75580558
A friend of Barron Trump told a UK court he saved her life when he dialed police after seeing her being attacked by her ex-boyfriend on a FaceTime call.
The woman reached out to Trump in the midst of a violent dust-up with her former beau Matvei Rumianstev, 22, who allegedly started battering her because he was jealous of her friendship with the president’s son, Metro UK reports.
Trump, 19, who was in the US at the time, quickly called for help, telling emergency operators, “I just got a call from a girl I know. She’s getting beaten up.”
After giving her address, he urged them to hurry to the scene.
“It’s really an emergency, please. I got a call from her with a guy beating her up.”
A landslide smashed into a campsite in rain-swept northern New Zealand on Thursday (Jan 22), leaving multiple people missing, police and rescuers said.
Mud had buried and crushed a shower block at the campsite, which lies at the foot of extinct volcano Mount Maunganui, video and photo images on local media showed.
Voices had been heard from beneath the rubble, emergency officials said.
“Whilst the land’s still moving there, they’re in a rescue mission,” Assistant Police Commissioner Tim Anderson told reporters at the scene.
“I can’t be drawn on numbers. What I can say is that it is single figures.”
The landslip hit several campervans and the shower block at the camp, which lies on the North Island in an area lashed by heavy overnight rain.
“I turned around, and I could see the land coming down onto some structures,” Nix Jaques, who was about to walk up the mountain, told public radio RNZ.
“There were some vehicles that were moved. It came down on an ablutions block. I believe there were some people in the showers. And it shifted a campervan,” she said.
The woman reportedly spoke to a couple who were missing a child in the disaster.
People at the campsite had instantly tried to dig into the rubble and heard voices, Fire and Emergency commander William Pike told reporters.
“Our initial fire crew arrived and were able to hear the same,” he said.
But rescuers soon withdrew everyone from the site because of the risk of dangerous earth movements, the fire commander said.
Asked if voices had been heard since then, he said: “Not that I know of, no.”
Hiker Mark Tangney saw people fleeing the camp and ran to help, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Handprints on cave walls in a largely unexplored area of Indonesia may be the oldest rock art studied so far, dating back to at least 67,800 years ago.
The tan-colored prints analysed by Indonesian and Australian researchers on the island of Sulawesi were made by blowing pigment over hands placed against the cave walls, leaving an outline. Some of the fingertips were also tweaked to look more pointed.
This prehistoric art form suggests the Indonesian island was home to a flourishing artistic culture. To figure out how old the paintings were, researchers dated mineral crusts that had formed on top of the art.
Upon seeing the new study, independent paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger said she “let out a little squeal of joy”.
“It fits everything I’d been thinking,” she said.
Indonesia is known to host some of the world’s earliest cave drawings, and scientists have analysed countless examples of ancient art across the globe – including simple marks on bones and stones that go back hundreds of thousands of years. Cross-hatched markings on a piece of rock in South Africa have been dated to about 73,000 years ago.
The new art from southeastern Sulawesi is the oldest to be found on cave walls. The stencils also represent a more complex tradition of rock art that could have been a shared cultural practice, said study author Maxime Aubert with Griffith University, who published the study on Wednesday (Jan 21) in the journal Nature.
Scientists are eager to understand when early humans learned to make art, moving from dots and lines to more meaningful representations of themselves and the world around them. These cave drawings help firm up a timeline for the dawn of human creativity.
It’s not yet clear whose hands made the prints. They could be from an ancient human group called Denisovans who lived in the area and may have interacted with our Homo sapiens ancestors before eventually going extinct. Or they may belong to modern humans venturing away from Africa, who could have wandered through the Middle East and Australia around this time. Fine details on the cave art, including the intentionally modified fingertips, point to a human hand.
Other drawings discovered in the same area of the island, including a human figure, a bird and horse-like animals, were found to be created much more recently, some of them about 4,000 years ago.
Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesian-handprints-oldest-cave-art-found-yet-5874441
As one-person households rise across China, more young adults are finding freedom in living alone – and confronting the emotional costs that come with it.
Tian Yuan has lived alone for eight years – long enough to know that silence can sometimes feel impossible to ignore.
One night, she returned home to her three-bedroom apartment in Guangzhou, a space she shares only with her cat, Dobby, a blue golden shaded British longhair.
At first, the solitude felt familiar, Tian said: the television murmuring in the background, the freedom to wander.
Then something shifted.
“I suddenly felt devastated,” recalled the 30-year-old advertising director.
“I felt like the only person in the universe.”
She sank onto the sofa and began to cry. Her cat jumped up and licked her face, its rough tongue brushing against her skin.
She did not move. Instead, she sat there and wept for more than two hours.
“When you’re alone, your emotions are completely determined by yourself,” Tian said.
“There’s nothing external to anchor you, nothing to stop them from shifting.”
Her experience reflects a global demographic shift increasingly in the spotlight: the rapid rise of one-person households in countries across East Asia, Europe and North America.
In China, anxiety around living alone has fuelled interest in a viral app bluntly named “Are You Dead”, which prompts users to check in daily that they are still alive.
The developers have since rebranded the app to ‘Demumu’, to avoid the original name’s direct reference to death.
For millions like Tian, living alone offers autonomy and freedom – but also moments of isolation that often remain unseen.
The rise of single-person households in China has been striking.
According to government statistics, they now account for around 20 per cent of households, up from fewer than 3 per cent in 2000.
By 2030, the number of people living alone in China could reach between 150 million and 200 million – more than 30 per cent of households – according to a 2021 report by property research platform Beike Research Institute.
Among them, about a third are young adults aged 20 to 39.
“This is a trend we’ve been studying for almost a decade,” said Jean Yeung Wei-Jun, a social demographer at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
Living alone will continue to gain popularity, she told CNA, adding that the number of one-person households will “keep increasing”.
In China, where family units have long shaped social life, housing and welfare systems, the trend marks a profound change.
For centuries, nuclear families served as what anthropologist Xiang Biao, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, calls “the backbone of society”.
It wasn’t just affection between parents and children but an entire system, Xiang said – one’s surname, extended kin and also support.
“A cousin could support you during a difficult situation,” Xiang said.
But that traditional system has been weakening for decades.
Now it has reached “quite an extreme situation”, he added, with younger generations increasingly choosing not to form nuclear families at all.
Yeung from NUS pointed to three key drivers behind the rise of solo living.
The first is demographic, she said. Generations shaped by China’s one-child policy often lack siblings, along with extended relatives such as cousins, aunts and uncles.
“Now people have far fewer of these family ties,” Yeung said.
Urbanisation has also scattered traditional family structures, and education levels have risen, pushing marriage plans later.
Marriage registrations, even with a modest rebound in 2025, have more than halved over the past decade. Meanwhile, divorce rates have climbed.
Attitudes among many young Chinese adults also continue to shift, Yeung said.
More value privacy and independence and are increasingly prioritising self-development over traditional milestones like marriage and starting families.
Housing has also played a crucial role. An oversupply of smaller apartments has made solo living financially viable in ways it never was before.
Modern infrastructure has made it easier to live alone. Food arrives within minutes by delivery app. Cleaning services can be hired by the hour.
Tian in Guangzhou hires a cleaner once a week and orders most of her meals.
“All I have to do is open the door and eat,” she said. “You don’t have to do anything, and you can still live alone.”
“But that doesn’t mean you’re taking good care of yourself, or that you’re living well.”
When Xiang asks young people why they no longer date, he often hears the same response.
“Too tiring. The emotional cost is too high,” they tell him.
Many describe agonising over small interactions, he said, like how to order food without imposing preferences, how to protect personal space while respecting someone else’s.
“All these very small things become emotionally complicated,” Xiang said.
Increasingly, some opt out altogether. The Chinese term is ai wu neng – the incapability of love.
To Xiang, this reflects a deeper shift.
“Love sounds romantic but for most of human history, love was very practical,” he noted.
Previous generations married first and hoped affection would follow.
That arrangement is now unacceptable to the younger generations, who believe love must be cherished for its own sake – not as a byproduct of household logistics.
The paradox, Xiang said, is that “they find it very difficult to put affection or love into practice”.
High mobility compounds isolation.
Charlotte Cheng, 29, works in the pharmaceutical industry and has lived alone in several cities – from Austin in the United States to Qingdao and Xiamen in China – and now in Shanghai, where she knows few people.
She rents a one-bedroom apartment in Zhangjiang, part of the new and bustling Pudong district.
The place has become her sanctuary, Cheng said, somewhere she can decompress after a long day of social interaction. She also enjoys exploring new neighbourhoods and coffee shops.
But she knows solitude does not come easy to everyone. “Living alone requires a lot of ability to solve problems on your own,” Cheng told CNA.
For those who struggle with that, “it can be really hard”.
In Shanghai, people largely keep to themselves, Cheng said.
The people in this city also have a reputation for being cold, she added.
Boundaries between work and personal life are clearer than in smaller Chinese cities.
New arrivals, like fresh graduates, might struggle to find their footing, Cheng said.
Many young people see Shanghai as a “temporary place” – somewhere to gain experience before eventually leaving and returning home, Cheng said.
That ultimately affects how many view long-term friendships or connections, she added.
Not everyone living alone feels lonely. And not everyone who feels lonely lives alone.
But for many young adults in China, loneliness is where it starts.
The country’s fiercely competitive education system prioritises academic results and achievements as well as long hours, said Xiang.
Social media has also made forming deep connections optional.
It isn’t youths choosing solitude and becoming lonely, Xiang said. “It starts with feeling lonely already.”
Xiao Hui, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, is a 26-year-old secondary school teacher who learned this the hard way, when she moved to Guangzhou for an internship last November.
Solo living was freedom, she said. “No one (is) interfering with your life or your emotions.”
But freedom also “comes at a cost”, she said. “You experience a certain level of loneliness.”
When her internship ended, she began to feel anxious about graduation and what lay ahead.
Being alone in a new place without any close friends made it “especially hard”, she said.
She also began having nightmares of intruders breaking into her apartment.
The pressure points of solo living are often shared – illness, holidays, job loss.
Cheng recalled being sick with a fever in her Shanghai apartment, unable to get out of bed for water or medication.
“Even getting a glass of water was hard because you’ve only got yourself,” she said. In those moments, she wondered what it would be like to live with someone.
But she is also careful about romanticising the alternative.
“We are comparing the worst moments to our best impression of someone taking care of us,” she said, adding that a roommate might not be emotionally invested either.
Tian agreed: “Living alone is hard, but I also don’t want to live with other people. So it becomes like my two brains are fighting each other.”
“I’m the kind of person who shows my coworkers, friends, and the outside world that I’m ‘okay’ even if I’m crying myself to sleep every night,” she said.
THE Razzies 2026 nominations have been unveiled and stars including Rihanna and Natalie Portman have made it to the list of worst actors of the year.
The iconic parody ceremony, officially called The Golden Raspberry Awards, recognizes the worst cinematic failures of each year.
This year’s 46th edition sees a whole host of big names nominated in various categories but this is one award none of them will want to take home.
Natalie Portman has landed a nomination for Worst Actress for her role in action adventure film Fountain Of Youth.
She’s up against Rebel Wilson in Bride Hard, Michelle Yeoh for Star Trek: Section 31, Ariana DeBose in Love Hurts and Milla Jovovich for In The Lost Lands.
Meanwhile, the Worst Actor nominees include Jared Leto for Tron: Ares, The Weeknd in Hurry Up Tomorrow, Ice Cube in War of the Worlds, Dave Bautista for his portrayal in In The Lost Lands and Scott Eastwood in Alarum.
Rihanna has found herself in the mix for Worst Screen Combo alongside James Corden for their partnership in Smurfs.
They’ll be going up against the seven dwarfs in Snow White, The Weeknd and his “colossal ego”, Ice Cube and his Zoom Camera and Robert DeNiro and Robert DeNiro for his dual role as Frank and Vito in The Alto Knights.
Five films have been nominated for Worst Picture, with Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt’s The Electric State facing off with Disney’s Snow White, Star Trek: Section 31, Hurry Up Tomorrow and War of the Worlds.
Both Snow White and Ice Cube’s War of the Worlds have bagged the most nominations, with six nods apiece.
The winners of the 46th annual Razzies will be unveiled at there ceremony in Los Angeles on March 14.
The live-action remake of Snow White opened up to mixed reviews when it released in back in March last year.
Critics praised Rachel’s portrayal of the iconic Disney princess but called out the film’s stylistic choices.
It completely bombed at the box office, earning $206 million worldwide, against a huge budget of $240 to $270 million, with it being one of the most expensive Disney films ever.
DONALD Trump has vowed Iran will be “wiped off the face of the Earth” if the regime follows through on assassination threats.
The explosive statement came as the US leader hit back at taunts from Tehran.
Speaking to NewsNation on Tuesday, Trump addressed deadly protests sweeping Iran that have reportedly left thousands dead.
Asked how he would respond to threats on his life, the president said: “I’ve left notification, if anything ever happens… the whole country’s going to get blown up. I would absolutely hit them so hard.
“I have very firm instructions, anything happens, they’re going to wipe them off the face of this Earth.”
The warning comes after Iranian state TV aired a menacing broadcast last week showing footage of the assassination attempt Trump survived as a presidential candidate in 2024.
The clip was captioned in Farsi with the words: “This time, the bullet won’t miss.”
Trump later hinted that there would have been a nuclear response if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had started hanging Iranians in an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Behind the scenes, the White House is already drawing up attack plans after Trump demanded “decisive” military options that could collapse the Islamist regime.
According to reports, the president has been pressing the Pentagon for strike packages ranging from punishing hits on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to full-scale action designed to smash the mullahs’ grip on power.
Trump has repeatedly insisted any response must be “decisive”, and warned that continued threats on his life would end with Iran getting “blown up”.
The sabre-rattling comes as Iran descends deeper into chaos, with anti-regime protests raging for weeks and blood running in the streets.
US-based human rights monitors say more than 4,500 people have already been killed, including hundreds of security forces, with a further 26,000 arrested.
Thousands more deaths are still being investigated, fuelling fears the true toll could be far higher.
Other activists warn the slaughter could be far worse, with horrified witnesses claiming the dead may number up to 20,000 after machine-gun fire ripped through crowds and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues.
Footage leaked from inside Iran appears to show body bags stacked in trucks and warehouses, while families have reportedly been forced to pay “bullet money” to retrieve the corpses of loved ones, or sign documents blaming protesters for their own deaths.
Amnesty International has raised the alarm over reports of mass graves being dug at Tehran’s vast Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, with authorities accused of secretly burying victims to hide the scale of the killings.
Security forces are also said to be going door-to-door hunting wounded protesters, dragging them from homes and hospitals amid an internet blackout now stretching hundreds of hours.
Trump has openly backed the uprising, urging Iranians to rise up and promising protesters that “help is on the way”, while warning Tehran not to execute detainees.
At the same time, the regime has doubled down on its threats against the US president.
Iranian state TV last week aired chilling footage of the 2024 assassination attempt on Trump, overlaid with the message: “This time, the bullet won’t miss.”
Similar threats have appeared at pro-regime rallies in Tehran, with demonstrators holding signs warning that “the arrow doesn’t always miss”.
Senior Revolutionary Guards commanders have also issued open threats, vowing to “set their world on fire” if the US strikes Iran’s leadership.
The Islamic Republic has accused Washington of stirring unrest and warned it would retaliate against US bases and allies if attacked.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15819485/trump-iran-wiped-off-earth-ayatollahs-threat/
Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two 13-year-old boys, three journalists and a woman, hospitals said, on one of the war-battered enclave ‘s deadliest days since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect in October.
The United States is trying to push the deal forward and implement its challenging second phase.
Among the dead were three Palestinian journalists who were killed while filming near a displacement camp in central Gaza, a camp official said. Israel’s military said it had spotted suspects who were operating a drone that posed a threat to its troops.
The two boys were killed in separate incidents. In one, a 13-year-old, his father and a 22-year old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern side of the Bureij refugee camp, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the three had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas.
The other 13-year-old was shot by troops in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, Nasser Hospital said after receiving the body. In a video circulated online, the father of Moatsem al-Sharafy is seen weeping over it.
The boy’s mother, Safaa al-Sharafy, told The Associated Press that he had left to gather firewood so she could cook.
“He went out in the morning, hungry,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “He told me he’d go quickly and come back.”
Later Wednesday, an Israeli strike hit a vehicle carrying the three Palestinian journalists who were filming a new displacement camp managed by an Egyptian government committee in the Netzarim area, said Mohammed Mansour, the committee’s spokesperson.
Mansour said the journalists were documenting the committee’s work and that the strike occurred about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli-controlled area. He said the vehicle was known to Israel’s military as belonging to the committee. Video footage showed the charred and smoking vehicle by the roadside.
One journalist killed, Abdul Raouf Shaat, was a regular contributor to Agence France-Presse but he was not on assignment for it at the time, the news agency said.
“Abdul was much loved by the AFP team covering Gaza. They remember him as a kind-hearted colleague,” the agency said in a statement that demanded a full investigation into his death.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 200 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began in 2023, including visual journalist Mariam Dagga, who worked for the AP and other news organizations.
Nearly five months after the strikes on a hospital that killed Dagga and four other journalists, the Israeli military says it is continuing to investigate.
Aside from rare guided tours, Israel has barred international journalists from entering to cover the war. News organizations rely largely on Palestinian journalists in Gaza — as well as residents — to show what is happening.
Nasser Hospital officials also said Wednesday they received the body of a Palestinian woman shot by Israeli troops in the Muwasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, which is not controlled by the military.
In a separate attack, three brothers were killed in a tank shelling in the Bureij camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
More than 470 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, according to Gaza’s health ministry. At least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near a ceasefire line that splits the territory between Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population, the ministry says.
The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.
The first phase of the October ceasefire that paused two years of war between Israel and Hamas militants focused on the return of all remaining hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces in Gaza.
All but one hostage, living or dead, have been returned to Israel. Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known as Rani, was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that started the war.
His relatives on Wednesday called again on Israel’s government and U.S. President Donald Trump to ensure the release of his remains.
“We need to continue to amplify Rani’s voice, explain about him, talk about him, and explain to the world that we, the people of Israel, will not give up on anyone,” his mother, Talik Gvili, said. She told the AP the family doesn’t “really know where he is.”
Hamas said Wednesday it has provided “all information” it has on Gvili’s body to the ceasefire mediators, and accused Israel of obstructing search efforts in areas it controls in Gaza.
Source : https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-fire-palestinian-deaths-d40bf79679b73bc11e2d7d6743724290
If curiosity did in fact kill the cat, at least the feline had a great memory beforehand. Decades of research reveal curiosity doesn’t just make one crave new experiences and learning, it also changes how the brain processes and stores information. Put another way, curiosity helps memory.
A major research review published in the Annual Review of Psychology analyzed decades of studies on how motivation affects memory. This process led to the finding that when someone is genuinely curious about something, their brain doesn’t just remember the answer better. It also remembers completely random information encountered at the same time, even if it wasn’t being focused on.
The study was conducted by showing people trivia questions, some boring and some genuinely interesting. While people waited for the answers to the interesting questions, researchers flashed random photos of faces on the screen. Later, people remembered those faces way better when they’d seen them during a state of high curiosity, even though the faces had nothing to do with the trivia questions.
Brain scans revealed what was happening. When curiosity kicked in, a region called the ventral tegmental area lit up. This is the same reward center that activates when someone is about to get paid or eat their favorite food. The region then formed stronger connections with the hippocampus, the part of the brain that files away memories.
Curiosity is akin to putting the brain into “sponge mode.” It doesn’t solely absorb the thing we’re curious about; it soaks up everything around at that moment. Researchers call this an “interrogative state.” That is, the brain is primed to ask questions, make connections, and actually understand how ideas fit together.
A different pattern emerges when someone is stressed about learning something.
When someone is cramming for a high-stakes exam or learning something because they are afraid of failing, the brain switches into a completely different mode. Stress response kicks in, flooding the brain with a chemical called noradrenaline. This heightens focus, but in a very specific, narrow way.
Instead of making connections between ideas, the stressed brain laser-focuses on individual facts and details. It will remember exactly what that threatening thing looked like (useful when running from bears), but will struggle to understand how it relates to anything else.
Researchers tested this by having people learn information in two different ways: one group learned things to earn money, another group learned things to avoid getting shocked (tiny static shocks, nothing dangerous). The shock-avoidance group actually remembered individual facts better, but they were less likely to remember how those facts connected to each other.
Brain scans showed why: Stress activates the amygdala, the brain’s alarm system, with less help from the hippocampus, the relationship-builder. This leads to a bunch of isolated facts rattling around in one’s head.
This explains why many people can ace a multiple-choice test on Tuesday and completely forget everything by Friday. They memorized the facts in isolation, under stress, so they never connected to anything meaningful. Their brains filed the information away in the “urgent but temporary” folder instead of the “actually understand this” folder.
A boring lecture activates neither curiosity nor stress response. The brain is just sitting there thinking, “Is this important? Should I care?” And with no strong signal either way, most of that information doesn’t stick.
The good news? We’re not stuck with whatever learning mode The brain defaults to. We can actually train ourselves to shift between different mental states.
Researchers have proven this works. In one study, they taught people to consciously activate their brain’s reward system using mental imagery while watching their brain activity in real-time on a scanner. People practiced imagining rewarding scenarios until they could reliably turn on their reward centers just by thinking about them. Months later, they reported still using these mental tricks to motivate themselves through difficult tasks.
Different learning goals need different brain states. When someone is first learning something completely new, like medical terminology or a foreign language alphabet, they actually need that focused, detail-oriented mode to nail down the basics. The stress isn’t ideal, but the narrow focus helps.
But once those foundations have been established, the brain needs to switch modes. That’s when curiosity becomes essential for building understanding. One needs their brain in that open, connective state where it’s asking “How does this relate to that?” and “What happens if I combine these ideas?”
Instead of telling yourself “I have to memorize this for the test” (which triggers your stress response), try reframing it: “I wonder how this actually works in real life?” That simple shift can engage your curiosity system instead of your threat system.
When something seems boring, actively generate questions about it. Don’t just read passively, ask yourself: “Why does this matter?” or “How is this different from what I already know?” Your brain treats questions as puzzles worth solving.
For big exams, try mentally reframing the stakes. Instead of “This test determines my future,” think of it as “This is practice to see what I know.” Sounds simple, but studies show this kind of reframing shifts which brain systems activate during learning.
Alternate study approaches is another option: Spend some time doing focused, detail-oriented review (that narrow imperative mode), then switch to exploratory connection-building where you’re making diagrams, explaining concepts to friends, or applying ideas to real scenarios (that open interrogative mode).
Source : https://studyfinds.org/curiosity-rewires-brain-better-memory/
Several European countries are considering whether to stop sending personnel to a U.S. military-led coordination centre for Gaza, saying it has failed to increase aid flows to the war-shattered enclave or achieve political change, diplomats said.
The Civil-Military Coordination Centre was established in southern Israel in October under President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza. It was tasked with monitoring the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, facilitating the entry of aid and developing post-war policies for the Palestinian territory.
Dozens of countries, including Germany, France, Britain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, sent personnel including military planners and intelligence officials to the centre as they sought to influence discussions on Gaza’s future.
But eight foreign diplomats told Reuters that officials from some European countries had not returned to the CMCC, located near the Gaza border, since the Christmas and New Year holidays. Several nations were questioning the purpose of the centre, with one Western diplomat describing it as “directionless”.
“Everybody thinks it’s a disaster, but there is no alternative,” said another Western diplomat.
The European rethink, which has not been previously reported, is the latest sign of unease among Washington’s allies as Trump pursues unorthodox foreign policies towards Gaza, Greenland and Venezuela.
Some European governments were now considering whether to reduce their CMCC presence or even to stop sending personnel altogether, the diplomats said. The diplomats declined to say which governments were reassessing their position.
The White House and U.S. State Department did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
The CMCC is run by a U.S. general and also hosts both American and Israeli military personnel. Its establishment was a key element of the first phase of Trump’s ceasefire plan, which has been shaken by repeated Israeli airstrikes in Gaza against what Israel says have been Hamas attempts to carry out attacks.
As Trump pursues the next phase of his plan, including by setting up a “Board of Peace” to supervise Gaza policy, it is unclear whether the CMCC will retain any influence over policy formation or aid distribution.
The diplomats said it was also not known how the CMCC would work with the Board of Peace’s Gaza-focused bodies, including its committee of Palestinian technocrats.
Washington last week announced Trump’s plan had moved to the second phase, which would include demilitarisation and reconstruction. But there was no mention of further Israeli military withdrawals, beyond a partial pullback that has left 53% of Gaza still in Israeli hands.
In November, Reuters reported U.S. partners were concerned that Gaza could be effectively partitioned as efforts to advance Trump’s plan beyond the ceasefire stalled.
There was also no mention in Trump’s second phase announcement of the expected deployment of a multinational stabilisation force into the enclave.
Gaza’s border with Egypt has yet to reopen, although this was supposed to have happened during the plan’s first phase that took effect in October, amid repeated Israeli objections.
The diplomats said there had been no significant increase in humanitarian aid entering Gaza since the truce took hold, contradicting White House assertions, despite widespread homelessness and malnutrition.
Many trucks entering Gaza were in fact carrying commercial goods, they said, and Israel remained effectively in control of Gaza’s aid policy, despite the U.S.-led CMCC being tasked with helping boost relief supplies into the enclave.
Israel bans or restricts supplies from entering Gaza on the grounds they are “dual-use”, or could be repurposed for military as well as humanitarian purposes. The diplomats said Israel has so far made no concessions on dual-use items, which include metal poles for tents to house the largely displaced population.
An official at COGAT, the Israeli government agency that coordinates civilian policy in Gaza, said that 45% of all trucks that have entered Gaza since the October ceasefire were commercial vehicles transporting food and other everyday goods.
The official said humanitarian trucks were prioritised, and that commercial shipments supplemented the aid effort. If additional humanitarian trucks were available, they would be allowed to enter Gaza, the official said.
The COGAT official acknowledged that Israel continues to restrict dual-use items, but said alternatives are being sourced, such as tent poles made of wood.
European leaders, rattled by Donald Trump’s latest global gambit, are looking to present a united front in Davos, as CEOs warned against an emotional response to the U.S. president’s ambition to take over Greenland.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the European Union should not bend to “the law of the strongest”, adding that it was “crazy” that the bloc was having to contemplate using its “anti-coercion instrument” against the United States.
“We do believe that we need more growth, we need more stability in this world, but we do prefer respect to bullies,” Macron told the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, the day before Trump’s arrival in Switzerland.
Without referring directly to Trump, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted a need to respond to seismic shifts in the world and said the speed and scale of change had driven a consensus in Europe on independence.
“It is time to seize this opportunity and build a new independent Europe,” she said in a speech.
Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever said the 27-member bloc was “at a crossroads” where it must decide on how to get out of a “very bad position” after trying to appease Trump to get his support for the Ukraine war.
“So we should unite and we should say to Donald Trump … ‘You’re crossing red lines here.’ We either stand together or we will stand divided,” De Wever said on a panel discussion.
Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch told Reuters that attempts to win over Trump with flattery, as some European leaders have tried in the past, would not work.
“Stroking the cat along the line of its fur is not going to do the trick this time. The EU needs to toughen up and hold the line,” she said, adding that the bloc needed to keep options for trade retaliation “locked and loaded”.
Trump announced tariffs on Saturday on imports from European allies that oppose the U.S. acquiring Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
European governments, which are facing growing challenges from populist, nationalist parties, have been at odds over how to respond to the tariff threat while maintaining U.S. support for Ukraine.
Macron said Europe should not accept a world where might makes right and called for bold moves to defend European industries.
“Let’s not be shy. Let’s not be divided. Let’s not accept a global order, which will be divided by those who claim to have the bigger voice,” Macron said.
Macron also appeared to see an opportunity for Europe in Trump’s chaotic policies.
“We have a place where the rule of law and predictability is still the rule of the game, and my guess is that it is under-priced by the market,” he said in his speech.
However, some senior bankers and executives in Davos, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they saw the response from European leaders to Trump’s moves as emotional rather than pragmatic. Two suggested the continent needed to look beyond the way the U.S. president delivers his message and have a negotiation.
“But they won’t even want to have that conversation, because they’re so offended by the style. And so what you have in Europe is a very, very, delicate balance of a continent that cannot move together,” one senior banker told Reuters.
European countries say Trump’s threat of new tariffs would violate a trade deal reached with the U.S. last year, and EU leaders are set to discuss possible retaliation at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, voiced confidence that the United States and European countries would find a solution and avoid what some have warned could become a prolonged trade war.
“Why are we jumping there? Why are you taking it to the worst case? … Calm down the hysteria. Take a deep breath,” he said.
Thousands of U.S. workers and students marched through cities and university campuses on Tuesday in opposition to the immigration policies of President Donald Trump.
On the first anniversary of Trump’s second term, protests sprang up across the country against his aggressive immigration crackdown that prompted outrage after federal agents dragged a U.S. citizen from her car and shot dead 37-year-old mother Renee Good in Minneapolis in past weeks.
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Washington and smaller cities like Asheville, North Carolina, where demonstrators marched through the downtown shouting “No ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA,” according to online videos.
The Trump administration says it has a mandate from voters to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally. Recent polls show most Americans disapprove of the use of force by officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies.
University students demonstrated in Cleveland, Ohio, chanting “No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here” while high schoolers in Santa Fe, New Mexico, left class to attend a “Stop ICE Terror” rally at the state capitol, according to protest organizers and school officials.
Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/thousands-protest-against-trump-immigration-policies-2026-01-20/
All three major Wall Street indexes ended Tuesday with their biggest one-day drops in three months, in a broad selloff triggered by concerns that fresh tariff threats from President Donald Trump against Europe could signal renewed market volatility.
The risk-off trade was pervasive, helping vault gold to fresh record highs, and pushing up debt costs with U.S. Treasuries wobbling under renewed selling pressure. Bitcoin, which can find favor when traditional markets waver, fell more than 3%.
All three U.S. equity benchmarks registered their worst one-day performance since October 10, with both the S&P 500 (.SPX), and Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), slipping below their 50-day moving averages.
The S&P 500 (.SPX), lost 143.15 points, or 2.06%, to end at 6,796.86 points, while the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), gave up 561.07 points, or 2.39%, to 22,954.32. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), fell 870.74 points, or 1.76%, to 48,488.59.
Tuesday was the first opportunity for U.S. investors to act on Trump’s weekend comments, given the market holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
This included Trump saying additional 10% import tariffs would take effect on February 1 on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Great Britain — all already subject to U.S. tariffs.
The tariffs would increase to 25% on June 1 and continue until a deal was reached for the U.S. to purchase Greenland, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. Leaders of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, and Denmark have insisted the island is not for sale.
The reinjection of tariff threats into global markets harkens back to April’s “Liberation Day,” when Trump’s levies on global trade partners pushed the S&P 500 to near bear market territory.
The CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX), also known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, spiked to 20.09 points, its highest close since November 24.
Trading volumes were also higher: around 20.6 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges on Tuesday, up from the 17.01 billion average for the last 20 trading days.
While investor sentiment was frayed on Tuesday, the question being asked is whether Greenland represents a knee-jerk selloff, or something that will have longer-term implications for markets.
Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group, said he was not seeing indications investors were fleeing.
“I’m not at the point yet where I’m willing to say what is happening with Greenland, and the resurgence of the tariff threat back and forth, is going to precipitate a correction in the equities markets,” he said, adding he would be surprised if there was a 3% to 5% drop this week.
A potentially more significant action, in Cox’s eyes, would be whether Japanese authorities intervene in financial markets.
Japanese government bonds plunged on Tuesday, sending yields to record highs, while Tokyo stocks and the yen also fell after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s call for a snap election shook confidence in the country’s fiscal health.
The moves helped push the cost of longer-term European government bonds higher, while a selloff in U.S. Treasuries was more pronounced on the long end of the curve.
Despite tariff talk, and notable bond movements, the U.S. economy remains in a strong position.
Tetsuya Yamagami was arrested on the spot in July 2022 after fatally firing at Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with a homemade gun.
The gunman charged with killing Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was found guilty and jailed for life on Wednesday (Jan 21), more than three years after the broad-daylight assassination shocked the world.
The shooting forced a reckoning in a country with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church.
Judge Shinichi Tanaka handed down the sentence at a court in the city of Nara.
A queue of people waited on Wednesday morning to get tickets to enter the courtroom, highlighting intense public interest in the trial.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, was arrested on the spot in July 2022 after fatally firing at Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with a homemade gun.
As the trial opened in October, Yamagami admitted to murder. He contested some of the other charges he had faced, media reports said.
Under Japan’s legal system, a trial continues even if a defendant admits guilt.
Manabu Kawashima, a logistics worker who was waiting outside the court, said he wanted “to know the truth about Yamagami”.
“What happened to former prime minister Abe was the incident of the century. And I liked him while he was alive. His death was shocking,” the 31-year-old told AFP.
“I’m here because I wanted to know about the man who killed someone I cared about.”
Another man outside the court held a banner urging the judge to take Yamagami’s difficult life circumstances “into the fullest consideration”.
Prosecutors sought a life sentence for Yamagami, calling the murder “unprecedented in our post-war history” and citing the “extremely serious consequences” it had on society, according to local media.
The Japanese version of life imprisonment leaves open the possibility of parole, although in reality, experts say many die while incarcerated.
At the trial opening, prosecutors argued that the defendant’s motive to kill Abe was rooted in his desire to besmirch the Unification Church.
The months-long trial highlighted how his mother’s blind donations to the church plunged his family into bankruptcy and how he came to believe “influential politicians” were helping the sect thrive.
Abe had spoken at events organised by some of the church groups.
Yamagami “thought if he killed someone as influential as former prime minister Abe, he could draw public attention to the church and fuel public criticism of it,” a prosecutor told a district court in western Japan’s Nara region in October.
The Unification Church was established in South Korea in 1954, with its members nicknamed “Moonies” after its founder Sun Myung Moon.
In a plea for leniency, his defence team stressed his upbringing had been mired in “religious abuse” stemming from his mother’s extreme faith in the Unification Church.
In despair after the suicide of her husband, and with her other son gravely ill, Yamagami’s mother poured all her assets into the church to “salvage” her family, Yamagami’s lawyer said, adding that her donations eventually snowballed to around 100 million yen (US$1 million at the time).
Yamagami was forced to give up pursuing higher education. In 2005, he attempted to take his own life before his brother died by suicide.
Investigations after Abe’s murder led to cascading revelations about close ties between the church and many conservative lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, prompting four ministers to resign.
Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/shinzo-abe-killing-life-sentence-gunman-5872076
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday welcomed Parliament’s passing of anti-hate speech and gun laws in response to two shooters killing 15 people at a Jewish festival in Sydney last month. Authorities say the attack was inspired by the Islamic State group.
“At Bondi, the terrorists had hate in their hearts, but they had guns in their hands,” Albanese told reporters, referring to the father and son gunmen accused of attacking Jewish worshippers during Hanukkah celebrations at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14.
“We said we wanted to deal with that with urgency and with unity and we acted to deliver both,” Albanese added.
The government had initially planned a single bill, but separated the issues of hate speech and gun laws into two bills introduced to the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The bills passed through the Senate late Tuesday with the minor Greens party supporting gun reform and the conservative opposition Liberal Party backing anti-hate speech laws.
Albanese’s center-left Labor Party holds a majority in the House, but no party has a majority in the upper chamber.
Albanese said he was would have preferred stronger laws against hate speech, but the Senate would not compromise.
“If you can’t get laws passed in the wake of a massacre, then it’s difficult to see people changing their minds,” Albanese said.
The gun laws create new restrictions on gun ownership and create a government-funded buyback program to compensate people forced to hand in their firearms.
Anti-hate speech laws enable groups that don’t fit Australia’s definition of a terrorist organization, such as the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, to be outlawed as it is by some other countries.
Earlier Tuesday, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told Parliament that alleged gunmen Sajid Akram, 50, and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram wouldn’t have been allowed to possess guns under the proposed laws.
The father, who was shot dead by police during the attack, legally owned the guns used.
His son, who was wounded, has been charged with dozens of offenses, including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist act over the attack.
Burke said that the Indian-born father would have been barred from gun ownership under the proposed laws because he wasn’t an Australian citizen. The Australian-born son would also been banned, because he had come under surveillance in 2019 from the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, or ASIO, over his association with suspected extremists.
ASIO also has a role under the new anti-hate speech laws in deciding which hate groups should be outlawed. Neo-Nazi group National Socialist Network has announced plans to disband rather than have its members targeted under the laws.
The opposition Nationals party had broken away from its Liberal Party partners by opposing the anti-hate speech legislation, arguing it could impinge on free speech.
“The legislation needs amendments to guarantee greater protections against unintended consequences that limit the rights and freedom of speech of everyday Australians and the Jewish community,” Nationals leader David Littleproud said late Tuesday.
Scientists have uncovered the mummified remains of cheetahs from caves in northern Saudi Arabia.
The remains range from 130 years old to over 1,800 years old. Researchers excavated seven mummies along with the bones of 54 other cheetahs from a site near the city of Arar.
Mummification prevents decay by preserving dead bodies. Egypt’s mummies are the most well-known, but the process can also happen naturally in places like glacier ice, desert sands and bog sludge.
The new large cat mummies have cloudy eyes and shriveled limbs, resembling dried-out husks.
“It’s something that I’ve never seen before,” said Joan Madurell-Malapeira with the University of Florence in Italy, who was not involved with the discovery.
Researchers aren’t sure how exactly these new cats got mummified, but the caves’ dry conditions and stable temperature could have played a role, according to the new study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.
They also don’t know why so many cheetahs were in the caves. It could have been a denning site where mothers birthed and raised their young.
Scientists have uncovered the rare mummified remains of other felines, including a saber-toothed cat cub in Russia.
It’s uncommon for large mammals to be preserved to this degree. Besides being in the right environment, the carcasses also have to avoid becoming a snack for hungry scavengers like birds and hyenas.
To find such intact evidence of cheetahs that lived long ago in this part of the world is “entirely without precedent,” study author Ahmed Boug with the National Center for Wildlife in Saudi Arabia said in an email.
Source : https://apnews.com/article/cheetah-mummy-saudi-arabia-caves-f4a42d5842eb3ff1a97a151c2b502255
A TOP lawyer working for Goldman Sachs is being quietly ushered out of the company after her disturbing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein came to light, a bombshell report has claimed.
Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as a counselor to President Barack Obama, previously admitted to dealing with the disgraced financier, but sources say newly unearthed documents have put her under fire.
Executives at the cash cow financial firm are said to be drafting a “contingency plan” to remove Ruemmler from her post as chief legal officer and general counsel, according to insiders who spoke with The Wall Street Journal.
They’re still planning a “graceful” exit for the ultra-rich lawyer, despite Goldman CEO David Solomon publicly defending her and denying the report, the Journal reported.
The move comes after Ruemmler’s name surfaced in newly released documents and emails that were obtained by a congressional committee.
Ruemmler hasn’t been accused of any crimes or wrongdoing, and she’s defended mentions of her name in a response to the Journal, while also showing remorse over the association.
“As I have said, I regret ever knowing him, and I have enormous sympathy for the victims of Epstein’s crimes,” she said in a response.
She had informed her employer that she had done business with Epstein in the past with the law firm Latham & Watkins, but the leaked evidence appears to show their relationship was also personal.
Documents released by the committee show that Ruemmler held dozens of meetings with Epstein – who was standing accused of sex trafficking girls when he died by suicide in 2019.
According to the cache of evidence, the disgraced financier helped her with apartment hunting and even knew her “sushi order.”
He also appeared to help plan trips for her to visit his infamous private island, but she denies ever actually going.
According to the Journal, executives grew especially concerned when Ruemmler was listed as Epstein’s backup executor, who is the person elected to carry out the orders in someone’s will.
Ruemmler insisted that she had nothing to do with Epstein’s estate following his death.
Though Epstein was known to write people’s names in documents without their consent, the discovery “set off fresh alarms,” the outlet reported.
Ruemmler was also said to have caused a stir within the company when she was caught calling Trump “so gross” in email correspondence with Epstein, who responded that the president was “worse in real life and upclose.”
The day that email was released, Solomon was set to attend a White House dinner with the president.
Other correspondence appears to poke holes in Ruemmler’s claim that she never represented Epstein.
Emails sent from 2014 to 2019 show she was included in hundreds of threads that discussed legal strategy and compliance with a nonprosecution agreement.
One exchange from February 2018 had the subject line, “Re: this email trail was discovered today !. brad saying the girls got paid for services.”
Controversy surrounding Ruemmler is made even more glaring as she sits on Goldman’s Reputational Risk Committee, where she helps to vet potential clients for ethical concerns.
According to insiders who spoke with the Journal, other executives, especially female bosses, are questioning whether her dealings with Epstein make her a poor fit for the role.
Solomon has also defended Ruemmler in internal conversations about the matter, at one point telling other senior women he was dumbfounded people were questioning her rank, sources claimed.
USHA Vance is pregnant.
The second lady made history after announcing that she and Vice President JD Vance will welcome their fourth child this summer.
In a statement, the couple said, “We’re very excited to share the news that Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy.
“Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July.
“During this exciting and hectic time, we are particularly grateful for the military doctors who take excellent care of our family and the staff members who do so much to ensure that we can serve the country while enjoying a wonderful life with our children.”
Usha is set to be the first second lady in US history to give birth while serving in the White House.
Only one first lady has given birth and raised her newborn in the White House – Frances Cleveland in 1893.
After welcoming John F Kennedy Jr. in 1960 following the election, Jackie Kennedy also gave birth to Patrick Kennedy while in office in 1963, but he only lived two days.
Usha now joins Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as the second White House lady who is set to welcome a child while serving under Donald Trump.
Usha and JD already have three young children: Ewan, 8, Vivek, 5, and Mirabel, 4.
The kids are being raised in an interfaith household, as JD is a Catholic convert while Usha was raised Hindu.
Before entering public service, the second lady worked as a trial lawyer until she quit in July 2024 to dedicate more time to the political campaign.
JD has made it clear that he wants “more babies” in the US, and is working to make parenthood more affordable, he said in his first speech as vice president.
Despite his desires for more children, he’s made it clear that raising children under the scrutiny of a global stage is anything but easy.
Speaking on The Katie Miller podcast, he described Usha as “the gentle parent” while he takes a more no-nonsense approach.
He said if one of the children is having a meltdown, he will “immediately grab them, take them to the bathroom, and say, ‘You got to cut this s**t out.’”
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15812793/jd-usha-vance-reveal-gender-fourth-child/
AMERICAN forces have seized a seventh oil tanker linked to Venezuela as President Donald Trump ramps up his campaign to choke off illicit crude exports from the country.
US Southern Command said the Motor Vessel Sagitta was boarded and taken under control “without incident” in the Caribbean after operating in defiance of Trump’s quarantine on sanctioned ships.
The military posted footage showing US Coast Guard and Navy vessels closing in on the tanker at sea as part of Operation Southern Spear, a joint effort launched to target so-called “dark fleet” ships moving Venezuelan oil.
“The apprehension of another tanker operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean demonstrates our resolve to ensure that the only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully,” the command said.
Officials said the operation involved elite joint forces working alongside the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department.
No shots were fired and no injuries were reported.
The Sagitta is a Liberian-flagged vessel owned and managed by a Hong Kong-based company, according to shipping records.
It last broadcast its location more than two months ago after leaving the Baltic Sea.
The tanker was previously sanctioned by the US Treasury under an order tied to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The seizure marks the latest escalation since Trump ordered a naval-style quarantine on January 9.
US forces have now taken control of seven tankers since December, most intercepted near Venezuelan waters.
One, the Bella 1, was captured in the North Atlantic after abruptly turning away from the Caribbean.
The administration argues the campaign has already crippled Venezuela’s oil trade, with analysts estimating more than 80 per cent of shipments have been halted.
Trump says the seizures are also helping to ease pressure on global energy markets.
“We’ve got millions of barrels of oil left,” Trump told reporters this week.
“We’re selling it on the open market.
“We’re bringing down oil prices incredibly.”
The crackdown comes as Venezuela reels from violent unrest following the US capture of former president Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
Armed pro-Maduro militias known as colectivos have set up roadblocks, stopped cars and searched phones for signs of US ties or support for Trump, according to US officials.
Washington has issued a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” warning and urged Americans still in Venezuela to leave immediately, citing the risk of wrongful detention, kidnapping and armed violence as the country remains under a state of emergency.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15813610/trump-seizes-oil-tanker-caribbean-venezuela-maduro/
THE city’s new mayor sparked eyebrows on daytime TV after describing a budding “bromance” with President Donald Trump, even as he blasted “inhumane” ICE raids in Minneapolis.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani made his first appearance on ABC’s The View since he was sworn in as mayor of New York.
During the segment, The View host Joy Behar praised Mamdani for going on the “charm offensive” after he met Trump in Washington, DC, following his victory, saying the president appeared charmed, unlike Governor Gavin Newsom, who has “gone on the attack.”
Behar then pressed Mamdani about his “bromance” with Trump, and Mamdani replied: “I think my intention is about being honest and direct with the president.
And I think there are many disagreements the two of us have. There’s no shortage of them. One thing that we do have in common is that we both love New York City. We’re both New Yorkers.”
Behar also asked Mamdani why he’s been exchanging texts with Trump.
After he called it “incredible” to be building “a city government that moves as fast as New Yorkers do.”
Behar jumped in: “What’s interesting is you called him a ‘fascist’ to his face, a dream I’ve always had, and then we saw you talking to him that day, and he seemed to be madly in love with you.”
The conversation then turned to Minneapolis, where Mamdani said ICE raids are “cruel,” “inhumane,” and “leave a sense of fear.”
Asked about Renee Good, he said he “doesn’t know how to describe the murder,” adding: “it’s terrifying.”
Pressed on whether the federal agents could target New York, Mamdani said “we are being asked to not believe our own eyes,” claiming he told Trump the raids “are cruel, they’re inhumane, they do nothing to deliver on public safety.”
He insisted “my job is to stand up for every New Yorker,” and said “our values and laws are not bargaining chips.”
Asked if he would cooperate with ICE in New York, Mamdani said: “I’m not willing to have a negotiation with New Yorker’s lives.”
He also noted that Sanctuary city policies were at one point defended by Republicans and Democrats alike.
Last year, after their first White House meeting in November, the two shared positive feelings afterwards and said they bonded over wanting New York City to thrive.
Mamdani told reporters they were clear about their differences but still had a productive chat, until one question brought up him previously calling Trump a fascist.
Trump abruptly cut in, raising his arm and saying, “That’s OK you can just say yes,” as the room burst into laughter and Mamdani smiled before going quiet.
After the meeting, Trump called it “great” and “very productive,” congratulated Mamdani on his campaign, and said, “I think you’re gonna have, hopefully, a really great mayor.”
Last year in October, Mamdani appeared on Fox News, and at that time, he addressed Trump “directly,” saying he was ready to work with him, but on his own terms.
He also added he would not be “a mayor like Mayor Adams who will call you to stay out of jail,” nor “a disgraced governor like Andrew Cuomo who will call you to ask how to win this election.”
He stressed he is “ready to speak at any time” about lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers, adding:
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15811296/new-york-mayor-zohran-mamdani-trump-bromance-the-view/
While the solar storm did bring around certain disruptions, accompanying these issues were beautiful northern lights as far as Southern California.
The Earth just recorded its largest and most-powerful solar storm on Tuesday night. As per Live Science, the sun unleashed a powerful X-class solar flare, the largest in 23 years. While the solar storm did bring around certain disruptions, accompanying these issues were beautiful northern lights as far as Southern California.
Auroras were spotted over in California, Greenland, Austria, Germany and more.
As per report by Space.com, the geomagnetic storm began on Monday after a fast-moving cloud of solar radiation slammed into the Earth’s stratosphere. This incident temporarily disrupted the invisible magnetic field lines surrounding the Earth and allowed charged particles to penetrate deeper into the atmosphere.
Activity peaked at 2:38 pm EST once the storm reached “severe status” as per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in the US.
Another SWPC report added that the storm clamed and reached G4 status again on Tuesday.
Due to this solar activity, aurora displays were seen across the UK, Europe and the United States.
Took a break on our drive home from #SPNVegas and spotted the aurora from the southern California desert just after sunset! pic.twitter.com/iBNQ4Iidl6
— ❄️ Liz Madsen ❄️🎇🎆🎉🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Paleonut_) January 20, 2026
Blake Lively and Taylor Swift’s texts blasting Justin Baldoni as a “clown” and “a bitch” have been revealed in new court docs.
Lively called Baldoni — her director and co-star in “It Ends With Us” — the “doofus director of my movie” in text messages to Swift according to court docs obtained by Page Six.
The actress allegedly asked the pop star to endorse her revision of the “It Ends With Us” script without even reading it back in April 2023 and Swift was supportive, Baldoni’s lawyers claim in the docs.
“Swift agreed to do Lively’s bidding, texting Lively, ‘I’ll do anything for you!!,” per the court docs.
The docs note that after Swift endorsed Lively’s revised script in a meeting with Baldoni at Lively’s apartment, Lively texted Swift, “You were so epically heroic today. I recapped every moment to Ryan [Reynolds]. I kept remembering stuff. You making s–t up about me and lenses. And referring to yourself as my doll. This clown falling for all of it. But also resisting it. You are the worlds absolute greatest friend ever.”
More correspondence with Swift include the singer suggesting Baldoni was not “strategic” in using her song “My Tears Ricochet With Us” in “It Ends With Us.”
“In April 26, 2024 messages, Lively and Swift discussed a plan to use Swift’s song in the film’s trailer,” the court docs state. “Swift wrote: ‘If Justin was strategic he would be like no Taylor swift in the trailer because that gives you more power over the film, that’s your ally not his.’”
“Lively responded: “You are so right…He should’ve run from your music…How stupid. This was his only shot at having the appearance of an upper hand,’” the docs continue.
In December 2024, Swift texted Lively ahead of the bombshell New York Times article that claimed Baldoni waged a smear campaign against the “Gossip Girl” alum.
“I think this bitch knows something is coming because he’s gotten out his tiny violin,” Swift texted Lively, according to the docs.
In Lively’s response, which is included in the court docs, she denies she and Swift discussed the New York Times article beforehand, and also denies she asked Swift to endorse her script revisions without reading it.
“And I sent Taylor the script on her way to my apartment because Justin was still there, and I asked her to read them,” Lively states. “I told her she didn’t have to, I didn’t want her to feel pressured to do that, but I hoped that she would.”
Later in the lengthy docs, Baldoni’s lawyers also allege Lively insulted Baldoni to her other famous friends, including Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Lively allegedly told them she “rewrote the script” and “directed every actor.”
“She also did not hesitate to disparage Baldoni among her Hollywood crowd, describing him to Ben Affleck, for example, as a ‘chaotic clown,’” per the docs.
Reps for Lively, Swift and Baldoni didn’t immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
Swift was first dragged into Lively and Baldoni’s feud in January 2025 when the former “Man Enough” podcast host filed his countersuit against Lively.
Baldoni’s filing included text messages referencing a moment when he allegedly felt “pressured” by Reynolds and Swift, whom the actress called her protective “dragons,” to respond positively to a scene Lively rewrote.
Danish MEP Anders Vistisen created a stir in the European Parliament by bluntly telling US President Donald Trump to “f**k off” in response to Trump’s suggestion that the US should take over Greenland for national security reasons.
Danish Member of European Parliament (MEP) Anders Vistisen grabbed everyone’s attention during a House session telling United States President to ‘F**K Off’, hitting out the Donald Trump over his claims of taking over Greenland.
Vistisen rejected recent claims being made by Trump suggesting that American should take over Greenland in view of its national security.
Speaking in the European Parliament, Vistisen said, “Let me put this in words you might understand: Mr. President, f*ck off.”
Let me put this in words you might understand: Mr. President, f*ck off.
Danish MEP Anders Vistisen to Trump pic.twitter.com/qSyUsexfkz
— Frontalforce 🇮🇳 (@FrontalForce) January 20, 2026
However, Vistisen was pulled up for using the cuss words against the US President. The House Speaker told him that he was sorry to interrupt him, but this is against their rules. “As much as you might feel or the room might feel into this, we have clear rules about cuss words, language that is inappropriate in this room. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but this is unacceptable even if you might have strong political influence about it.”
The room welcomed the quick interruption of Vistisen by the Speaker, who immediately asked and advised the member not to use these cuss words, saying they have clear language rules.
The remarks by Danish MEP have come after Donald Trump earlier today shared AI generated map of Greenland showing it as part of United States in yet another pressure tactics that he is trying over European allies.
Earlier today, Greenland prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen insisted on respect for territorial integrity as the crisis over the Arctic island intensifies.
Nielsen said his government is “working and taking this situation very seriously,” in response to a question by The Associated Press.
Nielsen says his government has had good meetings with NATO and its allies, and that all Western countries should be united by “respect for national, territorial integrity (and) respect for international law.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen, meanwhile, warned today that “the worst may still be ahead of us.”
“We are now being threatened by our closest ally,” she told Danish lawmakers.
The Danish government was invited to Davos, but a forum spokesperson said Monday no representatives planned to attend.
European Union’s top official Von der Leyen called into question Trump’s trustworthiness, saying he had agreed last year not to impose more tariffs on members of the bloc. The statement came after US President announced plans to impose 10 per cent tariffs on European allies who are opposing his Greenland move.
Trump claims his intervention averted “nuclear” war between India and Pakistan after Operation Sindoor in May 2025, suggesting he deserved a Nobel Prize for ending eight wars.
US President Donald Trump has again claimed that his intervention helped avert a possible war between India and Pakistan in May 2025, when tensions sharply escalated following Operation Sindoor.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Trump claimed that during the first 10 months of his second term, he had brought an end to eight long-running conflicts, singling out tensions between India and Pakistan, who “were going to go nuclear.”
He said the two nuclear-armed neighbours were on the brink of a major confrontation, alleging that eight aircraft had been downed and warning that the situation could have spiralled into a nuclear exchange. Recounting a recent meeting, Trump said Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had credited him with saving millions of lives.
“I ended eight unendable wars in 10 months…Pakistan and India. They were really going at it. Eight planes were shot down. They were going to go nuclear, in my opinion. The Prime Minister of Pakistan was here and he said, President Trump saved 10 million people and maybe much more than that,” Trump said while addressing the media to mark the first anniversary of the start of his second term.
The US President had made the same remarks just days earlier at an event commemorating the renaming of Southern Boulevard as Donald J Trump Boulevard.
Trump Says He Deserved Nobel Prize For Ending 8 Wars
Trump went on to suggest that he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for each conflict he claimed to have resolved. “I should have gotten the Nobel Prize for each war. But I don’t say that. I saved millions and millions of people,” he said, adding pointed remarks about the Nobel Committee.
Referring to Norway, Trump implied that decisions on the prize were politically influenced. He also mentioned Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, praising her for handing over her peace prize medal to him and saying she believed he was more deserving.
“Don’t let anyone tell you that Norway doesn’t control the shots, okay? It’s in Norway. Norway controls the shots…That’s why I have such respect for Maria, doing what she did. She said, I don’t deserve the Nobel Prize. He does,” Trump.
Trump’s Repeated Claims Of Ending India-Pakistan Conflict
Since May 2025, Trump has repeatedly maintained that his administration played a decisive role in defusing tensions between India and Pakistan, arguing that US diplomatic pressure and the threat of tariffs forced both sides to step back from the brink during a military standoff. These statements have aligned with Trump’s broader public campaign highlighting his credentials for the Nobel Peace Prize—an honour he ultimately did not receive.
India has firmly dismissed Trump’s claims, consistently stating that no external mediation was involved in the ceasefire. New Delhi has asserted that the truce was the result of direct communication between the two neighbours after India carried out Operation Sindoor, which targeted terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan in retaliation for the April 2025 Pahalgam attack in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 26 people, most of them tourists.
“They’re shooting at me. Please come get me. I’m scared.”
When filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania first heard the emergency phone call recording of Hind Rajab, a frightened six-year-old Palestinian girl begging for help while under siege in Gaza City in 2024, on social media, she says she immediately knew what she had to do.
Hitting pause on the movie she was about to make, the Tunisian two-time Oscar-nominee called her producer and they agreed to shift focus to telling the story of the girl, who was killed – likely by Israeli fire, according to a number of media investigations – along with her aunt, uncle and cousins, and two paramedics sent to save her.
“It haunted me,” Ben Hania tells BBC News about the voice recording, which is the centrepiece of her Oscar-shortlisted docudrama, released in UK cinemas last Friday.
“I was really angry, I was sad, I felt helpless, and I hate it when I feel helpless.
“I asked myself this basic question, what can I do? I’m a filmmaker, so I can do movies.”
She adds: “We started working on The Voice of Hind Rajab that way to not feel helpless, to not accept, to bear witness.
“Because not doing it, for me, was being complicit in a way.”
Hind Rajab’s car was hit by suspected Israeli fire as she and her family tried to flee bombing during the two-year war in Gaza.
Several family members were killed, but Hind managed to answer a callback from the helpers at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
The ambulance trying to reach her was also shelled, and Hind, her family, and the ambulance crew all died.
The Israel Defence Force initially stated none of its troops had been in the area where Hind and the others were killed.
But that suggestion was questioned following independent investigations by research agency Forensic Architecture, in colloboration with NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) Earshot and journalists from Al Jazeera, which concluded that damage to both the car and the ambulance was consistent with Israeli tank fire.
The IDF later said it had “conducted raids on terror targets” with forces operating in neighbourhoods in Gaza City, including Tel al Hawa, from where Hind had made her emergency call.
The UN cited her case in a commission of inquiry accusing Israel of war crimes, which it denies.
An IDF spokesperson told the BBC it is still being reviewed by Israel’s Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism (FFAM).
Ben Hania’s film sets out to tell the story – in Arabic and English – of what happened to Hind and her family, from the perspective of the Red Crescent volunteers at the Ramallah call centre in the occupied West Bank.
It is “based on true events” and “anchored in truth”, Ben Hania says.
“At some point, with all this proof, I thought that we are done explaining”, she adds.
“Cinema can do something better, which is provoking empathy.”
The feature mixes audio of the girl’s heart-rending real final phonecalls with the Red Crescent, with a visual dramatisation using actors to represent the volunteers.
They try to keep her calm and conscious as it becomes clear she is surrounded by the dead bodies of her relatives.
Critics have praised the emotional impact of the performances, while noting the problems inherent with mixing documentary with drama.
Variety’s Guy Lodge said it was “impossible not to be moved” by the recording at the heart of the hybrid film, heard at an “agonising distance”.
But he felt “the ethics and execution of the concept are questionable”.
In a four-star review, The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin said the feature “transcends shock value” and presents viewers with “an ethical dilemma”.
“I dreaded watching this film,” he wrote. “Yet having now seen it, I find my mind changed, thanks largely to the philosophical diligence of Ben Hania’s approach.”
The director – who received the blessing of Hind’s mother, Wesam, before making the movie – says she did her best to “respect the testimony” of the volunteers and what they told her about that day.
She did not reach out to the other side, because, she says: “My movie is not an investigation.
“The investigation was already done,” she adds, with reference to aforementioned findings, as well as those made by other major news providers including the Washington Post and Sky News.
Increasingly stressed scenes play out in the film between call centre worker Omar, played by Motaz Malhees, and his boss Mahdi, played by Amer Hlehel.
Mahdi is seeking a safe route approved by the Israeli army – via intermediaries – for his paramedics to make the eight-minute journey to carry out the rescue attempt.
Omar becomes exasperated at his boss’s insistence on trying to negotiate with Israel.
Actresses Saja Kilani and Clara Khoury, as fellow call centre workers Rana and Nisreen, respectively, complete the ensemble cast of actors of Palestinian origin.
We watch them hear the sound of gunfire or an explosion in the background before the phone connection is lost entirely.
“Even the actors, at some point, stop acting,” says their director. “They weren’t performing.”
Malhees confirms this. He tells us he suffered panic attacks during filming and thought his heart was “going to explode” during one scene, which for him was “like a real conversation with a child”.
“It was a hard experience, but it’s worth everything to give.”
His director stresses she wanted to share with the audience what she had felt the first time she had heard the girl’s call for help. “I thought that she was almost talking to me, to save her”.
She told herself: “I need to go back to this moment when it was possible to save her.” Before “the war, mainly, failed her”.
In another four-star review, the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw said there is “a reckless, ruthless kind of provocative brilliance in what Ben Hania is doing”.
He wrote: “Is it in bad taste? Problematic? Well, in a world where directors busy themselves and us with made-up stories about made-up people, Ben Hania is at least grabbing one of the most relevant issues of our time with both hands and finding a way to thrust it under our noses.”
The main question for Ben Hania when making the film was always: “How to make the voice of this little girl echo?”, she explains.
“Because the world don’t want to hear it. It’s not a comfortable thing to face.
“And for me, it was important to honour her voice and to make it resonate beyond borders.”
Worried that it would be perceived as “niche”, the filmmakers reached out to some famous Hollywood faces – including Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara – who signed up as executive producers.
Phoenix and Mara were in attendance when the film received a record 23-minute standing ovation following its September world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it also won the grand jury prize.
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clygr0ym00po
US president Donald Trump has doubled down on his threats to take control of Greenland, saying on social media that there is “no going back” and that “Greenland is imperative”.
During a news conference at the White House, Trump was asked how far he was willing to go to acquire Greenland and replied, “You’ll find out”.
Meanwhile, French president Emmanuel Macron warned at a meeting at the World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland of a “shift towards a world without rules”, while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the “old order is not coming back”.
Trump is due to arrive in Davos on Wednesday, where he has said there are “a lot of meetings scheduled on Greenland”.
During the lengthy press briefing, Trump also told reporters that “things are going to work out pretty well” in Greenland.
Asked by the BBC whether the possible break up of the Nato alliance was a price the president was willing to pay for Greenland, he responded, “Nobody has done more for Nato than I have, in every way,” and said “Nato is going to be happy and we are going to be happy,” adding, “We need it for world security.”
But he earlier questioned whether Nato would come to aid of the US, should it be required.
“I know we’ll come to (Nato’s) rescue, but I just really do question whether or not they’ll come to ours,” he told reporters.
Nato – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – currently has 32 member states, with the US one of the 12 founding countries.
Designed to safeguard freedom and security through a collective defence, one of the core principles of the Nato alliance is outlined in Article 5, which says that an armed attack against one or more members will be considered an attack against all.
Trump has not ruled out using military force to acquire Greenland; when NBC News asked yesterday whether he would use force to seize the territory, the president replied “no comment”.
In an interview with BBC Newsnight on Tuesday evening, Greenland’s Minister of Industry and Natural Resources, Naaja Nathanielsen, said that Greenlanders were “bewildered” by the president’s demands.
“We do not want to be Americans, and we have been quite clear about that,” Nathanielsen said.
“What value do you put on our culture and our right to decide what happens with us in the future?”
Ahead of the forum in Davos, Trump shared screenshots that he says showed text messages sent to him by Macron and Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte.
In them, Rutte said he was committed to finding a way forward on Greenland, while Macron said he “does not understand what you are doing”, but offered to organise a meeting with other leaders in Paris.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, addressed the matter directly in a speech to attendees on Tuesday, which was the first day of the forum, emphasising that Europe is “fully committed” when it comes to the security of the Arctic.
However, she said that this could only be achieved together, and called Trump’s proposed additional tariffs “a mistake”.
The US president has said he will add a 10% tariff to “any and all goods” imported from eight European countries from 1 February if they opposed his proposed takeover of Greenland.
In her speech, Von der Leyen added that the European Union stands in “full solidarity” with Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark – adding that their sovereignty is “non-negotiable”.
Her words were echoed by Canada’s Mark Carney, who said that his country’s commitment to Nato’s Article 5 – which states an armed attack against one or more members is considered an attack against all – is “unwavering”.
“We stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future,” Carney said.
In Macron’s remarks, he said he preferred “respect to bullies” and the “rule of law to brutality”.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump threatened a 200% tariff on French wine and champagne after Macron reportedly declined an invitation to join the Gaza “Board of Peace”.
Israel banned the UN agency for Palestinian refugees last year, claiming it had been infiltrated by militants, a charge the United Nations strongly denies.
Israeli crews began demolishing the headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday.
They bulldozed several buildings in the compound, which once housed dozens of agency staff.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini condemned the move, describing it as a “new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law, including of the privileges and immunities of the United Nations, by the State of Israel.”
UNRWA has not used the building since early last year, after Israel ordered the agency to vacate all its premises and halt its operations. On Tuesday, Israeli forces confiscated devices and forced out the private security hired to guard the facility.
An Israeli flag now flies over the demolished site.
Israel said the move enforces a law banning UNRWA, claiming some agency staff have ties to militant groups such as Hamas.
The United Nations has denied that UNRWA has an anti-Israel bias and said it acted quickly to purge any suspected militants among its staff.
“This is a historic day, a day of celebration and a very important day for governance in Jerusalem,” Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said.
He posted a video of himself at the site as the demolition work began.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry defended the demolitions, saying the state owns the compound.
“The compound does not enjoy any immunity and the seizure of this compound by Israeli authorities was carried out in accordance with both Israeli and international law,” it said.
Roland Friedrich, UNRWA’s director in the West Bank, rejected the Israeli claim and insisted that the compound “remains United Nations property and is protected by the privileges and immunities of the UN, regardless of whether it is currently in use”.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Israel to halt the demolition restore it and other UNRWA premises to the world body “without delay,” deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the Israeli actions too.
“The ministry warns of the gravity of this deliberate escalation against UNRWA, which comes within the framework of a systematic targeting of its role and UN mandate, and an attempt to undermine the international protection system for Palestinian refugees,” the Foreign Ministry in Ramallah said in a statement.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/israel-demolishes-structures-inside-unrwa-compound/a-75583759
Interim president Delcy Rodriguez said the money from US sales of Venezuelan oil will be used to prop up the currency.
Venezuela has received the first proceeds from a US sale of Venezuelan crude oil, following the capture of President Nicolas Maduro by the United States earlier in January.
The US announced last week that it had completed a $500 million sale of Venezuelan crude oil.
“We should inform you that we have gotten funds, from the sale of oil, and we have gotten, of the first $500 million, $300 million,” interim leader Delcy Rodriguez said at an event in Caracas on Tuesday.
Rodriguez said she would use the first $300 million (€256 million) from the sale to prop up her country’s battered currency, the bolivar.
The funds would be used to “stabilize” the foreign exchange market “to protect the income and purchasing power of our workers,” she said.
Details of the US oil sale are unclear. But news agency Reuters reported at the time that Venezuelan crude was being offered at a discount to traders compared to similar oil from other countries.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s lawmakers are scheduled to debate oil-sector reforms this week.
Expected reforms include loosening the control of the state oil and gas company PDVSA over new investment.
The country’s hydrocarbon law currently requires foreign partners to work together with PDVSA, which must hold the majority stake.
Venezuela is now looking to expand and formalize partnership-style contracts first introduced under Maduro.
National Assembly president Jorge Rodriguez (who is Delcy Rodriguez’s brother) said on Tuesday that such contracts are “a fundamental element to be expressed in the law’s reform.”
Potential foreign investors have called for urgent legal reform in the Latin American country before committing significant capital.
Venezuela is said to hold the world’s largest crude oil reserves but the type of extra heavy oil in its fields is capital intensive and technically complex to extract.
But decades of decades of mismanagement, underinvestment in oil upgrading infrastructure and international sanctions have limited the oil sector’s viability.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/venezuela-oil-sale-us-delcy-rodriguez/a-75585844
In a recent survey, some 60% of Germans said buying a Tesla was “completely out of the question,” Meanwhile, the German military has filled its ranks to the highest levels in over a decade.
Thousands of Kurds in Germany took to the streets on Tuesday night to protest renewed fighting between Kurdish forces in Syria and the country’s military.
Demonstrations were held in a number of cities including Frankfurt, Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Aachen. Police meanwhile broke up demonstrations in Stuttgart and Hannover.
More than three-quarters of Germans reject the idea of buying an electric car from the US manufacturer Tesla, according to a recent survey by the German Economic Institute (IW).
Some 60% of respondents said buying a Tesla was “completely out of the question,” while another 16% said they would “probably not” purchase a car from US tech billionaire Elon Musk’s company, which saw sales fall by 13% worldwide in the first quarter of 2025, by 45% in Europe, and by 62% in Germany.
According to IW expert Matthias Diermeier, Musk himself has alienated his target group in the European market due to his support for US President Donald Trump and his public backing of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party during last year’s German federal election.
“The decisive factor for buying an electric car remains the buyer’s political views,” said Diermeier.
According to the survey, the willingness to buy an electric car is highest among Green Party supporters, at around 64%.
Approximately 22% of this demographic said they already own an electric car or plug-in hybrid, but only about one-in-ten said that they could imagine buying a Tesla.
Even among AfD supporters, interest in buying a Tesla is less than 15% — although this may be due to a widespread rejection of electric vehicles rather than this group’s opposition to Musk’s politics. Not even one in five could imagine buying an electric car, and more than two-thirds categorically reject the idea.
“Electromobility, along with wind turbines and heat pumps, is another example of the partisan political currents surrounding climate policy in Germany,” said Diermeier.
The size of the German military, the Bundeswehr, has grown its numbers to its highest level in over a decade, with 184,200 serving soldiers, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told the DPA news agency on Tuesday, revealing the best recruitment figures in 15 years.
“We have the best recruitment results since the suspension of conscription,” said Pistorius. “The active force is larger than it has been in 12 years.”
Germany is seeking to boost troop numbers to 260,000 by the mid-2030s under new NATO targets agreed last year in the face of the increasing threat from Russia.
“Young people are increasingly willing to contribute to Germany’s external security,” said Pistorius, praising the attitude of the new recruits. “This makes me optimistic that many motivated and committed men and women will choose to join the Bundeswehr in 2026 – whether in civilian or military roles, whether as part of the new conscription service or for a longer period.”
Following months of debate, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government reintroduced a military service program late last year. The scheme is initially voluntary, but could be made compulsory if recruitment falls below the necessary targets.
Workers in Germany took an average of 19.5 days off sick in 2025, according to the country’s largest statutory health insurer, DAK. That’s down marginally from 19.7 in 2024.
Nevertheless, the DAK said on Tuesday that “the sickness absence rate in Germany is still at a high level” compared to other European countries.
DAK chairman Andreas Storm called on the government to bring “employers, unions, medical professionals and insurers to the table” to discuss causes and solutions.
“An important component could be the introduction of partial sick leave for certain illnesses and diagnoses,” he suggested, adding that this is “already a proven instrument in Scandinavian countries” and could be “an important tool for reducing absenteeism.”
According to the Institute for Health and Social Research (IGES) in Berlin, respiratory problems, mental illnesses and musculoskeletal disorders together accounted for around half of all days lost to illness among the 2.4 million people insured by the DAK.
In 2025, compared to the previous year, there was a 6.9% increase in sick days due to mental health issues, reaching approximately 366 days per 100 insured individuals. Sick days due to respiratory problems and musculoskeletal disorders, on the other hand, remained largely unchanged at 378 and 347 days per 100 people, respectively.
“Sick leave due to mental health issues is often associated with long periods of absence,” said DAK chairman Storm. “Companies face the challenge of having to compensate for a high number of sick days caused by these illnesses. From an economic perspective, prevention is paramount.”
Bundesliga sides Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen are both on the road in the Champions League on Tuesday night as they look to secure a place in the knockout stage of Europe’s premier competition — or in the playoffs at the very least.
Following a disappointing 2-2 draw at home to Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt before Christmas, Dortmund will likely need to win both of their remaining games to finish in the top eight of the “league stage” and qualify automatically for the knockout rounds.
On paper, that looks like a tough job away at Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday and then at home to Italian giants Inter Milan. But the trip to London may have come at just the right time, with Spurs yet to win any of their five games so far this month. BVB are in much better form and will be hoping to capitalize.
For Leverkusen, following back-to-back defeats in the Bundesliga, chances of direct qualification are much slimmer, but a win away at Greek champions Olympiakos would at least guarantee a spot in the play-off round.
German champions Bayern Munich are in action on Wednesday night against Belgian champions Union Saint-Gilloise. Eintracht Frankfurt, who sacked head coach Dino Toppmöller on Sunday, will travel to Azerbaijan to take on Qarabag.
The fence in front of the Turkish embassy in Berlin was splattered with red paint overnight, according to German police, while messages were painted in white on the pavement outside.
Around 40 people are suspected to have been involved in the incident, which also saw several smoke bombs set off.
When police arrived at the scene, the suspects reportedly fled into the nearby Tiergarten, the green park area in central Berlin, where two men aged 19 and 20 were arrested.
Some of the red paint reportedly also landed on the fence of the neighboring South African embassy.
Investigators suspect that Kurdish activists might be responsible.
German exports to the United States took a plunge in 2025 as a result of US President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policies, official data showed on Tuesday.
Germany’s Federal Statistical Office said the country exported €135.8 billion worth of goods to the US over the first 11 months of last year, down 9.4% on the same period in 2024.
In contrast, German imports from the US rose 2.2% to €86.9 billion, meaning Germany’s trade surplus with the country shrank to €48.9 billion over the period – the lowest figure since 2021, during the coronavirus pandemic.
The US is Germany’s most important export market, but the manufacturing-heavy and export-led economy has suffered badly from Trump’s dramatic trade policy shifts, with German exports shrinking for a third consecutive year in 2025.
The beleaguered German automotive sector was particularly hard hit, with the value of exported cars and vehicle parts sinking by 17.5% to €26.9 billion. Machine exports were also down 9% to €24 billion, while pharmaceuticals rose slightly by 0.7% to €26.2 billion.
And further instability is looming after Trump on Saturday threatened 10% tariffs on European countries, including Germany, for their opposition to his bid to take over Danish-administered Greenland.
The German government has revoked almost half of the asylum guarantees made to Afghans who assisted German forces in Afghanistan prior to the return to power of the Taliban in 2021 and who have since fled to neighboring Pakistan.
According to government figures released on Tuesday in a response to a parliamentary question from the opposition Left Party, 37,652 Afghans were brought to Germany under various asylum programs between May 2021 and the end of 2025, including 788 since the current conservative-led coalition government took office in May last year, with another 410 applications still in progress.
However, for 2,308 Afghans still living in Pakistan and awaiting departure, almost half have had asylum guarantees from the previous government revoked in a move criticized by Left Party lawmaker Clara Bünger as “irresponsible, shoddy and humanly intolerable.”
Following the Taliban takeover in August 2021, the German government had promised asylum to people who had worked in the country for the German Armed Forces or other institutions. Promises were also made for people classified as particularly vulnerable for other reasons – such as women’s rights or human rights activists.
However, since the change of government in Berlin, the new German government has severely restricted these admissions. Since many of those affected had already fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan, they are now stranded there.
“The government cannot simply claim that it bears no responsibility and abandon the people to the Taliban’s arbitrary regime of inhumanity and misogyny,” said Bünger.
According to German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), asylum guarantees have been revoked due to security concerns raised during the application process – an argument which Bünger rejected, pointing out that such concerns had only been raised in 3% of over 5,400 interviews since June 2023.
“The reference to necessary security checks is purely a diversionary tactic,” she claimed.
Germany’s national handball team narrowly avoided a group-stage exit from the handball European Championship in Herning, Denmark, on Monday night thanks to a well-deserved 34-32 win over Spain.
After an unexpected defeat to Serbia on Saturday, Germany had been facing a premature exit from the tournament — just 11 months before hosting the 2027 World Championships.
But Juri Knorr put Germany ahead for the first time in the fifth minute, establishing a lead they never surrendered — thanks also to a series of impressive saves from goalkeepers Andreas Wolff and David Späth.
“The German team delivered a substantially more concentrated performance than in recent game, both in defense and attack,” commented Kicker sports magazine. “Germany hardly committed any of the foul throws or technical errors with which they had made life so difficult at the start of the tournament.”
In the end, the victory over the previously unbeaten Spaniards saw Germany finish top of Group A — but more tough challenges await in the coming rounds, including defending champions France and this year’s favorites, Denmark.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/germany-updates-majority-of-germans-reject-teslas/live-75574052
Donald Trump is expected to meet global business leaders in Davos on Wednesday, sources familiar with the matter said, as the U.S. President’s presence looms large over the annual gathering of the global elite in Switzerland.
Business leaders, including CEOs in financial services, crypto and consulting, were invited to a reception after Trump’s address to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, the sources told Reuters on Monday. The agenda was unclear.
One CEO simply had “a reception in honour of President Donald J Trump” scheduled in their diary, while another said their understanding was that global CEOs had been invited, not just those from the United States. One of the sources said the invitations had come from the White House.
Anthony Scaramucci, an investor who briefly served as Trump’s communications director during his first term, said he knew the meeting was happening.
“I’m not going. I’m not sure I’m invited, but even if I were, I wouldn’t want to be a side show,” Scaramucci said.
Trump is expected to arrive on Wednesday in the Swiss mountain resort, where he is due to deliver a special address.
Several top U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, are also accompanying Trump.
China, meanwhile, is being represented in Davos by Vice Premier He Lifeng who is due to deliver a special address on Tuesday. He will also host a reception with CEOs and founders of global companies, a source told Reuters.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of business hours.
The WEF agenda has to some extent been overtaken by the U.S. president’s dramatic policy moves, including his demand in recent days that the United States take over Greenland.
WEF organisers have said that over 3,000 delegates from more than 130 countries will attend this year, including 64 heads of state and government, particularly from emerging economies.
The list also includes several heads of G7 nations, with changes in U.S. policy under Trump in focus.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev will also travel to Davos and hold meetings with members of the U.S. delegation, two sources with knowledge of the visit told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, national security advisers from a number of countries are due to meet on the sidelines of the event on Monday, with Greenland among the subjects on the agenda, diplomatic sources said.
One European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Greenland had been added to the agenda of the previously scheduled meeting after Trump on Saturday to impose extra tariffs on eight European countries until the U.S. is allowed to buy the Arctic island.
Bessent said European governments should not retaliate against any measures taken by the U.S. in their dispute.
“I think it would be very unwise,” Bessent told reporters when asked about retaliatory trade measures on the sidelines of the WEF meeting, adding that Europe should not doubt Trump’s intentions over Greenland.
“I’ve been travelling, so I haven’t been in touch (with European officials), but I spoke to President Trump and evidently there are a lot of inbounds, and I think everyone should take the president at his word,” Bessent said.
Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/davos/trump-meet-global-ceos-davos-with-us-policy-focus-2026-01-19/
It was a mix of carmine and scarlet, with a hint of orange – a new hue, inspired by an elderly woman at Barcelona’s opera house, whose elegance struck a young Valentino Garavani.
The colour, introduced to the fashion world several years later, in 1959, with a strapless cocktail dress of draped tulle, has carried his name – “Valentino red” – ever since, doubling as the eponymous Italian fashion group’s signature.
“I think a woman dressed in red is always wonderful, she is the perfect image of a heroine,” Valentino wrote in the book “Rosso” (Red), released in 2022. He would include at least one red dress in every one of his collections.
Valentino, the Italian fashion designer who built one of the country’s most celebrated luxury houses and was known in the industry as “the emperor”, died on Monday at his home in Rome, his foundation said. He was 93.
The cause of death was not immediately known.
Valentino ranked alongside Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld as the last of a leading generation of designers, from an era before fashion became a highly commercial industry run as much by financiers and marketing executives as by couturiers.
Scaling the heights of high fashion, he was the first Italian to feature on the exclusive Paris haute couture catwalks.
Passionate about film, he dreamed as a young man of dressing the “beautiful ladies of the silverscreen”, as he called them, among them 1950s Hollywood stars Lana Turner and Judy Garland.
Valentino would eventually design Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding gown, and was the first choice for numerous Oscar winners, including Sharon Stone and Penelope Cruz.
His romantic designs, simple at first glance, were full of intricate detail. “I love beauty,” Valentino said. “It is not my fault. And I know what women want: they want to be beautiful.”
The designer, who also dressed Jackie Kennedy, created a business empire under his own name before selling it off ahead of his retirement, in 2008.
Valentino was an only child, born into a well-to-do family in Voghera, south of Milan, where his father ran an electrical supplies company.
Having started drawing and appreciating high-end clothes from a young age, he studied couture in Milan and Paris, where he then worked as an apprentice for designer Jean Dessès. He returned home in 1960, opening his own fashion house in the heart of Rome.
That year, Elizabeth Taylor chose a white Valentino gown for the premiere of blockbuster “Spartacus”.
Also in 1960, he met Giancarlo Giammetti in a Roman cafe. Giammetti would go on to be his partner in business and in life.
“To share life with a person for your whole existence – every moment, joy, pain, enthusiasm, disappointment – is something that cannot be defined,” Valentino said of him.
Giammetti took on the managerial part of the business, leaving creative matters to the designer.
“To be with Valentino as a friend, as a lover and as an employee is a bit the same: you need a lot of patience,” Giammetti said in “Valentino: The Last Emperor”, a documentary that followed the designer in the last two years of his career.
Valentino’s georgette fabrics, chiffon ruffles and ornate embellishments, including the exclusive budellini technique – where long strips of sheep’s wool are hand rolled into tubes, wrapped in silk and stitched together – won him a multitude of awards, including France’s highest civilian distinction in 2006.
“Fame and fortune didn’t change him,” Giammetti said at the time. “He is still the little guy I met 45 years ago.”
Superstitious and introverted, Valentino loved chocolate, skiing and his pugs. He told Corriere in 2017 that he was afraid of death.
In 2007 he wowed Rome with lavish celebrations to celebrate his decades in fashion – a three-day event that included dinners, parties and exhibitions with thousands of guests flying in from around the world.
Months later he announced that he would stop designing for his company, which he no longer controlled after selling the firm almost a decade earlier for some $300 million.
“I have decided that this is the perfect moment to say adieu to the world of fashion,” he said. “As the English say, I would like to leave the party when it is still full.”
His last catwalk show was held in January 2008 in Paris, a city he called his second home and which he said had taught him to love fashion and life.
Three U.S. Catholic archbishops on Monday decried the direction of American foreign policy, saying the country’s “moral role in confronting evil around the world” was in question and that military action must only be used as an extreme last resort.
“In 2026, the United States has entered into the most profound and searing debate about the moral foundation for America’s actions in the world since the end of the Cold War,” the three highest-ranking U.S. Catholic archbishops said in a rare joint statement.
The statement by Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Robert McElroy of Washington and Joseph Tobin of Newark, echoes Pope Leo’s fiery Vatican speech earlier this month denouncing the world’s “zeal for war”.
Leo, the first U.S. pope, has previously criticized some of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies, in particular on immigration.
Citing recent developments in Venezuela, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the threats against Greenland by the Trump administration, the archbishops said rights of nations to self-determination appeared “fragile”.
“The events in Venezuela, Ukraine and Greenland have raised basic questions about the use of military force and the meaning of peace,” the clerics said.
U.S. President Donald Trump has linked his drive to take control of Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize, saying he no longer thought “purely of Peace” as the row over the island threatened to reignite a trade war with Europe.
Trump declined to tell NBC News in an interview whether he would use force to seize Greenland. He did reiterate his threat to hit European nations with tariffs if a deal is not reached.
Trump has intensified his push to wrest sovereignty over Greenland from fellow NATO member Denmark, prompting the European Union to weigh hitting back with its own measures.
The dispute threatens to upend the NATO alliance that has underpinned Western security for decades and which was already under strain over the war in Ukraine and Trump’s refusal to protect allies unless they increase defence spending.
Trump’s threat has rattled European industry and sent shockwaves through financial markets. Investors fear a return to the volatility of 2025’s trade war, which only eased when the sides reached tariff deals in the middle of the year.
In a text message on Sunday to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, Trump said: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”
Norway’s government released the messages on Monday.
Stoere had sent an initial message with Finnish President Alexander Stubb calling for a de-escalation of tensions, eliciting a response from Trump less than half an hour later.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee annoyed Trump by awarding the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize not to him but to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
In his message, Trump also repeated his assertion that Denmark cannot protect Greenland from Russia or China.
“… And why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway?” he wrote, adding: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”
Trump vowed on Saturday to implement a wave of increasing tariffs from February 1 on EU members Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, along with Britain and Norway, until the U.S. is allowed to buy Greenland, home to only 57,000 people.
“We are living in 2026, you can trade with people, but you don’t trade people,” Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said during a visit to London on Monday.
In a post on Facebook, Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said the territory should be allowed to decide its own fate.
“We will not let ourselves be pressured. We stand firm on dialogue, on respect and on international law,” he said.
Denmark’s military told Reuters that Danish soldiers would land in Kangerlussuaq, western Greenland, on Monday, as part of the Arctic Endurance military exercise.
Trump dismissed the arrival of NATO allies in Greenland.
“That wasn’t a military,” Trump told reporters on Monday in Florida before he boarded a flight back to Washington, DC.
“They sent a few people, and they say they sent them not for me, but to guard against Russia. But you know, NATO has been warning Denmark for about 20 years now, longer than that, 25 years, they’ve been warning Denmark about the Russian threat, and it’s not only Russia, it’s also China.”
Norway’s Stoere said he would change his schedule to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday and Thursday, overlapping with Trump’s planned appearance at the annual gathering of the global political and business elite. The country will not change its stance on Greenland, the country’s foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he too would try to meet Trump on Wednesday, adding that a trade dispute was not wanted. “But if we are confronted with tariffs that we consider unreasonable, then we are capable of responding,” Merz said.
Asked by reporters on Monday what he planned to say to European leaders in Davos about his Greenland plan, Trump said: “I don’t think they’re going to push back too much. Look, we have to have it.”
“They have to have this done. They can’t protect it. Denmark, they’re wonderful people, and I know the leaders – they’re are very good people, but they don’t even go there.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it would be “very unwise” for European governments to retaliate.
“I think it’s a complete canard that the president will be doing this because of the Nobel prize. The president is looking at Greenland as a strategic asset for the United States,” he told reporters in Davos.
“Intimidation,” “threats” and “blackmail” are just some of the terms being used by European Union leaders to describe U.S. President Donald Trump’s warning that he will slap new tariffs on nations opposing American control of Greenland.
European language has hardened since Trump returned to the White House 12 months ago. Now it’s in reaction to the previously unthinkable idea that NATO’s most powerful member would threaten to seize the territory of another ally. Trade retaliation is likely should Trump make good on his tariff announcement.
A year into Trump 2.0, Europe’s faith in the strength of the trans-Atlantic bond is fading fast. For some, it’s already disappeared. The flattery of past months has not worked and tactics are evolving as the Europeans try to manage threats from an old ally just as they confront the threat of an increasingly hostile Russia.
Trump’s first term brought NATO to the brink of collapse. “I feared that NATO was about to stop functioning,” former Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg wrote in his recent memoir, after the U.S. president had threatened to walk out of a 2018 summit.
Now, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is warning that should he try to annex Greenland, a semiautonomous part of Denmark, “then everything stops … including our NATO.”
“We are at the very early stage of a rather deep political-military crisis,” said Maria Martisiute, a European Policy Centre analyst. “There is a greater realization, even though political leaders will not like to admit it, that America has abandoned NATO.”
In January 2025, U.S. allies at NATO were waiting to hear Trump’s plans for Ukraine.
Europe’s biggest land war in decades was about to enter its fourth year. The Europeans believed that President Vladimir Putin would pose an existential threat to their territory should Russia win.
Few thought that Biden administration policies would continue. But within weeks, any lingering hopes for the U.S. commitment to Ukraine dissolved. American arms supplies and funds began to dry up. Europe would have to fill the gap and pay for U.S. help.
In a speech at NATO headquarters in February, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth read the riot act to European allies and Canada. The United States had priorities elsewhere and Europe must handle security in its own backyard.
Ukraine would not join the alliance. Its territory seized by Russia would not be returned. The Europeans could pull together a force to help Ukraine if they wanted, but they wouldn’t get U.S. help if they went into the country and got attacked.
Trump has since blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the invasion, notwithstanding visits with royalty in the U.K. and the Netherlands meant to mollify him.
Days later that February, in Munich, Vice President JD Vance met the leader of a far-right party during election campaigning in Germany. He claimed that Europe’s main threat was internal, not Russia. Free speech is “in retreat” across the continent, Vance warned.
But after winning the poll, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said that “in view of the increasing threat situation,” Germany and Europe “must now very quickly make very big efforts, very quickly,” to strengthen their defense capabilities.
Over the course of last year, European leaders and Zelenskyy flew to Washington to try to keep Trump onside. A 28-point plan to end the war that he floated would acquiesce to many Russian demands.
The plan was reworked. Talks continue, but without Putin. Few expect him to accept. Trump mostly blames Zelenskyy for the stalemate.
Meanwhile, Europe pressed ahead with new defense measures, even as Trump waged a global tariff war, including against U.S. allies, roiling their economies.
The EU created a multibillion-euro fund to buy arms and ammunition, with the emphasis on sourcing them from European companies and weaning nations off U.S. suppliers.
Debt rules were eased for security spending. Money was funneled into Ukraine’s defense industry. In December, European leaders agreed to pay for most of its military and economic needs for the next two years as Kyiv teeters on the brink of bankruptcy.
A new U.S. national security strategy further soured trans-Atlantic relations. It paints European allies as weak, offers tacit support to far-right political parties, and criticizes European free speech and migration policy.
European Council President Antonio Costa warned the U.S. against interfering in Europe’s affairs. Merz said that the U.S. strategy underscores the need for Europe to become “much more independent” from the United States.
Work has since begun on Europe’s own security strategy. It aims to respond to “the geopolitical changes in our world and to give an appropriate answer to that,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
Part of it is to make Europe even more autonomous.
As France, Germany, the U.K., Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands sent troops to Greenland last week — small in number but highly symbolic in the message of resolve sent to the White House — French President Emmanuel Macron said that it’s important “to stand at the side of a sovereign state to protect its territory.”
Source : https://apnews.com/article/trump-europe-nato-greenland-security-8d31b28bb7076f534fba25b80aa3a59f
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fired his vice premier and railed against “incompetent” officials in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory, state media said Tuesday (Jan 20).
Vice Premier Yang Sung Ho was sacked “on the spot”, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials”.
“Please, Comrade Vice Premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said.
Nuclear-armed North Korea, which is under multiple sets of sanctions over its weapons programmes, has long struggled with its moribund state-managed economy and chronic food shortages.
Kim has been quick to scold lazy officials for alleged mismanagement of economic policy, but such a public dismissal is very rare.
Touring the opening of an industrial machinery complex on Monday, Kim blasted cadres who for “too long been accustomed to defeatism, irresponsibility and passiveness”.
Yang was “unfit to be entrusted with heavy duties”, Kim said, according to KCNA.
“Put simply, it was like hitching a cart to a goat – an accidental mistake in our cadre appointment process,” the North Korean leader explained.
“After all, it is an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat.”
And he urged a quick turnaround in the “centuries-old backwardness of the economy and build a modernised and advanced one capable of firmly guaranteeing the future of our state”.
Images released by Pyongyang showed a stern-looking Kim delivering a speech at the venue in Hamgyong Province in the country’s frigid northeast, with workers in attendance wearing green uniforms and matching grey hats.
The impoverished North has long prioritised its military and banned nuclear weapons programmes over providing for its people.
It is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, including floods and drought, due to a chronic lack of infrastructure, deforestation and decades of state mismanagement.
The new machine complex makes up part of a large machinery-manufacturing belt linking the northeast to Wonsan further south, “accounting for about 16 per cent of North Korea’s total machinery output”, according to Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies.
Kim’s public dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed in 2013 after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew, Yang said.
The North Korean leader is “using public accountability as a shock tactic to warn party officials”, he told AFP.
Pyongyang is gearing up for its first congress of its ruling party in five years, with analysts expecting it in the coming weeks.
From hormonal fluctuations to cortisol spikes, experts explain what’s causing post-adolescence breakouts.
You’d think pimples were something you left behind with teenage angst and exam stress – but dermatologists say it’s common to develop acne in your 20s to 40s and beyond, even if your teenage skin was clear.
“Many adults come to me saying, ‘I thought I left pimples behind in my teenage years – why is this happening now?’” said Dr Angeline Yong, founder of Angeline Yong Dermatology and Sskins Medispa. “That sense of frustration can be as hard to manage as the acne itself.”
Unlike teenage breakouts, which are mainly driven by hormonal fluctuation, the causes of adult acne are more complex and “still not as well understood”, added Dr Sarah Too, medical director of Astria Medical Aesthetics. “Adult acne is also seen to be more cyclical compared to the consistent breakouts in teens.”
“The good news is that with tailored treatments and the right skincare, it can be effectively managed – even in adulthood,” said Dr Yong.
From hormonal fluctuations to everyday habits, here are some of the most common triggers behind your breakouts.
“The causes of adult acne are more complex and still not as well understood.”
1. HORMONAL AND MEDICAL FACTORS
“Teenage acne is largely driven by puberty-related hormone surges, particularly androgens, which stimulate excess oil production and make the skin more prone to clogged pores,” explained Dr Yong.
“In adults, fluctuations related to the menstrual cycle such as oestrogen dominance, pregnancy, post-partum shifts, or perimenopause can all spark new breakouts. Conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) may also surface later in adulthood and contribute to acne,” she continued.
Men with high testosterone levels are also prone to “deeper, cystic, nodular breakouts”, noted Dr Too. Once hormone levels stabilise after adolescence, flare-ups usually ease, which is why adult acne is more common among women.
Certain medications can also aggravate the skin. “Steroids, anti-seizure drugs, or even supplements like high-dose vitamin B12 may cause or worsen acne,” said Dr Yong.
2. STRESS
“When we’re under pressure, the level of cortisol (the stress hormone) increases, stimulating oil glands and fuelling inflammation,” explained Dr Yong. This makes pores more likely to clog, and existing breakouts become more persistent.
Her advice: Treat stress as seriously as skincare. “Good sleep, rest, meditation and self-care really help the skin respond better to treatment.”
3. LIFESTYLE HABITS
From your diet to phone hygiene, small daily habits can make a big difference.
“High-glycaemic foods like char kway teow or chicken rice can spike blood sugar and increase insulin and Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1), which stimulate excess oil and clog pores,” said Dr Too. “Dairy and sugary drinks like milk coffee and bubble tea also boost oil production and inflammation.”
While blue light from screens hasn’t been proven to cause acne, it may worsen inflammation and accelerate premature ageing. The bigger issue, says Dr Too, is constant phone-to-cheek contact: “It can trigger localised breakouts through friction, pressure and bacteria transfer.” To minimise flare-ups, try to keep your phone away from your face as much as possible, and clean it regularly.
Exercise can help regulate hormones and reduce stress – but sweat left on the skin too long can lead to breakouts, especially “bacne” or “back acne”. “Cleanse your face and body after workouts, change out of tight clothes and avoid heavy makeup,” advised Dr Too. “Products with salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide can help prevent post-workout breakouts. I also like to use hypochlorous acid sprays after a workout to gently sanitise the skin.”
Dr Yong explains how acne evolves with age.
In your 20s: “Breakouts are still influenced by residual hormonal surges,” she said. “Stress from studying, starting your career, or irregular sleep, can also trigger flare-ups.” Acne appears along the lower cheeks and jawline, though oily T-zone pimples remain common.
In your 30s: “Hormonal fluctuations remain a strong driver, but lifestyle stress, lack of sleep, and early signs of skin ageing start to play a bigger role.” The skin barrier becomes more sensitive, leading to deeper, more painful nodules around the jawline, chin, and neck.
In your 40s and beyond: “Acne is less about excess oil and more about hormonal changes, such as perimenopause, or inflammatory triggers.” The skin becomes less resilient and flare-ups tend to be cystic, slow to heal, and more likely to leave dark marks or scars.
“(There’s been) a steady rise in adult acne cases locally, especially among women.”
Both doctors are seeing a steady rise in adult acne cases locally, especially among women.
“Our hot, humid climate means sweat and oil production are naturally higher, which can clog pores,” said Dr Yong. “On top of that, periodic haze and rising air pollution can expose the skin to fine particles and oxidative stress, which can worsen breakouts.”
Dr Too points to another factor. “The ideal of achieving flawless ‘glass skin’ has made people more conscious about their complexion. This often makes individuals feel uncomfortable in their own skin, prompting many to seek treatments,” she shared.
On a similar note, Dr Yong warns against “skincare acne” – flare-ups caused by overloading on trending products. “People are layering multiple acids, retinoids, scrubs and masks without guidance,” said Dr Yong. “The result? A compromised skin barrier that becomes red, sensitive, and ironically, more prone to breakouts.”
For such cases, she recommends a “reset”. “Strip back to a gentle cleanser, light non-comedogenic moisturiser, and sunscreen.” Once the skin calms, reintroduce actives slowly, one at a time – ideally with guidance from a dermatologist.
““Skincare acne” – flare-ups caused by overloading on trending products.”
Mild acne can often be managed with over-the-counter products. Both experts recommend starting with a few proven ingredients:
Retinoids: Dr Too’s top pick, retinoids help reduce sebum production and boost cell turnover. Start slowly with lower concentrations, she advises, as stronger formulas can be too drying or irritating for some skin types.
Salicylic acid (BHA): “This ingredient gets deep into pores to clear blockages and reduce blackheads and whiteheads,” said Dr Yong. Using it in a cleanser or toner is a great first step.
Benzoyl peroxide: Both cite this as an effective option for killing acne-causing bacteria. Dr Yong recommends starting with lower strengths (2.5 per cent to 5 per cent) to minimise dryness.
Niacinamide: A soothing multitasker, niacinamide helps regulate oil production and reduce redness. “It’s a gentle addition to almost any routine,” says Dr Yong.
“The key is not to throw every active on at once, but to use them in a thoughtful, layered way in rotation,” said Dr Yong. Alternate actives – for instance, use acids in the morning, and retinol at night – and pair with niacinamide to soothe the skin.
“Sunscreen is non-negotiable,” she added. “UV exposure worsens both acne marks and ageing.”
Acne care is now gentler, smarter and more targeted. “For adult skin, we now have treatments that treat acne while respecting sensitivity and barrier health,” said Dr Yong.
She cites radiofrequency microneedling, fractional lasers, and the new 1726nm wavelength lasers that specifically target sebaceous glands. “Light and photodynamic therapies like blue and red light, or gold photothermal therapy, are effective for overactive oil glands with minimal downtime.”
Dr Too often combines oral and topical medications with energy-based treatments: “Carbon laser peel helps to cleanse the skin and reduce sebum production, while Pico laser targets acne-causing bacteria and lightens post-acne marks, making it effective for both active breakouts and residual pigmentation.”
Source : https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/style-beauty/adult-acne-hormones-stress-skincare-498061
In a wide-ranging speech as he opened the fifth session of the 15th Parliament, the king alluded to topics that have generated controversy in recent months and slammed corruption in the military and public service.
National interests must take precedence over state rights, and any education system that seeks recognition in Malaysia must accept the use of the Malay language and Malaysia’s history, king Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar told parliamentarians on Monday (Jan 19).
In a wide-ranging speech at the opening of the fifth session of the 15th Parliament, the king alluded to topics that have generated controversy in recent months and slammed corruption in the military and public service.
He called on members of parliament to avoid inciting tensions among different regions in the country, stressing that differences in opinion should be resolved maturely and not through hatred or suspicion.
On the “collective interests of Malaysians”, he said Malaysia should return to the original intent of the 1963 Malaysia Agreement (MA63) – which forms the basis of the Federation of Malaysia – emphasising unity, mutual respect and close cooperation between the states and the federal government.
“State rights must always be respected. However, the interests of Malaysia as a whole must always be prioritised,” Sultan Ibrahim said.
His remarks come amid a push by the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak for greater autonomy.
Last year, the Kota Kinabalu High Court ruled that the Malaysian federal government had acted unlawfully by failing to fulfil Sabah’s right to 40 per cent of federal revenue derived from the state for nearly 50 years.
The court also ordered an agreement be reached on Sabah’s 40 per cent share of federal revenue for each financial year from 1974 to 2021, with the process to be completed within 180 days.
Sarawak, meanwhile, is in a dispute with national energy company Petronas over more control of its oil and gas assets. Petronas filed an application at the Federal Court earlier this month, to seek a determination on the legal position of its operations in Sarawak.
Sultan Ibrahim also called for an “all-out” fight against corruption, stressing that efforts must not only focus on bribe-takers, but also related parties including those offering bribes or acting in collusion.
“I have said before that I came to Kuala Lumpur to hunt down corrupt individuals, and it seems I have now found them,” he said. “I am deeply disappointed that corruption cases have occurred within the Malaysian Armed Forces, extending to the highest levels.”
“Perhaps after this, I should appoint only a sergeant as the Chief of the Defence Force,” Sultan Ibrahim added.
Former army chief Muhammad Hafizuddeain Jantan is among those arrested following investigations into alleged irregularities in military procurement tenders.
Anti-graft investigators have seized and frozen over RM52 million (US$12.82 million) in cash, gold, luxury goods and funds from more than 80 bank accounts in two separate cases linked to alleged corruption in army procurement contracts.
Sultan Ibrahim said he is confident there are more corrupt individuals out there, including in customs, the police and other agencies. “This is just the tip of the iceberg … I will continue to hunt you down,” he said.
The government must provide experienced judges and special court channels so that corruption trials can be expedited, he added.
On the education front, the king said “any proposal to recognise any other education system must accept Bahasa Melayu and Malaysia’s history”.
“If there are those who do not accept the Malay language, it is better not to live in Malaysia,” he added.
After its poor showing in the Sabah state election on Nov 29, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) has made a renewed push for the Unified Examination Certificate adopted by Chinese-medium independent high schools to be recognised by the government for entry into public universities or the civil service. The UEC is generally considered equivalent to the A levels.
As the 13th Malaysia Plan begins this year, the government must focus on the well-being of the people, especially in fields of education, housing, health and public transport, said the king.
Brooklyn Beckham reached a point of no return in his feud with his famous parents, David and Victoria Beckham.
“There has been a massive breakdown in trust,” an insider tells Page Six of the breaking point, which happened “last week” — just days before the chef released a bombshell statement directed at his family.
“From Brooklyn and [wife] Nicola [Peltz’s] perspective they have tried everything they can to repair the relationship privately with David and Victoria, they’ve tried to talk it out, have tried to have meetings with them, but ultimately in the end they just didn’t trust them anymore.”
Brooklyn and Peltz had also allegedly reached a point of frustration with reading things that “weren’t true.”
“They’d had enough,” the source explains, noting that as the drama has escalated in recent months, “This ultimately has become a huge power struggle between two powerful families.”
“The couple just doesn’t want to deal with it anymore,” the insider adds. “They’ve had it and just want to move on in their lives. Last week was the last straw, they just couldn’t handle it anymore.”
The eldest child of the pro athlete and fashion designer took to social media on Monday amid escalating tension with his parents.
“I do not want to reconcile with my family,” the chef, 26, wrote via Instagram Stories. “I’m not being controlled, I’m standing up for myself for the first time in my life. For my entire life, my parents have controlled narratives in the press about our family.”
Brooklyn continued, accusing his parents David, 50, and Victoria, 51, of “performative social media posts, family events, and inauthentic relationships,” among other grievances.
“Recently, I have seen with my own eyes the lengths that they’ll go through to place countless lies in the media, mostly at the expense of innocent people, to preserve their own facade,” Brooklyn wrote.
He also alleged his parents “have been trying endlessly to ruin [his] relationship” with his wife, 31, whom he married in a lavish Florida ceremony in 2022.
Brooklyn further claimed the former Spice Girl “cancelled making Nicola’s [wedding] dress in the eleventh hour despite how excited she was to wear her design, forcing her to urgently find a new dress.”
Prior to the wedding, Brooklyn accused his parents of “repeatedly” pressuring and attempting “to bribe” him into “signing away the rights to” his name.
He wrote that his “holdout affected the payday” and claimed that his mother and father “have never treated me the same since.”
Brooklyn divulged that Victoria hijacked the couples’ first dance — which Page Six reported last May — “in front of our 500 wedding guests.”
“She danced very inappropriately on me in front of everybody,” Brooklyn alleged, adding, “I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life.”
Brooklyn and his model wife subsequently renewed their vows in August 2025 in an effort to reclaim the moment and “create new memories of our wedding day that bring us joy and happiness, not anxiety and embarrassment.”
Without directly mentioning his brothers Romeo, 23, Cruz, 20, and sister Harper, 14, Brooklyn accused his family of valuing “public promotion and endorsements above all else” and claimed to have shown up for “every fashion show, every party and every press activity to show ‘our perfect family’”
In his lengthy screed, Brooklyn also lashed out at the “completely backwards” narrative that “my wife controls me.”
Instead, he claimed he has “been controlled by [his] parents for most of [his] life,” and suffered from “overwhelming anxiety” as he grew up.
“For the first time in my life, since stepping away from my family, that anxiety has disappeared,” he concluded the statement, adding that he has “found peace and relief.”
“My wife and I do not want a life shaped by image, press, or manipulation. All we want is peace, privacy and happiness for us and our future family.”
Reps for David and Victoria did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment on Monday.
Russia was seeking to “clarify all the nuances” of the offer with Washington, he said, without adding if the Kremlin chief as inclined to join
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to join U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” aimed at resolving conflicts globally and overseeing governance and reconstruction in Gaza, the Kremlin said on Monday (January 19, 2026).
Moscow for years tried to balance relations with all major players in the Middle East — including Israel and the Palestinians.
But since the Israel-Hamas war and Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Mr. Putin has moved away from Israel, boosting ties with its foes like Iran.
Moscow has also sought closer relationships with the Gulf states amid growing Western isolation.
“President Putin also received an invitation to join this Board of Peace,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, including AFP.
Russia was seeking to “clarify all the nuances” of the offer with Washington, he said, without adding if the Kremlin chief as inclined to join.
The White House has reached out to various figures around the world to sit on the so-called “Board of Peace”, chaired by the U.S. President himself.
Mr. Putin has previously praised Mr. Trump’s efforts to resolve conflicts.
“He’s really doing a lot to resolve these complex crises, which have lasted for years, even decades,” Mr. Putin said last October.
Referring to the situation in the Middle East, Mr. Putin said, “If we succeed in achieving everything Donald has strived for… it will be a historic event.”
The assault on Ukraine and the war in Gaza have strained Moscow’s traditionally good relations with Israel, home to a large Russian-born community.
The Kremlin has repeatedly criticised Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks and called for restraint.
Explosion occurs in downtown Shahr-e-Naw neighbourhood, thought to be one of the most secure areas of Kabul.
The restaurant hit by the blast on Monday is in the commercial Shahr-e-Naw neighbourhood of Kabul that includes office buildings, shopping complexes and embassies, police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said. The district is considered one of the safest in the city.
The Chinese noodle restaurant was jointly run by a Chinese Muslim, Abdul Majid, his wife, and an Afghan partner, Abdul Jabbar Mahmood, and served the Chinese Muslim community, Zadran said.
One Chinese national, identified as Ayub, and six Afghans were killed in the blast, which occurred near the kitchen, while several others were injured, Zadran added.
The Afghan branch of ISIL (ISIS) later claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack, saying in a statement that it was carried out by a suicide bomber.
ISIL’s Amaq news agency said the group had put Chinese citizens on its list of targets, citing “growing crimes by the Chinese government against Uighurs”.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uighurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority group of about 10 million people who live in China’s far western Xinjiang region. Beijing denies any abuse and has accused Western countries of interference and peddling lies.
Videos shared on social media showed debris scattered on the street outside and smoke spewing from a large hole torn into the front of the restaurant building.
The Italian NGO Emergency said a medical facility it oversees in Kabul had received 20 people from the blast, seven of whom were dead when they arrived. The organisation said the casualty figures were “still provisional”.
“Twenty people have been received at EMERGENCY’s Surgical Centre in Kabul following an explosion this afternoon in the Shahr-e-Naw area, near the hospital. Among those received were seven people dead on arrival,” the NGO said in a statement.
Canada will allow a capped number of Chinese electric vehicles into its market and cut tariffs in exchange for lower Chinese duties on key farm exports, PM Mark Carney has said.
Canada will allow a limited number of Chinese electric vehicles into its domestic market and actively court Chinese joint-venture investments in its auto sector, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced, signalling a significant recalibration of Ottawa’s trade and industrial strategy amid strained relations with the United States.
In a post on X, Carney said his government was taking concrete steps to position Canada as a global hub for electric vehicle manufacturing.
“To make Canada a leader in electric vehicle manufacturing, we’re working to attract significant new joint-venture Chinese investments,” he wrote.
As part of the transition, he added that Canada would permit a capped number of Chinese EVs into the country.
“And as our domestic sector builds up, we’ll allow a limited number of EVs from China into the Canadian market — less than 50,000 next year — providing more affordable, energy-efficient options for Canadians.”
To make Canada a leader in electric vehicle manufacturing, we’re working to attract significant new joint-venture Chinese investments.
And as our domestic sector builds up, we’ll allow a limited number of EVs from China into the Canadian market — less than 50,000 next year —…
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) January 19, 2026
The policy shift follows a trade understanding reached during Carney’s visit to China, where Canada agreed to slash its 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles to 6.1 per cent and introduce an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles.
According to Carney, the quota is expected to expand gradually, reaching roughly 70,000 vehicles over the next five years.
In return, China will reduce tariffs on major Canadian agricultural exports, including canola seeds, which Carney said will see duties fall from 84 per cent to about 15 per cent.
Tariffs on other products such as canola meal and certain seafood will also be eased, a move the Prime Minister said last week would unlock nearly $3 billion in export orders for Canadian farmers, fish harvesters and processors.
“Our relationship has progressed in recent months with China. It is more predictable, and you see results coming from that,” Carney had told reporters after meetings with Chinese leaders.
The move represents a clear break from US policy, which continues to impose steep tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
While some members of the US administration have warned that Canada’s decision could be problematic in the long term, US President Donald Trump publicly welcomed the agreement.
“That’s what he should be doing, and it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that,” Trump said.
Carney acknowledged concerns from Canadian automakers and labour groups but argued that the limited quota was designed to allow a “smooth transition” while the domestic EV sector scales up.
He said the initial cap would account for only about 3 per cent of the roughly 1.8 million vehicles sold annually in Canada, and stressed that China is expected to begin investing in Canada’s auto industry within three years.
“We’re building a new part of our car industry, building cars of the future in partnership, bringing affordable autos for Canadians at a time when affordability is top of mind,” he said, adding that the strategy aligns with Canada’s long-term goal of moving toward a net-zero emissions future.
During the visit, Carney also met Chinese President Xi Jinping, with both leaders pledging to stabilise and improve bilateral ties after years of tension.
Australia’s lower house of parliament has voted in favour of a national gun buyback programme and new checks on firearm licence applications, a month after the deadly shooting at Bondi Beach.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said had such legislation already been in place prior to the attack that targeted a Jewish festival, the gunmen would not have legally had access to firearms.
The individuals who killed 15 people on 14 December had “hate in their hearts and guns in their hands,” Burke told parliament.
The father in the father-son duo allegedly behind the Bondi attack legally owned six firearms, while his son had been on the radar of intelligence agencies.
The bill was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 96 to 45. It will now make its way to the Senate for consideration, where it is expected to pass with the support of the Greens.
Parliament is also debating hate speech reforms.
The buyback scheme will target “surplus and newly restricted firearms”, Burke said, reducing the country’s 4m registered guns.
Burke added that it “comes as a shock to most Australians” to know that the country has more firearms that it did before the 1996 Port Arthur attack, in which a gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania.
That shooting had prompted the then government to introduce some of the world’s strictest gun controls.
Other measures passed on Tuesday include stricter firearm import controls and provisions to improve information sharing between intelligence agencies on people trying to obtain gun licences.
The lower house of parliament is also expected to pass reforms to hate speech on Tuesday aimed at tackling antisemitism.
Its passage through the Senate had initially looked unclear after members of the conservative Liberal-National coalition opposition said its provisions could impinge on free speech among other things.
However, late on Monday reports said Liberal leader Sussan Ley had reached an agreement with the government on a watered down version. It remained unclear whether the Nationals would support the legislation.
Donald Trump has vowed to “100%” follow through on his threat to impose tariffs on European countries who oppose his demand to take control of Greenland.
European allies have rallied around Greenland’s sovereignty. Denmark’s foreign minister emphasised the US president cannot threaten his way to ownership of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper reiterated the UK’s position that the future of Greenland is for “Greenlanders and for the Danes alone” to decide.
On Monday, Trump declined to rule out the use of force and insisted he would press ahead with the threatened tariffs on goods arriving in the US from the UK and seven other Nato-allied countries.
Asked by NBC News if he would use force to seize Greenland, Trump answered: “No comment”.
The US president said he would charge Britain a 10% tariff “on any and all goods” sent to the US from 1 February, increasing to 25% from 1 June, until a deal is reached for Washington to purchase Greenland from Denmark.
Trump said the same would apply to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland – all of whom are members of the defence alliance Nato which was founded in 1949.
Asked if he will follow through on the tariff threat, Mr Trump told NBC News: “I will, 100%.”
Trump added: “Europe ought to focus on the war with Russia and Ukraine because, frankly, you see what that’s gotten them… That’s what Europe should focus on – not Greenland.”
Denmark has warned that US military action in Greenland would spell the end of Nato. In recent days, Greenland has received support from European members of the alliance – some even sent a handful of troops to Greenland last week in a move seen as symbolic.
However, Trump followed that deployment with an announcement to impose tariffs on the eight Nato allies.
Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that Europe had to show President Trump tariff threats were “not the way forward”.
“We have red lines that can’t be crossed,” he told Sky News. “You can’t threaten your way to ownership of Greenland. I have no intention of escalating this situation.”
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said the alliance will keep working with Denmark and Greenland on the security of the Arctic.
The European Union is to hold an emergency summit in Brussels for its leaders on Thursday where they will discuss how to respond to Trump’s latest threat to take over Greenland.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the bloc has “no interest to pick a fight, but we will hold our ground”.
“But trades threats are not the way to go about this,” Kallas added. “Sovereignty is not for trade.”
It comes as text exchanges between Trump and the Norwegian prime minister were released – showing that on Sunday the US president blamed Norway for the fact he didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize.
In his reply – seen by the BBC – Jonas Gahr Støre explained that an independent committee, not the government of Norway, awards the prize which last October went to Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado.
“Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter,” Støre added.
Trump also addressed the text message exchange in Monday’s interview and said: “Norway totally controls it [the Nobel Prize] despite what they say.
“They like to say they have nothing to do with it, but they have everything to do with it.”
Armed gangs with “sophisticated weapons” kidnapped worshipers from at least two churches in Kaduna state. Nigeria faces several internal conflicts that have affected both Christians and Muslims — often indiscriminately.
“The attackers came in numbers and blocked the entrance of the churches and forced the worshippers out into the bush,” Reverend Joseph Hayab, head of the Christian Association of Nigeria for the country’s north, said on Monday.
“The actual number they took was 172 but nine escaped, so 163 are with them,” he said.
A politician representing the area at state parliament, Usman Danlami Stingo, on Monday talked of three separate attacks during Sunday church services. He put the number of abducted at 168, according to the Associated Press.
A police spokesperson told Reuters news agency that gunmen with “sophisticated weapons” attacked the two churches, but that police were still trying to confirm the number taken.
The attacks occurred in the village of Kurmin Wali, a largely Christian forest community. It is remote and difficult to reach due to bad roads, the police spokesperson said.
Police said troops and other security agencies had been deployed to the area and that efforts were under way to track the abductors and rescue the captives.
Such attacks are common in central and northern Nigeria, where multiple criminal or “bandit” gangs, as well as religious armed groups, raid remote communities with limited security and government presence.
In November, armed gangs seized more than 300 students and teachers from a Catholic school in Niger state, which borders Kaduna. They were released weeks later in two batches.
Nigeria’s abductions are predominantly for ransom, with armed groups using the money to fund other crimes and control villages.
It has grown into a “structured, profit-seeking industry” with profits of about $1.66 million in the year from June 2024 to July 2025, a recent report by Nigeria-based consultancy SBM found.
Kajuru district is a hotspot for bandit attacks in Kaduna State, which has witnessed clashes between Christian farmers and Fulani Muslim cattle herders.
The violence centers around competition for land and dwindling resources, although on the surface it falls along ethnic and religious lines.
Nigeria is roughly split between Muslim (some 56%) and Christians (43%), with Christians primarily living in the south and Muslims in the north.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/nigeria-church-attack-kidnap-kaduna-christians/a-75572335
Germany has said peace in Gaza is a “core interest” but added Berlin sees the UN as the place to resolve conflict. The US plan received mixed reviews and will likely ruffle feathers with an invitation for Vladimir Putin.
Germany on Monday thanked US President Donald Trump for extending Berlin an invitation to take up a seat on his so-called “Board of Peace.”
German government spokesman Steffen Cornelius said: “We are thankful for this invitation. We share the aim of pursuing peace in the world. It is in Germany’s core interest to end the conflict in Gaza for good.”
Originally intended as a mechanism for rebuilding the devastated Gaza Strip, Trump has since framed the body as engaged in bringing about “enduring peace” worldwide.
“The Board of Peace is an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict,” the board’s charter reads.
Trump has now asked dozens of nations to join, saying that those who put up $1 billion (€860 million) in the board’s first year will be allowed to remain a member beyond that time.
Among those invited by Trump — who appointed himself chairman of the proposed organization as well as dictating that he alone has the power to invite new members to it — are Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and numerous other heads of state.
Germany, like other invited nations, took care to reiterate its faith in the United Nations as the ultimate international arbiter of peace when it comes to conflict resolution.
Trump, who recently announced that the US would withdraw from 66 international treaties and bodies — many of them tied to the UN — appears to see the new body as a potential replacement for the UN, urging invitees to have “the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed.”
Envisioned as a second-phase of the “peace plan” that Trump put forth to halt the bloodshed in Gaza, a number of world leaders have or can be expected to receive invitations over the coming days.
Beyond naming himself chairman of the board and appointing a handful of loyal friends and family, Trump has also extended invitations to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, Argentine President Javier Milei and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is, “currently reviewing all the details of this offer, and we hope to establish contact with the American side to clarify all the nuances.”
A spokesman for the Belarus Foreign Ministry said Monday, “We are ready to participate in the activity of the Peace Board and expect and hope that the organization will greatly expand its scope and powers beyond the limits of the initiative.”
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/germany-cautiously-thankful-for-us-board-of-peace-invite/a-75571485
Speaking before a darkened ballroom on Thursday, U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Suzanne Clark called on executives to be “fearless” in defense of free markets over government control and said the U.S. must remain “open to the world, open to the global exchange of talent and goods and ideas and innovation.”
The comments by the head of the most powerful U.S. business lobby group could be seen as mild pushback against President Donald Trump, who has waded into business mechanics like no other U.S. president. He has directed the U.S. to take stakes in tech companies, asserted control of corporate equity structures, imposed tariffs, and advanced immigration policies opposed by the Chamber.
This month, several CEOs, including Exxon Mobil’s (XOM.N), Darren Woods and JPMorgan’s (JPM.N), Jamie Dimon, also have offered temperate critiques of certain Trump agenda items. But they limited their remarks to sectors where they have interests – Venezuela’s oil and the U.S. Federal Reserve, while Clark did not mention Trump by name or his policies during the speech.
Several corporate governance experts said the statements and omissions were in line with a broader fear among business leaders that his administration will punish dissent. That is a marked difference from Trump’s first term, when executives split with him after his handling of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 and more openly spoke out against other policies.
Even as masked immigration agents confront U.S. citizens in Minneapolis and Trump considers seizing Greenland, which may cut off American businesses from European markets, the response from business leaders has been milquetoast, said Richard Painter, University of Minnesota law professor and chief ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush.
Trump has adopted an authoritarian approach in contrast to Bush’s free-market economic policies, Painter said.
“I’d like to see a lot more aggressive stance from the Chamber here,” Painter said of Clark’s speech. “A lot of executives may have voted for Trump, but they need to speak out against coercion, whether it’s aimed at a protester in the streets or aimed at a CEO who isn’t doing what the president wants them to.”
Mark Levine, a Democrat who is the new New York City Comptroller overseeing public pension funds with stakes in the largest U.S. companies, said CEOs have taken only “baby steps,” speaking up only when Trump’s actions directly affect their businesses.
“I don’t think capitalism works if we allow a president with autocratic tendencies to dictate the behavior of every company in America,” Levine said.
Asked for comment, a Chamber spokesman noted a briefing that Clark held for reporters on Friday in which she said that “We are against government intervention in business, no matter which party is suggesting it.” She added that CEOs have been doing “quiet work” to promote sound public policies behind the scenes, and “not rushing to outrage.”
In August, Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s chief policy officer, told Reuters the group aimed to respond to Trump in a nonpartisan way, to preserve support for free markets.
Trump’s approval rating on the economy currently stands at a lackluster 36%, below his overall 41% rating even as he portrays his economic policies as succeeding by conventional measures.
“Under our administration, growth is exploding, productivity is soaring, investment is booming, incomes are rising, inflation is defeated, America is respected again like never before,” Trump said in Detroit on Tuesday.
A few prominent CEOs have openly questioned some of his actions.
On January 9, Exxon’s Woods told Trump that Venezuela is “uninvestable,” undercutting White House messaging about the industry’s future in the country. Woods added he was confident in Trump’s plans and that the company could soon dispatch a technical team to assess conditions there. Even so, two days later, Trump said he might keep Exxon out of future deals in the country.
“I didn’t like their response. They’re playing too cute,” Trump told reporters.
An Exxon representative declined to comment for this story.
On January 13, JPMorgan’s Dimon said he supported the independence of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, days after the administration opened a criminal investigation into Powell’s conduct. Dimon added that Trump’s meddling in the Fed could spike inflation. “I don’t care what he says,” Trump told Reuters about Dimon’s comments.
A JPMorgan representative declined to comment for this article.
A day earlier, Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer (PFE.N), said he was annoyed by Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s move to roll back vaccine recommendations for children. “I’m seriously frustrated, because what is happening has zero scientific merit,” he told journalists in San Francisco.
Pfizer representatives did not respond to questions.
Elon Musk is seeking up to $134 billion from OpenAI and Microsoft (MSFT.O), saying he deserves the “wrongful gains” that they received from his early support, according to a court filing on Friday.
OpenAI gained between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion from the billionaire entrepreneur’s contributions when he was co-founding what was then a startup from 2015, while Microsoft gained between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion, Musk said in the federal court filing, ahead of his trial against the two companies.
“Without Elon Musk, there’d be no OpenAI. He provided the bulk of the seed funding, lent his reputation, and taught them all he knows about scaling a business. A pre-eminent expert quantified the value of that,” Musk’s lead trial lawyer Steven Molo said in a statement to Reuters.
OpenAI in a statement called it an “unserious demand” by Musk and part of what it said was his “harassment campaign” against OpenAI.
Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment outside business hours on the amount of compensation Musk is seeking.
During the week, OpenAI called the lawsuit “baseless” and part of a “harassment” campaign by Musk. A Microsoft lawyer has said there is no evidence that the company “aided and abetted” OpenAI.
The two companies challenged Musk’s damages claims in a separate filing on Friday.
Musk, who left OpenAI in 2018 and runs xAI with its competitor chatbot Grok, alleges that ChatGPT operator OpenAI violated its founding mission in a high-profile restructuring to a for-profit entity.
A judge in Oakland, California, ruled this month that a jury will hear the trial, expected to start in April.
Musk’s filing says he contributed about $38 million, 60% of OpenAI’s early seed funding, helped recruit staff, connect the founders with contacts and lend credibility to the project when it was created.
“Just as an early investor in a startup company may realize gains many orders of magnitude greater than the investor’s initial investment, the wrongful gains that OpenAI and Microsoft have earned – and which Mr. Musk is now entitled to disgorge – are much larger than Mr. Musk’s initial contributions,” Musk argues.
The filing says Musk’s contributions to OpenAI and Microsoft were calculated by his expert witness, financial economist C. Paul Wazzan.
Musk may seek punitive damages and other penalties, including a possible injunction, if the jury finds either company liable, the filing says, without specifying what form any injunction might take.
A high-speed train derailed and smashed into another oncoming train in southern Spain on Sunday, pushing the second train off the tracks and down an embankment in a collision that killed at least 21 people, said Spain’s interior ministry.
The accident happened near Adamuz in the province of Cordoba, about 360 km (223 miles) south of the capital Madrid.
Of the 75 people hospitalised, 15 are in serious condition, the chief of Andalucia’s regional government, Juanma Moreno, told reporters early on Monday.
He said the death toll would likely be more than 20 and warned the number may rise by daylight.
“The forcefulness of the accident has been very strong … we will likely find (more) corpses,” Moreno said, adding that heavy machinery would be needed to remove the trains’ wrecked metal pieces and try to locate any new victims.
Video from the scene shared on social media showed rescuers pulling passengers from twisted carriages lying on their side under the glare of floodlights. Some passengers climbed out of smashed windows, while others were wheeled away on stretchers.
El Pais newspaper reported that the 27-year-old driver of the Madrid-to-Huelva train, the one that was struck, was among the dead.
There were around 400 passengers on the two trains, most of them Spaniards travelling back to and from Madrid after the weekend. It was unclear how many tourists could be onboard as January is not holiday season in Spain.
“There are many injured. I am still trembling,” Maria San José, 33, a passenger on the Malaga-to-Madrid high-speed train that first derailed, told El Pais.
A passenger on the second train, who was not identified, told public broadcaster TVE: “There were people screaming, their bags fell from the shelves. I was travelling to Huelva in the fourth carriage, the last, luckily.”
The second train, heading to Huelva and operated by state-funded Renfe, was travelling at around 200 km per hour (124 miles/hour) at the moment of impact, reported El Pais.
It was unclear how fast the first train was travelling when it derailed.
The cause for the crash is not yet known, Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente told reporters at a press conference at Atocha station in Madrid, adding it was “really strange” that a derailment should have happened on a straight stretch of track. This section of track was renewed in May, he added.
“Tonight is a night of deep pain for our country,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on X. Spain’s King and Queen were following the developments with concern, a spokesperson said.
The accident happened at 7.45 p.m. (1845 GMT), about 10 minutes after the Iryo train left Cordoba heading towards Madrid, authorities said.
“The Iryo 6189 Malaga – (to Madrid) train has derailed from the track at Adamuz, crashing onto the adjacent track. The (Madrid) to Huelva train which was travelling on the adjacent track has also derailed,” Adif, which runs the rail network, said in a social media post.
Puente said most of those killed and injured had been in the first two carriages of the second train, the Renfe Alvia that derailed on impact and plunged down the side of the railway embankment. The first carriage had 37 people on board and the second, 16, he said.
An Iryo-operated train travelling from Malaga to Madrid derailed, smashing into the Renfe train travelling from Madrid to Huelva, sending it careering down a railway embankment.
The Iryo train had more than 300 passengers on board, while the Renfe train had around 100.
Paco Carmona, Cordoba fire chief, told TVE that while the Iryo had been evacuated within hours of the accident, the Renfe carriages were badly damaged, with twisted metal and seats.
“There are still people trapped. The operation is concentrating on getting people out of areas which are very narrow,” he said. “We have to remove the bodies to reach anyone who is still alive. It is proving to be a complicated task.”
Adamuz Mayor Rafael Moreno told El Pais that he was among the first to reach the crash site alongside the local police and saw what he believed to be a badly lacerated body several metres from the accident site.
“The scene is horrific,” he said. “I don’t think they were on the same track, but it’s not clear. Now the mayors and residents of the area are focused on helping the passengers.”
Local television images showed a reception centre set up for passengers in Adamuz, a town of 5,000 people, with locals bringing food and blankets as nighttime temperatures hovered around 42 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius).
Tearful passengers disembarking from the bus spoke briefly to local press before being guided inside.
Salvador Jimenez, a journalist for TVE who was on board the Iryo train, shared images showing the nose of that train’s rear carriage lying on its side, with evacuated passengers sitting on its upturned side.
Iryo is a private rail operator, majority-owned by Italian state-controlled railway group Ferrovie dello Stato. The train involved was a Freccia 1000 train which was travelling between Malaga and Madrid, a spokesperson for Ferrovie dello Stato said.
Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/two-high-speed-trains-derail-spain-police-said-2026-01-18/
European Union ambassadors reached broad agreement on Sunday to intensify efforts to dissuade U.S. President Donald Trump from imposing tariffs on European allies, while also preparing retaliatory measures should the duties go ahead, EU diplomats said.
Trump vowed on Saturday to implement a wave of increasing tariffs from February 1 on EU members Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, along with Britain and Norway, until the U.S. is allowed to buy Greenland, a step major EU states decried as blackmail.
EU leaders are set to discuss options at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. One option is a package of tariffs on 93 billion euros ($107.7 billion) of U.S. imports that could automatically kick in on February 6 after a six-month suspension.
The other is the so far never used “Anti-Coercion Instrument” (ACI), which could limit access to public tenders, investments or banking activity or restrict trade in services, in which the U.S. has a surplus with the bloc, including in digital services.
The tariff package appeared to command broader support as a first response than anti-coercion measures, where the picture was currently “very mixed”, according to an EU source.
European Council President Antonio Costa, who chairs EU summits, said in a social media post that his consultations with EU members had shown their strong commitment to support Denmark and Greenland and readiness to defend against any form of coercion.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, visiting his Norwegian counterpart in Oslo, said Denmark would continue to focus on diplomacy, referring to an agreement Denmark, Greenland and the U.S. made on Wednesday to set up a working group.
“The U.S. is also more than the U.S. president. I’ve just been there. There are also checks and balances in American society,” he added.
The EU’s efforts at dialogue are likely to be a key theme of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Trump is set to deliver a keynote address on Wednesday in his first appearance at the event in six years.
“All options on the table, talks in Davos with the U.S. and leaders gather after that,” said one EU diplomat in summarising the EU’s plan.
The eight targeted countries, already subject to U.S. tariffs of 10% and 15%, have sent small numbers of military personnel to Greenland, as a row with the United States over the future of Denmark’s vast Arctic island escalates.
“Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” they said in a joint statement published on Sunday, adding they were ready to engage in dialogue, based on principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a written statement she was heartened by the consistent messages from the rest of the continent, adding: “Europe will not be blackmailed”.
The tariff threat unsettled global markets, with the euro and sterling falling against the dollar and a return to volatility expected.
A source close to French President Emmanuel Macron said he was pushing for activation of the ACI. Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said that while there should be no doubt that the EU would retaliate, it was “a bit premature” to activate the as yet unused instrument.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is closer to the U.S. President than some other EU leaders, described the tariff threat on Sunday as “a mistake”, adding she had spoken to Trump a few hours earlier and told him what she thought.
Asked how Britain would respond to new tariffs, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said allies needed to work with the United States to resolve the dispute.
“Our position on Greenland is non-negotiable … It is in our collective interest to work together and not to start a war of words,” she told Sky News on Sunday.
The tariff threats do though call into question trade deals the U.S. struck with Britain in May and the EU in July.
The limited agreements have already faced criticism about their lopsided nature, with the U.S. maintaining broad tariffs, while their partners are required to remove import duties.
Video games have been blamed for plenty of problems among adolescents and young adults over the years, but research suggests moderation may be the key to healthy gaming. University students who gamed more than 10 hours weekly showed notably worse health outcomes compared to their peers who kept gaming under 5 hours, according to research from Curtin University.
Researchers examined 317 undergraduate students and found consistent differences across multiple health measures. Students in the high-frequency gaming group carried significantly more body weight, had worse dietary habits, and reported poorer sleep quality compared to those who limited their screen time.
The study, published in Nutrition, divided participants into three groups based on weekly gaming habits: low users at 0-5 hours, moderate users at 6-10 hours, and high users exceeding 10 hours. The high-frequency group showed the poorest health profiles across multiple measures.
Students gaming more than 10 hours weekly had a median body mass index of 26.3 kg/m², placing them in the overweight category. Their peers who gamed 5 hours or less averaged 22.2 kg/m², squarely in the normal weight range.
Obesity prevalence was more than three times higher in the high-frequency gaming group. Among these students, 38% were overweight and 24% were obese, compared to 21.1% overweight and 4.9% obese in the low-frequency gaming group.
Diet quality scores showed similar patterns. High-frequency gamers scored a median of 45.0 points out of 130 possible on dietary assessments, compared to 50.0 for minimal gamers. The tool measured adherence to Australian nutritional guidelines, evaluating choices like whole grain bread and fish consumption, plus quantity factors including fruit, vegetable, and high-fat snack intake.
Sleep quality was also worse among high-frequency gamers, who scored 7.0 compared to 6.0 for low-frequency gamers on standard sleep assessments. Both groups scored above 5, the cutoff indicating poor sleep quality. The measure looked at sleep duration, how long it takes to fall asleep, sleep efficiency, disturbances, medication use, and daytime dysfunction over the previous month.
Each additional hour of weekly gaming was associated with a 0.14-point decrease in diet quality score in regression analysis, even after researchers controlled for gender, ethnicity, smoking status, employment, medication use, alcohol consumption, BMI, physical activity, and perceived stress. The model explained about 29% of the variation in diet quality, indicating other unmeasured factors also play substantial roles.
The associations between gaming frequency and health outcomes may operate through several pathways, though these mechanisms were not directly tested in this study. Previous research has suggested that extended gaming sessions may displace time that would otherwise support healthy routines like meal preparation, physical activity, and adequate sleep.
Other studies have documented that gaming environments tend to promote consumption of energy-dense convenience foods and sugar-sweetened beverages. High-frequency gamers in this study consumed energy drinks significantly more often than their low-gaming peers. Other research has suggested that food marketing in digital entertainment environments often emphasizes energy-dense products and beverages.
Research on eating behavior has shown that mental absorption during immersive activities may reduce awareness of hunger and fullness cues, potentially promoting mindless eating patterns. Other studies have found that stress responses during gaming may alter appetite regulation, though these mechanisms were not examined in the current study.
Studies on screen time and sleep have documented that blue light exposure from screens suppresses melatonin production, the hormone regulating sleep-wake cycles. The mental stimulation associated with gaming can interfere with sleep onset, particularly during evening gaming sessions. Irregular sleep schedules often accompany extended gaming periods, as players may stay up late to complete missions, participate in scheduled online events, or simply lose track of time during engaging gameplay.
Platform preferences varied dramatically across gaming frequency groups. PC gaming was far more common among high-frequency gamers, with 76% playing on computers compared to just 40.2% of low-frequency gamers. Heavy PC users logged a median of 8 hours weekly on computers alone, compared to effectively zero hours for minimal gamers.
High-frequency gamers reported higher violence levels in their preferred games, rating violence at a median of 4.0 on a 5-point scale compared to 2.0 for low-frequency gamers, though the study did not examine whether violent content directly influences health outcomes. Game type preferences correlated with different health patterns. Simulation game players showed the highest BMI at 26.1 kg/m², while sports video game players demonstrated higher physical activity levels (equivalent to about 6 hours of moderate exercise weekly) and lower perceived stress.
Students who gamed heavily had started earlier in life, typically at age 8 compared to age 9 for minimal gamers. They were also more likely to report increased gaming compared to five years prior, with 31.6% saying they game more now versus just 11.6% of low-frequency gamers reporting increased play. Childhood gaming frequency positively correlated with current gaming hours and negatively correlated with diet quality, suggesting patterns established early in life may persist into young adulthood.
The study measured gaming time rather than addiction severity, an important distinction. Gaming disorder represents a clinical condition characterized by impaired control, prioritization of gaming over other activities, and continuation despite negative consequences. Some individuals may game extensively without developing disorder symptoms, while others may show problematic patterns at lower time investments.
The 10-hour weekly pattern identified in this research sits well below the 30-hour weekly cutoff proposed for gaming disorder diagnosis in other research. This suggests health associations may emerge at gaming levels that fall short of clinical addiction, making the findings relevant to a broader population of recreational gamers. Research on gaming addiction (though not examined in the current study) has linked it to mental health problems including anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation across demographic groups.
Gaming frequency showed only weak negative correlations with physical activity levels in this study. High-frequency gamers reported slightly lower total physical activity, but the relationship was modest, indicating that simple time displacement doesn’t fully explain the observed health differences.
Sports video game players demonstrated significantly higher physical activity levels and lower perceived stress scores. This finding suggests that certain gaming preferences may cluster with healthier lifestyle patterns, though the study design prevents determining whether game choice influences activity levels or active individuals prefer sports games.
Research on sedentary behavior has documented independent health effects beyond simply burning fewer calories, including alterations in glucose metabolism, lipid processing, and cardiovascular function, though these specific outcomes were not measured in this study.
High-frequency gamers were somewhat more likely to be men, though the gender difference didn’t reach statistical significance. They were more likely to be enrolled in Medicine, Allied Health, and Biology academic programs compared to low-frequency gamers, suggesting gaming habits may differ by academic discipline and institutional culture.
The pattern observed at 10 hours weekly provides one potential reference point for health education, though this reflects how researchers divided their sample rather than an established health guideline. Students, parents, and university administrators might find it useful to consider this level when discussing gaming habits, while recognizing that individual responses vary.
Universities might consider integrating gaming-related discussions into wellness programs, focusing on the balance between gaming and other health behaviors. Interventions could address healthy gaming practices including time awareness, scheduled breaks, avoiding pre-bedtime gaming, and environmental modifications like keeping nutritious snacks available during gaming sessions.
Some universities have built elaborate esports facilities and programs. These developments create opportunities to integrate health messaging directly into gaming communities, addressing nutrition, sleep, and physical activity alongside competitive gaming skills.
Source : https://studyfinds.org/heavy-gaming-higher-body-weight-poor-diet-university-students/
Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), confirmed the ceasefire deal in a televised address on Sunday night.
“In order for this war not to turn into civil war… we accepted to withdraw from the Deir el-Zour and Raqqa regions to Hasakeh,” Abdi said in a statement broadcast by Kurdish television channel Ronahi.
“We will explain the terms of the agreement to our people in the coming days,” he added.
Turkey hopes the new agreement will “contribute to the security and peace of the Syrian people, as well as the entire region, particularly Syria’s neighbors,” its Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
“With the recognition of the realities on the ground, we hope that all groups and individuals in the country fully understand that Syria’s future lies not in terrorism and division, but in unity, integration and cohesion,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Ankara considers the SDF as a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
Syria’s President Ahmad al-Sharaa has postponed a planned visit to Berlin.
The Syrian interim leader was due to arrive in the country on Monday and hold meetings with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, as well as German business leaders, on Tuesday.
Al-Sharaa was scheduled to meet Mazloum Abdi, the leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, on Sunday, after the SDF and Damascus government reached a ceasefire agreement.
But the Syrian leader told journalists Abdi could not travel to Damascus due to bad weather and will instead visit him on Monday.
The US hailed the ceasefire agreement, with Tom Barrack, the US special envoy to Syria, describing it as “a pivotal inflection point.”
“President al-Sharaa has affirmed that the Kurds are an integral part of Syria, and the United States looks forward to the seamless integration of our historic partner in the fight against ISIS with the Global Coalition’s newest member, as we press forward in the enduring battle against terrorism,” Barrack wrote on X, using the acronym of the “Islamic State” militant group.
Barrack acknowledged the “challenging work” that comes with integrating Kurdish-led forces into the Syrian state, adding that the US “stands firmly behind this process at every stage.”
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday voiced support for the country’s “unity and sovereignty over its territory.”
In a meeting with US envoy Tom Barrack in Damascus shortly before the announcement of the ceasefire agreement, Syria’s interim leader affirmed the importance of dialogue and rebuilding the country “with the participation of all Syrians.”
On Friday, as the Syrian government was extending its grip on Kurdish-run areas, al-Sharaa issued a decree declaring Kurdish a “national language” and granting official recognition to the minority group.
However, the Kurds said that Friday’s announcement did not meet their expectations.
Fighting frequently broke out between the Syrian army and Kurdish-led forces as negotiations stalled between Damascus and the SDF over an agreement reached in March 2025.
The agreement aimed to integrate Kurdish forces into the new Syrian state, and allow the central government to take control of assets, including border crossings and oil fields, that have long been under Kurdish control.
During Syria’s civil war, the SDF was the US’ most important ally in fighting the extremist “Islamic State” group, but the Syrian government accuses the SDF of tolerating Assad loyalists and members of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) within its ranks.
In turn, Kurdish representatives distrust assurances by al-Sharaa, the former leader of the Islamist group HTS, that their rights will be protected. They also warn of a possible resurgence of the “Islamic State.”
The ceasefire agreement comes after two days of fresh fighting in the country’s east, which saw Syria’s army dislodge the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from areas in northern and northeastern Syria that the SDF had controlled for over a decade.
On Sunday, the government announced the capture of the strategic town of Tabqa, located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) west of the key city of Raqqa, held by the SDF.
Last week, Syrian government troops drove Kurdish forces out of two neighborhoods in Aleppo. On Saturday, they also took control of an area east of the city.
Reuters reported Sunday that Kurdish-led forces had withdrawn from the Omar oil field, Syria’s largest, in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, amid fighting.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/syria-announces-new-ceasefire-deal-with-kurdish-led-sdf/live-75553804
Officials said fresh snowfall in the Austrian Alps is poorly bonded to older layers on the peaks, increasing the risk of repeated avalanches, and urged extreme caution.
At least eight people were killed in a series of avalanches across the Austrian Alps on Saturday, police and mountain rescue services said.
Authorities have warned that conditions remained dangerous after fresh snowfall. Meanwhile, rescue services deployed more than 200 personnel and several helicopters.
The avalanches occurred in the Grossarl Valley and Bad Hofgastein of the Salzburg region, as well as in Pusterwald of the Styria region.
Four skiers died when an avalanche struck a group of seven off-piste skiers, on the 2,150-meter (7,000-foot) Finsterkopf peak in the Grossarl Valley in the Salzburg state, rescuers said.
The others were seriously injured, they added.
Earlier, a woman was killed in an avalanche in the Bad Hofgastein area.
Later in the day, three Czech ski tourers died after being buried by an avalanche in the municipality of Pusterwald in the state of Styria, police said.
“Emergency responders were able to locate and partially dig out the buried victims. Despite immediate rescue efforts, the three individuals were found dead,” the police statement said.
Their four companions, who were not caught by the avalanche, were evacuated and provided medical attention, authorities said.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/austria-eight-people-killed-in-three-avalanches/a-75551698
As President Donald Trump continues to insist that the US needs to own Greenland, his wider focus on the Arctic region has seen Washington order new icebreakers.
For these ships, which can sail through seas covered in solid ice, the US has gone to the world expert – Finland.
Temperatures are sub-zero inside Aker Arctic Technology’s ice laboratory, as the scale model of an icebreaker cruises down a 70m-long simulation tank.
It ploughs a neat channel through the frozen surface of the water.
Undergoing testing at a facility in Helsinki, Finland’s capital, this is a design for the next generation of the country’s icebreakers.
“It’s crucial that it has sufficient structural strength and engine power,” says ice performance engineer, Riikka Matala.
Mika Hovilainen, the firm’s chief executive, adds that the shape of the vessel is also crucial. “You have to have a hull form that breaks ice by bending it downwards,” he says. “It’s not cutting, it’s not slicing.”
Finland is the undisputed world leader when it comes to icebreakers. Finnish companies have designed 80% of all those currently in operation, and 60% were built at shipyards in Finland.
The country leads the way out of necessity, explains Maunu Visuri, president and chief executive of Finnish state-owned company Artica, which operates a fleet of eight icebreakers.
“Finland is the only country in the world where all the harbours may freeze during wintertime,” he says, adding that 97% of all goods to the country are imported by sea.
During the coldest months, icebreakers keep Finland’s ports open, and work as pathfinders for big cargo ships. “It’s really a necessity for Finland. We say that Finland is an island.”
It was this expertise that saw Trump announce in October that the US planned to order four icebreakers from Finland for the US Coast Guard.
A further seven of the vessels, which the US is calling “Arctic Security Cutters”, are to be built in the US, using Finnish designs and expertise.
“We’re buying the finest icebreakers in the world, and Finland is known for making them,” said Trump.
Under US law, the country’s naval and coastguard ships must be domestically-built, but in this case the president waived that requirement on national security grounds. He cited “aggressive military posturing, and economic encroachment by foreign adversaries”, by which he means Russia and China.
This US concern comes as climate change continues to make the Arctic Ocean more navigable for cargo ships, at least if icebreakers lead the way by cutting a path. This opens up commercial trade routes from Asia to Europe, either above Russia, or north of Alaska and Canada’s mainland, and down past Greenland.
Reduced ice levels also mean that oil and gas fields beneath the Arctic are more accessible.
“There’s simply a lot more traffic in that part of the world now,” notes Peter Rybski, a retired US Navy officer and Helsinki-based, Arctic expert.
“You have an active oil and gas exploration and extraction industry in Russia, as well as a newly-emerging trans-shipment route from Europe to Asia.”
Following Trump’s outline announcement last autumn, the first contracts were awarded on 29 December.
Finland’s Rauma Marine Constructions is to build two icebreakers for the US Coast Guard at its shipyard in the Finnish port of Rauma. The first ship is due to be delivered in 2028.
A further four will be constructed in Louisiana, with all six using an Aker Arctic Technology diesel-electric powered design.
The US orders are part of an effort to catch up with the number of Russian icebreakers. Currently Russia has around 40, including eight that are nuclear powered.
By contrast, the US presently only has three in operation.
Meanwhile China operates around five polar-capable vessels. “None of them are technically icebreakers,” says Rybski, pointing to their design not meeting the strict criteria. “But they are increasing their fleet.”
He adds that China has increasingly been sending these “research” ships into Arctic waters between Alaska and the far east of Russia, including areas that the US considers its “exclusive economic zone”.
“With limited means to respond this becomes a problem [for the US].”
Trump’s desire to enlarge its icebreaker fleet goes beyond the practicalities of operating in ice-clad Arctic seas, assesses Lin Mortensgaard, a researcher at the Danish Institute of International Studies. She says it is also about projecting power.
“No matter how many aircraft carriers you have and how much you use them to threaten states with, you cannot sail your aircraft carrier into the central Arctic Ocean,” she says.
“Icebreakers are really the only kind of naval vessel to signal that you are an Arctic state, with Arctic capabilities. And I think this is what much of the US discourse is about.”
Back in Finland, Helsinki Shipyard occupies a dock on the capital’s waterfront. It is where half of the world’s icebreakers have been made. Today owned by Canadian firm Davie, it also hopes to win new contracts from the US Coast Guard.
“The geopolitical situation has changed definitely,” says the shipyard’s managing director, Kim Salmi.
“We have our eastern neighbour here [Russia]. They are building their own [new] fleet. And the Chinese are building their fleet.”
A threat by US President Donald Trump to impose fresh tariffs on eight allies opposed to his proposed takeover of Greenland has drawn condemnation from European leaders.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the move was “completely wrong”, while French President Emmanuel Macron called it “unacceptable”.
The comments came after Trump announced a 10% tariff on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland would come into force on 1 February, but could later rise to 25% – and would last until a deal was reached.
Trump insists the autonomous Danish territory is critical for US security and has not ruled out taking it by force.
Following Trump’s threats, the European Union called an emergency meeting for 17:00 in Brussels (16:00 GMT) on Sunday. The meeting will involve ambassadors from the EU’s 27 countries, according to the Reuters news agency.
Meanwhile, thousands of people took to the streets in Greenland and Denmark on Saturday in protest at the proposed US takeover.
Greenland is sparsely populated but resource-rich and its location between North America and the Arctic makes it well placed for early warning systems in the event of missile attacks and for monitoring vessels in the region.
Trump has previously said Washington would get the territory “the easy way” or “the hard way”.
European countries have rallied to Denmark’s support. They have argued that the security of the Arctic region should be a joint Nato responsibility.
France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK have dispatched a small number of troops to Greenland in a so-called reconnaissance mission.
Announcing the new tariffs in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump said those countries were playing “a very dangerous game”. At stake, he said, was the “Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet”.
He said the proposed 10% levy to be introduced next month on goods exported to the US would rise to 25% in June and remain “payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland”.
In his response, Starmer said: “Applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of Nato allies is completely wrong. We will of course be pursuing this directly with the US administration.”
UK opposition leaders also criticised Trump’s announcement. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the tariffs were a “terrible idea”, while Reform UK leader and Trump ally Nigel Farage said they “will hurt us”.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey called Trump’s behaviour “unhinged” but said how the UK responds “matters a lot”.
Green MP Ellie Chowns said the US president “treats the international stage like a schoolyard playground, attempting to bully and brute force other countries into compliance with his imperialist agenda”.
France’s Emmanuel Macron said: “Tariff threats are unacceptable in this context… We will not be swayed by any intimidation.”
Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson said: “We won’t let ourselves be blackmailed.”
“Sweden is currently having intensive discussions with other EU countries, Norway and the United Kingdom to find a joint response,” he added.
In a post on X, European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen, said: “Territorial integrity and sovereignty are fundamental principles of international law.”
“Tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” she added.
Trump will face von der Leyen and other European leaders such as Macron at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “China and Russia must be having a field day” following Trump’s announcement.
“They are the ones who benefit from divisions among Allies”, she wrote on X.
European Council President Antonio Costa stated: “The European Union will always be very firm in defending international law… which of course begins within the territory of the member states of the European Union.”
Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said the threat had “come as a surprise”.
Meanwhile, German MEP Manfred Weber, head of the conservative EPP group in the European Parliament, said Trump’s move raised questions about the still-to-be-ratified EU-US trade deal negotiated last year.
Brussels and Washington clinched a deal that agreed a US tariff on all EU goods of 15% and that the 27-member bloc would open its markets to US exporters with 0% tariffs on certain products.
“The EPP is in favour of the EU-US trade deal, but given Donald Trump’s threats regarding Greenland, approval is not possible at this stage,” Weber posted on X. “The 0% tariffs on US products must be put on hold,” he added.
The US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, however, said Denmark “just doesn’t have the resources or the capacity to do what needs to be done in the northern region”.
He told Fox News the life of Greenlanders would be “safer, stronger and more prosperous under the umbrella of the United States”.
Trump has often mused that “tariff” is his favourite word, and he has made clear that he views it as something of a blunt instrument with which to convince – or coerce – countries around the world to align their policies with the desired outcomes of the White House.
But his announcement represents a significant escalation in his recently rekindled drive to acquire Greenland, despite their opposition.
It is unclear what immediately prompted the tariffs announcement, which Trump first hinted at while speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday.
While in recent weeks he has repeatedly said that a variety of options – including the potential use of military force – remained on the table, the announcement comes just days after US and Danish officials agreed to set up a high-level working group to discuss the future of the island.
In Washington’s diplomatic and political circles, that announcement was seen by many as a “best-case” scenario for Denmark and its European allies – one that would, at the very least, delay any decision or further escalation from the White House.
Instead, the latest tariffs have injected a newfound sense of urgency into the issue and strained relations with important Nato allies and trading partners.
Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he will “be offering a resolution to terminate these illegal and absurd tariffs immediately”.
He said: “Trump is manufacturing a foreign crisis and sabotaging our closest alliance – all while ignoring the real crisis the American people actually care about: affordability.”
Opinion polls suggest 85% of Greenlanders oppose the territory joining the US.
Demonstrations against Trump’s takeover plans were held in Danish cities as well as in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, on Saturday – before the tariff announcement.
In the Danish capital, Copenhagen, placards were held up reading: “Hands Off Greenland” and “Greenland for Greenlanders”.
“We demand respect for the Danish Realm and for Greenland’s right to self-determination,” said Camilla Siezing, heads of Inuit, an umbrella group of Greenlandic associations.
Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey has trademarked his image and voice to protect them from unauthorised use by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.
Clips including his famous catchphrase “alright, alright, alright” from the 1993 film, Dazed and Confused, have been registered to the United States Patent and Trademark Office database, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports.
It is the first time an actor has attempted to use trademark law to protect their likeness from AI misuse, his lawyers and an expert said.
Stars across Hollywood and the music industry including Scarlett Johansson and Taylor Swift have endured a wave of fake video, audio and images online, created by AI tools.
Lawyers for the Magic Mike star told the WSJ they had no current examples of McConaughey’s likeness being manipulated by AI, but hoped the trademarks could be used broadly against any unauthorised copies of him.
A secondary aim would be to “capture some of the value that is being created with this new technology”, Kevin Yorn – one of the lawyers representing McConaughey – told the AFP news agency.
“My team and I want to know that when my voice or likeness is ever used, it’s because I approved and signed off on it”, McConaughey said via email to the newspaper.
“We want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world”.
Several clips were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin Foundation, a non-profit organisation created by the Dallas Buyers Club actor and his wife Camila, according to AFP.
Alina Trapova, an assistant professor in copyright law at University College London, also believes it to be first time an actor has attempted to use trademark law to their benefit against AI.
Trapova has worked on copyright and AI for more than eight years. She told the BBC that AI is a big problem for celebrities, saying that they may object to unauthorised AI “due to reputational reasons”, but for Hollywood stars it “is often a case of missed licensing opportunities”.
She said celebrities are experimenting with different forms of protection as “unauthorised commercialisation” of their likeness in the forms of deepfakes becomes “more and more challenging in the age of AI”.
McConaughey is not a hardline opponent of generative AI.
He has a stake in ElevenLabs, a software company specialising in AI voice modelling “for several years now”, according to the 56-year-old.
The company has created an AI audio version of the ‘Interstellar’ actor, with his permission.
Dr Sandra Wachter, professor of technology and regulation at the University of Oxford, says she would not be surprised if others in the creative industries did the same as McConaughey in the future.
“It is simple for companies to take your work and train a model to do your job. It is comparatively difficult for you to protect your work in the first place,” she told the BBC.
Mayor Mamdani’s new chief equity officer disparaged liberal white women in numerous posts on an X account deleted shortly before her appointment — and just as another aide landed in hot water for her radical screeds, The Post has learned.
The city’s new equity officer, Afua Atta-Mensah liberally sprinkled the phrase “comrade” throughout her posts and retweeting statements such as, “there’s NO moderate way to black liberation.”
Mamdani — in appointing Atta-Mensah to the top city position designed to promote inclusion — said, “There is no one I trust more to advance racial equity across our work in City Hall.”
Atta-Mensah’s disturbing posts were unearthed by the New York Young Republicans Club from her personal X account, which she apparently deactivated within a week of her Thursday appointment.
Her account was deleted just as Mamdani’s new tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, faced scrutiny over her own tweets calling to “seize private property” and branding home ownership “a weapon of white supremacy.”
Atta-Mensah appeared to take notice and hid her own social-media past — which included retweeting or replying to at least three separate posts complaining about liberal white women, including one where she responded to somebody who wrote “we don’t talk about white liberal racism enough.”
“Facts! It would need to be a series of loooooonnnnnnnggggg conversations” Atta-Mensah replied.
She also reposted part of a thread from a post reading,”Who’s not police but FEELS like police to you?
“white women at nonprofit organizations,” read a reply Atta-Mensah reposted in September 2024.
A third post compared white women to Amy Cooper — a white woman who was dubbed “Central Park Karen” in 2020 after she called the cops on a black birdwatcher.
“A lot of y’all are Amy Coopers to the Black women in your non-profits every day,” the tweet read, which the equity chief responded to with, “THIS IS A WHOLE WORD!!!!”
Another series of tweets included Atta-Mensah’s 2021 reply to somebody posting about how the show “Succession” made them want to “tax these people to the white meat.”
Atta-Mensah appeared to agree, replying “Tax Them To The White Meat!!!” with a hand-clapping emoji.
Mamdani’s office has told The Post that it hasn’t directed appointees to delete their social media.
Atta-Mensah previously worked on the mayor’s campaign after a career with social-justice groups.
“Afua Atta-Mensah has dedicated her career to serving the New Yorkers who are so often forgotten in the halls of power,” Mamdani said in appointing her to her new top position.
Mamdani also stood by tenant advocate Weaver after her social-media comments mired his administration in controversy within days of kicking off in January — with her past tweets including stances such as, “The Police Are Just People The State Sanctions To Murder W[ith] Immunity.”
Another one of her tweets read, “Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy.”
She also called on people to “elect more communists” to carry out her radical agenda.
City Hall did not respond to Post requests for comment about Atta-Mensah.
Iran is threatening to continue mass executions of protesters arrested during its brutal crackdown on a nationwide uprising against the despotic regime, and warned the US that deploying forces would unleash “all-out war.”
Iranian officials say at least 5,000 demonstrators have been slaughtered in the streets for speaking out against the authoritarian rule that has gripped the country for nearly 50 years.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has blamed the deaths on US- and Israel-linked “terrorists and rioters,” actions which Iran’s judiciary said on Sunday constitute “Mohareb,” an Islamic term meaning to wage war on God which carries the death penalty.
“A series of actions have been identified as Mohareb, which is among the most severe Islamic punishments,” Asghar Jahangir, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, said at a press conference.
The renewed saber-rattling comes just days after President Trump thanked the Islamic republic’s leadership on Truth Social for canceling the executions of over 800 people headed for the gallows.
Among them was protester Erfan Soltani, 26, who was arrested Jan. 8 and given just 10 minutes to say goodbye to his family before being taken away for execution.
Soltani has since been confirmed alive and in good physical health by his family and human rights groups.
Trump vowed to intervene militarily if the regime killed demonstrators, and has sent US military assets, including an aircraft carrier, to the region. But he has yet to announce details on further plans.
Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in a social media post Sunday that its response “to any unjust aggression will be harsh and regrettable,” adding that an attack on Khamenei would be considered “tantamount to an all-out war against the nation.”
Trump had said that Iran’s decision to halt the executions played a decisive role in his decision to hold off on military action.
Some 24,000 people have been arrested in the mass demonstrations, according to the US-based agency Human Rights Activists in Iran, which began Dec. 28 when shopkeepers rallied in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar over economic hardships resulting from the collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial.
The unrest quickly grew into widespread protests across all 31 provinces, which the repressive regime responded to with a violent crackdown.
It’s the largest civil unrest in the country since 2022, when enraged citizens took to the streets following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab.
A shocking new report by the Sunday Times says the death toll cited by human rights groups is woefully undercounted, putting the figure closer to 16,500, with another 330,000 to 360,000 injured.
The disturbing figures, compiled from eight major hospitals and 16 emergency departments, revealed between 16,500 and 18,000 people have been killed, with most victims believed to be younger than 30.
Professor Amir Parasta, an Iranian-German eye surgeon who spoke to the outlet, said the violence seen during the demonstrations represents “a whole new level of brutality” by the regime.
“[In 2022] they were using rubber bullets and pellet guns taking out eyes. This time they are using military-grade weapons and what we are seeing are gunshot and shrapnel wounds in the head, neck and chest,” he continued.
At least 1,000 people have lost an eye, with one Tehran hospital reporting 7,000 eye injuries, according to the outlet.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung on Sunday demanded the Nobel Foundation at least highlight President Trump’s “unprecedented accomplishments” if he can’t be gifted its peace prize.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado had handed a beaming Trump her 18-carat-gold Nobel Peace Prize medal, which she won last year, during their meeting Thursday.
But the foundation said that officially, “Prizes shall be awarded to those who ‘have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind,’ and it specifies who has the right to award each respective prize.
“A prize can therefore not, even symbolically, be passed on or further distributed.”
The @NobelPrize has now issued multiple statements/comments on President Trump (who rightfully deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to at least eight wars).
Instead of trying to play politics, they should highlight the President’s unprecedented accomplishments. https://t.co/s09MQnA5pW
— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) January 18, 2026
Cheung blasted that statement and contended Trump “rightfully deserves the Nobel Peace Prize” for his efforts to end global conflicts around the world.
“Instead of trying to play politics, they should highlight the President’s unprecedented accomplishments,” he sniped on X.
China’s population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025, dropping by 3.39 million to 1.405 billion, a faster decline than in 2024, official data showed on Monday (Jan 19).
The total number of births in China dropped to 7.92 million in 2025, its lowest in decades, from 9.54 million in 2024.
The number of deaths rose to 11.31 million from 10.93 million in 2024, figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed.
China’s population has been shrinking since 2022 and is ageing rapidly. This has complicated Beijing’s plan to boost domestic consumption and rein in debt, with hundreds of millions of people set to leave the workforce at a time when pension budgets are already stretched.
Marriages in China plunged by a fifth in 2024, the biggest drop on record, with more than 6.1 million couples registering for marriage, down from 7.68 million in 2023.
Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-population-decline-marriage-births-5867436
Shares of Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp rose nearly 10 per cent on Monday, after U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology said it would buy a fabrication plant from the company.
Micron Technology said on Saturday it had signed a letter of intent to acquire Powerchip’s P5 fabrication site in Tongluo, Miaoli County, Taiwan, for $1.8 billion in cash.
Powerchip is one of Taiwan’s major semiconductor foundries and produces both legacy chips and memory chips.
Micron said it expects the deal to help boost its output of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) wafers beginning in the second half of 2027.
The purchase will add about 300,000 square feet of cleanroom space, a highly controlled environment needed for chip production, the company said. It will allow Micron to ramp up DRAM production in phases at a time when global demand for memory continues to outpace supply, the company added.
Micron is one of only three major suppliers of high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips essential to AI technology, alongside South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix <000660.KS >.
Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said last month he expects memory markets to remain tight beyond 2026. The company’s shares gained a whopping 240 per cent in 2025, far outpacing the benchmark chip index’s 42 per cent gain.
Micron has been operating in Taiwan for more than 30 years and is the island’s largest foreign direct investor, according to Micron Taiwan’s website. Its facilities in Taichung, Taiwan, are a key production hub for DRAM and HBM products.
A U.S.-based activist agency said Sunday it has verified at least 3,919 deaths during a wave of protests that swept Iran and led to a bloody crackdown, and fears the number could be significantly higher.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency posted the revised figure, up from the previous toll of 3,308. The death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding the 1979 revolution.
The agency has been accurate throughout the years of demonstrations in Iran, relying on a network of activists inside the country that confirms all reported fatalities. The Associated Press has been unable to independently confirm the toll.
Iranian officials have not given a clear death toll, although on Saturday, the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the protests had left “several thousand” people dead — and blamed the United States for the deaths. It was the first indication from an Iranian leader of the extent of the casualties from the wave of protests that began Dec. 28 over Iran’s ailing economy.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency says 24,669 protesters have been arrested in the crackdown.
Iranian officials have repeatedly accused the United States and Israel of fomenting unrest in the country.
Tension with the United States has been high, with U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly threatening Tehran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against anti-government protesters.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a post Sunday on X, blamed “longstanding enmity and inhumane sanctions” imposed by the U.S. and its allies for any hardships the Iranian people might be facing. “Any aggression against the Supreme Leader of our country is tantamount to all-out war against the Iranian nation,” he wrote.
During the protests, Trump had told demonstrators that “ help is on the way ” and that his administration would “act accordingly” if the killing of demonstrators continued or if Iranian authorities executed detained protesters.
But he later struck a conciliatory tone, saying that Iranian officials had “canceled the hanging of over 800 people” and that “I greatly respect the fact that they canceled.”
A family member of detained Iranian protester Erfan Soltani said Sunday that the 26-year-old is in good physical health and was able to see his family days after his planned execution was postponed.
Somayeh, a 45-year-old close relative of Soltani who is living abroad, told AP that his family had been told his execution would be set for Wednesday but it was postponed when they reached the prison in Karaj, a city northwest of Tehran.
“I ask everyone to help in securing Erfan’s freedom,” Somayeh, who asked to be identified by first name only for fear of government reprisal, said in a video message.
On Saturday, Khamenei branded Trump a “criminal” for supporting the rallies and blamed the U.S. for the casualties, describing the protesters as “foot soldiers” of the United States.
Source : https://apnews.com/article/iran-protests-deaths-trump-khamenei-95207b62fb2c8a4f3745d981ea0f9849
A Purple Star Sapphire weighing 3,563 carats which is claimed to be the world’s biggest of its kind was unveiled on Saturday in the Sri Lankan capital by the owners, who are ready to sell the precious stone which is estimated to be worth at least $300 million.
The round shaped gem named “Star of Pure Land” is the world’s largest documented natural purple star sapphire, said Ashan Amarasinghe, a consultant gemologist.
“This is the largest purple star sapphire of its kind,” he told the media, adding that the gem “shows a well-defined asterism. It has six rays asterism. That’s something special out of all the other stones.”
The gem, which has been polished, is owned by the Star of Pure Land Team, who want to remain anonymous for security reasons.
One of the owners said the gem was found in a gem pit near the remote Sri Lankan town of Rathnapura, known as the “city of gems,” in 2023.
Source : https://apnews.com/article/sri-lanka-biggest-gem-sapphire-ad477c534852d758dee38a646dd8f435
At least eight more countries say the United States has invited them to join President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, a new body of world leaders meant to oversee next steps in Gaza that shows ambitions for a broader mandate in global affairs. Two of the countries, Hungary and Vietnam, said they have accepted.
A $1 billion contribution secures permanent membership on the Trump-led board instead of a three-year appointment, which has no contribution requirement, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity about the charter, which hasn’t been made public. The official said the money raised would go to rebuilding Gaza.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accepted an invitation to join the board, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told state radio Sunday. Orbán is one of Trump’s most ardent supporters in Europe.
Vietnam’s Communist Party chief, To Lam, also has accepted, a foreign ministry statement said.
India has received an invitation, a senior government official with knowledge of the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the information hadn’t been made public by authorities.
Australia has been invited and will talk it through with the U.S. “to properly understand what this means and what’s involved,” Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Monday.
Jordan, Greece, Cyprus and Pakistan said Sunday they had received invitations. Canada, Turkey, Egypt, Paraguay, Argentina and Albania have already said they were invited. It was not clear how many have been invited in all.
The U.S. is expected to announce its official list of members in the coming days, likely during the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Those on the board will oversee next steps in Gaza as the ceasefire that took effect on Oct. 10 moves into its challenging second phase. It includes a new Palestinian committee in Gaza, the deployment of an international security force, disarmament of Hamas and reconstruction of the war-battered territory.
In letters sent Friday to world leaders inviting them to be “founding members,” Trump said the Board of Peace would “embark on a bold new approach to resolving global conflict.”
That could become a potential rival to the U.N. Security Council, the most powerful body of the global entity created in the wake of World War II. The 15-seat council has been blocked by U.S. vetoes from taking action to end the war in Gaza, while the U.N.’s clout has been diminished by major funding cuts by the Trump administration and other donors.
Trump’s invitation letters for the Board of Peace noted that the Security Council had endorsed the U.S. 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan, which includes the board’s creation. The letters were posted on social media by some invitees.
The White House last week also announced an executive committee of leaders who will carry out the Board of Peace’s vision, but Israel on Saturday objected that the committee “was not coordinated with Israel and is contrary to its policy,” without details. The statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office was rare criticism of its close ally in Washington.
Trump administration officials had been in discussions with Venezuela’s hardline interior minister Diosdado Cabello months before the U.S. operation to seize President Nicolas Maduro, and have been in communication with him since then, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
The officials warned Cabello, 62, against using the security services or militant ruling-party supporters he oversees to target the country’s opposition, four sources said. That security apparatus, which includes the intelligence services, police and the armed forces, remains largely intact after the January 3 U.S. raid.
Cabello is named in the same U.S. drug-trafficking indictment that the Trump administration used as justification to arrest Maduro, but was not taken as part of the operation.
The communication with Cabello, which has also touched on sanctions the U.S. has imposed on him and the indictment he faces, dates back to the early days of the current Trump administration and continued in the weeks just prior to the U.S. ouster of Maduro, two sources familiar with the discussions said. The administration has also been in touch with Cabello since Maduro’s ouster, four of the people said.
The communications, which have not been previously reported, are critical to the Trump administration’s efforts to control the situation inside Venezuela. If Cabello decides to unleash the forces that he controls, it could foment the kind of chaos that Trump wants to avoid and threaten interim President Delcy Rodriguez’s grip on power, according to a source briefed on U.S. concerns.
It is not clear if the Trump administration’s discussions with Cabello extended to questions about the future governance of Venezuela. Also unclear is whether Cabello has heeded the U.S. warnings. He has publicly pledged unity with Rodriguez, whom Trump has so far praised.
While Rodriguez has been seen by the U.S. as the linchpin for U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy for post-Maduro Venezuela, Cabello is widely believed to have the power to keep those plans on track or upend them.
The Venezuelan minister has been in contact with the Trump administration both directly and via intermediaries, one person familiar with the conversations said.
All of the sources were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive internal government communications with Cabello.
The White House and the government of Venezuela did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Cabello has long been seen as Venezuela’s second most powerful figure. A close aide of late former President Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s mentor, he went on to become a long-time Maduro loyalist, feared as his main enforcer of repression. Rodriguez and Cabello have both operated at the heart of the government, legislature and ruling socialist party for years, but have never been considered close allies of each other.
A former military officer, Cabello has exerted influence over the country’s military and civilian counterintelligence agencies, which conduct widespread domestic espionage. He has also been closely associated with pro-government militias, notably the colectivos, groups of motorcycle-riding armed civilians who have been deployed to attack protesters.
Cabello is one of a handful of Maduro loyalists Washington has relied on as temporary rulers to maintain stability while it accesses the OPEC nation’s oil reserves during an unspecified transition period.
But U.S. officials are concerned that Cabello – given his record of repression and a history of rivalry with Rodriguez – could play the spoiler, according to a source briefed on the administration’s thinking.
Rodriguez has been working to consolidate her own power, installing loyalists in key positions to protect herself from internal threats while meeting U.S. demands to boost oil production, Reuters interviews with sources in Venezuela have shown.
Elliott Abrams, who served as Trump’s special representative on Venezuela in his first term, said many Venezuelans would expect Cabello to be removed at some point if a democratic transition is to advance.
“If and when he goes, Venezuelans will know that the regime has really begun to change,” said Abrams, now at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
Cabello has long been under U.S. sanctions for alleged drug trafficking.
In 2020, the U.S. issued a $10 million bounty for Cabello and indicted him as a key figure in the “Cartel de los Soles,” a group the U.S. has said is a Venezuelan drug-trafficking network led by members of the country’s government.
The U.S. has since raised the award to $25 million. Cabello has publicly denied any links to drug trafficking.
In the hours after Maduro’s ouster, some analysts and politicians in Washington questioned why the U.S. didn’t also grab Cabello – listed second in the Department of Justice indictment of Maduro.
“I know that just Diosdado is probably worse than Maduro and worse than Delcy,” Republican U.S. Representative Maria Elvira Salazar said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” on January 11.
Peter Brown’s gray mustache and beard were matted with ice as he stood watch on a frigid Friday afternoon outside Green Central Elementary, not far from where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good last week.
Wearing a neon green vest and equipped with a whistle and walkie-talkie, Brown, an 81-year-old retired lawyer who lives nearby, kept his head on a swivel. His eyes were taking in each passing car and pedestrian near the campus as he stood ready to sound the alarm should federal immigration personnel approach the school, which teaches in English and Spanish and is around the corner from the spot where Good died.
“I never did like bullies, and that’s what the federal government has become,” Brown said, explaining why an octogenarian stood outside for four hours in -2 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chill (-19 Celsius). “What’s happening in my city is nothing more than authoritarian intimidation, and me and my neighbors are not going to put up with it.”
The Trump administration has deployed about 3,000 federal agents across the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, making it the latest region targeted by the president’s mass deportation program. People who normally might be organizing parent-teacher association meetings are arranging security patrols at their kids’ schools to watch for immigration agents.
Some parents not on patrol are escorting foreign-born teachers or staff members, driving them to and from their homes and schools to make them feel safer. Others are delivering groceries and prescription medicines to immigrant families who are too afraid to leave their homes or send their kids to class.
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat representing Minnesota, said on Friday she had met with school principals from her state “and heard horror stories of kids and parents ‘under siege’ by ICE.”
“Little kids scared. Dangerous encounters. This is no longer about a fraud investigation,” Klobuchar wrote on social media, as she urged residents to remain peaceful.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and the Border Patrol, said this week more than 2,500 people have been arrested during the effort that officials have dubbed Operation Metro Surge. DHS has repeatedly said its agents are not targeting schools.
“ICE is not going to schools to arrest children — we are protecting children,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement. “Criminals are no longer able to hide in America’s schools to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement and instead trusts them to use common sense. If a dangerous illegal alien felon were to flee into a school, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect public safety. But this has not happened.”
But parents and school leaders say otherwise.
A spokesperson for Saint Paul Public Schools said in a statement that two of its contracted student transportation vans were pulled over by ICE agents this week. Several schools and daycare centers have emailed parents to notify them of teachers and staff who have been detained, according to school leaders and parents.
Schools have notified the public that some parents have been detained at bus stops after dropping off kids. Border Patrol agents clashed with protesters on the grounds of Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis as classes ended, just a few hours after Good was shot and killed. DHS said the clash followed agents’ pursuit of someone who had rammed one of their vehicles several miles away and fled to the school grounds.
Several school districts — including those in Minneapolis and St. Paul, the state’s two largest — have cancelled classes some days and are allowing students to learn online instead of attending classes in person for the next several weeks in response to the immigration operations.
“Many families in my area are afraid to send their kids to school because ICE is staking out our bus stops,” state Representative Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn, a Democrat and co-chair of the Minnesota House of Representatives’ Children and Families Finance and Policy Committee, told the Star Tribune newspaper.
Nate Byrne, a spokesperson for Kids Count on Us, a coalition of 500 community-based childcare centers in Minnesota, said it is receiving daily reports about ICE officers on or near childcare center grounds, and that such centers in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods have seen a 50% reduction in attendance.
Kids Count on Us has received reports of childcare workers taken into ICE custody, Byrne said, though he did not have specific figures.
“Parents who are not fearful of being detained by ICE — typically because they are white — are forming teams to patrol outside their childcare centers during drop-off and pick-up and when staff need to come and go,” Byrne said. “Parents who are fearful of being detained by ICE due to the color of their skin are being extremely cautious.”
St. Paul parent Kelly, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used, citing fears of retribution from the federal government, said she was helping deliver food to immigrant families that attend her children’s school but were afraid to leave their homes. Parents are also raising money to help pay rent for the families across the metro area, as the parents are missing work, according to Kelly and other parents.
U.S. President Donald Trump purchased about $100 million in municipal and corporate bonds from mid-November to late December, his latest disclosures showed, including up to $2 million in Netflix (NFLX.O), and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD.O), bonds just weeks after the companies announced their merger.
Financial disclosures posted Thursday and Friday showed the majority of Trump’s purchases were municipal bonds from cities, local school districts, utilities and hospitals. But he also bought bonds from companies including Boeing (BA.N), Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N), and General Motors (GM.N).
The investments were the latest reported assets added to Trump’s expanding portfolio while he is in office. It includes holdings in sectors that benefit from his policies, raising questions about conflicts of interest.
For example, Trump said in December he will have a say in whether Netflix can proceed with its proposed $83 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, which faces a rival bid from Paramount Skydance (PSKY.O).. Any deal to acquire Warner Bros will need regulatory approval.
Iranians in exile are being targeted by the regime’s secret services, which is believed to be responsible for thousands of deaths since the start of the mass protests in Iran.
While Iran’s rulers attempt to crush the popular uprising with extreme brutality and ruthlessness, exiled Iranians around the world fear for the fate of their family members and friends. According to Germany’s Federal Statistical Office, around 295,000 people with Iranian roots live in Germany (as of 2024). In 2021, almost half of them had a German passport.
Along with worrying about their relatives back in Iran, many of them are also concerned about their own safety. This is especially true if they are politically active or work in journalism. Such individuals can quickly become targets of Iranian intelligence services, which are very active — and dangerous — in Germany, according to the country’s domestic intelligence agency.
“It can be assumed that Iranian intelligence services will increase their persecution abroad, partly due to current events,” wrote the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, in response to a query from DW.
It added: “Transnational repression measures by Iranian intelligence services against dissident organizations and individuals from the diaspora include targeted espionage, discrediting, intimidation, threats, and even the use of violence.” Their aim, the statement added, is to suppress opposition activities and coerce cooperation in order to spy on the regime opposition abroad.
In light of the escalating violence of the Islamic regime in Iran, such assessments are frighteningly real. Several thousand people are said to have already been killed, though the information on arrests and deaths cannot be independently verified.
It is also difficult to gauge whether Iranian intelligence services are now stepping up their activities in Germany in the immediate aftermath of the mass protests. In principle, what the BfV has been observing for many years still applies: “Espionage activities by Iranian intelligence services often serve to plan state-sponsored terrorist activities, including the abduction or even killing of the target person.”
The BfV has also warned that people living in Germany could fall victim to such operations, referring specifically to the case of a man with Iranian and German citizenship. During a trip to a country neighboring Iran in 2020, Jamshid Sharmahd was abducted and, based on initial reports, executed four years later. Later reports indicated that he had died shortly before the planned execution.
The BfV sees a pattern at work here: “It can be assumed that Iran will continue to arrest Western nationals under fabricated pretexts and use them as leverage in a kind of ‘hostage policy.'”
In light of such fates, the BfV has often warned against traveling to Iran and neighboring countries: “Iranian intelligence services use offensive and aggressive approaches to establish contact with people entering Iran, which can also lead to detention and interrogation lasting several days.”
The German government responded to the death of Jamshid Sharmahd in 2024 by closing the three Iranian consulates general in Frankfurt am Main, Munich, and Hamburg. Some of the diplomatic staff had to leave Germany. Iran’s only diplomatic presence in Germany is now its embassy in Berlin.
The closure of the consulates is likely to have made it more difficult for the regime to deploy spies disguised as diplomats in Germany, a practice that is widespread internationally. The long-standing economic sanctions on Iran mean that espionage abroad is particularly important for the country to find expertise for its controversial nuclear program.
According to the BfV, cyberespionage has been part of the Iranian secret service’s repertoire since at least 2013. Economic interests play just as much a role in this as attempts to intimidate those whom the regime considers its worst enemies: People who are committed to freedom of expression and human rights.
“This involves attacking the private email and social media accounts of members of the diaspora. Iranian intelligence services can then use the stolen data to create movement profiles of those affected, investigate their everyday lives, and uncover their private and professional networks,” the BfV told DW.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/how-dangerous-are-iranian-secret-services-in-germany/a-75538204
Ji Seung-ryeol, 41, prides himself on his sense of fashion.
He diligently shares mirror selfies on Instagram, where everyone knows the more likes you get, the cooler you are.
So he was bewildered to find out that men his age have become the subject of ridicule online, mocked for shoehorning their way into styles associated with Gen Z and younger millennials.
AI-generated caricatures of this demographic have gone viral on social media: a middle-aged man decked out in street wear and clutching an iPhone. The kids call them “Young 40s”.
The memes have made Ji’s beloved Nike Air Jordans and Stüssy T-shirts the butt of jokes—and the source of much indignation.
“I’m just buying and wearing things I’ve liked for a long time, now that I can afford them,” he tells the BBC. “Why is this something to be attacked for?”
Once celebrated as pioneers of taste in the 1990s, the tide of public opinion on 40-year-olds turned after the release of the iPhone 17 last September.
The smartphone, long considered the preserve of the youth, was suddenly recast as a tacky trademark of Young 40s. These are, in the words of Gen Z Jeong Ju-eun, people “trying too hard to look young”, who “refuse to accept that time has passed”.
The figures seem to reflect this shift. While the majority of young South Koreans still prefer the iPhone to the Samsung Galaxy, over the past year Apple’s market share fell by 4% among Gen Z consumers and rose 12% for people in their 40s, according to research by Gallup.
Something similar played out a few years back with Geriatric Millennials, born in the early ’80s, whose brand of humour—the crying-laughing emoji, finger moustaches and the word “adulting”—was derided as cringey.
Back then, debate over Geriatric Millennials sparked self-deprecating jokes, think pieces and quizzes dictating if you’re meant to pile on the ribbing or be subjected to it.
The same trends have taken hold in South Korea with Young 40s.
In Korea, age difference, even by a year, forms the basis of social hierarchy. Age is one of the first things strangers ask each other, setting the tone for future interactions: how they address one another, who gets to open the bottle of soju at parties (it’s usually the oldest person) and which way to tip your shot glass (the correct answer: away from your seniors).
But the Young 40 memes also represent Korean youth’s growing scepticism of this almost forced reverence for elders.
Just a few years ago, the term “kkondae” was another buzzword among young South Korean to describe an annoying breed of rigid, condescending elders.
Such friction has been exacerbated by social media, where “multiple generations mix within the same space”, says Lee Jae-in, a sociology professor at Korea University’s Sejong campus.
“The old pattern where different generations consumed separate cultural spaces has largely disappeared,” he adds.
Popularised in marketing circles in the 2010s, the term “Young 40” originally referred to consumers with youthful sensibilities. They were health-conscious, active and comfortable with technology—an important target demographic for companies.
“In the past, people in their 40s were seen as already old,” says Kim Yong-Sup, a trend analyst widely credited with coining the term “Young 40”.
As the median age of South Korea’s society rose, however, these people were “no longer on the verge of old age but at the centre of society”, he says.
But the marketing term has since taken a viral, sardonic turn. Over the past year, “Young 40” was mentioned online more than 100,000 times – more than half the references were used in a negative context, according to analytics platform SomeTrend. Many of them appeared alongside words like “old” and “disgusting”.
An offshoot of the meme is Sweet Young 40, a sarcastic label for middle-aged men who like to hit on young women.
Some see the jokes about Young 40s as a form of punching up: these are people at the peak of their careers, who amassed wealth in a time of economic stability and a property boom.
On the other side are Gen Z and young millennials, born a couple of decades later, who face soaring house prices and cut-throat competition in the job market. In their eyes, Young 40s represent “the generation that made it through just before the door of opportunity closed”, according to psychologist Oh Eun-kyung.
“They are seen not simply as individuals with personal tastes, but as symbols of privilege and power,” she says. “That’s why the energy of mockery is focused on them.”
But Ji, the 41-year-old fashion enthusiast who lived through the so-called golden era, tells a different version of that story.
After experiencing the Asian financial crisis as a teen, Ji entered a tough job market in his 20s, submitting around 60-70 applications to land a job. His generation is one that “had very little to enjoy growing up, and only began to enjoy things later, as adults”, he says.
Now at the workplace, he often finds himself sandwiched between two worlds. The generation above him ran a “strict, top-down system where you did what you were told”, while below him is “a generation that asks ‘why””.
“We’re a generation that has experienced both cultures. We feel caught in between.”
While the ability to straddle two generations was once a badge of honour, Ji says he has become self-conscious about interacting with younger colleagues for fear of being labelled a kkondae or Young 40.
Five off-piste skiers have died in two avalanches in the Austria’s Alps following heavy snowfall in the region.
An avalanche hit a group of seven skiers in the Pongau area near Salzburg, killing four and seriously injuring one on Saturday, local mountain rescue officials said.
A similar avalanche swept away a skier in the same area earlier in the day.
Poor conditions have led to the recent deaths of a number of people in the Alps over the last week.
In the latest incidents, the mountain rescue service said it was alerted around 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT).
Four people were found dead, while another suffered serious injuries, they said.
Around an hour and a half before, a female skier was buried by an avalanche in open alpine terrain near the same area.
“Our deepest sympathies go out to the families. This tragedy painfully demonstrates how serious the current avalanche situation is,” said Gerhard Kremser, district head of the Pongau mountain rescue service.
Further avalanches were recorded in the Pongau region around midday, but no-one was injured.
On Tuesday, an avalanche killed a 13-year-old Czech boy skiing in the Austrian Alpine resort of Bad Gastein.
A threat by President Donald Trump to impose fresh tariffs on eight allies opposed to his proposed takeover of Greenland has drawn condemnation from European leaders.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the move was “completely wrong”, while French President Emmanuel Macron called it “unacceptable”.
The comments came after Trump announced a 10% tariff on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland would come into force on 1 February but could later rise to 25% – and would last until a deal was reached.
Mr Trump insists the autonomous Danish territory is critical for US security and has not ruled out taking it by force.
Meanwhile, thousands of people took to the streets in Greenland and Denmark on Saturday in protest at the proposed US takeover.
Greenland is sparsely populated but resource-rich and its location between North America and the Arctic makes it well placed for early warning systems in the event of missile attacks and for monitoring vessels in the region.
Trump has previously said Washington would get the territory “the easy way” or “the hard way”.
European countries have rallied to Denmark’s support. They have argued that the security of the Arctic region should be a joint Nato responsibility.
France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK have dispatched a small number of troops to Greenland in a so-called reconnaissance mission.
Announcing the new tariffs in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump said those countries were playing “a very dangerous game”. At stake, he said, was the “Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet”.
He said the proposed 10% levy to be introduced next month on goods exported to the US would rise to 25% in June and remain “payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland”.
In his response, Starmer said: “Applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of Nato allies is completely wrong. We will of course be pursuing this directly with the US administration.”
France’s Emmanuel Macron said: “Tariff threats are unacceptable in this context… We will not be swayed by any intimidation.”
Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson said: We won’t let ourselves be blackmailed.”
“Sweden is currently having intensive discussions with other EU countries, Norway and the United Kingdom to find a joint response,” he added.
European Council President Antonio Costa stated: “The European Union will always be very firm in defending international law… which of course begins within the territory of the member states of the European Union.”
Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said the threat had “come as a surprise”.
Meanwhile, German MEP Manfred Weber, head of the conservative EPP group in the European Parliament, said Trump’s move raised questions about the still-to-be-ratified EU-US trade deal negotiated last year.
Brussels and Washington clinched a deal that agreed a US tariff on all EU goods of 15% and that the 27-member bloc would open its markets to US exporters with 0% tariffs on certain products.
“The EPP is in favour of the EU-US trade deal, but given Donald Trump’s threats regarding Greenland, approval is not possible at this stage,” Weber posted on X. “The 0% tariffs on US products must be put on hold,” he added.
The US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, however, said Denmark “just doesn’t have the resources or the capacity to do what needs to be done in the northern region”.
He told Fox News the life of Greenlanders would be “safer, stronger and more prosperous under the umbrella of the United States”.
Trump has often mused that “tariff” is his favourite word, and he has made clear that he views it as something of a blunt instrument with which to convince – or coerce – countries around the world to align their policies with the desired outcomes of the White House.
But his announcement represents a significant escalation in his recently rekindled drive to acquire Greenland, despite their opposition.
It is unclear what immediately prompted the tariffs announcement, which Trump first hinted at while speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday.
While in recent weeks he has repeatedly said that a variety of options – including the potential use of military force – remained on the table, the announcement comes just days after US and Danish officials agreed to set up a high-level working group to discuss the future of the island.
In Washington’s diplomatic and political circles, that announcement was seen by many as a “best-case” scenario for Denmark and its European allies – one that would, at the very least, delay any decision or further escalation from the White House.
Instead, the latest tariffs have injected a newfound sense of urgency into the issue and strained relations with important Nato allies and trading partners.
Opinion polls suggest 85% of Greenlanders oppose the territory joining the US.
Demonstrations against Trump’s takeover plans were held in Danish cities as well as in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, on Saturday – before the tariff announcement.
In the Danish capital, Copenhagen, placards were held up reading: “Hands Off Greenland” and “Greenland for Greenlanders”.
“We demand respect for the Danish Realm and for Greenland’s right to self-determination,” said Camilla Siezing, heads of Inuit, an umbrella group of Greenlandic associations.
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4qjwk9n2no
Selena Gomez stripped down the glam for a rare fresh-faced selfie this week.
The “Wizards of Waverly Place” actress, 33, shared a makeup-free smiling selfie to her Instagram Stories on Saturday.
Gomez looked relaxed as she posed with her hand resting on her head.
She appeared to be wearing a loose white tank top for the casual snap.
Prior to her Friday makeup-free post, the Rare Beauty founder recently shared a post showing her finished full glam look for her Rare Beauty Warm Wishes Powdered Bronzer launch party on Thursday.
The makeup look featured a nude lip, soft-shimmery eye shadow with a dark liner and mascara. She wore her hair in a short, curly wet look.
She accessorized with a pair of dangling brown feather earrings.
“An evening with Rare Beauty to celebrate our warm wishes powdered bronzer,” she captioned the post, tagging her glam squad which includes makeup artist, Jenna Nicole.
The fresh face was also a quick change from Gomez’s Golden Globes appearance last weekend.
Source : https://pagesix.com/2026/01/17/style/selena-gomez-strips-off-the-glam-for-rare-makeup-free-selfie/
Ben Affleck politely denied ever meeting “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Lisa Barlow despite her previous claim that a work obligation with him was keeping her from filming some of the Bravo show this season.
The “Gone Girl” star was put on the spot in his Access Hollywood interview, which was posted on Friday.
“It’s ‘Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.’ Cast member Lisa Barlow is saying that she was with you at an event with her husband and she wasn’t able to film. The cast members don’t believe her. So the question is, do you know who Lisa Barlow is?” the interviewer asked the actor as he promoted his new film with Matt Damon, “The Rip.”
Affleck immediately responded with confusion, but said that he doesn’t “want to get anybody in trouble.”
“I don’t know what this is – an event in Salt Lake City? Like, prove somebody right or wrong?” he asked.
In the episode in question, Barlow, 51, did not clarify where the event was that she was supposed to be meeting Affleck at. However, the interviewer told the star that it was likely held in Utah.
“I haven’t been in Utah in maybe, 8, 9 or 10 years, I don’t know,” Affleck, 53, said. “It doesn’t look familiar to me and I don’t remember anything.”
The “Air” star went on to sidestep the question by saying it’s unlikely that he met the Bravolebrity, but it is possible that he could have met her and the meeting slipped his memory as he typically runs into so many people at events.
“I don’t want to embarrass her because, I say hi to a lot of people, I don’t want to be the jerk who is like, I did meet you… You don’t remember everyone you meet,” Affleck shared.
“I don’t think I’m qualified to weigh in on this, whatever this raging controversy is.”
It didn’t take long before Barlow came back with receipts and proof. She responded in the comments section under Access Hollywood’s post explaining that she allegedly met him at the SXSW movie festival.
“SXSW [for] The Accountant 2,” she wrote, referring to Affleck’s movie premiere at the Austin, Texas, festival in March 2025. “And it was a great movie and party.”
She then followed it up with a TikTok from her SXSW experience. Included among the roundup of clips was a video showing her view of Affleck walking the red carpet at the festival as well as a brief snippet of Lively talking on stage at her “Another Simple Favor” premiere.
As Bravo fans may recall, the Vida Tequila owner said in a Season 6 episode the reason why she couldn’t attend castmate Angie Katsanevas’ girls’ trip was because of her feud with other co-star Bronwyn Newport and because she had a business obligation involving the actor and Lively.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are reportedly going through the “first real test” in their relationship as his potential NFL retirement looms amid their wedding planning.
A source claimed the pop star, 36, has been focused more on lifting Kelce’s “defeated” spirits following the Kansas City Chiefs’ losing season than on making wedding arrangements, reports Daily Mail.
“Taylor is trying to put him in a better mood by spending more time with him and not bombarding him with wedding plans,” the insider said.
“She would want him to focus on [the wedding] after he makes his career decision because she knows how important that is to him.”
The source added that the “Fortnight” singer is looking at the rough patch as the pair’s “first real test of their relationship.”
“They have been together and in love and have enjoyed the success of her tour and career and his Super Bowls and his career. Travis hasn’t been in this position before where he is staring at his future with complete 20/20 vision,” they said.
Kelce, 36, has been left feeling “a bit defeated” as retirement rumors hang in the air following the Chiefs’ losing 2025-26 season.
The professional tight end was previously rumored to be considering retirement after the 2024-25 season. However, he ultimately decided to try for one more Super Bowl ring before he officially called it quits.
“He is used to still be playing, and he is missing not being on the field, which might bode well for his fans and the Chiefs if he decides to play another year,” the insider said of Kelce’s potential career plans, adding that the NFL star will “make the Chiefs well aware of his future plans by early March.”
“We will know a few weeks after the Super Bowl if he will be returning or not. That is his timeline that he has set to make a decision to play one more year or not,” they added.
Still, Kelce has a bright future ahead with his soon-to-be wife at his side and career opportunities.
Last month, Page Six exclusively reported that Swift and the “New Heights” podcast co-host have their post-NFL life planned out with different projects.
“Things are changing; he is getting to the end of what he has known all his life and dealing with potential retirement, marriage and a future family with sprinkles of a whole new life in TV,” the insider told Daily Mail, seemingly confirming Page Six’s reporting.
Swift is coping with the challenging moment by “focusing on positivity right now,” per the source.
“But she wants him to be in a place where he is happy because at the end of the day, that will make them happy,’ the source added.
Reps for Swift and Kelce did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
More than 100 high school students in Foshan, Guangdong province, have fallen ill in a norovirus outbreak, though all are reported to be in stable condition. Health authorities say the infections occurred during the seasonal peak for norovirus, which spreads easily in crowded settings like schools. Emergency response measures, medical investigations, and campus disinfection have been launched to contain further spread.
More than 100 High school students have been confirmed sick in clusters due to the spread of norovirus in Foshan, Guangdong province, China. According to Xinhua News Agency, all are reported to be in stable condition. Norovirus is a common pathogen that causes acute gastroenteritis, with primary symptoms including vomiting and diarrhoea.
Initial reports from the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the province enters a seasonal peak for norovirus infections from October through March. Doctors say places like schools, especially kindergartens, are considered high-risk locations for the occurrence and transmission of such outbreaks due to a large group of children accumulated at one place.
Since the situation has been identified, local health and disease control authorities have activated an emergency response, according to Xinhua.
Medical teams have been dispatched to the area to conduct epidemiological investigations, enhance professional disinfection guidance, and coordinate administrative measures. Authorities are also guiding the school to strengthen its health education initiatives, utilizing various channels to disseminate preventive knowledge and promote healthy living habits among students and staff.
School has started a campus disinfection programme while maintaining daily health monitoring protocols like twice-a-day checks, apart from rigorous tracking of student absences due to illness.
Norovirus is a group of viruses that is highly contagious. According to experts, norovirus outbreaks happen seasonally in colder months. The first ever norovirus outbreak occurred in Norwalk, United States, in a school in 1968. For this reason, the first strain of norovirus was known as the Norwalk virus.
Norovirus causes severe gastroenteritis, which many people call the “stomach flu”. It is very common globally, with about 685 million cases reported every year. Of that estimate, over 200 million cases affect children.
A few common symptoms of norovirus, apart from vomiting and diarrhoea, include:
Doctors say the symptoms usually appear 12 to 48 hours after exposure to the virus and last one to three days. Symptoms of norovirus are usually the same in both children and adults. Adults may experience more diarrhea than children, and children may vomit more than adults.
In the 12 days since the U.S. seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, interim President Delcy Rodriguez has been working to consolidate her own power, installing loyalists in key positions to protect herself from internal threats while meeting U.S. demands to boost oil production.
Rodriguez, 56, a quiet but rigorous technocrat who was vice president and oil minister, has named a central banker to help run the economy, a presidential chief of staff and, crucially, a new head of Venezuela’s feared DGCIM, the military counterintelligence agency built over decades with Cuban assistance.
Major General Gustavo Gonzalez, 65, will now head the agency, a move three sources with knowledge of the government described as an early gambit by Rodriguez to counter what many in Venezuela say is the biggest threat to her leadership: Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s hardline interior minister with close ties to the security services and the dreaded “colectivos” motorcycle gangs which have killed opposition supporters.
“She is very clear that she doesn’t have the capacity to survive without the consent of the Americans,” said one source close to the government. “She’s already reforming the armed forces, removing people and naming new officials.”
Interviews with seven sources in Venezuela, including diplomats, business people and politicians, reveal in previously unreported detail the fault line at the heart of Venezuela’s government and the risks it poses to Rodriguez as she tries to consolidate internal control while meeting Trump administration dictates on oil sales. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
The tightrope Rodriguez is attempting to walk was evident in her first major speech since taking office. Addressing parliament in a national annual address on Thursday, she called for unity, stressed her bona fides as Maduro’s loyal deputy, and vowed to forge a new chapter in Venezuela’s politics with increased oil investment.
Venezuela’s communications ministry, which handles all press inquiries for the government and individual officials, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The White House responded to emailed questions from Reuters by referring the news agency to recent comments made by Trump. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, Trump said Rodriguez “has been very good to deal with” and that he expected her to visit Washington at some point.
Rodriguez – nicknamed “the tsarina” for her business connections – has broad influence over the country’s civilian levers of power, including the crucial oil industry, and now also enjoys the backing of the United States. That backing appeared to be reemphasized on Thursday when Rodriguez met with CIA director John Ratcliffe in Caracas.
The other main faction is led by Cabello.
Cabello, who also heads the ruling PSUV socialist party, is a former soldier with a weekly four-hour show on state television, which has run for 12 years. His first public act after Maduro’s capture was to appear on screen dressed in a flak jacket and surrounded by armed guards as he led a chant of, “To doubt is to betray.”
Officials in the Trump administration had contact with Cabello months before the operation to seize Maduro and have also been in communication with him since, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, warning him against using the security services or colectivos to target the opposition.
Cabello, who was jailed in Venezuela for backing eventual socialist President Hugo Chavez in a failed 1992 coup, is under indictment in the U.S. and has a $25 million reward for his capture.
So far Cabello has been conciliatory towards Rodriguez, saying they are “very united” and he arrived at Thursday’s national address alongside Rodriguez and her brother Jorge, the head of the national assembly. But sources with knowledge of their relationship told Reuters that Cabello remains the biggest threat to her ability to govern.
In Caracas, security forces are skittish. A few hours after Rodriguez was sworn in, there was a brief burst of anti-aircraft fire outside the presidential palace that some feared could be another U.S. attack. Instead, reports suggest it was a miscommunication between police and the presidential guard, which shot down police drones. The government said the craft were spy drones, without explaining who they belonged to.
Across the country, people are reeling from the shock of Maduro’s capture and unsure whether to be hopeful or scared. In some places, local socialist party branches have asked members to spy on their neighbors and report anyone celebrating Maduro’s downfall, according to three party members who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In this tense environment, Rodriguez must persuade party loyalists that she is not a U.S. puppet who betrayed Maduro. She must also stabilize an economy that saw prices for basic goods soar in the days since the U.S. attack, as well as wrestle some degree of control over the sprawling military-linked patronage networks that have developed over decades of Chavismo rule.
Venezuela has as many as 2,000 generals and admirals, more than double the number in the United States, a military superpower with 20 times more active duty and reserve troops. Senior and retired officers control food distribution, raw materials and the state oil company PDVSA, while dozens of generals sit on the boards of private firms.
Many officials are able to run their regional fiefdoms as they see fit – ordering patrols or checkpoints by soldiers under their command – and some parts of the country and capital Caracas have seen increased activity by security services since Maduro’s capture.
Gonzalez, the new head of the military counterintelligence agency DGCIM, has over his long career in Venezuela’s government worked closely with Cabello, particularly during two stints as head of the separate civilian spy agency.
Yet it is to Rodriguez that Gonzalez owes his most recent posts. In 2024, Rodriguez tapped Gonzalez for a top job at the state oil company, Venezuela’s most important company and the engine of the country’s economy.
Questions still remain over how much control Gonzalez will be able to exert over DGCIM. Cabello’s allies within the agency could undermine him, the three sources with knowledge of the government said.
One source with knowledge of the inner workings of the security services said Gonzalez’s DGCIM predecessor General Javier Marcano struggled to control the agency.
“The role of boss of repression already has a name… Diosdado,” this person said. “Marcano was coordinating with (civilian) militias and with the colectivos, but he had serious difficulties controlling DGCIM because his designation was nominal.”
Reuters could not reach Marcano directly and all formal communication with officials in Venezuela is handled through the communications ministry, which did not respond to a list of questions related to this story.
The colectivos, closely connected to Cabello, could also make the country ungovernable by implementing a so-called “anarchization” strategy, which was first designed to fend off U.S. intervention but could be directed against Rodriguez, the source close to the government told Reuters. That strategy would mobilize the intelligence services and colectivos to plunge Caracas into disorder and chaos.
Organizers have called on Danish and Greenlandic residents to join marches and rallies against US President Donald Trump’s push to acquire Greenland.
Massive demonstrations organized by Greenlandic associations have been taking place across Denmark and Greenland on Saturday to protest US President Donald Trump’s ambitions to take over the Arctic island.
The aim of the protests is “to send a clear and unified message of respect for Greenland’s democracy and fundamental human rights,” said Uagut, an association of Greenlanders in Denmark, on its website.
Thousands of demonstrators assembled in Copenhagen’s City Hall Square at 12:00 p.m. local time (11:00 GMT), chanting “Greenland is not for sale” and holding banners with slogans such as “Hands off Greenland.” They then marched towards the US embassy.
“I am very grateful for the huge support we as Greenlanders receive… We are also sending a message to the world that you all must wake up,” Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut, told the protesters.
“Greenland and the Greenlanders have involuntarily become the front in the fight for democracy and human rights,” she added.
Protests were also ongoing in the Danish cities of Aarhus, Aalborg, and Odense.
The demonstration in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, began 4:00 p.m. local time (1500 GMT), according to the organizers, who say it is “against the United States’ illegal plans to take control of Greenland.”
Several thousand protesters, including the territory’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who was seen waving a Greenlandic flag, chanted slogans and sang traditional Inuit songs in the light rain.
Many of them wore caps bearing the slogan “Make America Go Away,” an AFP reporter noted, referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” brand.
Demonstrators marched to the US consulate carrying Greenlandic flags. The territory’s total population is about 57,000.
Tensions around Greenland have risen this month amid repeated insistence by US President Donald Trump that he wants the US to take control of Greenland.
On Saturday, Trump announced a 10% tariff on 8 European nations, including Germany, that oppose his plans to take over the semiautonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/thousands-oppose-us-plans-in-hands-off-greenland-protests/a-75546625
US President Donald Trump has lashed out at Iran’s supreme leader after the twisted Ayatollah accused him of being responsible for the deaths of over 3,000 protesters.
Tyrant Ali Khamenei, 86, labelled the US president a “criminal” as he claimed Trump fuelled the nationwide demonstrations which saw his security forces shoot civilians dead on the street.
In response, Trump slammed the dictator’s abhorrent ruling style.
“The man is a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people,” Trump told Politico on Saturday.
“His country is the worst place to live anywhere in the world because of poor leadership.”
Khamenei says Iran views Trump as the main reason for the “casualties, damages and slander” in Tehran across the past three weeks.
The official death toll across Tehran stands at 3,090, according to human rights activists, but fears remain that the true total could be closer to 12,000.
The Middle East was braced for US strikes on the Islamist regime after Trump promised brave protesters “help is on the way” after 17 days of bloody street strife.
Iran’s bloodthirsty regime had vowed to fast-track trials and executions of those captured during the deadly protests but Trump has now accepted assurances that “killing in Iran is stopping”.
“The best decision he ever made was not hanging more than 800 people two days ago,” Trump told Politico.
The President went on to say Khamenei should focus on running his own country properly and not “killing people by the thousands in order to keep control.”
“Leadership is about respect, not fear and death,” Trump told Politico.
Trump also called for the end of Khamenei’s brutal 37-year reign.
“It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran,” Trump said.
Khamenei went into hiding once Trump started to threaten to launch strikes on Tehran over the deaths of the protesters but reappeared today for religious festivities in the capital.
But Iranian sources warned yesterday that hundreds of prisoners among more than 18,000 believed to have been arrested were still in danger.
An Iranian refugee in contact with protesters told The Sun: “The regime is buying time by lying to Trump and they will do what they want once he loses focus.
“People are pleased that there have been no executions so far but that could change very quickly.”
The number of executions in Iran, usually by gruesome public hangings, has doubled in the past year as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cracked down following June’s 12-day war with Israel.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15798209/trump-iran-worst-place-live-ayatollah-sick-man/
