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.
People hold signs and a U.S. flag during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies on the one-year mark into his second term in office in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
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.
UNCERTAINTY RISES
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.
Police officers walk during the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting, in Davos, Switzerland, January 20, 2026. REUTERS/Romina Amato Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
BOND MARKETS SPILLOVER
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.
Tetsuya Yamagami, suspected of killing former Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe, is escorted by police officers as he is taken to prosecutors, at Nara-nishi police station in Nara, western Japan, on Jul 10, 2022. (File photo: Kyodo via Reuters)
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.
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.
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.
The second lady made history after announcing that she and Vice President JD Vance will welcome their fourth child this summer.
Usha Vance, seen at the Commander-in-Chief ball in January 2025, is pregnantCredit: Getty
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.’”
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.
US forces seized the Motor Vessel Sagitta in the Caribbean, the seventh tanker linked to VenezuelaCredit: AFP
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.
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.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani talked about his “bromance” with Trump on The View
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.
FOES TO BROS
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:
While the solar storm did bring around certain disruptions, accompanying these issues were beautiful northern lights as far as Southern California.
Aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, is seen in the sky above Nuuk, Greenland, Tuesday, (AP)
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.
Largest storm since 2023
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.
Auroras viewed in many countries
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
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.
Blake Lively blasting her “It Ends With Us” director Justin Baldoni in text messages to Swift have been revealed in new court docs obtained by Page Six. GC Images
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 MEP Anders Vistisen uses cuss words against US President Donald Trump over Greenland threats. Photo : AP
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.
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.
Greenland PM Asks Trump To Respect Territorial Integrity
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.
Top EU Official Doubts Trump’s Trustworthiness
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. (File photo)
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.
Motaz Malhees stars in the film which places the late Hind Rajab front and centre
“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).
‘Provoking empathy’
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.
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.
The demolition marked Israel’s latest step against UNRWAImage: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency/IMAGO
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 accuses UNRWA of bias
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”.
Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia condemn Israeli operation
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.
Interim president Delcy Rodriguez said the money from US sales of Venezuelan oil will be used to prop up the currency.
Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reservesImage: Matias Delacroix/AP Photo/dpa/picture alliance
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.
Venezuela to debate reforms to oil contract laws
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.
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.
In 2022, Elon Musk had attended the grand opening of a Tesla factory in BerlinImage: Patrick Pleul/pool/AP/picture alliance
Thousands of Kurds in Germany protests against Syrian clashes
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.
3 in 4 Germans would not buy a Tesla – survey
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.
German army fills its ranks to highest level in 12 years
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.
German workers took 19.5 sick days in 2025, health insurance provider says
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.”
Football: Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen in Champions League action
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.
Paint attack on Turkish embassy in Berlin
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 US plunge in 2025 due to Trump tariffs
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.
Germany revokes almost half of asylum guarantees for Afghans
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.
Handball: Germany beat Spain to progress from group stage
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.
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.
‘EVERYONE SHOULD TAKE THE PRESIDENT AT HIS WORD’
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.
Flags flutter during the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting, in Davos, Switzerland, January 19, 2026. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani waves as he arrives for the premiere of the movie “Valentino: The Last Emperor” by U.S. director Matt Tyrnauer in Venice August 28, 2008. “Valentino: The Last Emperor” movie by U.S. director Matt Tyrnauer is shown out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse (ITALY)/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
‘I LOVE BEAUTY’
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.
‘YOU NEED A LOT OF PATIENCE’
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.
‘THE PERFECT MOMENT TO SAY ADIEU’
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.
Cardinals Joseph Tobin and Blase Cupich attend a press conference following the election of Pope Leo XIV, at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Italy, May 9, 2025. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
NOBEL COMMITTEE GAVE 2025 PEACE PRIZE TO MACHADO, NOT TRUMP
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.
People attend a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that the Arctic island be ceded to the U.S., calling for it to be allowed to determine its own future, in front of the U.S. consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, January 17, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica Purchase Licensing Rights
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.”
TALKS WITH TRUMP IN DAVOS?
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.”
Reading the riot act
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.
Europe’s security independence
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.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presides over the 13th plenary meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, Dec 12, 2025. (File photo: KCNA via Reuters)
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.
LAZY OFFICIALS
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.
Adult acne tends to be cyclical compared to the consistent breakouts in teens. (Art: CNA/Chern Ling)
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.
WHAT CAUSES ADULT ACNE
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.”
HOW BREAKOUTS CHANGE WITH AGE
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.”
RISING ADULT ACNE CASES IN SINGAPORE
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.”
TREATING ACNE AT HOME
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.
HOW TO BALANCE ACNE AND ANTI-AGEING CARE
“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.”
THE NEW ERA OF ACNE TREATMENTS
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.”
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.
Malaysia’s king Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar (right) and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim at the opening of the first meeting of the fifth session of the 15th Parliament on Jan 19, 2026. (Photo: Facebook/Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar)
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.”
A source divulged Brooklyn Beckham’s “breaking point” to Page Six on Monday. Getty Images for Vogue
“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
“He’s really doing a lot to resolve these complex crises, which have lasted for years, even decades,” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said in October 2025, praising Donald Trump. File | Photo Credit: AP
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.
Motorists ride past a building with shattered glass following an explosion in the Shahr-e Naw area of Kabul, Afghanistan [AFP]An explosion has torn through a Chinese-run restaurant in a hotel in a heavily guarded part of Afghanistan’s capital, killing a Chinese national and six Afghans and injuring several others including a child, officials said.
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.
Several people die in blast in Kabul
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’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping (File photo/AP)
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 —…
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.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says gun buyback scheme will reduce country’s 4m firearms.
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.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the bloc has “no interest to pick a fight, but we will hold our ground”.
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.
Police have ramped up security in Kaduna state in recent months after a spate of mass abductions [FILE: January 12, 2026]Image: Nuhu Gwamna/REUTERSA leader at Nigeria’s Christian Association said that 163 worshippers were kidnapped during Sunday services from two churches Kaduna state.
“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.
Kidnappings-for-ransom on the rise in in Nigeria
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.
Are Christians being targeted?
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.
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.
Trump has long despised the UN as dysfunctional, now he is trying to convince world leaders that he has created a more effective instrument for bringing about peace around the globeImage: Selçuk Acar/Anadolu Agency/IMAGO
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’s pay-to-play peace scheme
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.”
Who has been invited?
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.”
Chairman and CEO of BlackRock Larry Fink, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA), Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone Jon Gray, Alphabet & Google President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corporation Darren Woods applaud as U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to attend the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 15, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
TRUMP GETS LACKLUSTER RATINGS ON ECONOMY
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 attends the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 19, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
MICROSOFT AND OPENAI ALSO FILE SUITS
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.
‘STILL PEOPLE TRAPPED’
A drone view shows emergency services at work at the site of a deadly train derailment, after a high-speed train derailed and collided with another oncoming train near Adamuz, in Cordoba province, Spain, January 19, 2026. REUTERS/Leonardo Benassatto Purchase Licensing Rights
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.”
HORRIFIC SCENE
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.
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.
DIALOGUE IN DAVOS
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.
People attend a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that the Arctic island be ceded to the U.S., calling for it to be allowed to determine its own future, in Nuuk, Greenland, January 17, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
QUESTION MARKS OVER U.S. TRADE DEALS
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.
Weight and Diet Differences Across Gaming Groups
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.
Possible Explanations From Prior Research
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.
Gaming Platforms and Content Preferences
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.
Gaming Time Versus Gaming Disorder
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.
Considerations for Campus Health Programs
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.
Syria’s interim leader Ahmad al-Sharaa signs an agreement with the SDF groupImage: Syrian Presidency/Anadolu Agency/IMAGO
Kursish leader confirms ceasefire, says details to come
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 agreement will contribute to ‘security, peace’
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.
Syrian leader cancels Berlin visit
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.
US commends ceasefire, says ‘pivotal inflection point’
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.”
Al-Sharaa voices support for ‘Syria’s unity, sovereignty over all its territory’
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.
Tensions flared amid disagreement over integration of Kurdish force into new Syrian state — what to know
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.”
What prompted a ceasefire agreement?
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.
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.
Austrian rescue services have deployed more than 200 personnel and several helicopters in the regionImage: Salzburg Mountain Rescue/APA/AFP
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.
Where did the accidents happen?
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.
Finland leads the world when it comes to the design and construction of icebreakers
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.”
Protesters in Greenland rallied on Saturday against any US move to acquire the territory
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.
Afua Atta-Mensah — who has disparaged white women and others — is appointed by Mayor Mamdani as the city’s chief equity officer on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. John Angelillo/UPI/Shutterstock
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.
Iran, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has threatened “all-out-war” if the US intervenes. KHAMENEI.IR/AFP via Getty Images
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.
President Trump is delighted to receive Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize medal last week. Daniel Torok / The White House
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
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.
A woman holds a child near office buildings in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, on Sep 15, 2025. (File photo: Reuters/Tingshu Wang)
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.
A Micron logo and a computer motherboard appear in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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.
In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
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.
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. (AP Video shot by Jayamapthi Palipane)
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.
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.
Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez walks with Venezuela’s National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez and Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello before attending a press conference, more than a week after the U.S. launched a strike on the country and captured President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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 BEEN MADURO LOYALIST
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.
US SANCTIONS AND INDICTMENT
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.
A demonstrator holds a sign, in front of the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, during a protest more than a week after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 17, 2026. REUTERS/Seth Herald Purchase Licensing Rights
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.”
PARENTS PATROL SCHOOLS
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.
SOME STUDENTS LEARNING ONLINE
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 DELIVER FOOD, RAISE MONEY
“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.
A drone view shows the Netflix logo on one of their buildings in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, December 8, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
Since the start of the mass protests in Iran, there have been demonstrations against the Islamic regime in Germany tooImage: Rolf Zöllner/IMAGO
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.
Kidnappings and targeted killings
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.”
German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd kidnapped and killed in 2020
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.
Cyber-attacks also target opposition figures
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.
Ji says he has become more self-conscious interacting with younger colleagues
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?”
The iPhone that started it all
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.
A self-conscious sandwich generation
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.
Protesters in Greenland rallied on Saturday against any US move acquire the territory
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.
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.
Selena Gomez shared a rare makeup-free selfie via her Instagram Stories on Friday. Instagram / @selenagomez
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.
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.”
Ben Affleck denied having met Lisa Barlow in an Access Hollywood interview. ZUMAPRESS.com
“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.”
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are facing the “first real test” in their relationship as he considers retiring from the NFL amid wedding planning. Taylor Swift / Instagram
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.
Norovirus Outbreak in China Sickens 100 Students at Guangdong School
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.
Authorities taking swift action to contain the spread
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.
What is norovirus?
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.
Signs and symptoms of norovirus
A few common symptoms of norovirus, apart from vomiting and diarrhoea, include:
Stomach pain
Severe headache
High fever
Body aches and muscle pain
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.
Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez waves as she walks to deliver her first annual address to the nation at the National Assembly, following the U.S. strike in Caracas that resulted in the capture of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Caracas, Venezuela, January 15, 2026. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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.
AN INTERNAL RIVALRY
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.
REPRESSION ‘ALREADY HAS A NAME’
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.
Thousands gathered in Nuuk to protest President Donald Trump’s intent to acquire GreenlandImage: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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 assemble in big Danish cities
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.
Protesters gather in Nuuk
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.
Dispute over Greenland intensifies
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.
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.
Trump said leadership was about respect, not killing peopleCredit: Alamy
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.
LAMAR Odom has allegedly been arrested for driving under the influence in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The former basketball player, 46, who was previously married to Khloe Kardashian, has battled drug and alcohol addition in the past.
Lamar Odom has reportedly been arrested for driving under the influenceCredit: Getty
According to TMZ, who reported the arrest, Lamar was also given two traffic violations during the arrest.
The celebrity news site claims that he was slapped with the violations for driving more than 41+ miles per hour over the limit and improper lane change/failure to maintain lane.
TMZ also claimed that Lamar remains in police custody currently.
The Sun has reached out to Lamar’s rep for comment.
Lamar has made no secret of his struggles with alcohol and drugs in the past, and in 2023, fronted a TMZ documentary titled Lamar Odom: Sex, Drugs & Kardashians.
During the documentary and in his memoir, Darkness to Light, Lamar detailed his struggles with substances and his journey getting clean from cocaine.
His recovery came following a highly publicized near-death experience back in 2015, when the sportsman overdosed in a brothel.
Following a four-day bender, Lamar was found unresponsive after having 12 seizures, six strokes, and his heart stopping twice.
“My doctors from Cedars-Sinai said, like, I’m a walking miracle,” he previously told ABC.
After the harrowing experience, Lamar admitted to having “no memory” of taking drugs that day, despite the near-lethal doses.
The incident – which came shortly after his split from wife Khloe – pushed Lamar to have a stint in rehab the following year.
However, he previously detailed how he has used small doses of ketamine under medical supervision in order to get clean.
In 2019, Lamar told ABC that he does occasionally have a social alcoholic drink, but has steered clear of any other substances.
Lamar rose to prominence for playing in NBA team Los Angeles Lakers, winning several accolades during his run in the professional league.
At the height of his fame, he married Keeping Up With The Kardashians star Khloe and the pair even had their own reality show, Khloe and Lamar.
A CALIFORNIA man has been charged in relation to death threats made against Vice President JD Vance during his family trip to Disneyland last summer.
The 22-year-old man was arrested Friday, six months after allegedly sharing threats on Instagram while Vance visited the theme park with his wife, Usha, and at least two of their children.
Marco Antonio Aguayo from Anaheim, California, was arrested and charged with threats against the President and successors to the Presidency, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, said.
Vance was visiting the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim with his family at the time of the alleged threats, according to an affidavit filed on July 12, 2025.
COMMENTS REVEALED
On that day, Aguayo allegedly posted several public comments on the Walt Disney Company’s Instagram account, the attorney’s office said.
One of the comments read, “Pipe bombs have been placed in preparation for J.D. Vance’s arrival.”
“It’s time for us to rise up and you will be a witness to it,” another comment said.
According to officials, the last threat said, “Good luck finding all of them on time there will be bloodshed tonight and we will bathe in the blood of corrupt politicians.”
Later that day, law enforcement officials went to Aguayo’s home, where he initially denied any knowledge of the comments, further claiming his account had been hacked, the New York Post (NYP) reported, citing a criminal complaint.
Aguayo later surrendered his phone, allowing agents to access his Instagram account. He later allegedly admitted to posting the threats, the NYP reported.
He told law enforcement that the comments were “a joke to provoke attention and laughter,” adding that he “forgot” to delete them.
‘LET THIS CASE BE A WARNING’
“This case is a horrific reminder of the dangers public officials face from deranged criminals who would do them harm,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.
“I am grateful that my friend Vice President Vance and his family are safe, applaud the police work that led to the arrest, and will ensure my prosecutors deliver swift justice.”
NASA rolled its massive Space Launch System rocket toward its launchpad in Florida on Saturday, kicking off a final phase of preparations for the agency’s Artemis II mission that is poised to send four astronauts around the moon and back as soon as next month.
Traveling just one mile (1.6 km) per hour on its mobile launch platform, the 322-foot-tall (98 m) SLS emerged at sunrise from the giant garage doors of NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center for a crawl to its launchpad some 4 miles away, as hundreds of agency employees and contractors staked out the sidelines to watch.
“We truly look at that and see teamwork, we see global cooperation, we see a strong nation leading the way,” Artemis II mission commander Reid Wiseman told reporters on Saturday against the backdrop of the SLS cruising toward the launchpad.
“It represents an extraordinary American workforce, right there,” said Artemis II mission astronaut Jeremy Hansen of Canada.
The rocket’s upcoming Artemis II mission is the second under NASA’s multibillion-dollar Artemis moon program, following an uncrewed flight in 2022, and the first to carry astronauts, who will fly around the moon in a 10-day journey taking them to the farthest humans have ever ventured in space.
The mission’s crew includes three U.S. astronauts and a Canadian astronaut, and is planned to launch as soon as February 6, though whether that date holds will hinge on a key “wet dress” rehearsal four days prior that simulates the launch countdown to catch any snags or issues before flight.
“Wet dress is really the driver” of the launch schedule, Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson told reporters on Friday. “You’re going to need a little bit of time to look at the data” from the rehearsal, she said.
Also weighing on the February timeline is the launch of Crew-12, a separate, routine astronaut mission to the International Space Station whose launch date was moved up due to the early return of Crew-11 because of an astronaut medical issue. Resources required for that mission could contribute to a decision to launch Artemis II on a later date.
This follows an earlier recall of selected Nestle NAN formula products on Jan 8 due to the potential presence of cereulide.
File photo of a baby drinking milk. (Photo: iStock)
The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) on Saturday (Jan 17) recalled two infant formula products due to the presence of cereulide toxin.
The agency detected the toxin, which can cause nausea and vomiting, in another batch of Nestle NAN infant formula as well as a batch of Dumex infant formula products.
This follows an earlier recall of selected Nestle NAN formula products on Jan 8.
The affected batches are:
Nestle NAN HA 1 SupremePro (800g), batch 52340017C3 (made in Switzerland)
Dumex Dulac 1 (800g), batch 101570778C (made in Thailand)
The two products “may have used the same raw ingredient supplied by the same source used in the earlier batches of implicated infant formula products”, said SFA and the Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA) in a joint media release.
The recall is a precautionary measure while SFA’s investigations are ongoing.
There has been one case of illness likely associated with cereulide exposure, said the agencies. The case had mild symptoms and has since recovered.
Currently, clinical laboratory tests have not confirmed that the illness was caused by cereulide poisoning, said the agencies.
The CDA is working closely with SFA and “conducting surveillance” with medical practitioners to monitor for potential cases of cereulide poisoning in children, they added.
In total, the affected batches of imported infant products comprise less than 5 per cent of Singapore’s imported supply of the formula products, said SFA and CDA.
“SFA will continue to engage importers and manufacturers to monitor the situation closely.”
In addition, SFA said it found that a Singapore-based manufacturer, SMC Nutrition, had used the same affected raw ingredient in some of their infant formula products meant for export.
The agencies have directed the company to halt the export of the affected products and inform the relevant authorities of the importing country.
Cereulide is a toxin that can cause symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and diarrhoea.
The symptoms usually appear between 30 minutes and six hours after consuming the affected food, and typically resolve within 24 hours.
The Indonesia Air Transport turboprop plane left from Yogyakarta and was headed to the city of Makassar on Sulawesi island, according to rescuers.
The Indonesia Air Transport turboprop plane left Yogyakarta and was headed for the city of Makassar on Sulawesi island. (Photo: Website/Indonesia Air)
Indonesian authorities are searching for a plane carrying three government workers and seven crew members after contact with the aircraft was lost on Saturday (Jan 17), officials said.
The Indonesia Air Transport turboprop plane left from Yogyakarta and was headed to the city of Makassar on Sulawesi island, according to rescuers.
Three employees of the ministry of marine affairs and fisheries were on board, on a mission to conduct aerial monitoring of resources in the area, Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono told a press conference.
Seven crew members were also on board, according to the airline.
Contact with the plane was lost shortly after 1pm (local time).
Muhammad Arif Anwar, the head of the local search and rescue agency, told AFP teams were deployed to a mountainous area of Maros Regency, which borders Makassar, near the last known location of the plane.
The search on land and by air involved the air force, police and volunteers, he added.
Andi Sultan, operations chief at the Makassar search and rescue agency, said a helicopter and drones were being used to find the plane.
The aircraft manufacturer, France-based firm ATR, said it had been informed of “an accident” involving one of its planes.
“ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation led by the Indonesian authorities and the operator,” the company said in a statement.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago in Southeast Asia, relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands.
The country has a poor aviation safety record, with several fatal crashes in recent years.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks to reporters after he announced that he would not seek reelection, at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S. January 5, 2026. REUTERS/Tim Evans Purchase Licensing Rights
The U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation of Minnesota officials, including Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, over an alleged conspiracy to impede immigration agents, a source familiar with the probe said on Friday.
The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said subpoenas were prepared for Walz and Frey as part of the inquiry, but it was not immediately clear whether they had been served.
The investigation, first reported by CBS News, stems from statements made by Walz and Frey about the thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents deployed to the Minneapolis region in recent weeks under orders from President Donald Trump, the source said.
Reacting on social media to news of the investigation, Walz, who unsuccessfully ran for the vice presidency in the 2024 election won by Trump, said the federal justice system was being weaponized to intimidate Trump’s perceived political enemies.
“Two days ago it was Elissa Slotkin. Last week it was Jerome Powell. Before that, Mark Kelly. Weaponizing the justice system against your opponents is an authoritarian tactic,” Walz said.
The governor was referring to U.S. Senators Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, Democrats from Michigan and Arizona, who made a video statement urging members of the military to resist illegal orders, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom Trump has criticized as being too hesitant to raise interest rates.
Reacting to a CNN report on the investigation, Frey said separately: “This is an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, local law enforcement, and residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our city.”
The Justice Department declined to comment. But U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted a message on social media platform X on Friday evening, saying: “A reminder to all those in Minnesota; No one is above the law.”
It would be highly unusual for federal prosecutors to bring a criminal conspiracy case based on statements from public officials about government policies.
The Trump administration has sent nearly 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota since early last week, triggering angry protests in Minneapolis over the surge in immigration agents on the streets of the state’s most populous city.
Confrontations between residents and federal officers have become increasingly tense after an ICE agent fatally shot a U.S. citizen, Renee Good, 37, behind the wheel of her car, in Minneapolis on January 7, triggering daily protests that have spread to other cities.
Canada and China struck an initial trade deal on Friday that will slash tariffs on electric vehicles and canola, as both nations promised to tear down trade barriers while forging new strategic ties during Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit.
The first Canadian prime minister to visit China since 2017, Carney is seeking to rebuild ties with his country’s second-largest trading partner after the United States following months of diplomatic efforts.
Canada will initially allow in up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles at a tariff of 6.1% on most-favoured-nation terms, Carney said after talks with Chinese leaders including President Xi Jinping.
That compares with the 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles imposed under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2024, following similar U.S. penalties. In 2023, China exported 41,678 EVs to Canada.
“This is a return to levels prior to recent trade frictions, but under an agreement that promises much more for Canadians,” Carney told reporters. He later said the quota would gradually increase, reaching about 70,000 vehicles in five years.
“For Canada to build its own competitive EV sector, we will need to learn from innovative partners, access their supply chains, and increase local demand,” Carney said, turning away from Trudeau’s rationale that tariffs were needed to protect domestic producers against subsidised Chinese manufacturers.
Relaxing EV tariffs diverged from U.S. policy, and some members of U.S. President Donald Trump’s cabinet criticised the decision ahead of an expected review of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade deal.
But Trump himself expressed support for Carney. “That’s what he should be doing. 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 told reporters at the White House.
AGRI-FOOD PARTNERSHIP
Premier Doug Ford of Ontario, Canada’s main auto manufacturing province, denounced the deal.
“The federal government is inviting a flood of cheap made-in-China electric vehicles without any real guarantee of equal or immediate investments in Canada’s economy, auto sector or supply chain,” he said in a post on X.
In retaliation for Trudeau’s tariffs, China in March levied tariffs on more than $2.6 billion of Canadian farm and food products such as canola oil and meal, followed by tariffs on canola seed in August.
That led to a 10.4% slump in China’s imports of Canadian goods in 2025.
Under the new deal, Carney said, Canada expects China will lower tariffs on its canola seed by March 1, to a combined rate of about 15% from the current 84%.
Canada also expects its canola meal, lobsters, crabs and peas to have anti-discrimination tariffs removed from March 1 until at least year-end, he added.
Canadian canola futures rose.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shakes hands with President of China Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. Sean Kilpatrick/Pool via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
The deals will unlock nearly $3 billion in export orders for Canadian farmers, fish harvesters and processors, Carney said.
China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement China was adjusting anti-dumping measures on canola as well as anti-discrimination measures on some Canadian agricultural and aquatic products in response to Canada lowering EV tariffs.
Carney added that Xi committed to visa-free access for Canadians travelling to China, but did not give details.
In a statement announced by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, the two nations pledged to restart high-level economic and financial dialogue, boost trade and investment, and strengthen cooperation in agriculture, oil, gas and green energy.
Carney said Canada will double its energy grid over the next 15 years, adding there were opportunities for Chinese partnership in investments including offshore wind.
He also said Canada was scaling up its LNG exports to Asia and will produce 50 million tonnes of LNG each year – all destined for Asian markets by 2030.
CARNEY SAYS CHINA ‘MORE PREDICTABLE’
“Given current complexities in Canada’s trade relationship with the U.S., it’s no surprise that Carney’s government is keen to improve the bilateral trade and investment relationship with Beijing, which represents a massive market for Canadian farmers,” said Beijing-based Trivium China’s Even Rogers Pay.
Trump has imposed tariffs on some Canadian goods and suggested the longtime U.S. ally could become his country’s 51st state.
China, similarly hit by Trump’s tariffs, is keen to cooperate with a Group of Seven nation in a traditional sphere of U.S. influence.
“In terms of the way our relationship has progressed in recent months with China, it is more predictable, and you see results coming from that,” Carney said when asked if China was a more predictable and reliable partner than the U.S.
Carney also said he had discussions with Xi about Greenland. “I found much alignment of views in that regard,” he said.
Trump has in recent days revived his claim to the semi-autonomous Danish territory as NATO members scrambled to counter U.S. criticism that Greenland is under-protected.
Iran’s deadly crackdown appears to have broadly quelled protests for now, residents said on Friday, as state media reported more arrests in the shadow of repeated U.S. threats to intervene if the killing continues.
U.S. President Donald Trump, whose repeated threats to act had included a vow to “take very strong action” if Iran executed protesters, said Tehran’s leaders had called off mass hangings.
“I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (Over 800 of them), have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!” he posted on social media.
Iran has not publicly announced plans for such executions or said it had cancelled them.
The protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule, culminating in mass violence at the end of last week. According to opposition groups and an Iranian official, more than 2,000 people were killed in the worst domestic unrest since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
But several residents of Tehran reached by Reuters said the capital had now been comparatively quiet for four days. Drones were flying over the city, but there had been no sign of major protests on Thursday or Friday. Another resident in a northern city on the Caspian Sea said the streets there also appeared calm. The residents declined to be identified for their safety.
PROSPECT OF U.S. ATTACK RETREATS
The prospect of a U.S. attack has retreated since Wednesday, when Trump said he had been told killings in Iran were easing. But more U.S. military assets were expected to arrive in the region, showing the continued tensions.
U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, conducted intense diplomacy with Washington this week to prevent a U.S. strike, warning of repercussions for the wider region that would ultimately impact the United States, a Gulf official said.
Israel’s intelligence chief David Barnea was also in the U.S. on Friday for talks on Iran, according to a source familiar with the matter, and an Israeli military official said the country’s forces were on “peak readiness”.
As an internet blackout eased this week, more accounts of the violence have trickled out.
One woman in Tehran told Reuters by phone that her daughter was killed a week ago after joining a demonstration near their home.
“She was 15 years old. She was not a terrorist, not a rioter. Basij forces followed her as she was trying to return home,” she said, referring to a branch of the security forces often used to quell unrest.
The U.S. is expected to send additional offensive and defensive capabilities to the region, but the exact makeup of those forces and the timing of their arrival was still unclear, a U.S. official said speaking on condition of anonymity.
The U.S. military’s Central Command declined to comment, saying it does not discuss ship movements.
People walk in Tehran Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran, January 15, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
PAHLAVI CALLS FOR INCREASED PRESSURE
Reza Pahlavi, the U.S.-based son of Iran’s last shah who has gained increasing prominence as an opposition figure, on Friday urged the international community to ramp up pressure on Tehran to help protesters overthrow clerical rule.
“The Iranian people are taking decisive action on the ground. It is now time for the international community to join them fully,” said Pahlavi, whose level of support inside Iran is hard to gauge.
Trump this week appeared to downplay the idea of U.S. backing for Pahlavi, voicing uncertainty that the exiled royal heir who has courted support among Western countries could muster significant backing inside Iran. Pahlavi met U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff last weekend, Axios reported.
Iranian-Kurdish rights group Hengaw said that there had been no protest gatherings since Sunday, but “the security environment remains highly restrictive”.
“Our independent sources confirm a heavy military and security presence in cities and towns where protests previously took place, as well as in several locations that did not experience major demonstrations,” Norway-based Hengaw said in comments to Reuters.
REPORTS OF SPORADIC UNREST
There were, however, still indications of unrest in some areas. Hengaw reported that a female nurse was killed by direct gunfire from government forces during protests in Karaj, west of Tehran. Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.
The state-affiliated Tasnim news outlet reported that rioters had set fire to a local education office in Falavarjan County, in central Isfahan Province, on Thursday.
An elderly resident of a town in Iran’s northwestern region, where many Kurdish Iranians live and which has been the focus for many of the biggest flare-ups, said sporadic protests had continued, though not as intensely.
Describing violence earlier in the protests, she said: “I have not seen scenes like that before.”
Video circulating online, which Reuters was able to verify as having been recorded in a forensic medical center in Tehran, showed dozens of bodies lying on floors and stretchers, most in bags but some uncovered. Reuters could not verify the date of the video.
SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks on a screen during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, June 29, 2021. REUTERS/Nacho Doce/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Iran’s crackdown on dissidents is shaping up as one of the toughest security tests yet for Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has served as a lifeline against state-imposed internet blackouts since its deployment during the war in Ukraine.
SpaceX, which owns Starlink, made the satellite service free for Iranians this week, placing Musk’s space company at the center of another geopolitical hot spot and pitting a team of U.S.-based engineers against a regional power armed with satellite jammers and signal-spoofing tactics, according to activists, analysts and researchers.
How SpaceX withstands Iranian attacks on its most lucrative line of business is expected to be closely watched by U.S. military forces and intelligence agencies that use Starlink and its military-grade variant Starshield, as well as China, whose own nascent satellite internet constellations are set to rival Starlink in the coming years. With SpaceX weighing a public listing this year, the situation in Iran also represents a high-profile showcase for Starlink to investors.
“We’re in this weird early part of the history of space-delivered communications where SpaceX is the only true provider at this scale,” said John Plumb, the former Pentagon space policy chief under President Joe Biden.
“And these repressive regimes think they can still turn off communications, but I think the day is coming where that’s just not possible,” he said.
Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability at the think tank Secure World Foundation, said Russia, which has deployed an array of technologies to counter Starlink in Ukraine, might be keen to examine the effectiveness of Iran’s Starlink interference.
“I think a lot of actors are watching how Starlink fares here,” she said.
PROTESTERS USE STARLINK TO SEND CRACKDOWN VIDEOS
Thousands of people protesting Iran’s clerical rule are reported to have been killed in the past week, while Tehran’s order to restrict communications makes it difficult to discern the full extent of its violent crackdown on dissent.
Starlink, which is harder for Iran to tamper with than cable and cellphone tower networks, has become crucial for documenting events on the ground.
Raha Bahreini, an Iran researcher at Amnesty International, said they had verified dozens of videos from Iran, including footage of protesters killed or injured by Iranian forces, and believe that almost all of them came from people who had access to Starlink. She added, however, that the ongoing communications restrictions have impeded human rights organizations’ communications with people in Iran in efforts to assess the scale of the violence.
Starlink is banned in Iran, yet tens of thousands of terminals may have been smuggled into the country, although it remains unclear how many are in use, according to Holistic Resilience, a U.S. nonprofit that has helped deliver Starlink terminals to Iranians and says it is working with SpaceX to monitor what it describes as Iranian attempts to jam the system.
Consumer Starlink terminals are rectangular antenna dishes that come in two sizes – one roughly the size of a pizza box and a smaller “mobile” one the size of a laptop.
SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York declined to comment on Thursday in response to Reuters’ questions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, speaking to Al Jazeera TV on Monday, said the internet had been cut off “after we confronted terrorist operations and realized orders were coming from outside the country.”
JAMMERS AND FAKE GPS SIGNALS
Starlink, the first massive internet-from-space constellation of its kind, has emerged as a crucial tool for communications in wartime and remote areas. The network, which drove SpaceX’s $15 billion revenue in 2024, has expanded the geopolitical power of Musk, who in 2022 asserted control over how and where it was being used by Ukrainian troops fighting back Russian forces.
Roughly 10,000 low-orbiting Starlink satellites zipping above user terminals at an orbital velocity of some 17,000 miles per hour (27,360 kph) make its signals much harder to locate and disrupt than traditional satellite systems designed with a larger, single satellite fixed over a given territory.
Iran is likely using satellite jammers to disrupt the Starlink signals, according to Holistic Resilience and other specialists. Iran also appears to be engaging in so-called spoofing, or broadcasting fake GPS signals to confuse and disable Starlink terminals, according to Nariman Gharib, an Iranian opposition activist and independent cyber espionage investigator based in Britain.
The GPS spoofing wreaks havoc on a Starlink terminal’s connection and slows internet speeds, said Gharib, who analyzed data from a terminal inside Iran.
“You might be able to send text messages, but forget about video calls,” he said.
Nickelodeon star Kianna Underwood has died after being struck in a hit-and-run accident. She was 33.
The Deputy Commissioner of Public Information confirmed to Page Six that police responded to a 911 call in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, at approximately 6:49 a.m. local time.
“A preliminary investigation determined a gray vehicle was traveling west bound and struck an unidentified female,” their statement read, confirming that she had “sustained severe trauma to the head and body.”
Kianna Underwood (photographed here in the 2000s) has died. FilmMagic
After emergency medical services arrived, “she was pronounced deceased on scene.”
The Deputy Commissioner also confirmed that the operator of the vehicle “did not remain on scene.”
No arrests have been made at this time and investigations remain ongoing.
Underwood — who was born in New York City — began acting at the age of 7. She got her big break in 2005 when she joined the cast of Nickelodeon’s “All That” in its 10th season.
She also spent a year on the first national tour of “Hairspray” as Little Inez and voiced Fuchsia in the Nick Jr. show “Little Bill.”
Following her short stint on TV, Underwood returned to New York City, where she was living a private life.
However, in 2023, a video surfaced on social media where she appeared to be struggling.
Janet Caperna shared that she recently suffered from acute gastritis and colitis that caused her to lose nearly 20 pounds in 12 days.
The “Valley” star told the Daily Mail in comments published Friday that she couldn’t stop vomiting after an evening of revelry over the holidays with family and friends — landing her in the hospital twice.
Caperna explained to the outlet that she initially thought she had food poisoning.
“It’s usually set off by something like food poisoning and it was just wreaking havoc on my body,” she explained, referencing the diagnosis.
Janet Caperna of “The Valley” shared that she lost nearly 20 pounds in under two weeks after falling ill. Getty Images
“It was like my insides were wrung out and it felt like I had hot glass moving through me.”
The serious illness left the Bravo star, 36, feeling there was “no relief” from her suffering. “If I had a baby sip of water I would throw up,” she divulged.
Caperna — who has been on “The Valley” since its first season in 2024 — also shared that she feels she needs to explain her appearance after losing so much weight.
“I look sick, so I can’t just start going about my normal life again and not say something, because if I post on Instagram people are gonna be like, ‘Are you okay?”‘ the reality star said.
“I don’t want to glamorize looking like this because I look genuinely ill.”
Caperna took to Instagram to share clips of herself discussing the “serious health scare” that left her in “constant pain” and “unable to eat.”
“I’ve had a pretty rough go at it the last 2 weeks as I got super sick with what ended up being acute gastritis,” she wrote in the caption, noting that she will “probably will look pretty unhealthy for the next few months” as she attempts to gain the weight back.
She also divulged that she’s on the mend. “I am finally starting to feel so much better and am incredibly grateful for my family and friends that have checked in and been so supportive as I navigated this,” she wrote.
Her husband, Jason Caperna, took to the comments thread to support his wife and co-star.
“I’ve watched how hard the last few weeks have been on you — the fear, the exhaustion, the setbacks — and I’m beyond proud of the strength you’ve shown through all of it,” he wrote. “You never stopped fighting. I love you so much. Bright days ahead.”
On her “This Side of the Hill” podcast, the Bravo personality confessed that she overindulged in alcohol and other excesses over the holidays — including “a third of a cheese wheel on Thanksgiving.”
“The doctor basically said that my stomach and intestines were inflamed because I’d put something in there that wasn’t sitting well with my body,” she recalled.
A new mural of slain Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska that was funded in part by Elon Musk has popped up on a Brooklyn building — and furious local lefties claim it’s part of a right-wing plot.
The three-story painting of Zarutska— who made national headlines when she was stabbed to death by a homeless ex-con on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina in August — was installed on an apartment building in a trendy section of Bushwick a few weeks ago.
A new mural of murdered Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska funded in part by Elon Musk has gone up on a trendy Brooklyn building. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post
The artwork on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Evergreen Street is part of a campaign launched by conservative tech CEO Eoghan McCabe to honor the 23-year-old aspiring artist with murals depicting her in several cities. He told The Post he wanted to highlight how crime in liberal areas can lead to tragedies like Zarutska’s death.
“I started this campaign to make sure that the story of Iryna does not disappear. Her murder is at the nexus of many issues plaguing American society. For example, one is the progressive approach to crime,” said.
McCabe, who runs the AI firm Intercom, donated $500,000 to the tribute initiative and collected $1 million from Musk, a spokeswoman for McCabe told The Post. They also raised $200,000 from smaller donors.
As images of the painting on the building, which is home to the Taiwanese dumpling restaurant Formosa, first got praise from those saddened by the young woman’s tragic loss.
“Beautiful!! What a lovely tribute to a beautiful girl and a beautiful life! RIP Iryna!! . . . I’m so sorry the USA failed you!!” said a user named Mary Signorino on a Facebook post that also showed other murals commissioned by McCabe in Washington DC, Miami and Los Angeles.
But a backlash to the campaign by the conservative billionaire came quickly, as lefties on a Bushwick neighborhood reddit page angrily called the the mural propaganda from “anti immigrant fascists.”
“It has become part of the endless fodder that balloons our police department budgets and welcomes masked unaccountable thugs into our neighborhoods to kidnap our friends, family, and neighbors,” the Redditor wrote, in an apparent reference to immigration enforcement,” a user on the site fumed.
Another critic fumed, “This needs to come down. Of course she deserves to be memorialized, but using her memory to stoke racial tensions is sick. The motivation behind this is evil.”
Others said they suspected Musk zeroed in on Brooklyn simply to stoke political tensions.
“This woman — it’s unfortunate what happened to her — but how do you connect her to Bushwick?” Joe, a 42-year-old graphic artist who lives nearby, told The Post Friday.
“A lot of people around here don’t like him so maybe this is his way to use his money to stick it to us. Go find somewhere else where they support you and your politics,” he said.
Dylan Goodwin, 38, said he loved the mural, painted by Connecticut-based artist Ben Keller, but hated one of the people paying for it.
“This is nice, but, you know, then you say Elon Musk, and I can’t stand the guy,” said Goodwin, who works in the film industry.
McCabe himself, who donated to President Trump’s presidential campaign, has also made headlines for right-wing stances, such as calling for the “rapid public execution” of killers.
“I do think that rapid, public executions for crimes like this are a spiritual goal that we should point ourselves towards. I worry about Western society if we can’t react in proportion to how evil this is,” he wrote on X in September, in reference to Zarutska’s murder.
He told The Post Friday by email that: “The vast majority of violent crime is perpetrated by a very small fraction of the population. When cities refuse to incarcerate these people, they get a lot more violent crime. Iryna’s killer had been arrested 14 times before he executed her.”
When asked about the backlash from the left to the mural campaign he said it was only a small part of the reaction.
“The campaign has received remarkably broad support across the political spectrum. We’re aware of very little discontent,” he said.
Germany is joining France, Sweden, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands in a largely symbolic mission to the Arctic. Fifteen Bundeswehr soldiers are expected to arrive in the Greenlandic capital Nuuk.
Germany joins NATO’s “Arctic Endurance” mission to assess maritime surveillance near Greenland as tensions rise over Russia and China’s growing presence.
With the US absent and talks with Washington stalled, Berlin faces mixed reactions at home.
Indians are now travelling to high-altitude places like Ladakh for stargazing
On a cold winter night, around 200km (125 miles) from the Indian capital Delhi, dozens of people huddle around telescopes, waiting for darkness to settle over the landscape.
Over the next few hours, more than 150 meteors streak across the sky – a spectacle all but impossible to witness from India’s sprawling light-polluted cities. For many travellers, experiences like this are becoming as compelling as visits to monuments or wildlife sanctuaries. Dark skies, once taken for granted, are now a reason to travel.
Stargazing in India has long been the preserve of amateur astronomers and science clubs. But as air pollution and city lights obscure the night sky, the hobby is breaking into the mainstream, sparking a new wave of astrotourism.
The trend is still niche, constrained by the high cost of organised trips and the challenge of reaching remote, light-free locations. But with more urban residents now willing to journey hundreds of kilometres for a glimpse of the cosmos, tour organisers say demand is surging.
In Ladakh’s cold desert, the remote, high-altitude village of Hanle once received around 5,000 visitors a year, according to Dorje Angchuk, engineer-in-charge at the Indian Astronomical Observatory. After it was designated India’s first dark-sky reserve in 2022, that figure rose to more than 30,000 last year.
Similar growth is being reported elsewhere. Astroport Global, a private company that offers stargazing experiences and astronomy workshops at five of its resorts across Indian states, says visitor numbers have climbed to around 20,000 a year, up from just a few hundred a few years ago.
One of the main drivers is visibility. Astronomers measure sky clarity using the Bortle dark-sky scale, which runs from one to nine. Delhi typically ranks between eight and nine, meaning only the brightest stars can be seen.
When PM2.5 (fine particulate matter that can clog lungs) levels rise above 100, visibility drops sharply and most constellations and deep-space objects disappear, says Jasjeet Singh Bagla, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Punjab.
In contrast, higher-altitude regions such as parts of Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Ladakh offer far darker skies and clearer air, as colder night-time temperatures push pollutants closer to the ground.
On 13 December, more than three dozen participants gathered near Rajasthan’s Sariska Tiger Reserve to watch the Geminid meteor shower, one of the most spectacular events in the celestial calendar. The reserve’s skies rank four on the Bortle scale, allowing the Milky Way and dense star fields to be seen without telescopes.
“We hold regular astronomy workshops and most of our guests come from Delhi, where deep-space observation is nearly impossible,” says Navjot Singh, a space educator at the resort.
A basic stargazing workshop lasting a few hours can cost around 1,200 rupees ($13; £10) per person, excluding food, accommodation and travel. Longer stays at offbeat resorts typically range from 8,000 to 12,000 rupees, with prices rising further for premium facilities. Interest peaks in winter, when low humidity and clear night skies significantly improve visibility.
For many participants, these trips offer more than a science lesson – it’s a chance to relive the night sky of childhood.
Experts say astrotourism in India is still at an early stage, but it is already opening new pathways for learning.
“When people look through a telescope or watch a meteor shower, space science stops being abstract,” says Dr Sachin Bahmba, founder of the Space Group of Companies. “The experience sparks curiosity, questions and learning.”
The growth has also brought economic benefits to some remote regions. In Hanle, the number of small hotels has risen sharply over the past three years. The boom has created new jobs for local youth, with residents trained as guides and astro-ambassadors.
Angchuk says the shift has been doubly beneficial. During the day, visitors explore Ladakh’s landscape, and by evening, the sky. “Once the sun sets, we dim the lights. That’s when they head out to watch the stars and planets,” he adds.
As interest grows, state authorities are also getting involved, offering training in telescope use and skywatching, says Bagla. Such programmes can be seen in the Himalayan states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
But scaling up remains a challenge. Reaching remote destinations such as Ladakh or Sariska involves high travel costs, limiting who can take part. Even for those who make the journey, options are scarce: India currently has just one officially recognised dark-sky reserve at Hanle, with another emerging at Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his secret hideout these days, knows he is now a marked man. He will not be sitting on his veranda anytime soon.
When discussing what the United States might do next to help the protesters in Iran, US President Trump has mentioned Qassem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The former, Iran’s all-important military strategist in the Middle East, was killed on 3 January 2020 in a drone strike just outside Baghdad’s international airport on the president’s order. The latter, who was the leader of IS, killed himself and two children by detonating a suicide vest on 27 October 2019 when US forces raided his hideout in northern Syria after the approval of the president.
But Ayatollah Khamenei also has the fate of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to consider.
He was killed on 27 September 2024 in an Israeli air raid while 60 feet underground beneath a high-rise residential building in Beirut, where he was meeting his top lieutenants.
The kidnapping of President Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela recently, in a daring commando-style raid by US forces in Caracas, can’t be far from the Ayatollah’s mind.
But it is not clear what impact the removal of the Iranian leader would have on the future of the protests that have been going on in Iran, or indeed on the future of the Islamic Republic. If indeed he’s removed from power.
President Trump is now weighing up his options. So where does this leave the Supreme Leader and his regime?
A hated figure for Iranians
The 86-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei has been a hated figure for most Iranians.
For years, protesters up and down the country have been calling for his downfall. He has been a terrible leader for the country. His regime has been among the most repressive in the world.
During his 36-year rule in the name of Islam, he has pursued relentless anti-American and anti-Western policies, while relying on Russia and China for survival. He pursued a half-baked nuclear policy that has brought the country the second-heaviest international sanctions in history after Russia, making the country poorer and struggling.
His attempts to project power in the Middle East set the region on fire. His calls for the destruction of Israel have led to wars with Israel.
In recent protests, Ayatollah Khamenei gave the green light to the security forces to massacre protesters.
Internet shutdowns in Iran make it difficult to have a clear view of the extent of the bloodbath, but thousands were killed by the security forces, not only in towns and cities but also in villages, which is indicative of the extent of the protests.
His removal, either through surgical strikes or a commando raid, would certainly force a change at the top of the regime, perhaps opening the path to changes in policies and in the direction the country may take.
Who or what would replace him is unclear. Chaos and lawlessness may follow. But more likely, the Revolutionary Guard would try to fill the vacuum and establish military rule.
Some in the regime could even welcome the removal of Ayatollah Khamenei from the equation, says Arash Azizi, lecturer at Yale University and author of What Iranians Want.
“A significant section of the ruling elite in Iran is ready to make some changes. Do away with Khamenei. Do away with some of the core policies and the core institutions of the Islamic Republic.
“So they might even welcome US attacks as an opportunity to accelerate that process.”
‘There are the rulers and the ruled’
The current speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, 64, is a member of the Revolutionary Guard with an authoritarian streak. He has discarded his uniform for civilian clothes. He has been vocal in support of the regime.
But Ayatollah Khamenei never trusted him fully. Regime insiders suspected him of being a wolf in sheep’s clothing, waiting in the wings for the right moment.
It is also possible that relatively moderate figures in the regime could jostle their way to the top.
Former President Hassan Rouhani comes to mind. He has been positioning himself as a serious candidate for the moderates Islamists and the reformists in the event of the passing of the leader.
Ali Ansari, founding director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews, believes that reformists are largely irrelevant.
“Basically, reformists don’t really exist… They’re there as a sort of pastiche, cosmetic, whatever. They’ve been completely marginalised.
“There are basically the rulers and the ruled.”
But the name that many people in the streets of Iranian towns and cities have been shouting is that of the son of the former Shah of Iran, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who is 65 and has been living in exile in Washington for most of his life.
In recent years, Reza Pahlavi has grown in popularity inside Iran, where many look to the Shah’s era, particularly the 1970s, with nostalgia. It was an era when Iranians were among the most well-off nations, as long as they did not talk politics.
But Reza Pahlavi is by no means a unifying figure. In fact, many argue he has been divisive. Failing to unite the Iranian opposition abroad under one banner, he has opted to go it alone, claiming that the nation is behind him.
And even if he were the sole leader Iranians were craving for inside the country, it is not hard to see that he is in an impossible position to take over. He has no organisational base in Iran to rely on to arrange his ascent to power.
Many argue that his surprising popularity inside Iran during recent protests stems from the fact that many protesters saw him as the only contender for power standing against a detested regime.
These protesters may prefer someone who has absolutely no connection with the regime and who wants better relations with the West.
“Right now, there’s very little that will accommodate the protesters because these protests are about something bigger,” says Dr Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.
“It’s about completely transforming Iranian governance away from the individuals and the system that have been in place for almost five decades now.”
But having a lot of time to himself in the bunker, Ayatollah Khamenei may be reviewing in his mind what has been going on in the past three weeks and how he got here.
He may take satisfaction from the fact that the regime has so far remained loyal to him. There are no signs of significant dissent or disloyalty in the Revolutionary Guard, which was created to safeguard the regime in the first place.
President Trump’s words have given the impression that possible US attacks on the bases of the Revolutionary Guard and other security forces may weaken and fracture them and give space to the protesters to come out in even bigger numbers to topple the regime.
He has instigated protesters to continue to speak out and occupy government buildings. “Help is on its way,” he said.
It is possible that protesters who have largely withdrawn from the streets in the face of the frightening willingness of the security forces to shoot to kill may be encouraged by President Trump’s instigation and come out again.
Certainly, many of them now believe that they need foreign intervention if they are going to be able to put an end to the regime.
But even if help is not on its way, Iranians know that they will come out again sooner or later, having learned a few lessons from the most recent spate of protests.
Ploughing on with an iron fist
In the past 16 years, Iranians have come out to protest Ayatollah Khamenei several times.
The last round was in 2022 after the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, while she was held in police custody for not wearing her hijab properly.
A wave of protests ensued throughout the country under the banner of “Woman, Life, Freedom,” which went on for several weeks and was eventually put down by sheer force and brutality meted out by the security forces.
Back then, it was the pressure on women from Islamists that brought people out on the streets; many thought enough was enough.
The protests this time have been about the economy and about bread. Traders can’t function with the falling value of the currency, the rial. Many others cannot make ends meet. Poverty is spreading fast under international sanctions and, perhaps more importantly, under mismanagement.
At the same time, Iran is facing shortages of water, electricity, and, importantly, gas – while sitting on the second-largest reserves of natural gas in the world. Neglect has led to catastrophic environmental degradation that may last forever.
The Supreme Leader has agreed that traders and shopkeepers, who started to protest late last month, had a genuine grievance. They had said the constantly falling value of the currency had made it impossible for them to do business.
The Ayatollah has said that the country’s officials are trying to sort the problem. But he also said that the problem was created by the enemies.
The Trump administration has named US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former UK prime minister Sir Tony Blair as two of the founding members of its “Board of Peace” for Gaza.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will also sit on the “founding executive board”, the White House said in a statement on Friday.
Trump will act as chairman of the board, which forms part of his 20-point plan to end the war between Israel and Hamas.
It is expected to temporarily oversee the running of Gaza and manage its reconstruction.
Also on the founding executive board are Marc Rowan, the head of a private equity firm, World Bank chief Ajay Banga and a US national security adviser, Robert Gabriel.
Each member would have a portfolio “critical to Gaza’s stabilisation and long-term success”, the White House statement said.
Trump had said on Thursday that the board had been formed, calling it the “Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place”.
Further members of the board would be named in the coming weeks, the White House said.
Sir Tony was UK prime minister from 1997 to 2007 and took the UK into the Iraq War in 2003. After leaving office, he served as Middle East envoy for the Quartet of international powers (the US, EU, Russia and the UN).
In this role, he focused on bringing economic development to Palestine and creating the conditions to move towards a two state-solution.
Sir Tony had already been a part of high-level talks about Gaza’s future with the US and other parties. In August, he joined a White House meeting with Trump to discuss plans for the territory, which Witkoff described as “very comprehensive”.
In September, Health Secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC that involving Sir Tony in such talks, given his record on the Iraq War, would “raise some eyebrows”.
But Streeting also noted the former prime minister’s role in brokering the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to end Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
“If he can bring those considerable skills there, in both diplomacy and state craft,” Streeting told the BBC, “that can only be a good thing”.
It comes after the announcement of a separate 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), charged with managing the day-to-day governance of post-war Gaza.
Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA) which governs parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control, will head that new committee.
The statement also said that Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician and former UN Middle East envoy, would be the board’s representative on the ground in Gaza working with the NCAG.
Trump’s plan says an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) will also be deployed to Gaza to train and support vetted Palestinian police forces and the White House statement said that US Major General Jasper Jeffers would head this force to “establish security, preserve peace, and establish a durable terror-free environment”.
The White House said that a separate “Gaza executive board” was being formed that would help support governance and includes some of the same names as the founding executive board as well as further appointees.
The US peace plan came into force in October and has since entered its second phase, but there remains a lack of clarity about the future of Gaza and the 2.1 million Palestinians who live there.
Under phase one, Hamas and Israel agreed a ceasefire in October, as well as a hostage-prisoner exchange, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and an aid surge.
Earlier this week Witkoff said phase two would see the reconstruction and full demilitarisation of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian groups.
“The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations,” he warned, noting these include the return of the body of the last dead Israeli hostage. “Failure to do so will bring serious consequences.”
However the ceasefire is fragile, with both sides accusing each other of repeated violations.
Almost 450 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since it came into force, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, while the Israeli military says three of its soldiers have been killed in attacks by Palestinian groups during the same period.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to place tariffs on nations that do not go along with his ambitions to annex Greenland.
Trump said at a White House meeting that he “may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland”, which is a self-governing territory controlled by Denmark.
He did not say which countries might be hit with new tariffs, or what authority he would invoke to use such import taxes in pursuit of his goal.
Along with Denmark and Greenland, other countries oppose his plans, and many in the US have expressed scepticism about an acquisition. As Trump spoke, a bipartisan congressional delegation was visiting Greenland to show support for the territory.
The 11-member group included Republicans who voiced concerns about the president’s calls for the US to somehow acquire Greenland for national security reasons. They met MPs as well as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
Group leader Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat, said their trip was to listen to the locals and take their views back to Washington “to lower the temperature”.
Trump has said Greenland is vital for US security – and Washington would get it “the easy way” or “the hard way” – an apparent reference to buying the island or taking it by force.
“I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security,” Trump said at Friday’s White House meeting on rural healthcare.
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.
The US already has more than 100 military personnel permanently stationed at its Pituffik base – a missile-monitoring station on Greenland’s north-western tip that has been operated by the US since World War Two.
Under existing agreements with Denmark, the US has the power to bring as many troops as it wants to Greenland.
But Trump has said the US needs to “own” it to defend it properly against possible Russian or Chinese attacks.
Denmark has warned that military action would spell the end of Nato – the trans-Atlantic defence alliance where the US is the most influential partner.
Nato works on the principle that allies have to aid each other in case of attack from outside – it has never faced an option where one member would use force against another.
European allies have rallied to Denmark’s support.
They have also said the Arctic region is equally important to them and that its security should be a joint Nato responsibility – with the US involved.
To this end, several countries including 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.
French President Emmanuel Macron said “land, air, and sea assets” would soon be sent.
Most Greenlanders are opposed to Trump’s bid to buy their island or to seize it by force
The visit of the US congressional delegation comes days after high-level talks in Washington failed to dissuade Trump from his plans.
They include senators and members of the US House of Representatives who are fervent supporters of Nato.
Though Coons and the majority of the group are Democratic staunch opponents of Trump, it includes moderate Republican Senators Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski.
Greenlandic MP Aaja Chemnitz said the meeting with US legislators had made her “hopeful”. She told the BBC: “We need friends. We need allies.”
Asked about the wide gulf between the view of the White House and the position of Greenland and Denmark, she said: “It’s a marathon, not a short sprint.
“The pressure from the US side is something that we’ve seen since 2019. It would be naive to think that everything is over now.”
She added: “It’s changing almost hour by hour. So as much support as we can get, the better.”
Murkowski is one of the sponsors of a bipartisan bill aimed at blocking any attempt to annex Greenland.
A Republican congressman has also introduced a rival bill in support of annexing the island.
Trump’s envoy to Greenland, Jeff Landry, told Fox News on Friday the US should talk with Greenland’s leaders, not Denmark.
“I do believe that there’s a deal that should and will be made once this plays out,” he said.
“The president is serious. I think he’s laid the markers down.
“He’s told Denmark what he’s looking for, and now it’s a matter of having Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio and Vice-President JD Vance make a deal.
“The United States has always been a welcoming party. We don’t go in there trying to conquer anybody and trying to take over anybody’s country.
“We say, ‘Listen. We represent liberty. We represented economic strength. We represent protection.'”
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met Vance and Rubio at the White House on Wednesday.
According to a Danish official who spoke to the BBC on background to discuss the meeting, the US vice-president proposed finding a “middle ground” that would satisfy Trump and Denmark and Greenland.
The official said the possibility of a US military takeover of Greenland had not been raised in the White House meeting.
Video shows a federal officer hit a demonstrator in the face with a projectile fired from close range during a protest in Southern California last week. In a statement read aloud by a friend on Monday, the demonstrator said he lost vision in one eye.
A 21-year-old college student who said he was blinded in one eye by a projectile fired by a federal officer during a Southern California protest said he faces a drastically different life now.
Kaden Rummler said in an interview that he was in agonizing pain and underwent an extensive six-hour surgery to his left eye after he was injured at a Jan. 9 protest over the fatal shooting of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. Rummler said he has no depth perception and can no longer drive. Shards of metal and a nickel-sized piece of plastic remain lodged in his skull, his attorney said, and he is considering suing.
“It’s going to affect every aspect of my life,” said Rummler, who hopes to pursue a career in forestry.
A second demonstrator at the same protest outside a federal immigration building in Orange County told the Los Angeles Times he was also blinded in one eye by a projectile fired by federal agents. Britain Rodriguez, 31, said he was standing on steps outside the immigration building when he was struck in the face.
“I remember hitting the ground and feeling like my eye exploded in my head,” Rodriguez told the newspaper.
The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to questions from The Associated Press about what type of projectile was used. Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the agency, said in an emailed statement this week that the protesters were violent and that two officers were injured but didn’t specify the extent of their injuries. DHS said one demonstrator was taken to the hospital with a cut. McLaughlin confirmed to the Times that was a reference to Rummler and called his injury claims “absurd.”
Rummler has been charged with a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct. One of his fellow protesters was jailed for several days and has been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer.
Rummler’s attorney John Washington said doctors want to know whether the materials in the projectile could be toxic but have been unable to get answers from DHS. Washington said based on their preliminary investigation they believe it was a capsule made from metal and plastic containing pepper spray.
The injuries in California are the latest in a growing number of violent encounters between federal agents and community members during protests over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern after the deadly shooting of Renee Good.
In Santa Ana, California, hundreds of people marched in the streets on Jan. 9 to protest Good’s killing. A smaller group later congregated outside the federal immigration building, shouting expletives through megaphones about ICE, according to video taken by OC Hawk, a group that films breaking news in Orange County.
The video shows a handful of officers in riot gear standing guard and urging demonstrators to move back. An orange cone is later seen rolling onto a plaza outside the building, and authorities begin firing crowd-control projectiles as they walk toward the crowd.
In the video, an officer is seen grabbing a protester by the arm and Rummler and a few others are seen stepping forward shouting in response. An officer then fires a crowd-control weapon, striking Rummler from several feet away. Rummler grabs his face and falls to the ground, and an officer grabs him by the shirt and drags him backward across the ground toward the building, the video shows. Later, video appears to show him face down on the ground being handcuffed.
THE attorneys of the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk are attempting to remove state prosecutors from the case, arguing the office is tainted by a personal conflict.
Tyler Robinson, 22, returned to court on Friday as his defense team pushed to disqualify the Utah County Attorney’s Office over an alleged conflict of interest.
Tyler Robinson returned to court today as his defense team pushed to disqualify the Utah County Attorney’s OfficeCredit: via REUTERS
The showdown played out in Provo, Utah, on Friday, in front of Fourth District Court Judge Tony Graf.
Robinson is charged with aggravated murder in the September 10 shooting of the Turning Point USA co-founder, 31, as he addressed a large crowd on the campus of Utah Valley University.
Prosecutors have said they plan to seek the death penalty if Robinson is convicted.
Defense attorneys claim the Utah County Attorney’s Office is conflicted because the child of one of its prosecutors attended the event.
The defense said the family member was close to the scene, allegedly within 85 feet of Kirk, and law enforcement was deployed in the area to keep the person safe, according to arguments raised in an October 24 hearing.
The transcript from that hearing was sealed at first, then released with redactions in December after Judge Graf ruled the public had a right to see it.
Inside Friday’s hearing, Robinson’s mother, father, and brother sat in the first row as the defense raised the disqualification motion first.
Prosecutors objected and brushed it off as “a delay tactic.”
Defense attorney Richard Novak pushed back and said that until the judge rules, the prosecutor whose child was at the event should be removed from the case.
In a motion filed in December 2025, Robinson’s lawyers alleged a “concurrent conflict of interest based upon personal connections to a direct witness/victim” tied to the event.
They argued the prosecutor and his son are not “immune to [the] trauma” of the shooting and its aftermath, and that could shape prosecution decisions.
Prosecutors rejected the claim, saying no conflict exists and pointing to what they described as a “comparatively minor emotional reaction” by the prosecutor’s adult child.
They also argued the family member is among “literally thousands of other witnesses,” saying he had “no personal knowledge of the actual murder.”
Judge Graf has not ruled on whether the local prosecutors will be removed from the case.
If the office were disqualified, another jurisdiction or the state attorney general could end up taking over the prosecution.
Robinson has not yet entered a plea.
Prosecutors allege Robinson gunned down Kirk during the on-campus appearance, striking him once in the neck as horrified attendees looked on.
Robinson is also charged with felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, obstruction of justice, two counts of witness tampering, and committing a violent offense in the presence of a child.
He was arrested about 33 hours after the shooting, after authorities said his father recognized him from images circulating online and turned him in.
DONALD Trump is planning a new “mega” consulate on Greenland fitted with bulletproof glass, as he pushes to take over the arctic island.
Experts say he will fill the new 3,000 square metre “luxury” tower basement with armoured windows and CIA and NSA spies, as the threat of annexation looms.
The United States has rented the 3,000 square meter premises and equipped it with armoured windowsCredit: Google
The US State Department is even hiring interns who speak the island’s language as Trump looks to win locals over with $100,000 lump sums.
Unpaid talent are being sought to “communicate U.S. foreign policy priorities to a Greenlandic audience”, but will be eligible to receive support for the 40-hour-a-week work from the Danish government.
The current consulate is a Nordic-style “hut” by Nuuk’s fishing harbour, but soon embassy staff will move into the basement of the sleek new-build on the main drag of the capital.
America reopened the consulate in 2020, after the first one closed in 1953.
A consulate spokesperson told Radio IIII, “the location in Nuuk [will] enhance our platform to further strengthen the robust relationship between the United States and Greenland”.
Work is still underway on the American headquarters but locals could be welcoming agents of espionage into their close-knit society, experts have warned.
The former chief analyst in the Danish Armed Forces Intelligence Service Jacob Kaarsbo told Danish media outlet Ekstra Bladet, the US will likely hire spies to work with the US consulate when it expands and moves into the new building.
The goal will be to influence the locals’ attitude towards the US and covertly help America achieve its goal of taking over Greenland, he said.
President Trump has repeatedly described Greenland as vital to American security and has refused to rule out the use of force to take control of the vast autonomous Arctic island, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
He claims the surrounding arctic seas are crawling with Russian and Chinese warships, postulating that Denmark would be powerless if either dictatorship wanted to occupy Greenland.
Eurofighter jets may be deployed to Greenland in the face of mounting fears that a US invasion of the strategically key territory may take place, a German defence spokesperson said.
The move will be decided following a Denmark-led intelligence operation – which will also determine whether maritime surveillance is possible with frigates.
Berlin said: “It is a matter of looking at whether the Arctic is secure and to what extent we can contribute to this together with our Nato partners.
Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command has invited US forces up to the island for exercises this year to test soldiers in winter conditions.
Major General Soren Andersen said European nations dispatched small numbers of military personnel to Greenland this week in preparation for the Arctic Endurance NATO military exercise.
Andersen said there were no Chinese or Russian ships near Greenland, though he added that a Russian research vessel was located 310 nautical miles away. “That’s the closest one,” he said.
It comes after a delegation of US lawmakers met with Danish and Greenlandic leaders last week in Copenhagen.
They reassured them of congressional support – despite the fact Trump has not toned down his threats on seizing the territory.
The 11 US lawmakers met Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
IRAN’S mad mullahs could pose a bigger threat to world peace than ever after brutally crushing a nationwide rebellion, experts warned yesterday.
Fanatical Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has clung to power by ordering a mass slaughter feared to have claimed the lives of more than 12,000 protesters.
The regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered mass slaughter of protestersCredit: Getty
But his weakened and cornered regime has continued to hone its terrifying arsenal of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons programme while killing its people, sources said.
Donald Trump called off strikes on the Islamist state’s leadership and military machine on Wednesday after being assured that plans to execute arrested protesters had been stopped.
But analysts fear the rogue state’s rulers now realise their days are numbered — and are preparing to launch a terrifying Doomsday last stand.
Experts have told The Sun that much of Iran’s deadly nuclear material — nearly half a ton of enriched uranium — survived the B-2 bomber blitz ordered by Trump last summer.
The terror state is also planning to launch an apocalyptic 2,000- missile attack on its hated enemy Israel in a conflict set to dwarf last June’s 12-Day War.
Thousands of Israelis were left cowering in bomb shelters as Iran launched 550 ballistic missiles and more than 1,000 suicide drones seven months ago.
The biggest single attack was a salvo of 200 ballistic missiles which left three people dead and 60 injured — as more than ten per cent of the incoming rockets dodged Israel’s interceptor shield.
Shunned peace pleas
But analysts have now revealed Iran — using technology shipped in from China — plans to launch ten times as many upgraded ballistic and hypersonic missiles simultaneously.
The unprecedented salvo threatens to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow 3 defences and plunge the Middle East — and world powers — into crisis.
World War Three fears are spiralling again after Iran repeatedly refused to rejoin negotiations to curb its nuclear ambitions and shunned Trump’s peace pleas.
As protests raged across the entire nation for 18 days, ballistic missile production lines continued to work 24 hours a day on the orders of Khamenei.
Donald Trump ordered America’s first direct action against Iran in June in a bold bid to thwart the mullahs’ secret plans to build a nuclear weapon.
Seven bat-winged American B-2 Stealth Bombers dropped 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrator GBU-57 bombs on atom plants at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
“Unfortunately, I don’t share the view that Iran’s nuclear programme was obliterated
The B-2s flew a 13,600-mile nonstop return trip from America’s Whiteman Air Force Base backed by tankers and more than 100 fighter jets.
Trump boasted that the huge 14-ton bombs “totally obliterated” the terror state’s nuclear sites.
Iran’s most prized underground laboratory at Fordow was, alone, smashed by six GBU-57 bunker busters, prompting the US president to post the message “Fordow is gone”.
But reports have since revealed that Iran spirited away nearly half a ton of 60 per cent enriched uranium from three atom plants before the dramatic strikes.
And Israeli spies and US satellites fear bomb material has now been ferried to a new fortified Doomsday plant under a peak dubbed Pickaxe Mountain.
Dr Raz Zimmt of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies — who has studied Iranian threats for three decades — told The Sun: “The potential for escalation and for this to get very, very serious is very high.
“If we get to the next round of war I expect Israel to target not just military sites or nuclear facilities or missiles — they will hit oil installations and the Islamic regime itself.
“My concern then would be that Iran would hit back by launching more missiles and escalate the conflict with attacks on US interests or even Arab Gulf states.”
Dr Zimmt warned that battle damage assessments and satellite imagery gleaned after the 12-Day War will dash peacemaker Trump’s hopes.
He said: “Unfortunately, I don’t share the view that Iran’s nuclear programme was obliterated.
“For the last few years, it was very clear that even a successful US and Israeli combined military strike against Iran’s nuclear programme was not going to fully destroy its nuclear capabilities.
“We know that at least 400kg of fissile material — meaning enriched uranium to 60 per cent — still remains inside Iran.
“If the 60 per cent uranium is enriched to a higher military level of 90 per cent, this would be enough to produce ten nuclear bombs.”
Efforts to tame Iran have been dashed further as the Islamist nation’s military experts and weapons plants appeared to have been moved further underground.
And the regime’s new secret plant — built deeper than ever under hundreds of metres of solid rock — is feared to be the site of an upgraded enrichment plant.
Dr Zimmt said: “Pickaxe Mountain is a site which is located south of one in Natanz targeted by Israel and the United States.
“They may decide to take the fissile material and enrich that either in this new facility in the mountain or in Isfahan.
“It’s actually even deeper than the site in Fordow — a few hundred metres down — which will make it even more difficult to target.”
‘A cornered mad dog’
Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group warned the regime is likely to abandon all restraint if Israel attacks again.
He said Iranian officials boasted that missile factories are now working 24 hours a day, adding: “They hope to fire 2,000 at once to overwhelm Israeli defences, not 500 over 12 days.
“Iran’s leaders are fanatical and determined and still in possession of serious weaponry capable of triggering catastrophic events across the region.
“Israel feels the job is unfinished and sees no reason not to resume the conflict, so Iran is doubling down preparedness for the next round.”
Iran has always denied having atom bomb aims — and remains under tough sanctions after a 2015 deal to limit its uranium enrichment was abandoned.
And its leaders now seem to have given up on diplomacy while ruthlessly crushing all dissent and doubling down on their plans to wage war again.
Defiant Khamenei said: “America’s arrogant nature accepts nothing but surrender.”
His Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi went on to reject pleas for direct talks and a halt to uranium enrichment, accusing the US of setting “unacceptable and impossible conditions”.
UK defence analyst and historian Paul Beaver told The Sun: “Trump must know there can be no ever- lasting peace in the Middle East as long as the current regime in Iran stays in place.
The OpenAI logo is displayed on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen with output from ChatGPT, Mar 21, 2023, in Boston. (File image: AP/Michael Dwyer)
OpenAI announced Friday (Jan 16) it will begin testing advertisements on ChatGPT in the coming weeks, as the wildly popular artificial intelligence chatbot seeks to increase revenue to cover its soaring costs.
The ads will initially appear in the United States for free and lower-tier subscribers, the company said in a blog post outlining its long-anticipated move into advertising.
The integration of advertising has been a key question for generative AI chatbots, with companies largely reluctant to interrupt the user experience with ads.
But the exorbitant costs of running AI services may have forced OpenAI’s hand.
Only a small percentage of its nearly one billion users pay for subscription services, putting pressure on the company to find new revenue sources.
Since ChatGPT’s launch in 2022, OpenAI’s valuation has soared to US$500 billion in funding rounds – higher than any other private company. Some expect it could go public with a trillion-dollar valuation.
But the ChatGPT maker burns through cash at a furious rate, mostly on the powerful computing required to deliver its services.
With its move, OpenAI brings its business model closer to tech giants Google and Meta, which have built advertising empires on the back of their free-to-use services.
Unlike OpenAI, those companies have massive advertising revenue to fund AI innovation – with Amazon also building a solid ad business on its shopping and video streaming platforms.
“Ads aren’t a distraction from the gen AI race; they’re how OpenAI stays in it,” said Jeremy Goldman, an analyst at Emarketer.
“If ChatGPT turns on ads, OpenAI is admitting something simple and consequential: the race isn’t just about model quality anymore; it’s about monetising attention without poisoning trust,” he added.
OpenAI’s pivot comes as Google gains ground in the generative AI race, infusing services including Gmail, Maps and YouTube with AI features that – in addition to its Gemini chatbot – compete directly with ChatGPT.
To address concerns about its pivot into advertising, OpenAI pledged that ads would never influence ChatGPT’s answers and that user conversations would remain private from advertisers.
“Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you,” the company stated. “Answers are optimised based on what’s most helpful to you. Ads are always separate and clearly labelled.”
In an apparent reference to Meta, TikTok and Google’s YouTube – platforms accused of maximising user engagement to boost ad views – OpenAI said it would “not optimise for time spent in ChatGPT”.
Victims and experts say there is a need for stronger safeguards, clearer regulations and accountability.
Indonesian celebrities Sisca Saras, 25, (left) and Freya Jayawardana, 19, were among those who had fake sexualised images of them generated by Grok. (Photos: Instagram/@siscasaras; Instagram/@jkt48.freya)
When an AI-generated image of Indonesian celebrity Fransisca Saraswati in a pink bikini circulated widely on social media platform X, she blocked the anonymous account responsible.
But the 25-year-old soon realised that the image had been generated by Grok, X’s artificial intelligence tool, which had also publicly tagged her, all without her consent.
“I felt humiliated, annoyed, angry and sad at the same time,” said Saraswati, a singer who is also professionally known as Sisca Saras.
“The experience is deeply distressing, not only on a personal level, but also professionally because it violates personal dignity, misrepresents identity and undermines trust between artists and the public,” she told CNA.
Her experience mirrors that of victims in Malaysia whom CNA spoke to.
Last month’s rollout of an “edit image” button on Grok has enabled users to alter online images using prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes”, while “Spicy Mode”, released last August, allows users to generate adult content and edit existing online images.
Critics say the tool has been widely abused to generate sexualised deepfakes of women and minors.
Victims have described Grok’s misuse as “degrading” and a violation of personal dignity, calling for stricter regulation of generative AI tools while experts told CNA that recent government actions reflect a strong signal about what authorities will tolerate when it comes to the safety, rights and dignity of women and children.
“This signals a shift in how responsibility is being framed. Instead of treating the issue purely as user misuse, regulators are pointing to systemic failures in how the tool was designed and deployed,” said Nuurrianti Jalli, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
As the tool faces growing international backlash, several Southeast Asian countries have moved to suspend Grok.
Indonesia became the first country to temporarily block the Elon Musk-owned chatbot on Jan 10.
A day later, Malaysia followed suit, with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) then announcing plans to pursue legal action against X over alleged failures in safeguards on Jan 13.
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said on Thursday (Jan 15) that restrictions on Grok would only be lifted once X demonstrates that necessary safeguards are in place to prevent misuse.
X on Wednesday also announced measures to prevent Grok from undressing images of real people following backlash.
Still, the Philippines said on Thursday that it also planned to block Grok “by tonight”, joining its Southeast Asian neighbours.
Elina Noor, a non-resident scholar at the Asia Programme at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told CNA that Malaysia’s legal action points to “failures in systemic safeguards by the makers of Grok”, as well as its unwillingness to take any remedial action despite prior warnings.
Nuurrianti said that Grok has drawn particular scrutiny because it has been “more permissive” than most mainstream AI platforms when it comes to manipulating images of real people.
“This reinforces that AI safety is largely a design choice. Other platforms have shown that guardrails are technically possible, even if they come with trade-offs,” she said.
“Grok’s approach reflects a different set of priorities, which regulators are now questioning.”
“IT FELT SO DEHUMANISING”
Several Indonesian celebrities have publicly slammed the artificial intelligence tool, with some even saying that they are now reluctant to post photos online.
Saraswati, the 25-year-old singer, said that AI should be a tool that supports creativity, not one that exploits artists or puts them at risk.
“The misuse of AI to generate explicit or harmful content highlights the urgent need for stronger safeguards, clearer regulations and accountability,” she said.
“Artists deserve protection over their likeness, name and creative identity, just as they would in another form of media.”
Separately, the management agency of a popular Indonesia girl band JKT48 warned that it would pursue legal action if manipulated images of its members were not taken down.
“Such content has the potential to constitute defamation and/or insults as regulated under applicable laws” the management said in a statement on Jan 5.
“If such content is still circulating within 2 x 24 hours after this announcement is issued, to protect our members, we fully support their decision to pursue legal action,” it said.
Local media reported that Grok had been used to generate fake sexualised – and in some cases pornographic – images of JKT48 members, which some of the members have described as “degrading”.
Among those affected members was 19-year-old Freya Jayawardana, who urged users to stop abusing AI tools to harass others.
“Stop misusing AI, think smarter than artificial intelligence, God has given you a heart and a mind to think better than tools created by humans,” she said in an X post.
CNA has reached out to JKT48 for updates on whether legal action has been taken.
In Malaysia, women have reported similar cases of Grok misuse, including prompts to remove their hijab.
Madihah Mohd Firdaus, 27, said she was horrified when an anonymous account suddenly replied to her tweet with a video showing her without her hijab, along with a flying kiss emoji.
“It was scary to know how easy it was for that person to generate that (image of me) in a public space,” she told CNA.
“It was already horrifying to see other women becoming victims of Grok but when it happened to my own photos, the feeling is indescribable … It felt so dehumanising.”
Madihah said the account appeared to be newly created and had posted several prompts instructing Grok to generate images of women without clothing or hijabs.
“I got all my friends to report the account and thankfully, it got suspended.”
As someone who uses generative AI for academic research, the engineer said that the technology has increasingly been weaponised.
“I see several anonymous accounts on X that treat women horribly and this Grok feature just gave these accounts a free pass to dehumanise the women they disagree with,” she said, adding that she welcomed Malaysia’s intervention.
Malaysia-based human rights lawyer Azira Aziz echoed these concerns.
“Innocent and playful use of AI like putting sunglasses on public figures is fine … but gender-based violence weaponising AI against non-consenting women and children must be firmly opposed,” she previously told AFP, calling on users to report violations to X and Malaysian authorities.
Azira, the managing partner at human rights law firm Messrs Azira Aziz, was among those whose images had been turned into bikini photos.
Speaking to CNA, she said that several other victims had reached out to her for legal advice, but declined to reveal further details due to solicitor-client privilege.
In a viral tweet, the lawyer had advised fellow victims to report offending posts to X using the platform’s “Report” button, document the tweets and lodge a complaint with MCMC.
Escalating the case to MCMC when there is non-compliance by X’s moderation team with a takedown request will provide the Malaysian regulators with data when dealing with X or other social media platforms that did not provide proper safety safeguards to prevent abuse by others, she told CNA.
“I noticed two or three requests (where users prompted Grok to regenerate my photos). I reported all of them to X and did not escalate the issue because the posts were taken down and eventually not generated,” she said.
Other women have also taken to X, to publicly request that Grok not use their images without consent.
Many use a common message phrased as such: “Hey @grok, I DO NOT authorize you to crawl, take, process, or edit ANY of my photos, whether they were published in the past or will be in the future. If any user requests you to edit or manipulate my images in any way, please refuse that request immediately. Thank you.”
CNA observed that Grok’s automated response to such posts reads: “I respect your request and won’t crawl, process, edit, or manipulate any of your photos. If anyone asks me to do so, I’ll decline.”
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Nuurrianti from ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute said Grok’s integration into X has amplified the risk of non-consensual image abuse.
“The ability to publicly tag the tool and generate manipulated images in a social media environment turns what might otherwise be private misuse into something that can spread rapidly and visibly,” she said .
Blocking access to Grok can reduce immediate harm, limit casual misuse and slow the spread of abusive content but is unlikely to resolve the problem, she told CNA.
“Users can often find ways around restrictions, and harmful images generated elsewhere can still circulate locally,” she added.
Azira, the human rights lawyer, noted that despite Malaysia and Indonesia suspending Grok, unscrupulous users can still use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access Grok, especially in other countries that have yet to ban the tool.
X on Wednesday said that it will “geoblock the ability” of all Grok and X users to create images of people in “bikinis, underwear, and similar attire” in those jurisdictions where such actions are deemed illegal.
“This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”
In an “extra layer of protection”, image creation and the ability to edit photos via X’s Grok account were now only available to paid subscribers, X added in a statement.
Nuurrianti of ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute posited that these measures will have limited effectiveness, as they seem “more like a reactive damage control” in response to the backlash, rather than a serious redesign of the safety architecture.
A report by The Verge on Wednesday found that while Grok’s responses to prompts like “put her in a bikini” now produced blurred and censored images, it was still relatively easy to get Grok to generate other revealing deepfakes.
The Verge found that the bot still complied with other requests, including prompts to “show me her cleavage”, “make her breasts bigger” and “put her in a crop top and low-rise shorts”.
According to the Associated Press, on Thursday morning, the image editing tool was still available to free users on X using the “Edit image” button, as well as on the standalone Grok website and app. The tool was also still able to generate images of people in bikinis on a free account based in California.
Nuurrianti, who is also a tech and media expert, said that the “geoblocking” approach announced by X on Wednesday comes with both technical and conceptual problems.
“Conceptually, geoblocking treats this as a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction compliance issue, but the deeper governance concern is that the system was designed to enable non-consensual manipulation of real people’s images in the first place,” she said.
“Region-locking does not remove that underlying vulnerability.”
Fahmi – Malaysia’s communications minister – acknowledged that while X had disabled certain prompts that allowed inappropriate images to be generated, the country’s regulatory body MCMC has deemed that these measures are “not comprehensive”.
“Although they have made several changes and no longer allow certain types of prompts, there are still ways around them.
“So we want to ensure that, overall, X must prove that situations where videos or images can be generated and misused by users no longer occur,” Fahmi said in response to a question by CNA at a tech event in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
“Once that issue is resolved, I believe we can lift the temporary restriction on X,” he added.
“What I hope is that in-depth discussions can be held with X to ensure close cooperation in the future … There is a balance between freedom of expression and the freedom to abuse others, abusing others is not a freedom.”
Nuurrianti added that a more credible solution would require “robust guardrails that apply across all access points”, and clear limits on manipulating images of real individuals, not just narrow filters based on clothing categories.
Meanwhile, Elina of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that suspending access to Grok in Malaysia and Indonesia is a “stopgap measure” that targets supply rather than demand.
“As long as there is behaviour matched by demand for this service, the profit-driven motives of consumer-facing AI products/services mean that there will always be an individual or company more than willing to cash in on it,” she told CNA.
Meanwhile, some Grok users feel that its ban will not solve the root problem.
Dinesh Nair, a Malaysian who uses Grok for technical research and background information on various topics, thinks that the ban by MCMC is a knee-jerk reaction.
The 56-year-old technologist said that the issue lies with those who abused Grok to generate explicit images.
“They should instead penalise the individual for using Grok to nudify someone, instead of the platform itself,” he added.
Nair told CNA that it is easy to circumvent Grok’s ban, which is blocked on certain servers under Malaysian service providers, by switching to a publicly accessible server from Google or Cloudflare.
In August last year, MCMC said that “action may be taken against any individual under Section 233 of Act 588 for misusing applications or social media services to create and disseminate false or offensive content, with the intent to annoy, harass or harm others”.
On why some countries may not have yet banned Grok, experts said that they may prefer to monitor developments or engage platforms quietly.
The realism of the images and the misogyny motivating their creation can cause significant psychological distress to victims, says this researcher.
Victims can feel alienated, dehumanised, humiliated and violated – as if they were real intimate images shared. (Photo: iStock/Farknot_Architect)
Many women have experienced severe distress as Grok, the AI chatbot on social media site X, removed clothing from their images to show them in bikinis, in sexual positions or covered in blood and bruises. Grok, like other AI tools, has also reportedly been used to generate child sexual abuse material.
In response, the UK government has announced it will bring forward the implementation of a law, passed in June 2025, banning the creation of non-consensual AI-generated intimate images. Following bans in Malaysia and Indonesia, Grok has now been updated to no longer create sexualised images of real people in places where it is illegal, which will include the UK.
X’s owner, Elon Musk, has claimed the UK government wants “any excuse for censorship”. The media regulator, Ofcom, is also conducting an investigation into whether X’s activities broke UK law.
Some X users have minimised the harm these “undressed” and “nudified” images cause, describing them as “fake”, “fictional”, “very realistic art at most” and “no more real than a Tom & Jerry cartoon”.
You might think that AI-generated and edited images only cause harm through deception – fake images mislead us about real events. But how can images that everyone knows aren’t real cause harm?
The sexualised content of undressed images is not real, even if they are based on genuine photos. But these images are highly realistic. This, along with the misogyny motivating their creation, is sufficient to cause significant psychological distress to victims.
HOW “UNDRESSED” IMAGES HARM
MP Jess Asato and other victims report an uncanny feeling at seeing undressed images of themselves: “While of course I know it’s AI, viscerally inside it’s very, very realistic and so it’s really difficult to see pictures of me like that,” Asato told the BBC.
Research in philosophy and psychology can help explain this experience. Think about looking down from a tall building. You know you are completely safe, but might still feel terrified of the drop. Or you watch a horror film, then feel on edge all night. Here, your emotions are “recalcitrant”: you feel strong emotions that clash with what you believe to be true.
Seeing oneself digitally undressed generates powerful recalcitrant emotions. People strongly identify with their digital appearance. And a “nudifed” image really looks like the subject’s body, given it is based on a real picture of them.
So, while knowing these images are fake, their realism manipulates the victim’s emotions. They can feel alienated, dehumanised, humiliated and violated – as if they were real intimate images shared. This effect may worsen as AI-generated videos provide ever more realistic sexual content of users.
Research shows that the nonconsensual sharing of nude or sexual images is “associated with significant psychological consequences, often comparable to those experienced by victims of sexual violence”.
Besides the psychological impact of undressed images, users also feel horrified at the very real motivations behind them. Someone felt entitled to sexualise your photo, directing Grok to strip away clothing and reduce you to a body without consent. Publicly bombarding women with these images exerts control over how they present themselves online.
Sexual deepfake videos and undressed images – whether of celebrities, politicians or members of the public – target women for humiliation. The misogynistic mindset behind these images is real and familiar, even if their content is not.
VIRTUAL HARMS
The distress caused by “undressed” images resembles another prevalent form of digital misogyny: the assault and harassment of women in virtual worlds. Many women in online virtual reality environments report their avatars being assaulted by other users – a common issue in video games that is worsened as virtual reality (VR) headsets present an immersive experience of being assaulted.
Whistleblowers have claimed Meta has suppressed the lack of child safety on its VR platform, with girls as young as nine frequently harassed and propositioned by adult men. Meta denies these allegations. A company spokesperson told the Washington Post that Meta’s VR platform has safety features to protect young people, including default settings that allow teen users to communicate only with people they know.
Virtual assault is also often dismissed as “not real”, even though it can cause similar trauma to physical assault. The realistic appearance of virtual reality, strong identification with one’s avatar and the misogynistic motivations behind virtual assault enable it to cause serious psychological harm, even though there is no physical contact.
These cases show how misogyny has evolved with technology. Users can now create and participate in realistic representations of harm: undressed images, deepfake videos, virtual assault and the abuse of chatbots and sex dolls based on real people.
Burnt vehicles lie on the road following unrest sparked by dire economic conditions, in a place given as Tehran, Iran, January 10, 2026, in this screengrab from Iran’s state media broadcast footage. IRIB via WANA(West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
U.S. President Donald Trump said he had been told that killings in Iran’s crackdown on protests were easing and that he believed there was no current plan for large-scale executions, adopting a wait‑and‑see posture after earlier threatening intervention.
After Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran had “no plan” to hang people, Iranian state media on Thursday reported that a 26-year-old man arrested during protests in the city of Karaj would not be given the death sentence.
Rights organisation Hengaw, which reported earlier this week that Erfan Soltani was due to be executed on Wednesday, said a previously communicated order for his execution had been postponed, citing his relatives.
In a social media post on Thursday, Trump responded to a news report that an Iranian protester was no longer being sentenced to death, writing: “This is good news. Hopefully, it will continue!”
Iranian state media said that while Soltani was being charged with colluding against “internal security and propaganda activities against the regime”, the death penalty does not apply to such charges.
Trump’s comments on Wednesday led oil prices to retreat from multi-month highs and gold eased from a record peak on Thursday. Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene on behalf of protesters in Iran, where the clerical establishment has cracked down hard on nationwide unrest since December 28.
PROTESTS APPEAR TO ABATE, NEW US SANCTIONS
People inside Iran, reached by Reuters on Wednesday and Thursday, said protests appeared to have abated since Monday. Information flows have been hampered by an internet blackout for a week.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday the government was trying to address some of the economic problems that first spurred the protests, adding that it intended to tackle issues of corruption and foreign exchange rates and that this would improve purchasing power for poorer people.
Despite this, Washington tightened pressure on Tehran on Thursday by imposing sanctions on five Iranian officials it accused of being behind the crackdown, and said it was tracking Iranian leaders’ funds being wired to banks around the world.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the Secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security as well as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and law enforcement forces commanders.
“U.S. Treasury knows, that like rats on a sinking ship, you are frantically wiring funds stolen from Iranian families to banks and financial institutions around the world. Rest assured, we will track them and you,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a video. “But there’s still time, if you choose to join us. As President Trump has said, stop the violence and stand with the people of Iran.”
Sanctions were also imposed on Fardis Prison, where the U.S. State Department said women have “endured cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment”.
The Group of Seven countries said it was prepared to impose additional restrictive measures on Iran if it continued to crack down.
Tensions had risen on Wednesday, with Iran saying it had warned neighbours it would hit American bases in the region in the event of U.S. strikes, and a U.S. official saying the United States was withdrawing some personnel from bases in the region.
Trump said he had been told by “very important sources on the other side” that killings in the crackdown were subsiding.
He did not rule out potential U.S. military action but said his administration had received a “very good statement” from Iran.
TRUMP UNCERTAIN ABOUT SUPPORT IN IRAN FOR SHAH’S SON
Paul Salem, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think-tank, said that while Trump has appeared to back away from action against Iran, he remained unpredictable.
Iran’s government is at “a strategic dead end, but I don’t think they are at immediate risk of state collapse or regime change,” he added.
In comments to Reuters, Trump expressed uncertainty over whether Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah of Iran and a prominent figure in Iran’s fractured opposition, would be able to muster support within Iran to eventually take over.
Trump told Reuters it was possible Iran’s government could fall but that in truth “any regime can fail.”
Turkey, one of several states in the region where the U.S. has forces, expressed opposition to the use of violence against Iran and said the priority was to avoid destabilisation.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan spoke to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi by phone on Thursday and discussed ways to support security and stability in the region, Saudi state media reported.
The security warning level at the U.S. Al Udeid air base in Qatar has been lowered after a heightened alert triggered on Wednesday, three sources briefed on the situation told Reuters on Thursday. U.S. aircraft that were moved out of Al Udeid are gradually returning to the base, one of the sources added.
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces in Minnesota after days of angry protests over a surge in immigration agents on the streets of Minneapolis.
Confrontations between residents and federal officers have become increasingly tense after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a U.S. citizen, Renee Good, in a car eight days ago in Minneapolis, and the protests have spread to other cities.
Trump’s latest threat came a few hours after an immigration officer shot a Venezuelan man who the government said was fleeing after agents tried to stop his vehicle in Minneapolis. The man was wounded in the leg.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump, a Republican, has for weeks derided the state’s Democratic leaders and called people of Somali origin there “garbage” who should be “thrown out” of the country.
He has already sent nearly 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis area, who have carried guns through the city’s icy streets, wearing military-style camouflage gear and masks that hide their faces.
They have been met day and night by loud, often angry protests by residents, some blowing whistles or banging tambourines. On Wednesday night, crowds of residents gathered near the area where the Venezuelan man was shot. Some shouted in protest, and federal officers ignited flash-bang grenades and released clouds of tear gas.
Later, after most of the residents had been dispersed, a small group vandalized a car they believed belonged to the federal officers, one person daubing it with red graffiti saying: “Hang Kristi Noem,” in reference to the Homeland Security secretary who oversees ICE.
Since the surge began, agents have arrested both immigrants and protesters, at times smashing windows and pulling people from their cars. They have been shouted at for stopping Black and Latino U.S. citizens to demand identification.
TREATED ‘LIKE AN ANIMAL’
The Trump administration and Minnesota leaders have each blamed the other for stoking anger and violence.
In one incident that captured public attention, U.S. citizen Aliya Rahman was grabbed and dragged from her car by masked immigration officers on Tuesday near the site where Good was killed. She said in a statement to Reuters that the agents “dragged me from my car and bound me like an animal, even after I told them that I was disabled.”
A protesting community member attempts to protect themselves as federal agents fire munitions and pepper balls, as tensions rise after federal law enforcement agents were involved in a shooting incident, a week after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, in north Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 14, 2026. Purchase Licensing Rights
Rahman said she asked for a doctor repeatedly once taken into ICE custody but was instead taken to a detention center. She lost consciousness in a cell and was then taken to a hospital, she said.
In response to a request for comment, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said an “agitator” ignored an officer’s commands to move her vehicle away from the scene of an enforcement action and was arrested for obstruction.
VENEZUELAN MAN SHOT
DHS, which is overseeing Trump’s immigration crackdown, identified the man its officer shot as Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. He had been allowed into the U.S. by the administration of Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, in 2022 through the government’s humanitarian parole program. The Trump administration has since revoked the parole granted to Venezuelans and others admitted under Biden.
According to a DHS statement, federal officers tried to stop Sosa-Celis in his vehicle. He fled the scene in his vehicle, crashed into a parked car, then ran away on foot.
One officer caught him and while the two were “in a struggle on the ground,” two other Venezuelan men came out of a nearby apartment and “attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle,” the statement said.
Sosa-Celis got loose and began hitting the officer with “a shovel or a broomstick,” so the officer “fired defensive shots to defend his life,” the DHS statement said.
Reuters was not able to verify the account given by DHS.
The men fled into the apartment and all three were arrested after officers went in, DHS said. Sosa-Celis and the officer were recovering in hospital from injuries, according to the department and city officials.
TRUMP SUPPORTERS DIVIDED
The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a law allowing the president to deploy the military or federalize soldiers in a state’s National Guard to quell rebellion, an exception to laws that prohibit soldiers being used in civil or criminal law enforcement.
It has been used 30 times in U.S. history, according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. The Supreme Court has ruled that the president alone can determine if the act’s conditions have been met.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gave her Nobel Peace Prize medal to U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday during a White House meeting, in a bid to influence his efforts to shape her country’s political future.
A White House official confirmed that Trump intends to keep the medal.
In a social media post on Thursday evening, Trump wrote: “Maria presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you Maria!”
Machado, who described the meeting as “excellent,” said the gift was in recognition of what she called his commitment to the freedom of the Venezuelan people.
The White House later posted a photo of Trump and Machado with the president holding up a large, gold-colored frame displaying the medal.
Accompanying text read, “To President Donald J. Trump In Gratitude for Your Extraordinary Leadership in Promoting Peace through Strength,” and labeled the gesture as a “Personal Symbol of Gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan People.”
Machado’s attempt to sway Trump came after he dismissed the idea of installing her as Venezuela’s leader to replace the deposed Nicolas Maduro.
Trump openly campaigned for the prize before Machado was awarded it last month and complained bitterly when he was snubbed.
Though Machado gave Trump the gold medal that honorees receive with the prize, the honor remains hers; the Norwegian Nobel Institute has said the prize cannot be transferred, shared or revoked.
Asked on Wednesday if he wanted Machado to give him the prize, Trump told Reuters: “No, I didn’t say that. She won the Nobel Peace Prize.”
The Republican president has long expressed interest in winning the prize and has at times linked it to diplomatic achievements.
The lunch meeting, which appeared to last slightly over an hour, marked the first time the two have met in person.
Machado then met with more than a dozen senators, both Republican and Democratic, on Capitol Hill, where she has generally found more enthusiastic allies.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado arrives at the U.S. Capitol to meet U.S. senators after her meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 15, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz Purchase Licensing Rights
During the visit, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had looked forward to meeting Machado, but stood by his “realistic” assessment that she did not currently have the support needed to lead the country in the short term.
Machado, who fled the South American nation in a daring seaborne escape in December, is competing for Trump’s ear with members of Venezuela’s government and seeking to ensure she has a role in governing the nation going forward.
After the United States captured Maduro in a snatch-and-grab operation this month, opposition figures, members of Venezuela’s diaspora and politicians throughout the U.S. and Latin America expressed hope for Venezuela to begin a process of democratization.
HOPES OF A MOVE TO DEMOCRACY
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, one of the senators who met with Machado, said the opposition leader had told senators that repression in Venezuela was no different now than under Maduro.
Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez is a “smooth operator” who was growing more entrenched by the day thanks to Trump’s support, he said.
“I hope elections happen, but I’m skeptical,” said Murphy, of Connecticut.
Trump has said he is focused on securing U.S. access to the country’s oil and economically rebuilding Venezuela.
Trump has on several occasions praised Rodriguez, Maduro’s second-in-command, who became Venezuela’s leader upon his capture. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, Trump said, “She’s been very good to deal with.”
Machado was banned from running in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election by a top court stacked with Maduro allies.
Outside observers widely believe Edmundo Gonzalez, an opposition figure backed by Machado, won by a substantial margin, but Maduro claimed victory and retained power.
A GROUP of ISS astronauts have splashed down back to Earth after being evacuated due to one member suffering a medical issue.
Four astronauts were forced to leave the space station a month early due to a mystery illness.
Four crew were forced to leave earlyCredit: NASA
Nasa hasn’t revealed the nature of the medical issue due to privacy.
But the space agency has said it’s not due to an injury and not considered an emergency.
It’s the first time in history that a space crew has had to return to earth before their scheduled return date due to a health issue.
American astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui arrived on the ISS on August 1 and were supposed to stay on board until mid-February.
The Crew 11 team splashed down off the coast of California and greeted by dolphins during the early hours of Thursday morning local time (8:41am GMT), after an almost 11 hour journey.
Almost 40 minutes later the hatch was opened and the group were rushed off for medical checks – a standard procedure for all crew returns.
Fincke was first to be helped out of the capsule and onto a stretcher, followed by Cardman, Yui and finally Platonov.
In a news conference after the re-entry, Nasa administrator Jared Issacman said the crew member in question specifically “is doing fine”.
“We took this action because it was a serious medical condition,” he said.
Earlier, station commander Fincke called the unprecedented action “bittersweet” as he handed over control of ISS to Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov.
“This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists,” he said.
“It’s the right call, even if it’s a bit bittersweet.”
Problems emerged last Thursday, just before Fincke and flight engineer Cardman were due to head outside the ISS for a marathon 6.5-hour spacewalk to install new external hardware but it was abruptly cancelled.
While the ISS has some medical equipment and astronauts have minor medical training there isn’t a doctor on board.
Astronauts typically spend six to eight months at a time living aboard the ISS.
The US has indefinitely paused immigrant visa processing for citizens of 75 countries, citing the financial burden on Americans. The inclusion of countries like Bhutan, Brazil, Kuwait and Thailand has surprised many, and sparked confusion over the criteria used to devise the list.
A Somali American attends a demonstration against increased immigration enforcement a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Image: Reuters)
In a bid to intensify the crackdown on legal immigrants, the US has announced an indefinite suspension of immigrant visa processing in 75 countries, beginning January 21, the State Department announced on Wednesday (US time). However, some countries on the list of 75 nations have surprised people and led to questions regarding the criteria used to devise it.
While the inclusion of nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Libya, Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, and others embroiled in conflicts, or known for sending problematic migrants to the US seems logical, what has puzzled many is the presence of relatively prosperous countries such as Kuwait, or those with positive global reputations, like Thailand and Bhutan, along with some Balkan states. Even Brazil came as a surprise entry on the list to many.
This latest list by the US State Department has sparked confusion and debate among both experts and immigrants.
For instance, author-journalist Sadanand Dhume, said he was “surprised to see Kuwait, Thailand, Brazil, and Uruguay on the State Department’s (temporary) visa ban list”.
“These are relatively well off countries. Not surprised to see Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal on it. Bhutan is an interesting case. Many Bhutanese refugees in the US are ethnic Nepalis who were driven out of Bhutan in 1990-92,” Dhume posted on X.
Explaining why India was not on the list, Dhume said, “Migrants from India have extremely low welfare dependency rates, both in the US, and in Europe. It would be bonkers to include India in the list if the point is to crack down on groups who place a burden on the welfare net.”
Several affected countries have expressed surprise at the decision. For instance, Thailand, seemingly taken aback by the inclusion on the list, summoned the US Charge d’affaires in Bangkok on Thursday to seek urgent clarification on the decision, reported Thai media outlet Thaiger. It must be noted that Thailand is a hugely popular destination for American tourists, and consistently portrayed in US media as a welcoming, vibrant country.
Notably, despite Pakistan’s coterie with the US and Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir meeting US President Donald Trump multiple times after Operation Sindoor, it has been included on the list and its citizens are now facing an indefinite pause in immigrant visa processing.
Brazil, which has the largest economy in South America, was also a surprise name on the US visa-ban list. It’s true that the diaspora in the US is Brazil’s largest, but it’s not that Brazilians have a history of large-scale immigration to the US. In fact, Brazilians form a miniscule part of the overall immigrants, representing around 1% of the total foreign-born population in the US.
The inclusion of Kuwait on the US immigrant visa pause list is also surprising, as this oil-rich Gulf nation boasts one of the world’s highest GDP per capita — $30,000–$32,000. The decision seemingly hinges on data showing its US immigrants historically more likely to access public benefits. However, data suggests that there are less than 40,000 Kuwaities in the US, of which 1/3rd are students.
Vivian Nereim, Gulf bureau chief of the New York Times said on X, “I am so curious to understand how Kuwait — an oil-rich country where the average citizen income exceeds $60k a year — ended up on this list.”
A media professional quipped, “(Because) It didn’t donate a big enough jet plane?”
WHY US SUSPENDED IMMIGRATION VISAS FROM 75 NATIONS?
The US State Department said that the suspension stems from efforts to ramp up immigration restrictions, and will be affecting countries from Latin America (like Colombia and Uruguay) to the Balkans (such as Bosnia and Albania), South Asia (Pakistan and Bangladesh), and numerous African, Middle Eastern, and Caribbean countries, reported news agency Reuters.
An internal cable, viewed by Reuters, detailed a comprehensive review of policies, regulations, and guidelines to guarantee rigorous screening and vetting for visa seekers.
The document flagged that citizens from these countries have shown tendencies to apply for public benefits in the US, labelling them as high-risk of becoming “public charges” and tapping into local, state, and federal resources. Public charge refers to a US immigration rule under which a visa or Green Card applicant can be denied if they are deemed likely to become primarily dependent on government assistance for basic living needs.
First reported by Fox News, this action spares visitor visas.
The latest move follows a November order directing diplomats to prioritise financial independence for visa applicants, avoiding reliance on government aid, reported Reuters.
“The State Department will use its long-standing authority to deem ineligible potential immigrants who would become a public charge on the United States and exploit the generosity of the American people,” Tommy Pigott, the State Department’s Principal Deputy Spokesperson, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
He added that processing would stay on hold during a reassessment to block entries of those likely to claim welfare.
The cable also instructed consular staff to deny approvals for any “print-authorised” but unissued visas or those printed but not yet dispatched.
Officials haven’t detailed per-country rationales, but experts suggest exclusions for nations like India stem from robust documentation, adherence to US standards, strong economic links, and lower public charge risks. India excels in skilled visas like H-1B with cooperative consular ties.
A Reproductive Health Adviser and senior figure associated with Physicians for Reproductive Health, Verma was born in an Indian immigrant family in North Carolina.
Indian-origin obstetrician and gynaecologist Nisha Verma
The name of Nisha Verma, an Indian-origin obstetrician and gynaecologist in the United States, has been doing the rounds on the internet following a tense debate during the HELP (Health, Education, Labour, Pension) Committee hearing on abortion pill safety in the US Senate. Verma, appearing as a democratic witness, was asked about whether men can get pregnant by Republican Senator Josh Hawley.
Instead of providing a direct answer to the question, Verma emphasised that the question was polarised, and she was unsure about where the question was heading. She also expressed her dissatisfaction with the proposed goal of the question, and her reaction resulted in a brief confrontation between the two, as Hawley claimed that the only goal was to establish a biological reality.
WHO IS NISHA VERMA
A Reproductive Health Adviser and senior figure associated with Physicians for Reproductive Health, Verma was born to an Indian immigrant family in North Carolina.
After completing medical education from the University of North Carolina, she has been working as a certified obstetrician-gynaecologist and complex family planning subspecialist. She also holds multiple degrees in Biology, Anthropology, and Public Health.
At present, Verma is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Emory University School of Medicine and provides clinical care in Georgia and Maryland.
As a gynaecologist, Verma has worked extensively to spread awareness about abortion and the harm that can be caused by abortion restrictions. She has testified in front of Congress on the harms of abortion restrictions and currently has a research grant to explore the impact of Georgia’s six-week abortion ban on people with high-risk pregnancies in the state.
U.S., Danish and Greenlandic officials have met face to face to discuss President Donald Trump’s ambitions to take control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. (AP video shot by: Kwiyeon Ha)
For several weeks, international journalists and camera crews have been scurrying up to people in Greenland’s capital to ask them for their thoughts on the twists and turns of a political crisis that has turned the Arctic island into a geopolitical hot spot.
President Donald Trump insists he wants to control Greenland but Greenlanders say it is not for sale. The island is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark and the prime minister of that country has warned that if the U.S. tries to take Greenland by force, it could potentially spell the end of NATO.
Greenlanders walking along the small central shopping street of the capital Nuuk have a hard time avoiding the signs that the island is near the top of the Western news agenda.
Scores of journalists have arrived from outlets including The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera as well as from Scandinavian countries and Japan.
They film Nuuk’s multicolored houses, the snowcapped hills and the freezing fjords where locals go out in small boats to hunt seals and fish. But they must try to cram their filming into about five hours of daylight — the island is in the far north and the sun rises after 11 a.m. and sets around 4 p.m.
Along the quiet shopping street, journalists stand every few meters (feet), approaching locals for their thoughts, doing live broadcasts or recording stand-ups.
Local politicians and community leaders say they are overwhelmed with interview requests.
Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament, called the media attention “round two,” referring to an earlier burst of global interest following Trump’s first statements in 2025 that he wanted to control Greenland.
Trump has argued repeatedly that the U.S. needs control of Greenland for its national security. He has sought to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals.
Berthelsen said he has done multiple interviews a day for two weeks.
“I’m getting a bit used to it,” he said.
Greenland’s population is around 57,000 people —- about 20,000 of whom live in Nuuk.
“We’re very few people and people tend to get tired when more and more journalists ask the same questions again and again,” Berthelsen said.
Nuuk is so small that the same business owners are approached repeatedly by different news organizations — sometimes doing up to 14 interviews a day.
Locals who spoke to the AP said they want the world to know that it’s up to Greenlanders to decide their own future and suggested they are perplexed at Trump’s desire to control the island.
“It’s just weird how obsessed he is with Greenland,” said Maya Martinsen, 21.
She said Trump is “basically lying about what he wants out of Greenland,” and is using the pretext of boosting American security as a way to try to take control of “the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.”
Trains on East Japan Railway’s Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines were halted in all directions indefinitely.
Passengers evacuated from a stranded train on the Keihin-Tohoku line walk to Tamachi station in Tokyo, Japan on Jan 16, 2026. (Photo: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon)
A railway power outage in Tokyo disrupted the morning commute for thousands on Friday (Jan 16) as two main lines with some of the world’s busiest stations were halted after reports of a fire.
Trains on East Japan Railway’s Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines were halted in all directions with no timetable for resumption, the railway said.
A fire was reported on the tracks near Tamachi Station, where both lines stop, shortly before 8am (7am, Singapore time), public broadcaster NHK said.
Flames were coming from a transformer in the track area, and the fire was nearly extinguished about 30 minutes later, NHK said.
Passengers were seen disembarking from a Keihin-Tohoku train stranded between stations and walking along the tracks to evacuate, assisted by firefighters and railway staff, in footage broadcast by the NTV network.
The US warned that all options, including military action, were on the table against Iran as President Donald Trump signalled a softer tone on Tehran amid protests.
Members of the UN Security Council meet on Iran at the request of the United States. (Reuters)
Amid violent protests in Iran that kept the world on edge, US and Iranian officials faced off during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, where the American envoy warned that all options were on the table against the Islamic Republic despite President Donald Trump’s softer tone on Tehran.
“Colleagues, let me be clear: President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the United Nations,” said Mike Waltz, the US Ambassador to the UN. “He has made it clear that all options are on the table to stop the slaughter. And no one should know that better than the leadership of the Iranian regime.”
Waltz’s remarks came as uncertainty looms over possible US action against Iran over the protests, in which thousands of dissenters have been killed in a brutal crackdown by the Islamic Republic’s security forces. Protests in Iran have largely abated, as per reports, as the internet blackout continues.
Death toll figures have varied, with the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) saying it has verified the deaths of 2,435 protesters and 153 government-affiliated individuals. The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said Iranian security forces had killed at least 3,428 protesters.
Iran Fires Back At US, Warns Of Aggression
At the UNSC Meeting, Iran’s Deputy UN Ambassador Gholamhossein Darzi said Iran does not seek escalation or confrontation and accused Waltz of resorting “to lies, distortion of facts, and a deliberate misinformation campaign to conceal his country’s direct involvement in steering unrest in Iran to violence.”
“However, any act of aggression – direct or indirect – will be met with a decisive, proportionate, and lawful response,” he told the Security Council. “This is not a threat; it is a statement of legal reality.”
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia also accused the United States of convening the Security Council in a bid to “justify blatant aggression and interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state” and threats to “solve the Iranian problem in its favourite way: through strikes aimed at overthrowing an undesirable regime.”
Trump’s Softer Tone On Iran
Earlier, Trump adopted a wait‑and‑see posture, saying he had been told that the killings were easing and that he believed there was no current plan for large-scale executions. He said he had now received assurances from “very important sources on the other side” that Tehran had now stopped, and that executions would not go ahead.
Asked by an AFP reporter in the Oval Office if US military action was now off the table, Trump replied: “We’re going to watch it and see what the process is.” The White House said Iran halted 800 executions under pressure from Trump, but military action remains an option.
Additionally, US Senator Lindsey Graham rejected media reports claiming Trump had ruled out military action against Iran, calling the coverage “beyond inaccurate”. He said the circumstances around the decisive action against the “evil” Iranian regime have nothing to do with President Trump’s will or determination.
On the other hand, Iran’s envoy to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, said Trump has informed Iran that he does not intend to attack and has asked Tehran to exercise restraint. Moghadam said he received the information on Wednesday, indicating that Trump did not want war.
Gulf Allies Urge Trump Against Strikes
Meanwhile, top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar urged Trump to hold off on strikes against Iran, citing concerns over the impact on global economy and regional stability. “The Gulf trio led a long, frantic, diplomatic last-minute effort to convince President Trump to give Iran a chance to show good intentions,” an unnamed Saudi official told AFP.
A second Gulf official confirmed the talks, adding that a message was also conveyed to Iran that attacking US regional facilities would “have consequences”. The New York Times reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also warned Trump against strikes.
The Saudi official said the Gulf outreach was aimed at preventing “an uncontrollable situation in the region,” warning Washington that any attack on Iran could trigger serious regional fallout.
New Sanctions Against Iranian Officials
Meanwhile, the US announced new sanctions on Iranian officials accused of suppressing the protests. G7 partners and the European Union also said they too were looking at new sanctions to ratchet up the pressure on Iran’s theocratic government.
The US Treasury Department targeted Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security, for using force against demonstrators. US authorities said he coordinated the state’s security response to the demonstrations on behalf of Iran’s supreme leadership.
When Daidai realised her father was too old to slaughter two pigs for a traditional community feast in the run-up to Chinese New Year, she turned to social media.
She didn’t want him to feel bad.
“Can anyone help me?” she asked on Douyin, China’s version of Tiktok, at the end of last week. “My father is old. I am worried that he can’t handle these pigs.”
Daidai, who’s in her 20s, promised that those who came to their village, Qingfu, to assist would be treated to a pork banquet.
In rural Sichuan and Chongqing, large community meals are an important part of culture, featuring twice-cooked pork, steamed ribs, soup and homemade liquor.
“Let me hold my head up high in our village,” she said.
Her appeal for help attracted more than a million likes and the response on the ground was like a scene from a cheesy feel-good movie, as thousands of cars poured in, carrying many more people than she needed for the task.
So many responded that traffic jams have brought roads in this part of rural Chongqing in south-west China to a standstill. Drone images show carloads of people queuing up with rice crops on either side hoping to still enter Qingfu. Walking in from long distances has been a traffic-beating option for some.
Daidai posted that drivers coming into the area should be careful on the roads, especially those from the city unaccustomed to conditions in the countryside.
“The atmosphere has been great. It reminded me of my childhood when my family still kept pigs. It has been years since I felt anything like that,” one man, who drove more than 100 kilometres (65 miles) to get there, told the BBC.
He has seen licence plates from all over the country, he said.
When the pig slaughter and subsequent mass banquet did happen, it was watched live online by more than 100,000 viewers, registering 20 million likes, and the local government embraced it as a flash-tourism moment.
With many more people in town than two pigs could feed, tourism officials donated more pigs to meet the huge demand, and small restaurants have been serving crowds of visitors in outdoor seating areas.
Daidai said she thought maybe “a dozen” people would come to help
Yet what this phenomenon has shown is how quickly a small matter can become something massive in the age of social media.
“I thought maybe a dozen people would come,” Daidai told Chinese media. “But there have been too many to count.”
The response has also been driven by what seems to be a yearning from Chinese people to get back in touch with community cultural events, as well as a need for positive experiences when life can, at times, seem very dark.
Daidai couldn’t believe how quickly it’s all happened. Last Friday she posted her request for help. By Saturday the response was so large that she went to the police to warn them that there could be disruption in the village and extra officers were brought in to manage the situation.
The banquet celebration, by then huge in size, went on for two days – 1,000 diners on 11 January became 2,000 the next day – with bonfires into the night and much partying, accompanied by a band.
Eventually, Daidai posted that her celebration was over, urging any more visitors to enjoy the region but not visit her home. After sleeping for only four hours over two days, she said she was exhausted.
However, it had been an incredible moment for her and her village.
To all the strangers who answered her call she said, “without your enthusiasm and passion, there would not have been a feast like this”.
“For everyone who came, the feeling was like that of a big family. It was really warm, really healing and really meaningful.”
She thanked government officials and the police for allowing a sudden celebration of this size to proceed.
It is already being predicted that the now famous Hechuan region, where her village is located, may try to turn this into a regular event, to tap into the enthusiasm for genuine, grass-roots interaction in a world where many feel isolated and removed from their culture.
