Israel confirms recovery of final hostage’s remains from Gaza

January 27, 2026

Israel says body of last hostage retrieved from Gaza — Ran Gvili, a young Israeli police officer, was on medical leave when Hamas attacked on 7 October 2023

The Last Return: A Body, a Family, and the Quiet End of a Chapter

There are moments in war that feel impossibly small and unbearably large at the same time: a polished metal box lowered from a military helicopter, a pair of parents who have been waiting for months to know whether their child is alive, and the hush that follows when a country realizes a chapter has closed.

On a windswept morning that smelled faintly of dust and citrus groves, Israeli authorities announced they had recovered the remains of Police Officer Ran “Rani” Gvili — the last person taken from Israeli soil during the violence that erupted on 7 October 2023. For his family, and for a nation exhausted by headlines, the return marks the end of one brutal conditionhood in a larger, fragile ceasefire process brokered with U.S. involvement.

A nickname, a shoulder, and the decision to run toward danger

“He was the Defender of Alumim,” said Talik Gvili, his mother, at a candlelit vigil months ago. “That’s what the kibbutz called him. He liked being the one who stayed behind.”

Those who knew Ran remember a man of quiet force — a non-commissioned officer in the elite Yassam police unit stationed in Israel’s Negev. He was on medical leave ahead of a shoulder surgery and had been working on renovations at his parents’ home in Meitar. In the days before the attack, his father would later recall, Ran had been doing physical labor alongside a Palestinian construction worker from Gaza — an image that underscores how intimate and complicated life on the margins of conflict can be.

When news of the assault reached him, he drove toward the sound of gunfire. Outnumbered and in pain, he joined his unit near the kibbutz of Alumim and fought. “We were both wounded,” said Colonel Guy Madar, the last comrade to see him alive. “He ran to open a breach — to protect the kibbutz. He never stopped moving forward.”

From a battlefield to a coffin: the long wait for answers

Of the 251 people abducted on that October day, families waited almost unbearably for clarity. Many were released in prisoner exchanges or returned alive as ceasefire negotiations progressed; for months, 250 names fell slowly off that list. Ran’s remained.

It was not until January 2024 that Israeli authorities told Ran’s parents that he had been killed on the battlefield and that his remains had been taken into Gaza. The notification came months after the fighting and after a haze of rumors, prayers, petitions, and public demonstrations that had pulled at the nation’s nerves.

“He ran to help, to save people… even though he was already injured before 7 October,” his father said at a gathering of supporters. “That was Rani — first to help, first to jump in.”

Politics, ceasefires, and the difficult business of closure

The return of Ran’s body is not only a private solace. It is also a political fulcrum. The retrieval completes one of the stated conditions of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire framework — the return of all hostages and remains from Gaza — allowing a slow and contested next phase of the truce to proceed.

“We have brought them all back,” said Israel’s prime minister in a brief statement, framing the recovery as a national obligation fulfilled. Hamas, through spokesman Hazem Qassem, described the discovery as confirmation of the group’s adherence to the terms of the ceasefire agreement — a statement that, for many, underscored how much of the conflict remains choreographed by mutual leverage and public messaging.

For weeks, Ran’s family had resisted efforts to ease border restrictions at Rafah — the Gaza-Egypt crossing — insisting that their son’s remains be returned before wider openings took effect. The tension between humanitarian access and the deep, personal need for closure is one of the many painful trade-offs that shadow negotiations in conflict zones.

Voices from a small town

At a weekly gathering in Meitar, friends and neighbors spoke of Ran as someone whose presence was felt not by the size of his frame but by the warmth of his attention. “When he entered a room, you felt him,” said Emmanuel Ohayon, a close friend. “He had a way of making people feel seen.”

A neighbor, Miriam, whose small grocery sits at the corner near the Gvili home, paused when asked about the family. “They kept to themselves,” she said softly. “But there was always tea offered, always some bread shared with the workers. This town knows how to grieve quietly.”

What does ‘closure’ mean in a land where history keeps returning?

Closure, in practical terms, means the next steps of a diplomatic framework can move forward: more humanitarian aid may enter Gaza; crossings may open or widen; prisoners may be moved as part of second-stage exchanges. But for families, closure is a complicated and incomplete thing. It is a return of remains that enables burial, and with burial comes ritual, memory, and perhaps a sliver of peace. It is also a political event that will be dissected by opponents and allies alike.

“There are no winners in these cycles,” said Dr. Leila Mansour, a regional analyst who has followed previous hostage exchanges. “A return of remains is a moral and legal recovery, but it does not solve the structural drivers of violence: dislocation, blockade, political stalemate and the dehumanization that fuels each new round.”

Small moments that refuse to be forgotten

Ran’s story is stitched from small, intimate scenes: a shoulder strapped for surgery, a teenager hauling cement beside a Palestinian laborer, a mother speaking at vigils with a steady voice, a father who remembers his son’s impulse to stay and protect.

“He fought until the last bullet and then he was taken,” Talik told a crowd months ago, her voice steady in the face of a grief that has had no easy exit. “That’s how he lived.”

In a world that catalogues conflict by numbers, names like Ran’s force us back to singular human dimensions. They demand that we look at what is lost when the politics of war devour everyday lives: hands that held tools and tea cups, neighbors who shared work, plans for a surgery that never came to pass.

Questions for the reader

What do we owe the families who wait — not only to recover bodies, but to restore dignity and truth? How can ceasefires and international diplomacy balance the urgent needs of civilians with the very real demands families place on those agreements? And if a return of remains can signal an end to one phase, what will it take to prevent another beginning?

Perhaps the hardest truth is this: peace is not a single event. It’s a fragile set of choices, repeated, day after day. For Ran Gvili’s parents, for the people of Meitar, and for those in Gaza who mourn different losses, this return provides a narrow, necessary rest. The work of remembering and rebuilding — of confronting what allowed the single tragedy to ripple so widely — is only just beginning.

EU Opens Regulatory Probe into X’s AI Tool Grok Amid Scrutiny

hanad

January 27, 2026

EU launches investigation into X's AI tool Grok — Elon Musk's Grok chatbot is to be ⁠investigated on whether it disseminates illegal content such as manipulated sexualised images in the European Union

When an Algorithm Crossed a Line: Europe’s Crackdown on X’s Grok

It began, as many modern scandals do, with a single image and the slow, sickening realization that what felt like an isolated incident was anything but. Photos—manipulated, sexualized, impossible children—were surfacing on X. They moved across timelines, hopped between accounts, and lodged in the feeds of ordinary people who had logged on for news or jokes or to check on a friend.

The European Commission has answered with a formal investigation into Grok, the artificial intelligence engine embedded inside X, probing whether the tool enabled the spread of sexually explicit images, including material that may amount to child sexual abuse. The inquiry is being conducted under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU’s most ambitious law yet aimed at reining in platform harms.

What’s at stake

Ask any parent why they care about this investigation and they will not talk in policy jargon. “If someone can stitch my child into a degrading image and it spreads inside a heartbeat,” says Aoife Brennan, a mother of two in Dublin, “how am I supposed to protect them?”

The questions the Commission is asking are stark: Did X treat Grok as just another feature and fail to assess the risks it posed? Did the company meet its legal obligations to prevent systemic harms? And if it didn’t, what will the consequences be?

DSA: More than a rulebook

The DSA, which creates special obligations for so-called Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) with more than 45 million monthly users in the EU, requires careful, transparent risk assessments. Platforms designated as VLOPs must anticipate and mitigate systemic risks—ranging from the spread of illegal content to effects on public health and the rights of children—before, during, and after rolling out powerful features.

According to the European Commission, Grok is conspicuously absent from the risk assessment reports X is required to publish. “We expect companies to get their house in order,” a Commission spokesperson told us. “Grok doesn’t appear in those assessments. That omission is not a minor paperwork issue; it’s central to whether X complied with the law.”

The discovery and the response

News of sexualized deepfakes triggered alarm across Europe. Advocacy groups, parents, and regulators raised their voices. “These images aren’t just distasteful—when they involve children or are non-consensual, they’re a form of violence,” says Dr. Miriam Kovács, an academic who studies online abuse. “We have to treat them as such.”

The Commission coordinated closely with Ireland’s Coimisiún na Meán, the national digital regulator, because X’s European headquarters are in Dublin. Regulators there say they welcomed the formal probe and reminded people that legal responsibilities exist for online platforms under both national and EU law. “There is no place in our society for non-consensual intimate imagery or child sexual abuse material,” the regulator said in a public statement.

Inside EU agencies, the concern was not theoretical. Technical teams at the Centre for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT) in Seville had been watching Grok since reports of a surge in hateful content last autumn. Their monitoring, combined with complaints received from users, created a picture of systemic problems linked to how the AI was being used on the platform.

Voices from the front line

On a rainy morning in Dublin’s Temple Bar, I spoke with Conor Maher, a freelance photographer whose younger sister’s likeness was subtly altered and circulated online. “The first thing you do is scream, then you call your family, then you try to chase it down,” he said. “But chasing a photo across the internet feels like trying to stop the tide.”

Policy experts were less emotive but equally blunt. “Companies have to take responsibility when they deploy models that can create lifelike images of people,” said Lina Ortega, a digital rights lawyer. “Mitigations like filters, robust reporting mechanisms, and pre-launch risk assessments aren’t optional. They’re central to preventing harm.”

Some voices urged caution before rushing to ban tools. “AI is a tool; it can be misused,” said Julian Weiss, a tech entrepreneur in Berlin. “But the right response is smart regulation and enforcement, not panic.” The Commission’s investigation is precisely about whether existing rules were followed.

What the investigation will do

The formal opening of proceedings under the DSA gives the Commission broad powers: it can request documents, interview staff, and carry out inspections. If the inquiry finds non-compliance, X could face additional enforcement measures on top of recent penalties.

In December, the Commission fined X €120 million over issues including deceptive design and insufficient transparency around advertising and data access for researchers. That financial penalty underscored a broader point: being large in Europe’s digital landscape brings responsibilities—and consequences when those responsibilities are not met.

Areas under scrutiny

Whether X conducted sufficient risk assessments of Grok and its integration into platform features.
Whether Grok’s capabilities materially increased the dissemination of illegal or non-consensual sexual imagery.
How the platform’s recommender systems—now under a separate but related probe—interact with Grok to amplify harmful content.

Local details that matter

Walk through Dublin, and you see more than government offices. You see a city where tech interns line up for flat whites, where natal posters for community theatre hang beside murals, where conversations about privacy and family safety hum in cafés. That is partly why the Irish regulator’s role feels intimate; this is not an abstract legal battle but one that touches families and neighborhoods.

In Seville, where technical teams have been plotting the algorithms’ behavior, engineers and ethicists have been poring over logs, looking for patterns. “We’re tracing how prompts travel, how images are generated and amplified,” said a researcher involved in monitoring Grok. “It’s like modern detective work—only the clues are data points and the suspects are code.”

A global ripple effect

As Europe tightens oversight on AI-powered platforms, the consequences will not stop at its borders. How regulators handle Grok could set precedents on transparency, safety, and corporate accountability for platforms from San Francisco to Singapore.

So here’s a tough question for every reader: Do you trust the architectures that shape your attention? Do you believe private companies will act fast enough to protect the vulnerable, or do we need rules that bite harder?

Closing: What comes next

The Commission has said X must provide more information, and officials expect further inspections. Irish and European regulators say they’ll play active roles. Lawmakers—like Irish MEPs who called for suspension of Grok while the probe proceeds—are watching closely.

For families who found their lives disrupted by a manipulated image, the investigation is not just a headline. It is a test of whether laws designed to protect citizens can keep pace with technologies that create harm almost as fast as they create convenience.

“We need systems that put people before profit,” says Aoife Brennan. “If the rules are only words on paper, they are meaningless when someone’s child is being exploited online.”

The EU’s probe into Grok is, then, more than a regulatory skirmish. It is a moment of collective reckoning—a chance to decide how we want a future shaped by AI to look, and who will be held accountable when the machines go wrong.

Court Orders North Korea to Pay Damages to Japanese Migrants

hanad

January 26, 2026

North Korea ordered to compensate Japanese migrants — North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was summoned by the Japanese court but failed to appear

A Court Verdict for a Promise That Wasn’t: Remembering the Repatriation That Became Captivity

There are moments when a courtroom’s wooden bench does more than parse law — it holds memory. On a gray morning in Tokyo, a district court did just that, handing down a judgment that felt as much like historical reckoning as it did legal remedy.

The decision ordered North Korea to pay roughly €440,000 in compensation to four people who, decades ago, were convinced to leave Japan for what they were told was a “paradise on Earth.” Each plaintiff was awarded at least 20 million yen — about €110,000 — a modest sum, perhaps, for lives stolen, but a powerful symbolic recognition of wrongs that have long been whispered about in basements and over kitchen tables.

The Lure: How a “Humanitarian” Promise Became a Prison

Between 1959 and 1984, an estimated 90,000 ethnic Koreans living in Japan — and some of their Japanese spouses — boarded ships and planes under a government-backed repatriation program promising free education, healthcare and a return to roots. The program was framed as humanitarian: a chance for those with few prospects in Japan to start over in a homeland reborn.

Instead many found deprivation, suspicion, and isolation. Human Rights Watch and survivor testimonies describe systems that targeted those seen as insufficiently loyal, meting out forced labour, imprisonment, and the denial of basic rights. Some families were ripped apart; some detainees lived under surveillance for decades. Others escaped, after years of limited contact with the outside world, returning with haunted faces and stories few in Japan wanted to hear.

“I thought I was going to find a garden of roses,” said 83-year-old plaintiff Eiko Kawasaki, who arrived in North Korea as a teenager in 1960 and spent 43 years there before fleeing. “When I heard the verdict, I was overwhelmed with emotion.”

What the Evidence Shows

The plaintiffs’ 2018 complaint catalogued denials of food, movement, education and medical care — the very things that had been promised. Experts who have studied North Korea note that repatriation was not merely migration; for many it became a form of state-directed relocation that morphed into sustained human-rights abuses.

“This was not a simple flow of people choosing new lives,” said Kanae Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch. “It bears the hallmarks of state coercion, deception and, for many, conditions tantamount to imprisonment.”

Law Against Silence: A Case That Defied Convention

Bringing suit directly against Pyongyang is an audacious and unusual step. The plaintiffs’ lawyers symbolically summoned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to court; unsurprisingly, there was no appearance. For years the case wound through Japan’s legal system: initially dismissed in 2022 for lack of jurisdiction, it was later sent back to the district court by a higher court for reconsideration.

Atsushi Shiraki, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, called Monday’s ruling “historic,” saying it was the first time a Japanese court had exercised its sovereignty to recognise North Korea’s malpractice in this context. “For survivors who returned, this is acknowledgement,” he told reporters. “It’s small, but important.”

Impossible to Enforce — and Why That Matters

Even as survivors breathed a measure of vindication, reality intruded. Kawasaki herself acknowledged the likely futility of collecting the award. “I’m sure the North Korean government will just ignore the court order,” she said.

Kenji Fukuda, lead counsel on the case, outlined a pragmatic alternative: seek to seize North Korean assets or property in Japan as a means of enforcing the ruling. But that path is thorny. North Korea’s foreign assets are limited and often masked behind diplomatic channels, front companies, or quasi-cultural organizations that have deep roots in Japan’s postwar history. International sanctions and the vagaries of state-to-state enforcement make the recovery of funds uncertain at best.

So the verdict may be less about immediate compensation than about narrative. It places on the public record — in a court’s clean language — an affirmation that promises of paradise became something else entirely for many.

Faces, Streets, Community: The Zainichi Korean Experience

Walk through neighborhoods like Shin-Ōkubo in Tokyo or Tsuruhashi in Osaka and you encounter the layered life of Zainichi Koreans — a community shaped by colonial history, wartime migration, and decades of marginalisation. Small restaurants hum with dialects, incense mingles with the smell of grilling meat, and conversation often travels between Japanese and Korean, stitched together by generations of shared hardship and resilience.

“My mother told me stories of the repatriation meetings,” said a shopkeeper in Shin-Ōkubo who asked to be called Mr. Nakamura. “They handed out leaflets like they were gifts. People believed in the promise because what they had was so little.”

For those who left, the promise was often not just nationalist nostalgia but the hope of security, a chance to belong somewhere that could be called home. For those who stayed, the repatriations remained a painful rupture: neighbors gone, names missing from family albums, unanswered letters that grew older and colder each year.

Beyond One Verdict: What the World Is Watching

Why should this resonate beyond Japan and the Korean Peninsula? Because it speaks to universal questions: How do states redress wrongs when treaty mechanisms fail? Can courts provide moral validation where politics offers none? What responsibility does a society bear for policies, however well-intentioned, that result in systemic harm?

Around the world, displaced communities are confronting similar questions — from refugees lured by false promises to minorities promised protection that turns into surveillance. The Tokyo ruling is a reminder that legal acknowledgment can be a stepping stone to broader societal reckoning, even when monetary recompense remains out of reach.

Estimated migrants to North Korea under the programme (1959–1984): ~90,000
Compensation per plaintiff ordered by the Tokyo District Court: 20 million yen (~€110,000)
Time spent in North Korea by one plaintiff, Eiko Kawasaki: 43 years

Closing: Memory, Accountability, and the Quiet Work of Justice

This verdict will not change every scar. It will not replace decades of lost birthdays, vanished kin, or the stolen certainty of a childhood. But it does do something hard: it names what happened. It asks a country that closes itself off to the world to answer, even if only in absentia, for the lives it shaped and broke.

As you close this piece, consider a simple question: when a promise is broken on the scale of nations, what weight should acknowledgement carry? Is recognition enough if material justice is not forthcoming? The Tokyo court offered a partial answer — one that invites more than legal debate; it calls for memory, conversation, and the slow, often painful work of reckoning.

Court rules North Korea must pay reparations to Japanese migrants

hanad

January 26, 2026

A courtroom, an old woman, and a verdict that reaches across a hermit state

There was a hush in the Tokyo courtroom that felt almost like the pause before a confession. At its center sat Eiko Kawasaki, 83, her hands folded the way someone folds memory—carefully, as if to keep fragile things from spilling out. She arrived in North Korea as a teenager in 1960, persuaded by a dazzling promise: a life in a “paradise on Earth.” She spent 43 years there before finding her way back. On a gray Monday the Tokyo District Court told a different kind of story: that four people, including Kawasaki, had had “most of their lives taken away,” and that the state in Pyongyang should pay them compensation—some 20 million yen each (about €110,000).

The money is small, the court’s reach thin. The symbolism, however, is large: a Japanese court daring to pronounce judgment — if only in name — against North Korea, a state that rarely answers to other nations’ courts, and one whose leaders never darkened the courtroom door despite being summoned in the case record.

From glossy posters to harsh reality: how a dream became a trap

Between 1959 and 1984, more than 90,000 ethnic Koreans living in Japan, along with thousands of their Japanese spouses, left for the Korean peninsula under a repatriation drive that read in newspapers like a humanitarian epic. Promises of free housing, education, medicine, and a land restored by a revolutionary government painted a future so bright it blinded skeptics.

“They ran stories of reunions, of orchards and abundant rice,” recalled an elderly reporter who covered the era. “For many Zainichi Koreans—Koreans born and living in Japan after decades of colonial rule—this was not only a political promise, it was an emotional refuge.”

The repatriation effort was actively promoted by Chongryon, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, and carried the tacit backing of parts of the Japanese establishment. Tokyo’s official stance then was complicated—torn between postwar guilt, Cold War geopolitics, and a desire to reduce social friction at home.

But the reality awaiting returnees was far from glossy. Human Rights Watch, in a string of reports, and numerous testimonies gathered over decades describe a darker script: denial of basic rights, arbitrary detention, forced labor, political punishment of suspected dissidents, and, for some, decades of enforced isolation. Many who escaped later described starving, working in camps, and losing years to state surveillance. “We were sold a story,” said an anonymous former repatriate now living in Tokyo. “What we bought was a prison with a nice slogan.”

Numbers that matter

Period of repatriation: 1959–1984
Estimated people who moved: more than 90,000 (including thousands of Japanese spouses)
Compensation awarded by Tokyo court in this case: 20 million yen per plaintiff (about €110,000); total for four plaintiffs ≈ €440,000

A legal marathon with symbolism at every turn

The lawsuit itself reads like a prolonged act of defiance. Plaintiffs sought to sue the North Korean state directly—an unusual, uphill legal tactic given the absence of diplomatic relations and the practical impossibility of levying penalties against a closed-off regime. The district court initially dismissed the case in 2022 for lack of jurisdiction. A higher court overturned that dismissal the following year, sending the matter back for reconsideration.

“This is the first time a Japanese court has exercised its sovereignty in such a way against North Korea to recognise its malpractice,” Atsushi Shiraki, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, told reporters afterwards. “It’s historic, even if the road ahead remains steep.”

Human Rights Watch’s Japan director, Kanae Doi, called the ruling “one very important, successful example of attempts to hold North Korea accountable” for international crimes, underscoring that domestic courts can sometimes become venues for wider forms of transitional justice when international mechanisms stall.

The wrenching human toll

Legal language—“detainment,” “compensation,” “jurisdiction”—is dry, but the memories behind the words are raw. Plaintiffs recounted losing youth and family, missing funerals back home, and surviving under constant suspicion. Some buried their names, some buried their grief. The government’s assurances of free education or medicine often rang hollow. “You grow up thinking the state will protect you,” one plaintiff told me. “Then you learn the state can also erase you.”

These stories are not only about individual suffering; they are about a diaspora split by history. Many Zainichi Koreans who chose to stay in Japan continued to face discrimination for decades, while those who left sometimes found themselves trapped in a political purgatory—unable to return, unable to fully belong to the nation they had once imagined as home.

Can a court order ever reach Pyongyang?

Even as the plaintiffs celebrated a moral victory, they acknowledged a sobering reality: enforcing the judgment will be next to impossible. “I’m sure the North Korean government will just ignore the court order,” Kawasaki said plainly. Kenji Fukuda, lead counsel for the case, suggested a more pragmatic route—seeking to confiscate North Korean assets located in Japan, or pursuing claims against proxies where legal tie-ins exist.

That route is convoluted. North Korea’s international assets are limited and often entangled in shell companies or diplomatic protections. Sanctions, political tensions, and the lack of formal ties between Tokyo and Pyongyang make restitution a legal puzzle and a diplomatic minefield.

Why this matters beyond Japan and Korea

This verdict matters because it presses an uncomfortable question: what does accountability look like when states hurt people across borders and then seal themselves away? In an era where restorative justice, reparations, and truth commissions are being considered for atrocities from Sudan to Iraq, the Tokyo ruling is a modest but meaningful crystal in a larger mosaic.

It also forces readers to grapple with the human cost of propaganda. When governments promise utopias—whether in the 1960s or in our social media age—the results can be catastrophic for those who believe. Who bears responsibility: the recruiting organizations that sold the dream, the governments that greenlit it, or the broader societies that let marginalized communities feel their only options were elsewhere?

Closing, and an invitation

The court’s gavel may not wake those twenty or thirty years that were stolen, but it does place names and faces back into public record. It validates memory, if not fully restitution. As Kawasaki wiped tears after the verdict, she did not speak of money so much as of recognition: of having her life acknowledged in a world that often prefers stories that fit clean narratives.

What do you think—do symbolic victories like this matter? Can legal recognition ever be a form of healing when material restitution is impossible? As we scroll past headlines and outrage, perhaps we should pause on stories like this one—stories of migration, hope, and the slow work of justice—and ask ourselves what it means to hold a state accountable when it refuses to be seen.

Deadly U.S. winter storm claims at least 11 lives nationwide

hanad

January 26, 2026

Powerful winter storm kills at least 11 people across US — A man clears snow from a footpath near a garage in Bloomington in Indiana yesterday

When Ice Came Calling: A Storm That Reminded a Nation How Fragile Winter Can Be

There is a particular hush that falls after the first heavy sleet—an otherworldly quiet that muffles sirens and conversation and lets the world listen to itself. This weekend, that hush stretched from the Gulf Coast to the Canadian border, as a sprawling winter system smeared lanes of sleet and snow across the United States, toppled power grids, and left at least 11 people dead.

From city sidewalks to rural byways, people woke to a country paused. The National Weather Service warned that an Arctic air mass trailing the storm would sink temperatures to dangerous levels for days, prolonging the freezing-out of normal life even after the flakes stopped falling.

Across the Frozen Map

In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani disclosed a chilling detail: five people were found dead outdoors over the weekend in subzero conditions. “There is no more powerful reminder of the danger of extreme cold,” he told reporters, his voice a steady thread through a city usually defined by its roar. The mayor stopped short of declaring each death weather-related, but the implication was clear—this storm was lethal.

Downstream, the losses were just as stark. Texas authorities confirmed three deaths, including a 16-year-old girl who died in a sledding accident; Louisiana’s health department reported two hypothermia fatalities; and Iowa’s state troopers said a winter-weather collision claimed another life while leaving two more hurt.

Power Outages Where They Bite the Most

PowerOutage.com tracked more than 840,000 customers in the dark as the storm intensified over the South. Tennessee bore the brunt: a band of ice downed lines and left more than 300,000 homes and businesses without electricity. Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia—regions less accustomed to long ice storms—each had six-figure outage counts.

In places where winterization of pipes and power infrastructure is not a given, a loss of electricity turns bitter cold into a crisis. Space heaters, candlelight and neighborly hospitality replaced central heating for many. “We saw people hauling propane stoves out to the porch,” said one community volunteer in Baton Rouge. “Neighbors are checking on each other more than the news is.” This kind of mutual aid has become a lifeline.

Airports Grounded, Commutes Frozen

Major airports across the Northeast—Washington, Philadelphia, New York—reduced operations to near zero. FlightAware’s tracking showed more than 19,000 flights canceled since Saturday, leaving travelers stranded in terminals and delaying commerce that depends on a fluid sky.

Ronald Reagan National Airport in Virginia was effectively closed; federal offices in the capital shuttered preemptively; and more than 20 states declared states of emergency. “Stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary,” Texas’s Emergency Management Division posted on X, a short order repeated by municipal officials from Main Street to Midtown.

Images from the Storm

From Manhattan’s frozen puddles to Chicago’s frosting rooftops, the storm coated the familiar in unfamiliar texture. Trees bowed under ice, limbs cracking like old vinyl records, while city workers fought to keep lanes passable. In small towns, church basements opened as warming centers with volunteer casseroles and donated blankets set out on rows of folding chairs.

The Cold Mechanism: Polar Vortex and the Debate Around It

Behind the weather was a stretched polar vortex—normally a compact ring of Arctic air that sometimes loosens and spills frigid conditions southward. Meteorologists have increasingly linked disruptions in these patterns to a warming Arctic, though not all scientists agree on the scale or causality.

“The polar vortex is like a rubber band. When it snaps, the cold spills out,” explained one climatologist familiar with the phenomenon. “Climate change can make those rubber bands behave differently—more erratic. But it’s still a complex system with natural variability.” The conversation between immediate, record-setting cold and long-term warming trends is messy; it doesn’t fit neatly into soundbites.

President Donald Trump, sheltering at the White House, reacted on Truth Social: “We will continue to monitor, and stay in touch with all States in the path of this storm. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm!” and later asked rhetorically, “Whatever happened to global warming???” Such reactions underscore a broader public confusion about how short-term extremes relate to long-term climate trajectories.

Human Stories: Small Acts, Great Courage

On the outskirts of Memphis, an EMT named Shari pulled off the road to hand a freeze-stiffened man a thermal blanket. “I couldn’t leave him there,” she said. “You see the headlines—then you see a single person shivering on a bus bench and you know the numbers are faces.” In New York, shelter workers reported surges of people seeking refuge from the cold. “Our intake doubled overnight,” one shelter manager said. “Blankets ran out faster than we expected.”

Stories like these reveal an uncomfortable truth: weather mortality often maps onto social vulnerability. People experiencing homelessness, older adults on fixed incomes, and households without adequate insulation or funds for emergency heating are disproportionately at risk.

What This Storm Asks of Us

So what should we take from a weekend when ice brought the South to a shudder and the North to a freeze? First, that resilience is not evenly distributed. Second, that infrastructure—both physical and social—matters. Third, that climate conversations must bridge the immediate and the abstract.

Consider these facts:

At least 11 people died over the weekend across multiple states.
More than 840,000 customers experienced power outages, with Tennessee alone reporting over 300,000 affected.
Flight disruptions topped 19,000 cancellations; more than 20 states declared states of emergency.
Wind chill lows in parts of the northern plains and upper Midwest were forecast to plunge to around -45°C (-49°F), where frostbite can arrive within minutes.

Small Actions, Big Influence

There are practical things communities and individuals can do now: open warming centers, prioritize restoring power to critical facilities like hospitals and elder-care homes, and expand outreach to people sleeping outdoors. On a personal level, checking on neighbors, keeping emergency kits handy, and heeding official weather advisories save lives.

Here are a few simple reminders many communities are sharing:

Stay off the roads unless travel is essential.
If you lose power, use generators outdoors and never run them in enclosed spaces.
Look in on elderly neighbors and those with mobility issues.
Tune into local emergency channels and watch for updates from the NWS.

Looking Ahead: A Warming World That Gets Colder Sometimes

Weather will always have a way of humbling us. But these events also ask larger questions: Are our grids robust enough for extremes? Do our cities protect the most vulnerable? How do we translate the science of shifting atmospheric patterns into better planning and more humane emergency responses?

When the thaw finally comes, there will be a tally: repairs to roofs and power lines, insurance claims, and, tragically, lives that cannot be returned. But there will also be lessons, hard-earned and practical. Can we use them to build systems that keep people warm and safe, no matter what the sky does next?

As you read this, what would you do if your heater failed tomorrow? Who would you call? Whose doorstep would you check? The storm asked those questions of a nation this weekend—and the answers will shape how we weather the next one.

Human rights group: Iran protest deaths now nearly 6,000

hanad

January 26, 2026

Rights group says Iran protest death toll nears 6,000 — The Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had confirmed that 5,848 people had been killed during the protests, including 209 members of the security forces

When the Lights Went Out: Iran’s Winter of Protest and the Quiet before the Storm

Walk into Enghelab Square in Tehran and you can still smell the ash. Not from a single bonfire, but from months of anger that have been burned into the city’s memory—slogans wicked into walls, banners flapping where shops once hung glistening textiles, and a new billboard looming over the center that shows a U.S. aircraft carrier sinking beneath a smudge of black smoke. “If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind,” its English words hiss like a cautionary tale to anyone who reads it.

This is not a tidy, one-paragraph story with neat causes and clear consequences. It began in late December as a chorus of economic complaints—jobs lost, prices skyrocketing, daily life hollowed by hardship—and by early January it had transformed into something far larger: mass street demonstrations that filled avenues and parks, voices rising against a system older than many of the protesters themselves.

The shadow of the blackout

Then the lights went out—not the streetlamps, but the internet. For 18 days and counting, Iran has been shrouded by a near-total communications blackout that officials insist is a matter of “security,” and rights groups warn is the cover for one of the most severe crackdowns in recent memory.

Netblocks, the internet-monitoring group, says the shutdown has “obscured the extent of a deadly crackdown on civilians,” tightening what it calls the “filternet” and allowing state narratives to move through a narrowed channel. “A blackout doesn’t just stop memes and videos,” a researcher at Netblocks told me. “It stops evidence. It stops coordination. And it stops the outside world from seeing what happens next.”

Counting the uncountable

How many lives were lost? There is no easy answer. A US-based rights organization, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), says it has confirmed 5,848 deaths tied to the protests, including 209 members of the security forces—yet it also lists 17,091 possible additional fatalities still under investigation. Arrests, HRANA reports, exceed 41,000.

Iranian authorities, offering their first official tally, put the death toll at 3,117 and said most were security personnel or civilians killed by violent “rioters.” The discrepancy speaks to the blackout’s effect: we are reading from different dictionaries of truth, each defined by access.

HRANA confirmed deaths: 5,848 (plus 17,091 possible)
Iran official toll: 3,117
Arrests reported by HRANA: at least 41,283
Internet shutdown: 18 days and ongoing, per Netblocks

“These numbers are not just statistics,” said Leila, a rights activist who asked to speak on background because her family is still inside Iran. “They are names. They are funerals. But when the networks are down, names become rumors and funerals do not get counted.”

Tensions beyond the border

Meanwhile, the protests have rippled outward. The U.S. publicly keeps military options on the table—President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would rather “not see anything happen,” while insisting a “massive fleet” is headed to the region “just in case.” U.S. media reported the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to the area, a move that brought an immediate, thunderous warning from Tehran.

“The arrival of such a battleship is not going to affect Iran’s determination and seriousness to defend the Iranian nation,” said Esmaeil Baghaei, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman. The state has also plastered anti-American imagery across public spaces and mobilized allies: Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based group historically backed by Tehran, organized rallies supporting the Islamic Republic and warning against “American-Zionist sabotage.”

There is a poetry—and a danger—in the choreography of these actors. Inside Iran, the central conflict is about governance, dignity, and economic survival. Outside Iran, the same events are being read as pieces on a geopolitical chessboard.

Voices from the streets

Sitting in a teahouse near an alley where a protest once marched, Mahmoud, a shopkeeper whose storefront glass carries a spiderweb crack from a baton-throwing night, shrugged at the mention of outside military intervention. “We don’t need boats or bombs to change things,” he said, rubbing his fingers over a chipped cup. “We need to be able to speak to each other. We need to know people don’t disappear into the dark.” His voice was quiet but steady, as if rehearsing what should be obvious: agency, not invasion.

A young woman who gave her name as Zahra, a university student, laughed when asked whether she thought foreign troops could help. “They could lift the carrier into our living rooms, but they cannot lift the fear from our mothers’ hearts,” she said. “Change, if it comes, has to be for us and by us.”

The anatomy of a modern crackdown

What we are witnessing is now a template seen in other countries: protest movements grow from economic grievance into demands for political reform; states respond with force and information controls; outside powers posture, and diaspora media scramble to stitch the story together. But each replay reveals fresh cruelties—arrest numbers in the tens of thousands, funerals held quietly at dusk, journalists blocked or expelled, rights workers hunted.

“These are not spontaneous hiccups,” a veteran human-rights researcher told me. “They are deliberate strategies: silence the networks, flood the streets with masked forces, push a narrative that frames all dissent as foreign-instigated. It’s an old playbook with new tools.”

What the world should watch

We can watch the immediate signs: the billboard in Enghelab Square, the rallies in Beirut where Hezbollah voices speak, the tweets that momentarily slip through the filtration. But there are larger currents at work: the erosion of civic space, the normalization of internet shutdowns, and the geopolitical feedback loop that makes local grievances global flashpoints.

Ask yourself: when a state chooses to sever its people’s digital lifeline, who holds it to account? How do we verify a death toll when witnesses cannot share their testimony? And perhaps more fundamentally—what responsibility do distant governments have when their military presence risks becoming a catalyst rather than a cure?

After the sirens

Winter has a way of revealing what summer conceals: the bones of buildings, the sturdiness of friendships, the fragility of systems. Whether these protests will end in reshaping the political landscape, in repression that for a time smothers dissent, or in something in between remains uncertain. The only thing we can say for sure is that when the blackout ends and the first videos reappear, the world will see scars and stories that were once hidden.

“We are not helpless,” Zahra told me as she left the teahouse, shoulders squared against the cold. “We are tired, yes. Angry, yes. But not helpless. That is what they fear the most.” Her confession lingers: a reminder that beyond the charts and carrier movements and diplomatic sparring, this story is, at its core, about people who want to be seen and heard.

Will the world listen? Or will we wait for the next blackout to learn the same lesson anew?

Labour panel blocks Burnham’s attempt to reclaim his MP seat

hanad

January 26, 2026

Burnham's bid to return as MP blocked by Labour body — Andy Burnham is regarded as a potential rival to party leader Keir Starmer

The day Manchester’s mayor was told “not yet”: inside a choice that exposed Labour’s fault lines

The rain had just let up over Manchester when I walked past Piccadilly Gardens and felt the city’s familiar mix of grit and optimism: builders’ vans, a woman hauling grocery bags, a teenager with a football tucked under his arm. It’s the sort of place where the person on the campaign leaflets becomes almost tangible—the mayor you see at community centres, at hospital launches, on TV reminding people they’re not invisible.

So when Andy Burnham, the city’s twice-elected mayor and a national figure with long Westminster experience, sought permission this week to run for parliament in a sudden by-election, it felt like the opening of a chapter in a political novel. But the plot took a sharp turn: Labour’s National Executive Committee (the NEC), the party’s governing body, declined to grant him permission. The reason given was pragmatic—avoiding the cost and disruption of a mayoral by-election in Greater Manchester while the party prepares for elections in May—but the reverberations are about more than money.

What the NEC said — and what it didn’t

Labour’s ruling body released a statement explaining that directly elected mayors must seek NEC approval before standing as candidates for Westminster. The committee argued that Burnham’s attempt to contest the Gorton and Denton seat would have triggered a mayoral by-election, one that would divert funds, volunteers and attention away from the party’s wider campaign ahead of the May local elections and the votes for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd.

“We must weigh the public cost and the campaign risk,” a senior NEC source told me off the record. “A mayoral by-election isn’t just a headline; it’s tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of pounds, and it draws on people-power we can’t afford to scatter right now.”

That financial framing was the core justification: the NEC said it feared “a substantial and disproportionate impact on party campaign resources,” even though the committee was confident Labour would retain the mayoralty. But to many, the ruling felt less like neutral stewardship and more like a political block—one that keeps a high-profile potential rival in his current post rather than letting local members decide.

Local reactions: pride, puzzlement and a sting of disappointment

On the market stalls of Gorton, where the by-election will be fought, people’s responses were a patchwork.

“This is local democracy, isn’t it?” said Aisha Khan, a hairdresser who has lived in the area for 24 years. “I want to choose the person who will be our MP. If Andy thinks he can help, why shouldn’t members have a say? It feels like decisions are being made upstairs and we’re not in the room.”

At a community centre in Denton, a retired teacher named Paul Griffiths shrugged. “Andy’s done good by the city,” he said, stirring his tea. “But I worry about money—if a new election would cost taxpayers, that’s not great either. It’s messy.”

Party unity vs. local democracy: a long-running tension

The row has highlighted a perennial dilemma for political parties: who gets the final say—local members or central bodies? Inside Labour’s tent the debate has become urgent and emotionally charged. Several senior figures, including deputy leader Lucy Powell and cabinet minister Ed Miliband, publicly urged that the question of Burnham’s candidature be left to local members to decide. Both are members of the NEC, and their intervention suggests this was not a straightforward procedural matter but one with broader strategic and symbolic stakes.

“There’s a real desire among activists to be trusted,” said a city councillor who supported Burnham’s application. “People are fed up with top-down decisions. If the job was to build trust between the party and its grassroots, this didn’t help.”

What Burnham himself said

Burnham framed his bid in moral, almost heroic terms. In a letter to the NEC he described the Gorton and Denton by-election as “the front line” of a fight against divisive politics, saying he felt a duty to step forward. “I owe it to a city which has given me so much to lead from the front,” he wrote—a sentiment that resonates with many who see him as a mayor deeply embedded in the life of Greater Manchester.

To some, his stance reads like the final act of a seasoned Westminster hand who prefers to lead from a platform of proven local credibility; to others it carries the hint of a leadership centre of gravity shifting away from party headquarters.

The practicalities: costs, timing and other looming votes

There are concrete reasons the NEC was anxious. The UK’s local elections in May are already a logistical mountain—councils across the country prepare thousands of polling stations, and political parties marshal volunteers, staff and cash to contest seats. The Scottish Parliament has 129 members and the Senedd 60, and both devolved institutions will demand campaign focus and resources.

By-elections for mayoral posts are relatively rare and costly. Officials estimate such an election in Greater Manchester could run into tens of thousands of pounds at minimum and could stretch into the low hundreds of thousands depending on turnout and the length of the campaign. In an era where councils are facing budget squeezes and charity groups are reporting more people needing help with basics, the optics of ordering a new election are politically sensitive.

Beyond Manchester: what this says about modern parties

This isn’t just a Manchester story. Across democracies, parties are balancing organizational cohesion with pressures for democratic participation. Central bodies argue for discipline and strategic coordination; local activists push for agency and the right to choose. Which side wins often shapes how voters perceive a party’s openness.

“You can’t pretend there’s no tension here,” said Dr. Emily Carter, a political scientist who studies party organisation. “Central committees worry about resource efficiency and message discipline. Local members want authenticity and voice. Both concerns are valid, but they pull in different directions.”

Ask yourself: would you trust a party that always defers to local activists, even when coordination matters? Or would you prefer a tight central hand that sometimes looks paternalistic? There are no easy answers—only trade-offs.

What’s next

The NEC says it remains confident of winning the upcoming by-election without Burnham on the ballot. Labour will field another candidate in Gorton and Denton, and the seat—vacated after the MP cited health reasons—will be contested by a field of hopefuls. For Burnham, the refusal closes one door and leaves others open: his role as Manchester’s mayor remains secure for now, and he continues to be a figure who looms large in national conversations about Labour’s direction.

For the people of Manchester, this episode will be remembered not just as a political skirmish but as a signal—a test of how parties steward local voices when national strategy bites. The bigger question is whether the party can reconcile that tension before the next set of ballots arrive.

Closing thoughts

Walking back through the city that evening, I saw a poster on a lamppost for a cost-of-living advice centre, and a group of teenagers passing a pizza box. Politics in Manchester, as elsewhere, is woven into daily life—the practical concerns of heating bills, school places, the state of the neighbourhood park. Decisions made in meeting rooms and committee hearings ripple into those ordinary moments.

Is centralised caution protecting the public purse, or is it shutting down democratic choice? Does a mayor more useful in city hall mean a lost opportunity for change in Westminster? These are debates that will outlive a single by-election—and they are worth watching closely, not just in Manchester but across democracies where party control and grassroots voice are forever negotiating their fragile balance.

Political fallout mounts after Minnesota’s second shooting incident

hanad

January 26, 2026

Political backlash grows after second Minnesota shooting — A Minneapolis police officer throws tear gas at people gathered in Minneapolis

They came for coffee. A man left in a pool of questions.

On a frost-stiff Saturday morning in Minneapolis, people arrived at the corner coffee shop for the ordinary comforts of caffeine and conversation. Instead, they got a demolition of certainty: bright cell-phone screens, a growing crowd, a federal operation unfolding on the sidewalk, and then, in a breadth of seconds that still feels impossible, a man on the pavement and the roar of shots that would send the city into a week of grief and fury.

If you watched the videos—if you live in the loop where social feeds and cable news replace front pages—then you know the frames. You know the way cameras hesitate, the way witnesses whisper into their devices. But knowing the picture does not make the questions easier. What was a medical nurse doing among federal agents? Why did national officials, within hours, call him a would-be domestic terrorist? And why, as images proliferated online, did those words not line up with the pictures?

What unfolded that morning

The man shot was identified in hospital and social networks as Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who worked in the ICU at the Minneapolis VA. Witnesses at the scene say Mr. Pretti was filming with his phone or holding it as he helped someone to their feet when federal agents—part of an immigration enforcement operation—moved in. Videos circulating online appear to show an agent taking a handgun from Mr. Pretti’s waistband. As the agent walks away, the first shot rings out. The footage that other bystanders captured becomes the lens through which the nation has tried to make sense of the event.

“He was just trying to help a woman who slipped,” said Maya Hernandez, 24, a barista who watched from the shop’s window. “Everyone had their phones up. One moment he’s standing, the next—bang. People started screaming. Nobody expected blood.”

Officials turn up the rhetoric

Within hours, the federal message had hardened. Department of Homeland Security leaders and the border agency’s public spokesman described Mr. Pretti not as a bystander but as a threat—someone determined to “massacre” officers, they said, who had “brandished” a weapon and “assaulted” agents at the scene.

That language landed like a blow. It shaped how some viewers interpreted the raw footage; it shaped how lawmakers readied their responses. But for many who watched the videos, the official framing felt retrofitted to the images—an uneasy mismatch between claim and captured reality.

“They called him a suspect before any independent review,” said Asha Verma, a policy analyst at a Minneapolis-based public-safety institute. “When officials use incendiary language, it changes everything: the public’s perception, the political calculus, and the urgency with which people demand accountability.”

Evidence, bodycams and the court of social media

One of the most ferocious modern ironies is that footage both empowers and muddles. The bystander videos sped around the country within hours—rewinds for television, threads of analysis on social platforms, frame-by-frame breakdowns by citizen-investigators who treat each pixel like testimony. Yet officials say they have footage the public has not seen: bodycam video, internal recordings, other perspectives that could explain what was allegedly unseen on the viral clips.

“If you have exonerating material, put it out,” implored Tom Li, 42, a neighbor who runs a small nonprofit and watched the clip dozens of times. “We need to know—because right now we’re watching a man die on repeat and trying to reconcile that with words like ‘terrorist.’ That’s a dangerous contradiction.”

What we know and what we don’t

We know: Cellphone footage shows Mr. Pretti injured on the sidewalk and a handgun taken from his waistband.
We don’t know: Whether agents perceived an imminent threat that justified the use of deadly force; whether additional video exists that shows actions unseen in the public clips.
We know: Federal officials publicly described Mr. Pretti as a violent threat within hours.
We don’t know: What documentary evidence, if any, underlies those public assertions.

Political shockwaves

The impact was instant and pervasive. Senate leaders face a live political crisis as they consider whether to advance legislation that funds DHS, including ICE and Border Patrol operations. Senators from both parties said their votes would hinge on the administration’s transparency and the outcome of independent investigations. In Washington’s calculations, footage is not just evidence; it is leverage.

“We cannot hand over more money without an independent inquiry,” said a senior Democratic aide who asked not to be named. “This isn’t about funding in the abstract; it’s about how federal agencies operate in our communities.”

Meanwhile, in Minnesota—where the VA nurse who died was a local worker and where the balance between federal enforcement and municipal sovereignty is already fraught—state leaders called for answers. “Our communities deserve truth,” said a state official. “And families deserve to grieve without their loved ones being called criminals on the morning of their funerals.”

Voices from the street, the hospital and the studio

In the small circles that make up a city, reactions vary but share an undercurrent of mistrust. At the VA hospital, colleagues still process the loss of a nurse described by some as “selfless” and “steady.”

“Alex was the guy who sat with veterans when nobody else could,” said a coworker, who asked that her name not be used. “He’d work triple shifts. To have him named a terror suspect—that’s an insult to his life.”

On national television, the face of the border agency defended the narrative. He reiterated that agents felt endangered, and he suggested their training justified the preemptive use of force. To viewers, the exchange only deepened the divide between official account and public perception.

Why this matters beyond Minneapolis

There are bigger currents under this story: the federalization of law enforcement; the friction between local governments and national immigration priorities; the weaponization of narrative in a polarized media environment. And woven through all of it is the role of the Second Amendment and how Americans interpret public demonstrations where firearms may be present.

“This is a moment, not just for a single family, but for the country,” said Professor Elena Morales, who studies police accountability. “How we respond to these incidents—independent investigations, timely release of evidence, clear rules about federal-local cooperation—will determine whether trust frays further or begins to mend.”

Questions to sit with

When federal agents operate in a city, who sets the rules of engagement?
How should authorities weigh the public’s right to see evidence with the need for a fair investigation?
What happens to public trust when language from the top does not match the images on our screens?

What comes next

Investigations will proceed. Videos may be released. Lawmakers will posture, bargain and vote. Protesters will again take to streets already hardened by earlier clashes. A funding bill hangs in the balance—potentially tipping toward a shutdown if leaders cannot find common ground on transparency and reform. And a family will bury someone described, by those who knew him, as a caretaker.

For readers watching from elsewhere in the world, this is more than another American headline. It is a story about the erosion and repair of trust between people and the institutions supposed to protect them. It is about how technology has turned citizens into witnesses and witnesses into prosecutors. It is about what we demand from public servants when a clip on our phones becomes the only unmediated evidence we can trust.

What would you do if you saw a man fall on a sidewalk and the authorities’ words did not match what your eyes told you? How much evidence should be withheld in the name of procedure before the public loses faith?

There are no simple answers. But the persistence of the question matters. Because if a democracy cannot demand clear, timely truths when a life ends in public, then the scaffolding of accountability starts to creak—quietly at first, then loudly, in ways that touch us all.

12 3...228 Page 1 of 228