French court begins new trial over Air France Flight AF447 crash, 16 years later

September 30, 2025

French court opens new trial on AF447 crash 16 years ago — L-R: Jane Deasy, Eithne Walls and Aisling Butler

A Sea of Names: The AF447 Tragedy Reopens in a Paris Courtroom

There is a peculiar hush that settles over a courtroom when grief takes legal form. On a recent morning in Paris, that hush filled a tall, light-filled chamber as families rose in unison, standing shoulder to shoulder while a judge read aloud the 228 names of the people who vanished into the Atlantic on June 1, 2009.

They were not statistics; they were mothers and fathers, young professionals, tourists and pilots — and among them three young women from Ireland: Dr. Jane Deasy of County Dublin, Dr. Eithne Walls of County Down, and Dr. Aisling Butler of County Tipperary. All three were doctors returning from a holiday in Brazil. Their presence in that litany of names turned legal proceedings into a kind of communal remembrance.

The Trial Revisited: Manslaughter Charges and the Long Shadow of AF447

Sixteen years after Air France Flight 447 disappeared from radar on its overnight flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, the legal fight over culpability has restarted. Airbus and Air France pleaded not guilty at the beginning of a new two-month appeal trial in Paris where prosecutors will argue that the previous acquittal should be overturned and that corporate manslaughter charges are justified.

The 2009 disaster — the deadliest in France’s aviation history — became a global moment for aviation safety and corporate responsibility. Two years after the crash, a painstaking search recovered the aircraft’s black boxes, which showed that a confused cockpit response to intermittent airspeed readings led the Airbus A330 into an aerodynamic stall from which it did not recover. But the hard, technical facts have always shared the stage with questions about prior warnings, corporate choices, and whether those choices crossed a line into criminal negligence.

What’s at stake in the appeals court

At the heart of the appeal are the decisions by Airbus to delay changes to the Pitot probes — the little sensors on an aircraft’s nose that measure airspeed — and the way Air France trained and prepared its crews to cope with unreliable speed indications in high-altitude, night-time equatorial storms. In the first trial, after nine weeks of testimony, a Paris judge catalogued four acts of negligence by Airbus and one by Air France but concluded they did not legally cause the accident.

Prosecutors and many victims’ relatives disagree. “If you remove one of those acts of negligence, the chain breaks,” said Sébastien Busy, a lawyer representing an association of victims’ families. “Families need to know whether corporate decisions shortened lives. That’s why we keep fighting.”

Voices from the Courtroom: Memory, Mourning, and the Search for Accountability

The human scenes outside and inside the courtroom were as telling as the legal arguments. A relative who attended the opening session described the moment she heard her cousin’s name read out: “It’s like time stops. You step back into that night — you remember the phone calls that never came.”

Air France’s chief executive paid tribute to the victims. “This loss is engraved in our memories,” said the airline’s leader, addressing those present with a voice that tried to carry both sorrow and corporate defiance. Airbus’s CEO likewise acknowledged the suffering but insisted that neither the manufacturer nor the airline bore criminal responsibility. “The aviation industry is constantly reassessing its rules and systems to make flying safer,” he said, invoking a narrative of gradual improvement rather than culpability.

How families measure justice

For the relatives, the legal outcome is never only about fines or verdicts. It is about public recognition, about an admission that certain choices were wrong and about preventing future tragedies. The maximum fine for corporate manslaughter under French law is modest — just €225,000 — but the symbolic weight of a conviction could be immeasurable. “People ask why we keep reopening wounds,” a family member told me. “Because silence is itself a verdict.”

Technology, Training, and the Automation Question

The AF447 disaster sits squarely within a larger debate gripping modern aviation: how to balance automated systems and human judgement. At cruising altitude over the equator, pilots faced a temporary loss of airspeed data caused by ice-clogged Pitot probes. The autopilot disengaged. Instead of a textbook recovery, the aircraft entered an aerodynamic stall. The black boxes reveal confusion, contradictory instrument readings, and a failure to prioritize the aircraft’s aerodynamic state over raw numbers.

Experts in flight safety say AF447 exposed vulnerabilities in both hardware and human factors — not an either/or problem but the dangerous intersection of the two. “The sensors failed, but the cockpit did not manage the failure the way training and culture demanded,” said a senior aviation safety analyst. “It’s a lesson in designing systems where operators and machines speak the same language in a crisis.”

Since the crash, airlines and manufacturers around the world have implemented technical fixes, revised pilot training to stress manual flying recovery from high-altitude stalls, and improved sensor robustness. A partial list of industry changes includes:

Updated Pitot probe specifications and accelerated replacement programs for known vulnerable models.
New training modules focusing on manual recovery from high-altitude stalls and recognition of unreliable airspeed situations.
Greater emphasis on cross-checking instruments and cockpit communication under degraded-data conditions.

Why This Case Still Matters — For Aviation and for Us

What reverberates beyond the courtroom is a global question: how do we hold powerful technical institutions accountable when design choices ripple into tragedy? In an age when aircraft and algorithms increasingly share responsibility for safety, AF447 is a cautionary tale about complacency, corporate timidity, and the human cost of delayed action.

It’s also a story about the endurance of grief and the stubborn pursuit of answers. “You can never get them back,” said a close friend of one of the Irish victims. “But you can make sure their names force change.”

What does justice look like after a catastrophe whose causes are distributed across machines, manuals, and boardrooms? Is punishment the point, or is it reform, acknowledgement, a formal apology? The appeals court will wrestle with those questions in sessions running through late November, examining technical testimony that will span engineering minutiae and moral geometry.

A final reflection

When you next step into an airplane, think for a moment about the invisible threads that keep you aloft: sensors and software, crews and checklists, regulators and manufacturers. Think too about the families who still mark a date on the calendar and wait for a verdict that acknowledges what they already know in their bones: a decision was made somewhere that night over the Atlantic — about parts, about priorities, about training — and it cost 228 people their lives.

In memory and in law, that is why this trial matters, and why the consequences extend far beyond a courtroom in Paris. It is a case about how societies choose to reckon with technology, distraction, and the fragile trust we place in systems that promise safety.

Alleged would-be assassin of Charlie Kirk appears in court

hanad

September 30, 2025

Charlie Kirk's accused assassin makes court appearance — Tyler Robinson is accused of firing the single rifle shot from a rooftop sniper's perch that took Charlie Kirk's life on 10 September

A Quiet College Town Shaken: The Arrest and Court Drama After Charlie Kirk’s Killing

On a brisk autumn morning in Utah, a courthouse felt heavier than usual — not because of stone and timber, but because of something more fragile: the question of why a young man is accused of ending another’s life and what that crime has done to a community already raw with division.

Tyler Robinson, 22, appeared briefly by video from the county jail as his new defense attorney quietly told a judge that she would not waive a preliminary hearing. It was a procedural moment — the kind judges call routine — but the backstory is anything but. Prosecutors say Robinson fired a single rifle shot from a rooftop perch on 10 September, killing right‑wing activist Charlie Kirk as Kirk addressed a crowd on a university campus in Orem. The arrest came after a 33‑hour manhunt, and Robinson now sits in jail without bond facing aggravated murder and related charges. Prosecutors have stated they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

Snapshots from the Courtroom

“We need time to review voluminous evidence,” Kathryn Nester, Robinson’s court‑appointed lawyer, told Utah Fourth District Judge Tony Graf in a courtroom in Provo. The line was measured, legalese softened by exhaustion; it suggested a defense that intends to contest both facts and narrative. The judge set a status conference for 30 October, when the defendant is expected to appear in person.

Under Utah law defendants do not enter a plea until after a preliminary hearing — a mini‑trial in which a judge decides whether there’s enough evidence to move forward. It is the hinge on which months, perhaps years, of litigation, politics, and public imagination will turn.

From Rooftop to Headlines

The killing has been a loud punctuation mark in a year already saturated with political spectacle. Graphic video clips of the shooting circulated quickly online, sparking outrage, conspiracy, and a torrent of partisan finger‑pointing. Late‑night television host commentary drew such a firestorm that a program faced suspension, and the White House weighed in with a directive aimed at what the president described as organised efforts to incite political violence — even while no evidence has publicly tied Robinson to any organized group.

What lurks beneath all these headlines are messy human details. Charging documents allege that Robinson privately confessed in text messages to his live‑in partner, writing, “I had enough of his hatred.” If accurate, those messages complicate any attempt to fit this into tidy categories of lone actor versus conspirator, ideological martyr versus criminal opportunist.

What the Prosecutors Say

Prosecutors have described the case as built on a mix of digital footprints, physical evidence, and witness accounts. “We will seek justice for the victim and his family,” one prosecutor said during proceedings, summing up their posture without elaborating on the specifics they called “voluminous.” The suggestion is that there is a trove of material — texts, social media, ballistic reports — that could take defense counsel months to parse.

A Town in the Wake

Orem is not New York. It is a college town with chain coffee shops, moving vans, an everyday cadence of classes and church meetings. Yet on that evening in September, the ordinary became extraordinary. Students who had gathered for a speech scattered when the sound of the shot was heard; a few described seeing a flash on a roof, others said they only realized the gravity of what happened because of the unfolding video online.

“I was in line at the burrito place two blocks away,” said Maya Lewis, a local student. “You don’t expect a night like that here. It felt like someone had cut the lights out of our normal life.”

Neighbors described law enforcement scouring rooftops, doors knocked, questions asked. A retired pastor, who asked not to be named, told me he had spent two days fielding calls from shaken members of his congregation. “People here talk about politics at the backyard fence, not at the edge of a rifle,” he said. “This has made us feel the distance between words and actions, and it terrifies us.”

Local Color and Cultural Threads

Given the town’s demographics — a strong presence of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints and a culture organized around church wards, family dinners, and campus life — the shooting has felt especially intrusive. Students who travel from tight‑knit communities across the West are left to reconcile their hometown routines with a violence that felt at once foreign and unnervingly close.

“It’s like we’re living two lives now,” said Rafael Ortiz, who works at a campus bookstore. “There’s the life I came here for — books, classes, coffee — and then there’s everything else that hums under the news.”

Where This Fits in a Larger Pattern

This killing has been absorbed into a broader national anxiety about political violence. Over the past several years, federal law enforcement and independent watchdogs have noted a worrying uptick in ideologically motivated attacks, targeted threats against public figures, and the amplification of grievances online. The slippage from angry rhetoric to lethal action is a pattern that communities across the country are watching with growing alarm.

“We’re seeing the nationalization of rage,” said Dr. Lena Marshall, a political violence scholar. “Polarized narratives make it easier for those who feel justified in committing violence to see themselves as actors in a larger story rather than people committing crimes. The legal system must be ready to untangle motive, organization, and culpability in cases like this.”

Questions That Won’t Stay Quiet

For residents and observers alike, the case raises uncomfortable questions. How will the justice system balance a thorough evidentiary review with a public that demands quick answers? What role did social media play in radicalizing or facilitating the act, if any? And how will the families of the accused and the victim weather the glare of national scrutiny?

There are no easy answers. The defense has signaled a methodical approach; prosecutors have signaled a firm will to seek the maximum penalty. The community has signaled, in neighborhood vigils and online threads, a hunger for both accountability and, curiously, for healing.

Looking Ahead

The next procedural step is still months away. A preliminary hearing must be scheduled — barring delays — and discovery will likely take time as attorneys sift through the evidence described as “voluminous.” On 30 October the court will reconvene for a status hearing; beyond that, the calendar will reflect the slow, deliberate cadence of criminal justice.

But while the legal machinery turns, the human story remains immediate. Families grieve. Students try to study. A town asks how it can prevent a night like that from happening again.

What should we, as a nation, take from this? Perhaps the clearest lesson is the fragility of public life in an era of bitter polarization. Words are cheap; actions are not. As this case moves through courtrooms and feeds into the national conversation, we are left to wonder whether the responses we make — legal, social, cultural — will stitch communities back together or simply stitch them further apart.

What kind of country do we want to be when a rooftop can change the course of a small town’s history? How do we stop rhetoric from becoming harm? These are the questions that will outlast the headlines.

Heavy Rains Force Closures of Schools, Parks Across Eastern Spain

hanad

September 29, 2025

Schools, parks closed as heavy rains lash eastern Spain — A man jumps sandbags, installed to prevent the overflow of the La Saleta ravine in Valencia, today

Valencia on Edge: Another Night of Torrential Rain Reopens Old Wounds

The rain arrived like a referee’s whistle at midnight — sudden, uncompromising, and impossible to ignore. Sheets of cold water hammered tile roofs, ran in dirty ribbons down narrow streets, and turned the usually placid irrigation channels into fast, churning streams. By dawn, the city of Valencia and its surrounding towns had been placed under a red alert, schools were closed, public parks and libraries shuttered, and the air felt electric with memory: the terrible memory of last October, when floods took more than 230 lives across the region.

What Officials Are Saying

Spain’s national weather agency, AEMET, did not mince words. In a terse bulletin, forecasters warned of a “very complicated situation” across the Mediterranean strip, elevating the threat to “extraordinary danger” for provinces including Valencia, Castellón and the Catalan province of Tarragona.

“We are facing intense, localized downpours that can overwhelm rivers and barrancos (ravines) in a matter of hours,” said an AEMET spokesperson. “Our models show heavy convective cells forming over the warm sea — the risk of flash flooding is high.”

Local governments moved quickly to close schools, universities, markets and cemeteries in the city of Valencia for the day, and municipal authorities in Aldaia — one of the towns that suffered devastating damage in October — ordered precautionary closures of public spaces. So far, officials are reporting no injuries linked to this latest episode, but tension is high and patience thin.

On the Ground in Aldaia

Aldaia feels, at once, smaller and more fragile than the maps suggest. The town’s skyline is a jumble of apartment blocks, orange trees, and the old tram lines that cut through its heart. Residents here speak of the ravine, the barranco, as if it were a living thing: placid for years and suddenly, without much warning, ferocious.

“It started at about midnight. You could hear it before you saw it — a kind of drumming on the tiles,” recalled Elena, a primary school teacher who has lived in Aldaia for two decades. “We closed the shutters and waited. After last year, you don’t sleep well when it rains hard.”

Families on the main street pulled their cars into garages; shopkeepers taped water barriers across doorways. “We’ve seen worse, but nothing like October,” said Jorge, who runs a small paella restaurant near the riverbed. “People called each other all night, checking on grandparents. That’s what we do here — we look after one another.”

Closure Notices and Precautions

Authorities published lists of closures and safety measures in local bulletins and social media posts.

Schools and universities: closed
Parks, libraries, markets, cemeteries: closed
Public transport: limited or redirected in areas with flooding
Residents advised: avoid riverbeds and low-lying roads, follow municipal alerts

Memory, Mourning and Anger

If you talk to people here, you quickly understand how rain is not just a weather topic — it is political and personal. The wounds of last October still feel raw. Public anger then focused on warning systems, the speed of emergency responses, and deeper questions about who was prioritized for rescue and recovery.

“We must get better at warning people,” said Rosa, a community activist who helped organize a neighborhood watch after last year’s floods. “Not everyone has access to apps or constant internet. Some of our older neighbors sleep with the radio off. If the alert comes too late, it’s meaningless.”

That frustration fed into larger tensions between Spain’s left-leaning central government and conservative regional leaders, a feud that played out across press conferences and parliamentary exchanges last autumn. For many locals, the politics felt like a distraction from the more urgent issue: rebuilding trust and infrastructure that can withstand climate-driven extremes.

Climate in the Conversation

This is not a local story alone. It is part of a wider, global pattern: a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and that moisture can fall in concentrated, intense bursts when conditions are right. The basic physics are straightforward — the atmosphere can hold roughly 7% more water vapor for every 1°C of warming, a relationship known as the Clausius-Clapeyron rule — but the consequences play out on the ground in heartbreakingly complex ways.

“We are seeing more intense convective storms in the Mediterranean basin,” explained Dr. Luis Moreno, a climate scientist at a university in Valencia. “Combine warmer seas with atmospheric instability and you get thunderstorms that dump enormous amounts of rain in a short period. Urban areas, with their impermeable surfaces, have higher runoff, and old drainage systems often cannot cope.”

Across southern Europe, the double threat of more frequent droughts and more intense downpours is forcing a rethinking of water management, urban planning and emergency preparedness. In Valencia, irreverent summer festivals like Las Fallas are as much a part of the local psyche as the citrus orchards that scent the air in spring — but those traditions now sit alongside growing anxiety about how climate extremes are changing the rhythms of life.

Beyond Blame: What Needs to Change

The immediate task — keeping people safe — is one of communications, logistics and humility. That means ensuring alerts reach everyone, strengthening evacuation routes, and getting rescue services the support they need without falling into bureaucratic paralysis. It also means confronting longer-term questions about land use, urban drainage, and the underinvestment in infrastructure that becomes most apparent when the sky opens.

“We need multi-layered systems,” said an anonymous municipal emergency planner. “Technology is important, but so is community knowledge — the people who know which streets flood first, the elders who remember where the old channels used to run. We need both.”

There is, too, a need for honest accounting. Were warnings timely? Was information shared clearly across regional and national authorities? Those questions will be asked again, and they deserve answers that focus on saving lives rather than scoring political points.

What You Can Do — and What to Watch

For readers near flood-prone areas, the portfolio of practical steps is familiar but vital: register for local alerts, set up a family plan, avoid driving through flooded roads, and have a waterproof bag of essentials if evacuation becomes necessary. But there is also a role for broader civic engagement: push for transparent post-disaster investigations, demand resilient infrastructure budgets, and support community-led preparedness programs.

Will Valencia and its neighbors alter course, building a future where the next great storm is less likely to become a catastrophe? History suggests change is possible — but it will depend on whether political will, scientific knowledge, and community care can be braided together into stronger protection for the most vulnerable.

Tonight the rain will stop or it won’t. Tomorrow the debate will continue. For now, the city holds its breath and the people, as ever, move through the downpour with small acts of kindness: baristas delivering hot coffee to exhausted workers, neighbors helping to sandbag doorways, a teenager standing guard at a corner to warn drivers of a sinkhole forming beneath the asphalt.

How do we want to live with a sky that is sending us new kinds of weather? That is the question Valencians are asking as they peer out at the rain. We might not have an answer yet, but the urgency of the question feels, finally, impossible to ignore.

Two people killed in Ukraine-launched drone strike outside Moscow

hanad

September 29, 2025

Two people killed in Ukrainian drone strike near Moscow — The US is considering Ukraine's request to obtain long-range Tomahawk missiles for its effort to push back against Russia

A Night of Fire and Falling Sky: How a Drone Strike Reached the Doorstep of Moscow

In Voskresensk, the night still smelled of ash and boiled cabbage long after the sirens fell silent. A private house—yellowed siding and a porch that had seen better winters—had been reduced to a blackened skeleton of its former warmth. A child’s shoe lay melted into the driveway, and a small plastic horse, once an ordinary piece of play, sat warped and blackened like a relic from a story you tell in the morning to keep from screaming at night.

“I saw a bright streak,” said Marina Petrovna, a neighbor who had rushed outside in her slippers. “At first I thought it was lightning. Then the roof went up like paper. We don’t sleep when the planes come. We pray.”

That prayer was not enough. Regional authorities confirmed the worst: a 76-year-old woman and her six-year-old grandson were killed when a fire, ignited during a night of air-defence action, consumed their home. Governor Andrey Vorobyov said air-defences had intercepted four drones over Voskresensk and nearby Kolomna, but in the fog of explosions and falling debris tragedy struck a residential street 88km southeast of Moscow.

The local, seen through the global

To stand where the house once stood is to confront how war migrates from software and satellites into small, human places. Voskresensk is not a battlefield in the classical sense—it’s a town with a train station, small grocery shops with handwritten price lists, and Saturday markets where babushkas still argue for a ruble’s worth of tomatoes. But modern conflict—made of fiberglass, batteries and explosive payloads—has a new geography, and it ignores municipal limits.

“We are used to the distant rumble,” said Ivan Sokolov, a volunteer firefighter. “But tonight it felt like the sky itself was breaking. When drones are shot down, fragments fall. Sometimes the intercepts are what start the fires, sometimes the ordnance. You can’t tell in the dark.”

Numbers that matter

In the span of a week, the airwaves and regional briefings offered a litany of figures: Russia’s defence ministry reported that 84 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight, with four detonations over the Moscow region. Officials in Kyiv, meanwhile, said that on a previous night they faced an unprecedented barrage—some 595 drones and 48 missiles—many of which were downed by Ukrainian air-defences but not without cost; at least four people were killed in Kyiv during that wave.

Figures like these are dizzying when you try to hold them in your head. They point to something else: the democratization of aerial attack. Drones, small and relatively cheap, have scaled fast. Where once only states with deep arsenals could threaten cities, now medium-sized forces can project danger into urban neighborhoods hundreds of kilometers away.

Four drones were reported shot down over Voskresensk and Kolomna.
Two civilians killed in the Voskresensk blaze: a 76-year-old woman and her 6-year-old grandson.
Russia said 84 Ukrainian drones were intercepted that night; the previous night Ukraine reported facing 595 drones and 48 missiles.
Voskresensk lies about 88 km southeast of Moscow.

When range becomes a political weapon

As the night’s ashes cooled, another question moved through diplomatic corridors: how far can a response reach? American consideration of supplying Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles—systems with a range of roughly 2,500km—has injected a new kind of tension into the calculus. Vice-President JD Vance told television audiences that Washington was considering Ukraine’s request and that President Donald Trump would make the final decision. Keith Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy, suggested that the president had signalled support for Kyiv’s ability to hit deep.

“If long-range strike capabilities reach Kyiv, the map of perceived sanctuaries changes overnight,” said Dr. Elena Markova, a security analyst who has tracked Eurasian conflict dynamics for two decades. “That’s not only a military calculation; it’s a political and humanitarian one. The risk of escalation is not theoretical.”

To translate the numbers into place: a 2,500km range could theoretically allow Ukrainian forces to target installations deep inside Russian territory. For some in Kyiv, that capability represents deterrence and a means to degrade logistics and weapon supply chains. For others in Moscow and beyond, it signals a dangerous broadening of the war.

Voices from the rubble—and beyond

At the scene in Voskresensk, the grief was immediate, intimate, and stubbornly human. “She used to bake honey cake every Sunday,” said Oksana, a distant cousin who had come to identify the charred possessions. “He loved trains and toy soldiers. How do you explain to a child that an ordinary night becomes like this? How do you explain that the sky is dangerous?”

Local volunteer groups—some organized through church networks, others through ad-hoc Telegram chats—were there before the official humanitarian convoys arrived. They handed out blankets, offered hot tea and tried to translate abstract national debates into practical compassion.

“People ask us why we stay,” said one volunteer, Sergei, as he stacked insulated cups. “Because if we don’t, who will? Wars are fought by armies but suffered by cities.”

Beyond the incident: a wider conversation

What happened in Voskresensk is not an isolated calamity. It is a symptom of how modern conflict has diffused into everyday life. Small towns that once measured threats by weather reports now scan the horizon for glows and streaks. Air defences, once the purview of front-line militaries, are now part of municipal emergency planning. And crucially, the potential introduction of very long-range weapons into the conflict threatens to redraw lines that had, until recently, felt fixed.

There are no easy answers. Diplomacy seems stalled: the Kremlin’s spokesman said there have been “basically no signals” from Kyiv about resuming talks. In the absence of dialogue, each new technical capability is read as leverage, and every strike—intentional or accidental—feeds the cycle of retaliation.

Questions to carry with you

As you close this page and step back into your own day, consider a few disquieting questions: What does the expansion of drone warfare mean for civilians worldwide? How do policymakers weigh the tactical advantage of long-range weaponry against the strategic risks of escalation? And what is the human cost of a conflict that increasingly reaches into kitchens, playgrounds, and living rooms?

There are no neat conclusions. In the shadow of the ruined house in Voskresensk, a swing swayed by a late breeze and a blackened kettle on the embers of what used to be a hearth stand as small, stubborn reminders: wars are measured in maps, but they are lived in homes.

“We will tell their names,” Marina said, looking at the demolished porch. “We will remember the small things. That is all we can do now.”

EU praises Moldova’s pro-European election choice, welcomes democratic mandate

hanad

September 29, 2025

EU hails Moldova's 'European' choice in election — Moldovan president Maia Sandu prepares to cast her vote

When a Small Country Makes a Big Choice: Moldova’s Vote for Europe

On a crisp autumn evening in Chișinău, under the soft glow of street lamps and the shadow of Soviet-era apartment blocks, people pressed close together on the pavement, clutching steaming cups of coffee and fluttering blue-and-yellow EU flags. Some hugged. Others wiped away tears. The mood was not triumphalism so much as relief: a nation of 2.4 million had, in a single ballot, answered a painful question about identity, future and sovereignty.

“We felt like our voices had been under attack,” said Ana Popescu, a teacher in her thirties, as she folded her flag into neat squares. “Tonight we said: we choose to stand with Europe. For our children. For the rule of law.”

The Numbers That Closed a Chapter — For Now

With nearly all votes counted, the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), the pro-EU force led by President Maia Sandu, captured roughly 50.1% of the vote. The Patriotic Bloc, a loose coalition leaning toward Moscow, lagged at about 24.2%. Those figures, tallied and released by Moldova’s electoral commission, will allow the ruling party to govern without the kind of fractious horse trading that has dogged the country for decades — and to double down on a policy many here see as existential: joining the European Union by 2030.

“This is a loud and clear message,” wrote European Council chief Antonio Costa, echoing what felt like the mood in the streets. “They chose democracy, reform and a European future.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was even blunt on social media: “No attempt to sow fear or division could break your resolve. You made your choice clear: Europe. Democracy. Freedom.”

Under a Heavy Sky: Disinformation, Cyber Attacks, and Intimidation

The election’s backdrop was dark. Moldova has been battered economically by the war in neighboring Ukraine, its energy supplies are vulnerable to pressure from Russia, and information streams are saturated with disinformation. Officials say there were cyber attacks on government websites, fake bomb threats called into polling stations at home and abroad, and a systematic campaign of misleading messaging aimed at frightening voters into staying home or switching sides.

“They were trying to buy not only votes but also trust,” said Stanislav Secrieru, a national security adviser, describing a mosaic of sabotage tactics. “We saw targeted ads, falsified audio, and social media accounts pretending to be neighbors, friends, priests — anyone who could undermine confidence in the process.”

Igor Dodon, a former president and leader associated with the Patriotic Bloc, urged supporters to protest the results in front of parliament the day after voting. He claimed irregularities without producing solid evidence. For now, his call remains a test of how deep the country’s divisions are — and whether Moscow-aligned forces can translate online influence into mass mobilization.

Voices from the Marketplace and the Countryside

At the central market, where vendors hawked plums and jars of home-fermented wine, reactions were raw and varied. “We have family in Italy,” said Ion, a middle-aged seller who rubbed his hands, smelling of tobacco. “When they say Europe, I think of clearer rules, my grandchildren studying abroad, maybe coming home like my son used to.”

But dissent is real, too. In the autonomous region of Gagauzia and in pockets of the north, older residents spoke of nostalgia for cheaper energy, local ties to Russia, and fear of a future they didn’t recognize. “It is not that we hate Europe,” said Elena, an 68-year-old from a village outside Bălți. “We simply worry that prices rise, that our voices will be drowned by new rules.”

Young people were among the most visibly elated. A group of university students danced a clumsy hora outside a café, mixing traditional folk steps with laughter and selfies. “This is our chance to rebuild institutions that work,” said 22-year-old student Andrei. “Not only to say we want Europe, but to make it real.”

Why This Vote Matters Beyond Moldova’s Borders

Moldova’s choice is more than a domestic political victory. It is a bellwether in a region where the lines between East and West are being redrawn. Since being granted EU candidate status in 2022, Moldova has accelerated reform efforts while balancing the immediate pressures of the war in Ukraine and the presence of Russian troops in the breakaway region of Transnistria.

Economically, Moldova is fragile but resilient. Remittances — money sent home by Moldovans working abroad — account for roughly a fifth of the country’s GDP, propping up households yet also exposing the national economy to external shocks. Inflation sits at roughly 7%, and many families still contend with higher-than-desired energy bills after years of reliance on imported gas. Those realities fed the opposition’s messaging and made this election a contest of bread-and-butter anxieties as much as geopolitics.

The Geopolitics of a Small State

A vote for a European future in Chișinău sends ripples to Brussels and Moscow alike. If Moldova stays on track toward EU accession, it will complicate Russian influence in the region and offer a symbolic victory to Western efforts to expand democratic norms after the trauma of Ukraine. For Russia, by contrast, Moldova’s pivot represents a loss of leverage in the post-Soviet space — and a reminder of how information operations can be used to keep neighboring countries off balance.

What Comes Next: Governance, Reform, and Real Risks

With parliamentary control, PAS has a clearer runway to push judicial reform, tackle corruption and meet EU benchmarks. But winning elections is only the start. Implementing laws that change how courts work, how businesses are regulated, and how public money is spent will be messy and politically costly. “The honeymoon will be short,” predicted Dr. Ana Grigore, a political scientist at the State University of Moldova. “Success will hinge on delivering tangible improvements quickly — not just slogans.”

There is also a sober question hanging over the capital and the countryside alike: can a small country maintain its democratic trajectory under constant asymmetric pressure? Cyber threats, economic coercion, and the weaponization of migration and energy are not easily defended against.

On the Street, an Invitation to Reflect

As the night wound down in Chișinău, a grandmother named Ludmila stopped me to say something simple and profound. “We are a small country,” she said, voice steady. “But we are not without courage.”

What does the courage of Moldova mean for the rest of the world? Perhaps it is a reminder that democracy is not only tested in capitals of great powers; it is forged in markets and schools, in cyber command centers and polling stations, in the ordinary bravery of people choosing how they want to live. Will Europe keep its promise that “our door is open”? Will reforms translate into better lives? Those are the next chapters yet to be written.

For now, the lights in Chișinău burn a little brighter. People will sleep. Coffee will be brewed. Debates will resume in kitchens and cafés. But the message from the ballot box was unmistakable: in the face of interference, many Moldovans chose a difficult, hopeful path toward Europe and the reforms that come with it. Do you think the international community will match that courage with long-term support?

Israeli strikes kill 21 as Gaza death toll surpasses 66,000

hanad

September 29, 2025

Israeli attacks kill 21 as Gaza death toll reaches 66,000 — Israeli attacks continued today in Gaza City

Gaza City: A Quiet That Screams

The air in Gaza City is a strange, thick thing now — not quite silence, but the exhausted hush that follows a storm. Dust settles on broken façades; a muezzin’s call is swallowed by an earlier boom. By the numbers reported today, at least 21 more people died across Gaza, and the enclave’s health authorities say the cumulative death toll since October 2023 has reached 66,005, with 168,162 injured.

These are not abstract figures. They are names that disappear behind doors that no longer open, children who won’t grow up, families that once argued over tea and now only argue over whether to leave or to stay. “We live in the shadow of tanks,” said a volunteer medic, Dr. Amina, whose hands trembled as she described triaging in a clinic that no longer has reliable electricity. “We answer calls we cannot reach. We patch bodies and hearts.”

Neighborhoods Encircled

Gaza City’s western districts have been the focus of the sharpest escalation. Witnesses and medical staff say Israeli tanks have pushed deeper into Sabra, Tel Al-Hawa, Sheikh Radwan and Al-Naser — neighborhoods that for months have swallowed waves of people displaced from other parts of the Strip.

“You used to hear the laughter of children on this street,” said Mahmoud, a former shopkeeper from Tel Al-Hawa, scooping dust from the threshold of what is left of his store. “Now there is only the clank of metal and the beeping of generators at the field hospital,” he added, his voice a low, persistent rumble. “We have nowhere else to go.”

The Civil Emergency Service in Gaza reported that 73 international requests to rescue injured civilians in Gaza City were denied by Israeli forces. “They call us, and we cannot reach them,” a volunteer dispatcher explained. “You imagine holding their call while artillery rings out. It breaks you.”

The Human Cost, Measured and Unmeasured

Official tallies from Gaza’s health authorities show 79 people were brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours alone, among the latest wave of casualties. Yesterday’s count added at least 77 fatalities; today’s strikes reportedly killed at least five in Al Naser and 16 in strikes on houses in central Gaza.

International organizations paint a bleak backdrop: the World Health Organization says four health facilities in Gaza City have shut down this month, and some malnutrition centres have closed, amplifying the already catastrophic strain on medical care. The World Food Programme estimates between 350,000 and 400,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza City since last month, though hundreds of thousands remain.

Reported cumulative deaths: 66,005 (Gaza health authorities)
Reported injuries: 168,162
New fatalities reported today: at least 21
Displaced from Gaza City since last month: 350,000–400,000 (WFP estimate)

“Numbers help with funding proposals and headlines,” said Laila Hassan, an aid worker who has spent two decades in the region. “But they don’t capture the smell of a home burned down, the way a child clutches a singed blanket. Humanitarian statistics become a shorthand for human lives — real, irreplaceable, lost.”

Hostages, Diplomacy and the Drumbeat of War

The violence is braided with politics. Israel launched a ground offensive into Gaza City on 16 September after weeks of intensified strikes, and military officials have demanded the disarmament and surrender of Hamas. Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said it had lost contact with two hostages, Matan Angrest and Omri Miran, in the midst of operations in Gaza City and had called for a 24-hour halt to air sorties in part of the city to remove them from danger.

Even as mediators — including Egypt — have tried to broker pauses and prisoner exchanges, progress has been fitful. Former US President Donald Trump posted on his social platform that “we have a real chance for Greatness in the Middle East” and promised continued negotiations. He is reported to be meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, and a spokesperson for the US Embassy said Ambassador Mike Huckabee will travel to Cairo for consultations.

“Diplomacy is moving on multiple tracks,” said Tomás Rivera, a Middle East analyst in London. “But words in capitals and closed-door meetings do not immediately stop shells from falling on maternity wards. There is a dissonance between high-level optimism and the reality on the ground.”

A Siege That Chokes Everyday Life

What does a siege do to a city’s daily rhythm? It rearranges everything. Markets that once spilled orange light now sit shuttered. Bread queues snake around walls pocked with shrapnel. Mosques serve as cooling stations and impromptu hospitals. An old man in Sheikh Radwan offered tea to a nurse passing through, even as he admitted the teapot was half-empty.

“People share what little they have,” said Noor, a teacher who now distributes meals at a makeshift shelter. “We have become slower but more present to each other. Stranger’s 손 becoming family.”

International Alarm and the Weight of Words

The crisis in Gaza has drawn stark international pronouncements. Global Hunger Monitor’s IPC stated last month that an entirely man-made famine is taking place in Gaza. UN human rights chief Volker Türk said the famine was the direct result of Israeli government policies. An independent UN commission has concluded this month that Israel has committed and continues to commit acts amounting to genocide against Palestinians in Gaza — allegations that reverberate through international courts, capitals and streets around the world.

“We are at a juridical and moral crossroads,” said Dr. Miriam Adler, a human rights lawyer. “Those labels — famine, genocide — are not mere rhetoric. They trigger obligations under international law. But legal processes are slow and do not stop a child from dying today.”

What Are We Willing to Do?

As you read this, ask yourself: what does global responsibility look like? Increased aid corridors? Real-time ceasefires? Stronger diplomatic pressure from states that can influence actors on the ground? The questions are uncomfortably practical and morally urgent.

“Aid is essential, yes,” Laila said, “but it is not enough. Without security and a political horizon, aid turns into a bandage on a wound that keeps being reopened.”

Voices from the Rubble

Among the debris, people still speak in the measured cadence of survival. A woman named Fatima, who had fled her neighborhood twice already, wrapped her child and said, “We once celebrated births, weddings, every Friday. Now we celebrate every breath. I pray not for victory. I pray for a morning that is ordinary.”

These are not abstract pleas. They are the daily soundscape of those who remain — the baker who still tries to fire a brick oven, the father who teaches his children to recognize the sound of tanks so they can run to safety, the pharmacist who counts pills and still manages a smile.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

History will judge the choices made in the weeks and months ahead. Will diplomacy bridge the gap between battlefield aims and civilian protection? Will international institutions find the teeth to enforce humanitarian law? Or will the cycle of displacement and destruction continue until there is little left to save?

For now, Gaza’s exhausted citizens ask for what sounds modest and monumental at once: a pause enough to breathe, corridors enough to treat the injured, protection enough to let children keep being children. “We need a breath,” Dr. Amina said simply. “Not just to survive, but to hope.”

When you close this page tonight, consider this: how do we answer that ask, as neighbors in a shared humanity? What are we prepared to do beyond watching the news? The choices are not easy. They are, however, unavoidable.

Four killed, eight injured in shooting at US Mormon church

hanad

September 29, 2025

Four dead, eight injured in US Mormon church shooting — Emergency services respond to a shooting and fire at a Mormon church in Michigan

A Sunday Turned to Ashes: What Happened at the Grand Blanc Mormon Church

There are mornings that hold the soft, ordinary rituals of community—coffee poured, hymnbooks opened, children’s laughter echoing down a hallway. This was not one of them.

In Grand Blanc Township, a small Michigan town of roughly 7,700 people about 100km northwest of Detroit, worshippers gathered and minutes later found themselves running for their lives. A man drove a vehicle straight through the front doors of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse, opened fire with an assault rifle, and then set the building alight. By the time officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect and ended the attack, at least four people were dead and eight more were wounded, officials said. Several hours later police found at least two more bodies in the charred remains; investigators warned the interior had not yet been fully cleared and that further victims may still be unaccounted for.

Moments of Terror

“We heard a big bang and the doors blew. And then everybody rushed out,” a woman who gave her name as Paula told local TV, her voice still raw. “The shooter opened fire on parishioners as they fled. I lost friends in there and some of my little primary children that I teach on Sundays were hurt. It’s very devastating for me.”

Chief William Renye of Grand Blanc Township Police said hundreds of people were inside when the attack began. The first officers—one from the state department of natural resources and one from the township—rushed to the building within 30 seconds of the first calls. They exchanged gunfire with the attacker and killed him in the church parking lot about eight minutes after the rampage began.

“There are some that are unaccounted for,” Chief Renye told reporters, underscoring the chaotic aftermath as investigators methodically combed through the remains.

The Scene: Smoke, Ash and Questions

The building was deliberately set on fire, authorities said, sending thick black smoke into a gray Michigan sky. Neighbors described an acrid smell and the wrenching sight of flames eating through familiar wood and carpet. A local volunteer firefighter, who asked not to be named, said the blaze had consumed large portions of the interior and made the recovery of victims difficult and dangerous.

“It looked like a small town chapel one would see on a postcard—until the glass and splinters were all that was left,” she said. “You don’t forget the way the smoke swallowed the windows.”

A Troubling Profile—and the Wider Context

Investigators released a skeletal outline of the suspect as they searched his home and phone records for motive. U.S. military records show the perpetrator served in the Marines from 2004 to 2008 and is an Iraq war veteran. Coincidentally, authorities in North Carolina said another 40-year-old Marine veteran was the suspect in a waterfront bar shooting less than 14 hours earlier, a grim echo that has left observers asking whether the connections are coincidence or part of a larger pattern.

The Grand Blanc attack was recorded by the Gun Violence Archive as the 324th mass shooting in the United States in 2025. The independent database counts an incident as a “mass shooting” when four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter. This Michigan tragedy came in a bleak stretch: it was the third mass shooting in under 24 hours, alongside incidents in North Carolina and at a casino in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Why does this keep happening?

That’s the question echoing through churches, legislatures, and living rooms across the country. Is it a failure of policy? A failure of mental health systems? A failure to spot a cry for help before it becomes a public calamity? Experts point to a knot of interconnected causes: high availability of military-grade weapons in civilian markets, social alienation, untreated trauma among some veterans, and the contagion effect of media coverage.

Dr. Lena Ortiz, a clinical psychologist who studies trauma and violence, said: “We are seeing the compounding effects of untreated PTSD, social isolation, and easy access to lethal means. Veterans often come back with invisible wounds; without adequate support and community care, some are at higher risk of spiraling into violence.”

Voices from Grand Blanc

On the town’s main street, there were small acts of defiance against despair. A bakery donated coffee and bagels for first responders. A florist placed bouquets and handwritten notes near the police tape. An older man, a lifelong resident who runs the local hardware store, paused before speaking.

“This is a town where we put up holiday lights together,” he said slowly. “We don’t expect the world to end at our doorstep. But it did. For some of our families, it really did.”

A pastor from a neighboring congregation echoed that mixture of grief and resolve: “Places of worship are meant to be refuges. We cannot let violence make them into battlegrounds.”

Leadership Reacts

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer posted: “My heart is breaking for the Grand Blanc community. Violence anywhere, especially in a place of worship, is unacceptable.” The FBI was reported to be on the scene, joining local and state law enforcement in the investigation.

On social media, former President Donald Trump framed the attack as “yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America” and urged that “THIS EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY MUST END, IMMEDIATELY!”

What Comes Next for Grand Blanc—and for the Nation

In the immediate term, families want answers. Investigators will piece together timelines, sift through phone records, scour the suspect’s personal history, and interview neighbors and worshippers. For those in the pews, the practical questions loom large: How do we keep our children safe during Sunday school? Should small congregations hire security? Who pays for bulletproof doors and surveillance systems?

Beyond the local, the nation has to reckon with a familiar but deeply painful calculus: how to honor freedom and safety, how to care for veterans without criminalizing trauma, how to reduce the lethal reach of weapons designed for war. Are more laws the answer? Or is the solution a web of investments—mental health services, community programs, veteran outreach, and sensible firearm safeguards—that reduce risk before tragedy strikes?

Remembering—and Rebuilding

Already, Grand Blanc is shaping rituals of remembrance. Neighbors are organizing vigils. Volunteers are preparing to host counseling sessions. Church members are making lists of names of those missing and those rescued. In a community where so much of daily life is knitted together—potlucks, school fundraisers, service projects—the work of healing will be carried out by ordinary people showing up for one another.

As you read this, consider what sanctuary means in your own life. Is it a building, a network of friends, a faith, or perhaps a community safety net that never lets a neighbor fall through the cracks? When violence visits a small town like Grand Blanc, the ripples spread far beyond its borders. The questions it raises are national, and the answers will require collective courage.

“We are not going to let this define us,” a young woman who helps teach primary children said, wiping her eyes. “We will hold the names of the lost and keep teaching the children to sing. That’s how we keep the light on.”

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