Brazilian Congress votes to reduce former President Bolsonaro’s prison sentence

December 18, 2025

Bolsonaro says paranoia made him tamper with monitor — Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro leaving hospital in September after a series of medical examinations

When the Vote Shifts the Ground: Brazil, Bolsonaro and a Law That Feels Like a Tremor

On a rain-thinned Sunday in Brasília, the usual modernist silence of the capital’s concrete avenues was ruptured by chants and the crumpled rustle of protest signs. The Senate had just approved a bill that, on paper, could shorten the prison time of Jair Bolsonaro — the polarizing former president now serving a 27-year sentence for his role in a plot to block his 2022 election loss.

It was not merely another parliamentary skirmish. For many Brazilians, it felt like a moral hinge swinging in a country already split into two skidding halves. “It’s not about one man,” said Mariana Lopes, a teacher who had come to the Praça dos Três Poderes with a hand-made banner. “It’s about whether our institutions bend when pressure is applied.”

What the Bill Does — and Why It Matters

The measure changes how certain sentences are calculated, and that procedural tweak could be revolutionary for Bolsonaro. Under the prison rules in force when his sentence began last November, the ex-president would likely have to serve at least eight years before becoming eligible for a more lenient regime. The new wording could see him eligible for leniency after a little over two years — a dramatic contraction.

The Senate vote was decisive: 48 in favor, 25 opposed. The bill had already cleared the lower house the week before and now lands on President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s desk, where a veto is expected. But the story is far from over. Congress can override such a veto, and in a legislature where backroom negotiations are as familiar as afternoon espresso, nothing is permanent until the dust truly settles.

Numbers and faces

Bolsonaro, 70, began his jail term last November and his conviction relates to an alleged scheme to stop Lula from taking office after the razor-thin 2022 election. Prosecutors say the plot even encompassed plans to target Lula, his vice-president Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes — a charge that shocked many and crystallized the stakes of the rule of law.

More than a hundred of Bolsonaro’s supporters remain imprisoned for their roles in the January 2023 sacking of government buildings in Brasília — a violent, historic assault that drew headlines around the world. The bill’s sponsors framed the measure narrowly; amendments were introduced in the Senate to restrict its reach, focusing on those jailed for events tied to that post-election unrest.

Why this sweep of legislation moved so fast

To the casual observer, the bill’s trajectory looked dizzying: hurried passage through a conservative-dominated lower chamber, then swift approval in a Senate that’s normally more evenly balanced. Behind that speed is a story of political calculation. Allies of Bolsonaro in Congress had spent months seeking various forms of clemency or legislative relief. For Bolsonaro’s coalition, whose eyes are already on the 2026 election cycle, the calculus is both political and existential.

“We’re talking about reconciling a broken country,” said Deputy Paulinho da Força, the bill’s architect, describing it as a “gesture of reconciliation” in a polarized Brazil. Opposition lawmakers saw something else: a bargain struck in corridors and committee rooms, votes traded like currency.

Centrist Senator Renan Calheiros, who walked out of the Senate session, called the vote a “farce,” accusing government allies of allowing the measure to pass in exchange for backing a separate budget initiative. His exit was theatrical — but it speaks to a deeper anxiety: are laws being made for the public good, or to grease the wheels of political survival?

On the streets: an anxious, noisy democracy

At the demonstration outside the National Congress, protesters were a mosaic of agitation. Some were elderly, veterans of earlier protests in Brazil’s tumultuous decades; some were students in bright hoodies, others small-business owners whose shops had shuttered during the pandemic.

“No amnesty,” chanted the crowds. “Congress, enemy of the people,” declared a banner fluttering in the wind. A street vendor selling coxinhas and cold Guaraná set down his tray to applaud when a speaker urged citizens to keep up the pressure.

“We can’t let memory be short,” said João, a local grocer who asked that his last name not be used. “If laws can be changed in the middle of the night to help one person, what keeps them from changing again?”

Voices from the other side

On the flip side of the city, another kind of solidarity quietly gathered. Supporters of Bolsonaro, many still fervently loyal, argued the bill was an act of justice — or at least mercy. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, anointed by his father as the prospective standard-bearer of the right for 2026, urged the upper chamber to “address this issue once and for all,” a plea that resonated in pro-Bolsonaro circles.

“This isn’t about impunity,” claimed a legal adviser allied with the former president. “It’s about technical fairness in sentencing.” Whether that technicality should apply to such politically charged convictions, however, remains fiercely contested.

The legal and global context

Brazil’s legal system is no island. Around the world, democratic societies wrestle with how to handle populist leaders once they fall. How do courts ensure justice without appearing partisan? How do legislatures legislate without seeming to protect the powerful? These are not just Brazilian questions.

Professor Ana Ribeiro, a constitutional law scholar at the University of São Paulo, told me: “What we’re seeing is the collision of legal formality and political reality. The letter of law can be amended; the spirit of institutions is harder to restore.”

Her words point to a broader truth: rule of law rests on more than statutes. It requires public confidence, consistent application, and a sense that consequences are not negotiable depending on who occupies power.

What happens next — and why you should care

President Lula has vowed to veto the bill. “He must pay,” he said, reiterating a stance that puts him directly at odds with the measure’s supporters. Should he follow through, the battle moves into a new phase: a potential congressional override, legal challenges, and perhaps more protests.

For Brazilians — and for observers abroad — the outcome will reverberate. Will a narrowly targeted legislative fix be viewed as a technical correction, or as an act that corrodes the moral authority of the justice system? Will this moment consolidate new political arrangements ahead of the next presidential election, or will it deepen the fractures that have made Brazil’s politics so combustible?

Ask yourself: how should democracies balance mercy and accountability when the stakes are this high? And when laws can be rewritten, who gets to decide the meaning of justice?

Closing: a country in the middle of a long conversation

Brazil is not a country that resolves its conflicts quietly. It negotiates them—noisily, passionately, publicly. Streets become forums; plazas become stages. The bill to reduce sentences for Bolsonaro’s class of convictions may yet be a footnote, a vetoed oddity in the legislative record. Or it may become a symbol — of political bargaining, of institutional fragility, of the lengths to which factions will go to protect their own.

Whatever happens, one thing is clear: Brazilians are watching, speaking, and taking to the streets in numbers that will not easily be ignored. Democracy, after all, is not only about laws. It is about stories, memory, and the stubborn belief that public life should be governed by rules that apply to all — not bent to benefit a few.

Trump pledges economic surge for America in prime-time address

hanad

December 18, 2025

Trump promises economic boom in address to nation — US President Donald Trump gave his address to the nation from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House

A Christmas Check, a World Cup Dream, and an Election Clock: Inside a Night of Big Promises

It was the kind of televised address that trades on spectacle as much as substance: a winter night at the White House, a president who speaks in broad strokes and rally lines, and a country listening through the cacophony of rising grocery bills and political fever.

“Eleven months ago I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” the president began—an opening line that reads like a headline and resonates like a campaign slogan. But between the bravado and the promise of “an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen,” there were details that sounded both carefully staged and expressly political: a surprise bonus for uniformed service members, a dollar figure chosen for symbolism, and an insistence that his critics and the previous administration were to blame for the daily pinch felt at the pump and in the supermarket aisles.

The Pitch: Bonuses, Tariffs, and a Year to Remember

In an announcement that mixed patriotism with politics, the president said roughly 1.45 million active-duty service members will receive what his team calls a “warrior dividend”—a one-time check of $1,776 to be distributed before Christmas. The number was framed as symbolic: 1776, the founding year of the United States, and a nod to the nation’s upcoming 250th anniversary.

“This is about honoring service and sending a message,” a White House aide told reporters before the speech. “It’s also about reminding Americans that our priorities are security and prosperity.”

He tied the payout to tariff revenues, saying the bonuses would be paid from funds raised by the import levies his administration has expanded since taking office. That link—between trade policy and direct payments—was part political theater, part economic assertion. It also raised immediate questions about long-term strategy: are tariffs an instrument to power domestic programs, or are they a tax on everyday buyers?

Symbolism and Substance

Numbers matter in politics. The $1,776 figure struck a chord with supporters who relish historical references; critics called it a photo-op dressed as policy. “It’s clever theater, but it doesn’t change the fundamentals of the economy,” said Dr. Lenora Martinez, an economist who researches fiscal policy and inequality. “Tariffs can raise government revenue for a time, but they often shift costs onto consumers and businesses. For households living paycheck to paycheck, symbolic checks are small comfort if the price of basics keeps rising.”

Under the Hood: Polls, Prices, and Political Anxiety

If the president’s speech was meant to reassure, the polls suggest a different currency is in play: public anxiety. A PBS News/NPR/Marist survey published this week found 57% of Americans disapproved of his handling of the economy, a striking number for a leader selling confidence. Another poll by YouGov showed 52% of respondents thinking the economy was getting worse under his watch.

“People are hurting,” said Maria Alvarez, who runs a corner bodega in a small Rust Belt town. “My customers ask about eggs and flour. They’re not asking about trade policy or geopolitics. They want to know how to feed their kids tomorrow.”

Inflation—once a central post-pandemic headache—remains a living issue for many households. Economists caution that measures like tariffs can reduce demand for some imported goods, but they can also increase costs for manufacturers and consumers, particularly for products with global supply chains. In short: policy choices produce visible consequences in the grocery aisle.

Rhetoric at the Border and the World Stage

Another pillar of the speech was the familiar, fiery rhetoric about migration and law. “They stole American jobs,” the president said, returning to a line that has animated base supporters for years. He also touted foreign policy wins—from ceasefires to increased pressure on nuclear programs—and framed military and security actions as part and parcel of his administration’s agenda.

Those themes weave together two realities. Domestically, migration and job security are political potentates that drive voter sentiment in heartland towns and border states alike. Internationally, military and diplomatic maneuvers create an impression of strength, but also demand resources and attention that some critics say detract from bread-and-butter issues.

Voices from the Ground

“We want our kids to be safe and to have jobs,” said Jamal Reed, a factory supervisor in Pennsylvania, echoing a sentiment that cuts across party lines. “You can do both, but actions speak louder than words. Show me the investments in jobs, training, and affordable essentials.”

On the other hand, a veteran in North Carolina who asked not to be named for privacy reasons said the bonus felt personal. “My unit was in harm’s way,” she said. “A little recognition matters. But we also want real care—good VA services, real housing help, not just checks on TV.”

Tariffs, Trade, and the Bigger Picture

Experts are divided on whether the president’s tariff-first approach can deliver the kind of broad-based affordability he promises. History suggests tariffs can be blunt tools—effective at protecting certain domestic industries but costly for consumers and downstream manufacturers.

“Think of tariffs like a toll on a bridge: they raise money by slowing some traffic, but everyone pays to cross,” said Dr. Marcus Klein, a trade scholar. “Revenue can be redirected, but the economic distortions are real.”

Beyond the immediate effects, the speech illuminated larger global themes: the reconfiguration of supply chains after the pandemic, the politics of protectionism, and the rising impatience of electorates everywhere who expect governments to deliver not only security but affordability and dignity.

Election Math and the Road to 2026

With midterm-style elections looming and the U.S. set to co-host the FIFA World Cup in 2026 alongside Canada and Mexico, the administration signaled both a domestic push and a global spectacle it hopes will translate into political momentum. The promise of an economic renaissance timed with a global sporting event is a narrative as tempting as it is audacious.

“Political calendars shape policy choices,” observed pollster Ellen Harper. “When the electorate is worried about prices, candidates pivot to demonstrate control over the economy. But voters also notice authenticity. Long-term trust is built in kitchens and checkouts, not just on podiums.”

Questions to Carry Home

So where does this leave a country so often divided about means but united in anxieties? Can symbolic gestures and tariff-funded bonuses mute the hum of rising costs? Will geopolitical posturing translate to pocketbook relief? And crucially: what happens when politics meets the everyday reality of families strategizing how to make a paycheck stretch another week?

These are not small questions. They are the currency of democratic legitimacy—one that governments worldwide are currently trying to buy with policies that must, in the end, convert into real, lived improvements.

As you read this, somewhere a grocery cart is nudging a toddler who points at cereal boxes; an enlisted sailor is packing for leave; a small-business owner is tallying receipts. What do you think will matter to them more: the symbolism of a holiday check or the steady lowering of the price of milk and gasoline? The answer will probably define politics for the next cycle.

“People want proof, not promises,” said Maria Alvarez, the bodega owner. “Show us fewer empty shelves, cheaper bread, safer streets. That’s how you win hearts.”

Will the administration deliver that proof? Only time—and the polls, the tills, and the travel logs—will tell.

Sydney mourners commemorate rabbis killed in Bondi Beach shooting

hanad

December 18, 2025

Sydney mourners remember rabbis killed in Bondi shooting — The gun attack occurred during a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach at the weekend

A beachside grief: Bondi’s Hanukkah turned from light to mourning

Bondi Beach is a place of movement: the crash of surf, the chatter of tourists, the sculpted lines of lifeguards jogging along the sand. It is also where a celebration meant to illuminate winter nights became the site of unimaginable loss. Two community leaders—young rabbis who had built a life together in the eastern suburbs—were among 15 people killed in a mass shooting that has stunned Sydney and reverberated well beyond Australia’s shores.

The names are now being carried from synagogue doorways to the footpaths of Bondi: Rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, and Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, 39. Schlanger had recently become a father for the fifth time; Levitan leaves behind a wife and four children. They worked side by side at Chabad of Bondi—one described as the visionary, the other, the executor—and their connection went deeper than the office. Their wives have been friends since high school, a small, human detail that makes the loss feel intimate in living rooms and in the cafés that line Bondi Road.

“They were never one without the other”

“Eli had the visions and the ideas,” Rabbi Yakov Lieder wrote in an obituary. “Yaakov figured out how to get it done.” The line captures what those who gathered at the synagogue on the day of Schlanger’s funeral tried to hold onto: the ordinary, practical tenderness of two men who turned religious conviction into action—Shabbat meals, prison visits, late-night counseling for young people—and in doing so braided themselves into the social fabric of their neighbourhood.

Inside the small Bondi synagogue, the room could not contain the grief. People spilled out onto the pavement; others watched the service on phones, huddled in groups, the live stream buffering and then steadying like a lifeline. Prayers moved between Hebrew and English. Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, Schlanger’s father-in-law, spoke through tears and then steadied himself with a message of defiance that was also a plea: do not let fear shrink whole communities from living and celebrating.

“You became everything to me,” Ulman said, voice cracking. “My hands, my feet. Your dedication knew no limits.” He promised a public menorah lighting at the site of the shooting at the close of Hanukkah—an act meant to reclaim a shore many thousands of visitors walk each year.

The scene, the songs, the security

Outside, the city had transformed Bondi into a controlled corridor. Police and private security patrolled the street. Bag checks were performed at synagogue entrances. Eight officers in ceremonial dress formed an honour guard as the hearse left, leading a procession that paused midway down the street for a communal lament. Men gathered against the hearse and sang a nigun—an unworded tune—that swelled and broke and then rose again, the sound like a shared breath.

“He’d drive four hours to see someone in prison, if that’s what it took,” said a mourner I spoke with afterwards, a volunteer who had worked with the rabbis on outreach programs. “He didn’t care whether you were rich or poor. He’d show up.”

Also present were civic leaders: New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, federal opposition figures and the area’s members of parliament—small public acknowledgements of a sorrow that is both private and political. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later said he would attend funerals if invited; for many in the crowd, the presence of elected officials mattered as a visible sign that the city and the nation were watching.

Public rituals against private ruin

The Chabad “Chanukah by the Sea” event had been a simple idea: a menorah, candles, latkes perhaps, families gathered on the sand as darkness fell. Hanukkah itself is about illumination—eight nights to remember light in dark times. Now, at the same site, the community plans once more to light candles. “That is not the answer,” Rabbi Ulman insisted to the congregation, meaning fear and withdrawal. “We can never allow them to succeed.”

It is a familiar posture for diasporic communities: to make ritual the remedy to violence, to stitch the social fabric with prayer and food and memory. But it is also a complicated one, because ritual cannot alone answer the questions that crimes like this raise about security, about the weapons that made it possible, and about why public spaces—beaches, markets, places of worship—have become venues of trauma in so many parts of the world.

Why this matters beyond Bondi

Australia’s relationship with guns is different from many other nations. Sweeping laws introduced after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre dramatically tightened ownership and led to buybacks. Mass shootings in Australia have been far less frequent since. That is part of why this weekend’s events feel singular here: a rupture in a national narrative that for decades rested on decisive reform.

At the same time, the attack speaks to global patterns—antisemitic violence and the targeting of faith communities have climbed in many countries over recent years, according to civil society observers. When a festival of light becomes the site of bloodshed, it forces a broader conversation about how democracies protect minority communities, how they balance openness with safety, and how people heal in public.

“There’s a rawness that doesn’t go away,” said Dr. Amal Farouk, a sociologist who studies communal resilience. “Public rituals help. So does policy. But reconciliation and security need both—and that’s politically difficult.”

Faces of a community

At the funeral in Macquarie Park for Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, the mood held the texture of a small-town memorial inside a modern suburb: children clustering in the back of the room, relatives exchanging the same rehearsed phrases, an elderly woman smoothing the edge of her scarf. The two rabbis were not only partners at Chabad; they were neighbours in the sense that matters most—people who had touched many lives with consistent presence.

A local shopkeeper on Campbell Parade, who asked not to be named, told me she had watched the livestream outside her store. “They always had a smile,” she said. “Bondi is a place where everyone knows someone. This morning the surf looked the same, but it felt different.”

What comes next?

There will be investigations; there will be debates over weapons and public safety; there will be legal proceedings and inquiries. There will also be smaller, quieter reckonings—the consoling phone calls, the communal cooking of latkes this weekend, the menorah that will stand by the sea.

These rituals will not erase the pain. But they are how communities begin to stitch themselves back together: by naming the dead, by refusing to let violence dictate whether they keep loving, gathering, and belonging to the places they call home.

So I ask you, reader: when a public space becomes a place of mourning, how should we respond—what balance should we strike between vigilance and openness? And how do we ensure that the rituals of one community are not diminished by the fears of another? These are not simple questions, but they are urgent ones, and they demand more than slogans. They demand the messy, difficult work of common life.

In Bondi, as candles will be lit again at the sea, the small light will flicker against a very large dark. For now, the community clings to that light, and to the memory of two rabbis who spent their lives trying to kindle it in other people.

Ghislaine Maxwell Petitions Court for Early Prison Release

hanad

December 18, 2025

Supreme Court declines to hear Ghislaine Maxwell appeal — Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein

A Quiet Plea in a Loud Case: Ghislaine Maxwell’s Bid to Overturn Her Conviction

On a gray Manhattan morning that felt both ordinary and epochal, a lawyer’s hand slid a docket into a federal court file and, with it, another attempt to untangle one of the most notorious legal sagas of the last decade.

Ghislaine Maxwell, once a familiar figure at international parties and private islands, has asked a federal judge to throw out her 2021 sex trafficking conviction and free her from the 20-year prison sentence she is serving. The motion—filed as a habeas petition—argues that newly surfaced evidence, coupled with procedural errors, robbed her of a fair trial.

The petition arrives at a fraught moment. Government records tied to the broader Jeffrey Epstein investigation are on the cusp of public release under a transparency law, and the timing has intensified debate about secrecy, accountability, and the very meaning of justice.

The Legal Heartbeat: What a Habeas Petition Actually Does

Habeas corpus is old as constitutional conscience. It is the last, urgent step a prisoner can take to ask a court to review the lawfulness of their detention—a safeguard against wrongful imprisonment, ineffective counsel, and miscarriages of justice. In practice, however, habeas petitions are an uphill climb; federal judges grant relief only when errors are significant enough to have altered the outcome of a case.

Maxwell’s petition contends that in her trial the government withheld evidence and presented false or untested claims to jurors—shortcomings she says, in cumulative effect, amounted to “a complete miscarriage of justice.”

Why Now? The Pressure of Public Records

The petition was filed just days before a scheduled public release of Epstein-related records, compelled by a new transparency statute. The Justice Department plans to open access to investigative materials—search warrants, financial ledgers, interview notes, and data extracted from electronic devices—giving the public a wider window into an investigation that has been cloaked in secrecy for years.

A spokesperson for Maxwell’s defense said in a statement, “We have long maintained there is evidence that would have exonerated Ms. Maxwell. The newly available materials, together with civil litigation disclosures, make clear that critical exculpatory information was not fairly presented at trial.”

What the files are expected to include

Search warrants and related affidavits
Financial records tied to the Epstein network
Interview notes and statements from potential witnesses and victims
Data recovered from phones and other devices

Officials say the release will span multiple categories and could reshape public understanding of what investigators knew and when. “Transparency can be painful,” one veteran federal prosecutor told me. “But the public has a right to see how cases of such magnitude were built.”

Voices from the Edges: Reactions and Rumblings

In a Brooklyn café near the courthouse, I spoke with Maya Ruiz, an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse, who cradled a coffee cup and looked toward the courthouse steps. “For survivors, every new disclosure is a reopening of old wounds,” she said. “But openness can also be a balm—if it leads to accountability, not more obfuscation.”

A criminal defense attorney who asked not to be named told me the filing was strategically timed. “If those records include material that undermines witness testimony or shows earlier offers of cooperation that never made it to defense counsel, you have the sort of Brady material that can change everything,” they said, referring to the legal duty to disclose exculpatory evidence.

Meanwhile, at a small townhouse in London where Maxwell was once a familiar guest at dinner parties, a neighbor remembered her with a soft shrug. “Ghislaine had an elegance—she moved between worlds,” the neighbor said. “But the question always was—what happened behind the closed doors?”

Lawyers, Judges and the Looming Question of Retrial

Maxwell’s legal team has warned that unsealing certain pre-trial materials could prejudice any future retrial. “The records contain untested and unproven allegations,” her attorney wrote, urging the court to consider how wide dissemination could taint potential witnesses and jurors.

Yet a federal judge in Manhattan has already moved to release many of the materials, concluding in court filings that the documents “do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor.” That pronouncement has only intensified debate: will the papers illuminate the investigative process, or will they simply add noise?

“There’s a paradox here,” said Professor Leila Ahmed, a scholar of criminal procedure. “Transparency is essential to democratic legitimacy. But when evidence is released without context, it can lead to misperception and prejudice. Courts must balance competing public interests—openness and the defendant’s right to a fair trial.”

Beyond the Headlines: What This Means for Power and Trust

What makes this story feel larger than one woman’s fate is the scaffolding around it: wealth, influence, and decades of silence. Epstein’s 2019 arrest and subsequent death in custody left a tangle of unanswered questions. Maxwell’s conviction in 2021 felt, to many, like a partial accounting. Now, as papers unspool, we confront questions about who gets to keep secrets and who pays the price.

Consider the global dimensions: a British-born socialite, operating in cosmopolitan hubs from London to Manhattan to the Caribbean, embedded in networks that crisscross borders. The case suggests that transnational crimes and sprawling financial webs complicate how justice can be sought and delivered. It also underscores a persistent truth: victims of powerful people often face uphill battles to be heard.

What to Watch Next

Several things will be decisive in the weeks ahead:

How judges parse the newly released documents and whether any of that material is deemed so exculpatory that it requires a retrial.
Whether additional civil litigation uncovers documents that alter the contours of the criminal case.
How survivors respond—whether they see disclosure as a step toward closure or a retraumatizing spectacle.

Legal commentators caution that successful habeas petitions in high-profile federal criminal cases are rare. Even so, rarity does not equal impossibility. The standard is rigorous but not insurmountable: show a constitutional violation that likely affected the trial’s outcome, and the gate can open.

Questions for the Reader

What do you think matters more in a case like this—full transparency for the public or careful protection of the fairness of legal proceedings? Can both coexist, or is one inevitably sacrificed for the other?

As the documents begin to reach public view, remember that this story is not only about a headline figure. It’s about how societies reckon with abuse of power, how institutions protect the vulnerable, and how law and media shape the stories that define us. The coming months will test not just the legal arguments on paper, but the civic values those arguments are meant to uphold.

“Transparency without context can mislead,” a former federal judge told me. “But secrecy without accountability is worse. Our job—public, private, judicial—is to find the truth, however uncomfortable it may be.”

And so we watch, we read, we listen, and we ask whether justice, in its slow and messy work, will catch up with the questions that have shadowed this case for years.

Putin Calls EU Leaders “Young Pigs” Seeking to Undermine Russia

hanad

December 17, 2025

Putin: EU leaders young pigs wanting to bring Russia down — Vladimir Putin said European politicians sought to profit from Russia's collapse

Smoke over Zaporizhzhia: the nightly arithmetic of a war that will not let people sleep

They stood in the dust like survivors of a stubborn ghost story — curled coats, trembling hands, faces smudged with grey as if soot had tried to draw their lives in charcoal. In one collapsed stairwell a neighbour passed a blanket. On the street, a young woman cupped a child and counted breaths. Twenty-six people were reported wounded in the latest glide-bomb strikes on Zaporizhzhia, officials said — another number on a list that has become too long for anyone to memorize with calm.

“We thought this was the last day of the world,” said a pensioner who introduced herself as Valentyna, her voice thin but stubborn. “The walls shook, my neighbour’s window blew in. We are used to sirens, but not to this. Not to our kitchen being on the news.”

Zaporizhzhia, a city whose sunflower fields and shipyards once hummed with the ordinary business of life, now lives with the drumbeat of the front line less than 25km to the south. Apartment blocks — the squat, Soviet-era rectangles that have housed generations — have been struck before, and again. Rescue crews pull rubble away; neighbours hand out water; a volunteer pulls at a soaked blanket and tries to warm a baby. The scene repeats across towns and villages of Ukraine: a daily ledger of damage, fear, resolve.

Rhetoric, numbers, and the geometry of land

From Moscow came a different kind of sound: formal, televised, and full of threats. At an annual Defence Ministry meeting this week, President Vladimir Putin made it plain that Moscow’s appetite for territorial control is not conditional on diplomacy alone. Officials said Russia would press gains “by military means” if negotiations stalled — a blunt alternative to talks.

Russia claims it now controls roughly 19% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea — annexed in 2014 — large swathes of Donbas, much of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, and fragments of neighboring oblasts. Kyiv and almost every country in the world reject that claim; Ukraine insists those lands remain Ukrainian soil and vows to fight for their return.

On the meeting floor, Russia’s Defence Ministry displayed a slide that jolted observers: Moscow plans to spend the equivalent of 5.1% of its gross domestic product on the war in 2025. That’s a war budget that dwarfs many peacetime defence allocations and speaks to the scale of Moscow’s commitment to keeping and expanding control, whether through negotiation or conquest.

Deputy Defence Minister Andrei Belousov reportedly set 2026 as a year to accelerate offensives. “If diplomacy does not deliver what we regard as a settlement,” he said in the meeting, “the army will.” Whether such rhetoric is a negotiating posture, a domestic signal, or a genuine military timetable — that is the question officials in Kyiv and capitals across Europe are trying to answer.

What officials and experts are saying

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to allies to make the coming EU summit decisive, urging Europe to make it clear that continuing the war would be “pointless” if Kyiv is properly supported. “The outcome for Europe must be such that Russia understands the futility of further killing,” he said in an evening address, calling for reinforced aid and security guarantees.

European leaders, for their part, insist they will not reward territorial conquest. But that principle collides with legal and political complexity: how to take frozen Russian assets and channel them into Ukraine? How to avoid opening legal loopholes or setting a precedent that governments will be reluctant to repeat?

“We are balancing moral clarity with legal care,” said one EU official involved in the talks. “None of us wants to build a bridge that collapses under the weight of the next case.”

Money on ice—and a ticking clock

The question of frozen assets looms large. The UK has given oligarch Roman Abramovich a final deadline to release roughly £2.5 billion tied to the rushed 2022 sale of Chelsea Football Club — funds that Britain says should be used to help Ukrainians. British ministers have warned they will pursue legal action if the money does not move. This is not merely about one cheque; it is a litmus test of whether the post-2022 sanctions architecture can translate frozen wealth into war relief and reconstruction.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has framed the upcoming summit as a moment of European defence: to find a practical, legal pathway to fund Ukraine’s defence without exposing states to open-ended liabilities. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni echoed the difficulty: the impulse to make Russia pay is strong, but any mechanism must rest on robust legal foundations.

Why the legal route matters

Frozen assets are often held by banks and subject to complex claims by creditors and legal orders;
Converting them to reconstruction funds risks legal challenges from owners or guarantors;
Yet leaving them frozen carries moral and political costs for governments whose citizens watch the destruction and expect action.

Lives under bombardment: texture and small resistances

Walk through a neighbourhood in Zaporizhzhia and you will see the same contours of civilian life that wartime reportage often hints at but seldom lays out with full sensory detail: a kettle blackened at the bottom from many fires on an iron cooktop; a babushka who refuses to sell the family orchard; a tram that still clanks along a shortened route because some things refuse to stop. There are small rituals of normality: bread shared across fences, a priest blessing a corner of an apartment, volunteers keeping lists of who needs medications.

“We repair what we can, we plant what we can, and we remember,” said a young volunteer medic, wiping dust from his hands. “People ask me why we stay. Because this is ours. Because someone must light the lamps.”

Lines on a map — and the questions they force on the rest of us

What does it mean for the international order when a state openly declares it will add land by force if diplomacy fails? How do democracies weigh immediate legal caution against the moral urgency of giving support to a nation under attack? And what does resilience look like on the ground — is it the fortitude of a city that rebuilds, or the policy that ensures it never has to?

These are not rhetorical exercises. They will shape budgets, alliances, and lives. If Europe chooses to convert frozen assets into aid, it will set legal precedents. If it does not, it risks eroding public faith in collective defence writ large. If Moscow follows through on its threats, the geometry of the map will change again, and so will the human count of ruin and resistance.

As night falls over Zaporizhzhia, blankets are handed out, a child sleeps fitfully, and somewhere a meeting in Brussels will decide whether the next chapter will be written in courtrooms, on spreadsheets, or in trenches. Which of those would you prefer to read about tomorrow?

How misinformation and rumors spread online following the Bondi Beach attack

hanad

December 17, 2025

How misinformation spread online after Bondi Beach attack — A wave of misinformation spread across social media after the attack

How a Beachside Act of Courage Became a Collision of Fact and Falsehood

On a summer afternoon that should have smelled only of salt and sunscreen, Bondi Beach—the blue-edged postcard of Sydney life—was ripped open by gunfire. Two men opened fire at a Hanukkah gathering on the sand on Sunday, 14 December. By the time the sirens subsided, the death toll had reached 15 and dozens were wounded; police later declared the incident a terror attack. What followed was not only grief and questions, but an accelerating chorus of stories—some true, many not—that raced across social media like wildfire.

For a few seconds, the world saw a clear beam of what courage looks like. A video, later verified by authorities and major outlets, captured Syrian-born fruit shop owner Ahmed al Ahmed wrestling a rifle away from one of the shooters. The clip turned into a symbol: a quiet, muscular defiance against a sudden burst of evil. “He did what anyone would hope their neighbour could do,” one woman whispered near a temporary memorial of flowers and candlelight that evening. “It’s the sort of thing you don’t expect to see until it’s happening to you.”

The Speed of a Lie

And yet, alongside the gratitude and grief, the internet began working through its other reflex: to fill silences with stories, even when truth was still being collected. Within hours, a false narrative had taken root—one that assigned a different name to the man on the video, claiming he was “Edward Crabtree.” The story appeared first on a website styled to look like a national news outlet, authored by a supposed crime reporter called “Rebecca Chen.” The piece read like an exclusive hospital interview, complete with invented details about a 43-year-old IT professional taking his routine walk along the beachfront.

“I just acted,” the fabricated article quoted its phantom interviewee saying. The quote spread. Screenshots proliferated. Social feeds bristled. Even X’s built‑in AI assistant Grok repeated the name when users asked who had disarmed a gunman, amplifying the mistake.

Maria Flannery of the European Broadcasting Union’s Spotlight Network, who later analyzed the post-attack information ecosystem, called the Crabtree story “a textbook case of how quickly falsehoods can dress themselves in credibility.” “The site had the visual cues of journalism—bylines, a photo, an authoritative tone—yet the domain was created the same day as the attack,” she told me. “That’s the giveaway. Perpetrators know how to mimic trust; audiences often have no time to check it.”

Tools That Mislead

Investigators and journalists dug into why the story caught on. RTBF’s Fakey team discovered the site’s byline photo changed on refresh; a Whois lookup showed the domain had been registered that day and was shielded behind a privacy service in Reykjavik. Automated image detectors flagged the author photo as likely generated. Even when a human being could see the inconsistencies, algorithms had already done the work of distribution.

And the errors were not only the result of bad actors. Automated assistants failed too. When users asked Grok whether the viral video was real, the chatbot initially told them the clip appeared to be an old, unrelated viral video about a man climbing a palm tree and that authenticity was uncertain. Major newsrooms and police had verified the Bondi clip as contemporaneous and directly related to the attack; Grok’s response was wrong.

“Large language models are powerful pattern‑matching engines, not substitute detectives,” said a Sydney-based technology specialist who helps emergency services with digital verification. “They summarize what’s online—but they can’t independently verify timestamps, chain of custody, or eyewitness testimony. In breaking news, that gap is deadly.”

When Search Trends Become “Evidence”

Conspiracy theorists were quick to weave Google Trends into their narratives. Posts claimed certain suspect names spiked in searches before the shooting—innuendo presented as evidence of a staged attack. A closer look at the data told a different story: in Australia the relevant name began trending around 9am GMT, while the first reports of an active shooter on the beach were timestamped at 7:45am GMT—meaning the spike came after the first reports. In Israel, the term trended an hour later, reflecting the time it took for international outlets to carry the news.

Why the confusion? Partly because Google Trends displays time using the viewer’s local clock, not the timezone of the event. For incidents unfolding in far-off places—Australia’s east coast, for instance—this mismatch can make a normal pattern of reaction look like foreknowledge.

“People see a graph and want a pattern. But graphs don’t lie; people misread them,” said Dr. Asha Raman, a media literacy researcher. “Misinformation exploits that desire for tidy causality in a chaotic moment.”

Deepfakes, Doppelgängers and the Human Cost

As well as fake articles and misread trends, synthetic images and mistaken identity multiplied the harm. Spanish outlet VerificaRTVE found an AI-generated photo purporting to show a man having fake blood applied by a makeup artist—the image had the telltale AI artifact of distorted text across a T‑shirt. Meanwhile, a Sydney resident who shares a name with one of the alleged shooters had his personal photos circulated online; he came forward in a viral video to say he had nothing to do with the attack. Deutsche Welle’s fact-check showed the images did not match the suspect and the man could not possibly have been the attacker because one suspect died on scene while the person in the video was alive and speaking from his home.

“Being misidentified online is terrifying,” the wrongly linked man said in his video. “People were sending death threats to my inbox within hours.”

What This Moment Asks of Us

So how do we live in a world where acts of real bravery and tragedies are instantly packaged into a battleground of truth and lies? The local answers are practical: rely on verified outlets, seek statements from police and hospital spokespeople, and treat emergent posts—especially those coming from newly minted domains—with suspicion. EBU’s Spotlight Network, along with fact-checking teams at ORF, ZDFheute, RTBF, and others, showed how a coordinated response can push back against falsehood.

Check domain registration dates and author bios.
Prefer official statements (police, hospitals) and reputable media outlets over anonymous social posts.
Understand how tools like Google Trends display time so you don’t mistake correlation for conspiracy.

But beyond the checklist is the larger moral work: to hold a space for grief and reverence amid the noise. “When tragedy happens, every feed becomes a memorial and a rumor mill in the same breath,” said a Rabbi from a Sydney congregation who asked not to be named. “We owe it to the victims—not to turn their suffering into fodder for clicks.”

That’s a hard ask. The architecture of our platforms rewards speed and certainty. Falsehoods are lean, sharp, and always ready to run. Truth is slower, messy, and often harder to anchor.

Where We Go From Here

If there is a takeaway from Bondi’s sorrow, it is this: technology can reveal our best and worst instincts. It can make a fruit seller into a global hero in minutes, and it can make an anonymous lie look like gospel in the same span. The remedy is not technophobia but civic literacy—a muscle we must exercise. Ask: who benefits from this story? Who stands to lose? What corroborating evidence exists?

When you scroll past the next dramatic headline, remember that a real community is fractured and healing behind it: ambulances in the night, hospital corridors where family members wait, a supermarket owner who now walks home with a heavy, complicated fame. Misinformation doesn’t just distort facts—it prolongs pain. The next time a clip goes viral and a stranger’s name trends, pause. Verify. Mourn thoughtfully. Resist the easy certainty of instant narratives. The truth, when it matters most, deserves that patience.

Second physician receives sentence for supplying drugs to Perry

hanad

December 17, 2025

Second doctor sentenced for supplying drugs to Perry — Matthew Perry died at the age of 54 at his LA home (file image)

A Small Clinic, a Big Fall: How a Ketamine Supply Chain Ended in Home Confinement

There is something quietly ordinary about the house where the sentencing took place — beige stucco, a flagpole, an avocado tree shading the driveway — the kind of Southern California calm that belies the storms that swirl inside courtrooms. On a recent weekday morning, the hush was broken by a sentence that felt almost anticlimactic: eight months of home confinement for Dr. Mark Chavez, a 55-year-old physician who admitted conspiring to supply ketamine that ultimately found its way to the late actor Matthew Perry.

The clerk’s gavel carried the weight of a larger narrative: celebrity, addiction, medical ethics, and the strange market that has formed around a drug meant to heal. Chavez, who ran a ketamine infusion clinic near San Diego, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to supply the drug and was ordered also to complete 300 hours of community service. His guilty plea acknowledged a fraudulent prescription that was used to obtain vials of ketamine later passed to another doctor, identified in court filings as Dr. Salvador Plasencia.

The Narrow Thread of Supply

It was a thread — an illicit prescription, an exchange between colleagues, a syringe or two — that stretched all the way to the hot tub at an Los Angeles home where Perry, known worldwide as Chandler from Friends, died in 2023. Prosecutors say the actor had high levels of ketamine in his system at autopsy. Plasencia has already been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail, and both physicians have surrendered their medical licenses.

“Accountability isn’t just a punishment,” said a prosecutor in court after the sentencing. “It’s a recognition that what began, perhaps for some, as an attempt to help, became a criminal conduit that cost a life.”

More legal drama is still to come. Three other people who admitted roles in supplying drugs tied to the case will be sentenced in the months ahead, including Jasveen Sangha — a figure prosecutors have labeled the so-called “Ketamine Queen” — who faces a potential sentence that could reach decades. Perry’s live-in assistant and another man pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to distribute ketamine.

Medicine, Misuse, and a Thin Line

Ketamine sits in a complicated corner of modern medicine. A reliable anesthetic for decades, it has in recent years been repurposed — often in low, controlled doses — as a fast-acting treatment for severe, treatment-resistant depression. Clinical trials report response rates that can be substantial among people who have not benefited from traditional antidepressants, which is why thousands of clinics have sprung up across the U.S. and beyond.

But that same compound can be misused. In the U.S., ketamine is a Schedule III controlled substance, and when diverted from regulated channels it becomes a recreational drug associated with dissociation, dangerous behavior, and, when mixed with other depressants, heightened risk of respiratory complications.

“Ketamine has real therapeutic promise,” said Dr. Lila Martinez, a psychiatrist who studies novel depression therapies. “But therapy needs structure — informed consent, dosing protocols, monitoring. Outside of that, it’s a vector for harm. The Matthew Perry case shows how fast clinical provision can unravel into something lethal when oversight is absent.”

Where the System Failed

The case exposed several weak links: fraudulent prescriptions, informal transfers of medicine between physicians, and a shadow market that fed high-end clients. Text messages cited during the investigation revealed a casualness to transactions — exchanges littered with jokes and dollars-and-cents calculations. Plasencia reportedly mused in messages, “I wonder how much this moron will pay,” a line that prompted outrage in court and among the public.

For many on the outside, it was jarring to see the machinery of medical care and the commerce of celebrity collide so bluntly. “They treated it like a luxury product,” said Marisol Vega, a neighbor who lives near one of the clinics implicated in the case. “You don’t expect to see your doctors’ names next to a gossip headline about drugs.”

The Actor Behind the Headlines

Matthew Perry’s death rippled far beyond Hollywood tabloids. For legions of Friends fans — a show that premiered in 1994 and made its final bow in 2004, but has lived on in streaming — he was Chandler Bing, the snarky, awkward brother-in-arms whose barbs masked a tender heart. He was also a man whose private battles were well-documented.

In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry wrote with brutal candor about decades of addiction: “I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he admitted, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.” He underwent multiple surgeries after a drug-related burst colon in 2018 and publicly sought help time and again.

Many who knew him or followed his life say his attempts to manage depression with ketamine therapy were earnest. Prosecutors contend he became dependent on the drug, however, and that dependence is at the heart of the criminal investigation that followed his death.

Beyond a Single Case: Broader Questions

This is not simply a story about a celebrity who fell through the cracks. It’s about the broader, global conversation on how we regulate innovative but potent treatments, how we protect vulnerable patients, and how fame can complicate the ethical calculus of care.

Regulation: With the proliferation of ketamine clinics, regulators face the challenge of setting consistent standards for treatment and monitoring.
Access vs. Safety: As demand for rapid-acting antidepressants grows, how do we balance swift access with robust safeguards?
Supply Chains: This case highlights how diversion — through fraudulent prescriptions or informal transfers — can undermine controlled-drug systems.

“We need a system that encourages innovation without enabling exploitation,” said policy analyst Aaron Feldman. “That means better oversight, a real reporting infrastructure for clinics, and education for patients who might seek quick fixes.”

Neighborhood Echoes and the Human Toll

Outside the courthouse, reactions were mixed: some called for harsher punishments, others warned against turning medicine into a criminal matter at the expense of nuanced addiction treatment. A local recovery counselor who has worked with former clients of ketamine clinics shook her head. “This isn’t about vilifying one practitioner,” she said. “It’s about recognizing a pattern where desperation meets opportunity. There are human beings in both columns — patients and providers.”

For fans, the pain was personal. Social media still fills with scenes from Friends — the café couch, the dance floor, Chandler’s wry deadpan. But those clips now sit beside headlines about ketamine and criminality. The juxtaposition is jarring: laughter and loss in the same breath.

What Should Readers Take Away?

What does this saga teach us? Perhaps that medical breakthroughs need commensurate ethical rigor, that fame can hide but also amplify vulnerability, and that adequate support for mental health remains an unfinished project worldwide. It also forces uncomfortable questions: When does treatment tip into dependency? When does compassion for struggling patients give way to the need for accountability?

I’ll leave you with this: when a society entrusts life-saving tools to professionals, it also entrusts them with a duty of care that must outlive fame and fortune. Are our systems up to that task? If not, what are we willing to change?

There will be more court dates, more sentences, and perhaps more reforms. But for now, an eight-month home confinement and 300 hours of community service mark one small closure in a story that spans medicine, celebrity, and heartbreak — and that asks us, quietly and insistently, how we protect the most vulnerable among us.

Driver in Liverpool parade sentenced to over 21 years behind bars

hanad

December 17, 2025

Liverpool parade driver jailed for more than 21 years — Screen grab taken from bodyworn video issued by Merseyside Police

When Celebration Became a Collision: A Liverpool Night That Changed Lives

There is a particular hum to Liverpool after a victory — the city vibrates, not just with noise but with relief and joy. Red scarves flutter like flags. Pints are raised in chorus. The anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone” threads through the streets, a hymn and a promise rolled into one.

On the evening of 26 May, that hum swelled into a river of supporters pouring out of the city centre following Liverpool FC’s title celebrations. Families, teenagers, grandparents and toddlers drifted through Dale Street and Water Street, many still buzzing, many exhausted, all moving slowly toward trains, buses, taxis and the safety of home.

At roughly 6pm, the flow of people met a different kind of force: a silver Ford Galaxy driven by 54-year-old Paul Doyle. What followed — captured on the car’s own dashcam and later replayed in court — read like a nightmare stitched into minutes. The vehicle mounted a street closed to traffic and accelerated into crowds. People flew onto the bonnet; others tumbled under rubber and steel. A pram carrying six-month-old Teddy Eveson was thrown; 77-year-old Susan Passey was among the wounded. In total, 134 fans were injured that day, some with life-changing damage, and 29 victims were named in the indictment.

A dashcam, a decision, and a desperate scramble

The footage is ordinary in form but extraordinary in consequence: a steering wheel, a dashboard, a man’s voice, anger and obscenities. “Move,” the driver can be heard shouting. At one point the camera records him swearing, reacting not to a threat but to the human tide around him. When a line of cars turned away from the cordoned street, Doyle paused, then steered into the left lane where people had gathered.

“It was like watching someone choose violence in slow motion,” said a local paramedic who treated victims that night, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There was no frantic, panicked swerving to avoid people — it was deliberate, and that’s the worst of it.”

The car finally stopped only because Dan Barr, a fan who had been in the crowd, climbed into the back seat and pushed the gear selector into park. “I just saw kids underneath and knew I had to do something,” Barr later said in a statement read in court. His quick action prevented further movement but could not reverse the damage already done.

Courts, sentences and words that landed like thunder

Last week, Mr Justice Andrew Menary KC sentenced Doyle to 21 years and six months in prison after the former Royal Marine admitted a litany of offences, including dangerous driving, multiple counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and affray. Doyle initially denied 31 charges but changed his plea moments before the prosecution opened its case, acknowledging his actions in full.

At sentencing the judge did not mince words. “It is almost impossible to comprehend how any right-thinking person could act as you did,” he told Doyle. “To drive a vehicle into crowds of pedestrians with such persistence and disregard for human life defies ordinary understanding.” He added: “Your actions caused horror and devastation on a scale not previously encountered by this court.”

For many of the injured, the sentence will be a legal milestone but not an end to daily struggles. Recovery — physical, emotional, financial — stretches long after the gavel falls.

Questions left in the wake

Why did he do it? The prosecutor’s reply was stark in its simplicity. James Allison of the Crown Prosecution Service (Mersey–Cheshire) told the court, “He lost his temper. He went into a rage.” Detectives found no evidence that Doyle had been threatened with a knife or faced an immediate attack; CCTV and witness accounts did not corroborate his later claim that panic drove him.

Detective Chief Inspector John Fitzgerald put it bluntly: “Doyle’s total disregard for the safety of others — particularly the many young children present on Dale Street and Water Street that day — is beyond comprehension. It is sheer luck that no lives were lost.”

Lives interrupted — from a six‑month‑old to the elderly

The list of victims reads like a cross-section of a city: infants in prams, teenagers with scarves and painted faces, parents, commuters, pensioners. One six-month-old baby, Teddy Eveson, was hurled from his pram; another victim, aged 77, was among the oldest named. Some suffered broken bones and deep lacerations; others are rebuilding mobility, sleep and trust.

“He was supposed to be cheering with us,” said a mother who was at the parade and whose toddler had been knocked over. “Instead, we spent the night in A&E. A celebration turned into a memory I can’t shake.”

The human stories have continued to ripple outward: nights of insomnia for witnesses, children afraid of crowds, people unable to return to certain streets without a sense of unease. These are the quieter, cumulative costs that statistics cannot fully capture.

What this means for public safety and city life

Large public gatherings are a British ritual — from carnivals to jubilant football parades. The question is not whether they should happen, but how cities ensure they can happen safely.

Physical measures: More temporary bollards, reinforced closures and better signage can make an immediate difference.
Event design: Rerouting traffic, extending pedestrian-only hours and clearer stewarding create protective buffers.
Community training: Encouraging bystander first response and situational awareness can save lives — as Dan Barr’s actions showed.

Across Europe and beyond, urban planners and security professionals have increasingly wrestled with vehicle-into-crowd incidents since the early 2010s. While most celebratory events pass without incident, the potential for tragedy has reshaped how civic mums and dads, councils and police think about open streets.

Not just a Liverpool problem

What happened on Dale Street is a local calamity with global echoes. Cities worldwide are reconsidering the balance between openness and protection. How do we preserve the unscripted joys of mass celebration — the spontaneous singing, the shared beers, the skin-to-skin camaraderie — while reducing the risk of someone, for reasons we may never fully understand, turning a car into a weapon?

It is a policy question, yes, but also a moral one. When a person’s rage can reverberate through a crowd, what does that tell us about the health of civic life? About the supports we offer people whose tempers escalate into violence? About the training we give drivers, the stressors that lead to road rage, and the latent fractures in communities?

After the parade: grief, gratitude and hard conversations

There has been gratitude — for the paramedics, the hospital staff, the strangers who reached in to drag people from beneath wheels. There has been grief and anger, and a fierce determination from many in Liverpool that the city will not be defined by a single car and a single moment of fury.

“We’re still the city that sings,” said one lifelong Liverpool resident as she lit a candle for the injured. “But we must do better. Not just in punishment, but in prevention.”

So I’ll ask you, the reader: when you next see a crowd, what do you see? Joy? Risk? A place to stand together? A single thoughtless act can turn communal joy into trauma. The challenge ahead is collective: to protect the spontaneous and to heal the harmed, to study what went wrong and to act so it never happens again.

For the families tending bruises and stitches, for Dan Barr and other quiet heroes, for the baby thrown from his pram and the pensioner with a broken arm, the sentence may mark one chapter’s close. But the long work of rebuilding trust — in streets, in safety, in each other — stretches on.

FBI Expands Search as Manhunt Intensifies for Brown University Shooter

hanad

December 17, 2025

FBI widens net in hunt for Brown University shooter — Members of the FBI Evidence Response Team work at the scene outside in Providence

Providence in Shock: A Campus Mourns and a City Searches for Answers

On a crisp December morning that started like any other on the storied brick paths of Brown University, an ordinary rhythm of exams and hurried coffee cups was shattered by gunfire. Two students are dead, several more wounded, and a community that prides itself on openness and learning is grappling with fear and unanswered questions.

The victims—19-year-old Ella Cook and 18-year-old Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov—are names now etched into the lives of classmates, friends, and professors. They are also reminders of the human lives behind headlines and statistics. “Ella had a laugh you could hear from the quad,” said a classmate who asked not to be named. “She led debates with a fierce kindness. This isn’t just a number.”

The Scene and the Search

Providence Police have released surveillance footage showing a person they believe is the gunman walking near the engineering and physics building hours before and minutes after the attack. In the clips, he is hunched in dark clothing and a mask—face obscured, posture distinct—moving through the College Hill neighborhood with measured steps.

“We’re confident the person captured on video is the suspect,” Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez told reporters, urging anyone who recognizes the gait, the bearing, or the jacket to come forward. “Sometimes it’s not a face that identifies someone, it’s the way they move.”

Investigators say the man was seen in the area as early as 10:30am local time—more than five hours before the shooting—suggesting the possibility of “casing” the site. A timeline compiled from residential cameras and a car dashcam shows the suspect walking near the building before reappearing on the same street three minutes after the shooting. Police have collected more than 200 tips and are methodically following leads.

Limited Footage, Lasting Questions

Inside the engineering building, surveillance was sparse. Officials say no internal cameras captured clear images of the shooter as the attack unfolded inside an unlocked classroom where exams were in session. The gun, police said, was a 9mm handgun. Students barricaded themselves in classrooms and hid under tables as officers swarmed the campus.

“It felt endless,” a student described later. “You could hear sirens, see lights, and all you could do was breathe quietly and hope.”

Lives Interrupted

Cook, described by friends as an energetic campus presence and vice president of the College Republicans at Brown, had worked summers scooping ice cream back home—small-town roots and big ambitions intertwined. Umurzokov, who had moved to the United States as a child and graduated near the top of his high school class in Virginia, had dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon.

“Mukhammad was the kind of person who stayed after class to help someone with a problem set,” a former teacher said. “He volunteered, he studied, and he wanted to give back.” The family’s online fundraising page for funeral costs and medical bills read like a catalogue of loss: “He always lent a helping hand to anyone in need… Our family is incredibly devastated.”

Citywide Impact: Lockdowns, Anxiety, and Measures

The College Hill neighborhood, with its narrow lanes, red-brick facades and late-afternoon light, felt closed in the days after the shooting. Residents bolted doors and checked on one another. Brown University, which enrolls nearly 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students, canceled classes and exams for the rest of the term and doubled the staffing of its Department of Public Safety. Campus buildings now have tighter entry protocols.

“I walked past a small bakery and everyone was just staring at their phones,” recalled a local shop owner. “People came in wanting to talk, to cry, to know that someone else felt unsettled. This town is small—news moves fast, fear moves faster.”

Public schools in Providence remained open, though after-school programs were suspended as officials evaluated safety plans. Early in the investigation, authorities detained and later released a man in his 20s who was considered a person of interest. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha has urged patience: “We have zero evidence regarding motive at this point, but we’re pursuing every avenue,” he said. “This is painstaking work, but it’s going well.”

Injuries, Numbers, and a Larger Pattern

Beyond the two fatalities, eight students were hurt in the attack; seven remained hospitalized, with at least one in critical condition. These are not isolated data points but part of a broader pattern that has put gun violence at the front of national conversation. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 300 mass shootings in the United States so far this year—defined as incidents in which four or more people are shot. Each of those tallies represents lives, families, classmates.

How do we reconcile schools—places of study and sanctuary—with a world where an unlocked door can become an entry point for tragedy? How do communities balance openness with security? Those are not easy questions, and they demand long conversations that stretch beyond immediate investigations.

Voices from the Community

“You don’t expect to be screaming at a professor that there’s someone with a gun in your building,” said a graduate student who taught a discussion section. “The trust is gone for a minute—maybe longer.”

City council members and university leaders have convened emergency meetings, offering counseling services and pledging transparency as the probe continues. “We grieve Ella and Mukhammad,” said a Brown administrator. “We will keep asking how we can keep our campus safe without closing it off from scholarship and civic life.”

What Comes Next?

Investigators continue to review surveillance footage, phone records and witness statements. They are asking anyone who may have seen a person matching the suspect’s description—dark clothes, face mask, distinctive gait—to contact the Providence Police. The city has set up tip lines and is working with state and federal partners.

In the meantime, the neighborhood stitches itself back together—slowly, imperfectly—through vigils, study groups, and acts of care. Candles sit on windowsills; handwritten notes appear on the boards outside dorms. Students planned memorials and fundraising drives, not as a replacement for systemic change, but as concrete expressions of sorrow and solidarity.

Reflecting on Safety and Solidarity

What does safety look like in a university setting? Is it metal detectors and locked gates, or community programs and mental health resources that prevent violence before it happens? The questions are complex, and the answers are seldom singular. In the echo of sirens and the hush of campus rooms, the community is asking itself which parts of its open, civic life it is willing to trade to feel secure—and which parts it refuses to lose.

At a candlelit vigil, a student read from a notebook: “They took two of our lights. We will not let the darkness win their story.” The line landed like a benediction. It wasn’t a policy solution—it was a reminder that people are at the center of this grief and that, however the investigation proceeds, healing will require more than arrests and bulletins. It will require reading lists, counseling appointments, courtroom closures, and everyday acts of neighborliness—holding doors, sharing rides, listening.

As the search continues and investigators work through hundreds of tips, Providence waits. The video frames flicker on loop in newsrooms and in police briefings. The gait, the jacket, the shadowed face—small details that might lead to an answer. Until then: questions, memory, and a city trying to make sense of a December morning that became a test of resilience.

What would you want your campus or neighborhood to do differently tomorrow? How do we protect open places without losing the spirit that makes them alive? These are the conversations communities now must have—honestly, urgently, humanely.

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