Search intensifies for nine skiers missing in California avalanche

February 18, 2026

Nine skiers missing after California avalanche — A rescue team heads towards the avalanche site

White-Out on Castle Peak: A Desperate Search in the Sierra

The mountains around Tahoe have a way of making you feel very small and very alive at once. This week, the Sierra Nevada showed both moods—wrapping slopes in blizzard white, then roaring down in a single, terrifying moment when snow broke loose and swallowed a party of skiers.

Rescue teams from Nevada County, Truckee Fire and nearby ski patrols spent a long night clawing through wind-driven drifts to find nine people unaccounted for after an avalanche on Castle Peak, officials say. Fifteen people had been on the trip when the slide struck; six were pulled out alive with “varying injuries,” and two were taken to hospital. The rest remain missing as the storm continues to dump heavy snow across the range.

The scene on the ridge

Imagine standing in a world where visibility drops to a handful of paces, where wind is not just noise but a force that can steer snow like an ocean wave. That is where rescuers were working—at the edge of daylight, in white-out conditions that make navigation as dangerous as the avalanche itself.

“It took several hours for rescue personnel to safely reach the skiers,” the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said. Truckee Fire crews medically evaluated those brought down the mountain, while ski-rescue teams from Boreal Mountain and Tahoe Donner’s Alder Creek Adventure Center were some of the first on scene. In all, 46 emergency responders were involved in the operation, officials said.

“You hear the roar and then the world is muted,” said one volunteer ski patroller who requested anonymity because the search was ongoing. “We move by feel—probing, shouting names, listening for any sign of life. It’s brutal work, but there’s no place I’d rather be when people need help.”

Weather, warnings and a dangerous forecast

The storm that pummeled the Sierra was no ordinary winter bluster. The National Weather Service warned parts of the Sierra above 1,000 meters could receive as much as 2.4 meters of snow over a 48-hour stretch, with winds gusting to 90 km/h. Forecasters forecasted white-out conditions and near-constant avalanche danger.

The Sierra Avalanche Center put the backcountry avalanche risk at “HIGH,” bluntly warning: “Large avalanches are expected to occur… Tuesday, Tuesday night, and into at least early Wednesday morning across backcountry terrain.” In plain terms: the mountains were not forgiving.

“High danger means natural avalanches are likely and human-triggered slides are almost certain,” said Dr. Maya Ruiz, an avalanche scientist who studies snowpack dynamics. “Heavy, fast-loading storms like this create weak layers in the snow that can propagate fractures for miles.”

Voices from the valley

The people who live in and around Tahoe are no strangers to snow. Truckee’s downtown is lined with palatial pines and old-world lamp posts; wood smoke hangs low in the air and chains clack on plows. But even for locals, this storm felt different.

“We get big storms here, but this one came with a ferocity I haven’t seen in years,” said Nadine Morales, who runs a guiding service out of Truckee. “Guides are trained for risk, but there are limits. When the backcountry is flagged HIGH, you rethink your plans.”

Sheriff’s Captain Russell Green put it plainly on local television: “People go out and use the backcountry at all times. We advise against it, obviously, but I wouldn’t say that it’s uncommon. Not that it was a wise choice.”

A family member of one of the missing skiers described a surreal wait at a makeshift staging area where anxious friends and relatives huddled under emergency lights. “You try not to imagine the worst,” she said, voice breaking. “All we can do is hope the rescuers find them. They said the guides were experienced—maybe the storm just outmatched everyone.”

How rescuers work—and why it’s getting harder

Searches like this are a choreography of skill and stamina: probe lines, avalanche transceivers, shovels, and the kind of muscle memory that only comes from years in the mountains. Ski-rescue teams use specialized sleds and harnesses to move victims; every second matters when hypothermia and injuries are on the clock.

But rescues are becoming more complex. Popular backcountry terrain has seen a surge in users over the past decade—part tourism, part pandemic-era shift to outdoor recreation—pushing more people into hazardous places. At the same time, extreme weather events are becoming more pronounced.

“We have more people in the backcountry than we used to, and storms that deposit large loads of snow in short periods,” said Dr. Ruiz. “That’s a recipe for higher avalanche activity and more frequent, complicated rescues.”

46 emergency responders involved in the current search
15 people on the outing; 6 rescued, 2 hospitalized, 9 missing
National Weather Service: up to 2.4 meters of snow possible in 48 hours
Sierra Avalanche Center: HIGH avalanche danger across backcountry terrain

Context: a season of risk

Across the western United States, avalanches have been deadly in recent winters. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center reported six avalanche fatalities so far this season, including a January death on Castle Peak—an ominous reminder that these slopes can turn lethal in an instant.

Experts stress that winter recreation has a steep learning curve. A user with a transceiver who doesn’t practice under pressure can still be rendered helpless in a fast-moving slide. That’s why many local organizations emphasize guided outings, avalanche education courses, and checking forecasts religiously.

What does this mean for the future?

When the snow clears and the search concludes, communities will likely be left with a calculus familiar in mountain towns: how to balance access to wild places with the responsibility of safety. This isn’t just a local dilemma. From the Alps to the Andes, increasing weather extremes and booming outdoor recreation are forcing new conversations about infrastructure, rescue capacity, and public awareness.

“We have to be honest about risk,” said Morales, the guide. “Skiing in the backcountry isn’t the same as skiing at a resort. The margin for error shrinks dramatically in storms like this.”

Ask yourself: when you’re tempted by the pull of a pristine ridge or an untracked line, what price are you willing to pay for that solitude? How do we as a community—global or local—support those who answer the call when catastrophe strikes?

For readers and travelers

If you are planning winter travel to mountainous regions, heed the following common-sense measures shared by avalanche centers and rescue groups:

Check local avalanche forecasts before you go and throughout your trip.
Carry and know how to use essential rescue gear: beacon, shovel, probe.
Take an avalanche safety course and practice companion rescue drills.
Consider guided trips in severe conditions; experienced guides carry knowledge that can save lives.
When authorities warn of HIGH danger, the safest choice is to stay out of the backcountry.

The mountains will always call. They will also always demand respect. Tonight, in a valley lined with lamplight and worry, rescuers keep searching—because that, for many of them, is how you answer nature’s harshest moments. We watch, we wait, and we hope they bring everyone home.

Sweden’s military warns of Russia escalating hybrid threats

hanad

February 18, 2026

Russia increasing hybrid threats, says Sweden's military — A Swedish review said Russia is the main 'military threat to Sweden and NATO' (File image)

On the edge of the Baltic: a changing calm

There is a peculiar kind of quiet that settles over the Stockholm archipelago in late spring—small ferries leave wakes that silver the water, sea birds wheel above granite skerries, and the scent of pine and salt hangs in the air. Walk the coastal path near a fishing village and you might hear the distant hum of a freighter, and, lately, the clipped chime of military radio traffic. It is beauty and tension braided together.

“You feel it in the way people lock their doors a little sooner now,” says Ingrid Andersson, who grew up on Gotland and still goes out at dawn to check lobster pots. “We love this sea. But you also notice the patrols, the navy lights at night, and the conversations in the cafés—people are paying attention.”

That attention has been precisely the point of Sweden’s Military Intelligence and Security Service (MUST), which this week released a yearly threat review that reads more like a cautionary dispatch than a routine bulletin. Thomas Nilsson, the head of MUST, put it bluntly: Russia has stepped up hybrid threat activities and appears ready to take greater risks in the region around Sweden.

From tactics to temperament: what the intelligence says

“Russia has, in certain cases, stepped up actions and increased its presence, and perhaps with a greater risk appetite, in our vicinity,” Nilsson told reporters. His language—measured, but urgent—captures a growing unease among security officials in Stockholm and capitals across the Baltic rim.

MUST’s review reiterates a point that has become central to Swedish strategic thinking since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022: Russia is the principal military threat to Sweden and to NATO in the Baltic theatre. The agency notes not only an intensification of traditional military preparations but a widening palette of hybrid tools—cyber intrusions, disinformation campaigns, covert maritime activities, and the shadow play of proxy actors—that can unsettle societies without crossing the line into open war.

“If Moscow meets resistance and fails,” Nilsson warned, “we may well see increased attempts to apply pressure through other means—disruption, coercion, and asymmetrical operations designed to exhaust and intimidate.” He also cautioned that success could embolden still riskier behavior. “Either outcome raises the appetite for risk,” he said.

What is meant by “hybrid”?

Hybrid warfare isn’t a single weapon; it’s a toolbox. Think of it as the blending of cyberattacks with misinformation, naval probes with covert surveillance, economic pressure with legal pretexts. It is crafted to create ambiguity, erode trust, and shift perceptions before governments can respond decisively.

Cyber operations that target infrastructure or political institutions;
Information campaigns that sow confusion and distrust;
Unmarked or gray-zone naval activity near territorial waters;
Sabotage and covert action aimed at critical sites or supply chains.

“The genius of these tactics is their slipperiness,” explains Dr. Erik Larsson, a defense analyst at the Swedish Defence University. “They are often deniable, hard to attribute quickly, and they force an adversary to respond on multiple fronts—military, civilian, and psychological.”

Local color, real fears

People on the ground describe the intangible effects of that multi-front pressure. In a café on Visby’s cobbled main street, a retired schoolteacher named Fatima sips strong coffee and talks about a different kind of anxiety: “It’s not just ships and planes. It’s when your neighbor shares something online that looks real but isn’t. You start questioning who to trust.”

For small businesses that depend on tourism, the fear is economic as much as existential. “If people think the Baltic is unsafe, they’ll stay away,” says Johan, who runs a guesthouse near the harbour. “We’ve lived through tough winters, but uncertainty is a cold that lasts.”

On the northern edge of the country, where submarine cables and energy lines thread through the seabed, authorities are increasingly monitoring critical infrastructure. “Energy resilience is national security now,” notes Emma Karlsson, an infrastructure planner. “We’re updating contingency plans at a pace that would have seemed excessive five years ago.”

Numbers and geopolitics: the wider context

The must-read element of MUST’s review is not an alarm bell so much as a map of shifting priorities. Since 2022, many European nations have recalibrated defence budgets, alliance relationships, and emergency planning. Sweden, with roughly 10 million people and a long maritime frontier, has moved from a posture of cautious neutrality to one of active cooperation with Western allies.

Across the Baltic Sea, the island of Gotland has emerged as a focal point of concern. Its strategic location—midway between Sweden and the eastern Baltic—makes it a natural stage for naval and air activity, and locals know the geopolitical logic by heart. “You get used to being part of the chessboard,” Ingrid says wryly. “But you don’t have to like it.”

The MUST review also notes that the pace of any Russian build-up in the Baltic will be shaped by several variables: the course of the war in Ukraine, the resilience of the Russian economy, and Moscow’s relations with actors such as China. Put simply: geopolitics is a spinning dial, and small moves in one corner can produce large effects elsewhere.

What this means for citizens and policymakers

If hybrid tactics are designed to blur lines, then clarity becomes a defense. That means better cyber hygiene in municipal offices, more transparent media literacy campaigns to inoculate citizens against disinformation, and seamless civil-military cooperation in emergencies.

“Security is not just soldiers and ships,” says Dr. Larsson. “It’s teachers, IT managers, ferry captains, journalists. It’s ordinary people making informed choices.”

In concrete terms, Sweden is strengthening ties with NATO members and regional partners, investing in intelligence capabilities, and shoring up critical infrastructure. But preparation is as psychological as it is material. Communities must be resilient not because they fear war, but because they value the freedoms and normal rhythms that hybrid campaigns aim to distort.

Questions to sit with

As you read this, consider where you live and how resilient your local institutions feel. How would your town cope with prolonged disinformation, targeted power outages, or a cyber disruption to public services? These are not hypothetical thought experiments—they are the contours of contemporary security challenges.

“We don’t want to live in a world where every decision is made under duress,” Ingrid says. “But we also can’t pretend nothing has changed. We must be ready without becoming afraid.”

Looking ahead

The Baltic Sea has always been a place of weather and waves, commerce and culture—its significance has long outstripped its size. Today, that strategic importance makes it a mirror of broader shifts in international politics: the return of competition between great powers, the rise of hybrid tactics that target societies as much as militaries, and the enduring need for alliances and civic resilience.

Nilsson’s warning is a call to sober preparation rather than panic. The task for Sweden—and for all democracies touching the Baltic—is to hold fast to normal life while building the muscle to repel ambiguity, disruption, and coercion.

“We must be vigilant, not anxious,” says Dr. Larsson. “Because the best defense is a confident society that refuses to let fear dictate its future.”

And as the ferries keep cutting silver paths across the water and children still chase kites on the shoreline, one hopes that vigilance will translate into calm—a steady kind of courage that keeps communities safe without dimming the everyday light that makes the Baltic coast home.

Ukraine-Russia negotiations poised to resume as US points to progress

hanad

February 18, 2026

Ukraine-Russia talks to resume as US signals progress — Pieces of a Russian drone are seen after it hit a building in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine

Geneva Again: A Room of Negotiators, Outside the Echo of War

The Palais des Nations looked almost absurdly calm for a city that, for a week, had become a tiny theatre in one of the most brutal dramas of the 21st century.

Delegates shuffled in, diplomats exchanged tight smiles, and on the low stone walls outside, protesters wrapped scarves around their mouths against a cold wind and held placards demanding an end to the killing. A woman from Kharkiv, who introduced herself only as Olena, pressed a laminated photograph into my hand — a picture of her brother’s home reduced to a jagged stack of concrete. “They talk in rooms like this,” she said, “and the bombs keep talking louder.”

For the second consecutive round, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in Geneva this week, hoping, if not expecting, to find a path away from combat that has already reshaped Europe. The meetings — convened with visible U.S. mediation and under the shadow of a global spotlight — were a reminder that diplomacy can be at once painfully methodical and heartbreakingly urgent.

Why Geneva? Why Now?

Geneva is a city of neutral facades: museums, manicured parks, and a long history as an incubator for compromise. That neutrality drew negotiators here after previous attempts in Abu Dhabi that achieved little beyond clarifying differences.

Standing in the lobby, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff — the man Washington dispatched to steer talks — spoke with a measured optimism. “Bringing both sides back to the table is the only responsible path,” he told reporters. “We’re building the scaffolding for a settlement, even if the walls aren’t built yet.” On social media, he echoed the same note: progress, he said, even when fragile, was better than silence.

What’s on the table — and what’s not

Every discussion in Geneva revolved around the same, stubborn questions: territory, security guarantees, and how to ensure that a deal would be durable. Moscow has presented demands that would amount to control over large swathes of eastern Ukraine — notably Donetsk — while Kyiv insists it will not cede sovereignty without ironclad guarantees against future aggression.

“You cannot sign away the future of a nation in exchange for a pause in bullets,” President Volodymyr Zelensky told his country in an evening address, his voice threaded with weary resolve. “If we give up what keeps us alive, peace will look like defeat.”

The Fog Between Words and Missiles

The disparity between rhetoric and reality was stark. As negotiators spoke about “mechanics of possible solutions,” the battlefield kept moving. Ukrainian officials said that in the lead-up to the talks their air defenses were pushed to the limit by dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones — night-time strikes that caused civilian casualties and left tens of thousands without power. Moscow, in turn, accused Kyiv of mounting drone attacks, especially over the Crimean peninsula, a flashpoint since 2014.

“Whenever the cameras are on, the shelling can hush for a day,” said Andriy Sybiga, Ukraine’s foreign minister, on social media. “But then the horizon starts moving again.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, absorbed in his predictable guardedness, warned not to expect any big announcements after the first day of talks.

Numbers you should know

The war, which flared into a full-scale invasion in February 2022, has displaced millions: more than eight million people have registered as refugees across Europe, and several million remain internally displaced inside Ukraine.
Territory: Russia controls roughly one-fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders — including Crimea, annexed in 2014, and areas seized during the broader war.
Economics: Moscow faces mounting wartime fiscal pressure, with oil revenues reported in recent months at lows unseen in several years as sanctions bite and global energy markets shift.

Voices from the Ground

It’s easy to speak of “ceasefires” and “mechanisms” from the safety of a hotel conference room. It’s another thing to picture the person who will have to live through any agreement’s consequences.

In Odesa, a fisherman named Mykola stacked nets on the pier and watched the horizon as if it might answer his questions. “If there is peace, I want to fish without looking for a crater,” he said. “If there is a treaty, let it be anchored in law, not in promises.”

A volunteer at a shelter in Lviv, who asked not to be named, described how talk of concessions ripples through their daily work. “When leaders negotiate borders, we fix roofs and feed children,” she told me. “We can carry a lot, but not the burden of a deal that makes our children feel like second-class citizens.”

Diplomacy in an Age of Fatigue

This round of diplomacy is playing out amid a wider global recalibration. Political pressure from Washington — including repeated public urgings that Kyiv “come to the table” quickly — has stirred controversy. President Trump, in a blunt public line, urged rapid compromise. For Kyiv, which has been asked repeatedly to make what it calls disproportionate concessions, the international chorus of urgency feels fraught.

“You cannot impose a peace that feels like surrender,” Rustem Umerov, who led Ukraine’s delegation, told journalists after a meeting. “Security guarantees, clarity on territory and timelines — these are not negotiable if the goal is lasting peace.”

Why this matters to you

Beyond lives and sovereignty, the war has global echoes: grain supplies, energy prices, military alliances, and the rule of international law. A faltering or rushed settlement could reverberate for years, changing the map and the rules that govern it.

If diplomacy succeeds, what would it look like? Would it bring back displaced families to rebuilt streets, or would it entrench division for a generation? If it fails, where else might the conflict spread, and how will global institutions respond?

These are not hypothetical questions for those living in capitals or portfolios. They are real and immediate for farmers in Senegal watching grain prices climb, for families in Warsaw receiving refugees, for investors measuring energy risks, and for citizens everywhere asking whether the post-war order will be defined by rules or by force.

Waiting and Watching

The Geneva talks will continue. Delegates promised to update their leaders and return to the negotiating table. The tents of diplomacy will remain pitched against a backdrop of damaged cities and quiet cemeteries, where unopened letters and toys are witnesses to a calamity that numbers cannot fully describe.

As you read this, imagine the people who will live with the outcome — the fisherman, the volunteer, the mother from Kharkiv. Imagine what you would accept for peace in your own backyard. What does justice look like when the cost of a mistake is measured in lives? Who should bear that cost?

If diplomacy is the art of compromise, then the question facing Geneva is not whether people are tired of war, but whether they can agree on what will finally be worth the killing to stop.

11 Killed After US Strikes Suspected Drug Vessels in Pacific

hanad

February 18, 2026

11 dead in strikes on alleged drug boats in Pacific - US — People could be seen moving on two of the vessels prior to the strikes

Guns on the Water: A Night of Strikes, a Coast of Questions

Late yesterday, a grainy video circulated by the US military landed like a stone in calmer seas: three small boats, two apparently motionless, one skimming across a black ribbon of ocean, and then the flash of ordnance. Within hours, US Southern Command said 11 people were killed — four on each of two vessels in the eastern Pacific and three on a third in the Caribbean — and that no US forces were harmed. The clip shows figures moving on deck moments before the strikes; it leaves you with the twin sensations of certainty and unease.

“We took decisive action against three vessels that posed a threat to regional security,” a US Southern Command spokesperson said in a terse statement accompanying the footage. “These were targeted in self-defense and in coordination with partner nations.”

What the Pentagon Video Tells Us — and What It Doesn’t

Watch closely and the sequence is chillingly simple: the silhouette of a panga boat, someone on the bow, the burst of an explosion, then fire and debris. On two of the boats people appear to be moving about before they are struck. One boat seems to be trying to outrun its fate. The video is meant to prove resolve. It is also a partial truth.

Since early September, when Washington says it began a campaign to intercept suspected drug-smuggling craft at sea, more than 140 people have been reported killed and dozens of vessels destroyed, according to the military’s own tallies. That string of strikes has met with applause in some corners as an aggressive chokehold on traffickers; in others it has stirred alarm over legality and proportionality.

Voices from the Shoreline

Along a small seaside hamlet in northern Colombia, a man who declines to give his name because of local tensions stands barefoot on a sun-bleached pier and looks at the horizon. “We live by the sea,” he says, pulling the rim of his hat down against the glare. “Sometimes the boats carry fish. Sometimes they are carrying trouble. But we cannot be targets from the air.”

In a port market, a vendor named María runs her hand over a cooler of fresh snapper. “The ocean gives us life,” she says. “If the ocean becomes a battlefield, who will buy my fish? Who will feed my children?” Her voice catches when she talks about the relatives of local skippers who have vanished without explanation. “We deserve answers,” she says.

An expert view

“Kinetic strikes at sea raise complex legal and moral questions,” says Professor Elena Márquez, an expert in maritime law at a university in Madrid. “Under international law, the use of lethal force is supposed to be tightly constrained. If people on those boats were not presenting an imminent threat — if they were civilians or unarmed crew — then these strikes may well cross into extrajudicial territory.”

Labels, Definitions, and the Fog of War

The US administration has increasingly framed its campaign as a fight against “narco‑terrorists,” language meant to fold criminal networks into a national-security threat. That rhetorical shift is consequential: it changes how Washington justifies cross-border operations and how allies and adversaries react.

“Once you brand an adversary a ‘terrorist,’ a whole different set of legal and operational tools becomes available,” says a retired military planner familiar with counter-narcotics work. “But legal labels do not erase the need for evidence and proportionality.”

Human rights groups and international lawyers have been outspoken. Several organizations say previous strikes appear to have killed civilians and point to a lack of publicly disclosed evidence that the targeted craft were involved in drug shipments. “When you cannot show that the people you killed posed an immediate threat, you are in danger of committing extrajudicial killings,” says Nadia Rahman, advocacy director for a global rights group.

On the Map: The Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean

The waters where these incidents unfolded are not random. For decades the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea have been major conduits for narcotics leaving South America bound for North America and Europe. Small, fast boats — pangas and similar craft — are often used to ferry product, crews, or supplies. So too are larger vessels and, increasingly, encrypted communications and complex maritime networks.

Since early September: the US military reports more than 140 people killed and dozens of vessels destroyed in strikes on suspected smuggling boats.
Three boats struck in the latest operation: two in the eastern Pacific, one in the Caribbean; footage shows people moving on deck prior to impact.
US naval posture: a substantial flotilla operating in the Caribbean, though the carrier central to that force has been temporarily redeployed to the Middle East amid other global tensions.

Local color: life alongside a trafficking highway

In the bustling seaside towns, the economy hums between legitimate commerce and shadowy opportunity. Men with sun-browned faces patch nets and clandestine couriers swap stories in corner cafes. A language mix of Spanish and Creole flows through markets. And as nights grow longer, fishermen light lanterns and listen for the distant thrum of outboard motors that may mean a catch — or a confrontation.

Diplomacy, Deterrence, and the Risk of Escalation

There is a strategic calculus here. By striking at sea, the US says it can choke traffickers before drugs ever reach land, reducing violence in cities far from the shore. The deterrent effect is real to some: captured shipments, disrupted routes, and a ledger that officials point to with pride.

But the costs are harder to measure. The optics of strikes that produce civilian casualties can fan outrage in the region and feed narratives of heavy-handed intervention. They can complicate relations with coastal countries whose sovereignty and citizens are affected. And they can set precedents others might follow.

“If states use force beyond their borders without clear legal basis, we enter a less stable maritime environment,” says Dr. Hakeem Okoye, a security analyst who studies transnational crime. “International norms exist for a reason.”

What Should We Demand — and Expect — Next?

As the smoldering wreckage of the latest strikes cools in the public imagination, certain questions will not go away.

Will the US release forensic evidence proving these vessels were actively engaged in trafficking?
Will families of those killed be given information, access, or compensation?
Will regional partners demand greater oversight or independent investigations?

“Transparency is essential if these operations are to retain legitimacy,” says a veteran diplomat who has worked on Caribbean security issues. “Secrets do not build trust.”

So where do we stand? On the surface, a decisive action: weapons fired, targets hit, a commander’s briefing completed. Beneath that, a tangle of human loss, legal ambiguity, and geopolitical risk. The ocean has always been a mirror; in it we see not only the flash of ordinance, but the reflection of our priorities.

When militaries turn the sea into a battleground against trafficking, who keeps watch for civilians? When states broaden the definition of a threat, who defines the limits? These are not just legal or technical questions; they are moral ones.

So I ask you, reader: if the goal is to make communities safer on land, are we confident that strikes like these are the best path? And if evidence is the currency of legitimacy, when will we be shown the books?

The waves will keep rolling, and the boats will keep coming. What we decide now about transparency, due process, and the sanctity of life at sea will shape those waters for years to come.

Nationwide Tributes Pour In for Civil Rights Icon Jesse Jackson

hanad

February 18, 2026

Jesse Jackson was present for many consequential moments in the long battle for racial justice in the United States

The Man Who Walked Between Pulpit and Protest: Remembering Jesse Jackson

There are mornings that crack open history like an old trunk — you lift the lid and the scent of a lifetime spills out. This was one of them: news rippling across neighborhoods from the South Side of Chicago to Dublin, Johannesburg to Washington, that Jesse Jackson had died at 84. For millions he was a galvanizer — a preacher who learned how to speak directly to power without losing the cadence of the church.

Outside a modest storefront office where the Rainbow/PUSH legacy still echoes, a line formed of people who remember him not as a headline but as a hand on the shoulder. “He made you feel seen,” said Marion Ellis, a retired schoolteacher who has worked in the neighborhood for four decades. “He didn’t offer sympathy. He offered a plan.”

A life that bridged pulpit and politics

Born into a segregated America, Jesse Jackson rose through the Black church into the national spotlight as a close aide to Martin Luther King Jr., then into the turbulence of the 1970s and beyond. He ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice in the 1980s, an audacious bid that broadened the political map for people of color and reshaped what a national campaign might look like.

He founded organizations that sought to fuse grassroots economic activism with electoral politics; his Rainbow Coalition sought alliances across race and class lines, and his work cast an international net — from anti-apartheid campaigns in South Africa to solidarity with struggles in Northern Ireland.

“He taught a generation how to be relentless without losing their humanity,” said Dr. Lila Matthews, a historian of social movements. “Jackson turned sermons into strategy and sermons into sit-ins; he believed moral rhetoric had to have concrete form.”

Voices from around the world

Tributes poured in quickly and with a kind of global astonishment. Former US President Barack Obama captured a common refrain when he wrote that he and a nation had “stood on his shoulders” — an image that has become shorthand for how the arc of American progress often rests on the backs of earlier, tireless laborers. President Joe Biden praised his “optimism” and “relentless insistence on what is right and just.”

From the political right and left, there was recognition. President Donald Trump — posting on his platform of choice — called Jackson “a force of nature,” lamenting the loss of someone he acknowledged as an influential figure in American life.

Abroad, leaders noted Jackson’s global reach. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa singled out Jackson’s “irrepressible” opposition to apartheid, underscoring how U.S. civil rights struggles intersected with liberation movements worldwide. In Ireland, Sinn Féin leaders remembered a man who visited, listened, and lent his voice to peace and self-determination campaigns.

Closer to home, civil rights figures and lawyers whose lives he shaped shared intimate memories. “He wasn’t just an orator,” said civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. “He was a teacher of how to translate spiritual conviction into political possibility.” Reverend Al Sharpton, who grew into national prominence alongside Jackson, called him “a movement unto himself” — a man who “carried history in his footsteps and hope in his voice.”

Why his loss feels so large

What made Jackson consequential was not just the scale of his ambitions but the texture of his methods. He mixed moral suasion with economic pressure — boycotts of retailers, negotiation for jobs and contracts, high-profile hostage negotiations overseas. He habitually walked into rooms where he would be told “no” and left with concessions. That capacity to turn moral outrage into measurable gain is rare.

Consider the landscape he helped alter: in the decades since Jackson first lit a national fuse, the visibility of Black political leadership in the United States has expanded — from local offices to the presidency itself. His efforts helped normalize the notion that candidates of color could compete for and command national coalitions. Those changes didn’t happen overnight, and they didn’t happen because of any single man — but Jackson’s energy helped accelerate the arc.

On the street — small stories, big meanings

At a church potluck a neighborhood organizer held this afternoon, the conversation pivoted between grief and a fierce, practical kind of gratitude. “He taught us to bargain for dignity,” said Malik Perez, 29, who coordinates youth outreach programs. “He didn’t just preach self-respect; he forced institutions to respect us through action.”

A choir director remembered him for his theatrical sense of ceremony. “Preaching to Jesse was like conducting a symphony,” she said. “He knew how to bring people together — and then, importantly, how to move them.”

Beyond memory: the questions he leaves us

Jackson’s death invites a series of uncomfortable, necessary questions. How do movements maintain moral clarity when they gain institutional power? How do we hold leaders accountable without losing the capacity to mobilize? And as inequality deepens globally, what tactics from his playbook still work — and which need rethinking in a digital, more fragmented era?

“Movements don’t have to worship heroes to learn from them,” Dr. Matthews said. “The task now is to extract useful tools — coalition-building, strategic disruption, moral framing — and adapt them.”

A final reckoning and a call to action

For many, Jackson’s life is less an end than a challenge to the next generation: keep building, keep bargaining, keep insisting that justice be practical as well as righteous. His legacy sits in the lives of activists who learned how to speak truth to markets as much as to legislatures, and in the slow widening of who is allowed to dream of national office.

Will the networks he helped weave continue to hold? That depends on organizers and citizens alike. It depends on people who will turn grief into commitment, and praise into policy. It depends, as Jackson insisted, on faith with feet — on faith that walks into rooms and refuses to leave until a better deal has been struck.

As you read this, take a moment: who taught you how to stand up? Who gave you the first idea that a different world was possible? In the quiet aftermath of a life like Jesse Jackson’s, memory and obligation sit side by side. One calls for remembrance; the other for work. Which will you answer?

Notable milestones: presidential bids in the 1980s; founder of organizations that merged spiritual conviction with economic and political activism.
Global reach: active in anti-apartheid efforts and international solidarity campaigns.
Legacy question: how to translate moral leadership into durable political change in the decades ahead.

Gisele Pelicot details surviving ‘hell and back’ rape ordeal

hanad

February 17, 2026

'Hell and back': Gisele Pelicot recounts rape ordeal — Gisele Pelicot's memoir retraces the mass-rape case that turned her into a global symbol in the fight against sexual violence

When Silence Was Broken: A Woman’s Memoir That Refused to Hide

There are books that act like bandages—soft, private, meant to cover wounds. And then there is the sort of memoir that rips the bandage off, letting light and air into a room that for too long has been shut. “A Hymn to Life,” the new memoir by Gisele Pelicot, falls squarely into the latter category. It is at once tender and unflinching: a survivor’s ledger of what happened in her own home, and a call to a nation—indeed, to the world—not to look away.

Ms. Pelicot was 73 when she decided the time for concealment had ended. In a country where privacy and reputation often carry a weight of their own, she waived the anonymity normally granted to victims in sexual crimes. She wanted faces revealed, questions asked, and the ordinary neighbors who populate our shared lives made to reckon with the possibility that atrocity can hide behind polite curtains.

The Moment the World Changed for Her

Imagine waking one day to a precise, unbearable truth. In Ms. Pelicot’s account, she is shown grainy photographs by investigators—images of herself, unaware and vulnerable, in her own bed. An officer reads out a number, not a tally of bills but of assaults: dozens. “More than I could imagine,” she writes, “a figure that made my whole life tilt.”

When she returned to her house that first day after the revelation, she performed an ordinary ritual: she hung her husband’s laundry on the line. That domestic choreography—shirt by shirt, peg by peg—became a quiet, gutting image. “I looked like a dog at the gate,” she writes. The pastoral scene of a rural French afternoon masked an inner landscape that had been violently transformed.

From Private Horror to Public Trial

The ensuing legal drama was staggering in its scope. Her husband, Dominique Pelicot, and scores of other men were brought before the courts. The trial drew attention not because it was sensational, but because it cut through a taboo: how a woman’s home—a place commonly associated with safety—could be turned into a scene of repeated violation without anyone’s intervention.

“This case forced us to ask: what do we mean by consent, and how do we protect the most vulnerable among us?” said Amélie Durand, a lawyer specializing in family and sexual violence in Paris. “The law can grind slowly, but high-profile cases like this shine a light that lawmakers find difficult to ignore.”

Letters, Voices, and the Strange Comfort of Strangers

One of the most striking images in Ms. Pelicot’s memoir is the bundle of letters she received each day during the trial—handwritten pages folded and passed along by friends and strangers. Some came from a woman in Marseille recounting a parallel assault from thirty years earlier; others were simple notes from young students saying, “We believe you.”

“Those letters were oxygen,” Ms. Pelicot writes. “The newspapers were full of names and verdicts, but the letters were full of presence. They were human hands reaching in.”

An activist who campaigned outside the courthouse remembers the scene vividly. “People stood in the rain to let her know she wasn’t alone,” she said. “You could feel the city change temperature that week.”

Love, Resilience, and the Question of Revenge

No story of trauma is only a story of pain. Among the darker chapters of Ms. Pelicot’s life, she describes a tender, unexpected revival of love. Through mutual friends, she met a man who treated her as someone worthy of ordinary joys: dinner, laughter, little foolish things that remind you of being alive.

“I wasn’t looking for anything,” she writes, “but one evening I felt light-headed with happiness. I realized I had been afraid—to be seen, to be loved—and then I chose to be brave.”

She uses the language of “revenge” in a way that surprises: not as retaliation, but as reclaiming belief in humanity. “My revenge is to trust again,” she says. “Once it was a weakness. Now it is my strength.”

Local Color: Small-Town France Under Scrutiny

The story is not only about the courtroom. It is a portrait of place: the way a village square fills on market mornings, the scent of warm bread from the boulangerie, the silent rows of houses with shutters closed. The case forced neighbors to confront what they had assumed—or refused—to see.

“We always thought we knew our neighbors,” said Jean-Marc, who runs a cafe near the courthouse and asked to be identified by his first name only. “This case made people look twice at every porch and every handshake. That’s painful, but necessary.”

Facts, Figures, and the Broader Picture

Ms. Pelicot’s memoir arrives at a moment when the world is re-examining how societies respond to sexual violence. The World Health Organization estimates that about one in three women globally have experienced physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives. In Europe, surveys over the past decade have shown that sizable numbers of women have experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 15.

In France, the fallout from high-profile cases has led to renewed debate in parliament and among civil society groups about consent laws, protective measures for victims, and the anonymity afforded to complainants. While legal reform moves at different paces in different places, the message of Ms. Pelicot’s book is universal: survivors must be heard, believed, and protected.

Why She Gave Up Anonymity

Many survivors choose anonymity to protect themselves and their families. Ms. Pelicot chose the opposite path. “If I hid, then the faces of the men who did this would disappear into the background,” she explains. “I wanted people to look, to question, to have that uncomfortable moment of recognition: that the neighbor next door could be capable of terrible things.”

Some legal scholars argue that public testimony can help shift public opinion and accelerate policy reform. Others worry about the emotional cost to the survivor. Ms. Pelicot acknowledges both. “It cost me dearly,” she admits, “but silence would have cost more.”

Invitation to the Reader

Reading “A Hymn to Life” is not a passive act. It asks you to examine your own assumptions: What do you do when a friend confesses something unlikely? How do you respond when a community secret surfaces? Are you willing to let discomfort be the catalyst for change?

As a global community, we must grapple with how structures—legal, social, cultural—either protect or fail those who are most exposed. Ms. Pelicot’s story is a local tragedy and a global lesson. It shows how a single voice, given room and respect, can alter a conversation that affects millions.

Final Thoughts: The Work That Remains

There is no tidy ending to this memoir. Pain does not fold neatly into narrative closure. But there is something bracing about a woman who, at 73, decides to step into the public light to demand accountability and to reclaim a life. “A Hymn to Life” is both an account of unspeakable harm and a hymn—imperfect, human, insisting—about the stubborn, ordinary business of survival.

Ask yourself: when the next story like this appears in the headlines, will you look away, or will you listen? When a neighbor seems off, or a workplace rumor surfaces, who will speak up? That, perhaps, is the memoir’s most urgent legacy: it turns private grief into common responsibility.

Culleton granted temporary reprieve from deportation to the United States

hanad

February 17, 2026

Culleton granted postponement from US deportation — Seamus Culleton, pictured with his wife Tiffany Smyth, was detained by ICE agents last September

Between Two Shores: The Pause in an Irishman’s U.S. Deportation and the Quiet Storm It Reveals

On a cold morning in El Paso, behind the barbed wire and the hum of fluorescent lights, an Irishman named Seamus Culleton finally felt something like a breath. Not freedom — not yet — but a legal reprieve: a federal appeals court had entered a temporary order staying his deportation for ten business days. It is a small, bright hinge of time in what has been a long, wrenching sequence of custody, court dates, and family worry.

“Following a Petition for Review (PFR) of his administrative final removal order and an ex parte motion to stay Culleton’s removal filed by our firm on his behalf, the First Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, February 13, 2025, entered a temporary order staying Culleton’s removal for the next ten business days,” a spokesperson for BOS Legal Group said. “The court ordered the government to file their response which is due in the coming days.”

Those ten business days are more than calendar entries. They are a corridor to pleadings, affidavits, and strategy — and, for Seamus, a chance to challenge a final removal order that his lawyers say neglects important legal nuances. “Our focus is on reuniting him with his spouse and ensuring that justice is served within the bounds of our laws,” the firm added, while also declining to comment on personal family matters.

From Glenmore to El Paso: The geography of a life split

Seamus’s story is stitched with transatlantic threads. He arrived in the United States in March 2009 under the Visa Waiver Program, a scheme meant for short tourist stays — 90 days, no more. He remained. He labored, built a life, obtained work authorization, and, according to his lawyers, was in the final stages of obtaining a green card when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took him into custody. He married a U.S. citizen in April 2025.

Back in Glenmore, County Kilkenny, the landscape is gentler: stone walls, low-lying fields and a pub whose name you know before you see it. “Seamus was one of ours,” said Mary O’Rourke, who runs the grocery on Main Street. “He’d be in here buying tea and telling us stories about the big country. We were shocked when we heard.”

It is a familiar pattern in many Irish towns: young people leave for opportunities and sometimes never manage the paperwork that binds a future to two places. But Seamus’s case has an extra complication — and a painful echo. Documents reveal that, as a 22-year-old in 2008, he was charged in Ireland with possession and related offences in connection with an incident in Glenmore. After failing to appear at a 2009 court sitting, a bench warrant was issued. Those charges have become, depending on who you ask, the fulcrum of his removal case.

Lawyers, judges, and the machinery of removal

Immigration attorneys say the posture of the First Circuit — issuing a short stay and asking for government response — is procedural, but meaningful. “Courts often issue temporary stays to prevent irreversible action while they consider whether an administrative order was properly entered,” said Daniel Rivera, an immigration lawyer in Boston who has handled federal appeals. “It doesn’t mean victory, but it buys time to marshal facts, medical records, marriage documentation, and legal theory.”

That time is crucial. The Department of Homeland Security has maintained that Seamus had been in the U.S. illegally for 16 years and that he had received due process during his detention. In a recent post on X, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said Mr Culleton had been issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in September 2025, and that he had been offered removal to Ireland but “chose to stay in ICE custody, in fact he took affirmative steps to remain in detention.”

Such statements illuminate the tension at the heart of immigration enforcement: the state’s right to enforce immigration laws versus individuals’ claims to relief through marriage, adjustment of status, and other legal pathways. The adjustment process is often labyrinthine. A person can have a marriage, a work permit, and an active petition and still find themselves facing removal if prior events — like an outstanding arrest warrant abroad — cast shadows over their admissibility.

Human faces, policy questions

Ask any community organizer who spends their days by courtroom doors and detention centers and they will tell you the same thing: behind every docket number is a human life. “We see people like Seamus all the time — caught between systems,” said Rosa Martinez, an El Paso outreach worker who visits detainees. “They’ve built families, they’ve paid taxes, they sometimes have old mistakes or paperwork lapses that blow up into immigration crises. The system was never designed for graceful exits.”

How many people are caught in that machinery? Official figures vary year to year, but tens of thousands of people are detained annually by ICE across the United States, and detention stays can range from days to many months. The human toll — family separation, delayed medical care, mounting legal bills — is harder to quantify.

In Glenmore, the conversation is quieter and more personal. “People say, ‘Why wouldn’t he go back?’” Mary O’Rourke said. “But it’s not like stepping off a bus. You create a life. You have a spouse, a job. It breaks you to be pulled away from that.”

What the next days might bring

The First Circuit’s order directed the government to file a response within days. That response could range from asking the appeals court to lift the stay and allow removal to proceed, to conceding that there are legal questions worth full consideration. Either way, the next move will likely determine whether Seamus spends more time in detention, is released on bond, or is reunited with his spouse.

There are broader implications too. Cases like this force a public reckoning with the nature of modern migration: the porousness of borders in one sense and the ironclad finality of a removal order in another. They raise questions about proportionality, rehabilitation, and the social costs of strict exclusion.

What does justice look like in a world where people live across borders? Is it a strict accounting of statutes and precedents, or does it include mercy, family ties, and the reality of lives rebuilt far from home? These are not abstract questions for the Culletons — they are the difference between dinner at home and nights under fluorescent light.

Waiting, watchful

For now, Seamus’s fate is paused, the legal clock ticking on a ten-business-day stay. His lawyers promise to continue their fight. DHS has reaffirmed its position that the removal order stands.

“We are committed to advocating for Mr Culleton’s right to remain in the United States based on the legal merits of his case,” BOS Legal Group said. “Our focus is on reuniting him with his spouse and ensuring that justice is served within the bounds of our laws.”

And in Glenmore, a village that measures time by turf fires and church bells, neighbors watch the horizon for news. “You hope for the best,” said O’Rourke. “You also know that sometimes the law moves slow and people move faster. You hold onto hope.”

What would you do if your life was threaded between two nations, and one legal order could sever the line? As this story unfolds, it asks all of us to reckon with migration not as statistics and policy but as the way people actually live — uneven, messy, and deeply rooted in both place and love.

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