Author: staff
“On his very first day as New York City Mayor Mamdani shows his true face: He scraps the IHRA definition of antisemitism and lifts restrictions on boycotting Israel. This isn’t leadership. It’s antisemitic gasoline on an open fire,” Israel’s foreign ministry said in a post. Mamdani became mayor just after midnight on New Year’s Eve, beginning a term that Democrats hope will energize the party ahead of the 2026 midterms. The 34-year-old democratic socialist campaigned on an ambitious but costly agenda, including universal free childcare and free buses, financed in part by higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Friday’s…
The first attack took place late on Thursday, triggering three fires. A non residential building and two farm structures were damaged, while falling debris affected nearby homes, roads and parked cars. Emergency crews were seen working at the scene in the hours that followed. A second strike hit around 2 a.m. on Friday, setting a shopping centre on fire. The blaze was later brought under control. Authorities said no casualties were recorded from either attack. In the wider Zaporizhzhia region, Russian forces launched 737 attacks over the past day, including drones, air strikes, rocket barrages and artillery fire across 27…
Published on 02/01/2026 – 11:00 GMT+1 The daughter of US acting legend Tommy Lee Jones, best known for his roles in the Men in Black franchise and No Country for Old Men, has been found dead at a hotel in California, according to US media reports. Victoria Kafka Jones, 34, was pronounced dead in the early hours of New Year’s Day at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. The San Francisco Fire Department said emergency crews were called to the hotel at 2.52am local time following reports of a medical emergency. Paramedics pronounced her dead, a department spokesperson said. The…
The morning after the blaze, police and firefighters continued working behind tents and screens near the site of the Le Constellation bar, where a New Year’s celebration turned fatal. Around 40 people were killed and more than 115 injured when the fire broke out around 1.30 am in a packed venue. Emergency services mounted a large response. Ten helicopters, 40 ambulances and about 150 responders were deployed. Victims were taken to hospitals across Switzerland, including Zurich, Lausanne and Geneva, after local facilities were overwhelmed by severe burn injuries. As of 2 January 2026, identifying victims and returning bodies to families…
By Euronews Published on 02/01/2026 – 9:34 GMT+1 Investigators have continued their efforts on Friday to identify the victims of a fire that ripped through a bar in the Swiss Alps town of Crans-Montana, turning a New Year’s celebration into one of the country’s worst tragedies. It is not yet clear what set off the blaze at Le Constellation, killing at least 40 people and injuring about 115 others, many seriously. Swiss President Guy Parmelin, who took over on Thursday, called the fire “a calamity of unprecedented, terrifying proportions”, and announced that flags would be flown at half mast for five…
Published on 02/01/2026 – 7:59 GMT+1 Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in a post on X a series of important meetings and diplomatic proceedings in early January aimed at bringing the war in his embattled country, well into its fourth year, to an end. Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov is maintaining contact with a slew of key partners, from the US and across Europe, as Kyiv looks to prepare new formats and host meetings in the coming days. The first such meeting is scheduled to take place on Saturday, where Ukraine’s national security advisors and cabinet members…
Published on 02/01/2026 – 8:00 GMT+1 Tiny crabs have secretly been playing an “unheralded role” in cleaning up the planet by hoovering up microplastics. A new study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, tracked a population of Fiddler crabs – which grow no bigger than the width of a Post-It note – in a highly polluted mangrove forest on the north coast of Colombia. Here, years of urban and agricultural expansion have degraded the mangrove systems, resulting in some of the highest levels of plastic contamination reported anywhere in the world. Despite this, researchers found that the arthropods were…
This tiny utopian community in Ethiopia’s Amhara region has spent decades championing equality, peace, and pacifism. Today, it lives under the shadow of civil war in the area. The Arwa Amba is a pacifist pocket of around 500-600 people nestled in the northern mountains of Amhara, over 550 kilometres from the capital, Addis Ababa. Founded in the 1970s, this pioneering community has been praised by organisations including the UN for its efforts to combat poverty, exploitation and gender inequality. As its prominence grew, the Arwa Amba would welcome thousands of visitors every year and guide them in its foundational ideas,…
A shadow banking crisis erupts And spare a worrying thought for the unregulated private credit market and the so-called shadow banks. The usually staid Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has already tolled the alarm bell. In October, he warned of parallels with the 2008 financial crash, which was sparked by an American housing bubble fueled by easy credit and the issuance of risky subprime mortgages, with their subsequent bundling into opaque financial products that spread risk throughout the global financial system. Risk turned to contagion. Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, warned of parallels with…
Published on 02/01/2026 – 6:28 GMT+1 Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he is willing to negotiate an agreement to combat drug trafficking with the United States, in a pre-taped interview aired on Thursday on state-run television, but declined to comment on last week’s CIA strikes on a docking port. Maduro reiterated that Washington wants to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to his country’s vast oil reserves, through the months-long pressure campaign, which began with a major military deployment in the Caribbean Sea in August. “What are they seeking? It is clear that they seek to impose…