“Bangladesh’s exiled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to 10 years in jail and her niece, the British lawmaker Tulip Siddiq, to four years in connection with two cases involving a government township project. … The country’s official corruption watchdog filed the cases alleging that Hasina colluded with government officials to illegally secure six plots in the Purbachal New Town Project, near Dhaka, for herself and her family members despite their ineligibility under government regulations.” (02/02/26)
“A Russian cargo plane typically used to transfer military equipment landed at a military airfield in Havana Sunday night, echoing flight patterns seen ahead of the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. The U.S.-sanctioned Ilyushin Il-76, operated by Russian state-linked airline Aviacon Zitotrans, was tracked landing at San Antonio de los Baños Airfield, a Cuban military installation roughly 30 miles south of Havana, according to public flight data. Flight-tracking records show the aircraft stopped in St. Petersburg and Sochi in Russia; Mauritania, Africa; and the Dominican Republic. Each landing would have required approval from host governments, offering a window into which countries are continuing to permit Russian military-linked aviation activity despite Western sanctions.
“Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, whose [abduction] by immigration agents in Minnesota sparked widespread anger over the Trump Administration’s mass deportation program, has been released. He boarded a plane on Sunday morning in Texas with his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who was [abducted] with him, after a federal judge ordered their release a day earlier. … The boy’s case gained national attention when he was photographed on Jan. 20 wearing a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack, being [abducted] by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in the driveway of his home.” (02/01/26)
“President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he has determined that the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington should close for about two years. Trump, who wrote on Truth Social that the decision is ‘totally subject’ to approval by his handpicked board, said that the center will close on July 4 and that ‘financing is completed, and fully in place.’ He did not elaborate on where the funding came from. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on questions about the funding. … Trump has frequently discussed remodeling the Kennedy Center, arguing that the theater was poorly maintained and in desperate need of repairs, some of which are already underway.” (02/01/26)
“A small contingent of security forces with Syria’s interior ministry entered the city of al-Hassakeh on Monday as part of a deal between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, which control the city. The SDF announced the new agreement with the central government on Friday, aiming to stabilize a ceasefire in the country that ended weeks of fighting, in which the Kurdish-led force lost most of the territory it previously held in northeastern Syria. It lays out steps toward integrating the force into the army and police forces, and integrating civilian institutions in SDF-controlled areas into the central government. Under the deal, government military forces won’t enter Kurdish-majority areas, but small contingents of security forces reporting to the interior ministry will enter the cities of al-Hassakeh and Qamishli to secure state-affiliated institutions such as the civil registry, passport offices and the airport, and to restart work at those institutions.” (02/02/25)
“On January 30, Congressmember Bryan Steil (R-Wisconsin) introduced HR 7300. It would ban ranked choice voting in federal general elections. It has many other provisions as well, including a requirement that voters in federal elections must show photo ID in order to vote at the polls. For postal ballots, a photocopy of ID must be enclosed, although overseas military are exempt. The bill has 24 co-sponsors, all Republicans.” (02/01/26)
“Laura Fernandez, a conservative, populist politician with strong links to outgoing President Rodrigo Chaves, has won nearly half of the votes in Costa Rica’s general election with 94% of votes counted, meaning she will become the country’s new leader. Her victory confirms a strong rightward trend in Latin America, where voter anger at corruption and crime have driven recent conservative wins in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Honduras. Fernandez had won 48.3% of the vote, the preliminary results from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) showed, far in excess of the 40% needed to avoid a run-off.” (02/02/26)
“Twelve miners have been killed by a Russian drone strike in eastern Ukraine, the country’s largest private energy firm has said. DTEK said a bus carrying workers after a shift in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region had been targeted in Sunday’s attack. At least 15 people were injured, state emergency services said. Earlier, at least two others were killed and nine injured in separate Russian attacks overnight and on Sunday, including six people who were hurt when a drone hit a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia. The strikes come while Russia had agreed not to target population centres and energy infrastructure for the duration of a cold snap.” (02/02/26)
“The Department of Justice on Friday released the largest batch of Jeffrey Epstein files to date, a giant tranche including three million more pages of documents and thousands of videos and images. The documents shed new light on the disgraced financier’s relationships with several prominent figures, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. … The files appeared to contain at least 4,500 documents that mentioned [Donald] Trump. One was a summary that officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation assembled last summer of more than a dozen tips from the public involving Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein, according to emails released by the Department of Justice on Friday. It is unclear why the investigators put together the summary, which includes accusations of sexual abuse by Mr. Epstein and Mr. Trump. The emails did not include any corroborating evidence, and The New York Times is not describing the details of the unverified claims.” (01/31/26)
“Israel reopened the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt on Sunday in a limited capacity after two years, allowing only foot traffic, as violence continued across the Gaza Strip. The move comes amid fresh bloodshed in the enclave, with Gaza’s civil defense agency reporting dozens killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday. … Israel announced separately on Sunday that it was terminating the operations of Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, accusing the group of failing to submit lists of its Palestinian staff — a requirement Israeli authorities say applies to all aid organizations in the territory.” (02/01/26)
