Top Stories
TOP STORY
TOP STORY
Colombia accepts US deportation flights
The White House claimed victory in a showdown with Colombia over accepting flights of deported migrants from the US.
Long close partners in anti-narcotics efforts, the US and Colombia clashed Sunday over the deportation of migrants and imposed tariffs on each other’s goods in a show of what other countries could face if they intervene in the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
The White House held up the episode as a warning to other nations who might seek to impede his plans.
Earlier, Trump ordered visa restrictions, 25% tariffs on all Colombian incoming goods, which would be raised to 50% in one week, and other retaliatory measures sparked by President Gustavo Petro’s decision to reject two Colombia-bound US military aircraft carrying migrants.
“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States.”
Colombia accepted 475 deportation flights from the US in 2020–2024, fifth behind Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and El Salvador, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data. It accepted 124 deportation flights in 2024.
Running Stories
WORLD
WORLD
80th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation
World leaders today marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Britain’s monarch King Charles, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron are among those attending the event in Poland. A tent has been erected over the former death camp’s infamous entrance gate.
One of the symbols of the 80th anniversary is a freight train car, which will be placed directly in front of the main gate. The train car is dedicated to the memory of the estimated 420,000 Hungarian Jews who were deported to Auschwitz.
About 1.1 million people were murdered at the concentration camp in 1940–1945, many of them Jews but also other victims of the Third Reich including Poles, the Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war.
Auschwitz’s remaining survivors were invited to the event and could bring one person for support. A study by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany estimates about 245,000 Jewish survivors are still living across more than 90 countries — 49% live in Israel.
The United Nations declared January 27 as the International Holocaust Memorial Day in 2005. Observed annually, it marks the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945 and remembers the six million Jews who lost their lives under the Nazis.
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SPORTS
SPORTS
Chiefs and Eagles in Super Bowl rematch
The Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs are heading to the 2025 Super Bowl for a rematch.
Super Bowl LIX will be the Chiefs' third straight appearance in the game. They won the last two and are looking for a first-ever "three-peat" — while the Eagles will be seeking the second championship in franchise history. The teams will face each other at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Feb. 9.
The two met in the Super Bowl in 2023, when the Chiefs nipped the Eagles, 38-35.
The Eagles trounced the turnover-burdened Washington Commanders in the National Football Conference championship game Sunday, 55-23, and the
Chiefs topped the Buffalo Bills in a nailbiter in the National Football Conference title tilt, 32-29.
The Kansas City Chiefs have appeared in six Super Bowls throughout franchise history with an impressive record of 4-2. The Eagles have made four Super Bowl appearances. They won their first and only Super Bowl in 2018 over the New England Patriots in a rematch of the 2005 Super Bowl.
AVIATION
AVIATION
Military practices astronaut sea rescues
A US military joint task force has trained rescue personnel off the Florida coast to help with astronaut splashdowns.
Based out of Patrick Space Force Base in Florida, the training saw the joint task force complete 10 airdrops and 30 pararescuemen jumps into the ocean.
“Space travel is expected to increase, so the search and rescue alert is going to increase, and we will be ready to answer that call," Maj. Ryan Schieber, lead planner for Human Space Flight Support in the US Air Force, said.
Capt. Nicolas Walsh, 308th RQS (Rescue Squadron) added: “We're conducting realistic drops of both personnel and equipment into an offshore drop zone, simulating how we would locate and recover isolated personnel in a maritime environment.”
The team will be ready to support launches and recoveries with Boeing, SpaceX, and NASA, specifically citing Artemis missions. The first crewed Artemis mission, which will send four astronauts around the moon and back to Earth, is now scheduled for April 2026, after being pushed back from September 2025.
TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
Paul McCartney: Don’t let AI rip off artists
Sir Paul McCartney said that proposed changes to copyright law could allow technology that prevents artists from earning a living.
The UK government is considering an overhaul of the law, allowing AI developers to use creators' content on the internet to help develop their models unless the rights holders opt out.
Sir Paul, one of the two surviving members of The Beatles, said there was a risk that AI would create a "Wild West" in which artists' copyright is not properly protected.
“You get young guys, girls, coming up, and they write a beautiful song, and they don’t own it. … And anyone who wants can just rip it off. The truth is, the money's going somewhere. Somebody's getting paid, so why shouldn't it be the guy who sat down and wrote Yesterday?”
In 2023, Sir Paul and Beatles drummer Sir Ringo Starr used AI to extract the vocals from an unfinished demo left by John Lennon to produce a new song, Now and Then. Billed as The Beatles' final release, drew widespread praise and has been nominated for two Grammys and a Brit award.
“I think AI is great, and it can do lots of great things. We took an old cassette of John's and cleaned his voice up so it sounded like it had been recorded yesterday. So it has its uses,” Sir Paul said. “But it shouldn't rip creative people off. There's no sense in that.”
OTHER NEWS
OTHER NEWS
Nationwide immigration enforcement blitz
The Trump administration launched an immigration enforcement blitz nationwide Sunday that resulted in nearly 1,000 arrests. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were joined Sunday by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives, and the US Marshals Service. They targeted “public safety and national security threats,” in an operation expected to continue this week.
White House “border czar” Tom Homan called the enforcement actions in Chicago “a good day” and a “gamechanger.” Nationwide, 956 people were arrested and “554 detainers lodged.” Immigration enforcement actions were reported in Atlanta, Puerto Rico, Colorado, Los Angeles and Austin.
As part of the Trump administration’s immigration focus, federal law enforcement agencies have been told to prioritize deporting a broad range of criminal suspects under investigation who may be “out of status,” a law enforcement source familiar with the latest operations said.
“If that’s who they’re picking up, we’re all for it,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said. But the Democratic governor added: “They’re going after people who are law-abiding, who are holding down jobs, who have families here, who may have been here for a decade or two decades.”
OFFBEAT
OFFBEAT
Corpse flower pulls crowds for rare bloom
People queued for hours at a Sydney greenhouse to get a whiff of the infamous corpse flower’s first blooming in years.
The sizeable flower, officially called the amorphophallus titanium, gets its nickname from its “deadly” stench, described by some as the smell of rotting flesh, though others detect hints of rotting food, sweaty socks, or even garlic.
The rare specimen — there are thought to be about 1,000 worldwide — attracted thousands at the Royal Sydney Botanic Garden. When its flower was spotted in December, it was 10 inches high. As its flower spike slowly opened, it was 5 feet 3 inches tall.
Nicknamed Putricia by fans — a combination of putrid and Patricia — it has become a social media star, with a 24/7 live stream established by the botanic garden, drawing close to a million views in the days approaching its bloom.
The corpse flower only blooms for one to three days despite taking up to a decade to do so. The amorphophallus titanum is native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra and is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
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