North Korea’s Kim Jong Un re-elected as chief of Workers’ Party
Kim says his party is focused on the tasks of ‘boosting economic construction and the people’s standard of living’. Listen to this article Listen to this article | 3 mins info Published On 22 Feb 202622 Feb 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been re-elected as secretary-general of the nation’s Workers’ Party, extending his 15-year rule of the country’s sole governing party. The election took place on Sunday, the fourth day of the party congress, held every five years, according to the state news agency KCNA. During the event, Central Committee members were also elected, and some party rules were modified, it said without providing details. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Kim has been North Korea’s supreme leader since the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in 2011.In 2019, North Korea’s legislature approved constitutional changes to make Kim’s power “monolithic” over all state affairs, formally establishing him as head of state. During this year’s Workers’ Party Congress, Kim assessed the party’s last five years of work and outlined new strategies and goals for the next five-year period. Speaking at the event’s opening session last week, Kim called the last five years a “proud period … in implementing the socialist cause of our own style”, while acknowledging challenges such as sanctions and “the global public health crisis”. “Today, our Party is faced with heavy and urgent historic tasks of boosting economic construction and the people’s standard of living and transforming all realms of state and social life as early as possible,” the KCNA quote him as saying. “This requires us to wage a more active and persistent struggle without allowing even a moment’s standstill or stagnation.” Other high-level officials also delivered remarks at the Congress, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son Hui. Advertisement ‘Optimism and confidence’ For decades, nuclear weapons and military prowess came before everything else in North Korea, even as food stocks dried up and widespread famine, which Pyongyang denied existed, gripped the nation. But since assuming power, Kim has also stressed the need to fortify the impoverished nation’s economy, while keeping military might as the top priority, Kim stated during his opening address that North Korea had overcome its “worst difficulties” in the last five years, and was now entering a new stage of “optimism and confidence in the future”. Ahead of the congress, Kim held a ceremony unveiling dozens of nuclear-capable rocket launchers, which he hailed as “wonderful” and “attractive”. “When this weapon is used, actually, no force would be able to expect God’s protection,” Kim said. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,460
These are the key developments from day 1,460 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Listen to this article Listen to this article | 4 mins info By News Agencies Published On 23 Feb 202623 Feb 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Here is where things stand on Monday, February 23: Fighting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia for an attack in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, near the border with Poland, which killed a 23-year-old policewoman and wounded at least 24 others. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi described the incident as a “terrorist” act. Russian forces attacked Kyiv and the region surrounding the capital overnight on Sunday, killing at least one person and wounding 17 others, including four children. The attacks damaged more than a dozen homes in five districts, regional Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said on Telegram. The attacks again targeted Ukraine’s energy sector and caused power outages in several regions, including Kyiv, Ukraine’s power grid operator Ukrenergo said. Zelenskyy wrote on X that the strikes also targeted the Dnipro, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Poltava and Sumy regions. He noted that aside from the energy sector, residential buildings and the railway were also damaged. Ukraine’s air force said Russia deployed 345 weapons, including 50 missiles and 297 drones, in the overnight attack. It said it shot down 33 missiles and 274 drones. Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha called on the international community to impose tougher sanctions against the Kremlin following the latest Russian attack, saying, “This terror cannot be normalised; it must be stopped. Russia cannot wag the world, just as the tail cannot wag the dog.” Russian-installed officials in the occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia said emergency crews were restoring power to areas hit by cuts following a Ukrainian attack on energy infrastructure. Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russia-installed governor, said 12,000 other households remain without power. A Ukrainian drone attack on Russian-occupied Luhansk in Ukraine’s northeast caused a fire at a fuel reservoir, according to Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-installed leader there. In Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, a “massive” Ukrainian missile attack inflicted serious damage on energy infrastructure and disrupted power, heat and water supplies, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. Ukrainian drone attacks forced brief suspensions at airports in the Russian capital, Moscow. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 24 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed or intercepted en route to Moscow. Advertisement Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defence units had intercepted or destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones over a four-hour period, including over Moscow and the surrounding region, as well as other central Russian regions. Politics and diplomacy Russian President Vladimir Putin said developing the country’s nuclear forces was now an “absolute priority” following the expiry of its last remaining nuclear treaty with the United States. He made the comments during a speech to mark the “Defender of the Fatherland Day”, a holiday honouring Russia’s army. Pope Leo has made an impassioned appeal for peace in Ukraine, saying an end to the four-year-old war “cannot be postponed”. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban said Budapest will block the European Union’s next package of sanctions against Russia, in a move aimed at pushing Ukraine to resume the flow of Russian oil through a pipeline supplying Hungarian refineries. In a separate social media post, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto declared: “Until Ukraine resumes oil transit to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline, we will not allow decisions important to Kyiv to move forward.” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned what it described as “ultimatums and blackmail” by the governments of Hungary and Slovakia, after they threatened to stop electricity supplies to Ukraine unless Kyiv restarted flows of Russian oil. In a statement, the ministry said: “Ultimatums should be sent to the Kremlin, and certainly not to Kyiv.” Ukrainian recruits complete basic military training at an undisclosed location in the Zaporizhia region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine [Ukrainian Armed Forces Handout Photo/AFP] Adblock test (Why?)
One Battle After Another triumphs at UK’s BAFTA film awards
The offbeat thriller has won six BAFTAs, including best film and best director for Paul Thomas Anderson. Listen to this article Listen to this article | 4 mins info The dark comedy One Battle After Another has swept the United Kingdom’s top film honours, picking up six BAFTA awards, including best film and best director for Paul Thomas Anderson. The film beat the Shakespearean family tragedy Hamnet, and the vampire thriller Sinners, to take the top prizes at Sunday evening’s ceremony. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The UK prizes, officially called the EE BAFTA Film Awards, often provide hints about who will win at Hollywood’s Academy Awards, held this year on March 15. One Battle After Another, an explosive film about a group of revolutionaries in chaotic conflict with the state, won awards for directing, adapted screenplay, cinematography, and editing, as well as for Sean Penn’s supporting performance as an obsessed military officer. “This is very overwhelming and wonderful,” Anderson said as he accepted the directing prize. “We have a line from Nina Simone that we used in our film: ‘I know what freedom is: It’s no fear’,” the director said. “Let’s keep making things without fear. It’s a good idea.” Sinners, which has a record 16 Oscar nods, won best original screenplay for writer and director Ryan Coogler, best supporting actress for Wunmi Mosaku, and best original score. The gothic horror story Frankenstein won three awards each, while Hamnet won two, including best British film. The documentary about Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, The Voice of Hind Rajab, was among the top contenders for BAFTA’s best director and non-English language film categories. But the film Sentimental Value won in the non-English language category. The biggest surprise of the night was Robert Aramayo winning the best actor category for his performance in I Swear, a fact-based British indie drama about a campaigner for people with Tourette syndrome. Advertisement The 33-year-old British actor beat Timothee Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael B Jordan, Ethan Hawke and Jesse Plemons for the honour. “I absolutely can’t believe this,” he said. “Everyone in this category blows me away.” Jessie Buckley won best actress for playing Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet, based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell and directed by previous Oscar winner Chloe Zhao. The best documentary prize went to Mr Nobody Against Putin, about a Russian teacher who documented the propaganda imposed on Russian schools after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The film’s American director, David Borenstein, said that teacher Pavel Talankin had shown that “whether it’s in Russia or the streets of Minneapolis, we always face a moral choice”, referring to the protests against US immigration enforcement in Minnesota. “We need more Mr Nobodies,” he said. It beat documentaries including Mstyslav Chernov’s harrowing Ukraine war portrait, 2000 Meters to Andriivka, co-produced by The Associated Press and Frontline PBS. The guests of honour at the awards were Prince William and Princess Kate. The event, hosted by Alan Cumming, was the first joint engagement for the pair since William’s uncle, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was arrested on Thursday. William, the president of the film academy, presented the BAFTA Fellowship to Donna Langley, studio head at NBC Universal. Adblock test (Why?)
Tejas LCA crashes during training sortie, three months after Dubai Airshow mishap
In another similar incident, a Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) crashed, prompting intensive probes and broad-based technical checks across the fleet. The pilot has been ejected safely.
UP: New 74 km link road to connect Ganga, Yamuna expressway with Noida Airport, make ease travel on Agra-Greater Noida stretch
The Uttar Pradesh government has allocated Rs 1,204 crore for land acquisition for a 74.3km access-controlled greenfield expressway that will connect the Ganga and Yamuna expressways, in Greater Noida, to create a faster and direct road link to the under constructed Noida International Airport at Jewar. The upcoming expressway corridor is aimed at cutting travel time for commuters from western UP and decongesting major industrial stretches by offering a new, high-speed route.
Uttar Pradesh: CM Yogi Adityanath-led govt allocates Rs 1200 crore to build Ganga-Yamuna link expressway project, check details
The link expressway will be 120 meters wide and have six lanes. The construction of the link expressway is expected to cost around Rs 4,000 crore.
‘It’s hidden’: Female genital mutilation and the secret shame of Minnesota’s Somalis
More than half a million women and girls in the United States are living with the physical and psychological scars of female genital mutilation — including many in Minnesota, home to a large Somali community from a country where roughly 98% of women have undergone the procedure, according to United Nations data. Yet despite a state law that makes performing the procedures a felony, Minnesota has never secured a single criminal prosecution under its law — raising questions about enforcement, and whether cases could be going on undetected. Female genital mutilation, or FGM, involves the cutting or removal of parts of a female’s genital organs, typically for cultural rather than medical reasons. The practice is irreversible. “It’s hidden — it’s a cultural practice, and who is doing the cutting could be a family member or a doctor who is also in that same culture,” Minnesota Republican state Rep. Mary Franson told Fox News Digital, noting it may be carried out within tight-knit communities. She said the secrecy surrounding the practice makes it exceptionally difficult to detect and confront. MINNESOTA ‘ON THE CLOCK’ AS HHS THREATENS PENALTIES OVER CHILDCARE FRAUD SCANDAL For some within Minnesota’s Somali community, the issue is less about public crime statistics and more about private silence — a practice survivors say is carried in secrecy, shame and fear. The lack of prosecutions comes amid broader scrutiny of how Minnesota agencies handle oversight failures, including high-profile welfare and daycare fraud cases in which prosecutors allege billions of taxpayer dollars were siphoned off while warning signs went unaddressed. Investigators and watchdogs later concluded that officials were reluctant to probe deeply in culturally sensitive contexts — a reluctance, critics say, allowed large-scale violations to persist in plain sight. The estimate of more than half a million survivors in the United States comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent national analysis, published in 2016. Together, the scale of the issue and the difficulty of detection have raised questions about whether Minnesota’s ban on FGM is being effectively enforced when the crime is often carried out in secrecy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born activist and author who survived FGM, described the lasting physical and psychological damage she endured and called for legal accountability. “Female genital mutilation is violence against the most vulnerable — children,” Hirsi Ali told Fox News Digital. “It causes infection, incontinence, unbearable pain during childbirth and deep physical and emotional scars that never heal. Religious or cultural practices that deliberately and cruelly harm children must be confronted. No tradition can ever justify torture.” Hirsi Ali, who founded the AHA Foundation as a means to end FGM, said that the pressure placed on parents in these groups to enforce the practice poses an overwhelming risk to girls. “Only legal accountability can help reduce that risk,” Hirsi Ali said. “I survived female genital mutilation and I carry its scars with me. But I refuse to accept that another girl in America must endure what I did in Somalia.” Zahra Abdalla, a Minnesota-based Somali survivor of female genital mutilation, told Fox News Digital that the practice survives in secrecy, shielded by family pressure and silence. Abdalla, who spoke to Fox News Digital on camera but asked that her face be blurred, said she was between six and seven years old when she was forcibly restrained in a refugee camp in Kenya while adult women in her community carried out the procedure without anesthesia, using a razor blade. “They tied my hands and my legs,” Abdalla said. “I remember being held down. I remember the pain — and knowing I could not escape.” Abdalla said she was “lucky” because she fought back during the procedure, kicking one of the women who was pregnant at the time. The disruption, she said, caused the cutting to stop before it was fully completed. She said the wound was later washed with salt water. “That pain — I thought I was going to pass out,” she said. The damage followed her into adulthood, she said, later requiring surgery and, in her view, contributing to multiple miscarriages. She also said intercourse was very difficult. She said the practice is often driven by marriage expectations, adding that in some communities men are reluctant to marry women who have not undergone the procedure. “It’s tied to dowry. It’s tied to marriage,” she said, referring to the financial and social expectations placed on families when arranging marriages. “It’s tied to what men expect,” she said. “Families believe it protects a girl’s value.” She said silence remains one of the biggest barriers to enforcement. She is the executive director of the nonprofit Somaliweyn Relief Agency (SRA), which seeks to raise awareness about the practice. “You don’t talk about it,” she said. “You’re told to stay quiet.” While she said she cannot confirm specific cases inside Minnesota, she said she believes some families take girls back to Somalia during school breaks to have the procedure performed. Her warning mirrors how some of the only known U.S. cases have surfaced. In a high-profile federal case in Michigan in 2017, prosecutors alleged that two young girls were taken from Minnesota to undergo female genital mutilation. The case later collapsed because the judge ruled that Congress did not clearly have the constitutional authority, at the time, which expanded federal jurisdiction in cases involving interstate or international travel. That ruling prompted Congress to strengthen the statute, a change signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2021 under the Stop FGM Act, which expanded federal jurisdiction in cases involving interstate or international travel. However, a Fox News Digital review of publicly available Minnesota court records, enforcement announcements and professional licensing disciplinary records found no documented prosecutions or sanctions tied to FGM. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office said prosecutions for state crimes like female genital mutilation are handled by county attorneys and did not identify any FGM cases. County prosecutors contacted for this story also did not identify any prosecutions. Those provisions, however,
Greenland rejects Trump’s hospital ship proposal, citing existing free healthcare system
Greenland’s prime minister publicly rebuked President Donald Trump on Sunday, rejecting his proposal to send a U.S. hospital ship to the Arctic territory and urging him to stop making “random” social media posts about its future. Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen issued the response in a pointed Facebook post following Trump’s announcement. “We say no thank you from here,” Nielsen wrote. “President Trump’s idea of sending an American hospital ship here to Greenland has been noted. But we have a public healthcare system where treatment is free for citizens.” The prime minister also contrasted Greenland’s system with that of the U.S., writing that, in America, “it costs money to go to the doctor.” TRUMP TELLS DAVOS US ALONE CAN SECURE GREENLAND, INSISTS HE WON’T ‘USE FORCE’ Nielsen said Greenland is “always” open to dialogue with the U.S. but urged Trump to engage directly. “Talk to us instead of just making more or less random outbursts on social media,” he wrote. “Dialogue and cooperation require respect for decisions about our country being made here at home.” On Saturday, Trump announced on Truth Social that his administration was working with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry to send a hospital ship to Greenland to care for people who are sick and “not being taken care of there.” RUSSIA, CHINA SQUEEZE US ARCTIC DEFENSE ZONE AS TRUMP EYES GREENLAND Landry was designated special envoy to Greenland in December and has held formal discussions outlining Trump’s plans to strengthen Arctic security amid threats from Russia and China. In late January, Landry spoke with NATO leaders and expressed support for a “framework of a future deal” to expand U.S. influence in the region. TOP NATO OFFICIAL REVEALS DETAILS OF STUNNING MEETING WITH TRUMP THAT PRODUCED GREENLAND DEAL ‘FRAMEWORK’ Trump’s offer came after Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command evacuated a crew member from a U.S. submarine seven nautical miles outside Greenland’s capital, Nuuk. The crew member was transferred by a Danish Defense Seahawk helicopter to a hospital in Nuuk and handed over to Greenlandic health authorities, the Joint Arctic Command said. The U.S. Navy operates two hospital ships – the USNS Mercy and the USNS Comfort – both of which were last docked in Alabama for repairs, according to Reuters. Fox News Digital’s Eric Mack contributed to this report.
AOC blames critics, Trump after Munich hiccup backlash
An emotional Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., attempted to blame critics – and even President Donald Trump’s own off-the-cuff agility – for the backlash she received for her response to a question at the recent Munich Security Conference on American defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. “If you think I don’t understand foreign policy, because of out of hours of discourse about international affairs, I pause to think about one of the most sensitive geopolitical issues that currently exist on earth, I’m afraid the issue is not my understanding, but perhaps the problem is you’ve gotten adjusted to a president that never thinks before he speaks,” a raspy-voiced Ocasio-Cortez said on a late-night Instagram Live video circulating on social media. The leftist congresswoman’s Munich stumbling on Friday, Feb. 13, started the critical firestorm and has conservatives questioning her fitness for a potential 2028 Democrat presidential primary campaign. “Um, you know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a um — this is, of course, a, um, very long-standing, um, policy of the United States,” she said with pause when asked about America defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion to enforce its One China Policy over the island-nation. AOC HIT WITH SOCIAL MEDIA BACKLASH AFTER APPEARING TO STRUGGLE WITH QUESTION ABOUT US DEFENDING TAIWAN “And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point, and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic, research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.” Vice President JD Vance, a potential 2028 presidential campaign opponent in a prospective general election matchup, weighed in multiple times this week to Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks. “I think it’s a person who doesn’t know what she actually thinks, and I’ve seen this way too much in Washington with politicians: Where they’re given lines and, when you ask them to go outside the lines they were given, they completely fall apart,” Vance told Fox News’ “The Story With Martha MacCallum” in an in-studio interview earlier this week. “That was embarrassing,” he continued. “If I had given that answer I would say, ‘You know what? Maybe you ought to go read a book about China and Taiwan before I go out on the world stage again.’ I hope that Congresswoman Cortez has the same humility. I’m skeptical.”
President Trump tells Netflix to fire Susan Rice or ‘pay consequences’
President Donald Trump called on Netflix to fire board member Susan Rice immediately or “pay the consequences.” Trump’s comments followed remarks Rice made Thursday on the “Stay Tuned with Preet” podcast, hosted by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. During the interview, Rice warned that corporations she said had “taken a knee” to Republican pressure should not expect forgiveness from Democrats if they return to power. “This is not going to be an instance of forgive and forget. The damage that these people are doing is too severe to the American people and our national interest,” Rice said. LARA TRUMP WARNS AGAINST DEMOCRATS’ “ACCOUNTABILITY AGENDA” FOR TRUMP ALLIES It was not immediately clear what specific actions the Trump administration might pursue. Netflix did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment. BATTLEGROUND STATES SHOULDER BURDEN OF TRUMP’S TARIFFS AS MIDTERM MESSAGING RAMPS UP Rice made the remarks while discussing what she described as corporate retreats from diversity and governance commitments amid pressure from Republican lawmakers. “If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back into power, are going to, you know, play by the old rules, and, you know, say, ‘Oh, never mind. We’ll forgive you for all the people you fired, all the policies and principles you’ve violated, all, you know, the laws you’ve skirted.’ I think they’ve got another thing coming,” Rice added. Rice, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, predicted an “accountability agenda” awaited those entities, forecasting an electoral shift in the upcoming midterm elections. She also pointed to waning public approval for Trump’s economic and immigration policies in making her case.