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Jack Smith, the former U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel who brought two now-dropped criminal cases against President Donald Trump, will publicly testify to the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 22.

Pictured here, Special Counsel Jack Smith delivered remarks on a recently unsealed indictment against then-former President Trump at the Justice Department on June 9, 2023 in Washington, D.C. At the time, Trump was indicted in the special counsel's classified documents probe.

Smith gave private testimony to the committee in December 2025 where he defended his investigations into Trump, saying that the basis for the prosecutions "rests entirely with President Trump and his actions."

Smith was appointed independent special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to oversee two criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump's alleged role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

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A major winter storm is set to sweep the nation this weekend, bringing snow, sleet, ice and sub-zero wind chills from the southern Plains to the Northeast.

While it's still too early to predict snowfall totals for areas east of the Mississippi River, heavy snow is expected in Memphis, Nashville, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City.

Further west, 8 to 14 inches of snow are expected in Oklahoma City, 6 to 12 inches in Little Rock, Arkansas, and 5 to 10 inches in Amarillo, Texas.

Simultaneously, a long-duration extreme cold event is likely to move in during and after the storm. Those who lose power might endure several days of below-freezing temperatures.

In the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region, wind chills of 40 to 50 below zero are possible. In Texas and along the Gulf Coast, temperatures could feel like they are in the single digits, down to 10 below zero.

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The rift between President Donald Trump and the Catholic church's leadership is reaching biblical proportions. 

This week, the country’s highest-ranking Catholic archbishops took the rare step of issuing a joint statement rebuking United States’ foreign policy, saying recent and ongoing events in Venezuela, Ukraine and Greenland have called into question the country’s “moral role in confronting evil around the world.”

Their statement on Monday came a day after Timothy P. Broglio, the Catholic archbishop for U.S. military forces, told the BBC troops would be morally justified in disobeying orders that betrayed their conscience. Addressing President Donald Trump’s threats to forcefully occupy Greenland, Broglio said he feared for military personnel “because they could be put in a situation where they’re being ordered to do something which is morally questionable.”

The United States has quickly eroded human rights safeguards a year into the second Trump administration, according to Amnesty International.

The human rights organization released its report Jan. 20, one year since President Donald Trump took office, saying the nation has adopted increasingly authoritarian practices against citizens and migrants alike. The report cited militarized responses to protests against immigration enforcement, most recently in Minnesota.

"What we are witnessing is a full-blown human rights emergency that has actually emerged pretty quickly over this past year," Paul O’Brien, executive director of the nonprofit Amnesty International USA, said in an interview. "By shredding norms and by concentrating power, President Trump and his administration are making it harder and harder for anyone to hold him accountable."

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Israel is razing a strategic area of Rafah in southern Gaza, compacting the ground, and clearing rubble in a way that suggests the land is being prepared for the construction of new residential infrastructure, according to new research by Forensic Architecture. The findings, which are based on an analysis of satellite imagery, suggest that Israel is beginning to build infrastructure which may be used to house Palestinians and effectively contain them in an area under full Israeli military control.

Since the so-called ceasefire went into effect on October 10, Israel has engaged in widespread destruction of buildings and infrastructure across the more than 53% of Gaza that it occupies east of the yellow line. However, this pattern of Israeli activity—razing the land, compacting the ground, and clearing the rubble—is not visible at this scale anywhere else east of the yellow line. The activity is centered in an area around 1 square kilometer in Rafah at the intersection of the two military corridors.

The location lies on the northern edge of what Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz first announced in July would be a planned “humanitarian city” that would eventually house the entire population of the Gaza Strip.

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Several Ukrainian power substations critical to nuclear safety were damaged during widespread Russian attacks on Monday morning, leaving the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) closely monitoring the situation, the agency’s chief said.

The attack also disconnected the Chornobyl nuclear power plant – the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster – from the grid for some hours.

At around noon on Tuesday, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant lost all external power supply, while power transmission lines serving other nuclear power plants in Ukraine were also affected.

“Several Ukrainian electrical substations vital for nuclear safety were impacted by widespread military activity this morning,” Grossi said in a statement. “The IAEA is actively following developments in order to assess their impact on nuclear safety.”

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The Justice Department has issued grand jury subpoenas to multiple government officials in Minnesota, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, expanding the agency's probe alleging that Minnesota officials conspired to impede law enforcement amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her have also been subpoenaed. NPR has not yet confirmed reports that other state and local leaders have also been issued subpoenas.

Frey's subpoena requires him to appear in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis on Feb. 3. The mayor accused the federal government of weaponizing its power to intimidate local leaders.

"We shouldn't have to live in a country where people fear that federal law enforcement will be used to play politics or crack down on local voices they disagree with," he said in a statement.

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The world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy” that is harming billions of people, a UN report has declared.

The overuse and pollution of water must be tackled urgently, the report’s lead author said, because no one knew when the whole system could collapse, with implications for peace and social cohesion..

All life depends on water but the report found many societies had long been using water faster than it could be replenished annually in rivers and soils, as well as over-exploiting or destroying long-term stores of water in aquifers and wetlands. 

This had led to water bankruptcy, the report said, with many human water systems past the point at which they could be restored to former levels. The climate crisis was exacerbating the problem by melting glaciers, which store water, and causing whiplashes between extremely dry and wet weather.

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