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May 26 (UPI) — A German court convicted four former Volkswagen managers of fraud on Monday and a decade after “Dieselgate” exposed deceptive devices installed in many Volkswagen models to pass emissions tests.

Jens Hadler was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison and formerly was Volkswagen’s diesel engine development chief, the New York Times reported.

Hanno Jelden, a former VW engine electronics manager, received a sentence of two years and seven months in prison.

Defendants Heinz-Jakob Neusser, a former systems development manager, and a former emissions expert identified as “Thorsten D.,” received suspended sentences of 15 months and 22 months in prison, respectively.

A judicial panel in Braunschweig, Germany, entered its verdicts in the court that is located close to Volkswagen’s headquarters in nearby Wolfsburg.

Panel chairman Judge Christian Schutz called the defendants a “gang” and said they were guilty of “particularly serious” fraud, the New York Times reported.

He said Hadler knew of the emissions-testing defeat devices that manipulated software to ensure the vehicles would pass emissions tests since at least September 2007.

Only a relatively small number of people within Volkswagen knew of the device’s existence, according to emails used as evidence in the case.

The trial lasted almost four years in the “dieselgate” emissions scandal that was exposed when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2015 reported many diesel-powered VW models contained deceptive emissions-monitoring devices, Politico reported.

The “defeat devices” detected when system emissions testing was underway and automatically adjusted engine performance to ensure the respective vehicles met environmental standards.

Berlin’s Federal Court of Justice in 2020 ordered Volkswagen to pay up to $31,000 to each of about 60,000 German owners of diesel-powered VWs.

The automaker paid billions of dollars in settlements for installing defeat devices on about 10 million vehicles sold in the U.S., Germany and other markets around the globe.

Legal cases remain open against 31 other defendants, but former VW Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn is not among them due to health concerns, MarketWatch reported.

Winterkorn has denied any wrongdoing in the matter.

May 27 (UPI) — A Canadian man who pleaded guilty to stealing an iconic portrait of Sir Winston Churchill from a storied Ottawa hotel more than three years ago has been sentenced to two years less a day in prison.

Jeffrey Lain James Wood received his sentence Monday in an Ottawa courtroom, CBC reported. He had pleaded guilty in March to forgery, theft over $5,000 — or $3,640 USD — and trafficking property obtained by crime.

The Roaring Lion is a world-famous photograph of Churchill taken by renowned Armenian-Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh in 1941 in the Canadian capital of Ottawa.

A resident of Ottawa’s famed Fairmont Chateau Laurier for nearly two decades, Karsh moved out of the hotel in 1998, and upon his exit, gifted the hotel seven photographs, including the Churchill portrait, which hung on its walls until the pandemic hit.

According to the Chateau Laurier, the photograph was stolen between Dec. 25, 2021, and Jan. 6, 2022, and was replaced by the thief with an imitation, “deceiving everyone until a hotel staff member discovered the theft” that August.

Ottawa police said the hotel employee had noticed differences with the frame and the wire mechanism, which led to the discovery of the fake print, complete with a forged Karsh signature.

An investigation brought Ottawa police to the attention of a Roaring Lion print that was said to be from the Karsh estate and was up for sale at London’s Sotheby’s auction house. It was then sold to a buyer in Genoa, Italy.

Ottawa police said neither the buyer nor the auction house knew the photograph was stolen.

Police then learned that the seller was Wood, a man in his 40s from Powassan Ont., who had created a fake identity and credentials in an effort to move the famed photograph.

Wood was arrested and charged on April 24, 2024.

The photograph was returned to the hotel in September of that year and returned to its walls on Nov. 15, 2024.

May 26 (UPI) — FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Monday the bureau will reexamine three high-profile Biden-era cases.

“Shortly after swearing in, (FBI Director Kash Patel) and I evaluated a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest,” he said in a statement on X.

The government will reopen cases related to the 2021 pipe bombings in Washington, D.C., the 2023 discovery of cocaine in the White House and the 2022 leak of the U.S. Supreme Court‘s ruling to end women’s 50-year-long right to choose an abortion nationwide.

“We made the decision to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention, to these cases,” Bongino, a conservative social media personality nominated in February for the role by President Donald Trump, added Monday.

The suspect behind the planting of two pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic Party national headquarters around Jan 5, 2021, remains a mystery that occurred in the final days of the first Trump administration.

The other FBI case Bongino reopened was the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 draft opinion in the Dobbs ruling, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, in what was the first-ever draft opinion leak in the high court.

“This was a singular and egregious breach of trust that is an affront to the court,” Chief Justice John Roberts said at the time.

Finally, Bongino cited the July 2, 2023, discovery of cocaine at the Biden White House in a case closed by the U.S. Secret Service after some 11 days. Investigators narrowed their list down to “several hundred” possible suspects with “insufficient” DNA samples on the bag.

“I receive requested briefings on these cases weekly,” Bongino says, adding that FBI officials are “making progress.”

May 26 (UPI) — A 13-year-old boy is dead after he fell from a float during a Memorial Day parade in northeastern Ohio, authorities said.

The teenager sustained critical injuries Monday when he fell off the front of a trailer being pulled by a pickup truck during the City of Green’s Memorial Day Parade, according to the city’s fire department, which is located about 50 miles south of Cleveland.

The Summit County Sheriff’s Office, which described the incident as a “tragic accident,” said in a statement that the boy was struck by the dual tires of the trailer in the fall.

He was transported to Akron Children’s Hospital where he was later pronounced dead, the sheriff’s office said.

The incident happened at about 11:23 a.m. EDT, it said.

The name of the child has not been released to the public.

“The incident remains under investigation by the Summit County Sheriff’s Office,” according to the sheriff’s office.

May 26 (UPI) — A boat explosion on Memorial Day in Florida injured eleven people, including two children, according to Fort Lauderdale fire officials, who declared a “mass casualty incident.”

A total of 13 people were aboard the boat at the Lauderdale Yacht Club in Fort Lauderdale when it exploded or caught fire near the New River Triangle sandbar around 5:45 p.m. EDT, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue responded to the yacht club, located along the Intracoastal Waterway.

The injured, including two children, were rushed to Broward General Hospital, with one burn victim flown by helicopter to Jackson Memorial-Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, according to first responders.

While there was no information on the conditions of those injured, first responders and witnesses said several people were in the water and others appeared to have suffered burns.

One witness, who lives nearby, told the Miami Herald he saw first responders treating a man.

“He was moving around and talking, but it seemed like he had severe burns on his arms because they had it wrapped in gauze and everything,” said Josh McCarty.

Other witnesses described the boat as a 40-foot motorboat, as investigators look into what may have caused the explosion or fire.

“There was this boat trying to leave the sandbar and when they went to start their boat up, it just exploded,” said witness Bret Triano.

“It was a huge fireball and people were kind of falling off the boat, so we were at the sandbar too, and we just tried to go help out.”

This is a developing story

May 26 (UPI) — A sixth escapee from the Orleans Justice Center in New Orleans was captured Monday night, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill announced.

“Inmate Lenton Vanburen [Jr.] is now back in custody,” Murrill said in a post on X. “He was picked up in Baton Rouge.”

Murrill complimented Louisiana’s Fugitive Apprehension Task Force, State Police and the Baton Rouge Police Department for working together to locate and capture Vanburen.

She said Vanburen is charged with parole violation, possession of a firearm by a felon and illegally carrying a weapon. He will face additional charges related to the escape.

Louisiana State Police and Baton Rouge police apprehended Vanburen, WDSU reported.

He was among 10 inmates who escaped through a hole behind a toilet at the jail in New Orleans during the predawn hours May 16.

The jail staff did not discover they were missing for several hours, but five were caught within four days.

Inmates Corey Boyd, Robert Moody, Dkenan Dennis, Kendall Myles and Gary Price also have been apprehended after their group escape. The captured inmates have been transferred to the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

Those remaining at-large are Jermaine Donald, Leo Tate Derrick Groves and Antoine Massey.

Many of the caught and at-large escapees are charged with murder.

Seven people also have been arrested for assisting in the escape and helping the inmates afterward.

May 26 (UPI) — Former Culpeper County (Va.) Sheriff Scott Jenkins won’t have to go to prison for bribery after President Donald Trump pardoned him on Monday.

Trump accused a “corrupt and weaponized Biden” Department of Justice of engaging in an “overzealous” prosecution of Jenkins that resulted in his December conviction on bribery and other charges in the U.S. District Court of Western Virginia.

“In fact, during his trial, when Sheriff Jenkins tried to offer exculpatory evidence to support himself, the Biden [-nominated] Judge, Robert Ballou, refused to allow it, shut him down and then went on a tirade,” Trump said Monday in a Truth Social post.

“In federal, city and state courts, radical left or liberal judges allow into evidence what they feel like, not what is mandated under the Constitution and rules of evidence,” Trump continued.

“This sheriff is a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice and doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail.”

He said Jenkins “was persecuted by radical left ‘monsters’ and ‘left for dead,'” so he granted him a full and unconditional pardon.

The federal court in December convicted Jenkins of accepting $70,000 in bribes and campaign contributions to appoint local businessmen as auxiliary deputy sheriffs and in March sentenced him to 10 years in prison, The Hill reported.

He was convicted on seven counts of bribery concerning programs receiving public funds, four counts of honest services mail and wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy.

Jenkins was the Culpeper County sheriff from 2012 until losing his bid for re-election in 2023.

Two of those from whom he was convicted for accepting bribes were undercover FBI agents.

Although the alleged bribers were from those who lacked training and weren’t vetted, Jenkins offered them badges and sheriff department credentials, federal prosecutors said.

After Jenkins in March was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison, prosecuting U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Lee said those who received the badges and credentials did not provide any services for the county or the sheriff’s office.

“Scott Jenkins violated his oath of office and the faith the citizens of Culpeper County placed in him when he engaged in a cash-for-badges scheme,” Lee said in a statement.

“We hold our elected law enforcement officials to a higher standard of conduct,” Lee added. “This case proves that when those officials use their authority for unjust personal enrichment, the Department of Justice will hold them accountable.”

Pro-European Nicusor Dan faces big challenges after defeating pro-Russian George Simion last week in a tense run-off.

Pro-European Nicusor Dan has been sworn in as Romania’s new president amid persisting claims from the far right that his election was illegitimate.

The centrist promised on Monday to usher in a “new chapter” in Romania amid hopes that his inauguration could help bring an end to months of political crisis. However, his pro-Russian and nationalist rival George Simion maintained that the May 18 election represents a “coup d’etat”.

In the run-up to the election, which was marred by the annulment of November’s initial vote due to Russian interference, Dan promised to quash corruption and reaffirm Romania’s commitment to the European Union and NATO.

In his inauguration speech, he said he would fix Romania’s economic and political woes and be a president “open to the voice of society”.

“The Romanian state needs a fundamental change within the rule of law, and I invite you to continue to be involved in order to put positive pressure on state institutions to reform,” he said. “I call on political parties to act in the national interest.”

‘National treason’

The May election rerun was held months after the Constitutional Court voided the previous election.

Far-right, pro-Russian Calin Georgescu had won the most votes in the first round of November’s vote but was thrown out of the race after allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.

Simion, leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), took his place and led the polls for weeks before a surge in the final days of the campaign pushed Dan past the post.

Since the result was announced, Simion has repeatedly alleged, without providing evidence, that the election was rigged through foreign interference.

However, the Constitutional Court validated the results on Thursday after rejecting an appeal from Simion to annul the vote.

Lawmakers from the AUR boycotted the swearing-in ceremony, calling it “legitimising a national treason” while Simion condemned the court’s decision as a “coup d’etat”.

Authorities remain on alert with protests expected by supporters of the far right.

Dan’s victory over Simion was heralded around Europe with the outcome viewed as crucial to maintaining Romania’s place within Western alliances, especially as the war continues in neighbouring Ukraine.

“We won the Romanian presidential elections. People rejected isolationism and Russian influence,” Dan said on Sunday at a rally in Poland for liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who will face nationalist Karol Nawrocki in a presidential run-off on June 1.

However, significant challenges lie ahead for Dan as Romania faces political and economic crises.

He must first nominate a prime minister who can garner the support necessary to form a new government as widespread rejection of the political class has propelled figures like Georgescu and Simion into leading challengers.

Dan is expected to meet Ilie Bolojan, who had been serving as interim president. The member of the pro-EU National Liberal Party has been tipped as a possible prime minister.

As for Romanians struggling economically, Dan made few promises on Monday.

“Put simply, … the Romanian state is spending more than it can afford,” the new president said.

“It is in the national interest for Romania to send a message of stability to financial markets,” he said. “It is in the national interest to send a signal of openness and predictability to the investment environment.”

May 26 (UPI) — A British man was arrested after a vehicle drove into and injured several soccer fans celebrating during the Liverpool Football Club’s victory parade on Monday evening.

The incident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. local time on Water Street in Liverpool’s city center, where soccer fans had gathered for a parade celebrating the local football club’s Premier League title win, the Daily Mail reported.

“We are currently dealing with reports of a road traffic collision in Liverpool city center,” Merseyside Police said in a prepared statement as reported by the BBC.

“The car stopped at the scene, and a male has been detained,” the statement said. “Emergency services are currently on the scene.”

No fatalities have been reported, but an unknown number of people were injured.

Merseyside Police said a 53-year-old White British man from the Liverpool area was arrested, but they don’t know if he drove the vehicle.

Local police have asked that people not speculate on the collision’s cause.

“Extensive enquiries are ongoing to establish the circumstances leading up to the collision,” a Merseyside Police spokesperson said.

“We would ask people not to share distressing content online but to send the footage or information directly to us.”

Liverpool FC officials are in direct contact with local police regarding the event that happened near the end of the trophy parade, a club spokesperson said in a prepared statement.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been affected by this serious incident,” the spokesperson said.

“We will continue to offer our full support to the emergency services and local authorities who are dealing with this incident.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is being updated on developments and asked that people give police the space needed to investigate the matter, he said in a post on X.

“The scenes in Liverpool are appalling,” Starmer said, “My thoughts are with all those injured or affected.

“I want to thank the police and emergency services for their swift and ongoing response to this shocking incident.”

Merseyside Police have scheduled an update on the incident at 10:30 BST.

Before the parade incident that injured several people, another 17 were injured during incidents involving flares ahead of the title celebrations, the BBC reported.

The Liverpool FC secured the Premier League Trophy with a 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace on Sunday.

Local police expected hundreds of thousands to celebrate the title during the official trophy parade on Monday evening.

The Madrid Group has convened in Spain’s capital for a fifth time, in a meeting attended by major European and Arab nations.

Pressure on Israel this year has been ramped up, with Spain calling for an arms embargo on Israel and the imposition of sanctions on individuals who obstruct a two-state solution to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The United Kingdom has paused trade talks and sanctioned a number of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Canada and France have also threatened punitive measures.

And the European Union – Israel’s biggest trade partner – is reviewing its landmark Association Agreement covering trade and political dialogue.

But after 20 months of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, why is this happening now?

And without changes on the ground for Palestinians, are these actions anything more than diplomatically symbolic?

Presenter: Tom McRae

Guests:

Lynn Boylan – Member of European Parliament, and chair of the delegation of relations with Palestine

Mouin Rabbani – Non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies

Saul Takahashi – Former deputy head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in occupied Palestine

May 26 (UPI) — Dozens of Palestinians were killed overnight by further Israeli air strikes on the war-torn enclave amid a breakdown in a new cease-fire agreement.

An estimated 54 Palestinians sheltering at Fahmi Al-Jargawi School in Gaza City have been killed by airstrikes carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces, the BBC reported Monday.

The scores of dead refugees included children from Beit Lahia after fires were seen engulfing two classrooms fixed as living quarters in the school, which was housing hundreds of people, according to the Hamas-run civil defense authority.

At least 35 were reported to be killed when the school was hit.

Video footage depicted fire engulfing parts of the school and graphic images of severely burned victims, including kids.

On Monday morning, the IDF said it hit 200 “terrorist organizations” across the Gaza Strip in 28 hours as military ops carried on.

The IDF claimed it targeted a “Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control center” in an area used by “terrorists” to presumably “plan” attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops, accusing Hamas of using the Gaza population “as human shields.”

Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official told the BBC that the terror syndicate agreed to the latest cease-fire deal.

The proposal permitted the release in two phases of 10 Israel hostages in exchange for a 70-day truce, a gradual withdrawal of IDF troops out of the territory and release of an undetermined number of Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas further demanded the entrance of 1,000 humanitarian aid trucks a day to aid the ailing population in Gaza.

However, a senior Israeli official said Monday that it had rejected the cease-fire proposal after reports that Israel had agreed to it in principle.

“The proposal received by Israel cannot be accepted by any responsible government,” the official told The Times of Israel without providing further detail, claiming that Hamas was setting “impossible conditions that mean a complete failure to meet the war goals, and an inability to release the hostages.”

On Sunday, IDF officials claimed that since its war began, Israel has “facilitated” the entry of over 1.7 million tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

On Monday, Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories office — a unit of its Ministry of Defense — claimed that 107 humanitarian aid trucks transporting flour and food were transferred into Gaza “following inspection” via the Kerem Shalom Crossing.

But according to international human rights organizations, Gaza is at a “breaking point” while the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has warned of imminent famine on top of reputable accusations of genocide by Israel against Palestinians.

Nearly 54,000 people, including at least 16,000 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its invasion, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Kyiv’s intelligence chief ‘confirms’ that China is directly aiding Russia’s arms industry.

Ukraine has data that confirms China is supplying Russia’s arms industry, according to the head of Kyiv’s foreign intelligence service.

Oleh Ivashchenko said in an interview published by the Ukrinform news agency on Monday that Ukraine can “confirm” that China is providing important materials and equipment to 20 Russian military factories.

Beijing has regularly denied accusations from Kyiv that it is aiding Moscow’s war against its neighbour.

Last month, Ukraine accused China of direct military assistance to Russia’s arms industry. Ivashchenko said that the country’s intelligence agency can now confirm those reports.

“There is information that China supplies tooling machines, special chemical products, gunpowder, and components specifically to defence manufacturing industries,” he said. “We have confirmed data on 20 Russian factories.”

‘Groundless’

Although China has sought to project an image of neutrality and denies any involvement in the war, it has increased trade and economic cooperation with Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Meanwhile, Western countries have imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow.

Ukraine has regularly suggested China is supporting the war, and has said that Beijing has sent soldiers to fight alongside Russian forces.

Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made his first public accusation that China is supplying gunpowder and materials to Russia’s arms manufacturers, while also accusing Chinese citizens of helping in the production of drones.

China rejected the claim as “groundless,” but Kyiv has since imposed sanctions on three Chinese entities.

Ivashchenko said that Ukrainian intelligence had information on at least five cases of Russian-Chinese cooperation in the aviation sector between 2024 and 2025, including the transfer of equipment, spare parts and technical documentation.

He added that there were six cases involving “large shipments” of specialty chemicals, but did not provide further details.

“As of early 2025, 80 percent of critical electronic components found in Russian drones originated in China,” Ivashchenko added.

“At the same time, there are facts of product substitutions, deceptive product names; there are shell companies through which everything necessary for the production of microelectronics is supplied.”

The comments came as Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia had launched a record number of drones against Ukraine overnight on Sunday.

Russian forces deployed 298 drones and 69 missiles, according to the report, but the Air Force said it was able to down 266 drones and 45 missiles.

Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the figures. Ukraine said that the attack was the largest of the war in terms of weapons fired.

Claude Kabemba, CEO of Southern Africa Resource Watch, on the root causes of Africa’s mining tragedies and rising demand for its minerals after 260 miners were rescued in South Africa.

When India launched Operation Sindoor and Pakistan replied with Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, the world braced for escalation. Analysts held their breath. Twitter exploded. The Line of Control – that jagged scar between two unfinished imaginations of nationhood – lit up again.

But if you think what happened earlier this month was merely a military exchange, you’ve missed the real story.

This was a war, yes, but not just of missiles. It was a war of narratives, orchestrated in headlines, hashtags, and nightly newsrooms. The battlefield was the media. The ammunition was discourse. And the casualties were nuance, complexity, and truth.

What we witnessed was the culmination of what scholars call discursive warfare — the deliberate construction of identity, legitimacy, and power through language. In the hands of Indian and Pakistani media, every act of violence was scripted, every image curated, every casualty politicised. This wasn’t coverage. It was choreography.

Scene one: The righteous strike

On May 6, India struck first. Or, as Indian media framed it, India defended first.

Operation Sindoor was announced with theatrical pomp. Twenty-four strikes in twenty-five minutes. Nine “terror hubs” destroyed. Zero civilian casualties. The villains — Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, “terror factories” across Bahawalpur and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan – were said to be reduced to dust.

The headlines were triumphalist: “Surgical Strikes 2.0”, “The Roar of Indian Forces Reaches Rawalpindi”, “Justice Delivered”. Government spokespeople called it a “proportionate response” to the Pahalgam massacre that had left 26 Indian tourists dead. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh declared: “They attacked India’s forehead, we wounded their chest”. Cinematic? Absolutely. Deliberate? Even more so.

Indian media constructed a national identity of moral power: a state forced into action, responding not with rage but with restraint, armed not just with BrahMos missiles but with dharma – righteous duty and moral order. The enemy wasn’t Pakistan, the narrative insisted — it was terror. And who could object to that?

This is the genius of framing. Constructivist theory tells us that states act based on identities, not just interests. And identity is forged through language. In India’s case, the media crafted a story where military might was tethered to moral clarity. The strikes weren’t aggression — they were catharsis. They weren’t war — they were therapy.

But here’s the thing: therapy for whom?

Scene two: The sacred defence

Three days later, Pakistan struck back. Operation Bunyan Marsoos — Arabic for “iron wall” — was declared. The name alone tells you everything. This wasn’t just a retaliatory strike; it was a theological assertion, a national sermon. The enemy had dared to trespass. The response would be divine.

Pakistani missiles reportedly rained down on Indian military sites: brigade headquarters, an S-400 system, and military installations in Punjab and Jammu. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif proclaimed that Pakistan had “avenged the 1971 war”, in which it had capitulated and allowed Bangladesh to secede. That’s not battlefield strategy. That’s myth-making.

The media in Pakistan amplified this narrative with patriotic zeal. Indian strikes were framed as war crimes, mosques hit, civilians killed. Photographs of rubble and blood were paired with captions about martyrdom. The response, by contrast, was precise, moral, and inevitable.

Pakistan’s national identity, as constructed in this moment, was one of righteous victimhood: we are peaceful, but provoked; restrained, but resolute. We do not seek war, but we do not fear it either.

The symmetry is uncanny. Both states saw themselves as defenders, never aggressors. Both claimed moral superiority. Both insisted the enemy fired first. Both said they had no choice.

Constructing the enemy and the victim

The symmetry was also apparent in the constructed image of the enemy and the delcared victims.

India portrayed Pakistan as a terror factory: duplicitous, rogue, a nuclear-armed spoiler addicted to jihad. Pakistani identity was reduced to its worst stereotype, deceptive and dangerous. Peace, in this worldview, is impossible because the Other is irrational.

Pakistan, in turn, cast India as a fascist state: led by a majoritarian regime, obsessed with humiliation, eager to erase Muslims from history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the aggressor. India was the occupier. Their strikes were framed not as counterterrorism but as religious war.

In each case, the enemy wasn’t just a threat. The enemy was an idea — and an idea cannot be reasoned with.

This is the danger of media-driven identity construction. Once the Other becomes a caricature, dialogue dies. Diplomacy becomes weakness. Compromise becomes betrayal. And war becomes not just possible, but desirable.

The image of the Other also determined who was considered a victim and who was not.

While missiles flew, people died. Civilians in Kashmir, on both sides, were killed. Border villages were shelled. Religious sites damaged. Innocent people displaced. But these stories, the human stories, were buried beneath the rubble of rhetoric.

In both countries, the media didn’t mourn equally. Victims were grieved if they were ours. Theirs? Collateral. Or fabricated. Or forgotten.

This selective mourning is a moral indictment. Because when we only care about our dead, we become numb to justice. And in that numbness, violence becomes easier the next time.

The battle for legitimacy

What was at stake during the India-Pakistan confrontation wasn’t just territory or tactical advantage. It was legitimacy. Both states needed to convince their own citizens, and the world, that they were on the right side of history.

Indian media leaned on the global “war on terror” frame. By targeting Pakistan-based militants, India positioned itself as a partner in global security. Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same playbook used by the United States in Iraq and Israel in Gaza. Language like “surgical”, “precision”, and “pre-emptive” doesn’t just describe, it absolves.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s media leaned on the moral weight of sovereignty. India’s strikes were framed as an assault not just on land, but on izzat, honour. By invoking sacred spaces, by publicising civilian casualties, Pakistan constructed India not as a counterterrorist actor but as a bully and a blasphemer.

This discursive tug-of-war extended even to facts. When India claimed to have killed 80 militants, Pakistan called it fiction. When Pakistan claimed to have shot down Indian jets, India called it propaganda. Each accused the other of misinformation. Each media ecosystem became a hall of mirrors, reflecting only what it wanted to see.

Ceasefire, silence and a call to listen differently

The guns fell silent on May 13, thanks to a US-brokered ceasefire. Both governments claimed victory. Media outlets moved on. Cricket resumed. Hashtags faded.

But what lingers is the story each side now tells about itself: We were right. They were wrong. We showed strength. They backed down.

This is the story that will shape textbooks, elections, military budgets. It will inform the next standoff, the next skirmish, the next war.

And until the story changes, nothing will. And it can change.

Narratives constructed on competing truths, forged in newsrooms and battlefields, performed in rallies and funerals, are not eternal.

Just as they were constructed, they can be deconstructed. And that can happen only if we start listening not to the loudest voice, but to the one we’ve learned to ignore.

So the next time war drums beat, ask not just who fired first, but who spoke last. And ask what story that speech was trying to tell.

Because in South Asia, the most dangerous weapon isn’t nuclear.

It’s narrative.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

May 26 (UPI) — President Donald Trump will mark his first Memorial Day as commander-in-chief in his second term with ceremonies in Arlington National Cemetery.

“I will be making a Memorial Day Speech today at Arlington National Cemetery,” the president announced Monday morning on his social media platform, adding to “enjoy!!!”

Trump, who will take part in a wreath-laying ceremony per tradition at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, says the speech at the nation’s cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington in Virginia will be at 11 a.m. EDT.

“Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds,” Trump wrote in all caps in part in an earlier post Monday morning.

In a separate statement, the White House said on “this solemn day” as the country honors the sacrifice of its fallen soldiers, Trump and first lady Melania Trump “ask all citizens to join us in prayer that Almighty God may comfort those who mourn, grant protection to all who serve, and bring blessed peace to the world.”

America’s first observance of Memorial Day on May 30, 1890, previously known as Decoration Day, was proclaimed by Union Commander John A. Logan to honor fallen soldiers who died fighting to preserve the Union during the Civil War.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the government estimates more than 650,000 Americans have died in battle since the Revolutionary War began in 1775.

On Monday, the VA will partner with nonprofits to honor veterans interred in national cemeteries where more than 5.4 million people are buried.

VA officials announced Thursday that through partnerships with Carry The Load, the Travis Manion Foundation and Victory for Veterans, at least 70,000 volunteers visit 54 national veterans cemeteries on Memorial Day.

It arrives on top of Trump’s revelation earlier this month that he plans to name November 11 — which is Veterans Day — a “national holiday” to celebrate past world war victories.

ECB President Christine Lagarde argues the US economic policy shifts have created inroads for the euro to the standard currency for future global trade.

The euro could become a viable alternative to the US dollar as the global standard currency for international trade, according to European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde.

In a speech in Berlin, Germany, Lagarde said on Monday that the erratic economic policy of the United States has spooked global investors into limiting their exposure to the dollar in recent months. Many have opted to invest in gold, without seeing a viable alternative.

“The ongoing changes create the opening for a ‘global euro moment’,” she said.

Lagarde said investors seek “geopolitical assurance in another form: they invest in the assets of regions that are reliable security partners and can honour alliances with hard power”.

“The global economy thrived on a foundation of openness and multilateralism underpinned by US leadership … but today it is fracturing.”

The dollar’s role has been on the decline for years and now makes up 58 percent of international reserves, the lowest in decades, but still well above the euro’s 20 percent share.

Any enhanced role for the euro must coincide with greater military strength that can back up partnerships, Lagarde said.

Europe should also make the euro the currency of choice for businesses invoicing international trade, she said. This could be supported by forging new trade agreements, enhanced cross-border payments and liquidity agreements with the ECB.

Looming challenges

The euro’s global role has been stagnant for decades now since the European Union’s financial institutions remain unfinished and governments have shown little appetite to embark on more integration.

For this, Europe needs a deeper, more liquid capital market, must bolster its legal foundations, and needs to underpin its commitment to open trade with security capabilities, Lagarde argued.

Reforming the domestic economy may be more pressing, however, she said. The euro area capital market is still fragmented, inefficient and lacks a truly liquid, widely available safe asset that investors could flock to.

“Economic logic tells us that public goods need to be jointly financed. And this joint financing could provide the basis for Europe to gradually increase its supply of safe assets,” Lagarde said.

Joint borrowing has been taboo for some key eurozone members, particularly Germany, which fears that its taxpayers could end up having to pay for the fiscal irresponsibility of others.

If Europe succeeded, the benefits would be large, Lagarde said. The investment inflow would allow domestic players to borrow at lower cost, insulate the bloc from exchange rate movements and protect it against international sanctions.

May 26 (UPI) — Authorites in northwest Arkansas are searching for a former police chief serving time for murder and rape who escaped from prison wearing a makeshift police uniform.

The Arkansas Department of Corrections said Grant Hardin, 56, escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock in Izard County at approximately 3:40 p.m. CDT Sunday. Calico Rock is 126 miles north of Litle Rock.

The search, which was continuing Monday, is a joint effort of the Department of Corrections, Arkansas State Police, and local and state law enforcement.

The prison agency said he “was wearing a makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement” when he escaped. He was not wearing a prison guard uniform and all DOC-issued equipment has been accounted for.

Hardin was the former chief of police for the city of Gateway in Benton County, which had a population of 444 people in 2023. He also was a police officer, county constable and corrections officer. Gateway, which is near the Missouri border, is 129 miles west of Calico Rock.

Hardin is described as 6 feet, weighing approximately 259 pounds.

“Anytime there’s an escape, we consider that a threat to the public,” Rand Champion with the Arkansas Department of Corrections told KHBS-TV. “He does have a law enforcement background. Anytime something like this exists, we consider it a threat to the community.”

Since 2017, Hardin has been at the North Central Unit serving a 30-year sentence for first-degree murder, as well as 25 years for each rape count.

He pleaded guilty to the murder of James Appleton, 59, a city water employee found shot in the face inside his work truck in October 2017, KNWA reported.

A witness told police that Appleton’s truck and a white sedan was seen on the side of the road. He said heard a loud boom and saw the sedan drive away. The witness found Appleton slumped over in the seat, with a gunshot wound to the head.

His DNA linked him to the rape cold case of a teacher in 1997, the TV station reported. Amy Harrison, a teacher at Frank Tillery Elementary in Rogers, was raped by a man with a gun at the school.

While preparing a lesson plan for the week, the teacher was ambushed.

“Grant Hardin, in my view and in my personal experience, is one of the most dangerous people that I ever seen for the reason that he does not at first appear that way,” Nathan Smith, the prosecuting attorney for Benton County at the time, said. “He is a man capable of a seemingly random, horrific murder as well as a random horrific rape.”

The sexual assault was profiled on the TNT series Cold Justice: Sex Crimes in 2015.

Beirut, Lebanon – For decades, Palestinian groups in Lebanon have run their affairs themselves. In the refugee camps established for Palestinians displaced by Israel in 1948 and 1967, Palestinian factions have overseen security and many have retained their arms.

Those days, however, appear to be coming to a close. Instead, the Lebanese state is attempting to take advantage of a period of weakness for the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, as it struggles to regroup from its war with Israel, to exercise its power over the country.

Lebanon’s new government – formed in February and led by former International Court of Justice judge Nawaf Salam – has the backing of regional and international powers to disarm all non-state actors. That includes the many Palestinian groups that have carried arms since a 1969 agreement that allowed them to have autonomy in the 12 official Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

And on Wednesday, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas gave his blessing during a visit to Lebanon. A joint statement from Abbas and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun declared that both sides had agreed that the existence of “weapons outside the control of the Lebanese state has ended”.

“Abu Mazen [Abbas] came to say that we are guests in Lebanon and not above Lebanese authority,” Mustafa Abu Harb, an official with Fatah, the largest political faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told Al Jazeera. “We do not accept weapons in the hands of anyone other than the Lebanese state.”

Is Hamas on board?

Abbas, on his first trip to Lebanon since 2017, also met Prime Minister Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to discuss the challenging prospect of disarming Palestinian factions in Lebanon and improving the rights and conditions of the estimated 270,000 Palestinians in the country.

Palestinians in Lebanon do not have the legal right to work in a number of professions, they may not own property or businesses and cannot access public service employment or the use of public services, such as healthcare and social security, according to UNRWA, the United Nations body created in 1948 for Palestinian refugees.

“We reaffirm our previous position that the presence of weapons in the camps outside the framework of the state weakens Lebanon and also harms the Palestinian cause,” Abbas said in the meeting with Aoun, according to the Palestinian state news agency Wafa.

However, questions remain as to whether the divisive Abbas, who has not faced an election since 2005, has the authority to disarm the different Palestinian groups.

A senior Hamas official in Lebanon, Ali Barakeh, told the AFP news agency on Wednesday that he hoped the talks between Abbas and Aoun would go further than just Palestinian groups’ disarmament.

“We affirm our respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty, security and stability, and at the same time, we demand the provision of civil and human rights for our Palestinian people in Lebanon,” Barakeh said.

Hamas, which – along with Hezbollah – is considered part of the wider Iranian-allied “axis of resistance” network, has already cooperated with the Lebanese state on at least one occasion since the ceasefire with Israel. In May, the Palestinian group handed over a fighter suspected of firing rockets at Israel, according to the Lebanese army, and called them “individual acts”.

The group has also said it respects the ceasefire and is willing to work with the Lebanese state.

‘Not our president’

Over the course of his two-decade reign, Abbas’s popularity among Palestinians in Lebanon has sharply eroded.

That lack of support can be seen in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, where posters of Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat, as well as Hamas’s spokesperson, Abu Obeida, can be seen far more than those of the PA leader.

“None of the Palestinians, except Fatah, claim that he’s our president,” Majdi Majzoub, a community leader in Beirut’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, Shatila, said. “This president doesn’t honour us and doesn’t represent us because he supports the occupation and adopts the occupation’s decisions.”

Aside from Abbas’s unpopularity, other factors may lead to a pushback against any attempt to disarm Palestinian groups in Lebanon.

Nicholas Blanford, a nonresident senior fellow with the US-based think tank Atlantic Council, said it “could be interpreted as a win for the Israelis if the Palestinians … were obliged to give [their weapons] up”.

Blanford also pointed out that defenders of the continued presence of armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon point to events such as the Sabra and Shatila massacre, when between 2,000 and 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians were killed over two days by right-wing Christian nationalist forces with Israeli support in 1982.

Blanford, however, believes that the consensus is moving towards the disarmament of at least heavy weaponry from the Palestinian factions in Lebanon, and that some Palestinians welcome the move.

“We as a Palestinian people certainly welcome [the initiative] because things have changed,” Majzoub said.

Majzoub said bad-faith actors have taken advantage of the Lebanese state’s lack of authority over the Palestinian camps to avoid being held accountable for crimes.

Lebanon’s armed forces rarely enter the Palestinian refugee camps.

In 2007, the army besieged the Nahr al-Bared camp in north Lebanon and clashed with the Fatah al-Islam group, which was based in the camp. Hundreds died in the battle, which left large swaths of the camp uninhabitable.

The Lebanese army has also, on occasion, infiltrated camps to arrest individuals.

The security situation can at times be tense in the camps, as it is in other parts of Lebanon.

On Monday, local media reported that armed clashes between rival drug dealers in Beirut’s Shatila camp forced residents to flee.

Among the worst incidents in the past few years were the large-scale battles that erupted in the summer of 2023 between armed groups in Ein el-Hilweh camp, in southern Lebanon, after a botched assassination attempt on a Fatah official. More than two dozen people were killed in the fighting before a ceasefire was negotiated.

Carrying weapons in the camps was once seen as a right of resistance. But after more than seven decades of displacement and insecurity, some Palestinians in Lebanon today feel that carrying arms is undercutting their struggle for liberation.

“Palestinian weapons have become a threat to the Palestinian revolution,” Majzoub said. “Now, it is better for us to live under the protection of the Lebanese state.”

May 25 (UPI) — At least six people were injured Saturday in a late-night shooting in Colorado Springs, police said in a statement.

The incident occurred around 10:12 p.m. local time near 1400 Potter Drive in the Rustic Hills area of the city, and appeared to have stemmed from an argument, Police officials said in a statement. Further details about what led to the shooting were not provided.

Police received a 911 call reporting an active shooter. Officers found several people with gunshot wounds when they arrived at the scene.

At least four of those people were transported to local hospitals while two more victims took themselves to local hospitals for treatment. One of the victims remains in critical condition.

Police did not indicate whether any of those injured may have been involved in the shooting, and no suspects were named.

The Colorado Springs Police Department said its homicide unit is leading the investigation. It was not immediately clear if there were any fatalities and no arrests have yet been made.

Last week, Ugandan lawyer Agather Atuhaire was finally set free five days after she was detained by the Tanzanian police for unclear reasons. She was unceremoniously dumped at the Mutukula border crossing between the two countries.

Details of Atuhaire’s condition remain unclear, but a statement from the organisation she works with as well as Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi, who was detained with her, alleged that she was tortured. He himself showed signs of physical abuse after he was also dumped at the Kenya-Tanzania border a day earlier.

For East Africans, Atuhaire and Mwangi’s ordeal has been a painful reminder of just how far democracy in the region has retreated. People organising to resist state excesses have been increasingly facing structural and physical violence with little space for redress.

Mwangi and Atuhaire were among a small group of regional activists and political figures who flew into Tanzania to show solidarity with Tundu Lissu, the leader of the Tanzanian opposition. Lissu is facing several charges, the most grievous among them treason, for comments he allegedly made at a political rally.

But Lissu is not alone in the region in facing reprisals for political action. In neighbouring Uganda, leader of the opposition Kizza Besigye is facing the same charges, based on the same idea that organising and leading opposition against an entrenched political power amounts to treason.

Meanwhile, in Kenya, the aftermath of the 2024 anti-finance bill protests is haunting the country. In the absence of a well organised political opposition, which is stymied by frenetic deal-making and horse-trading, protesters and youth activists have become the country’s unofficial political opposition.

The youth have borne the brunt of political violence during last year’s protests, which killed at least 82 people. Kidnappings and abductions of protesters spiked after the demonstrations, and activist groups alleged that some people remain unaccounted for despite President William Ruto’s assertion to the contrary.

In Burundi, people continue to live under the shadow of police excesses and in fear of the possibility of war with its expansionist neighbours.

In Rwanda, several opposition figures who tried to run against President Paul Kagame were jailed on various charges. The neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo is perennially caught between war and political crisis.

So how did we get to this state of affairs? The simplest answer is that we allowed ourselves to conflate elections with democracy, and the malicious intentions of those who wield power took advantage of that faith. The reality of building robust democratic systems is far more complicated than lining up to vote every four or five years, and real democracy requires round the clock vigilance.

A meaningful democracy requires robust local government, transparent political parties as well as institutional accountability and participation, all of which have been on the retreat in the region in the past two decades.

Power has remained highly centralised in the executive, enabled by the capitulation of legislatures and the “naomba serekali” (“I am requesting of the government”) approach to politics.

Parliaments are empowered by the legitimacy of a popular vote, but they repeatedly submit to the executive. Proof of this can be easily found in the experience of women trying to run for office in the region.

As outlined in a 2018 volume on the Kenyan election that I co-edited, Where Women Are: Gender and the 2017 Kenyan General Election, the weakness begins within political parties, in which candidates must kowtow to a kingpin to gain permission to appear on the ballot. Those who do not are often locked out from competitive electoral cycles. As a result, save for constitutional quotas, women’s participation in electoral politics has declined – a canary in the coalmine of shrinking democratic space.

Meanwhile, parties have mastered the art of managing gender optics as a substitute for real change, reducing debates about democracy to the periodic performance of voting. Thus, Samia Suluhu’s presidency in Tanzania is not a sign of improving democracy but rather that of a political machine that picked the least contentious candidate who would allow the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, to continue managing the country. Similarly, the dominance of women in Rwanda’s parliament is not in itself indicative of progress for women but of the ability of the ruling party to select candidates who are less likely to push back.

Once these candidates are laundered through the political party machine, they enter the legislature more beholden to their political kingpin than to voters. And this is the case whether the kingpin is in government or in the opposition.

In Kenya, opposition candidates like Edwin Sifuna, who vociferously defended the rights of protesters during the June 2024 protests, have become tongue-tied in 2025 because their party kingpin has since struck a deal with Ruto and blind obeisance is the only guaranteed pathway to power in this system.

In Uganda, politicians are bought off with state cars and loans, and in Tanzania, they are silenced by arrests, detentions and disappearances of critics of the state. The net effect is that elections become a performance whose actual impact diminishes rapidly over time.

A quick scan of global politics will affirm that this is not a uniquely East African problem. The same crisis is taking shape in the United States, particularly after the evisceration of the Republican Party by Tea Party politics and of the Democratic Party by careerist politicians.

But the events of the last week show that for East Africa, an extra layer of risk exists because of the unquestioning and blind loyalty of security services to the whims of the state – something the current US administration seeks to build into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The long-term solution to this state of affairs is for ordinary people to become more engaged in localised democratic practices, changing the quality of people who rise up the ranks in politics. Of course, this can be difficult when people are merely trying to survive a hostile political and economic climate, but in the long term, it creates new entry points for civic engagement.

Democracy is strengthened when more people participate in the governance of civic institutions like schools, hospitals, trade unions, cooperatives, neighbourhood associations, and even sports and social clubs – in processes that they can immediately connect to their quality of life.

Elections then become the culmination of four or five years of regular exercises of democracy, not a separate process that floats above the reality of people’s lives.

In parallel, the onus is on the legislators of East Africa to find their teeth and their purpose. Their job is not political survival or the pursuit of political careers. Their job is to defend the people who elected them, to rein in the excesses of the executive and to defend the integrity of the constitution.

Meanwhile, we, the people, should all heed the call of Nigerian public intellectual Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem: “Don’t agonise, organise,” and seek to rebuild democracy in East Africa from the ground up.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.