William Brangham:
Israel also escalated its attacks on the Houthi rebels in Yemen today. That followed a week of increased missile attacks on Israel from the Iranian-backed group. Israel targeted the main airport in the capital of Sanaa. It also hit several power stations and ports.
The head of the World Health Organization, who was boarding a flight from there, said on social media that he was only meters away from the strikes, but he was unharmed.
Authorities in Finland have detained a ship with suspected Russian ties to investigate whether it might have damaged a major undersea power cable. The EstLink 2 power cable brings electricity across the Baltic Sea from Finland to Estonia. Its connection went down on Wednesday, and media reports say the ship’s anchor is suspected of damaging the cable.
This is the latest disruption in the Baltic region after two data cables were severed last month and the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany was damaged back in 2022.
Australia is facing some of its worst fire conditions in years, fueled by a simmering heat wave and shifting winds. At least four large fires are currently burning out of control across the southern state of Victoria, which is Australia’s second largest. Authorities say further fires are likely in the coming days, as the dangerous conditions will last through at least Saturday.
Those conditions are similar to Australia’s Black Summer fires back in 2019 and 2020. Those fires burned an area the size of Ohio and killed 33 people.
Stock trading resumed from the Christmas holiday with some minimal ups and downs. The Dow Jones industrial average was the only gain on the day, up by less than 30 points. The Nasdaq fell, but minimally, and the S&P 500 also barely budged.
There are two passings of note tonight.
First, Manmohan Singh, one of India’s longest-serving prime ministers, has died. He led the world’s largest democracy for a decade. Singh is best known for reforming India’s economy when he was its finance minister back in the 1990s. He also oversaw a landmark deal with the United States over nuclear energy.
But his second term as prime minister was clouded by corruption scandals, and Singh kept a low profile after leaving office. He died at a hospital in New Delhi. Manmohan Singh was 92 years old.
And business executive Richard Parsons has died of bone cancer, a close friend told The New York Times. Parsons gained a reputation for being the man brought in to right the ship. Among the companies he was enlisted to fix, Citigroup during the 2008 financial crisis and Time Warner after its disastrous merger with AOL.
For a time, he was one of the most prominent African American media executives in the U.S. Richard Parsons was 76 years old.
