27/01/2026

TUESDAY | JAN 27, 2026

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Winter storm kills at least 10 across US

The PowerOutage.com tracking site showed more than 840,000 customers without electricity as of Sunday night, mostly in the US South where the storm intensified on Saturday. In Tennessee, where a band of ice has downed power lines, more than 300,000 residential and commercial customers were without electricity, while Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, where such storms are less common, each had over 100,000 outages. The outages are particularly dangerous as the South is being walloped by treacherous cold that the NWS warns could set records. Authorities from Texas to North Carolina and New York urged residents to stay home due to the perilous conditions. “Stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary,” Texas Emergency Management Division posted on X. The storm was moving on Sunday into the northeast, dumping snow and sleet on heavily populated cities including Philadelphia, New York and Boston. At least 20 states and the US capital Washington have declared states of emergency. Washington residents awoke to a blanket of several inches of snow on sidewalks and roads, followed by heavy sleet. Federal offices were closed. Several major airports in Washington, Philadelphia and New York had nearly all flights cancelled for the day. Tracking site Flightaware.com showed more than 19,000 flights into and out of the country had been scrapped since Saturday. The brutal storm system is the result of a stretched polar vortex, an Arctic region of cold, low-pressure air that normally forms a relatively compact, circular system but sometimes morphs into a more oval shape, sending cold air spilling across North America. – AFP

‘LIMITED REOPENING OF RAFAH CROSSING’ TEL AVIV: Israel said yesterday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory. Reopening Rafah, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza, forms part of a truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed since Israeli forces took control of it during the war in the Palestinian territory. A spokesman for Hamas’s Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, said the group had “provided mediators with details and information regarding the location of the captive’s body”. – AFP REFUGEE AGENCY HQ SET ON FIRE TEL AVIV: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Sunday that its partially demolished headquarters in east Jerusalem was set on fire. UNRWA did not offer details on the cause of the incident at their premises, which Israeli authorities seized and began dismantling last week after banning the organisation from operating in the country last year. “After having been stormed and demolished by the Israeli authorities, the UNRWA Headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem has now been set on fire,” the agency said. UNRWA still operates in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. – AFP THREE PALESTINIANS KILLED IN GAZA CAIRO: Israeli fire killed three Palestinians in two incidents in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, while an Israeli drone wounded four others in Gaza City. Medics said Israeli fire killed at least two people east of Tuffah neighbourhood in the northern Gaza Strip, and a 41-year-old man was killed by Israeli forces in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave. Earlier, medical workers said an Israeli drone exploded on the rooftop of a building in Gaza City, wounding four civilians in the street nearby. An Israeli military spokesperson said they were not aware of any incident in Khan Younis involving a Palestinian being killed by gunfire. – Reuters

BR I E F S

Mamdani said five people were found dead outside over the weekend in freezing temperatures. While he did not confirm the deaths were weather-related, he said “there is no more powerful reminder of the danger of extreme cold”. In Texas, authorities confirmed three deaths, including a 16-year-old girl killed in a sledding accident. Two people died in Louisiana from hypothermia, the southern state’s health department said.

o Snow, sleet dumped on major cities

WASHINGTON: A monster storm barrelling across swathes of the United States has killed at least 10 people and prompted warnings to stay off the roads, mass flight cancelations and power outages, as freezing conditions persisted. As the storm dumped snow, sleet and freezing rain across the wide

expanse, officials cautioned that an Arctic air mass behind the system would see temperatures fall dangerously low for days, prolonging disruptions to daily life. The US National Weather Service (NWS) told Americans to expect more of the same today. New York Mayor Zohran

A pedestrian walks past a grocery store, in Brooklyn, New York City. – REUTERSPIC

EU final approval for Russia gas ban

BRUSSELS: Union countries yesterday gave their final approval to the bloc’s plan to ban Russian gas imports by late next year, allowing it to pass into law. The policy makes legally-binding the EU’s vow to cut ties with its former top gas supplier, nearly four years after Russia’s 2022 military operation. European

shift to Nov 1, 2027, at the latest, if a country is struggling to fill its gas storage caverns with non-Russian supply ahead of the winter heating season. Russia supplied more than 40% of the EU’s gas before the Ukraine war. That share dropped to around 13% last year. – Reuters

opposition from Hungary and Slovakia, who remain heavily reliant on Russian energy imports and want to maintain close ties with Moscow. Under the agreement, the EU will halt Russian liquefied natural gas imports by the end of 2026 and pipeline gas by Sept 30, 2027. The law allows that deadline to

Ministers from EU countries approved the law at a meeting in Brussels yesterday, although Slovakia and Hungary voted against. Hungary said it would take the case to the European Court of Justice. The ban was designed to be approved by a reinforced majority of countries, allowing it to overcome

Minnesota rebuffs AG LOS ANGELES: Minnesota on Sunday rejected conditions set by Attorney General Pam Bondi to scale down federal immigration operations in the state, amid mounting tensions following the second fatal shooting involving federal immigration agents. “The answer to Attorney General Bondi’s request is no,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said on Sunday, rejecting Bondi’s call for what she described as a common-sense solution with the federal government. In a letter sent on Saturday to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Bondi outlined three demands: granting the US Department of Justice access to Minnesota’s voter registration lists, sharing state welfare programme records with federal authorities, and repealing sanctuary city policies that limit cooperation with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Coleen Fitzgerald, a 73 year-old retired construction worker who protested against the Vietnam war decades ago, pulls a wagon with puppets representing members of the administration as she joins other protesters during a march through the streets of Minneapolis, on Sunday. – AFPPIC

These measures would “restore the rule of law, support ICE officers and bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota,” said Bondi. “Her letter is an outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of US citizens in violation of state and federal law,” Simon said. An estimated 3,000 federal immigration agents have been deployed to the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul under Operation Metro Surge, which began last month. The federal deployment exceeds the total of police officers in both cities. Border Patrol agents on Saturday shot dead Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, in Minneapolis, marking the second fatal shooting by federal agents in Minnesota in less than three weeks, and sparking renewed outcry against ICE operations. – Bernama