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January ranks as fifth warmest globally despite severe cold spells, Copernicus says

In the Southern Hemisphere, Copernicus linked unusual heat to escalating wildfire activity in late January, pointing to major blazes that intensified in Australia, Chile and Patagonia

Last month was the world’s fifth-warmest January on record, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported, even as sharp cold spells hit large parts of the Northern Hemisphere in the second half of the month. Global mean surface air temperature reached 12.95°C, 0.51°C above the 1991–2020 January average and 1.47°C above the estimated 1850–1900 “pre-industrial” baseline used for climate comparisons.

Copernicus stressed the “mixed signals” are not contradictory: January 2026 was only 0.28°C cooler than the warmest January on record (2025), while a more undulating polar jet stream helped funnel Arctic air into mid-latitudes, driving severe cold across North America, Europe and Siberia for stretches of the month.

Europe stood out on the cold side of the ledger. C3S said the continent experienced its coldest January since 2010, with an average temperature of −2.34°C, 1.63°C below the 1991–2020 norm. Widespread cold conditions were observed across Fennoscandia, the Baltic states and eastern Europe, while monthly temperatures still finished above average across much of the globe, including large parts of the Arctic and western North America.

The bulletin also highlighted extremes in rainfall. January was wetter than normal across much of western, southern and eastern Europe, where heavy precipitation contributed to flooding and related damage in areas including the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Ireland and the UK. By contrast, a broad swath from central Europe into parts of Scandinavia and Iceland was drier than average.

In the Southern Hemisphere, Copernicus linked unusual heat to escalating wildfire activity in late January, pointing to major blazes that intensified in Australia, Chile and Patagonia. The service also reported that exceptionally heavy rains in southern Africa during the final week of the month triggered serious flooding in Mozambique, with “catastrophic” impacts on lives and livelihoods.

Samantha Burgess, C3S’s climate strategy lead, said January offered a stark reminder that the climate system can deliver very cold weather in one region and extreme heat in another simultaneously, arguing that adaptation and resilience will become increasingly crucial as human-driven warming continues to raise the risks and costs of extreme events.

 

 

 

 

 

 

UK appoints Cost of Living Champion to help poorest families and their energy bills

Lord Walker brings a wealth of experience as a business leader, with his Iceland Food Club, a scheme that has lifted tens of thousands out of food poverty

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has directly appointed Lord Richard Walker as the Government’s Cost of Living Champion. Lord Richard Walker will work across Government while enhancing partnerships with businesses, regulators, and a broad range of organizations to consider how the whole of Government can go further to deliver on its priority of easing the cost of living for families.

Lord Richard Walker said: “I’ve taken on this role for one reason: to get real results for families on the cost of living. Not to talk about it, but to help government focus on the things that genuinely make a difference.

“I’ll be bringing real-world business experience and a sense of urgency to this work, looking at the everyday areas that eat into household budgets and where consumers get a rough deal. Regulators are trying, but we need to be bolder in standing up for consumers and turning intent into action.”

Lord Walker brings a wealth of experience as a British entrepreneur and business leader. He has been a social advocate creating the Iceland Food Club: a unique interest-free microcredit scheme that has lifted tens of thousands out of food poverty. He is Chair of the Iceland Foods Charitable Foundation, which has donated over £38m to good causes.

The appointment builds on practical support already designed and delivered to ensure household budgets go further.

These include £150 off energy bills, with a further £150 off the poorest households, removing the two-child benefit cap, the roll out of free breakfast clubs, and further measures on childcare funding.

He will work closely with the No10 Policy Unit to provide ideas, advice and challenge on cost-of-living interventions, leveraging expertise and industry networks.

This role will sit alongside existing Government policy development, adding further expertise to ensure that no stone is left unturned when it comes to ensuring a fair deal for consumers. Lord Walker will report directly to the Prime Minister. This is an unpaid voluntary role.

UK tightens immigration policy, three countries to take back illegal migrants after visa threat

Removals of illegal migrants in the UK are at an all-time high, with 58,500 people removed or deported since the Labour government came into power (Pic REUTERS)

UK’s Home Secretary has announced that three African countries will have their visas to Britain downed if they don’t cooperate on returning deported illegal migrants and criminals to their countries of origin.

A month after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP threatened visa penalties, Namibia and Angola agreed to cooperate on returns and now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has also agreed to join just weeks after she stripped VIPs and decision makers of preferential visa treatment, as well as revoking fast-track visa processing services for all nationals.

Within three months, cooperation has been secured, and flights are already off the ground, showcasing the effectiveness of threatening visa penalties. These results show successful delivery of reforms set out by the Home Secretary in November, marking a major step forward in restoring order and control to the immigration system.  

While Angola, Namibia and DRC are now cooperating on returns, other countries are still frustrating the returns process and not taking back their nationals who have no right to remain in the UK.

The Home Secretary has been clear that those who refuse to work with the UK on returns cannot expect a normal visa relationship, with further threats expected where countries are not cooperating.  

The new approach follows the Prime Minister urging departments to pull every lever possible to restore order and control to the immigration system, and adopting a more transactional approach with countries depending on their cooperation on returns.

Removals of illegal migrants with no right to be in the UK are at an all-time high, with 58,500 people removed or deported since the Labor government came into power, and now over 3,000 nationals from these 3 countries could be eligible due to the cooperation received.  

The move forms part of sweeping reforms being delivered by the Home Secretary to rip away the incentives that draw illegal migrants to Britain and ramp up removals of those with no right to be in the country.  

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP said: “My message is clear, if foreign governments refuse to accept the return of their citizens, then they will face consequences. Illegal migrants and dangerous criminals will now be removed and deported back to Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I will do what it takes to restore order and control to our borders”.

Chagos deal wasn’t such a “great stupidity” after all, admits Trump

“If sometime in the future the deal ever falls apart, I retain the right to militarily secure and reinforce the American presence in Diego Garcia,” Trump said

Relief in UK as Donald Trump back stepped and ended supporting the Labor government’s Chagos islands deal with Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, including the joint US/UK Diego Garcia base, when only a couple of weeks ago the US president described the whole issue as a “Great Stupidity”.

 Trump wrote on his info media site Truth Social that he now understands it’s the best deal Britain was able to get after he had “very productive discussions” with Prime Minister Keir Starmer — though he warned he wouldn’t hesitate to get involved if he felt U.S. interests were at risk.  

“If the lease deal, sometime in the future, ever falls apart, or anyone threatens or endangers U.S. operations and forces at our Base, I retain the right to militarily secure and reinforce the American presence in Diego Garcia,” the president added. 

This however has not impeded Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and the Conservatives’ Kemi Badenoch to openly oppose the Chagos deal, for which they also lobbied the White House to condemn the deal, and warning that Mauritius was warming to China.

The deal with Mauritius is expected to cost UK some £120 million annually for the duration of the accord.

UK government officials, speaking under condition of anonymity to avoid further fraying diplomatic relations, had ascribed Trump’s January criticism of the Chagos deal to Starmer’s public defense of Greenland from US threats to seize the Danish territory.

Allegedly PM Starmer ironed the agreement with Trump in a couple of calls. 

Downing Street’s account of the call said the leaders had “agreed on the importance of the deal to secure the joint U.K.–U.S. base on Diego Garcia, which remains vital to shared security interests.”

The leaders also agreed that both sides would “continue to work closely on the implementation of the deal,” the statement added.

By Nyan Reynolds

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. Feb. 9, 2026: On Super Bowl night, something happened that had very little to do with football and everything to do with who we think belongs to this nation.

When Bad Bunny took the halftime stage and performed in Spanish, a familiar reaction rippled across the country. Some viewers were angry. Others were dismissive. Many questioned whether a Spanish-speaking artist from the Caribbean could “represent America.” The frustration was not subtle. It centered on language. On discomfort. On a belief that English, in one narrow form, is the only acceptable voice on America’s biggest stage.

That reaction made me think about home.

My daughter is Dominican. Her maternal family is Dominican, and her great-grandmother has never spoken a word of English to me. I do not speak Spanish; I was born in Jamaica. Yet for over a decade, every time I have seen her great-grandmother, she has greeted me warmly in Spanish. I never understood the words, and I never cared, because it never mattered. Not once did it make me feel unwelcome. Not once did it make me feel excluded. We smiled. We embraced. We understood one another without translation.

Language did not divide us. It connected us.

And yet, in this country, language often becomes a line of separation.

Across America, especially for those of us from the Caribbean, language carries history, rhythm, and identity. We arrive with accents, speech patterns, and expressions shaped by our islands and our ancestors. We bring Jamaican patois, Trinidadian cadence, Bajan lilt, Dominican Spanish, Haitian Creole. We bring voices that sound different from what many Americans are used to hearing.

Too often, the response is blunt and dismissive: Speak English. This is America.

What’s rarely acknowledged is that many are speaking English. Jamaican patois, for example, is rooted in English. It is English shaped by survival, resistance, and culture. It is not broken language. It is living language. When it is mocked or rejected, it is not because it lacks structure. It is because it makes some people uncomfortable.

That discomfort says more about the listener than the speaker.

I moved from Jamaica straight into an American high school. I learned early how the way I spoke shaped how people perceived me. Over time, my accent softened. Some people now say they don’t hear one at all. Others say it’s faint but still there. That lingering uncertainty, where are you from? How do you belong? It never really disappears.

Language does that. It becomes shorthand for assumptions.

That’s why the reaction to Bad Bunny matters. Puerto Rico is part of America. Spanish has been spoken on this land long before the NFL existed. Yet here we were, watching people debate whether they would mute their televisions, change channels, or boycott an event altogether because the performance did not sound like the America they were used to hearing.

What many missed is that asking Bad Bunny to perform in English would have stripped the performance of its authenticity. Spanish is his language. It is how his music breathes. Asking him to change that is not inclusion, it is erasure.

I do not listen to Bad Bunny’s music. But my daughter does. Her family does. And that matters too. Representation is not about pleasing everyone. It is about acknowledging who is already here.

The irony is hard to ignore. Many of the same people upset about a Spanish-language performance would gladly pull out a translation app if they traveled overseas. Closed captions exist. Translation tools exist. Curiosity exists when we choose to use it. Yet within our own borders, we sometimes refuse the same openness we expect from others abroad.

This is how progress stalls. Not through hostility alone, but through selective empathy.

Language is how people are seen. How they are heard. How they are understood. When we dismiss someone’s language, we are not just rejecting words, we are rejecting identity.

Sixteen years ago, had I closed my heart because I didn’t understand Spanish. I would have missed a welcome that required no translation at all. That moment taught me something simple but enduring: understanding begins with listening, not control.

If the Super Bowl taught us anything beyond football, it is that America is still negotiating its many voices. We can cling to one sound and call it unity, or we can listen fully, openly, and recognize that the chorus has always been bigger than we imagined.

The question is not whether language belongs on America’s biggest stage.

The question is whether we are willing to grow enough to hear it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nyan Reynolds is a U.S. Army veteran and published author whose novels and cultural works draw from his Jamaican heritage, military service, and life experiences. His writing blends storytelling, resilience, and heritage to inspire readers.  

Colombia: Ruling-party candidate to file criminal complaint against ex-President Pastrana over Epstein files

Cepeda said he would submit a complaint “so that the possible criminal conduct he may have engaged in can be investigated,” arguing that the disclosures warrant judicial scrutiny in Colombia

Senator Iván Cepeda, the presidential candidate of Colombia’s ruling Pacto Histórico coalition, said he will file a criminal complaint against former President Andrés Pastrana (1998–2002) after Pastrana’s name appeared in newly declassified records linked to Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in the United States for her role in the trafficking scheme.

In a statement posted on X on Monday, Cepeda said he would submit a complaint “so that the possible criminal conduct he may have engaged in can be investigated,” arguing that the disclosures warrant judicial scrutiny in Colombia.

The newly surfaced material includes references to Pastrana in dozens of files, among them email exchanges from 2003 and 2004 with Maxwell and mentions of meetings and travel arrangements. One message thread discusses logistical details for a New York trip and reception arrangements. Cepeda has framed the issue as more than a political controversy, calling for authorities to determine whether the contacts reflected in the files carry legal consequences and whether any actions involved improper use of official resources or non-institutional arrangements.

Pastrana has acknowledged that he flew on Epstein’s plane but maintains that, at the time, Epstein was not widely known as a sex offender and was seen publicly as a well-connected financier. In recent days, Pastrana also announced legal action after being mentioned in commentary about the Epstein material, disputing insinuations about his name and requesting clarifications on specific claims.

The senator is pressing prosecutors to establish a factual record: what the contacts were, what they were for, and whether any prosecutable conduct occurred. The case also underscores how fresh disclosures from U.S.-based investigations can reverberate across borders, triggering domestic legal and political responses.

Cepeda has not yet specified which criminal offenses his filing will cite, nor how broadly he will ask investigators to examine the disclosed communications.