The medal range for the Winter Paralympics, which are set to run between 6-15 March, is lower than Beijing 2022 because of “challenges throughout the cycle with injury and international competition opportunities”.
Last month, Menna Fitzpatrick, Britain’s most decorated Winter Paralympian with six medals, suffered a serious knee injury in training, but is undergoing treatment in a bid to compete.
The GB team is still expected to be “competitive” for medals “across a wide range of disciplines”, with Phil Smith, ParalympicsGB chef de mission, adding he was “confident we have a plan in place to give each and every athlete the best possible chance to deliver incredible performances”.
Funded through the National Lottery and government, UK Sport has invested more than £32.5m across the current four-year cycle for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, with the “ambition for the UK to become an ever-greater force” in winter sports.
Ever since Donald J. Trump descended from a gold escalator at his eponymous Manhattan tower in 2015, he has sworn that a scorched-earth campaign against “illegal immigrants” would make life safer for Americans and that citizens had nothing to worry about.
Well.
In 2025, Trump’s campaign vow to target “the worst of the worst” was set aside in the name of not just going after all undocumented immigrants and limiting legal migration but even the goal of remigration — the idea that immigrants of any status should return to their home countries. Now, U.S. citizens Keith Porter Jr., shot at a Northridge apartment complex, and Renee Nicole Good, whose shooting sparked large protests in Minneapolis, are dead.
ICE is about to storm American streets and neighborhoods with thousands of new recruits who received just eight weeks of training instead of what used to be five months. The Fourth Amendment bans the government from subjecting Americans from “unreasonable searches and seizures” yet we now have a vice president promising that they’re forthcoming across the country.
“I think … we’re [going] to see those deportation numbers ramp up,” JD Vance told Fox News’ Jesse Watters, “as we get more and more people online working for ICE going from door-to-door.”
He repeated his boast the following day during a news conference while adding that the killing of Good — shot while trying to drive away from an agent who stood in front of her SUV during an immigration enforcement operation — was justified, adding that the 37-year-old mother of three was “brainwashed” and “radicalized in a very, very sad way.”
The beginning of 2026 now shows even those in the United States legally are targets for for the too often Keystone Kops-like, eager beaver, trigger happy federal immigration enforcement force I like to call la migra.
With the Trump administration’s accelerated recruitment drive for immigration officers and rhetorical bloodlust, don’t be surprised if these masked Bizarro Barney Fifes knock on your door or demand to see your papers. In fact, expect it.
The MAGA excuse for those caught up in la migra‘s crackdown — the way to stay out of trouble is by avoiding it — doesn’t work when the trouble comes to you.
That’s why it seems that the deaths of Porter and Good in the last week, coupled with Vance’s authoritarian promise, seems to be waking up Americans into resisting the deportation Leviathan like never before.
A woman is taken into custody by Border Patrol agents after she was accused of using her vehicle to block their vehicles while they were patrolling in a shopping center in December in Niles, Ill.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
Anti-ICE protests are happening across the country this weekend. On social media, conservatives and libertarians who largely stayed silent on Trump throughout 2025 are criticizing him over Good’s death and his administration’s insults against her. Trump’s approval rating has slipped since the start of his presidency, even among supporters — and ICE’s out-of-control conduct is becoming a bigger and bigger factor.
A YouGov poll conducted on the day of Good’s killing found 52% of Americans surveyed don’t like how ICE is operating, while the agency’s approval rating has gone from plus-16% to negative 14% in a year. While the poll unsurprisingly splits on partisan lines — Democrats overwhelmingly oppose ICE, Republicans still think they’re Trump’s Hardy Boys — the independents who delivered the 2024 election to Trump oppose ICE’s actions by a healthy majority.
If he’s losing the middle, he’s losing America.
Unless, of course, Trump goes full banana republic dictator and decides his regime isn’t leaving office — no matter what. And honestly, would you be shocked if this administration tried to make its wet dream a reality?
Every movement needs martyrs, and if the deaths of Porter and Good prove to American citizens and permanent residents once and for all that they’re not safe from ICE, then their deaths weren’t in vain. That’s why the Trump administration and its lackeys are straining so hard to slime Good’s name — because they know the public isn’t having its lies.
Their smears don’t have the same effect they used to, thankfully. Just look at what happened recently with Grok, Elon Musk’s AI creation on X.
You have to take what it digitally blurts out with a grain of salt — Grok once started calling itself “MechaHitler” and spewed anti-semitic conspiracies after an update that Musk swore “improved [it] significantly.”
But consider what Grok did when the billionaire Trump enabler “tweeted” of Good: “She tried to run people over.”
When asked whether it “would have authorized lethal forced based solely on this video evidence” even Musk’s creation, even Grok, replied (while noting that “ICE claims differ”):
“Based on descriptions from multiple sources… it shows the vehicle moving slowly backward and forward without clear evidence of attempting to ram officers. Under objective standards like [the Supreme Court decision] Graham v. Connor, which require an imminent threat for deadly force, I would not authorize lethal force solely on this footage.”
I guess even Grok is capable of calling out Trumpworld’s BS when it “sees” what millions of other people across the U.S. have seen with their own eyes.
Twisting and tying shoelaces into a knot became a formidable task for Justin Herbert in the days following hand surgery.
Every time the Chargers quarterback leaned over to tie his shoes, his cast would nudge in the way, complicating a once-menial task.
For Herbert, it became a constant reminder of the broken bone he suffered during a 31-14 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders on Nov. 30 — a helmet-to-hand hit from Raiders safety Jeremy Chinn that required surgery on his non-throwing hand the next day.
And while the 27-year-old, who earned his second Pro Bowl honor Tuesday, has been far from perfect since the injury, the Chargers (11-4) have managed to win four consecutive games, including two against last season’s Super Bowl teams.
“The days went on, and as I got better and more mobility with (the left hand), I think it’s become more normal, and it feels a bit better, so that’s also a positive,” Herbert said earlier this week.
Eking out wins against the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, Herbert increased his yards-per-pass attempt from 5.3 yards to 7.2 yards. His completion percentage improved from a season-low 46.2% against the Eagles to a respectable 65.5% against the Chiefs.
Against the Dallas Cowboys, Herbert recorded a 132.8 passer rating, his best since December 2021 in Week 14 against the New York Giants. He passed for 300 yards and three touchdowns in a 34-17 win over the Cowboys that led to the Chargers clinching a playoff berth Monday with San Francisco’s win over Indianapolis.
“To me, that’s just a test of the type of person, type of player he is,” said wide receiver Quentin Johnston, who made a spectacular, one-handed touchdown catch and finished with 104 receiving yards against Dallas. “I mean, shoot, still playing and executing at a high level — I’m really happy to be on the team with him. I would rather be with nobody else but him.”
The Houston Texans (10-5) on Saturday at SoFi Stadium will allow Herbert the chance to build on his impressive season, and exorcise at least some of his playoff demons.
Herbert’s nightmare performance against the Texans in the wild-card playoffs last season remains seared into his memory. He threw a career-worst four interceptions in a 32-12 defeat that dropped him to 0-2 in career playoff games.
“No one felt worse than I did,” Herbert said. “I think it’s important to continue to move forward and realize that it’s what happened, and it would be crazy of me to deny the truth of what happened and to live in this reality where, if I tried to block it out, I don’t think that’s gonna be any good.”
Plenty remains at stake for the Chargers. They remain in the hunt for the AFC West title and the AFC’s top playoff seed. If the Chargers beat the Texans and follow with a win over the Denver Broncos in Week 18, they’ll win the division. The Chargers need to win out and hope the Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots both lose at least once to secure the No. 1 seed.
While coach Jim Harbaugh says the team is approaching the next two weeks one game at a time, the Chargers’ defense — inspired by Herbert’s efforts — sees the path to continuing their red-hot run.
“It’s a hell of a statement he’s making throughout the building, and everybody can feel it,” outside linebacker Khalil Mack said.
Venezuela’s UN ambassador denounces US military strikes and naval blockade at a meeting of the UN Security Council.
Venezuela has told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that the United States has “continental ambitions” over much of Latin America as it wages an unofficial war to remove the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“It’s not just about Venezuela. The ambition is continental,” Venezuela’s UN ambassador, Samuel Moncada, told a meeting of the 15-member UNSC on Tuesday.
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“The US government has expressed this in its National Security Strategy, which states that the future of the continent belongs to them,” Moncada said.
“We want to alert the world that Venezuela is only the first target of a larger plan. The US government wants us to be divided so it can conquer us piece by piece,” he said.
Venezuela, earlier this month, requested that the UNSC meet to address the “ongoing US aggression”, which began in September when the White House launched air strikes against vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The White House claimed, without providing any evidence, that the vessels were trafficking drugs to the US.
At least 105 people have been killed so far in the attacks by US forces, which legal experts and Latin American leaders have branded “extrajudicial killings”, but which Washington claims are necessary to stem the flow of drugs to US shores.
At the UNSC meeting, Moncada also accused the administration of US President Donald Trump of violating both international and US domestic law, since the White House has been acting without the approval of the US Congress, whose authority is required to formally declare war on another country.
Moncada said that Trump’s imposition last week of a naval blockade on all Venezuelan oil tankers sanctioned by the US was a “military act aimed at laying siege to the Venezuelan nation”.
“Today, the masks have come off,” Moncada said. “It is not drugs, it is not security, it is not freedom. It is oil, it is mines and it is land.”
US envoy denounces ‘Maduro and his illegitimate regime’
US forces have seized at least two Venezuelan oil tankers and confiscated at least 4 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, according to Moncada, in a move he described as “a robbery carried out by military force”.
The US has defended its naval blockade of Venezuela as a “law enforcement” action to be carried out by the US coastguard, which has the authority to board ships under US sanctions. A naval blockade, by contrast, would be considered an act of war under international law.
The US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, told the UNSC that Latin American drug cartels remain the “single most serious threat” and that Trump would continue to use the full power of the US to eradicate them. Waltz also said that Venezuelan oil is a critical component in funding the cartels in Venezuela.
“The reality of the situation is that sanctioned oil tankers operate as the primary economic lifeline for Maduro and his illegitimate regime,” he said.
The White House earlier this year designated several international drug cartels, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, as terrorist organisations. Washington also added the “Cartel de los Soles,” which it claims is headed by Maduro, to the list in November.
The Venezuelan leader has denied the US allegations and accused the Trump administration of using the drug trafficking claims as a cover to carry out “regime change” in his country.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN separately warned that US “intervention” in Venezuela could “become a template for future acts of force against Latin American states”.
China’s ambassador told the UNSC that the US actions “seriously infringe” on the “sovereignty, security and legitimate rights” of Venezuela.
