defy

Protesters in Iran defied a government crackdown on Saturday night, taking to the streets despite reports suggesting hundreds of people have been killed or wounded by security forces in the past three days.

Videos verified by the BBC and eyewitness accounts appeared to show the government was ramping up its response.

Iran’s attorney general said anyone protesting would be considered an “enemy of God” – an offence that carries the death penalty.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to hit Iran “very hard” if they “start killing people”. Iran’s parliament speaker warned that if the US attacks Iran, Israel and all US military and shipping bases in the region would be legitimate targets.

The protests were sparked by soaring inflation, and have spread to more than 100 cities and towns across every province in Iran. Now protesters are calling for an end to the clerical rule of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei has dismissed demonstrators as a “bunch of vandals” seeking to “please” Trump.

Trump on Saturday said the US “stands ready to help” as Iran “is looking at FREEDOM”.

As protests intensify, the number of deaths and injuries continues to rise. BBC sources and US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA) have reported more than 100 people, including security personnel, killed.

Staff at several hospitals told the BBC they have been overwhelmed with the injured and dead, with BBC Persian verifying 70 bodies brought to one hospital in Rasht city on Friday night and a health worker reporting around 38 people dying at a Tehran hospital.

Iran’s police chief said on state TV that the level of confrontation with protesters had been stepped up, with arrests on Saturday night of what he called “key figures”. He blamed a “significant proportion of fatalities” on “trained and directed individuals”, not security forces, but did not give specific details.

More than 2,500 people have been arrested since protests began on 28 December, according to a human rights group.

The BBC and most other international news organisations are unable to report from inside Iran, and the Iranian government has imposed an internet shutdown since Thursday, making obtaining and verifying information difficult.

Nonetheless, some video footage has emerged, and the BBC has spoken to people on the ground.

Several videos, confirmed as recent by BBC Verify, show clashes between protesters and security forces in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city.

Masked protesters are seen taking cover behind bins and bonfires, while a row of security forces is seen in the distance. A vehicle that appears to be a bus is engulfed in flames.

Multiple gunshots and what sounds like banging on pots and pans can be heard.

A figure standing on a nearby footbridge appears to fire multiple gunshots in several directions as a couple of people take cover behind a fence on the side of the boulevard.

In Tehran, a verified video from Saturday night shows protesters also taking over the streets in the Gisha district.

Other verified videos from the capital show a large group of protesters and the sound of banging on pots in Punak Square, and a crowd of protesters marching on a road and calling for the end of the clerical establishment in the Heravi district.

Internet access in Iran is largely limited to a domestic intranet, with restricted links to the outside world. But during the current round of protests, authorities have, for the first time, not only shut down access to the worldwide internet but also severely restricted the domestic intranet.

An expert told BBC Persian the shutdown is more severe than during the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising in 2022.

Alireza Manafi, an internet researcher, said the only likely way to connect to the outside world was via Starlink satellite internet, but warned users to exercise caution, as such connections could potentially be traced by the government.

On Saturday, Trump wrote on social media: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

He did not elaborate, but US media reported that Trump had been briefed on options for military strikes in the country. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported the briefings had taken place, with WSJ describing them as “preliminary discussions”. An unnamed official told the WSJ there was no “imminent threat” to Iran.

Last year, the US conducted airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

As dawn broke on Sunday in Iran, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah (king), who lives in the US and whose return protesters have been calling for, posted a video to X.

Its caption said: “Your compatriots around the world are proudly shouting your voice… In particular, President Trump, as the leader of the free world, has carefully observed your indescribable bravery and has announced that he is ready to help you.”

He added: “I know that I will soon be by your side.”

He claimed the Islamic Republic was facing a “severe shortage of mercenaries” and that “many armed and security forces have left their workplaces or disobeyed orders to suppress the people”. The BBC could not verify these claims.

Pahlavi encouraged people to continue protesting on Sunday evening, but to stay in groups or with crowds and not “endanger your lives”.

Amnesty International said it was analysing “distressing reports that security forces had intensified their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters” since Thursday.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said those speaking out against Khamenei’s government should not face “the threat of violence or reprisals”.

At least 78 protesters and 38 security personnel have been killed in the past two weeks, HRANA reported.

BBC Persian has confirmed the identities of 26 people killed, including six children.

A hospital worker in Tehran described “very horrible scenes”, saying there were so many wounded that staff did not have time to perform CPR, and that morgues did not have enough room to store the bodies.

They said many people died “as soon as they reached the emergency beds… direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well. Many of them didn’t even make it to the hospital.”

The protests have been the most widespread since an uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.

More than 550 people were killed and 20,000 detained by security forces over several months, according to human rights groups.

Additional reporting by Soroush Pakzad and Roja Assadi

It’s been one surprise after another lately from Lindsey Vonn. And the announcement that the 41-year-old slopes queen has qualified for the Milano Cortina Olympics in February isn’t the last of it.

It might have been her post on Instagram that stated unequivocally that this will be the end.

“I am honored to be able to represent my country one more time, in my 5th and final Olympics!” Vonn said.

Vonn’s remarkable and inspiring comeback from injuries and a seven-year hiatus from top-level competitive skiing has injected the U.S. team narrative with an irresistible story line. That her quest will culminate in the mountains of northern Italy just two months from now will make it must-watch television and social media video.

The last two weeks have thrust Vonn back onto the international stage as well as the podium, which she climbed in four of her first five races this season. That includes a spectacular win in the downhill in St. Moritz, Switzerland, on Dec. 12.

That marked her first World Cup victory since 2018. And now it’s official that Vonn will compete in her fifth Olympics where she won gold in the downhill and bronze in the super-G at the 2010 Games in Vancouver and bronze in the downhill in the 2018 Games in PyeongChang.

Much of the astonishment circles back to her age. Vonn’s win in St. Moritz made her the oldest woman to win a World Cup race — by seven years. Federica Brignone of Italy set a record a year ago when she won 10 races at age 34.

She also is the first World Cup winner with titanium implants in her right knee. And she’ll become the first quadragenerian to lead the U.S. Alpine skiiing squad seven years after she had all but retired.

In a moving column on Feb. 10, 2019, at the World Championships, The Times’ Helene Elliott wrote what essentially was a sendoff for Vonn: “She went all out to the very end, because that’s the only way Lindsey Vonn knew how to ski. She was bruised and battered as she went to the start gate on Sunday for the final race of her career, sore all over and her right eye blackened by the impact of a crash she suffered during a super-giant slalom race earlier in the week at the World Championships. Her ligaments tore and her bones sometimes broke but her competitiveness was never dimmed, never dented, never compromised.”

Well, 2026 is around the bend and Vonn is back and intact, her competitiveness never compromised still. She has not officially qualified for the Olympics in the super-G, but she’s the fastest American and No. 3 in the world, so count on that as her next headline.

“Lindsey qualifying for the 2026 Olympic team is a testament to her resilience and dedication, and the remarkable results she’s delivered on the World Cup this season,” Sophie Goldschmidt, U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “She’s proven once again that elite performance isn’t just about past success, it’s about rising to the moment, race after race.

“We’re thrilled to cheer her on at the Olympics.”

An expanded federal healthcare subsidy that grew out of the pandemic looks all but certain to expire on December 31, as Republican leaders in the United States faced a rebellion from within their own ranks.

On Wednesday, four centrist Republicans in the House of Representatives broke with their party’s leadership to support a Democratic-backed extension for the healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), sometimes called “Obamacare”.

By a vote of 204 to 203, the House voted to stop the last-minute move by Democrats, aided by four Republicans, to force quick votes on a three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidy.

Democrats loudly protested, accusing Republican leadership of gavelling an end to the vote prematurely while some members were still trying to vote.

“That’s outrageous,” Democratic Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts yelled at Republican leadership.

Some of the 24 million Americans who buy their health insurance through the ACA programme could face sharply higher costs beginning on January 1 without action by Congress.

Twenty-six House members had not yet voted – and some were actively trying to do so – when the House Republican leadership gavelled the vote closed on Wednesday. It is rare but not unprecedented for House leadership to cut a contested vote short.

Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said the decision prevented some Democrats from voting.

“Listen, it’s playing games when people’s lives are at stake,” DeLauro said. “They jettisoned it.”

It was the latest episode of congressional discord over the subsidies, which are slated to expire at the end of the year.

The vote also offered another key test to the Republican leadership of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Normally, Johnson determines which bills to bring to a House vote, but recently, his power has been circumvented by a series of “discharge petitions”, wherein a majority of representatives sign a petition to force a vote.

In a series of quickfire manoeuvres on Wednesday, Democrats resorted to one such discharge petition to force a vote on the healthcare subsidies in the new year.

They were joined by the four centrist Republicans: Mike Lawler of New York and Brian Fitzpatrick, Robert Bresnahan and Ryan MacKenzie of Pennsylvania.

The Democratic proposal would see the subsidies extended for three years.

But Republicans have largely rallied around their own proposal, a bill called the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act. It would reduce some insurance premiums, though critics argue it would raise others, and it would also reduce healthcare subsidies overall.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Tuesday said the legislation would decrease the number of people with health insurance by an average of 100,000 per year through 2035.

Its money-saving provisions would reduce federal deficits by $35.6bn, the CBO said.

Republicans have a narrow 220-seat majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives, and Democrats are hoping to flip the chamber to their control in the 2026 midterm elections.

Three of the four Republicans who sided with the Democrats over the discharge petition are from the swing state of Pennsylvania, where voters could lean right or left.

Affordability has emerged as a central question ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Even if the Republican-controlled House manages to pass a healthcare bill this week, it is unlikely to be taken up by the Senate before Congress begins a looming end-of-year recess that would stop legislative action until January 5.

By then, millions of Americans will be looking at significantly more expensive health insurance premiums that could prompt some to go without coverage.

Wednesday’s House floor battle could embolden Democrats and some Republicans to revisit the issue in January, even though higher premiums will already be in the pipeline.

Referring to the House debate, moderate Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski told reporters: “I think that that will help prompt a response here in the Senate after the first of the new year, and I’m looking forward to that.”

The ACA subsidies were a major point of friction earlier this year as well, during the historic 43-day government shutdown.

Democrats had hoped to extend the subsidies during the debate over government spending, but Republican leaders refused to take up the issue until a continuing budget resolution was passed first.

WASHINGTON — Four centrist Republicans broke with Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday and signed onto a Democratic-led petition that will force a House vote on extending for three years an enhanced pandemic-era subsidy that lowers health insurance costs for millions of Americans.

The stunning move comes after House Republican leaders pushed ahead with a health care bill that does not address the soaring monthly premiums that millions of people will soon endure when the tax credits for those who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act expire at year’s end.

Democrats led by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York needed 218 signatures to force a floor vote on their bill, which would extend the subsides for three years.

Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Robert Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie, all from Pennsylvania, and Mike Lawler of New York signed on Wednesday morning, pushing it to the magic number of 218. A vote on the subsidy bill could come as soon as January under House rules.

“Unfortunately, it is House leadership themselves that have forced this outcome.” Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

Origins of a Republican revolt

The revolt against GOP leadership came after days of talks centered on the health care subsidies.

Johnson, R-La., had discussed allowing more politically vulnerable GOP lawmakers a chance to vote on bills that would temporarily extend the subsidies while also adding changes such as income caps for beneficiaries. But after days of discussions, the leadership sided with the more conservative wing of the party’s conference, which has assailed the subsidies as propping up a failed marketplace through the ACA, which is widely known as “Obamacare.”

House Republicans pushed ahead Wednesday a 100-plus-page health care package without the subsidies, instead focusing on long-sought GOP proposals designed to expand insurance coverage options for small businesses and the self-employed.

Fitzpatrick and Lawler tried to add a temporary extension of the subsidies to the bill, but were denied.

“Our only request was a floor vote on this compromise, so that the American People’s voice could be heard on this issue. That request was rejected. Then, at the request of House leadership I, along with my colleagues, filed multiple amendments, and testified at length to those amendments,” Fitzpatrick said. “House leadership then decided to reject every single one of these amendments.

“As I’ve stated many times before, the only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension without any reforms, is a policy of complete expiration without any bridge,” Fitzpatrick said.

Lawler, in a social media post, similarly said that “the failure of leadership” to permit a vote had left him with “no choice” but to sign the petition. He urged Johnson to bring the plan up for an immediate floor vote.

Path ahead is uncertain

Even if the subsidy bill were to pass the House, which is far from assured, it would face an arduous climb in the Republican-led Senate.

Republicans last week voted down a three-year extension of the subsidies and proposed an alternative that also failed. But in an encouraging sign for Democrats, four Republican senators crossed party lines to support their proposal.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued against the Democratic extension as “an attempt to disguise the real impact of Obamacare’s spiraling health care costs.”

Freking writes for the Associated Press.