A Thousand Days

Days 4-10—January 4-10, 2026

The Gate

Sudan marked one thousand days of war on the ninth of January. More than thirteen million displaced. Twenty-one million facing acute hunger. The world's worst humanitarian crisis, and the world largely did not notice.

In El Fasher, the Rapid Support Forces had overrun the city after an eighteen-month siege. Thousands killed in the massacre that followed—estimates ranged from seven thousand to twenty-seven thousand dead. One hundred thousand unaccounted for. The RSF deployed Chinese-made drones and Colombian mercenaries. Supply flights traced to the UAE; Egypt and Turkey armed the SAF. Both factions accused of genocidal tactics. The Quad mediators intensified efforts toward a ceasefire. The RSF said it would agree to a roadmap. The fighting did not stop.

Fresh violence marked the week. Drone strikes hit markets and clinics in North Darfur. Thirteen killed in North Kordofan on the sixth, including children. The RSF encircled El Obeid. Among their targets: a kindergarten.

The Street

In Iran, the protests entered their thirteenth day. The largest since the 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising. This time it began with the bazaaris—the shopkeepers who had been loyal to the regime for decades.

The rial had lost forty percent of its value since the June war with Israel. It now traded at 1.4 million to the dollar. Crowds filled streets in all thirty-one provinces. By week's end, at least one hundred sixteen confirmed dead. More than two thousand six hundred detained. The government imposed internet blackouts.

On the tenth, Iran's attorney general warned that participants would be considered "enemy of God"—a capital charge. Trump posted that the United States was "locked and loaded and ready to go" if the regime shot protesters. The supreme leader signaled there would be no backing down.

In Minneapolis, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a thirty-seven-year-old woman named Renee Good. Protests followed. Governor Tim Walz issued a warning order for the National Guard. The next day in Portland, Border Patrol agents shot and wounded a couple in a hospital parking lot. More protests.

The Reckoning

The aftermath of the Maduro capture unfolded.

On the fifth, Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores appeared in Manhattan federal court on narcoterrorism charges. Both pleaded not guilty. In Caracas, Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as acting president, backed by the military. Nine political prisoners were released. More than eight hundred sixty remained detained.

The UN Security Council convened at the request of Colombia, China, and Russia. Even allies of the United States criticized the operation. France's envoy said it "chips away at the very foundation of international order." Washington called it a "surgical law enforcement operation."

The Trump administration announced that Washington would control Venezuela's oil sales indefinitely. The postwar order bent.

The War

Russia launched an Oreshnik hypersonic missile at Lviv overnight on the ninth—the second such strike since the full-scale invasion began. The missile traveled at thirteen thousand kilometers per hour. It struck critical infrastructure miles from the Polish border.

Moscow claimed retaliation for a Ukrainian drone strike on Putin's residence in December. Kyiv denied it. Trump rejected the claim. Britain, France, and Germany called the use of the nuclear-capable missile "escalatory and unacceptable."

Russia gained twelve square miles in the week ending the sixth. Hundreds of drones and missiles struck Kyiv and Kharkiv. Four dead in the capital. Thousands of apartments without heat in minus ten Celsius. The WHO condemned nine attacks on healthcare facilities since the year began.

In Paris, Zelenskyy, Macron, and Starmer signed an agreement to deploy multinational forces to Ukraine if a ceasefire were reached. Macron said several thousand French soldiers could serve as "a force of reassurance." More than two dozen leaders attended. Any settlement, they said, must include robust security guarantees.

In Aleppo, the peace between Syria's transitional government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces collapsed. Fighting killed at least twenty-two. One hundred thirty-eight thousand fled. By week's end, a ceasefire held. Most SDF fighters had disarmed.

In Gaza, the ceasefire that took effect in October continued to be violated daily. Israeli forces occupied more than half the Strip. Since October, more than four hundred Palestinians killed, over one thousand injured. Israel expanded its demarcation line deeper into Gaza City.

A five-year-old girl and her uncle died when a bomb struck their tent. Thirty-seven aid organizations remained banned—among them Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council.

The Human Cost

In Cedarbluff, Mississippi, a man shot and killed six people across three locations on the ninth—his father, his brother, his uncle, a seven-year-old girl, and two others. The deadliest mass shooting in the country so far in 2026.

In Indonesia, flash floods swept through North Sulawesi between the fifth and seventh. Sixteen dead. Nearly seven hundred displaced.

In Haiti, fighting between police and armed gangs in Bel Air, Port-au-Prince, forced Doctors Without Borders to suspend operations after a former volunteer was killed. Armed gangs controlled ninety percent of the capital.

The Machines

In Las Vegas, the technology industry gathered for CES. The term was "physical AI"—models trained in virtual environments, deployed as machines in the real world.

Nvidia announced Cosmos, a foundation model capable of simulating physics. Its next-generation superchip, Vera Rubin, entered full production. In China, DeepSeek revealed the architecture behind its R1 reasoning model.

Speakers avoided the term artificial general intelligence. The CEO of Salesforce called it "marketing hypnosis." Anthropic executives called it "outdated." The focus shifted to making the technology useful.

The Passing

Representative Doug LaMalfa of California, a seven-term Republican, died at sixty-five. The GOP's House majority narrowed by one.

Glenn Hall, the Hall of Fame goaltender who played for Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis, died at ninety-four. Tom Cherones, who directed and produced Seinfeld, died at eighty-six.

The Ledger

A thousand days measure nothing but endurance—the endurance of suffering, the endurance of forgetting. The world's worst crisis received the world's shortest attention. A sitting president stood in an American courtroom. The postwar order bent and the Security Council split. Protesters in Iran and American cities met bullets. Hypersonic weapons landed near NATO borders while European allies pledged boots on the ground for a peace not yet achieved. Doctors Without Borders was banned from Gaza and driven from Haiti in the same week. The machines grew more practical and their makers more modest. The wars continued. No one made them stop.

Here continues the account of the year 2026.