Two veteran Iranian Supreme Court judges, known for handling high-profile cases, were shot dead in Tehran by an assailant who later took his own life.

The judiciary’s media office was cited by state-affiliated media as saying that the attacker had no pending legal cases. Details of the incident remain unclear, but the Iranian judiciary said the assailant killed the two senior judges in a “planned assassination” inside the court and attempted to flee before taking his own life.

A guard was injured in the attack, judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said, according to Mizan News Agency.

Judge Mohammad Moghiseh and Judge Ali Razini were veteran justices who for decades headed courts involved in trying protesters, artists and activists.

Moghiseh was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 for overseeing “countless unfair trails, during which charges went unsubstantiated and evidence was disregarded.” He was sanctioned by the European Union eight years prior.

In one case alone he sentenced eight Iranian Facebook users to a combined 127 years in prison for anti-regime publicity and insults to religion. He had also tried filmmakers and poets for “propaganda against the state,” the US Treasury Department said.

In another case in 2019, he sentenced prominent Iranian human rights lawyer and women’s rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes, according to Amnesty International.

In 1999, Razini survived an assassination attempt after a bomb was attached to his vehicle, Iran’s Fars news agency said. Along with former president Ebrahim Raisi, he is accused of being one of the judges involved in “Death Commission” – an infamous committee that oversaw the prosecution and execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.

Three people were killed and three others were injured in an attack on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Saturday, according to officials, in a move Russia said was in retaliation for Ukraine using US-made ATACMS missiles.

The deaths and injuries occurred in the city’s central Shevchenkivskyi district, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X that residential buildings, a metro station, businesses, and other civilian infrastructure were damaged in the strike.

“All those who help the Russian state in this war must be under such pressure that it is no less noticeable than these strikes,” Zelensky said. “We can do this only in unity with the entire world.”

Kyiv has regularly been targeted in the conflict but deadly attacks are rare. The attack comes as the war reaches a critical point, with both sides seeking to gain an advantage ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration for a second term as US president.

The attack on Kyiv was carried out in response to Ukrainian forces using US-made ATACMS missiles in Russia’s Belgorod region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The strike targeted “facilities of the Ukrainian military-industrial sector,” the defense ministry wrote, adding that “the targets of the strike were achieved and all objects were hit.”

A total of 39 drones and four missiles were launched by Russia into Ukraine from Friday evening to Saturday morning, Ukraine’s Air Force Command wrote on Telegram.

Also on Saturday, ten people were injured following missile strikes in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with two more reported missing, a Telegram post by Ivan Fedorov, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said.

Two of the injured were treated on the spot while the others have been hospitalized. A 48-year-old woman is in serious condition, Fedorov added.

An Indian police volunteer was convicted on Saturday of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at a hospital in the eastern city Kolkata, in the speedy trial of a crime that sparked national outrage over a lack of safety for women.

The woman’s body was found in a classroom at the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9. Other doctors stayed off work for weeks to demand justice for her and better security at public hospitals.

Defendant Sanjay Roy said in November he was “completely innocent” and was being framed. He reiterated this in court on Saturday, saying, “I have not done this.”

Roy’s lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment on the verdict. They had argued there were glaring discrepancies in the investigation and forensic examination reports.

Judge Anirban Das said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against Roy and that the sentence, to be announced on Monday, would range from life in prison to the death penalty.

“Your guilt is proved. You are being convicted,” the judge said.

The parents of the victim, who cannot be named under Indian law, expressed dissatisfaction with the probe, saying the crime could not have been committed by just one person.

“Our daughter could not have met such a horrific end by a single man,” her father said. “We will remain in pain and agony until all the culprits are punished.”

India’s federal police, who investigated the case, described the crime as “rarest of rare” during the trial and sought the death penalty for Roy.

Several doctors chanted slogans in solidarity with the victim outside the court. Dr Aniket Mahato, a spokesperson for the junior doctors, said street protests would continue “until justice is done.”

More than 200 armed police personnel were deployed in anticipation of the verdict as Roy was brought to court in a police car.

The investigation cited 128 witnesses, of whom 51 were examined during the trial, which that began on November 11 and was fast-tracked to conclude swiftly, according to court sources.

Police also charged the officer heading the local police station at the time of the crime and the then-head of the hospital with destruction of the crime scene and tampering with evidence.

The police officer is out on bail while the former head of the hospital remains in detention in connection with a separate case of financial irregularities at the hospital.

Of those injured, ten people were transferred to hospital, two with “maximum priority” and another two “who require urgent attention,” the press office said. There were no fatalities, it added.

The ski lift is 15 meters (more than 49 feet) high, the Spanish Civil Guard said in a post on X.

Part of its structure collapsed after one of its pulleys became loose, Spanish public broadcaster RTVE reported. As it fell, the chairs on the ski lift were destabilized, turning some of them upside down, RTVE said.

Video from the scene posted by the Civil Guard showed dozens of people standing in the snow on a mountain, stuck there after the ski lift broke.

“It’s like a cable has come off, the chairs have bounced and people have been thrown off,” one witness told RTVE.

By 3 p.m. local time, all of those left stranded by the collapse of the ski left were evacuated, the Spanish government’s delegate in Aragon, Fernando Beltrán Blazquez, posted to X.

Spain’s President Pedro Sanchez said he was “shocked” by the news, adding that he had spoken to Aragon’s president to offer him the Spanish government’s support.

“All of our affection goes to the injured and their families,” Sanchez said.

The rooms are filled with elderly residents, their hands wrinkled and backs bent. They shuffle slowly down the corridors, some using walkers. Workers help them bathe, eat, walk and take their medication.

But this isn’t a nursing home – it’s Japan’s largest women’s prison. The population here reflects the aging society outside, and the pervasive problem of loneliness that guards say is so acute for some elderly prisoners that they’d prefer to stay incarcerated.

The women in Tochigi live behind bars and must work in the prison’s factories, but that suits some just fine.

Inside they get regular meals, free healthcare and eldercare – along with the companionship they lack on the outside.

One inmate, Yoko, 51, has been imprisoned on drug charges five times over the last 25 years. Each time she returns, the prison population seems to get older, she said.

Struggling in isolation

Akiyo knows the burden of isolation and poverty too well. This is her second stint in prison, after being previously jailed in her 60s for stealing food.

“If I had been financially stable and had a comfortable lifestyle, I definitely wouldn’t have done it,” she said.

When she committed her second theft, Akiyo was living off a “very small” pension that was only paid every two months. With less than $40 left and two weeks until her next payment, “I made a poor decision and shoplifted, thinking it would be a minor issue,” she said. Her prior conviction meant that she was imprisoned.

With little family support, Akiyo had stopped caring about the future, or what would happen to her.

Her 43-year-old son, who lived with her before she was imprisoned, often told her: “I wish you’d just go away.”

“I felt like I didn’t care what happened anymore,” she said. “I thought, ‘There’s no point in me living,’ and ‘I just want to die.’”

Theft is by far the most common crime committed by elderly inmates, especially among women. In 2022, more than 80% of elderly female inmates nationwide were in jail for stealing, according to government figures.

Some do it for survival – 20% of people aged over 65 in Japan live in poverty, according to the OECD, compared to an average of 14.2% across the organization’s 38 member countries. Others do it because they have so little left on the outside.

“There are people who come here because it’s cold, or because they’re hungry,” said Shiranaga, the prison guard.

Those who fall ill “can get free medical treatment while they are in prison, but once they leave, they have to pay for it themselves, so some people want to stay here as long as possible.”

Can Japan fill the gap?

Across Japan, the number of prisoners aged 65 or older nearly quadrupled from 2003 to 2022 – and it’s changed the nature of incarceration.

“Now we have to change their diapers, help them bathe, eat,” Shiranaga said. “At this point, it feels more like a nursing home than a prison full of convicted criminals.”

“Even after they are released and return to normal life, they don’t have anybody to look after them,” she said. “There are also people who have been abandoned by their families after repeatedly committing crimes, they have no place to belong.”

Authorities have acknowledged the issue, with the welfare ministry saying in 2021 that elderly inmates who received support after leaving prison were far less likely to re-offend than those who didn’t. The ministry has since ramped up its early intervention efforts and community support centers to better support vulnerable elderly, it said.

The Ministry of Justice has also launched programs for female inmates that provide guidance on independent living, substance addiction recovery, and how to navigate family relationships.

The government is now considering proposals to make housing benefits accessible to more elders, with 10 municipalities across Japan already testing initiatives to support elderly people with no close relatives.

But it’s not clear whether that will be enough, in a country with one of the world’s longest lifespans and lowest birthrates.

The elderly population is ballooning so fast that Japan will require 2.72 million care workers by 2040, according to the government – which is now scrambling to encourage more people to enter the industry, and to import foreign workers to fill the gaps.

That’s evident in Tochigi, where officers “actively ask (inmates) with nursing qualifications to provide nursing care” for other elderly prisoners, Megumi said.

Yoko, the 51-year-old inmate, is one such caregiver, having gotten her qualifications during her last sentence. Now, when there aren’t enough prison staff caring for the elderly, she helps other inmates bathe, change their clothes and move around, she said.

All the while, prisons continue filling up with white-haired inmates.

“Being alone is a very difficult thing, and I feel ashamed that I ended up in this situation,” she added. “I really feel that if I had a stronger will, I could have led a different life, but I’m too old to do anything about it now.”

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro accused the country’s supreme court of persecuting him on Saturday after his appeal against a travel ban was rejected.

Speaking at the airport in Brasilia, Bolsonaro, who had called on the Supreme Court to reconsider a previous decision barring him from traveling to the United States to attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, said he was facing “huge political persecution by one person.”

Bolsonaro’s lawyers had filed an appeal late on Thursday claiming the right-wing politician had fully complied with and respected the precautionary measures imposed on him by the Supreme Court, and also rejected any possibility of him fleeing.

But Justice Alexandre de Moraes hours later upheld an earlier ruling rejecting the former president’s request to have his passport returned, a document seen by Reuters showed.

Bolsonaro was at the airport to bid farewell to his wife Michelle who will attend Trump’s inauguration.

Bolsonaro, who has been barred from running for office until 2030 and faces criminal charges for allegedly plotting a coup after his 2022 election defeat, had his passport taken in February 2024 on the order of Brazil’s top court.

Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022 and has been called “Trump of the Tropics,” said on Saturday that he had been invited to Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

A South Korean court granted on Sunday an extension of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s detention, saying there was “concern” that Yoon could “destroy evidence” in a criminal probe related to his short-lived declaration of martial law in early December.

Last Wednesday, Yoon became the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested. South Korean investigators probing Yoon for alleged insurrection asked a Seoul court on Friday to extend his detention after he refused to be questioned.

The Seoul Western District Court said it approved the detention warrant requested by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO).

The reason for the approval was “concern that the suspect may destroy evidence,” the court said in a statement.

Under the new warrant, Yoon can be detained for up to 20 days.

He is being held at the Seoul Detention Center.

So far, Yoon has stonewalled efforts by the CIO to interrogate him, refusing to attend questioning. It was unclear if Yoon will cooperate with investigators during his extended detention.

This is a developing story and will be updated.