The news cycle remains jammed up with too many juicy stories to cover with the just-right degree of irreverent commentary and piercing insight you have come to expect from the ANR. Venezuela governance, Cuba on the ropes, ICE under fire, Minnesota fraud, Michigan voting, Iran toppling, Greenland saber rattling, Taiwan jeopardy, Dilbert is done, gold and silver prices through the roof, and Trump declares war on the Federal Reserve. Or at least on its chief operating officer.
Trust the ANR for truly important international developments worthy of comment. Here we go.
Number 4. The Kyiv Post. The Russian cavalry rides again!
One thing we should get clear at the outset: Russia opting to use horses for their soldiers in Ukraine has NOTHING to do with mounting vehicle combat losses. NOTHING WHATSOEVER. Uninformed suggestions to the contrary, like the Forbes analysis published last week pointing out the irreplaceable losses of Russian combat vehicles, is rabble-rousing muckraking journalism, or something. (Whatever muckraking journalism is.)
No, the use of horses is a sign of tactical brilliance, according to reliably official Moscow news reports. Special saddles can easily be adapted to accommodate Starlink transceivers, enabling Army field units to rip off Elon Musk for secure communications through third-party arrangements, despite being denied direct service during their Ukraine invasion.
Why the horse-mounted Starlink is more reliable than a vehicle-mounted unit is not clear, most articles focusing on how easily the soldier can harness the device to the leather. The reason probably has to do with the horse not yet being reduced to a smoldering wreck from a Ukraine attack drone.
Speaking of Ukrainian attack drones: Horses don’t seem to like them. There is video of dismounted Russian soldiers who draw the attention of exploding drones. The horses flee, the soldiers go down. Happily, while the horses are no doubt terrified, they at least are still in one piece.
There is a (probably apocryphal) quote ascribed to U.S. General George Patton in WW2: “When I saw the Nazis were using horses to pull their artillery, that’s when I knew we would win.”
One wonders when the Russia-Ukraine war of attrition will have run its course. Never too soon for the horses.
This is surprising.
Citing concerns about its students becoming radicalized by Islamic jihadism, the United Arab Emirates will no longer subsidize study in the UK. They have identified more than a dozen colleges and universities in England and Ireland that have been cut off from UAE state funding.
In a move unprecedented in the Muslim world, UAE sources have said the country will no longer “send its students to become hostages of Islamist jihadist ideology disguised as campus activism."
The source gets more specific: "Across British and Irish campuses, Muslim Brotherhood networks have turned lecture halls into echo chambers of extremism, where antisemitism is normalized, and violence is intellectually laundered as resistance."
Students who pay their own way — or have families who do so — are not prohibited from UK higher education, but it appears the UAE has had enough with Islamic extremism.
Says one Emirati political analyst: “Western universities have become incubators for Islamist networks, protected by cowardice and disguised as tolerance.”
Interestingly, subsidies for higher education at American universities have not yet been curtailed. I wonder what the UAE will do when they investigate Ohio State, UT-Austin, U of Oregon, UC-Irvine, U. Va., UNC, Columbia, UCLA, UofM (Ann Arbor), Northeastern, Yale, NYU, UC Davis, or UW-Madison.
(Editor’s Note: The above list of American universities was provided by ChatGPT in response to a prompt, “List other major American universities with political unrest similar to Ohio State, where pro-Palestinian encampments and arrests occurred during the Gaza war period.”)
Number 2. Morocco World News. France celebrates New Year’s by burning 1,000 cars in the street.
Nothing says, “Vive la France!” like torching somebody else’s car on New Year’s Eve. According to some sources, the verbal statement is a joyous expression of pride in French accomplishments.
Arsons accomplished a new record this year, torching 1,173 cars across the nation. A year earlier, it was only 984. So the French are mastering the learning curve. Next year, maybe 2,000!
Let’s talk stretch goals!
Despite the numbers, French authorities claim that the intro to 2026 was actually more sedate than 2025. Admittedly, there were 20% more arrests this year, and police were still harassed in neighborhoods by mortar-style fireworks, but generally the official consensus is that the scale of agitation was more subdued than last year.
I would be really interested in seeing what data they used to draw that conclusion, but that was probably too dry for this article celebrating French accomplishments on the eve of an optimistic New Year.
Speaking of fireworks lighting up New Year’s Eve, an internet influencer named Kunshikitty, with 200,000 followers, stepped into a street celebration in Cologne with a quarter million other revelers to welcome 2026.
While live-streaming in a bright pink outfit, Ms. Kunshikitty was struck in the head with a hot firework. Visibly frightened, she ducked and ran, only to be hit a second time on camera.
Kunshikitty later reported that she was saddened that a woman could not walk alone, innocently, at midnight among thousands of wild partiers, without being subjected to harassment.
One wonders what world she thought she was living in.
While claiming that she would most definitely report this incident to police, it was not clear that she did, nor indeed that any effective police action could be taken after the fact.
She was filming herself in a hot pink outfit, in the dark, with strangers present, during a wild celebration on a night noted for excess.
What could possibly go wrong?
And with that somewhat depressing yet unsurprising welcome to the year, thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, January 16, 2026. At this writing, the regime in Tehran has not yet toppled, but I would not be surprised if it has by the time you read this. After nearly 50 years of one of the most oppressive governments on the planet, it would seem we might be ready for a sea change.
Iran, Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, Minneapolis… try to keep up. Join us again next week for more astutely perspicacious insights into the events of our world.
Have a good weekend!
