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US judge rules DC pipe bomber must stay in custody until trial | Courts News
Suspect Brian Cole confessed to planting bomb, parroting Trump’s false claims 2020 election was stolen.
Published On 2 Jan 2026
A federal judge in the United States has refused the pre-trial release of a man charged with planting two pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican national parties on the eve of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
On Friday, Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh ruled that 30-year-old Brian Cole must remain jailed before trial. The magistrate concluded there are no conditions of release that can reasonably protect the public from the danger that Cole allegedly poses.
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Department of Justice prosecutors say Cole confessed to placing pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters only hours before a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election results.
According to prosecutors, Cole said he hoped the explosives would detonate and “hoped there would be news about it”.
“Mercifully, that did not happen,” Judge Sharbaugh wrote in the order.
“But if the plan had succeeded, the results,” he said, could have been devastating, “creating a greater sense of terror on the eve of a high-security Congressional proceeding, causing serious property damage in the heart of Washington, DC, grievously injuring DNC or RNC staff and other innocent bystanders, or worse.”
After his arrest last month, Cole told investigators that he believed someone needed to “speak up” for people who believed the 2020 election, which Democrat Joe Biden won, was stolen and that he wanted to target the country’s political parties because they were “in charge”, according to prosecutors.
Trump and his allies had spent months baselessly claiming the 202 vote was marred by widespread fraud, a position he has maintained since his election victory in 2024.
The US president was later indicted for his role in fomenting the January 6, 2021, riot, which occurred as Congress met to certify the election results, but the case was abandoned after his election victory in 2024. Under longstanding Justice Department policy, it does not prosecute sitting presidents.
After taking office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of the rioters, including those convicted of violent crimes at the Capitol.
If convicted, Cole faces up to 10 years of imprisonment on one charge and up to 20 years of imprisonment on a second charge that also carries a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence.
Cole’s lawyers asked for him to be released on home detention with GPS monitoring. They said Cole does not have a criminal record, has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and lives in a stable home that he shared with his parents in Woodbridge, Virginia.
“Mr Cole simply does not pose a danger to the community,” his defence lawyers wrote in court filings. “Whatever risk the government posits is theoretical and backward-looking, belied by the past four years where Mr Cole lived at home with his family without incident.”
Cole continued to buy bomb-making components for months after the January 6 riot, according to prosecutors. They said he told the FBI that he planted the pipe bombs because “something just snapped”.
“The sudden and abrupt motivation behind Mr Cole’s alleged actions presents concerns about how quickly the same abrupt and impulsive conduct might recur,” Judge Sharbaugh wrote in the order.
Top 5 Boxing Matches We Can’t Wait to See in 2026
The start of any new boxing year brings with it a familiar mix of hope, expectation and lists. Twelve months in which the sport will be celebrated, criticised, dissected and occasionally derided — yet no matter how severely it tests our patience, we always return for more.
The action in the ring, however, rarely disappoints. January alone delivers a genuine super-fight, with Teofimo Lopez and Shakur Stevenson rolling the dice against one another. And while this period of the calendar is often associated with quiet nights and algorithm-driven distractions, there is plenty more to sustain fight fans beyond the opening weeks.
So what lies ahead once January fades? At Boxing News, we’ve scanned the divisions and selected five fights we not only want to see, but believe the sport badly needs. We begin in one of boxing’s most vibrant strongholds: Japan.
Naoya Inoue vs Junto Nakatani – Undisputed super-bantamweight title
December 27, 2025 was meant to whet the appetite. Two separate bouts designed to tee up an all-Japanese super-fight that has been years in the making. Inoue duly outclassed David Picasso, while Nakatani left Riyadh fortunate to preserve his unbeaten record after edging Sebastian Hernandez.
The aftermath has widened perceived gaps. Inoue remains the finished article; Nakatani, still adapting to super-bantamweight, suddenly looks like the challenger rather than the equal. Does that dull the intrigue? Not remotely. With May mooted and the Tokyo Dome — potentially before 50,000 fans — the likely setting, this is the kind of occasion that stops the sport in its tracks. A reigning superpower against a man daring to take his throne.
Jaron “Boots” Ennis vs Vergil Ortiz – Super-welterweight
Boxing has reached a point where risk is no longer a dirty word and unbeaten records are increasingly expendable. Riyadh Season has helped shift that mindset — but this fight must happen regardless. Eddie Hearn and Oscar De La Hoya need to find common ground and deliver the defining contest at 154lbs.
Ennis’ speed, accuracy and fluidity against Ortiz’s relentless pressure and thudding power is a matchup worthy of the division’s history. It elevates the winner to a place every elite fighter craves. The signals have been mixed. They cannot allow this to become another great fight that slipped through boxing’s fingers.
Dmitry Bivol vs Artur Beterbiev III – Light-heavyweight unification
A rivalry tied at one apiece demands resolution — especially when neither man has shown any meaningful decline. Bivol and Beterbiev proved across two fights that year-end classics need not be reckless wars. Their contrasting styles instead produced elite-level tension and technical excellence.
It has now been almost a year since Bivol’s redemption, with surgery keeping him inactive, while Beterbiev will hope rest has restored him fully. Despite David Benavidez’s ambitions, the two finest light-heavyweights remain Bivol and Beterbiev. Boxing needs the rubber match.
Hamzah Sheeraz vs Christian Mbilli – WBC super-middleweight title
With the 168lb landscape in flux following Terence Crawford’s retirement, the division awaits a new standard-bearer. Canelo Alvarez may still hold that status, but contenders such as Sheeraz and Mbilli can announce themselves by capturing their first world title.
The WBC has ordered this fight — and for good reason. Sheeraz brings size, reach and growing authority; Mbilli offers relentless output and constant pressure. Sheeraz looked devastating against Edgar Berlanga, while Mbilli was fortunate to scrape a draw against Lester Martinez. Styles promise intensity, momentum swings and real jeopardy.
Anthony Olascuaga vs Masamichi Yabuki – Flyweight unification
Japanese boxing was one of the sport’s great success stories of 2025, and Olascuaga and Yabuki were integral to that rise. Both have thrived on activity, opportunity and momentum, establishing themselves as two of the division’s most dangerous punchers.
Aggressive, fan-friendly and red-hot, their styles feel tailor-made for one another. Olascuaga’s star continues to rise, while Yabuki has been rejuvenated since his 2022 loss to Kenshiro. The timing is perfect. This has all the ingredients of a Fight of the Year contender.
Swiss AI technology lessens the demand for powerful AI in data centers
What’s not to love about giant AI data centers?
I mean, of course, other than electronic waste, massive use of water (especially in arid regions), reliance on destructive and human rights-abusing mining to extract rare elements, and sucking electricity from dirty energy sources?
Yeah, but how else are you going to get all those amazing Studio Ghibli replicant pictures, those awesome AI-only albums, or AI “retro” videos of The Avengers “recast” with AI Paul Newman and AI Robert Redford? They’re not gonna make themselves! And least not without those giant AI data centers.
But more seriously, because AI offers enormous benefits for medical diagnoses and treatments and addressing climate change, how do we reap the benefits without paying the terrible price?
Turns out the Swiss may have punched holes in the entire AI data center industry and many of the problems it causes. At Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), a major technology and public research university, researchers have created software they’re now selling through their own company that takes out the middle-man of “Big Cloud.”
Now, thanks to EPFL researchers Gauthier Voron, Geovani Rizk, and Rachid Guerraoui in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, we have a much better option for AI. Instead of sending our processing needs to remote servers for “inference” (AI production of predictions and conclusions that currently expends 80 to 90% of all AI-computing power), you’ll be able to download Anyway Systems to your desktop. There, Anyway downloads open-source AI models such as ChatGPT in minutes, so you can ask questions globally, but process locally.
“For years,” says DCL head Rachid Guerraoui, “people have believed that it’s not possible to have large language models and AI tools without huge resources, and that data privacy, sovereignty and sustainability were just victims of this, but this is not the case. Smarter, frugal approaches are possible.”
Instead of using warehouse-bound arrays of servers resembling dark, dystopian cities of endless, identical skyscrapers, Anyway Systems distributes processing on a local network – in the above case with ChatGPT-120B, requiring a maximum of four computers – robustly self-stabilizing for optimal use of local hardware. Guerraoui says that while Anyway Systems is ideal for inference, it may be a bit slower responding to prompts, and “it’s just as accurate.”
Who needs a massive Death Star when all you need is a few small X-wing fighters to compete?
Even better, installation takes as little as 30 minutes, and because processing is local, users keep their private data private, and companies, unions, NGOs, and countries keep their data sovereign, and away from the clutches (and “ethics”) of Big Data.
Anyway Systems
While home users would need more than a single computer to form the local network needed to operate Anyway Systems, the history of increased speed and capacity, and decreased size of hardware, means that the Swiss option may soon be more widely available. “We will be able to do everything locally in terms of AI,” says Guerraoui. “We could download our open-source AI of choice, contextualize it to our needs, and we, not Big Tech, could be the master of all the pieces.”
But doesn’t Google’s AI Edge already offer such abilities on a single phone?
“Google AI Edge is meant to be run on mobile phones for very specific and small Google-made models with each user running a model constrained by the phone’s capacity,” counters Guerraoui. “There is no distributed computing to enable the deployment of the same large and powerful AI models that are shared by many users of the same organization in a scalable and fault-tolerant manner. The Anyway System can handle hundreds of billion parameters with just a few GPUs.”
According to Guerraoui, similar logic applies for people operating local LLMs such as msty.ai and Llama. “Most of these approaches help deploy a model on a single machine, which is a single source of failures,” he says, noting that the most powerful AI models require extremely expensive machines found in data centers.
Furthermore, individual users can’t combine commodity machines efficiently to deploy large models, and even if they could, doing so “would require a team to manage and maintain the system. The Anyway System does this transparently, robustly and automatically.”
So, while malevolent actors using generative AI continue to pose a threat to amusing little luxuries such as, say, democracy, at least scientific researchers and others who are using AI to add value to human life and the planet will be able to do so without inflicting as much damage to the environment, or harming the miners and communities producing the elements and minerals that Big AI demands.
Sources: EPFL, Anyway Systems
S&P/TSX Composite Index gains 0.54% as Canadian stocks rise at market close
Canada stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite up 0.54%
Deadly Swiss bar fire likely caused by sparklers on champagne bottles
Nick Johnson,Crans-Montanaand
Anna Lamche
A fire at a bar in a Swiss ski resort appears to have been caused by sparklers placed on bottles of champagne that came “too close to the ceiling”, authorities said.
Forty people died after the blaze in the early hours of New Year’s Day in Crans-Montana, while 119 were injured.
Valais Attorney General Beatrice Pilloud told a news conference on Friday the investigation would focus on the materials used on the site, the bar’s fire safety measures, its capacity and the number of people inside at the time of the fire.
The investigation will explore whether prosecutions will be necessary. “If that is the case, and if those people are still alive, there will be a case opened against them,” she said.
“Everything leads us to think that the fire started from sparkling candles – or sparklers – which were put on bottles of champagne [that were] moved too close to the ceiling. From that, a blaze began very quickly”, Ms Pilloud told the conference.
SuppliedOne of the bar’s owners reportedly told local media the establishment had been inspected three times in the past ten years and that everything had been done according to the regulations.
Authorities are still working on the formal identification of the 40 people killed in the fire, with police commander Frédéric Gisler saying “that is our priority”.
Many of those injured in the fire remain in a critical condition, authorities said.
Of those injured, 113 have been formally identified, Gisler said. This figure includes 71 Swiss citizens, 14 French, and 11 Italians, as well as four Serbs, among others.
The formal identification process of six others was ongoing, he said, and warned the figures may still change.
Mathias Reynard, president of the Valais region, said around 50 injured people “have been transferred or will be transferred soon to European countries in specialised centres for severe burns”.
“Many people were injured and are still fighting to live”, Mr Reynard said.
Among those injured was 19-year-old French footballer Tahirys Dos Santos, according to a statement released by his football club, FC Mertz.
Dos Santos was “severely burned” in the fire, the club said, and has been airlifted to Germany for treatment.
The families of those missing after the fire were still anxiously awaiting updates from officials on Friday evening.
Among those missing is Italian national Achille Barosi, 16, who entered the bar at 01:30 local time on New Year’s Day to retrieve his jacket and phone. His family have not heard from him since.
“We don’t know if he’s still alive,” his aunt Francesca told the BBC World Service’s OS programme. She said her nephew was an excellent painter who had enrolled in an art school in Milan.
At the news conference on Friday, officials said they were identifying victims using a process called “Disaster Victim Identification”, whereby a team of forensic specialists, doctors, dentists and investigators gather data that allows them to name the dead.
Ms Pilloud later told the news conference the investigation would also explore whether the bar ceiling complied with building regulations.
She said investigators were exploring the installation of foam in the ceiling, adding she was unable to say with certainty at this stage whether the foam did or did not comply, or if it was installed with or without authorisation.
“It’s essential we don’t make any assumptions… leave us to do our work,” she said.
She said the two French managers of the bar had been interviewed, as well as people who escaped the fire.
Ms Pilloud said the interviews had helped them to establish a list of those who were present during the incident.
Officials also confirmed there was more than one exit out of the bar, but added they were “not currently able to say” whether the emergency exit was open or closed at the time.
Lea Zehnder, 22, was celebrating New Year’s at a bar within eye-shot of Le Constellation.
She described hearing screams coming from Le Constellation and said her boyfriend helped those with serious burns.
“They couldn’t walk or talk”, she said.
Meanwhile, Tristan Fischer, 20, told the BBC his 17-year-old brother had smashed windows and grabbed people from the bar as the fire took hold.
He said he was worried his brother’s mental health has been permanently affected by the incident: “He hasn’t properly spoken, he hasn’t properly slept since.”
Le Constellation is a large bar which has been around for many years.
It could hold up to 300 people and had a small terrace, although it is unknown how many people were there at the time of the fire.
On Friday, groups of tearful families and teenagers gathered near the police cordon around the bar.
Some left bunches of flowers and candles, while others placed messages at a makeshift shrine.
White tents covered the entrances and exits of the site.
Just outside town, a conference centre is being used to provide support to the families of the missing.
A ceremony will be held in Crans-Montana on 9 January so people can come together for a moment of “national mourning”.
Michael Saylor’s Strategy teeters on the edge of diminishing the company’s value below that of its Bitcoin holdings.
Stock in Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury company Strategy was up 1.22% in early trading today, giving the company a brief period of relief. The stock has declined 66% since its high last July, and this morning its “mNAV”—a technical gauge of whether the company is worth more or less than the Bitcoin it holds—was at 1.02.
If that gauge falls below 1, then technically the company is worth less than the Bitcoin it owns. At that point, the stock would be sold off by many investors because there is no point in owning a stock whose value is based on Bitcoin if the stock is worth less than the Bitcoin.
The stock has been sitting above this danger zone since November.
Already, the market cap of the company is worth less than its Bitcoin. Its market cap was $47 billion today; the Bitcoin held by the company is worth just under $60 billion. That on its own is a perilous position. But if the company’s mNAV (“market-to-net asset value”) falls below 1 then the stock potentially enters a new world of pain. mNAV is a measure of the company’s total market cap plus its debt, minus its cash, divided by its total Bitcoin reserve. If that value is worth less than 1 then the case for owning Strategy stock becomes harder to argue.
Fortune contacted the company for comment.
Saylor, as usual, has been tweeting bullishly about MSTR shares, including this chart showing that “open interest” (investor positions that have not been closed out) are the equivalent of 87% of the company’s market value. The implication is that the stock is highly traded (although many of those positions are undoubtedly short bets against the company). He also posted an AI-generated picture of him taming a polar bear.
Below the level of mNAV at 1 lies another dangerous threshold for Strategy: the average price at which Strategy has historically accumulated Bitcoin. Over the years, that price was about $74,000 per coin. Currently, Bitcoin trades at $89.6K. If the price were to fall below $74K it would imply that Strategy’s Bitcoin stash was worth less than what Saylor has paid for it.
Strategy fans would argue that might be a time to buy—if the stock was worth less than its Bitcoin then the price per share might rise to meet the price of Bitcoin; it might rise even more if Bitcoin resumed its march higher.
But that, again, would be a sore test for traders who are not true believers. Why hold a stock that is worth less than the underlying asset it represents?
Join us at the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit May 19–20, 2026, in Atlanta. The next era of workplace innovation is here—and the old playbook is being rewritten. At this exclusive, high-energy event, the world’s most innovative leaders will convene to explore how AI, humanity, and strategy converge to redefine, again, the future of work. Register now.
Map shows Mexico rattled by 6.5-magnitude earthquake
Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 4 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “light,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. The New York Times
A strong, 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck in Mexico on Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The temblor happened at 7:58 a.m. Central time about 2 miles northwest of Rancho Viejo, Mexico, data from the agency shows.
There were no immediate reports of deaths or widespread damage. As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.
Aftershocks in the region
An aftershock is usually a smaller earthquake that follows a larger one in the same general area. Aftershocks are typically minor adjustments along the portion of a fault that slipped at the time of the initial earthquake.
Quakes and aftershocks within 100 miles
Aftershocks can occur days, weeks or even years after the first earthquake. These events can be of equal or larger magnitude to the initial earthquake, and they can continue to affect already damaged locations.
When quakes and aftershocks occurred
Source: United States Geological Survey | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Central time. Shake data is as of Friday, Jan. 2 at 9:11 a.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Friday, Jan. 2 at 1:14 p.m. Eastern.
Maps: Daylight (urban areas); MapLibre (map rendering); Natural Earth (roads, labels, terrain); Protomaps (map tiles)
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Journalists sentenced to life in prison for their involvement in 2023 pro-Khan protests, Pakistani court rules
Court sentences journalists in absentia over alleged links to violent unrest after ex-PM Imran Khan’s May 2023 arrest.
Published On 2 Jan 2026
A court in Pakistan has sentenced several journalists and social media commentators to life imprisonment after convicting them of inciting violence during riots in 2023 linked to the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
An anti-terrorism court judge, Tahir Abbas Sipra, announced the verdict on Friday in the capital, Islamabad, after completing trials held in absentia.
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The convicted include former army officers-turned YouTubers Adil Raja and Syed Akbar Hussain; journalists Wajahat Saeed Khan, Sabir Shakir and Shaheen Sehbai, commentator Haider Raza Mehdi, and analyst Moeed Pirzada, according to the court’s decision.
None of the accused was present in court as they have been living abroad after leaving Pakistan in recent years to avoid arrest.
The convictions stem from cases registered after unrest in May 2023 saw some of Khan’s supporters attack military facilities and government property in response to his brief arrest in a corruption case.
Since then, the Pakistani government and military have launched a sweeping crackdown on Khan’s party and dissenting voices, using anti-terrorism laws and military trials to prosecute hundreds accused of incitement and attacks on state institutions.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said in 2023 that the investigations amounted to retaliation against critical reporting.
“Authorities must immediately drop these investigations and cease the relentless intimidation and censorship of the media,” CPJ Asia programme coordinator Beh Lih Yi said.
Journalist Sabir Shakir, who previously hosted a popular television programme on ARY TV before leaving Pakistan, told The Associated Press news agency on Friday that he was aware of his conviction.
He said that he wasn’t in the country when police accused him of encouraging mob violence.
“The ruling against me and others is nothing but a political victimisation,” Shakir told AP.
Under Friday’s court order, those convicted have the right to file appeals within seven days.
The court also directed police to arrest them and transfer them to prison should they return to Pakistan.