The 21-year-old sorority girl daughter of a General Electric executive died on Christmas Eve after a fire caused by ‘heat spots’ destroyed her family’s mansion.

Kayla Corrigan, 21, was killed when her $4 million home in Needham, a suburb of Boston, erupted into flames last week. Two other adults who were inside the residence at the time of the fire managed to escape unharmed.

Corrigan was a ‘beloved’ member of the university’s Sigma Delta Tau chapter and on track to graduate with a degree in marketing management this spring.

‘Kayla shared the most beautiful presence and was such a kind and caring soul,’ her sorority sisters hailed in a heartbreaking Instagram post. ‘Everyone who knew her recognized her kindness, her warmth, her humor and her selflessness.’

The sorority issued its condolences to Corrigan’s family, whose home has sustained what police described as ‘catastrophic damage’.

Investigators believe the fire began in the rear of an attached garage, the state fire marshal said. The cause of the fire remains under investigation, but firefighters found several heat sources that they suspect may have contributed to the blaze.

A GoFundMe campaign established to cover Corrigan’s funeral expenses and provide temporary housing to her family has already amassed more than $160,000. 

Sigma Delta Tau is also planning to honor Corrigan at their chapter house once students return to Syracuse after winter break.

Kayla Corrigan, 21, (pictured in Spain earlier this year) was killed when her family home in Needham, a suburb of Boston, erupted into flames last week. Two other adults who were inside the residence at the time of the fire managed to escape unharmed

Corrigan (pictured during a beach trip in March 2023) is remembered for her generosity, caring attitude and her devotion to her family. Loved ones said she was a ‘beautiful and beloved sister and daughter’

The fire erupted at the sprawling 2,500 square-foot mansion, which boasts six bedrooms and seven bathrooms, around 5am on December 24. Pictured the Corrigan home in Needham, MA

Firefighters were called to the sprawling 2,500 square-foot mansion, which boasts six bedrooms and seven bathrooms, around 5am on December 24 as heavy smoke and flames engulfed the property.

Crews tried to enter the home, but were pushed back by the raging inferno, with the state fire marshal said ‘quickly spread’ throughout the residence.

Two residents escaped, but Corrigan was later found dead inside the home. 

It is unclear who was in the home at the time, but property records reviewed by the Daily Mail indicate that Corrigan’s mother Christa and 23-year-old sister Alyssa are residents at the property.

Christa, 55, has had a storied career at Boston-based General Electric, which dates back to the mid-1990s, her LinkedIn profile revealed.

She held several positions at GE and has served as the VP Human Resources for its Capital Retail Finance and Restructuring Operations leg for the past 16 years.

Corrigan’s father James worked for GE Healthcare for 11 years. He left the company in 2013 after serving as the President & CEO of Surgery for eight months, according to his LinkedIn.

James, 61, remarried in 2022 and currently lives in a $2.6 million house in Florida.

He works for financial services firm JMC Advisors LLC, where he has served as President and CEO since July this year, his profile stated.

James has worked at multiple companies in the pharma, biotech, and digital health industries. His previously roles included investor, top executive and board member.

Fire crews tried to enter the home, but were pushed back by the raging inferno, with the state fire marshal said ‘quickly spread’ throughout the residence. Two residents escaped, but Corrigan was later found dead inside the home

Corrigan’s mother Christa Baer Corrigan (pictured with Kayla in 2019) is the VP Human Resources at Capital Retail Finance & Restructuring Operations. Property records reviewed by the Daily Mail show that Christa and her two daughters are residents at the Needham home

Kayla Corrigan (right) is pictured with her father James (left), sister Alyssa (second left) and step-mother Jennifer (second right)

Fire investigators in Needham have determined that the blaze was accidental and suspect it first ignited in the family’s garage. 

‘We haven’t determined the cause of this fire yet, but we know that tragedies like this one are most common in the winter months,’ State Fire Marshal Jon Davine said in a press release obtained by the Daily Mail. 

In wake of the horrible tragedy, Davine urged other families to ‘please be sure you have working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms on every level of your home and a practiced escape plan in the event of an emergency.’

Corrigan is remembered for her generosity, caring attitude and her devotion to her family.

Amy Lund, who established the crowdfunding page supporting Corrgian’s family, said the house fire tragically took the life of a ‘beautiful and beloved sister and daughter.’

‘Words cannot express the depth of our grief or the shock of this loss,’ Lund wrote. 

‘Kayla was a beautiful 21 year old girl who was deeply loved by many. Her absence has left a space that can never be filled. We will carry her memory with us always.’

‘She touched the lives of so many,’ her sorority echoed, adding that her Sigma Delta Tau sisters are ‘so incredibly grateful for the memories she shared’ with them.

Kayla Corrigan (pictured in Barcelona in May this year) was a driven student and on track to graduate from Syracuse University this spring with a degree in marketing management

A GoFundMe campaign established to cover Corrigan’s funeral expenses and provide temporary housing to her family has already amassed more than $160,000. Sigma Delta Tau is also planning to honor Corrigan (pictured during her trip to Spain) at their chapter house once students return to Syracuse after winter break

Corrigan was a driven student and passionate about her field of study, Syracuse University Chief Student Experience Officer Allen Groves shared in a letter to the campus community.

She had ‘immersed herself into internships strengthening her understanding of navigating marketing decisions in an evolving global landscape.’

Groves urged her classmates and others impacted by the tragedy to use available counseling and support resources.

The Syracuse University community has already demonstrated a wave of support for the Corrigans. Two fraternities – Delta Kappa Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Epsilon – and the men’s ice hockey team were among the organizations who contributed to the family’s GoFundMe.

Neither Corrigan’s parents nor her sister Alyssa, who graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst this past May, have publicly commented on the tragedy. 

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The December 29 Set For Life draw has taken place with players set to win a life-changing monthly payment of £10,000 for the next 30 years



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Six militants and three police officers have been killed during a shoot-out after extremists clashed with authorities in Turkey.  

At least eight police officers and a night guard were also wounded in the confrontation in the country’s northwest on Monday, Turkey‘s interior minister said.

Shots were fired after police stormed a house where the alleged militants were hiding in the Elmali district in Yalova province, south of Istanbul.

Image:
President Erdogan has vowed to continue the crackdown on IS activity. Pic: Reuters.

Turkey’s interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said the operation was one of more than 100 simultaneous raids carried out in 15 provinces across the country against suspected IS militants.

The violence comes amid a crackdown on extremist groups across with country, with Turkish police carrying out another wave of raids last week.

Some 115 militants were arrested for allegedly planning attacks targeting Christmas and new year celebrations during this operation.

Mr Yerlikaya said the operation in Yalova was carried out with “great care” because women and children were inside the house where the alleged militants were located.

All the militants arrested were Turkish nationals, the minister said.

Image:
Turkish police have arrested a total of 138 IS suspects in the last month. Pic: Reuters.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his condolences for the police officers who were killed and vowed to push ahead with the fight against extremist groups.

“We will continue our fight against the blood‑stained killers who threaten our nation’s peace and our state’s security both within our borders and beyond, with determination, comprehensively and without compromise,” he said in a statement posted on X.

Read more from Sky News:
Anthony Joshua injured in car crash in Nigeria
Activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah apologises for historic tweets

Image:
More than 100 simultaneous raids were carried out in 15 provinces on Monday. Pic: Reuters.

The Yalova Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into Monday’s shooting.

Turkish justice minister Yilmaz Tunc said on X that five prosecutors had been appointed to lead the probe.

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IS has carried out a series of deadly attacks in Turkey in recent years, including a shooting at an Istanbul nightclub during new year celebrations in 2017, which killed 39 people.

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy quickly denied a claim by Moscow that his country’s military launched a drone attack on Vladimir Putin’s residence in the city of Novgorod. The Ukrainian leader accused Russia of trying to derail peace talks a day after Zelenskyy met with US President Donald Trump.

Published On 29 Dec 202529 Dec 2025

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President Volodymyr Zelensky has denied allegations by Russia that Ukraine launched a drone attack on one of President Vladimir Putin’s residences, and accused Moscow of trying to derail peace talks.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed Kyiv had launched an attack overnight using 91 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on Putin’s state residence in Russia’s northwestern Novgorod region.

Russia said it would now review its position in peace negotiations. It is not yet clear where Putin was at the time of the alleged attack.

Zelensky dismissed the claim as “typical Russian lies”, intended to give the Kremlin an excuse to continue attacks on Ukraine.

He said that Russia had previously targeted government buildings in Kyiv.

Zelensky added on X: “It is critical that the world doesn’t stay silent now. We cannot allow Russia to undermine the work on achieving a lasting peace.”

In a statement shared on Telegram on Monday, Lavrov said all of the 91 drones he claimed were launched at Putin’s residence were intercepted and destroyed by Russian air defence systems.

He added that there were no reports of casualties or damage as a result of the attack.

“Given the final degeneration of the criminal Kyiv regime, which has switched to a policy of state terrorism, Russia’s negotiating position will be revised,” he said.

But he added that Russia does not intend to exit the negotiating process with the US, Russian news agency Tass reported.

The claim by Moscow comes after talks between the US and Ukraine in Florida on Sunday, where Presidents Trump and Zelensky discussed a revised peace plan to end the war.

Zelensky said the US had offered Ukraine security guarantees for 15 years, and Trump said an agreement on this point was “close to 95%” done.

Ukraine’s leader described territorial issues and the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as the last unresolved matters, and there was little sign of progress on the future of Ukraine’s contested Donbas region – which Russia wants to seize in full.

Moscow currently controls about 75% of the Donetsk region, and some 99% of the neighbouring Luhansk. The two regions are known collectively as Donbas.

Russia has previously rejected key parts of the plan under discussion.

The White House said on Monday that President Trump had “concluded a positive call” with Putin, following the US-Ukraine talks.

Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin foreign policy aide, told reporters on Monday that during the call, Putin had pointed out the alleged attack on his residence happened “almost straight after what the US had considered to be a successful round of talks”.

Ushahov said: “The US president was shocked by this information, he was angry and said he couldn’t believe such mad actions. It was stated that this will no doubt affect the US approach to working with Zelensky”.

The White House did not address this claim when confirming the call took place.

Ushakov added that Putin had stated that the “reckless terrorist action” would be met with “the strongest response”.

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The Mountain of God — Ol’doinyo Lengai to the Maasai — is an active volcano rising sharply a few kilometers from the town of Engare Sero in northern Tanzania. At its base lies Lake Natron, a shimmering salt lake. It’s considered the most important breeding site for 75% of the global population of lesser flamingos.

But it’s also an important site for Maasai people, who consider parts of it their ancestral land. Now, some fear another mass eviction is coming.

“I was forced to flee my home. They turned the area where I lived into the Pololeti hunting reserve,” says 36-year-old Nesikar Daudi, now living in Engare Sero.

In 2022, the Tanzanian government established the Pololeti Game Reserve, and designated it exclusively for hunting and tourism. Thousands of people, like Nesikar were directly affected or even forcibly evicted.

“We suffered a lot because of this takeover. We lost our livestock, and bulldozers demolished our homes,” Nesikar says. She, and hundreds of others, relocated to Lake Natron.

Activist and lawyer Joseph Oleshangay together with members of Maasai communities, between the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Loliondo areaImage: Marco Simoncelli/DW

Since the 1990s, the country has seen a 20% expansion of protected areas. But Maasai lawyer and activist Joseph Oleshengay says the government’s strategy in recent years has little to do with conserving nature.

“It is essentially a mechanism for land dispossession,” he says. Behind the rhetoric of environmental protection, he argues, stand economic interests linked to tourism and trophy hunting.

“The idea is to empty these territories so they can be turned into something that makes money,” Oleshengay told DW.

Authorities operate under a lawthat allows all land in Tanzania to be reclassified if it is deemed to serve the “public interest.” In practice, the head of state can decide the fate of entire areas without any obligation to consult the communities living there.

Maasai excluded from tourism projects

Tanzania has game-controlled areas (GCAs) and wildlife management areas (WMAs). All are officially defined as tools for protecting wildlife and the environment, but differ in their rules and in how they affect local communities.

In WMAs and GCAs, human activities are restricted but not entirely excluded. WMAs allow residence, pastoralism, and sometimes agriculture. In GCAs, cultivation is prohibited, and grazing is allowed only with a specific permit from the relevant authority, while residence remains permitted. In game reserves like Pololeti, however, human presence is completely banned.

A sign at one of the entrance gates to the Pololeti Game Reserve, damaged by Maasai protesters during demonstrations following forced evictions from the area Image: Marco Simoncelli/DW

Game reserves outnumber national parks and cover a comparable amount of land. Around 43% of Tanzania’s territory now falls within some form of protected area. Taken together, game reserves, GCAs and WMAs span roughly 159,000 square kilometers, an area larger than the neighboring nation of Malawi.

Engare Sero stretches along the banks of a river that descends from the volcano. Its calm waters sustain farming, pastoralism, and daily life before flowing into the vast salt lake below. For Nesikar Daudi, reports that the state wants to turn Lake Natron into a hunting reserve is worrying.

“We are not happy about this at all. It would mean yet another mass eviction,” she says, adding: “You’ve seen the lake basin? That’s where our livestock graze. If they turn it into a game reserve, our animals would have to climb the mountains to find food, and that’s simply impossible.”

An internal report from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, based on its 2021–2026 strategic plan, indicates that 15 new areas — nearly 7,000 square kilometers — are slated for conversion from GCAs into game reserves. The project, which would affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, also includes 4,000 square kilometers in the Lake Natron area.

Tourist dollars beckon

“For years, the government has tried to evict residents because, from a tourism perspective, it is a strategic area,” says Navaya Ole Ndaskoi, a Maasai academic and member of the Pastoralists Indigenous NGOs Forum. The land around the lake — about 3,000 square kilometers — is already classified as a GCA, with four hunting blocks leased to private companies that pay annual fees of up to $300,000 (€255,000) each.

Clients include several high-profile figures. On 8 June 2023, Donald Trump Jr., son of the United States’ president, visited Tanzania, including the Lake Natron area. According to local media and sources close to TAWA (Tanzanian Wildlife Management Authority), he spent tens of thousands of dollars on a safari that included intensive hunting sessions.

Even though the area has not yet been formally designated as a game reserve, TAWA rangers seem to be behaving as if it already were. Several testimonies report that in recent years, they have begun imposing restrictions on the movement of local communities.

“We welcomed them, and they took our land by force. They no longer consult us. Now we understand their real intentions. TAWA is not a good neighbor,” says Nesikar.

Rural services cut

Authorities have also targeted essential health services, repeating patterns seen in other areas such as Ngorongoro. In 2022, without offering any explanation, they revoked the flight permits of the Flying Medical Service — a non-profit organization that has operated in northern Tanzania for 40 years, providing free healthcare to around 30,000 patients annually, including vaccinations, support for high-risk pregnancies, and emergency evacuations.

Nalotwesha, a young Maasai woman from the remote village of Napandi near Lake Natron, has suffered two strokes. The first time, she was saved by an emergency flight operated by the Flying Medical Service, but when she suffered a second stroke the planes were already grounded Image: Marco Simoncelli/DW

The consequences have been severe for the people living in the area. Nalotwesha, 28, comes from the remote village of Napandi near Lake Natron. The Maasai woman has suffered two strokes. The first time, an emergency medical flight saved her life by bringing her to the region’s main city Arusha. But the service had been shut down when she suffered another stroke.

“The plane gave us hope. Now we are abandoned. There are no doctors or medicines in our village,” she says.

The delay in receiving care left Nalotwesha partially paralyzed. She now lives near the hospital in Arusha, and is undergoing physiotherapy.

Territories like Lake Natron, Pololeti, and others earmarked for game reserves lie along crucial wildlife migration routes: adjacent to major national parks, and close to the Kenyan border. While this makes them especially valuable for conservation and tourism, their pastoralist communities are vulnerable.

For the Maasai, who once moved freely between Tanzania and Kenya in search of pasture, these new boundaries and restrictions have dramatically narrowed the land available for their herds.

Edited by Cai Nebe

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushed back Monday against a report that Kyiv attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence, calling the allegation a “complete fabrication.”

According to Reuters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Ukraine tried to strike Putin’s home in Novgorod, located in northern Russia, and that Moscow intends to retaliate.

“This alleged ‘residence strike’ story is a complete fabrication intended to justify additional attacks against Ukraine, including Kyiv, as well as Russia’s own refusal to take necessary steps to end the war,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X. “Typical Russian lies. Furthermore, the Russians have already targeted Kyiv in the past, including the Cabinet of Ministers building.”

“Ukraine does not take steps that can undermine diplomacy,” the Ukrainian leader continued. “To the contrary, Russia always takes such steps. This is one of many differences between us.”

This is a breaking news story; check back for updates.

Ashley Carnahan is a writer at Fox News Digital.

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A Texas teenager who vanished from her home on Christmas Eve and has been missing ever since could be in “imminent danger,” authorities have warned, following fears she may have been trafficked abroad.

Camila Mendoza Olmos was last seen just before 7 a.m. Wednesday outside her home, according to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities say she appeared to be heading out for what her family believed was just a routine walk.

“Camila’s mother stated that Camila normally goes for a morning walk; however, she became concerned when Camila did not return within a reasonable period of time,” the sheriff’s office said.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said detectives have not ruled out any scenario in the teen’s sudden disappearance, including kidnapping or human trafficking.

“We definitely don’t want to miss anything,” Salazar told ABC News. “The ground search is somewhat limited to a couple of square miles. We’re also not ruling out that this case may take us outside the borders of the continental United States.”

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Camila Mendoza Olmos was last seen just before 7 a.m. Wednesday outside her home, according to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities say she appeared to be heading out for what her family believed was just a routine walk (Bexar County Sheriff’s Office)

He also confirmed that Mendoza Olmos was not arrested by ICE agents, stating that she is a U.S. citizen, and that the Department of Homeland Security was monitoring border crossings for signs of her.

The Independent has contacted the Bexar County Sheriff for further information.

While the teenager had reportedly gone through a recent break up, authorities said it was mutual and they do not believe any “nefarious” circumstances were involved, adding that those close to the teenager were cooperating.

Surveillance video showed Mendoza Olmos wearing baby blue pajama shorts, a black hoodie and white shoes as she rummaged through her car before the footage cut off, officials said.

Her vehicle was left at the home, and investigators believe she walked away carrying only her car keys and possibly her driver’s license.

Salazar said that the fact Mendoza Olmos had left her belongings at home before disappearing was “highly unusual,” adding that she left an active lifestyle. “That’s why we’re working basically around the clock on this case,” he said.

open image in gallery

Surveillance video showed Mendoza Olmos wearing baby blue pajama shorts, a black hoodie and white shoes as she rummaged through her car before the footage cut off, officials said. Authorties believe she could be in ‘imminent danger’ (Bexar County Sheriff’s Office)

The morning she disappeared, the teenager had been sleeping in the same bed as her mother, Rosario Olmos. She told KENS5 that she felt her daughter get up but stayed in bed for about 90 minutes before checking on her.

Her mother later searched the neighborhood, believing she would spot her daughter on her usual route, but she was nowhere to be found. After contacting the teenager’s current boyfriend and father, both of whom said they had not seen or heard from her, she filed a missing persons report.

Family and friends spent Christmas Day searching areas near the home but found no sign of her. “I only ask God to please bring her back home,” her mother told KENS5. “Bring her back to me.”

Anyone who may have seen or heard from Camila Mendoza Olmos is asked to contact the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office at 210-335-6000.

In 2025 there have been more than 170 cases in which U.S. citizens have been detained by federal agents at raids and protests, according to ProPublica. The Independent has contacted ICE for comment.

Since returning to office in January, Donald Trump and his administration have pushed aggressive anti-immigration policies. The president’s immigration czar Stephen Miller has previously been reported to have pushed ICE agents to make up to 3,000 arrests per day. As a result, the number of people without a criminal record being arrested by federal agents and held in detention has jumped 800 percent since January.

According to both public and internal ICE data and data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, as of September 2025 there were 59,207 immigrants in ICE custody. June marked the first time that U.S. detention centers held over 50,000 immigrants at once.

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NEED TO KNOW

• Drew Barrymore shared a vulnerable makeup-free video on Instagram, saying that aging “is not something to fear”
• Celebs and fans alike are praising Barrymore in the comments section
• Barrymore recently revealed that she’s never had any cosmetic work done to her face

Drew Barrymore is embracing aging.

On Wednesday, Dec. 24, the actress and television host, 50, shared a vulnerable makeup-free video on Instagram. In the clip, which was set to an instrumental version of Billie Eilish’s song “What Was I Made For?”, Barrymore sports a bare-faced look, showing off close-ups of her skin and making faces at the camera.

The star wore a casual outfit of a t-shirt, hoodie and jacket while her hair is pulled back into a messy bun.

“Aging is a privilege,” she wrote over the video. “It is not something to fear.”

In the caption, the Drew Barrymore Show host added, “Aging is a privilege that I will never take for granted.”

Celebs and fans alike are praising Barrymore in the comments section.

“We need more of this!!!” Bella Thorne wrote.

English actress and podcaster Giovanna Fletcher shared, “Yes. A thousand times, YES!!!!! How lucky we are to be alive to do all the things. Xxx.”

Another comment read, “❤️❤️❤️Aging is a privilege but promised to no one. Its so sad that people can be so cruel when we start to look older and age.”

In April, Barrymore said that she’s never had any cosmetic work done to her face.

In a behind-the-scenes moment on The Drew Barrymore Show, one fan asked the talk show host, “Can you let us know your secret to aging gracefully and being so comfortable in your own skin?”

Barrymore offered a heartfelt response in which she revealed that she hasn’t had any cosmetic procedures done to her face — but urged the women in the audience to not judge those who do.

“I haven’t done anything and I want to try and stay that way … but I also am like, do whatever works for you. The only thing I do know is don’t judge other people because they do things differently,” the Charlie’s Angels actress told the crowd.

Drew Barrymore.

Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock

“We’re all on our own path and we have to support each other,” Barrymore said, noting that she on occasion struggles with flaws of her own. “I see a lot of turkey neck or I have a lot of other time where i’m like ‘Oh Wow, we’re there now.'”

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Barrymore celebrated her 50th birthday this year on February 22.

Ahead of the landmark birthday, she expressed gratitude while gracing the cover of AARP The Magazine‘s February/March 2025 issue.

“My whole life I’ve been worried and stressed and, like, happy and having the best time ever. I would have never guessed that I would feel peace,” Barrymore told the outlet. “This last decade has been the most ass-kicking and furthering of my life, and it is finally bringing peace.”

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Two amber alerts for cold were issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) with affected services warned of a “rise in deaths” amid expected chilly weather

The demand on the key services is likely to rise amid cold weather(Image: PA)

Brits are braced for a freezing start to the new year after health experts issued an amber weather warning for cold.

Two amber alerts for cold were issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), with affected services warned of a “rise in deaths” amid weather that is “likely to cause significant impacts across health and social care”. The two warnings, designed to alert the health and social care sectors, were issued for the northwest and northeast and were brought into effect from 8pm on December 28. Both alerts are due to last until 8pm on January 5 next year.

The UKHSA said there will be a “likely increase in demand for health services”, along with “temperatures inside places like hospitals, care homes, and clinics dropping below the levels recommended for assessing health risks”. There are also further challenges for keeping indoor temperatures at the recommended 18C, while there could also be staffing issues due to potential travel delays and impacts on the transport and energy sectors.

The North East and North West are under an amber warning

A yellow cold warning, meaning there is a slightly lower risk than the amber alerts in place, is in place across much of England country with the following areas affected: southwest; southeast; London; East of England; the Midlands and Yorkshire and The Humber.

Dr Agostinho Sousa, Head of Extreme Events and Health Protection at UKHSA, said: “As the colder weather sets in it is vital to check in on friends, family and neighbours that are most vulnerable. The forecasted temperatures can have a serious impact on the health of some people, leading to increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and chest infections, particularly for individuals over the age of 65 and those with pre-existing health conditions.”

Met Office Deputy Chief Forecaster Mark Sidaway said Brits are likley to see an icy blast as planet Earth spins into a new year. “It certainly looks like we are in for a taste of ‘winter’ as we welcome in the New Year, initially in the north, but more widely across the UK for the first week of 2026,” he said.

Snow is expected on January 1(Image: WXCharts)

“Arctic air and strong northerly winds will bring cold or very cold conditions to all parts of the UK, and it will feel especially cold in the strong winds. Widespread and locally severe frosts are expected, along with the first snow of the winter for many.”

The UK’s weather service has issued two yellow weather warnings for later this week, with snow and ice expected in northern part of Scotland across January 1 and the following day.

“A yellow warning for snow and ice has been issued for northern Scotland on New Year’s Day and beyond, where frequent and heavy snow showers may lead to some travel disruption,” Mr Sidaway said. “These colder conditions and wintry hazards – snow, ice and strong winds – will develop more widely as we enter the New Year, with more warnings for snow and ice likely. It looks like this cold spell will last through at least the first week of January, so it’s important people keep up to date with the latest forecast and warnings.”

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Protests have erupted across Syria’s coastal regions, marking a new wave of sectarian upheaval since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime a year ago.

During the protests on Sunday, gunfire was directed at Syrian security forces at the al-Azhari roundabout in Latakia while unknown assailants threw a hand grenade at the al-Anaza police station in the district of Banias in the Tartous governorate.

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The Alawite minority, which al-Assad is a member of, held the protests after at least eight people were killed in the bombing of an Alawite mosque in Homs on Friday. They are demanding security guarantees and political reforms.

Several cities along Syria’s Mediterranean coast have experienced deadly sectarian violence over the past year, raising questions about whether the interim government can maintain unity in a nation still scarred by 14 years of civil war.

So what are the protests about, and what do they mean for political and social stability in Syria?

What sparked the protests?

The bombing of the Imam Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque in the Wadi al-Dahab neighbourhood of Homs during Friday prayers led to the demonstrations.

The bombing was claimed by a little-known group called Saraya Ansar al-Sunna, which said on its Telegram channel that the attack was intended to target members of the Alawite sect.

Syria’s security and political establishment was dominated by Alawites until al-Assad’s regime fell in December 2024.

Saraya Ansar al-Sunna also had claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing of a Damascus church ‍in June that killed at least 20 people.

Syria’s government condemned the mosque attack on Friday, describing it as the latest in a series of “desperate attempts to undermine security and stability and sow chaos among the Syrian people”.

Who’s leading the protests?

The protests were primarily organised after calls for action by Ghazal Ghazal, an Alawite religious figure who lives outside Syria with little known about his whereabouts.

He heads a group called the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and Abroad.

“We want political federalism. … We want to determine our own destiny,” Ghazal said in a video message on Facebook, referring to a system of government under which power is shared between the national government and its states.

Protesters also called for greater protections for the Alawite community, accountability for attacks against civilians and political guarantees.

In coastal areas, including the cities and wider governorates of Latakia and Tartous, clashes broke out between Alawite protesters and counterprotesters supporting the new government.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Latakia reported seeing counterprotesters throwing rocks at Alawite demonstrators while a group of protesters beat a counterprotester who entered their area.

Syria’s Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that army units had moved into the centres of these cities after assaults by “outlaw groups” targeting civilians and security personnel with the aim of re-establishing stability.

Have there been any casualties?

SANA, the official Syrian news agency, reported that four people have been killed and more than 100 injured in the unrest in Latakia.

Quoting officials from Syria’s Directorate of Health, SANA said injuries included “stabbings, blows from stones, and gunfire targeting both security personnel and civilians”.

Later on Sunday, the Interior Ministry reported that one of its security officers had been killed in the clashes.

Two security personnel were wounded in Tartous when unknown assailants threw a hand grenade at the al-Anaza police station.

Who are the Alawites?

The Alawites are a religious minority in Syria and are the second largest religious group after Sunni Muslims.

Alawites make up 10 percent of Syria’s 23 million people, but this community was politically dominant under al-Assad, who ruled Syria beginning in 2000 and recruited heavily from the Alawite community for his army and security apparatus.

Members of the Syrian security forces stand atop tanks after being deployed during protests in Latakia on December 28, 2025 [Karam al-Masri/Reuters]

Since al-Assad’s overthrow, Syria has seen several instances of sectarian violence. In March, violence broke out in coastal cities, including Latakia, Banias, Tartous and Jableh, and government-allied groups were accused of carrying out summary executions, mostly of Alawite civilians.

A government committee tasked with investigating the attacks concluded that about 1,400 people were killed during several days of violence.

In July, violence between Druze and Sunni Bedouin communities flared up in the southern governorate of Suwayda, although experts say this conflict is rooted in more complex issues than just sectarianism, including in historical disputes over land. That unrest escalated into Israel bombing Syria’s Ministry of Defence and other targets in the capital Damascus – ostensibly to protect the Druze, although local activists and analysts said Israel’s aim was to fuel internal instability.

Alawites have also voiced grievances about discrimination in public sector hiring since al-Assad’s fall as well as the detention of young Alawite men without charge.

Will the Syrian government be able to maintain peace?

Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has emphasised the need to “preserve national unity and domestic peace”.

At the Doha Forum this month, al-Sharaa said people in Syria “simply did not know each other well” due to issues inherited from the al-Assad regime.

Syria’s enduring sectarian divides and the central government’s limited authority are fuelling demands from minorities for decentralisation, according to Rob Geist Pinfold, a scholar of international security at King’s College London.

The Alawites are not the only minority who have aired concerns about sectarianism since the fall of al-Assad, Geist Pinfold told Al Jazeera.

The interim government so far has failed to integrate regions controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the new government, he added, despite a March 10 agreement between them that planned for integration.

This is largely down to mistrust, experts said.

Minority groups, including Alawites and the Druze, “simply don’t think that the government has their best interests at heart and actually see the government as a security threat”, Geist Pinfold explained.

“Syria is caught up in this vicious cycle where the government doesn’t have trust with minority groups. It can’t exert enough power to bring those minority groups into the fold,” he said, adding that it also doesn’t want to do so in an “oppressive or repressive way that would only alienate them further”.

What will happen next?

Over the next few days, Geist Pinfold said, there could be two potential outcomes.

“The positive outcome would be that the Syrian government reaches some kind of understanding or a tentative understanding with the SDF in eastern Syria that points towards a kind of roadmap for a future integration,” he noted, adding that such a step could ease tensions not only in eastern Syria but in other regions as well.

However, he warned that continued violence could spark deeper ethnic and sectarian divides.

“Syria stands on the edge of a very, very dangerous precipice,” he cautioned, comparing the risk to Iraq’s descent into mass sectarian violence after the 2003 United States-led invasion.

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Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet Donald Trump at the US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday evening amid growing fears Israel could launch new offensives against regional enemies, potentially plunging the Middle East further into instability.

The Israeli prime minister left Israel on Sunday on his fifth visit to see Trump in the US this year.

High on the agenda will be the ceasefire in Gaza, which in October halted the devastating two-year-long war. Though the terms agreed for an initial phase have been largely completed, with Israel’s forces pulling back to new positions and Hamas releasing all living and all but one of the dead hostages, immense challenges face the implementation of the second phase of the president’s 20-point plan.

There are also fears Israel will launch new offensives against Hezbollah in Lebanon, breaking a ceasefire established more than a year ago, or against Iran, which it accuses of accelerating the manufacture of ballistic missiles in recent months.

Gershon Baskin, the co-head of the peace-building commission at the Alliance for Two States, who has taken part in back-channel negotiations with Hamas, said the timing of Netanyahu’s trip was “very significant” for Gaza.

“Phase 1 is basically over, there’s one remaining Israeli deceased hostage which [Hamas] are having difficulty finding,” he said.

Both sides accuse each other of ceasefire violations. Hamas has failed explicitly to commit to disarmament and has had considerable success in imposing its authority in the parts of Gaza where almost all the population is concentrated. Israel appears reluctant to withdraw from the 53% of Gaza it now controls or to allow free passage of aid into the territory.

“Phase 2 has to begin … and I think the Americans realise that it’s late because Hamas has had too much time to re-establish its presence and this is certainly not a situation that the Americans want to leave in place,” Baskin said.

More than 70,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, died in Gaza during the war and almost all the territory’s 2.3 million population was displaced. About 400 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the October ceasefire, and huge numbers continue to live in conditions of acute hardship.

Donald Trump talks with Benjamin Netanyahu at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in October. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/AP

In recent weeks, heavy rain and cold temperatures have compounded the suffering in Gaza, where most housing and infrastructure have been badly damaged or razed.

The war was triggered by a surprise attack by Hamas in southern Israel in 2023, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 250 others abducted.

Under the next stages of Trump’s plan, an interim authority made up of nonaligned Palestinian technocrats is to govern the Palestinian territory instead of Hamas and an international stabilisation force (ISF) of thousands of troops is to be deployed.

Hamas’s armed wing reiterated on Monday that it would not surrender its weapons.

“Our people are defending themselves and will not give up their weapons as long as the occupation remains,” the new spokesperson for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, who has adopted the name of his late predecessor Abu Obeida, said in a video statement.

US officials have suggested the composition of the new authority could be announced in January.

On Friday, the US news outlet Axios reported senior Trump officials were growing frustrated “as Netanyahu has taken steps to undermine the fragile ceasefire and stall the peace process”. Analysts in Israel and overseas agree.

“There are more and more signs that the American administration is getting frustrated with Netanyahu,” said Yossi Mekelberg, a Middle East expert at the London-based thinktank Chatham House.

“The question is what it’s going to do about it, because phase 2 is right now going nowhere,” Mekelberg added.

For Netanyahu, a priority will be convincing Trump to allow Israel to act to prevent Iran from repairing the damage inflicted on its nuclear programme in its short war with Israel and the US this summer, or building its ballistic missile capabilities.

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said on Saturday that his country was in a full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe. He added that the conflict was “more complicated and more difficult” than the Iran-Iraq war, which left more than 1 million casualties on both sides.

Meanwhile, efforts to secure a security agreement between Israel and Syria have failed to make significant progress and will also be on the agenda at Mar-a-Lago, local media in Israel said. Israeli officials have also called for more effective efforts to disarm Hezbollah in accordance with the 2024 ceasefire in Lebanon.

Netanyahu faces an election within 10 months, and the looming polls will influence his agenda, Mekelberg said. “Everything is connected to [his] staying in power,” he said.

Polls show Netanyahu’s current coalition would struggle to form a government if elections were held now, with many voters angry over the failures that led to the Hamas raid of 2023, moves to continue the exemption of most ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from compulsory military service in Israel and a series of scandals among other issues.

A close relationship with Trump would reinforce Netanyahu’s appeal among undecided voters and his base, and this suggests any public disagreement between the two leaders is extremely unlikely, analysts said.

Netanyahu is expected to seek to convince Trump of the need for Israel, which relies on the US for many of its defence needs, to maintain a military technological edge over potential regional enemies. Many Israeli officials were shaken when Trump said this year that he would allow the sale of F-35 fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, which he described as a “great ally”. The state-of-the-art stealth aircraft was key to Israel’s successes against Iran in this summer’s war.

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Harry Sekulich

MOHAMED EL-RAAI/AFP via Getty Images

British-Egyptian democracy activist Alaa Abd El Fattah has apologised for several of his old tweets that have resurfaced, as calls grow for him to be deported from the UK days after he arrived following his release from an Egyptian jail.

Tory and Reform UK leaders say the home secretary should consider whether Mr Abd El Fattah, a dual national, can be removed after social media messages showed him calling for Zionists and police to be killed.

The Times reports some senior Labour MPs are also calling for his citizenship to be removed.

After reviewing the historic posts, Mr Abd El Fattah said: “I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise.”

He added: “I am shaken that, just as I am being reunited with my family for the first time in 12 years, several historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship.”

Mr Abd El Fattah said he took allegations of antisemitism “very seriously” while arguing some of the posts had been “completely twisted out of their meaning”.

Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised for saying he was “delighted” by Mr Abd El Fattah’s arrival in the UK on Friday, three months after he was freed from prison in Egypt, but it is understood he was unaware of the historical messages.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “We welcome the return of a British citizen unfairly detained abroad, as we would in all cases and as we have done in the past.”

He added that the government has “condemned the nature of these historic tweets, and we consider them to be abhorrent”.

It is understood that the Foreign Office has started an internal review into how the case has been handled by successive governments.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage both said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood should look at whether Abd El Fattah’s citizenship could be revoked to enable his swift removal from the UK.

Farage said in a letter to Mahmood: “It should go without saying that anyone who possesses racist and anti-British views such as those of [Mr Abd El Fattah] should not be allowed into the UK.”

A government source said Abd El Fatteh arrived in the country as a British citizen and there were no legal avenues available to block his entry, even if officials had been aware of his previous social media posts.

A 2016 court case also meant there was no “good character” test which Abd El Fatteh needed to meet when he successfully applied for citizenship in 2021 under the then-Conservative government. He was eligible for citizenship through his mother, who was born in London.

It is understood that Downing Street believes there is a high bar to someone having their citizenship revoked because they must have either obtained citizenship by fraud or be deemed to pose a significant national security threat – a test unlikely to be met in this case.

Any decision of this nature would also be subject to legal challenge.

The Foreign Office said it had been “a long-standing priority under successive governments” to work for Abd El Fattah’s release.

The 44-year-old was convicted in 2021 of “spreading fake news” in Egypt for sharing a Facebook post about torture in the country following a trial that human rights groups said was grossly unfair.

He was granted citizenship in December 2021 through his London-born mother – when the Conservatives were in power and Dame Priti Patel was home secretary.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp – who was an immigration minister under Patel but left the role in September 2021 before citizenship was granted – told the BBC he did not know of these details at the time. He added he was now clear in his mind that “this man should have his citizenship revoked”.

“There is no excuse for what he wrote,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

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In one resurfaced tweet, from 2012, Abd El Fattah appears to say: “I am a racist, I don’t like white people”. In another, he says he considers “killing any colonialists and specially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them”.

He is also accused of saying police do not have rights and “we should kill them all”.

“There is no excuse for that kind of language,” Philp said on Monday. “People who express that kind of hatred, that kind of anti-white racism, that kind of extremism who seek to incite violence, have no place in the United Kingdom.”

Appearing on the same programme, Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, accused Philp of “throwing ideas around that were just not based in law”.

“The bottom and top of it is that he [Abd El Fattah] is a British citizen,” she told Today.

“He was entitled to British citizenship, he claimed it so he is a British citizen. The British government has been doing their utmost to get him back into the country and out of jail.”

The UK has responsibilities under international law to avoid leaving people stateless and British citizenship can only be stripped from someone eligible to apply for citizenship in another country.

Badenoch said Abd El Fattah’s reported comments were “disgusting and abhorrent” and anti-British, adding that citizenship decisions “must take account of social media activity, public statements, and patterns of belief”.

She said: “It is one thing to work for someone’s release from prison if they’ve been treated unfairly as previous governments did. It is quite another to elevate them, publicly and uncritically, into a moral hero.”

She added that Abd El Fattah “should have received a free and fair trial in Egypt”, but “there ends my sympathy”.

In his letter to the home secretary, Farage said it was “astonishing” that neither MPs from Labour, the Conservatives or other parties carried out “basic due diligence” on Abd El Fattah while they campaigned for his release.

He said Starmer showed an “extraordinary error of judgement” when he posted on X welcoming Abd El Fattah’s return.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the case was of “profound concern”.

Adrian Cohen, the board’s senior vice-president, said: “His previous extremist and violent rhetoric aimed at ‘Zionists’ and white people in general is threatening to British Jews and the wider public.

“The cross-party campaign for such a person, and the warm welcome issued by the government, demonstrate a broken system with an astonishing lack of due diligence by the authorities.”

While conceding some of his comments were “shocking and hurtful”, Abd El Fattah contends some of the old messages were misinterpreted.

“For example, a tweet being shared to allege homophobia on my part was actually ridiculing homophobia,” he said in a statement.

“I have paid a steep price for my public support for LGBTQ+ rights in Egypt and the world.”

UK-based human rights group Amnesty International said it championed the activist’s case to uphold human rights and freedom of expression, and it does not condone “any statements that perpetuate hate, discrimination and division”.

A writer, intellectual and software developer, Abd El Fattah rose to prominence during an uprising in 2011 that forced the former Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to resign.

He has spent more than a decade of his life behind bars and his release in September after a presidential pardon followed a long campaign by his family and lobbying by the British government.

In 2014, Abd El Fattah was nominated for a European human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, but this was withdrawn over tweets about Israel he posted in 2012.

He said those comments had been part of a “private conversation” that took place during an Israeli offensive in Gaza and had been taken out of context.

After being removed from a travel ban list imposed by Egyptian authorities that kept him in the country for three months after his release from jail, Abd El Fattah has now been reunited with his 14-year-old son, who lives in Brighton.

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Trade data suggests that levels of Russian naphtha, a refined crude oil product, flowing into Taiwan remain steady despite Taipei saying it would reduce volumes. 

A report published in October by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) revealed the Asian country had become the world’s biggest importer of the fossil-fuel derivative from Russia.

Ciaran Tyler, lead naphtha research analyst at Brussels, Belgium-based commodity data analytics firm Kpler, says Taiwan’s imports of Russian-origin naphtha have not slowed significantly, even though they have said they would not renew contracts to buy the product.

Kpler data shows that naphtha volumes from Russia imported by Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (FPCC) — the Taiwanese company almost entirely responsible for the surge in naphtha imports — remained steady in November and December.

“Formosa won’t renew buying for new term contracts next year, but fulfilling contracts already set up is something they have not backed away from, seemingly,” he told DW.

Putin’s secret shadow tankers

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Tyler expects import volumes to decline rapidly early in 2026, as annual and quarterly contracts expire.

Luke Wickenden, one of the co-authors of the CREA report, told DW that he believes Formosa is sincere in its commitment to pull back.

The CREA report, written in conjunction with Taiwan’s Environmental Rights Foundation and the exiled Russian environmental group Ecodefense, had revealed that in the first six months of 2025, Taiwanese imports of Russian naphtha had surged six times what they were in 2022.

Naphtha is needed to make chemicals required for high-tech manufacturing, including semiconductor manufacturing.

“It’s essentially a base feedstock for producing all sorts of chemicals that fund its semiconductor industry,” said Wickenden. “It’s an incredibly important chemical.”

Taiwan pulls back on naphtha imports

The report prompted debate in Taiwan over possible dependence on Russia, with lawmakers arguing that China could leverage the dependence against Taiwan in the future, given the increasingly close ties between Beijing and Moscow.

A steady supply of naphta is essential for Taiwan’s all-important semiconductor industryImage: Tao-Chuan Yeh/AFP/Getty Images

After the report was published, 

Formosa issued a statement saying that as a private company, it was not restricted from buying Russian naphtha, but that it requires traders and suppliers to “comply with international sanctions.”

It claimed that due to “global market conditions,” it had been buying higher shares of Russian naphtha. “This is purely the result of market circumstances, not a deliberate shift in procurement strategy,” the company added.

Jheng Rui-he, a senior analyst at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, a government think tank based in Taipei, says it’s important to see Formosa’s purchases of Russian naphtha in that context.

“Based on the spirit of free trade, governments can’t interrupt the commercial behavior of private companies,” he told DW.

Taiwan’s minister of economic affairs Kung Ming-hsin, subsequently, told Taiwanese media that Formosa’s contracts for Russian naphtha were soon due to expire and that the company had “agreed not to purchase Russian naphtha in the future.”

For CREA’s Wickenden, the case shows how it was possible to put pressure on companies that continue to buy Russian hydrocarbons. “It clearly shows that with coordinated pressure from NGOs and other think tanks, there is an opportunity to make real changes,” he said.

Coal also in the mix

Although Taiwan has taken swift action to cut Russian imports and reduce the risk of dependence, it has shone a light on the island’s energy mix.

More than 80% of Taiwan’s energy is currently powered by imported coal and LNG, although the share of coal is gradually falling, with renewable energy taking some of the share. Around 97% of Taiwan’s energy is imported.

Jheng Rui-he says Taiwan’s dependence on imports for its fuel means it faces “significant geopolitical risks.”

Taiwan’s coal imports from Russia increased after the invasion of Ukraine, before dropping drastically in 2025Image: Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Photo/picture images

Coal was also a focus of the CREA report. It pointed out that Taiwan had largely succeeded in reducing Russian coal dependence, with imports of the fossil fuel from Russia falling by 67% in the first six months of 2025, compared with the same period in 2024.

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Taiwanese imports of Russian coal had climbed steadily, partly because it became affordable. “It’s pretty natural that Taiwan essentially just started to try and make as much profit from importing cheaper Russian coal as they could,” said Wickenden.

Taiwan actually became the fifth-largest buyer of Russian coal during the war. The fall in coal imports in 2025 has been largely driven by the Taiwanese government, with state-owned companies such as Taipower and the Taiwan Cement Corporation slashing coal purchases from Russia.

Wickenden says he is still concerned about private companies buying coal from Russia, even if it is currently in relatively small quantities. However, he notes that the “risk isn’t huge anymore.”

Russian crude oil is impossible to detect in refined productsImage: Yoruk Isik/REUTERS

Refined products still a focus

Beyond coal, Taiwan still imports small volumes of LNG from Russia but overall, it does not currently look vulnerable to coercion from Moscow or Beijing.

Jheng Rui-he noted that energy diversity is a core principle for the government but added it is important to remember that costs will always mean there is a chance of Russia being in Taiwan’s energy mix in some form.

“Although countries’ imports from Russia would be criticized, in reality, factors such as inflation, the burden on consumers, and industrial competitiveness also need to be considered,” he said. “I think it’s very hard for politicians to achieve balance.”

Luke Wickenden believes that while Taiwan is a positive example of how energy flows from Russia can be cut, the European Union must maintain and step up pressure on refined Russian oil products in particular.

The EU has recently stepped up sanctions on refined exports from Russia. It has called on traders and operators to have due-diligence procedures in place to limit the risks of products made with Russian crude oil coming into the EU. The bloc has laid a specific focus on goods coming from Turkey, China and India, due to those countries’ high recent purchases of Russian crude.

India’s economy reaps benefits from Russian oil imports

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However, the EU itself has pointed to the fact that oil cannot be physically segregated once mixed, “it is impossible to certify the origin of all crude molecules imported into the EU.”

Wickenden believes the language and legislation is still not strong enough regarding direct imports of refined products, of the kind that Taiwan found itself the focus of.

“At the moment it’s only importers of crude and then exporters of refined products to say, EU countries, that are being scrutinized,” he said.

Edited by: Uwe Hessler

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NEED TO KNOW

• JoJo Fletcher is sharing an update on her postpartum experience
• The new mom joked that she was in the “newborn trenches” in a post on her Instagram Stories
• Fletcher and her husband Jordan Rodgers welcomed their first baby, a girl named Romy Blair Rodgers, ahead of the holidays

JoJo Fletcher is sharing an update on her postpartum experience.

The Bachelorette alum, 35, shared a selfie of herself on her Instagram Stories wearing comfortable clothing as she held her newborn baby girl, Romy Blair Rodgers, close to her chest. In text above the photo, the new mom, who shares her daughter with husband Jordan Rodgers, opened up about how life has been since giving birth on Tuesday, Dec. 23.

“Hiiiii!! Mom & Dad and baby girl all doing good!” she began. “In the newborn trenches so haven’t had much time at all haha but wanted to say thank you so much for all the love and wishes. I’m recovering well.”

JoJo Fletcher.

JoJo Fletcher/Instagram

“Jordy is literally DAD goals,” Fletcher added of her husband. “It’s crazy how fast he took to it and has been a total rockstar caring for me and Romy.”

The new mom went on to share how despite being in the “newborn trenches” and experiencing all the changes that comes with the new experience, she can only think about her “little angel.”

“It’s crazy what they say that you literally can be in full sleep deprivation mode but the second you look at her you forget it all bc the only thing you can think about is just how much you love this little angel. 🥹,” she wrote.

In the post, Fletcher also shared how “obsessed” she is with her baby girl.

“She’s delicious,” she said. “I’m so obsessed w her i can’t handle it.”

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The former Bachelorette star and Rodgers, 37, who married in 2022 after getting engaged during the reality show’s finale in 2016, shared the exciting news on Instagram on Thursday, Dec. 25. Their baby girl was born on the day before Christmas Eve after Fletcher visited her doctor for their weekly sonogram. However, they learned she needed an emergency cesarean section that same day.

“Merry Christmas to us 🥹❤️ What a whirlwind these last couple of days have been but in the most magical way,” Fletcher wrote, alongside a picture of Rodgers sleeping on a couch next to Romy. “Went in for our weekly sonogram this past Tuesday and found out we needed to deliver via emergency c section that day.”

“At 5:37pm on Dec 23 – we met our girl,” Fletcher continued. “Romy Blair Rodgers you are our whole world. Cant wait to share more but in the meantime soaking up these moments as a new family of 3 ❤️ + 2 😉 🐶🐶.”

Rodgers shared the post on his Instagram Stories, adding, “Santa really upped his game this year.”

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