Russia is preparing to target Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant’s power lines in a move that could unfold within days, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Ukrainian officials had said Moscow’s plan was focused on high-voltage transmission infrastructure rather than direct strikes on nuclear reactors, but a source has since claimed the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant lines (ZNPP) are Moscow’s focus.

In a statement released Jan. 17, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry (HUR) had warned that Russia was weighing attacks on substations critical to nuclear power generation.

‘In order to force Ukraine to sign unacceptable surrender demands to end the war, the aggressor state Russia is considering the option of attacking strategic facilities of our state’s energy system — we are talking about electricity transmission substations that ensure the operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants.’

‘The threat is at ZNPP,’ a source told Fox News Digital. ‘There are talks of a massive attack either tonight or in the coming nights,’ the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that ‘the talks within the Ukrainian government are about ZNPP and the lines, and these talks have not been for the first time.’

According to The Associated Press, Russia also targeted energy infrastructure in Odesa region overnight Sunday, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service.

ZNPP is located in southern Ukraine and consists of six VVER-1000 pressurized water reactors, and has been under Russian occupation since March 2022, according to reports.

Although the reactors are no longer producing electricity, the plant needs external power to maintain cooling and safety systems. 

The IAEA has repeatedly warned that disruptions to off-site power supplies and lines pose a serious nuclear safety risk.

A Jan. 16 localized ceasefire was agreed between Russia and Ukraine for repairs under IAEA coordination on one backup power line at ZNPP that had already been damaged.

In a statement, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Jan. 16: ‘The IAEA continues to work closely with both sides to ensure nuclear safety at the ZNPP and to prevent a nuclear accident during the conflict. This temporary ceasefire, the fourth we have negotiated, demonstrates the indispensable role that we continue to play.’

‘A deterioration of Ukraine’s power grid from persistent military activity has direct implications on the nuclear safety of its nuclear facilities,’ Grossi said.

‘Russia is said to be going to do this strike, maybe even tonight,’ the source said of the ZNPP operation.

‘Information also from the Ukrainian Parliament and Ukrainian Security Service, or internally, is that the Russian army told the Ukrainian army that if they don’t stop shelling their tankers in the sea or shelling their oil refineries, as well as their electric stations like power stations,’ the source said, ‘then they will fully destroy Kyiv energy facilities aswell.’

‘The parliament knows this. But we keep shelling,’ the source added.

‘This is a very difficult situation,’ the source continued, saying Ukrainian leadership, the Ukrainian parliament and ‘obviously the office of the president’ are fully aware that ‘if we keep shelling Russian tankers and oil refineries, then they will destroy everything that we have.’

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also recently urged NATO allies to urgently deliver additional air-defense missiles, warning that some systems are running low on ammunition, according to reports.

‘To actually preserve the energy in the country when it is minus 20 outside and people are literally suffering hugely,’ the source added. ‘People don’t have electricity, don’t have warmth and some don’t even have water.’

‘And this is a very controversial situation,’ the source said, ‘particularly for the Ukrainian people sitting inside, hungry and freezing, and overall being in this disastrous humanitarian situation.’

Fox News Digital has reached out to President Zelenskyy’s office for comment.

Iranian protesters are facing their deadliest days yet as security forces unleash mass killings and executions in a sweeping crackdown some have labeled ‘genocide,’ new reports say.

According to The Sunday Times, a report compiled by doctors entrenched in the region and reviewed by the outlet, estimates that security forces have killed at least 16,500 protesters and injured more than 330,000 others.

The report also described the violence as an ‘utter slaughter,’ warning that the true toll may be even higher due to restricted access to hospitals and the near-total shutdown of communications.

Most of the victims, the report says, are believed to be under the age of 30, underscoring the heavy toll on Iran’s younger generation as the regime intensifies its efforts to crush dissent.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei acknowledged Sunday that ‘several thousands’ have been killed since protests erupted Dec. 28.

In a televised address, he blamed demonstrators, calling them ‘foot-soldiers of the U.S.’ and falsely claiming protesters were armed with imported live ammunition.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that as of day 22 of the protests, verified figures show 3,919 people killed, with 8,949 additional deaths under investigation, 2,109 severely injured, and 24,669 detainees.

HRANA noted that the true toll is likely far higher due to the internet shutdown.

Professor Amir Parasta, an Iranian-German eye surgeon and medical director of Munich MED, said in The Sunday Times report that doctors across Iran are ‘shocked and crying,’ despite having experience treating war injuries.

‘This is a whole new level of brutality,’ Parasta said. He added that Starlink terminals smuggled into Iran have been the only means of communication since authorities cut internet access on Jan. 8.

Eyewitnesses who fled Iran also described snipers targeting protesters’ heads, mass shootings and systematic blinding using pellet guns.

One former Iranian resident said in the report that doctors reported more than 800 eye removals in a single night in the capital alone, with possibly more than 8,000 people blinded nationwide.

‘This is genocide under the cover of digital darkness,’ Parasta said.

Alongside the street killings, executions have surged dramatically, according to Ali Safavi, a senior official with the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

Safavi told Fox News Digital that 2,200 people were executed in 2025, while 153 have already been hanged in the first 18 days of January 2026, averaging more than eight executions per day.

‘Ali Khamenei is continuing mass executions in parallel with the killing of young protesters,’ Safavi said. ‘Three executions in the form of hanging are now happening every hour according to our data.’

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi previously disputed high death tolls reported in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, claiming fatalities were only in the hundreds and dismissing higher figures as ‘misinformation.’

President Donald Trump sharply condemned Khamenei over the weekend, calling him a ‘sick man’ and urging new leadership in Iran.

In an interview with Politico, Trump accused Khamenei of overseeing ‘the complete destruction of the country’ and using ‘violence at levels never seen before,’ adding that Iran’s leadership should ‘stop killing people.’

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina announced on Sunday that he met with Israel’s Mossad Director David Barnea.

‘Just met with my good friend David Barnea, Director of Mossad. Wow, these people are clever. God Bless America. God Bless Israel,’ Graham wrote in a post on X, which includes a photo of himself and Barnea smiling and giving a thumbs up.

The Mossad’s website explains, ‘The institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad) is a national organization responsible for covert activity abroad.’

‘Lindsey Graham holds secret talks with MOSSAD boss in Israel,’ RT wrote in a post on X while sharing a screenshot of the U.S. lawmaker’s post about meeting with the Israeli official. ‘Is he speaking for all of America?’

The outlet’s website states, ‘RT is an autonomous, non-profit organization that is publicly financed from the budget of the Russian Federation.’

Graham shared the RT post and wrote, ‘To my Russian friends, chill out. I’ve known David for a very long time. He’s looking to buy property in South Carolina and I wanted to give him my two cents’ worth. In case you haven’t noticed, President Trump is in charge.’

Graham also met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials during his trip to the Jewish state.

‘Great visit with Prime Minister Netanyahu and his team at one of the most consequential moments in recent memory. America has no better friend than the State of Israel,’ Graham said in a post on X.

Graham also met with Netanyahu in Israel last month.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said on Sunday that the U.S. is engaged in an ‘ongoing war’ with Venezuela following what he described as recent U.S. actions involving the country.

During an appearance on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ Paul said the U.S. continues to be in conflict with Venezuela over its oil.

‘That is an act of war, it’s an ongoing war, to continue to take their oil, ongoing war, to distribute it,’ Paul said.

‘I still hope it works out for the best, but we are still involved in an active war with Venezuela,’ he continued.

The senator added that ‘we still have hundreds of ships with a 100% blockade of the coast.’

This comes after the U.S. operation to attack Venezuela and arrest its president, Nicolás Maduro, and the Trump administration’s subsequent seizing of an oil tanker from the country.

Venezuela is one of the biggest producers of oil, and its oil industry has become a focus of the Trump administration. Officials said oil sales to the U.S. will start immediately with an initial shipment of about 30 million to 50 million barrels and that the shipments will continue indefinitely.

‘This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!’ Trump previously wrote on Truth Social.

Trump has also said that the U.S. would continue ‘running’ Venezuela for much longer than a few months. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have said it will take time for Venezuela, now led by interim acting President Delcy Rodriguez, to reach a place where it can hold elections.

More than half of U.S. voters oppose the Trump administration running Venezuela, according to a poll from Quinnipiac University.

Paul is part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who want to limit Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela after the U.S. military’s recent move to strike the country and capture Maduro, which the Kentucky Republican has said amounts to war.

The group attempted to pass a War Powers resolution last week to block the president from additional intervention without congressional approval, but the effort failed in the Senate.

‘The only problem about a war powers vote now is that, since it hasn’t happened, there are a lot of Republicans who say, ‘Oh, that’s prospective. I’m not going to tie his hands prospectively,” Paul said on Sunday. 

‘The problem is, if you wait until after an invasion, whereas the administration argues, we don’t know it’s a war until we count the casualties. That’s sort of a crazy definition of war, because our job is to initiate or declare war,’ he added.

Towards the end of the fifth season of ‘Stranger Things,’ the character of Will Byers gathers his family and friends together. He has good reason. They need to prepare for the final battle against Vecna, a terrifying, skinless monster with a penchant for mass murder and apocalyptic terrorism. But instead, Will comes out as gay.

This is perhaps the most anticlimactic moment in television since Pam woke up to reveal that the entire tenth season of ‘Dallas’ had been a dream. In laborious and earnest tones, Will takes four minutes to tell everyone that he just isn’t into girls. Cue the inevitable chorus of solidarity from his friends and a warm group hug. Given that this series is set in the 1980s, a more realistic approach would have been for them to storm out and declare Will to be more disgusting than Vecna.

This has happened so often in Hollywood that it’s become the norm. A storyline is upended to promote the ideological obsessions of the present. We’ve had a Black Cleopatra, a lesbian kiss in the ‘Toy Story’ spinoff ‘Lightyear,’ empathetic, home-loving orcs in Middle Earth, and a robot in an animated series of ‘Transformers’ declaring its pronouns as ‘they/them,’ as though mechanized killing machines are sensitive about their gender identities.

A key aspect of storytelling is verisimilitude. Movies can present completely unreal worlds, but unless an audience buys into the internal logic, they quickly lose interest. Consider the recent Netflix series ‘Ripley,’ in which a major male character is played by a female actor who identifies as ‘nonbinary.’ The characters don’t notice that she’s a woman, and we’re expected to play along. It insults our intelligence and completely derails an otherwise brilliant series.

If we want to save the arts, we must return to the universal. We have to remember that we’re meant to be entertainers, not high priests of a new religion that nobody asked for.

The audiences know it, too. The ‘coming out’ episode of ‘Stranger Things’ is currently the lowest-rated episode on IMDb. The recent live-action remake of ‘Snow White,’ with its emphasis on diversity rather than murderous stepmothers and subterranean dwarves, reportedly lost over $115 million for Disney. 

The all-female leads of ‘The Marvels’ might have made a few executives feel good about themselves, until it turned out to be the franchise’s biggest bomb of all time. And after poor test screenings, HBO’s big-budget wokefest ‘Batgirl’ was shelved altogether.

So, while executives pat themselves on the back for their ‘virtue,’ their studios are plunged into debt. According to public filings, as of late 2025, Disney’s debt is roughly $35.3 billion and Warner Bros. Discovery’s debt stands at approximately $33.5 billion. Cinema attendance continues to decline, with annual box office receipts in North America struggling to reach $9 billion. In a world where production and marketing costs have skyrocketed, these numbers represent a dying industry.

It turns out that audiences prefer to be entertained rather than hectored. If people wanted a sermon, they’d probably just stick to church. I’ll make a prediction right now: if things don’t change, they won’t be making movies on those legendary big studio lots in five years’ time — they’ll be selling them off as prime real estate for luxury condos. You can’t continually patronize and insult your customers and expect to keep the lights on.

Since the rise of the ‘woke’ movement, and its total domination of the creative industries, anyone with a conservative point of view has been punished and even blacklisted. 

Artists are meant to be the most free-thinking people in the world, but the industry demands conformity above all else. Worse still, the woke fixation simply doesn’t tally with the views of the general public, most of whom don’t want their children being indoctrinated by studios smuggling in ideology and propaganda under the guise of entertainment.

Contrary to what the self-identifying, morally superior, adjacent elites want you to believe, the woke ideology has never been popular with the public. It represents the luxury beliefs of the privileged few, those who spend most of their time pontificating about ‘social justice’ and ‘environmental responsibility’ while flying in their private jets and ingesting enough cocaine to keep the cartels of Mexico living like kings.

The good news is that the American people aren’t waiting for permission from the big studios anymore. We are seeing a massive explosion of alternative media. Whether it’s independent streaming platforms, podcasts or creator-owned networks, a new frontier is being built.

Audiences are migrating to where they can find authenticity and truth. They’re supporting creators who prioritize strong storytelling over ‘the message.’ While the legacy studios are busy building ‘safe spaces’ for their writers, and scolding audiences for not being sufficiently ‘progressive,’ we are building a new industry for the people.

Hollywood used to be about what brought us together. Now, it’s about what divides us. They’ve traded the Dream Factory for an Indoctrination Lab, and the American people are voting with their wallets and their remote controls.

If we want to save the arts, we must return to the universal. We have to remember that we’re meant to be entertainers, not high priests of a new religion that nobody asked for.

If that doesn’t happen, get ready to see a lot of ‘For Sale’ signs on those studio gates.

A bipartisan, bicameral group of U.S. lawmakers set off to Denmark to reassure the NATO ally amid President Donald Trump’s push for a takeover of Greenland.

The group was mostly made of Democrats, but included two Republicans: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Murkowski, Tillis, Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., and Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., were among those who traveled to Europe for meetings with Danish and Greenlandic officials. Some members of the delegation are expected to go to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week.

‘The trip will highlight bipartisan support for our allies in the Kingdom of Denmark and discuss how to deepen this partnership in line with our shared principles of sovereignty and self-determination, and in the face of growing challenges around the world, especially bolstering Arctic security and promoting stronger trade relations between the two countries,’ a statement Shaheen issued prior to the visit read.

Coons, who led the delegation, underscored the lawmakers’ desire to ‘reaffirm Congress’ commitment’ to Denmark, calling it one of the U.S.’s ‘oldest, strongest NATO allies.’

‘A great day leading our bipartisan delegation to Copenhagen meeting with Danish and Greenlandic officials to reaffirm Congress’ commitment to one of our oldest, strongest NATO allies. In an increasingly unstable world In which our adversaries are cooperating, our alliances are more important than ever,’ he wrote in a post on X.

The visit comes as Trump’s renewed push for the U.S. to takeover Greenland continues to draw criticism from both sides of the aisle and some of America’s allies.

‘That rhetoric doesn’t just undermine our bilateral relationship, it undermines the NATO alliance at a time when our adversaries seek to benefit from division,’ Shaheen said during a speech at the University of Copenhagen.

The trip began before Trump announced on Saturday planned tariffs for Denmark and several European nations in a bid to force a deal for the U.S. purchase of Greenland. 

While the lawmakers were visiting, Denmark saw massive protests of crowds voicing their opposition to the U.S. taking the semiautonomous Danish territory. Thousands gathered across the country to show their solidarity with Greenland. The crowds chanted ‘Greenland is not for sale’ and held banners with slogans such as ‘Hands off Greenland,’ according to Reuters.

‘I am very grateful for the huge support we as Greenlanders receive… we are also sending a message to the world that you all must wake up,’ Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut, an organization for Greenlanders in Denmark, told Reuters.

‘Greenland and the Greenlanders have involuntarily become the front in the fight for democracy and human rights,’ she added.

Trump has insisted that the U.S. needs Greenland for purposes of national security, saying that Russia and China were eyeing the island. 

During her speech at the University of Copenhagen, Shaheen argued that Trump’s approach is unnecessary, saying the U.S. already has pathways to secure its interests in the Arctic.

‘Anything the president might want — whether it is U.S. bases to defend against Arctic threats or critical minerals deals — the leaders of Denmark and Greenland have made clear they are happy to partner with us. So, the threats are not only unnecessary, they are also counterproductive, and they risk undermining the broader NATO Alliance in the process,’ Shaheen added.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, U.S. ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker pushed back against growing European backlash over Washington’s focus on Greenland after France announced new military exercises with Denmark, saying Arctic security is a core American defense interest and that Europe ‘has a tendency to overreact.’

Americans appear divided on the idea, however, with 86% of voters nationwide saying they would oppose military action to take over Greenland, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. The survey found that voters opposed any U.S. effort to buy Greenland by a 55%–37% margin, suggesting the idea has yet to gain broad support among American voters.

Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter and Amanda Macias contributed to this report.