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HARD NUMBERS: Spanish coach’s forced kiss trial begins, RFK Jr. faces vote, Blast kills paramilitary leader in Moscow, Dems try to win back workers, Sotheby’s pulls the plug on China

February 03, 2025
Alex Kliment
Jenni Hermoso leaves the National Court in Madrid, Spain after testifying on day one of the trial of former national team coach Luis Rubiales, who is accused of forcibly kissing her, February 3, 2025
REUTERS/Ana Beltran

2.5: Spain’s former soccer chief, Luis Rubiales, wenton trial Monday over the forced kiss he gave star player Jenni Hermoso on live television after the team won the Women’s World Cup in 2023. Prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of 2.5 years not only for the kiss itself but for Rubiales’ subsequent attempts to force Hermoso to downplay the incident amid public outrage.

14: Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, faces a critical decision in Tuesday's Finance Committee vote on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for health secretary. Cassidy has expressed reservations about Kennedy’s vaccine views. With 14 Republicans and 13 Democrats on the committee, a “no” vote from Cassidy could complicate Kennedy’s path to confirmation by impacting the committee’s recommendation to the Senate.

7: A blast at a Moscow residential building located 7 miles from the Kremlin killedArmen Sargsyan, the leader of a pro-Russian paramilitary group operating in Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has not commented on the incident but Sargsyan has been wanted since 2014 for murders committed in Kyiv. Ukraine is believed to be the author of several assassinations of high-profile Russian security figures in and around Moscow in recent months.

$50 million: The Democrats are pivoting (back) to the working class. The leading SuperPac that supports the party has created a $50 million “Win them Back” fund to better appeal to Americans without college degrees ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The working class used to be a bulwark of Democratic support but Trump’s economic nationalism message and attacks on “wokeism” have helped him to forge an increasingly multi-racial working-class coalition.

2: Going once, going twice … gone! Sotheby’s is closing down its e-commerce business in China after barely two years. The famed auction house had bet on the wisdom of creating an online market in China, which for decades has been one of the biggest drivers of global demand for high-end luxury goods and elite art. But interest turned out to be weaker than expected, and after Sotheby’s overall auction sales dropped by nearly 25% in 2024, the company brought down the gavel on its China e-commerce business.

More from GZERO Media

Sectarian violence erupts in Syria – in former Assad stronghold

Syrian fighters and civilians carry the coffin of a member of the Syrian security forces during his funeral in Hama province after he and 11 other colleagues were killed in an ambush by groups loyal to the ousted President Bashar al-Assad in Latakia.

Moawia Atrash/dpa via Reuters Connect

It seems that the 14-year-long civil war isn’t quite over in Syria. Since Thursday, violent clashes between deposed dictator Bashar Assad’s Alawite loyalists and supporters of the new Sunni regime in the coastal regions have left over 1,000 dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Republicans bid to avoid government shutdown

US House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, U.S., in February 2025.

REUTERS/Nathan Howard

With a government shutdown deadline looming on Friday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson on Saturday introduced a continuing resolution that, if passed, would effectively fund the government through September. US President Donald Trump has backed the bill. The budget battle comes as fears rise over the impact of Trump's tariff policies, and the flip-flopping nature of their implementation. On Sunday, Trump refused to rule out that his aggressive economic policies could cause a recession.

Putin ramps up attacks as Ukraine flies blind

People stand at the site of an apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Dobropillia, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on March 8, 2025.
REUTERS/Nadia Karpova

Russian forces bombarded Ukraine for two consecutive nights this weekend, killing over 25 people in Donetsk and Kharkiv. Moscow also retook three towns in Kursk after troops crawled for miles through a gas pipeline and staged a surprise attack.

Kim Jong Un shows off North Korea’s first nuclear-powered sub

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un visits a shipyard, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on March 8, 2025.

KCNA via REUTERS

Cigarette in hand, and with the toothiest of grins, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un posed for photographs at a shipyard next to the makings of a “nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine.” The vessel appears to be a 6,000-ton-class or 7,000-ton-class one, with a payload of 10 missiles, in line with plans unveiled at the Hermit Kingdom’s 2021 party congress.

Is Turkey on a roll these days?

President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, photographed at the Presidential palace in Athens, Greece, on December 7, 2023.
Aris Oikonomou / Hans Lucas via Reuters

With so much of the world in geopolitical flux these days, it’s hard to pick clear winners or losers. But one leader who could be pretty happy about how things are going at the moment is Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Syria sees worst fighting since Assad’s fall

Syrian forces head to Latakia after fighters linked to Syria's ousted leader Bashar Assad mounted a deadly attack on government forces on Thursday, March 6, 2025.

REUTERS/Mahmoud Hassano

Nearly 50 people were killed on Thursday in the deadliest clashes Syria has seen since the overthrow of Bashar Assad. Pro-Assad militants attacked security checkpoints around the western coastal town of Jableh, a stronghold of the former regime.

US may target Iranian tankers

The Liberian-flagged tanker Ice Energy, chartered by the US government, takes Iranian oil from Iranian-flagged Lana (formerly Pegas) as part of a civil forfeiture action off the shore of Karystos, on the Island of Evia, Greece, in May 2022.
REUTERS/Costas Baltas/File Photo

The Trump administration is reportedly considering a strategy to disrupt Iran’s oil exports by stopping and inspecting Iranian oil tankers at sea. The US would use the Proliferation Security Initiative, established in 2003 to prevent the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, as a legal justification for the inspections.

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