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Hard Numbers: Nasrallah’s funeral crowds, Deadly French attack, Sudan’s cholera outbreak, Bulgarians protest to say “no to euro”
Mourners attend the funeral of slain Hezbollah leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine at the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium on the outskirts of Beirut.
1: One person was killed and three were injured in a knife attack in the eastern French city of Mulhouse on Saturday afternoon. A 37-year-old Algerian man has been arrested in what President Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terror act.” Authorities say the suspect has a “schizophrenic profile” and that France has tried multiple times to return him to his home country — but that Algeria refused to take him.
58: At least 58 people have died from cholera and another 1,300 have fallen ill in the last few days in the southern Sudanese city of Kosti. Contaminated drinking water is the most likely culprit, and a local water plant recently halted operations amid fighting linked to the country’s two-year civil war. Health authorities are working to battle the outbreak and expand a vaccination campaign against cholera.
10: Ten police officers were injured amid clashes with protesters in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Saturday. Supporters of the ultra-nationalist Revival Party demanded that the government step down and chanted “No to the Euro.” Six people were detained. Bulgarian nationalists oppose plans to introduce the euro as the country’s official currency, while supporters believe it could bring greater foreign investment to the EU’s poorest nation.Christian Democratic Union party leader Friedrich Merz speaks at the party headquarters after the exit poll results are announced for the 2025 general election, in Berlin, Germany, on Feb. 23, 2025.
As expected, the conservative Christian Democratic Union and its sister party, the Christian Social Union, came out on top in Germany’s election on Sunday, with exit polls giving the CDU/CSU 28.5% of the vote. But the biggest celebrations were held by those supporting the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which scored a second-place finish with 20.7%, ahead of the centrist SPD’s 16.5%, and the Greens’ 11.7%.
The future of the CDU/CSU coalition now hangs on whether two minor parties, the center-right Free Democrats, aka FDP, and the hard-left Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht, or BSW, make the 5% threshold necessary to have representation in parliament. They are at 4.4% and 4.9%, respectively. A “grand coalition” between the CDU/CSU and SPD will only be possible if both FDP and BSW fail to get 5%. If either or both gain seats, the CDU/CSU and SPD will need an additional coalition partner, which would complicate negotiations and produce a less stable coalition.
What contributed to AfD’s success? The far right’s hard anti-migrant stance was reinforced byfour terror attacks in the past two months, including one hours before the start of theMunich Security Conference on Feb. 14 and another on Feb. 22, the day before the vote, when a Syrian migrantstabbed a Spanish tourist at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. The party was also endorsed by Elon Musk, whotold Germans to “move beyond past [World War II] guilt” during the campaign. In a post Sunday on Truth Social, US President Donald Trump said of the results, “This is a great day for Germany.”
What’s next? CDU leader Freidrich Merz promised toquickly form a coalition government, adding that “We fought a tough election campaign about important topics … now we will talk to each other.”
Germany’s “firewall,” an agreement among the traditional mainstream parties to shut AfD out of government coalitions, is expected to hold for now, but that could change in a future election. With the backing of one in five German voters, Alice Elisabeth Weidel, co-chair of the AfD, declared her party hadgone “mainstream.” “Our hand remains outstretched to form a government,” shesaid after the results. Should the conservatives choose to govern with left-wing parties rather than the AfD, she claimed, “next time we’ll come first.”Israeli machinery maneuvers during an Israeli operation in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Feb. 23, 2025.
Uneasy week: Tensions have been high since Hamas mistakenly sent the remains of an anonymous Gazan woman instead of those of Shiri Bibas when it returned the bodies of three Israeli hostages last week.
The Israeli government says it won’t return the Palestinian prisoners until Hamas commits to halting the hostage “ceremonies.” Finalizing the first phase of the deal, which is set to expire next weekend, is contingent upon the release of these detainees. Hamas, in turn, has called the delay a “blatant violation of [the ceasefire’s] terms.”
The second phase of the deal would involve Hamas releasing all remaining Israeli hostages in return for Israel withdrawing its troops from Gaza, and the details of the third and final phase still need to be ironed out.
Complicating matters further, the Israel Defense Forces moved tanks into the West Bank on Sunday and told tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians that they could not return to their homes in the occupied area. The moves are reportedly part of the largest Israeli military operation into the Palestinian Authority-controlled territory for more than two decades.Elon Musk holds a chainsaw onstage as he attends the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Feb. 20, 2025. The idea is that he's taking a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy.
Mimicking a tactic he used to slash the size of Twitter’s workforce, White House senior adviser Elon Musk on Saturday instructed all 2.3 million federal employees to list five things they “accomplished last week.” The deadline to respond is Monday by 11:59 p.m.
“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk wrote on social media.
This move is the latest effort from the Trump administration to remove government employees en masse. The White House offered buyouts to workers who chose to quit — roughly 65,000 reportedly accepted — and effectively mothballed the US Agency for International Development. The Pentagon started its own purge on Friday by ousting Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, and Air Force Vice Chief James C. Slife.
Several agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told their employees on Sunday to hold off on responding to Musk’s email, in part over concerns about sharing classified information. The US Department of State informed its workers that it would respond to Musk’s email on their behalf. Others, like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, ordered their staff to reply.
Meanwhile, a backlash appears to be brewing in conservative parts of the country against Musk and US President Donald Trump over their planned government cuts. A group of voters in Georgia jeered their Republican congressman at a town hall on Thursday for backing the administration proposals. A Wisconsin lawmaker faced similar heckling on Friday in his rural conservative district. One Ohio Republican, who also represents a right-leaning area, tacitly rebuked Musk by reiterating that it was Congress who controls the purse, not him.
“What is bothering people is the sense that Donald Trump really does believe he’s king or ought to be,” Larry Sabato, a politics professor at the University of Virginia, told GZERO. “People who don’t take seriously his discussion about running for a third term are dead wrong.”
Pope Francis is seen here during Holy Week in April 2022.
“I have been particularly struck by the letters and drawings from children,” the Argentine pontiff posted on social media.
Ever since he was admitted to hospital on Feb. 14 with a complex respiratory tract infection, the 88-year-old religious leader's condition appears to have deteriorated. Roman Catholics from around the world prayed for his health on Sunday, with Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolanadmitting that the pope is “probably close to death.” Swiss Guards have reportedly started rehearsing funeral arrangements.
Building a legacy: Since taking charge in 2013, Francis has pushed the Catholic Church in a more progressive direction on some issues. He has, for example, encouraged his 1.3 billion disciples to be more inclusive of the LGBTQ community, changed the church's stance on capital punishment to “inadmissible” in all instances, and urged countries to receive more migrants.
When the time comes, a papal conclave will choose Francis’ successor. There are currently 138 cardinals in the conclave who can vote, the vast majority of whom were selected by Francis himself, underscoring the legacy he will have on the future of the church.
Representatives of political and military groups in Sudan take part in a meeting to form a counter-government in the areas occupied by the Rapid Support Forces militia.
After nearly two years of armed conflict, Sudan’s rebel Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, signed a charter with allied groups on Saturday to establish a “government of peace and unity” in territories now under their control. The signing took place behind closed doors in Nairobi, Kenya, prompting Sudan torecall its ambassador and accuse Kenyan President William Ruto of “encouraging a conspiracy” that could permanently partition the country, along the lines of Libya and Yemen.
Who’s in on the deal? In addition to the RSF, signatoriesincludeAbdelaziz al-Hilu, leader of a faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, which controls much of South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, and Abdel Rahim Daglo, deputy and brother of RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
What is next? The government's formation will reportedlybe announced from inside Sudan this week, but it is unlikely to get widespread international recognition. The RSF standsaccused of genocide in a war that the United Nations estimates has killed over 24,000 people and driven 14 million people from their homes. Meanwhile, the Sudanese army hasintensified its military operations, recently regaining control of el-Gitaina andbreaking the RSF’s siege of el-Obeid, and it may be on the verge ofretaking the capital of Khartoum in the next few days.People visit the graves of their relatives killed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A large-scale light installation "Lights of Memory" was held to mark the third anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion at the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on Feb. 23, 2025.
Since returning to office, US President Donald Trump has pushed aggressively – and controversially – for a settlement to the conflict. He has engaged Russia directly while clashing openly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even as Washington continues, for now, to support Kyiv.
Meanwhile, EU and world leaders are meeting in Kyiv on Monday to show their support for Ukraine and Zelensky, who said Sunday he’d be willing to step aside as president in exchange for Ukraine’s NATO membership.
With the coming weeks likely to bring about a significant turning point in the conflict, here’s a look at several key indicators of where things stand after nearly 1,100 days of war.
The front lines: Russia controls a fifth of Ukraine
In the early days of the war, Russia swept into Ukraine from the North, East, and South, taking large swathes of territory, and even reaching the gates of the capital, Kyiv. But the Kremlin war machine proved clumsy and poorly equipped, and by late 2022, Ukraine, with growing Western assistance, had pushed Russia back substantially to positions only in the East, where Putin consolidated his forces. Over the past year, Russia has gained momentum again, slowly grinding westward across the Donbas, village by village, gaining about 1,600 square miles since January 2024.
All told, Russia now controls about 20% of mainland Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, which it seized in 2014.
Meanwhile, since August 2024, Ukraine has held a small patch of Russian territory in the Kursk region, where Moscow has called in North Korean troops to beat back the Ukrainian advance.
The casualties: no firm figures
Neither side has been transparent about its losses, because of the huge propaganda and strategic value of obscuring these figures.
But open-source sleuthing by the independent Russian outlet Mediazona puts the Russian death toll at about 100,000. For context, that number exceeds the total number of Soviet and Russian combat fatalities in every war Moscow has fought since World War II combined.
Independent analysis of Ukrainian records, meanwhile, puts the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed at just under 70,000.
Separately, the UN has recorded at least 12,300 Ukrainian civilians killed by Russia, which is accused of committing war crimes in areas of Ukraine that it has occupied during the conflict.
For each side, the number of wounded runs well into six figures.
The Aid: The US is key, even if it’s not the biggest source of funds
Since February 2022, Ukraine has received about $280 billion in military, humanitarian, and economic assistance. The US is the largest single-country contributor, responsible for about $115 billion, but the EU has contributed more overall than Washington, sending nearly about $170 billion to Kyiv.
President Trump has threatened to cut support for Ukraine as part of his strategy of forcing a negotiated solution to the conflict – but so far Washington has not suspended military aid.
Polling: Support for a negotiated solution is growing – everywhere
In the US, half of Americans polled in December said they favor a quick end to the war, even if it means Ukraine has to surrender territory. This is down nearly 20 points since August 2022.
In the EU, a strong majority of those polled in February see support for Ukraine as an important expression of European values. But a separate study done late last year also showed that support for the idea of backing Ukraine “until it wins” has cratered in large EU countries: A negotiated peace involving territorial concessions to Russia is now the more popular idea in Germany, Italy, and France.
In Russia, support for the war remains near 80%, according to the independent pollsters at the Levada Center. But 61% also favor peace talks to end the conflict, the highest mark since the war started. (Does polling have value in a system like Russia’s? It depends on what you want to measure. See our explainer interview on that here.)
What do Ukrainians think?
Just over half of Ukrainians polled by Gallup late last year said they favored a negotiated end to the conflict, even if it meant surrendering some territory.