Iran’s supreme leader has blamed foreign actors for anti-government protests that have rocked the regime and left “several thousands” of people dead in recent weeks. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused the U.S. and Israel of direct involvement in the violence, following a brutal crackdown on protesters by the government. But while his remarks largely reaffirm Iran’s longstanding position, what stands out, said Al Jazeera, is the “scale of the alleged death toll.” 

‘Comes down to methodology’ 
Estimates of how many have died since unrest broke out across Iran on Dec. 28 have ranged from several hundred to more than 30,000. A communications blackout has hindered information flows and independent verification of deaths. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, an Iranian outlet based in Washington, puts the number of confirmed fatalities as of Saturday at 5,459 deaths with 17,031 under review, after analyzing reports from the ground and contacting mortuaries and hospitals. 

The “wide disparity in estimates” from rights groups and independent news agencies “mostly comes down to methodology,” said The Wall Street Journal. But if the figures emerging amid the current violence are “roughly accurate,” the total exceeds those in other major crackdowns worldwide, including the killing of demonstrators in Cairo following a military coup in 2013 and the Tiananmen Square massacre in China in 1989. 

‘Purely psychological warfare’ 
As the latest Iran protests spread and President Donald Trump threatened to intervene militarily if the killing continued, the regime had an “incentive to under-report the toll and its opposition to exaggerate it,” said The Times. But there has been a noticeable shift recently as the immediate threat to the regime appears to have receded. 

An Iranian government official put the toll at 2,000 on Jan. 13. And another official told Reuters on Jan. 18 that authorities ‍had verified that at least 5,000 people had been killed, including about 500 security personnel. The regime blamed “terrorists and armed rioters” ⁠for the death of “innocent Iranians.” 

Iran’s propaganda machine has also been “working to intimidate protesters and break their momentum,” said ABC News. Some of the few videos to emerge amid the communications blackout show long lines of body bags outside morgues in Tehran. This is “purely psychological warfare to scare people,” said human rights journalist Saba Vasef, and “part of a systemic, deliberate, deterrence-based, state-sponsored terrorism.”

ChatGPT may be the best-known artificial intelligence chatbot on the market, but lately, the latest iteration of AI startup Anthropic’s coding bot, Claude Code, is entering the spotlight. By simplifying the process of writing code, the tool hints at a more democratized digital era. But for engineers, feelings about this progress in the AI industry are complicated.

What can it do?
This AI tool can generate code based on a prompt, allowing people with little to no coding experience build their own websites, programs and apps, in a trend known as vibecoding. And unlike other widely used chatbots, Claude Code can “operate autonomously, with broad access to user files, a web browser and other applications,” said The Wall Street Journal. 

While technologists have “predicted a coming era of AI ‘agents’ capable of doing just about anything for humans,” progress has been slow, said the Journal. Using Claude Code was the “first time many users interacted with this kind of AI,” offering an “inkling of what may be in store.”

Though it debuted last May, the bot’s popularity “truly exploded late last month,” said The Atlantic, after a recent update “improved the tool’s capabilities.” One user created a “custom viewer for his MRI scan,” while another had it “analyze their DNA.” Despite being a coding tool, the bot can do “all sorts of computer work,” including “book theater tickets, process shopping returns and order DoorDash.”

What does it mean for the future of AI?
Some engineers who tinkered with the bot described a “feeling of awe followed by sadness at the realization that the program could easily replicate expertise they had built up over an entire career,” said the Journal. “It’s amazing, and it’s also scary,” said Andrew Duca, the chief executive of a cryptocurrency tax platform, to the Journal. “I spent my whole life developing this skill, and it’s literally one-shotted by Claude Code.”

Not every user is “so sanguine” about the app’s potential, said The Atlantic. At times, it “lacks the prowess of an excellent software engineer” and occasionally “trips up on simple tasks.” Nonetheless, Claude Code is a “win for the AI world” as the “luster of ChatGPT has worn off,” and Silicon Valley has been “pumping out slop.” The bot is “evidence that the AI revolution is real.”

French skipper Thomas Coville and crew members burn celebratory flares after setting a record by sailing around the world in 40 days, 10 hours and 45 minutes. Finishing along France’s coast yesterday, they broke the record for the fastest unassisted and nonstop circumnavigation on any type of yacht.
Loic Venance / AFP / Getty Images

Romance books have seen a resurgence in popularity thanks to BookTok communities. But for those seeking more intense, morally gray relationships with taboo themes and trigger warnings, dark romance has become the go-to subgenre — perfectly represented in these books. 

‘Hooked’ by Emily McIntire
In this version of the classic tale “Peter Pan,” Peter is Wendy's father, and James, the book’s Captain Hook, plans to seduce her to get back at his nemesis. His plans to destroy his enemy become complicated when he begins to develop real feelings for Wendy. Anyone who “loves a good villain romance will appreciate these,” said ScreenRant. (out now, $18, Bloom Books)

‘Lights Out’ by Navessa Allen
The story follows trauma nurse Aly Cappellucci, who obsesses over masked men on social media and fantasizes about them chasing her down. The “well-done spicy scenes” and “great individual character arcs made the novel compelling to audiences” and “expanded the tropes readers can find in the genre,” said ScreenRant. (out now, $19, Slow Burn)

‘The Ritual’ by Shantel Tessier
This book is a cross between dark academia and dark romance. Barrington University, home to the Lords, a secret society that requires blood as payment, is the setting for the first installment of Shantel Tessier’s “The Lords” series. Members devote their lives to violence in exchange for the power to control the world. Ryat Alexander Archer, one of the powerful lords, meets the book’s heroine, Blakely Anderson, and she’s sucked into the world of the secret society as she succumbs to her feelings for him. (out now, $25, Amazon)