Landslide in Sicily Forces Evacuation of 1,500 Residents
A landslide triggered by heavy rain in southern Sicily caused significant damage to the town of Niscemi, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,500 people on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, according to Sky News. Dozens of houses were left teetering on the edge of a cliff after the ground beneath them collapsed, rendering some structures "uninhabitable."
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni visited Niscemi on Wednesday to assess the damage, Sky News reported. The landslide caused the edge of the town to collapse, leaving homes vulnerable.
While the immediate focus was on the disaster in Sicily, other news events unfolded across the globe. OpenAI released Prism, a free AI-powered workspace for scientists, Ars Technica reported on Tuesday. The tool, which integrates OpenAI's GPT-5.2 model into a LaTeX-based text editor, has drawn skepticism from researchers who fear it will accelerate the flood of low-quality papers into scientific journals. Publishers have expressed growing alarm about what many are calling "AI slop" in academic publishing, according to Ars Technica.
In the United States, a monster snowstorm hit the eastern half of the country over the weekend, but the grid largely kept up with the freezing temperatures and increased demand, MIT Technology Review reported. However, PJM, the nation's largest grid operator, saw significant unplanned outages in plants that run on natural gas and coal. Historically, these facilities can struggle in extreme winter weather.
Meanwhile, the debate over prediction markets continued, with platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi allowing users to bet on a wide range of events, from Elon Musk's tweets to the next U.S. president, The Verge reported on January 20, 2026. Polymarkets CEO Shayne Copland claimed that prediction markets are "the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now." However, Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal noted on The Vergecast that "all of the lines between trading, speculating, and gambling are just being completely torn apart."
Concerns were also raised about the tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with Wired reporting that the agency is expanding its operations across the country with a new faux-military bearing. White House border czar Tom Homan referred to Minneapolis as a "theater" for ICE agents, raising questions about the agency's role and tactics.
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