BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thaksin Shinawatra enters 2025 as purportedly the most powerful politician in Thailand, the billionaire who could not be stopped even after two coups and juntas, 15 years in self-exile, and a stack of prison sentences against him.

Mr. Thaksin is now so larger-than-life that many allege he manipulates Thailand's government through his seemingly timid daughter Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 38, who was elected by Parliament in August and appears to eagerly agree with his advice.

Mr. Thaksin, a two-time ex-prime minister who currently holds no political office, is this year's man to watch. 

Unfortunately, he began 2025 grappling with allegations that he voiced racist views.

"African people, who have black skin and flat noses that make it difficult to breathe, are hired for millions of baht [Thai currency] to be models," Mr. Thaksin said during a campaign rally in Chiang Rai city on January 6.

"Thai people look much better," Mr. Thaksin, 75, said. "There is no need for [our people to get] nose, jaw, or breast augmentation.

The return of one million Palestinians from southern Gaza to the north on January 27 felt as if history was choreographing one of its most earth-shattering events in recent memory.

 Hundreds of thousands of people marched along a single street, the coastal Rashid Street, at the furthest western stretch of Gaza. Though these displaced masses were cut off from each other in massive displacement camps in central Gaza and the  Mawasi region further south, they sang the same songs, chanted the same chants, and used the same talking points.

A  at the Ohio Statehouse to protest Project 2025 and fascism, followed by a March to Senator Moreno's office, then a March back to in front of the Statehouse on February 5, 2025.

“Some experts worry that, if the country went to war, many reserve units might be unable to deploy. A U.S. official who works on these issues put it simply: ‘We can’t get enough people.’”

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In 2022, Ohio was the fifth state with the most victims of human trafficking. In Columbus, human trafficking has to do with the cartel, sometimes with the police, and many times with drug dealers. The victims are of different races and are violated, some murdered and thrown like garbage in alleys and placed in abandoned buildings. We have a huge humanitarian crisis in the capital of Ohio.