For nearly a week, the Albanian capital of Tirana has felt less like a city and more like a pressure cooker. The air is thick with the sour sting of tear gas, the streets are littered with stones and shattered glass, and the sound of water cannons and fireworks echoes between government buildings. What began as a series of student-led complaints has exploded into one of the most serious political crises Albania has faced in years. Protesters — many of them university students, but also high schoolers, professors, and ordinary citizens — have filled the squares and boulevards, their anger…

In an already weary country, where war has filled hospitals and rehabilitation centers with soldiers and civilians whose bodies will never fully recover, the latest corruption news from Ukraine lands like a wound that will not stop bleeding. The Office of the Prosecutor General has revealed that in the Khmelnytskyi region, a group of five people—including three doctors from the military medical commission—ran a chillingly simple business: they sold disability status to anyone willing to pay. For ten to twelve thousand dollars, clients could receive a Category II disability designation without any lawful medical basis. That status could mean the…