## 1. Policy Disclosure Modal Conversion

- [x] 1.1 Implement Terms of Use modal surface and wire footer control to open it in-page.
- [x] 1.2 Implement Attribution modal surface and wire footer control to open it in-page.
- [x] 1.3 Add modal focus trap, Escape-close, and focus-return behavior for policy dialogs.
- [x] 1.4 Ensure policy modal state handling is deep-link-safe and does not break existing navigation.

## 2. Hero and Interaction Chrome Cleanup

- [x] 2.1 Remove visible hero permalink affordance while preserving hero summary and source actions.
- [x] 2.2 Replace modal copy-link text control with icon-only button and accessible labels.
- [x] 2.3 Replace floating back-to-top text control with icon-only button and accessible labels.

## 3. Multilingual Hero Readability Hardening

- [x] 3.1 Improve Tamil/Malayalam hero headline and summary readability across desktop and mobile.
- [x] 3.2 Tune hero overlay/contrast behavior to preserve legibility over bright image regions.
- [x] 3.3 Verify no clipping/overlap regressions in hero metadata and controls on narrow viewports.

## 4. Translation Quality Validation Gates

- [x] 4.1 Add translation quality validation checks for language/script sanity and gibberish rejection.
- [x] 4.2 Persist/log translation validation outcomes for observability and debugging.
- [x] 4.3 Enforce deterministic English fallback when requested translation fails validation.
- [x] 4.4 Prevent invalid translation variants from being served as authoritative localized content.

## 5. Refetch Image Quality and Targeting Enhancements

- [x] 5.1 Extend admin refetch-images to accept permalink-targeted execution.
- [x] 5.2 Resolve permalink targets to article identity with actionable operator error output.
- [x] 5.3 Implement candidate-based refetch selection that prefers subject-relevant alternatives.
- [x] 5.4 Reject duplicate current-image outcomes for same-article refetch operations.
- [x] 5.5 Reject clearly unrelated animal/pet imagery during candidate filtering.
- [x] 5.6 Preserve deterministic AI-themed fallback when no acceptable candidate exists.
- [x] 5.7 Emit progress/decision-path output for targeted and batch refetch execution.

## 6. Verification

- [x] 6.1 Verify Terms and Attribution open as accessible modals from footer controls.
- [x] 6.2 Verify hero permalink affordance is removed and core hero actions still function.
- [x] 6.3 Verify Tamil/Malayalam hero readability on desktop and mobile.
- [x] 6.4 Verify translation-quality gate fallback behavior for wrong-language/gibberish outputs.
- [x] 6.5 Verify permalink-targeted refetch returns alternative relevant image and avoids pet-style mismatches.