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Team USA speedskater Jordan Stolz came just short of his third Olympic gold on Thursday, taking silver in the men's 1,500-meter race.

OLIVIA CAVANNA
Staff Reporter

Since I was a kid, my life has been engrossed in the world of musical theatre, specifically the Broadway musical “Wicked.” This show captivated me throughout my entire childhood, one can only imagine my excitement when it was announced that my favorite musical was going to be made into a film.

Directed by Jon M. Chu, the story is being brought to the screen in two parts: the first film, “Wicked,” was released on Nov. 22, 2024, and the second, “Wicked: For Good,” released Nov. 21, 2025.

The films feature a star-studded cast with Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande as Glinda, Jeff Goldblum as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible and Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero.

The final official trailer of “Wicked: For Good” premiered on Sept. 24, 2025, and it got me thinking about one of the most compelling themes in the “Wicked” universe: the various portrayals of power.

When thinking about “Wicked,” magical power is probably the most obvious form of power one would imagine. Elphaba has many different magical abilities, including spell casting, telekinesis, levitation and the ability to read the Grimmerie when nobody else can. Her magical powers symbolize her uniqueness, but also make her a target of fear and discrimination. Which illustrates how her magical abilities are often misunderstood.

Madame Morrible is another character with magical power, seen in her ability to change and control the weather. Her abilities are crucial in shaping the events of the story and influencing the lives of many characters.

Internal power is one of the strongest and most important themes throughout both films. The power and strength that one has within oneself is the driving force of the entire plot. This is seen within several characters.

Elphaba shows internal power in various ways, but most notably by standing her ground and refusing to stray from her morals. Elphaba refuses to do bad things just because the Wizard wants her to — she refuses to hide who she is because people make fun of her

She holds her sense of self even when she is portrayed as a horrible villain. She knows who she is and what she believes in and does not let anyone or anything change that.

Glinda’s depiction of internal power is through her personal growth and ability to confront uncomfortable truths. In the first film, we see Glinda go from a ditsy, rich, vain woman to an emotionally mature and empathetic individual. These new emotional findings continue as the story plays out. In the second film, we will see Glinda begin to question authority, specifically the Wizard and Madame Morrible, and challenge the things she was taught to believe in.

Fiyero, a prince who attends Shiz University, also experiences a transformation. At first, he is portrayed as a careless, privileged and egotistical outsider. However, as the story unfolds, his power lies in his ability to grow and care for others. He later puts his heart over his duty to protect what matters most to him.

Social power is most visibly represented through Glinda. In the first film, her popularity at school gives her influence over her peers, as they look to her for inspiration, advice and guidance. She can get the whole school on her side to hate Elphaba because of her status.

In the “Wicked: For Good” trailer, Glinda is seen stepping into the spotlight as a public figure. She is branded as “Glinda the Good,” and presented as a symbol of optimism and hope for the people of Oz. Madame Morrible emphasizes this by stating that Glinda is responsible for “lift[ing] everyone’s spirits as only [she] can.”  

However, it is important to note that this trailer still depicts Glinda as Elphaba’s friend, which is something that goes against the Oz government’s agenda. One can only wonder if conflict will arise as Glinda has to balance her personal loyalty and public duty.

Political power is one of the most complex depictions of power in “Wicked.” The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an almighty, untouchable figure throughout the land. However, during the finale of the first film, it is revealed that the Wizard holds no real power himself. He is just a man who hides behind luxury and fame.

The Wizard holds political power through propaganda, manipulation, censorship and scapegoating. He uses his charm and the spectacle that is Oz to distract from the horrors going on behind the scenes of a corrupt government. He also shows just how easily the truth can be twisted and spread with the global hate of Elphaba. Even though she did nothing wrong, he paints her as the enemy because, according to him, “the best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”

The false perception of power is extremely important throughout this franchise and goes along with the corruption of the government. Though a lot of this front comes with the Wizard, it is also shown through Glinda.

In the trailer of “Wicked: For Good,” we see that Glinda is given a magical bubble and a wand. However, we know from the first film that Glinda has no magical ability herself. In the bubble, there is a button reading “Tap to Bubble,” which creates the physical bubble around her and the ability to fly around.

This mechanism gives a false narrative to the citizens that she has the power to create the bubble herself. It depicts what life is like behind the scenes in Oz, as the government created a false sense of power through its leaders. Madame Morrible even goes as far as to say that “the wand really sells it,” showing that Glinda is really an imposter and portrayed as something that she is not.

The friendship that Elphaba and Glinda share, while unexpected at the start, is shown as deeply human. It is probably the most magical thing in the world. While their close bond is severely tested, Elphaba and Glinda always remain loyal to one another until the very end. 

The friendship, love and admiration that they share for one another know no distance and leave both women changed for good.

For me, “Wicked” has always been more than just a musical. It is a story about being misunderstood and holding onto yourself when the world tells you not to. It has powerful messages about identity, truth and loyalty, and has shaped the way I see the world. The most important form of power lies in how we choose to stand in our own truth.

Devyani Saltzman, described as Barbican’s ‘driving force’, leaves few weeks after arrival of new CEO

Salman Rushdie, John Akomfrah and Pankaj Mishra are among more than 170 cultural figures who have signed an open letter to the Barbican expressing concern over the departure of its arts director, Devyani Saltzman.

Saltzman, who became director of arts and participation at the Barbican in February 2024, is leaving the institution amid a significant leadership change a few weeks after its new CEO joined.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats called for MPs to get a vote when American forces want to use UK bases

Alex Davies-Jones, a justice minister, has said the government wants to pass the legislation implementing the Chagos Islands deal as soon as it can – despite Presidient Trump’s lastest diatribe about it. (See 9.34am.)

Davies-Jones was giving interviews this morning and she told Times Radio:

This deal is essential and crucial for the national security of the United Kingdom and that is the first priority of any government.

We will be bringing the bill back as soon as parliamentary time allows, because this is about national security.

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• Follow us over on Bluesky | And you can email Daniel

The cross-country bit gets going at 1pm, and I’m looking forward to that. It’s a scientific fact that here’s no kind of race a human can devise that is uncompelling.

In the Nordic, teams of two both have a go at ski jumping, and Germany have just leapt into the lead; they’ll start the cross-country portion with no time penalty, because Austria have just completed this part of things, and only landed far enough for fifth. Norway are second, Japan third and Finland fourth.

The police raided Andrew’s Norfolk home on Thursday

• Full report: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested

• Why has former prince Andrew been arrested – and what happens now?

Before the arrest was announced, the prime minister told BBC Breakfast “nobody is above the law” when asked about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Keir Starmer added:

Anybody who has any information should testify.

So whether it’s Andrew or anybody else, anybody who has got relevant information should come forward to whatever the relevant body is, in this particular case we’re talking about Epstein, but there are plenty of other cases.

A National Science Foundation (NSF) plan to transition the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center to a third-party operator is stirring up controversy in the HPC and scientific communities. While the transition has not yet occurred and the center–which operates the Derecho supercomputer–is still functioning as before, the NSF’s announcement has raised questions about the Trump administration’s scientific priorities.

“The U.S. National Science Foundation has informed the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) that management and operations of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center are expected to transition to a third-party operator consistent with the terms of NSF’s cooperative agreement with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research,” the NSF stated on its website February 12. “NSF is working with all parties to ensure continuity of operations, and additional information will be shared as it becomes available.”

Steve Conway, an analyst with Intersect360 Research, says the hostility toward NCAR by the Trump administration is misdirected.

“The attack on NCAR seems motivated by the administration’s hostility toward the inconvenient truth of climate science, but the attack will also harm NCAR’s continued leadership in weather forecasting methods that over the years have helped save countless American lives and prevent many billions of dollars in property damage,” Conway told HPCwire. “Attacking NCAR’s leadership in weather and climate research threatens America’s economy and national security.”

Derecho (Image courtesy NCAR)

The NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) opened in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 2012 as a partnership between NCAR, the University of Wyoming, and state entities. It has been used by about 1,500 researchers from more than 500 universities around the country.

NWSC is home to Derecho, an HPE Cray cluster that was installed in 2023. The system is composed of 2,400 dual-socket, 64-core AMD “Milan” CPU nodes and 82 GPU nodes, each of which contains a single-socket Milan CPU and four Nvidia A100 GPUs. It uses a 200Gb Slingshot-11 interconnect and is connected to a 60PB Lustre file system. Derecho debuted at 59 on the Top500 list, with 12.4 petaflops on the Linpack benchmark, and is currently number 160.

The announcement regarding the future of NWSC was not unexpected, as the NSF announced in December its “intent to restructure critical weather science infrastructure.” That includes exploring the potential to transfer stewardship of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center to an “appropriate operator” as well as divesting two NSF aircraft managed and operated by NCAR. The goal of the actions was to “redefine the scope of modeling and forecasting research and operations to concentrate on needs such as seasonal weather prediction, severe storms, and space weather,” the NSF stated.

NCAR Director Everette Joseph addressed the matter in a letter to NCAR staff:

(Hamara/Shutterstock)

“We do not yet know who the new managing entity will be nor do we know the timeline for this transition. I understand that this is difficult news and that it raises many questions, most of which I cannot answer at this point,” Joseph wrote in the letter, according to CNN. “However, we will be working to get more details as soon as possible from NSF, including how this will impact our science and the community we support.”

Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House, announced in a December X post the NSF’s plan to “break up” NCAR, which is based in Boulder, Colorado.

“This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” Vought wrote. “A comprehensive review is underway & any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.”

The situation at the NCAR facility in Cheyenne appears to be more stable than it is at the NCAR’s Mesa Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. The Trump administration has announced its plan to completely close the Mesa Lab.

The plan calls for the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center to survive, albeit under a new operator. Patrick Collins, the mayor of Cheyenne, told Cowboy State Daily he is looking forward to hearing the plan to continue operating the center.

“The goal for me is to make sure that NCAR in Wyoming survives,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s so important for allowing people to understand what’s happening with the weather, from our military to our communities, studying weather patterns as they change … I’m hopeful that whoever takes over understands the mission.”

The post NSF Transition Plan for NCAR-Wyoming Raises Questions in Science Community appeared first on HPCwire.

An avalanche watch was issued by the Sierra Avalanche Center on Sunday, two days before skiers were killed in an avalanche near Lake Tahoe, California.

Girl, 15, and boy, 17, found dead at Little Eden holiday park in suspected carbon monoxide poisoning, police say

Two teenagers have died at a holiday park on the Yorkshire coast in a suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.

A 15-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy were found dead inside a rental property at Little Eden holiday park in Bridlington on Wednesday, police said.

Accenture has reportedly started tracking staff use of its AI tools and will take this into consideration when deciding on top promotions, as the consulting company tries to increase uptake of the technology by its workforce. From a report: The company told senior managers and associate directors that being promoted to leadership roles would require "regular adoption" of artificial intelligence, according to an internal email seen by the Financial Times. The consultancy has also begun collecting data on weekly log-ins to its AI tools by some senior staff members, the FT reports. Accenture has previously said it has trained 550,000 of its 780,000-strong workforce in generative AI, up from only 30 people in 2022, and has announced it is rolling out training to all of its employees as part of its annual $1bn annual spend on learning. Among the tools whose use will reportedly be monitored is Accenture's AI Refinery. The chief executive, Julie Sweet, has previously said this will "create opportunities for companies to reimagine their processes and operations, discover new ways of working, and scale AI solutions across the enterprise to help drive continuous change and create value."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A commission that advises the federal government on architecture and the arts voted to approve President Trump's overhaul of the White House East Wing.

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency says Iran's enriched uranium "is still there," as he stresses the urgency of diplomacy to avert a U.S.-Iran war.

A CBS News analysis found 126 cases that were brought by federal prosecutors last year arising out of threats to public officials.

President says US has ‘some work’ to do with Iran as representatives from more than 45 countries attend Trump-run initiative

• Authoritarians, strongmen and dictators: who is on Trump’s Board of Peace?

Donald Trump will start his day in Washington for the Board of Peace meeting at the White House.

He’ll then travel to Rome, Georgia, as part of his tour of the country to tout the administration’s affordability message. He’ll meet with local businesses there, and deliver remarks at 4pm ET.

Scientists envision new research frontiers at the intersection of biology and AI

Feb. 19, 2026 — As computing technologies evolve and advance, so too must the ways we perform scientific research. In a recently released report from the 2025 Workshop on Envisioning Frontiers in AI and Computing for Biological Research, researchers detailed how new technologies such as AI and exascale computing can be used to enhance research in the biological sciences. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) scientists Kirsten Hofmockel and Neeraj Kumar served on the organizing committee for this workshop.

Neeraj Kumar and Kirsten Hofmockel were part of the organizing committee for the 2025 Workshop on Envisioning Frontiers in AI and Computing for Biological Research. Composite image credit: Shannon Colson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

“One of the big challenges I routinely run into collaborating across domains of science is integrating diverse data across multiple scales to establish genotype to phenotype relationships,” said Hofmockel who leads the Soil Microbiome Science Focus Area project at PNNL. “Individual projects or experiments can widely vary in the amount and diversity of data they produce. Because this data comes in various formats, from images to genetic sequences, it must be integrated in a meaningful way for AI applications.”

The workshop was jointly supported by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program and Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program. During the workshop, participants explored how different techniques, such as multiscale modeling and novel algorithms, can be applied to biological research. They also provided their input on specific areas of research that could benefit most from these techniques in the near future. The resulting report identifies four priority research directions: multimodal data assembly, multiscale biosystems simulation, AI-enabled drivers for experimental systems, and novel algorithms for genomics. The report highlights how combining BER’s extensive efforts in biological data collection and analysis with ASCR’s leading computational capabilities, including exascale architectures and high-performance computing platforms, is an important path to progress.

Co-chaired by Daniela Ushizima of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Christopher Henry of Argonne National Laboratory, the workshop featured participants from different career stages across academia, industry, and the national laboratory system. PNNL participants included Arunima Bhattacharjee, Aivett Bilbao, William (Bill) Cannon, and Jason McDermott.

“AI and advanced computing hold immense promise to unlocking breakthroughs in biological research,” said Kumar. “Through close collaboration between computer scientists and domain scientists, we can co-design systems that can enable the next generation of scientific discovery.”

As a chief data scientist in the Advanced Computing, Mathematics, and Data Division and an advisory board member of the Center for AI @PNNL, Kumar leads AI and machine learning programs that advance PNNL’s role in the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, the national effort to accelerate scientific discovery through AI-powered platforms. He is driving integration between the Transformational AI Models Consortium and American Science Cloud to build a unified infrastructure for autonomous discovery across biology, chemistry, and critical materials, bridging computational and domain sciences to deliver multidisciplinary impact on a national scale.

Both Kumar and Hofmockel acknowledged the need for innovation in both computing and biological sciences to establish genotype to phenotype relationships and scale-up biological processes.

“We need to innovate algorithms and leverage AI to integrate and interpret diverse biological data,” said Hofmockel. “New collaborations that incorporate biology, advanced computing, and automation are key to advancing the discovery of biological mechanisms and designing new behaviors that support biotechnology and biomanufacturing.”

Source: Sarah Wong, PNNL

The post PNNL: Integrating AI into Biological Research appeared first on HPCwire.

Thinking about buying a 400-ounce gold bar? Here's what to know about the ownership rules for these large bars.

Saudi–UAE tensions: Yemen and regional implications 3 March 2026 — 2:30PM TO 3:45PM Anonymous (not verified) 19 February 2026 Online

Panellists examine how tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi reflect broader divergences in regional strategy, security priorities, and approaches to influence.

Panellists examine how tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi reflect broader divergences in regional strategy, security priorities, and approaches to influence.

In the final days of 2025, tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), once key partners in the Yemen coalition, became more visible as differences over the conflict’s endgame resurfaced. A central source of friction was their opposing relationships with local actors, particularly the UAE’s support for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), whose push for southern autonomy conflicted with Saudi Arabia’s backing of Yemen’s internationally recognized government and its preference for preserving territorial unity. As Saudi Arabia intensified efforts to stabilize the front lines and advance a political settlement, the UAE’s announcement of a full withdrawal from Yemen brought these underlying disagreements into sharper focus.

Panellists will discuss how the episode underscores not only differing assessments of Yemen’s political future and security architecture but also broader divergences in regional strategy that had been developing between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in recent years. Speakers will also discuss how the Yemen file became one arena in which evolving economic ambitions, security priorities, and approaches to regional influence have increasingly shaped the relationship between the two Gulf states, with implications likely to extend beyond the conflict itself.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Robert Garcia's previous attempts to extract information about the White House ballroom's finances have so far yielded few answers.

Comments come after Zelenskyy accused Russia of using ‘delay tactics’ to stall peace talks with Ukraine

Meanwhile, Sweden has pledged about €1.2bn in new military support package for Ukraine, responding to president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for urgent help with air defence and ammunition over the weekend.

The EU sees “no tangible signs that Russia is engaging seriously” with the aim of securing peace in Ukraine, its spokesperson said, responding to the latest round of talks in Geneva.

“We see that Russia continues its relentless attacks on Ukraine. This does reflect that Russia is not ready for peace. We still do not see tangible signs that Russia is engaging seriously on peace. …

Even this week, ahead of the peace talks, Ukraine experienced another massive missile and drone strike, according to Ukrainian authorities. …

• Italian government urges IPC to reconsider its stance

• Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under flags

Italy, the Winter Olympic hosts, has called for a reversal of the decision to let 10 Russian and Belarusian athletes compete with national flags and anthems at next month’s Paralympic Games.

The foreign minister Antonio Tajani and sports minister Andrea Abodi urged the International Paralympic Committee to reconsider its stance due to Russia’s four-year-old invasion of Ukraine, saying it contradicted the Olympic spirit.

NASA wants to make sure repairs have eliminated the hydrogen leaks detected during an initial fueling test of the Artemis II moon rocket earlier this month.

Up to three times national average of metabolite produced by human use of drug was found in town’s wastewater

Tests on wastewater in an upscale Massachusetts ocean resort town have revealed unexpectedly high levels of cocaine – up to three times the national average.

Officials in the town of Nantucket on the eponymous island off Cape Cod began testing its wastewater last summer “to monitor high-risk substances and opioids in the community”.

Former Prince Andrew's arrest followed the release of a massive trove of Epstein files by the U.S. Justice Department that included a series of potentially incriminating documents related to his activities as trade envoy.

Workplace grievances that once fit in a single email are now ballooning into 30-page documents stuffed with irrelevant historical detail, made-up legal precedents, and citations to laws from the wrong country -- and UK employment lawyers say generative AI is the likely culprit. Anna Bond, legal director at Lewis Silkin, says the complaints she now sees sometimes cite Canadian legislation or fabricated case law. Sinead Casey, employment partner at Linklaters, calls such filings "confidently incompetent" -- superficially persuasive even to lawyers. The flood of bloated claims is compounding pressure on an already stretched tribunal system: Ministry of Justice figures show new employment cases rose 33% in the three months to September, even as concluded cases fell 10% year over year. Investor Marc Andreessen, quipping on X: Overheard in Silicon Valley: "Marginal cost of arguing is going to zero."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The FBI has been in touch with the Mexican government and Mexican law enforcement regarding the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, law enforcement sources told CBS News.

First arrest of a senior member of royal family in modern history came on morning of former prince’s 66th birthday

• Full report: Former prince arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office

• Why has Andrew been arrested – and what happens now?

• Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested – latest updates

It was shortly after 8am on Thursday when a small fleet of unmarked police cars drew up at Wood Farm on the king’s private Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

Plainclothes officers stepped out into the late winter drizzle and readied themselves for a historic act that the royal family might have been expecting and dreading for weeks. Inside the house, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was perhaps sitting down to a birthday breakfast.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, King Charles III's younger brother, has been arrested over suspected misconduct in public office after revelations in the Epstein files.

One of the four men who was initially convicted was sent to death row in the killing of four teenagers in a crime that haunted Austin for decades.

As Trump pressures Iran, he's spoken of an "armada" heading for the Mideast, but there's another massive movement of American fire power in the air.

Several weeks ago, I came back from a ride and plugged the board in to charge. The charger light stayed green, and the board wouldn’t charge at all. The board is still fully functional at 36%, so you can ride it, but obviously it’s going to die soon if we can’t get it to charge.

We tried two different chargers and neither worked. Both showed a green light as if the board were already fully charged.

We contacted Tony and ordered a new BMS, thinking that would solve the issue. After installing the new BMS, nothing changed — same behavior, still won’t charge.

At this point we’re not sure what else to check. Could this be a charge port issue, wiring problem, battery pack issue, or something else entirely?

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Gold prices have been soaring, but before you invest, it helps to know some specific reporting rules.

Where to spot Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Uranus and Neptune in the night sky all at the same time.

From TikTok deepfakes to smears put out by the White House, fake videos modeled on Black archetypes are running rampant - putting Black users at risk

Late last year, as a US government shutdown cut off the Snap benefits that low-income families rely on for groceries, videos on social media cast the fallout in frantic scenes. “Imma keep it real with you,” a Black woman said in a viral TikTok post, “I get over $2,500 a month in stamps. I sell ’em, $2,000 worth, for about $1,200-$1,500 cash.” Another Black woman ranted about taxpayers’ responsibility to her seven children with seven men, and yet another melted down after her food stamps were rejected at a corn-dog counter.

Visible watermarks stamped some videos as AI-generated – apparently, too faintly for the racist commentators and hustlers more than happy to believe the frenzy was real. “You got people treating it like a side hustle, selling the stamps, abusing the system,” the conservative commentator Amir Odom whinged. Fox News reported on the Snap deepfakes as if they were authentic, before issuing a correction. Newsmax anchor Rob Schmitt claimed people were using Snap “to get their nails done, to get their weaves and hair”. (Lost in the outrage was a basic fact: white Americans make up 37% of Snap’s 42 million beneficiaries.)

PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 19, 2026 — D-Wave Quantum Inc. today joined the Southeastern Quantum Collaborative (SQC), alongside The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Davidson Technologies, IBM, Alabama A&M University, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

The SQC will bring together academia, industry and government to accelerate the advancement and application of quantum information science and technology across the Southeast. In addition, it aims to develop the quantum-ready workforce needed to commercialize the technology. Given Davidson hosts a D-Wave Advantage2 system at its headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama, D-Wave is well positioned to support the SQC’s quantum workforce development efforts.

“Alabama has long been a leader in the development and use of advanced technologies, and D-Wave is excited to join the Southeastern Quantum Collaborative as an inaugural member to support the next wave of innovation coming from the region — quantum computing,” said Jack Sears, vice president of government business solutions at D-Wave. “Establishing a globally competitive, quantum-ready workforce across the Southeast — capable of operationalizing annealing and gate-model systems for mission-critical decision-making, large-scale operational efficiency, and the protection of national interests — will be decisive in accelerating adoption throughout the region’s public and private sectors. By investing in quantum talent and infrastructure, the Southeast can position itself as a national leader in quantum innovation, advanced manufacturing, energy, logistics, and defense.”

“The SQC aims to leverage the region’s unique concentration of cleared defense infrastructure, advanced missile defense expertise, and strong base of prime contractors to accelerate the transition of quantum information science and technology into field-ready capabilities for the warfighter,” said Dr. Rainer Steinwandt, dean of the College of Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. “The Collaborative’s goal is to transform the Southeastern United States into a global quantum computing leader. Having quantum leaders like D-Wave as inaugural members is critical to developing the next generation of talent.”

“Our work developing quantum-powered applications on D-Wave’s Advantage2 annealing system has demonstrated the real-world power of this technology to enhance mission planning, optimize complex operations, and strengthen national security,” said James Lackey, senior vice president, software solutions division at Davidson. “By joining the SQC, D-Wave reinforces a high-impact collaboration among industry and academia that will accelerate quantum workforce development and rapidly translate advanced quantum capabilities into operational advantage for the warfighter.” Through expert talks, roundtables and networking, the SQC will provide an opportunity for collaboration across the quantum ecosystem to connect government, tech companies and academia.

More from HPCwire

• Southeastern Quantum Collaborative Forms at UAH with Participation from IBM and IonQ
• University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Joins Southeastern Quantum Collaborative
• Qubits 2026: D-Wave Steps Forward, Users Show What Quantum Can Do

About D-Wave Quantum Inc.

D-Wave is a leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software, and services. It is the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, and the first and only to offer dual-platform quantum computing products and services, spanning both annealing and gate-model quantum computing technologies. D-Wave’s mission is to help customers realize the value of quantum today through enterprise-grade systems available on-premises and via its Leap quantum cloud service, which offers 99.9% availability and uptime. More than 100 organizations across commercial, government and research sectors trust D-Wave to address complex computational challenges using quantum computing. Learn more about realizing the value of quantum computing today and how D-Wave is shaping the quantum-driven industrial and societal advancements of tomorrow: www.dwavequantum.com.

Source: D-Wave

The post D-Wave Joins Southeastern Quantum Collaborative appeared first on HPCwire.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday sanctioned Kovay Gardens, accusing the Mexican resort of operating under the direction of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG.

Phison CEO Pua Khein-Seng, whose company is one of the leading makers of controller chips for SSDs and other flash memory devices, admitted in a televised interview that the ongoing global RAM shortage could force companies to cut back their product lines in the second half of 2026 -- and that some may not survive at all if they cannot secure enough memory. The interview, conducted in Chinese by Ningguan Chen of Taiwanese broadcaster Next TV, drew an important distinction: it was the interviewer who raised the possibility of shutdowns and product discontinuations, and Khein-Seng largely agreed rather than volunteering the prediction himself. The shortage stems from AI data centers consuming the vast majority of the world's memory supply, a buildout that has sent RAM prices up by three to six times over the past several months. Only three companies control 93% of the global DRAM market, and all three have chosen to prioritize profits over rapid capacity expansion. Even Nvidia may skip shipping a gaming GPU for the first time in 30 years, and Apple could struggle to secure enough chips. Khein-Seng also expects consumers will increasingly repair broken products rather than replace them.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NEW DELHI, Feb. 19, 2026 — Amazon Web Services India Private Limited (AWS India) has announced that it will work with Yotta Data Services to deploy AWS Outposts for the National Informatics Centre’s (NIC) Meghraj 2.0 initiative. This initiative enables government departments to leverage AWS services and generative AI capabilities for data residency and security requirements.

AWS Outposts allows customers with sensitive workloads that are restricted to NIC data centers to leverage AWS’s advanced cloud capabilities including the AWS Nitro System’s advanced security capabilities and AWS managed services such as Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).

This hybrid architecture enables government departments to run sensitive workloads within NIC data centers while accessing the full capabilities of AWS services. With AWS Outposts, applications running in NIC data centers can leverage the AWS Region in India, during peak demand for citizen-facing services. During peak demand periods, applications can expand to the AWS Region in India for use cases like data ingestion, with data synchronizing back to NIC data centers within hours, enabling elastic scaling beyond on-premises capacity constraints. Using AWS Outposts, NIC can enforce security guardrails via AWS Control Tower, to create a security baseline initialized for every new workload eliminating risk of human errors with manual configurations and preventing security drift.

“This synergy with Yotta represents AWS’s commitment to supporting the Government of India’s digital transformation vision,” said Sandeep Dutta, President, AWS India and South Asia. “By deploying AWS Outposts for NIC Meghraj 2.0, we’re enabling government departments to leverage the full power of our cloud services and generative AI capabilities while meeting the requirements for sensitive workloads.”

“This collaboration with AWS strengthens Yotta’s mission to power India’s sovereign and secure digital infrastructure for government”, said Sunil Gupta, Co-founder, Managing Director & CEO, Yotta Data Services. He further added, “By enabling AWS Outposts within NIC’s Meghraj 2.0 framework, we are combining Yotta’s enterprise-grade data center and sovereign cloud capabilities with AWS’s advanced cloud and AI services to deliver a robust hybrid architecture tailored for India’s public sector. Government departments can now scale citizen services seamlessly, leverage generative AI, and innovate faster while ensuring data residency and security within India’s trusted infrastructure ecosystem.”

More from HPCwire: Yotta Plans $2B NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra Supercluster Deployment in India

About Amazon Web Services (AWS) India Services Private Limited

AWS India Private Limited (AWS India) undertakes the resale and marketing of AWS Cloud services in India.

About Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is guided by customer obsession, pace of innovation, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. By democratizing technology for nearly two decades and making cloud computing and generative AI accessible to organizations of every size and industry, AWS has built one of the fastest-growing enterprise technology businesses in history. Millions of customers trust AWS to accelerate innovation, transform their businesses, and shape the future. Learn more at aws.amazon.com.

About Yotta Data Services

Yotta is a new-age Digital Transformation enabler that derives its value from end-to-end competencies in Hyperscale Data Center and Cloud Infrastructure, Managed IT, Global Connectivity, Holistic Cybersecurity, Application Modernization and a gamut of cutting-edge solutions for every enterprise need.

Source: Yotta Data Services

The post AWS and Yotta to Deploy Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure for National Informatics Centre’s Meghraj 2.0 appeared first on HPCwire.

Resettlement organizations said the updated guidance represents a dramatic shift in how refugees are treated after being legally permitted to enter the United States.

Feb. 19, 2026 — A Florida State University researcher has been awarded an international fellowship to develop new materials that contain quantum bits with eventual applications ranging from health care to cybersecurity.

Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Michael Shatruk. Credit: Amy Walden/FSU College of Arts and Sciences.

Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Michael Shatruk has earned a 2025 Novo Nordisk Fellowship. Through 752,000 Danish kroner in funding, or about $117,000, the fellowship will allow Shatruk to study quantum molecule-based materials using advanced equipment housed at the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen through early May.

“Quantum technologies are poised to revolutionize many areas, including computing, drug development and medical sensing,” Shatruk said. “This fellowship will allow me to carry out research on quantum materials with extensive use of electron-diffraction crystallography, a rare and cutting-edge method for determining the crystal structures of sub-micron particles, which are less than one-thousandth of a millimeter in size.”

Based in Denmark, Novo Nordisk is a global pharmaceutical company specializing in medical treatments for serious chronic diseases. As the producer of half of the world’s insulin, Novo Nordisk is a global leader in diabetes care and notable for developing insulin pens as well as GLP-1 weight loss medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy. Novo Nordisk is also Denmark’s largest private sponsor of fundamental research and supports a wide array of work across scientific disciplines, including Shatruk’s discovery of new quantum materials.

“Dr. Shatruk’s research is highly innovative and rich with transformative insights and effective realizations,” said Wei Yang, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “In the past decade, scholar development has been a major departmental focus, and Dr. Shatruk’s fellowship, which centers on improving quantum science and technology, is a testimony to FSU’s synergistic efforts.”

“While in Denmark, I plan to work on the systems that create two-dimensional arrays of qubits, which are the building blocks of chips used in quantum devices,” Shatruk said. “The focus of my project is to study molecular spin qubits placed in the nodes of metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, to increase computing stability and power. The discovery of MOFs was recognized with the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, so it is fun to work in this field immediately after it received such great recognition.”

MOFs are crystalline structures that are built from metallic ions connected by organic molecules to form a porous material that is readily customizable for specific tasks, including the slow, controlled release of drugs in the body. By integrating MOFs in quantum chips, Shatruk aims to target stability issues in current quantum technology. Most MOFs are smaller than one micron, while a single strand of human hair is about 70 microns in diameter. “Large” MOF crystals are still under one millimeter in size.

“Unfortunately, it is difficult to grow large MOF crystals, so many of them cannot be studied using traditional single-crystal X-ray crystallography methods,” Shatruk said. “The electron-diffraction crystallography machinery in Denmark will help determine the atomic structures of MOFs, even if large crystals cannot be grown, because it enables crystal structure determination on sub-micron particles.”

In 2023, Shatruk became the founding director of the FSU Initiative in Quantum Science and Engineering. With an initial investment of more than $20 million from FSU over three years, the initiative aims to accelerate the discovery of novel quantum phenomena that can impact the design of quantum-related systems.

Visit the FSU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry website to learn more about Shatruk’s work and research. Visit quantum.fsu.edu to learn more about the FSU Initiative in Quantum Science.

More from HPCwire: Florida Quantum Launches to Organize and Accelerate State’s Quantum Economy

Source: Kendall Cooper, FSU

The post FSU Researcher Wins Novo Nordisk Fellowship to Develop Qubit-Based Materials appeared first on HPCwire.

Speaking before she was sentenced with husband Craig, Lindsay Foreman tells of being on emotional rollercoaster

A woman sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Iranian court said she had undergone an “endurance test for the mind” as she pleaded her innocence on charges of espionage.

Lindsay Foreman said she only wanted justice and fairness under the Iranian constitution, in an interview given to the BBC from inside Evin prison in Tehran just before she was sentenced with her husband, Craig.

Thomas P gives evidence on first day of trial in case that could shape standards for mountain sports

An Austrian mountaineer has said he is “endlessly sorry” his girlfriend froze to death on a joint climb to the country’s highest peak, but denied criminal wrongdoing as his trial began in Innsbruck.

The 37-year-old defendant, identified only as Thomas P, gave evidence on the first day of the high-profile proceedings over the tragedy on Großglockner, in a case that could shape international standards for liability in mountain sports.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon has officially dethroned Walmart as the biggest global company by revenue, a milestone attesting to the massive scale the e-commerce and cloud-computing giant has achieved since its humble beginnings in 1994 as an online bookseller in Jeff Bezos' Seattle-area garage. Walmart, which had been the largest company by revenue for more than a decade, on Thursday reported sales of $713.2 billion for the 12 months ending Jan. 31. Amazon, which operates on a fiscal year ending in December, earlier this month reported 2025 sales of $717 billion. Bezos carefully studied Walmart founder Sam Walton, embracing many of his business strategies while building his company. Over the past decade, Amazon's revenue has increased at almost 10 times the pace of Walmart's, fueled by a shift in consumer spending from stores to websites and its rapidly growing cloud-computing business, Amazon Web Services.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Kitchen and Bath Industry Show showcases breakthrough technology in the home industry. CNET's David Watsky is there in person to see it all.

Nick Thomas-Symonds says move could also create unnecessary UK-EU trade barriers and increase costs

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A British minister has warned that the EU’s “Made in Europe” industrial strategy could hit supply chains, increase costs and create unnecessary trade barriers between the UK and some members of the bloc.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the UK minister for EU relations, made the comments as the EU is preparing to publish legislation that would require European-made products to be prioritised in public procurement and consumer schemes.

A new DHS memo details plan to allow federal immigration officers to detain legal refugees in the US indefinitely

The Trump administration is moving to arrest thousands of people already legally admitted to the US as refugees and detain them indefinitely for aggressive “re-screening”, a report published Thursday said.

Under the new policy, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said that federal immigration officers can and should arrest anyone who has not yet obtained the right to permanent residence, a so-called green card, and subject them to interviews to assess their refugee claims while they are in custody, as first reported by the Washington Post.

MIGDAL HAEMEK, Israel, and TORONTO, Feb. 19, 2026 — Tower Semiconductor and Xanadu today announced an expansion of their collaboration in developing advanced silicon photonics for fault tolerant quantum computers based on Tower’s high-volume silicon photonics platform. These developments build on prior collaborative technical achievements, including a series of successful joint tapeouts to test and refine Xanadu’s designs on Tower Semiconductor process flows.

Xanadu and Tower have co-engineered a unique production flow for Xanadu’s custom material stack, delivering a manufacturing-aligned, architecture-compatible platform for next-generation photonic quantum hardware. This custom stack is designed to sustain both scalability and performance as systems grow in complexity, meeting the requirements of large-scale quantum information processing.

“Our work with Tower has been instrumental in moving our hardware from concept to prototype to demonstrator systems within a scalable manufacturing environment,” said Christian Weedbrook, Founder and CEO of Xanadu. “By combining our architectural breakthroughs, fabrication process engineering and design innovations with Tower’s world-class technology and manufacturing expertise, we are building the foundation for a truly useful quantum computer.”

“Xanadu is advancing one of the most scalable quantum architectures in the industry, and we’re pleased to deepen our collaboration to support manufacturable scale,” said Dr. Ed Preisler, Vice President and General Manager of RF Business Unit, Tower Semiconductor. “This reinforces the broad applicability of our platform across multiple advanced domains including quantum computing, data centers, telecom and automotive applications.

Current developments focus on optimizing the performance of critical components using standard product flows for ultra-low loss silicon nitride (SiN) and integrated photodiodes. These projects allow Xanadu to validate its cutting-edge photonic circuit designs on an established high-volume manufacturing platform. In addition, as the quantum computing industry advances toward commercial scale systems, this collaboration is set to meet the manufacturability requirements of large-scale photonic quantum computing.

For additional information about Tower Semiconductor’s SiPho technology platform, visit here. For more information about Xanadu, please visit xanadu.ai.

About Tower Semiconductor

Tower Semiconductor Ltd. (NASDAQ/TASE: TSEM), the leading foundry of high-value analog semiconductor solutions, provides technology, development, and process platforms for its customers in growing markets such as consumer, industrial, automotive, mobile, infrastructure, medical and aerospace and defense. Tower Semiconductor focuses on creating a positive and sustainable impact on the world through long-term partnerships and its advanced and innovative analog technology offering, comprised of a broad range of customizable process platforms such as SiPho, SiGe, BiCMOS, mixed-signal/CMOS, RF CMOS, CMOS image sensor, non-imaging sensors, displays, integrated power management (BCD and 700V), and MEMS. Tower Semiconductor also provides world-class design enablement for a quick and accurate design cycle as well as process transfer services including development, transfer, and optimization, to IDMs and fabless companies. To provide multi-fab sourcing and extended capacity for its customers, Tower Semiconductor currently owns one operating facility in Israel (200mm), two in the U.S. (200mm), and two in Japan (200mm and 300mm) which it owns through its 51% holdings in TPSCo and shares a 300mm facility in Agrate, Italy with STMicroelectronics.

About Xanadu

Xanadu is a Canadian quantum computing company with the mission to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere. Founded in 2016, Xanadu has become one of the world’s leading quantum hardware and software companies. The company also leads the development of PennyLane, an open-source software library for quantum computing and application development.

Source: Tower Semiconductor

The post Xanadu Expands Silicon Photonics Collaboration with Tower Semiconductor for Fault Tolerant Quantum Hardware appeared first on HPCwire.

Israeli prison service and IDF reject allegations after research by Committee to Protect Journalists

Almost 60 Palestinian journalists detained in Israeli prisons since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack have been beaten, starved and subjected to sexual violence, including rape, a report alleges.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reviewed dozens of testimonies, photographs and medical records documenting what it describes as serious abuses by Israeli soldiers and prison guards against Palestinian reporters. The report draws on in-depth interviews from 59 Palestinian journalists. Of those interviewed, 58 reported being subjected to what they described as torture while in Israeli custody.

José María Balcázar, who argued for marriage at 14 and above, replaces José Jerí who was voted out after a scandal

Peru’s congress has elected José María Balcázar, an octogenarian leftist lawmaker who has defended child marriage, as the country’s interim president ahead of general elections in April.

Balcázar is Peru’s ninth president since 2016. The surprise election, in which Balcázar beat the favourite, María del Carmen Alva, a conservative, came after lawmakers voted to remove José Jerí as president on Tuesday after just four months in office, due to a scandal over secretive meetings with Chinese businessmen.

A Coast Guard crew recovered over two dozen bales of cocaine from waters off Puerto Rico.

Trump wants US energy dominance. Global markets may not agree Expert comment LToremark 19 February 2026

At first glance, the Trump administration’s energy dominance policy appears to have been a success. But shifting energy market dynamics has proven difficult.

Ever since US President Trump declared a national energy emergency on his first day in office last year, energy has been a major focus of his administration. He aims to achieve ’dominance’ by growing the fossil fuel, nuclear and critical minerals sectors to fill domestic markets and lead global ones. Renewables are pushed aside by revoking regulations, subsidies and even approved projects. 

What is clear is that US oil and gas production are surging – oil to record levels, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports growing more than 20 per cent. 

Longer term, Trump wants similar growth in coal and nuclear power. After coal’s precipitous decline in recent years, his administration has thus far managed to keep five US coal-fired power plants open by removing pollution regulations, offering investment assistance, and even ordering the Pentagon to purchase coal-generated electricity. On nuclear, Trump has set a goal of quadrupling US atomic power generation by 2050 and has moved aggressively to ease permitting at home and build new commercial nuclear partnerships abroad, including with the UK.

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Trump’s repeal of landmark climate ruling is a strategic own goal

But the Trump administration’s energy dominance goals go beyond making the United States a hydrocarbon hyperpower. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio spelled out at the Munich Security Conference, the administration sees the global shift to renewables as a source of leverage against Washington – and US allies must follow it in changing course.

One of the brains behind energy dominance, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, argues that America’s growth under a pro-energy regime will force other countries to reconsider their own policies or face economic decline. 

US allies like the EU, Japan and South Korea have responded by pledging to purchase and/or invest in US energy production. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, led OPEC countries in increasing oil production in 2025, helping put global production at an all-time high. Washington now has direct or indirect influence over oil output from Canada through to Guyana and Venezuela – approximately 20 per cent of global oil production. Enough, analysts argue, to limit price spikes and give the Trump administration freedom of action in global politics.

Indeed, energy dominance has both domestic and foreign policy goals. At home, it aims to enrich US producers and lower prices for consumers – two sometimes contradictory goals. Abroad, it again aims to empower US energy companies, particularly those who are major players in the development of Middle Eastern LNG. Washington also hopes that a stable and diverse oil supply helps prevent Iran, Russia or other actors from using energy prices to put pressure on Washington, for example in response to further attacks on Tehran.

But energy dominance also has an ideological side. The aim is to defeat what Rubio has called the ‘climate cult’ and with it both Beijing’s dominance of green energy technology and cooperative global efforts at energy transition.

Dominance is perhaps not what it seems

At first glance, Trump’s energy dominance appears to be a success so far. But three key points indicate that all is perhaps not what it seems. First, global demand is driving increased production of all types of energy – including green energy. Second, long-time horizons for energy generation mean today’s headline new plants were planned five to ten years ago. Today’s policies will also need that kind of staying power. Third, from Trump’s energy dominance to Europe’s quest for energy security to global efforts at energy transition, there are many attempts to put politics over energy markets. But markets continue to reassert themselves. 

Climbing energy use, demand for air conditioning in emerging economies, and AI and data centres in OECD countries saw production and use of every kind of energy increase last year, from oil and gas to green and nuclear. Even as coal use remained stable globally and rebounded in the US, renewables generated more power globally than coal for the first time, and new capacity in solar and wind was enough to account for all of global energy demand growth. 

Domestically, the Trump administration’s efforts to shift marketplace dynamics had mixed results. Shale oil producers did not see prices high enough to spur growth, while renewable energy continued to outperform administration rhetoric. Although US investment in renewables declined from 2024 highs, overall renewables made up a large majority of new power generation capacity in 2025. Investment in renewables also outpaced investment in fossil fuel production, and solar energy now competes favourably on price alone. This suggests that market fundamentals will continue to drive a US energy transition, albeit at a slower pace. 

Geopolitical impact

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US control of Venezuela’s oil may not be the bonanza that Trump expects

Internationally, the geopolitical ramifications of the US move to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and supervise the country’s oil production are dramatic. Washington is already using Venezuela to cut off oil supplies to Cuba and pressure India to stop buying discounted Russian oil. Coupled with new moves or even military action against Iran, in principle this increases pressure on Moscow but also Beijing, a key beneficiary of cheap Russian and Iranian oil. The intended beneficiaries are US producers in the Western Hemisphere, US companies globally, as well as Gulf OPEC producers who are key partners of Trump. 

In the Middle East, Trump – and many US leaders before him – has been frustrated by the ability of OPEC members to threaten price increases and destabilize the US economy. Increased domestic and hemispheric oil production has been viewed as a way to gain freedom of action in the Middle East. By that metric, the Trump administration’s ability to carry out multiple military operations in the region – and threaten more – without debilitating oil price spikes is a sign of success. However, US companies’ increasing involvement in Middle Eastern oil and gas production mean that US interests will continue to be heavily engaged in the region for decades to come – the exact opposite geopolitical outcome of what Americans thought domestic energy growth would achieve.

Separate gear and engine problems with some Nissan Rogue compact SUVs can cause them to lose power, safety regulators warn.

We can honor my mentor and the late civil rights icon by becoming the America we’ve never yet been

Before 5am on Tuesday, Jesse Jackson Jr called to tell me his father and my friend, the Rev Jesse Louis Jackson, had died at 84 years old. I shared a prayer with the family and listened to Jesse Jr talk about how he had heard his father breathe his last breath in the middle of the night. When he called his mother to the room, he told me, she reached toward his father and said: “A mighty lion has fallen.”

In Africa’s savannas, the lion is respected because he has a power that all the other animals recognize, even if they do not understand it. The responses to Jackson’s death have proven him to be a lion in this sense – remembered with respect by people from every walk of life, even those who did not understand him. Though Donald Trump has built a political career by opposing almost every policy Jackson worked for in public life, he recalled Jackson as a “force of nature”. Trump recognized his power, even if he didn’t understand it. Anyone who wants to help reconstruct the America that Jackson worked for should take time to understand the source of this mighty lion’s strength.

Intelligence findings read to parliament say ‘rogue’ agencies and individuals recruiting Kenyan nationals to frontline

More than 1,000 Kenyans have been lured to fight for Russia in its war with Ukraine, according to an intelligence report to the Kenyan parliament that highlights the scale of a Russian operation taking African men to the frontline.

The majority leader of Kenya’s national assembly, Kimani Ichung’wah, said “rogue recruitment agencies and individuals in Kenya” were continuing to send Kenyan nationals to fight in the conflict, as he read MPs the summary of an investigation by Kenya’s National Intelligence Service.

Eight skiers were found dead, six were rescued and one is still missing after avalanche in Sierra Nevada mountains

The many weeks of a worrying snow drought in the western US is driven by the climate crisis and helped set the stage for the deadly avalanche this week in the Sierra Nevada mountains of northern California, according to experts.

Perilous avalanches are not uncommon in the region, according to the National Avalanche Center, which maintains a map of locations where avalanche danger is highest, and the risk is now particularly high in the Lake Tahoe area.

Paolo Petrecca, director of Rai Sport, prompted widespread criticism and protests from journalists at network

The head of the sports division of the Italian public broadcaster Rai has resigned after his gaffe-strewn commentary of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony provoked protests among its journalists.

Paolo Petrecca, appointed director of Rai Sport last year, handed in his notice on Thursday after a board meeting, a source within Rai confirmed.

These exercises will help keep heart disease away and get you stronger.

The family of Virginia Giuffre​, who accused former Prince Andrew of assaulting her when she was a teenager, thanked police on Thursday after he was arrested.

Tehran may claim it will not negotiate under duress, but that is precisely what it is being required to do

Although much attention will be given to the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington, it is the “arsenal of war” that Donald Trump has assembled in the Middle East, and what it implies for the stately pace of Washington’s negotiations with Iran, that deserves more.

The well-connected Axios reporter Barak Ravid is hated in Iran – one news site on Thursday described him as a one-man psychological war operation against Tehran. But he is widely read, as was his report that the US viewed the talks in Geneva on Tuesday as a “nothing burger”, and that a full-scale attack on Iran was far closer than most Americans realised. The story led to a spike in oil prices and front-page pieces in US newspapers saying Trump’s military preparations would be complete by the weekend.

US military base on Diego Garcia: What is its strategic importance? Explainer jon.wallace 19 February 2026

President Trump’s comments regarding the island’s potential use in a strike on Iran show its continued importance in projecting US power in the Indian Ocean region – even in a rapidly changing strategic environment.

President Donald Trump’s critique of the UK’s 2025 agreement to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius triggered a wave of media attention in January 2026. In February, the president appeared to walk back his criticism of the deal, which would see the UK obtain a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia – the largest Chagos island and the site of a major UK/US military base.

But President Trump criticized the deal again on 18 February, linking Diego Garcia to the US military buildup for a possible strike on Iran:

‘Should Iran decide not to make a Deal,’ he said, ‘it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia… in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime.’

The headlines the president generates tend to centre on the wisdom and fairness of the UK’s deal with Mauritius. But this misses another important part of the story: the entire concept of a military base on Diego Garcia was conceived and initiated by the US, not the UK, to assert American control in the Indian Ocean. 

The disputed presence of the military base is therefore a story about American power and strategy as much as the legacy of the British Empire. The president’s comments show the island’s continuing importance to longstanding American policy in the region. So do reports that Diego Garcia may have been used to mount an operation to seize a sanctioned oil tanker.

Why is there a US base on Diego Garcia? 

Following the end of World War II, as decolonization progressed and more countries became independent, US naval planners worried that US access to overseas bases was diminishing relative to its Cold War opponents: China and the Soviet Union.

One leading planner was concerned that in the event of hostilities in the Indian Ocean region ‘access via Suez and undisputed access via Singapore or through the Indies may be denied’, arguing that the US Navy therefore needed a base in the Indian Ocean. 

Diego Garcia was a strong candidate: it had military advantages (an airfield and anchorage potential), political advantages (a small population, and administrative status under the UK) and a useful location, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is about 3000 kilometres from both the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea and the Malacca Strait near the South China Sea. This would allow the US military to project power across the ocean, deter adversaries and reassure allies.

The UK had already built a small base in Deigo Garcia during World War II, and British troops remained there until the end of the war. 

In 1961, the US proposed that the UK government detach the Chagos Archipelago from colonial Mauritius to create a new territory that would ensure basing rights for future US and UK military use. Over the following years, the UK and US governments entered secret negotiations over the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago from colonial Mauritius. 
In the final agreement, the US government agreed to make payments to the British of up to $14 million, or half the cost of creating the ‘British Indian Ocean Territory’. 

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UK ratification of the Chagos Archipelago treaty will not violate international law

Since then, the military base in Diego Garcia has served as an anchor for American operations. The island hosts an extensive airfield with runways long enough to accommodate large military aircraft like B-52 bombers, KC-135 tankers, reconnaissance aircraft and transport planes. It also has major fuel storage facilities, radar installations, and control towers that can support regional military operations. 

Diego Garcia also hosts a deep-water port that can dock, resupply, and provide maintenance to large naval vessels including aircraft carriers, destroyers, and submarines. There are multiple piers and docks equipped with modern systems to support rapid response operations. 

Diego Garcia was a critical, high-volume launchpad for US air operations in the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 Iraq War. 

And in the early 2000’s the base provided support for US airstrikes in Afghanistan, targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. Questions have also been raised about the possible role of Diego Garcia as a CIA ‘black site’ during the ‘War on Terror.’ In 2024 and 2025, the US used the base to launch operations against the Houthis in Yemen.

China and regional rivalries

The US is not the only military that operates in the Indian Ocean. France and India are the two leading naval powers of the Indian Ocean region. 

India has its own military presence and relationship with Mauritius and is currently constructing a major air base and naval jetty on the island of Agaléga about 1767 kilometres away from Diego Garcia. This base is planned to include a long runway, deep-water jetty, and radar and communications infrastructure capable of supporting Indian maritime patrol aircraft including US-made Boeing P-8 surveillance planes. 

Mauritius officially frames the infrastructure as mutually beneficial coastguard support, but the base significantly bolsters India’s ability to project power and conduct long-range surveillance in the western Indian Ocean. More broadly, India also supports Mauritius with coastal surveillance radar stations, training, defence equipment, and maritime security cooperation.

France also has a neighbouring military presence in the Indian Ocean within its own island territories like La Réunion and Mayotte. About 7,000 French military personnel operate under the Forces Armées de la Zone Sud de l’Océan Indien, conducting surveillance, counter-piracy, disaster response, and deterrence missions. French submarines also patrol the region as part of Paris’s continuous at-sea nuclear posture. These positions together give France significant control over the southern part of the Indian Ocean.

Notably, France also faces a number of sovereignty disputes in the Indian Ocean. In both Réunion and Mayotte there have been various independence movements overtime. Repeated referendums in Mayotte have demonstrated a desire amongst islanders to remain a part of – and deepen integration – with France. However, Comoros still maintains its historic claims to Mayotte. 

Today, many Comorians consider the ‘return’ of Mayotte a national cause – not unlike Mauritius’ claims to the Chagos Archipelago, although the Chagos Archipelago is much farther away from Mauritius than Mayotte is from Comoros.   Both the African Union and United Nations recognize Mayotte as part of Comoros. The Comoros–France sovereignty dispute over Mayotte is thus a continuing challenge in the region. 

France and Mauritius are also in an ongoing territorial dispute over Tromelin island. In 2010, both countries signed an agreement to promote environmental protection there but have not resolved the sovereignty issue. 

In recent years China has also developed a significant Indian Ocean presence. The expansion of Chinese commercial, military, and dual-use shipping in the Indian Ocean has led to growing security concerns amongst the major navies of the Indian Ocean, including the US, France, India, and Australia. 

That concern fuelled much of the criticism in the UK about the sovereignty agreement – with opponents arguing the 2025 deal could allow China to expand its influence in Mauritius and the region.

Policymakers in Washington and London continue to press the counter-China narrative about the Chagos Archipelago – arguing that the deal leaves nothing to prevent China building a base on the Chagos Islands. But this argument overlooks the complexity of the Indian Ocean region. Mauritius and India’s important strategic relationship would likely blunt any Chinese efforts to develop a strategic or dual-use presence in Mauritius.

Besides, China has focused its partnerships and port developments elsewhere in the region, from Gwardar Port in Pakistan to the Kyaukphyu Port in Myanmar and beyond. Rather than competing directly for a presence in Mauritius, China has successfully distributed its maritime interests amongst countries where the US and UK have less leverage.

Furthermore, Beijing does not have a clear Indian Ocean strategy. Instead, it has benefitted from the narrative that Western countries like the UK (and by extension the US) have violated international law in the Chagos Islands and continue to face an active sovereignty issue in the Indo-Pacific. That serves as a useful counterweight to China’s own sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea.

The ‘Donroe Doctrine’ and the future of Diego Garcia

Diego Garcia’s importance is likely to increase as the US seeks a secure fallback position amid shifting alliances and regional rivalries. 

Even in the context of the so-called ‘Donroe Doctrine’, in which the Trump administration has sought to reorient US defence strategy towards the Western Hemisphere, the island does not represent overreach. Instead, Diego Garcia functions as a support node that underwrites US hemispheric control.

The nature of maritime warfare is also evolving. This will have implications for the future of Diego Garcia. For example, drones like autonomous undersea vehicles (UAVs) or ‘supercarrier’ ships that can operate unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are being added to the US arsenal. From Diego Garcia, these capabilities would extend the US’s ability to project power and threaten use of force across the Indian Ocean region. 

Liberal MP claims the Reserve Bank has been soft on inflation. Labor says questioning the RBA’s dual mandate amounts to a ‘plan for higher unemployment’

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There was good news on Thursday.

Another solid month of jobs growth left the unemployment rate steady at 4.1% in January.

RFK Jr ally Jay Bhattacharya was named acting director of the CDC and will be fourth leader in a year to head agency

Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was named the acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday, making him the fourth leader in a year at the embattled agency in an unprecedented move that further consolidates power among a small group of men at the helm of US health agencies.

He’s been an ineffectual health leader whose attention will be further fractured, and as a close ally to Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services and a longtime vaccine critic. Bhattacharya may sign off on further changes to the vaccine schedule, observers said.

India's digital payment platforms process trillions of dollars a year through UPI, the government-built real-time payments rail that handles more than 90% of all payment transactions in the country, but one of their largest net revenue line items is not a payment product at all: it's a cheap plastic speaker that sits on a shopkeeper's counter and reads out incoming payments aloud. The roughly 23 million soundboxes deployed across India earn about $220 million a year in rental fees, more than every explicitly UPI-linked revenue line in the ecosystem combined, according to estimates from Bernstein. Each device costs $7-12 to manufacture and earns its platform $7-10 a year in rent. A story adds: PhonePe processes about 48% of all UPI transactions in India. Its net payment processing revenue in H1 FY26 was about $83 million. Its device revenue was about $34 million. Running nearly half of India's real-time payment infrastructure earns PhonePe only 2.4 times what it makes from renting speakers to shopkeepers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Feral chickens, hens and roosters have been nuisances in Hawaii for years, but ways to deal with them, including proposals to let people kill them, are proving controversial.

Racism allegations in Portugal overshadowed another fine result in the Arctic and the holders being pushed by their Ligue 1 rivals

Nothing should divert attention away from what happened after Vinícius Júnior’s goal for Real Madrid in their 1-0 victory at Benfica on Tuesday. It would be frivolous to do so. The Brazilian scored one of the finest goals of a career marked by spectacular strikes, but this week’s Champions League action will be remembered for the regrettable flashpoint that followed.

King Charles III said in a statement that “the law must take its course,” promising the royal family’s full support and cooperation.

The Celerity high-speed oven is an industry first. Its "golden heater" technology can cook a chicken three times faster than a normal oven.

Under pressure from the Trump administration, over a dozen schools signed agreements to end links with organizations that “restrict participation based on race.”

At $2,900, Samsung's latest foldable is a true phone-tablet hybrid and a multitasker's dream. But more isn't always better.

If you don't want to pay a $45 fee at the airport, you'll need to get a Real ID before flying.

New technology has workers spooked, but experts say it’s creating an opening for a resurgence in worker power

In 2026, it’s a scary time to work for a living.

Gone are the days of quiet quitting, the Great Resignation, and the highly visible union-organizing battles that began the decade and signaled that perhaps worker power was on the rise again in the US. Instead, much of that momentum is being crowded out of our minds by anxieties: a worsening affordability crisis, geopolitical instability, and the specter of artificial intelligence looming over the workplace.

The homeland security department is reportedly seeking information on critical social media accounts. Look no further

The New York Times reports that the Department of Homeland Security has sent Google, Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) and other media corporations subpoenas for the names on accounts that criticize ICE enforcement. The department wants to identify Americans who oppose what it’s doing.

I’ll save them time.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

Cesar Vasquez, who has supported families of undocumented immigrants since age 14, has become a community lifeline – and a known ICE target

While most 18-year-olds worry about college papers and spring break plans, Cesar Vasquez drives through coastal California farm towns scanning for unmarked SUVs before dawn. He flips down his driver’s seat visor to look at a taped list of license plates he has already identified as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles, and jots down a few new ones he suspects could be. His phone buzzes constantly – tips from neighbors, text chains from volunteers alerting to ICE activity – all in an attempt to keep his community safe from being swept up in federal agents’ widening dragnet.

This is what organizing looks like for this son of undocumented immigrants. In his home town of Santa Maria, a small farming town on California’s central coast where over 80% of farm workers are undocumented, Vasquez has become both a crucial community lifeline and a known target of federal immigration enforcement.

JENI NANCE
Co-Managing Mosaic Editor

You can tell a lot about a person based on the kind of music they listen to, which is why I try to expand my musical intake as much as I can. I have different playlists for different moods, which I’ve carefully crafted and take pride in. Despite venturing to different musical realms, I find myself gravitating back to the same sound and artists. 

My Spotify Wrapped this year is definitely an interesting one. First, I didn’t listen to as much music as I usually do. In the past I typically listened to upwards of 50,000 minutes on Spotify. This year I fell short, only listening to 30,941 minutes, which is the lowest it’s been in years. 

On a more surprising note, I listened to 225 genres. I didn’t even know there were that many to begin with. 

To make it even more interesting, my top five were soft pop, classic rock, power pop, Latin and country. My top five genres being so vastly different from each other threw me for a loop. 

I’m not sure if I should be embarrassed by my top song, but I’m definitely not surprised. It tickles my brain and I swear I had it on a loop for the longest time. It’s also one of the more obscure songs on my list at 131 listens — “Down Under” by Men At Work. Needless to say, the Robert Irwin underwear ad got to me, seeing as it had me playing the unofficial Australian anthem for months. 

Coming in second place is “Hard Times” by Paramore, which I listened to 130 times. I also played this song on an endless loop. It just scratched an itch and listening to it gave me an instant boost of serotonin. 

At number three is “DtMF” by Bad Bunny — no shame, this one is a banger. Numbers four and five are “no tears left to cry” and “we can’t be friends” by Ariana Grande — yes, someone did break my heart. 

My top album is my pride and joy, “BITE ME,” by the queen herself, Reneé Rapp. She and Billie Eilish have been my favorite artists for years now and “BITE ME,” has been on repeat since it was released. It single-handedly kept me from going crazy while I was in the hospital with a broken ankle. 

My number two album was also a release from this year, “DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS” by Bad Bunny. This was one of the best albums released this year and has been on a regular rotation. 

My family is Colombian and listening to this album makes me feel like I’m back at my childhood home, flooded with the smell of fresh empanadas and standing on my grandmother’s toes as we dance to Reggaton music. 

Number three, no surprise, is “HIT ME HARD AND SOFT” by Billie Eilish. This is another one of my favorite albums and I consider it one of the best albums of all time — one that makes me feel like I’m seeing through a window into Eilish’s life, while also relating to mine in almost every way. She was snubbed at last year’s Grammys and I will die on that hill. 

“American Heartbreak” by Zach Bryan was my number four, which is kind of odd compared to the other albums in my top five. Not mad at it, just unexpected. I didn’t think I listened to it that much. 

My number five was “Man’s Best Friend” by Sabrina Carpenter. The album as a whole, I truly didn’t like. I only regularly listened to four or five songs, but I guess I listen to them on the album track when I do pull them up. 

My number one artist was Reneé Rapp — wow, shocker. It’s not like I listened to her at least once a day for a year. My number two was Billie Eilish, again, no surprise there. I’m pretty sure the song that would save me from Vecna would be “CHIHIRO” (if you know, you know — if you don’t, I’m not sorry). 

Coming in at number three is Bad Bunny. I think what surprised me the most was how much his music impacts me. I’d never listened to him before “DeBí TiRAR MáS FOTos” and I wasn’t expecting him to hit as hard as he does. Now I’m determined to see him during this tour, despite there not being any stops in the United States. 

Number four is Ariana Grande, which also doesn’t really surprise me. I tend to gravitate towards music that transcends the bounds of my consciousness. Her music makes me feel like I’m on an intergalactic trip and it’s an otherworldly experience. Something about her vocals and melodies is hypnotic and mildly addicting. 

Number five is Paramore. I’m not really sure what to say about this one. I’ve listened to Paramore regularly since I was a kid and they have a sound that just doesn’t die. I have them on a lot of my playlists because their music is pretty versatile and can fit various moods or occasions. 

Overall, a very interesting Spotify Wrapped if I do say so myself. I love the variety and how much I’ve branched out this year — from Latin to country. If you want to feel girlhood on a different level, travel between galaxies or just total “feel good” vibes, grab your headphones and listen to some of my favorites from this year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Post: In 2024, the Ethiopian government banned the import of fossil fuel-powered vehicles and slashed tariffs on their electric equivalents. It was a policy driven less by the country's climate ambitions and more by fiscal pressures. For years, subsidizing gasoline for consumers has been a major drag on Ethiopia's budget, costing the state billions of dollars over the past decade. The country defaulted on its sovereign bonds in 2023 after rising interest rates drove up the costs of servicing its debts, and it received a $3.4 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund the following year. In the two years since the ban on internal combustion engine vehicles, EV adoption has grown from less than 1% to nearly 6% of all of the vehicles on the road in the country -- according to the government's own figures -- some way above the global average of 4%. "The Ethiopia story is fascinating," said Colin McKerracher, head of clean transport at BloombergNEF. "What you're seeing in places that don't make a lot of vehicles of any type, they're saying: 'Well, look, if I'm going to import the cars anyway, then I'd rather import less oil. We may as well import the one that cleans up local air quality and is cheaper to buy.'" For decades, Ethiopia's high import tariffs on vehicles put new car ownership out of the reach of most of the country's population. Per capita gross domestic product is only about $1,000, and even by the standards of low-income countries, it has among the lowest car ownership rates. At 13 vehicles per 1,000 people, it's a fraction of the African average of 73. With few cars manufactured in the country, the vast majority are imported, and most are bought used. The government's import policy has upended the market. In parallel, tariffs for EVs were dropped to 15% for completed cars, 5% for parts and semi-assembled vehicles, and zero for "fully knocked down" -- vehicles shipped in parts and assembled locally. That has made new EVs cost-competitive with old gasoline cars.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Bruce Meyer promoted to interim executive director

• New labor deal negotiations with owners looming

Bruce Meyer was promoted to interim executive director of the baseball players’ association on Wednesday, a day after Tony Clark’s forced resignation. It was a move for continuity ahead of the likely start in April of what figures to be contentious collective bargaining with team owners.

Clark is a former All-Star first baseman who had headed the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) since 2013. He resigned on Tuesday, just months ahead of the expected start of bargaining for a new labor contract. The current deal expires on 1 December.

The Starforge Explorer III Pro is a big, exceptional machine that delivers stellar performance and value.

Two law professors outline strategies for equality’s survival in a Trumpian post-DEI era in new book How Equality Wins

The Trump administration’s “war on woke” seems to have claimed its biggest victim in DEI. Not so long ago, diversity, equity and inclusion was the favorite term of Fortune 500 CEOs and the political elite. More recently, it has been blamed for everything from the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and the deadly Los Angeles wildfires to the crash between a regional jet and a helicopter in Washington DC.

“DEI means people DIE,” Elon Musk wrote last year.

As Trump slashes science funding, young researchers flee abroad. Without solid innovation, the US could cease to have the largest biomedical ecosystem in the world

In April 2025, less than three months after Donald Trump returned to the White House, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put out its latest public health alert on so-called “superbugs”, strains of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

These drug-resistant germs, the CDC warned, are responsible for more than 3m infections in the US each year, claiming the lives of up to 48,000 Americans.

Whatever type of sci-fi you're looking for, Prime Video has it.

While the court denied prosecutors’ request for the death penalty, the life sentence imposed on Yoon Suk Yeol is a pivotal moment for South Korea’s democracy.

Police assessing if Mountbatten-Windsor shared sensitive information with Jeffrey Epstein. Plus: how plastic production has doubled

Good morning.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

What other information has the force shared? Thames Valley police previously said they were reviewing allegations that a woman was trafficked to the UK by Epstein to have a sexual encounter with Andrew.

This is a developing story: follow the latest updates.

What is the ISF? According to the UN, which authorized the creation of a temporary force, the ISF will be tasked with securing Gaza’s border and maintaining peace within the area. It’s also supposed to protect civilians, and train and support “vetted Palestinian police forces”.

What about in case of renewed war? It’s unclear what the ISF’s rules of engagement would be if there was combat, renewed bombing by Israel, or Hamas attacks.

What other news is there from Gaza? A Lancet study has found that the death toll in the first 16 months of the war in Gaza was far higher than reported.

MLS stakeholders want to turn the interest in this summer’s North American World Cup into ‘rocket fuel’ for the league. Are those realistic expectations?

In 1988, a full eight years before Major League Soccer debuted, it got its first “World Cup bump”.

Fifa had just awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States, but there was a stipulation. The US could host the tournament, but only if there was a competitive club league in place by the time it rolled around, something that hadn’t been true since the North American Soccer League collapsed in 1985. Tournament organisers missed that 1994 deadline, but two years later, MLS became a reality. Thirty years on, it is still here.

The US president’s relentless self-aggrandizement spree continues amid hypocrisy and shifting explanations

As a real estate developer, Donald Trump built his empire on ostentatious displays of wealth, substantial tax breaks – and lots of free publicity. As president, he has deployed the power of the state to expand his personal brand, adding his name to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the US Institute of Peace, a class of new navy warships, and even investment accounts for millions of children.

Trump is now eyeing yet more grandiose targets in his self-aggrandizement spree. He wants Congress to rename New York’s Penn Station and Washington Dulles international airport in his honor. But there’s a catch: Trump reportedly told Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, that he would unfreeze billions of dollars in federal funding for a major infrastructure project in the north-east – if Schumer supported renaming the two sites.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University

For a month, Michael Rectenwald had been trying to get Nick Fuentes to notice him. Rectenwald had a new political action committee devoted to anti-Zionism, and he hoped the far-right influencer would promote it to his legions of perpetually online, often antisemitic fans. But Rectenwald, a former New York University professor and one-time presidential hopeful, had struggled to stand out to the ascendant Fuentes, who has come to symbolize the formerly fringe extremes of the online right. So in October, Rectenwald posted something sure to catch Fuentes’s eye: “Nick has sold out to the cabal.”

It worked. “Fuck you,” Fuentes wrote back. 

This was Rectenwald’s shot. He apologized, calling Fuentes “a brilliant guy.” He reposted an uncannily gorgeous, computer-generated woman in a cross necklace and blazer encouraging the two men to “drop the beef.” She sat in front of an American flag and six light-up letters spelling “AZAPAC,” the acronym for Rectenwald’s new group. If Fuentes would just endorse it, Rectenwald promised, he’d “take it all back.”

Rectenwald launched the Anti-Zionist America Political Action Committee in August, vowing to fight to end U.S. financial and military aid to Israel and root out pro-Israel influence in Congress. AZAPAC aims to raise money to unseat pro-Israel legislators in the coming midterm elections, targeting some of the main recipients of cash from influential groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Democratic Majority for Israel.

It’s a goal that might sound appealing for the electoral left, whose members have long struggled to make meaningful progress on Palestinian rights in Washington, D.C., largely because of the strong grip the pro-Israel lobby holds on U.S. politicians. And as Israel’s genocide in Gaza stretches into a third year, AZAPAC’s policy goals may tap into a political energy currently unaddressed by either major party: growing anti-Israel sentiment on the right.

Though the Republican party loudly backs Israel and its war effort, far-right online spaces are growing increasingly critical of Israel. While accusations of antisemitism from the pro-Israel mainstream often dog Israel’s critics on the left, they appear as little cause for concern to far-right figures and their followers. As the nonpartisan AZAPAC works to sway the 2026 midterms, Rectenwald’s group will test whether candidates across the political spectrum will be similarly pressed on the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

Related

Israeli Military Found Gaza Health Ministry Death Toll Was Accurate. Will These Deniers Admit It?

The AZAPAC founder has attempted to connect with openly antisemitic figures like Fuentes, a Holocaust denier who famously praised Hitler. Rectenwald is a regular on The Stew Peters Show, which streams on the Peter Thiel and JD Vance-funded YouTube alternative Rumble, where the host has used slurs to describe Jewish and Black people — to no objection from Rectenwald. He’s courted support from popular manosphere influencer Dan Bilzerian, an antisemitic conspiracy theorist who has falsely claimed Jewish people are behind DEI policies, transgender identity, and “open borders.” AZAPAC is helping fund at least one candidate who is a Hitler apologist and another who has participated in white nationalist demonstrations.    

In a conversation with The Intercept, Rectenwald made clear he’s aware such affiliations could be detrimental to his cause. He said he is no longer seeking the support of Fuentes, though he remains interested in his fan base — they’re “more sincere than him on some things” — and that he was unaware of “the depth of” Bilzerian’s antisemitic views, which are well–documented online.   

Asked about Peters’s language, Rectenwald told The Intercept he would no longer appear on his show, then reversed and said he didn’t want to “throw him under the bus.” Peters, Rectenwald added, has “helped us quite a bit.”

Affiliating with such figures perpetuates harmful and often violent rhetoric toward Jewish people, antisemitism and hate speech experts told The Intercept, and in the most extreme cases, conspiracy theories can motivate violence, as occurred when a white nationalist shooter massacred worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.  

These antisemitic allyships also risk undermining legitimate criticism of the state of Israel — a heightened liability at a time when the federal government and its pro-Israel allies have launched largely spurious claims of antisemitism against advocates on the left who support Palestine and oppose Israel’s genocide. 

“If we give any quarter to antisemitism anywhere near our movements, we are opening ourselves up to the charges from Israel’s defenders,” said Ben Lorber, an author and researcher of antisemitism and white Christian nationalism. “It stands to really harm the movement.”

Rectenwald appears to understand what he’s risking. After The Intercept reached out to AZAPAC-endorsed candidates for this story, two rejected the group’s backing and were scrubbed from the site, and a third threatened to do the same. Rectenwald accused The Intercept of trying to sink his PAC.

Rectenwald himself has used language commonly associated with antisemitic conspiracy theories of global Jewish control, and he argues that other Israel critics embrace similar language. Online, he regularly refers to “the Jewish mafia” and “Jewish elites,” and last April, he self-published a novel called “The Cabal Question.” He originally wanted to call it “The Jewish Question,” as he said on a podcast, but Amazon barred him from using the title. 

“We don’t use the same language and talk about the same things with the same terms,” Rectenwald told The Intercept, referring to Peters. And yet, he said, “I do believe he’s doing pretty good work in terms of exposing the Zionist network and what it’s up to.” He said a significant portion of AZAPAC’s early donations arrived after his appearances on Peters’s show, which also runs commercials for the group.

During a September episode while introducing Rectenwald, Peters referred to Jewish people using a common antisemitic slur. A month earlier, he used an anti-Black slur to describe Department of Justice attorney Leo Terrell in another episode with Rectenwald. In that episode, Peters said the U.S. is “occupied” by “anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-American Jews who are not just working on behalf of Israel, but on behalf of a more broad, satanic, Talmudic agenda that’s taken shape over thousands of years.” 

Rectenwald promised Peters in his August appearance that AZAPAC does not have “infiltrators,” “dual allegiances,” or “sneaky Jews coming in and running the show.” He closed out the episode by offering Peters an invite — which he told The Intercept has since been rescinded — to be a member of AZAPAC’s board.

The 2026 Slate

An AZAPAC ad launched in November and produced by the far-right company Dissident Media shows Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu shaking hands, Palestinian children killed by Israel, re-enactments of the American Revolution — and the red, clawed hands of a puppet master manipulating strings overlaying a mashup of the American and Israeli flags. 

Rectenwald told The Intercept that he was not aware “puppet master” was a well-known antisemitic trope and that the strings represented the pro-Israeli donor class’s influence on the Trump administration. Plus, the trailer was a success: Donations poured in as it drew attention online, Rectenwald said.  

AZAPAC had raised $111,556 by the end of December, according to recent FEC filings.  

Of AZAPAC’s 10 publicly endorsed candidates, six are running as Republicans with three Democrats and a Libertarian on its slate. The group is more focused on Republicans, Rectenwald said, because he aims to put a dent in the GOP’s pro-Israel base. AZAPAC is backing Aaron Baker, for example, an America First conservative who is running to unseat Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., a vocal supporter of Israel and Netanyahu.

Related

AIPAC Is Retreating From Endorsements and Election Spending. It Won’t Give Up Its Influence.

At least one AZAPAC candidate drew national headlines five years ago. Tyler Dykes, a Republican candidate running for Rep. Nancy Mace’s congressional seat in South Carolina, was famously accused of performing a Nazi salute, which he denies, while storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and later pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers with a stolen riot shield. (Trump pardoned Dykes on his first day in office.) Dykes also received a felony conviction for his participation in the 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where organizers protested the removal of a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and yelled, “Jews will not replace us.”

Reached by The Intercept, Dykes said in an emailed statement he denounces “violence and extremism in all its forms.” He added that “Robert E. Lee was a hero, and deserves to be honored as such.”

Rectenwald told The Intercept that AZAPAC’s board had vetted Dykes and other candidates. He said he was willing to tolerate certain disagreements with the candidates and their views. The endorsements, Rectenwald said, are “a pragmatism of sorts.” 

“We don’t agree with all of these candidates,” Rectenwald said. “We’re trying to put together a coalition of sometimes very unlikely bedfellows, if you will.”

AZAPAC’s endorsement process is primarily based on a 19-part questionnaire, which Rectenwald shared with The Intercept. It asks things like whether a candidate would pledge not to receive campaign donations from prominent pro-Israel groups or “any other foreign lobby/PAC”; what they think of laws restricting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement or imposing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism; and whether they would vote to end military aid to Israel.

The group’s contradictions are perhaps best captured by two brief recent endorsements: two former American soldiers, Anthony Aguilar and Greg Stoker, running for Congress as progressive Green Party candidates. As a contractor working with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Aguilar, who is running in North Carolina, became a whistleblower alleging that GHF employees were firing into crowds of starving civilians at aid sites. Stoker, running in Texas, took part in last year’s Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian mission meant to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

Their AZAPAC endorsements were short-lived. 

After receiving questions from The Intercept about Rectenwald’s language and AZAPAC’s associations with far-right figures, both Aguilar and Stoker rejected the group’s backing. Mentions of them had been erased from AZAPAC’s online presence by Tuesday.

In explaining his withdrawal, Aguilar’s campaign acknowledged that anti-genocide and anti-Zionist activists “are falsely accused on antisemitism on a regular basis” to discredit their work. “For that reason, we want to avoid being associated with any group whose statements or actions raise credible concerns of actual antisemitism,” Aguilar’s campaign manager said in a statement.

Stoker told The Intercept that “I have always used my platform to fight against racial superiority,” adding that AZAPAC’s narrow focus on “old conspiracy theories” and eradicating the pro-Zionist lobby “is not going to fix any of the larger systemic issues facing working class Americans.”

Christine Reyna, a professor at De Paul University who studies the psychology of extremism, questioned why AZAPAC would endorse candidates like Dykes and Casey Putsch, a racecar driver and AZAPAC-backed Republican candidate for Ohio governor. In August, Putsch posted a video asking Grok to list “all the good things Adolf Hitler did or was responsible for creating in his life” and railed against the Jewish right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro, whom he called “an annoying little rodent.” While there’s a growing number of other candidates who oppose sending military aid to Israel or have sworn off AIPAC donations, backing candidates like Putsch and Dykes could serve as a dog whistle, Reyna said, to some of the most extreme corners of the far right.

“When you package these really frightening and terrible and dangerous ideologies and you hide them behind this front-facing organization that gives them legitimacy,” Reyna said, “That can be extremely dangerous.”

Aligning with such America First nationalists, who tend to ignore the issue of America’s own ambitions of control and profit, can harm other communities, antisemitism researcher Lorber warned, because of their anti-Blackness, xenophobia, or anti-LGBTQ views. In the case of Israel, these far-right alliances can also injure the movement for Palestinian liberation, he said.

“If we get distracted chasing fantasies of Jewish cabals, it harms our analysis, it makes our work less informed and less effective,” Lorber said, “and it also divides our movements.”

Palestinian-American advocate and analyst Tariq Kenney-Shawa, whose family is from Gaza, is acutely aware of the ways pro-Israel institutions have attacked anti-Zionist work for being antisemitic. He said those bad-faith attacks were why he was concerned about AZAPAC’s affiliations with the far right, which has long rooted its criticism of Israel in “actually racist and antisemitic” beliefs. 

“There is a big umbrella for a movement against unconditional support for Israel,” Kenney-Shawa said. “But neo Nazis and far-right antisemites will never be welcome in that.”  

The day after federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Putsch, who did not respond to outreach from The Intercept, doubled down on his support for ICE’s mass deportation campaign. On social media, Putsch, who is Christian, often attacks his opponent Vivek Ramaswamy’s Hindu faith and Indian ancestry. On his campaign site, his platform includes anti-immigrant calls to “accelerate deportations” and limit the number of H-1B visas offered to immigrant workers.

His platform makes no mention of Israel or foreign policy.

The Founder’s Journey

“Maybe one time I failed to say Zionist,” Rectenwald told The Intercept, acknowledging that on occasion, he has used the words “Jew” or “Jewish” instead. A search of his X account turned up at least 43 references to the “Jewish mafia,” and he’s repeatedly invoked the “Jewish elite” on his Substack. He claimed to have borrowed the latter term from Norm Finkelstein, a pro-Palestinian author and activist who, unlike Rectenwald, is Jewish himself. 

“It’s not just an ‘israeli lobby.’ LOL. It’s a Talmudic Jewish mafia that runs the U.S. and the world,” Rectenwald wrote in one post in March. The same day, he claimed that “the Jewish mafia did 9/11.”

When The Intercept asked about Rectenwald’s use of the term “Zionist Occupation Government,” which has a history of popularity among white supremacists, he brought up AZAPAC-backed candidates like Bernard Taylor, a firefighter and Democrat hoping to unseat Florida Republican Rep. Brian Mast, a former IDF volunteer. Rectenwald cited Taylor, who is Black, as proof that “we are not like bigots,” adding that AZAPAC planned to endorse other people of color.

Taylor, who accepted an endorsement from AZAPAC in December, said he also was not aware of Rectenwald’s rhetoric until approached by The Intercept for this story.

“I’m not gonna sit here and say it’s not concerning to me,” Taylor told The Intercept in a phone call, referring to Rectenwald’s language. In an emailed statement, he said his campaign rejects antisemitism, racism, and white supremacy, but would keep the AZAPAC endorsement based on policy. Taylor said that if he feels AZAPAC is “crossing the line” into overt antisemitism, he will reject its endorsement and refund donations from the group.

“If I made, you know, some slips here and there, it isn’t intentional — I’m not trying to dog whistle to anybody,” Rectenwald said. “I’m just trying to be precise, and sometimes, you know, precision is difficult.” 

In “The Cabal Question,” Rectenwald’s self-published novel, a former professor finds his worldview transformed when a friend “thrusts him into the JQ,” or Jewish question, as the book’s Amazon summary puts it, working with “a steadfast ex-occultist turned Christian nationalist to trace the strands of the cabal’s reach.” The story mirrors his own evolution of getting “J-pilled,” or “Jew-pilled,” Rectenwald has said, though he insists the novel is not about promoting antisemitism but rather “a Christian redemption story.”

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Rectenwald once identified as a leftist. He taught liberal studies as a Marxist at New York University — until a fallout that began in 2016, when it was revealed that he was behind the since-deleted Twitter account @AntiPCNYUProf with the screen name “Deplorable NYU Professor.” Rectenwald used the account to act “in the guise of an alt-righter,” as a way to argue against politically correct use of pronouns, trigger warnings, and safe spaces.  

He took a paid leave from NYU and claimed he was a victim of liberal censorship in a splashy op-ed and a sit-down on Fox & Friends. When he came back, Rectenwald invited far-right activist Milo Yiannopoulos to speak to his class and later sued NYU for defamation. Court records indicate the case was dropped with prejudice, and Rectenwald said he settled out of court for a cash payment in exchange for his departure from the school in 2019.

NYU did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. 

The experience prompted Rectenwald to denounce the left and his several decades of Marxist scholarship, and in 2024, he launched a failed bid for president as a Libertarian, representing the conservative Mises Caucus.

It’s unclear when his fixation on Israel and antisemitic conspiracy theories took hold. But on the right-wing podcast The Backlash in May, Rectenwald used the protagonist of “The Cabal Question” to describe how his views developed. 

In the book, Rectenwald said, the main character flees persecution and surveillance from the government controlled by “the Jewish mafia.” The character ends up finding refuge with “radical right wingers,” who help him escape the country. The more closely he affiliates with the right-wing network, however, the more he risks damaging his own reputation. 

“Art imitates life, right?” said the host. Rectenwald agreed.

The post A New PAC Wants to Counter Israel’s Influence. It Also Welcomes Hitler Apologists. appeared first on The Intercept.

If you’re dealing with hair loss, these vitamins can help you on your way to a fuller head of hair.

Officers devise unusual plan to arrest man suspected of stealing about $64,000 worth of Buddhist artefacts

Thai police donned a lion costume during this week’s lunar new year festivities to arrest a man accused of stealing about $64,000 worth of Buddhist artefacts.

Dressed as a red-and-yellow lion, officers made the arrest on Wednesday evening after responding to a report this month of a home burglary in the suburbs of Bangkok.

Nintendo Switch 2; Nintendo
This ruthlessly competitive game will have everyone from your granny to semi-pros trying to set fire to their opponent’s side of the court with powered-up ‘fever rackets’

Tennis has been a regular hobby of Mario’s for the past 30 years, beginning with the headache-inducing Mario’s Tennis on the Virtual Boy and most recently resurfacing as the surprisingly complex Mario Tennis Aces on the Switch. Now he’s back in his whites (and reds) with a charming new take on the sport that dials back the difficulty level and adds lots of fun modes and features, aiming to appease complete newcomers and Djokovic-esque veterans.

At first, the range of options is almost bewildering. You can opt to play in one-off matches with up to three other players or NPCs, or enter a more structured tournament of singles or doubles play. Then there’s the extremely fun Mix It Up, which offers a range of fun tennis derivatives. These include Forest Court where piranha plants appear and gobble any balls that get close, and Pinball where bumpers and barriers pop up as you play. Trial Towers, meanwhile, presents a tower of increasingly tough tennis challenges which all have to be completed to open the next two buildings; fail more than three times and you’re sent back to the beginning – yes, it’s Mario Tennis: The Roguelike.

Exclusive: approximately 350-acre compound planned as base for multinational force, according to records reviewed by the Guardian

The Trump administration is planning to build a 5,000-person military base in Gaza, sprawling more than 350 acres, according to Board of Peace contracting records reviewed by the Guardian.

The site is envisioned as a military operating base for a future International Stabilization Force (ISF), planned as a multinational military force composed of pledged troops. The ISF is part of the newly created Board of Peace which is meant to govern Gaza. The Board of Peace is chaired by Donald Trump and led in part by his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The built-in basket keeps socks from disappearing and protects your favorite sweaters from the harsh realities of regular washing.

Critics have questioned why the federal government should underwrite coverage costs for people with ACA health plans — but almost all health insurance in the U.S. comes with some federal help.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Although Delaware’s school districts already have policies on cellphone use in the classroom, a bill that would require districts and charters to establish policies restricting cellphone use is awaiting Gov. Matt Meyer’s signature. Some school districts have looked to update their existing policies ahead of the bill’s implementation.

The Christina School District is requiring students at five of its schools to stow away their phones in locked pouches – a move that highlights the costly but escalating prohibitions on the use of cellphones in classrooms across the state. 

The new policy is a six-month pilot program that replaces a looser cellphone ban in classrooms. It also comes in response to the introduction of Senate Bill 106, which state lawmakers passed last month and currently awaits the governor’s signature.   

In recent year, schools across the country have been banning phones in various ways, in response to their disruptive apps and their distracting ringtones. A survey conducted in 2024 by Pew Research found that 72% of U.S. high school teachers said cellphone distraction is a major problem within their classrooms.

Christina Director of Student Services and Whole Child Support Gina Moody said the district may eventually update its existing cellphone policy for all of its schools with stricter policies. Whether they adopt lockable pouches districtwide will depend on the cost and success of the pilot program. 

At least five other Delaware school districts have policies that direct at least some of their schools to require students to place phones in such locked pouches.

“We’re going through some recreating and updating based off of Senate Bill 106, but also because we just feel it’s good to have,” Moody said.

SB 106 would require that every school district and charter school in the state set a policy limiting phone usage during instructional time. It also requires that schools set consequences for students violating the cellphone policy, and that those include exceptions for emergencies.

The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Eric Buckson (R-Dover) and Rep. Kim Williams (D-Stanton), passed both the House and the Senate last month. 

A spokeswoman for Gov. Matt Meyer confirmed he plans on signing the legislation “later in March.”

Existing phone policies in Delaware

All 19 of Delaware’s school districts already limit cellphone use in class, but the policies vary widely.

Some, such as the Sussex Vocational Technical School District, require students to place their phones in a “designated area like a caddy box upon entering class.” 

Others, like the Seaford School District, which updated its existing phone policy last month, have different requirements for differing grade levels. 

Seaford’s elementary students must have their devices powered off and kept out of sight all day. In middle school, students are able to use their phones in the morning, before the school day begins, and in the afternoon after it ends. 

Seaford’s policy for high schoolers simply says phones cannot disrupt student learning, and “any approved program at the high school which expands the use of technology for educational purposes will be monitored and revised as needed.”

Buckson told Spotlight Delaware last spring that he had learned about other districts’ phone policies while drafting the bill, and said they “gave credibility” to his desire not to rewrite regulations for districts that already have effective rules. 

He said his bill was drafted to give guidance, but not impose specific rules. 

“Maybe the pouches are something [districts are] already doing. Maybe it’s something that’s cost-prohibitive at this time, or it’s just something they don’t need to do because they’ve got other measures,” Buckson said at the time. 

Updating established policies

Although Delaware’s schools already had policies in place prior to Buckson’s bill, the legislation has inspired some districts to update those rules. 

Moody said the goal for the Christina School District is to have a “more universal process,” throughout its schools for cellphone policies. 

Currently for schools that aren’t part of its new pilot program, the district prohibits phone use during instructional time but does not completely ban phones in schools, according to a report from the Newark Post last fall. 

But Moody said educators have approached that rule in various ways from class to class. 

“You may go in some classrooms, and there are no cellphones out, and some classrooms may have them in a [cellphone pouch],” she said. 

In January, the Christina School District implemented their new pilot program in Gauger-Cobbs Middle School, Kirk Middle School, Shue-Medill Middle School, the Bayard School’s middle school students, and Newark High School. 

Students in those schools now start their day by turning their phones off and placing them in a pouch, which will remain with them throughout the school day. 

After the last bell rings, the pouches can be unlocked at “designated locations” within the school, according to the Christina School District’s website.

Moody said that at the moment, it is unclear if the district would continue with the phone pouches after the pilot program ends this school year. The district must first analyze the results from the five schools and determine whether it is financially sustainable to bring pouches to every school. 

 “If all things in place point to ‘Yes, we can do this to sustain it,’ then that would be the recommendation,” Moody said.

The post Schools consider new phone bans as bill aims to set statewide guidelines appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware’s beaches are a key part of the tourism industry, which has become a larger part of the state’s economy in recent years. The delays in their replenishment could threaten the buildings and roads on the coast and make the beaches smaller. 

Two of Delaware’s popular beaches could shrink this year after federal funding cuts delayed plans to replenish them. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers typically works with the state to fund projects that replace eroded sand on Delaware beaches, which restores dunes and protects the coastline from storm damage.

But recent federal budget cuts have delayed nearly $20 million worth of replenishment projects at Dewey Beach and Rehoboth Beach . The federal share for the work is more than $15 million, according to a spokesman for Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. 

Those projects were scheduled to begin last fall, but now will not start until at least 2027, DNREC Secretary Gregory Patterson said.

Delaware’s beaches need regular replenishment because the force of ocean waves continuously washes away sand. Now, with the current delays, the risk of coastal flooding could be heightened. 

Those beaches also are the center of Delaware’s tourism industry.

“We need beach nourishment for the economy, not only of the coastal towns but of the entire state,” Dewey Beach Town Manager Bill Zolper said.

Asked how concerned he is about the delays, Patterson said he holds a “seven out of 10 level of concern,” because the beaches protect critical infrastructure, such as Route 1.

In August 2024, beach erosion contributed to the flooding that prompted the Delaware Department of Transportation to shut down part of Route 1 near the Indian River Inlet.

Patterson said he is working with Delaware’s congressional delegation to secure funding for the projects in next year’s budget. 

He said he may try to schedule all beach replenishment projects in Delaware at the same time to save money. A large part of the cost is simply getting the equipment to the project site, he said.

‘Risks to life and property’

Now is not the only time Delawareans have experienced delays in federal funding for coastal protection. 

In October, Gov. Matt Meyer wrote an open letter to President Donald Trump asking for emergency coastal restoration funds following nor’easters that “severely damaged Delaware’s shoreline.”

“More delays will only increase risks to life and property and drive-up long-term disaster recovery costs,” he said. 

Asked on Tuesday at a press conference about the letter, Meyer said he is “having constructive conversations” with the federal government. A spokesperson from Meyer’s administration later said she could not provide more specific information. 

Zolper, Dewey Beach’s town manager, said his town also nearly lost federal funding for another flood prevention project last year. 

Before leaving office, former President Joe Biden confirmed a $1 million grant for the town to build a pump station to get floodwater back into Rehoboth Bay. But the Trump administration later put the grant “on hold,” Zolper said. 

Last month, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) was able to secure the grant again, allowing the project to move forward. The pump station is expected to be completed in the summer of 2028. 

As for the oceanside of the town, Zolper said the dunes that protect it from flooding are in good condition now. But further delays to the beach replenishment project could degrade those dunes. 

“There will be more of a chance of homes being destroyed,” he said.

The post Delaware beach replenishment projects delayed by federal funding cuts  appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Why Should Delaware Care?
A new partnership between two of Delaware’s largest health care systems and a Philadelphia medical school aims to expand rural access to health care by placing more medical students in Kent and Sussex county hospitals. The announcement comes shortly after Gov. Matt Meyer began looking for formal partners to help launch Delaware’s first ever medical school.

As Delaware begins work on launching its first medical school, two of its largest health care systems are collaborating on a new program to bring a handful of medical students from Philadelphia to Kent and Sussex counties.

ChristianaCare, Bayhealth and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) announced a new partnership Wednesday that will bring five new third-year medical school students to train in southern Delaware beginning this summer.

Called the Delaware Clinical Community Campus, the new partnership is meant to “expand undergraduate medical education and attract more physicians to practice in central and southern Delaware,” according to ChristianaCare’s announcement of the new venture. 

ChristianaCare has long partnered with PCOM, bringing medical students to its hospitals in northern Delaware for clinical training. This new initiative is a buildout of that program, bringing in Bayhealth as a new host hospital at which medical students will train. 

In the ChristianaCare statement, Bayhealth Chief Medical Officer Dr. Gary Siegelman said bringing medical students to southern Delaware to train could “encourage them to establish their practices right here in Delaware.”

“This directly addresses our workforce needs in underserved areas and enhances access to high-quality care for the patients we serve every day,” he said.

According to the statement, students will complete their core clinical rotations at Bayhealth and ChristianaCare facilities in Kent and Sussex counties, as the program is geared toward expanding rural health care access. The students’ training will include stints in various specialties, including primary care, OB-GYN and psychiatry. 

But there will also be “additional opportunities” at ChristianaCare’s New Castle County facilities.

A spokesperson for ChristianaCare did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Spotlight Delaware on Wednesday afternoon about these northern Delaware opportunities.

The rural partnership will eventually be open to all PCOM students, but this year’s first class of five students will all be Delaware residents who take part in the Delaware Institute of Medical Education and Research (DIMER) program.

DIMER is a partnership between Delaware health care systems and Philadelphia-area medical schools that secures admission opportunities for Delawareans at PCOM and the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. Bayhealth and ChristianaCare then serve as facilities where medical students complete clinical training.

The new partnership comes on the heels of Gov. Matt Meyer’s announcement late last year that he would use a swath of federal grant money to build Delaware’s first-ever medical school. 

The state formally began the process of seeking partners to help start up and operate the new school earlier this month. 

It remains unclear if any of the parties involved in the Delaware Clinical Community Campus – ChristianaCare, Bayhealth and PCOM – will vie for the opportunity to take part in jumpstarting the First State’s first medical school.

The post New collaboration to bring Philly med students to Kent, Sussex counties appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report. Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector's explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacenters, the analysis of 154 statements found. The research, commissioned by nonprofits including Beyond Fossil Fuels and Climate Action Against Disinformation, did not find a single example where popular tools such as Google's Gemini or Microsoft's Copilot were leading to a "material, verifiable, and substantial" reduction in planet-heating emissions. Ketan Joshi, an energy analyst and author of the report, said the industry's tactics were "diversionary" and relied on tried and tested methods that amount to "greenwashing." He likened it to fossil fuel companies advertising their modest investments in solar panels and overstating the potential of carbon capture. "These technologies only avoid a minuscule fraction of emissions relative to the massive emissions of their core business," said Joshi. "Big tech took that approach and upgraded and expanded it." [...] Joshi said the discourse around AI's climate benefits needed to be "brought back to reality." "The false coupling of a big problem and a small solution serves as a distraction from the very preventable harms being done through unrestricted datacenter expansion," he said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Deal agreed to acquire British secondhand fashion resale app from Etsy as eBay attempts to fend off Amazon

The online retailer eBay has agreed to buy the British secondhand fashion resale app Depop from Etsy for about $1.2bn (£890m) in cash, as eBay targets younger fashion-loving consumers.

The deal comes at a time when secondhand marketplaces continue to soar in popularity, especially among gen Z shoppers – born between 1997 and 2012 – amid a squeeze on household incomes and concerns about sustainability in fashion.

Ex-leader sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour over failed martial law declaration in 2024

A South Korean court has sentenced the former president Yoon Suk Yeol to life imprisonment with labour over his failed martial law declaration in December 2024, finding him guilty of leading an insurrection and making him the first elected head of state in the country’s democratic era to receive the maximum custodial sentence.

The Seoul central district court found that Yoon’s declaration of martial law on 3 December 2024 constituted insurrection, carried out with the intent to disrupt the constitutional order.

French president rejects US criticism as António Guterres and Narendra Modi warn on child safety and AI monopolies

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Emmanuel Macron has hit back at US criticism of Europe’s efforts to regulate AI, vowing to protect children from “digital abuse” during France’s presidency of the G7.

Speaking at the AI Impact summit in Delhi, the French president called for tougher safeguards after global outrage over Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot being used to generate tens of thousands of sexualised images of children, and amid mounting concern about the concentration of AI power in a handful of companies.

According to Lara Trump, Donald Trump has prepared but not yet delivered a speech about extraterrestrial life, though the White House says such a speech would be "news to me." White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt continued: "I'll have to check in with our speech writing team. Uh, and that would be of great interest to me personally, and I'm sure all of you in this room and apparently former President Obama, too." The Hill reports: Lara Trump, speaking on the Pod Force One podcast, said the president has played coy when she and her husband Eric have asked about the existence of UFO's and aliens. "We've kind of asked my father-in-law about this... we all want to know about the UFOs... and he played a little coy with us," Lara Trump said. "I've heard kind of around, I think my father-in-law has actually said it, that there is some speech that he has, that I guess at the right time, I don't know when the right time is, he's going to break out and talk about and it has to do with maybe some sort of extraterrestrial life." Obama has clarified in recent days that he has seen no evidence that aliens are real, after comments he made on a podcast with Brian Tyler Cohen seeming to confirm his knowledge of extraterrestrial life went viral. "They're real but I haven't seen them," Obama said on the podcast. "And they're not being kept in... what is it? Area 51. There's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States." Later, in a post on Instagram, Obama clarified that he was trying to answer in the light-hearted spirit of a speed round of questions and that, "Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there's life out there." "But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we've been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a fiery speech in Los Angeles, the Vermont senator criticizes ‘grotesque’ levels of economic inequality

Billionaires are “treading on very, very thin ice,” Bernie Sanders warned on Wednesday during a fiery speech in Los Angeles, imploring California voters to fight “grotesque” levels of economic inequality by approving a proposed tax on the state’s richest residents.

The Vermont senator railed against the “greed”, “arrogance” and “moral turpitude” of the nation’s “ruling class”, calling it “fairly disgusting” that some ultra-wealthy tech leaders have fled California – or are threatening to do so, if the proposed wealth tax becomes law.

Television outranks laptops, tablets and smartphones across all age groups, according to audience review

The television has replaced laptops, tablets and smartphones as the most common device for UK viewers to watch YouTube at home, according to data confirming the platform’s place as a living room mainstay.

More than half of all YouTube viewing through a domestic wifi connection is now done through the traditional TV, making it the top-ranking YouTube device across all age groups.

New Ark United Church of Christ is evaluating proposals from potential partners that would help the congregation redevelop its Main Street property into an affordable housing complex.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Feb. 19.

Programme that funds groups building tech to evade oppressive government controls under serious threat

For nearly two decades, the US quietly funded a global effort to keep the internet from splintering into fiefdoms run by authoritarian governments. Now that money is seriously threatened and a large part of it is already gone, putting into jeopardy internet freedoms around the world.

Managed by the US state department and the US Agency for Global Media, the programme – broadly called Internet Freedom – funds small groups all over the world, from Iran to China to the Philippines, who built grassroots technologies to evade internet controls imposed by governments. It has dispensed well over $500m (£370m) in the past decade, according to an analysis by the Guardian, including $94m in 2024.

People like me were targets of the Islamophobia that gripped the west after the US-led ‘war on terror’. Now I fear a chilling sequel is on the way

Twenty-five years ago, George W Bush persuaded European leaders to back his “war on terror”. That disastrous project cost millions of lives and caused mass displacement of people from across the Middle East. It normalised racism and hatred for Muslims, refugees and racialised minorities in the US and Europe. I fear Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, with its calls to defend white, western, Christian civilisation against supposedly contaminating racialised migrants – and the standing ovation he received from European elites – may mark a chilling sequel.

Rubio’s language of a shared and superior American and European civilisation differs from that of his bosses, Donald Trump and JD Vance. His tone is more emollient but his outreach is conspiratorial. Rubio talks of migration and identity and civilisational anxiety, rather than terrorism and hard security threats as Bush once did. In his Munich speech, Rubio flattered Europeans about the continent’s colonial past. He denied preaching a message of xenophobia or hate, and instead framed his call to defend national borders as entirely respectable, dutiful and a “fundamental act of sovereignty”.

Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons Project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Why Beijing holds the power in the century ahead.

Newark Liberty International Airport reopened Wednesday evening after an aircraft emergency caused a ground stop.

Despite Trump’s opposition to annexation, Israel has moved to expand control over the West Bank — to the condemnation of Britain and others at a U.N. Security Council meeting.

Abandoned beaches, public health warning signs and seagulls eating human waste are now features of the popular coastline in New Zealand

A tide of anger is rising in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, as the city’s toilets continue to flush directly into the ocean more than two weeks after the catastrophic collapse of its wastewater treatment plant.

Millions of litres of raw and partially screened sewage have been pouring into pristine reefs and a marine reserve along the south coast daily since 4 February, prompting a national inquiry, as the authorities struggle to get the decimated plant operational.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The first shot has been fired in the legal war over the Environmental Protection Agency's rollback of its "endangerment finding," which had been the foundation for federal climate regulations. Environmental and health groups filed a lawsuit on Wednesday morning in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, arguing that the E.P.A.'s move to eliminate limits on greenhouse gases from vehicles, and potentially other sources, was illegal. The suit was triggered by last week's decision by the E.P.A. to kill one of its key scientific conclusions, the endangerment finding, which says that greenhouse gases harm public health. The finding had formed the basis for climate regulations in the United States. The lawsuit claims that the agency is rehashing arguments that the Supreme Court already considered, and rejected, in a landmark 2007 case, Massachusetts v. E.P.A. The issue is likely to end up back before the Supreme Court, which is now far more conservative. In the 2007 case, the justices ruled that the E.P.A. was required to issue a scientific determination as to whether greenhouse gases were a threat to public health under the 1970 Clean Air Act and to regulate them if they were. As a result, two years later, in 2009, the E.P.A. issued the endangerment finding, allowing the government to limit greenhouse gas emissions, which cause climate change. "With this action, E.P.A. flips its mission on its head," said Hana Vizcarra, a senior lawyer at the nonprofit Earthjustice, which is representing six groups in the lawsuit. "It abandons its core mandate to protect human health and the environment to boost polluting industries and attempts to rewrite the law in order to do so." [...] Also on Wednesday, two other nonprofit law firms filed their own lawsuit against the E.P.A. over the endangerment finding, on behalf of 18 youth plaintiffs. That suit, by Our Children's Trust and Public Justice, argues that the E.P.A.'s move was unconstitutional. Separate legal challenges to E.P.A. rules are generally consolidated into one case at the D.C. Circuit Court, which is where disputes involving the Clean Air Act are required to be heard. But the sheer number of groups involved could make the legal battle lengthy and complicated to manage. A three-judge panel at the Circuit Court is expected to pore over several rounds of legal briefs before oral arguments begin. Those may not take place until next year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CHARLOTTE MCQUILLAN
Staff Reporter

President Donald Trump exemplifies a new form of politics that has been on the rise: ragebaiting. The sheer outrageousness of his social media posts is hard to combat because the truth is, he is getting what he wants — our attention. 

The tameness of old politics has undergone drastic changes over the years. Real influence now rests not on policy debates but on creating the perfect sound bite — one crafted to spark outrage, dominate the news cycle and make that person’s name impossible to ignore. 

For the past nine years, Trump’s strategy has been capturing soundbites to control public attention, whether through bold statements, bent facts or reframed narratives. More often than not, this takes the form of Trump “bullying” someone for contesting his actions or words. 

In their study about long-term language trends in political leaders and institutions, authors Kayla N. Jordan, Joanna Sterling, James W. Pennebaker and Rylan L. Boyd say that Trump “is lower in analytic thinking and higher in confidence than almost any previous American president.”

This study was published in 2019, during Trump’s first term in office. It examines the language used by Trump during his presidential debates and speeches.

The research explains that while his linguistic patterns seem to make him an outlier among previous presidents, there has been a general decline in analytical thinking and a rise in confidence, reflecting longer-standing political trends. These are possible implications of modern politics changing due to the media’s rising role. 

In this new era, is there political legitimacy in “ragebaiting” Trump in return? 

Many politicians and political commentators have moved towards this idea. Two prominent voices engaging in this behavior are Governor Gavin Newsom from California and Jack Schlossberg, a New York congressional candidate and the grandson of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. Both are associated with the political left. 

Newsom and his political staffers have become President Trump’s personal problem. They have tweeted in President Trump’s distinct style and created artificial intelligence (AI) videos to make fun of him, especially in reference to the Epstein files. This has placed a target on Newsom, sparking a political battle between him and the Trump administration. 

Currently, the two are in a legal battle over Trump’s decision to send the National Guard to various cities in California. 

Schlossberg has long leveraged this style of political communication. He creates videos online using Make America Great Again (MAGA) outrage tactics to the Democratic Party’s benefit with the intention of sparking controversy. 

Schlossberg has gone after many political figures, including Trump, Vice President  JD Vance, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and his own cousin, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

“I’ve watched the other side people say that, like, ‘You’re saying crazy stuff. People aren’t gonna take you seriously. You’re — Why would you air out your stuff in broad daylight?’” Schlossberg said in an interview with People Magazine. “I’m like, ‘Are you not looking at what’s going on on the other side?’ Like, apparently nobody cares. And that’s kind of the point that I’m trying to make.”

Schlossberg is taking the outrage and throwing it right back. The goal is to engage people on both sides and start conversations, and he is getting people to talk.

With the rise of short-form media, politics has shifted from valuing expertise to caring about who has the most polarizing or ridiculous content. Trump thrives in this political climate because he is a professional at being the loudest in the room, which is why other politicians have sought to fight fire with fire. 

In this new age of politics, it is beginning to feel like a reality television show rather than America’s democratic system. With a heavily vocal presidential administration, it is essential to speak louder to be heard. 

Charlotte McQuillan is a staff reporter at The Review. Her opinions are her own and do not represent the majority opinion of The Review staff. She may be reached at @cmcquil@udel.edu. 

Lunar new year has ushered in a rare zodiac symbol with a reputation for energy and independence

As the lunar new year begins, the focus has turned to the Chinese zodiac and the arrival of the year of the fire horse – a rare pairing in the 60-year lunar cycle.

Drawing on Chinese metaphysics, the fire horse blends the horse’s reputation for energy and independence with the intensity of the fire element, giving it a distinct place in the zodiac tradition.

Feb. 18, 2026 — AWS has announced Amazon EC2 Hpc8a instances, the next generation of high performance computing optimized instance, powered by 5th Gen AMD EPYC processors (formerly code named Turin). With a maximum frequency of 4.5GHz, Hpc8a instances deliver up to 40% higher performance and up to 25% better price performance compared to Hpc7a instances, helping customers accelerate compute-intensive workloads while optimizing costs.

Built on the latest sixth-generation AWS Nitro Cards, Hpc8a instances are designed for compute-intensive, latency-sensitive HPC workloads. They are ideal for tightly coupled applications such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), weather forecasting, explicit finite element analysis (FEA), and multiphysics simulations that require fast inter-node communication and consistent high performance.

Hpc8a instances feature 192 cores, 768 GiB memory and 300 Gbps of Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) network bandwidth, enabling fast, low-latency cluster scaling for large-scale HPC workloads. Compared to Hpc7a instances, Hpc8a instances also provide up to 42% higher memory bandwidth, further improving performance for memory-intensive simulations and scientific computing workloads.

Hpc8a instances are available today in US East (Ohio) and Europe (Stockholm). Customers can purchase Hpc8a instances via Savings Plans or On-Demand instances. To get started, sign in to the AWS Management Console. For more information visit the Amazon EC2 Hpc8a instance page or AWS news blog.

Source: AWS

The post AWS Announces New High Performance Computing Amazon EC2 Hpc8a Instances appeared first on HPCwire.

Uber plans to invest $100 million in EV charging infrastructure to support current and future robotaxi fleets in cities like Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and Dallas, "eventually partner[ing] with multiple robotaxi companies on actual robotaxi deployment -- WeRide, Waabi, Lucid, Nuro, May Mobility, Momenta, and Waymo of course," reports CleanTechnica. From the report: "Cities can only unlock the full promise of autonomy and electrification if the right charging infrastructure is built for scale. That infrastructure needs to work for today's drivers and the fleets of the future," said Uber's global head of mobility, Pradeep Parameswaran. In addition to building some infrastructure itself, the company is making "utilization guarantee agreements" with EVgo for various major US cities as well as Electra, Hubber, and Ionity in Europe. On Uber's latest shareholder call, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that the company would make "targeted growth-oriented investments aligned with the 6 strategic areas of focus." That includes self-driving vehicles/robotaxis. "With the benefit of learning from multiple AV deployments around the world, we're more convinced than ever that AVs will unlock a multitrillion-dollar opportunity for Uber. AVs amplify the fundamental strengths of our platform, global scale, deep demand density, sophisticated marketplace technology, and decades of on-the-ground experience matching riders, drivers, and vehicles, all in real time," Khosrowshahi added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

So vi only has one level of undo, which is simply no longer fit for the times we live in now, and also wholly unnecessary given even the least powerful devices that might need to run vi probably have more than enough resources to give at least a few more levels of undo. What I didn’t know, however, is that vi’s limited undo behaviour is actually part of POSIX, and for full compliance, you’re going to need it. As Chris Siebenmann notes, vim and its derivatives ignore this POSIX requirement and implement multiple levels of undo in the obviously correct way.

What about nvi, the default on the BSD variants? I didn’t know this, but it has a convoluted workaround to both maintain POSIX compatibility and offer multiple levels of undo, and it’s definitely something.

Nvi has opted to remain POSIX compliant and operate in the traditional vi way, while still supporting multi-level undo. To get multi-level undo in nvi, you extend the first ‘u’ with ‘.’ commands, so ‘u..’ undoes the most recent three changes. The ‘u’ command can be extended with ‘.’ in either of its modes (undo’ing or redo’ing), so ‘u..u..’ is a no-op. The ‘.’ operation doesn’t appear to take a count in nvi, so there is no way to do multiple undos (or redos) in one action; you have to step through them by hand. I’m not sure how nvi reacts if you want do things like move your cursor position during an undo or redo sequence (my limited testing suggests that it can perturb the sequence, so that ‘.’ now doesn’t continue undoing or redoing the way vim will continue if you use ‘u’ or Ctrl-r again).

↫ Chris Siebenmann

Siebenmann lists a few other implementations and how they work with undo, and it’s interesting to see how all of them try to solve the problem in slightly different ways.

Actor allegedly also made remarks to man who dresses in drag, and was seen dancing on Bourbon Street after arrest

The actor Shia LaBeouf allegedly aimed homophobic slurs at two men – one who identifies as queer and the other who dresses in drag – as the Transformers star was arrested for purportedly battering them at a bar early on Tuesday morning in New Orleans, the victims said.

Jeffrey Damnit – who was born with the last name Klein and was listed as one of the victims by New Orleans police – said in an interview on Wednesday that he was wearing mascara, eye shadow and lipstick when LaBeouf tried to beat him up “while screaming, ‘You’re a fucking faggot’”. He also shared a cellphone video showing LaBeouf in the back of a vehicle being examined by first responders, glancing over at Damnit and saying: “Faggot.”

Lawsuit is first by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over workplace DEI in Trump’s second term

A US civil rights agency has sued a bottler and distributor of Coca-Cola products it accuses of sex discrimination over an employee networking event that excluded men, its first lawsuit over workplace diversity programs since Donald Trump took office. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, says Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast violated federal law when it hosted the event for about 250 female employees at a casino in Connecticut in September 2024.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It is owned by Kirin Holdings, a Japanese company. Coca-Cola is not a defendant in the case.

Google's Pixel 10a is essentially a flatter version of last year's Pixel 9a, keeping the same Tensor G4 chip, camera hardware, RAM, storage, and $500 price while dropping features like Pixelsnap Qi2 charging and advanced Gemini AI capabilities found in higher-end models. Gizmodo reports: We use words like "candy bar" or "slab" to describe our full-screen smartphones, but Google has designed what is likely the slabbiest phone of the modern era. During an hour-long hands-on with Google's all-new Google Pixel 10a, I slid the phone across a desk and felt oddly satisfied that it could glide as neatly as a figure skater without any hint of a camera bump hindering its path. It's the first thing I need to bring up regarding the Pixel 10a, because there's no other discernible difference between this phone and the previous-gen Pixel 9a. And that seems to be the point. The Pixel 10a starts at $500, exactly how much the Pixel 9a cost at launch. In a Q&A with journalists, Google told Gizmodo that the company wanted to offer the same price point as before. That apparently required Google to stick with the same Tensor G4 chip as last year. You still have the same storage options of 128GB or 256GB and the minimum of 8GB of RAM. Think of the Pixel 10a as a Pixel 9a with a reduced camera bump. If you're one of the heretics who uses a phone without a case, that fact alone may be enough to pay attention. Otherwise, you'll be scrounging to find any real difference between the Pixel 10a and one of last year's best mid-range phones.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An avalanche near California's Lake Tahoe​ has become the fourth deadliest in U.S. history. Here's what we know about the six deadliest slides.

Hidden in the latest developer guide for iOS 26.4 is support for "voice-based conversational apps" in CarPlay.

The Meta CEO defended his company's efforts to keep kids under 13 off of Instagram, but noted that there are "people who lie" about their ages.

Trump has not yet made a final decision about whether to strike Iran, sources told CBS News.

More than 5,000 employees have resigned, retired or been fired​ from the Justice Department in the first year of Mr. Trump's second administration.

‘Iran would be very wise to make a deal,’ says Karoline Leavitt on possibility of US strikes against Iran; CBS News reports strikes could begin as soon as Saturday

On a recent morning Eric Taylor, city manager for a small Georgia town of about 5,000 residents called Social Circle, was contacted by a staffer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“They asked me to turn on the water,” he said of a 1m sq ft warehouse nearby that the federal government recently purchased for $128m, with plans to use it for locking up as many as 10,000 detainees as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan.

Avalanches have caused deaths in Lake Tahoe area in six of past 10 years but latest slide is fourth deadliest in US history

The avalanche that killed at least eight skiers in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains occurred in the Castle Peak area, near Lake Tahoe – an area where deadly avalanches are not uncommon.

The Sierra Avalanche Center, which provides forecasts for the region, has observed at least 50 avalanches in the area near Lake Tahoe since September 2025. And according to the National Avalanche Center, which maintains a map of locations where avalanche danger is highest, risk is currently particularly high in the Lake Tahoe area.

After crew on flight 543 reported smoke in the cockpit, passengers and crew exited Airbus A320 via slides

Traffic was temporarily disrupted at Newark Liberty international airport in New Jersey on Wednesday after a Florida-bound JetBlue flight suffered an engine failure on takeoff and returned to the airport, officials said.

Crew on flight 543 reported smoke in the cockpit, and after an emergency landing, passengers and crew exited the Airbus A320 on a taxiway via slides, the Federal Aviation Administration said. No injuries were reported.

Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the Justice Department to prioritize animal welfare enforcement, in a move she said will entail stepping up prosecutions and even doling out grants to animal welfare groups.

Authorities haven't named a suspect or person of interest in Nancy Guthrie's disappearance as the search continued for a third week.

Police arrest four after incident in the Briar Hill area that left a man in his 20s dead

A man is dead and a teenage boy is in a critical condition in hospital after they were stabbed at a Northampton skate park.

Northamptonshire police launched a murder investigation after emergency services were called to the park in Ringway in the Briar Hill area on Wednesday following reports that two people had been stabbed “during an altercation”.

California wine giant Gallo is set to close one of its Bay Area production facilities, laying off nearly 100 workers there and at four other wineries and tasting rooms in Napa and Sonoma counties.

Coalition of refugee support groups says board’s ‘traumatic’ and ‘flawed’ processes are putting children at risk

A coalition of refugee support groups has called for a Home Office organisation to be axed, claiming it is putting hundreds of children at risk.

The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, which consists of more than 100 organisations including the Refugee Council, Barnardo’s and the NSPCC, has published a report analysing the performance of the Home Office’s national age assessment board (NAAB), which was set up in March 2023 to determine the ages of young asylum seekers newly arrived in the UK, often on small boats.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Meta is preparing to spend $65 million this year to boost state politicians who are friendly to the artificial intelligence industry, beginning this week in Texas and Illinois, according to company representatives. The sum is the biggest election investment by Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The company was previously cautious about campaign engagements, making small donations out of a corporate political action committee and contributing to presidential inaugurations. It also let executives like Sheryl Sandberg, who was chief operating officer, support candidates in their personal capacities. Now Meta is betting bigger on politics, driven by concerns over the regulatory threat to the artificial intelligence industry as it aims to beat back legislation in states that it fears could inhibit A.I. development, company representatives said. To do that, Meta is quietly starting two new super PACs, according to federal filings surfaced by The New York Times. One group, Forge the Future Project, is backing Republicans. Another, Making Our Tomorrow, is backing Democrats. The new PACs join two others already started by Meta, one of which is focused on California while the other is an umbrella organization that finances the company's spending in other states. In total, the four super PACs have an initial budget of $65 million, according to federal and state filings. Meta's spending is set to start this week in Illinois and Texas, where the company generally favors backing Democratic and Republican incumbents or engaging in open races rather than deposing existing officials, company representatives said in interviews. [...] Last year, Meta's public policy vice president, Brian Rice, said the company would start spending in politics because of "inconsistent regulations that threaten homegrown innovation and investments in A.I." The company started its first two super PACs, American Technology Excellence Project and Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across California. Meta put $45 million into American Technology Excellence Project in September. That money is expected, in turn, to flow to Forge the Future Project, Making Our Tomorrow and potentially to other entities. [...] In California, which has some of the country's most onerous campaign-finance disclosures, Meta in August put $20 million into Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across California, which shortens to META California. State laws require the sponsoring company to be disclosed in the name of the entity. In December, Meta put $5 million into another California committee called California Leads, which is focused on promoting moderate business policy and not A.I., according to state records.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NYU Langone’s decision comes amid Trump administration threats to cut funding to providers who treat trans youth

NYU Langone Health, one of New York City’s major hospital networks, announced this week that it will shut down its gender‑affirming care program for minors, as the Trump administration escalates threats to strip federal funding from providers that treat trans youth.

In a statement to the Guardian, spokesperson Steve Ritea said that “given the recent departure of our medical director, coupled with the current regulatory environment, we made the difficult decision to discontinue our Transgender Youth Health Program.” He added that the hospital’s pediatric mental health services will continue.

A new report points to a 2026 release for a Meta fitness watch. But the real reasons for its arriving have to do with glasses, too.

Lancet Global Health research suggests more than 75,000 killed in period, 25,000 more than announced at the time

More than 75,000 people were killed in the first 16 months of the two-year war in Gaza, at least 25,000 more than the death toll announced by local authorities at the time, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Lancet Global Health medical journal.

The research also found that reporting by the Gaza health ministry about the proportion of women, children and elderly people among those killed was accurate.

Mark Zuckerberg is testifying in a landmark Los Angeles trial examining whether Meta and other social media firms can be held liable for designing platforms that allegedly addict and harm children. NBC News reports: It's the first of a consolidated group of cases -- from more than 1,600 plaintiffs, including over 350 families and over 250 school districts -- scheduled to be argued before a jury in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Plaintiffs accuse the owners of Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snap of knowingly designing addictive products harmful to young users' mental health. Historically, social media platforms have been largely shielded by Section 230, a provision added to the Communications Act of 1934, that says internet companies are not liable for content users post. TikTok and Snap reached settlements with the first plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified in court as K.G.M., ahead of the trial. The companies remain defendants in a series of similar lawsuits expected to go to trial this year. [...] Matt Bergman, founding attorney of Social Media Victims Law Center -- which is representing about 750 plaintiffs in the California proceeding and about 500 in the federal proceeding -- called Wednesday's testimony "more than a legal milestone -- it is a moment that families across this country have been waiting for." "For the first time, a Meta CEO will have to sit before a jury, under oath, and explain why the company released a product its own safety teams warned were addictive and harmful to children," Bergman said in a statement Tuesday, adding that the moment "carries profound weight" for parents "who have spent years fighting to be heard." "They deserve the truth about what company executives knew," he said. "And they deserve accountability from the people who chose growth and engagement over the safety of their children."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Woman says she was pregnant during alleged assaults

• Lawsuit seeks monetary damages of more than $1m

• Rice was suspended to start 2025 for role in car crash

A former girlfriend of Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice filed a civil lawsuit this week in Texas alleging he assaulted her during a span from December 2023 to July 2025.

Dacoda Jones, with whom Rice has two children, said she was pregnant during many of the alleged assaults. She filed the suit on Monday in Dallas County, Texas, and is seeking damages of more than $1m, according to attorney Ron Estefan.

The USA and Canada both won in overtime to reach the men’s ice hockey last four, while Mikaela Shiffrin dominated the slalom

Women’s aerials: the qualifying rounds of accelerating down a ramp and flying through the air. Hanna Huskova, gold medallist in 2018, does a triple somersault, or the “the kiss arse blaster” in the commentator’s words, but it is only enough to leave her seventh.

Women’s curling: Back to the brushes, where Rebecca Morrison posts the final stone of the sixth end into perfect position, Team GB take two and go into a 4-3 lead against the USA with four ends left.

I got to test out Dyson's new PencilWash, which resembles the brand's slim PencilVac but with mopping capabilities.

The ride-hailing company expects to put more robotaxis in more cities this year.

• Americans rely on Quinn Hughes’s OT winner

• Mitch Marner seals Canada’s 4-3 overtime win

• Canadians lose star Sidney Crosby to injury

With NHL players returning to the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2014, these Games were expected to be a relative stroll for Canada and USA. However, both star-packed teams struggled in Wednesday’s men’s ice hockey quarter-finals.

Quinn Hughes scored in overtime to put the US past Sweden 2-1 after giving up the tying goal to Mika Zibanejad with 91 seconds left in the third period. Dylan Larkin deflected Jack Hughes’ shot in for the only US goal in regulation.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't had a Senate confirmed director since last summer, and that official was in the job for less than a month.

Google is bringing its Lyria 3 AI music model into the Gemini app, allowing users to generate 30-second songs from text, images, or video prompts directly within the chatbot. The Verge reports: Lyria 3's text-to-music capabilities allow Gemini app users to make songs by describing specific genres, moods, or memories, such as asking for an "Afrobeat track for my mother about the great times we had growing up." The music generator can make instrumental audio and songs with lyrics composed automatically based on user prompts. Users can also upload photographs and video references, which Gemini then uses to generate a track with lyrics that fit the vibe. "The goal of these tracks isn't to create a musical masterpiece, but rather to give you a fun, unique way to express yourself," Google said in its announcement blog. Gemini will add custom cover art generated by Nano Banana to songs created on the app, which aims to make them easier to share and download. Google is also bringing Lyria 3 to YouTube's Dream Track tool, which allows creators to make custom AI soundtracks for Shorts. Dream Track and Lyria were initially demonstrated with the ability to mimic the style and voice of famous performers. Google says it's been "very mindful" of copyright in the development of Lyria 3 and that the tool "is designed for original expression, not for mimicking existing artists." When prompted for a specific artist, Gemini will make a track that "shares a similar style or mood" and uses filters to check outputs against existing content.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PM says measure, also applied to deepfake nudes, is needed owing to a ‘national emergency’ of online misogyny

Deepfake nudes and “revenge porn” must be removed from the internet within 48 hours or technology firms risk being blocked in the UK, Keir Starmer has said, calling it a “national emergency” that the government must confront.

Companies could be fined millions or even blocked altogether if they allow the images to spread or be reposted after victims give notice.

Proposal to replant inside a different type of protected woodland would not replicate diversity of cleared sites used by threatened cockatoo species, conservationists say

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Property developers in Perth plan to bulldoze an endangered banksia ecosystem used by threatened black cockatoo species, and conservationists have warned the damage cannot be mitigated by proposed offsets.

The developers want to replant the banksia ecosystem within a different type of protected woodland – a proposal that a leading botanist said was doomed to fail.

This feature aims to improve the reading experience for Audible subscribers.

F9 is an L4-inspired microkernel designed for ARM Cortex-M, targeting real-time embedded systems with hard determinism requirements. It implements the fundamental microkernel principles—address spaces, threads, and IPC, while adding advanced features from industrial RTOSes.

↫ F9 kernel GitHub page

For once, not written in Rust, and comes with both an L4-style native API and a userspace POSIX API, and there’s a ton of documentation to get you started.

Feb. 18, 2026 — A multi-institution research collaboration has been scaling linear optimization problems to run on supercomputers. Through recent advancements, the collaboration calculated over 11,000 scenarios for the German energy system at unprecedented detail and accuracy, providing deeper insights for policy makers and other stakeholders.

Until recently, energy optimization researchers had not ported many of their workflows to supercomputers. Access to JUWELS at JSC helped the team scale its application to new heights. Image credit: JSC.

Global conflicts, climate change, and other sources of volatility in energy markets make it hard for decision makers to plan for a secure, sustainable power supply for the future. Mathematicians and energy researchers work with civic leaders to develop energy scenario analyses that provide a range of possibilities for future energy demands and potential challenges for meeting them. However, until recently, researchers could only efficiently create energy scenario analyses with a small number of scenarios that relied heavily on certain assumptions and did not strongly consider the influence of uncertainty on these systems.

Over the last several years, as part of the UNSEEN project, researchers have used the JURECA-DC and JUWELS Cluster supercomputers at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) to take energy scenario analysis to new heights. In its recent paper in Nature Communications, the team presented a modeling workflow that included more than 11,000 scenarios for Germany’s power system with a wide range of inputs. Taken together, these analyses deepen future prediction power related to energy costs, security of energy supply, and sustainability. Researchers from the German Aerospace Agency (DLR), JSC, the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB), TU Berlin, and GAMS Software GmbH all contributed to the work.

“HPC is not an established approach for our research domain,” said Dr. Karl-Kiên Cao, postdoctoral researcher at DLR and scientific coordinator on the project. “At the same time, researchers doing energy scenario analysis are increasingly confronting impractical computing time using laptops or smaller shared clusters. For us, developing our application to scale on HPC was a logical next step, and required us to develop appropriate software solvers to do this work efficiently.”

Multidisciplinary Collaboration Promotes Better Energy System Analysis

In 2015, JSC joined a multi-institution project focused on using Germany’s computing power to better support energy systems modeling. The project, BEAM-ME, was led by DLR and included computational experts from two Gauss Centre for Supercomputing centers—JSC and the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart. The project’s success led to the follow-up project, UNSEEN, which started four years later.

While researchers in BEAM-ME were primarily focused on improving algorithmic efficiency and codes for energy optimization problems, the work in UNSEEN has been focused on taking those improvements and running improved energy system analyses while looking for opportunities to further optimize computational workflows.

To create the most realistic energy system analysis possible, researchers must pull together a wide variety of open-source data: existing power plants’ production capacities, hour-by-hour energy demand patterns in Germany, current and projected future power production from renewable energy sources, and climate change models, while also making projections for how population shifts, changes to how energy is produced and priced, and myriad other uncertainties will influence future power generation. “The largest original datasets included in this kind of modeling—historical meteorological data—are typically heavily simplified, but according to our findings, this data has a large impact on the design of future energy systems, so we needed to develop a better understanding of what is an acceptable degree of simplification for these analyses,” Cao said.

The DLR researchers worked closely with JSC’s Thomas Breuer to improve their computational workflows. Ultimately, the team wanted to focus not only on adding more realism to simplifications in its models, but also improve how uncertainties are weighted. “To support the team, we first had to understand how the code and processes worked in their existing environment so that we could transfer them to an HPC environment in the best way possible, including the many interactions of individual components of the workflow,” Breuer said.

Breuer helped the team establish its workflow using JSC’s JUBE workflow management tool and colleagues from ZIB, TU Berlin and GAMS worked with the team to adapt the PIPS-IPM++ solver for energy system modeling, which it intends to further optimize for more efficient analyses. In its recent calculations that were published in the Nature Communications paper, the team found that four of the energy system scenarios for Germany were nearly optimal for several of the team’s seven indicators connected to affordability, supply-security, and sustainability goals.

Powering Up for Future Optimization Research, More Informed Predictions

With these encouraging results in hand, the team is looking to further optimize its workflow so it can run these analyses more quickly. The researchers also want to continue improving how to include more accurate assumptions and how to better account for various types of uncertainty in its models. In addition to making their solver more user-friendly for energy system modelers, the team is currently preparing benchmarking experiments to compare how their workflow would run on shared memory systems, distributed memory systems, and GPU-based solutions.

For Cao, the emphasis moving forward is two-pronged—running large-scale, computationally intensive models that can further improve models that other researchers can use on less powerful computers and presenting research findings to decision makers in an actionable manner. “Our domain is not used to evaluating large ensemble studies like these,” Cao said. “Therefore, it is a challenge to extract core findings from these huge datasets and present them in ways that will help decision makers in guiding future energy policy decisions.” However, now that the team has the ability to develop HPC-based analyses, it is now focused on creating new opportunities for collaboration across disciplines and turning complex modeling results into practical insights for relevant authorities.

Related Publication: Frey, U. et al (2025). “The Benefits of Exploring a Large Scenario Space for Future Energy Systems,” Nature Communications. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-67593-9

Funding for JUWELS was provided by the Ministry of Culture and Research of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space through the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS).

Source: Eric Gedenk, GCS

The post UNSEEN Project Uses HPC to Transform Energy System Modeling appeared first on HPCwire.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For a while now, Mac owners have been able to use tools like CrossOver and Game Porting Toolkit to get many Windows games running on their operating system of choice. Now, GameSir plans to add its own potential solution to the mix, announcing that a version of its existing Windows emulation tool for Android will be coming to macOS. Hong Kong-based GameSir has primarily made a name for itself as a manufacturer of gaming peripherals -- the company's social media profile includes a self-description as "the Anti-Stick Drift Experts." Early last year, though, GameSir rolled out the Android GameHub app, which includes a GameFusion emulator that the company claims "provides complete support for Windows games to run on Android through high-precision compatibility design." In practice, GameHub and GameFusion for Android haven't quite lived up to that promise. Testers on Reddit and sites like EmuReady report hit-or-miss compatibility for popular Steam titles on various Android-based handhelds. At least one Reddit user suggests that "any Unity, Godot, or Game Maker game tends to just work" through the app, while another reports "terrible compatibility" across a wide range of games. With Sunday's announcement, GameSir promises a similar opportunity to "unlock your entire Steam library" and "run Win games/Steam natively" on Mac will be "coming soon." GameSir is also promising "proprietary AI frame interpolation" for the Mac, following the recent rollout of a "native rendering mode" that improved frame rates on the Android version. There are some "reasons to worry" though, based on the company's uneven track record. The Android version faced controversy for including invasive tracking components, which were later removed after criticism. There were also questions about the use of open-source code, as GameSir acknowledged referencing and using UI components from Winlator, even while maintaining that its core compatibility layer was developed in-house.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It’s been well over a year since Microsoft unveiled it was working on bringing MIDI 2.0 to Windows, and now it’s actually here available for everyone.

We’ve been working on MIDI over the past several years, completely rewriting decades of MIDI 1.0 code on Windows to both support MIDI 2.0 and make MIDI 1.0 amazing. This new combined stack is called “Windows MIDI Services.”

The Windows MIDI Services core components are built into Windows 11, rolling out through a phased enablement process now to in-support retail releases of Windows 11. This includes all the infrastructure needed to bring more features to existing MIDI 1.0 apps, and also support apps using MIDI 2.0 through our new Windows MIDI Services App SDK.

↫ Pete Brown and Gary Daniels at the Windows Blogs

This is the kind of work users of an operating system want to see. Improvements and new features like these actually have a meaningful, positive impact for people using MIDI, and will genuinely give them them benefits they otherwise wouldn’t get. I won’t pretend to know much about the detailed features and improvements listed in Microsoft’s blog post, but I’m sure the musicians in the audience will be quite pleased.

Whomever at Microsoft was responsible for pushing this through, managing this team, and of course the team members themselves should probably be overseeing more than just this. Less “AI” bullshit, more of this.

Almost 70% of companies, including BYD and Toyota, beat their initial target for the average emissions efficiency of the new cars they sold

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Major auto brands including Mazda, Nissan and Subaru face the possibility of millions of dollars in penalties after failing to meet climate targets for new vehicles in Australia.

The first six months of data since the Albanese government introduced a new vehicle efficiency standard shows 40 companies – 68% of the total – beat their initial target for the average emissions efficiency of the new cars they sold.

TP-Link is facing legal action from the state of Texas for allegedly misleading consumers with "Made in Vietnam" claims despite China-dominated manufacturing and supply chains, and for marketing its devices as secure despite reported firmware vulnerabilities exploited by Chinese state-sponsored actors. The Register: The Lone Star State's Attorney General, Ken Paxton, is filing the lawsuit against California-based TP-Link Systems Inc., which was originally founded in China, accusing it of deceptively marketing its networking devices and alleging that its security practices and China-based affiliations allowed Chinese state-sponsored actors to access devices in the homes of American consumers. It is understood that this is just the first of several lawsuits that the Office of the Attorney General intends to file this week against "China-aligned companies," as part of a coordinated effort to hold China accountable under Texas law. The lawsuit claims that TP-Link is the dominant player in the US networking and smart home market, controlling 65 percent of the American market for network devices. It also alleges that TP-Link represents to American consumers that the devices it markets and sells within the US are manufactured in Vietnam, and that consistent with this, the devices it sells in the American market carry a "Made in Vietnam" sticker.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Feb. 18, 2026 — A team of researchers from the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) and the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) in Brazil used a series of supercomputer simulations to reduce the uncertainty of obtaining information from quantum dots, showing that a system with as many as 30 electrons can be workable. The work also sheds light on several phenomena important to condensed matter and materials science research.

Credit: Shutterstock

One of the biggest questions in advanced computing today is when will there be a true quantum computer — that is, a computer that calculates using the complex, shades-of-gray rules of quantum mechanics rather than the simple “on/off” switch of conventional computers. What will it be able to do that traditional electronic computers can’t? One roadblock to getting that quantum computer, though, is making it big enough to tackle real problems. A modern computer chip can store hundreds of billions or even trillions of one/zero “bits” of information. Today’s quantum computers, on the other hand, are based on only dozens of qubits. Experts estimate that it’ll take about a million qubits to power a true quantum computer. Which is a tall order today.

The problem lies in the nature of qubits. In a traditional computer, you can store a 1 or a 0 in bits using transistors and electrical currents that are highly controllable. Qubits offer untold promise partly because they can process information via superposition and entanglement: They can be in any state between 1 and 0, offering resources and a complexity of stored information that are not available to a traditional computer. But because qubits are based on single or small numbers of particles, they obey the weird rules of quantum mechanics. Quantum particles interact with each other and their environment in ways that make both storing the information stably and reading it accurately very complicated.

Of course, qubits have to be made of something, and that’s another place where things get tricky. In order to have a true qubit, capable of storing the somewhere-between-one-and-zero information needed for a quantum computer, you need a physical device that is small enough to display quantum behavior. Too large, and it starts to behave by the classical rules that govern conventional computers.

Quantum dots are one approach to building qubits. A quantum dot consists of a small number of electrons trapped in a tiny space. Because of those small dimensions, they are tiny enough to display quantum behavior. As an added benefit, quantum dots can be created on semiconductor chips, as in traditional computers. That makes them relatively easy to manufacture, integrate into computing systems, and potentially scale up to usable sizes.

Scientists had discovered that they could begin to estimate the wave function of particles trapped in a quantum dot — read its somewhere-between-zero-and-one state — using a Monte Carlo method. Like a gambler playing roulette many times in a row, Monte Carlo simulations sample the state of a system repeatedly. The average answer you get tells you the likely state. The variation between the different simulations tell you how certain you can be in that answer.

Quantum behavior is about how small systems get blurry at the smallest sizes and energies. Because of that, one might expect a qubit’s quantum behavior to be at its purest, and the answer to the calculation most accurate, when it’s at as low an energy state as possible. Scientists call that low-energy state the ground state. But here the Monte Carlo method often hits a roadblock. Because it depends on guessing the overall structure of the wave function at the outset, it suffers from the assumptions the humans make about the system. This affects the certainty of the answer.

PSC’s Deputy Scientific Director Bruno Abreu, with colleagues at Unicamp, wondered whether an AI approach could improve on the Monte Carlo approach to quantum dots.

The scientists used a type of AI called a neural network coupled to a Monte Carlo series of simulations. The AI learned as it made guesses, without human input. Because of that, it wasn’t beholden to any assumptions by the researchers. It could possibly break through the limitations of previous Monte Carlo methods.

Using the Delta supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the team trained their neural network in what amounted to a series of guesses. The steps decreased the energy, at first by a lot but then leveling out. When further steps didn’t improve the wave function, the sims had their final answer.

“Because I know the position and the velocity of a classical particle … I can predict where the particle is going to be at any time in the future, or in the past,” said Abreu. “In quantum physics, the way you predict what’s going to happen, it’s by knowing the wave function … I can’t predict exactly where the particle is going to be, but I can predict what’s the probability that it will be there [and what] the wave function is going to be like in a certain time in the future. So that’s why the wave function is so important. It’s the key. It brings all the information of the system.”

Over hundreds of thousands of such optimization steps, the simulations got the energy level lower than had been possible with the state-of-the-art non-AI Monte Carlo methods, indicating a better representation of the system’s wave function. The team reported their findings in the journal Physical Review B in October 2025.

These results pave the way to a better understanding and more precise description of usable quantum dots, which can become platforms for building qubits at scale. But they’re also applicable in a number of other fields where quantum behavior is important. These include understanding quantum behaviors of nuclear matter, ultracold gases, and condensed matter systems involved in discovering new useful materials. In the future, the team plans to study how their neural network Monte Carlo method can be scaled up to control larger numbers of particles, as well as to refine the method’s ability to predict quantum behavior. This includes potential quantum circuits running on quantum computers as part of the neural network.

Source: Ken Chiacchia, PSC

The post PSC: Sims Exploit AI to Advance Toward Workable Quantum Computer appeared first on HPCwire.

The greatest American skier of all time won her first Olympic medal in 2014. The 12 years in between have been marked by brutal ups and downs

A lot can happen in 12 years. If you’re Mikaela Shiffrin, as a teenager you can become the youngest ever person to win the Olympic slalom, stack a couple more medals at the next Olympics, become the most successful World Cup skier of all time with a record 108 victories, go 10 more Olympic races in a row over three Winter Games without reaching the podium, overcome the two biggest crashes of your career and subsequent battles with self-doubt and post-traumatic stress disorder and eroding trust in your own skiing, and then bring it all back home with a second Olympic slalom gold.

You can also lose your dad.

Brad Reese claims Hershey is cutting costs by relying on cheaper ingredients, risking the Reese's brand.

Eight backcountry skiers have been found dead and one remains missing after an avalanche near Lake Tahoe in California, officials said.

The Trump administration filed an appeal after a judge ordered slavery exhibits that were removed from the President's House Site to be returned.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Feb. 19, No. 718.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for Feb. 19, No. 1,706.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 19 #984.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Feb. 19, No. 514.

One skier still missing and six others rescued after group engulfed in Sierra Nevada mountains during severe storm

Eight skiers who went missing after an avalanche swept the Castle Peak area of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California have been confirmed dead, authorities said during a Wednesday press conference.

One skier is still unaccounted for, while six others, who had been stranded, have since been rescued.

Sign-ups to Student Group Claim in England and Wales escalate amid reports of £21m payout by University College London

Tens of thousands more students who were at university during the pandemic have joined a group claim for compensation, amid reports of a £21m payout by one of the UK’s leading institutions.

Lawyers acting for student claimants said a further 30,000 from different universities had signed up to the Student Group Claim this week, taking the total to almost 200,000.

US president had recently said the plan was the best deal Starmer could make

Donald Trump has urged Keir Starmer not to hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius, warning he was “making a big mistake”.

Under the deal agreed last year, Britain would cede control over the British Indian Ocean Territory but lease the largest island, Diego Garcia, for 99 years to continue operating a joint US-UK military base there.

A study of more than 12,000 European firms found that AI adoption causally increases labour productivity by 4% on average across the EU, and that it does so without reducing employment in the short run. Researchers from the Bank for International Settlements and the European Investment Bank used an instrumental variable strategy that matched EU firms to comparable US firms by sector, size, investment intensity and other characteristics, then used the AI adoption rates of those US counterparts as a proxy for exogenous AI exposure among European firms. The productivity gains, however, skewed heavily toward medium and large companies. Among large firms, 45% had deployed AI, compared to just 24% of small firms. The study also found that complementary investments mattered enormously: an extra percentage point of spending on workforce training amplified AI's productivity effect by 5.9%, and an extra point on software and data infrastructure added 2.4%.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Star figure skater Ilia Malinin stressed he was focused on moving forward and continuing to push the boundaries of the sport.

The best VPNs for Google Chrome enhance privacy so you can browse the web, stream videos and download files away from prying eyes.

Wexner, who has denied misconduct related to Epstein, is one of several subpoenaed by House oversight panel

The former boss of the Victoria’s Secret lingerie brand, Les Wexner, said he has “done nothing wrong” and has “nothing to hide”, as he testifies on Wednesday before a congressional committee in relation to his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Wexner is one of several Epstein associates subpoenaed to testify before the House oversight committee in their continued investigation of the late financier’s crimes.

Unite Here, the US’s largest hospitality workers’ union, says ICE crackdown is harming tourism and costing jobs

Donald Trump’s immigration policies are having a chilling effect on the hospitality industry, where nearly a third of workers are immigrants, according to the largest hospitality union in the US.

The number of employed hospitality workers dropped by 98,000 from December 2024 to December 2025, according to a report from Unite Here, which represents 300,000 workers across the hospitality, food and tourism industries in the US and Canada.

Pritzker’s move reflects increasing public pushback against resource-hungry facilities used to power the AI boom

The Illinois governor JB Pritzker proposed a two-year break from offering tax incentives for datacenters, a reflection of increasing public pushback against the massive, resource-hungry facilities used to power the modern AI boom.

Pritzker made the proposal, which will need the backing of state lawmakers, during his annual state of the state address, which covers Illinois budget and policy plans. The plan was first reported by NBC News.

Here are the latest updates and news about the impressive home tech on display at the show from newcomers and major industry players alike.

The avalanche was reported near Castle Peak in Nevada County, north of Boreal Mountain Ski Resort.

Struggling to pay your tax bill? The IRS has programs that may help, but you'll need to prove that you qualify.

Supreme court rules children in England who suffer serious injuries at birth can claim for future lost earnings

The NHS will have to spend more money settling lawsuits involving negligence during childbirth after a supreme court ruling that lawyers said puts right a “historic injustice”.

The court ruled on Wednesday that children in England who suffer catastrophic injuries while they are being born can claim damages for future earnings they would otherwise have had.

White House advisor Kevin Hassett slammed the New York Fed report, which found that Americans, not foreign exporters, bear most tariff costs.

State regulators walk back suspension threat and say Tesla has stopped misleading drivers about the safety of its cars

Tesla will avoid a 30-day suspension of its dealer and manufacturer licenses in California, its biggest market, after the US electric vehicle maker stopped using the term “autopilot” in the marketing of its vehicles in the state.

Tesla now uses the term “supervised” in references to its full self-driving technology and has stopped using “autopilot” entirely in its marketing in the state.

Cleveland.com, the digital arm of Ohio's Plain Dealer newspaper, has removed writing from the workloads of certain reporters and handed that job to what editor Chris Quinn calls an "AI rewrite specialist" who turns reporter-gathered material into article drafts. The reporters on these beats -- covering Lorain, Lake, Geauga, and most recently Medina County -- are assigned entirely to reporting, spending their time on in-person interviews and meeting sources for coffee. Editors review the AI-produced drafts and reporters get the final say before publication. Quinn says the arrangement has effectively freed up an extra workday per week for each reporter. The newsroom adopted this model last year to expand local coverage into counties it could no longer staff with full teams, and Quinn described the setup in a February 14 letter after a college journalism student withdrew from a reporting role over the newsroom's use of AI. Quinn blamed journalism schools for the student's reaction, saying professors have repeatedly told students that AI is bad.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Donald Trump will gather officials from dozens of countries in Washington to hear a status report on his peace plan for Gaza, though serious stumbling blocks remain.

Regina Santos-Aviles told a colleague in a text message months before her death that she had an affair with Gonzales.

When Benjamin Franklin set out on what he called his “bold and arduous project” of moral perfection, he did not imagine he would arrive at the summit of virtue. He knew better. The point was not arrival but effort. “Though I fell far short of perfection,” he wrote late in life, he became “a better and a happier man” for having tried.

That insight captures a central conviction shared across the founding generation: virtue is a lifelong journey, not a mere destination. And happiness, rightly understood, is not a mood to capture, but a character to cultivate.

Happiness as Self-Government

For the Founders, happiness was inseparable from disciplined self-government.

Franklin operationalized this in his famous list of virtues: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, tranquility, and humility. He built a chart, examined himself nightly. Franklin began each week by focusing on a single virtue, starting with temperance because he believed it produced the clarity necessary for governing the rest.

Thomas Jefferson echoed this same framework. Drawing from Cicero’s reflections on the tranquil soul, he praised a life governed by restraint and consistency rather than ambition or fear. For Jefferson, liberty was not license. It was the power to pause, deliberate, and choose long-term good over short-term impulse.

John Adams made humility his lifelong project. In his diaries, Adams recorded his battle with vanity and resolved that no one is fit for high office who leaves a single passion unsubdued. George Washington practiced resolution by cooling the first heat of emotion and acting only after reflection. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton translated this philosophy into constitutional design, crafting institutions that would check public passion and allow reason to prevail.

To these Founders, the personal and the political were never separate spheres. A constitutional democracy has always required citizens who could do internally what the Constitution required externally: let reason, not rage, rule.

The Daily Struggle for Character

Key figures throughout American history understood life as a daily struggle for self-improvement and emotional discipline.

Franklin’s method was practical. “If Passion drives, let Reason hold the reins,” he advised. Imperfectly practiced, these habits nonetheless formed the architecture of his happiness.

John Quincy Adams kept a diary for 70 years as a second conscience, recording his failures, restraining temper, and renewing resolutions. For him, self-rule preceded public rule. You cannot sway a nation if you cannot govern yourself.

Phillis Wheatley drew on the same classical tradition to ground her poetry in virtue. Writing in the shadow of slavery, she asserted the universal capacity for moral excellence and exposed the gap between America’s professed principles and its practices.

Abraham Lincoln, shaped by early reading and lifelong self-education, warned against the “mobocratic spirit” and called for “cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason” to preserve liberty. Passion may ignite change, he suggested, but only disciplined judgment sustains a constitutional democracy.

Frederick Douglass called education and disciplined labor the path to self-making. Character, he insisted, is built by regular and thoughtful exercise of one’s faculties.

The lesson is constant across generations. Virtue is not an inheritance nor a heroic display; it is the steady discipline of daily practice.

Being Good and Being a Citizen

Being a good person and being a good citizen are inseparable.

George Mason insisted that liberty can be preserved only through justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue. The stability of free government depended on habits formed long before a ballot was cast.

Madison warned that passion can “wrest the scepter from reason” in popular assemblies. Constitutional checks were essential, but they could not succeed unless citizens themselves practiced self-restraint and civic virtue.

Jefferson believed that a free people can govern themselves only if individuals first master their own passions. Liberty without self-discipline gives way to faction and instability. The pursuit of happiness is thus public work: cultivating the character required to sustain freedom.

A Call to Pursue Happiness Together

In an age that often confuses happiness with impulse and success with speed, the Founders and other key figures offer a different path. Happiness means disciplined self-government. It means aligning reason and passion. It means learning, reflecting, correcting, and beginning again.

Temperance, humility, industry, moderation, and sincerity are not relics of the 18th century. They are practices for every generation seeking to strengthen constitutional democracy. The pursuit of happiness is not solitary or self-indulgent. It is the steady work of forming character so that we can contribute to the common good and sustain the freedoms we inherit.

Franklin did not achieve moral perfection. Neither did Jefferson, Adams, nor Washington. That is precisely the point. The work continues, calling each generation and each individual to take it up anew.

If you are ready to engage in that work, we invite you to continue the journey through the National Constitution Center and Arizona State University’s new free online course for adult learners, What the Founders Meant by Happiness: A Journey Through Virtue and Character. Building on NCC CEO Emeritus Jeffrey Rosen’s 2024 book, The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America, this course brings the Founders’ moral world to life through engaging video lectures with Jeff, close study of primary sources, and interactive materials.

At the heart of the course, and at the heart of the American experiment, is a simple but demanding truth: self-government begins with government of the self.

Julie Silverbrook is vice president of civic education at the National Constitution Center.

Here's a quick ski mountaineering (aka skimo) primer and the full schedule of the skimo events at the 2026 Winter Games.

Meta chief says it has improved identifying underage users but adds ‘I always wish we could have gotten there sooner’

The Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, testified at a landmark trial of social media companies on Wednesday. Plaintiffs’ lawyers grilled Zuckerberg about internal complaints that not enough was being done to verify whether children under 13 were using the platform.

Zuckerberg claimed Meta had improved in identifying underage users but also said: “I always wish that we could have gotten there sooner.”

Carr says the Federal Communications Commission has also opened an enforcement action into ABC’s the View

The chair of the US’s top media regulator claimed on Wednesday that journalists had been tricked into covering claims by the late-night host Stephen Colbert that he had been blocked by his network from interviewing a Texas Senate candidate.

Brendan Carr, the avowedly pro-Trump chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), made his comments after Colbert accused the Trump administration and CBS of censorship.

Money clears path for work on Gateway project increasing number of tunnels linking New York City and New Jersey

The Trump administration transferred the balance of federal funds it owed to the Gateway rail tunnel initiative on Wednesday, along with additional money beyond the original amount, clearing the path for work on the project to restart as early as next week.

Once finished, the project will increase the number of rail tunnels linking New York City and New Jersey, as well as repair a century-old tunnel that was heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which is used by more than 200,000 travelers and 425 trains daily.

From clues on the event invite to rumors swirling online, we have an idea of what Apple might have in store for us on March 4.

Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate and longtime Universal Basic Income advocate, published a blog post this week warning that AI is about to displace millions of white-collar workers in the U.S. over the next 12 to 18 months, a wave he has taken to calling "the Fuckening." Yang cited a conversation with the CEO of a publicly traded tech company who said the firm is cutting 15% of its workforce now and plans another 20% cut in two years, followed by yet another 20% two years after that. The U.S. currently has about 70 million white-collar workers, and Yang expects that number to fall by 20 to 50% over the next several years. Underemployment among recent college graduates has already hit 52%, and only 30% of graduating seniors have landed a job in their field. Yang's proposed remedy remains the same one he ran on in 2020: Universal Basic Income.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At HPCwire we outlined the key data challenges that will define the Genesis Mission. There is a growing acknowledgment that scientific AI often breaks down at the data layer. Fragmented datasets and uneven metadata introduce friction that no model alone can overcome. Federated access rules and mismatched computing environments add to the challenge.

While the Genesis Mission does not reduce scientific discovery to a data problem alone, it does highlight that data execution is no longer a background concern. It is quickly emerging as an important consideration in how AI-driven science can realistically progress at national scale.

Last week, the DOE announced 26 science and technology challenges that it described as being “of national importance” to advance the Genesis Mission and accelerate innovation and discovery through artificial intelligence.

There are various sectors that are part of this announcement, including Nuclear systems, grid modernization, materials science, advanced manufacturing, and national security. However, the key takeaway is that the DOE is increasingly viewing AI not just as a research accelerator, but as a means to reorganize how scientific work is structured and executed across the national laboratory system. The emphasis is on building a coordinated system that covers a wide range of industries – an early foundation of a national scientific operating framework.

“These challenges represent a bold step toward a future where science moves at the speed of imagination because of AI. It’s a game-changer for science, energy, and national security,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science and Genesis Mission Lead Dr. Darío Gil. “By uniting the U.S. Government’s unparalleled data resources and DOE’s experimental facilities with cutting-edge AI, we can unlock discoveries that will power the economy, secure our energy future, and keep America at the forefront of global innovation.”

AI is often positioned as a support layer for science to help researchers analyze data faster or run simulations more efficiently.. However, with these 26 challenges, it provides more structure. It positions AI as the connective tissue that links experimentation, compute, and decision making. The DOE is clearly thinking beyond individual models or isolated breakthroughs. It wants a systems level integration at scale.

The challenges announced are not limited to one domain. They represent a cross section of the scientific and industrial stack that powers modern innovation. Several of the challenges focus on reducing the time required to move from theory to validation.

For example, in nuclear systems, AI is being pushed to play a bigger role in reactor design, licensing workflows, and operational modeling. Historically, the nuclear space has been bogged down by long timelines and complex regulatory requirements.

AI can speed up the process through advanced simulations and optimization. It can also improve operation with digital twins and predictive monitoring. The licensing workflows can be more efficient with automated analysis of complex regulatory documents and engineering data. With AI, there is a lot of potential for reducing timeline bottlenecks across various sectors.

Darío Gil, Under Secretary for Science at U.S. Department of Energy

What makes this interesting is that the focus is quietly shifting from single breakthroughs to workflow speed. Scientific progress has always been constrained by how long it takes to test ideas. And that is where simulation comes in. However, manual work is needed. Someone has to run the experiment, analyze the outcome, and decide what comes next. That cycle is slow almost by design. The new challenges suggest the DOE wants AI sitting inside that loop and cutting the dead time between steps.

Many of the challenges are related to materials science and advanced manufacturing. Instead of treating modeling and experimentation as separate stages handled by different groups, the approach now feels more continuous. AI models narrow down possibilities earlier. This should potentially reduce the number (and expenses) of running tests. Less trial and error. More guided exploration.

There is also a quiet push toward experiments that adapt in real time. Not referring to fully autonomous labs here (at least not yet). But instead the environments where AI helps decide what to test next based on live results. That is a big departure from how large scale science has traditionally worked. Experiments were planned, executed, then analyzed afterward. Here the feedback loop tightens. It helps decisions happen faster.

The inclusion of microelectronics and national security in the same set of challenges stands out. Both rely on some heavy compute, hard to manage datasets, and infrastructure that has to coordinate across systems that were never built to work together cleanly. That overlap seems to be the whole point of the initiative.

The DOE is not treating these as separate worlds anymore. It feels more like a bet that shared AI infrastructure matters more than keeping domains isolated just because that is how they have always operated.

That, more than anything, may be the signal hidden inside the announcement. The goal is to build a system where discovery itself moves differently. Faster iteration and shorter gaps between idea and validation. This leads to less fragmentation between disciplines that used to operate independently.

“These 26 challenges are a direct call to action to America’s researchers and innovators to join the Genesis Mission and deliver science and technology breakthroughs that will benefit the American people,” said Assistant to the President and Director of The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Michael Kratsios. “We look forward to expanding the list of challenges across Federal agencies to bring even greater impact to the Mission.”

The 26 challenges will help identify technical problems for different stakeholders in the Genesis Mission. It will also outline how the DOE wants discovery itself to operate, with AI embedded across data and decision making. With AI being more than just an analytical tool, we’ll have to be careful about hallucination and bad data that feeds in the AI systems. The opportunity is significant, but so is the risk. The difference now is that the key challenges have been clearly laid out, giving researchers and industry a clearer starting point for what comes next.

The post Inside the DOE’s 26 AI Challenges for Genesis Mission appeared first on HPCwire.

Will Forster MP says ‘lack of planning and haphazard communication’ on new border rules has caused chaos

A “grace period” should be introduced for British dual nationals living, working or holidaying abroad who face being blocked from returning to the UK if they do not have an up-to-date British passport, the Liberal Democrats have said.

Entry requirements change on 25 February as part of a wider initiative to streamline immigration which requires British dual nationals to present either a valid UK passport or a “certificate of entitlement” on their foreign passport to the airline, ferry or train operator.

Dozens of world leaders head to Washington for what White House says will largely be a fundraiser on Thursday

Dozens of world leaders and national delegations will meet in Washington DC on Thursday for the inaugural meeting of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, as major European allies declined to join the group and criticised the organisation’s murky funding and political mandate.

The White House has indicated that the summit for his new ad hoc council at the renamed Donald J Trump Institute of Peace will heavily function as a fundraising round, with Trump announcing on social media that countries have pledged more than $5bn toward rebuilding Gaza, which has been devastated in the war with Israel and remains in a humanitarian crisis.

Feb. 18, 2026 — San Diego State University’s Women in STEM Seminar will feature a public lecture by Kathy Yelick, Vice Chancellor for Research at University of California, Berkeley and a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The event, organized by the SDSU Division of Research and Innovation, highlights women’s contributions to science and engineering while connecting the campus and broader community with leading scholars. The lecture will take place at the KPBS Community Engagement Center on on Thursday, March 5, 2026, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Dr. Katherine Yelick is the Vice Chancellor for Research and the Robert S. Pepper Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley, as well as a Senior Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research spans high performance computing, programming languages, compilers, and parallel algorithms, with notable contributions to partitioned global address space languages, automatic performance tuning, and high performance genome analysis. She led the ExaBiome project on scalable microbial data analysis tools and served for a decade as Associate Laboratory Director for Computing Sciences at LBNL. Yelick is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

About the Women in STEM Seminar Series

Since 2018, SDSU’s Women in STEM Seminar is an annual event that brings exceptional female scientists and engineers to San Diego State University for programming with students, faculty and the community. The seminar includes a public lecture delivered by the invited scholar, providing a forum for the recognition of women’s contributions to STEM.

The mission of the Women in STEM (WIS) Seminar Series is to inspire and connect the SDSU community with leading women scholars in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by hosting lectures and interactive events that promote excellence, mentorship, and inclusion in STEM.

The 2025-2026 event is sponsored by the SDSU Division of Research and Innovation, multiple academic colleges across SDSU, Applied Data Systems, NetApp, and Neuvys Technologies.

Learn more about the event and RSVP here.

More from HPCwire

• 2024 HPC Legends: Kathy Yelick
• Kathy Yelick on Post-Exascale Challenges
• ISC 2024: Kathy Yelick to Deliver Opening Keynote

Source: SDSU

The post SDSU Women in STEM Seminar to Host Public Lecture by Kathy Yelick on March 5 appeared first on HPCwire.

President Donald Trump has said that Americans are now paying or will pay “the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs,” thanks to the administration’s negotiations with pharmaceutical companies. The administration has announced discounted cash prices for a small number of brand-name drugs. There isn’t evidence Trump’s deals so far have led to broad decreases in drug prices, nor is it certain they will in the future.

Despite these caveats and ambiguities, Trump often has presented lower drug prices as a fait accompli. “We now are paying the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs,” he said in a Jan. 27 speech in Iowa. “Every other president tried for it. They didn’t try very hard. They didn’t get anything. I got it done.” 

“The American people were effectively subsidizing the cost of drugs for the entire world, and it’s not going to happen any longer,” he said during the Feb. 5 launch for TrumpRx, the new federal website pointing people toward cash prices negotiated by the administration for brand-name drugs. “We ended it.” 

The TrumpRx website makes similarly sweeping statements, claiming that the approach of basing U.S. prices off of prices in other countries — referred to as most favored nation, or MFN, pricing — is “guaranteeing huge savings for Americans.”

Trump’s efforts may have lowered prices for some consumers buying certain drugs. But experts told us there’s no guarantee of substantial savings for Americans in general.

Thus far, the Trump administration’s drug price negotiations have resulted in voluntary agreements with 16 companies, though many of the details remain unclear. Under those agreements, drug manufacturers have promised to offer discounts on select drugs to people who pay cash and are not using insurance. Companies have also agreed to launch new drugs or to offer Medicaid drugs at MFN prices. In exchange, the companies have said, they have been promised exemptions from tariffs and other benefits, such as exemptions from future mandatory MFN pricing.

“With rare exception,” the negotiations with drugmakers “don’t appear to have translated into actual savings for people at the pharmacy counter or for public or commercial payers yet,” Rena Conti, a health economist at Boston University Questrom School of Business, told us. These exceptions include certain weight loss and fertility drugs, which are often not covered by insurance to begin with and are now being offered at reduced cash prices, she said.

There is no single, easily tracked measure of drug prices in the U.S., making it challenging to assess broad claims about whether drug prices are rising or falling. Companies provide list prices, but individuals, health insurers and the government rarely pay these prices, often benefiting from rebates or other discounts. 

That said, there are no signs of widespread slashing of list prices in the U.S. “Typically in January, we will see price increases for already-launched brand drugs, and just like we’ve seen in previous years, we saw prices rise,” Conti said. The median list price increase for hundreds of brand-name drugs so far in 2026 was 4%, which is the same median increase as in 2025, according to the research firm 46brookyln.

When we asked whether Trump is claiming that Americans in general are now paying the lowest prices, a White House spokesperson asserted they would in the future. “We are going to be paying the same if not lower than other wealthy nations,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “Either via TrumpRx or once the MFN deals are codified upon passage of Great Healthcare Plan.”

The Great Healthcare Plan is a series of health policy proposals, released Jan. 15, which Trump has called on Congress to pass as legislation. To lower drug prices, the plan calls for “codifying” MFN deals. The Trump administration has also said it will add more drugs to TrumpRx, and in December the administration released proposals to apply MFN pricing to a subset of Medicare beneficiaries.

It is unclear how or whether the MFN deals will be codified, however. Nor is it a given that even a widely applied MFN policy would reduce prices substantially.

Trump’s claim that he is the first president to lower drug prices also ignores past efforts that have had some success.

Separate from the MFN pricing efforts, the Trump administration has continued to negotiate lower Medicare prices for some specific drugs under the Inflation Reduction Act. However, this law was passed in 2022 under the Biden administration. 

And rather than promoting these Medicare negotiations, the Trump administration is “talking about this unclear political pressuring that the White House is applying in general in the health industry and specifically on drugs,” Joseph Antos, a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, told us. AEI is a conservative-leaning think tank. “Is there any way to actually objectively measure the impact of any of that? I don’t think there is.”

Below, we explain what we know and don’t know about the impacts of Trump’s MFN negotiations and proposed policies on drug prices.

TrumpRx Features Some Savings Amid Misleading Messages

There is some support for Trump’s claim that he has lowered drug costs, in the case of a few specific drugs being offered at relatively low cash prices.

However, TrumpRx, the website the administration built to promote these cash prices, echoes Trump’s exaggerated claims about the scope of the price reductions.

TrumpRx shows cash prices for 43 drugs from five manufacturers that made deals with the administration. People can either print a coupon to use at pharmacies or, in some cases, go to a manufacturer’s website to make the purchase.

GoodRx, a prescription drug coupon site that launched in 2011, has partnered with the administration to provide many of the TrumpRx-branded coupons, and people can in some cases use GoodRx to access coupons providing the same Trump administration-negotiated prices.

The TrumpRx website advertises the “lowest cash prices” and shows discounts of 50% to 93% off the list price. But most people, particularly those with insurance coverage, don’t pay the list price.

“Manufacturers have agreed to discount prices on some drugs that are not well covered by insurance or already have generic competition, and that’s not nothing, but it’s not necessarily going to help a lot of people, right now anyway,” Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Program on Medicare Policy at KFF, told us. KFF is a nonpartisan health policy organization. She explained that most people with health insurance will fare better using their insurance than paying in cash.

For example, a person with health insurance who pays a flat copay for medications is unlikely to get a better price by going to TrumpRx, two economists from the University of Washington explained in an opinion piece published in STAT. In fact, the TrumpRx website says: “If you have insurance, check your co-pay first—it may be even lower.”

People with insurance also benefit from caps on their spending in the form of deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, the economists wrote, as well as prices for drugs negotiated by their insurers. But for now, drugs purchased via TrumpRx are not counted toward deductibles or out-of-pocket maximums. “A family might hit their out-of-pocket maximum by midyear using insurance, after which their insurer pays 100% of the prescription cost for the rest of the year,” the economists wrote. “Under TrumpRx, the family would pay full freight all year long, with no ceiling on their out-of-pocket spending.”

One group of people who are sometimes asked to pay list prices for drugs are those without insurance or whose insurance does not cover a specific drug, Cubanski explained.

But even for those without insurance or whose insurance doesn’t cover a certain drug, Conti said, there are better deals available on the U.S. market for some drugs featured on TrumpRx. “The majority of drugs that are listed on the TrumpRx website actually have generic competition, and for consumers it pays to shop,” she said. “You can get a better deal by simply buying the generic, even when this coupon is being offered.”

GoodRx or Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, another website that negotiates with drug manufacturers, offer cheaper cash prices for generic versions of at least 18 of the 43 brand-name drugs promoted on TrumpRx, according to a review by STAT. TrumpRx does not notify people that generics may be cheaper than the brand-name drugs.

Conti did highlight some drugs for which cash prices appear to be “good deals.” These include insulin, the fertility drug Gonal-F and the GLP-1 weight loss drug Zepbound. Patients may benefit from low-cost insulin, which is offered at $25 per 10 milliliters, if they have gaps in their insurance coverage or have a health plan requiring high out-of-pocket payments, she said. Fertility and GLP-1 drugs for weight loss cost more but are often not covered by insurance even for those who have it, so patients may benefit from buying them for reduced cash prices.

Gonal-F is now available on TrumpRx at $168 for the lowest strength, compared with its list price of around $966. There were already discounts available for people paying for the drugs without insurance, but “the price that’s listed on the TrumpRx coupon is lower than the price being offered by the specialty pharmacy, even with other special discounts available,” Conti said.

Zepbound is being offered for $299 per month for the lowest dose, reduced from a list price of $1,087. (However, the lowest dose of the drug had previously been available for $349 per month for cash buyers.)

Cubanski said the latest weight loss medication discounts “can be seen as a pretty direct byproduct of negotiations between the manufacturers and the White House,” but said that the makers of these drugs have been “steadily offering increasing discounts” even before the negotiations. This is partly because for a while, there were shortages of the drugs, she explained, and companies have been allowed to market relatively inexpensive compounded versions, even though the drugs are under patent and do not have generics.

“The competitive pressures in the GLP-1 market have likely been responsible to some degree for bringing down cash pay prices,” Pragya Kakani, a health economist and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, told us. She added that it is “challenging to disentangle the effects from the Trump administration’s MFN initiatives vs. pre-existing competitive pressures.” 

Claims Touting Lowest International Prices Are Difficult to Verify

As for the claim on the website that TrumpRx is offering the “world’s lowest prices,” or the lowest in the developed world, this is challenging to check.

The Trump administration has provided limited information on how the prices were arrived at during the closed-door negotiations with drug companies. We asked the White House for more detail on what international prices the TrumpRx prices are being compared with, and a spokesperson told us the administration was using prices from other G7 nations but did not provide more details.

Cubanski said it is difficult to check whether prices are the lowest, as “there’s not a lot of transparency in drug pricing internationally.” It’s possible to find prices, but it’s unclear what rebates or discounts countries have negotiated off of these prices.

Conti agreed, adding that in many cases, brand-name drugs may not even be offered in other countries because other countries drop brand-name drugs once a generic is available. Since many of the drugs now promoted on TrumpRx are available as generics, it is challenging to determine international prices.

People can make statements about offering the lowest drug prices internationally “because it’s impossible to check,” Conti said.

Medicaid Deals With Unclear Impact

The Trump administration has also said that as part of the MFN deals, companies agreed to sell drugs at MFN prices to Medicaid programs. A voluntary initiative invites companies to negotiate prices for certain drugs “aligned with those paid in select other countries,” according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website. The initiative launched in January, a spokesperson for the agency told us.

It remains unclear exactly what drugs are being offered to Medicaid at these prices and what companies and states are participating, Cubanski said. The CMS spokesperson told us that the agency hasn’t yet published a list with these details.

It’s also not clear MFN prices would compare favorably to the prices the programs are already getting. “States pay among the lowest prices through the Medicaid program for prescription drugs of all payers in the U.S.,” Cubanski said. “So whether the so-called most favored nation price that pharmaceutical companies will be offering on specific medications is lower than what states are currently paying isn’t really something that we’re able to rigorously quantify.”

The average net Medicaid prices for top-selling drugs are 65% lower than those in Medicare Part D, according to an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, Kakani said.

Furthermore, Cubanski said, “People on Medicaid pay very little if not nothing for prescriptions, so the savings would be to the state and federal government, not to people with Medicaid directly.”

Conti said that the larger current issue for drug affordability for people on Medicaid is that provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will lead to health care coverage losses. The CBO estimated that the law would increase the number of uninsured people in the U.S. by 10 million over 10 years, with 7.5 million of those due to changes to Medicaid. “The administration is weakening insurance protections at the same time that they are offering out the hope of these potential deals,” she said.

No Evidence of Impact on Private Insurance

Despite the discounts for a limited group of cash payers, experts said that the Trump administration’s MFN deals do not so far directly affect drug affordability for those with private insurance.

“The biggest affordability challenges are ones that are related to very high-cost brand drugs,” Conti said. “It’s not obvious that much of what the administration is pursuing right now is going to really make a difference for people who are commercially insured and who are using these high-cost brand drugs.”

Kakani said that the MFN deals have only addressed commercial insurance in a limited way, to the degree that the negotiations might indirectly influence negotiations between drugmakers and insurers. However, she added that the TrumpRx prices “are unlikely to be lower than net prices commercial plans were already negotiating,” as many of the drugs “face significant competition.”

Recently, CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz has argued that the cash discounts the Trump administration has negotiated will translate into wider price reductions, including for people with private insurance, due to increased transparency.

“Now that everyone knows the true worldwide most favored nation drug prices, it’s going to allow employers, insurers and everyone in between to be able to take out the middlemen and drive those prices down,” Oz said in a Feb. 6 CNN interview. He suggested on CNN two days later that if employers saw a drug price on TrumpRx that was lower than what they were paying, they would ask for that price.

However, Conti disagreed that transparency would uniformly lead to better deals for Americans. She explained that the current opaque system likely allows some Americans to get particularly good deals on drug prices, because plans and pharmacy benefit managers are negotiating and passing on some savings as lower out-of-pocket costs and premiums.

“If we move towards more radical transparency in this system, yes, there are consumers that will benefit, absolutely,” she continued. “But it also might erode the company’s willingness to offer really good deals” to some payers.

Uncertainty About Broader MFN Policies

Trump has often said that drug prices will dramatically fall due to MFN policies, referring to discounts of as much as 80% or 90%.

As we have said, proposed MFN strategies range from voluntary deals to launch new drugs or offer Medicaid drugs at lower prices to mandatory MFN pricing for some Medicare beneficiaries or a “codified” MFN strategy.

However, experts said that many details are missing regarding these strategies. Drugs are often launched in the U.S. before they are available in other countries, Conti said. It’s unclear how the U.S. will ensure it is getting the lowest prices internationally if there are no prices in other countries yet.

In the case of Medicare, CMS has proposed mandatory pilot programs testing MFN prices for some beneficiaries. But it’s unclear what drugs and companies will participate. Drug companies that voluntarily agreed to Medicaid MFN pricing may be exempted, Cubanski said, which “could potentially undercut savings.” CMS has estimated that its two initiatives — impacting drugs given by physicians or prescription drugs picked up at pharmacies — will generate around $12 billion of savings to Medicare over seven years and $14 billion over six years. “That’s not nothing, but given that Medicare spends roughly $200 billion per year approximately on drugs,” Cubanski said, the programs don’t “really move the needle all that much.”

As for broader, mandatory MFN pricing, it could face political headwinds, Cubanski said. “Historically, Republicans have not been in support of efforts to regulate drug prices,” she said, and pharmaceutical companies would also be expected to push back.

Even if widely implemented, MFN pricing may or may not lead to widespread and substantial reductions in drug prices.

A survey of health policy experts published Feb. 4 in Health Affairs found that around half thought MFN pricing would “substantially reduce” average net prescription drug prices in the U.S. for branded drugs, even if such a policy were broadly implemented. 

“The overall takeaway was it’s really hard to predict what the effect of this policy is going to be, and the simplistic idea that this is going to suddenly reduce drug prices by … 80%, 90% are probably just that – overly simplistic,” said Kakani, the study’s lead author.

Companies would likely change their international strategies in response to a broad MFN policy, Kakani said. Companies could make it more difficult for the U.S. government to determine what other countries were paying, by issuing rebates in other countries and not disclosing them; they could delay product launches abroad, particularly in countries with very low prices, to set a higher benchmark; or they could increase international prices to a degree that the U.S. did not pay significantly less than before.

Kakani added that drug prices in the U.S. are not as high as Trump’s 80% or 90% discount claims have implied, when compared with other countries. A RAND report, based on 2022 data, found that on average, U.S. prices are 2.78 times higher than in other developed countries, and 4.22 times higher when looking at brand-name drugs before adjusting for discounts by manufacturers, as we’ve written in the past. Generic drugs had lower prices overall in the U.S. than in most countries.

Antos pointed to practical challenges to setting MFN prices. For example, he said it is unclear how the proposed Medicare programs to try out MFN pricing are supposed to work. “CMS doesn’t have the authority to force Germany to tell them everything about their pricing, and they also don’t have the ability to get Pfizer to open its books,” he said.

“Trying to tie it to some kind of European price is doing it the hard way,” Antos said, suggesting that if the U.S. wants price controls, it could just ask more broadly for the already-good prices it gets for Medicaid. “We have domestic reference pricing right here.”

While Trump claimed that it would be other countries that now pay higher prices, Antos said that “by and large” manufacturers “are not in a position to renegotiate a price” with other countries. (As part of tariff negotiations, the U.K. did agree to increase what it pays for new drugs, although it’s unclear what will happen with drug prices in other countries overall.)

Antos said that regardless, any attempt at price setting is “not going to necessarily translate into lower prices at the drug store for most people.” 

And it will be difficult to evaluate whether U.S. policies are making a difference for consumers. If copays or deductibles went down, for example, perhaps insurance companies would make up for this by slightly increasing the growth rate of premiums, Antos said, which would be hard to quantify because premiums go up each year and are driven by hospital and doctor costs.

“In other words, it’s very hard to know what the net impact of any of these policies is,” he said.

Update, Feb. 18: We added that Conti is at the Boston University Questrom School of Business.

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The post Trump Misleads on Drug Pricing Deals appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Trump’s disapproval rating indicates he’s less popular with Americans than some insects like ants. Will it mean anything in November?

• This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland; sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday

A couple of years ago, the polling company YouGov asked people about insects. The resulting survey found that butterflies are America’s favorite insect, with eight in 10 people having a “very or somewhat positive” reaction to them.

Many journalists will tell you to never trust the polling, and they’ve been proven right many times over. Still, aren’t you curious how a random group of 1,148 adults feels about bugs?

The wreck of the stone-hauling vessel is in the same area where the founder of the Cleveland Underwater Explorers died in 2024.

Want to borrow equity with a HELOC or home equity loan now? These are the interest rates you'll need to know first.

Google's Quick Share is expanding, allowing more Pixel phones to send media between Android and iPhone devices.

Linus Torvalds has told The Register how Linux went from a solo hobby project on a single 386 PC in Helsinki to a genuinely collaborative effort, and the path involved crowdsourced checks, an FTP mirror at MIT, and a licensing decision that opened the floodgates. Torvalds released the first public snapshot, Linux 0.02, on October 5, 1991, on a Finnish FTP server -- about 10,000 lines of code that he had cross-compiled under Minix. He originally wanted to call it "Freax," but his friend Ari Lemmke, who set up the server, named the directory "Linux" instead. Early contributor Theodore Ts'o set up the first North American mirror on his VAXstation at MIT, since the sole 64 kbps link between Finland and the US made downloads painful. That mirror gave developers on this side of the Atlantic their first practical access to the kernel. Another early developer, Dirk Hohndel, recalled that Torvalds initially threw away incoming patches and reimplemented them from scratch -- a habit he eventually dropped because it did not scale. When Torvalds could not afford to upgrade his underpowered 386, developer H. Peter Anvin collected checks from contributors through his university mailbox and wired the funds to Finland, covering the international banking fees himself. Torvalds got a 486DX/2. In 1992, he moved the kernel to the GPL, and the first full distributions appeared in 1992-1993, turning Linux from a kernel into installable systems.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Feb. 18, 2026 — Google is launching the Google.org Impact Challenge: AI for Science.

AI isn’t just helping people solve problems faster, it’s unlocking new possibilities for discovery and scalability. To support organizations at the forefront of scientific discovery and build on its inaugural AI for Science fund, Google is launching a new $30 million global open-call, the Google.org Impact Challenge: AI for Science.

Credit: Shutterstock

This new initiative provides catalytic funding and technical expertise to help researchers, nonprofits and social enterprises unlock Nobel-level breakthroughs. Google is specifically seeking projects in Health and Life Sciences, Crisis Resilience and Environmental Science.

In addition to funding, selected organizations will have the opportunity to participate in a Google.org Accelerator, receiving engineering support, technical mentorship and Google infrastructure to scale their solutions.

Google is looking for the next generation of breakthrough scientific discoveries. Applications are open until April 17, 2026 — apply now and join in Google’s goal to drive scientific breakthroughs that transform how society tackles its biggest challenges.

Source: Google

The post Google Announces $30M Global Open Call for AI for Science Projects appeared first on HPCwire.

Billionaire retail tycoon Les Wexner testified before a House committee Wednesday as part of the panel's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

Actor zeroes in on Westerns ... but he can dance, too.

Exclusive: After investigators concluded an abuse incident occurred, women speak out for first time – ‘I was so scared to tell anybody’

Two women incarcerated in a California prison are calling for the prosecution of a staff cook who they say sexually assaulted them.

The women say Marcus Johnson, a former supervisory cook at the California Institution for Women (CIW), raped them in 2020 while they were working for him in kitchen jobs. The women, who were making under 40 cents an hour, said in federal civil complaints he threatened disciplinary action if they reported him.

An anonymous reader writes: Electric buses are proving unreliable this winter for Vermont's Green Mountain Transit, as it needs to be over 41 degrees for the buses to charge, but due to a battery recall the buses are a fire hazard and can't be charged in a garage. Spokesman for energy workers advocacy group Power the Future Larry Behrens told the Center Square: "Taxpayers were sold an $8 million 'solution' that can't operate in cold weather when the home for these buses is in New England." "We're beyond the point where this looks like incompetence and starts to smell like fraud," Behrens said. "When government rushes money out the door to satisfy green mandates, basic questions about performance, safety, and value for taxpayers are always pushed aside," Behrens said. "Americans deserve to know who approved this purchase and why the red flags were ignored." General manager at Green Mountain Transit (GMT) Clayton Clark told The Center Square that "the federal government provides public transit agencies with new buses through a competitive grant application process, and success is not a given."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The $499 Pixel 10A has a number of features that outdo its more expensive siblings, especially when it comes to its battery size and charging speed.

Novelist George RR Martin says RSC is ‘obvious choice’ to put on new play The Mad King, which will open after spring

A new prequel to George RR Martin’s blockbuster fantasy saga Game of Thrones is to be staged this summer by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The bestselling author, whose novels have been turned into a juggernaut TV franchise, said the RSC was the “obvious choice” to put on the play, Game of Thrones: The Mad King, because Shakespeare had been a constant source of inspiration to him. “Not only that, he faced similar challenges in how to put a battle on stage,” added Martin. “So we are in good company.”

Without AI you will be a ‘weaker and poorer nation’, says former UK chancellor two months into job at US firm

The former chancellor George Osborne has said countries that do not embrace the kind of powerful AI systems made by his new employer, OpenAI, risk “Fomo” and could be left weaker and poorer.

Osborne, who is two months into a job as head of the $500bn San Francisco AI company’s “for countries” programme, told leaders gathered for the AI Impact summit in Delhi: “Don’t be left behind.” He said that without AI rollouts they could end up with a workforce “less willing to stay put” because they might want to seek AI-enabled fortunes elsewhere.

The eclipse will be visible across North America, but you'll need to stay up late to see it.

Take a stand for your health with the best standing desks of 2026.

Kerstin G froze to death on Großglockner when Thomas P descended mountain to fetch help

An Austrian mountaineer is to appear in court accused of gross negligent manslaughter after his girlfriend died of hypothermia when he left her close to the summit on a climb that went dramatically wrong.

The 33-year-old woman, identified only as Kerstin G, froze to death on 19 January 2025, about 50 metres below the summit of the Großglockner, Austria’s tallest mountain, after an ascent of more than 17 hours with her boyfriend, Thomas P, 36.

Threat of 9.5% property tax increase puts pressure on Governor Hochul, who is seeking re-election this year

Zohran Mamdani, New York’s democratic socialist mayor, has unveiled two new budget proposals for the city – one to raise income and corporate taxes, or another to raise property taxes – triggering resistance from some political figures in and out of the state.

Mamdani’s two proposals include either raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents – which would require approval from New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul – or a “last resort” measure of a 9.5% property tax increase, which could affect “more than 3 million single-family homes, co-ops and condos and over 100,000 commercial buildings”, according to the New York Times.

Microsoft says a Microsoft 365 Copilot bug has been causing the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails since late January, bypassing data loss prevention (DLP) policies that organizations rely on to protect sensitive information. From a report: According to a service alert seen by BleepingComputer, this bug (tracked under CW1226324 and first detected on January 21) affects the Copilot "work tab" chat feature, which incorrectly reads and summarizes emails stored in users' Sent Items and Drafts folders, including messages that carry confidentiality labels explicitly designed to restrict access by automated tools. Copilot Chat (short for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat) is the company's AI-powered, content-aware chat that lets users interact with AI agents. Microsoft began rolling out Copilot Chat to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote for paying Microsoft 365 business customers in September 2025.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lawsuit from health and environmental justice groups challenges the EPA’s rollback of the ‘endangerment finding’

More than a dozen health and environmental justice non-profits have sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its revocation of the legal determination that underpins US federal climate regulations.

Filed in Washington DC circuit court, the lawsuit challenges the EPA’s rollback of the “endangerment finding”, which states that the buildup of heat-trapping pollution in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare and has allowed the EPA to limit those emissions from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources since 2009. The rollback was widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis.

The Climate Briefing: The geopolitics of deep-sea mining Audio thilton.drupal 18 February 2026

Anna speaks to Dr Isaac Kardon (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Meredith Schwartz (Centre for Strategic and International Studies) about how the race to source critical raw materials from the ocean floor is impacting geopolitics.

The race to secure critical raw materials is turning attention towards an unlikely place: the ocean floor. In this episode, Anna speaks with Dr Isaac Kardon (Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Meredith Schwartz (Associate Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies) about the geopolitics of deep-sea mining.

About The Climate Briefing  

The Climate Briefing explores key themes in the UN climate negotiations and international climate politics. The podcast is hosted by Bhargabi Bharadwaj and Anna Aberg from Chatham House and features interviewees from governments, international organizations, academia and civil society organizations from across the world. 
 
You can also listen to The Climate Briefing on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

At KBIS 2026, we got a first look at Toto's industry-first Aurora Washlet Plus, which aims to solve a frustrating cleanliness problem.

Google launches the Pixel 10A today, and we're excited for the new affordable phone, even if it does seem similar to last year's Pixel 9A.

With the reversal from the FDA, Moderna said it is aiming to make the vaccine available for the 2026-27 flu season.

Four congressional Democrats are asking inspectors general to probe whether ex-lobbyists in the administration broke ethics rules to benefit former clients.

A group of 15 backcountry skiers was reportedly involved in the incident, the sheriff's office says. Nine remain unaccounted for.

If your goal is to be more active, these fitness devices will keep you motivated.

NEW DELHI, Feb. 18, 2026 — Yotta Data Services today announced it will deploy 20,736 liquid-cooled NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs, forming one of Asia’s largest AI superclusters. The deployment represents an investment exceeding $2 billion and is expected to go live by August 2026, positioning India among a select group of geographies capable of hosting frontier-scale AI infrastructure.

In a significant development reflecting strengthening India–U.S. technology alignment, NVIDIA will establish one of APAC’s largest NVIDIA DGX Cloud cluster within Yotta’s HGX B300 Blackwell Ultra supercluster, leveraging Blackwell Ultra GPUs under a four-year engagement valued at over $1 billion. NVIDIA DGX Cloud has been utilizing Yotta’s GPU infrastructure over the past year, and this expanded deployment scales that relationship in line with regional and global demand growth.

The collaboration reflects a broader shift in global AI compute supply chains, where advanced AI infrastructure is increasingly distributed across trusted regions. India’s emergence as a major AI infrastructure node reinforces strategic technology collaboration between India and the United States and strengthens shared priorities around secure, high-performance AI ecosystems.

Yotta’s NVIDIA Blackwell supercluster is built on NVIDIA reference architecture and integrates 800 Gbps NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking, advanced liquid-cooling systems, and over 40 petabytes of high-performance parallel file-system storage. The platform is engineered to support trillion-parameter foundation model training and high-throughput inference workloads capable of handling multi-million simultaneous prompts.

Yotta’s AI Factories are based on NVIDIA Reference Architecture to deliver fastest time to market, lowest cost per token and highest returns. Global AI model developers, enterprises, and governments are assured that the infrastructure can reliably support frontier-scale training and mission-critical inference deployments.

Beyond infrastructure scale, Yotta is augmenting its Shakti Studio AI platform with NVIDIA Nemotron open models, NVIDIA NIM microservices, and access to the full NVIDIAAI Enterprise software suite . Through Shakti Studio, developers in India gain access to the NVIDIA Nemotron family of truly open models including model weights, training datasets, and recipes enabling transparent fine-tuning, customization, and sovereign AI development at scale. The availability of open architectures alongside optimized inference microservices ensures that startups, enterprises, and public institutions can build secure, production-grade AI applications on world-class infrastructure.

Alongside the NVIDIA’s DGX Cloud deployment, Yotta is committing over 10,000 NVIDIA B300 GPUs from the AI supercluster to the IndiaAI Mission, supporting sovereign Indian foundation model development, research institutions, startups, and population-scale public AI platforms. This parallel allocation ensures that domestic AI priorities advance alongside global AI capacity expansion.

For India, the development aligns with the national vision of building AI “from India, for India, and for the world.” Access to large-scale Blackwell infrastructure within the country reduces structural dependence on offshore compute and enables Indian model builders and enterprises to scale confidently. It allows AI products conceived in India to serve both domestic and international markets from infrastructure located within India advancing India’s ambition to evolve from a technology consumer to a technology creator.

The supercluster will be deployed at Yotta’s 60 MW D2 hyperscale Data Centre within its Greater Noida DC campus, scalable to 250 MW, and supported by Yotta’s Navi Mumbai DC campus, scalable to 2 GW. With integrated extra-high-voltage substations, dedicated power distribution infrastructure, green energy sourcing, and vertically integrated engineering capabilities across data centres, cloud, managed services and GPU compute, Yotta has established a long-term platform capable of scaling beyond one million GPUs within the next three to five years as India’s AI ecosystem accelerates.

The combined capital commitments over $2 billion in Blackwell Ultra infrastructure deployment and a over $1 billion multi-year contracted engagement for DGX Cloud capacity reflect sustained demand for high-performance AI infrastructure in the region and provide meaningful long-term demand visibility.

Darshan Hiranandani, Co-Founder & Chairman, Yotta Data Services, said, “AI infrastructure is becoming foundational economic infrastructure. This NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra supercluster reinforces India’s position in the global AI value chain. Our capital strategy is focused on building scalable infrastructure that serves both national priorities and international AI demand.”

Sunil Gupta, Co-Founder, MD & CEO, Yotta Data Services, added, “India’s AI ambition requires sustained, high-performance compute at scale. By combining Blackwell Ultra infrastructure with open models like NVIDIA Nemotron and the full NVIDIA AI stack, we are enabling developers to build sovereign, globally competitive AI applications from India.”

Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO, NVIDIA, NVIDIA, said, “India is emerging as one of the world’s most important AI markets, driven by extraordinary talent and a bold national vision. Yotta’s deployment of one of the largest NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra superclusters creates advanced AI infrastructure capable of training frontier-scale models and delivering AI at population scale. Expanding AI Factory capacity in India strengthens NVIDIA’s regional footprint while supporting India’s ambition to build secure, sovereign, and globally competitive AI.”

Yotta currently operates over 10,000 NVIDIA GPUs live in production, with another 8,000 NVIDIA GPUs going live within the next quarter, followed by the deployment of 20,736 Blackwell Ultra GPUs by August 2026. The company has outlined a roadmap to scale beyond 80,000 NVIDIA GPUs by FY27, supported by phased infrastructure expansion and long-term capacity planning.

At scale, this trajectory positions India not merely as a high-growth AI market, but as a structurally significant compute hub within the global AI ecosystem where sovereign capability, open innovation, disciplined capital deployment, and strategic international collaboration converge. India is not just participating in the AI revolution. It is building the infrastructure that will power its next phase.

More from HPCwire: Yotta Data and NVIDIA Collaborate to Boost India’s AI and HPC Landscape [Dec. 2023]

About Yotta Data Services

Yotta is a new-age Digital Transformation enabler that derives its value from end-to-end competencies in Hyperscale Data Center and Cloud Infrastructure, Managed IT, Global Connectivity, Holistic Cybersecurity, Application Modernization and a gamut of cutting-edge solutions for every enterprise need.

Source: Yotta Data Services

The post Yotta Plans $2B NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra Supercluster Deployment in India appeared first on HPCwire.

The title-chasing Gunners need a win in this top-versus bottom EPL clash.

Google's Pixel 10A includes lots of under-the-hood tweaks. Will you notice the difference? That depends on your previous phone.

Money market account interest rates are still high. Here's how much savers can earn with a $25,000 deposit made now.

After Cati Blauvelt, 22, was murdered in Simpsonville, South Carolina, her husband, former U.S. Army recruiter John Blauvelt, fled with his 17-year-old girlfriend Hannah Thompson. U.S. Marshals led the cross-country chase for the armed fugitive.

Actor, whose credits also included RoboCop 2, Anomalisa and Heaven’s Gate, was also an accomplished playwright

Tom Noonan, the actor known for his Michael Mann collaborations, has died at the age of 74.

His death was confirmed by Fred Dekker, the director of 80s comedy horror The Monster Squad which saw Noonan play Frankenstein’s Monster.

Ring's AI-powered "Search Party" feature, which links neighborhood cameras into a networked surveillance system to find lost dogs, was never intended to stop at pets, according to an internal email from founder Jamie Siminoff obtained by 404 Media. Siminoff told employees in early October, shortly after the feature launched, that Search Party was introduced "first for finding dogs" and that the technology would eventually help "zero out crime in neighborhoods." The on-by-default feature faced intense backlash after Ring promoted it during a Super Bowl ad. Ring has since also rolled out "Familiar Faces," a facial recognition tool that identifies friends and family on a user's camera, and "Fire Watch," an AI-based fire alert system. A Ring spokesperson told the publication Search Party does not process human biometrics or track people.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Union coverage slightly increased last year even as White House tried to eliminate contracts for thousands of workers

The number of workers covered under union contracts increased to a 16-year high in 2025, despite ongoing attempts by the Trump administration to wipe out collective bargaining agreements for tens of thousands of federal workers, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

About 16.5 million workers were covered by a union contract in 2025, up from 16 million in 2024 and the highest level since 2009. The increase stems from workers joining unions as members – 14.7 million US workers were union members in 2025, up from 14.2 million workers in 2024.

The Trump administration is facing a new lawsuit over its decision to deregulate emissions and repeal a landmark scientific finding on climate pollution.

The EV manufacturer avoided a 30-day suspension after an ongoing dispute with the state's DMV.

The restaurant can keep menu term despite claim product is ‘essentially chicken nuggets’, Illinois ruling says

A customer who sued the US restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings after finding out their “boneless wings” were not in fact made of wings has been told by a US judge that his claim has “has no meat on its bones”.

Buffalo Wild Wings can continue using the term “boneless wings” on its menu even though the product is “essentially chicken nuggets”, John Tharp, a district judge, ruled, dismissing a lawsuit that claimed the chain was misleading customers.

Feb. 18, 2026 — Quantum computers promise to push beyond the limits of today’s machines, accelerating progress in areas such as medicine discovery, materials science and secure computing. While classical computers and artificial intelligence-powered systems already support innovation in drug development and help manage critical infrastructure, for example, quantum computing could dramatically expand what is possible by tackling certain problems far more efficiently. However, a major challenge remains: noise — any disturbance, whether from a hardware glitch, lab mistake or even a deliberate attack — that can disrupt delicate quantum information.

Credit: Shutterstock

To address this challenge, a collaborative team at Rice University and Johns Hopkins University, backed by several U.S. National Science Foundation grants, including NSF 2339116, NSF 2243659 and NSF 2528780, developed new algorithms within a common framework that help quantum computers keep working even when noise is present. Researchers call this framework the “adversarial state corruption model“, which assumes that an attacker can tamper with part of a quantum system’s measurements. By designing algorithms with this threat model in mind, the researchers aimed to test how resilient quantum systems can be under realistic and even hostile conditions.

While these algorithms need further testing before they can be deployed at full scale, they already show strong promise for near-term, small-scale quantum systems, especially as improved algorithms are developed. As quantum technology moves from theory into real hardware, companies working with superconducting circuits, trapped ions and photonic systems could be the first to benefit. By strengthening the reliability and security of these emerging systems, the research directly supports national priorities in quantum technology, cybersecurity and advanced computing research, while also training a skilled workforce prepared to operate at the frontier of quantum innovation.

The team also identified important limits on what quantum systems can learn reliably. They found that while many useful quantum states remain stable even when some data is corrupted, extremely complex or disordered states can be disrupted by even a small amount of interference. One example is the maximally mixed state, which behaves like pure noise and is nearly impossible to learn accurately under adversarial conditions. By contrast, well-structured states, such as those used in quantum algorithms for factoring large numbers or searching large databases, can be learned robustly and efficiently. Together, these results help set realistic expectations: Quantum systems will not be perfect, but researchers can identify where they perform reliably and where they need protection.

This research carries important benefits for science and technology. Quantum computers may eventually crack today’s advanced encryption methods, so researchers must ensure that the machines themselves resist tampering. By clearly identifying the strengths and limits, the approach also builds trust, helping prevent hype and guiding investment decisions. The work also supports progress across disciplines by training students who combine skills in quantum physics and advanced statistics, creating a new generation of experts capable of carrying this field forward.

Although the work remains in its early stages, it marks an important step toward quantum systems that operate dependably, securely and in service of American needs, from national defense to health care and beyond.

More from HPCwire: NSF Launches $100M National Quantum and Nanotechnology Research Infrastructure Program

Source: NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering

The post NSF CISE: Making Quantum Computers Resilient to Adversarial Attacks appeared first on HPCwire.

Marius Borg Hoiby faces 38 charges, including raping four women while they were asleep or had passed out.

Mikaela Shiffrin, the most decorated skier of all time, last won a medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.

The risks of Trump’s peace plan: Two Gazas and an annexed West Bank Expert comment thilton.drupal 18 February 2026

Trump’s plan could doom aspirations for a unified Palestinian state. European and Arab states should pressure Washington before it’s too late.

As US President Donald Trump convenes the inaugural meeting of the ‘Board of Peace’ (BoP) in Washington this week, Gaza will be thrust back into the international spotlight. This gives Arab and European governments a chance to review the framework he has set out to end the conflict in Gaza and adjust their engagement strategies.

Although they are mostly keen to accommodate Trump and help maintain the ceasefire, they risk supporting a process that could close off any prospect of Palestinian statehood and deliver a serious blow to Palestinian nationalism. If Arab and European states do not act, they risk letting Palestine become transformed into the Israeli right’s dream.

The risks of Trump’s Gaza peace plan

In 1993, the Oslo Accords were hailed as a breakthrough and presented as a process that would strengthen Israel’s security and open a negotiated path toward Palestinian statehood.

Instead, they created a system of limited Palestinian self‑rule that stalled progress towards statehood by deferring all core issues and leaving Israel in control of borders, security and territory. The Accords also weakened Palestinian unity by formalizing a fragmented administrative structure in the West Bank and Gaza, which deepened political division rather than consolidating a unified national project.

President Trump’s ‘Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict’, which was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803, risks repeating the same mistakes.

First, the framework places Gaza under a layered external governance system created with minimal Palestinian input or control over the outcomes.

Under the plan, authority is centred in the BoP, chaired by President Trump himself. This authority will be exercised through the Gaza Executive Board (GEB), which does not include any Palestinian or Israeli members, while a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) made up of multinational soldiers will provide security.

The plan also establishes a technocratic and depoliticized Palestinian body, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). But the composition of the 15-member NCAG, while agreed by Palestinian factions including both Fatah and Hamas, was vetted by Israel under US oversight. Fundamentally, it is a body chosen and approved by outside actors, with little, if any, real authority awarded to Palestinians.

Second, UNSCR 2803’s narrow focus on Gaza risks cutting the enclave’s remaining political and economic ties with the West Bank and closing off all pathways to Palestinian statehood.

Related work

What is Security Council Resolution 2803, and what does it mean for the Trump Gaza plan?

The resolution itself treats Palestinian statehood as a conditional prospect, noting that a ‘pathway to self‑determination and statehood’ may emerge only if targets embedded in the plan are met. These ambitious targets include the full demilitarization of Gaza, verified security milestones and a functioning governance structure set up under the GEB, ISF and NCAG, as well as successful reform of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The reference to statehood represents a concession by the US, which has historically opposed its inclusion. But many delegations noted the failure to refer to the standard UN safeguards for Palestinian rights, starting with UNSCR resolutions 242 and 338.

In other words, UNSCR 2803 does not commit the UN or the international community to establishing a Palestinian state and instead institutionalizes and legitimizes the complete separation of Gaza and the West Bank until at least 31 December 2027, when the BoP’s mandate expires. By that point, it will be too late.

Two Gazas

The ‘New Gaza’ plan unveiled by Jared Kushner in Davos last month recasts the entire enclave as a real‑estate redevelopment project. It divides Gaza into designated districts that replace existing neighbourhoods and resemble modern Gulf cities like Dubai.

The plan treats Gaza as vacant beachfront real estate rather than as part of a Palestinian state. It was formulated without meaningful Palestinian consultation and prioritizes the development of economic zones over the needs and rights of Gaza’s population.

Advocates of the plan such as Kushner have presented it as an opportunity for long-term economic development in Gaza, though previous economy-first approaches to resolving the conflict – supported by Tony Blair – have failed in the past.

While Kushner announced that he is planning for ‘catastrophic success’ in rolling out redevelopment across the entire enclave, in practice, reconstruction will likely be dictated by access and control. This means those areas currently under Israeli military authority will likely be the first to see movement.

Indeed, reconstruction is set to begin with ‘New Rafah’, in the part of Gaza controlled by the Israeli military. Meanwhile, many fear that there will initially be little reconstruction in the areas of Gaza not directly controlled by Israel, where most Palestinians live. Israel and its partners will also reportedly decide which Palestinians are allowed to live in the redeveloped areas.

This will effectively result in two Gazas. One will be an inhabitable but sanitized enclave that will be disarmed, depoliticized and tightly supervised. This will likely be run by a Palestinian governor who can work with Israel and the US, such as former Palestinian cabinet minister and national security adviser Mohammed Dahlan. The other, lying outside of the reconstructed areas, will be cut off, marginalized and unstable, though without posing a real threat to Israel.

This could begin a new phase of Palestinian displacement and dispossession, which would likely fuel a new wave of anti-Israeli sentiment not only among Palestinians but also among the wider population of the Middle East.

West Bank annexation

Meanwhile, Israel’s security cabinet on 8 February approved a sweeping set of measures that expand Israeli authority across the West Bank, accelerate settlement growth and remove legal constraints on land seizure. Announcing the decisions, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said ‘we will continue to bury the idea of a Palestinian state.’

The de facto annexation of the West Bank has been accelerating quite openly, and the international community’s condemnations ring hollow. While the Trump administration has expressed its opposition to annexation, Israel will likely surge ahead unless it faces a high cost for doing so.

Unresolved ‘sensitive’ issues in peace talks are fate of occupied territories in east Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

The peace talks ended abruptly today after about two hours, according to reports, in contrast with yesterday’s negotiations that apparently took place over six hours.

Neither side have offered any public sign of progress, but instead said the talks were “difficult” with Russian news agencies quoting sources describing the negotiations as “very tense”.

Before you invest in any physical silver bars, it's important to know what your size and weight options are.

President accused Wes Moore of ‘gross mismanagement’ after federally managed sewer line ruptured last month

A month after one of the largest sewage spills in US history began soiling the Potomac River, Donald Trump and the Maryland governor, Wes Moore, are fighting over who bears responsibility for a disaster involving a federally regulated pipeline that Moore does not control.

The president used his social media platform on Monday to accuse Moore of “gross mismanagement” after a big sewer line ruptured last month, causing what researchers describe as one of the largest sewage spills in US history.

We tested popular carbon monoxide detectors in our lab to determine which models have the best response times across different CO concentrations.

Xalet del Catllaràs contains elements of architect’s naturalistic style, expressed in works such as Park Güell and Sagrada Família

An elegant modernist building in the mountains north of Barcelona, originally constructed to house engineers establishing a nearby mine, has been confirmed as a work of Antoni Gaudí, Catalonia’s most celebrated and distinctive architect.

The Xalet del Catllaràs, about 80 miles from Barcelona in the county of Berguedà, was built in 1905 and commissioned by Eusebi Güell, Gaudí’s lifelong patron. Güell was the owner of a cement company with mines in the region and he needed somewhere to house the engineers, many of them British, who would help extract the coal for his factories.

People of Note blends musical performance, rhythm and turn-based combat in one of the most creative games coming in 2026.

WordPress has started rolling out an AI assistant built into its site editor and media library that can edit and translate text, generate and edit images through Google's Nano Banana model, and make structural changes to sites like creating new pages or swapping fonts. Users can also invoke the assistant by tagging "@ai" in block notes, a commenting feature added to the site editor in December's WordPress 6.9 update. The tool is opt-in -- users need to toggle on "AI tools" in their site settings -- though sites originally created using WordPress's AI website builder, launched last year, will have it enabled by default.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US ambassador accused of interference after labelling inquiry into suspected illegal circumcisions ‘antisemitic’

A diplomatic row is escalating between Belgium and the US, with Donald Trump’s ambassador refusing to apologise for accusing his host country of antisemitism and reportedly threatening to bar a socialist politician from travelling to the US.

Bill White, a staunch ally of the president like many US ambassadors, on Monday demanded Belgium drop a “ridiculous” and “antisemitic” investigation into three Jewish men suspected of performing circumcisions without medical qualifications.

We all know one – and there’s a good chance you fall into the category yourself. Here’s how to recognise if you’re a ‘walking, talking red flag’ …

Name: Finger princess.

Age: The term circulated this month, but the behaviour has been escalating across digital communication for some time.

Leadership disputes claim of political motive for ousting Jeffrey Rosen, who was praised for non-partisan approach

The first and only museum dedicated to the US constitution has been plunged into turmoil over the sudden departure of its president, a legal scholar widely respected for his commitment to non-partisanship.

The National Constitution Center (NCC) in Philadelphia announced last month that Jeffrey Rosen would step down after 12 years to be replaced by Vince Stango on an interim basis.

County has highest number of reinstated elections following decision not to delay them for 30 English councils

Labour figures in the county with the highest number of reinstated council elections, following the government’s recent U-turn, have said they fear the party will be “annihilated” when voters go to the polls in May.

The polls had expected to be postponed pending a reorganisation of local government in the county and a move to unitary authorities, but earlier this week the local government secretary, Steve Reed, scrapped plans to delay the elections, after Reform UK threatened a legal challenge.

U.S.-brokered Ukraine-Russia peace talks wrap up with little to show, and Zelenskyy accusing Moscow of playing for time

Exclusive: UK graduates in Germany, Belgium and possibly other countries informed of rises as salary threshold is cut

Britons living in some European countries face a huge rise in their student loan repayments later this year, the Guardian can reveal, in a move that threatens to trigger a fresh backlash for Rachel Reeves.

UK graduates working in Germany and Belgium – and possibly other countries – have been told that their monthly repayments will increase from April, the Guardian can reveal.

The top US diplomat’s soothing tone masked a familiar message: Europe can remain America’s ally – but at a cost

• Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

“The greatness of America,” wrote the 19th-century French diplomat, political philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, “lies not in her being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

For a brief moment at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) last weekend, European leaders half-thought that their most heartfelt wish – the return of the old US, that believed in the EU ideal and backed a rules-based world order – had been granted.

Treasury spokesperson says disability benefits would also be limited under Reform, but Bank of England would stay independent

• UK politics live – latest updates

Reform UK would restore the two-child benefit cap in full, Robert Jenrick has announced, in a major U-turn for the party that critics said would plunge hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.

In his first speech as Reform’s Treasury spokesperson, Jenrick said the party had changed tack since Nigel Farage last year said he would scrap the two-child limit and suggested his party wanted to go “much further to encourage people to have children”.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2013, scientists unveiled the first lab-grown burger at a cost of $330,000. By 2023, the FDA approved cultivated chicken for sale. The price had dropped to around $10-$30 per pound, and over $3 billion in investor money had poured into more than 175 companies developing meat grown from animal cells instead of slaughtered animals. The promise is straightforward: real meat, no slaughter required. You could eat beef without killing cattle, chicken without industrial farming, steak without ethical compromise. The technology works. Federal regulators approved it as safe. And nearly a third of US states have banned it or are trying to. Not because it's dangerous -- because it threatens something deeper than food safety. Start with a small sample of animal cells -- a biopsy, not a slaughter. Place them in a bioreactor with nutrients. The cells multiply, forming muscle tissue identical to conventional meat at the cellular level. Nutritionally comparable, same protein content, but grown without raising and killing an animal. The process uses 64-90% less land than conventional meat production and drastically reduces greenhouse gas emissions. No factory farms, no slaughterhouses, no ethical compromise for people who love meat but hate industrial animal agriculture. For vegetarians who gave up meat for ethical reasons, it offers something impossible before: guilt-free steak. [...] Here's where the dream hits reality. Consumer surveys show people perceive conventional meat as tastier and healthier than lab-grown alternatives. Fewer consumers are willing to try cultivated options than expected. The words "lab-grown" and "cultivated" don't exactly make mouths water. Something about meat grown in a bioreactor triggers deep discomfort for many people, even those who claim to care about animal welfare and environmental impact. It's the same psychological barrier that made "Frankenfood" stick as a label for GMOs. Meat is supposed to come from animals, raised on farms, connected to land and tradition. Growing it in a facility feels wrong to people in ways they struggle to articulate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At KBIS, we got our first look at a countertop with induction burners built directly into the surface. It's an intriguing concept that raises serious safety concerns.

Solar storms are associated with the lovely aurora borealis, but they can have negative impacts, too.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by an Illinois man who alleged that Buffalo Wild Wings' use of the term "boneless wings" was deceptive.

What made the Manchester United co-owner’s anti-immigrant screed so revolting was his brazen willingness to say it all out loud. Remind you of anyone?

Did British petrochemicals billionaire and Manchester United’s controlling minority owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, really mean it when he proclaimed to Sky News that “the UK is being colonized by immigrants”?

Is Ratcliffe simply a gutter racist or actually making a cynical political play that may redound to his benefit down the line when Britain faces down yet another period of political upheaval as the country’s old factions continue to fracture? There’s reasonable debate to be had there.

Reaction to Emerald Fennell’s movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi

My group of six English teachers – aged from 30 to 54 – saw the film on Friday. We are still processing our thoughts in a group chat. We agreed that the visuals were often delightfully shocking. We talked about the contrasts between the lavish costumes and the moor landscape, which we thought Fennell got right. We talked about the Charlie XCX music and how well it evoked the landscape and the spirit of the book.

• Nazgul makes unexpected entry in team sprint

• Owner says two-year old looking for company

A local dog has missed out on a historic cross-country medal at the Winter Olympics despite a lung-bursting surge in the homestretch.

Nazgul, who according to NPR lives at a nearby hotel in Tesero, broke on to the course on Wednesday morning and sprinted for the line behind Croatia’s Tena Hadzic as she came to the end of the qualifying race for the women’s team cross-country sprint. Even if he had completed the entire race, Nazgul’s time would not have counted as he is male. And a dog.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s winter break ends Friday when the justices gather in their private conference. The traditional break is a time for catching up on reading and writing opinions, and this court has had significant catching up to do.

The justices often have issued several decisions in argued cases in November and December— the “easy” cases resulting in unanimous opinions. But this term’s first opinion in an argued case didn’t come until Jan. 9, 2026. It was, surprisingly, a 5-4 opinion in a case involving post-conviction relief.

The long winter break has only increased expectations, or anxiety, about rulings in several key cases, including in the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s economic policy—tariffs—and a major voting rights challenge with critical implications for upcoming elections.

Trump’s legal issues dominated the justices’ emergency docket last year and now dominate their argument docket with ongoing questions about executive power, the separation of powers, and citizenship.

Let’s do a little “catching up” before the rest of the term swings into high gear.

Cases Argued and Awaiting Decisions

Tariffs

Learning Resources v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections

Much already has been written about the tariff question. The justices will decide whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorized Trump to impose his worldwide tariffs. Until Trump, no president in the IEEPA's nearly 50-year history had ever invoked that law to impose tariffs.

The justices heard arguments in both cases (combined for argument) on Nov. 5, 2025. Many court watchers expected an early decision because of the issue’s importance, but the justices apparently were in no rush. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled against the president and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that decision.

Voting Rights

Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais

The Roberts Court’s conservative majority has been no friend of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, known as the crown jewel of the Civil Rights movement. It neutered one key section (Section 5), and civil rights and voting rights advocates fear that the remaining key section—Section 2— could face a similar fate. Section 2 prohibits voting standards, practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. That prohibition applies nationwide. 

The justices heard the cases last term but were unable to resolve them and ordered re-arguments that took place Oct. 15, 2026. The two cases, consolidated for argument, involve challenges to the Louisiana legislature’s creation of a second majority Black congressional district in its 2024 redistricting map. For the re-arguments, the justices asked the state and the challengers to brief and argue whether the state’s “intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the 14th or 15th amendments to the Constitution.”

President’s Removal Power

Trump v. Slaughter

Since the creation of the Federal Trade Commission in 1914, the five presidentially appointed commissioners have been protected from removal only for cause, that is for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office. The Supreme Court upheld the “for cause” requirement in a 1935 decision, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.

The Roberts Court has chipped away at Humphrey’s Executor, and it appears to be on its death bed. Last year, Trump fired FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter without cause and argued that the removal restriction was unconstitutional. A federal district court temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s action pending an appeal. The Supreme Court, however, took the case before the appeals court. Arguments were heard on Dec. 8, 2025.

The questions for the justices are whether the statutory removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the Constitution’s separation of powers and, if so, whether Humphrey’s Executor should be overruled, and whether a federal court has the power to prevent a person’s removal from public office.

Trump v. Cook

From the Federal Trade Commission to the Federal Reserve Board, here we go again.

The Federal Reserve Act authorizes the president to dismiss members of the Board of Governors “for cause.” Last year, Trump decided that cause existed to remove Board member Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board. Trump claimed that before taking office, Cook made contradictory representations in two mortgage agreements a short time apart, claiming that a property in Michigan and a property in Georgia would simultaneously serve as her principal residence.

Trump decided that Cook’s “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter” made her unfit to continue serving on the Board. But a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction reinstating Cook, and a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit refused to block that order. The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to block the district court’s preliminary injunction pending appeal to the D.C. Circuit. The case was argued Jan. 21, 2026.

Transgender Sports

Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J.

Idaho and West Virginia have state laws restricting participation in women’s and girls’ sports to women and girls based on biological sex determined at birth. The cases were argued before the justices on Jan. 13, 2026.

Link: Case Analysis from Constitution Daily

The justices will decide whether these laws and more than 20 similar state laws violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment or Title IX of the 1972 Education Act Amendments, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

Upcoming Arguments

Birthright Citizenship

Trump v. Barbara

On April 1, 2026, the justices will hear arguments on the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. The order has been extremely controversial, and the weight of legal and historical research does not favor Trump.

On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump issued Executive Order No. 14,160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” which, he contends, restores the original meaning of the Citizenship Clause. The order provides, on a prospective basis only, that children of temporary visitors and illegal aliens are not U.S. citizens by birth. The Citizenship order directs federal agencies not to issue or accept citizenship documents for such children born more than 30 days after the order's effective date. The question before the justices is whether the executive order complies with the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause and with 8 U.S.C. 1401(a), which codifies the clause.

Gun Rights

United States v. Hemani

A federal statute that is part of the Gun Control Act of 1968 states that “it shall be unlawful for any person . . . who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” to possess firearms or ammunition. Ali Hemani was indicted in 2023 for violating the federal statute (18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3)). The indictment alleged that in 2022, Hemani knowingly possessed a Glock 19 9mm pistol while being an unlawful user of controlled substances such as marijuana, promethazine, and cocaine. The gun was found in a closet in his parent’s home. The government did not allege Hemani was using drugs at the time he actually possessed the gun but that he was a regular drug user.

Link: Case Preview from Constitution Daily

A district court granted Hemani’s motion to dismiss the indictment and the federal appellate court affirmed, finding the law was unconstitutional as applied to him. The justices will hear arguments on March 2, 2026, on whether the federal statute violates the Second Amendment as applied to Hemani.

The above cases are a snapshot of the more closely watched challenges in the term. The justices may issue decisions on Friday (Feb. 20, 2026) and next Tuesday (Feb. 24,2026) and Wednesday (Feb. 25, 2026). The court’s decisions can be found here. Stay tuned.

Marcia Coyle is a regular contributor to Constitution Daily. She was the Supreme Court Correspondent for The National Law Journal and PBS NewsHour who has covered the Supreme Court for more than three decades.

After two hours of talks in Geneva on Wednesday, the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said negotiations had been “difficult but businesslike.”

We boiled litres of water to find the best electric kettles, from hard-water heroes to vintage-style, repairable and wifi-connected models

• The best air fryers, tried and tested for crisp and crunch

Despite the march of progress, the humble kettle remains a kitchen staple. It’s what we turn to in times of strife, when spirits are flagging, or to start our day. And when a visitor calls, one of the first things we do is put the kettle on.

While many small appliances have evolved beyond their original form, the kettle’s basic principles remain largely unchanged. Water goes in and heats up until a thermostat switches it off; the water then pours out, and we enjoy a cuppa. However, the technology that goes into a kettle has been slowly improving: better insulation to keep water hotter for longer and reduce reboils; different temperature settings to suit every drink from green tea to herbal brews; and more features such as filters and concealed elements to keep scale out of our cups.

Best kettle overall:
Bosch Sky kettle

Best budget kettle:
Kenwood Ripple kettle

By repealing the EPA’s determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health, the president is denying reality itself

The climate crisis is killing people. These deaths are measurable, documented and ongoing. Concluding otherwise is just playing pretend. Studies explain the mechanics, but lived experience supplies the truth. The people who suffer the consequences see the fire rising and water closing in. They need their government’s help.

Despite that, the president of the United States stood at a microphone last Thursday and abdicated his duty to them. “It has nothing to do with public health,” he claimed about the climate crisis while announcing that the federal government would repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding”, a determination that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. “This is all a scam, a giant scam.”

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

I was detained for co-writing a op-ed about Gaza as a student at Tufts. My experience has only made me feel more connected to others facing oppression

It started off as a normal Tuesday. On 25 March 2025 I reviewed applications from university students applying for a summer research position at my lab. I told friends I would bring pastries from Harvard Square for the Friday dinner we were planning. I finalized my schedule for an upcoming child development conference. I worked on my dissertation proposal.

The day was busy but not unusual – until I left home after quickly dressing for an iftar dinner at the interfaith center. What followed was my first personal encounter with human-made trauma through state violence.

Google's $499 Pixel 10A comes in four colors, and goes on sale March 5.

The new lower-cost Pixel looks a lot like last year's 9A, but has some quality-of-life improvements.

PARIS, Feb. 18, 2026 — Viridien, an advanced technology and digital solutions company, has announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to transform seismic imaging workflows by leveraging NVIDIA HPC platforms and Viridien’s expertise in Subsurface Imaging technologies and HPC & Cloud Solutions.

Advances in subsurface imaging powered by Viridien HPC reduce exploration risk and inform better drilling decisions. Viridien continuously optimizes its hardware, software, and algorithms, working with strategic partners to deliver compute solutions for seismic imaging. Example from the Laconia Phase I 12Hz E-TLFWI dataset in the Gulf of Mexico. Image Credit: Viridien Earth Data.

The collaboration will focus on optimizing Viridien’s seismic imaging algorithms on NVIDIA accelerated computing platforms, including the integration of advanced techniques such as tensor cores and mixed-precision computing. By working closely together to leverage Viridien’s decades of experience in fully managed HPC solutions for seismic imaging with the power of NVIDIA accelerated computing platforms, the collaboration aims to deliver continued improvements in system performance, imaging accuracy, and operational efficiency for energy and geoscience clients worldwide.

John Josephakis, VP of HPC and Supercomputing, NVIDIA, said: “By combining NVIDIA accelerated computing platforms and AI with Viridien’s expertise in seismic imaging and HPC, together we are enabling subsurface teams to deliver sharper, more reliable images faster and more cost-effectively. Better imaging reduces uncertainty, improves prospect screening and well placement decisions, and ultimately lowers the cost of exploration by cutting dry hole risk and minimizing the time and compute required to reach decision-grade results.”

Anil Vattalai, SVP, HPC & Cloud Solutions, Viridien, said: “We are delighted to work with NVIDIA to accelerate the evolution of HPC for seismic imaging. Viridien is the industry leader in subsurface imaging based on our pioneering expertise in industrial and customized end-to-end HPC and over fifteen years of experience in optimizing complex scientific workflows on GPU accelerators. This agreement underscores our commitment to continuously improving our full HPC stack (hardware, software, and algorithms) to deliver advanced HPC and cloud solutions that empower our clients to achieve greater performance and higher-quality outcomes more efficiently.”

More from HPCwire

• Viridien and Matnex Partner to Accelerate AI-Powered Materials Discovery
• CGG Changes Name to Viridien

About Viridien

Viridien is an advanced technology, digital and Earth data company that pushes the boundaries of science for a more prosperous and sustainable future. With our ingenuity, drive and deep curiosity we discover new insights, innovations, and solutions that efficiently and responsibly resolve complex natural resource, digital, energy transition and infrastructure challenges. Viridien employs around 3,200 people worldwide and is listed as VIRI on the Euronext Paris SA (ISIN: FR001400PVN6).

Source: Viridien

The post Viridien Partners with NVIDIA to Advance HPC for Seismic Imaging Workflows appeared first on HPCwire.

"The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert slammed CBS again on Tuesday night after the network issued a statement about his interview with Texas Democrat James Talarico.

Feb. 18, 2026 — At the center of the Milky Way, the galaxy our planet is in, resides a supermassive black hole (SMBH) called Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star). While this might fill you with existential dread, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is a surprisingly quiet black hole, almost dormant, so it won’t be consuming our solar system any time soon. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U. of I.) have been using the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Delta supercomputer to run simulations of Sgr A* that would be nearly impossible to complete without the assistance of high-performance computing resources like those at NCSA.

This is a still from a visualization created by NASA to show the size of various SMBH. In this screenshot, you can see the sun at the center of the screen, and Sgr A* on the right side, dwarfing the largest object in our solar system.

Vedant Dhruv is a graduate student fellow at U. of I. working with data and images from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). This telescope is actually an array that links eight telescopes around the world to create one powerful virtual telescope. One of the major successes of the EHT was capturing the first image of Sgr A*, a black hole 4 million times larger than our sun.

New Data, New Models

Dhruv worked with his advisor and other collaborators on this project, and they published their findings in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. He’s been able to gain a number of insights from using this data to simulate Sgr A*.

“In recent years, the EHT has produced high-resolution images of two supermassive black holes: Sgr A* at the center of the Milky Way and the black hole in Messier 87 (M87*), a giant elliptical galaxy in the Virgo constellation,” explained Dhruv. “These images provide insight into the plasma accreting onto the black hole.”

One of the images that Dhruv mentions might be one you’ve already seen. When M87* was first captured in an image, it made global news, especially because it was the first image of a black hole. Sgr A* took longer to get a clear image, but scientists have theorized for a while that it was there, even capturing a time-lapse of stars orbiting Sgr A* at the center of the Milky Way.

It’s impossible to take direct physical measurements of something as far away as the center of our galaxy, but fluid simulations of black hole accretion on machines like NCSA’s Delta can bring the sky down to the earth for researchers to study.

“The first horizon-scale image of Sgr A* revealed a bright ring surrounding a central brightness depression, the black hole ‘shadow.’ Comparison with theoretical models suggests that these observations are consistent with a hot, dilute plasma accreting onto a spinning black hole with a mass of roughly 4 million times the mass of the sun,” said Dhruv.

These theoretical models had to make some assumptions because designing and simulating highly realistic models for these phenomena is challenging. As Dhruv explains, most contemporary studies assume the gas behaves like an “ideal” fluid, where particles crash into each other constantly. But reality is more complex. “In reality, however, the hot plasma accreting onto a black hole is largely collisionless,” said Dhruv. “Charged particles can travel long distances before significantly interacting with one another through collisions.”

These older models also predicted that the black hole’s light should “flicker” in a violent and chaotic way. But in reality, the photo of the black hole indicates something different: a steadiness in the light curve.

“In our paper, we attempt to address these issues using ‘weakly collisional’ fluid models that include the leading-order corrections associated with particles having long mean free paths, namely viscosity and heat conduction,” said Dhruv. “In particular, we ask whether these ‘nonideal’ effects play a significant role in the synthetic observations produced by the model. Answering this helps determine whether such effects should be included in future modeling efforts.”

Refining the Simulation

If you wanted to simulate everything about the gas around a black hole, in a one-to-one simulation, you’d likely want to simulate every single atomic particle. As it stands currently, running a model like that would be prohibitively computationally expensive. Researchers also want their work to be reproducible, and creating a more efficient model meant that future researchers would be able to build on the team’s efforts.

To meet their requirement for an accurate model that could run on the available resources, the authors treated the plasma as a magnetized fluid rather than tracking individual particles.

“Our group has developed a fluid model for accreting plasma that includes nonideal processes such as viscosity and heat conduction,” said Dhruv. “These effects are expected to become important when the plasma is effectively collisionless. In that regime, the system is often described as weakly collisional, or, equivalently, as a dissipative fluid. We implemented this model in our group’s open source black hole accretion code, KHARMA, which is designed to run efficiently on modern GPUs and CPUs. We generated synthetic images and spectral energy distributions (SEDs) from simulations of this model by performing radiative transfer calculations and compared the results with those from an otherwise equivalent ideal model. It is worth emphasizing that this work presents the first images of Sgr A* from fluid simulations that explicitly include low-collisionality physics.”

“We found that, when viewed in a time-averaged sense, the weakly collisional fluid models are remarkably similar to the ideal models,” said Dhruv. “However, the low-collisionality physics included in our model tends to make the simulations ‘quieter,’ reducing variability and bringing them closer to observations of the galactic center.”

Using Black Hole Research to Find Your Way to Albuquerque

If black holes can capture humanity’s imagination, supermassive black holes must inspire awe. But studying these phenomena brings us more than just pretty pictures and interesting settings for science fiction cinema. The science derived from accurate modeling of fluid mechanics eventually works its way into many other domains that benefit from the research.

“The same modeling ideas we use here, namely viscosity and heat conduction, also show up in many familiar settings,” explains Dhruv. “Viscosity is what makes honey flow more ‘thickly’ than water, and heat conduction is what spreads heat through a metal spoon or a cooking pan. In a plasma, these processes control how momentum and heat are transported through a hot, magnetized gas. In this work, we ask how these effects change how the flow evolves over time, which is exactly the kind of physics that becomes increasingly important when the goal is to interpret the light curves of astronomical sources.”

Imagine you’re planning a trip to Albuquerque. You check the weather forecast, the road conditions and construction alerts. But what if you also had a “Space Weather” alert on your phone? Dhruv’s discoveries could inspire someone to approach their research into solar flares differently. There is a great deal of research that builds off the results of work in closely related fields. While Dhruv’s work doesn’t directly lead to a project that would prevent GPS satellite outages that power your map systems, every bit of science that better refines plasma physics models makes related science more accurate.

“These transport effects also show up in other important plasma environments where particle collisions are rare,” said Dhruv. “One example is the solar wind, the stream of plasma flowing out from the sun that drives space weather and can influence satellites and communications.”

Finally, because of the way Dhruv’s team designed their model, it can be used in numerous other fields of research.

“To include more realistic plasma physics, we developed a new solver within an open source GPU code,” said Dhruv. “The mathematical structure of the weakly collisional equations requires an implicit method, which iteratively solves for the fluid state at each time step. We designed the solver to be physics-agnostic, so others in the community can reuse the same framework to incorporate and evolve additional physical effects of their own.”

Continued Refinement

Researchers usually continue to innovate and refine their work. This case is no exception. While Dhruv’s team created a model that aligns more closely with observed black hole behavior, they still feel they can make it even more accurate.

There is a tiny element in this study that still requires substantial guesswork: the electron. The gas around a black hole is made up of both ions and electrons, but only one of these is accurately modeled.

“A major uncertainty in most simulations of black hole accretion is the electron physics,” Dhruv explained. “The plasma in these systems is a collisionless, ionized gas, and because ions and electrons differ largely in mass (by a factor of nearly 2,000!), they do not necessarily behave the same way or share energy in the same manner. As a result, the electrons that produce much of the observed radiation can be governed by physical processes that are distinct from those affecting the ions. This makes it important to model the electrons as accurately as possible.”

There is a reason most researchers don’t model electrons: it’s incredibly expensive and difficult to calculate electron movement in real time.

“Developing a fully relativistic, two-component model of an electron-ion plasma is theoretically challenging, and it also comes with substantial computational cost,” said Dhruv. “As a result, most simulations to date treat the plasma as a single fluid that is effectively ion-dominated because the ions carry most of the mass and inertia. The electron physics is then incorporated afterward, using physically motivated prescriptions applied in post-processing.”

Dhruv plans to address this issue by carrying out particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of a small patch of the accretion disk. PIC simulations track the motion of individual charged particles – electrons and protons – and the electromagnetic fields they generate, capturing plasma behavior from first principles. Once the electron-scale behavior is understood, that physics can be folded into larger-scale simulations of the full accretion flow.

“A key challenge is that the mechanisms that heat and accelerate electrons are often not captured reliably by a fluid description. Kinetic approaches, such as PIC simulations, are needed to understand how energy is transferred and partitioned between ions and electrons, especially in a collisionless plasma. To address this, I am performing localized PIC simulations that model a small region of the accretion flow. These simulations allow me to study the particle energization mechanisms, how energy is divided between species, what sets the electron-to-ion temperature ratio and which plasma instabilities control electron evolution. The overarching goal is to use these kinetic results to build a subgrid prescription that can be incorporated into global fluid simulations, enabling them to evolve electron physics more realistically.”

Dhruv’s work benefits greatly from the resources available at NCSA. Through his allocation from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s ACCESS program, Dhruv’s team had access to NCSA’s robust portfolio of HPC resources.

“Because of the structure of the governing equations, weakly collisional simulations are, on average, about 10 times more computationally expensive than otherwise-equivalent ideal simulations,” said Dhruv. “In addition, EHT-style modeling is inherently a parameter-survey problem. To evaluate the impact of the new physics, we needed to run multiple weakly collisional simulations alongside matched ideal counterparts, and then compare both sets of results with observations. In this context, GPU resources on Delta were invaluable. A single weakly collisional simulation that takes on the order of a month on A100s would likely take more than a year on comparable CPU-only resources.”

In addition to the research paper linked above, you can find more context for this research in the following publications:

• An Extended Magnetohydrodynamics Model For Relativistic Weakly Collisional Plasmas in The Astrophysical Journal
• First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. V. Testing Astrophysical Models of the Galactic Center Black Hole in The Astrophysical Journal Letters

Source: Megan Meave Johnson, NCSA

The post NCSA’s Delta Helps Smooth the Chaos at Galaxy’s Center appeared first on HPCwire.

The Food and Drug Administration has reversed its decision on Moderna's flu vaccine and has agreed to review it for possible approval, Moderna announced on Wednesday. From a report: Last week, the agency rejected Moderna's application for review of a new flu vaccine, saying the company's research design was flawed. But in subsequent discussions the company said that the agency had relented and agreed to begin a review. Moderna said it split its application for the flu vaccine based on age, seeking a traditional approval for people 50 to 64 years old, and accelerated approval for those 65 and older. The company also said it agreed to conduct an additional study among those 65 and older once the vaccine reached the market. Moderna said on Wednesday that the F.D.A. set a deadline of August to decide whether to approve the vaccine. If it is authorized, it would be available for those older adults in the flu season that begins later this year. The vaccine uses messenger RNA technology, which Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly criticized as unsafe and ineffective. The mRNA approach, which instructs the body to produce a fragment of a virus that sets off an immune response, was widely successful in Covid vaccines and is considered generally safe by public health experts and scientists.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BROOKLYN, N.Y., Feb. 18, 2026 — Qunnect today announced the first entanglement swapping demonstration of its kind over deployed metro-scale fiber using a commercial quantum networking system. The demonstration, which achieved record entanglement swapping rates, combined Qunnect’s room-temperature quantum hardware with Cisco’s quantum networking software stack. This milestone brings practical quantum networks closer to scalable deployment, validating a new spoke-and-hub model for scaling quantum networks through commercial data centers.

To validate this model, the companies conducted a landmark demonstration on Qunnect’s GothamQ testbed which runs throughout New York City, achieving several firsts. The network spanned 17.6 kilometers of deployed telecom fiber connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan through QTD Systems’ data center at 60 Hudson Street. The scientific paper is available on ArXiv.

The collaboration achieved record swapping rates of 1.7M+ pairs/hour locally and 5,400 pairs/hour over deployed fiber—nearly 10,000 times better than previous benchmarks using similar platforms. As the first demonstration of polarization entanglement swapping over deployed fiber, the system maintained >99% polarization fidelity. These results demonstrate the integrated system can operate reliably in one of the world’s most demanding urban environments, providing a deployable blueprint for distributed quantum computing and secure metro-scale quantum networks.

“Entanglement swapping is a fundamental operation in the quantum internet. Today, we not only broke the record for rate and scalability, we did so in New York City using some of the noisiest, most chaotic fiber on Earth,” said Mehdi Namazi, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer for Qunnect. “This is a milestone the field has been waiting for, and it was proven possible by Cisco and Qunnect.”

Key Performance Milestones:

• High Throughput: Record swapping rates of 1.7M+ pairs/hour (local) and 5,400 pairs/hour (deployed).
• Signal Stability: Maintaining ultra-high quality entanglement across all nodes using a fully automated, 24/7 operational system.
• Cost-Effective Architecture: End nodes utilized room-temperature detectors, concentrating cryogenic equipment solely at the central hub to significantly reduce the cost of network scaling.
• Untethered Scalability: Independent entanglement sources require no shared lasers, allowing for modular network expansion.

At the center of this integration is Qunnect’s turnkey Carina system, a breakthrough technology capable of generating entangled photon pairs [LINK]. To maintain signal integrity, Qunnect’s Automatic Polarization Controllers (APCs) [LINK] continuously compensate for polarization drift—a persistent challenge in deployed fiber that has historically limited real-world networking.

These technologies were integrated with Cisco’s unified quantum networking software stack [LINK] for the demonstration. Functioning as a “Digital Air Traffic Controller” for the city-wide network, the software autonomously coordinates Qunnect’s turnkey Carina hardware across geographically separated nodes.

“This milestone accelerates our quantum networking vision. Our orchestration software enabled field-ready entanglement distribution and swapping—foundational capabilities for distributed quantum computing and the global quantum grid,” said Reza Nejabati, Head of Quantum Research at Cisco.

Quantum networks today are often constrained by a complex physical “tether,” relying on a shared master laser to connect all nodes. By using Qunnect’s independent atomic sources, the experiment removed the need for nodes to be physically “tethered” by shared lasers. This decoupling of nodes allows for a scalable hub-and-spoke architecture for quantum networking, enabling new endpoint nodes to be added without dedicated synchronization links to all other nodes. This achievement serves as a first proof point in our journey toward practical, entanglement-based quantum networks, laying the foundation for distributed quantum computing.

More from HPCwire

• IBM and Cisco Detail Effort to Connect Future Fault-Tolerant Quantum Systems
• Qunnect and Roadrunner Venture Studios Launch ABQ-Net, New Mexico’s First Quantum Network
• Qunnect Selected by US Air Force to Advance Quantum Networking for Defense Applications
• Qunnect Closes $10M Series A Extension for Scalable Quantum Communications

About Qunnect

Qunnect builds deployable quantum networking infrastructure for provably secure, scalable connectivity over existing fiber optic cables. Based in Brooklyn Navy Yard, Qunnect commercialized the first room-temperature quantum memory in 2021. Our Carina suite—entanglement sources and stabilization tools—powers live quantum networks in NYC and Berlin, and supports use cases in finance, energy, telecom, and defense. To learn more about Qunnect, visit www.qunnect.inc.

Source: Qunnect

The post Qunnect and Cisco Demonstrate Metro-Scale, High-Speed Quantum Entanglement Swapping Over Commercial Fiber appeared first on HPCwire.

His 1972 appearance showed Americans what a beloved community could look like, integrated and full of promise

In a 1972 episode of Sesame Street, Jesse Jackson, then 31, is standing against a stoop on the soundstage modelled after an urban neighborhood block. He’s wearing a purple, white and black striped shirt, accented with a gold medallion featuring Martin Luther King Jr’s profile. The camera cuts to reveal a group of kids, the embodiment of Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition – children under the age of 10 from every ethnicity and racial group. He leads them in a call-and-response of his famous liberatory chant: “I am somebody.”

The adorable, cherub-cheeked kids light up the camera with their enthusiasm as they repeat the same words back to him. They are fidgety, giggly and powerful when they respond to Jackson in a cacophonous and slightly out-of-sync roar: I am somebody. The call-and-response is a wall of activating, energetic sound.

State regulators seek to block Kalshi from offering events contracts that would allow residents to bet on sports

Nevada gaming regulators filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to block the prediction market operator Kalshi from offering events contracts that would allow its residents to bet on sports including football and basketball games.

The Nevada gaming control board filed the lawsuit as part of an escalating battle over the ability of state gaming regulators nationally to police companies like Kalshi that allow users to place financial bets through their prediction markets.

BOSTON, Feb. 18, 2026 — Aliro today announced a $15 million oversubscribed funding round to advance what is the next major technology paradigm shift in cybersecurity: moving trust from mathematical assumptions to physical law. The round was led by Gutbrain Ventures, with participation from existing investors, including Cisco Investments, as well as new investors Argon Ventures and Wonderstone Ventures, the corporate VC of Murata.

Every generational platform shift—from mainframes to PCs, landlines to mobile, on-prem servers to the cloud—shared one trait: it didn’t improve the old model; it made it obsolete.

Security is now at that same inflection point.

For decades, digital trust has been built on encryption derived from computational hurdles. These systems assume attackers are limited by time and resources. That assumption is breaking.

Aliro replaces assumption-based security with physics-based truth enforcement. Location cannot be spoofed. Keys cannot be stolen on the wire. Eavesdroppers are immediately and visibly detected.

“This isn’t about stronger encryption,” said Jim Ricotta, CEO of Aliro. “It’s about changing what trust means. Aliro is transforming digital trust from a mathematical probability into a physical certainty. The TAM for this market is conservatively estimated to be $60B and growing.”

Aliro’s platform runs on existing optical networks, transforming existing routers and switches into transport, while shifting trust to a software-driven, physics-enforced layer. There is no incremental upgrade path for legacy vendors—just as there was none from landlines to mobile or from on-prem hardware to the cloud.

“Aliro enables a fundamental upgrade to the world’s core security and connectivity architecture,” said Bob Davoli, Aliro Chairman and Founder of Gutbrain Ventures. “Our ability to deliver deterministic security to classical networks today while preparing for the quantum tomorrow makes this one of the most exciting infrastructure opportunities in tech.”

Every enterprise, bank, defense organization, telco, and cloud provider must choose between trust based on assumptions, or trust based on physics. The new funding will support expanded deployments, ecosystem partnerships, and Aliro’s mission to redefine global security infrastructure.

The investment comes as Aliro reaches significant technical milestones, recently announcing support for over 50 entanglement and classical network devices within its vendor-agnostic software stack. This interoperability allows organizations to deploy fully operational, high-assurance networks immediately using existing fiber infrastructure.

In addition to its run-time software platform, Aliro offers the world’s most capable physics-accurate entanglement network simulator. This “digital twin” allows organizations to understand the value of these new networks in great detail before making long term commitments.

“We look for visionary teams and disruptive technologies that solve immediate, tangible business problems,” added Bob Mason, Managing Partner at Argon Ventures. “As an engineer and former CTO, I see Aliro solving a most fundamental challenge: enabling irrefutably secure network infrastructure, built on a foundation that is immune to future computational threats.”

About Aliro

Aliro is commercializing the world’s first software-driven entanglement platform for physics-based security. By enforcing trust through the laws of nature, Aliro is redefining cybersecurity for the next generation of global infrastructure. Other use cases for Aliro’s entanglement platform include networking quantum computers, blind quantum computing, position verification, enhanced decision coordination, and networking distributed quantum sensors. With a vendor-agnostic approach, Aliro is building the safe, intelligent, and essential fabric for the future global economy.

Source: Aliro

The post Aliro Raises $15M to Advance Physics-Based Network Security appeared first on HPCwire.

FreePower has expanded its industry-first countertop charging capabilities to laptops and smart watches. We saw it at KBIS 2026.

SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 18, 2026 — BUZZ High Performance Computing, the Canadian Tier-III high-performance computing (HPC) data center platform of HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd., has announced a major step forward in its AI cloud strategy, signing customer agreements representing approximately $30 million in total contract value over two-year fixed terms, subject to performance obligations and deployment milestones (all amounts in US dollars, unless otherwise indicated).

Building on four years of experience operating GPU infrastructure, BUZZ is accelerating its expansion as HIVE’s AI engine, complementing the Company’s established Tier-I hashrate services provider and reinforcing its position as a twin-engine leader in next-generation digital infrastructure.

The new contracts underpin the initial phase of BUZZ’s AI-optimized GPU deployment at its Canada West location in Manitoba, with compute capacity expected to come online during the quarter ending March 31, 2026. The first phase consists of 504 liquid-cooled Dell server-based GPUs, purpose-built for high-performance AI and HPC workloads.

Based on executed contracts, current pricing, and deployment schedules, management expects this initial phase to generate approximately $15 million in annual recurring revenue (“ARR”) to BUZZ’s cloud business once fully operational. Upon full deployment, management expects total annualized revenue attributable to HIVE’s HPC segment, driven by BUZZ, to grow from approximately $20 million currently to roughly $35 million, reflecting strong contracted demand for BUZZ’s AI cloud platform. These projections are subject to capital expenditures, operating costs, customer utilization levels, and other risk factors described herein, and actual results may vary.

To support this growth, the Company expects to incur capital expenditures related to GPU acquisition, supporting electrical and cooling infrastructure, and working capital requirements. Operating expenses are expected to include power, hosting, maintenance, staffing, and network costs. BUZZ continues to expand capacity at its Canada West site in alignment with executed customer agreements.

Frank Holmes, Executive Chairman of HIVE, commented: “We are entering 2026 with strong momentum in our HPC and GPU cloud business. HIVE has built a track record as one of the longest-standing publicly traded crypto Tier-I data center operators, performing through multiple market cycles while protecting cash flow and balance sheet strength. Now, with BUZZ, we are leveraging that foundation to build a high-growth AI cloud platform spanning Canada, Sweden, and Paraguay.

“Tier-I data centers for hashrate services typically require approximately $1 million per megawatt of infrastructure, whereas Tier-III facilities supporting advanced GPU clusters can require materially higher capital intensity due to premium GPU hardware, redundant power architecture, and advanced cooling systems. Industry benchmarks suggest that constructing and equipping a comparable fully self-funded Tier-III facility with similar GPU capacity could require approximately $70 million in capital expenditures, depending on site conditions, financing structure, vendor pricing, and market dynamics.

“Through vendor financing arrangements for GPUs and strategic Tier-III data center partnerships, we are scaling efficiently while reducing upfront capital intensity compared to a fully self-funded build. Where HIVE owns land and buildings and operates its Tier-I facilities, we are pursuing selective Tier-III conversions and colocation strategies for HPC. This showcases our vertically integrated model and diversified revenue streams from both HPC colocation and GPU AI cloud services, reinforcing HIVE’s dual-engine strategy of hashrate services and high-performance computing.”

Aydin Kilic, President and Chief Executive Officer of HIVE, added: “Our vision is to scale our HPC GPU AI cloud business toward approximately $140 million in ARR over the next year, subject to market conditions and successful infrastructure deployment. As we execute, this growth will be supported by continued investment in infrastructure and operations. In our previous earnings webcast, we outlined a target deployment of 2,000 AI-optimized GPUs at our Canada West facility this year. The initial 504-GPU deployment is already backed by executed customer agreements representing approximately $30 million in total contract value over two years, subject to performance obligations and deployment milestones.

“This is just the beginning. Demand for long-term access to high-performance, power-efficient AI compute continues to expand globally, and we are excited to further scale our GPU cloud business throughout 2026.”

Craig Tavares, President and Chief Operating Officer of BUZZ HPC, commented: “Canada requires more sovereign AI compute capacity, both to serve domestic workloads and to support global AI companies from a secure Canadian base. With Dell and Bell Canada as key partners, we are scaling GPU capacity with the infrastructure, connectivity, and resiliency needed to compete on a global stage.

“BUZZ was recently recognized by SemiAnalysis for having one of the fastest data center networks globally and earned a Bronze rating in their ClusterMAX report, validating our technical architecture and execution capabilities.

“Launching this cluster in Canada West marks a significant milestone. It expands BUZZ’s national footprint and advances our vision of coast-to-coast AI infrastructure, with commercial-grade clusters operating at scale to serve both sovereign workloads and international demand. Under HIVE’s dual-engine model, BUZZ is positioned to be a powerful growth catalyst as we accelerate into the global AI supercycle.”

About HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd.

Founded in 2017, HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. is the first publicly listed company to mine digital assets powered by green energy. Today, HIVE builds and operates next-generation Tier-I and Tier-III data centers across Canada, Sweden, and Paraguay, serving both Bitcoin and high-performance computing clients. HIVE’s twin-turbo engine infrastructure-driven by hashrate services and GPU-accelerated AI computing-delivers scalable, environmentally responsible solutions for the digital economy.

About BUZZ High Performance Computing

BUZZ, a wholly owned subsidiary of HIVE, specializes in AI Cloud and HPC data center services. With facilities in North America and Europe, BUZZ is engineered to support Canada’s ambition in the global AI economy.

Source: HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd.

The post BUZZ HPC Launches 504-GPU AI Cluster Backed by $30M in Contracts appeared first on HPCwire.

I tested dozens of smartwatches from Apple, Google and Garmin. Here are my top picks for every budget and category.

An anonymous reader shares a report: An Indian university has been asked to vacate its stall at the country's flagship AI summit after a staff member was caught presenting a commercially available robotic dog made in China as its own creation, two government sources said. "You need to meet Orion. This has been developed by the Centre of Excellence at Galgotias University," Neha Singh, a professor of communications, told state-run broadcaster DD News this week in remarks that have since gone viral. But social media users quickly identified the robot as the Unitree Go2, sold by China's Unitree Robotics for about $2,800 and widely used in research and education globally. The episode has drawn sharp criticism and has cast an uncomfortable spotlight on India's artificial intelligence ambitions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Australia experienced a boom in smart-home technology at the start of the 2020s. Years on, some early adopters are experiencing buyer’s remorse

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

When the smart home devices Elly Bailey was expecting in the post never showed up at her Gold Coast home, she was frustrated. As a technology reviewer, these products were crucial for her work.

When she eventually found the cause, she had to laugh. It wasn’t a sticky-fingered neighbour or a rogue delivery driver causing her to miss parcels but her smart doorbell – the very thing she’d hoped would prevent missed deliveries, and part of exactly the range of internet-connected devices she was meant to be reviewing.

• American wins third gold overall and first since 2018

• Shiffrin more than a second ahead of Rast in silver

With one last chance to break her ­barren Olympic run stretching back eight years, Mikaela ­Shiffrin ­delivered in style. The 30-year-old American surged to victory in the women’s slalom on a sun-splashed Wednesday in the Dolomites with a two-run time of 1min 39.10sec, becoming the first US skier to win three Olympic gold medals.

Switzerland’s Camille Rast, the reigning world champion and only woman to have beaten Shiffrin in her signature discipline this season, came in a yawning 1.50sec behind for the silver – the largest winning margin in any Olympic alpine skiing event since 1998 – while Anna Swenn-Larsson of Sweden took the bronze. After fourth-placed Wendy Holdener, of Switzerland, the rest of the field trailed by at least two seconds in the final race of the alpine skiing.

Consultancy’s prediction comes after Rachel Reeves said green subsidy costs would be removed from domestic bills

Household energy costs in Great Britain are expected to tumble by an average of £117 a year from April after Rachel Reeves announced in November’s budget that the cost of green subsidies would be removed from domestic bills.

The government’s quarterly cap on energy bills is forecast to fall after the chancellor’s decision to shift the levies used to support renewable energy projects into general taxation, and scrap a bill payer-funded energy efficiency scheme, according to Cornwall Insight, a leading energy consultancy.

Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has announced party’s plans to cut welfare spending

Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, is giving his speech now.

He has announced, or confirmed, three measures to cut welfare spending.

The number claiming disability benefits for an attention disorder has more than doubled since Covid. We all know a significant number of these claims are spurious …

We will stop those with mild anxiety, depression, and similar conditions from claiming disability benefits and instead encourage them into the dignity of work.

We will end the abuse of the Motability scheme, where expensive cars are handed out for conditions like tennis elbow, and paid for by working people who can’t afford them themselves.

The far-left France Unbowed party says it evacuated its Paris office due to a bomb threat as 2 more people were detained over the killing of a far-right activist.

A program dubbed "the Lost Navy" is underway to identify the large number of Swedish naval shipwrecks lying on the bottom of the Baltic.

AI slop is an oil spill in our digital oceans. The cleanup depends on all of us doing our part.

Social Circle, a mostly Maga town, builds strange bedfellow coalition against plans to convert warehouse

On a recent morning Eric Taylor, city manager for a small Georgia town of about 5,000 residents called Social Circle, was contacted by a staffer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“They asked me to turn on the water,” he said of a 1m sq ft warehouse nearby that the federal government recently purchased for $128m, with plans to use it for locking up as many as 10,000 detainees as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: In 1987, economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow made a stark observation about the stalling evolution of the Information Age: Following the advent of transistors, microprocessors, integrated circuits, and memory chips of the 1960s, economists and companies expected these new technologies to disrupt workplaces and result in a surge of productivity. Instead, productivity growth slowed, dropping from 2.9% from 1948 to 1973, to 1.1% after 1973. Newfangled computers were actually at times producing too much information, generating agonizingly detailed reports and printing them on reams of paper. What had promised to be a boom to workplace productivity was for several years a bust. This unexpected outcome became known as Solow's productivity paradox, thanks to the economist's observation of the phenomenon. "You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics," Solow wrote in a New York Times Book Review article in 1987. New data on how C-suite executives are -- or aren't -- using AI shows history is repeating itself, complicating the similar promises economists and Big Tech founders made about the technology's impact on the workplace and economy. Despite 374 companies in the S&P 500 mentioning AI in earnings calls -- most of which said the technology's implementation in the firm was entirely positive -- according to a Financial Times analysis from September 2024 to 2025, those positive adoptions aren't being reflected in broader productivity gains. A study published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that among 6,000 CEOs, chief financial officers, and other executives from firms who responded to various business outlook surveys in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Australia, the vast majority see little impact from AI on their operations. While about two-thirds of executives reported using AI, that usage amounted to only about 1.5 hours per week, and 25% of respondents reported not using AI in the workplace at all. Nearly 90% of firms said AI has had no impact on employment or productivity over the last three years, the research noted. However, firms' expectations of AI's workplace and economic impact remained substantial: Executives also forecast AI will increase productivity by 1.4% and increase output by 0.8% over the next three years. While firms expected a 0.7% cut to employment over this time period, individual employees surveyed saw a 0.5% increase in employment.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Business leaders tout AI as a path to shorter weeks and better balance. But without power, workers are unlikely to share the gains

The front-page headline in a recent Washington Post was breathless: “These companies say AI is key to their four-day workweeks.” The subhead was euphoric: “Some companies are giving workers back more time as artificial intelligence takes over more tasks.”

As the Post explained: “more companies may move toward a shortened workweek, several executives and researchers predict, as workers, especially those in younger generations, continue to push for better work-life balance.”

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

The lower-cost Galaxy phone runs Android 16 with One UI, bringing several of Samsung's features and six years of software updates.

Apple, Garmin, Samsung, Google or Amazfit? I compared each one against a chest strap for heart rate accuracy and found a clear winner.

Alberto Castañeda Mondragón was hospitalized with eight skull fractures after being arrested by ICE agents in January

Minnesota and federal authorities are investigating the alleged beating of a Mexican citizen by immigration officers last month, seeking to identify what caused the eight skull fractures that landed the man in the intensive care unit of a Minneapolis hospital.

Investigators from the St Paul police department and FBI last week canvassed the shopping center parking lot where Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wrested him from a vehicle, threw him to the ground and repeatedly struck him in the head with a steel baton.

The drama about two startup innovators defeated by their egotistical overreach feels as if it presages these AI times

The crisis facing a couple of middle-aged Belgian tech bros in the 1990s might be better suited to a European streaming-TV drama – maybe with the two antiheroes’ travails confined to the first episode, setting up a lengthier intergenerational drama taking us to the present. Nonetheless, here it is: a feature film in the Berlin competition from screenwriter Angelo Tijssens and director Anke Blondé, handsomely produced and shot, and impeccably acted. But it’s also weirdly parochial, leaving you with the sense that it has not reached beyond its immediate concerns; and it’s not clear as to why, exactly, we need a fictionalised crisis from the 90s inspired by a real-life financial fraud scandal.

Well, perhaps the point is that very smallness and sadness: a pathetic tale of the first, almost-forgotten dotcom bust, which holds an omen for our AI-obsessed present. Arieh Worthalter and Jan Hammenecker play Geert and Luc, two balding guys who, in the late 90s, are Belgium’s pinup boys of tech innovation. Their startup company has gone public and made them both very rich, and all their local friends, family and businesses have plunged every cent of their savings into shares. Geert and Luc are now poised to turn the mud of Flanders into a European Silicon Valley.

Milano Cortina​ has cutting‑edge replays, chase‑cam drones and exuberant commentary ​bringing a wave of unexpected nostalgia for anyone who grew up on 90s extreme‑sports games

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As someone whose childhood holidays consisted of narrowboating along the Grand Union canal or wandering the harbour-side at Whitby looking for vampires, I have never been on a skiing break. The idea of plummeting down a hill on anything but a plastic sledge is totally alien to me. And yet, my wife and I have been gripped by the Winter Olympics, especially the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events. And I think I know why. Those events are really channelling the look and feel of the wintery sports sims I’ve always loved – especially those that arrived during a golden period in the mid-1990s.

This was the era in which snowboarding was exploding in popularity, especially among twentysomethings with disposable incomes and no responsibilities – which coincidentally was the games industry’s target market at the time. Perhaps the first title to take advantage of this trend was Namco’s 1996 arcade game Alpine Surfer, which challenged players to stand on a snowboard-shaped controller and swoop as quickly as possible down a mountainside – it was one of the most physically exhausting coin-ops I ever played. Later that year came the self-consciously hip PlayStation sim Cool Boarders, and then in 1998, my absolute favourite, 1080° Snowboarding on the N64, with it’s intuitive analog controls and incredibly authentic sound effects of boards cutting through deep, crisp snow.

William tells radio panel that talking about emotions and mental health should become ‘second nature to us all’

Prince William has called the prevalence of male suicide in the UK a “national catastrophe” in a radio appearance in which he opened up about his approaches to dealing with difficult emotions.

William told a special episode of Radio 1’s Life Hacks that “we need more male role models” to talk about their mental health publicly, to help other men do the same and make open discussions “second nature to us all”.

Assistant to hard-left parliamentarian among those held over fatal attack on 23-year-old Quentin Deranque during protest in Lyon

French authorities have arrested 11 suspects over the killing last week of a far-right activist, including an assistant to a hard-left member of parliament, a prosecutor and an informed source said.

Quentin Deranque, 23, died after sustaining a severe brain injury when he was attacked by at least six people on the sidelines of a far-right protest against a leftwing politician speaking at a university in the south-eastern city of Lyon.

Government considering delay to equalising national minimum wage after jump in youth unemployment

• UK politics live – latest updates

Ministers are considering a slower rise in the minimum wage for younger workers, amid fears over rising youth unemployment.

Labour had promised in its manifesto to equalise national minimum wage rates by the time of the next election, saying it was unfair younger workers were paid less. Government sources said equalisation remained the aim but the rise could come more slowly.

South Lakes Islamic Centre, which has been targeted by far right, will host nightly prayers before official opening in July

It is a cold night before Ramadan, and a group of men are completing health and safety checks inside Cumbria’s partly completed South Lakes Islamic Centre (SLIC).

The building is a mere shell, with exposed bricks, hanging wires and no fitted lights or heaters, but a large area has been cleared of construction materials to host nightly congregational prayers.

The magic of magnets tucked into your joysticks can put an end to drift. But which technology is superior?

Starting next year, MLS will align itself with big European leagues and become a summer-to-spring operation. Executives see the change as an opportunity

Few constants have endured from MLS’s 1996 debut to now. It’s still an operational soccer league, for one thing. There’s the name itself, although its initial logo was shelved in 2015 for its current shield-and-kickstand. Eight of the 10 teams that launched the league remain involved, though each one has changed their name, crest, or both over time.

Another rare constant will soon fade into the rearview: the league’s schedule. MLS has run spring-to-fall/winter since its launch, more specifically from late February to early December in recent years. Preseason kicks off at the start of each new year, three weeks or so after the previous season’s championship bout. It’s a pretty well-ironed routine, even as ancillary competitions like the Leagues Cup and Club World Cup shuffle the middle bits each year.

Kimberly Prost and Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza vow US reprisals will not affect work of international criminal court

When the Canadian Kimberly Prost learned Donald Trump’s administration had imposed sanctions on her, it came as a shock.

For years, she has sat as a judge at the international criminal court, weighing accusations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity; now she is on the same list as terrorists and those involved in organised crime. “It really was a moment of a bit of disbelief,” she said.

Exclusive: 15 Congress members write to Marco Rubio about nine-month detention of Mohammed Ibrahim

Fifteen members of Congress have written to Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, demanding to know what steps the United States has taken in response to the mistreatment of a Palestinian-American teenager who spent nine months in Israeli detention.

The letter, led by Senator Peter Welch and first seen by the Guardian, is centered around the case of Mohammed Ibrahim, a Florida resident who was 15 when Israeli soldiers arrested him during a raid on his family’s West Bank home in February 2025. He was charged with throwing objects at moving vehicles before being released on 27 November following a guilty plea and suspended sentence, and was taken directly to hospital upon his return.

These "exercise snacks" are all you need daily to boost your heart health.

Chatham House partners with African Mining Indaba 2026    News release jon.wallace 18 February 2026

Chatham House staff and associate fellows engaged with national and industry leaders throughout Indaba 2026, the African mining event. 

Chatham House was a strategic partner for the Investing in African Mining Indaba 2026 Conference, held from 9–12 February in Cape Town, South Africa.

Throughout the Indaba week, Chatham House staff and associate fellows engaged with national and industry leaders and participated on panels and side events, adding value to discussions about how Africa should respond to the global critical minerals race and harness potential benefits for national development. 

Chatham House was also a knowledge partner for a ministerial symposium held on 8 February, which saw mining ministers from across the continent join CEOs, industry and political leaders to discuss the key challenges facing the sector and its relationship with impacted societies. 

Chatham House and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) facilitated a roundtable as part of the symposium that generated new thinking on permitting, industrialization and infrastructure linkages. 

The Chatham House engagement marked a new collaboration between the Institute’s Critical Minerals Initiative (CMI) and Africa Programme. 

Christopher Vandome, head of the CMI, said:

‘The inclusion of global think tanks and development organizations as partners for the Mining Indaba highlights the growing geopolitical relevance of the industry, and political influence and intervention in minerals supply chains in ways we have not seen for decades.

‘Nations are securing the supply chains of mined material that build our modern world, across manufacturing, digitization, energy and security. The steps taken by the US and other global actors in response to China’s domination of mineral supply chains will reshape the global economy. 

‘We have moved beyond discussions of resource nationalism, to acknowledging that state equity in mining and processing companies is the new norm and countries without a stake will be left behind. How this is managed, and how governments engage, will determine who reaps the biggest rewards.’

Tighisti Amare, Africa Programme director, said: 

‘From the panels we spoke on, meetings we held and extensive engagements that we had across the week it is clear that mining has moved up the global political agenda. 

‘Yet deep-rooted challenges persist across the sector in Africa, including how international demand for minerals can contribute to regional development across the continent. Chatham House has an important role as a trusted and independent convenor and thought leader to work with partners in finding solutions to these challenges.’

The series of strikes brought the death toll to at least 145 people since the administration began targeting the small vessels since September.

Exclusive: Research uncovers programme to make centuries-old records legible to detect people’s ancestry

Large numbers of paper restorers and bookbinders were recruited by the Nazis and “contributed directly to genocide” during the second world war, according to research.

A British historian has uncovered a Europe-wide programme in the 1930s and 1940s in which restorers repaired and cleaned historic church and civil records, making them legible so that the Nazis could detect anyone with Jewish ancestry.

Democratic former presidents and Donald Trump respond to the death of the civil rights leader at the age of 84. Plus, how worried should we be about China’s dancing robots?

Good morning.

Three Democratic former presidents led a wealth of tributes to Jesse Jackson, a “titan” of the civil rights movement and “one of America’s greatest patriots”, who has died at the age of 84.

What did Donald Trump say? In a post to social media, the current US president called Jackson “a good man” and a “friend” but then attacked the “scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left” who, he said, “falsely and consistently” called him a racist.

What was on the T-shirt? Civil rights movement leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr and Shirley Chisholm, as well as images of protests from that time.

If you ever wished you could access your iPhone or Android device directly on a Windows PC, Phone Link lets you do that. But it's not for everyone.

Trying to make the most out of a small space? Here are our picks for the best 43-inch TVs, perfect for the smallest of rooms.

Want that crunchy, snackable ice without the bulky machine? GE Opal's Mini is coming soon.

Sharif Street is something of an anomaly. A Democratic state senator running for Congress, he’s angling to replace retiring Rep. Dwight Evans in a deep-blue Philadelphia seat. He’s Black, Muslim, and relatively moderate. He would not necessarily be a vocal critic of Israel in the House.

Street is walking a fine line on Israel policy, articulating views that range from moderate to evasive. That has rankled some of Philadelphia’s progressive Muslim organizers, but it may well reflect an effort to appease the city’s diverse voting blocs. Philadelphia’s large Muslim and Jewish populations don’t fall neatly on either side of issues related to Israel and Gaza. If elected, Street would be the first Muslim congressman from Pennsylvania, but his supporters and detractors alike argue that they don’t want identity politics to overshadow substantive policy debates.

Many Muslim Philadelphians “may like Street personally,” said Yusuf Abdul Hameed, a supporter of the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, “but they’re upset because of his lack of courage to really condemn Israel for what clearly was a genocide.” Hameed counted himself among those who like Street, but he said he’s backing his opponent, Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb, a progressive who has carved out a lane on the left by being openly critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Their competition now stands to turn Philadelphia into a testing ground, where voters have a chance to signal how much Israel and Palestine still matter to them as the Trump administration’s barrage of constant scandals, crackdowns, and excesses dominates the midterms cycle.

Street doesn’t have Israel policies on his campaign website. His stance on the issue has largely come to light through public statements he made in his former role as chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party after the October 7, 2023, attacks and over the course of the campaign. His current vagueness has raised questions about whether he would accept campaign funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or other factions of the pro-Israel lobby.

“I recognize that there won’t be peace for the state of Israel without peace for the Palestinian people, but there won’t be peace for the Palestinian people unless there’s peace for the state of Israel at some point,” Street told the Philadelphia Inquirer last month.

Related

She Lost Her Job for Speaking Out About Gaza. Can It Power Her to Congress?

Street supporter Salima Suswell, an organizer in Philadelphia’s Black Muslim community, said Street had been a leader for Muslims in the city and in the district and also spoke out on Gaza. She said Street and other Black Muslim officials can face a greater pressure to choose sides between Israel and Gaza but that she was confident in Street’s ability to listen to and act on the needs of residents in the district. 

“That said, the Black Muslim community stands in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Gaza. I fully trust that Senator Street will be a force for good in Congress, and he will fight for our communities both domestically and abroad,” she said. 

Home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the country, Philadelphia has a sizable community of Black residents who converted to Islam in the 1960s, during the rise of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. The city is also home to many Jewish voters, including younger ones who are more likely to be critical of Israel than the older generation, as well as moderate, pro-Israel Jewish Democrats who make up a large portion of the voting bloc.  

The political complexities of Philadelphia’s religious electorate could make things difficult for AIPAC, which has been searching for ways to shape midterm races this cycle without drawing too much negative attention to itself. 

AIPAC has not publicly endorsed in the 3rd Congressional District race. But Street was the beneficiary of a short-lived, secret fundraising page hosted by a little-known pro-Israel group — one that AIPAC has used to direct donors to at least one other candidate this cycle. 

The fundraising page, hosted by the Pro-Israel Network, urged donors to contribute to Street’s campaign. The page was live until late last year, when it came to the attention of Philadelphia’s progressive circles and suddenly vanished. The Pro-Israel Network is not officially affiliated with AIPAC. But as AIPAC has adopted a quieter role in elections this cycle, the Pro-Israel Network is one of several proxies the more prominent group has used to highlight preferred candidates for its donors. 

Street’s campaign said in a statement to The Intercept that they weren’t aware of the page until it was brought to their attention and that they didn’t seek the group’s endorsement or receive any campaign contributions through the page. 

“Sharif is not seeking AIPAC’s endorsement, and we weren’t aware of the Pro-Israel Network page until folks showed it to us. We didn’t coordinate with that group and haven’t received any funding from it,” Street’s campaign spokesperson Anthony Campisi said. 

Beth Miller, the political director for Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said she hopes the Street campaign will keep it that way.

“Pro-genocide groups like AIPAC are directly at odds with what Democratic voters want. The overwhelming majority of Democratic voters have made it clear that they want the U.S. to stop funding Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians,” Miller said. “No Democratic candidate should be taking a dollar — or any other kind of support — from groups that are so at odds with the party’s own base.”

According to Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, the executive director of CAIR-Philadelphia, many in the Philadelphia community view the issue of Israel and Palestine as a window into broader debates, and they see reason to be wary of politicians who waver from moral stances. 

“The Israel–Palestine issue is not only important as a foreign policy matter, but also as an issue that intersects with rights, with freedoms, with how we stand up for oppressed people in our own communities in the U.S.,” Tekelioglu said. He said Philadelphians “are now asking for more, and are coming closer to an accountability politics point of view.”

As a nonprofit, CAIR-Philadelphia cannot endorse a candidate, but Tekelioglu said he’s volunteering for Rabb in his personal capacity. The national political arm, CAIR Action, plans to endorse in the race but has not yet announced its pick.

Hameed, who has been a member of the Nation of Islam since the 1980s, said it would be nice to have a Muslim representative in Congress, but sharing race or religion with a candidate wasn’t enough to earn his vote. He criticized attempts to make excuses for Black Democrats who have taken support from AIPAC, like Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Ritchie Torres of New York and Glenn Ivey of Maryland. 

“These people support Israel, and they’re getting money from AIPAC, and they’re complicit with genocide,” Hameed said. “They would turn on them in a dime.”

During a candidate forum in December, Street was asked whether he would support legislation to block arms sales to Israel. He said peace and security relied on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza and rebuilding, but that his allotted response time wasn’t enough to answer the question or address such a complicated issue. 

“If we’re gonna do this topic justice, talking about peace in the Middle East is not really a one-minute answer,” Street said. “Catchy soundbites sound good, but they don’t save lives.” 

While several candidates criticized Israel’s destruction in Gaza, Rabb was the only one of the five candidates present to state specifically that he would support such legislation. During another forum in January, Rabb was also clear on his stance on the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, saying, “Fuck AIPAC.” 

Street and Rabb are running in a crowded field of more than 10 candidates vying to replace Evans in the May 19 primary. Among them are state Rep. Morgan Cephas, Dr. David Oxman, Dr. Ala Stanford, climate adviser under former President Joe Biden Pablo McConnie-Saad, and real estate developer and nonprofit leader Isaiah Martin. Street is leading the pack in fundraising, with more than $700,000 raised so far. Oxman has raised $497,000 — including $175,000 he gave to his own campaign. Stanford has raised $467,000, and Rabb has raised $384,000, ahead of Cephas, who’s raised $241,000. 

Muslims United PAC, a national political action committee that has endorsed candidates including Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Summer Lee, endorsed Rabb over Street, mainly because of Rabb’s explicit criticism of the genocide in Gaza. The group declined to comment on the race.

In a statement to The Intercept, Rabb said he couldn’t speculate on who was backing his opponents but that he would never take money from AIPAC. “I have not nor would I even consider meeting with AIPAC because I view them as a racist, extremist organization,” Rabb said. 

“Israel and Gaza — and Palestine, more broadly — deserve the opportunity to engage in peaceful self-determination without U.S. military domination preempting that fundamental right. I support a permanent and immediate ceasefire including release of hostages, recognition that a genocide has occurred in Gaza, and oppose export or use of U.S. weapons in ways that violate U.S. or international law,” he said. Rabb is also running on rejecting corporate PAC money, fighting the influence of billionaires in politics, and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Related

AIPAC Is Retreating From Endorsements and Election Spending. It Won’t Give Up Its Influence.

The Pro-Israel network funding page, a sign that the lobby has its eyes on the race, is a point of contention among critics who say AIPAC shouldn’t be getting involved in races at all, let alone one in a district which Democrats are largely to the group’s left on policy toward Israel and Gaza. 

“AIPAC is a red line,” said Saleem Holbrook, executive director of Straight Ahead, an abolitionist activist group in Philadelphia. The group’s affiliated public interest law firm, the Abolitionist Law Center, advocates for criminal justice reform has worked with Street on state reform efforts in Pennsylvania and cannot endorse in the race due to its nonprofit status. 

“There’s no way that our organization or many progressive organizations are going to back any candidate that takes AIPAC support,” Holbrook said. “Because when you look at AIPAC’s track record, all AIPAC has done has taken out Black progressive politicians or candidates that had the interest of the Black community in their heart.”

Suswell, the Street supporter, agreed that the race should be about policies that support the community, pointing to affordable housing, quality education, and public safety. “This should not be about identity politics,” she said. “This is about track record. Senator Street has an impeccable track record in his district and across the Muslim community.”

Progressive groups have been slowly endorsing Rabb, and two sources with knowledge of the race said it’s only a matter of time before they consolidate behind him. Rabb has been endorsed by Philadelphia’s chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise Movement’s national and Philadelphia chapters, One PA, and Mt. Airy Democrats.

Both Street and Rabb are actively seeking the endorsement from the Working Families Party, which is planning to announce its pick in the next few weeks. So are CAIR Action and A New Policy.

While Street may not have the backing of leading progressive groups in Pennsylvania, he does have good relationships with their members. That dynamic is one reason progressive groups have taken their time to make endorsements in a race pitting their allies against one another, according to one source close to the race.

Street is endorsed by the Philadelphia Democratic Party, the Muslim League of Voters of the Delaware Valley, and several of Philadelphia’s powerful labor unions including Philadelphia’s powerful Building and Construction Trades Council, which encompasses several local shops. He’s also backed by former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal, advocates for gun violence prevention and several prominent leaders for LGBTQ rights.

Street’s campaign pointed to his work advancing religious rights for Muslims in the district, helping to expand healthcare for Pennsylvanians, leading the fight to legalize recreational cannabis and reform the criminal justice system, and protect voting rights. “He’s going to bring that same drive to Washington, where he will be relentlessly focused on lowering costs, expanding health care access, reforming our criminal justice system, and holding Trump accountable,” said Campisi, his spokesperson. 

Update: February 18, 2026, 11:54 a.m. ET

This story has been updated to note that as a nonprofit, the Abolitionist Law Center cannot endorse in the race.

The post Philadelphia Could Elect Its First Muslim Congressman. He’s Not Sure Where He Stands on Israel. appeared first on The Intercept.

I am somebody because the reverend told me I was. And I believed him.

Death of Briton along with Polish citizen near La Grave comes four days after fatal avalanche at Val d’Isère

A third British man has been killed in an avalanche in the French Alps.

The man had been skiing with a group of four others when the avalanche struck near the resort town of La Grave on Tuesday morning, local media reported.

Lindsey Vonn's devastating injury when her skis didn't come off has put a spotlight on bindings, which hold boots to skis and are some of the oldest technology in the sport.

For months, President Donald Trump has railed against Latin American narcoterrorists flooding the United States with “lethal poison.” He has used the scourge of drug trafficking as a rationale for dozens of military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, which have left more than 140 people dead.

Last month, Trump cheered a military assault by U.S. forces that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and brought them to the U.S. to face charges related to cocaine trafficking. Maduro, Trump said, led a “vicious cartel” that “flooded our nation with lethal poison responsible for the deaths of countless Americans.”

But when it comes to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was tried and convicted in the U.S. in 2024 and sentenced to 45 years in prison for taking bribes and allowing traffickers to export more than 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S., Trump has taken a decidedly softer tone.

Hernández, he said, has been “treated very harshly and unfairly” — so unfairly that on Dec. 1, Trump pardoned the former president after he served less than four of those 45 years.

But the federal government’s magnanimity did not end there. On the day he was to be released, records show, Hernández had an immigration detainer — a request for law enforcement agencies to hold noncitizens for pickup by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — in place.  

Here, too, the Trump’s administration’s treatment of Hernández differed from its public objectives. Other noncitizens caught up in recent immigration sweeps — the vast majority of whom do not have criminal records — have faced swift efforts to deport them, even to countries where they may face threats. But in Hernández’s case, the Federal Bureau of Prisons scrambled to get his detainer removed so he could walk free.

And Hernández did not just walk out of the prison. Despite persistent budget and staffing shortages, prison officials paid a specialized tactical team overtime to drive Hernández from a high-security facility in West Virginia to the famed five-star Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City, according to records and three people familiar with the situation. Before he left, Hernández was allowed to use the captain’s government phone to talk to the federal prison system’s deputy director, Joshua Smith, who was convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy before Trump pardoned him in 2021. 

“The [prisons bureau] administration rolled out the red carpet for him,” said Joe Rojas, a retired prison worker and former union leader who has been speaking to the media on behalf of staff who fear reprisals for doing so since bureau leaders stopped recognizing the union last year. “The staff are disgusted.” 

Renato Stabile, the court-appointed lawyer representing Hernández — who has long maintained his innocence — said his client’s treatment was appropriate. 

“It would be particularly cruel to grant somebody a pardon and have them released from prison — only to have them immediately shipped back to a place like Honduras where they would’ve immediately arrested him or he would’ve been killed on sight by criminal elements that wanted to do him harm,” Stabile told ProPublica. Through his attorney, Hernández declined to comment.

ICE referred all questions to the White House, which responded with a link to a November social media post announcing the President’s intent to pardon Hernández. Smith didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment. A BOP spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the bureau does not discuss conditions of confinement or security procedures and that employee standards of conduct prohibit staff from giving any prisoners preferential treatment. “Violators may be subject to disciplinary actions, including removal from federal service and criminal prosecution,” the statement said. 

The investigation that ultimately ensnared Hernández stretched across several U.S. presidencies. Despite looming legal trouble stateside and widespread allegations of corruption in his country, Hernández — often known by his initials, JOH — was seen as a key U.S. ally under the Obama and first Trump administrations, ostensibly because of his apparent willingness to help tackle drug trafficking and migration issues. 

In 2012, as president of Honduras’ National Congress, he famously pushed through a legal change allowing for the extradition of accused criminals to the U.S. — a reform that his attorney pointed out was ironically later used to extradite him. 

But in 2018, less than halfway through Hernández’s second term as president, the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested his younger brother, former Honduran congressman Tony Hernández, in Miami for a series of weapons and drug trafficking charges. A jury found him guilty the following year at a Manhattan federal trial in which Emil Bove — the federal prosecutor who would later become Trump’s personal defense lawyer — gave a closing argument replete with allegations implicating the Honduran president in criminal schemes. (Bove could not be reached for comment.)

Although the sprawling criminal case focused on narcotrafficking concerns, Juan Orlando Hernández’s political career was fraught in other ways. Dana Frank, a University of California, Santa Cruz history professor who studies Honduras, described him as a “repressive criminal on multiple fronts.”

While in congress in 2012, he led a “technical coup” in overthrowing the supreme court, she said. Then, he ran for reelection to the presidency in 2017 “in complete violation of the constitution,” she said. Amid the resulting protests, security forces shot and killed at least 16 people, including two children, among other human rights abuses, a United Nations report found. Hernández has said little publicly, but his government told the U.N. it would look into those cases. His party has tweeted that it has an “unwavering commitment to democracy and freedom.”

Weeks after Hernández left office in 2022, he was arrested at his home in Honduras and extradited to the U.S. to face drug trafficking and weapons charges. Prosecutors said he funded his political career with millions of dollars he received from “violent drug-trafficking organizations” in exchange for allowing them to “move mountains of cocaine” out of the country.  

Stabile told ProPublica the case against his client was always a weak one, relying heavily on the word of unreliable drug traffickers with outlandish stories and little in the way of hard evidence.

Still, the government’s case was enough to convince a jury to convict Hernández after just over eight hours of deliberations, and in June 2024 he was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison. Afterward, Stabile and his client began working on an appeal, which at that point appeared to be Hernández’s only shot at freedom.

Early last year, prison officials transferred Hernández out of the federal detention center in Brooklyn, which largely holds pretrial detainees, and sent him to the high-security Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia. Dubbed “Misery Mountain,” the notoriously violent prison is the same facility where mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger was beaten to death in his cell hours after his arrival in 2018.

Yet prison sources said Hernández seemed to do his time quietly, eventually landing in the coveted housing unit set aside for a therapeutic program used to treat drug addiction, mental illness and “criminal thinking errors.” 

But after Trump returned to office last year, a much quicker route to freedom suddenly seemed possible: a pardon.

Like Trump, Hernández was a member of his country’s right-wing party. And, like Trump, he believed he’d been targeted by leftist forces. He also had other reasons to be hopeful. 

During his time in office, Hernández had championed the creation of special economic zones that could set their own taxes and regulations, a move that benefitted the Trump-aligned Silicon Valley titans who invested in them, including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. But the law was repealed by his successor, center-left party Libre member Xiomara Castro, putting plans for the zones in jeopardy. (Andreessen responded to a request for comment with a link to a social media post disavowing any involvement in the pardon. Thiel could not be reached for comment, though he has previously said he was not involved either.)

Longtime political operative Roger Stone also suggested in a blog post co-authored with conservative activist Shane Trejo in January 2025 that pardoning Hernández could have political benefits for Trump. In the post, Trejo and Stone — who was pardoned by Trump five years ago after he was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russian election interference — urged the president to “crush socialism and save a freedom city in Honduras” with a “well-timed pardon” that “could be the final death blow to [Xiomara] Castro” in the 2025 elections.

Eventually, Stone took on a more direct role in advocating for clemency when he gave Trump a four-page letter Hernández had written to the U.S. president, asking for a pardon and making the case that his conviction was a “political persecution” by the Biden administration. In a text message with ProPublica, Stone said he had received the letter from a journalist who’d gotten it from the family. He emphasized repeatedly that he was not compensated for his involvement.

“I read the letter and then did my own research and elected to send the letter to President Trump,” Stone wrote. “I actually had no contact with JOH or anyone in his family until after the pardon.”

On Nov. 28, two days before the Honduran presidential election, Trump announced his intent to pardon Hernández. Stabile said he didn’t learn the news until Ana García Carías, the former president’s wife, called him in tears:

“He’s letting him out! Trump’s pardoning Juan Orlando!” 

She sent Stabile a screenshot from Truth Social, where Trump had written that he would grant him a “Full and Complete Pardon.” 

The decision met with bipartisan backlash from lawmakers. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, called the unexpected reprieve “disgusting and incomprehensible,” while Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, described it as “horrible optics.”

In his post, Trump also urged Hondurans to vote for the National Party candidate, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, who was trailing in multiple polls, adding what to observers of Latin American politics was a thinly veiled threat: If Asfura did not win, Trump said, the U.S. would “not be throwing good money after bad” in support of Honduras.

The message was obvious, experts said. “That pardon was a clear green light for the National Party to manipulate the vote,” one former high-ranking U.S. diplomat told ProPublica. 

In the end, Asfura narrowly edged out center-right candidate Salvador Nasralla and handily defeated the incumbent Libre party. But the count was plagued by delays, reports of voter intimidation and allegations of fraud, and Nasralla later formally challenged the outcome. 

On Dec. 1 — while the votes were still being counted in Honduras — Trump posted again on Truth Social in support of Asfura. “Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election. If they do, there will be hell to pay!” The former president’s pardon officially went through that same day. 

That evening at Hazelton, after the prisoners had already been fed dinner, corrections officers showed up at the housing unit to get Hernández. Smith, the bureau’s deputy director, wanted to speak with him. The newly pardoned inmate was escorted to the captain’s office, where he used the captain’s phone to talk to Smith, his fellow pardon recipient, according to a source familiar with the situation. The move shocked current and former prison staff. 

Hernández was also allowed to talk with his family, who then phoned Stabile and told him the good news. Within the hour, Stabile said, he got a call from Smith, inquiring about a release plan. 

“I’m in Manhattan and he’s in West Virginia,” Stabile told Smith. “It would take me six hours to come pick him up. Can you transport him?”

Because most inmate releases are done during the daytime, prison staff had to be called back in to handle the paperwork and logistics of freeing an inmate. But there was a problem: Hernández had an immigration hold. 

When noncitizens are convicted of crimes in the U.S., immigration officials routinely sign detainers asking prisons and jails to turn them over to ICE for possible deportation proceedings  following their release date. In Hernández’s case, records show immigration agents sent the prison notice of a detainer in February 2025, two months after he was sentenced in court.

For several hours on the night of his release, prison officials scrambled to get the detainer removed so he could walk free, according to several sources familiar with the situation.      

“It’s definitely special treatment. That’s not normally the way it goes,” said Lena Graber, a senior staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. “Most people with drug convictions would never get their ICE detainer removed just because the conviction was pardoned.”

Records show immigration officials lifted the detainer on Hernández just after 11 p.m. 

Typically, according to a source familiar with the situation, prisoners who are released from Hazelton when there’s inclement weather or when it’s too late in the day to catch a plane or bus home are put up at the Microtel Inn and Suites at the bottom of the hill. It’s a two-star hotel where a room costs $69 per night. In the morning, they’re given a ticket and sent on their way. 

But for Hernández, prison officials activated a four-man tactical team, paying at least three of them overtime to drive him to the luxury hotel in Manhattan, according to government records and law enforcement sources. A standard room there costs more than $1,000 per night. Stabile declined to comment on where Hernández stayed but said the government did not pay for it.

It was another move that stunned prisons bureau staff. One official called it “absolutely fucking nuts,” adding, “I don’t even think that’s ever been done, not just for a pardoned inmate but for anyone who’s been released.” Another agreed that it was unprecedented: “Usually, they get a shitty bus ride or a cheap plane ticket. They don’t get the carpet rolled out for them.”

As of now, the former president’s whereabouts are unknown. A few days after his release, Hernández said in Spanish in a social media post that he had “no intention of returning to Honduras” immediately because he and his family would be in “grave danger given the evident persecution and the weaponization of justice against me.” 

If Hernández is in the U.S., it’s unclear what his immigration status is.

Meanwhile, Honduran officials have issued a warrant for Hernández’s arrest over years-old fraud allegations and, in a social media post, asked Interpol and other international allies to honor it. But a law enforcement official familiar with the situation told ProPublica there is currently no pending Interpol red notice asking for law enforcement to detain him. The only request the network received to issue such a notice, the official said, was declined while Hernández was still in prison.

The post Amid Mass ICE Arrests, Trump Pardon Recipient Juan Orlando Hernández Given Special Treatment appeared first on ProPublica.

Some critics and physicians said Elizabeth Bruenig’s account of a mother confronting a child’s death from measles felt misleading once they learned the story was reported fiction.

The warning on the government website was stark. Some products and remedies claiming to treat or cure autism are being marketed deceptively and can be harmful. Among them: chelating agents, hyperbaric oxygen therapies, chlorine dioxide and raw camel milk. 

Now that advisory is gone.

The Food and Drug Administration pulled the page down late last year. The federal Department of Health and Human Services told ProPublica in a statement that it retired the webpage “during a routine clean up of dated content at the end of 2025,” noting the page had not been updated since 2019. (An archived version of the page is still available online.) 

Some advocates for people with autism don’t understand that decision. “It may be an older page, but those warnings are still necessary,” said Zoe Gross, a director at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit policy organization run by and for autistic people. “People are still being preyed on by these alternative treatments like chelation and chlorine dioxide. Those can both kill people.” 

Chlorine dioxide is a chemical compound that has been used as an industrial disinfectant, a bleaching agent and an ingredient in mouthwash, though with the warning it shouldn’t be swallowed. A ProPublica story examined Sen. Ron Johnson’s endorsement of a new book by Dr. Pierre Kory, which describes the chemical as a “remarkable molecule” that, when diluted and ingested, “works to treat everything from cancer and malaria to autism and COVID.”

Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who has amplified anti-scientific claims around COVID-19, supplied a blurb for the cover of the book, “The War on Chlorine Dioxide.” He called it “a gripping tale of corruption and courage that will open eyes and prompt serious questions.”

The lack of clear warning from the government on questionable autism treatments is in line with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s rejection of conventional science on autism and vaccine safety. Last spring, Kennedy brought into the agency a vaccine critic who’d promoted treating autistic children with the puberty-blocking drug Lupron. And in January, Kennedy recast an advisory panel on autism, appointing people who have championed the use of pressurized chambers to deliver pure oxygen to children, as well as some who support infusions to draw out heavy metals, a process known as chelation.

Kennedy has embraced various unconventional measures in his fight against what he views as a government system corrupted by special interests. In October 2024, shortly before Donald Trump won the presidency again, Kennedy vowed on social media that the FDA’s “war on public health” was about to end. 

“This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma,” he wrote.

At his confirmation hearing, Kennedy praised Trump for his wide search for a COVID-19 remedy in his first term, which Kennedy said included vaccines, various drugs and “even chlorine dioxide.”

The FDA, dating back to at least 2010, has urged consumers not to purchase or drink chlorine dioxide, frequently marketed as a Miracle Mineral Solution, because “the solution, when mixed, develops into a dangerous bleach which has caused serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.”

The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) has previously reported on the removal of the FDA warnings page. The lack of a warning has also received attention in the Telegram channel Chlorine Dioxide Testimonies.

“Don’t forget the FDA quietly removed warnings about Chlorine Dioxide on their website earlier this year,” read a forwarded post in late December, to which over 100 people reacted with an applauding emoji.

The contributor added a wish for the future: that Kennedy and the FDA commissioner undertake official studies exploring chlorine dioxide’s effects in battling cancer. There currently are no warnings about chlorine dioxide on a consumer page on the FDA website. And HHS did not answer ProPublica’s questions about whether the agency endorses chlorine dioxide as a treatment for autism. 

In his book, Kory also expresses optimism about what Kennedy will do. “What I really want is for the FDA to lift its restrictions on studying chlorine dioxide as a therapeutic,” he wrote. “That’s something I’m hoping might finally be possible under this new administration, especially with RFK Jr. as head of Health and Human Services.”

Many autism researchers and advocates have been wary of Kennedy due to his long-held stance that vaccines cause autism. Peer-reviewed studies conducted worldwide, published over decades in leading scientific journals, have rejected such a link.

Under Kennedy, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overhauled its website on vaccines and autism to assert that studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.

The CDC page retained the headline “Vaccines do not cause Autism” but added an asterisk noting that the phrase remained “due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.” In order to win confirmation to his post, Kennedy had promised Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, that he would not remove the statement. 

Kennedy’s replacement of 21 members who were part of an interagency coordinating committee on autism provides another glimpse into where he wants to take federal policy. 

The committee provides advice and recommendations on policies, research and services. It now includes people who have promoted unproven remedies for autism, including suramin, a drug developed to treat sleeping sickness in Africa caused by bites from a tsetse fly; hyperbaric oxygen therapy, typically used for decompression sickness and tissue damage; controversial language techniques; and chelation therapy.

A 5-year-old autistic boy died in Pennsylvania in 2005 after a chelation session. Another 5-year-old boy died in Michigan last year in a hyperbaric chamber fire; his parents wanted him treated for an attention disorder.

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network published a statement on its website saying that the newly reconfigured HHS autism panel is now “overwhelmingly made up of anti-vaccine advocates and peddlers of dangerous quack autism ‘treatments.’”

HHS told ProPublica in an emailed statement that such claims are “false” and that the new members are experienced in research and clinical care. “They are committed to advancing innovation in autism research, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention to align federal policy with current gold-standard science,” HHS said. 

Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told ProPublica that Kennedy’s removal of committee members with solid expertise in favor of people who support alternative medicine shows that the secretary is “perfectly willing to embrace bogus therapies.”

Another leading expert, Yale University professor emeritus Dr. Fred Volkmar, who edited the “Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders,” a definitive guide, said early diagnosis and proven treatments have led to dramatic improvements for people with autism. “These days, probably 70% to 75% of children on the autism spectrum will grow up to be fully independent or semi-independent adults.” 

Sadly, however, he said, some parents fall prey to promises of easy and fast cures, when there are none. One of the dangers, he said, is that children are drawn away from treatments that are shown to be beneficial.

“It’s a shame that the federal government is not being more helpful to parents in understanding what does and doesn’t work,” Volkmar said.

The post Chlorine Dioxide, Raw Camel Milk: The FDA No Longer Warns Against These and Other Ineffective Autism Treatments appeared first on ProPublica.

In New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere, elected Democrats are taking steps to try to limit immigration crackdowns like the one winding down in Minneapolis.

In a small double-blind clinical trial, a single intravenous dose of DMT produced rapid and clinically meaningful reductions in symptoms of major depressive disorder within a week, with effects lasting up to three months in some patients. "Unlike psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide ( LSD), whose effects can last for hours, intravenous DMT has a half-life of around five minutes," notes ScienceAlert. "Its psychedelic effects are correspondingly brief, potentially making it more practical to administer in clinical settings." From the report: "A single dose of DMT with psychotherapeutic support produced a rapid, significant reduction in depressive symptoms, sustained up to three months," writes a team led by neuroscientists David Erritzoe and Tommaso Barba of Imperial College London. [...] They recruited 34 participants with major depression and divided them into two groups of 17 for a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. In the first stage of the trial, one group received an intravenous dose of DMT, while the other received an active placebo. Neither the researchers nor the participants were informed which participants received the DMT. The doses took around 10 minutes to administer, and a therapist sat with each participant to ensure comfort and safety while the psychedelic effects were active, remaining silent throughout the treatment. The treatment was generally well tolerated. Most side effects were mild to moderate, and included nausea, temporary anxiety, and pain at the injection site. No serious adverse events related to the treatment were reported, although brief increases in heart rate and blood pressure were observed immediately after dosing. In the second, open-label stage, two weeks after the first dose, all participants were given the opportunity to receive a dose of DMT. Participants were assessed before and at intervals after each dose using the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale. Just a week after the first dose, participants who had received DMT had improved scores compared to the placebo group, and improvements were sustained during follow-up assessments. Two weeks after the first dose, the participants who received DMT scored about seven points lower, on average, than those who received a placebo. On this commonly used clinical scale, a drop of that size is generally considered a meaningful reduction in symptom severity. There was no significant difference between patients who received one or two doses of DMT, suggesting a single dose may be sufficient. These effects persisted for up to three months, and some patients remained in remission for at least six months following the treatment. The findings have been published in Nature Medicine.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Why Should Delaware Care?
In December, the Delaware’s education secretary announced that she was placing the Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence under formal review due to enrollment concerns. It marked marking the second time in two years that the charter school had been placed under formal review. On Tuesday, state officials was recommended that the school’s charter be revoked. 

Delaware education officials on Tuesday recommended that the state close a Georgetown charter school due to its persistent struggles with low enrollment. 

If approved, the closure of the Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence (BASSE) would be the first for a Delaware charter school in seven years and the first to be closed by state regulators in a decade. It would also leave Sussex County with just two charter schools, compared to six in Kent County and 15 in New Castle County.

In 2016, the state Board of Education revoked the charter of the Delaware STEM Academy. In recent years though, most shuttered charter schools have voluntarily closed due to enrollment or finance concerns, although they have often come under pressure from regulators.

Charter schools are publicly funded but independently operated by their own board of directors. They are not eligible to receive taxpayer dollars for facilities and capital projects, but do receive state funding for each enrolled student.

The tuition-free schools feature specialized missions or academic curriculums that differ from traditional public schools, and that requires them to maintain certain enrollment levels and reporting duties to the state Department of Education, which issues their founding charters.

The closure recommendation from the Charter School Accountability Committee now goes before Delaware Education Secretary Cindy Marten, who will announce a final decision about whether to revoke BASSE’s charter of the on March 19. 

If she does revoke the charter, the school – which in recent months has served about 120 sixth through ninth graders – would close by the end of this academic year. 

On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Marten said the secretary will make her decision after considering “the full record, which will include public input collected at the upcoming public hearing,” on March 9. 

Get Involved
The public hearing about the Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence is scheduled for 5 p.m. on March 9 at the William A. Carter Partnership Center at DelTech in Georgetown.

In a statement to Spotlight Delaware, the school said it did not agree with Tuesday’s decision and is committed to remaining open.

But “​​we understand it was the decision (the committee) felt they needed to make with the information they had,” the school stated.

Named after the prominent civil rights attorney who was born in nearby Milton, the Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence was founded in 2018.

The school’s inaugural academic year did not start until the fall of 2024, in part because it had struggled to attract enough students, according to a 2023 report from Delaware Public Media. 

Among the founders of the school was Delaware lawmaker Rep. Alonna Berry (D-Milton). She declined to comment on Tuesday about the charter school committee’s recommendation. In an interview in 2021 with Delmarva Life, Berry said the school carried a service-learning mission, in which students would learn by going out into their communities. 

She also noted then that the school had received a $1 million grant from the du Pont family’s Longwood Foundation to help finance the construction of their facility in Georgetown, west of U.S. Route 113.  

Editor’s note: The Longwood Foundation has also funded Spotlight Delaware.

‘Enrollment has decreased’

During the tense, three-hour-long meeting on Tuesday, charter school accountability committee members expressed particular concern about the school’s ability to grow, or even maintain enrollment levels. 

Speaking to school staff directly, committee member Brook Hughes noted that “every single snapshot that we’ve taken of your enrollment has decreased.” 

The committee members also discussed a recent survey of existing students’ families that showed about half of them were not certain they would return to the school for the next academic year. 

In response, school staff explained that they struggled to convince families to respond to the survey. They argued that an announcement from Marten in December that the school would be placed under a formal review caused some parents to feel uncertain about their kids’ future at the school.  

The state describes the formal review process as a “lawful investigation of a charter school” that could include on-site visits, records inspections and interviews of parents, and staff.   

The subsequent review involved public meetings that included Tuesday’s gathering, where frustration was expressed by both members of the committee by school staff who were in attendance. 

Toward the end of the meeting, Charter Schools Network Executive Director Kendall Massett spoke openly about the visible frustration while noting that authorizing and regulating charter schools “is not easy.”

“It’s not supposed to be because we have children that we are responsible for as authorizers,” said Massett, who serves as a non-voting member of the Charter School Accountability Committee.

The post State committee recommends closure of Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Why Should Delaware Care?
After State Senator Dave Lawson (R-Marydel) announced last month that he would not seek re-election later this fall, two first-time candidates have tossed their hats in the ring to succeed the long-serving Kent County Republican. The upcoming matchup will be the first contested election for the seat since Lawson first won in 2010.

The brewing political battle to replace a long-serving senator from Kent County could become a political barometer that shows where voters in rural Delaware stand today.  

State Sen. Dave Lawson’s (R-Marydel) announcement last month that he will not seek re-election later this fall opened up Delaware’s 15th Senate District to new representation in the General Assembly for the first time in more than 15 years.

In a video announcing his retirement, the 80-year-old lawmaker threw his support behind Republican newcomer Emily Thompson, calling her an “awesome lady,” and a “true servant.” 

Lawson’s endorsement will likely carry Thompson, a program administrator for the state’s Division of Public Health, far in the western Kent County district – long a Republican stronghold. Since unseating a Democratic incumbent in 2010, Lawson ran unopposed in each of his two re-election campaigns. 

But a Democratic challenger with institutional connections – Nisha Lodhavia – has already tossed her hat in the ring, setting up a contested election in the district for the first time in more than 15 years. 

Lodhavia, a member of the University of Delaware’s Board of Trustees, announced her candidacy on the steps of Legislative Hall in January. She was joined by a slew of Kent County Democrats.

Senate District 15, which spans the length of western Kent County, covers towns including Felton, Marydel and Harrington. With both a Democrat and a Republican now in the race, this year’s election could be the first real litmus test of the district’s political leaning since boundaries were redrawn following the 2020 census.

As of this month, the district is home to nearly 40,000 registered voters. Of those voters, just less than 29% are registered Democrats. Nearly 36% are registered Republicans, and the rest are not affiliated with a political party.

Lodhavia starts with strong financials, eye on affordability

Lodhavia, a retired Delaware Technical Community College professor, has already raked in more than $16,000 in donations, according to her most recent campaign finance report. 

The report includes campaign contributions from Nov. 10, 2025, through the end of last year. Although Lodhavia did not formally file to run for office until January, she was required to submit a report because she created a candidate committee last November in anticipation of her run, said a spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Elections. 

In comparison, Lawson raised nearly $25,500 between April and October of 2010 when he first ran for the SD 15 seat – or more than $38,000 when accounting for inflation. 

Unless she faces a primary race, Thompson’s finances will likely not be publicly available until mid-October, when candidates across the state are required to submit their 30-day general election reports.

In an interview with Spotlight Delaware, Lodhavia said her vision for the future of the 15th District includes investments in education, health care, small business, and making agriculture a “top priority.” 

“And woven throughout all of that,” Lodhavia said, “is affordability.”

Though she has not sought elected office before, Lodhavia said she realized recently that her resume – from board service to volunteer work – has prepared her for it.

A self-described moderate Democrat, Lodhavia said her party affiliation was not a deterrent from choosing to run for State Senate. The issues at the heart of her campaign, she said, are not partisan. And making them so, she added, would only act as a roadblock to finding solutions.

“I feel like the time is now because my district needs change,” she said. “And I’m here for it.”

Lodhavia said she plans to embark on a listening tour across the district in the coming weeks to ensure she gets face time with as many voters as possible across all pockets of the district.

Thompson looks to support education, agriculture

When Lawson announced his plans to retire at the end of this year’s legislative session, he said it was important to “step out of the way” for the next generation of political leaders. 

One of those people, Lawson said in his announcement video, is Thompson. 

“I think she will carry on, or work even harder, and be more successful in the 15th senatorial district than I,” Lawson said. 

The praise was not lost on Thompson. In an interview with Spotlight Delaware, she said Lawson has been “an incredible mentor.” 

She explained that she had met the senator about six months before she officially filed to run in January. She expressed her interest in being his successor, and the pair began attending community events together so she could better “understand the political landscape.”

Through that work, Thompson said she has homed in on improving education and preserving the district’s agricultural community as two of her top priorities. 

Thompson previously worked in child welfare, and now she oversees Delaware’s home visiting programs for young families through the state’s Division of Public Health. That work, she said, showed her just how few resources are available to children and their families. 

If elected, Thompson said she wants to ensure families in Delaware schools understand what resources are available to them, and ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used effectively and transparently to do so.

Along with education, Thompson, who grew up on her family’s horse farm, said she is passionate about preserving the agricultural footprint of the 15th district. If farmers are not supported, she said, more farmland will inevitably become housing developments or solar farms. 

“If we don’t have policies and legislation in place, that financially supports farmers and makes it advantageous for them to continue farming … they obviously have to look at other avenues,” she said.

While Thompson and Lodhavia are currently the only two candidates running to succeed Lawson, the possibility of either woman facing a primary election challenge is still on the table. The deadline for all prospective candidates to officially file to run for office is July 14.

The post Political newcomers vie to succeed Lawson in State Senate appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

A large shark was caught on camera for the first time in Antarctica's waters, surprising researchers. "There's a general rule of thumb that you don't get sharks in Antarctica," one said.

FTSE 100 company reports 6% fall in annual profits weeks after collapse of $260bn merger with Rio Tinto

Glencore is to give $2bn (£1.47bn) to shareholders after a turbulent year in which profits slumped and talks collapsed over a blockbuster $260bn merger with the fellow mining company Rio Tinto.

The FTSE 100 company announced the payout on Wednesday despite reporting that annual profits slipped 6% on the previous year to $13.5bn.

Do AI summits work? Expert comment jon.wallace 18 February 2026

The AI Impact Summit in New Delhi is ambitious – but little progress on international governance is expected. Smaller and regional gatherings are a better prospect to develop the solutions the world needs.

This week, AI policymakers, experts and developers descend on New Delhi for the world’s biggest ever gathering dedicated to the technology – the AI Impact Summit. Indian government officials estimate a quarter of a million people will join the conference and expo to discuss how to build and govern AI – Chatham House’s Digital Society Programme among them.

The summit has sky-high ambitions, and potentially great value, bringing together high-level decision-makers alongside ground-up tech builders and experts under one roof (or ten). Useful, important conversations will be had.

But it will likely fall short of producing any meaningful international governance agreement. It is too crowded a platform, with too many agendas. 

To really make progress on AI governance, policymakers, developers, scientists and civil society actors interested in better governance should throw their weight behind developing solutions in smaller settings – with the opportunity to scale up them using major gatherings later.  

Stormy seas for global governance

The AI Impact Summit takes place at a crucial moment. Institutions of global governance are under significant strain, as commitments to shared principles and the rule of international law give way to transactionalism.  

All the while, a global AI struggle is intensifying. The US and China have the world’s most powerful tech and without their buy-in, any ambitions to reach a global agreement on AI governance are a non-starter. But US and Chinese labs are racing to the frontiers, intent on maintaining an advantage. That means AI capabilities are advancing rapidly, as is the magnitude of risk. 

Recently, global scientists cautioned that real-world evidence for severe AI risks is on the rise – ranging from potential cyberattacks to biological weapons development. 

Related work

How middle powers can weather US and Chinese AI dominance

In this context, other countries feel compelled to explore alternative partnerships, seeking to develop AI in way that promotes their safety and sovereignty – an approach underscored by calls for middle power solidarity like those made by Mark Carney at the World Economic Forum last month. 

There has never been a harder time for global cooperation on AI governance. Nor has there ever been such urgency to figure it out. Recent years have seen valiant efforts from the UN, the G20, G7, the OECD and EU. In 2023, the UK convened the first AI summit at Bletchley Park. 

Each subsequent international gathering has pushed the needle forward. But the limited, non-binding, principles-based efforts at governance made so far shrink in the face of accelerating technology and growing tensions. A global treaty on AI is a distant dream.

All roads lead to New Delhi

In this environment, international summitology might look like a dying art. But India is an enthusiastic host. New Delhi is primed for the arrival of tech CEOs and heads of state, joining closed-door high-level events later in the week. 

Every few hundred meters, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s face adorns bright posters, alongside catchy quotes (‘India has the power of double AI: Artificial Intelligence and Aspirational India’, one reads). The conference venue is huge, with queues for events and some delegates flagging down buggies to travel across the site.

The summit is a monument to India’s AI ambitions, drumming up business and showcasing tech from India and partner countries. India is anxious to maintain the resilience of its tech sector – long globally competitive but potentially threatened by labour displacement triggered by automation in key industries like manufacturing and business process outsourcing. 

India is also keen to maintain sovereign control of AI – in line with its hope for strategic autonomy over foundational tech despite deep reliance on the US or China. The summit showcases sovereign and government-backed models: trained on Indian data, and hosted on an Indian cloud, an important proof of concept for a more sovereign solution.

In that respect, the summit can be seen as the latest diplomatic attempt to position India as an alternative to the US and China on tech cooperation – emphasizing equitable development and distribution of AI and the deployment of AI in developing countries. The summit may see announcements for improving Global South coordination on issues like safety. Emphasizing real-life use cases – in healthcare, energy and education – is a priority.

India also hosts the BRICS summit later in the year, and may host visits from the US and Chinese leaders – requiring a careful balancing act as it seeks to build its AI autonomy, broker Global South cooperation, and navigate the great powers. Many middle powers will face similar challenges and will hope to learn from India’s approach.  

Splinter for success?

This year’s summit has already been criticized by technical experts and advocates for its content and design. The conference has incredibly broad aims rooted in seven AI chakras, including science and human capital. The summit’s main day convenes tech executives and state representatives. There are also concerns that the summit sidelines voices from civil society. Some will head to fringe events instead.

Since 2023, summit membership has bloated to include more countries, companies and organizations than ever before. Safety and security once defined the agenda. Now those issues vie for attention with promises to accelerate and diffuse ever-more-powerful AI. Such overcrowding will prevent this summit’s main track from tangibly advancing international AI governance.

This is unfortunate, but not world-ending. As AI governance experts have argued, an imperfect summit is better than no summit at all. 

But policy solutions on AI governance puzzles will not come from a crowded conference room. They will come from smaller expert or regional gatherings designed to capture global, diverse inputs and operationalize them. Smaller conventions offer an opportunity to garner support for tested, trusted governance solutions, which can be scaled later in bigger gatherings. 

For example, Chatham House has argued that scientist-led venues (like the International AI Safety Report, and hopefully the future UN Scientific Panel on AI) can generate a strong depoliticizing effect, building trust in scientific outputs across geopolitical chasms. 

That kind of ‘splintering to scale’ is possible and, in this fragmented geopolitical environment, preferable. 

Next week will see the reconvening of the independent International Association of Safe and Ethical AI’s annual conference. This is a smaller gathering, free of attachment to national prestige, with attendance from a diversity of global scientists (including from China), promising to platform technical research and regulatory solutions. 

In the meantime, efforts are underway to build agreement over digital technical standards for AI safety. Civil society groups are convening scientists and experts to seek agreement on a set of ‘red lines’ for unacceptable AI risks, like bioterrorism. Governance labs and academics in India and globally are exchanging ideas on participatory governance solutions to long-standing tech policy problems. 

The value of these smaller efforts is their potential to produce globally scalable outputs with expert buy-in – championed by consensus-building states, like Singapore, Brazil or Switzerland. They can create trust in mechanisms and process, laying the groundwork for consensus on principles for AI governance (an optimistic objective) and implementing pragmatic governance solutions (a more likely aim).

But they must also be wary of replicating power asymmetries that are so often a stumbling block to effective AI governance. 

Nightmares of inaction

AI governance hopefuls face a steep hill. The question is not whether to scale trusted solutions, but how. Political appetite for global cooperation on AI is waning. The US did not back the AI Safety Report and has sought to remove guardrails on AI development, as it competes bitterly with China for influence over global AI.

In the 2010s it described an insurgent rhetorical style; in the 2020s it is inadequate to account for the wildly diverging fates of the left and right

“Populism” may well have been the defining word of the previous decade: a shorthand for the insurgent parties that came to prominence in the 2010s, challenging the dominance of the liberal centre. But no sooner had it become the main rubric for discussing both the far left and far right than commentators began to question its validity: worrying that it was too vague, or too pejorative, or fuelling the forces to which it referred.

Now, with the fortunes of the two political poles heading in different directions – the right gaining ground across the west while much of the left struggles to rebound from serial defeats – the notion that this word could encompass such different players seems even less plausible. For a lucid account of these forces, we might have to shift our focus elsewhere: finding terms that can explain their unequal balance of power, so that we can in turn find the proper remedy.

Oliver Eagleton is managing editor at Phenomenal World

Environment minister says Alcoa cleared known habitat of protected species to enable bauxite mining

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The environment minister, Murray Watt, has handed a $55m penalty to the US mining giant Alcoa for unlawful land clearing for bauxite mining in Western Australia’s northern jarrah forests, south of Perth.

As Watt announced the “unprecedented” remediation order, he said he had also granted the company an exemption to clear further habitat for 18 months while the government considered a proposal for an extension of the company’s mining operations to 2045.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Feb. 18.

Sara Duterte, daughter of a former president who is facing charges of crimes against humanity at the Hague, pledged to offer her ‘life, strength and future’ in service of the Philippines

Philippine vice-president Sara Duterte, daughter of the imprisoned former leader Rodridgo Duterte, has announced she will run for president in the country’s 2028 election.

Sara Duterte, 47, said she would offer her “life, strength and future” in service of the Philippines, in a speech on Wednesday that accused President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, of presiding over a period marked by rampant corruption.

Substances include chemicals that can cause cancer, neurodevelopmental problems and the feminisation of males

You wear them at work, you wear them at play, you wear them to relax. You may even get sweaty in them at the gym.

But an investigation into headphones has found every single pair tested contained substances hazardous to human health, including chemicals that can cause cancer, neurodevelopmental problems and the feminisation of males.

Longtime Slashdot reader walterbyrd shares a report from ABC News: In a study of nearly 28 million older Americans, long-term exposure to fine particle air pollution raised the risk of Alzheimer's disease. That link held even after researchers accounted for common conditions like high blood pressure, stroke and depression. Fine particle air pollution, known as PM2.5, consists of tiny particles in the air that come from car exhaust, power plants, wildfires, and burning fuels, according to the American Lung Association. They are small enough to travel deep into the lungs and even reach the bloodstream. The research, conducted at Emory University and published in PLOS Medicine, tracked health data over nearly two decades to explore whether air pollution harms the brain indirectly by causing high blood pressure or heart disease, which, in turn, leads to dementia. However, these "middleman" conditions accounted for less than 5% of the connection between pollution and Alzheimer's, the research found. The researchers say this suggests that over 95% of the Alzheimer's risk comes from the direct impact of breathing in dirty air, likely through inflammation or damage to brain cells. "The relationship between PM2.5 and AD [Alzheimer's disease] has been shown to be pretty much linear," said Kyle Steenland, a professor in the departments of environmental health and epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, and senior author of the study. "The reason this is particularly important is that PM2.5 is known to be associated with high blood pressure, stroke and depression -- all of which are associated with AD. So, from a prevention standpoint, simply treating these diseases will not get rid of the problem. We have to address exposure to PM2.5."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Feb. 18, No. 513.

Donald Trump says deals ‘end our foolish dependence on foreign sources’, while Japanese PM hails enhanced economic security

Japan has drawn up plans for investments in US oil, gas and critical mineral projects worth about $36bn under the first wave of a deal with Donald Trump.

The US president and Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister, announced a trio of projects including a power plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, billed by the Trump administration as the largest natural gas-fired generating facility in US history.

Despite strong opposition from neighbors, city council last week OK’d a proposal to add four housing units to an already-approved subdivision in northern Newark.

Newark’s April election has been canceled after one candidate dropped out of the only contested race on the ballot.

Eye-catching martial arts performance at China gala had viewers and experts wondering what else humanoids can do

Dancing humanoid robots took centre stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group’s Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and backflipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. Not one fell over.

The display was impressive, but prompted some to wonder: if robots can now dance and perform martial arts, what else can they do?

Former Stone Balloon owner Bill Stevenson pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges he killed his wife.

Google, Anthropic and OpenAI bosses to mingle with global south leaders wrestling for control over technology

Silicon Valley tech billionaires will land in Delhi this week for an AI summit hosted by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, where leaders of the global south will wrestle for control over the fast-developing technology.

During the week-long AI Impact Summit, attended by thousands of tech executives, government officials and AI safety experts, tech companies valued at trillions of dollars will rub along with leaders of countries such as Kenya and Indonesia, where average wages dip well below $1,000 a month.

Latin America’s warning for U.S. democracy.

CEO said services have restarted after termination of grants led to criticism that US was ceding ground to China

Radio Free Asia has resumed broadcasts to people in China, its chief executive said on Tuesday, after Trump administration cuts last year largely forced the US-funded outlet to cease operations.

For years, RFA and its sister outlets, including Voice of America (VOA), had been financed with funding approved by the US Congress and overseen by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

More than a million people around the world reported the popular video site had gone dark. Just in time for Olympics coverage!

The "signal sniffer" being used in the Nancy Guthrie investigation was mounted on a helicopter on Monday.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Agrochemical maker Bayer and attorneys for cancer patients announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement Tuesday to resolve thousands of U.S. lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller Roundup could cause cancer. The proposed settlement comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in April on Bayer's assertion that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approval of Roundup without a cancer warning should invalidate claims filed in state courts. That case would not be affected by the proposed settlement. But the settlement would eliminate some of the risk from an eventual Supreme Court ruling. Patients would be assured of receiving settlement money even if the Supreme Court rules in Bayer's favor. And Bayer would be protected from potentially larger costs if the high court rules against it. Germany-based Bayer, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, disputes the assertion that Roundup's key ingredient, glyphosate, can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But the company has warned that mounting legal costs are threatening its ability to continue selling the product in U.S. agricultural markets. "Litigation uncertainly has plagued the company for years, and this settlement gives the company a road to closure," Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said Tuesday. The proposed settlement could total up to $7.25 billion over 21 years and resolve most of the remaining U.S. lawsuits surrounding the cancer-related harms of Roundup. The report notes that more than 125,000 claims have been filed since 2015, and while many have already been settled, this deal aims to cover most outstanding and future claims tied to past exposure. Individual payouts would vary widely based on exposure type, age at diagnosis, and cancer severity. Bayer can also cancel the deal if too many plaintiffs opt out.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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A Texas-sized showdown is brewing deep in the heart of the largest red state in the US. As early voting begins on Tuesday for the Lone Star state’s 3 March primaries, Republicans and Democrats alike face a high-stakes choice that could set the stage for one of the fiercest Senate races of the 2026 midterm cycle.

At the center of the fractious Republican contest is a clash between the party’s old guard and a Maga culture warrior, with four-term incumbent John Cornyn, a conservative fixture of Senate leadership locked in the fight of his political career against the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general, Ken Paxton.

The clash over an investigation into suspected unlicensed ritual circumcisions underscores heightened tensions between the U.S. and Europe under President Trump.

Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito, collectively known as the "Blade Angels," began their Olympic medal campaigns in women's figure skating on Tuesday.

I tested every smartwatch that Apple sells, and here are the best ones to buy based on health features, battery life and your budget.

National Park Service also sued for removing rainbow Pride flag from Stonewall national monument in New York

Conservation and historical organizations sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over National Park Service policies that the groups say erase history and science from America’s national parks.

A lawsuit filed in Boston says orders by Donald Trump and the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, have forced park service staff to remove or censor exhibits that share factually accurate and relevant US history and scientific knowledge, including about slavery and climate change.

US family who were 100th to be granted residency under investor scheme say they want to give back to ‘amazing’ New Zealand

Wealthy Americans are dominating applications for New Zealand’s “golden visa”, driven by a love for the country’s natural beauty and entrepreneurial spirit, as well a desire to escape Trump’s administration.

New rules for the Active Investor Plus visa came into effect in April 2025, lowering investment thresholds, removing English-language requirements and cutting the amount of time applicants must spend in the country to establish residency from three years to three weeks. Successful applicants can only purchase homes in New Zealand worth more than $5m.

Anthropic has released Claude Sonnet 4.6, the first upgrade to its mid-tier AI model since version 4.5 arrived in September 2025. The new model features a "1M token context window" and delivers a "full upgrade of the model's skills across coding, computer use, long-context reasoning, agent planning, knowledge work, and design." From Anthropic: Sonnet 4.6 brings much-improved coding skills to more of our users. Improvements in consistency, instruction following, and more have made developers with early access prefer Sonnet 4.6 to its predecessor by a wide margin. They often even prefer it to our smartest model from November 2025, Claude Opus 4.5. Performance that would have previously required reaching for an Opus-class model -- including on real-world, economically valuable office tasks -- is now available with Sonnet 4.6. The model also shows a major improvement in computer use skills compared to prior Sonnet models. The free tier now uses Sonnet 4.6 by default and with "file creation, connectors, skills, and compaction" included.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

‘We have nothing to hide,’ former secretary of state says ahead of her and Bill Clinton’s depositions next week – key US politics stories from Tuesday 17 February

Hillary Clinton has accused the Trump administration of a “cover-up” over the Epstein files, while claiming that she and her husband are being forced to testify before Congress to deflect scrutiny from Donald Trump.

In an interview with the BBC, Clinton said the US Department of Justice was “slow-walking” the release of documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein’s catalogue of crimes and urged the administration to “get the files out”. Despite periodic document dumps of the files since Congress mandated their release late last year, the justice department is still withholding about 3m files.

Part 5 of the Delaware Civics 101 Series:
Understanding How Delaware Organizes, Spends, and Balances Its Money

These are the facts of modern life: Populations keep rising. People’s needs keep growing. Costs keep heading higher. The big question facing Delaware’s lawmakers is this: How fast should state spending be rising to meet these realities?

Since 2020, Delawareans have watched state budgets begin a sharp, steep climb: Over the past five years, state spending skyrocketed by about 53%. Meanwhile, the population was up by just 7.6%.

Many in the state are closely (and warily) watching these diverging trajectories, and posing some questions: Could the gap between population growth and budget growth get wider in the years ahead? Just how much more are we willing (or able) to pay? And where will all that money come from?

A distinctly 21st Century trend

Since the start of the century, Delaware’s operating budget has more than tripled, jumping from about $2.1 billion in 2000 to $6.5 billion in FY2026 – an increase of nearly 210%. In the same time frame, Delaware’s population grew from 786,000 to about 1.05 million – a 33% rise.

The wide discrepancy is mainly a result of rising costs – especially in education and healthcare – but it’s also seen as a corollary of having plentiful revenue. Delaware has enjoyed some boom years in its corporate franchise business, which collects taxes and fees from companies across the world, and fuels a good portion of the rising budget.

Increased spending isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, as the thousands of Delawareans who receive services from the state might attest. Higher spending can mean better classrooms, more teachers, nicer roads, safer streets.

But the people guiding the process know they need to be mindful of realities as well, and in this case, those realities come in the form of revenue — and the up-and-down fortunes of finding it. The past 25 years saw Delaware’s overall revenue benefit from broader economic gains, and recent action from the legislature successfully avoided a big hit to revenue from federal tax changes.

It’s also important to realize that a good portion of Delaware’s recent revenue windfalls came from the federal government during the COVID 19 pandemic – and those funds have just about dried up. That’s one of the reasons Gov. Matt Meyer’s recent FY2027 state budget proposal keeps spending growth below 5%, for the first time in years. The budget grew by more than 7% in the current fiscal year and 9% in FY 2025.

Part of that growth was needed just to keep up with inflation. But looking ahead, it seems clear that cost pressures will only rise, for Delaware and every other state. An aging population demands more Medicare, and schools say they need increasing financial support to attract good teachers, and to care for special needs students. Some of the spending that began under COVID has become “sticky” – federal funds may be dried up, but there is pressure to maintain the programs it once paid for.

Faster and faster

There was a time when budget growth was a little more closely aligned with population growth in the state – but those were not very good times for many people. From 2000-2010, the state’s population grew by 14.6%, while the General Fund grew by roughly 55%, or at a rate of 3 times population growth. Those “slow growth” years of the Delaware budget were a time of budget cuts and freezes on spending, driven by the 2001 dot-com collapse and the Great Recession in 2008.

Spending growth resumed as financial turbulence receded, powered in part by a boom in corporate franchise‑tax revenues and that avalanche of COVID funds. But the cost pressures have only gotten more cumbersome for states.

In recent times, the pressures driving increased spending have been particularly people-centered. Spending had to be hiked to help resolve staffing shortages for key positions like police and teachers, who often have their choice of better offers elsewhere.

There’s also growing concern that Delaware and other states pay so much more these days to cover unfunded pension liabilities for retired workers — an unpaid bill that has been growing for some time, but is hitting harder now as more workers retire.

With federal COVID aid gone and corporate receipts softening, FY2026–27 marks a reset of sorts for Delaware — one that raises questions about how to sustain core services if costs keep outrunning revenue, population, and gross domestic product.

Economic and Demographic Comparison (FY2000 vs. FY2026)

Looking at the numbers a different way, Delaware’s general fund spends far more per resident than in 2000: $6,136 per resident today, but only $2,671 in the year 2000. That’s a 136% jump, but factoring in inflation, it’s the equivalent of a 23% rise.

A 53% surge in just 5 years

Delaware’s budget has been growing much faster in the past five years than it did over the prior two decades. From 2000 to 2020, the operating budget rose from about $2.1 billion to $4.5 billion — a +114% increase, or roughly 3.9% a year — driven by steady growth in Medicaid, education, and personnel costs. But from 2020 to 2025, the budget jumped again to $6.9 billion, a +53% surge in just five years — about 8.8% a year, more than double the long-term pace. Part of the increase was needed just to keep pace with rising costs: Inflation-adjusted budget growth was just. The rise was also fueled by federal COVID relief, a corporate franchise-tax boom (peaking in 2023), and higher Medicaid and education spending.

The implication is clear: Delaware’s budget grew faster in 2020–25 than in the entire 20 years before COVID, and much of that acceleration was temporary and federally fueled. With those one-time funds gone and corporate receipts softening, the FY2026–27 pullback represents a reset, even as underlying pressures in health care and education remain. And the impact of inflation still lingers.

Schools: More investment, more cost per student

• Operating support for K–12 rose from under $1B in 2000 to $2.3B+ today—about one‑third of the operating budget.
• Per‑student spending has risen sharply from ~$17,650 per pupil in 2022 and ~$20,502 in 2024.
• Growth Drivers: staffing/benefits, special‑education services, school construction in growth districts, and temporary federal infusions (ARRA; ESSER/ARPA) that funded ventilation, technology, tutoring, and learning recovery. Inflation is also a factor here.
• States have faced intense pressure to increase per-pupil spending to address pandemic-era “learning loss” and to cover the rising costs of special education and school security.

Health Care: The fastest grower

Delaware Health Care Spending (operating budget; approx.):

• 2000: ~$500M (~24%)
• 2010: ~$1.1B (~31%)
• 2015: ~$1.5B (~33%) — ACA expansion
• 2020: ~$2.0B (~34%) — COVID surge, higher federal match
• 2025: ~$2.6B (~37%)
• Drivers: Medicaid enrollment growth (post‑ACA), hospital and drug inflation, aging demographics, and federal policy shifts. Even as post‑COVID “unwinding” trims rolls, per‑member costs continue to rise; growth has often exceeded Delaware’s 3% benchmark, running 6–10% in recent years.

The franchise‑tax tailwind (and exposure)

Delaware’s role as corporations’ favorite home fueled a long rise in franchise‑tax receipts — crossing $1B in 2018 and peaking near $1.6B in 2023. It’s now about 25-30% of General Fund revenue. Policy changes and a growing incorporation base enabled bigger K‑12 and health budgets without a sales tax and with low property taxes. But this leaves the state exposed to federal tax changes and corporate activity cycles; receipts have eased since 2023.

Here’s the side-by-side bar chart showing the growth in Delaware’s major revenue sources from 2019 to 2025, including the Corporate Franchise Tax front and center:

🟦 2019 vs. 🟥 2025 (est.)

The chart above shows how Delaware’s revenue mix has shifted:

• The Franchise Tax remains a powerhouse.
• Realty Transfer Tax and Gaming surged during the pandemic and remain elevated.
• Corporate Income Tax is the only major source that declined, due to federal deductibility changes.

The risk ahead: costs vs. capacity

• Education: Per‑student spending is structurally higher (salaries/benefits, special ed, facilities).
• Health care: Medicaid and medical inflation outpace general growth.
• Revenues: Franchise‑tax softening post‑peak; federal one‑time funds gone
• Bottom line: If education and health care keep growing faster than revenue, population, and GDP, Delaware faces a structural gap that will require productivity gains, program tradeoffs, or revenue‑mix adjustments to protect classrooms and core services.

Who pays what share?

Delaware’s General Fund relies on two pillars: residents’ personal income tax (PIT) and business-centric revenues (franchise/entity fees, gross receipts, corporate income tax).

Residents (personal income tax)

• Under $100K: majority of households, smaller share of PIT due to progressive rates.
• $100K–$200K: about a quarter of households, outsized share of PIT.
• Over $200K: a small slice of households, but they contribute a disproportionately large share of PIT.

Illustrative split of PIT burden:

• Under $100K: ~40%
• $100K–$200K: ~32.5%
• Over $200K: ~27.5%
  

Changes in 2026 further increase their share

This year, Delaware will add higher brackets under the John Kowalko, Jr. Fairness in Taxation Act (HS 1 for HB 13), effective for tax years beginning after Dec. 31, 2025. Income between $60,000 and $125,000 remains at 6.6%, while income over $125,000 is taxed at 6.75%, and income over $250,000 at 6.95%—a shift aimed at increasing progressivity so top earners pay a slightly larger share. Sponsors and fiscal analyses indicate well over 90% of taxpayers won’t see an increase (some estimates put it around 94%), concentrating new revenue at the top. 

Why it matters now: The changes bolster revenue as federal one-time funds fade and healthcare and education costs keep rising, while limiting impacts on middle- and lower-income families.  However, increasing pressure on high-income taxpayers can reduce total income if they elect to move their primary residence to another state. 

Businesses (collectively)

• Franchise & entity taxes (~20–25% of the General Fund), gross receipts, corporate income, and bank franchise taxes together contribute a business share comparable to the resident PIT slice.
• Other notable sources (e.g., unclaimed property, lottery) add mid-single-digit shares and can be volatile.

Bottom line on tax burdens:

• High-income families already carry a significantly larger share of the income-tax load than middle- and lower-income families.
• Businesses collections central to Delaware’s “no sales tax/low property tax” model.

The risk ahead: When needs grow too fast:

• Education and health care are on long-term cost paths that tend to outpace inflation and general growth.
• Revenue sensitivity has increased as franchise-tax receipts cool and one-time federal funds disappear.
• If costs keep outrunning revenue, population, and GDP, Delaware faces a widening structural gap — forcing choices among productivity gains, program tradeoffs, or revenue-mix adjustments to preserve classrooms and core services.

Fact Box

• Budget growth (2000→2025):
  • ~$2.1B → $6.9B (+228%).
• Population:
  • +34%; GDP: +142% (current dollars).
• Education:
  • ~One third of the operating budget
  • Per-student;
    • ~$17,650 (2022)
    • ~$20,502 (2024)
• Health care:
  • ~37% of operating budget
  • ~$0.5B in 2000 → ~$2.6B in 2025).
• Franchise tax:
  • Exceeded $1B by 2018
  • Near $1.6B peak in 2023; softened since.
• Who pays: High-income households contribute a disproportionate share of PIT; businesses contribute a comparable share via franchise/entity and other business taxes.

About the Civics 101 Series: Civics 101 is a continuing explanatory series by Delaware LIVE and the Spotlight Delaware content marketing team designed to help readers understand how state government works and how budget decisions affect everyday life in Delaware. To read other stories in the series, visit the Civics 101 home page.

The post Civics 101: Delaware’s population is rising. But nowhere near as fast as the budget. appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Minnesota and federal authorities are investigating claims that immigration officers shattered a Mexican man's skull while taking him into custody last month.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman (paywalled), Apple is reportedly developing AI-powered smart glasses, a wearable pendant, and camera-equipped AirPods that connect to the iPhone and use "visual context" to let Siri perform real-world actions. The Verge reports: Apple is reportedly aiming to start production of its smart glasses in December, ahead of a 2027 launch. The new device will compete directly with Meta's lineup of smart glasses and is rumored to feature speakers, microphones, and a high-resolution camera for taking photos and videos, in addition to another lens designed to enable AI-powered features. The glasses won't have a built-in display, but they will allow users to make phone calls, interact with Siri, play music, and "take actions based on surroundings," such as asking about the ingredients in a meal, according to Bloomberg. Apple's smart glasses could also help users identify what they're seeing, reference landmarks when offering directions, and remind wearers to complete a task in specific situations, Bloomberg reports. The company is reportedly planning to develop the frames for the smart glasses in-house, instead of partnering with a third-party company like Meta does with Ray-Ban and Oakley. Prototypes of the glasses use a cable to connect to a battery pack and an iPhone, but Bloomberg reports that "newer versions have the components embedded in the frame." Apple reportedly wants to make its smart glasses stand out by offering a high-quality build and advanced camera technology. The company is still working on AI-powered smart glasses with a display, though their launch "remains many years away," Bloomberg says. Apple's plans for AI hardware don't end there, as the company is expected to build upon its Google Gemini-powered Siri upgrade with an AirTag-sized AI pendant that people can either wear as a necklace or a pin. This device would "essentially serve as an always-on camera" for the iPhone and has a microphone for prompting Siri, Bloomberg reports. The pendant, which The Information first reported on last month, is rumored to come with a built-in chip, but will mainly rely on the iPhone's processing power. The device could arrive as early as next year, according to Bloomberg.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Following backlash over Discord's global rollout of strict age-verification checks, users are flocking to rival platform TeamSpeak and overwhelming its servers. According to PC Gamer, the Discord alternative said its hosting capacity has been maxed out in a number of regions including the U.S. From the report: [A]s I saw for myself while testing out free Discord alternatives, it's hard to deny the appeal of TeamSpeak. It's quick and easy to make an account, join or start a group chat, or join a massive, game-based community voice server, and at no point does TeamSpeak cheekily ask if it can scan your wizened visage. During my testing, I was able to dive into 18+ group chats without tripping over an age gate. However, there's no guarantee TeamSpeak won't have to deploy its own age verification mechanism in the future. In the UK at least, the Online Safety Act makes those sorts of checks a legal obligation, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently stating "No social media platform should get a free pass when it comes to protecting our kids." Besides all of that, if you'd rather not chat to randoms who also happen to have an unhealthy obsession with Arc Raiders, you'll likely need to pay an admittedly small subscription fee to rent your own ten-person community voice server. By that point, you're handing over card details and essentially fulfilling an age assurance check anyway. If you'd rather limit how much info your chat platform of choice has about you, there are arguably better options out there.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We asked registered dietitians for their top healthy air fryer recipes. Their picks are perfect for easy meals.

Lawyer for defendants accused of terrorism at ICE protest decried by Trump appointee over shirt’s potential for ‘bias’

A federal judge in Texas declared a mistrial on Tuesday after a defense lawyer wore a shirt in court with images from the civil rights movement, delaying a closely watched case in which the Trump administration is accusing a group of protesters of being terrorists and says they are part of a “North-Texas antifa cell”.

US district judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of Donald Trump, declared a mistrial only hours after jury selection began at the federal courthouse in downtown Fort Worth. He abruptly halted the proceedings after MarQuetta Clayton, an attorney for one of the defendants, had been questioning potential jurors for about 20 minutes, taking issue with a shirt she was wearing underneath a black blazer. The shirt contained images of civil rights movement leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr and Shirley Chisholm, as well as images of protests from that time.

Europe may trail its North American and Asian counterparts in several areas of computing, which makes the continent dependent on outside suppliers. But it’s looking to plant a flag in the ground in one critical category: sovereign, large-scale AI models.

That’s the takeaway from recent news from the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, which announced that it’s holding a continent-wide competition called the Frontier AI Grand Challenge to develop a sovereign frontier AI model that can compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude.

The Frontier AI Grand Challenge calls for AI developers to propose their ideas for the creation of a large mixture-of-experts (MoE) model consisting of at least 400 billion parameters. A panel will judge the proposals across several criteria, including the presence of “innovative enhancements” and “novel approaches addressing current model limitations.”

The winning proposal will be trained upon EuroHPC’s collection of supercomputers, including JUPITER, EuroHPC’s first exascale supercomputer, which operates at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) Germany, and Alice Recoque, EuroHPC’s second exascale system, which will be installed at France GENCI. Participants have until April 13 to submit their proposal for the Frontier AI Challenge competition, and the winner will be announced in May.

The stakes for the competition are high: European AI sovereignty.

“While several promising European initiatives are emerging, no frontier-level models are currently being operated at a scale comparable to the leading global actors. This strategic gap must be addressed, as Frontier AI holds transformative potential across manufacturing, healthcare, autonomous systems, and other key EU strategic sectors,” EuroHPC states in its description of the competition.

“Mastering these advanced models is therefore strategically critical for the EU to reduce dependencies on non-EU companies, foster innovation, and ensure technological sovereignty and industrial competitiveness,” it concludes.

The winning AI model will be shared with others across Europe, including with government entities, the scientific community, and businesses. The challenge will reward innovative European leading AI actors and lead to the development of “large-scale AI models that will provide a competitive edge for Europe,” EuroHPC said.

Source: Gartner (February 2026)

The Frontier AI Grand Challenge is the just the latest example of the European push for sovereignty in computing, data, and AI. The people of Europe signaled their dissatisfaction with global trends with the passage of restrictive laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation and AI Act. In many categories of computing, personal data is forbidden to leave the constituent.

These restrictive policies have caused a boom in sovereign cloud infrastructure. Gartner recently predicted  that European spending on sovereign cloud infrastructure would more than triple through 2027, going from $6.9 billion in 2025 to $23.1 billion in 2027. That’s significantly faster than the 43% growth in sovereign cloud infrastructure Gartner sees globally during that time.

“As geopolitical tensions rise, organizations outside the U.S. and China are investing more in sovereign cloud IaaS to gain digital and technological independence,” said Rene Buest, senior director analyst at Gartner. “The goal is to keep wealth generation within their own borders to strengthen the local economy.”

In the case of the EuroHPC’s Frontier AI Grand Challenge, the goal is also to keep the spoils of AI-powered science and engineering within the boundaries of Europe.

Editor’s note: The feature image for this story was updated to reflect the current map of EuroHPC countries. 

The post Frontier AI Grand Challenge Puts European HPC Sovereignty in the Spotlight appeared first on HPCwire.

KDE Plasma 6.6 has been released, and brings with a whole slew of new features. You can save any combination of themes as a global theme, and there’s a new feature allowing you to increase or decrease the contrast of frames and outlines. If your device has a camera, you can now scan Wi-F settings from QR codes, which is quite nice if you spend a lot of time on the road.

There’s a new colour filter for people who are colour blind, allowing you to set the entire UI to grayscale, as well as a brand new virtual keyboard. Other new accessibility features include tracking the mouse cursor when using the zoom feature, a reduced motion setting, and more. Spectacle gets a text extraction feature and a feature to exclude windows from screen recordings. There’s also a new optional login manager, optimised for Wayland, a new first-run setup wizard, and much more.

As always, KDE 6.6 will find its way to your distribution’s repositories soon enough.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: David Greene had never heard of NotebookLM, Google's buzzy artificial intelligence tool that spins up podcasts on demand, until a former colleague emailed him to ask if he'd lent it his voice. "So... I'm probably the 148th person to ask this, but did you license your voice to Google?" the former co-worker asked in a fall 2024 email. "It sounds very much like you!" Greene, a public radio veteran who has hosted NPR's "Morning Edition" and KCRW's political podcast "Left, Right & Center," looked up the tool, listening to the two virtual co-hosts -- one male and one female -- engage in light banter. "I was, like, completely freaked out," Greene said. "It's this eerie moment where you feel like you're listening to yourself." Greene felt the male voice sounded just like him -- from the cadence and intonation to the occasional "uhhs" and "likes" that Greene had worked over the years to minimize but never eliminated. He said he played it for his wife and her eyes popped. As emails and texts rolled in from friends, family members and co-workers, asking if the AI podcast voice was his, Greene became convinced he'd been ripped off. Now he's suing Google, alleging that it violated his rights by building a product that replicated his voice without payment or permission, giving users the power to make it say things Greene would never say. Google told The Washington Post in a statement on Thursday that NotebookLM's male podcast voice has nothing to do with Greene. Now a Santa Clara County, California, court may be asked to determine whether the resemblance is uncanny enough that ordinary people hearing the voice would assume it's his -- and if so, what to do about it. Greene's lawsuit cites an unnamed AI forensic firm that used its software to compare the artificial voice to Greene's. It gave a confidence rating of 53-60% that Greene's voice was used to train the model, which it considers "relatively high" confidence. "If I was David Greene I would be upset, not just because they stole my voice," but because they used it to make the podcasting equivalent of AI "slop," said Mike Pesca, host of "The Gist" podcast and a former colleague of Greene's at NPR. "They have banter, but it's very surface-level, un-insightful banter, and they're always saying, 'Yeah, that's so interesting.' It's really bad, because what do we as show hosts have except our taste in commentary and pointing our audience to that which is interesting?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Local workers can be difficult to attract because of poor pay and conditions, say researchers

Keir Starmer’s plan to force employers to be less reliant on overseas staff and instead train UK-based workers may not lower net migration, researchers have found.

Skill shortages are just one of the factors contributing to employers’ demand for migrant workers, according to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory.

Figures from Aviva also show number of homes being built in risky areas is rising